The Southern Comfort Series Box Set

by Clark O'Neill, Lisa

  Shaking his head, Josh pushed through the front doors of the station house and called himself every kind of fool. Samantha clearly didn’t have those same goals in mind, and what she needed now, anyway, was a friend.

  So he’d offer himself up on a platter.

  “Sap,” he muttered under his breath as the noise from the busy police station filled his ears. No matter the hour there was always something going on, even in a city as laidback and purely southern as Charleston. Evil knew no distinction between the Mason and Dixon sides of the line, and sheer greed and stupidity flourished everywhere. No place was truly paradise.

  Winding through a maze of desks that were partitioned into supposedly soundproof cubicles, Josh nodded to a few detectives who were busily taking phone calls or typing out reports, heading unerringly toward his space at the back of the bullpen. Since most of his work – which included the two dimensional reconstruction of crime scenes, composites of wanted criminals based on the descriptions of witnesses or victims, and both two and three dimensional facial reconstruction of decomposed and unidentified victims of violent crimes – meshed with that of the homicide department, he’d been given a cubicle near that particular group of detectives. Offering a cheerful “good morning” to Mac Washington, a big bear of a black man with a stern countenance, resounding bass voice, and a toy poodle named Frou-frou, Josh deposited the stack of sketch pads he’d been carrying onto the corner of his desk before booting up his computer. His particular machine – a laptop, so that he could utilize it in the field when the occasion called for it– was both newer and more powerful than those on the desks of his counterparts, as it contained a lot of extra programs including AutoCAD and Corel Draw, tools he used for various image enhancements, that his fellow flatfoots just didn’t need.

  Draping his jacket over the back of his chair with one hand, Josh loosened his tie with the other before settling himself at his desk. Catching Mac’s surreptitious glance and raised brow, he figured the red, lilac and tan striped Ferragamo tie wasn’t earning him any more points than his lavender oxford, but hell, the man had a dog named Frou-frou, for God’s sake, so he really didn’t have room to sneer. But given the fact that Mac was about six-five and an easy two fifty, he figured the guy could wear a tutu to work and no one would say anything.

  At least if they wanted to keep their teeth.

  And Josh had a weakness for nice clothes. He admitted it. Didn’t apologize. Some guys had their boats or their power tools or their motorcycles, and he had Ralph Lauren. A couple Armani suits of which he was inordinately fond. And he’d been known to get excited over a really great leather jacket, or yeah, that butter-colored cashmere sweater when he discovered it was on sale.

  Hot damn, that had been a find.

  He realized some of the other guys regarded him a little suspiciously, but then let them think what they wanted. He’d crested that particular hill eons ago when he’d told his dad he wanted to study art, and all that dust had eventually settled. The uber-macho types around here would just have to get used to the fact that he could dress nicely, smell good, know pointillism from chiaroscuro and still be a man.

  Masculinity safely in hand, Josh leaned back in his seat and logged onto his computer. There was the usual slew of email, some crap about budget cutbacks, and a document he’d been waiting for from the CPD’s insurance carrier. The new insurance company had been duking it out with both him and his old carrier over some of his physical therapy sessions, making noise about pre-existing conditions, and his insurance-related headache made him think once more of Sam. Justin had been a little reticent to go into too many details, being of the opinion that if Josh wanted to know he should ask Sam, but he’d managed to wrangle enough info out of the good doctor to figure out that Sam was drowning in medical debt. She was apparently fighting an uphill battle over the fact that she and the insurance company which covered her brother’s policy had very different opinions about what constituted adequate long-term care, and so she’d resorted to pretty much prostituting herself in order to keep her brother where she felt he needed to be.

  Shit. He rubbed a weary hand across his face. Stripping wasn’t exactly prostitution, and he had no problem with it in and of itself, but Josh was having a hard time thinking about Sam dropping trou – and everything else – in front of large groups of randy men. True, they’d met when she was the nude model for one of his drawing classes at the Savannah College of Art and Design, but that was an entirely different kind of environment. A lot of the students had been women, maybe half the male students gay, and there was nary a pasty or horny bachelor in sight. Not only was the erotic entertainment business degrading for Sam – because he knew for a fact that she’d worked hard to think of herself as more than just a hot body – but it could be a dangerous business as well. He didn’t care how clean the reputation of the agency which employed her, and he’d checked it inside and out, that still didn’t mean that some drunken idiot with more libido than brains would understand that taking your clothes off didn’t necessarily mean you wanted to have sex. Once he convinced her to move into his place, Josh hoped to be able to talk her out of continuing that potentially dangerous sideline.

  Hell, he hoped to convince her of a lot of things, but that was a good place to start.

  A shapely, linen-covered hip planted itself on the edge of his desk. He looked up from his computer and smiled at his favorite person in the whole department. Detective Kathleen Murphy was both beautiful and tough, professional and friendly, smart as a whip while remaining completely down to earth.

  She also had one hell of a sense of humor.

  “I hear you laid my brother flat on his ass,” she said mildly, plucking one of Josh’s sketching pencils from the holder on his desk and twirling it between her long fingers.

  Josh groaned and felt the unexpected heat of a blush. “Yeah, well, I was out of line, and I apologized.” Dude had totally deserved it, but that was beside the point. And it was a good thing that, despite being an asshole, Declan apparently wasn’t the type to hold a grudge, because if he’d decided to press charges Josh would have been taking the slow boat up Shit Creek.

  Kathleen, however, must have noted his unrepentant expression. “Well that’s a shame.” She clucked her tongue as her eyes twinkled. “That you had to apologize, I mean. Dec’s needed a good ass-kicking for quite some time. If you’d gone after Rogan, on the other hand, you and I might be having words right now, seeing as how he’s got some kind of emotional black cloud hanging over him because of what happened when little Max was kidnapped. But Declan…” she shook her head, red bob swaying, and tucked the pencil back in the holder. “I love him, but my brother can be an ass.”

  Josh laughed and laced his fingers over his abdomen, rocking back slightly in his chair. He knew there was a reason he liked Kathleen – she was an excellent judge of character.

  “So I hear the stripper the boys hired was your ex-girlfriend,” Kathleen continued, her bland expression not fooling him for a minute. “What are the chances of that?”

  “Friend,” Josh corrected, rubbing his thumbs together in agitation. There was a strong chance he’d never live this down. “And yeah, the situation was… unexpected.”

  Kathleen wrinkled her nose, indicating she smelled bullshit. She had a highly sensitive meter, and the word friend must have tipped the scale. From behind him, Josh sensed Mac Washington giving him the hairy eyeball, his fingers having stilled over his keyboard. He was apparently fascinated by the conversation, to the point where he’d forgotten to pretend he wasn’t listening.

  “Clay was about to burst a vein, he was laughing so hard when he told Tate and I what happened,” Kathleen informed him. “He’s been wanting to pop Declan ever since that little incident with Clay’s friend from the Bureau – Kim O’Connell – a couple of weeks ago. Kim has the hots for Rogan, apparently, but he’s dodging her for some obscure reason having to deal with his injury and the fragile male ego, and so Dec decided to take up the
slack. He figured since they’re twins and all she wouldn’t mind if he let her think he was Rogan. Like they’re interchangeable or something? Who knows what goes through his head. But anyway, he did – pretend he was Rogan – on the phone one night, and I guess he said a few things that were… inappropriately suggestive. Anyway, Kim figured out it was Declan, got pissed and mentioned it to Clay, and well… that’s probably enough of the family gossip.” She waggled her eyebrows as she inclined her head toward their audience. “But it’s always nice to keep my partner entertained.”

  From behind them, a deep-voiced throat was suddenly cleared in a bass rumble, and thick fingers started flying across the keyboard.

  “He’s like a little old lady,” Kathleen leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, obviously needling her partner. “I think he maybe knits little sweaters for Frou-frou in his spare time.”

  “I heard that, Murphy.”

  Sucking back a laugh, Kathleen winked at Josh and then started to get up just as her phone vibrated. Eyeing it, she gave a quick parting wave, walking back toward her desk to take the call. Blocking the distraction, Josh returned to his computer. He’d been searching the database for tattoos similar to one a rape victim had described to him last week, hoping to find a hit that matched the design he was trying to replicate. The tat was the best hope they had for identifying him in any positive way, given the lack of DNA evidence. The bastard had not only worn a mask, and a condom, but he’d forced the victim to bathe from a bucket of water he provided and to douche herself afterward. Josh hated forensically savvy criminals.

  But all of that was forgotten when Kathleen hung up the phone.

  “Mac, we’re on.”

  The big detective glanced at his watch and grimaced. “Already?”

  “No rest for the weary. A construction crew over on Lockwood found some remains under a concrete foundation they were replacing. Apparently the slab was poured several months ago, but then there were some funding problems and something to do with code issues and construction just now got back under way. They jack-hammered up a section this morning and found the body. A couple of uniforms are over there right now, roping off the scene and holding things steady until we get there.” She pitched her voice a little louder. “Josh, you hearing this? You’re going to need to ride along as well. Decomp is pretty much complete, and apparently the vic is missing a fair amount of teeth. We may need you to pull one of your reconstruction miracles. It looks like IDing the remains is going to be a sketchy prospect. No pun intended.”

  Josh closed the file he’d been working on and logged off, lifting his jacket off the chair as he stood. He grabbed a sketch pad and a few pencils to record impressions and notes, feeling a low, professional hum vibrate through his blood. Not that he liked to see dead bodies turn up – no matter how many years he’d been a cop, he still wasn’t immune to man’s inhumanity toward man – but this was the kind of work at which he excelled. It was his duty to put a face on otherwise faceless victims, to give them back some of what had been taken away. To help them get the justice they deserved.

  “Ready when you are.” He double checked his weapon.

  Big Mac offered a terse nod – progress, considering the granite figures of Mount Rushmore usually showed more animation – and Kathleen snagged her own jacket before leading the way. They trudged out to visit a final resting spot which never should have been.

  “FOUND the body stuffed in a pipe running under part of the new foundation,” the foreman told the three detectives, shouting to be heard over the sound of the construction which continued on other parts of the massive project. An old hotel had been torn down, making way for a new waterfront resort facing City Marina, and while the gruesome discovery had shut down work around the crime scene, there was still enough leftover real estate to keep most of the workers busy. Sparks flew as men in welding masks took their torches to steel girders, and from above them came the clang of metal on metal as a crane lowered more support beams into place.

  After donning hard hats, Josh, Kathleen and Mac followed the foreman to the far northwest corner of the site, where yellow crime scene tape snapped against the breeze blowing in off the water. The scent of brine barely masked the distinct odor of decay.

  Mac moved off to speak with one of the first responders, and Josh ducked under the strip of yellow plastic to get a look at the remains in situ, careful not to disturb the scene before the crime scene techs had a chance to do their thing. He could hear Kathleen questioning the foreman as he went down on one knee to get a better view into the pipe.

  It was some kind of drainage deal, probably two feet in diameter, just big enough for a small human. Kathleen was right about the ID – there wasn’t much to go on. No clothing in evidence, no rings or necklaces clinging to fleshless fingers or draped around the nearly skeletal neck. Though there was a chance those types of articles could have fallen off during the decomposition process and rolled further down the pipe. The entire thing would have to be cut out and hauled into the lab. There was no doubt the remains had been there at least three months, because the pipe had been covered with concrete all that time, but how long they’d been there before that and whether or not the body had decomposed here or someplace else and then was moved was a question for the lab techs.

  But Josh’s concern was the body, and more particularly, the face. He couldn’t see the full remains as the pipe blocked his view beyond the shoulders, but he could tell that the victim had probably been female, Caucasian by the looks of the bone structure. And judging from the tangles of long, dirty hair clinging in clumps to the skull, an unnatural blonde. The line of dark near the scalp meant he’d need to work up sketches showing both possibilities.

  And like Kathleen had said, she was missing several front teeth. Knocked out, possibly. From the looks of the molars left along the back of the jaw, there was little evidence of decay, so this was a female who probably had regular dental care, making falling out on their own unlikely. He couldn’t be entirely sure, given the bad angle and less than stellar conditions, but as he shined his penlight across the bones surrounding the nose and the eyes, it looked like they’d sustained several major fractures. Through the empty eye sockets, he thought he spied some additional cranial damage as well. So chances were this woman had been beaten, or had her face smashed in prior to being shoved down this tube.

  Not a ton to go on, but he’d be able to tell a whole heck of a lot more after the ME got the body out of the damn pipe.

  Josh heard the soft click of Kathleen’s heels on the concrete, and looked up at her approach.

  “I don’t guess there’s any possibility the vic simply tripped and fell down there on his or her own?”

  At his get real look, one corner of her mouth quirked. “It’s a her,” Josh clarified. “And not a chance.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t think so.” She knelt next to him and Josh readjusted his light so that she could see. The day was overcast, the sky heavy with the promise of the rain which had been threatening for hours. The wind whipped the water in the marina into angry little waves that crashed against the boats moored behind them. The sky was going to open up soon – Josh could feel it in his shoulder – and they’d probably have to erect a damn tent over the scene.

  Nothing like digging up dead bodies in the rain.

  “Hell, she’s packed in there like a sardine,” Kathleen murmured. “She definitely had a little help getting down there.”

  Josh spotlighted the fractures with his pen. “And chances are she wasn’t alive when it happened. It will be the ME’s call, of course, but if I were to guess I’d have to say our girl succumbed to blunt force trauma. Looks to me like somebody beat the hell out of her.”

  Kathleen made a noise of disgust, just as Mac loomed large behind them.

  “Farris is here,” he grunted, indicating the woman from the medical examiner’s office.

  “Good.” Josh clicked off his light as he stood. His thigh ached and he cursed the weather. “Let
’s get this girl out of here.”

  SAM sighed, rubbing the small of her back with a weary hand as she waited for Luke, the bartender, to fill her order. From the other end of the bar he gave her a give me a minute motion with his chin, obviously caught up in talking football with one of the regulars. Sam saw some bills change hands as the guy accepted his beer from Luke, and she knew he wasn’t paying for his beverage. The Roadhouse probably did a much bigger business under the table and in the back room than it ever showed on its tax returns. She wondered again how much Donnie had been involved, and whether or not it had anything to do with his bullet wound. From what she’d seen things were pretty small-time, no more than a few mostly-friendly bets among some regulars. But whenever money was involved, particularly gambling money, tempers had a way of getting out of control.

  She’d debated with herself since she’d realized what was going on, if she should say something to the police. But she had no idea if it related to Donnie’s case, and either way the bar would be shut down in a heartbeat if it looked like they were fronting illegal gambling, however harmless. And then where would she and Donnie be? What would happen to his insurance policy if the group that owned The Roadhouse suddenly stopped paying his premiums? She could get another job, sure, but even with all the recent changes in healthcare policy there would likely be no way to get coverage for her brother after the fact.

  So she kept her mouth shut, and her eyes open.

  Just when she thought that she might have to go behind the bar and fill the order herself, the door to the back hall opened and a familiar figure walked through. Spotting her, Dane Wilcox strolled over, a million dollar smile stretching his tanned face, windblown and handsome in his casually rumpled polo. He’d no doubt been out on Daddy’s yacht.

  “Samantha,” he moved in close and brushed a thumb down her cheek. “You look troubled, sweetheart. Anything I can do to help?”