“Roxy!” the parents shouted, rushing to their daughter.
Nicole looked over to Ruben, who shrugged. Could the case of the missing girl be this easily solved? Roxy just randomly walking home?
* * *
Ruben allowed the sense of jubilation to wash over him. The volunteers were happily going home, the missing princess found. He took a moment to enjoy the sensation. Seldom did his job as a homicide detective allow him this type of unqualified joy. A missing girl, assumed dead, was found.
You didn’t get a bigger win than that.
However, there was still a truly dead girl to bring justice to, so he stepped forward and Roxy extracted herself from her mother’s embrace.
“It was Megan in my bed?” Roxy asked.
“Shhh…” Mrs. Henderson said. “We can do this later.”
“No, Mom,” Roxy said. “I want to help.”
“Where were you last night?”
The girl blushed. “I went to a rave and did some weed, then fell asleep at my boyfriend’s house.”
“Roxy!” her mother shouted.
But the girl just shrugged. “What? My bad.”
Ruben could care less what typical teenage high jinks the girl was into. They needed to know about the victim.
Nicole guided them to the living room. “How well did you know Megan?”
Roxy shrugged. “Not very. I mean, she went to my community college, but she was all about studying. She never partied, so clearly, our paths didn’t cross much.”
Mr. Henderson shook his head. He didn’t seem to know his daughter quite as well as he thought he did.
“Were you a part of her study group?” Ruben asked.
“What, you mean geek central? Um, no way,” Roxy answered.
“Did you see her last night?” Nicole asked.
“Sorry, no. Me and my crew went to get a few slices before he headed out to party,” Roxy answered.
Nicole looked to Ruben. He nodded. It was time to get into some touchier stuff. Nicole leaned forward to the girl. “Roxy, I’ve got to ask you some hard questions, and I need you to answer honestly.”
“Yeah, sure.”
“No!” Mrs. Henderson cried out, shoving herself between Nicole and her daughter. “No.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Henderson,” Ruben said. “We can do this here or we can take Roxy down to the station. She’s of legal age, we are not required to have her parents present.”
Mrs. Henderson’s blotchy face screwed up even tighter, flaring a bright red. “And if we want a lawyer?”
“It just makes your husband look more suspicious,” Ruben answered.
“Dad?” Roxy said. “What are they talking about?”
Nicole leaned forward again. “We have some suspicions that your father may have had inappropriate contact with Megan and, therefore, with you.”
Roxy leapt from the couch. “No. No way. Dad may be a nerd, but he’s a good dad.”
Nicole reached out and touched Roxy’s arm. “I know how hard this must be, but we’ve got to be sure there isn’t a significant reason that Megan ended up at this house.”
Roxy crossed her arms. “She’s never been here. Never to visit or anything. I have no idea how she got here, but my dad had nothing to do with it.”
“Are you sure?” Ruben pressed.
“Yes,” Roxy said forcefully. “And if you want to ask me any other questions, I think I’ll take Mom’s advice and get a lawyer.”
Ruben sighed. He’d pushed too hard. Nicole looked up at him. He shook his head. Now that the girl had lawyered up, there was no point in taking the family down to the station.
Nicole rose. “We are so sorry to inconvenience you.” She put her hand out to Mr. Henderson. “But we are glad to see your daughter safe and sound.”
“Yeah, right, like you did anything to help us,” he said, looking down at Nicole’s outstretched hand.
Ruben wasn’t too thrilled with the man’s dis of his partner, but he could understand his attitude after they had just accused him of molesting not only a strange girl, but his own daughter.
The phone at Ruben’s belt jangled. He pulled it out of its hard case and read the text—“Deacon’s at the station.”
Before they could make it to the door, Nicole’s phone went off. “It’s Joshua. We need to stop off at the morgue first.”
“Good. Let Deacon stew for a while,” Ruben said. They had another “D” to interrogate.
CHAPTER 3
Nicole missed Kent. Not just to warm up the sheets on these cold winter nights, but to help bring clarity to the case. Oh, sure, he’d make her work for it, but at least when the FBI profiler worked, it felt like they were getting somewhere. Maybe somewhere bizarre, but moving forward. Sure, they had pulled the boyfriend in, but the way Megan described the molestation, it didn’t sound like it was being perpetrated by someone her own age.
Kent would probably have solved the crime already.
As they walked down the long hallway to the autopsy room, Nicole texted Kent, “Got a weird one. Right up your alley.”
She hadn’t expected an answer, not since she hadn’t heard from him in weeks, so she was a little surprised when her phone vibrated almost immediately.
“Email me the case files.”
Nicole should have been surprised, but she wasn’t. All of the ‘I love you.’ ‘I miss you’ texts had gone unanswered, but the moment a heinous crime was on the table, Kent was Johnny on the spot.
“Will upload as soon as I get back to the station,” Nicole texted back.
“Whatcha got?” Ruben asked, looking over her shoulder.
“Just Kent offering to help on the case.”
“Oh, so your wayward Holmes has decided to grace us with his presence?”
Nicole shook her head, wanting this exchange to end quickly. “No, he’s going to do so remotely.”
“Kent’s still out in the field?” Ruben asked with more than enough sarcasm for two. “Trying to be the next Bourne?”
“He got recruited, Ruben. I was there. They threatened to charge him with his break in at the Pentagon if he didn’t go with them.”
“Well then, maybe Kent shouldn’t do things that leave him susceptible to blackmail.”
Nicole ground her back teeth. Discussing Kent with Ruben never went well. Why did she even bother? “The point is he didn’t want to go.”
Ruben turned her to him. “Or that’s what he wanted you to think. How can a guy that tightly wound be content in our little berg?”
“He’s coming back,” Nicole asserted.
“When, though?”
That, she couldn’t answer, and Ruben knew it. “So are you just rubbing salt in the wound, or what?”
“No,” Ruben said, shaking his head slowly. “I just want you to see you happy.”
“Well, I am.” Of course, she wasn’t. Kent had been gone for months, and who knew how much longer he’d be gone, but Ruben didn’t need to know that. “So you can stop worrying.”
He took a step back. “Never.”
Nicole groaned. This is why they would have broken up even if Kent hadn’t shown back up. Ruben didn’t know when to take a hint. A knight in shining armor got a little old when you couldn’t walk two feet without him riding in to sweep you off your feet. At that point, it was more like hijacking than rescuing.
Luckily, then they passed through the glass sliding doors of the autopsy room, having them whoosh closed behind them. The cold air of the morgue was a relief, helping to cool her angry cheeks. The smell of formaldehyde, however, was not so welcome.
They came upon Dr. McGregor sewing up Megan’s “Y” incision.
“Well?” Ruben asked.
“Well, what?” McGregor countered.
“Joshua said you had something for us?”
“The kid’s a little liar,” McGregor grunted, then nodded to the assistant who stood in the back of the room. “No offense, you little shit.”
“None taken,” Joshua said,
joining them at the autopsy table.
“The autopsy didn’t show anything,” McGregor said. “Medically, she is in perfect health.”
“Except for the part where she is dead,” Nicole commented.
“Yeah, except for that,” Joshua said, stroking Megan’s hair in a completely creepy manner. “Looks like she is just sleeping.”
The lab assistant looked up. “Maybe you should kiss her and see if she wakes up,” he said to Ruben.
“Joshua, you may have your job back, but let’s be clear, you will never get my respect back,” Ruben rumbled.
“Touchy much?” Joshua countered. “Look, I practically cracked the Plain Jane case. You might want to give me a little more respect.”
“Really? You were contacted by the serial killer and then irresponsibly went to meet her?”
“Which led Detective Usher to the FBI profiler who had been kidnapped, I believe right under your nose,” Joshua shot back.
Ruben clenched his fist next to Nicole. Never a good sign. Right about now, she wanted to track down the police officer who had given Joshua a hematoma on his kidney and give one to the officer for making them deal with the hipster.
Joshua sighed. “Besides, I just thought that, since everyone calls you Prince Charming, you’d like to put it to the test.”
“Who calls me that?” Ruben demanded.
Joshua shrugged. “Everyone. Or Mr. Straight Laced, or Dudley Do-Right. Or Wet Blanket. But mainly from the ladies, Prince Charming.”
Nicole knew how embarrassed Ruben must feel, so she stepped between them. “If there’s nothing on the autopsy, Joshua, why did you summon us here?”
“Stomach contents,” the assistant answered. At least he didn’t say it was just to see her. “She had coffee, caramel, soy milk and sprinkles in her stomach, barely digested before she died.”
“So she was at a coffee shop?” Ruben said. “Not exactly an earth-shattering lead.”
“Ah, but she also had a splash of nutmeg,” Joshua said pointing to his nose. “I’ve got a gift for spices. And there is only one shop in the area that uses nutmeg, ‘Piping Hot.’”
“Oh,” Ruben said, sounding a little contrite. “Thanks.”
Joshua didn’t seem to have any skin off his nose about it. As a matter of fact, he downright beamed with pride. “You are very welcome.”
* * *
Ruben walked into the interrogation room still in a bad mood from the morgue. Thinking that people were talking behind his back was one thing, but calling him Prince Charming? That was a bridge too far. And Nicole hadn’t seemed any too surprised. There had been no outcry of “No, Ruben, no one has ever said that about you.” So, clearly, they had.
And this wasn’t just Kent. Being ridiculed by the profile—that, Ruben was used to. To think that he was being mocked by other officers galled him. What were they, in kindergarten? Nice guys didn’t necessarily finish last, but by God they were absolutely humiliated for it.
Did anyone discuss that he had a conviction rate of nearly 94%? Did they chuckle about the fact that because he took such care with the rules and regulations, his arrests held up in court? No, of course not. All they could do was grovel at Kent’s feet. Who needed a conviction rate when you just killed the suspect while they “resisted arrest?”
No one wanted to talk about how Kent was just a serial killer with a badge and a “self-defense” shield.
His being called out of town for months was Ruben’s Christmas present. Who knew that Santa took wishes so seriously?
But now this case. One in Kent’s wheelhouse. Ruben could feel Nicole missing Kent as if it were a physical entity. You could see her playing the “What Would Kent Do?” tape in her head.
How did they solve crimes before the sloppy savant came along?
“I’m Detective Usher,” Nicole informed Deacon. The kid looked like a deer caught in the headlights. Clean-shaven in a nice shirt and khakis, he certainly didn’t seem the killer. “And this is Detective Torres.”
“What is this about?” the young man asked, his fingers entwined in one another, fidgeting. “I’ve never been in a police station before.”
Ruben wasn’t surprised. The kid seemed stand-up.
Nicole sat down across from Deacon. Ruben took up position behind the kid to add just that little bit of pressure.
“Did you know Megan Ash?”
“Yes, of course,” Deacon answered, obviously not quite catching the past tense that Nicole used. “We’re dating.”
“For how long?” Nicole asked.
“About six months. Why? Is something wrong? I’ve been texting her this morning after she missed a midterm and she hasn’t answered.”
“I’m sorry to say that Megan was found dead this morning.”
All the color drained out of the kid’s face. His lip trembled as tears sprang to his eyes. “No. That can’t be. I just saw her last night.”
“Yes, tell us about that,” Nicole said.
Deacon shrugged. “We went to the library as usual. We were planning on putting in a late one to cram for the midterm, but she was feeling tired, so we drove her home.”
“We?” Ruben asked.
“Yeah, the study group. Nikki is the only one with a car, so she drives us all home.”
“She was found in a home several blocks away,” Nicole said. “Any idea how that happened, if you dropped her off at her house?”
“Oh, but we didn’t drop her at her home. We dropped her five blocks from her house. Like we always do.”
“You mean you let your girlfriend walk home in the dark by herself?” Ruben challenged.
“Trust me, I didn’t want to, but she insisted. She didn’t want her parents to find out about us. She wanted it to look like she rode the bus home.”
Damn it, but everything coming out of the kid’s mouth was ringing true. He seemed truly surprised and bereaved. Guilty people seldom seemed nervous. They were usually the calmest. This kid was wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, his eyes darting about.
“She even texted me that she made it home safe,” Deacon said pulling his phone out of his pocket, handing it over to Nicole.
“Yes, she clearly thought she was home,” Nicole said.
“How…” Deacon sniffled. “How did she die?”
“We aren’t sure yet,” Nicole said. “Do you have any ideas?”
The young man shook his head. “I just know she was having a lot of headaches and had been tired for a while.”
“Maybe she was pregnant?” Ruben offered trying to keep the kid off balance.
Deacon shook his head. “Impossible. She was a virgin.”
Nicole’s eyebrow went up. “But I thought you said you’d been dating for over six months?”
“We both wanted to wait,” Deacon said. “Not even any under-the-shirt stuff.”
Ruben was pretty sure he could read Nicole’s mind right about now. In this day and age? A virgin? Ruben showed her his phone and started texting. They would confirm or deny Deacon’s assertion with a quick text to Joshua.
Within moments, the answer flashed on Ruben’s phone. He read it aloud. “Nope, her cherry wasn’t popped.”
* * *
So Megan really was a virgin. But that made no sense, given her diary.
“Deacon, are you sure Megan wasn’t sexually active in any other way than intercourse?”
“No way, no how,” the young man stated. “She was adamant.”
Doth Megan protest too much? She hated to do this to the kid, he obviously had a rosy picture of his girlfriend, but Nicole had Megan’s murderer to bring to justice.
“Would it surprise you then to know that Megan gave a fairly detailed account of someone molesting her for years?”
Deacon’s eyes dilated and he blinked several times. “Who? Who would do that to her?”
“She describes him only as ‘D.’”
“It isn’t me, I swear,” he said, his voice cracking. “I loved her. I respected her. If she�
��d told me, I would have done something about it!”
Nicole put her hand onto his arm. “I am sure you would have.”
“Why didn’t she tell me? Why?” Joshua asked.
More than likely, she didn’t want to tarnish his impression of her.
“Abuse victims feel a lot of shame,” Nicole said. “They are afraid everyone will blame them for their abuse.”
“No,” Deacon said. “I would have believed her,” he asserted, before he crumpled into sobs.
There were a lot of tears being shed over Megan’s death, but no clues so far.
“Do you have any ideas who this ‘D’ might be?” Nicole asked.
Deacon shook his head.
“What about ‘W’?”
“We don’t even know anyone whose name starts with a ‘W,’ sorry.”
“You’re sure?”
“I wish I could help,” Deacon said. “The only ‘D’ we know is Professor Danzai, but he is chill.”
Nicole flashed her eyes over to Ruben who was already googling the teacher. A teacher would be a perfect candidate for a person of power the victim would be reluctant to tell on.
Her phone went off on her hip. She pulled it out to find a text from Joshua. “Hit me up, babe.” Nicole was about to answer it when another text came through. “And we really have something this time.”
She looked over her shoulder at the two way mirror. She knew that her captain was behind there. He opened the door.
“Deacon’s study mates confirmed his alibi,” Captain Glick said. “Son, you are free to go.”
“I’m going to have unis pick up our professor,” Ruben said.
“While they are tracking him down, we need to head to the morgue,” Nicole said. Ruben’s look asked the question for him. “No, seriously, supposedly they have something.”
Besides, it was kind of nice going to the morgue with an invitation rather than sneaking in like she had to with Kent.
* * *
Joshua spiked his hair, again. That rumpled bedhead didn’t just happen on its own. It took skills, man, and product, lots and lots of product. Detective Usher was a high class lady. Having just messy hair wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t do at all.
“Give it up,” McGregor grunted as he sat down in his leather office chair.
“You give it up,” Joshua countered back. Perhaps not the most original, but he was tired of the old man being up in his grill. Nicole was hot for a psycho profiler. Falling for an adorable, slightly off-beat coroner’s assistant wasn’t that inconceivable.
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