Laura Cardinal - 01 - Darkness on the Edge of Town lc-1

by J. Carson Black

  Bruce pulled the door open a few inches before she could knock. “Josh is in bed, so come back tomorrow.” His voice was raspy from a lifetime of cigarettes, and his hairline had gone north on both sides. Bruce should have been a big man, but years of slouching took inches off his height and an old meth habit left him scrawny in a way that rehab couldn’t fix.

  “I just need a few minutes with him, so I can make some final notes.”

  “I told you, he’s not feeling well,” Bruce said through clenched teeth.

  “Then all the more reason I should see him.”

  “Not now.” Bruce started to close the door.

  Raina stood her ground. “The custody order isn’t final yet. They’re waiting for my report. And it’s not convenient for me to come back tomorrow. I have classes.” She sounded braver than she felt.

  “Don’t threaten me, you snot-nosed little—”

  Cindy’s voice boomed from the kitchen. “Let her in, Bruce. Might as well get it over with.”

  Raina wasn’t sure she still wanted to enter the trailer. She needed to know that Josh was okay, that the boy hadn’t changed his mind about going home to his parents. He had been quite excited on Sunday when she and Josh’s caseworker had picked him up to bring him here. The image of him standing on the ramshackle porch with his faded duffle bag, looking uncertain, haunted her. Raina had not slept well since.

  “Josh, come out here for a minute!” Cindy yelled down the hallway. Raina cringed. Her mother had been a screamer too.

  Bruce kept the door blocked. He turned his head and hollered, “Stay in bed!” Then to Cindy, he yelled, “Goddammit, woman. Don’t contradict me. That little bitch is not coming in, and Josh is not coming out.” Bruce turned back to Raina and growled through the partially open door. “You better forget you came out here tonight. And this conversation better not end up in the file.”

  Then it hit Raina. The paranoia, the anger, the need to dominate. She knew all the signs. She had witnessed them plenty as a child. Bruce was using again. He was high on meth right now. Oh dear God.

  Raina took a step back. Every muscle in her body wanted to run for the car. It had always been her instinct as a child too. It was a mistake. Meth dopers often had predatory responses. If you ran, they attacked. Raina still had the scars. Her mother had been quite quick on her feet.

  Raina coached herself to stay calm. Just nod and move away slowly. Don’t make eye contact. Get to the car and lock the doors.

  She took a step back. What about Josh? Was he okay? Panic pushed out of her stomach and into her throat. Had they already abused him? Is that why Bruce didn’t want her to see the boy?

  Without thinking, she called out, “Josh, are you okay?”

  Oh shit. Why had she done that?

  “Fuck you.” Bruce leaned out the door, no longer caring that she could see his hugely dilated pupils. “You don’t know a fucking thing. Get the fuck out of here and keep your fucking mouth shut.” Spit flew from his mouth with every f. “If we lose Josh again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

  Raina inched back, a half step at a time, feeling for the edge of the porch with her toes.

  “Move, you little bitch.” Bruce lunged through the door.

  Raina turned and ran.

  It was only thirty feet to her car, but every step on the dirt path felt sticky and treacherous in the near dark. Heart pounding, she reached the Volvo, yanked open the door, and jumped in. Her knee slammed into the steering wheel, but she didn’t have time to process the pain. Eyes watering, Raina hit the automatic door lock and started the engine.

  Only then did she look up. Bruce was barreling toward her, about ten feet from the car. Raina shoved the gearshift into reverse and hit the gas. As she cranked the wheel left, aiming for the gravel turnaround tucked into the trees, Bruce slipped and went down hard. Raina let out her breath, jammed the transmission into drive, and sped down the gravel road, bouncing through every pothole instead of taking the time to go around. For a fleeting second, she wished she had run over Bruce while he was down.

  Raina cursed herself for coming out here. She had been advised to see Josh only in neutral settings. She cursed herself for handling the situation so badly. Drug addicts! Disease or not, sometimes she hated all of them. Dead mother included.

  Raina checked her rear view mirror for headlights but didn’t see anyone coming behind her. Maybe Bruce had hurt himself when he fell. Or perhaps he’d decided to take out his anger on Cindy because she was closer and easier. Raina desperately hoped he would leave Josh alone.

  She decided to go straight to the police. She couldn’t prove that Josh was in immediate danger, but Bruce had threatened to kill her. That had to be against the law. The bastard. He’d better not hurt Josh. As soon as she was on the main road, she would call Mariah Martin, Josh’s caseworker at Child Welfare Services. Mariah would get a court order and get Josh out of that hellhole by tomorrow.

  Distracted by her scattered thoughts, Raina almost missed the single curve in the quarter-mile driveway. She braked and pulled hard on the steering wheel, barely keeping the car from smacking into a giant Douglas fir. It was dark now, and she was anxious to get back into the bright lights and safety of Eugene city streets. She didn’t want to die in one of those mysterious single-car accidents, so she kept her speed reasonable. Raina checked the rearview mirror again. No car lights behind directly her. With Pine Grove Road only a hundred yards ahead, she started to relax.

  Out of nowhere came a loud popping sound. Not quite like a gunshot, but loud enough to jumpstart her heart into frantic mode. Instinctively, Raina pressed the gas pedal, but the car didn’t respond well. It pulled to the left and made a grinding sound. Oh no. She’d blown a tire and was riding on the rim. She had probably run over something sharp. Shit, shit, shit! Of all times.

  Raina tried to keep driving, thinking it would be better to reach the road, but the grinding was unbearable, so she coasted to a stop. Now what? She knew how to change a flat tire; her grandmother had made sure of that. Yet the sliver of moonlight wasn’t enough, and crazy Bruce was still back there somewhere. Be smart, she told herself. Call for help.

  Raina reached into her purse for her cell phone, thinking she would call Jamie first. Jamie would bring her dad. Mr. Conner would have a spotlight in the back of his truck and make short work of changing the tire.

  The call wouldn’t go through. Damn! Seven miles out of town, and she couldn’t pick up a tower. She tried again. Dead air. Raina decided to step out of the Volvo just long enough to try the call again. After a quick glance back down the road, she unlocked the door and pressed speed-dial #2. As she reached for the handle, the door flew open and a powerful force yanked her from the car.

  Raina started to cry out, but her head smacked against the hard metal at the top of the door opening. Searing pain paralyzed her voice, and all that came out was a pathetic mewing sound. A calloused hand with an odd metal smell clamped over her mouth. Raina struggled, but a big arm squeezed her like a python holding its next meal. Fingers plunged into her hair, then slammed her head against the side of the car.

  More searing pain. Oh God, he was going to kill her.

  Bam! Her head smashed into the car again. As she passed out, Raina’s last thought was, I love you, Jamie.

  Chapter 2

  Thursday, February 14

  Kera was talking, but Jackson wasn’t listening. He couldn’t stop thinking about sex. After two years of near celibacy at the end of an angry marriage, he had met this incredible woman and now he was obsessed. He was sharing Valentine’s Day and a plate of tasty beef tournedos with a gorgeous intelligent woman—and all he could think about was getting to her house and getting naked.

  “I’m sorry, this isn’t interesting to you.” Kera looked concerned for a moment, then laughed. “But you really should try to hide it better.” Her green eyes twinkled with amusement. In the short time he’d known her, Jackson had been surprised again and again by her resilience.

&n
bsp; He reached for her hand. “I know. I’m sorry. You look incredible, and it’s distracting.” With her wide cheekbones, full lips, and big alert eyes, Kera looked like she could be part Native American, but he had never asked. Tonight her long copper hair was swept up, exposing her neck, although it was the tight black dress that got him going.

  “Thanks. It’s nice to have an opportunity to get out of the scrubs,” Kera said. She was a nurse at Planned Parenthood. They’d met five months ago when he’d responded to a bombing at the clinic. When one of her clients had been murdered, they’d been thrown together by a series of escalating events.

  Jackson tried to get back into her good graces by thinking of something personal to talk about. “How’s Danette?”

  Kera’s smile brightened. “She’s fine. Except she hates being pregnant. At eight months, she is getting really uncomfortable.”

  “I know you already told me this, but when is she due?”

  “March 15th. The Ides of March.”

  Jackson had a wicked thought. He leaned in and whispered, “Then you’ll be a GILF.”

  It took her a moment, then she burst into laughter. The couple at the next table glanced over. Kera gave him a look. “Let’s get out of here.”

  Jackson grinned and reached for his wallet. He felt lucky that she found him attractive. He always thought of himself as getting by: six feet and a little heavy at two-twenty, with a slightly too-big nose and a scar over his left eye. Could have been worse though.

  A few minutes later as he paid the check, his cell phone rang. Jackson glanced at the name on the screen. Denise Lammers. Jackson wasn’t on call tonight, so it wouldn’t hurt to wait an hour or so before he got back to her. He answered anyway. “Jackson here.”

  “It’s Sergeant Lammers. There’s a body in a car at the wildlife observation lookout on Greenhill Road. Young and female. Patrol says she looks bludgeoned.”

  The news hit him like a punch in the chest. It had been a bad five months for young and female in Eugene.

  Lammers continued, “I know it’s not your rotation, but I need you to take this case and wrap it up quickly. We’re already taking heat for the unresolved rape cases, and the public is still upset about the dead schoolgirls.”

  Jackson’s chest tightened. The dead schoolgirls had been his case, and he had been too slow to put it together. “Will you call Evans, McCray, and Schakowski? Get them out to the scene tonight.” Jackson would pull in other detectives if he didn’t have a suspect in the next twenty-four hours, but he wanted to start with his core team.

  “They’re next on my list.”

  “I’m on my way.” Jackson stood and gave Kera a tight-lipped smile.

  “A homicide?” She grabbed her coat and slid out of the booth.

  “I’m sorry. Happy Valentine’s Day.” Jackson kissed her. “You probably won’t see me for a week or so.”

  “Thanks for letting me know up front,” she said. “Do you need help with Katie?”

  Kera was trying to befriend his fourteen-year-old daughter, but Katie was not responding. The girl still had hopes that her parents would get back together, so she figured being nice to Dad’s new girlfriend was not in her best interest.

  Jackson put his arm around Kera. “Thanks, but I’ll probably let her stay with Renee for a few days.” His soon-to-be-ex-wife had managed to stay sober long enough to earn visiting privileges. Jackson had no faith it would last, but Katie might as well get what quality mother time she could.

  As they left the restaurant and moved toward his lovingly restored, midnight blue ‘69 GTO, Jackson began to process the homicide’s possibilities. An angry boyfriend or a drug deal gone bad were the most likely scenarios. Jackson felt himself hurrying. As much as he hated the sight of a dead young female, the need to find her killer stirred his blood and made him forget his other needs.

  Chapter 3

  The wildlife observation point was a small parking lot overlooking twenty acres of preserved wetlands on the edge of town. Before the environmentalists took over Lane County, most locals thought of the area as the west Eugene swamp. Jackson thought the observation status was greatly exaggerated, unless you were fond of looking at geese. The parking lot mostly served as a turnaround point for cyclists and dog walkers who used the connecting bike path.

  Two dark blue patrol cars and the forensics van were already on the scene when Jackson pulled in. Rain arrived with him, so he considered calling for the mobile command post, a big white RV that gave detectives at a scene a place to keep dry while they interviewed witnesses and suspects. A quick look at the situation changed his mind. The only civilian car in the lot was an old forest-green Volvo. The only likely witnesses were in the comfy dry homes on the hill across the road. There wasn’t much he could accomplish here, and his gut instinct told him this was a secondary scene, a dump zone, not the kill spot.

  Jackson grabbed his crime scene bag and rain jacket from the back of the Impala and climbed out. He had stopped by headquarters, four blocks from the restaurant, to trade vehicles. He never took the GTO to crime scenes or anywhere it could get damaged. Two patrol officers stood guard near the Volvo. The young male officer stepped forward and said, “I’m Officer Chang, and this is Officer Whitstone.”

  Whitstone, forty-something and too cherub-faced to look like a cop, nodded and said, “I checked for a pulse even though she looked deader than anyone I’ve ever seen. Other than that, we haven’t touched anything but the door handle. And I wore gloves.”

  “Good work.” This was why he taught the crime scene protocol class—so patrol officers didn’t ruin the only prints he might get from a scene.

  “We didn’t put up yellow tape,” Whitstone said with a slight hesitation. “It seemed like it would just get in the way. And there aren’t any onlookers here.”

  Jackson nodded. “Who reported the body?”

  “A woman who lives over there,” Chang said, pointing to the lights on the hill across the road. “She saw the car here this morning, then again when she got home from work. It made her suspicious, so she called it in.”

  “I was the first one on the scene,” Whitstone reported.

  “Did either of you talk to the woman who called it in?”

  They both looked sheepish. “We thought it best to stay with the body,” Whitstone offered.

  The door on the white forensics van swung open and Jasmine Parker glided out. Jackson was relieved. Tall, thin, ageless, and mostly expressionless, Parker was the best tech in the department. She had an uncanny knack for zeroing in on the little details and objects that turned out to be important. She also never lost anything. None of the other techs could make that claim.

  Jackson lifted his hand to acknowledge Parker, then strode toward the Volvo. The witness on the hill could wait. He quickly zipped his jacket. Why were his crime scenes always dark and wet? Sergeant Lammers never assigned him the bodies in the dry apartment buildings with the roommate standing by with a bloody baseball bat.

  As Jackson pulled on gloves, floodlights illuminated the area. Parker was already making his job easier. “Thanks,” he called over his shoulder. A small dent near the front of the car on the driver’s side caught his attention. It looked recent, and close examination with a flashlight revealed tiny flecks of orange paint. “Bag and tag this dent,” he called to Parker. He would look over every inch of the car tomorrow in the evidence bay, but right now, the body called to him.

  Jackson stood and moved to the driver’s side door. A dark blood smear at the top of the car made him rethink his assessment that this was not the primary crime scene. Had she been killed right here? Right where he stood? He pointed to the smear. “Tag this blood for DNA analysis.”

  The victim was in the back, on the floor. The green plaid blanket covering her body had been pulled back to reveal her face. In the glare of the floodlights, her skin seemed luminescent white. Jackson tried to see past the dead, slack flesh and lifeless eyes to what the girl had looked like on a good day. She
had been pretty in a pixie-like way. Dark curly hair, upturned nose, cupid lips. Then he saw the scar, a long pink ridge that paralleled her hairline on the left of her face. It was old news for this young woman, but he was curious nonetheless. He jotted down a note to ask her family about the scar.

  Jackson pressed a gloved finger to her throat out of habit. The gruesome bloody dent in the side of her head screamed corpse, but he had to check anyway. In police lore, there were stories about corpses that suddenly started chatting with the medical examiner on the way to the morgue. The chill in her skin seeped through his glove. This girl had been gone for a while. A quick look at her hands told him she had not had a chance to defend herself. There was an old burn scar in the web of her thumb, but no recent scratches or bruises.

  Who was she? Jackson needed to know right now. This young woman had a name; she was not just another dead body. He leaned farther into the car and lifted the blanket to see if she had a wallet in her pants pocket. She wore no pants. Or panties. Only a dark smear of dried blood on the inside of both legs. A hot rage filled his stomach. Jackson forced himself to breathe slowly, to focus on the facts. There was something odd about the blood. It seemed to have rolled across the top of her legs instead of down her thighs. She had not stood up again after she was assaulted.

  Jackson looked away from her wounds and searched for a purse or wallet. He found a brightly printed fabric bag stuffed between the front seats. It looked like something she might have bought at Saturday Market from a local artist with dreadlocks. The print was mostly green, as was her turtleneck, the blanket, and the car. He made a note that the victim liked green, then snapped a picture of the purse in its location.