“Deal.”
With a nod in thanks, Cruz slid out of the booth and, coffee untouched, stood up to leave.
“Oh, and Cruz?”
He turned in question to his former supervisor and mentor.
“We need to take care of her.”
“Who? Cassidy?”
“Yeah. She’s a special young woman.”
“I agree.” And he gave Ted a thoughtful smile. “Thank you.”
Cruz hurried out of the diner and, shooting a text over to his partner, told her to start researching Bengay as a possible clue, but to check statewide this time. He also suggested she contact the police departments from the surrounding states. Hopefully, they’d get some cooperation. Seconds later, his phone rang.
“Cruz,” he said into the receiver as he sat down in the driver’s seat.
“There’s been another one,” Sanchez said.
CHAPTER 30
T
he incessant buzzing of Cassidy’s cellphone dragged her from a delightful dream of Cruz wearing a loincloth made of feathers, his scent an intoxicating mix of buttery popcorn and man. Just as she was about to tear his loincloth off with her teeth, she was jolted back to reality. Reaching for her phone, Cassidy coughed, wiping a tiny white feather from her mouth. She glanced from the feather to the pillow and back to the feather, then shrugged and answered her phone.
“What?”
“Cassidy, did they call you yet?” JJ’s voice was shrill, panicky.
She rubbed her forehead, giving herself a second to clear away the cobwebs. “I just woke up. Did who—?”
“Sanchez called me and said they found another body.”
“And?”
“They want us to go down to the coroner’s office and identify it.”
“Why?”
“I guess they think we know who it is?”
“But we have to go to work. Can’t we do it later?” Cassidy slumped back into her pillow.
“She seemed pretty insistent we go down there right away.”
“Fine. I’ll call Janet. Maybe she can reschedule our caseload, or have another therapist see them. I’ll pick you up in a bit.”
“Thanks.”
Cassidy hung up the phone.
For a moment, she struggled to free herself of the sheets that had somehow gotten wrapped around her legs, tethering her to the bed. After sitting on the side of the bed for a few minutes, gathering her wits, she placed the call.
“Janet speaking.”
“Hey, it’s Cassidy.”
“Yeah?”
“JJ got a call from the police. They want us to go to the coroner’s office downtown to identify another body, and they want us to do it right away.”
Janet grunted. “So how does that affect me?” she mumbled through an annoying crunching and unbridled lip-smacking that churned Cassidy’s stomach. Breakfast for Janet must have consisted of tortilla chips and puppy chow.
“Could you reschedule our caseload to either another day or have a different therapist see them for today?”
“Let me see...” Janet took a large gulp of something, and the vision of a crocodile throwing back a hunk of wildebeest came to mind. “Okay... done.”
“Thanks.”
“Wait. Not so fast. You still have to see one person, and it’s not open for discussion. Randi sent me a text this morning. She’s still sick. She has a patient she normally sees in the evening, and since you’ll be busy during the day, you can complete this visit in the late afternoon or early evening.”
“I don’t work evenings.”
“Not. Open. For. Discussion. All I need from you is a time frame.”
“Fine. After dinner, at seven?”
“Great. I’ll call and leave her a message to expect you two idiots. And do me a favor: be on time. I’ll print off the patient’s information and tape it to my door. Just take it. I’ll be in and out all day; my hair-girl can squeeze me in around five today, so I need to take advantage of that.”
“Of course. Sticking with your current look?”
“I might spruce it up a bit. I’m thinking maybe black and white. Both colors go with everything,” Janet said.
“Sounds like you’ve put a lot of thought into this.”
“Well, anyway, have a pleasant day.”
Cassidy hurried around and took care of Max and then herself. She’d never been to a coroner’s office before, so picking out the perfect outfit took some time. Settling on a classy black button-up sleeveless shirt and a beautifully tailored pair of khaki pants, Cassidy chose some modest three-inch black leather heels and a small Gucci handbag to go with it.
Having worked hard to make herself presentable to the world at large, she gave Max some love, then left her apartment, discretely making her way past the pool area. Head down, bag clutched to her side, she looked like a Hollywood starlet fleeing from the paparazzi.
In a few minutes, she reached JJ’s apartment.
“Good morning,” he said as he got into the car.
“Doesn’t seem all that lovely to me.”
“I was trying to be nice, considering how late you are. What took so long?”
“It takes me a while to get ready in the morning. Geez, what’s with the third degree?”
JJ sighed. “I’m just nervous, is all. Let me start over. Hey Cassidy, how was your evening?”
“Nothing to report. You?”
“I managed to live through it.”
“Wonderful. Okay, should we stop for coffee now, or afterwards?”
“After. We’re already late.”
“I wish you’d stop throwing that in my face.”
JJ laughed as she pulled away from the curb and into traffic. They arrived at the Coroner’s office shortly thereafter.
“Do you think it’ll smell like dead bodies?” JJ said.
“I hope not!” Her sparse knowledge of morgues came from the TV shows she watched, but they never referred to any particular smell.
JJ opened the door, and they stepped through into the unknown. The lifeless grey floor tiles did little to accentuate the dingy off-white walls, and it was clear the fake potted plants strewn about the room were a half-hearted attempt to bring life to a house of death. No detectable odors or noxious smells indicating dead bodies, and for this, Cassidy was grateful. What she wasn’t grateful for, however, was the receptionist, whose bangs had been sufficiently Aqua Netted into place back in the eighties.
“Excuse me, ma’am,” JJ said. “We received a call early this morning and was asked to come down and identify a body. Do we need to sign in or something?”
But the receptionist didn’t respond. Cassidy peered over the counter to read the woman’s name tag. Kandi. Annoyed by the spelling of the name and the woman’s inability to answer questions, Cassidy turned to JJ and said, “Maybe she’s not real. You should poke her.”
Yeah, great idea...not."
So, caught in a frustrating stalemate, the two of them waited in front of the desk to be acknowledged by the gatekeeper, which seemed to take forever. But once Kandi had finished picking her breakfast from between the middle of her two front teeth, she yawned and stretched both arms high above her head.
“Okay,” she said, “what do you want? I was on a break. I don’t do nothin’ when I’m on break.” And Kandi proceeded to use her pencil tip to clean wax out of her ears. Cassidy shuddered.
“Like my friend here just said, we received a call very early this morning, demanding our presence so we could identify a body. If you don’t mind, could you let someone know we’re here, so we can get this over with? I really want to get out of here.”
“Names?” Kandi said.
Cassidy narrowed her eyes. “Well, sweetie, my name’s Kiss-a Mai—”
“Her name’s Cassidy Hudson, and I’m Jamal Jones.”
Kandi tapped a couple of buttons on her phone, then mumbled something into her headset before turning back to them. “Go straight down the hall. Take your first left. You w
ant the second room on the left. Knock before you enter.” Then Kandi commenced picking the grime out from under her long, slightly curled fingernails.
“Thank you,” JJ said, while Cassidy cringed.
Together, they walked down the sterile-looking hallways beneath flickering fluorescent lights and past muffled voices behind closed doors. Not long after they rounded the left corner, they found the door marked: Medical Examiner – Dr. Trotts. JJ knocked, but no one answered. He was about to knock again, when Cassidy barged in front of him and, with a tissue protecting her hand, threw open the door.
Inside, the stench of formaldehyde, bleach, and McDonald’s cheeseburgers and fries, hit them. Cassidy stopped short, breathing shallowly through her mouth, torn between vomiting and educating everyone about the contamination of food through airborne particles in the workplace. Most people were surprised by how easily they could contract an intestinal disease from reactivated spores that lived dormant on surfaces for up to six months. Cassidy broke out into a cold sweat.
“You must be Jamal Jones and Cassidy Hudson.” Dr. Trotts hurried over with his hand extended in greeting, but when neither of them reached for it, the doctor looked down to see he was still wearing his examination gloves covered in bits of someone who no longer needed therapy services. He took off his gloves and re-extended his hand. “Dear me. I can be so absentminded.”
JJ shook the doctor’s hand, smiled, and greeted him in return.
Cassidy did not.
“I’m so happy you two came down here on such short notice. I never like leaving a body unidentified, you see. The victim had no identification on him, and without a witness, there’s no way to determine who he might be.” Dr. Trotts grinned, all-too happy, all-too exuberant and all-too early in the morning.
“This is Miami,” Cassidy said. “I’m surprised you got so worked up over a John Doe. On CSI Miami, unidentifiable bodies show up at the morgue all the time.”
Dr. Trotts’ brow creased. “Well, I’m not familiar with that show. But you’re right, this happens quite often here in Miami. I’m from a little town in Iowa, though, where everyone knows each other. Now, if you wouldn't mind waiting outside for Detective Sanchez. She stepped out for a moment. I’m sure it won’t be, but a -.”
“The last time I checked, people could be identified by fingerprints and dental records,” Cassidy said. “Why can’t you just do something like that? It’d make more sense than dragging us all the way down here. Or maybe you’re not familiar with all of those new-fangled contraptions invented after the War of Northern Aggression.”
“Young lady, I can assure you I am very up to date on all the latest and greatest the forensics world has to offer. By the way, I didn’t realize you were such an expert. Where did you study?”
“Learned everything from Detective Horatio Caine.”
“Ah, I see. Well, in that case, I should inform you we don’t have a point of reference. We ran the victim’s fingerprints, but he’s not in the system. As for dental records, we’d need to know who he might be first, to have something to compare them to.”
“But what makes you think we might know who the victim is?” JJ said.
“The detectives involved in this case said that you had knowledge of the previous victims, and might have something to offer for this one. Now, if you’d be so kind as to follow me into the lab to take a peek...” Suddenly, he clasped his hands together in front of his mouth, barely concealing his wide smile of excitement. “Since I started working here, I have had so few visitors to my lab. This is such a treat!”
“Watch your step, JJ,” Cassidy said. “I think he just wet himself.”
“We’re more than happy to help,” said JJ, casting Cassidy a scornful look and bumping her with his elbow, then stepping back quickly just in case she retaliated.
“I really doubt we’d be of much help,” Cassidy said. “But, I guess we can take a look. I mean, I did tell Detective Sanchez that if they needed us, we’d do what we could.”
“Fantastic!” Dr. Trotts spun on his heel and pushed through a swinging door that led into the lab.
Inside, the lab itself was what Cassidy had expected: stark walls tiled in a grungy light grey with a dull-colored floor, though not stained with blood or covered in gore. In the center sat an examination table, solid stainless steel and the perfect size to hold a corpse. A bright light illuminated a body covered by a plain white plastic sheet. The image brought back memories of graduate school and early morning study sessions in the lab, where she and her friends would meet to practice identifying body parts in preparation for the anatomy-lab final. When they were done studying, Cassidy and her friends often found themselves hungry and would go out for breakfast at an IHOP down the street. They ate stacks of pancakes and greasy strips of bacon. Now, her stomach tightened, but not for food. She took a few nervous steps toward the body, hoping she wouldn’t know who it was. Enough of her clients have already been murdered.
Detective Sanchez burst into the room. “Thank you, Doctor Trotts. Sorry to be so late. I never would have left you alone with her—them—unless it was absolutely necessary.”
“That’s quite all right. We were just about to have a look at the body.” He took ahold of the plastic sheet with both hands. “Are you ready?”
The two friends nodded, and Cassidy stiffened as Dr. Trotts drew back the sheet to reveal the face and upper torso of a badly bruised older male.
JJ released a long breath, looking relieved. “I don’t know this man,” he said, and Cassidy was about to say the same, when something caught her eye: a peace-sign earring in the man’s left ear. She squinted, cocked her head, continued to stare and study the face that was now becoming more and more familiar. Then, the proverbial light bulb clicked on.
“It’s him,” she said. “This is the guy with the little white dog. I saw him at both crime scenes.”
“Do you know his name?” Sanchez said.
Cassidy rubbed at her temples. “No, but he's definitely the guy I was looking for at Chester's house. What happened to him?”
“At this point, we don’t know too much, but he was beaten,” Dr Trotts said. “He sustained internal injuries consistent with being bludgeoned with fists or some other blunt object. He did fight back, though. All of his fingers are broken, and many of his fingernails were torn off when he clawed at his attacker. He’s also missing his two front teeth.” He lifted the man’s top lip. “See how they’ve been broken in half? He probably swallowed them, but I have yet to examine the stomach contents. And his jaw... see how it doesn’t line up quite right?” He moved the mandible that was no longer mechanically sound. “We often see this kind of injury when someone bites his attacker hard enough to dislocate one side of the jaw; the tendons have been stretched on the right side, but not the left.”
“Any of the attacker’s blood or skin found in his mouth?” Cassidy said. “I’ve seen that happen on one of my favorite Criminal Minds episodes.”
Dr. Trotts shook his head. “Sadly, no. Seems he only managed a mouthful of fabric from the killer’s clothing, evidenced by the fibers we’d pulled out from between his lower teeth.” He pointed to a couple of strands on a tray next to a pair of tweezers.
“Where did they find him?”
“Sorry to interrupt Ms. Hudson, but I’d like to stop you right there," Sanchez said. She turned to the doctor and said, “Would you mind terribly if I could have a few minutes alone with these two?"
"Not at all," he said as he recovered the body and gathered up a few things before leaving.
She turned her attention to Cassidy and JJ once the doctor was gone. “Any further questions, direct them to me.”
“Where did you find him?” Cassidy said.
“Near Chester’s home. He was left in a drainage ditch a few hundred yards away, ineffectually covered over with palm fronds.”
“And what makes you think this event is related to the other murders?”
Sanchez waved dismissively. “Tha
t part hasn’t been released to the public yet.”
“I’m not the public,” Cassidy said. “We were told to come down here and identify a body you suspected we’d know, and now you won’t give me any other information? What a load of crap.”
“And if we need you again, we’ll call you,” Sanchez said. “Until then, stay out of official police business.”
“Two more questions,” Cassidy said, and she waited until Sanchez looked over at her. “How do you plan to identify him? And did you find his little white dog?”
“We’ll be going door-to-door, questioning Chester’s neighbors. And yes, his dog’s being processed for evidence, then she’ll be turned over to animal control. Is that all?” Sanchez used her arm as a sweep toward the door, showing them the exit.
“Animal control?” Cassidy said. “No, I don’t think so. I’ll take the dog.”
“Cassidy, are you sure?” JJ said. “You’ve already got Max. Maybe they won’t get along.”
“The poor thing’s been through too much already. When can I have her?”
“Well, she’ll be processed today, then placed into quarantine to make sure she doesn’t have rabies. She should be available in a couple weeks,” Sanchez said, appearing grateful for Cassidy’s offer. Maybe the frigid bitch had a heart after all.
“If that’s the best you can do,” Cassidy said. “By the way, do you have any leads yet?”
“Regarding?”
“The person who tried to run us down at JJ’s apartment.”
Sanchez turned to address JJ, “We are following some leads, but nothing definitive to share as of yet. How are you feeling?”
“Much better, thank you. I’m still a bit banged up, but I’ll be all right.”
“A word to the wise.” Sanchez said. “If you two know what’s good for you, you’ll keep your minds and noses out of this case. The murders are becoming increasingly violent, gruesome, and unpredictable; a madman’s out there, and it’s just not safe right now.”
“Yes, thank you, Detective,” JJ said. “That’s good advice. Did you hear that, Cassidy?”
The Cure May Kill You: A Cassidy Hudson Mystery Page 24