The Memory of Trees (Kate Gardener mysteries Book 1)

by Gabriella Messina

  The photos that were the problem were supposed to be the first shots taken, at least thirty minutes before she arrived, although they were not time-stamped as the others had been. In those photos, the spot near the lumbar region was also wet, as was the ground around it, the body, the cloth, plants, everything had a misty sort of sprinkle on it. But there was one spot where the ground was noticeably dry. Kate squinted at the picture in her mind, trying to see closer, see better.

  The ground under the body, a hair of which was visible in that same lumbar region, was dry. Dry as a bone. Sahara dry.

  Once she had broken through, Kate began to see more inconsistencies in the pictures. Shadows and lighting didn’t match-up with the angles of the shots and the time of day when they were taken. In some shots, the leaves on a nearby bush were obviously before the rain. In the next shots, the leaves were wet. One after another, she reviewed the photos in her mind, noting the problems with each one.

  An hour, and a pot of coffee, later, Kate had come to two conclusions: number one, she needed breakfast and had no desire to make it; and number two, she needed to talk to Neville Crane as soon as possible.

  13

  10 September 2011

  Murder Squad, New Scotland Yard

  Paul Owens peeked over the top of his computer screen, his reading glasses perched on his nose. He didn’t think it was possible, but Mister Wilkinson was actually getting louder. The CPS barrister had appeared in the squad room at eight o’clock and proceeded to lecture at a volume that seemed to include the whole room, and all present, in his reprimand.

  Not that it hadn’t happened before. Owens recalled when Wilkinson showed up during the Eddowes investigation. Dubbed the “Cathgate Ripper” by the media, Donald Eddowes stabbed ten people to death before he was apprehended, including his own wife and small child. Sergeant Pierce had gotten the credit for getting Eddowes off the street, rightly so, but his success had seemed to rankle Wilkinson and the tug-of-war between the two men had threatened to derail the case several times.

  Owens glanced over at Pierce. The sergeant was seething, but controlling his temper admirably well. The rest of the room was frozen by the intensity emanating from the charismatic black man who stood in the center of the room.

  Wilkinson turned to face Superintendent Hagen, who stood calmly in the doorway of his office, his face impassive, though Owens could see that his jaw was set. Hagen was doing well with his temper, too.

  “Superintendent Hagen,” Wilkinson said, lowering his voice only slightly as he addressed the senior officer. “You have to understand where I am coming from. I am a prosecutor. It is my job to prosecute the criminals with what you give me. What I see here is no case. A few bits of circumstantial evidence… And nothing else.”

  Hagen smiled tightly. “Perhaps if you came back —”

  “For what?” Wilkinson adjusted his top coat and looked at his wristwatch. “I have cases pending. I don’t have time —”

  “I’m sure Mister Reynolds will have no trouble covering for you,” Pierce chimed in with a smirk.

  Wilkinson turned to Pierce. If looks could kill, Owens thought, Pierce would be extremely dead right about now.

  Wilkinson turned back to Hagen. “Superintendent, you have no solid evidence against John Dempsey. It is the position of CPS that the arrest of John Dempsey was premature, at best. You need to release him, immediately, before this media storm becomes more serious.” He glanced at Pierce again before continuing. “And I think you have a major leak in this Murder Squad.”

  Pierce opened his mouth to speak, but Hagen held up a hand, silencing him.

  Hagen stepped forward toward Wilkinson, moving between the lawyer and Pierce.

  “As you said, Mister Wilkinson, you have no time, so we will not keep you a moment longer. Thank you so much for coming all the way down here to talk with us. Good day.”

  Hagen held Wilkinson’s gaze for a long moment, the stare firm and intense. Wilkinson broke eye contact first and moved to leave.

  As he reached the door, he turned back.

  “Oh, and please make sure your officers show up for their court dates from now on. No point in prosecuting anyone if the investigating officers and witnesses cannot follow through and get the job done.”

  Wilkinson disappeared out the doors. Immediately, the siege atmosphere dissipated.

  “Arrogant son-of-a-bitch”, Pierce muttered, clenching and unclenching his fist as he stared at the door.

  “Let it go, Rick.” Hagen put a calming hand on his sergeant’s shoulder. “You let it bother you, let it effect your work, and he wins. Remember that.”

  Pierce exhaled a long breath and nodded.

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “No worries,” Hagen said. “Go and take care of Dempsey’s release. And then…” Hagen trailed off for a moment as he thought. “Stay on him.”

  Pierce frowned. “You want him followed, sir?”

  Hagen nodded. “If he is our killer, I don’t want him killing anyone else. And if he isn’t…” He paused. “If he isn’t our killer, John Dempsey may very well be our next victim.”

  14

  Shaftesbury Avenue, near Piccadilly Circus

  Kate rhythmically stirred her cup of coffee as she waited for Neville Crane to finish ordering. She had never been romantically involved with the man, but his outrageous flirting with the cashier was getting on her nerves. Big time. She kept her eyes on the swirling liquid in the cup as Crane gave the young woman a final wink.

  “What’s the matter, Katie, you look nauseous?”

  Kate smirked and took a careful sip of her coffee. Too hot! She rolled her tongue around the inside of her mouth, trying to sooth the pain from the hot liquid, her efforts causing her eyes to squint and her face to tense.

  “You all right?”

  “Mm-hmm. What was all that with the cashier?”

  “Just being friendly.” Crane leaned against the counter and grinned broadly at Kate. “Are you jealous, Katie?”

  Kate snorted and began sorting through the sugar and sweeteners on the counter. No stevia, of course. Kate sighed and grabbed two packets of real sugar, tearing them open and pouring them into her coffee. She stirred the coffee again, then popped the cover on and opened the sipping area.

  Crane peeled open one creamer container after another, pouring four in before stirring his own coffee. “You know, when you phoned and asked me to breakfast, I assumed we’d be having actual… food.”

  “Funny, Neville.” Kate looked askance, fighting a smile at his critique of this most American of fast food restaurants. “How’s the arm?”

  “Seeing the doctor this afternoon.” Crane carefully rotated his arm and grinned. “I should be cleared and ready to lift, haul, and drag once again.”

  “Lift, haul, and drag what? All I’ve ever seen you carry to work is a camera bag and a cup of coffee.”

  “True.” Crane frowned slightly at Kate. “You’re in an odd mood this morning.”

  “Odd?”

  Crane started to reply, but the food promptly arrived upon a tray. He glanced around quickly, searching for a spot to sit and found it in the form of a booth near the front windows. Crane picked up the tray and made a beeline for the seating, Kate a few steps behind with the coffee cups.

  They sat down and busied themselves separating out their orders of food. They had ordered a lot, far more than two people really needed in the morning, but Kate had found in her experience that more often than not just ordering a breakfast sandwich left one feeling very unsatisfied. She looked down at her own food: hotcakes with butter and syrup; a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich; a double order of hash browns; and orange juice. She glanced up at Crane. He was already tucking into his own food, his order nearly identical save for substitution of bacon for the sausage.

  “Are you going to tell me?” Crane wiped his mouth, carefully removing the remnants of his most recent bite of breakfast sandwich, and leaned back in his chair.

  “Ab
out what?” Kate sipped her coffee. The knot in her stomach growing with each tiny swallow, that familiar knot of anticipation and dread all mixed together that she always experienced when she needed to say something or do something and was unsure of just what the result would be.

  “Your odd mood. Tell me.”

  Kate sighed, staring out the window at the bustle of Shaftesbury Avenue. “I don’t know… how well I can explain it.”

  “I’m sure I can fill in the gaps.”

  I hope so, thought Kate as she watched Crane raise his coffee cup to his lips. He took a drink and let out an “ah” of appreciation. “Good coffee,” he murmured, setting the cup back down on the table.

  Kate sighed again. “All right. I want to ask you something about the pictures from the Regent’s Park crime scene.”

  “What about them?” Crane’s tone was calm and neutral. Almost too calm, too neutral. Kate tried to write it off as her own hypersensitivity to the emotions and feelings of others, but she suddenly had misgivings about even discussing this with him. After all, if what she was seeing was accurate – and she knew it had to be – it could mean only one thing…

  Kate took a sip of her coffee before speaking. “Well, when I printed off the copies of the crime scene photos for Superintendent Hagen, all the time stamps on the photos were around the same time. Within a span of about twenty minutes.”

  Crane took a large bite of his breakfast sandwich. “Mm-hmm.”

  “So the pictures should have all been the same. Or at least the particulars as close to the same as they can be when taken during an isolated period of time.”

  Crane nodded, a slight frown wrinkling his brow. “Mmm-hmm.”

  Kate took a deep breath… The deep breath before the plunge… “But they weren’t.”

  Crane’s chewing slowed and his frowned deepened. “How so?”

  “The lighting was off,” Kate began, pausing briefly for another sip of coffee to moisten her suddenly dry mouth. “And the conditions of the crime scene were inconsistent.”

  Crane swallowed and leaned back, the frown still on his face. It wasn’t an angry frown, but that wasn’t making the knot in her stomach disappear any faster. “The conditions?”

  Hearing Crane say those two words changed everything. He was trying to be artless, trying to act genuinely curious, but Kate could tell... He knew exactly what she was talking about. He KNEW.

  Kate could see him looking at her intently, waiting for her to continue, to explain. She had to decide quickly whether or not to show her cards, or keep them close a while longer. She opted for the latter.

  Kate sighed dramatically, shrugging her shoulders and smiling broadly. “Well, the crime scene was so wet that day…”

  “It rained,” Crane interjected. He was trying to maintain a pleasant expression, but Kate could see his jaw was tense.

  “Yes, of course, so… I don’t know, there were just some of the pictures where the ground looked weird and shadowy, and the light was kind of hitting things weird. But you know, honestly, I was really done in when I was looking at them the other day, and I’m thinking now that I shouldn’t have even bothered you because it was probably just me seeing things.” Kate put on her best sheepish grin and took a long drink of her orange juice, searching Crane’s face to see if he was buying it.

  Crane’s frown softened, replaced by that goofy grin of his. He nodded and drained the remainder of his coffee. “No worries, Katie. Happens to the best of us.” He pulled out his mobile, glancing at the screen as he stood. “Listen, I really have to get going. I have a lot to do before my appointment this afternoon.” He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Thank you for breakfast. Let me know if you find anything else, all right?”

  Kate nodded. “Of course.” She watched as he wove his way through the small crowd of customers near the front door and exited out into Shaftesbury Avenue. He quickly disappeared into the crowds walking toward Piccadilly Circus.

  Kate picked up her fork and used it to cut the hotcakes in front of her. Her appetite was gone, though, courtesy of the knots from earlier.

  And now, as Kate exited onto Shaftesbury Avenue and headed toward the Piccadilly Circus Tube Station down the street, the most direct route to Lambeth from where she was, she realized something else, something that made her stomach lurch and threatened to bring back up the little breakfast and coffee she had managed to get down. For some it would have been a dramatic leap to come to this conclusion. As she mentally ticked through the images from the crime scene, recollections of things said, facial expressions, all of it… Kate realized that it really was the only thing that made sense.

  She had just had breakfast with the Regent’s Park killer.

  15

  Photography Lab, FSS Lambeth

  The mobile phone’s screen sprang to life, the light illuminating a series of numbers, and the person associated with that phone number: R. Pierce.

  Kate stared at the phone for a moment, then quickly tapped the red button to end the call before it connected. She tossed the phone down on her desk and leaned back in her chair, her legs pulled up in front of her, her arms wrapped tightly around them. She’d already dialed Pierce five times since arriving at Lambeth, and all five times had hung up before it had even begun to ring.

  A grumbling sound floated up to her ears and Kate looked down at her stomach. Breakfast had been unnerving and disappointing, to say the least, and she was most definitely hungry. She glanced at the phone again, and sighed. Jesus, get it over with, will you? Just call him and tell him! “Yeah, the Regent’s Park killer? The guy who paralyzes men and cuts off their balls? He’s the lead forensic photography supervisor at Lambeth. How about that, huh?”

  Kate picked up the phone, hastily hitting re-dial and putting the phone to her ear. She listened to the ringing, one after another, and was just beginning to think that her newly-found courage was about to be wasted on a voicemail box when the ringing suddenly stopped.

  “Detective Sergeant Pierce.”

  Kate felt her throat seize up, and her greeting was swallowed up in the strange little whine that came out. Great… He’s going to think I’m some kind of looney or something, calling people up and squeaking at them —

  “Hello?” There was a pause, then…” Kate? Kate, are you all right?”

  Caller ID… dammit. Kate cleared her throat aggressively before replying. “Rick. Yes. Hi. Sorry. I had a frog or something.”

  “Right. So everything is all right?”

  “Um…” Kate hesitated. Over the phone was not the best way to tell someone that you solved their case for them. Kate’s stomach rumbled again. “Are you busy? Could we maybe get a cup of coffee or something?”

  There was a pause before Pierce responded, and when he did his voice was decidedly different, restrained and professional.

  “I can’t. I’m at the hospital.”

  Kate sat up straight in her chair, her legs dropping down to the floor. “Oh my God, what happened?”

  There was another pause. “John Dempsey was attacked. The doctors don’t know if he’s going to pull through. Hang on a minute, will you?”

  The line went quiet and Kate waited for what seemed like an eternity for the line to go live again. In fact, it was only a few moments, and then Pierce was back, his voice softer. Kate could her the rumble of a large vehicle. He must be outside, near the ambulance bay.

  “Kate?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. What happened? I thought Dempsey was in custody.”

  “He was, until this morning.” The sound of a lighter and the intake of breath told Kate that he had lit a cigarette. Moments later, Pierce exhaled and then continued. “Shit, I needed that. Sorry, where was I?”

  “Until this morning.”

  “Right. Yes, he was in custody, safe and sound. But this morning CPS decided that we had no grounds to hold him, that he must be released immediately.” He paused, enjoying another brief moment with his cigarette.

  “He was a
ttacked in his home?”

  “Hagen sent me to handle Dempsey’s release, but he told me to follow him. Hagen said if Dempsey is the killer, we sure as hell don’t want him running to France or something. And if Dempsey isn’t the killer, he will be next on the list. He was too close to the two dead men, to what originally happened.”

  Kate’s eyes widened. “You mean the Helen Flynn case? He was involved?”

  “No, but he did know enough to make him an accessory to it.”

  Kate felt the knot in her stomach growing, but it wasn’t from hunger. Oh, she was still hungry all right, but this knot was guilt and it was starting to spread into her chest. She had to know, though. She had to ask.

  “Rick, what happened to him?”

  “After he was released, Dempsey went straight back to his flat. He was there an hour maybe before a hired car pulled up out front. The driver waited, and waited, and Dempsey didn’t show. I got nervous, and so I phoned it in and started ringing bells. I was lucky the old woman in the bottom flat was in.

  “By the time I got into Dempsey’s flat, he was unconscious. The doctors can’t be sure just how long he was down, not breathing. He’s on a respirator now, and their being very cagey with details.”

  “What do you think, Rick?” Kate asked quietly.

  “Between you and me…” Pierce said, lighting another cigarette in the background. “I think West Ham had better bring up one of their other players. If he does come out of this, he’s not playing ball anytime soon.”