CRUEL DECEPTION (Det. Jason Strong(CLEAN SUSPENSE) Book 9)

by John C. Dalglish

  “Carly Simmons. The victim’s best friend and co-worker.”

  “How’s she doin’?”

  “About as you’d expect. What’s up?”

  “Doc said he’s done and they’re getting ready to transport.”

  Jason nodded. “Okay, did you learn anything new from the responding officer?”

  “Nothing more than what you already know, except that no weapon has been found. They’re still searching the area, as well as canvassing the local businesses, but nothing has turned up yet.”

  “Nikki Bostik was divorced; did you happen to get an address?”

  Vanessa glanced at her notes. “Yeah, it’s on the north side of town. The ex hasn’t been contacted yet, and I told the officer we would handle notification.”

  “Okay, did Doc say when the autopsy would be done?”

  “Yeah, first thing tomorrow morning.”

  *******

  Larry Bostik lived in a small apartment attached to the back of a residential house. The detectives walked down the path leading behind the main building, and knocked on the apartment door.

  “He’s in here.”

  They looked toward the back door of the home to see an elderly woman in a yellow housedress, an old cloth around her head. Vanessa quickly looked at her note. “Larry…Bostik?”

  “Yeah, he’s my son. He’s up here having lunch.”

  Jason and Vanessa walked over to where the woman stood. “May we come in?”

  “Depends. Who are you?”

  Vanessa produced her badge and held it up for the woman to see. “We’re with SAPD. My name is Detective Layne and this is Detective Strong.”

  The woman fumbled around in her housedress pocket, finally producing a pair of glasses, and placed them on the bridge of her nose. She examined the badge. “Seems real. What do you want with my son?”

  “We just want to talk to him.”

  A tall, thin man with black hair and a scraggly beard appeared over his mother’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Mom. I’ll take care of it.”

  He stepped around her and came down the steps. His mother stayed at the door, watching over the discussion. He grinned at the detectives. “Mothers never stop being mothers.”

  Vanessa smiled. “True enough. You’re Larry Bostik?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Nikki Bostik is your wife?”

  “Ex-wife; we’re divorced.”

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news, Mr. Bostik. Nikki was found dead this morning.”

  The chaos created in someone’s mind when they receive tragic and unexpected news is usually played out on their face. Larry Bostik appeared to be an exception to that. His face remained blank, so much so that Jason wasn’t sure the man heard what Vanessa had said.

  “Mr. Bostik, your wife…”

  “I heard, Detective.”

  At that moment, the back door opened and a young boy came down the steps. Jason guessed him to be eight or nine years old.

  “Dad! I know what I want for Christmas.” He stopped suddenly and looked at the detectives. “Who are these people, Dad?”

  Larry Bostik spun, placed his hands on the boy’s shoulders, and looked into his eyes. “Corey, I need you to wait inside. Can you do that for me?”

  The boy hesitated but finally nodded. “Okay, Dad.”

  After watching his son go back through the door, Larry sat down on the steps. He looked up at Jason. “How did she die?”

  “She was murdered at her place of work.”

  This time shock did come across the ex-husband’s face. “Murdered! By who? How?”

  “Right now, we don’t know. We were hoping you could help us with that.”

  Larry looked from Jason to Vanessa and back again. “Oh, I get it; I’ve seen the cop shows. Go directly to the ex, he’s usually the one who did it!”

  Jason shook his head. “That’s not what this is about, Mr. Bostik. At this time, we don’t have any reason to suspect you, but we do have to ask some questions.”

  “Fine. Go ahead and ask.”

  “Where were you last night?”

  “Here with my son. It’s my weekend for custody.”

  Vanessa had gotten her notebook out as well. “You shared custody with your ex-wife?”

  “Actually, she has...had custody. I get to see Corey one weekend a month.”

  “Can anyone beside your son verify your whereabouts?”

  “My mother. The three of us watched a movie together.”

  “What movie was it?”

  Larry Bostik looked incredulous. “What difference does that make?”

  Jason tried to keep Bostik calm. “It may help clear you, Mr. Bostik.”

  Larry looked skeptical. “Jim Carrey’s The Grinch That Stole Christmas.”

  Jason smiled. “One of my favorites. Did you rent it?”

  “Yeah. I picked it up at a Redbox in Wal-Mart.”

  “Good, we can check that out.”

  Vanessa changed the conversation’s direction. “Was your divorce from Nikki amicable?”

  “I get to see my son one weekend a month. What do you think?”

  “How long have you been divorced?”

  “It’ll be a year on December twenty-seventh.”

  Jason found it hard to comprehend a divorce going through so close to Christmas. It must be painful to lose custody of your child, especially at Christmas time.

  “Larry, can you think of anyone who would want to hurt your wife?”

  “No, but then we don’t speak much anymore. Only when we need to discuss Corey.”

  “What about the letters K-C? Do they mean anything to you?”

  “K-C? I don’t think so, other than the city. Why?”

  “Nikki apparently wrote those letters as she was dying.”

  “Really? K-C…I can’t think of any connection to her. She was born in California.”

  Jason pulled out a business card. “Okay, we appreciate your help, and please call if you think of anything else.”

  Vanessa closed her pad. “You got a little man in there who has some terrible news coming. Do you want our help?”

  Larry looked back over his shoulder at the door. “No, but thanks.”

  The detectives turned to leave as Larry Bostik climbed the back steps. With his hand on the door, he turned to Jason. “Do I get custody of Corey now?”

  Jason shook his head. “I don’t know how that works, Larry. I imagine the courts and family services will have a say in that.”

  Larry pulled on the door handle. “Yeah, no doubt.” He disappeared inside as Vanessa and Jason walked back to their car.

  Chapter 2

  The next morning, Jason beat Vanessa in for the second straight day. He called her when he got to his desk. It rang multiple times before going to voicemail. He left a message.

  A note sat on his desk, handwriting he recognized as the lieutenant’s. It said the autopsy was complete and to call Doc Davis. Jason decided to visit his friend instead. Getting on the elevator, he pushed the button for the basement. When the elevator stopped, the doors slid open and he turned left.

  “Jason!”

  The detective nearly jumped out of his skin. From behind him, he heard rolling laughter, and turned to find Dr. Jocelyn Carter. The head of the Forensic Science Department was pointing at him.

  “Got ya!”

  Jason had made a habit of startling the short brunette whenever he could. Her blue eyes sparkled beneath wire framed glasses as she was clearly enjoying getting even.

  Jason bowed. “Congratulations, madam. Well done, but beware; I am not defeated for long.”

  Doc Josie, as she was known around the precinct, was shaking her head. “Oh, no. I owed you that, and about five more.”

  He laughed. “How did you know I would be here?”

  “I didn’t. I was actually on my way up to see you.”

  “Oh, why?”

  “I found something very interesting in the crime scene photos from yesterday.”
>
  She started to open the file in her hand, then changed her mind. “Come on, I’ll show you.”

  Jason followed her into the Forensics Lab. She laid the file on a stainless steel table and spread out the photos. They were just as gruesome today as yesterday. “Horrific scene.”

  Doc Josie nodded. “Indeed.”

  She pointed at the wall picture with the letters K-C. “You see that? Those spatter marks?”

  Jason looked closer. “You mean the dots of blood?”

  “Yes, specifically the ones under the letter K.”

  “Okay, I see them. What’s the deal?”

  The forensic chief’s voice rose an octave as she got excited. “It bothered me that they weren’t smeared. Why didn’t the dots smear when the victim wrote on the wall?”

  Jason gave her a blank stare, so she continued.

  “So I did a little experiment last night.”

  She pulled out another set of pictures, these ones similar to the scene, but clearly not from the realty office. She started pointing again.

  “This is photo one, photo two, photo three, and photo four. Can you tell the difference?”

  Jason humored her and studied them for several minutes. “Nope.”

  “Look at the K in each photo, what is different about number four?”

  Jason looked again, and finally saw it. “The blood spatter isn’t smeared in the fourth photo.”

  “Exactly!” She was enjoying stringing him along. “But what does that tell us?”

  Jason shrugged.

  “These photos were taken at different intervals. In each case, I made a sample blood spatter, and then wrote K-C over each spatter. Photo one was five minutes after spatter, number two was ten minutes, and number three was fifteen minutes later. All three smeared when written on.”

  She paused for a reaction, but Jason continued to stare at the pictures, his mind trying to catch up. “How long for number four?”

  “Twenty minutes.”

  “So twenty minutes had to pass before she could’ve written on the wall.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Was she alive that long after the attack?”

  “Almost certainly not.”

  Jason could see the pride beaming from the doc. She grabbed another sheet of paper, excitedly pointing at a test result, shaking it so Jason couldn’t read it if he wanted to.

  “There’s more. I magnified the letters K and C under a high-powered microscope. There should have been fingerprint ridges in the blood but I found none. That means a glove of some sort was worn by the writer. Our victim wasn’t wearing gloves, so Nikki Bostik didn’t write those letters…”

  “The killer did! This is awesome, Doc. We’ve been trying to find a connection between the victim and K-C, but now it’s a connection with the killer we need to look at.”

  Doc Josie gathered the photos up, returning them to the folder. “These copies are for you and Layne. Where is Vanessa, anyway?”

  “I don’t know. She hasn’t felt all that great the last few days.”

  Jason took out his phone and noticed he had a voicemail. He took the photos and headed across the hallway, but Doc Josie stopped him.

  “Oh, by the way.”

  “Something else?”

  “Yeah. Doc Davis scraped under the victim’s fingernails and came up with some material for testing. It didn’t have any unidentified DNA in it and there wasn’t anything else found at the scene.”

  “No blood from the killer?”

  “Afraid not. Probably because of the gloves.”

  “Thanks, Doc.”

  *******

  Jason didn’t recognize the number on his phone, so he ignored it until he could talk to Doc Davis. He found the big medical examiner sitting in his way-too-small cubicle that served as an office. Jason considered it cruel and unusual punishment for a man his size to have such a tiny office.

  “Hey, Doc. I got a message the autopsy on Nikki Bostik was done.”

  “Hi, Jason. Yeah, I finished it about an hour ago.” He handed a file to the detective.

  Jason tucked it under his arm. “Anything interesting?”

  “The marks around the wound indicate a long knife with a thin blade, maybe a fillet knife.”

  “That is interesting. What else?”

  “As the fact she was fully dressed suggested, there were no signs of sexual assault.”

  “And time of death?”

  “The estimate I gave you for TOD was pretty close, and I was also correct on the cause. She died from a cut exterior jugular vein.”

  “How long would it have taken for her to bleed out?”

  “No more than about five minutes.”

  The doc’s statement solidified the information Jason had gotten from Doc Josie.

  “Thanks, Doc. Talk to you later.”

  Jason pushed out the door and waited for the elevator. He was impatient to share what he knew with Vanessa and figured she must be upstairs by now. The doors opened and he lit up the button for floor three.

  When he arrived, the doors slid open to reveal an empty chair at his partner’s desk. In fact, her desk looked undisturbed. He dropped the files on his own desk and went to the lieutenant’s office.

  Lieutenant Banks was on the phone, apparently on hold, and covered the receiver. “What’s up?”

  “Have you seen Vanessa?”

  The lieutenant’s caller came back on, and Sarah returned to her phone, but shook her head at Jason. He turned and went back to his desk. He was about to dial Vanessa when his desk line lit up. He snatched up the receiver.

  “Detective Strong.”

  “Jason?”

  His heart started to pound as he recognized the voice of Rob Layne, Vanessa’s husband.

  “Yeah, Rob. It’s me.”

  “Did you get my message?”

  Jason thought of the voicemail he hadn’t listened to yet. “No, not yet. What’s up?”

  “Well…I had to take Vanessa to the hospital last night.”

  “Why?”

  “She was bleeding…and…we lost the baby.”

  Jason’s heart crumpled inside. “Oh, Rob, I’m so sorry.”

  “I appreciate it, buddy. Can you tell Banks?”

  “Of course. How’s Vanessa?”

  “She’s home now; they gave her something to help her sleep.”

  “Did they tell you why?”

  “The doctor said she had developed a bacterial infection. Apparently, it’s one of the most common reasons for miscarriage. You know me, Jason. I don’t like to visit doctors, and I don’t understand them. He said something about her uterus.”

  “Give her my best, and Sandy and I will be by tonight, if that’s okay.”

  “That’ll be fine. See you then.”

  Jason hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair. Before going in to see the lieutenant, he needed to pray. He closed his eyes, lifting up Rob and Vanessa.

  *******

  After speaking with Lieutenant Banks, Jason called Sandy.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, Sandy, it’s me.”

  “Hey, you. How’s your day going?”

  “Not good.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I just got a call from Rob.”

  He sensed more than heard the hesitation in his wife’s voice. “About what?”

  “Vanessa lost the baby last night.”

  A long silence followed. When Sandy did speak, she didn’t ask any questions about how or why. “Where is she?”

  “Home. They gave her something to knock her out.”

  “What time are you going to be done at work?”

  Jason tried to think what he would do now. The only thing he could come up with that couldn’t wait was interviewing Marc Maxwell.

  “I’ve got an interview to conduct. I should be home by four-thirty or five.”

  “Okay, I’ll put Nina with the sitter. We can pick up some food for us as well as Rob and Vanessa.”


  He loved her for the attitude of taking care of what she could control, not lamenting over what she couldn’t. “Sounds good. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  *******

  Jason had gotten the address to Marc Maxwell by calling Sunshine Realty. Sam Barrow had answered and checked Nikki’s files.

  “Maxwell didn’t call today, which is kind of unusual, but maybe he saw her death on the news.”

  “Did he call Nikki every day?”

  “Seemed that way. But then again, he was on a deadline to buy something, even if he was being picky.”

  Jason tried not to read too much into the change of pattern. “Okay, thanks Sam. How’s the rest of the office doing?”

  “Managing. Carly has taken it the hardest, which is understandable. She’s known…she knew… Nikki longer than any of us.”

  “You guys hang in there.”

  “Have you got any leads?”

  “Not that I can discuss. You guys remain cautious, leave in pairs, that sort of thing.”

  “Will do. Bye.”

  Jason hung up and looked at the address. Mr. Maxwell lived in a very nice neighborhood. He got up and stuck his head back in the lieutenant’s office.

  “Going to interview Maxwell, then heading home. Sandy and I are going over to Vanessa’s tonight.”

  Sarah Banks looked up and laid down her pen. “Tell her I’m thinking of her, will you?”

  “Of course.”

  “And tell her if she needs anything at all, she just needs to call.”

  Jason had only seen the softer side of his boss a few times. Even though she had no kids of her own, Sarah had played babysitter to Nina a few times. The news about Vanessa’s baby clearly impacted the lieutenant.

  “I’ll tell her; I know she will appreciate it.”

  *******

  Marc Maxwell lived in the beautiful section of San Antonio known as King William. On the south side of the city, the neighborhood consisted of large two-story homes that backed up on the San Antonio River. It was a safe neighborhood with tree-lined streets and within walking distance to Riverwalk.

  Jason turned onto Crofton Street, admiring the antebellum-style homes, decked out in Christmas decorations. He decided that Sandy and Nina would enjoy a drive through here at night to see the lights.