When Hakeem and Aspen ducked under the crime-scene tape and breached the tree-lined perimeter, the building’s sentries, they looked up at a Jewish synagogue. It was an overbearing building with a wide set of concrete steps that sat beneath huge pillars that stretched to the sky swollen with clouds. Hakeem wondered what type of monster would kill a person in a sacred place of worship. He needed to know. It was that thirst for unanswered questions that drove him.
A burly man with a thin goatee and receding hairline came over and shook Aspen’s hand, then Hakeem’s. “Heard the mayor assigned you guys to this. It’s nice to finally meet the infamous Dynamic Duo. I’m Officer McNally.”
Scanning the area with his intense gaze, Hakeem said, “McNally, I’m taking it you were the first officer on the scene.”
McNally nodded. “Dispatch assigned me the call at four thirtyish.”
“Push the perimeter back another ten feet,” Aspen said. “Until someone relieves you, you’re solely responsible for keeping my perimeter secure. Within the next forty minutes, this place will be a circus.” She took in their surroundings. “No one gets past you, not even the person who signs your paycheck unless I authorize it. We clear?”
McNally nodded like a little boy who’d gotten in trouble.
Aspen had recounted to Hakeem about how she’d learned the hard way about keeping foot traffic inside a crime scene to a necessary minimum. Back in Los Angeles when she worked in the legendary Glass House with Homicide Special, she was processing the crime scene of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, which was overrun with reporters. While bagging and tagging evidence, she caught a break, or so she thought. She bagged a cigarette butt that everyone assumed belonged to the killer or killer’s accomplice. After wasting several weeks waiting on DNA evidence to come back on the butt, it turned out to match a reporter who had contaminated the scene. Now as a veteran detective, she prevented the unconscious removal, addition, and/or destruction of evidence by keeping nosey folks out.
Hakeem appreciated her thoroughness.
TWENTY-THREE
Aspen nudged the thin strip of soil beneath her with a pump. “Where does this path lead to, Officer McNally?”
“It, uh, winds behind the synagogue for about thirty yards and comes out on Euclid Heights Boulevard. The path’s mouth is obscured by overgrown shrubbery. To know it’s there you’d have to know it’s there. Years ago the neighborhood kids created it as a shortcut to get to school. Four generations later, kids still use this path to get to school.”
Hakeem gestured to another potbellied officer who stood at the entrance of the sanctuary. “Your partner?”
“Eight years straight,” Officer McNally said. “He’s manning the logbook.”
Aspen said, “Never knew this place was here.”
“Been here since the sixties,” Officer McNally said. “The Jewish community stopped using it as a place of worship about eleven years ago. It’s so well hidden by the trees, like the path, you wouldn’t know this building was here unless you knew it was here.”
Hakeem said nothing.
Aspen had already noticed that on first visual, the area looked like it was a dense patch of woods until they cut through the tree perimeter guarding the synagogue and found its hollow bowels.
McNally pointed to their left. “Just behind that evergreen there’s a hidden driveway. The killer probably used it unless they walked in here.”
“You’re real familiar with this place.” Aspen nailed him with her suspicious cop eyes.
“Used to be one of those kids who rode my bike through here every morning. I went to Monticello Junior High.”
Aspen said, “Who found the body?”
Hakeem cringed. Aspen knew Hakeem hated how real people were reduced to insignificant “bodies” once they expired.
“Uh…Mr. and Mrs.—” McNally whipped out his notepad. “—Walter and Mary Williams.”
Hakeem’s—ever the pessimist—radar went off. What would a married couple be doing inside the building if it’s been closed down for eleven years? “Williams isn’t a Jewish name.”
“A couple?” Aspen said, picking up on Hakeem’s frequency. “Thought this place hasn’t been operational, that the most action it sees is kids using this path to get from Point A to B, right?”
“They’re senior citizens; they work, housecleaning and maintenance, for the Hebrew Academy of Cleveland up on Taylor Road. The academy uses this old place as a warehouse for the school. They came down here to pick up supplies and found our victim.”
“So they have keys to this place?” Hakeem looked at his Rolex and thought about Keebler.
“Yeah,” McNally said, nodding. “But I believe the killer got in through a window. There’s a window broken out in there.” McNally jerked a thumb toward the building. “Mr. Williams is certain it wasn’t broken out two days ago.”
On first observation of the place, Hakeem noticed a tree limb reaching out and flirting with the building.
“I’m guessing this broken window is on the third floor, east side of the building,” Aspen said, always on point.
“How’d you know?” McNally had the I’m-puzzled look down to a science.
She shrugged a lucky guess, slid her peep-toe pumps off, and then said to Hakeem, “I’ll check around back. Sign me in the log; I’ll initial it later.” She strutted away carrying her shoes.
“McNally.”
Nothing.
“Officer McNally.” Hakeem shook him back to the here-and-now.
“Huh?” McNally said, coming out his trance.
“I asked you about the Williamses. Where are they?”
“Oh, the old man had medication to take, and they had to let their grandson in after school. I took their statements and let them go home.” McNally gave Hakeem a copy of their statement.
“Give me a minute,” Hakeem said, stepping off to the side, pulling out his Palm Treo smart phone. He pulled up Ms. Drew Felding’s information and dialed her number. “Hi, Drew; Hakeem here.”
“I have caller ID, Hakeem. But it’s good to hear your voice.” She was always as cheerful as ever. “Your car isn’t in the driveway. What’s going on?”
“Ran into a little situation at work.”
“It wouldn’t have anything to do with what Sharon Reed is talking about on the news, would it?” Then: “She’s scaring the bejesus out of me, and I’m sure she’s scaring the rest of the good people in this city.”
“Don’t listen to Reed. Her paycheck is based on putting panic and fear in people’s lives. She wants network coverage. Ratings. She gives a story legs. So how can you believe anything she says?” He peeped Officer McNally checking him out on the sly. “But I am working the case she’s speculating about, so I’ll be home late. I was wondering if—”
“Hakeem, you just make this city safe and I’ll take care of Keebler until you get home.”
“Thanks, Drew.” He hung up and dropped the phone in his pocket. He turned to McNally. “Take me to the deceased.”
McNally aimed his Maglite and led Hakeem up the concrete steps and froze at the door. “This is as far as I’m going. Once was enough. Hope you got a cast-iron stomach.”
TWENTY-FOUR
What a fucking dummy, Scratch, a heroin addict, thought as he peeked through the Camaro’s window. The lame with that pretty broad from yesterday had left his keys in the ignition and an iPhone on the seat. Scratch looked around, confident he wasn’t being watched, then climbed inside the ride and fired it up. The rumble of the engine was powerful. It made him feel tough. Without a doubt, he was about to get a bankroll for this beautiful machine. He gripped the steering wheel eager to see what the car was made of when flashing lights lit up Sidney Avenue. Fuck. There goes his fix. He hadn’t even stolen the damn thing yet and already Euclid cops were coming. He jerked the car back in Drive, snatched up the iPhone, and hustled out the car and over to the Wood Chips.
He sat on a rung of the sliding board ladder, trying to catch
his breath as a tow truck rounded the curve in the street. A tow truck? He panicked and blew his high behind a tow truck? He was pissed with himself for not pulling off as he watched the tow truck back up to the Camaro. At least he got a phone out the deal. That would definitely get him a bag or two. He took the iPhone out to check its applications and saw that the display screen read 92 Missed Calls. This lame must be important, he told himself.
He slyly shot up his last bag of dope as he watched the tow truck driver hook the Camaro up to its hoist. Just as the dope hit his system, the iPhone rang. He hit the Send button and listened.
“Yancee…Yancee, hello?” Then: “You black motherfucker, I hope she’s worth it ’cause we’re through. Come get your crazy-ass mammee and these rotten, penitentiary-bound kids and take ’em to that bitch’s house. Fuck this marriage and fuck—”
Scratch hung up. With a woman with a mouth and attitude like that, he understood why the lame drove off with another woman yesterday.
TWENTY-FIVE
The synagogue gave Hakeem the creeps; it reminded him of a setting that Wes Craven would use in a horror flick, a building that would have scared Hakeem shitless as a child. He pushed his hands inside a pair of leather gloves, slipped shoe covers over his shoes, and stepped through the domineering double doors. Everything good and wholesome inside him whispered, “Fool, turn your ass around.”
He took a few more steps into the building’s guts and waited, waited for the nausea to grip him and knot his innards. It was a feeling he counted on, one that screamed “I’m still normal.” He’d vowed to Aspen that when he became desensitized to death and the nauseous feeling divorced him, he would turn in his gold shield and spend the rest of his days on an exotic beach in Dubai with half-naked women.
The coppery smell of blood and rotten flesh raped his nose. His belly tried to crawl up his throat and out his mouth. He forced the bile down as his heart feloniously assaulted his chest. Decay and the residue of anger tainted the air. It was a funk that promised to cling until he scrubbed it clean. But Hakeem knew he’d still smell it in his mind.
Like a thoroughbred bloodhound he sniffed and followed the funk to its source, stomach protesting every step of the way. Just beyond the main sanctuary a man lay on the floor. Shirt open, pants and underwear gathered at his ankles. Blowflies circled his body like hungry vultures. Blood pooled around his body; it had turned brown and thick like meringue.
Hakeem pulled out his Palm Treo 750 and snapped a barrage of crime-screen photos. The victim’s face was covered with the Metro section of yesterday’s newspaper. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics were carefully carved into every visible part of the victim’s skin. Hakeem ventured to lift the newspaper some. The victim’s eyes were bulged from heat-expanded tissues and were filled with maggots. His mouth was frozen open as if he died screaming.
“Son of a bitch.”
TWENTY-SIX
Aspen climbed through the third-floor window with the straps of her high-heels clenched between her teeth. She eased her small feet into the shoes, then she removed a fingerprint kit from her clutch and dusted the window.
Nothing.
The killer had concealed his prints. The stench of human tissue crept up her nose. It reminded her of Pete’s Butchery. When she was a small child, she and her mother visited Pete’s every weekend to get the following week’s supply of fresh meat. Her mother wouldn’t allow the hired help to purchase their meat. She insisted on handling that herself. Aspen hated the weekly visits to Pete’s, and she hated the smell even more.
When Aspen clicked her heels to the end of the hallway and rounded the corner, she came to a balcony that overlooked the ground floor. A marble flight of steps unfolded from the balcony to the floor. She looked down and saw Hakeem kneeling beside a naked body. Her first concern was Hakeem. “How are you feeling?”
His tired eyes found her voice. “Sick.”
“Good to hear,” she said, coming down the stairs. “What did Officer McNally do when I walked off?”
“Checked out your ass.”
“I still got it.”
“How’d you get in?” He snapped off a few more pictures.
“The oak tree outside invited me in.” Then: “It’s how he got in.”
“Our unsub is a he?”
She knew Hakeem wouldn’t miss a beat. “Not many girls can climb a twenty-six-foot tree and scale across a nine-foot branch and break in through a window. And I did it barefoot.”
“You’re the exception to the girl rule.”
Aspen stood beside him and looked down on the dead man. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The implications of the elaborate markings carved into the body was a threat to every citizen in Cuyahoga County. “Looks like a serial killer has come to town.”
“Maybe it’s a copycat,” Hakeem said.
“Maybe not.”
“If not, I sure hope he isn’t planning on staying too long.”
She said, “I feel you.”
“Aspen?”
She already knew where his head was at. “I want to catch this guy too.”
“Then let’s get him before he does it again.”
Aspen whipped out her BlackBerry and put in a call to Forensic Pathologist Aura Chavez MD—the trusted Alfred to their Dynamic Duo, then they began to process the scene of the crime.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Forensic Pathologist Aura Chavez MD was over-the-hill and did her best to disguise it with too much CoverGirl. She was one of those women who found it necessary to whack her eyebrows off and draw them back on in such a way that made her look like she was in a constant state of surprise. “The Hieroglyphic Hacker is a pretty salty fellow,” she said with her thick Spanish accent while looking down on the enigmatic symbol system cut into the victim’s skin. “What type of hate, what type of mind does it take to do something like this?”
“An unstable one,” Aspen said, firing up a Newport three hours before scheduled. “The type of hate our death penalty will cure.”
Hakeem said, “What’s your preliminary thoughts on the cause and time of death?”
“It’s way too early to talk cause; it could be anything. Speculation without an autopsy in my line of work is unprofessional, Detective.”
“Well, I don’t have a problem with speculating,” Aspen said. “Judging from these three stab wounds in his thigh, I’d venture to say he bled to death and the hieroglyphics were postmortem.”
“Possible,” Dr. Chavez said. “Full rigor is set. The buildup of internal gases is purging fluids from his nose and mouth. In combination with lividity and liver temp, this man has been dead for approximately sixteen, seventeen hours. On record I’d say he was murdered around eight-fifteen, eight-thirty yesterday evening.” She shook her head. “So does anyone have a clue who this young man is?”
Smoke flowed from Aspen’s mouth as she spoke. “No cell phone, wallet, or keys.”
“Only thing we can infer is he works for UPS by his shirt, so we’ll start there.” Hakeem put his arm around Dr. Chavez’s shoulder. “In the meantime, after you check his hands for trace, fax me his prints. I’ll run them through IAFIS. Maybe he has a record.”
Dr. Aura Chavez considered the victim for a long moment while her criminalists busied themselves in the background video taping, collecting evidence, and snapping hundreds of photos along with the crime-scene techs. As a little girl she was taught that dead people could talk. Her grandmother, a Yoruba priestess, told her that sometime people’s souls stayed earthbound so they could help someone heal or to warn them about something. She was taught that sometimes souls even stayed behind because they needed help themselves before crossing over. Her grandmother once shared a story with her about their cousin who didn’t cross over when he died. He stayed behind so he could help his wife accept that his death was an accident, that it wasn’t her fault.
“But why doesn’t she understand, Grandma, if he’s there to help her?” Aura had said in Spanish so many years ago.
Now, as an adult, Dr. Chavez never had any personal run-ins with ghosts, but she knew exactly how to listen and interpret what a dead body had to say. She kneeled down beside John Doe and slipped paper bags over his hands to protect any trace evidence. “When I get back to my office, I want you to tell me who did this to you.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Hakeem’s head was swarming with questions. Nothing but death would stop him from getting the answers. He had an eerie feeling about this murder, something that strangely bordered on nostalgia. By the time he and Aspen left the scene of the crime, his energy was hovering just above zero. He knew he needed sleep or he wouldn’t be any good to himself or this case. He just wasn’t sure of how to get some sleep. He was literally scared to close his eyes now. Each time he did, the gruesome images were there. As he and Aspen reached her BMW, Gus Hobbs approached them smiling like a game show host.
Gus was a dusty blond who had a surfer’s swagger and the boyish charm of someone who grew up in Southern California. But his jaded blue eyes inferred a rougher upbringing. Gus’s byline was attached to just about every crime story in the city. Hakeem frowned. Gus was the last person he wanted to be bothered with.
Gus nodded at Aspen like a professional philanderer. “Detective Skye, you’re looking as scrumptious as ever.”
“I’m not sure if I should be flattered or insulted.”
“We can always work it out over a biscuit and a pillow,” Gus said.
Wrong Chance Page 7