“Like, um, four yesterday afternoon, I guess,” she said, panic rising in her voice. “I came out of my house to go to work and it was gone. I’d left it in my driveway.”
“Did you ask your neighbors if they saw anything?”
“Oh yeah, I asked everyone. No one saw anything.”
“Did police officers come out and speak to you or your mother?”
“Not to me. Probably with her.”
“Did your mother give you a case number the police gave her? The name of the responding officer, anything like that?”
She shook her head. “No. She just said she would take care of it. Do you want to talk to her? She’s probably home right now.”
“Yeah, I’ll take her address and phone number, please.”
“Sure.” She went over to the counter and wrote them down on a scrap of paper for him. He put it in his pocket. There wasn’t much more he needed from her right now. He just wanted to see how she reacted to the news. When they got an ID on the body, he would bring in a photo, see if she recognized him, and gauge her reaction then as well. His instincts said she had no idea what was going on. But it was odd there was no stolen vehicle report. Why would her mother not have reported it?
“I’ll come by later this afternoon with a photo of the victim.”
She nodded. “I don’t believe this. This is crazy. Do you think the person they found in my car is the one who stole it?”
“I don’t know yet. We hope we’ll know for sure in the next couple of days. The forensic people will work up the car and give me more details about what happened, and I’ll let you know.” Stanton gave her his card. “We’ll get the car back to you as soon as we can.”
It wasn’t until he left the mall that he realized he should’ve just shown her a photo. If it was someone she knew, they could have an ID right away. His mind felt like thick soup, and his thoughts were slow. It wasn’t the first mistake he’d made in the past couple of weeks.
He began pulling up a photo of the body on his phone when the phone rang—a friend of his on the force, Nate Frost. Stanton answered it.
“I don’t have any money to lend you, Nate.”
He chuckled. “That was one time, and I paid you back.”
“You didn’t, but who’s counting?”
“Well, lunch on me then this week.” He paused a second. “Actually, I’m calling about work. I got something that I think I may need your help on.”
“Yeah? What?”
“Probably best you come down and see for yourself. You got a few minutes?”
He glanced at the mall. “Sure. Text me the address.”
5
Nate was a detective in a different precinct, but the island was small enough that detectives routinely asked each other for help. Stanton had a reputation for certain kinds of cases, and he knew Nate needed help on either a homicide or a sex crime with no active leads or discernible motive. On the one hand, he liked that he’d developed a specialty and didn’t need to worry about being shuffled around. Officers who focused on gaining technical expertise in a certain area over the years developed “sharpened intuition,” or instincts—they got an immediate sense of what had happened and had better outcomes.
On the other hand, Stanton wished like hell that his specialty had been bad checks or stolen cars. He’d seen the eyes of so many dead over the years that they no longer confined themselves to haunting his dreams. He occasionally saw them during his waking hours, as well.
The address was a warehouse in the Makiki section of the island. He pulled in through the open gate and parked near the front entrance. Several police cruisers and Nate’s crimson sedan were already there. But there was no SIS vehicle, which meant Nate had called him first.
Stanton went inside. The front office smelled of sawdust, and off to the side he could see the break room for the employees, complete with vending machine and dirty microwave. Next to that were offices. The boss must have wanted the break room next to him to hear what the employees were saying about him. Without even knowing what the business did, he thought the company was probably a miserable place to work.
He went through a heavy metal door and saw a uniformed officer standing nearby. Stanton showed him his badge and asked, “Detective Frost?”
“Down them stairs.”
Stanton turned past the heavy machinery, the forklifts and metal cranes attached to the ceiling far above him, and headed for the stairs leading down. The stairwell was so dark that at one point he had to put his hand on the wall to keep his balance.
At the bottom, he opened one of the metal double doors and saw Nate Frost talking with another uniformed officer. Nate saw him, said something to the officer, and came over.
“Thanks for coming.”
“No worries.” Stanton glanced around the room. Bloodstains covered a section of floor and wall. They were all on one side of the room. The blood wasn’t cleanly sprayed; it was spattered all over, with a puddle about five or six feet in diameter on the right side of the room.
“What happened?” Stanton asked.
“Hell if I know. Foreman called us this morning. He wasn’t sure if it was blood at first, so a uniform came out and called me just in case. This is blood if I ever saw it.”
Stanton nodded. “No body?”
“No body, no drag marks… nothing. Foreman says they rent this space out for company lectures and things like that. Real cheap space for people that just need somewhere to go. Last time it was rented out was Saturday, to a John Doe. Guy paid cash.”
“Video anywhere?”
Nate shook his head. “Nothing. I’m calling down a sketch artist after SIS goes through the place. That’s a lot of blood though. That much blood, I figured there gots to be a body.”
It could’ve been nothing. It could be cow blood, for all they knew. It bothered Stanton that Nate hadn’t looked into things further before calling him.
“Could be anything, Nate. Let’s see if SIS even says it’s human blood before we do anything.”
Frost put his hands on his hips. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Jon. I got a full plate right now, and I’m headed out for vacation in two weeks. I can’t pick up another body. Annie would kill me. I’ve cancelled our last two vacations. I would consider it a personal favor if you could pick this one up. I’ll talk to Kai and ask him to give me one of yours down the line.”
“Why me? Jacobi and Meyers are in your section. They’re both great.”
“I know, but… I don’t know. Something about this… and I thought of you. I mean… I didn’t mean it that way. I just mean I know this is the type of thing you normally look into.”
Stanton looked over at the blood. “Let’s assume until SIS gets here that it is human blood. Does the foreman have any idea who the man was that rented it? Have they seen him before, or did he have fake identification or anything?”
“No, he’s never seen anything like this here. He says most of his renters are small companies that need to hold meetings. He just came in early for his shift this morning to receive a new shipment and saw this. We called the owner of the company, but he’s out of town. They do have this.” Nate went to a small table in a corner and came back with a sign-in sheet held on a clipboard. In the space for Saturday, someone had scrawled the name John Doe.
The metal doors cranked open, and Lorenzo Tate walked in. Today’s muscle shirt was bright yellow with a cartoon parrot on the front.
“Everyone can relax; your savior is here.”
Nate explained what little they knew, and Lorenzo said, “Can’t tell by looking, but I am amazing. My money’s on human. Let’s see if I’m right.”
Lorenzo took out a clear plastic case of Q-tips and took one out. He dipped the tip in a small container that held a clear liquid and touched a spot on the floor. Stanton knew the liquid was actually a substance called phenolphthalein, used to determine if a substance was blood or not. A fast pink reaction under thirty seconds meant it was.
Lorenzo whir
led the Q-tip lightly between his fingers, and the cotton tip turned pink. Lorenzo put the Q-tip in a small plastic baggie and placed an evidence sticker on it. He labeled it and put it back in his tackle box. The next step would be a lateral flow test, which didn’t look much different from a home pregnancy test. It would tell them whether the blood was human or not.
Stanton checked his watch and leaned back against the wall as Lorenzo dipped the slip of paper into the puddle on the floor. He wondered what Julie was doing.
6
The man sat in his car, slouching lower in his seat as he watched the old house with pale-grey paint. The house wasn’t far from the ocean, and it reminded him of jogging on the beach at night, the soft sand giving way under his bare feet. Few things in life thrilled him as much as the ocean at night. This, right now, was one of those few things.
The woman came out of the house in a brown dress, her white sunglasses pushed up onto the top of her head. She flipped through a stack of what looked like bills. The man ducked lower still—unnecessarily, as she didn’t even look up as she got into her Cadillac and pulled away.
The man’s phone rang.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Where you at, Bobby?”
“I’m at the house. She just left.”
“Hurry your ass up. We’re hitting the race track at four.”
“Why? You said six.”
“Just hurry.”
Bobby hung up and checked the clock on his phone. It was two thirty.
He waited a couple of minutes to make sure the woman wasn’t coming back and got out of his car. He scanned the neighborhood as he crossed the street, making sure no neighbors were eyeing him. As he got to the lawn, he looked around one more time and hurried to the back of the house.
At the back door, he took out the slim lock pick gun from his back pocket. He inserted the tip into the lock and pressed the trigger. A couple of twists later, the lock sprang, and he opened the door.
The inside of the house was clean, and he shut the door behind him and enjoyed it for a second. He had grown up in one foster home after another, most of them little more than shacks filled with garbage and whatever else the foster family could hoard. A clean home always amazed him.
He started in the kitchen and carefully went through the drawers, taking out each utensil slowly and placing them in order on the counter before checking the bottom of the drawer, the back, and the top before replacing them. He did the same for the cupboards before taking everything out of the fridge, searching it, and replacing the food.
By the time sweat dripped from his forehead, he had gone through half the house in the same manner: slowly, methodically, keeping track of everything he touched. He got his hopes up in the living room when he thought he’d found what he was looking for. There was a loose piece of wood on the back of the wooden television cabinet, but after sliding it off the pegs holding it in place, there was no hidden compartment. It was just a broken piece of the cabinet where the glue had failed.
The bedroom was all that was left. Bobby stared at her pink sheets for a second. They looked like something a child would have. He knew he was alone in the house but still glanced around before lying on the bed. He took the woman’s pillow and put it over his face to inhale her scent. It smelled like perfume, one he’d smelled before but couldn’t name. It was pleasant and warm, and he thought briefly about sleeping there for a couple of hours. He checked his phone: it was nearly four already. He was expected at the race track shortly, and she would be home at four thirty.
Bobby went through her closet and ran his hands along the walls. When he didn’t find anything, he checked her shoes, her nightstand, and under the bed. He checked the mattress and the pillowcases. He sat down at the desk in the corner and went through each drawer. Nothing.
He sighed and leaned back before going to her dresser. He went through the drawers carefully, lifting up each piece of her underwear. He sniffed a few, but they just smelled like laundry detergent. In the bottom drawer was more elaborate lingerie. He knew she wasn’t married, but she did have a boyfriend. It made Bobby smile to think of them having sex in this room with her in that lingerie. She was beautiful. It was a shame what was going to happen.
Having searched every inch of space in the small house, he sat down on the bed and sighed.
It was here somewhere. He ran through a checklist in his head: no basement, no attic, he’d searched all the closets, no shed in the backyard, nothing in the living room out of the ordinary other than an old TV…
He paused. The television in the bedroom across from the bed was new, but the one in the living room was old, much older than anything in any store. He rose and hurried to the living room.
The television looked about thirty years old and had the bulk and weight of TVs from that time. He grabbed a couple knives from the kitchen, carefully set the TV down on the floor, and unscrewed the back.
Inside, carefully taped against the side to keep it away from the mess of transistor boards and wires, was a thick folder. He pulled it out and looked inside, and a smile crept across his lips.
7
Stanton had his eyes closed and his head back when Lorenzo said, “Got it.”
Nate came over. “Is it?”
“It is. Sorry, boys, you got yourself human blood.”
Stanton’s arms were pleasantly warm from being folded across his body. He wished he could go home, lie in bed, and let that warmth lull him to sleep. Instead, he straightened and looked at Nate. Stanton knew this had nothing to do with what types of cases he was good at working. Nate was going on vacation, and the other two homicide detectives that could’ve covered for him turned him down for whatever reasons.
Nate was the kind of person who took advantage of others who liked to help, asking them unreasonable favors at inconvenient times. Still, Stanton knew he was trying to salvage his marriage, which was going through a rough patch. A vacation would do them good. He decided not to say anything and help out as much as he could.
“I’ll take over and let Kai know to put it up on our board,” Stanton said.
“He’s not gonna be happy. He didn’t need another body up on his board.”
“He’ll be fine. Go have fun on your vacation.”
Nate smiled and slapped his shoulder. “I really appreciate it. More than you know.”
“I’m taking you up on that free lunch when you get back.”
“Anytime, my friend,” Nate said as he headed out.
Stanton looked over the stains on the walls as Lorenzo took out his camera to begin filming the scene.
“So what you wanna do?” Lorenzo said.
“I’m going to come back at night.”
“Why?”
Stanton ignored him. “Do me a favor and see if you can get Jimmy to come out here and work up the blood spatter analysis.”
“All right. I’m pretty good too, you know.”
“Not as good as Jimmy.”
Lorenzo waved his hand as though dismissing him. “You just don’t recognize talent when you see it.”
Stanton looked over all the stains again and left the warehouse. His head was pounding, and he went to the nearest convenience store for some ibuprofen and Diet Coke. He took four of the pills and washed them down before resting his head against his car’s headrest. Sleep was so close. It teased him. It tickled his mind, and he could almost feel himself dozing off, and then like a jackhammer, reality would set back in and he’d be wide awake.
He opened his eyes.
Several cases waited for him back at the station, but almost all of them, with the exception of the body in the trunk, were sex cases rather than homicides. His captain, Kai Smith, had begun funneling sex cases to him because homicides weren’t very common. In most sex cases the perpetrators were known, and things had to be handled delicately. Many of them didn’t recognize what they’d done as a crime. Those were the easy ones. They bragged to police and said things like, “I don’t understand why what I d
id was wrong.” Stanton could sympathize with some of them. It was difficult to make an arrest when a nineteen-year-old was sleeping with a fifteen-year-old he intended to marry, as it meant the boy was going to be a sex offender for the rest of his life.
But then there were the monsters who mothers warned their children about: men who practiced and studied how to lure children away from parents, how to hide the evidence of rape, how to pass sex slaves around frequently to avoid detection by law enforcement. Those cases kept Stanton up at night because as much as he tried not to, he saw his own children in the cold stares of the victims in hospitals, unable to process what they’d gone through.
He checked his watch: he had an appointment with his psychiatrist an hour from now. He started his jeep and pulled out of the warehouse.
8
Dr. Vaquer had moved offices recently, and Stanton decided he liked the new building better. On the ninth floor of a high rise downtown, he could see the ocean from the windows in the waiting area.
He tried his best not to think about her, about what she was like in private life. His mind ran on its own most of the time, noting details and drawing conclusions. He would notice mud on someone’s shoes and try to figure out why it was there. Or a new haircut when none was warranted would spark thoughts that the person was having an affair. He’d tried to control such thoughts but never could. Today, he noticed Dr. Vaquer didn’t lean her elbow on the chair the way she normally did.
“Tennis?” he asked.
“I’m sorry?”
“The injury to your elbow. Is it from tennis?”
She hesitated. “It is.”
“It’s difficult to avoid. Repetitive overuse of anything leads to injury.”
“Are you talking about me or you?”
He grinned, and she grinned back.
Purgatory (Jon Stanton Mysteries Book 11) Page 2