Once Upon a Crime, page 2
Seriously, she needed to get a grip.
Her nostrils flared as she vented a breath through them. Probably looked like a snorting horse. Not that she cared what she looked like to him. She fought to control her breathing.
Did he have to look so smug? Why couldn’t she have been paired with Charlie or Norm?
How long did a detective have to wait before requesting a new partner?
The captain was talking — she didn’t know for how long or about what — but the mention of her name pulled her back to the conversation. And before she could figure out what she’d missed, his phone rang.
Again, he held up his finger to pause the discussion while he took the call. “Davenport.”
She glanced at McPherson out of the corner of her eye. He rested his ankle on his knee, sprawled in his chair, and idly tapped his fingers on his knee.
Talk about an annoying habit.
Chelsea racked her brain for something witty or intelligent to say while they waited, but nothing came to mind. Well, if he could stand the awkward silence, so could she. At least until she pled her case to the captain and got a new partner.
Davenport hung up the phone. “Looks like this meet-and-greet is over. You’ll have to get to know each other on the fly. You’ve got your first case. And it’s a doozie.”
Jim didn’t need a cup of coffee, a bathroom break, or any other stall tactic before hitting the road, but his new partner had requested one. Gentleman that he was, he didn’t refuse her. Didn’t even comment.
Jury was still out on whether them teaming up was going to work, though.
He was an excellent judge of character. First impressions of merely a few seconds were usually enough for him to make up his mind about someone.
That’s what perplexed him about Sullivan. He couldn’t get a read on her.
Seemed smart, diligent. Almost too good.
The kind of detective who would make a difference in the community.
Then again, that was exactly the reputation her father’d had, once upon a time. Could be a like-father/like-daughter situation. This might all be a ruse.
If the scuttlebutt about Sully’s indiscretions were true.
He had no reason to believe they weren’t. And, based on personal experience, every reason.
Jim zipped up, walked to the sink. Washed his hands. Though he tipped his head toward the soap dispenser like it was the most fascinating invention on the planet, he kept an eye on the mirror, clocked the three cops who ambled into the room.
Three cops talking a little too loudly about a situation they had no knowledge of.
“Rumor has it he’s an addict. When he was undercover with Vice, got in too deep. Became reality for him.”
Clearly, they hadn’t done their homework. Jim had never worked Vice, never been undercover.
“I heard he’s rich.”
Did he? Jim pumped the soap dispenser a tad too hard.
“His family made their money in the seventies by selling weapons to the Vietcong. Been supplying one group of bad guys after the next ever since. Sonny Boy here has an arrangement with the capobanda downtown. Been stealing seized weapons and putting them back on the streets.”
Vietcong? Sonny Boy? He scrubbed his hands nearly raw before he rinsed off the suds.
“People been saying you killed your partner.”
The third moron didn’t even bother talking about him. Said it right to his face. Well, to his back.
Not much difference when it came down to it. The guy wanted to engage, so he’d engage.
He ripped a stream of paper towels from the dispenser. As he dried his hands, he turned to face his accusers. Looked down at them as they shuffled out of his reach.
Okay. Face-to-face made a little difference.
Jim made a show of looking right and left. Then he stared down the middle stooge. “I don’t see anyone else in here, so I assume you’re talking to me.”
No reply.
“Something you need to get off your chest?”
One of them scooted toward the door. Another took a step back. But the moron between them stood his ground. Took a modicum of courage to do that. Or a whole lot of stupid. Either way, Jim ignored the other two and focused on him. “Well?”
The uni cleared his throat. “Just that we don’t want any dirty cops in our house.”
“And I’m to infer you mean me?”
“I don’t know what you infer—”
Jim was pretty sure the guy didn’t know what that meant.
“—but I’m not afraid to say it flat-out. We heard you’re on the take. Betrayed your partner. This isn’t Downtown. This is College Row. Just a bunch of good kids from nice families, working hard to better themselves.”
He was clearly out of touch with campus life.
“Keep your extracurricular activities away from those kids. Don’t tarnish the badge or the brotherhood, and we won’t have to mess you up. Got that?”
“Little man, you’ve got a lot to learn.” He bumped the guy’s elbow on his way to the door.
When thick fingers wrapped around his wrist, Jim stopped. Turned. Looked down at them then up into the guy’s face.
“I’m not done talking to you, McPherson.”
He slowly pried the man’s stubby mitt from his forearm. “Yeah, you are. Brother.”
The other two cops slid out of his way as he strode to the door. As he left the room, the loudmouth called after him, “This isn’t over!”
Jim had a feeling that was true.
Chapter Three
Chelsea scowled out the passenger-side window of their unmarked SUV. McPherson had insisted on driving. Which, if she wasn’t in a foul mood, she’d admit she preferred. Steel City traffic was dreadful at a good time of day, let alone during rush hour. And they’d caught the tail end of the morning gridlock.
No, it didn’t bother her that he was driving. It bothered her that he just assumed he would. It was never a discussion. Either he thought he was her superior — and even though he had more years on her, they were the same rank, thank you very much — or he thought all men were.
Neither option sat well with her.
He hit a button on the center console and started fiddling with menu options.
She crossed her arms and huffed. “Could you please focus on the road?”
“I can multitask, you know.” Another few buttons, then country music blared from the speakers. “Besides, we’re in bumper to bumper. I’m not even moving.”
Chelsea leaned over to turn down the volume. “We’re on our way to a murder scene.”
McPherson’s forehead wrinkled. “Yeah. So?”
“So, don’t you think music is inappropriate?”
“We’re not at the scene yet. It’s not like I’m line dancing over a corpse.”
“Thank God for that. But we should be preparing, not listening to ‘The Thunder Rolls.’”
“It’s a country playlist. I didn’t specifically choose this. Besides, I didn’t figure you for a rap fan.”
“Is that all you have? Songs about murder?”
“Not all rap is about murder. And there’s no proof this song is, either.”
“It most definitely is. In concert, Brooks plays a final verse where the wife gets her pistol. Even ends the song with the sound of a gunshot.”
“And you wouldn’t know that if you weren’t a country music fan. Seen him in concert?”
This was not the way she wanted them to get to know each other. “Could you please turn that off?”
“Don’t suppose you’d want to listen to rock?”
She glared at him.
“Fine.” He turned off the music. Traffic began the slow crawl forward. “So, what do you think we’re going to find? Strangulation? Stabbing? Poison?”
“Men don’t typically use poison. That’s primarily a woman’s weapon. So, unless she was in a homosexual relationship, that likely won’t be the cause of death.”
“And what page of the manual was that on?”
Her cheeks burned. “I didn’t learn that in the academy. Or in college.”
“First-hand knowledge, then?”
“Can you please just stop? A woman is dead. Show some respect.”
“How am I disrespecting her? She’s not even here. And I was talking about you.”
Chelsea cracked her neck again. She definitely needed a new partner.
“Why so tense, Sully?”
She clenched her teeth. “Do. Not. Call. Me. That.”
“Touchy.” He glanced at her. “Is it because it’s your … never mind.”
If he so much as mentioned her time of the month, she’d punch him.
They finally made it to the intersection, and McPherson turned down Fifth Avenue. A few silent blocks later, they were parked in front of an old stone apartment building equidistant from Steel City University and Alcoa College. Twenty or so college-aged people milled about on the sidewalk and in the lobby, many in tears or hugging each other. Or both.
“Looks like the tenants are mostly college kids,” he said.
She bit back a sarcastic retort. “Let’s go see what we’ve got.”
“Scan the crowd on the way in. Killers often linger to admire their work.” McPherson led them, somehow making his slow pace look casual.
There were too many people for her to commit any of the faces to memory. None stood out as looking more energized than the others. She kept her head on a swivel as she followed her partner.
The officer at the door let Jim in but stopped her.
Chelsea got a tingle flashing her gold detective’s badge for the first time, followed immediately by shame. How could she be so selfishly prideful when there was an innocent life cut short in the same building?
She found McPherson by the elevator. At least he waited for her.
“What took you so long?”
Scratch that. Too bad he waited for her. She’d have preferred the time apart. Instead, she found herself pressed against him in a rickety elevator. “Would you please move over? You’re in my personal space.”
“Sorry. I thought more people were getting on.” He stepped a few inches to the right.
“You have a problem with boundaries.”
“Funny. I’d have said that about you.”
Chelsey glared at him, but he didn’t have the courtesy to notice. He just looked straight ahead. And she silently seethed.
The bell dinged, the doors slid open, then they stepped out into a cocoon of beige — carpet, baseboards, walls, ceilings. Everything had a bland, depressing tinge. What a sad place to live.
Sadder place to die. Not that there was a happy place.
Noise from the crime scene reverberated down the unadorned hallway, but she couldn’t see the room yet. Chelsea turned left toward the victim’s apartment, McPherson right at her elbow. She stopped, stared at him. Stepped away. “Like I said. Boundaries. Internal and external.”
“If you mean I’m candid, and like the company of women, I don’t consider either of those things an issue.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Well, it wasn’t entirely.
“Then, by all means, enlighten me. You clearly have something on your mind. Let me have it, then we can move on.” He leaned against the wall and waited, an expectant look on his face.
His calm demeanor only made her angrier. “Since we met, you’ve dismissed me based on my gender, behaved inappropriately in the vehicle, and implied I’m hormonally-compromised because of—” Her cheeks heated, and she hated herself for it. Chelsea cleared her throat then lowered her voice. “You insinuated it was my time of the month.” She continued in a conversational register again. “All this among various other less-offensive yet still annoying behaviors. And we’ve known each other for less than thirty minutes! How am I supposed to work with such an arrogant, selfish misogynist?”
McPherson tucked his hands in his pockets and crossed one foot over the other. His posture was relaxed, but she glimpsed something much harder in his eyes. “One, I don’t have a problem with women. I fucking adore them. Two, there’s nothing wrong with listening to music in the car. Sorry, you don’t share my taste in tunes, but the selection was innocent. And three, I don’t know what hormonally-compromised comment you think I was about to say, but I haven’t so much as thought anything of the sort, let alone stopped myself from blurting it out. Don’t put words in my mouth. Detective.”
Aside from the sarcastic emphasis on her title, he sure put her in her place. Maybe she’d read him wrong. An apology was on the tip of her tongue when she remembered their conversation in the car. “You almost had me. Almost. But you did nearly say it. You stopped yourself, but the implication was there.”
McPherson shrugged. “I give up. How did I imply something I didn’t mean?”
“You told me I was touchy, then you said, ‘Is it because it’s your … never mind.’ You were going to ask if it was my time of the month. Something you’d never ask a male colleague.” Vindicated, she squared her shoulders and lifted her chin.
Shaking his head, he pushed off the wall. “No. I was going to ask whether it was because your father went by that nickname, and you didn’t want the comparison, but I thought maybe we didn’t know each other well enough for me to pry into your family baggage.” He strode down the corridor then rounded the corner without looking back.
His proclamation deflated her. She’d been so sure he thought little of her. Of women in general. But instead of calling him out for insulting her, she’d insulted him. And embarrassed herself.
Crappy start as a detective, all things considered.
Chelsea chased him down the hall, but she didn’t have a chance to straighten things out with him. After being forced to flash her badge — again, which was much less gratifying the second time — she took booties and gloves from her pocket, slipped them on, then joined her partner inside.
And her first day went from crappy to downright crestfallen.
The girl — and legal adult or not, she was just a girl — had been stripped naked and posed on her bed. She lay on her back with her eyes closed and hands clasped together, resting on her navel. The expression on her face was almost peaceful.
It was the creepiest thing Chelsea had ever seen.
A chill raced through her. It was a fifty-fifty guess as to whether it was from the look on the victim’s face or from the frigid air blowing through the open window. “Who leaves a window open in February?”
“That’s the first thing you noticed?” McPherson asked.
“No. But it’s awfully cold in here. Can’t we close it?”
“Not until MCU is done processing the scene. Anything could be relevant. Even an open window.”
Steel City PD’s Mobile Crime Unit was one of the best in the country. Didn’t mean they were fast, though. If anything, their thoroughness made them slower. The crime scene investigators didn’t miss anything, and such detailed analysis took time.
Chelsea pulled her blazer tighter across her midsection, trying to ignore the brisk wind. And the occasional snow flurry that breached the screen. She stepped closer to the bed then peered over the ME’s shoulder. A thick, silken cord was wrapped around the girl’s neck. “What an unusual rope.”
The medical examiner checked the liver temp. Then he stood aside to offer Chelsea more room. “Look again.”
She bent down and stared at it. It wasn’t a twisted cord. It was a braid. The color and texture matched the vic’s hair precisely. And based on the hack-job Chelsea had originally thought was a choppy, tousled cut — a college girl’s trendy alternative to super-long locks — the killer had cut it from her head.
Chelsea stood and looked around the room. Photos of the girl with friends or family dotted the walls — and her hair was down to her waist in every one of them. Another chill ran through her. This was familiar. All too familiar. And all too disturbing.
The murder reminded her way too much of Grimm’s fairy tales. Her father had delighted in reading them to her when she was young. Maybe other little girls had enjoyed the watered-down modern versions turned into multi-million-dollar franchises. She probably would have, too, if that’s what she’d been exposed to. But her father had an ancient tome, a prized possession, of the original versions of the stories. His mother had read it to him when he was a boy, and her mother had read it to her. It went back generations. And that edition was rife with blood and violence and death.
This young girl had long, blonde hair reminiscent of Rapunzel.
In the original Brothers Grimm version, the princess hadn’t been strangled with her own braid. She had been imprisoned and abandoned in the forest, left alone to bear and raise twins on her own. Eventually, she and her beloved were reunited, but only after years of misery.
And that was one of the happier tales.
“Are you all right, miss?”
Chelsea turned her attention to the medical examiner. He was studying her, concern evident on his face. She glanced around the room. McPherson was in a deep discussion with one of the MCU techs. If he knew she was upset, he didn’t show it.
“I’m fine, thanks.” She smiled at the ME, though she suspected it didn’t reach her eyes. It definitely didn’t reach her voice.
“Crime scenes can be upsetting. Especially for new detectives. Am I correct in assuming you’re new? I don’t recall seeing you before.”
“Not new to Steel City PD. I am a new detective, though.”
“I see.” He nodded. “Well, the adjustment from first responder to active investigator can be daunting.”
“It’s not that. It’s fine. I mean … Obviously, this isn’t fine. It’s tragic. But it wasn’t the scene or the victim that disturbed me.”
“Oh? Can I be of any help?”
His eyes were a soft brown, and he looked genuinely interested. Meanwhile, her partner had forgotten she was even in the room. Still, she wasn’t one to share personal problems, especially with strangers. Even astute ones. “I was just distracted by something unrelated. But thank you, uh … ”
“Fletcher. Scott Fletcher. I’m the medical examiner. But you already know that.” He chuckled and extended his hand.
