Passions of the Dead (A Detective Jackson Mystery/Thriller)

by L. J. Sellers

Kevin grabbed Jared’s hand and squeezed. “Don’t touch me. You’ll regret it.”

  Jared jerked his hand free. “Speaking of touching. Keep your hands off my daughter.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about Lori. You’ve been sexually harassing her and it better goddamn stop.”

  “That’s crazy! Did she tell you that?”

  “She told Carla someone was getting grabby with her and Carla has seen you looking at Lori.”

  “Bullshit!” Kevin’s eyes flared with a wild look. “You’re the one who needs to keep Lori out of my house and away from Shane.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Lori is after Shane, you idiot. She’s been trying to seduce him for months.”

  Jared lunged forward and grabbed Kevin’s t-shirt with both hands. The blood vessels in his temples wanted to burst. “You lying sack of shit! You touch her again and I’ll beat you into a coma.”

  Their faces were inches apart.

  “Wise up, Jared.” Kevin pulled free and turned away. Before Jared could respond, Kevin wheeled around and sucker punched him in the gut. The sharp blow made him suck in his breath. What the hell? As Kevin stumbled back, Jared saw the key sticking out of his fist. The fucker! Jared clenched his hands and lurched forward, ready to pulverize him. His brother-in-law saw the look on his face and scrambled to get away. Kevin’s feet slipped in the gravel and he fell back.

  Smack! Kevin’s head slammed into the door handle on his truck and he collapsed on the ground.

  Oh shit! Jared’s heart hammered like overworked cylinders. “Kevin.” He kneeled down and shook him. “Kevin.” Blood soaked through the prone man’s hair. Jared fumbled for his cell phone, flipped it open, then heard a moan. “Kevin, tell me you’re okay.”

  Kevin opened his eyes but didn’t respond. Jared scanned the parking lot and didn’t see anyone coming or going. He reached into Kevin’s shirt pocket, pulled out the cell phone, and dialed 911. “This is Kevin Compton. I need help.” Jared paused for effect. “I’m in the parking lot at the Time Out Tavern on West 5th.” He clicked the phone closed and put it back in the pocket.

  Jared jogged to his truck, his heart still racing. Kevin would be fine, he told himself. He was just a little dazed. Jared climbed behind the wheel and waited a moment for his legs to stop shaking. His stomach throbbed and he no longer felt too drunk to drive. Adrenaline had burned through his buzz and he was sick with worry. He started the engine, backed out, and barreled toward the side exit. In the rearview mirror, he saw Darrel and Tyler coming out of the bar. Would they recognize his truck in the fading light?

  Thoughts jumbled in his head as he drove. It wasn’t his fault. He never even touched Kevin. In fact, Kevin had punched him. Jared pressed his fingers against the wound and felt a little blood. Why had Kevin hit him? Kevin was the ass-grabbing, lying sack of shit. He couldn’t believe what his sorry brother-in-law had said about Lori. Such crap. Kevin was just trying to distract him from the real situation: his brother-in-law coming on to his daughter.

  A moment of uncertainty came over Jared. Could it be true? Lori and Shane had sure spent a lot of time together lately. No. They were cousins. Jared rejected the idea they could be sexually involved. Still, he wouldn’t let Lori go over to the Comptons’ house by herself again. It would break his sister’s heart, but he had to protect Lori from whatever was going on.

  Jared sped down the road, trying to put it all out of mind. His heart didn’t stop pounding until he saw the lights of an ambulance coming the other way.

  Chapter 19

  The new crime lab had been built in an old railroad neighborhood with a hodgepodge of ancient businesses and houses begging to be torn down. City officials had chosen the property because it was cheap, with the idea the public would never need to visit. The gray-brick exterior had no markings except for the street number above the door, which faced a small side parking lot.

  Jackson drove up to the gate and flashed his ID at the camera mechanism. When the gate slid open, he drove onto the property and parked near the first bay door. Once inside, he headed for the check-in room where he placed Carla’s purse and Lori’s backpack into a locker. The backside of the locker opened into the evidence processing lab. The system allowed officers to securely drop off evidence without disrupting the lab technicians. Jackson logged the items into the computer terminal, then went upstairs to meet with Parker.

  He found her in the hallway outside her office. Dressed in all chocolate brown, she looked taller and thinner than usual. “Detective Jackson, you’re early.”

  Did he detect a hint of amusement on her stoic face? “We have some things to go over before we reconstruct the scene. Do you have a minute?”

  “Of course. I’m glad you’re here.” Parker walked away, pulling on a white lab coat. “I have something to show you.”

  The main lab, about the size of a large living room, had equipment along three walls and a stainless steel table in the middle. The “superglue dryer,” where they processed large items for fingerprints, took up a big chunk of space. A pair of white paint-stained running shoes sat on the table, surrounded by oversized photos of bloody shoe prints. The photos he’d taken when he first entered the crime scene.

  “The prints match Engall?”

  “Distinctly. See this circular pattern here? And this crisscross pattern here?” Parker touched one of the prints with gloved hands. “It’ll be obvious even to the lay people on the jury. There are probably thousands of pairs of size ten-and-a-half white Adidas in this model, so it’s only one piece of circumstantial evidence.” Parker gave him a small smile. “I also found a tiny bit of blood on the shoes. They’d been rinsed off, but there were trace amounts in the grooves. I sent the sample to the state lab to compare to all the Walkers’ blood.”

  A sense of lightness came over Jackson, as if he’d lost ten pounds. “Excellent.” He gave Parker’s shoulder a squeeze. “I need to step out and make a phone call.” Jackson called the officer watching Engall’s house, who had checked in with him earlier. “We’ll be out to arrest Engall very shortly,” he said. “If the suspect even steps outside, cuff him and stick him in the back of your car.”

  Next he called Evans, who picked up instantly. “Hey, Jackson, I was just going to call you. What’s the word?”

  “The shoes you dug out of the trash match the prints in the foyer at the crime scene. It looks like Engall is our killer. Or one of them. Why don’t you go make the arrest?”

  “I’m on it. Damn, it’s good to be right every once in a while.”

  Jackson resisted the urge to remind her they still had a lot to prove. “Good work, Evans. I’d like to be there for Engall’s interrogation. I’m at the crime lab now, but I can meet you at headquarters in an hour or so.”

  “See you then.”

  Jackson went back into the brightly lit lab. “Has any of the DNA analysis come back?”

  “Not yet, but they promised me some results this afternoon.”

  “Let’s head to the conference room and get this reconstruction started. The more I know about how the assault took place, the more effective I can be when I interrogate Engall again.”

  Quince and Schak showed up at the crime lab around two o’clock. McCray had called to say he was talking to the Walkers’ neighbors again and getting conflicting information. They gathered in the conference room, a long narrow space with a long dry-erase board in front of a similar-shaped window. Photos, blood spatter maps, and computer-generated schematics covered the board. Jackson noted the plush chairs and wondered why he and his detectives were still meeting in a closet with fold-up metal chairs. They would be moving to the new building soon, he reminded himself. If he still had a job.

  Jackson turned to Quince. “What did you find out about Shane Compton’s alibi?”

  “Aaron Priest says he was with Shane on Sunday, but will not commit to a time frame. He says he was too loaded to remember much. His testimony
is worthless either way.” Quince pulled out a large yellow notepad. “I’ve never seen a crime scene reconstruction. This should be educational.” Quince had worked property crimes, then vice, and was now training in the violent crimes department. Over the years, his blond hair had darkened and his baby face was starting to show his true age.

  “We don’t do this very often and usually it’s to build a case against a suspect we’ve already charged.” Jackson took out a notepad as well. Schak sipped coffee and made no move to write anything down.

  As Parker came into the room, Jackson said, “By the way, the shoes Engall tossed in the trash match the bloody footprints in the foyer of the Walker house.”

  “No shit? Evans was right?” Schak grinned.

  “Looks like it. There was blood on the shoes too, but we don’t have DNA confirmation yet.”

  Quince cut in. “So Engall went over there, drunk on his ass, to confront Jared about the blackmail and ended up killing everybody. Well, almost.” Quince shuddered. “Yet alcohol is legal and socially acceptable.”

  “Don’t get started on that,” Schak warned.

  “Hey, the statistics are there. Alcohol kills 35,000 people a year. This is just one more extreme example.”

  “That doesn’t mean we should make all drugs legal,” Schak shot back.

  “Let’s get rolling.” Jackson signaled Parker. He’d heard this debate before and didn’t want to be distracted by it. “Tell us what happened.”

  Parker stood at the board in her white lab jacket with her dark hair pulled tightly back. Jackson was reminded of his seventh grade science teacher, who all the boys thought was sexy but in a creepy way. Parker announced, “I believe Jared Walker was killed first.” She pointed to a photo in the middle of the board. “The blood spatter on the floor here and near the counter top is clearly identifiable and contains only Jared’s blood, which we know because he’s type O, and the rest of the family is type A. We don’t have DNA comparisons yet.”

  Parker paused, as if expecting questions. When none came, she continued. “We don’t have the post mortem report on Jared either, but the pathologist says the blows to his head came before the knife wounds to his chest. The head trauma to both Jared and Carla slowed their heartbeats, resulting in considerably less spatter than if they had been knifed first.”

  She glanced over her glasses at Jackson. “I talked with Konrad this afternoon. He thinks Jared took the first two blows standing up, then fell to his knees and was struck with the bat once more. The attacker plunged a knife into his heart four times. That’s the blood pattern you see on the floor here.” Parker pointed again.

  “Where did the bat come from?” Schak asked.

  “The prints on the bat belong to family members Lori, Nick, and Shane. Our best guess is the bat was in the house, lying somewhere nearby.”

  “So they were arguing in the kitchen and the attacker went for the nearby bat.” Schak shook his head. “Are Roy Engall’s prints on the bat?”

  “No.”

  The detectives all looked at each other. “He wore gloves,” Quince offered.

  “Is it possible there were two assailants?” Jackson was thinking of Tyler Gorlock, Engall’s stepson.

  “It’s very possible.” Parker took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “This scene is a mess, and I have to admit I’ve never worked anything like it.”

  “We’ll call in help if we need to,” Jackson said. “For now, let’s continue.” He was eager to confront Engall again.

  Parker went on, sounding less confident. “The biggest question is whether the assailant put the bat down to stab Jared, then picked the bat up again to strike Carla, or if he made all the blows with the bat first, then picked up the knife. The knife, we’ve determined, comes from the set in the kitchen.”

  “The evidence doesn’t tell you which order?” Jackson was disappointed.

  She shook her head. “Joe and I went over everything together. There’s no way to know for sure. Based on the lack of blood on the bat, my best guess is he made all the blows with the bat first to get control, then used the knife to ensure they were dead.”

  Jackson’s cell phone rang. He slipped it from his pocket and looked at the ID: Sergeant Lammers.

  “We have a home invasion situation in southwest Eugene. The SWAT team is on its way. I’m calling you because the perps are driving a van registered to Roy Engall.”

  “Holy crap. What’s the address?” Jackson was on his feet.

  “3219 Stratmore. We think there’s a woman and a toddler in the house. A neighbor got suspicious and called it in.”

  “I’m on my way.” Jackson knew the others were salivating to know what was going down, but he had to wrap up this meeting first. “Parker, can you summarize what you’ve determined about the scene in two minutes?”

  Her shoulders gave the tiniest shrug. “I think there were two assailants; one used the bat and the other used the knife. Jared was attacked first, followed by Carla, then the two kids. Lori was likely last and the assailant was in a hurry by then.”

  “Why only one set of footprints in the hallway?”

  “The man with the bat may have gone outside before the blood was spilled and waited for the other to finish the job.”

  “Thanks. Keep me updated as the DNA comes in.” Jackson reached for his bag. “There’s a home invasion going on in south Eugene, and the perps are driving a van registered to Roy Engall.”

  “I’ll be damned.” Schak jumped up. “Isn’t Evans picking up Engall right now?”

  “That’s what I thought. I don’t know what this new development means.” Jackson followed Quince, who was already headed for the door. As they strode down the stairs, he called Evans, but she didn’t pick up. He left her a message: “Where are you? There’s a home invasion on Stratmore involving a van registered to Roy Engall. Schak, Quince, and I are headed over. Don’t get in the middle of anything. Call me.”

  “You think Evans is already at the scene?” Quince asked.

  “I hope not.”

  By the time they reached the parking lot, they were running.

  Chapter 20

  The SWAT team had set up a command post in the middle of the dead-end street a hundred yards from the hostage house. Close enough to strike, but out of the perpetrators’ line of sight. The deep-purple armored truck, affectionately called Barney, sat in the middle surrounded by dark blue patrol units, like a mother spider with her babies. A big box van carrying breeching equipment, radios, and shields sat off to the side, and the crisis negotiation team’s bread truck was also on the street. Men armed with Remington 700s quietly made their way to sniper posts on either side of the hostage house. The tranquil neighborhood in the south hills forest had been transformed into a battle zone.

  Jackson parked behind a patrol unit, then went around to his trunk and retrieved his Kevlar vest and a pair of binoculars. He took off his suede jacket and pulled on the vest, which he only wore a few times a year. He would not likely get near any action but it didn’t hurt to err on the side of caution. The extra weight was cumbersome as he jogged to the command post. His surgery area was none too happy either. He still hadn’t taken his afternoon dose of anti-inflammatory.

  “Get back in the house.” An officer yelled at a teenage boy who’d come out on his front porch to check out the excitement. The officer strode toward Jackson. “This area is sequestered, sir. Please get in your car and leave.” Jackson didn’t recognize him either.

  “I’m Detective Jackson. Sergeant Lammers requested my presence. I may have useful information.” He strode past the officer and headed for the person in charge, the lieutenant who commanded both SWAT and CNT. Don Bruckner and his perimeter team were looking at street maps and house plans, spread out over the hood of his cruiser. The gorgeous June weather worked to everyone’s advantage. If it had been a rainy day in November, SWAT would have taken over someone’s house as a command center.

  Jackson glanced up the street. Men armed with su
bmachine guns crouched behind cars parked across from the hostage house. They were the hasty team, ready to charge the home at a moment’s notice. The snipers he’d seen a moment ago would soon be in place on the roofs of adjacent houses and in the living room of the home directly across. Other SWAT members were stationed on every property around the suspect house. In response to a call out, twenty-two patrol officers and sergeants dropped whatever they were doing and rushed to the compound where the SWAT vehicles were stored. Jackson had taken the training and been part of the unit when he was younger, but once he’d made detective he’d backed out. Being on call 24/7 had been too much of a demand with his violent crimes’ caseload and a young child at home.

  Still waiting for Bruckner’s attention, Jackson scooted to the far side of the street and trained his binoculars on the two-story cream-colored house with the hostages. An older white van, a Dodge, Jackson thought, sat in the driveway next to a gray Toyota Camry. It was not the same van Roy Engall had been driving the day he’d run from Jackson. Was Engall even here? Jackson had doubts. Who else would be using a vehicle registered to Roy Engall? The name came to him in an instant. Tyler Gorlock, the stepson.

  Jackson approached the group of men huddled around the command post car, each wearing a Kevlar vest under his dark-blue uniform and carrying a Heckler and Koch 416 in addition to the 45 Sig Sauer strapped to his waist. All that firepower made Jackson realize someone could very likely die today. He hoped not. He needed the suspects alive for questioning,

  “Jackson.” Bruckner clapped him on the shoulder as he stepped into the circle. “Glad you’re here. What can you tell us?” Bruckner was seasoned law enforcement, an ex-military officer who’d given five years to the Army and twelve to the Eugene Police Department, with a year off to work security for Blackwater in Iraq. Bruckner was a wall of muscle with a shaved head and a sweet smile that was nowhere in sight today. Jackson had worked with him years ago when they’d both been rookie SWAT members.