Cause of Death (Detective Damien Drake Book 2)

by Patrick Logan

  “Hey Screech, do you know who was part of the tribunal?”

  “Dr. Moorfield and whoever—” Screech began, but Drake stopped him by waving a hand.

  “No, I mean, who were the members of the board that served on the tribunal, to decide her fate or whatever the hell they did.”

  Screech shrugged.

  “I don’t know for sure, but like Beckett said, they are mostly made up of board members. That’s public information, so I should be able to get you a list from back then.”

  “Good,” Drake said, before turning to Beckett. “You ready?”

  “For what?”

  “To talk to the doctor. Have a nice little chat. What do you say?”

  Beckett made a disgusted face.

  “I say that—”

  His phone rang, and he held up a finger while he looked at the screen.

  “It’s Chase,” he said. “I gotta take this.”

  Chapter 52

  “Where are we going?” Suzan asked in a small voice. She wiped the tears from her eyes, trying to focus on the road before her.

  The point of the blade dug deeper into the side of her neck and she felt warm blood trace a line down to the collar of her shirt.

  “Stop talking. Just do as I say.”

  Suzan whimpered and wiped more tears from her eyes. When her father had been alive, he had kept her isolated from the horrible crimes that he had investigated, the brutal murders that kept him up at night. Now, however, she wished that he had told her more, given her something that she might be able to use. The only thing she could remember—be it from him or from TV, she couldn’t recall—was that staying quiet was a recipe for ending up dead. She had to keep the shadowy figure in the back seat talking. She had to remind him that she was a human being. That she had a right to live.

  “What do you want from me?” she asked. The knife dug in a little deeper, and she felt a jolt of pain shoot down her arm. She ground her teeth and continued, undeterred. “Please, I have money. I can pay you. You can take the car if you want.”

  The blade moved again and Suzan inhaled, steeling herself against what she thought would be a slash that would open her throat.

  But it never came.

  Instead, the blade pulled away from her skin.

  “You think I want money? Is that what you think this is about? Money?”

  Suzan wasn’t sure how she should answer this, but knew that she had to keep him talking.

  “Everything is about money,” she offered.

  The man scoffed.

  “C’mon, Suzan. You’re smarter than that. If I was after money, then why would I kill drifters? A junkie in Central Park?”

  “Eddie had money; he was a doctor.”

  The comment seemed to surprise the man in the backseat and he hesitated before answering. Suzan seized this opportunity to glance up at the rearview mirror, to get a good look at him in case she ever did manage to escape.

  The man was wearing a makeshift ski-mask, the only openings being two ragged holes for his eyes. Even his mouth was covered, which explained why his speech was muffled. She squinted, trying to make out his eyes, but it was too dark in the car and she couldn’t even manage to make out their color.

  There was, however, something that she did notice: the faint smell of charcoal, maybe, or of a campfire, that hadn’t been there before.

  The smudges on the bodies.

  And then it struck her, and she cursed herself for not putting it together before. The gray marks on the bodies that reminded her of Ash Wednesday were indeed ashes, and the man in the backseat was the Arsonist.

  So stupid… if I had only thought about that before, I never would have agreed to meet him.

  “Eddie was putting his nose where it shouldn’t belong,” the man said at last. “Budding in when he should have just minded his own damn business.” The knife pressed against her neck again, and Suzan inhaled sharply. “Which is something you should have done, Suzan. I mean, c’mon… posting about forensic pathology? Acting coy? Did you really think I was gonna fall for that? The only thing you accomplished was letting me know that someone out there is looking for me. And you ending up here, of course.”

  Suzan swallowed hard.

  “It doesn’t matter. There are only two left, Suzan. Two left and then this will all be over.”

  “Two what?” Suzan whispered, even though she already knew that answer.

  The man in the backseat chuckled.

  “Two accidents, of course. Just two more than I will have finally completed the course. You’re going to be number seven, Suzan, and I have a special treat in store for you and number eight.”

  He laughed again, and this time the sound grated on Suzan’s ears. It wasn’t a normal laugh, an involuntary expression of pleasure, but something darker. It was the laugh of a psychopath.

  Any hope that Suzan had that her captor would suddenly grow a conscience, as fleeting as it might have been, was now completely and utterly crushed.

  This man was cool, calm, and calculated. He had a plan, and Suzan was beginning to lose hope that anybody would be able to stop him, least of all herself.

  Chapter 53

  Chase dug a toe into the gravel road as she spoke into her phone.

  “Beckett, there’s been—wait, who’s there with you? Suzan?”

  “Nuh-uh. I’m here with Drake and Screech. What’s up?”

  Chase sighed.

  “There’s been another murder, Beckett. Electrocution; tow truck driver on the outskirts of the city, looks like it happened a few hours ago.”

  Her eyes drifted to the body of Toby Teagar, a forty-four-year-old tow truck driver, a father of seven.

  “Shit,” Chase muttered, shaking her head. She was used to death, and even to murder, as much as one could become comfortable with the heinous act, but this was different. It was different because she knew how the next victim was going to die, and it was all taking a toll on her.

  “Dammit,” Beckett said. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know—this one is messed up. It looks like the tow truck driver was charging a battery by the side of the road when something went wrong; the scene is staged to make it look like he accidentally clipped one of the leads to his neck. Burnt right through his thin coat and shirt. No sign of any other car. This one… it’s not as neat as the others. I mean, why would the tow truck driver be charging a battery at the side of the road? And how the hell did he manage to electrocute himself? I don’t know if our killer is getting sloppy, or if he’s just desperate to get to the end of his fucked up game. Either way, I can’t see it taking more than another day or so before he kills again.”

  Hearing the words as they came out of her mouth made her feel sick to her stomach.

  “Beckett? You still there?”

  “Yeah. I’m gonna put you on speaker phone, hold on a sec.”

  Chase waited.

  “Drake here; Drake and Screech.”

  Drake’s voice was comforting.

  “We have another one, Drake. Electrocution.”

  “I heard. The killer’s cooling off period is getting shorter. Shit, I wouldn’t be surprised if he already has his next victim picked out.”

  “Wait,” Beckett interrupted. “Did you say that the guy shocked himself with a car battery?”

  Chase glanced over at Toby’s body again. He was lying at his back, his vacant eyes aimed upward.

  “Yep, it’s certainly made to look that way.”

  Beckett cleared his throat.

  “Yeah, sorry, but it’s just not possible.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s a myth. You can’t even get a shock from a car battery, let alone electrocute yourself. It’s only twelve volts. The source of the electricity must have been something else.”

  Chase looked around again. They were on a dirt road, with nothing but… what had Detective Yasiv said? Weeds and allergies. Yeah, that was a fairly apt description.

  “I don’t k
now what to tell you, Becket, but that’s how it’s been staged. Anyways, it doesn’t really matter how he died, only that it looks exactly like the photo from the exam.”

  There was only silence from the other end of the line.

  He’s getting sloppy and no longer cares if his crime scenes are ruled homicides instead of suicides or accidents. Either he’s not worried about getting caught, or he’s moving so quickly that he doesn’t think we can catch him in time.

  Chase hoped it was the former, but she had a sneaking suspicion that the latter was the case.

  “Throat slit—with hesitation marks.”

  “Excuse me?” Chase said, coming out of her own head.

  “The next one,” Beckett replied. “Is a woman with her throat slit with hesitation marks. Hey Chase, can you do me a favor?”

  Chase squatted by the body of the tow truck driver, indicating the other uniforms to take a step back.

  “Yeah, go ahead.”

  “Check for any marks on the vic’s skin; kinda like a small smudge of ashes.”

  Chase leaned close to the singe mark on the man’s shoulder, peering through the hole in his shirt and jacket.

  “You mean around the wound? His skin is all black and charred.”

  “No, no, not around the wound. Somewhere else. Somewhere that isn’t related to the injury.”

  Chase’s eyes narrowed and she searched the body. There was nothing on his hands, which had started to stiffen, or on his face, either.

  “Naw, I don’t see—hold on a sec.”

  She leaned over the man’s neck, looking at the side opposite the wound. There, just below her ear, she saw what looked exactly like what Beckett had described: a smudge of soot or ash.

  “Yeah, there’s something here—on his neck. What is it? What’s this about?” Chase asked as she stood.

  “It’s on all the bodies. I’m not sure what it is; I’ve got my tech guy on it, but he hasn’t come back yet. No fingerprints, unfortunately, but he’s going to tell me what it is and hopefully where it came from.”

  “A calling card?” she asked.

  Drake answered her.

  “Certainly looks that way. We found something else, too. Something about a website where people send messages? Like a—hold on a sec,” when he spoke next, he was barely audible. “A what? Bulletin Board?” his voice became clear again, “Chase, Screech wants to talk to you.”

  “Alright, go ahead.”

  “It wasn’t a website, but a bulletin board. I think that Eddie was posting on there, communicating with someone with the handle Arsonist514. Things went silent about a month ago, but then just the other day someone started posting in the thread again. A, uh, hold on… someone who goes by SC123. Anyways, seems like it might be related, given the ash or soot or whatever.”

  SC123?

  “I already have Dunbar trying to find anything about med students, I’ll get him on the website thing as soon as we wrap up here.”

  “Bulletin board,” Screech corrected.

  “Right. Can you pass the phone to Beckett for a sec?”

  Chase heard the phone being passed around.

  “Yeah, Beckett here. What’s up?”

  “Am I off speaker?”

  “Yep.”

  “Do you know if Suze—” and then it hit her.

  SC123. Suzan Cuthbert 123.

  “Fuck,” she gasped.

  “What? What is it?”

  “SC123? You think that it could be Suzan Cuthbert—SC? Have you spoken to her in a while?”

  There was a short pause, during which she heard Beckett’s breathing pick up as if he was walking briskly.

  “No,” he said quietly. “I haven’t seen her since yesterday when we were together. Told her to get back to class.”

  Chase chewed her lip.

  “Fuck, I hope to god that she listened. Go check on her, would you?”

  “Yeah, I’ll give her a ring. I’m sure she’s fine. Tough as nails, that one. She was the one who found the soot, by the way. Listen, do you need me to come out there to clear the body?”

  Chase shook her head.

  “No, there’s a junior ME already on scene. He’ll bring the body back to you. I’ll talk to Rhodes again, see if I can get him to open an investigation. This is the only death that I can see him having a hard time chalking it up to an accident, staged as it is, especially given what you told me about the battery. I don’t know if I can get the stubborn bastard to bend, but we need more manpower on this, Beckett. He’s going to kill again. And soon.”

  Chapter 54

  Drake left Triple D in a fog of confusion.

  Another victim, so soon after the last. And only two more to go.

  He and Beckett had planned to go together to speak to Dr. Tracey Moorfield, but at the last minute his friend had pulled the chute, telling him that he had to follow up on something at the morgue.

  Drake had felt a twang of jealousy when Chase had asked to speak to Beckett privately, but he thought it was more than simple jealousy. They were keeping something from him.

  Something that they didn’t want him to know.

  Drake shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts.

  Stay focused. There will be time to find out what their big secret is later.

  He made his way across the city to the university, taking the route suggested by Beckett. He parked, and then strode through the cool evening toward the faculty club, where Beckett had assured him that Dr. Tracey Moorfield would be.

  Despite his friend’s assertions that he wasn’t going to get anything out of her, it was still worth a shot. Officer Dunbar and Screech had their computers, but there was still a role for good old fashioned police work.

  He hoped.

  The door emblazoned with the gold plaque bearing Dr. Tracey Moorfield’s name was ajar, and Drake knocked heavily so that it opened wider with every rap.

  “Dr. Moorfield?”

  He heard someone clear their throat.

  “Yes? Who is it?”

  Drake put a hand on the door and pushed it open, leaning into the opening. A well-dressed woman with thin lips drawn into a frown, not entirely unlike Mrs. Armatridge and her cronies, sat in a large wooden chair, papers spread out before her atop a massive desk.

  “Dr. Moorfield?” he said again, putting on his most charming smile.

  “That’s what it says on the plaque, doesn’t it? Unless the university decided to change that, too.”

  The smile slid off Drake’s face.

  What had Beckett said? She’s like going bareback with a woman with vaginal something or other?

  He shuddered at the thought of vaginal anything with this woman.

  “What do you want?”

  Drake stepped into the room.

  “Did I say you can enter?”

  Taken aback by this, Drake froze mid-step.

  Dr. Moorfield sighed heavily.

  “Well, you’re already in now. I’ll ask you once more, what do you want?”

  Drake put his foot down and decided to forgo any small talk. He doubted if academic offices had emergency buttons beneath their desks like they did at the bank, but if they did, he suspected he only had a few seconds before Dr. Moorfield’s arthritic digits pushed it.

  “I’m here to ask you a few questions. About six murders.”

  One of the woman’s eyebrows raised, and she put her pencil down on the desk.

  “Are you a police officer?”

  “No, not exactly.”

  Dr. Moorfield frowned.

  “Not exactly? You’re either a police officer, or you aren’t. There is no in between. Which one is it?”

  “I’m not,” Drake said flatly.

  “So why is a civilian coming to my office to ask questions about murder?”

  Drake grimaced and he considered that Beckett might have understated the crust on the doctor.

  “Well, I was a police officer once—a detective, but—”

  Dr. Moorfield held up a h
and, stopping him mid-sentence.

  “I’m not interested in your life story. What do you want?”

  Drake’s blood pressure started to increase.

  “These murders… the killer is copying your pathology notes. I believe that my friend, Dr. Campbell visited you earlier?”

  Dr. Moorfield scowled.

  “They let anyone become doctors these days. In my time, you had to be intelligent to be a doctor. Now, it seems all you need is hair dye and tattoos.”

  Drake felt like they were having two separate conversations, and he tried to get them back on track.

  “Right, well I think that the killer might have been a former student of yours. Is there anyone that you can think of that might have been… I don’t know, different? Someone with a vendetta, maybe?”

  The woman’s eyes went dark and a brief silence fell over the office.

  “Get out,” Dr. Moorfield said. “Get out of my office.”

  Drake held his hands up.

  “Dr. Moor—”

  “Get out!” she suddenly shrieked. “I don’t know who you are, or why you are coming up with nonsense about murders only to bring up something that happened years ago, but I’m not falling for this.”

  “Dr. Moorfield, I—”

  “Get out! Get out! Get the hell out of here!”

  For such a small woman, such a wire rack of a human being, Dr. Tracey Moorfield certainly had a set of lungs on her.

  Ears ringing, Drake stood in the office for a moment, trying to wrap his head around what had precipitated this. Then, watching as the elderly woman’s chest heaved up and down, fearing that she was going to have a heart attack or a stroke, he spun on his heels and left the office.

  “What the hell was that?” he grumbled on the way back to his car.

  Maybe good old fashioned police work was dead after all.

  He took his cell phone from his pocket and dialed Screech’s number.

  “Screech, I’m going to need the names of the people on the tribunal board. Beckett was right, I’m—”

  But then he spotted something in the parking lot that drew his attention and he stopped speaking.

  “What the hell?”