by Erin Hayes
“Fuck this.”
Her hand was freezing, so she got in the car and started the engine. She turned on the defroster and wipers, and then for good measure, gave the windshield a squirt of washer fluid. The frost turned translucent, and the wipers smeared frost back and forth, scratching away at the icy coating. But as soon as the defroster started kicking out heat, the frost gave up and melted away.
Finally, able to see enough out of the windshield to drive, she pulled into the street. As she headed away from the security of her apartment building, she flicked on the light on the dashboard. For a moment, she considered turning on the siren, but then thought about her neighbors, and left it off. The car was cold, a chill sinking into her bones that the heater couldn’t quite dispel. Wishing she’d made coffee, she headed toward her first major case as a lead homicide detective with the Chicago PD.
It was going to be one hell of a day.
Chapter Two
The blue dashboard light cut through the darkness of narrow side streets, flashing over the front of apartment buildings. Then the streets grew wider, as she traveled from her neighborhood into the quiet streets of the Kenwood neighborhood, where the mayor’s home was. Houses got bigger as she drove. They were set further back from the streets, stashed behind boxwood and privet hedges, accessible only by long driveways, offering seclusion and privacy.
Jason Lansing’s house was hidden behind more than privet and boxwood. Not long after the election ended, the property had been enclosed by a six-foot high brick wall, the spikes at the top subtle, yet still visible. Lansing had received death threats during his campaign, and was terrified of being assassinated. Jessica had followed most of the controversy surrounding the election, but even she’d gotten exhausted by the continual barrage of negativity from both sides. The threats had continued even after the election was over, prompting Lansing to hire round-the-clock, private security. While the barrage of calls to the precinct reporting vandalism or intruders at the Woodlawn address had decreased, she knew the incidences hadn’t lessened. There was just as much activity, but the private security company seemed to be dealing with it. Or so she thought.
The street was cordoned off at the end of the block, keeping out the scattering of cars, and a few pedestrians As Jessica eased through the parked cars, a patrol officer stopped her. Rolling down her window, she held up her badge, and he waved her through. She parked her car where he directed. She was glad to see someone had the foresight to set up the yellow tape almost a block away. She started walking, the cold night air wrapping around her, chilling her to the bone. The wind whistled off the lake, only a few blocks away, and it carried an edge to it that cut through her leather jacket. She jerked the collar up on her jacket, bent her head, and trudged toward the driveway.
“Sharpe.”
Jessica glanced up, grimacing in the cold. Detective Derek Carter stood on the sidewalk, halfway between her and the mayor’s home. He’d been promoted six months before she had, and even though she wouldn’t consider him a friend exactly, they’d shared a sort of coming-of-age in the department. Until she’d been brought up to Homicide, Derek had been the youngest detective on the force. Now she was the youngest, the newest. And the only woman.
“Carter.”
He nodded at her. “You ready for this?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.”
He fell into step beside her, as they walked in silence down the sidewalk toward the wide driveway. The silence seemed wrong, somehow. Someone should have been talking, explaining what was going on, what had happened. It took her a minute to get her head around the fact that this was her investigation, that she was the one who should be asking questions and directing people. She straightened, scanning the cluster of emergency vehicles that were gathered near the end of the driveway.
“Who’s here?”
“Crime scene guys are already inside, and EMS are out here waiting. The patrol unit who called it in, is over there.” Derek gestured with his head in the direction of the small group of people standing off to the side of the property. “The guy’s name is Sullivan.”
“He had enough sense to stay out of the crime scene, I hope?”
“Yeah. He held on to his breakfast long enough to make it outside. I’ll give it to him, he did a good job of securing the scene, at least. Strung about a mile of yellow tape out across the property. He probably has traffic cones set up on the North Shore.”
As Derek spoke, she caught the sharp scent of vomit. She glanced over to see a whey-faced, young guy in blues standing beside a squad car. The cold artificial light caught his wide eyes. He met her gaze, and those eyes widened further. She’d have to talk to him, but for now, she wanted to see inside.
She shoved her hands deeper into her pockets to warm them up. Being lead detective for the first time was new, too new, for this early in the morning. The weight of everyone waiting for her to tell them what to do finally sank inor rather hit her square between the eyes. A headache was starting to throb in her temples, and she closed her eyes to block everything out, and tried to refocus on the task at hand. This was a serious matter, and while this was her first time being lead detective, she knew she was more than capable of handling it. She’d worked on many cases with Derek, and knew exactly what to do. She just needed to remember that this was exactly what she always wanted since the first day she’d decided to join the academy.
“Right. Okay.” She took a deep breath. Aside from the smell of Sullivan’s puke, the air smelled more affluent here. Richer. Even the leaves on the ground smelled more like fall than they did on her street. There, they just smelled wet.
“Is Ross here?”
Michael Ross. Captain Michael Ross. Her superior officer. The man whose shadow seemed to loom over everything she’d done since her promotion. The man who made it clear that if he’d overseen things when she’d been promoted, she wouldn’t have been made lead anything. Ross had been brought in by the mayor with his new regime. She sighed. The connections and threads in this case promised to be complicated, far-reaching, and very tangled.
“Not yet. Someone said they thought he was out of town, coming back by private jet.”
Great. She knew when he finally showed up, he’d be dressed in his custom-made, three-piece suit, looking like he’d just stepped out of a salon—primped and polished. And she knew she looked like she’d just rolled out of bed. Because she had. She’d grabbed the clothes off the floor, and scrambled here as fast as she could. She didn’t care how she looked. She only cared to do the best job she could, and to be taken seriously by her team.
“Let me know when he gets here.” She knew damned well he’d find her anyway, that she’d be working hard, and suddenly he’d be standing behind her, peering silently over her shoulder, his expression not giving away anything that was going on behind his perfectly, composed face.
“Right.”
One of the EMS guys stood inside the yellow tape, by the back of the ambulance, smoking a cigarette. She glared at him, ready to tell him to either take it outside the tape, or butt it out. He held her gaze for longer than she was comfortable with, then ground the cigarette out on the sole of his shoe, before stuffing the butt into his jacket pocket. She took a breath, lips parted to speak, but Derek put a hand on her arm.
“Let it go for now. They’re gonna start calling you names behind your back sooner or later, but don’t give them any ammunition. That guy’s an asshole. Just let it go.”
She shook off his hand and straightened, turning away from the EMT. Letting it go didn't seem right. They were supposed to know better than to potentially contaminate a crime scene. But there was a dead body waiting for her, and that was all that mattered.
“Let’s get this under control.” She turned back to Derek. “Who called this in, anyway?”
“The private security guy on duty. He was doing his rounds outside, said he heard an alarm from inside the house, from what he thought was Jason Lansing’s office. He let himself in thro
ugh the back door, which was locked…” Derek flipped a page in his notebook, and then flipped it back. “Yeah. He said he had the code for the back door. Then he found Lansing in the office, dead. Sullivan was the closest patrol, and took the call.”
“Got it.” They started up the broad stairs to the front door, standing open to the night. It seemed like every light was on, spilling out onto the slate porch. “I suppose he walked through everything, tried to give CPR…”
“Sullivan? He knows better…”
She shook her head. “No. The private security guard.”
“Oh, yeah, well, he checked to see if Lansing was alive. Didn’t bother with CPR.” Derek waited for Jessica to step past him into the foyer. The CSI team, dressed in white suits and shoe covers, moved through the downstairs rooms like industrious ghosts, murmuring among themselves in their own language, punctuated by little pops and flashes of light, as they took photos. Evidence flags littered the parquet floor of the entrance, marking what looked like bloody footprints that traced a deep maroon path toward them. Derek motioned to a hallway that ran toward the back.
“His office is down there.”
The floor in the hallway transitioned elegantly from dark wood parquet to carpet, as it ran past a large stairway. The heavy oak door to Lansing’s office stood open, and even from here she could see blood darkening the pale blue carpet. A tall man with white hair seemed to materialize out of nowhere, joining them at the foot of the stairs.
Jessica knew him, Dr. Randolph Greene, the medical examiner. He was an older guy who’d been around long enough to have seen it all. It was reassuring to see him. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves. Dr. Greene was willing to offer his opinions at the scene, which was rare. As a patrol officer, watching from the sidelines, sometimes she’d thought it bordered on unprofessional, but right now, as a detective, she was grateful for any help, or insight he could give.
“Detective Sharpe. I understand this is your first time as lead detective? I’m glad that you are being given the chance to do the job, I know you can do.” It was a more jovial of a greeting than she’d expected, but she managed to give him a tense smile. Truth was, she had been so caught up in just getting to the scene, and starting the job, that she hadn’t even thought about the possibility that her rank could be pulled, and that she would be replaced by someone with more experience.
“Dr. Greene, thank you for that. It’s nice to see you.” She cringed. This wasn't a social event. It was never nice to see the medical examiner. Then she froze. The words—so simple: ask what he had so far, what he’d found—stuck in her throat. For the life of her, she couldn’t put them into a sentence. Dr. Greene held her gaze for a beat, then, with equanimity, took the lead.
“Walk along the right side. The guard ran there…” Dr. Greene pointed to the smeared and bloody footprints, each with an evidence marker beside it, leading to the front door. They looked like little white boats traveling down a river of red. “We’ve photographed them, but they're still wet.”
They skirted the little flags, walking single file, pressed against the wall.
“The security guard walked through the blood, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. He did what everyone does, went in and checked to see if the guy was alive, or not.” Ahead of her, she saw Dr. Greene's shoulders hunched in a shrug. “Human nature, I guess. No one wants to just leave someone who’s injured without making sure. Can’t blame the guy. He called 9-1-1 from his cell, then went out the front door to wait.”
“Totally understandable.”
She heard footsteps, and turned to look behind her. It was Derek, and she couldn’t help but notice that he was walking just as cautiously as she was, careful to avoid the flags, as well as the photographs on the wall.
Together, following Dr. Greene, they made their way down the hallway, stopping at the threshold to the office. From there, she could see only the upper part of Mayor Lansing's body. He was on his back, one arm flung across his chest, lying in front of a big wooden desk. Blood pooled under him, soaking into the carpet, spreading in a wide irregular circle beneath his torso. He was wearing a white shirt—or it had been white at one point. Now it was dark crimson, the only part left unmarked was the cuff of the sleeve resting on his chest.
Something had blurred the edge of blood pool, feathering it over the carpet in delicate strokes. She thought it was probably where the guard approached, maybe cautiously at first; then a flurry of confused marks pointed toward the door, eventually resolving themselves into the distinct prints of someone running. She glanced down, clearly outlined in red against pale blue was a very large, very detailed shoe print.
“Did someone get the guard’s shoes? We need to rule this out as his.”
Derek nodded. “Yeah, already in the works. From a preliminary check, the print matches the guard’s right foot. Man’s got fucking huge feet. The pattern on the sole looks like it matches as well.”
A glance up at Derek revealed his expression was carefully neutral, matching his monotone voice. She wondered if he was doubting her readiness for this case. Then she brushed that thought aside. She'd known Derek since the academy, and while at twenty-seven, she was younger than him by a couple of years, she knew he had confidence in her abilities. Besides, they’d never been competitive, so she had no reason to think that had changed now.
“Got his name? Where is he?”
“His name’s Miles Crandall. He’s in a squad car outside. He’s…” Derek scratched his head, giving her a bemused expression. “He seems genuinely frazzled, and really confused. My gut tells me that he’s not involved. If he is, then he’s a really great actor.”
Jessica nodded. “We’ll keep him around for questioning…and Derek? I want to interview him myself. Have someone take him down to the station, okay? Make him comfortable, but don’t let him leave.”
“Got it.” Derek looked over his shoulder, pointing to a uniform that had come along, bringing up the end of the line. “Hear that?” The man nodded, and turned back, following their path out the front door.
“Come this way. This area has already been vacuumed by CSI.”
She followed Dr. Greene, stepping where he did, overly conscious of her hands and the edge of her jacket brushing against the desk. She imagined every breath she exhaled somehow contaminated the scene, that a stray hair from her head would be used to get the case thrown out of court.
With effort, she pushed back the nagging sense that she was out of her depth here. Or at least she tried to push those feelings down. She also pushed down the sheer horror and revulsion that flooded through her at the sight of what had once been Mayor Jason Lansing. She didn’t think she’d ever get over the initial shock of seeing the victims on each case. Most of the time she didn’t want to, didn’t want to give up the part of her that was human, the part of her that got queasy and sweaty-palmed. And the part that felt sorrow for the death. Ross, her boss, had told her she’d get used to it—hardened was the word he’d used. But, she didn’t want to get hardened. And she sure as hell didn’t want to turn out like Ross.
“Jesus.”
There was nothing she could add to that. Dr. Greene walked around the body, giving it a wide berth, pointing down with one long, gloved finger.
“The victim, Jason Lansing, was stabbed multiple times in the chest and abdomen. You can see here…” He leaned forward, pointing to various spots on the body. Lansing’s shirt was shredded, and beneath that, Jessica could see skin, mottled white and blue, blood already drying on the body.
“Multiple cuts, many slicing deep enough to hit major organs. No weapon found here, but I understand there’s a rather large collection of knives in the kitchen.”
With luck, one would be missing, and I’d have a possible murder weapon. But something tells me that it wasn’t going to be that easy, she thought to herself.
“Cause of death?”
Dr. Greene looked at her from beneath bushy brows, long white hairs scattered among the black
. “Exsanguination. He bled out. Without an autopsy, I can only suppose the aorta was severed, resulting in massive blood loss. There are no cuts above the clavicle. His throat wasn't slit.”
“So, we're looking for someone with strength then, someone with enough power to drive something through his chest.” She tried to imagine angles of entry, and trajectories, and all the things that they’d taught her at the academy, but something kept tugging at the edge of her thoughts, pulling those images away from her. Something else was going on here, something that made the hair stand up on the back of her neck. Something that was impossible to put into words, and no one was going to understand, not even Derek.
“Likely, but not necessarily. At the right angle, with the right blade, it could be done without a lot of strength.”
“Even if they both were standing? Someone would have gotten pretty close, in that case.”
“I’ll know more after the autopsy.” Dr. Greene shrugged. “Sorry. With all the blood and him lying down, there’s not much I can tell you.”
“I understand. Do you have any idea what kind of blade was used?”
Dr. Greene shook his head. “Not until I get him cleaned up. But…” He squatted down, looking up at Jessica. “No one’s flipped him yet so I haven’t examined the back of his body.”
“Then let’s turn him over.” She wanted to get a look, to see if there were wounds on his back as well. She looked over to Derek who nodded and slipped on a pair of latex gloves. Together, they carefully rolled the mayor onto his side, trying hard to avoid the pool of blood.
“Holy shit.” Derek shot her a side-long glance, struggling to hold the body in place. “You see that?”
She did, and it sent a cold shiver down her spine.
It appeared that some of the stab wounds went completely through Lansing’s chest, shredding the back of the garment.
“Through-and-through?”
Dr. Greene made a noise halfway between a grunt and a growl.