by Tatum, Clare
Off in the darkness an owl hooted, its call reinforcing the loneliness of this spot where two men had inhaled their last breath.
Lainey tried to concentrate on details of the investigation and not the sadness of two lives ended in such a violent manner.
Or how every nerve cell responded to Detective Mark Brice’s presence.
“Why do you think they killed Skin? He never seemed to have much money, didn’t deal drugs.”
“Yeah, but he bought drugs,” Brice added.
“Couldn’t have been much.” He used to have to scrounge bus fare from strangers out in front of the jail when he’d get let out. She’d even given it to him once when she’d been leaving the jail from a first appearance hearing.
“I don’t know,” Brice murmured. “I know his buddy. He’s about like Skin. Maybe they just ran across someone meaner than them. Someone who killed just to see what Skin and his friend had on them. Maybe Skin and his friend had just scored their drugs and hadn’t used them up yet. People have been killed for less.”
Lainey turned back to look at the second body. She’d never seen him before. Then, she pivoted and pushed the door open and exited the closed environment full of death.
Outside, officers milled around, and the medical examiner’s van was arriving. Life went on outside of that small room.
She always hated these scenes. But that was what her job was about, getting justice for the people who died, stilled forever by another’s hand, another’s meanness and pettiness and just downright wrongness.
Her hope for Skin’s redemption had died in that dirty, cinderblock building.
Someone had to find his mother and tell her.
“Well,” she said. “He’s not the most innocent person I’ve tried to get justice for, but I’ll do my best to put away the mean son of a…,” she left the word blank, “that did this to him.”
“Yep. Me too,” Brice said. He’d come up close behind her again.
Did that man not know about personal space? Cause every time he did that, it got hard to think.
He had a body that was just this side of military in its fitness, tall, strong with big shoulders but lean enough that he looked like he could run a mile with any marine.
She moved another step away from him and his gravitational pull.
“What do we have to work with?” she said, turning toward the detective but not looking directly at him.
“Not much.” He shrugged. “We can process any bullets we find, see if there’s a match in the system. Canvass the neighborhood, see if anyone saw anything.”
The lightest trace of beard darkened his face, a good look for him. Otherwise, he looked much the same as every day at court during the Sean Moseman hearing. He was alert and ready to make a quick joke.
The man liked his job. And was good at it. He’d been such a help in their murder case, bringing to light every little detail.
Except the one that had set Moseman back on the street. That’d been her attention to detail that had done that.
“Well, I’m gonna go home and try to get some sleep,” she said. “Got court tomorrow.”
“Emm,” he murmured low in his throat, with a deeply masculine sound that activated her female hormones.
Damn, there was just nothing about the guy that wasn’t downright sexy, from his toned, fit body, to the sexy glimmer in his eye, to the sound of his voice.
Everything about him seemed designed for female consumption.
She turned and started back up the path to her car. “Call me with follow up.”
“I’ll call you,” he assured.
She wasn’t sure if he said it in a way that implied he might call her about a more personal message or if she’d just wanted to hear that.
Damn. Nothing about him that wasn’t sexy.
* * *
From behind the tangled overgrowth, he watched them talking. They were two of a kind.
Neither of them could get the job done. They were part of the problem.
Bottom dwelling trash corroded the structure of society, making it impossible for decent people to concentrate on living their lives and earning an honest living.
Criminals like the druggie and his friend were always breaking into cars and stealing.
Even if it was only a broken car window, that was a lot of money in this neighborhood. Fixing a car window took food out of the mouths of people’s kids.
He was fed up with watching dirt like Skin rotating in and out of jail, costing the tax payers money to house him, feed him and prosecute him.
Guys like him cluttered the system and ruined the value of life for everyone.
If there were a few less people like Skin, then maybe the prosecutors and cops could concentrate on catching the really bad guys.
That lady prosecutor strutted toward her car. She was as bad as the criminals themselves, with her pity for them, and her recommendations for light sentences. She’d sent Skin to a drug treatment program the first couple of times he’d been picked up when she should have put him away in jail for as long as possible.
If you weren’t part of the solution, you were part of the problem.
She wasn’t doing her job. And when someone wasn’t getting the job done, they needed to be removed.
He’d remove her by whatever means possible.
* * *
The news crews had arrived. Several of the overnight cameramen were already lined up at the edge of the yellow tape.
“Hey Ms. Thomas,” a cameraman called out. “Can you give us some sound?”
She’d become acquainted with this cameraman, seeing him multiple times in the middle of the night on scenes.
A reporter popped up behind him. John Canton, a regular on the crime scene, an investigative type who liked to do in depth pieces on murders, with portraits of what he called innocent victims fleshed out so the public would care whether or not the murderer got sent away for a life sentence, or had the possibility of parole.
“So, who’s dead?” the reporter asked.
“I don’t know if they’re releasing the info yet. Notifying family and all that.”
Canton looked over her shoulder with disgust. “Does someone who lives in that have a family?”
His comment grated. She didn’t like him referring to Skin in that manner. If she’d liked Skin when her job was to prosecute him, then others probably had as well.
Most people were loved by someone, even if they weren’t in regular contact with them.
“Do you know who offed him?”
This reporter was getting on her nerves. “I think you’re gonna have to talk to the cops. I’ve gotta go.”
She swiveled quickly and walked toward her car. She wasn’t wasting any more time talking to someone who could be so nonchalant about murder. Apparently, the guy only cared about innocent victims, sweet, young women, little old ladies, and kids.
The guy’s physical self was as polished as his TV image. Even in the middle of the night, his hair was combed, his shirt unwrinkled, and his shoes polished so that the police blue lights bounced off the shoes’ shining surface.
“Guess you ticked her off,” the photographer’s voice drifted to her as she walked away.
“Just another scumbag biting the dust at the hands of some other scumbag. Get two scumbags off the street with one stone, one’s dead and the other goes to jail. Actually three scumbags in this case, two dead guys in there,” he added.
Lainey stopped. How had he known there were two dead guys? She started to turn back to speak to him, then realized that a police officer might have told him, even though they weren’t supposed to. She continued on to her car, getting in and shutting the door, glad not to hear more of his callous comments.
They ought to push the crime tape back further, keep people out that didn’t need being so close.
Then, she saw Sean Moseman, the murderer she’d been forced to set free.
A jolt shot through her. He was standing just outside the tape. Smili
ng at her.
Chapter Three
She wanted to slap that smug look off Sean Moseman’s face. She wanted to put him away in a cell forever. Or better still put him on death row.
That was what he deserved.
The thought of that beautiful girl he’d murdered lying in the ground drove her crazy.
Lainey glared at him. It was all she could do not to get out of her car and walk over to him.
She closed her eyes and sucked in several deep breaths. In for three counts. Out for three counts.
Finally when she felt her head wasn’t about to explode, she opened her eyes.
Detective Brice stood in front of Sean Moseman, blocking Moseman from her view, as he spoke to the murdering sack of… What was that conversation going to be like between the detective and the man who’d walked free?
She started her car and drove away. A phone call to Detective Brice later might be in order.
One way or another, she was going to make Sean Moseman pay.
* * *
Brice stood, deliberately blocking Moseman from looking at Lainey. He’d seen how the man had watched her, hungrily, but with a taunting expression, as if he had a bone to pick with her, a score to settle.
“What are you doing out here, Sean?”
He could smell the guy from this distance. Alcohol rolled off of him.
“I heard about the goings on in the hood. Decided to check it out.”
“Where’s your bottle?”
“Done drank it all. You gonna try and arrest me for public drunkenness? Want to see if I can get off of that charge as well?”
“Are you drunk, Moseman?”
“Nope. Just had a little celebratory drink. Plan to have me one every night this week.”
“You celebrating getting away with murder?”
“Uh uh.” He tilted up the side of his mouth in an ugly grin. “I’m celebrating justice.”
Moseman’s dirty clothes hung on his lank frame. He was skinny but with an underlying muscle that said he could beat a woman to the ground with little effort.
He’d done that a few times to his girlfriend Simone before she’d finally tried to leave him.
Then he’d killed her with a brutal force to show her how much he really loved her.
“Justice? Justice would be you beneath the dirt and that girl still alive.”
“Simone was no loss to the world. Whoever did her in did the world a favor. She was a skanky ho.”
“Because she wanted to break up with you?”
“’Cause she slept around. She was pregnant with another dude’s baby. That’s a ho.”
“So you killed her.”
“I ain’t killed her.” He smiled smugly, knowing Brice had been digging for a confession. “But whoever did kill her, did the world a favor. A skanky ho like that ain’t needed on the planet.”
Brice wanted to knock him to the ground but instead he just grinned at him. “So, you did the world a favor, killing that beautiful woman? Seems to me the world is short women like her. She was real sweet too, to hear the other guys in the neighborhood talk.”
Sean’s face twisted with the same jealousy that had caused him to kill Simone. “Nice try, Detective Brice. Nice try.”
He slunk away, trying to pretend comment about the other guys hadn’t gotten to him.
But it had.
He’d slip up at some point and when he did, Brice would drag his sorry ass into the bowels of the prison system to rot forever.
* * *
“Julie, get up. Time for school.” Lainey pushed open the door to her little sister’s room.
Julie struggled to a half sitting position, her blonde hair tousled, her blue eyes still looking half asleep. “Why didn’t you take me with you, last night?”
“Yeah,” Lainey snorted. “And explain to your teachers that Julie is sleeping in class again because she was out on another crime scene.” Julie went to a year round school, thank goodness. It worked out well for Lainey’s job.
“I’m going to be a cop. I need to learn,” Julie said in a way that made Lainey believe that in another ten years Julie would be walking a beat.
After college that was.
“Why not be a lawyer?” Lainey looked at Julie with a cocked eyebrow. Julie had started becoming so insistent about her choice of career paths.
“You’re the lawyer. I’ll catch them and then you’ll put them away.” She gleefully imitated slamming a prison door shut.
Julie was probably as scarred by the bitterness Lainey had felt in the past about the loss of their parents as she was by the actual loss itself.
“Whatever. Just get up and get ready for school. Pronto.”
Lainey walked back to her room with a cup of coffee in hand. Caffeine would be about the only thing getting her through the day.
Julie popped into her room a minute later, in her little starter bra, struggling to get her shirt over her head. Any day now, she’d need that bra. But as of yet, it was just an accessory, about as necessary as a necklace.
But, Lainey needed to accept Julie was getting ready to leave the little girl phase behind. No more dolls or teddy bears. Just boys, boys, boys, she feared.
It would be all on Lainey to make sure she grew up right. Julie was destined to be a beauty, already looking so much like their pretty mother. Julie’s crystal blue eyes that always sparkled with fun, and her heart-shaped face with smooth skin surrounded by blonde hair would attract teenaged boys in herds.
Lainey would have to work to keep them under control.
“So, what are your plans today?” Julie said in a good imitation of an adult.
“Well,” Lainey said in a mincing tone. “I’m going to try to put a bad criminal away for a long time. Then, I’ll probably deal with a lot of petty criminals and hope they don’t grow up to be felons.”
Julie laughed and fell down on Lainey’s already made bed. “Dude, you’ve got too much sympathy for the bad guys.”
Lainey looked at her sharply. “Have you been listening to those cops again?” Julie really had been on more than her fair share of crime scenes. And, often, while Lainey went inside the yellow tape, she left Julie in the car and told the nearest uniformed cop to keep an eye on her and that she’d take it personal if anything happened to her.
So, inevitably the cop would hang by the car, making conversation with the precocious preteen.
In another few years, she’d need to advise the younger cops of Julie’s actual age. Because something told her Julie would probably get their Mom’s curvy figure.
“Can I put a turquoise streak in my hair?” Julie walked up behind Lainey, looking over her shoulder into the mirror as Lainey put on makeup to hide the dark circles.
Lainey flashed her eyes at Julie and shook her head. “Maybe when you go off to college and I don’t know your hairdresser.”
They’d only just recently started having enough extra money to go to a nice hair salon. Before that, it had been beauty school freebies from a friend of Lainey’s.
“Kendall’s mom let her get a pink streak.”
“Yeah, well Kendall’s dad also left her mom for another woman. Kendall’s mom is trying to make sure Kendall doesn’t stop loving her and that mom’s house is as fun and cool as dad’s.”
Julie nodded. Because Lainey had nailed it.
“That was lousy the way he cheated on her mom. Kendall gets really mad about that still.” Julie flounced back onto the bed.
“I just made that bed.” Lainey turned to look at her. “How’d you know I went out last night?”
“I heard Mrs. Maxey’s voice and figured that meant you were going out.”
Thank God for Mrs. Maxey.
She was a little lonely since her husband had died and seemed to really want to help out. And the money Lainey insisted she take couldn’t hurt either on a fixed income.
Mrs. Maxey had been like an aunt to them since their parent’s death.
Julie’s life wasn’t like other litt
le girls. Sometimes Lainey missed the sisterly type relationship she and Julie should have had, with joking and no responsibility on Lainey’s part to raise her little sister.
“Maybe I would look good with a purple highlight?” Lainey looked at herself in the mirror and lifted a front strand of her brown hair with a finger. “What do you think?
Julie guffawed, her head fully back. “That’ll be the day. I’ll get my turquoise streak one day. But you,” she pointed a finger at Lainey, “will never get a purple streak.”
Julie stood and walked up behind Lainey, shrugging innocently. “Unless I catch you in your sleep one night.”
She danced away as Lainey grabbed for her. “There’s always Halloween,” Lainey said.
Julie flicked on the little television that sat to the right of Lainey’s dresser. “Hey, breakfast,” Lainey said.
“I just want to see the news for a minute. See if you’re on it.”
Lainey smiled to herself. There was nothing Julie liked more than to see Lainey giving a sound bite on television, preferably one about a guy she’d just put away for a bad crime.
“Oh, look, that girl that was missing, they found her.”
Lainey turned to the TV and listened to the anchor for a minute. “She ran away? Well, thank goodness she’s safe.”
“She ran away?” Julie looked at Lainey indignantly. “She scared her parents for no reason at all. She could have at least left a note saying she’d run away. Everyone thought she’d be found dead.”
Lainey nodded. Missing girl cases didn’t always turn out so happily for the parents.
“Her parents are rich too,” Julie spouted off. “They probably bought her everything she wanted. What’d she have to be unhappy about?”
“Yeah, yeah. We’ve all learned way too much about that family’s personal life this week.” A banker had stood beside his crying wife on television, pleading for the safe return of their beautiful teenaged daughter.
The girl’s picture had been flashed everywhere. If that had been Julie missing…
Lainey looked at Julie, who glanced up under her eyelashes as if she could read Lainey’s thoughts. “That would never be me,” Julie said in a very adult tone. “I would never run away. Without leaving a note,” she added in a joking tone.