by Vella Day
“Her midwife is out of town, and Shelby’s in a panic. She’s gone into labor and needs me to look after the kids, and that deadbeat husband of hers won’t lift a finger. Do you mind putting the money in the safe and closing the store?” Before Jenna had a chance to answer, Deidra unhooked two keys from her broom keychain. “This one’s for the front door.” She placed it in the palm of Jenna’s hand. “And this gets you into my office. Be sure to lock the door before you go.”
“Don’t worry about a thing.” Inwardly she celebrated.
Deidra sneezed. “Are you okay?” Jenna asked.
“Yeah, it’s just a damn cold. It’s a terrible time to get one, what with me having to watch the kids.”
“I hope you are taking something for it,” Jenna said.
“Not yet, but I will.”
Jenna made a production of straightening the mess on the counter as Deidra rushed out. Jenna itched to check out the back and look around. Her boss spent hours in her one-room hideout doing who-knew-what. Twice in the last three weeks, Jenna had gone to speak with her only to find the door locked. Even Jenna’s knocks had failed to rouse a response. She could only conclude Deidra was either into meditation or doing some kind of spell and didn’t want to be disturbed.
Since her boss wasn’t here to oversee her actions, Jenna turned off the eerie background music designed to enhance the gothic element of the place and extinguished the incense that irritated her sinuses. Not wanting anything to look out of order to an outsider, she waited until exactly ten to lock up.
“I’m going to put you back together, Mom. Don’t you worry. I’ll find those thieves.”
With money in hand, she headed to the inner sanctum. Deidra’s office sat wide open even though her boss had given her the keys. Interesting.
As she’d done for the past week, she flipped on the computer and entered the money into QuickBooks, happy not to have her boss breathing down her neck for a change. When she finished, she searched My Documents for something incriminating. After fifteen minutes, she shut down the machine. Cleaner than a picked bone. Damn. If her boss were into something sinister, she didn’t keep a log of it here. Jenna leaned back in the chair and shoved her hands through her stiff hair. Her chances of finding her mother’s skull were slipping through her fingers with each tick of the clock.
The captain made it clear Jenna needed proof someone was doing spells in this building using human remains before he could even ask for a warrant. She shivered just picturing her mom’s head being doused with bodily fluids and other foreign substances.
“Don’t dawdle,” she mumbled to herself.
As she placed the money into the safe next to the closet, she got a whiff of something foul, like an animal had died. She could only hope the stench was human. But if so, how come Deidre hadn’t noticed it? Oh, yeah. She had a cold.
After a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure Deidra hadn’t materialized out of thin air, Jenna tugged hard on the closet handle next to the safe. It creaked open and a moldy stench blew out.
She’d expected to see a pile of stacked boxes, but instead found a dark hallway, lined with crumbing brick that led to another ancient-looking door. Determined to find out what secrets the old building held, Jenna headed down the unknown path, pushing down the knowledge she had no right to be there. The scarred, pine floorboards creaked under every step. She tugged on a ratty gray string hanging from the ceiling, and a dim bulb lit the long, narrow corridor.
This might be stupid. “Who am I? Buffy the Vampire Slayer?”
She hurried to the end of the walkway and tested the knob. Locked. Crap. The need to find out what was behind door number two overtook all rational thought. She raced back to the office and ripped open Deidra’s desk drawer, regretting never having learned to pick a lock. The key to the door had to be someplace. After a two-minute search, she found a ring of keys in the fourth drawer that looked like they came straight from Home Depot. She didn’t give a flip what they looked like as long as one of them let her get inside.
Rushing back down the hall, Jenna focused on the worn door. The first two keys failed to work, but the third one did the trick. She noted the time on her cell phone. She couldn’t afford to waste time investigating in case Shelby’s scare turned out to be a false alarm, and Deidra came back to check on her new employee. Always one to cover her bases, Jenna ran back and slipped the keys back into the fourth drawer.
Hurry. For her mom’s sake, she had to push ahead. Once at the end of the hallway, it took hard pulls until the door groaned open.
“Oh. My. God.” Dead fish rotting in the hot sun would smell better. She covered her nose.
Determined to find answers, she crept inside. The light switch was mounted next to the door, not that it did much good. The bulb couldn’t have been more than fifteen watts. Eerie, spooky shadows danced on the wall as she stepped inside. Her stomach in knots, her eyes widened at the brownish red streaks covering a cracked wall. It could be blood. That looked like warrant material to her. She whipped out her cell phone and snapped some photos. The flash washed out the markings, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances.
One red image consisted of an arrow through a two-foot diameter circle. A second one resembled a cross that had half fallen over. Could have been an X, but the horizontal bar had fancy pointed ends. A few of the other symbols looked like some kind of Pagan secret code, but none resembled the usual pentagram used in witchcraft. Even though she’d spent much of her recent days studying different Pagan religions, she had no clue what these slash marks symbolized. If she had to guess, she’d say they were closer to the black magic cult associated with Santeria rather than the more benign Wicca.
A whisper sounded behind the side wall, and she stilled. If she believed in ghosts, she would have sworn her mother was trying to tell her something. The reasonable side concluded the noise probably came from a bunch of kids outside. She half jogged over to the far side of the room where the stench grew stronger and images of dead bodies came to mind.
A loud bang behind her made her jump. She whipped around and slammed a hand to her chest. A wooden altar lay on the ground. Her swingy skirt must have knocked it over. “Stupid thing.”
Get out of here. Now.
“One more minute.” Please God, let me find something to help my mom.
Against the opposite wall sat another altar covered in dark stains. More blood, she bet. Her pulse raced. She’d find these thieving kids and take back what belonged to the families if it was the last thing she did. While she didn’t have a CSU kit to test for blood, she could scrape the wall with her fingernails and hope the small flakes would be enough for the test. She stepped closer and reached out a hand.
“What are you doing here?” said a voice behind her. The blood drained to her belly. That voice. Low, dark, evil—and totally unforgettable.
She whipped around and froze.
2
Oh shit. Think fast. “What am I doing here? I work at the store.” He sounded just like the guy who’d attacked her at the cemetery, but she couldn’t be positive. And the gun aimed right at her chest wasn’t helping one bit. Jenna could only hope the spikes in her hair made her look different from when she was at her mom’s grave. She stepped forward. Aggression always served her well in the past. “What are you doing here?”
“None of your goddamn business.”
Okay.
The funky chime from over the front door sounded. Yes! It had to be Deidra since Jenna had locked the door. If not, she was in big trouble. “That’s the store owner.” So go.
His eyes widened, then his gaze darted to the right.
“Jenna?” Deidra called.
For once, she was happy the old witch had returned. A flick of what might be concern, or possibly fear, flashed across his face, but in this dim light, it was hard to tell. She judged the distance to the door and prayed she could reach it before he decided to shoot her. Her 22mm was strapped to her ankle, but if she us
ed it, her job here would be finished—or her life if he shot first.
Taking advantage of his apparent indecision, she dashed to the door and wrenched it closed behind her. No shots. Thank God. Or maybe she should thank the goddesses. Why she thought a flimsy, unlocked door would stop the guy from coming after her, she didn’t know. Go.
Her feet pounded on the hard wood floor as she ran toward the office. No footsteps sounded behind her. Something wasn’t right, but she had no time to figure it out. She slid to a stop inside the door next to the safe just as Deidra appeared.
“Jenna! Everything okay? You look out of breath.”
What gave it away? The deep gulping breaths or the red face? “I’m good. I thought I heard something behind the door. I went down the hallway, but the second door was locked. It must be my imagination running wild.” She ran a hand over her forehead. “So how’s Shelby? Did she have her baby yet?” In less than thirty minutes? Something, or someone had brought Deidra back.
Where the hell was the guy? He must be waiting until they locked up, though she had no idea how he’d been able to enter the room in the first place. Some kind of secret panel must exist, or she would have heard him break into Deidra’s office.
A tick tugged at Deidra’s cheek. “No. False alarm. Go figure. You sure you’re okay?”
If she admitted to her boss she’d seen a man, she might as well confess to everything, and that wasn’t going to happen. The other possibility was that Deidra had hired the guy to check up on Jenna, but there was no way he could have notified the boss so quickly about her trespassing.
Decision made. Keep her mouth shut. “Yup.”
“Everything go okay after I left?”
Did she suspect something? “Fine. No other customers showed up.” That wasn’t a lie.
Deidra pulled out a tissue and blew her nose before moving back toward the safe. Jenna scurried out the door. She didn’t take a breath until she was in her car with the doors locked.
Four officers flanked Captain Lucas at the large wooden conference table when Jenna stepped into the room. She’d just come from speaking with Greg, catching her partner up on the intruder incident and then listening to his valued opinion. Now she had to face the fact she’d failed to bring back evidence when it was right in front of her. Damn. Many more slip ups like this and she might end up directing traffic instead of investigating.
On the far end of the table sat Larry Bernard who was working his own coffin case. Next to him was Sheldon Meyers, Larry’s rookie partner. Marlon Giombetti was on the Captain’s left. Poor guy. He screwed up more than any cop she’d known. He might be great looking, but he had the personality of a stick. She’d learned that fact from an up close and personal experience. Live and learn. To his left was Andrea Maken, his unfortunate partner.
“Now that Jenna’s here, we can begin.” Lucas flipped through a manila folder.
It’s not like she was late or anything. She sat in the remaining empty chair, directly across from the captain. Larry passed down a steaming cup of coffee to her. Bless him. Her unsteady hand tilted the cup and coffee overflowed onto her fingers, scalding her. “Damn.” Every rustling paper and mumble ceased. All eyes darted to her. Super. “I’m fine. Thanks for asking.”
Her face hotter than the burning drink, she plastered on a smile only a cheerleader could muster. She wouldn’t let any of the guys see her flinch.
The captain cleared his throat and turned to Detective Giombetti. “What about the Creighton Jackson case? Did he show up at his home yet?”
Giombetti looked startled he’d have to go first. “No. Andrea and I spoke to the man who owns the yacht next to his. He’s sticking to his story. He claimed a real bad odor was coming from the boat. When he went to investigate, he found nothing, so he called us.”
“That’s when you found the corpse?”
“Yes, sir.” Marlon shoved a photo toward the captain.
Even with the picture upside down, the image was ghastly. Jenna schooled her features, pushing aside the image of her mother’s body without her head. The corpse didn’t have his either. Then again he didn’t have any hands or feet for that matter. For a brief moment she wondered if some high priestess had ended up with the missing body parts.
The captain slid the picture back to Marlon. “You need to find the yacht owner to help identify the body.”
Marlon scribbled his pen on the yellow legal pad. The ink seemed to have run out. That was why she only used mechanical pencils. They were more reliable.
“According to his neighbors, he’s out of town,” Marlon said. “They all claim he takes the month of December off to ski in Telluride, Colorado.” Andrea handed him a pencil, and Marlon tossed her a feeble smile.
“Anyone have a Colorado address or cell phone number for the guy?” Captain Lucas asked.
Marlon waved a hand. “Yes. I phoned him, but he hasn’t returned my call.”
Lucas’s gaze shot down to the photo. “Let’s pray HOPEFAL can pull a name out of the hat for us.”
She hadn’t been to the Henry O. Pomerantz Center for Excellence Forensic Analysis Lab (HOPEFAL) yet, but she’d heard they could process a body nearly as fast as any TV show claimed they could.
None of the other officers said anything for a moment, obviously trying to digest the horror.
Jenna leaned forward. “How do we know the headless man isn’t the boat owner?”
“We don’t.” The captain shot a look at Giombetti, probably wondering why he hadn’t asked that question. Score one for her.
“Larry, what progress have you made in the grave robbery case?” Lucas asked.
“Other than some very upset families, we have squat. No viable prints on the mausoleum, or footprints nearby. I have no leads until this guy strikes again. Jenna’s really the one working the case.”
The captain turned to her. “Want to fill us in on your findings?”
All eyes peered at her. She passed around her cell phone to show them the wall drawings. “I didn’t get a chance to download the photo yet.” Lame. “I was about to obtain a sample of the dried blood when some guy appeared out of nowhere with a gun and asked why I was there.” His brows rose, though she didn’t know why. “I put everything in the report.” All except the fact she had no legal right to be in the backroom.
“Did you ask him his name?” her boss asked.
“Nope. His gun had one though. Smith and Wesson.” She could have sworn Lucas rolled his eyes. “As soon as the front door to the shop chimed and Deidra, that’s the owner, called out my name, he backed off.”
“It says here, you returned to your boss’ office. Deidra came in, but that the guy just disappeared.”
“That’s right. Though I swear there was only one door, and he didn’t go through it. He was like some ghost.”
“Could he be the same guy who attacked you in the cemetery?”
“Good possibility. He had the same raspy voice.”
“You didn’t list any description in your report.”
“It was real dark in there. I can say he was Caucasian, about five ten, beefy, and no more than twenty-five.”
Lucas made a note. “What did this Deidra say about the guy?”
Groan. “I didn’t tell her. I wasn’t sure if she was in cahoots with him. Besides, I didn’t want to let her know I was snooping.” She waited for his lecture on evidence collection but none came.
Lucas tapped his pencil on his pad. “While you were snooping, did you see anything that resembled human remains?”
“Not specifically. A putrid smell was coming from the back of the room, but this guy appeared just as I was about to investigate. I’m hoping to have another chance sometime this week.”
That would mean she’d have to sneak back in. If she were caught though, anything collected would be inadmissible in court if Deidra complained. That would suck.
“Good. Do that.”
No head. No hands. Legs cut off below the knees.
Foren
sic anthropologist, Dr. Sam Bonita, hoped like hell the dismemberment was post mortem and not the cause of death. What was left of the yacht man was covered in a gray, waxy material, which confirmed the body had been in the boat’s cold, damp hull for days, if not weeks.
It was no wonder the Tampa PD had sent the body over to HOPEFAL. The forensics facility, like the staff, was high tech and state-of-the-art. It still amazed him he’d landed a part-time job here. Too bad Sharon never lived long enough to see this place. His wife would have been so proud.
As he decided on his plan of attack for identifying the body, he turned off the piped in jazz music floating above the whir of the enormously powerful exhaust system. He was a classics kind of guy more than a jazz aficionado. Grabbing his digital Canon 5D Mark III from beneath the counter, he photographed the corpse from the neck down. Eric Markowitz, one of HOPEFAL’s forensic pathologists, had told Sam he’d removed the organs and run several tox screens, the results of which would be ready soon. All Sam had to do was inform the police who’d been murdered—a job that wouldn’t be easy since there were no prints and no chance of obtaining dental records. He cursed the bastard who nabbed the head for a souvenir and then cut off the hands and feet.
Even though his expertise was in studying the bones and not on the soft tissue, his room had all the luxuries of a pathology lab. In cases such as this one, he would need to use its super powerful disposal to get rid of unusable parts of the putrefied body once he was finished deboning the victim.
As he took the last shot, a knock sounded on his key-coded door. Sam put down his camera and note pad and stripped off his latex gloves. Before he could answer, the heavy door swung open.
His thirty-year old boss, Phil Tedesco, wheeled in with wet hair and nylon athletic gear. Freshly showered from his morning of physical therapy, Phil sat up straight in his wheelchair, looking more upbeat than he had in weeks. “I have a visitor for you, Doc.”