The Good Son: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 2)

by Dustin Stevens

  When neither one turned up anything, Reed shifted his attention to the local files, finding only a citation for truancy and a speeding ticket, both from the mid-80’s. In each instance the fine had been paid, albeit late.

  The information added to the preliminary picture Reed was already beginning to have of the man. He wasn’t a criminal, wasn’t prone to violent acts, he was merely lazy, and most likely had a hard time holding onto a job. It would explain the delinquencies in paying the fines and offer the most viable explanation for why he had cut out on Mae and her mother.

  As much as Reed hated typecasting, knowing it could be a very dangerous practice for a detective, there was also a reason stereotypes existed.

  Reed had been fortunate enough to have two active, loving parents, but he only had to look as far as Riley to know that was very often not the case.

  Knowing what the odds were that Bester suddenly found the straight and narrow after walking out on Mae and her mother, Reed opened up a broader search. Using property records, he wasn’t able to identify a single Darian Bester in the country.

  The same was true for income tax reporting.

  Either he had become a ghost, or the original supposition was growing stronger by the moment, the man staying well below the grid, holding odd jobs or none at all, reporting none of the income to the government or the mother of his child who might want some support.

  Exiting all official databases, Reed pulled up a basic internet search engine and went to work. He started with just Bester’s name, adding in bits and pieces of information he found as various websites came up.

  In total there were only four Darian Bester’s in the country. Two of them were Caucasian, something that Mae Abbott was definitely not, not even by a factor of 50%.

  Of the other two, one was a 22-year-old student at South Florida University.

  The last was killed in a car accident in Albuquerque in 2004.

  The article describing the incident was very specific, citing that Darian Bester’s vehicle was hit by an oncoming train when he ignored warning lights and bells and tried to jump the track. The train clipped the back half of his truck, cleaving the bed free from it, and sending the front end hurtling. The cab flipped three times before coming to a stop, the lone occupant dead before authorities arrived on the scene.

  Blood alcohol analysis showed him to be operating at more than double the legal limit.

  He was 40-years-old at the time of death.

  “That sounds like our guy,” Reed said with a heavy sigh. He leaned back in his chair and glanced down to Billie, her head tilted to stare up at him.

  Looking into Bester had been a long shot, but it was still something Reed was hoping would pan out. At the moment it was the last concrete lead he had.

  More than once he had solved a case working with less, but he knew it would get infinitely more difficult.

  Reed and Billie were still locked in the gaze as Reed’s phone began to vibrate on his hip. Reclining in his chair, he raised his backside and dug the phone out, staring at the name displayed on the screen.

  DISPATCH.

  His brows pulled together as he kept the phone in his hand, choosing to rise from his seat instead of taking the call. “Come,” he said, both moving through the maze of desks as the phone fell silent in his hand.

  They passed through the foyer at the top of the stairs and into the open space on the opposite side, Reed wagging the phone in his hand at the dispatcher seated there.

  Unlike Jackie, the operator working the desk during the day was a man just past 50. Only a few wisps of blond hair remained on his head, all of them pushed to the side, his thin form nearly swallowed by the uniform he wore. In the last six months Reed had yet to have a conversation with him that lasted more than a minute, the man’s social skills on par with the chair he sat in.

  “Hey, Lou,” Reed said, drawing the man’s attention his way. He waved the phone once more for Lou to see before pocketing it. “What’s up?”

  Just hours into his day, Lou bore the look of a man who had already had a few drinks, or was in dire need of one. His skin shined beneath the overhead lights, his shoulders slumping into his work station.

  “Oh, thank God,” he said. “After you, my next call was going to Iaconelli and Bishop.”

  Reed let the statement go, remembering the show the detectives had put on in front of Grimes the day before.

  “What’s up?” Reed repeated.

  “A body was found over at the Overland Dog Park on Upton,” Lou said. “Responding officers just arrived, called it in.”

  Reed nodded. He knew that summer was vacation season and that the detective staff was stretched thin. He also knew that he was the cover guy, and that meant taking on more than a single case at a time, no matter how important that one case may be.

  Besides, the fact was, he could use a change of pace for a few hours to clear his head. He was out of things to do on the strangling case for the time being, the one thing that would help him most being something he absolutely did not want.

  “Who made the call?” Reed asked.

  “Greene and Gilchrist.”

  “Tell them I’m on my way.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Reed knew there was no real difference about who called in a crime. As a detective, he showed up regardless of who made the request. He was also human though, and that meant there were some people he preferred working with more than others.

  McMichaels and Jacobs he liked because they were both young and good natured, knowing how to intersperse the tense moments with occasional bursts of levity. Those things mattered when working a crime scene into the wee morning hours.

  It also mattered that neither one of them had ever said a foul word about his partner.

  Joining them at the top of the list for preferred workmates were Derek Greene and Adam Glichrist.

  Pulling up along the curb outside the dog park, Reed slid to a stop behind their blue-and-white cruiser. In front of them a van was already on the scene, Earl and his team no doubt somewhere nearby. The bright morning sun glinted off the front of both vehicles, drawing the full attention of every passerby on the street.

  Slumped behind the wheel, Reed sat without turning off the ignition or attempting to climb out. Compared to the scenes he was usually called to, everything felt just a bit off. Operating under full daylight bathed everything in a harsh glow, highlighting all the inconsistencies, doing nothing for the blemishes the darkness was usually kind enough to hide.

  On the opposite side of the street, he could see people walking by, some with the social grace to be pretending to walk a dog, most not bothering with the charade. They shuffled along or came to a complete stop and outright stared, no regard for anything beyond their own curiosity.

  In Reed’s experience, for all the good it did in keeping people out, there was nothing like yellow crime scene tape to bring out the public in mass. While just two inches in width, capable of stopping absolutely nothing, it drew curious stares by the thousands. Within an hour the curb would be lined with onlookers, many with their hands extended at arm’s length, cell phone cameras recording everything.

  Thankfully for him, both the Rosen and Soto murder scenes had been wrapped by the time the sun came up, otherwise he would have been staring at himself on the morning news.

  “You ready?” Reed asked, casting a glance over his shoulder to Billie in the backseat.

  The adrenaline of the morning run was long gone, her body poised and ready to be moving again. She remained standing upright as he clipped the short lead to her collar and let her down, both ducking under the yellow tape stretched across the entrance.

  The park, as it were, consisted of nothing more than a grassy expanse roughly the size of a football field. On one end was a series of metal objects fitted into the ground, at one point the makings of an obedience training course. Time and vandalism had stripped away anything that wasn’t cast iron, a layer of graffiti covering most of what was
left.

  A chain link fence encircled the grounds, the metal just beginning to oxidize and turn brown. Tufts of grass stuck up at odd intervals along the bottom.

  Along the back half of the park was a small cluster of people, Greene and Gilchrist along with a trio of criminalists. The two groups stood in sharp contrast to one another as they moved about, the officers in black uniforms with short sleeves, the techs in white paper suits covering most of their body.

  The attention of all five was aimed at the ground, a bright red smudge standing out against the scorched lawn. Several thoughts and observations sprang to Reed’s mind as he approached, gently pushing each one aside, waiting until he was briefed before making any conclusions.

  Halfway across the lawn one of the techs noticed Reed and Billie approaching, prompting the others to look up as well. Just as fast the criminalists dismissed him, the two officers stepping back and drifting his way.

  Derek Greene was the first to arrive, his hand extended. Reed met the shake, nodding in greeting. “Officer Greene.”

  “Detective,” Greene replied. The same height as Reed, he carried a few extra pounds and half an extra decade, grey hairs starting to show on his head. They stood in contrast to his mocha colored skin, a series of scars around his nose and cheeks most likely from childhood battles with acne or chicken pox.

  Reed turned and extended his hand to Gilchrist. “Officer.”

  “Hey, Reed,” the younger man replied. Still in his 20s, he was fresh from the academy, a trainee assigned to a senior officer. He stood a couple of inches taller than Reed and Greene both, still bearing the boyish features and thick hair of someone not nearly as seasoned as his cohorts.

  “When did you move to the day shift?” Greene asked, all three watching the techs work.

  Reed folded his arms across his chest, the leash in his hand still giving Billie a couple inches of freedom. “We’re not. Grimes gave us the strangulation cases. We just happened to be on the desk this morning when the call came in.”

  “Ahh,” Greene said. “You drew the short straw.”

  “More like I saved Lou from having to call Ike and Bishop and tell them they did.”

  Gilchrist snorted. For the time being only one of the techs was doing much, photographing the body from every feasible angle. Beside him the other two were unpacking hard plastic cases, their tools glistening under the morning sun.

  Chancing a couple of steps forward, Reed rose onto his toes and peered down at the victim. It was a male with brown hair, his body painfully thin, veins and bones obvious beneath his skin. Based on clothing and haircut, Reed would put him somewhere in his late 20s to early 30s, though that was purely a guess.

  “What have we got here?” Reed asked. Just a few minutes out and already he could feel sweat beginning to form on his scalp, causing it to itch. A trickle of moisture ran down the small of his back.

  “Jogger was passing by this morning, saw someone lying out here,” Greene said. He delivered the information flat and even, as if reading it from a printout, although he held nothing in his hands. “Thought it was just somebody who had too much to drink and was passed out, but called it in anyway. Said she knew kids liked to play here sometimes.”

  Reed grunted in acknowledgement. It wasn’t the kind of call that came in often in Franklinton, almost never in The Bottoms, but more than once he and Riley had been sent on similar errands.

  “We got here about an hour ago,” Greene said. “Found the victim lying face down. We tried to roust him, but when he showed no signs of responsiveness we rolled him over.”

  “Cause?”

  “ME hasn’t shown up yet, but my guess would be a broken neck,” Greene said. “No outward sign of injury, but when we rolled him over, I thought his head was going to slide right off his shoulders.”

  Again, Reed nodded. It was the kind of statement that fellow officers could say to one another, but would deny if anybody ever claimed to have heard.

  Had the situation been reversed, it was the same way he would have described it to them.

  “Done here or body dump?” Reed asked. He knew there was no way to know for sure just based on the body, but hoped they had seen something to give an indication.

  “Not sure,” Greene said, shaking his head just slightly. “With a broken neck...” He let his voice trail off, Reed filling in the gap. “I will say his body was cold when we arrived though. Not yet stiff, but he’s been dead a while.”

  Reed sighed and ran a thumb along his eyebrows, moisture running down into his palm. With a flick of the wrist he cast the drops aside, the feeling of rejuvenation he’d felt that morning falling to the wayside.

  Unless he was seriously mistaken, he’d just been handed his second killer in less than a week.

  “I don’t suppose they were kind enough to leave us with an ID were they?” Reed asked.

  At that, Gilchrist took a half step forward, notebook in hand.

  “Victim was found with his wallet in the back pocket of his jeans. No ID, but $12 in cash and two hefty gift cards were left untouched.”

  The information settled into Reed’s mind, before it began to fester. The inconsistency of it grew larger, the off-feeling Reed had felt upon pulling up strengthening, before his face contorted itself into a mask of confusion.

  “Wait...what?”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The sun was well past its high point by the time Reed finished at the dog park, the majority of the morning spent alternating between making sure Billie was hydrated and watching the criminalists work. For several hours they had pored over the area, searching in vain for any scraps or fibers that might give some clue to the killer’s identity.

  The closest they were able to find were a few partial footprints from the area around the body. Given the fact that dead grass held a shape long after it should, their best guess was that the killer wore a large shoe, somewhere in the 12-14 range.

  Reed was less than optimistic that the finding would hold up in court, if it ever got that far.

  Once they were done, the ME had the body taken to the morgue for further examination and autopsy. Maybe in the controlled environment and with aid of scientific tests, something would turn up.

  A dog park was not the kind of place where violent crimes occurred. Reed’s initial thought that the location looked more like a dump site than anything seemed to be confirmed, the lack of evidence too noticeable to ignore.

  Standing out in the heat any longer was a waste of his time. Offering a handshake to both Greene and Gilchrist, Reed left them to scrub the scene. A body had been found there, but nothing else. Keeping the park closed any longer than necessary would only anger the local residents.

  Reed led Billie back under the crime scene tape, opened both driver side doors and turned on the engine, blasting the air for a few minutes, allowing the interior to cool before both climbed inside.

  The seat still burned the backs of his thighs as he sat. Billie chose to remain standing on the hot plastic seat cover, not even considering lying down just yet.

  Keeping the air on high, Reed dropped the windows on either side as he pushed hard back toward the precinct, the movement swirling some of the hot air out, his mind in several different places as he drove.

  Somehow in the last four days, a series of random, senseless, seemingly perfect crimes had popped up in their jurisdiction. It was well known that the hottest days of summer tended to bring the worst out in a community, but this was an unprecedented run even for a place like The Bottoms.

  Making matters worse was the fact that none of the occurrences had really happened in The Bottoms. They had occurred further out in the surrounding neighborhoods, the portion of the precinct’s coverage area where they rarely ever had serious crimes.

  Running a hand over his face, Reed wiped away moisture and brushed it onto the passenger seat beside him. Sweat stung his eyes as he pointed the car back toward the station house.

  Already he had two unexplainable m
urders on his plate, the urge to off-load this third one tempting. Making another trip to the precinct wasn’t high on his priority list for the afternoon, especially after burning more than half a day at the dog park, but he needed to pass along the information he had.

  And the allure of soaking in the precinct air conditioning for a few minutes seemed appealing for both him and his partner.

  Reed parked in a visitor stall and went straight for the front door. He kept Billie on the short lead as he went, her panting a means of coping with the heat.

  For a moment, Reed felt the urge to just stand in the front foyer, close his eyes and raise his face to the ceiling. The air inside was stale, smelled of bad coffee, but it was a full 20 degrees cooler than the sizzling temperature outside.

  Right now, that was all that mattered.

  The feel of Billie’s weight leaning against his leg confirmed that she felt the same way.

  Smiling at his partner’s reaction, Reed led her to the frosted doors before them, the cool air picking at the perspiration on his skin. For the first time in months goose pimples appeared on his arms, his smile growing a little larger as he stopped outside of Grime’s office and knocked twice.

  The smile faded in an instant as Grimes looked up from his desk, his scowl in place. His tie was loosened and a pencil was jammed behind his ear, a blizzard of printouts spread before him. “Great,” he said as a way of greeting, surmising the reason for the unannounced visit and leaning back in his chair.

  He dropped the highlighter in his hand onto the desk, withdrew the pencil from behind his ear and tossed that down as well.

  Only once he was reclined in his seat, both hands folded behind his head, did he tell them to enter.

  Walking into the room, Reed could tell that the captain had been hard at work on something, strain and frustration plain on his features.