Outsider (The Ashport Mender Series Book 1)

by G. K. Lund

  Outsider

  The Ashport Mender Series Book 1

  G. K. Lund

  Copyright © 2018 by G.K. Lund. All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. Similarities to actual events, places, persons or other entities are purely coincidental.

  Published by Northern Quill Press.

  ISBN: 978-82-93663-14-0

  www.northernquillpress.com

  www.gklundwrites.com

  Cover design by Damonza.

  Edited by Jinxie Gervasio and N. Hall.

  Outsider / G.K. Lund, 1st. ed.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Enjoyed the book?

  Also by G. K. Lund

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The man across from me had a smug look despite the severity of his situation. Being questioned for murder didn’t seem to worry him much. He didn’t even want a lawyer. That didn’t happen often, but when it did, you could count on the suspects being sure of themselves. Mr. Hensley was no exception.

  “You don’t seem particularly upset by Ms. Stanton’s murder, Mr. Hensley,” said McAllen. Seated to my left, my partner gave the same outward expression as myself: calm, neutral, factual.

  “Oh, I’m very upset. Who wouldn’t be?” Hensley said, equally calm. He looked well-to-do. Expensive clothes, blond hair slicked back, even a tan despite autumn falling upon us. The only thing was that he looked tired. McAllen and I thought this was due to his partying and then murdering his girlfriend two nights ago, and then continuing partying. He himself claimed it was due to a few nights of poor sleep. He could be telling the truth, of course, and I could be the king of the moon.

  “So, to sum up,” McAllen continued, “you and Ms. Stanton went to a club two nights ago. Afterward, you claim that you split up and went to your separate homes, and that’s the last you saw of her?”

  “That’s right.” Hensley nodded, smiling.

  “So you didn’t follow her to her home and then stab her, letting her bleed out in what must have been considerable pain?” I asked.

  “No. Why would I do that?” he asked, attempting a confused look.

  “We have witnesses saying they saw you arguing at the club,” McAllen said. “It wouldn’t be the first time a…lover’s spat has gotten out of hand.”

  “Well, Detectives”—Hensley shrugged and smiled on—“what can I say? I didn’t do it. I walked home and then went to sleep. I didn’t sleep well, probably because I had a couple of drinks and wasn’t feeling that well anyway…and that’s it.”

  “That’s it, is it?” McAllen flipped through the papers in front of him and extracted one of the photos, which he showed to Hensley. The man’s eyes widened a bit in surprise, but he did not recoil. Instead, his interest piqued. The photo showed part of the crime scene: Anne Stanton’s lifeless body positioned in a halfway fetal position, like she’d tried to curl up in her final moments, soaked in her own blood. She had been stabbed eight times in the abdomen and chest before being left to die. She’d been Hensley’s girlfriend for about six months, and there he sat, barely reacting to the sight of her murdered body.

  “You know…” Hensley said, his voice steady. “Don’t you need proof to arrest someone for a crime?”

  “He did it,” I said with absolute conviction as I slumped down into my chair, my feet hitting the desk’s leg and making coffee from McAllen’s cup spill out on his desk.

  “I know, Nate. Keep those giraffe legs in check, though,” he said, grabbing tissues and soaking up the brown liquid. “We need to find the knife.”

  I sighed. We had searched Anne Stanton’s apartment, the streets between her place and Hensley’s house, but we had found nothing. “He could have gotten rid of it anywhere by now,” I said, loosening my tie a little.

  McAllen nodded and threw the wet tissue in the trash before resuming his work on the computer. According to the coroner, Stanton had been stabbed with a serrated knife, and as it happened a bread knife was missing from her kitchen. We knew she had let her murderer in; there were no signs of a break-in. That indicated she knew him. What with her being seen arguing with her boyfriend a couple of hours before her death, and said boyfriend’s lack of reaction to her death, it was quite obvious. There was even a string of texts between them that showed a controlling behavior from him, starting about a month into their relationship. We needed actual physical evidence connecting him to the murder, though. His prints and DNA would be all over her apartment. There was a natural explanation for that. No, we needed the murder weapon. Without it, we had no case against Hensley.

  McAllen leaned back in his chair after a while. “He acted in affect,” he said slowly, looking at nothing in particular.

  “Yeah,” I said, “this wasn’t a masterfully planned murder. Expensive shirt and blazer do not a mastermind make.”

  McAllen nodded. “No, I think he’s overconfident…and conceited. No regret in that one.” He closed his eyes a moment and then frowned in exasperation, the corners of his mouth shifting down. “And yet…we can’t find the damn knife.”

  “If we had the dogs,” I said. There was bound to be blood on the knife. But as it was, ours was not a big town, and our police force not the largest. We had to make do. Which is why I was so torn with what we were about to be ordered to do.

  “McAllen. Hansen.” Chief Mulligan’s sharp voice reached us before she did. “How’d it go?” She stopped by our desks so abruptly that Officer Routledge had to clumsily swing around her to avoid a collision.

  “No confession,” McAllen said, sitting up straight. “But I’d bet my kids’ college funds he did it.”

  “Well, that won’t help in court,” Mulligan said, holding a stack of files, supporting it against our desks. She was dressed formally in dark clothes, not her usual blue jeans, and shirt, which likely meant she had some business to tend to shortly. “Murder weapon?” she prompted.

  We both shook our heads. “Maybe with the dogs—” I began.

  “Yeah, but they’re still looking for that missing boy in Ashdale. That takes precedence over us. Unfortunately, our victim is already dead.”

  She was right, of course. There was nothing we could do for Anne Stanton now. Except make sure her murderer got locked up.

  Mulligan blew out a huff of air, a hint of mint falling around us. “So, our options are to let him go as we have nothing on him.”

  “Which will give him time to hide even more evidence if he needs to,” I said.

  She nodded along with McAllen at this. “Yes…how long until you have to let him go?”

  “Six hours,” McAllen said.

  Mulligan chewed her lower lip a moment, not in uncertainty. That wasn’t her style. She clicked her tongue quickly and met McAllen’s eyes. “I think you should bring Ms. Evans in on this interrogation.”

  “Chief, no,” I blurted. “We don’t need to do that.”

  Mulligan sighed, knowing very well my stance on that matter. It was likely why she had looked at McAllen when saying it. She did, however, shift her focus to me at this. “We don’t have many murders here, thankfully,” she began. “Small town and all that, but when we do, people get frightened. I don’t blame them. In this case, it seems clear who did it—”

  “Oh, he did it all right,” I murmured.

&n
bsp; “It seems clear,” she repeated, “but we need proof. I have a couple of reporters waiting for news already.”

  Which, I realized, explained her clothes.

  “If this is an intricate murder case, they’ll be all over this, big city or not. If it turns out otherwise, Ms. Stanton will become a statistic.” Mulligan shook her head sadly. “But at least she’ll have some justice. You know this, Detectives.”

  “Yeah, Chief,” McAllen said. “We know. We’ll get Evans here.”

  Mulligan nodded. “Good.” She gave me a short sideways glance before heading into her office. She knew I didn’t like this. Evans, the so-called interrogation consultant. I had always disliked her consulting for us and never would. The Chief knew that. She didn’t even seem overjoyed about this practice herself, but she went through with it anyway when necessary.

  “Give her a call, will you?” McAllen said as he started placing the documents on the case back in their folder. I did and got no answer. Was sent straight to voicemail. I shook my head and started texting. Evans had consulted for us now and then for a couple of years. Just about right after the kidnapping and subsequent release of Mulligan’s five-year-old at the time. It was a stoned junkie who’d done it, claiming Mulligan was out to get him. Luckily, not a mastermind criminal, either, but it could have gone horribly wrong. I had never been able to shake the feeling that Evans had something to do with that.

  The woman’s answer to my text came back quick enough.

  Answer ur phone. Need u in intrg.

  Busy.

  And we’re busy drinking tea and watching grass grow. Answer ur phone.

  U usually r. I’m busy.

  Caught a murder. Need conf.

  Get it urself

  I said some foul things under my breath and heard McAllen give an unhelpful snort in response.

  Try acting your age, and get over here!

  No car!

  “She’s got a car, hasn’t she?” I asked McAllen.

  “Think so,” he shrugged.

  I rolled my eyes. Waiting for her to take a bus when she clearly didn’t want to be here would take too long.

  Then we’ll get you. Where?

  It took a few more minutes than her other texts. I could only imagine her anger, knowing we wouldn’t give up. Finally, she texted us an address by the harbor.

  “The harbor?” McAllen said in surprise as he grabbed his gear. We both knew she didn’t live near the harbor.

  “As long as we don’t have to drive across the border I don’t care,” I said as I followed him out to the car. At least it wouldn’t be a long drive. Especially on the way back.

  Chapter 2

  “That’s Eddie Hays, isn’t it?” McAllen said, not really needing an answer. I nodded but we both knew he was right. We had parked at the address Evans had given us, the gray sedan visible, but she didn’t move toward us. Evans, the-helper-pushed-upon-us, was in her mid-twenties, a slim figure who now stood with her back to us, her wavy dark brown shoulder-length hair lifting lightly in the breeze. She was dressed, as usual, in jeans, a top that reached her hips, and a short leather jacket. She always carried a small purse that hung diagonally from shoulder to hip. She stood with something in her hands at the moment, talking to Hays. I was sure she knew we were there. If nothing else, Mr. Hays would have told her by now.

  “Why does it come to this?” I said.

  “You’ve got to admit, she does help.”

  “Yeah,” I conceded. “That’s not the issue, though, and you know it.”

  McAllen sighed. “We’ve found nothing on her so far, so—”

  “Nothing huh?” I interrupted, nodding toward her companion.

  “Not exactly proof of anything, I’d say.”

  I snorted but said nothing. McAllen didn’t have more than a few years on me on the force. Maybe he was a little more laid back, sure, but he was damn good at his job. I took what he said seriously, even though I might not agree. Anyway, we now had five and a half hours. I was not going to spend them watching a date unfold. I honked the horn, taking pleasure in seeing them both jump at the loud interrupting sound. Evans turned, raised her arms to her sides, giving us a what the f— grimace. I raised my hands innocently above the steering wheel. She turned back to Hays, said something, and then headed toward the car. She did not look happy as she approached,. and slammed the door shut as she got in, scooting over to the middle seat, a bear claw in her mouth so she had one hand free.

  She smiled at McAllen. “Hello, Bill,” she said as she drank from a to-go cup in her other hand while ignoring me. Freshly ground coffee and fresh baked pastries saturated the car’s air.

  “Hello, Maggie,” McAllen said.

  “Bill?” I mouthed at him as she maneuvered the coffee cup between her knees to better handle the pastry. He shrugged.

  “So?” she said behind us, “What have you got? I said I was in the middle of something.”

  “Yeah, about that,” I began, turning a little to see her better. “Do you know that your boyfriend is suspected of identity theft and fraud?”

  She looked up from what I could only imagine was her breakfast. “What, Eddie?”

  McAllen nodded.

  She scoffed, rolling her big dark eyes at us. “He’s not my boyfriend,” she said. “I did have a thing with his brother a couple of months back, though,” she volunteered.

  “Brother?” McAllen asked. We hadn’t heard about a brother.

  “Mmhmm,” she nodded while chewing hastily. “Jacques. They’re twins, actually. Identical. You have twins, don’t you?” she added, looking at McAllen.

  “Yeah, two pair,” he said, not without a hint of despair in his voice. McAllen and his wife Rosita had been blessed with two sets of twins with about a year in between. His sleep deprivation was still a running joke at the station.

  “You lucky poor thing,” Evans said, breaking her bear claw in half and handing him one of the pieces, which he took with a smile. “You need some energy,” she said and then looked at me. “Mr. Tall and Surly over here probably needs an injection of sugar to be even near polite.”

  “Well, we don’t have time to wait for you to charm the other twin,” I said while McAllen scarfed down the bear claw. I took the file from him and found the same photo we had shown Hensley. I handed it to Evans, who took it reluctantly with her free hand. She had seen these before and she didn’t like them. Unlike Hensley, she grimaced in both disgust and sadness before handing the photo back to me.

  “Okay,” she said, her angry eyes meeting mine in the rearview mirror. “Count me in.”

  Chapter 3

  “He knows we can’t pin this on him without a murder weapon,” I said as I looked up from the file on Stanton’s murder. Evans was seated in McAllen’s chair, feet planted on his desk. McAllen had gone to get Hensley from the holding cell, while I caught Evans up to speed on the case. I glowered at her feet until she rolled her eyes like a juvenile and moved them to the floor and sat up.

  “Okay,” she said. “So, what about other things like blood and hair and whatnot?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. He was her boyfriend for about six months. He must have been in her apartment plenty of times during their relationship.”

  “She was with him that long?”

  “Mmhmm, according to her friends. Her social media statuses, texts…”

  “Can’t have been the first time he laid a hand on her,” Evans said.

  “You’re probably right.” The way Anne Stanton had been killed was violent. There must have been a lot of rage that went into that act. She was stabbed multiple times, not something that would happen during their first ever argument. No, it looked more like something that had built up in the man over time. Evans was very likely right on that score. I closed the file and looked up again, seeing that she was now busy touching up her lipstick. I looked around, but no one in the station was paying her any heed. Not anymore. I had noticed that when we came in with her earlier as well. She greeted th
ose she was on good terms with, the rest didn’t really notice her anymore. She was becoming a known fixture, and I didn’t like it. In the beginning, everyone had thought it odd that she was even there. She wasn’t one of us, had no formal training whatsoever, at least not that we knew of, and had been brought in by the Chief on what seemed like a whim. I had to admit that she got results, but the comfort of her presence with the others bothered me.

  Evans herself seemed utterly unfazed by where she was as she looked into a small pocket mirror. Today’s color was bright red. She didn’t wear much makeup, but she always wore lipstick. It was an oddity, considering how she didn’t seem to care about getting all dolled up wearing colorless clothes. Always blue, gray, brown and black.

  “Something wrong?” she asked as she noticed me looking at her.

  “Actually, no,” I said, and grabbed my phone as McAllen texted they were ready. “I don’t think this guy likes women very much. Some make-up might provoke that.”

  As it turned out, I was right. Hensley was again seated and handcuffed to the table, McAllen waiting in the same chair as before. Evans walked in and took the other one while I remained standing, leaning against the wall behind them. As he watched her, a ripple of confusion crossed his face. He tried to rein himself in, but the uncertainty in him was evident. He was used to myself and McAllen by now, but this woman who was so clearly not a police officer made him a little hesitant. Her clothes were all wrong, her smile didn’t fit, either. Oh yes, the smile. That is to say, smirk. If there was one thing that bothered me about her, and there really were so many things, it was the smirk. This half-smile combined with a look, a tiny narrowing of her eyes that told the world and everyone in it that she couldn’t be touched. Like she was above everything. I hated that.