Wrath (The Lieutenant Harrington Series Book 1)

by E. H. Reinhard

  “How did we get the connection to Mercer there?” Garcia asked.

  “She was friends with my girlfriend,” I said. “As it turns out, they both used to date Mercer in college. Maybe twelve years or so ago.”

  My comments received dead silence. No one in the room said a word.

  Steve cleared his throat. “This Laurie was the one from your house? A few weeks back for the football game?”

  I hadn’t thought about it, but Steve and she were both at my place on the same day. “Yeah. That was her,” I said.

  “Damn,” Steve said. “And Amy dated him too?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Briefly.”

  Colt fished his phone from his pocket and stared down at the screen. “It looks like Mercer’s truck is here,” he said.

  “All right. Why don’t you go and get started. I’ll be down there in a bit to take a quick look at it.”

  “Sounds good,” Colt said. He slid off the file cabinet and left the conference room.

  “Okay. We’re going to have to delegate this. There’s just too much shit going on not to,” I said.

  Detective Ryan had his face resting on his fist, which was pushing up his round cheek. “What do you want us on?” He sat back in his chair and tapped his pen on the desk.

  “You and Garcia, I want on Mercer specifically. Find out whatever you can about his businesses. If his businesses are under an umbrella corporation, I want to know about it. Call the stores, ask if he’s there or when he was last in. I want to know who his friends are. Who is his local family. I want people talked to. He doesn’t have a vehicle at the moment, so how is he getting around? Call Mathers at the airport and make one hundred percent sure that he hasn’t flown out. I want him flagged through the TSA as well.”

  “What about Mercer’s house?” Garcia asked.

  “We went through it top to bottom overnight,” Dave said. “Besides the pair of bodies in the master bath and the cleaned crime scene in the kitchen, we didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing to suggest where he went. Though there may be in the electronics that we brought back.”

  “What about the murder weapon or weapons?” Garcia asked.

  “The woman’s was a wine bottle we have,” Dave said. “We didn’t find the knife that killed the neighbor.”

  “So we have three people who have been killed with a knife, and no weapon. We need to see if it was the same weapon on each,” Steve said.

  “Skip has the bodies at his office. Let’s make a call over there and see what he thinks,” I said.

  “What else are we going to be on today?” Steve asked.

  “We’re going to the gym,” I said.

  “Come again?” Steve asked.

  “Laurie Jillette was more than active on social media. Posts and updates to the point where you could track her movements. We know she lost her life at her home, and we know she was at the gym prior to going back to her house. I got the gym’s location. I’m sure they have cameras. I want to see if we can have a look at some video.”

  “You think that maybe he was following her?”

  “Not out of the question,” I said. “I want some hard evidence that he’s responsible.”

  “Anything else on that prostitute?” Steve asked.

  “The guys popped out to the motel last night. The front desk worker, Brad something, didn’t give us squat. Vice knew who the woman was, though. We have an ID on her that says she’s out of Virginia,” Dave said.

  “I made a couple calls this morning to the local department there,” I said. “They do have family in the area that they’ll try to make contact with. The family will be informed of our investigation, and the local PD there has all of my information as well as the medical examiner’s. Really all we can do until we get an eyewitness or something pops with what the crime lab collected.”

  “Okay,” Halloway said. “Let’s get to it.”

  CHAPTER 27

  Chris heard the alarm clock that woke the cop and Amy—he was already awake. He sat and listened through their morning routines and their talk in the kitchen. He listened to the cop asking her to accompany him to the police station to give them some information about Laurie. The cop had never mentioned his name. Chris wondered if the police knew that he was responsible for Laurie’s death. If the topic came up, Amy would certainly tell the police that they used to date or that she was familiar with him. Chris had remained in the closet for an hour after the two had left. It was time to go. The only problem, and the thing keeping him in the closet, was the dog. Chris hadn’t seen it. He’d only heard it—its tags jingling, Amy and the cop talking to the dog, its paws padding across the floor, and the dog barking when Chris had attempted to open the closet door earlier. He didn’t know how the dog would react when it saw someone in its house who shouldn’t be there.

  He didn’t have many options, but Chris knew he needed to get out of the cop’s house. He was about to learn the dog’s temperament, and if push came to shove, he had a knife and gun. Chris pushed open the closet door, which let out a long high-pitched creak as it moved.

  The woof of a running dog sounded as Chris pushed to his feet and left the closet. He looked over the carpet inside, making sure he left nothing behind that would alert anyone to his presence. The garbage left over from what he ate and drank was wedged behind the bowling ball bag and out of sight. Satisfied that no one would be the wiser that he had been there, he swung the closet door closed. Chris walked quietly to the closed office door. He grasped the handle with his left hand and pulled out his pocketknife with his right. He flicked open the blade. “Here, puppy, puppy,” he called.

  A bark followed by a snarl came from the other side of the door.

  “Shit,” he said.

  Chris let go of the door handle and took a step back. He used the blade of the knife to scratch at the graying brown hair on the back of his head while he contemplated his moves before leaving the room. Getting attacked and bitten by a dog wasn’t high on his list of things to do. Chris’s eyes shot to the window that faced the backyard of the house. Blinds hung over it and blocked his view.

  After crossing the room, he pulled the blinds up. Just outside the office window were the outdoor kitchen area and big barbecue. Chris raised the window. He’d have to remove and replace the screen to get out, but it was a hell of a lot better than dealing with the damned dog. He heard a bark followed by the sounds of the dog running. Chris froze. He heard the front door of the house close. Pulling the blinds back down wasn’t an option. Getting back into the closet with the squeaking door wasn’t an option, either. Chris ducked behind the desk and remained silent. He turned the blade in his hand.

  He heard the dog return to the office door and bark repeatedly just outside. A second later, he heard footsteps walk down the hall.

  “What are you barking at, pup?” he heard.

  The voice was Amy’s. “Come on,” she said.

  Her footsteps continued down the hall toward the master bedroom.

  The dog continued barking.

  “Come on. Let’s go. Outside,” Amy said.

  The dog didn’t move from the door.

  Chris heard Amy pass and again instruct the dog to come.

  “Let’s go!” Amy said.

  The dog left the door. A moment later, Chris heard the dog barking outside. He rose and got a look out the back window. The dog was staring back at the house and yapping away.

  Chris looked at the office door. He’d never heard the cop’s voice. He’d heard only one set of footsteps. Amy hadn’t said a word to anyone except the dog. A second later, Chris heard the television click on in the living room. The exact situation he was looking for had arrived.

  He went to the office door and slowly pushed the handle. The latch disengaged. He pulled the door toward himself—the hinges didn’t make a sound. A smile spread across his face. Chris leaned forward and glanced left and right down the hall. The master bedroom to his right had the door open but no lights o
n. Chris looked left at where the hallway ended and the room opened up. He knew the layout from when he’d first come in the house. The living room was off to the left. The noise from the television was coming from there.

  His knife was ready. He stepped from the room and made his way down the hallway. At the hall’s end, he pressed his back to the wall. He had a view of the area near the front door—no one was there. Chris rolled his body around the corner. His eyes shot left toward the kitchen. No one. He could see the dog outside in the backyard. Chris looked toward the television, which was showing the local news. The sofa faced the TV and sat so that Chris viewed only the back of it. He looked at the sofa’s arm next to a small table and lamp. Sock-covered toes were sticking up over the top of a pillow. The purple socks said the wearer was a woman.

  Silently, Chris stepped into the living room. He gripped the handle of his blade tightly. With another step, he saw her legs. She appeared to be lying on her back on the couch. Another step and Chris saw her midsection, a bit of tan flesh between her black slacks and black button-up shirt. Another step and he got a look at her face. Those big eyes, which Chris would never forget, were closed. Her hair was pulled back from her face. Her cheekbones were still high. No wrinkles. Twelve years had passed since he’d last seen Amy, and they had been kind to her. Chris took two steps to his right behind the couch so he could get even with her head.

  He raised his knife.

  CHAPTER 28

  We’d wrapped the meeting, and before Steve and I could get out of the conference room, I got a call from Colt downstairs. He simply said to get down there. Apparently we had something of interest in Mercer’s truck. We hit the stairwell a moment later and made our way to the crime lab.

  We entered and walked past the individual offices, Colt’s included, and the twenty or so employees, all at individual workstations. While television had fictionalized our county’s crime lab to absurd levels, the truth was that the Miami-Dade CSIS lab resembled a huge high school science department surrounded by offices. There were no neon backlit glass offices, no over-saturated colors, and no lens flares. We walked to the garage and found Colt and Gomez inside. A new black Chevy pickup sat in the center of five garage bays. Gomez held a droplight that was hanging from the ceiling and leaning into the truck. Colt had a purse and its contents spread out on a flat stainless steel table beside the truck.

  Through the truck’s windows, I could see a couple of other people on the far side of the truck, but I couldn’t really make them out since they had their backs to us. “We got a purse?”

  “And more,” Colt said.

  “Find out who it belongs to?” I asked as we walked up. “The wife’s? Laurie Jillette?”

  Colt looked up and shook his head. “This should make your day.” He pressed his gloved fingertip on an ID and slid it across the table toward Steve and me. I noticed immediately that the identification was from out of state.

  Colt took his finger from the driver’s license, and I got a look at the name. “Get the hell out of here,” I said. I stared at a Virginia-issued driver’s license for a Susanne Osborne, our prostitute from the alley behind the motel.

  “You’ve got to be shitting me,” Steve said.

  “Shitting you, I am not,” Colt said.

  “So this guy is behind everything we’re dealing with?” Steve asked.

  “Looks that way,” Colt said.

  “Anything else in that purse?” I asked.

  “Just random purse contents. A wallet, makeup, some loose change, garbage. That, plus the things that are standard fare for her trade—condoms, wet wipes, a crack pipe and kit with a couple needles.”

  “That’s a nice mix,” Steve said.

  “Is that hers, we’re thinking?” Steve pointed at a smartphone with a shattered screen that was on the table.

  “I’m not sure who owns that one. We found it on the floor of the truck. The woman’s purse had what looked to be a burner flip phone inside of it. We’re going to have Wade take both phones back over to Tech with the computer as soon as we’re done getting prints from it.”

  “Computer?” I asked.

  Colt smiled. “There happened to be a laptop lying in this truck. A laptop that looked just like the ones you’d find in patrol cars.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  Colt pointed his chin to the far side of the truck. With a couple of steps, I saw the two guys standing at the table. One was bald and wearing a polo, and one was dark haired and in a white lab coat—Wade from the tech unit and James Harris, another of the crew from the crime lab.

  “I guess we kind of hit the jackpot with his truck,” Colt said.

  I walked to the guys, with Steve on my heels. On the stainless table before them was a computer covered in fingerprint dust—the computer appeared to be from a patrol car. Most of the laptops from the cruisers looked the same. They were built to be out in the field and take all-day-and-night use and abuse. Big and bulky, they appeared to be about ten years old. “That’s the laptop from the cruiser?”

  “Looks to be,” Wade said. “Unless this Miramar PD sticker on it is just an odd coincidence.”

  “I’m done,” James said. He lifted another print from the edge of the keyboard. “Let me get an evidence form created for it, and you can sign it out and take it.”

  Steve, standing beside me, piped up. “Skip said what for TOD of the prostitute? Middle of the night was it?”

  “I think he said around three in the morning. Which would mean that if Mercer was in fact responsible for everything, he killed her after Nick Ludwig and before Grace Mercer.”

  “So what, he finds out his wife cheated on him, kills the guy she cheated on him with, strolls downtown to get a prostitute, who he kills, then heads home and kills his wife.”

  “But waits until morning to do it,” I said. “And then searches out an ex-girlfriend who he kills and then kills the neighbor. And then assaults a female officer and uses her car’s computer to search someone else.”

  “If he’s responsible for everything, he isn’t stopping,” Steve said. “We need to know who was searched ASAP.”

  “I’ll be on it right away and get someone else on these two phones,” Wade said. “This computer should power up, but I may need to call over to Miramar and get someone on the line to get me access to it.”

  “Whatever you have to do,” I said. “Right now, it’s our best lead.”

  “All right. Within the hour we should have some results from this, and we should start getting information from everything that was collected overnight as well,” Wade said.

  “All right. Good, good,” I said.

  James returned with some paperwork, bagged the laptop, and sealed it with evidence tape, which would be broken as soon as it got down the hall but was protocol in the transfer of evidence. I watched as Wade signed off on the computer that had been under his care.

  “Did you want to wait around or head over to Laurie Jillette’s gym?” Steve asked.

  I thought about it for a moment. We didn’t know what the computer or anything else would give us. I wanted to keep pounding away, and the gym video footage might give us something definitive that said Mercer was responsible, provided that whatever video they had captured actually showed Mercer and they’d let us have a look at it without jumping through hoops. “Let’s head out and keep working. I don’t want to burn the hour sitting here twiddling our thumbs. But the second this thing gives a name as to who was searched, I want to know.”

  “I’ll call you right away,” Wade said.

  “Appreciate it.”

  I started for the doors that would take us into the lab from the garage then went back into the station. “Colt, call me if anything breaks.”

  “You got it.”

  Steve and I left the crime lab and the station en route to Laurie Jillette’s gym in Hialeah. The drive from the office would take only fifteen minutes at that time of morning. A few hours earlier and it would have been double due to traffic
.

  We pulled up to the gym a couple of minutes after ten thirty. The gym was an anchor store in a big strip mall. On a quick left-to-right glance, there seemed to be a pizza joint, Korean restaurant, liquor store, pool hall, and vapor cigarette shop also occupying the building. From the parking lot, I could see inside the gym straight to the back. A good twenty or more people were inside, all working on various machines or running on ellipticals or treadmills. Most of the running machines looked out on the parking lot.

  We left the car and started for the door of the place. Having been a member of a similar styled gym, and needing footage from another a few years back, I was fairly certain I knew what to expect upon walking in and asking to see some video. We were going to get an in-shape twenty-some-year-old kid who had no idea what the hell to do or say. He’d have to call his manager, who would be roughly the same age and give us roughly the same answer—we’d have to contact the owner. We’d do that and sit and wait for an hour for an out-of-shape guy to arrive. I went inside prepared.

  At the front counter, a kid in his early twenties held a shaker bottle with something bright blue inside. He had a towel draped over his shoulder. “Morning guys,” he said. “What can we do for you today?”

  “We’re looking for the owner,” I said.

  “All right. For what?” he asked.

  “We need to see some video from here from yesterday. We’re looking for footage of a specific member at a specific time.”

  “Um. Give me one second. I’ll be right back.”

  The kid left the counter and walked through a doorway on his left. I imagined that he was going to get the manager, who’d then call the owner after asking us the same questions that the first kid did. A second later, a woman who was maybe in her late thirties walked out from the hallway behind the kid who had gone back.

  “Leslie Roshard,” she said. “I’m the owner. Can I help you?”

  Things were looking up. The owner was in, and I wouldn’t have to waste an hour of my life sitting around waiting.