Sweet Dreams Boxed Set

by Brenda Novak

  Of course, she would’ve heard all about the fracas that resulted in murder in the yard. “No – no, ma’am, I didn’t.” He straightened his back in a semblance of pride.

  Sucking in his cheeks to produce saliva, he edged the note he’d retrieved in the SHU corridor to the front of his teeth. “I’ve got something – you know, just in case I – I don’t ... ”

  He willed her to look up at him. When she leaned over to place the stethoscope higher on his chest, she twisted her head to glance at him and he spat the sodden note neatly onto her knuckles.

  As smoothly as a professional card player, she palmed the note, and it disappeared from sight. She waited a long moment, contemplating the situation, and even though she hadn’t glanced at the note, she urged, “Do it, Cole.”

  She placed one capable hand over his linked ones, pretending to take his pulse, her breath a sweet sensation on his cheek. “If you didn’t kill that man in the yard, you need to debrief. Set the record straight.”

  She tightened her grip in encouragement. “You’ve got to get out of the SHU, Cole. You won’t survive there. You – you’re not ... brutal enough.”

  She smiled wanly and straightened up, patted his shoulder, and walked to the door. “I’ll prescribe acetaminophen for the pain and something to help you sleep,” she said as smoothly as if they hadn’t been talking about Cole Hansen putting his life on the line for a system that didn’t give a shit whether he lived or died.

  Chapter 10

  Inside the newly built Rosedale police headquarters Cruz buzzed the phone connection and displayed his badge through the window. After the female officer pushed a release button, he wound his way around the inside corridor to the bullpen.

  Considering all the patrol cars and the gathering crowd at Ryder Park, Cruz figured the incident had to be a murder, so he wasn’t surprised to find Sheriff Ben Slater relaxing in a chair by Officer Jeff Rawley’s desk.

  Slater rose when Cruz approached. “Officer Cruz.” The Sheriff’s eyes were a slate gray color, cool and hard as the metal file cabinets on the far wall, but he extended his hand in welcome. They’d met before, but it was a while ago.

  Rawley looked sullen and dissatisfied from this morning’s event at the convenience store. He was a beat officer who itched for the action found in inner city precincts and always seemed bored with his job. He nodded stiffly toward Cruz, but didn’t rise.

  “Crime scene at the park?” Cruz asked the Sheriff. “The victim could be one of my parolees.”

  “Another meth head identified the vic,” Rawley supplied. “Says it’s Dickey Hinchey.”

  “Damn,” Cruz said. He looked from Slater to Rawley and back again. “Who has jurisdiction on the case?”

  Rawley opened his mouth, but Slater answered first. “RPD can have it. We’ve got enough on our plate right now.”

  There’d been a rise in meth production in the county over the last several months. Although the Sheriff wasn’t one to ignore a homicide case, he already had his hands full, and figured Rosedale PD could handle this one.

  Rawley smirked, assessing Cruz carefully. “Flood caught the case, but I gotta tell you, no one’s going to worry much about a dead bum.”

  That was what Cruz was afraid of.

  Sheriff Slater’s cell phone beeped and he checked the message. “Crime scene’s finished. I think I’ll take a quick look around before passing it off.” He lifted an eyebrow at Cruz – an implicit invitation to join him.

  Slater eased his long body up and ignored Rawley. “Have Flood give me a call.” He tossed these last words over his shoulder as he exited the bullpen ahead of Cruz.

  Fifteen minutes later Cruz and Slater walked silently across Ryder Park’s baseball field toward the group of people cordoned off from the crime scene.

  “Don’t worry about Rawley,” Slater said out of the blue.

  “Sir?”

  “These Rosedale police are like a dog with a bone.” Slater twisted his mouth in what could’ve been a smile. “They get territorial as hell.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Slater frowned. “And don’t ‘sir’ me,” he warned. “You may be – what, twenty-five, thirty? – but I’m not old enough to be your granddaddy.”

  Cruz laughed in spite of himself. “Been on the job five years,” he offered, feeling far older than he was. College, then law school at McGeorge in Sacramento, mostly nights while he worked a beat.

  “Good, then you’re only a few years younger than me.” Slater grinned while his keen eyes took in the rugged face above the muscled body of a football player. He didn’t have to look up to many men, but Santiago Cruz was one of them. “Call me Slater.”

  Cruz nodded. “My friends call me Chago.”

  They flashed badges and made their way through the outer perimeter. The detective in charge, Andrew Flood, was already on scene, as Cruz knew he’d be. He motioned the Sheriff over, simultaneously growling orders to several police officers trying to disperse the crowd. “Get these goddamn vampires outta here!”

  Nice PR, Cruz thought.

  “Look, Slater,” Flood began when he saw Cruz, a crimson flush creeping up his tanned face. “We got this under control. There’s no need – ”

  “Ah, don’t get your tidies in a bunch,” Slater answered. “I’m turning the case over to RPD. Just wanted a quick look-see.” He turned to Cruz. “You know Parole Officer Cruz?”

  “Yeah,” Flood answered darkly. There was no love lost between Rosedale PD and county parole officers even though their clients were often the same desperate people. The detective, built like a bulldog, had a corresponding pugnacity.

  Slater crouched to inspect the damp, crumpled sleeping bag. “Looks like enough blood for two adults. Nothing but the sleeping bag?” he asked Flood.

  Flood nodded toward the creek. “The body’s down there. Some water decomp, but not much. M.E. says about four hours ago.”

  "Ah, hell!" Slater looked toward the garish sight of mangled flesh and viscous fluid that shadowed the edge of the creek.

  "Looks like a werewolf’s been here, doesn’t it?" Flood observed, a vaguely amused look on his face. “Careful,” he cautioned as they approached the body.

  “Asshole,” Slater murmured under his breath.

  The body was a hacked lump of flesh and blood, and although Flood’s comparison was crude, he wasn’t far from wrong. The victim lay on his back, arms splayed out from his sides. His head was bashed in and his face almost unrecognizable. The shirt had been ripped open and the pants pulled down to his knees. Someone had made a ragged cut from sternum to groin, then chopped away at the torso until the intestines straggled wildly from the body into the water.

  What maniac did this?

  Chapter 11

  The prison release process went faster than Cole Hansen could’ve imagined. He didn’t have to finish out his original sentence, and in exchange for the early release, he gave up everything he knew about the Lords – confirmed gang membership and leaders. Which was precious little and probably confirmed what admin already suspected.

  He could tell during the interview that the warden had already figured out who'd really sliced up the new inmate in the prison yard. Cole could’ve served out the remainder of his original sentence in Special Needs with the pedophiles and other gang drop outs, but he lucked out. If the Lords hadn’t shanked him inside, someone thinking he was a child molester, could’ve beaten him down bad in SNY.

  But it didn’t work out that way.

  After a short time in the SHU, he spent only a desperate few hours in SNY. Restless, he waited for someone to attack him, but no one bothered him.

  When they released him, he suddenly realized he wasn't in any hurry to be paroled. He had no place to go and no one waiting for him.

  The prison gave him two hundred bucks in cash and a backpack that held everything he owned in the world. An officer drove him to the bus stop. Locals didn’t want prison trash hanging around their city. Cole didn’t blame them.r />
  Waiting for the bus to Sacramento, he thought about his situation, knowing the Lords could get to him easy enough on the street through the large gang membership. He wasn’t going to be any safer outside prison.

  He wondered how long it'd be until the Professor’s long reach snatched him up like a fish grabbing a worm on a hook.

  Frankie fingered the note she’d palmed from Cole Hansen. The ink on the paper was soggy and slightly torn. Luckily, whoever had written it had used pencil, which didn’t run as badly as ink would have.

  She couldn’t say why she’d played along with Cole in his clandestine game of note-passing. Maybe because she liked him. He had an earnestness in his expression that rang true to her. He seemed such a harmless guy. She knew she was being terribly naive, as her friends always reminded her.

  They told her the same thing about the men she’d dated lately, she thought wryly.

  But Cole was harmless and he was truly terrified. There was plenty to be afraid of in Pelican Bay, especially in the SHU. The huge step of debriefing to prison authorities put him in a very precarious position.

  If Cole survived the rest of his sentence without gang retaliation for snitching, he’d be just as vulnerable on the street. Frankie knew from his prison profile he had no place to go, no family. No transition house awaited him because he wasn’t in prison on drug-related activities. He’d literally be homeless without any resources.

  The man was a throwaway. Not violent enough to be monitored carefully on the outside – when he debriefed, they would expunge the false murder charge – and not resourceful enough to pull himself out of the poverty he faced. He was a lost soul.

  Frankie caught a glance of her reflection in the glass window. Talk about lost souls. A pretty, dark-haired woman, who looked younger than her thirty years stared back at her with troubled eyes. The luck of good genes had given her an excellent complexion, good health, and a high IQ.

  But the stormy gray eyes told another story. Without the constant search for the truth about her mother, she would live an empty life.

  She shook herself mentally and opened Cole Hansen’s medical file, staring at his prison ID photo. Fate hadn’t been generous with Cole. Medium height, on the pudgy side, straight, lackluster hair, and an acne-scarred face all added to the mediocrity of his low intelligence and self-esteem.

  However, Frankie had scratched the surface of Cole’s character and found a decent guy underneath. She believed he’d been set up for the prison yard murder, just as he’d claimed. His record was a sad story: unsupportive parents, spotty education, no friends.

  He’d been in trouble almost from the start.

  She carefully opened the note Cole had sneaked to her during his medical exam. The blocked letters and figures on the note were incomprehensible to her, and yet Cole Hansen had risked his life to get them to her.

  Why?

  What did Cole expect her to do with the note? And why in the world had he picked her?

  Her duty was clear. She should pass the message on to the warden or his assistant, but her gut told her that wasn’t the right move. During his debriefing Cole could’ve given the note to prison authorities, but he’d chosen not to. Was he too slow-witted to know the safest action to take? Or was there someone he didn’t trust?

  Frankie jammed the crumpled note in her pants pocket, and closed the folder after making notes on Cole’s medical record. She ordered acetaminophen and a sleeping aid for him, added blood pressure, heart rate and other vital signs to his record, but she did not make a note of what he’d said to her, or mention the soggy kite.

  Chapter 12

  Cruz turned away from the mangled body, afraid he’d toss his breakfast at Detective Flood’s feet. A parole officer usually carried a gun, taser and cuffs, often chased parolees, and regularly apprehended them, but seldom saw this kind of butchery. A fine line of sweat prickled at his hairline and he shuttered his eyes briefly before turning back to the scene.

  After getting a closer look, Cruz was pretty sure the victim was his parolee Dickey Hinchey, although much of the face was covered in blood and gore. He recognized the pinky ring Dickey wore on his right hand.

  “I think he’s mine,” he whispered in Slater’s ear, one hand on the Sheriff’s shoulder as he knelt over the body.

  “Murder weapon?” Slater asked Flood.

  “Something sharp. Something blunt.” Flood shrugged and signaled for the ambulance to ease forward onto the grass. “M.E. said to find more, he’ll have to autopsy and test for drugs.”

  “This it? No backpack? Nothing else?” Slater asked.

  “I’d have said if there was more,” Flood retorted in annoyance. “Just the sleeping bag and what he’s wearing.”

  “Who ID’ed him?”

  Flood jutted his chin toward the thinning crowd. “One of the street hags – a woman – says she knows him from Jesus Saves, recognized his sleeping bag.” He shook his head at the possibility. “If you can believe her.”

  “Get her in interview right away,” Slater advised, ignoring the skeptical look on Flood’s face. He rose from the body and straightened to his full height. “The case is all yours now, Detective Flood.” Slater smiled slyly. “Be sure to keep Officer Cruz in the loop. Could be one of his parolees.” He winked discreetly at Santiago.

  "Oh, and ask the M.E. how many blood types he finds." Slater sauntered off, whistling softly, Flood glaring at the Sheriff’s back.

  A call came in on Cruz’s cell just after Slater left. Angie from Jesus Saves.

  “I wanted to tell you before I notify the police,” she whispered into the phone. “We found Dickey’s backpack. Across Washington Street by that drive-in? In their dumpster.”

  Cruz turned away so Flood couldn’t overhear. “Who found it?”

  “Sergei. He – he was real upset about Dickey, decided to go dumpster diving even though I told him it’s too early. Nothing good this time of morning.” Angie was babbling, her voice rising. She sounded terrified.

  “How’d he know it was – uh, the right one?”

  “He didn’t at first, brought it here to the office. Jesus, Cruz, it’s in the bathroom now. Layin’ on the floor, all – all wet and bloody-like.”

  “What?” Cruz dug his fingers into his temple.

  “Yeah, but I could tell it was Dickey’s. Got this Forty-niners signature on it – Joe Montana.” She hiccupped quietly. “Dickey was always so proud of that.”

  “Don’t say anything to anyone until I get there, and keep Sergei under wraps.” Cruz pressed the end button. The backpack, if it did belong to Dickey Hinchey, had been tossed right by the Jesus Saves shelter. The backpack could implicate Angie and all the other homeless men and women at Jesus Saves who clung to the shelter as their one sure place of safety and sanity.

  Cruz surveyed the park, pondering the situation. Dry Creek ran down one side, wide spans of thick green grass and trees, and across the street stood a quiet line of elegant houses built in the 1920's when Rosedale, initially a railroad town, had flourished.

  Who’d kill a harmless, homeless parolee?

  Unfortunately, the homeless population had taken up residence in the park recently, causing incessant complaints from the neighborhood residents. The city council had passed several ordinances which reduced the number of street people hanging out where moms and dads watched their kids' t-ball games and retirees liked to stroll leisurely at dusk.

  Why had they dumped the backpack so far away?

  Still, it was nearly impossible to keep the homeless from pitching their sleeping bags in secluded park areas. Patrol officers spent most of their time rousting them. A thankless job because the homeless always came back a few hours later, or the next day or night.

  Was one of his parolees responsible for Dickey’s death?

  Police couldn't really keep the homeless from hanging out in the park, so they nailed them for littering or loitering. Misdemeanors at best, one the offenders didn't mind. For the older ones, a few hours
or a night off the street in a warm cell was a good deal, especially during the winter rains.

  Cruz made up his mind.

  Andy Flood’s rigid back faced him. As a law enforcement officer, Cruz should inform the detective about the discovery of the backpack, but Flood’s sense of self-importance rankled him. He tapped Flood on the shoulder. “Who discovered the body?”

  Flood turned around, irritated, rolled his neck. Cruz heard a pop. “Some old guy out walking his dog called in around seven.”

  Cruz glanced in the direction Flood pointed. The frail-looking elderly gentleman, still armed with his pooper-scooper and baggie, held a noisy terrier next to his chest, both shivering like leaves on a windy day. They looked scared and shaken, and Cruz felt a momentary pang for the odd duo.

  On reflection, he doubted the police would find any ID in the backpack. Homeless people often didn't carry identification with them. Most couldn’t afford a driver's license or county ID card.

  Cruz called Angie back. “Dial 911,” he murmured. “Tell them someone found blood in the dumpster. Keep everyone out of the bathroom, and for heaven’s sake don’t touch the item. I’m on my way.”

  Chapter 13

  It was hard to stick to his job with the murder trending everywhere.

  Brutal Park Murder.

  Motive Unknown.

  Police Baffled.

  Mid-morning newscasts and sound bites screamed the latest gory gossip.

  The words were raw lesions on his skin, burning and blistering. They were painting the dead as poor and pathetic, and the death as some grotesque murder.

  He snapped his cell phone shut in disgust.

  No one cared about the homeless population in Bigler County, not in Sacramento County either, although they put on a good show at American River Food Bank.

  The reality was vagrants were damn bloodsuckers, living off the government teat. Taking hard-working people’s hard-earned money. They could get jobs, live better lives if they wanted, but they’d rather live off the sweat of someone else’s labors.