Look Me in The Eyes
S. B. Sheeran
Copyright © 2015 S. B. Sheeran
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Table Of Contents
Look Me in The Eyes
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Other Books by S. B. Sheeran
About the Author
Look Me in The Eyes
Chapter 1
Martinez stared at the drab black clothed group flocking where the casket laid beneath the weeping willow tree. The breeze stirred the leaves in her direction and the words of the sermon were carried on it to where she stood. She had made sure she was not close to the mourners because she hadn’t wanted to hear the priest talk about a time to mourn and weep and all that clichéd stuff they really shouldn’t say at funerals.
Who the hell wrote those lines, she thought to herself. Whoever it was needed a good clobbering, because people needed to wail, scream, break things and cry to the point of dehydration when a loved one was killed for as long as they wanted. It was all part of the process. But no, instead they were walked through the five stages of grief by some psychologist, who chances are had no idea what real grief was. Then they are told that they need to accept the fact that a loved one was dead sooner rather than later.
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid, head shrinkers, she thought referring to the old woman who smelled of peppermint and newspapers she had been forced to bond with for the last couple days. She had at least thought her shrink would have been some eye candy, but no, they dug Martha up from whatever rocking chair she had retired in, and now she had to deal with her.
With a sigh and acceptance that it was the only way she was going to get back in the field, she had accepted it all.
“Not going any closer?” she heard Lampard’s voice say behind her. Martinez did not turn she simply closed her eyes, quieted her palpitating heart and willed away the anger the voice stirred. She had been hoping the woman would have been one of the few heads she could not see in the crowd in front of her. Her plan had been to show up after everybody else had arrived and leave before they did.
So much for that.
She could smell Lampard’s signature perfume wafting to her on the soft wind that blew in reverence, and she knew that if she turned to look at her, the sight would pull her in. Martinez couldn’t have that, not right now anyway.
She was still too irrationally angry about her friend’s death, and even more so at the fact that Lampard had unnecessarily provoked the killer whose bullet was meant for her. Martinez had not yet gotten to the point of forgiving her. She was a lot less angry but had a long way to go.
“I am sorry you know,” Lampard’s shaky voice said from behind her.
Martinez kept her eyes closed and she heard the woman sigh then walk away. She took a chance and opened her eyes to see the designer black trench coat and dark curls heading toward the group of gloom. She figured it was time to leave, she could always come back later to give Connelly a piece of her mind for jumping in front of a bullet. She would remind his corpse of all the promises and plans they had made as friends, plans she would have to carry out alone and promises he had broken.
Less than an hour later she took a deep breath before knocking on Martha’s door, for what was supposed to be her final session. After three weeks of enduring her strong peppermint scent, Martinez was hoping it would finally be over.
“Good afternoon, Detective,” the old woman said with the usual Cheshire smile ridiculously plastered across her face. Martinez mumbled a less than enthusiastic response and sat in the depressing mauve chair that squeaked every time she moved.
“Interesting colour for a funeral,” Martha said pointing at the full suit of white that Martinez wore.
The woman looked at her as if expecting her participation in that line of conversation, but Martinez said nothing.
“Are we going to do the silent thing again today?” Martha asked. “That does not help you know.”
Martinez thought long and hard before she responded, knowing that what she was about to say could likely have her on desk duty until she was Martha’s age, but she just couldn’t take this anymore.
“You keep telling me how I should grief, you don’t get to do that.” She took a breath before continuing. “I get that these sessions are mandated and I have to come here or risk losing my job, and to be honest I wouldn’t mind them so much if you would stop telling me how to grief and what’s best for me. I am not a crier so torrents of tears to show I am grieving will never happen. I don’t want to speak to Lampard because I am not ready for that and I might not be ready any time soon. I lost my best friend! My best friend, the only one I had in the world. Forget the grief therapy for a second; I don’t even know how to move forward. The one thing I do know is that being strapped to a desk doing paperwork and coming here for two hours so often is making me suicidal.”
“I understand-“
“No! You don’t!” Martinez cut her off. “I get that your intentions are pure and you truly want to help, but tell me how I should handle grief is not working. I want to go back to work, and trust me I will be forced to deal with his absence there. Keeping me away from that is not helping. I have no problem continuing our sessions, but I need to go back to work. So rubber stamp me if you must and let me go.”
With that out Martinez took a deep breath, and upon letting it go realized how much better she felt. Realizing also that in years that was the most she had ever said in one single go.
Martha’s Cheshire smile changed to a genuine grin as the old woman signed the form Martinez demanded she did. “You come back to see me at least once per week from now on until I say otherwise.”
“Deal!” Martinez quickly agreed though she had no intentions of keeping up that side of the bargain. Anything else Martha was attempting to tell her went out the window as all she could focus on was the paper, like a hungry dog waiting on a bone.
“Once per week, Detective,” Martha said as she handed Martinez her evaluation form and watched as she walked out with a smile.
Martinez did not expect anybody to be back from the funeral yet, but she would just leave the form on the Chief’s desk and report for work in the morning. With any luck there would be lots to do, to prevent her from missing Connelly too much.
“Martinez!” She heard the chief’s voice as she placed the letter on his desk.
“Hi, Sir. Ahhm, just putting my psych evaluation paper here for you to read later.” She said and nervously wiped her hands on her pants.
“We missed you at the funeral today,” he said.
“No, I was there. I was just not in the mood for the condolences, hugs and tears.”
“Yes, they can be very depressing.” He stared at her with concern. “So you ready to work again?”
“Yes Sir. I will start first thing in the morning.”
The chief gave her the once over and then let her get away from his burning stare. She knew he was the one man on the face of the earth she could not bullshit. He could see right through her every time. She also knew that he was aware she was not ok, but need to work to get there.
“See you tomorrow,” Martinez said and went home with a smile on her face and heaviness in her heart.
Tomorrow would be her first day without Connelly, and she knew it would be hard.
* * *
It was a couple minutes before six when her cell phone rang. Martinez ignored it the first time forgetting for a minute that she was back on active duty. When it rang the second time, the shrill sound dispelled her amnesia and she bolted out of bed to grab the phone.
“Martinez,” she answered and half expected to hear Connelly’s peppy voice on the other end, but was sorely disappointed when Manning’s deep voice told her she had to haul her butt out of bed. Manning was a cool enough guy, and they had worked pretty well together over the last seven years, except for the times he had tried to make her feel small because she was a woman. She kept her distance from him as much as was possible, but it was more out of lack of patience for men who were sexist than it was for any other reasons. As far as the work went, they were fine, but she was still disappointed and sad that it was not Connelly who had woke her up.
“Gotta get used to it, Martinez,” she said to herself even as she felt her eyes well up with tears.
She turned her attention to the ritual that had not changed even in the past couple weeks. It started with coffee sitting at her spot in the kitchen, where she could look out at the lush well manicured lawn and the morning breeze moving through the trees. Then there were the birds, the chirping birds were the best. It’s as if they sang happiness into her soul. Most people turned on the news in the mornings or put some music on, but she simply enjoyed what Mother Nature so freely gave.
It was, after all, the reason she had moved out of the city the first chance she got.
As she pulled her Honda out of the driveway she prayed that her first day back would not be as hard as she felt it would be.
Moments later as she followed Manning’s directions and pulled up out the upscale apartment complex on Banner Avenue in Downtown Brooklyn, she had a funny feeling in her tummy that she could not quite understand.
The uniformed officer who met her at the elevator said this murder was a completely new kind of thing, and mentioned seeing something similar on the news the year before.
“What do you know about gardening?” Manning’s asked her as he handed her a pair of gloves.
“Not enough to be of any use.”
“Well, you are about to see a whole new world of it, brace yourself,” he said as he pointed towards the flat open roof that housed a home garden.
She remembered trying to grow tomatoes once so she could have a never ending supply of her favourite fruit, but after several tries and nothing but dirt under her nails to show for it, she had all but given up. The plump tomatoes that stood before her in the neat home garden made her envious. That was until she walked around to the other side and saw how they were being grown.
“Human compost,” Manning said and pointed at the coffin like boxes that had bodies in them covered by dirt and various fruit and herb trees sprouting from different sections of the body. She had to focus all her energy on controlling her gag reflex.
One hand of each body was positioned above the level of the heart and an IV drip running into it. Following the line of the IV she saw it was hooked up to a small water tank, and the breathing tube protruding from the mouths were above the soil level and had double layers of mesh.
“They were alive when they were buried,” She said in horror.
“And likely kept that way,” Sharon the medical examiner said. “Nice to have you back Detective,” she added and Martinez smiled in gratitude.
She had always thought Sharon would have made a great friend, but seeing as she was socially awkward and horrible at making friends, she hadn’t bothered trying to cultivate a friendship with her. Martha, the old shrink, had thought it would be a good idea for her to start making some new friends. Not a lot, but one or two would be good since she was getting older. She would revisit the idea at a later date.
“That woman,” Manning pointed to a fragile looking woman who had her arms wrapped around herself staring into space. “She was looking for a place to bury her earthworms and thought right here would be a perfect spot.”
“Who does something like this?” Martinez asked, refocusing her attention on the bodies in front of her.
“Back at the bureau we call him The Farmer,” Lampard’s voice sounded behind her.
Martinez had to stop herself from asking her what the hell she was doing there. First hour back on the job and she knew the day just got a million times harder.
Chapter 2
“Good morning, I brought you tea,” Lampard said stepping up to Martinez held out a cup to her.
“Thanks but I already had tea,” she said and walked off to where Sharon was busy examining the bodies. She could hear Manning gladly accept the cup of tea and was again annoyed. Had it been Connelly he would not have accepted her guilt gift, but then again had it been Connelly, there would have been no need for a guilty cup of tea. Martinez felt the lump welling up in her throat and decided to refocus yet again.
“It will be hard to get a positive ID of them unless their dental records are in the system,” Sharon was saying.
“Can you tell how old they were?” Martinez asked.
“If this is the same killer then all his victims will be between twenty-five and thirty and all female,” Lampard said coming to stand where they were.
Martinez stepped around her, relaying the information to a uniformed officer, and giving the order to pull up any missing person report for women that might fit that profile. She pulled Manning by the coat telling him that they were going to go get a warrant for the video footage and resident list of the apartment.
“Anybody who took care of this garden had to have access to this premises all the time, so they must live here.”
Manning nodded in agreement before adding, “And they clearly have some medical expertise. But the big question is how did they get the bodies up here without being seen?”
“For his previous victims, it seemed he took them on dates and then drugged them at the spot he would have buried them. His last spot was a park, so it was pretty easy then. I guess he changed his dating spot to a rooftop. Better view.” Lampard said.
Martinez tried to focus all her attention on the case, but Lampard’s image and scent kept slipping through the corners of her mind. Before she could stop herself she sighed as she stepped into the elevator, blocking Lampard’s entry with a glare.
“Rough first day back?” Manning asked.
“Why is Lampard here? I thought she was just going to be working one case.”
“She was but then the Chief made an arrangement to enlist her help if needs be. She took some time away from the bureau so she is ours until she goes back to work.” Manning filled her in.
Martinez said all the curse words she knew in her
head, and then clenched her jaw, steeling herself for what her next couple months would be like. She was beginning to think she would need Martha every day after all.
As they went from door-to-door knocking and asking questions while they waited on the warrant, Martinez forgot for a moment that Connelly was dead and Lampard was like an angry ghost haunting her. By the time the warrant got to them and they got the footage they need and the bodies were moved to the morgue, she was so tired. Heading back to the precinct, she felt like she needed a massage, but a good cup of tea and a burger would do just fine
“Martinez!” the chief called to her as she was headed to the break-room. He signalled that he needed her in his office and she hoped it was not for another tete-a-tete. When she entered she froze in the doorway as the sight of Lampard already seated there.
“Dr Lampard has agreed to work with us on this case, I understand there is some tension between you both and I don’t want it affecting the job.” He looked directly at Martinez before continuing. “Whatever grudges you hold against her for Connelly’s death you need to deal with them, and not let it affect your professional relationship or we will have a problem.”
Martinez was staring at his bright red tie, watching as it black stars on it seemed to dance in front of her.
“Martinez?” he brought her back to the present she so desperately wanted to escape.
“Yes sir, not a problem. We are fine.”
“Good, because until we replace Connelly, she will be your partner.” He finished.
“What?!” both her and Lampard shouted in unison.
The chief raised an eyebrow and looked at them both, “You have a problem with that?”
They both began talking at the same time, but the chief was having none of that.
Look Me in The Eyes (Keeping an Eye on Her Book 2) Page 1