Shadows of Doubt

Shadows of Doubt Page 29

by Corcoran, Mell

  “Sorry guys. Thank you. I love you both lots!” Lou felt like a total idiot with her poor parents running around because she had fallen out of bed, again. “Hey maybe I should get rid of those bedside tables. Or pad them.”

  After a few minutes, Joe came back into the room with a clean cloth. “Vinny is downstairs getting coffee, so don’t worry. He said take your time.”

  “Thanks Joe. Sorry for waking you guys up so early.” Lou had looked at the time and it was barely six.

  “You can pay me back by going to the gala with us on Friday.” He flashed her a wicked smile, knowing damn well she couldn’t refuse after all this. “Okay, let me see this now.” He very gently peeled back the cloth and it appeared that the bleeding had stopped. “Better, good. Now be gentle Lou! If you just mash it to wipe the blood off it’s going to start bleeding again, you understand?”

  “I do. Can I have a slug of coffee to get the taste of blood out of my mouth?”

  “Out of your mouth?” Joe looked at her nervously.

  “I may have... Well you look and tell me.” She smiled wide for him and he gasped as Shevaun squeaked. “Ah crap, I knock out a tooth?”

  “Drink some coffee and swish. Might just be blood you swallowed from your nosebleed.

  Lou did as he said but felt the loose tooth when it hit the rim of the mug. “Crap. Mom can you call and see if I can get in to the dentist this afternoon? Please? I don’t want to keep Vinny waiting any longer.” She got up and headed to the closet, wobbling because she was still holding the ice pack over her eye. She stepped out a few minutes later in jeans and a gray turtleneck but only partially in her boots. “Joe, I hate to ask, but if I bend over my nose will start to bleed again. Can you yank these suckers on for me?”

  Shevaun came up behind Lou and gingerly brushed her hair to try and erase her bed head. “Swish with some mouthwash gently and you should be good to go. No brushing though!” She paused while Joe yanked Lou’s boots on for her and fixed the cuffs of her jeans.

  “There, you almost look like nothing happened!” Joe said with a grin.

  “I gotta keep you guys on you’re toes somehow!” Lou said jokingly as she went into the bathroom to swish as her mother suggested. She made the mistake of looking in the mirror. “Ah Christ, I am so cute.” The black eye was only just beginning and it already looked like she had a head on collision with a mack truck. “Vinny is gonna have so much fun with this one.” She gently wiped the blood from her nose then her face and realized she had no time to try and conceal the damage. Defeated, she walked out of the bathroom and stared at her two adorable parents. “I really do love you guys. No clue why you put up with me.” She gathered up her things and Joe helped her put her coat on then kissed her gently on her uninjured cheek.

  “Stay safe out there. I love you too.” He smiled at the wounded misfit.

  Her mother kissed her softy as well and smiled. “Love you sweat pea. Be safe.”

  “Will do. Seems I only injure myself at home!” She put the ice pack back on her eye and headed downstairs. Carefully.

  The entire ride to the crime scene was a lecture from Vinny about her being more careful during the waking up process. He had gone on and on about making sure whoever her new partner was, Vinny needed time with them to train them properly. She simply took all of it because she was actually afraid if she said anything her loose tooth would fall out in mid sentence and she would never live it down. Even with the delay of the morning’s mishap they managed to beat the coroner team to the scene.

  “Aw, it’s here? You didn’t tell me that. I love this course.” She took a quick look at her eye in the visor mirror and really wished she hadn’t. The bruising was deepening and encompassed not only her eye but her cheekbone as well, confirming Vinny’s theory that she had landed half her face on the table and the cell phone was responsible for the nose. “I’m telling everyone you hit me.” She informed him as she got out of the car.

  Vinny chuckled. “Fine, that will mean the Captain wins the pool. He had five years before I finally beat ya down.”

  “Don’t make me laugh, I’ll snort blood all over you and my tooth will come flying out.”

  They walked up the pathway to the Lakewest Golf Course and were met by a uniformed deputy who escorted them around to the first hole and to a sand bunker near the cart path. The first thing Lou noticed was that the area around the body had been raked perfectly. Not even a squirrel print marred the sand. The naked body of the woman had been laid out carefully with her hands covering the pelvic region in the same manner Angela Talbott had been left. The woman appeared to be a rough forty-five years with dull black hair that was cut very short and choppy. She had no make-up on and her eyes were wide open and clouded over. Her face was heart shaped and despite her being dead, looked like she hadn’t been much of a sun person. Her lips were over inflated with collagen or silicone or some other puffing agent. Lou really couldn’t understand why anyone would want to have their lips look like an innertube. The grisly part of the crime had two parts. First was the fact that the woman’s clearly silicone enhanced breasts had been surreptitiously cut. The full circumference of each had been carved with four straight, overlapping lines that formed what could best be described as giant asterisks. The second unavoidable aspect was that the woman’s legs had basically been carved so it looked like she wearing thigh-high fishnet stockings. The slices were meticulous, almost as if the assailant had measured or even sketched the pattern and traced the lines with a very sharp blade. The cuts were just shallow enough to leave a decent impression of netting. The thick band marking, where the stockings would stop on the thigh, were apparently achieved by peeling that portion of skin straight off. It was truly monstrous in its precision.

  “No one’s touched the body or gone in the bunker?” Vinny asked the uniforms.

  “No sir.” The deputy that had led them in answered. “The groundskeeper found her when he came to prep the bunkers for the first round of golfers and he found her just like this. Said that the sprinklers go off at three in the morning and that would have erased any rake marks so whoever put her here raked afterward and it was after three.”

  “Cohen and I have been guarding the bunker since we arrived.” The second deputy continued and Lou noted his name tag read Grace. “We were the first on scene.”

  “Sirs...” Cohen spoke up now. “I recognize her, actually.”

  Lou turned to Grace’s partner and saw the coroner team making their way up the path over his shoulder. “How do you recognize her?”

  “Ma’am, she’s an old timer porn star actually.” He blushed at the implication of his information. “Her name, well screen name at least, is Katarina Purrs.” The two other deputies stifled their snickers.

  “Seriously?” Lou asked him.

  “Seriously.” Vinny answered and Lou’s head spun around to look at his blushing face.

  A crowd had started to gather behind the police barricade as she watched Caroline and Carpesh make their way to the edge of the bunker.

  “Morning kids.” Lou said with a smile then noticed the look of horror spread across Caroline’s face. She remembered her own battered face and quickly stopped smiling.

  “What the hell, Lou?” Caroline stepped up to examine her injuries closer.

  “If I had a dollar for every time you’ve said that to me.” Lou grinned and winced when Caroline touched her black eye.

  “A wake up call.” Was all Vinny had to say to get Caroline’s eyes rolling in understanding.
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br />   “Holy Mother of God.” Caroline muttered as she caught sight of the victim over Lou’s shoulder.

  Lou looked back at the bunker. “Yeah, this one is really a sick twist.”

  “I gotta make a call real quick before I get in there.” Caroline stepped away and made her call then cornered Carpesh as he came up with all their kits.

  “Hey Lou.” Vinny got her attention. “We need to move the perimeter back a lot. This guy had to come the same way we did to drop her. These lookie-loos are just gonna muck-up any possible evidence over there.”

  Lou nodded in agreement. “Yeah, we need to get the whole damn parking lot secured. The fairway and the path too. No way he came through these course-side houses to do the drop.”

  They called in for more uniforms to help with the canvass, secure the first hole and the parking lot completely. They also requested additional forensics to help sift through the sand even though Lou felt that was going to be a dead end. When the manager came out flaming mad about the expansion of the scene, Vinny threatened him with the penalty for impeding a police investigation and told him to go have breakfast somewhere. Caroline and Carpesh had carefully gone into the bunker to tend to the dead but were finding no trace that wasn’t simply part of the golf course. The fingerprint scan had yielded that the deceased was in fact legally named Katarina Purrs and had quite a few recent pops for solicitation and possession of controlled substances. Seemed Ms. Purrs liked prescription drugs. Just not her own.

  The kicker was that there was no blood, again. Lou wouldn’t know for sure until they were done with the body but she would bet the farm there wasn’t much blood to be had in the victim either. A grid search was started from the top of the first hole, working down to the parking lot and other than the stray golf ball stuffed in a bush, broken tee or cigarette butt, they were coming up with nothing. Lou and the rest of the searchers walked in their line, step by step as a unit, scanning the earth for any trace of anything. When they passed the pro tee box Lou noticed media vans pulling up outside the perimeter and a considerable crowd growing. She scanned the nosy faces that had come to see death at their back door. Despite all her time on the job, Lou would never understand that. She stumbled forward when her eyes caught sight of Max behind the tape. Fortunately the deputies on each side of her caught her fall otherwise her nose would have been bleeding again. This was ridiculous and when he looked her dead in the eye, she knew that he knew he was caught.

  She stepped out of the search line and looked for a way to circle back around the crowd so that no one would notice, then tucked her badge away so the bloodhound reporters wouldn’t sniff her out for a statement. She cautiously wheedled her way through the crowd and came up behind Max, grabbed his arm and yanked. It was sort of like grabbing the barrel of a tank with one hand and trying to tow it. When he turned around and looked down at her, his scowl made her think that yanking a man who was over a foot taller then her, and could probably snap her like a twig with his thumb and forefinger, probably wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Come on!” she stiffened her spine and growled at him.

  He didn’t resist but instead let her drag him around to the other side of the pro shop keeping the scowl on his face intact.

  “What the hell are you doing here? And don’t even try to be evasive or witty, I want answers!” She stood with her hands on her hips glaring up at him.

  Instinctively he raised his hand and gently brushed his fingertips over the black and blue on her cheek. “What the hell happened?” He demanded, ignoring her question.

  “I fell.” She said, swatting his hand away and blushing with embarrassment. “Now don’t change the subject! I want answers! You were at the morgue for Talbott and the other crime scene because of Winslow. Now you’re here for this one. I want to know why and what you know, dammit!”

  He simply couldn’t help himself and grinned as he stood there and watched his feisty detective, her demanding posture and that adorable glare complete with her lower lip jutting out. That lip that he wanted nothing more than to kiss at that very moment.

  “Hello? Anyone in there? Stop looking at me like that and talk!” The way he was looking at her was disconcerting and made her remember that she hadn’t been able to brush her teeth. She stepped back and put her hand over her mouth then winced when she bumped her loose tooth.

  He bent down and cupped her face gently with both hands and looked at her like no one had ever looked at her before. “What? What is it? Are you alright?” His voice was fraught with panic.

  Again she swatted his hands away and took another step back. “Would you stop that! I’m fine! I just knocked my tooth loose is all. Stop changing the subject!”

  “You need a dentist right away.” He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and started to dial.

  She yanked it out of his hand and looked at him like he had two heads. “I have an appointment later. Now would you stop fussing with me and talk to me, dammit!” She slapped the phone back into his hand and glared at him.

  “You’re right. We indeed need to talk. I’ll have a car pick you up in front of the station at four. Lost Hills?” He looked at her intently.

  For a moment she had a mind to slap cuffs on him and force him to talk down at the station, but there were complications going that route. The least of which being that she might not make it to the station with him since he looked yummy beyond belief today in his heathered taupe suite that fit him like no suit should fit a man, and be legal.

  “I have plans tonight.” She said defiantly but he only smirked at her response.

  “I know but this takes precedence. We’ll talk then.” He took another moment to gently cup her battered cheek in his hand, scowling at the injury. “Take care until then, please.” He turned and headed back toward the street, then disappeared into the crowd.

  She had marched back up to the crime scene both annoyed and bewildered. Didn’t he understand the implications of what she was saying to him? Why in the hell had he been far more concerned about her injuries? It was baffling but she tried to put it out of her head so she could do her job. When the coroner team was finished and Ms. Purrs was being taken away in her body-bag, Caroline approached Lou while snapping off her gloves carefully as her right hand appeared to be bandaged.

  “You two make a cute couple.” Caroline grinned at her and pulled on a pair of knitted mittens.

  Lou snorted. “Oh yeah, real cute. Mr. Tall-Dark-and-Suspect and me with my hamburger face, nice toothed dragon breath disaster walking!”

  Her friend snorted then focused. “Lets get the formalities out of the way. Let me tell you what I told Vinny. Time of death was between seven and ten last night with preliminary cause being exsanguination from the severing of the femoral artery of the left thigh. The surface lacerations appear to be inflicted over a good bit of time but I can’t be certain until we get her back to the shop.”

  “Can you make a guestimate?” Lou was pretty sure she knew but wanted Caroline’s take.

  “I don’t like to do that but I would say that whoever did the fishnet work started at least three days ago.” Caroline knew exactly where Lou’s head was going with all this but kept her mouth shut.

  “So he probably grabbed her right after he dumped Winslow. Dammit.” Lou clenched her teeth but winced at the pain from her tooth.

  “Lou, we can’t be sure this is our guy. It could have been some sort of porn star rage or retaliation or some psycho spurned fan. Let’s wait and see what we get after the autopsy.” Caroline needed to try and stall Lou on the rogue track. This new murder really was putting a wrench in her plan and she needed to try and keep thi
ngs going the way they had mapped it out.

  “Caroline, you and I both know this is our guy. No blood! None in her. None at the scene. She’s a woman of dubious reputation just like the others. But I understand where you are coming from and you’re right. I need to keep my emotions out of it and work this one by the book and on it’s own merits.”

  Lou took a few minutes to tell Caroline about the captain benching her because of her continuing to investigate the cases that were turned over to LAPD. Caroline seized the opportunity to toss in a few utterances about stupid bureaucracy and ridiculous jurisdictional issues. They were perfect seeds to plant for the plan to work.

  “Hey listen...” Lou paused and moved closer to Caroline. “...about tonight, I need to make the dentist then something popped up that I have to deal with so I’ll call you later okay?”

  Caroline was a little nervous that her plan was going to shit with Lou backing out on meeting up with her later, but she had to go with the flow or it would raise a flag to Lou. “No problem. Just call me if you can get free.” She gave her friend a reassuring smile. “Take care of that tooth soon.”

  Lou chuckled then let Caroline take off to deal with Ms. Purrs. It would be at least noon before they were finished at the scene so that worked out okay with the time her mother had been able to get her in to see the dentist. It was just a matter of conning Vinny into swinging her by there before they went to the station. She figured a caramel macchiato and a double cheeseburger while he waited would be a fair bribe.

  The dentist put a thin bar on the back of her teeth to brace the loose tooth to the good ones. He said it would take a few months for the root to strengthen but after that she would be good to go and they could remove the bar. You couldn’t see anything, but she spent the entire ride to the station completely ignoring the black and blue that dominated the right side of her face and obsessing over whether or not the tiny wire that was behind her teeth, covered with enamel colored bonding agent, made her look funny. Even as they walked to the communal desks at Lost Hills, she stopped him for the hundredth time.

 

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