“The crash sobered me up enough that I think I can make it one more mile.” I avoided his gaze.
“I’ll follow you.”
“What did you tell Naomi?”
“She was still asleep. If she’s awake when I get home and she asks, I’ll tell her you hit a deer or something.”
“Thanks, Coop,” I said softly, my head down.
When we arrived at my house, I said a silent prayer. Coop, who hadn’t bothered to pull in the driveway, poked his head out his window.
“You’ll be okay?”
I nodded.
“Get some sleep, CeeCee. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Too embarrassed to say anything else, I gave him a slight wave before going inside and diving on my bed, clothes and all. Morning came quickly, along with a monstrous headache and a queasy stomach. It was when I walked in front of my bathroom mirror that the image looking back at me stopped me cold. To say I looked awful was the understatement of the year. It had been a long time since I’d taken a good close look at my appearance.
My eyes looked hollowed, probably from my protruding cheekbones. The dark circles under my eyes accentuated the pale, deathly white tone my skin had taken on. My teeth, which always had been gleaming white, had darkened from constantly drinking red wine. Even my hair, which had shone and looked healthy, now appeared dull and drab. I looked like I had aged twenty years. Staring at the mirror in disbelief, I began to sob. Naomi and Eric had been right when they said it looked like I hadn’t eaten or slept in months. I cried for half an hour straight until I decided that would be it. Taking a handful of aspirin for breakfast, I knew it was time. It was time to live again—if not for me, then for my children.
After doing my best to make my appearance presentable, I made a series of phone calls. I made a hair appointment, a facial appointment, and an appointment with the dentist to get my teeth bleached. This weekend, I surmised, a shopping trip was in order, at least until I could gain some weight. Right now, my clothes hung on me as if they were on a hanger. And lastly, before leaving for work, I took a handful of vitamins.
Coop was waiting for me in my office when I arrived. He obviously wasn’t happy and nodded for me to shut the door when I walked in. I took a seat at my desk and braced myself.
“CeeCee, I know you don’t want to hear this, and I know you’ll want to bite my head off, but the bottom line is that you need some serious help. Evidently, the time off you took didn’t do the job.”
He paused, waiting for a response from me. Receiving none, he continued.
“We were all upset when Michael was killed, but he is gone, CeeCee! Eric told me that he took the girls permanently because of the state you’ve been in, and it shocked me. This isn’t you!” He stood up and began to walk around. “Ya know, I knew you were having a hard time, but I had no clue you had gotten this bad until last night, and I have to ask…Have you had any thoughts of hurting yourself? Did you purposely run into that tree last night?”
“Sit down and I’ll talk to you.” I motioned toward the chair, which he sat in. “First of all, Michael wasn’t killed, he was murdered. I know you don’t see much difference in the two, but I do.” I kept my voice cool and calm. “Secondly, you’re right, I definitely need help, and yes, I have had thoughts of hurting myself…even went so far as to take my revolver and hold it to my head while I sat on my kitchen floor for an hour. I had every intention of pulling the trigger, but I was so drunk, I passed out holding the gun.”
Coop’s face paled two shades at my confession. We had been friends for fifteen years, close friends, and this information upset him greatly. Before he could respond, I kept talking.
“However, I know this will be hard for you to believe, but after last night, I realized that life needs to go on. At the very least, for my kids. I looked in the mirror this morning and cried at what I saw.” I paused. “I don’t want to be that person anymore.”
Fighting back the tears I promised I would never shed again, I finished what I had to say.
“I miss him, Coop.”
When he rose from his seat to comfort me in a friendly embrace, I saw Coop’s own eyes were teary.
“I know you do, CeeCee. We all do.”
My no-crying-allowed proposition had lasted less than two hours. Coop held me while I cried again—with one difference. When I finished, I actually felt better, and even managed a genuine smile.
“So, you’re going to be fine, right?”
I nodded. “I think so…It’s not going to be easy, but at least I’m willing to try.”
“This may not be the right time, but how many times have you been to his grave?”
“I haven’t gone since the day they buried him. I can’t, I just can’t bring myself to go there yet.”
He nodded. “Why don’t we—”
He was interrupted by a loud knock on my door, followed by its opening. It was Naomi and she hadn’t come to join the conversation.
“Sorry to interrupt”—she looked at us both strangely—“but we’ve had another homicide.”
“She called you?”
“Yes, she wanted to know why we haven’t made any arrests in her husband’s murder.”
“Did you tell her?”
“I told her the truth—we’ve been running into dead ends.”
The man flipped his pen between his fingers. “They’re watching her, you know. They’re waiting to see if she makes a move.”
“I know that. We have our own people on it, at least for his sake…which brings me to him. We’re going to have to do something quickly, before he does.”
“Judas Priest, Alan! I don’t know what else to do! Do you? You’re the one that swore up and down she would crack this wide open for us, and all she’s doing is drinking herself to death and playing Russian roulette in her kitchen!” He threw his pen across the room.
Alan Keane hung his head down in defeat. “Just give her some more time…please. I really think she’ll come through for us.”
“You’d better be right.”
“Another homicide? Where?” I asked.
“North Lake Park, floating in the lake.”
Coop and I rode together, since Naomi had stayed back at the office to make some phone calls. All we knew was that the victim this time was female.
The usual suspects were on scene: the coroner, uniformed cops, and crime lab. The city street-department workers had seen the body floating when they arrived to repave one of the lots in the park. They weren’t excited about it; North Lake Park was another hot spot. A body turning up there was nothing new. This brought me to another conclusion that I shared with Coop.
“You realize, don’t you, that these bodies are being dumped in the absolute worst parts of town? Whoever is doing this dumps them there so the list of suspects becomes phenomenal.”
“You’re right.”
We went straight for the group of people standing on the shore of the lake, actually a large pond. Lying on a tarp on her back was our victim, thirty-four-year-old Alisha Cross. One of the crime-lab technicians told me they had her identified immediately because her driver’s license was found in her back pocket. She had only been in the water for a couple of hours, so the body wasn’t badly decomposed.
Like the other three, Alisha’s side was wide open, her liver taken. But what made Alisha different from the others was that she wasn’t homeless, nor was she a drug addict. In fact, she was a suburban house wife who lived on the exclusive south side of the city. Our new detective, Justin Brown, had spoken with her husband just a few minutes earlier.
“He said she left to go grocery shopping. She goes to the grocery store in the Appleseed Shopping Complex every Tuesday. Hubby’s off his rocker, as you can imagine. They had a four-year-old that was in preschool at the time of the murder.”
“What does her husband do?” I asked.
“He’s a pharmaceutical salesman. Big bucks. She didn’t have to work.”
This threw a monkey wrench int
o the entire murder case, as far as a pattern went. But it did tell me one thing: this person, or people, was smart. Most businesses in the south district of the city don’t even have video security systems, since crime is so low in that area. It’s the wealthy part of the city, so the local thugs don’t go there; they feel and look out of place. Our suspects evidently knew this. Taking the victim from the south and dumping the body in the north end made our investigation a nightmare. These people were deliberately trying to throw us for a loop.
“You took from his wife!”
The man nodded.
“What the fuck is the matter with you, Frank? When I told you to take care of him, I didn’t mean his wife—I meant him!”
“That makes it all the more sweeter, Sal.” The man smiled. “Now he will definitely not make any more waves. With his wife gone, he’s got that kid to take care of. Now he knows not to fuck around.”
“How the fuck do you know he’s not gonna talk to the feds?”
“They just pulled his wife out of a pond. Unless he wants his kid raised in foster homes, he’ll keep his mouth shut.”
Sal had a frightening thought and grew quiet. Rubbing his temples, he couldn’t believe how out of hand this entire situation had gotten. In a low, quiet voice, he asked the man, “Were you watching when they pulled her out of the pond?”
“Sure, Sal.”
“Was Hagerman’s wife there, too?”
“Well, yeah, Sal, but she’s not gonna figure—”
Sal stood up and got within inches of the man’s face. “You stupid motherfucker! He’s in pharmaceutical sales! Don’t you get it? He could lead her right to us! Don’t you watch TV? If a woman is murdered, they always look into the husband’s background first! Always!” Spit from Sal’s mouth was hitting the man in the face.
He backed up slightly. “I think you’re making too much of this, Sal. Even if she does connect him to the company, it stops there. There’s no way any of that can lead to us—you know that! I mean, the guy was stealing from us, for Christ’s sake! You wanted him out! Now he’s out!”
Sal walked over to the window and looked down at the street below. He was worried. He had done a lot of checking into Hagerman’s wife and he’d concluded that she was just as smart, if not smarter, than Hagerman himself. If anyone could put the pieces together, it would be her. Not to mention, Frank was getting to be more of a liability than an asset. He’d have to give some serious consideration to keeping Frank around.
“Do we still have our people on her?”
“I pulled them off weeks ago. My source said she’s more than crazy right now. He said he even expected her to get fired or quit.”
Sal was incredulous. “You did what? Did I tell you to pull them off? I want them back on her—pronto!”
“Of course, Sal.”
“You sure you covered everything?”
“Down to the penny. I really don’t believe she’ll even be able to tie him to the company. I’ve got my source on it.”
“She gets within twenty feet from the front doors of the company, take her out! You got it?”
“I got it, Sal.”
While they were loading the body into the coroner’s van, a thought came to mind. Seeing Justin by the van doors, I flagged him over my way.
“You said the victim’s husband was in pharmaceutical sales?”
“Yeah, that’s right.” He looked confused.
The husband’s profession was entirely too close to the medical field. Keeping my fingers crossed, I was hoping this was the break we needed.
“Get your pen out and write this down,” I ordered, and waited for him to grab his pen and notebook out of his shirt pocket.
“Go back and talk to him some more. I want everything on him: his company’s name, how long he’s been there, his sales district, his annual salary, his financial records, investments, stocks, bonds, whether or not he’s fucking around on the side, and most importantly, I want the exact names of the companies and doctors he sells to.”
Justin was furiously scribbling down my list of questions. Looking at him more closely, I realized he wasn’t as young as I’d thought. He might even have been close to my age—in his thirties. I knew he had transferred several years ago from another department north of here and had made quite an impact when he worked uniform. He had been promoted to detective within five years, a very impressive feat. Average looking, he was only a few inches taller than I was and had sandy blond hair and brown eyes. On his left hand I noticed a wedding band.
“Do you have any children, Justin?”
“Huh?” He looked up from his notebook and saw me nod at his ring. “Oh, uh, yeah, Sarge, we have a two-year-old son.”
“I’ll bet he keeps you busy.”
He smiled. “That he does!” He shook his notebook at me. “I’ll get right on this, Sergeant.”
“What’s his name?”
“Who?”
“The victim’s husband.”
“Oh, it’s Troy. Troy Cross.”
“Okay…and Justin, call me CeeCee, please.”
His face turned red as he nodded and walked away. He would go far in his career, as eager—and apparently, smart—as he was. People either make it or they don’t in this business. Justin Brown wouldn’t have to worry.
On the way to my car to drive back to the department, I was blindsided by Coop. He had a very large grin on his face.
“I see someone is smitten.”
I was clueless. “What are you talking about?”
“The new dickie. Justin. The guy is totally in love with you.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Coop! Where the hell do you come up with this crap?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t notice him following you around like a lost puppy.” He laughed. “And every time you talk to him, his face gets beet red. Probably gets a hard-on, too.”
“That’s enough.” I shook my head. “He’s a kid.”
“He’s older than us.”
“What? He couldn’t be.”
“Yup, he’s thirty-eight or nine, around there. I know, he’s got that baby face that makes him look like he’s still in his twenties, but I saw his driver’s license with my own eyes.”
“Huh. Certainly doesn’t look it. And to answer your question, no, I have not noticed him following me around.” I got in my car, not wanting to continue this conversation.
“Well, I have, and so has everyone else.”
“Lovely.”
The rest of the day was spent in my office finishing the Alisha Cross homicide paperwork. Justin Brown came in my office about half an hour before it was time to go home. Astonishingly, he had already obtained the information on Troy Cross.
His information brought no significant leads. Troy Cross didn’t screw around, didn’t have any investments or stocks, and only sold to lower-end doctors on Cleveland’s east side. There was one discrepancy that caught my interest.
“How much does he make a year?” I asked.
“Seventy-five thousand.”
“And how much money is in his savings account?”
“Two hundred thirty-one thousand, six hundred forty-seven dollars, exactly.”
That didn’t make sense. “Did you happen to ask him where the hell that money came from?”
Justin looked uncomfortable. “I was going to, but I wanted to wait and discuss it with you first. I thought maybe we could use it to our advantage later.”
Smart move on his part. I took the thick file on all of the murders and handed it to Justin.
“Take this home, study it, and familiarize yourself with everything. I’ll fill you in on some of it now, so pay attention. I think you’re going to do well in Major Crimes.”
His face lit up as if I’d told him he’d just been elected sheriff. He started rifling through the file as I briefly went into my findings about LifeTech Industries, the two doctors, and my theory.
“You really think those doctors have something to do with the murders?”
he asked.
“There’s no factual evidence that connects them, but let’s just say I’ve got a feeling that they are. I still plan on keeping an eye on both.”
Justin got up to leave. “Sergeant, um, CeeCee…Thanks. I won’t let you down, I promise.” His face turned red again.
I couldn’t help but laugh. “I’m not worried, Justin. Have fun.”
Justin’s response to receiving the file made me remember my own early days in Major Crimes—how eager I was, putting everything else aside, including my family, to do the best job I could. How I wished I could go back in time.
As soon as I got home, I turned on my computer. There were several topics of interest that needed to be researched. I hadn’t had time, or the will, until now. The computer was in Michael’s office, a place I had rarely ventured into, let alone touched. His things were just as he had left them the night he was murdered, down to the empty, chipped, purple ceramic coffee cup sitting on his desk. Doing my best to ignore the surroundings, I pushed a stack of papers away and began my research.
Organ donors and trafficking in body parts was my first priority. Looking at the pages and pages of Web sites, I was dumbfounded. There were hundreds of stories, articles, and medical journals written on the subjects. As I read through some of them, I found myself focusing mainly on the area of trafficking in body parts—a multimillion-dollar black market. There were thousands of people that did nothing but run illegal organs for a living. They were referred to as the “Body Mafia.”
The demand was monstrous. Over three hundred thousand people worldwide receive organ transplants. Almost triple that number of people actually need a transplant, therefore generating a black market that spreads across the globe. According to my research, the badly proposed 1984 National Organ Transplant Act set the black market into motion. The act makes it a felony to buy or sell human organs for purposes of transplantation, and essentially set the price on organs at zero. Most people won’t give something for nothing—even when they’re dead. Had the act not been put in place and the families of the deceased been compensated for the organ donation, the number of registered donors would go through the roof. As it stands now, less than twenty-one percent of Americans are registered organ donors. If the number grew to ninety percent or more, the supply would meet the demand, and the black market would be wiped out.
The Body Mafia Page 9