A hand shot up, and Drake recognized it as belonging to one of the older detectives; Detective Luke Gainsford.
Chase raised her chin, and Drake was once again struck at how in control she was. Short, slight, attractive, she had all the makings of someone not in charge, someone that the others, especially ones like Luke Gainsford, would resent for giving orders. But it was her authoritative, no nonsense edge that they must have appreciated.
Drake knew he did.
The alternative was that they loathed him so much that she was like a breath of fresh air amidst foul smelling whiskey halitosis.
“Go ahead Detective Gainsford.”
The man cleared his throat.
“I’ve gotten three calls yesterday from the media, and two more this morning alone. They know that someone has died in the Clinton Hill, and they know that it wasn’t just another tweeker. Don’t ask me how, but they know it’s someone important. Something about Alligator shoes? Anyway, I managed to tell my source to keep things on the DL for now, but I can’t promise that he won’t go live tomorrow or the next day with the details.”
DL? Since when did Luke Gainsford use the term DL?
For as long as he had known the man, he was as square as they came.
Another hand shot up and Chase drew her eyes to him, signifying that he should speak before she answered Detective Gainsford.
“Found three blog sites reporting it; small time blogs, but still. Luke is right, this thing is primed to blow.”
Chase nodded.
“I’ve seen five blogs myself, one who managed to get a photo of the famed Alligator shoes.” Her face changed, softening somewhat. “I know that we can’t keep this bottled forever, nor do I intend to. But we still haven’t spoken to Thomas’s family. Hold your guys off until this afternoon, and I’ll release a statement to the press shortly after lunch. That work for you guys?”
There was a murmur of affirmation, but Drake found his mind elsewhere.
When Clay had been murdered, the media had reported him as the Skeleton King’s eighth victim, and had branded him as the only bearded one, omitting the fact that he was also the only one still in possession of his skin.
Bearded NYPD Homicide Detective is the Skeleton King’s final victim.
It made him sick, that a man’s life could be parsed down to a fucking beard, or in this case a type of shoe.
“Good. Anything else you guys have come up with? Anything about this butterfly thing?”
Detective Henry Yasiv, who was almost exactly half Luke Gainsford’s age, raised his hand.
“I, uhhh, I know a few things about butterflies,” he stammered, his face reddening.
“About the case or about butterflies in general?”
The man’s blue eyes went to the floor, offering both Drake and Chase a clear view of his messy blond hair.
“In general,” he said softly.
Chase nodded.
“Good. Write a quick summary and get it on my desk as soon as you can.” Then to the group she added, “nothing is out of bounds here, people. Everything can help. And after the press gets a hold of this, its going to be nearly impossible to weed through the shit.”
Drake looked over at her, surprised by the curse. Her hazel eyes were as focused as ever, and in that split second, Drake knew exactly what she was thinking.
Smith, Smith and Jackson were going to make things incredibly difficult for them. If Thomas had any dark secrets, they were going to be like opening a dinosaur oyster with a toothpick; the law firm would lock them out, tie them up with litigation.
What’s worse, is they would likely offer a reward for any information leading to an arrest, which would overwhelm their call system to the point of obfuscation.
“Anyone else?”
Detective Frank Simmons, a man with skin so dark that Drake had often joked and called him The Shadow, which Frank had actually taken a liking to, spoke up.
“I met Thomas before at a charity golf event a couple of years back. Seemed like a nice man, polite, even tempered.”
Chase nodded.
“Which is in line with everything that I managed to pull up on him online. I had records look into him as well, and aside from a few parking tickets, all of which he paid promptly, he’s as clean as a whistle. Right now, the only thing that stands out is that he has been missing for more than 24 hours, and his wife still hasn’t reported it.”
“Maybe he was on a business trip?” Frank offered.
Chase mulled this over for a moment.
“Maybe, but he was still local.”
“Maybe he told his wife he was on a business trip?” Frank said cautiously.
Chase nodded.
“Could be—Detective Simmons, why don’t you take Detective Gainsford over to his office at SSJ downtown and ask the secretary about his travel plans. But for God’s sake, be discrete. I’m aiming to announce to the press at around one this afternoon. I don’t want you to go before that, but if we wait until afterwards, I doubt we’re going to get anywhere. The law office is likely to be on lock down once I go live. Aim for getting there at a quarter to, and start asking questions at one o’clock.”
Frank agreed and Chase clapped her hands, indicating that the meeting was coming to a close.
“One more thing,” she said when the chatter picked up. The room quieted. “The official cause of death was an allergic reaction to butterflies.”
The chatter instantly increased, and Chase found herself having to speak over the other detectives.
“Thomas was injected with a… a butterfly cocktail, let’s say, and the reaction basically caused his lungs and throat to swell to the point of asphyxiation. I want the rest of you to look into where one might get, buy or catch, butterflies in NYC. Also, look into disgruntled entomologists, public garden employees, anyone that might be connected to Thomas or his firm and have access to flocks of butterflies.”
Several detectives’ hands went up, but Chase shook her head.
“That’s all for now. We’ll meet again tomorrow morning, same time.”
Drake was impressed. Chase had managed to get all her information across before releasing the bombshell—butterfly slurry—and had shut the meeting down before she had to waste an hour answering questions that weren’t going to help them get any closer to finding the killer.
As the room started to clear out, Chase leaned over to him and whispered, “You smell and look like shit. Go get changed, have a shower, and meet me out front in ten. You’re coming with me when I speak to Thomas’s wife.”
Drake grimaced and he suddenly felt envious of Detectives Simmons and Gainsford who were headed to Smith, Smith and Jackson.
After what had happened to Clay, the last thing in the world he wanted to do was to tell another family that their father and husband had been murdered.
CHAPTER 14
Ten minutes and a quick phone call later, Drake left the police station in a fresh shirt and new khakis. The only thing that remained unchanged was his sport coat, which, upon close inspection, wasn’t in too bad a shape. His hair had been brushed, although he had gotten into the habit of keeping so short that it required very little maintenance. His eyes were still red-rimmed, and they stood out on his pale face, but he no longer looked as if he donated plasma for a living.
And he actually felt better, too. The coffee helped, as did two additional Advil, but a quick shower had probably benefited him most.
Another drink would have been ideal, but he didn’t want to push it. For whatever reason, Chase was the only one in the damn precinct, shit, maybe even the entire city, that still wanted to be around him. And he had meant what he’d said: he was going to catch the bastard who did this to Thomas.
Chase was waiting out front, her window down, the top half of her face covered in oversized Ray-Ban shades. Drake teased his car keys out of his pocket and wagged them at her.
She shook her head.
“I’ve seen the way you keep your car. Ride with me
.”
Maybe Chase was more like Clay than he had first thought, despite their obvious differences. Clay had always insisted on driving, and Drake preferred it that way. It gave him a chance to watch the city go by.
He shrugged.
“Sure,” he said, and made his way over to the passenger side of her 5-series BMW. He wasn’t much of a car guy, case and point his ‘94 Crown Vic, but he wasn’t so naive that he couldn’t recognize a beautiful piece of machinery when he saw one.
Drake got into the car, easing his body into the smooth leather seats. It was like sitting his bare ass on a thick ball of cotton candy.
He whistled as his eyes drifted to the large 8” screen display embedded in the dash. On it was a map, with Thomas Smith’s address listed in the top right hand corner.
“Tell me something, Chase; how does an NYC Detective from Seattle afford a ride such as this?” he teased.
He thought he knew the answer: a rich daddy clinging to guilt from a long settled divorce.
Yeah, that seemed about right, fit the bill.
Only it wasn’t right, although at first he had taken Chase’s response as a joke.
“Internet poker,” she said as she put the car into drive. Her foot tapped the accelerator and the BMW sprang forward with a smoothness that Drake was unaccustomed to.
When her face remained expressionless, he turned to her.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously,” she confirmed.
“Huh,” Drake slumped back into his seat. Not only was it at least a thousand times more comfortable than his own car, it made his couch seem like a wooden pallet. He instinctively reached up and rubbed the left side of his neck. It was still sore, but not nearly as bad as it had been this morning. Now it was like his headache; a dull throb that he could almost ignore.
“Isn’t that illegal?” he asked.
“Yep,” Chase replied.
Drake blinked once, twice, and then fell asleep.
~
“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” Someone shook Drake’s shoulder. “Wakey, Wakey.”
Drake startled and opened his eyes, momentarily unsure of where he was. He looked around briefly, then saw Chase’s face and it all came back. Using the back of his hand to wipe drool from the corner of his mouth, he sat up.
“We here?”
“We’re here.”
Drake peered out the windshield. They were parked on a winding street flanked by large stretches of manicured green lawns. On his left was a wrought iron gate, and in the distance he made out a two-story brick colonial with a detached three car garage.
Thomas did quite well for himself.
Chase reached for the door, but hesitated before opening it. She turned to him, and then lifted her sunglasses.
There was compassion in those eyes, but Drake, for the life of him, couldn’t figure out why.
Everyone hated him, blamed him for Clay’s death, including himself, but not this woman. Was it because she was from Seattle? Is that it? If it was and her goal was to make new friends and connections, she was going about it the wrong way.
Drake was beginning to think that there was a plague coming, and he was the infamous patient zero.
“You going to be alright in there?” she asked softly.
Drake cleared his throat.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Good. I’ll do the talking, you just observe, okay?”
He held his hands out submissively.
“That’s what I do. You know, detectives detect, am I right?”
Chase chuckled.
“Something like that.”
She pulled the door open and stepped out into the morning sun, but before she closed it she said something else.
“You talk in your sleep, you know that? Jesus, you’re like Lady Macbeth.”
Drake sat bolt upright just as she closed the door.
He fumbled with the handle, but it was tucked away inside the molding of the door and didn’t hang out like a metal lever in his Crown Vic. It took him nearly ten seconds to figure out how to open the damn thing.
“Hey!” Drake shouted as he hurried after her. “Hey, what’d I say? Hey, Chase, wait up!”
CHAPTER 15
Chase Adams pressed the button on the small gray intercom to the left of the driveway that jutted from the ground like some sort of terrestrial periscope. As they waited for an answer, Drake turned his attention to the wrought iron gate before them. The bars were a half inch thick, starting close enough to the ground that Drake questioned whether he could slip a piece of paper between them and the asphalt, then twisting twice as they made their way to the arched top ten feet above. The bars ended in dull arrow points that aimed toward the morning sun like pikemen standing at attention.
The voice of a man with a thick Spanish accent coming from the intercom drew him back.
“Jes?”
“This is NYPD Detective Adams with Detective Drake. Is Mrs. Smith home?”
His interest lost, Drake continued to look around, spotting a camera eye tucked into the ferns that flanked the small intercom box. Chase must have seen it, too, as she flipped out her detective shield and held it up. Several seconds later, there was a click and a small section of the fence that was hidden within its greater architecture, roughly the size of a normal door, opened an inch.
Chase led the way, pushing the section completely open. Drake followed her through, making sure to close the gate behind them.
As they made their way up the driveway, he couldn’t help but think of that horrible rainy night when he had staggered up the red flagstones to Clay Cuthbert’s modest home.
When he had to break the news to Jasmine and Suzan that their husband and father was dead.
“Drake, you alright?”
He looked up.
“Hmm?”
She shook her head.
“Nothing. Just let me do the talking, alright?”
Drake nodded and continued to look around, trying to distract himself.
He guessed the driveway to be twenty meters long, arcing from the front gate and circling around a stone basin in the center that contained a thicket of wild flowers. On either side of the massive red-brick colonial, he could see were more flowers, including an entire section of colorful mums that would make the displays in Central Park bristle.
He wondered briefly if Monarchs were specifically attracted to mums, then shook his head. A blind moth would be infatuated with the radiant display of colors on their teardrop petals.
He nudged Chase, and indicated the flowers with his chin. Chase nodded and looked about to say something, when the sound of a door opening drew their attention.
The front door to the Smith residence was almost comically large. Like a medieval drawbridge, dark wood planks extended nearly twelve feet high, and Drake guessed nearly as wide. It opened slowly as if by winch, and Drake half expected to see a man sporting an eye patch, muscles rippling from a torn vest, in the entrance, gesturing for them to enter, to come aboard, Matey before the marauders take note.
But the man behind the door was so different from this fantasy that Drake nearly laughed out loud. Instead of a muscle-bound doorman, a squat man with deeply tanned skin, short, black hair and a wiry mustache of the same impenetrable shade stood in the opening. He was wearing a plain black t-shirt and a pair of dark denim jeans.
The expression on the man’s face, however, was not unlike that of a pirate, Drake surmised: stern, thin lips forced into a frown.
What be your purpose here, landlubbers?
“Jes? What is this about?”
Not wanting to shout across the driveway, Chase picked up her pace. She held a hand up politely signifying that she had heard the man, but refrained from replying until they had made it up the first of a half dozen flagstone steps.
“We’re here for—” she began, but another female voice from behind the man with the accent caused her to stop short.
“I’ll take it from here, Raul, thank
you.”
The man nodded, bowed his head, and then slid behind a woman who took his place in the entranceway. Drake’s eyes followed the former for a moment, noting that he never actually left what he now saw was a grand foyer, but when the woman stepped forward again and was suddenly awash in sunlight, he was otherwise distracted.
Clarissa Smith was tall, blond, and had just about the most amazing body that Drake had ever seen. Thin, but not devoid of muscle tone, she was sporting a white tennis ensemble that was cut in a ‘v’ just low enough to reveal the tops of her ample breasts, and continued downward until it ended in a fringed hem just above her knees. Her hair was pulled back in a tight pony and a plain white headband rested across her forehead.
Her forehead, and the tops of her breasts, glistened with dew drops of sweat.
“What can I help you with?” she asked pleasantly as she brought a small towel up and dabbed at her cheeks.
“Mrs. Smith,” Chase began. Like Drake, she had also concluded that this could be none other than Thomas’s wife.
“Please, call me Clarissa.”
Chase nodded respectively.
“Clarissa, may we come in? We have… we have some terrible news.”
Clarissa’s eyes went from one of something akin to curiosity to concern in a flash.
“Is Thomas Jr okay? Did he get into a fight at school again?”
Chase shook her head.
“We’re not here about your son, Clarissa. Now, please, if there was somewhere we can sit?”
Relief washed over the woman’s pretty face as she took several steps backward and indicated for them to enter.
As before, Chase went first and Drake followed.
The foyer was tastefully opulent without being over the top gaudy. The white marble tiles led to a massive winding staircase in the center complete with what looked like hand carved newel posts and banister. Off to the right, the foyer opened into a large white, country-style kitchen.
Clarissa led them in the opposite direction, taking them into a small, plain sitting room that had two plush couches aimed at each other, with only enough real estate for a glass coffee table between. Drake envisioned this as a space for timeouts, somewhere devoid of distractions where parents could corner a child, get him to spill the beans about cheating on his math test or sneaking a cigarette.
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