2nd Cycle of the Harbinger Series Collection

by Carolyn McCray

  “I know,” Nicole said, crossing the room to stand next to the puddle of water.

  Joshua gulped. “You know, what? I’m sorry Kent got sent to the crematorium.”

  “Don’t, Joshua, just don’t,” Nicole said, glaring at the spiked-haired man.

  “I really… I really don’t know what you are talking about. Not at all,” The man rambled on. Joshua certainly hadn’t ever heard of “thou doth protest too much.” “I swear. I am clueless. Utterly in the dark.”

  For as often as Joshua lied, he really wasn’t very good at it. As one eyelid twitched and his entire left arm was shaking. And the sweat? The sweat ran down the side of his face. Overall, not a great look for the guy. Especially given all the product in his hair. It was literally melting off his head as they stood there.

  Maybe she should throw him a bone.

  “I know that Kent was working on an off-the-books serial killer case. He thought it was someone associated with the squad, so he made sure only you and he knew.”

  Joshua giggled like a deranged school girl. Slapping his hands on his thighs, occasionally snorting and nodding his head. “Oh, that. Yeah, sure, I know all about that. And it sounds like you do, too.”

  Nicole tilted her head, watching Joshua laugh so hard, he was nearly crying. And he kept looking over his shoulder.

  “Expecting someone?” Nicole asked.

  “No, no. Why?” he tittered.

  Dear God, the man was a wreck. Kent’s death must have hit him harder than either of them wanted to admit.

  Nicole decided to get straight to the point, because Lord knew that Joshua wasn’t.

  “I don’t think that some random druggie killed Kent. I think the serial killer you and he were chasing did.”

  “Whoa,” Joshua said backing away. “Leap in logic.”

  Nicole tilted her head to the other side. “Really? It’s that far of a stretch?”

  “No, I mean, yes, I mean, I am still trying to wrap my head around this whole ice bucket challenge thing. I mean how is me getting soaked going to help some disease?”

  Classic Joshua. If he didn’t like the topic being discussed, he simply changed it. No need for segues or anything. He just blurted some random thought from his infinitively odd brain.

  “Right?” Joshua said spreading his hand out like Nicole might actually agree with him.

  Nicole was definitively not going down that Facebook rabbit hole.

  However, there was one other thing she needed to do before she got Joshua back on track.

  “Ruben, you might as well join us. I can smell your Denim aftershave from here.”

  * * *

  Ruben cleared his throat before he pushed through into the autopsy room. Maybe he had applied a tad too much cologne this morning.

  “I wasn’t following you,” Ruben stated.

  Nicole rolled her eyes. “Please, you followed me from the station to home and now here.”

  Ruben tried not to look surprised, but Nicole was having none of it.

  “Ruben, you drive like a little old lady when you are tailing someone. I just had to listen to the irritating honking behind me.”

  Ruben squirmed. When Nicole turned her eye of Sauron on you, you were toast.

  He cleared his throat once again. “The Captain sent me.”

  “Of course, he did,” Nicole stated. “But you would have come even if he hadn’t.”

  There was no arguing with that statement. Ruben would follow her until the suns burned themselves out.

  Finally, Nicole sighed. “Given my condition, I was going to read you in anyway, but this information can’t leave this morgue. No one else can know what we are working on.”She turned those green eyes of hers onto him. “Not even the Captain. Can you agree to that Ruben?”

  He opened his mouth to argue, but then saw Nicole close her eyelids until they were a slit. She was serious. His partner really wanted to run an entire serial killer investigation on the down low.

  Ruben wasn’t used to working like this. He liked the rules. Rules made order. What Nicole was suggesting was chaos. He did not like chaos.

  He also didn’t want to be left behind. Not again. If he was going to keep Nicole safe, he needed to be on the inside of the investigation, even though it went against everything he believed in. Ruben nodded.

  “Not even the Captain,” he agreed.

  “All right,” Nicole said, as she turned to Joshua. “Fill us in.”

  “Let’s get out of here and head to my office,” Joshua suggested, urging them out of the room.

  Since when did Joshua have an office?

  * * *

  Nicole followed Joshua into McGregor’s office. Of course. The old man seldom came into the room. And right about now was when he usually started his extended lunch, which consisted of him sleeping by the pool at his country club.

  How the man kept his job, Nicole would never know. Well, actually she kind of did. No one ever ran against him. Pretty easy to win an election if you were never opposed.

  The Good Old Boy network at its finest.

  But it did give them a nice private place to meet.

  Joshua flopped down into the old creaky chair, spinning around, pulling files out from the desk drawers.

  The attendant certainly had made himself comfortable.

  Joshua moved the mouse, brightening the screen.

  Did McGregor even know that Joshua had taken over his office?

  Probably not, since Joshua had left the old man’s items untouched. An old stale pipe on a mahogany stand. A Scottish coat of arms letter opener. And an old can of Mr. Pibb.

  Ruben looked to her. “So what is this case?”

  It was Joshua that leapt in before Nicole could even open her mouth.

  “Well, just like Kent taught me, I constantly scan the deaths in the city, searching for patterns that might uncover a new serial killer,” Joshua typed in a few commands then turned the screen to Ruben and Nicole. “I noticed a spike in overdoses amongst the sex worker population about 2 months ago.”

  Nicole was proud of Joshua. Most people would have said the “hooker” population, but Kent had instilled respect of the working girls into Joshua. Even a sex worker was a human being, worthy of investigating their deaths.

  She leaned in with Ruben to study a map of the city. Each glowing red dot was an overdose death.

  “All of these were killed by a serial killer?” That was a lot of bodies.

  “No, no,” Joshua said. “Most are routine deaths.” He hit a few keys and most of the dots receded, leaving a dozen or so on the screen. “These are deaths due to ultra-pure heroin. Kent thought that was the killer’s MO. Giving working girls their fix. But due to the heroin’s significantly increased purity, a normal dose became lethal.”

  “So the killer actually tricks the sex workers into killing themselves?” Ruben asked.

  Joshua, unusually somber, nodded.

  Ruben turned to Nicole. “And you think Kent was killed by the person perpetrating these crimes?”

  “It only makes sense,” Nicole said. “No street thug got the drop on Kent.”

  Nicole could see that Ruben was torn. Her partner really wanted the great Svengali profiler to have been killed by a junkie. That death would have countermanded Kent’s incredible legacy.

  An ignoble death for Ruben’s nemesis.

  But you could also see logic running through Ruben’s head. Kent was many things, but sloppy on a stakeout, was not one of them. And if a thug hadn’t killed Kent, then who did?

  * * *

  Ruben frowned. “But if the killer uses heroin, why stab Kent?”

  Joshua shrugged. “That would be a great question…”

  “That Kent would normally answer,” Nicole commented.

  Ruben’s heart went out to his partner. She was still struggling, yet valiantly holding it together the best she could.

  Once again, Ruben cursed the profiler’s timing. Nicole should be bonding with her baby boy instead
of trying to solve her husband’s murder. Kent should have known better. He should have been here.

  But pretty much per usual, Kent had done the opposite of what was expected.

  Ruben tried to feel sorry for the profiler, but simply couldn’t dredge up any sympathy for the man.

  Not when Nicole looked so desolate.

  Was that why Ruben was reluctant to solve Kent’s murder? He almost didn’t want to know what happened. Kent had gone out looking for danger and had found it. End of story.

  But he knew that Nicole would never stop looking. Kent would hang over them like the harbinger of his name. Saint Kent would occupy their every conversation.

  Now that, that Ruben couldn’t take.

  So they might as well get this over with. The sooner they solved Kent’s murder, the better. The profiler needed to be laid to rest in more ways than one.

  * * *

  “So where do we start?” Nicole asked.

  Joshua pointed to another screen that showed drug dealers and their territory.

  “So Kent followed the drug angle? Trying to figure out where the perp obtained the heroin?”

  Somehow in some strange way, Nicole felt closer to Kent. Working this case was as close as she could come to being with him again. Tears threatened, but she refused to allow them spill. Once her husband’s murder was solved, there would be plenty of time to fall apart. Until then, Nicole had to keep it together while making sure to be home every three hours to feed her baby boy.

  The morgue attendant nodded. “But nobody on the street is selling that pure a product.”

  Ruben stepped forward and frowned. “How expensive was it per dose?”

  Joshua snorted. “About a thousand for that purity.”

  “So the killer wasn’t buying off the street. He was buying wholesale,” Ruben stated.

  “She,” Nicole corrected. “Poisoning is a woman’s tool.”

  “That’s exactly what Kent thought,” Joshua said nodding.

  “I still don’t see why he thought that someone in the precinct was involved,” Ruben stated.

  Nicole knew the reason, but let Joshua handle it.

  “You see, I tracked down this pattern, uploaded my findings onto the database server and since then, there hasn’t been another death. Not a one. Someone who had access to the police database read my work. They must have realized we were onto them and closed up shop.”

  “Plus the syringes only had the victim’s prints. The syringes had been wiped clean,” Nicole informed Ruben. “There was no sign of cooking instruments, so the killer took them with them. No hairs. No fibers. This perp knows crime scene technique.”

  Ruben frowned. It reminded Nicole of the hundreds of times he’d frowned at Kent. Oh, how she missed her husband’s insufferable attitude. She missed Kent’s smell. His lopsided smile. His smirk. His kiss.

  Nicole ached to the core of her body for Kent. If it had been her on that slab in the autopsy room, the profiler would have solved the case already. Nicole, per usual, even with Kent dead, was playing catch-up to her husband.

  “Nicole?” Ruben asked, startling Nicole back to reality.

  “Yes?”

  “So I was suggesting that the perp might be a cop,” Ruben relayed.

  Joshua shook his head. “We ran down all of the female cops and their schedules. They all had alibis for at least one of the murders. It isn’t a policewoman or detective.”

  No, that would be way, way too easy.

  “Who else could it be?” Nicole asked.

  Joshua brought up another spreadsheet. “That was the question that Kent asked, so I backtracked who might have access to the database that I had uploaded my findings to and we came up with this list.”

  The screen scrolled down, faster and faster.

  “That is a lot of names,” Ruben commented.

  “Yep. Some are administrative assistants, plus all the women in the DA’s office.”

  Nicole sank down in the stool she was sitting on. There had to be at least a couple of hundred names on that list. She might not find her husband’s killer until his son graduated high school.

  She was failing Kent. How could she fail him a second time? She’d let him go out hunting and look what happened? And now she couldn’t even bring his killer to justice.

  Kent must have been looking down on her, giving her that scowl he got when she wasn’t living up to her potential. Which to Kent was the worst crime you could commit.

  “Did Kent have a suspect?” Nicole asked.

  Joshua looked away. “I don’t know if I should tell you.”

  “Why not?” Nicole demanded leaning forward, nearly tipping off her stool.

  “Wouldn’t he want you to figure it out for yourself?”

  Nicole had a strong, almost undeniable, urge to punch the morgue attendant. The problem? He was right. Kent would have wanted her to figure this out on her own.

  “If you’ve got a suspect, just tell us,” Ruben urged.

  She held up a hand. “No. Joshua is right.”

  Nicole didn’t tell Ruben that Joshua was right for a number of reasons. If she truly was tracking down Kent’s killer and took any short cuts, she would never feel the satisfaction of the arrest. She had to forge this path on her own rather than letting her dead husband leave her bread crumbs.

  CHAPTER 5

  Kent was dead, right? Yet somehow, the profiler seemed to be in this room, influencing Nicole as he always did. Putting pressure on her. Making her feel less than what she was. And she inexplicably responded to it.

  It was ludicrous to grope through all these names when Joshua could just tell them which woman Kent had focused on.

  But try telling that to Nicole. They were going to muscle through this no matter what he felt. The only silver lining was that Nicole had to feed the baby in three hours, so there had to be some relief in the near future.

  “Okay, so Kent must have looked at who logged into the database on the third fourth, and fifth. The serial killer had ramped up to killing every three days, so she must have discovered you were onto her before she killed again.”

  Joshua smiled. The kid loved Kent’s games so, of course, he was enjoying this way too much. “Bingo,” the morgue attendant announced.“Which brought the list down to a much more manageable twenty-seven names.”

  Ruben groaned internally. Twenty-seven didn’t sound all that manageable to him. But who was asking about his thoughts?Nobody. Kent might as well have been standing right there. Ruben’s opinion still mattered so little.

  “Let’s tackle this,” Nicole said, pushing her sleeves up and over her elbows. “Female serial killers tend to be loners. They don’t have sufficient social skills to maintain normal healthy relationships.”

  Joshua’s head was going up and down like a bobble head. He truly was Kent’s first and best disciple. Those two would jump through any hoop that Kent put up, whether or not it was on fire.

  “Which means we should rule out all married women or even divorced women. No kids. Living alone.”

  The morgue attendant smiled. “Kent truly would be proud of you.”

  Nicole turned to Ruben, her face aglow.

  Ruben gave a reflexive smile back, even though he felt like puking just a little bit. Nicole was still seeking Kent’s favor in the hereafter. How many times had Ruben fantasized about Kent’s death? That things would go back to “normal.” That Nicole would appreciate Ruben again.

  Right.

  Now Kent was a saint. A guiding star to be followed at all costs. Just what Ruben had been looking forward to.

  Not.

  Joshua brought up another screen with the pictures of five women.

  “Much, much better,” Nicole said, studying each of the faces staring back at her.

  Ruben had to admit, even he was intrigued now. This was a manageable number.

  “It’s not her,” Nicole said, dismissing the first picture.

  “Why not?” Ruben asked.

  His par
tner pointed to the brief summary next to the picture. “She was a cheerleader in high school and class president in college. That is way too good at social skills to be our girl.”

  Ruben nodded. Nicole was in the zone. Kent’s zone.

  “Not her either,” Nicole said, dismissing the next woman.

  “Need I ask?”

  Nicole turned back to him, with a sly grin on her face. “She’s a natural red head.”

  “So?”

  “There have been no documented red-headed non-partner serial killers,” Nicole said with a shrug. “Weird but true.”

  “What about Isla Koch?” Ruben countered. He wasn’t as well versed as Nicole, but he was no slouch either.

  “The German woman during World War Two?” Nicole reflected back. “Sorry, she was a mass murderess. Not a serialist.”

  Oh well, he almost had her.

  Nicole quickly dismissed the next two faces. Ruben didn’t even bother to ask why.

  She came to the last picture. Nicole cocked her head back and forth. She even reached out to touch the computer screen.

  So like Kent, it was scary.

  She stroked the outline of the picture.

  “Now you, you are interesting,” Nicole purred. “Kent latched onto her.”

  * * *

  Nicole didn’t need to hear Joshua’s response. She could tell by his expression that she had gotten it correct.

  Assistant District Attorney Hannah Rivers was Kent’s prime suspect.

  Nicole had followed in her husband’s illustrious footsteps. She hadn’t felt closer to her husband since identifying his body.

  She looked into the crystal blue eyes of ADA Rivers. They didn’t seem like the eyes of a serial killer, but with women they seldom did.

  The woman was beautiful by anyone’s standards. Blonde and thin. How had she avoided marriage for this long?

  Something was going on.

  “I still don’t get it,” Ruben said.

  Nicole didn’t get it fully either,, so she watched the scroll that ran beside Hannah’s profile. It was her social media feeds. Twitter. Facebook. Pinterest. As an ADA, she didn’t have much there. She couldn’t give any perps too much info.