Owens moved quickly, the advantages of using Pierce’s brand-new, super-fast laptop to do a search simply too great an opportunity to pass up. He quickly crossed the room, sitting in Pierce’s chair and typing his search terms. He pressed enter and almost immediately the screen changed bringing up a selection of sites.
Owens felt a rush of wind from behind him as Hagen’s office door opened with a whoosh.
“Paul? Did you reach Norton’s parents?” Hagen stood in the doorway, his arm resting casually on the doorframe.
“Yes, sir. They mentioned two friends of Norton’s worth speaking to. Henry Bell and John Dempsey,” Owens replied.
“John Dempsey, the footballer?” Pierce drained the contents of his coffee cup and tossed it into a nearby waste bin.
Owens nodded. “Employed by the West Ham United Football Club, yes. Dempsey is currently at his flat, we’re still trying to locate Bell.”
Hagen glanced at his watch. “Excellent, Paul. Rick, I want you to go around to Norton’s flat. Sampson Street in Wapping. Forensics should already be there. Paul, you come with me. We’ll have a word with Mister Dempsey.”
***
42 Whitfield Street, Marylebone
Hagen and Owens mounted the stairs quickly and paused in front of the door. Owens scanned the directory above the buzzer, then pressed one of the buttons.
Moments after the loud buzz concluded, a voice came over the speaker.
“Yeah? Who is it?”
“John Dempsey?” Hagen asked.
“Yes.”
“Detective Superintendent Hagen and Detective Constable Owens. May we have a word?”
“This is about Dan, isn’t it?”
“We do have some questions,” Hagen replied.
There was a pause, then Dempsey responded with a, “You’d better come up.” Seconds later, the door buzzed loudly. Owens pulled the door open quickly and followed Hagen inside.
***
John Dempsey, blond, athletic, clad in sweats, stood in the doorway of his posh flat, looking apprehensively at the two detectives in the hallway before him. Hagen and Owens held up their warrant cards. Dempsey nodded, stepping aside to let them in.
Once in the living-room, Dempsey quickly shifted papers and sports clothing off the sofa.
“Sorry, for the mess.” Dempsey said. He motioned for Hagen and Owens to sit down, then sat down in the chair across from them.
“Dan . . .” Dempsey paused for a moment, “We grew up together.” He shrugged. “I really don’t know how much help I can be. I haven’t seen him in years.”
“His parents gave us your name, said you were a friend,” Hagen stated, frowning.
“Like I said, I haven’t seen him in years.”
A tense moment of dead air descended. Dempsey kept his head down, but his eyes were moving quickly back and forth between the two detectives, sizing them up. Suddenly, the attractive footballer broke the tension with a smile.
“His parents send a Christmas card every year. Sometimes his mum sends a letter with it, tells me the news and all.”
“Do you still have the most recent letter?” Hagen asked.
Dempsey’s smile faded. “Oh… uh… no.”
“What about Henry Bell?” Owens asked.
Dempsey glanced at the young constable and chuckled unpleasantly. “Harry? Last time I saw Harry was about a year ago. He showed up at the stadium during practice, tried to sell me prescription painkillers.”
“And?” Owens asked.
“And I said no!” Dempsey responded, startled. He leaned forward, his hands shaking as he grabbed his cigarettes from the table. He lit one, taking a deep drag as he sat back.
“It was sad to see Harry like that. When we were at university, the three of us played football and Harry. . . Harry was good.” Dempsey looked from Owens to Hagen, continued, “Harry could have been better than me, maybe even better than Becks was. Drugs destroyed that, destroyed him and everything he touched.”
Hagen gestured to the suitcase and large duffel near the front door.
“Were you planning on going somewhere?”
Dempsey glanced at the baggage before shaking his head. “No. Just got home this morning. We were in Newcastle all weekend. And there were thousands of witnesses,” Dempsey finished, a smug look on his handsome face.
“We have to ask,” Hagen responded.
Dempsey sighed, “I know.” He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray beside him.
Hagen and Owens got up to leave and Dempsey jumped up from his chair as well.
“All right, Mr. Dempsey, that will be all for now. But we may want to speak with you again.” Hagen glanced at the baggage again, then looked at Dempsey pointedly.
“So, you’re telling me other than for a game, I’m not to leave town,” Dempsey smiled at Hagen.
“That would be an accurate assumption,” Hagen stated without returning the smile as he and Owens exited the flat.
5
Flat of Daniel Norton
Sampson Street, Wapping
Detective Sergeant Pierce watched the police constables and S.O.C.O.s as they moved around the living room and kitchen areas of the cluttered flat. Papers were gathered up from around the room, slipped into evidence bags and carefully labelled as to what they were and where they were found in the home. The contents of an ashtray, three cigarette butts and ashes, were dumped into an evidence bag. Pierce left the bustle behind and walked through into the bedroom.
Pierce made a quick circuit of the room, stopping by the desk. The top of the desk was clean. Very clean. Cleaner than anything in the rest of the flat. Pierce glanced over his shoulder, then pulled open the center desk-drawer.
As clean and precisely organized as the top of the desk, save for two items: Norton’s employee identification card for the UCL Hospital Dispensary, and a crumbled piece of paper.
Kate stopped in the doorway, her shoulder resting against the frame as she assumed a casual leaning position. She watched Pierce for a moment, noting the way his leather jacket hung easily on his tall, well-muscled frame. His hair had a definite wave, with small curls forming around his temples, likely due to the humidity in the air. His face was nearly symmetrical, and his strong masculine brow-line was creased, at the moment, into a puzzled frown.
Pierce pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket and slipped them on, adjusting each finger and smoothing out the wrinkles.
Kate smiled, trying to stifle the spark of amusement she felt at the compulsive care he was taking with his gloves. “Find something, Sergeant?”
Pierce looked up quickly and smiled nervously when he saw who the speaker was. “Maybe.” He turned back, picking up the piece of crumpled paper and slowly unfolding it.
It was handwritten, though it didn’t look like the writing he had seen on other papers in the drawer. The letter style was older and reminded Pierce of his mother’s hand.
“What’s it say?”
Pierce suppressed his impulse to jump at her voice being so close to him. She must have moved from the doorway as soon as he turned back to the desk. He could smell her powdery floral perfume and the clean scent of her shampoo. Pierce cleared his throat, then held up the paper.
“It says, ‘It’s your responsibility to do what’s right, to prove your love by doing her a justice’.”
“Pretty formal wording. I wonder who wrote it?” Kate looked around the room. “This guy certainly doesn’t have the chops for flowery speeches. Or didn’t.”
Pierce looked at the stained bottom of the paper, squinting at the scribbled, scrawling signature there.
“It’s signed by a ‘T. Flynn’. I think.”
“Geez, must be a doctor of something.” Kate glanced at the note’s signature, her nose wrinkling as she strained to decipher it. “Their writing is always impossible.”
He pulled an evidence bag from his pocket, slid the paper inside.
“Anything in that?” Kate asked.
Pierce turne
d. Kate gestured to the small footlocker between the desk and the bed. Pierce glanced at the latch, where a heavy padlock hung.
“It’s locked.”
Kate dug through her camera bag, pulled out a small metal box, formerly the residence of select cherry cough drops. She popped the lid off and pulled out a padlock shim.
“Miss Gardener,” Pierce said in a cautious voice.
“Kate, please. That look like a single latch to you?” Kate looked down at the padlock for a moment, then nodded. “Let’s go with single to start.”
Kate squeezed by Pierce to get closer to the footlocker. She tried to kneel down, but there was no room. She stood, turning to Pierce. They stood facing each other, nearly chest-to-chest.
“Kate? What are you doing?”
“Okay, I get why you’re Mister Hesitation, but the man’s dead, and there could be something really important inside there, something that might help the case.”
“Kate, if you open that lock before the warrant arrives, we can’t use anything we find in there as evidence,” Pierce responded, his tone verging on condescending.
Kate stared back at him with those big blue eyes and, for a moment, it seemed as if she wasn’t going to give in. Then suddenly, she shrugged and backed up.
Pierce’s mobile echoed through the small bedroom and he quickly answered it.
“Pierce. –- Right.” He hung up, obviously relieved.
“Good news?” Kate asked.
“The warrant’s signed and on its way,” Pierce answered.
“And?”
Pierce glanced at the door.
“Can you open it without damaging the lock?”
Kate smirked. “Sergeant Pierce, I can open anything without leaving a mark.” She knelt down, fiddled with the weak lock. “This particular piece-of-shit could be opened smoothly by a toddler.” Kate slid the shim carefully around the inside of the lock, sliding it down into the mechanism. In seconds, the lock popped open. “Like butta,” she sighed, laying the “Noo Yawk” accent on as thickly as possible as she lifted the lid. They both looked in.
“Boy, when I’m right . . .,” Kate looked up at Pierce.
Prescription drug vials, intravenous drugs in unmixed powder form, vials of saline solution and D5W solution, pre-filled syringes, packages of needles.
“So, the guy was running a clinic or opening a pharmacy or something, right?”
Pierce carefully reached a gloved hand in, picking up one of the milky-white pre-filled syringes.
The label on the side read pancuronium bromide.
“Highly unlikely.” He held up the syringe for Kate to see. “Pancuronium bromide.”
***
Murder Squad, New Scotland Yard
Hagen sat in his office, interview notes and Monaghan’s autopsy report spread out in front of him. He grabbed the over-sized coffee cup in front of him, taking a large sip, before he turned the page on the autopsy report. Hagen winced. The condition of this young man, what was done to him… He had seen a lot in his time with the Met, and before that during his time in the Royal Navy, but this was beyond brutal, beyond cruel and vengeful. Vengeful. Yes, this definitely had the smell of retaliation to it. But for what?
Hagen’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. He quickly closed up the autopsy file.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Owens stuck his head in. “Sir, I have information on Daniel Norton.” At Hagen’s gesture for him to come in, Owens entered, a file in his hand. “Mister Norton was working three days a week in the Dispensary at UCL Hospital. According to the head chemist, a Doctor Cora Evans, several medications have gone missing from the dispensary during Norton’s tenure there, starting within a few weeks of his arrival.”
“Including pancuronium?”
Owens nodded. “Yes, sir. Several vials of Pavulon that were destined for the surgery never made it there. Pavulon is a brand name for pancuronium bromide.”
Hagen gestured toward the phone on his desk. “Pierce just phoned from Norton’s flat. A footlocker full of pharmaceuticals was found in the victim’s bedroom. Did the hospital consider Norton to be a suspect regarding the missing medication?”
Owens nodded again. “When I phoned, Doctor Evans told me that they did suspect him, as well as the registrar he worked under, and that both men were scheduled to be deposed regarding the missing medication inquiry today.”
Hagen pursed his lips, a frown creasing his brow. “Definitely a motive for firing, but castration? That would be more than extreme.”
“Doctor Evans is pulling the CCTV tapes corresponding to the days when the medications in question went missing. They should be at Lambeth for review by tomorrow.” Owens held up the file in his hand. “And there is something else. A cold case, over seven years old.” He placed the open file on the desk in front of Hagen.
Hagen looked at the name on the file. “Helen Flynn. I believe I remember this case.”
Owens began to summarize the case. “Sixteen-year-old girl found raped and murdered, dumped in the Canal not a hundred meters from the present crime scene. She was stabbed with a bladed weapon, bled out at an undetermined site.”
“And Norton —”
“Was the victim’s boyfriend. And there’s something else. Helen Flynn had high doses of a prescription medication in her body, administered shortly before death.”
“Let me guess… pancuronium?”
“Pancuronium bromide,” Owens finished. He reached into the file and pulled out a paper. “Also, the preliminary blood work is in. The genitals found on scene do not belong to Norton. The blood work is conclusive. Ms. Khan is running the DNA through the system and she’ll let us know if there is a positive hit.”
Hagen leaned back in his chair with his fingers locked together behind his head.
“So, we’re looking for another body.”
6
7 September, 2011
Crane’s Office, FSS Lambeth
Neville Crane propped his feet up on the edge of his desk and grabbed a pen from the cup on top. Dammit, this thing is miserable! He scratched at the bandages on his arm, jamming the pen under them in an attempt to alleviate the infernal itch that the wrap was causing. No luck. Crane threw the pen down on the desk. He glanced up at the glass windows that separated his office from the hallway. The halls were quiet. Crane grabbed his keys from the desk top and leaned over, sticking a key into the top right drawer. He glanced up once more, assuring himself that he was not being watched then turned the key and pulled open the drawer.
Crane stared at the contents of the drawer, specifically a glass jar half-filled with round white pills. He quickly popped the lid and dumped two pills into his hand. He stared at the two pills for a moment, then tipped the jar up again, dumping two more pills into his hand. He set the jar down on the desk and reached for the bottle of yellow-green soda to his left. He tossed the pills in his mouth and quickly washed them down with a drink from the bottle.
That’s when he noticed the figure out of the corner of his eye. Bugger, bugger, bugger…
“You okay?” Kate leaned against the doorframe, her arms folded across her chest. Her gaze floated down to the desk top, and the glass jar full of pills. Crane grabbed the bottle quickly and began fumbling with the lid.
“Why, don’t I look okay?” Crane tried to mute the irritation he felt, but it bled into his words anyway.
Kate smiled. “Sure, haven’t you heard? The grey, elegantly wasted look is back in.”
Crane tightened the lid on the jar and put it back in the drawer. He locked it and tossed the keys back on the desk. He looked up at Kate, the irritation melting away. “Don’t worry about me, Katie.”
“Okay, see, you said that, so now I’m worried about you.” Kate strolled into the room and took a seat on the edge of his desk.
“My spirit is too deeply laden ever to burthen thine.” He smiled, a wistful smile.
“Nice. Lyrical.”
“Shelley.�
�
“Deep.” Kate gestured toward the drawer where the jar of pills was stashed. “So, is the Vicodin for pain, or do you just like the taste?”
Crane went through a litany of vile curses as he prepared to answer. Of course, she saw them. It was Katie, after all. He swallowed hard before answering. “The fall aggravated the herniated discs in my back.”
“Discs. In your back.”
“Yes.” She wasn’t buying it. Who would, really? Crane quickly grabbed a folder from the IN-slot on his desk and handed it to her. “Hagen wants digital prints of the Flynn crime scene photos. Prints, not e-mailed files.”
Kate nodded slowly as she leafed through the folder.
Crane tapped his fingers on the desk impatiently. “By five o’clock, Katie.”
Kate looked up at him through her lashes, an irritated, yet alluring, glare. She slid off the desk and stood beside it, glaring at Crane. The allure was now gone.
“What?”
“I need the SD card.”
Crane smiled in spite of his irritation. Kate could speak a few measured words, and not one of them bad, and yet you felt like a complete idiot when she was finished speaking. He gestured toward the camera bags on the chair nearby. “In there.” He watched as Kate opened the camera bag and fished around inside, pulling out one of the small storage cards.
“This?”
Crane nodded. “Yes. By five o’clock.”
Kate waved over her shoulder as she walked to the door. She paused, and turned back. “Take it easy with those pills, okay? Vicodin is no joke.”
Crane slapped on a sheepish smile and nodded. “Yes, mum.” He chuckled as Kate left, her middle-finger up as a parting gesture. You could take the girl out of New York…
***
Photography Lab, FSS Lambeth
Kate scanned through the thumbnails on the computer screen, tapping twice on the next photo to be printed. As the printer nearby sprang to life, Kate reached for the print waiting below. She leaned back in the chair, pulling her legs up and resting her chin on her knees as she looked at the photo.
Like the dozens spread out on the desk and nearby table, the photo was of the Regent’s Park crime scene. Kate let her eyes roam over the other photos that had already been printed. Neville sure did take a lot of pictures. She sighed and unfolded slowly from the chair, standing up and stretching enthusiastically. Kate glanced at the clock: 4:40. Superintendent Hagen will not be getting his pictures by five, that’s for sure. She still had a dozen prints to finish, and a few had to be reprinted. Kate sighed and reached for the phone on the desk. Better face the music now and let the detective know.
The Memory of Trees (Kate Gardener mysteries Book 1) Page 3