Cause of Death

by Patrick Logan

  Which somehow made it even more terrifying.

  Melissa shivered and opened her eyes. Her neck and shoulders were sore from falling asleep with her back against the cold concrete, and her hands, bound tightly behind her, had long ago gone numb.

  Her heart rate quickened with the sound of a door opening, and Melissa shut her eyes tightly, trying to will their captor away.

  The whistling abruptly stopped, and she somehow mustered the courage to open her eyes again.

  A shadowy figure was crouched but a foot from her, head tilted to one side. When a gloved hand moved toward her face, Melissa recoiled so quickly that the back of her skull bounced off the wall hard enough to send stars shooting across her vision.

  But the hand didn’t grab her as she thought it might; instead, the fingers brushed a lock of a brittle brown hair away from her face.

  “Why are you doing this?” Melissa whimpered.

  When the figure’s only response was to change the angle of the head tilt, rage suddenly filled her.

  “Fuck you,” she growled. When the shadow didn’t respond at all this time, didn’t even seem to acknowledge her, she leaned forward and spat.

  The spray struck her captor directly in the face, and the figure stumbled backward. The crawlspace couldn’t have been more than four feet tall, and for a second Melissa thought that the captor might crack their head on one of the low crossbeams.

  The figure ducked just in time.

  “Tsk, tsk, tsk; that isn’t polite,” her captor said. When the fingers extended toward her face again, Melissa didn’t cower away. This time, she stared forward, hatred in her eyes.

  “That simply isn’t tolerated here, sweetie.”

  There was no anger in the voice—just simple, perfunctory castigation.

  The gloved hand slipped out of sight. When it reappeared, the leather fingers were wrapped around the handle of an eight-inch butcher’s knife.

  Melissa didn’t want to show fear, didn’t want to feed her captor’s sick desires. But when her eyes fell on the blade, she couldn’t help it; her eyes widened.

  Her captor must have noticed this, as a dry chuckle suddenly filled the crawlspace.

  “Oh, it’s not for you, hon,” the figure said. With that, the shadow spun around to face the other woman.

  She had been here when Melissa had first arrived, and even though it was difficult to tell how much time had passed in the crawlspace, Melissa thought it to be around three days.

  And in all that time, the other woman hadn’t said a single word, hadn’t so much as muttered her name. In fact, the only sign that she was alive was her near-constant shivering. Like Melissa, her hair was grimy, covering her pale face in thin spaghetti-like strands. As the figure moved toward her, however, the woman started to animate.

  Hope suddenly bloomed inside Melissa.

  She’s been saving her energy; all this time, she’s been waiting for just the right moment. Together… together maybe we can take the knife, maybe—

  But when the woman simply held her arms out, palms up, all optimism fled her.

  There were scars on her wrists, a network of crisscrossing pink lines that stood out on her alabaster forearms.

  This woman wouldn’t fight, Melissa knew.

  “See?” the captor instructed. “This is how you’re supposed to behave.”

  Without hesitation, the blade flashed out and a scarlet streak appeared between the pink scars. Blood immediately spilled forth, coating the lower half of her arm before pooling in her palm. The woman’s eyelids sagged, and her neck drooped.

  “That’s alright, sweetie. You’ve done your part—I’ve seen you die.”

  The figure cleaned the blade on the woman’s dirt-smeared shirt before putting it back into the holster. Then a gloved thumb reached out and pressed into the wound, soaking the pad in her blood.

  Melissa wanted to be angry, to scream at her captor, to demand, for the hundredth time, the reason why she had been taken, why they both had been kidnapped.

  But the only thing she could muster was a muted curse.

  “Leave her the fuck alone.”

  The dark figure turned and moved quickly, half-squatting, half-crawling, over to her.

  Melissa tried to turn away, to hide her face, but a hand shot out and grabbed her cheeks tightly, forcing her lips into a pout.

  “We don’t curse down here,” the captor hissed. Melissa struggled, but the grip was too tight to pull away. Her cheeks ached, and even if she wanted to speak then, she wouldn’t have been able to.

  The blade is going to cut me now, cut me deep just like the other woman. Then I’m going to die here in this shitty, freezing basement.

  The man squeezed even tighter. Then, with his thumb still dripping with the other woman’s blood, he smeared it across her lips, crudely painting them with the tacky substance.

  Melissa gagged, and her captor finally released her face. She tried to spit without touching the blood with her tongue, without letting any of it into her mouth.

  Bile rose in her throat when she tasted the coppery liquid, but she somehow managed to fight the urge to vomit.

  Apparently satisfied, the captor backed away, moving closer to the dim bulb that provided the only illumination in the crawlspace.

  The gloved hand moved again, but instead of withdrawing a knife, it came back holding a black notepad.

  As Melissa watched in horror, the figure flipped to a blank page, and then pressed the gloved thumb against the upper right-hand corner, leaving behind a bloody thumbprint.

  “Write what you know,” Melissa’s captor whispered. And then the whistling started again as the pen started to move across the page.

  First Act

  Chapter 1

  Damien Drake hunched low, hiding his six-foot frame behind a parked Lincoln Navigator. He was breathing heavily, and sweat was dripping down his forehead despite the snow that flitted down around him.

  I’m getting sloppy.

  If it hadn’t been for his recent health kick—not skipping the booze, but cutting back—he almost certainly would have been seen.

  And what had Ken Smith instructed him?

  Don’t be noticed. If you’re noticed, I will deny ever speaking to you, Drake. And you know what that means.

  Drake grimaced as he recalled their conversation by the fire in Ken’s lavish penthouse condo.

  Yeah, I know. I know what that means.

  He instinctively held his breath when he heard the voices, louder now, and he remained completely still, hoping that the two people he had been following hadn’t noticed the puffs of warm air filtering up from behind the Lincoln.

  “You know what the worst thing is?” the male voice asked.

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s the one who’s dirty; he’s the one who bailed his son out of all his problems as a teenager, paid off the cops, reporters, and god knows who else. And yet he’s painting me as a criminal. If it wasn’t so damaging, it would be damn comical.”

  Drake heard the sound of a car door opening. Taking one deep breath, he raised his head just enough to peer through the Navigator’s windows at the two people who were speaking.

  One was Dr. Gary Kildare, of course, but the other was a pretty woman he didn’t recognize.

  “Yeah, but you can’t go after Ken, at least not directly. If you do, you might as well just forget about winning the election,” the woman said, her bright red lips turning downward in a frown. “After what happened with Thomas…”

  Dr. Kildare nodded.

  “Yeah, I know. And I feel bad about what happened to his son,” he paused. “I know that this is going to sound terrible, but I can’t help but think that Thomas’s death was the best thing that happened to Ken’s election hopes. Seriously.”

  The woman’s frown deepened.

  “You’re right, it does sound terrible.”

  Dr. Kildare sighed heavily, then rubbed at his temples with a gloved hand.

  “I know; I�
��m sorry. It’s been a long week is all,” a weak smile crossed his face, which made him look much older than he did on the large election posters that covered the windows of the building that they had just exited. “Thank you, Mary. Thanks for everything.”

  Then something happened that made Drake’s eyebrows lift, something that convinced him that hanging outside in the freezing cold for the better part of an hour wasn’t a complete waste of time.

  Dr. Kildare leaned in and kissed the woman, who Drake was now fairly certain was his campaign manager, on the lips. Only this wasn’t one of those European-style exchanges between close friends.

  This one lingered.

  When they eventually pulled apart, Dr. Kildare wiped his mouth and then his eyes darted around.

  Drake dropped a split-second before the man’s gaze fell on the Navigator.

  Shit, that was close.

  “See you tomorrow?” Dr. Kildare asked.

  “Of course.”

  “You’re sure that we can’t meet later tonight?”

  There was an inaudible exchange that Drake didn’t pick up.

  “Alright, tomorrow then,” Dr. Kildare said, a hint of solemnity on his tongue. “Goodnight, Mary.”

  “’Night, Brent.”

  A car door closed, and then the sound of an engine starting filled the winter air.

  Drake finally allowed himself to exhale, and then slumped against the Navigator’s wheel well. His relief, however, was short-lived; the sound of footsteps approaching in the freshly fallen snow incited panic.

  What the hell?

  It dawned on him that he had only heard one door close, and then the obvious fact that the doctor and campaign manager had said goodbye outside the car came to the fore.

  Drake had expected that they would leave together, which was obviously not the case.

  Jesus Christ, I really am getting sloppy. Sloppy and slow.

  The real problem was that there was only one other car in the lot beside Dr. Kildare’s Mercedes.

  And that car was a black Lincoln Navigator.

  Drake swallowed hard and focused on the sound of the footsteps. He was huddled by the rear driver side door, and when he confirmed that Mary was making her way around the front of the car, he slid around the back of the vehicle, staying crouched and out of sight. The sound of a key fob chimed, and then the driver’s door opened. Mary stepped inside, knocked the snow from her boots, then slammed it closed.

  Drake glanced around, desperately trying to find a way out of the situation. He considered running, but there were no other cars in the lot that he could hide behind. And in his black coat, there was no question that he would be spotted in the snow.

  Does it matter? I can hide my face; she’ll never know who I am.

  Drake shook his head.

  It did matter; it mattered because Mary would tell Dr. Kildare, and they would know that Ken was spying on them.

  And that would make them cautious, and Drake couldn’t afford that. He needed them to be loose, to be free-speaking, in order to get what Ken wanted.

  There was only one other thing he could think of to do.

  Drake waited for the engine to roar to life, and then when the brake lights came on, he quickly swung around to the passenger side of the vehicle. With a hand on the bumper to gauge the car’s speed, he moved with it as Mary backed out of the parking spot. He stared at the side mirror, and realized that he couldn’t make out her face; it was bent in such a way that he could only see that Navigator logo embroidered on the passenger seat headrest.

  Drake was reminded of the signs that he occasionally saw plastered to the back of transport trucks.

  If you can’t see me, I can’t see you.

  He wondered if that were true, but then had to focus when Mary put the car into drive.

  To make things worse, Dr. Kildare’s campaign manager had a lead foot, it appeared.

  The car shot forward, and Drake had to jog to keep up with it, which was no small feat considering that he had to remain crouched the entire time.

  He slid in behind the vehicle, his thighs burning, the inside of his legs chaffing. Just when he thought he was going to collapse with exhaustion, the car neared the entrance to the parking lot. And there, parked at the side of the road coated in a fresh layer of snow, he spotted his car. As Mary passed his Crown Vic, Drake leaped and landed on the road, barely missing the bullet-ridden hood of his ride.

  The air was forced from his lungs, and he gasped, but remained completely still. The snow had looked much more comfortable, more cushioning, than it actually was.

  After a moment, he turned his head and peered beneath his car. Breathing heavily, his heart pounding in his chest, he watched as the Navigator turned left and sped into the night.

  When he was confident that Mary was gone, Drake started to laugh.

  This is ridiculous. Absolutely fucking ridiculous.

  But as insane as it might be, he finally got something on Dr. Kildare. After all, everyone knew that the good doctor’s wife’s name was Julia, not Mary.

  Chapter 2

  “Can you please state your name and position for the record?”

  Chase Adams glanced around briefly before answering. She was sitting on a chair across from two sets of desks: the first was occupied by three men, who had introduced themselves as Officers Herd and Lincoln from internal affairs and Assistant Deputy Inspector Roger Albright. All of the men had matching expressions on their faces, as if they had been photoshopped using the same parent image: hard, unforgiving, and unsympathetic.

  Dr. Beckett Campbell sat on his own behind the second desk. The man had dark circles around his eyes, which appeared sunken, and his bleach-blond hair was flat against his skull. He was wearing a plain navy suit, which seemed wholly out of place on the man that Chase had come to call her friend.

  Beckett’s eyes were downcast and when he reached for the glass of water on the desk, she noticed that his hand was trembling slightly.

  Chase fixed her gaze on Roger Albright.

  “Chase Adams, Sergeant of the 62nd precinct of the NYPD,” she said calmly.

  “Thank you,” Officer Herd replied. “Now, can you please recount the events leading up to your appearance at the derelict domicile that once belonged to the now deceased Dr. Tracey Moorfield.”

  Chase felt her lips twist in a sneer.

  Derelict domicile? They really brought out the thesaurus for this one…

  “Sure,” Chase began, then proceeded to tell them the same story that she had been recounting since this investigation had begun: that she had been off-duty at the time, serving a suspension that had since been rescinded after Sergeant Rhodes himself had been suspended. She reported that she had been at Triple D Investigations, helping out a friend, when a call had come in from Damien and Beckett, asking her to look up news reports about Dr. Moorfield’s past. She left out the part regarding Officer Dunbar’s involvement, just as they had planned.

  Officer Herd nodded when she was done.

  “And when you arrived, were you the first person on the scene?”

  Chase shook her head.

  “No, there were several officers already present, including fire and EMT. I also saw one of my colleagues, Detective Henry Yasiv on scene.”

  Officer Herd waited for her to continue, but Chase bit her tongue. She had answered the question, and that was all that was required of her. One of the few things that her father, a litigator, had impressed on her many years ago was that when people started running their mouths, offering information that wasn’t requested, they got themselves, and others, in trouble.

  And that wasn’t a can of worms that she intended to open. Not when her friend’s career, and perhaps even his freedom, was on the line.

  “Sergeant Adams? Is there anything else that you would like to add?”

  Chase shook her head.

  “No. Have I not answered your question?”

  Roger Albright leaned over and whispered something into Herd
’s ear. The officer nodded, then turned back to her.

  “This isn’t a trial, Sergeant Adams. This is simply an inquest to determine probable cause, and to help us figure out the next course of action.”

  Chase nodded and, again, Herd waited.

  Eventually, the officer sighed, and Chase repeated, a little more sternly this time, “Have I not answered your question?”

  It was Roger who answered, which surprised her given that she thought it impossible that with his lips pressed as tightly together as they were that the man could actually speak.

  “You have, Sergeant Adams. Please tell us what happened after you arrived at the scene, leading up to your encounter with Dr. Campbell.”

  A terrifying image of Beckett stepping out of the shadows, his hands dripping with blood came to mind, and she shuddered.

  “I inquired about my ex-partner, Damien Drake, and then about Suzan Cuthbert.”

  “Who did you inquire to?”

  “Detective Yasiv. He said that both were okay, and that both were going to make it.”

  Herd scribbled something on a pad in front of him, then picked up the line of questioning from Roger Albright.

  “Did you ask about Craig Sloan? Did Detective Yasiv mention his name?”

  Chase shook her head.

  “No; I was just happy that my people were going to survive. That was what mattered most.”

  “And what did you do next?”

  “I was distraught, and because I was suspended at the time, I went down the side of one of the houses to collect myself.”

  Roger Albright leaned forward.

  “Please tell us what happened next.”

  Chase breathed deeply.

  As we rehearsed, she reminded herself. Just as we rehearsed.

  “The first thing I saw was Craig Sloan’s body, although at the time I didn’t know it was him—I had never even seen a photo of the man before. He was lying on his back, and he didn’t appear to be moving or breathing. There was a pistol at his side. Then I noticed Dr. Campbell in the shadows. He was… he was visibly upset.”

  The three men discussed this amongst themselves for several seconds.