Читать книгу Bear Claw Lawman - Jessica Andersen - Страница 9

Chapter Two

One month later…

“This one looks even worse than the first two,” Jenn commented from the doorway, breathing through her mouth and doing her best to see the scene in terms of the evidence it might provide, rather than what it said about the victim’s last hours of life.

The ME’s office had collected Chuckie Dennison’s corpse, but what was left behind was plenty gruesome in its own right. Everything from the dining room chair—which had ropes sagging off it and a series of fingernail scrapes where the victim had struggled to free himself—to the array of kitchen utensils and small hand tools meticulously spread out on the stained burgundy tablecloth, said that the victim had been brutally tortured.

Gigi, who had gotten there first and started methodically photographing the scene, let the camera hang at her side as she took a look around and grimaced. “We’ll need the autopsy to be sure. But, yeah, it’s bad. And, yeah, I think you’re right that it fits the pattern. Odds are that it’s the Investor again.”

That was the word on the street, anyway. The rumors said it was the mastermind himself who had hunted down two—now three—of his former lieutenants in the Ghost Militia. The men had been found tortured to death, with the scenes showing every sign of an ordered, organized and ruthlessly self-controlled killer. Nobody knew whether the Investor was disposing of potential witnesses, getting revenge, or what… . Or if they knew, they weren’t telling.

Which meant that the task force was dealing with three bodies, three crime scenes and lots of evidence, but they still didn’t have a name or description of the Investor, and no idea when or where he would strike next. The former members of the Ghost Militia weren’t the type to ask for police protection; in fact, the last few remaining higher-ups had gone even deeper underground after the killings started.

“You don’t think it’s a vigilante?” Jenn asked as she set down her field kit, gloved up and got to work on the chair, which Gigi had already photographed.

That was the other theory the cops were working on, that it wasn’t the Investor at all, but instead, a local who was hunting and killing the remaining members of the Ghost Militia. Unfortunately, the list of people with possible motives was all too long—eighty-three people had died from Death Stare overdoses, and another dozen innocent bystanders had been killed during the Militia’s last desperate struggle to escape from the crackdown. Although many of the dead drug users had been among the city’s homeless, meaning that some had been tagged with just a first name, or sometimes not even that much, others had been ID’d. Which meant there were hundreds of bereaved family members out there, even more grieving friends…some of whom might be inclined to take matters into their own hands.

But Gigi shook her head. “It’s a plausible theory, sure, but I’m going with the word on the street. Nick…um, the task force’s connections have a pretty good track record so far.”

Jenn’s cheeks heated, but she made herself concentrate on the ropes that had been used to bind the victim, photographing them from even more angles before cutting them free and bagging them. After a moment, she said, “You can say his name, you know. It’s not like I don’t see him around.”

The dubious look Gigi shot her spoke volumes about just how bad Jenn had been at camouflaging her disbelief and unhappiness for those first couple of weeks after Nick dumped her. Or, at least, how bad she’d been at hiding it from Gigi and her other friends down in the crime lab. As far as anyone else knew—she hoped—it hadn’t been at all obvious that she had been hurting.

She was damn good at making it look as if everything was okay, after all. And in the fine tradition of “fake it until you make it,” eventually the sting really had worn off.

“I’m fine, really. I’m over it.” Jenn sealed a bag and signed her name on the first line of the label, starting the evidence chain. “It wasn’t even about him, really…it was everything.” She filed the bag in her kit, then rocked back on her bootie-covered heels to look over at her friend.

She hadn’t really talked about the breakup, even with Gigi, partly because she’d needed to work it out for herself, and partly because she’d hoped it would quickly become old news.

It didn’t seem to be, though—Gigi and the other analysts still looked at her with pity in their eyes every time Nick’s name came up or, worse, when they crossed paths. Which wasn’t that often, granted, but when they did, she knew that the others were watching her, waiting to see how she would react, as if she hadn’t been a hundred percent professional the last dozen times it had happened.

Not that she was counting.

“Everything?” Gigi nudged. Finished with the photographs, she was using a laser device to measure the room and the big pieces of furniture.

Those details, along with the photos and other notes, would go into one of the computers back in the lab to make a rendering. It wasn’t quite the kind of high tech used by the crime scene shows on TV—those were largely a combination of science fiction and reality, anyway—but it was more than most local police departments could boast.

Unfortunately, even the money Matt was funneling into the crime lab couldn’t force the case to break.

Jenn hesitated, then shook her head and got back to work, donning fresh gloves and getting ready to start swabbing the gruesome stains on the chair. Odds were that it all belonged to the victim, but it was still worth doing the work. That was the name of the game with crime scene analysis: ninety-nine percent drudgery and one percent eureka.

She worked methodically, swabbing each spot, retracting the swab into its sterile sheath and stoppering and labeling the tube, so if—or rather, when—the Investor made it into court, there wouldn’t be any chance of the evidence getting thrown out.

Not this time, she thought grimly, all too aware that over the past month, the case had gotten very personal for her, both as a way to prove herself, and a way to make amends for some of her past mistakes. Including the one she’d made with Nick, letting herself get distracted from what was really important by something that they had both agreed from the very beginning would only be a passing thing.

It wasn’t anybody’s fault but her own that she’d let herself forget that part.

Aware that Gigi was waiting for an answer, Jenn finally said, “Nick wasn’t the first guy I’ve dated since Terry died…but he was the first one who made an impact. He was the first one I was excited to see, the first one I missed when we were apart, the first one—” She broke off. “Anyway, even though it’s been almost three years since Terry was killed, Nick was my rebound. I jumped in too far too fast, and clung too hard to something that wasn’t real, mostly because I was so damn excited to finally feel something.”

“The thing between you and Nick was just a rebound, huh?” Gigi’s tone didn’t quite call her a liar. But it was close. “And now you’re over him. You sure about that?”

“One hundred percent.” Not just because she needed to be, but because she was seeing him for who he really was these days. Over the past month, without the blinders of lust and admiration dimming her view, she had realized that the man she had known—the one she had thought she knew so intimately—was just one part of the real Nick Lang…and she wasn’t sure she liked the other parts of him.

With her, he had been charming and courteous, but with an edge of wicked and earthy humor that had jibed with her own, along with a down-to-earth streak she’d loved. He’d made goofy faces at Amber, the K9 who’d taken up desk duty at the P.D., along with her injured human partner, Kelsey Meyers. He’d gone running in the rain with Jenn and he’d used her shampoo without caring that it made him smell like flowers. And when she’d gotten up in the middle of the night to pace or stare out into the darkness, when she came back to bed, he’d always stirred and reached for her in his sleep.

She might not have known where he grew up or what kind of music he liked, but she had thought she knew what kind of man he was. That is, until she started watching him more objectively and realized that while he was sometimes the guy she’d gotten to know, he could also be any number of other guys, depending on the situation.

With the other cops, he was a cop, which made sense. But she had also watched a couple of tapes of him interrogating some of the jailed militiamen. And what she’d seen had startled the heck out of her, because he hadn’t just been talking with them, he’d become one of them—not just with a few quick changes of clothing, but with his body language, his speech… . Even his face had been different, though she couldn’t have said how. More, she’d seen him do the same thing on other tapes, with witnesses. He’d been the perfect gentleman with a nervous grandmother and a midrange escort, but toughened up fast when facing a trio of teens who’d thought they were more badass than him and very quickly learned they were wrong.

She’d watched the tapes in order to get a different context for her evidence, in the hopes of adding to the case. Instead, she had learned more than she’d really wanted to about Nick.

He was a chameleon, the kind of guy who could slip into any situation and make himself indispensable. He’d even said as much, though not in so many words, when he’d told her that his greatest skill as an undercover agent was his ability to slip into any group, any situation. But what worked for busting drug rings

really didn’t work for her.

That wasn’t resentment talking, either, or an effort to make herself feel better about the breakup. If anything, it had made her feel worse to realize that she’d come very close to once again falling for a manipulator.

Her instincts, it seemed, still sucked.

“Anyway,” she said, realizing the conversation had lagged, though she’d kept swabbing at the bloodstains, capping and labeling the tubes with automatic precision, “I’m grateful for what happened, in a way. At least I know that part of me isn’t gone for good. Getting involved with Nick showed me that I can feel those feelings again. I’ll just have to make sure I use better judgment and next time around find myself someone who’s really available and not just passing through.”

“Does that mean you’ll let me set you up?”

Jenn winced. “Look, I’m sure the bird man is a great guy—”

“He’s an ornithologist, not to mention Matt’s best friend. He’s really cute in an intense yet geeky sort of way, and I think you guys could have some fun together… .” Gigi trailed off hopefully.

“I…well, not right now, okay?”

“When?”

Seeing that Gigi wasn’t going to give it up—she was still in that slightly sickening, more than slightly annoying “everyone should be as happy as me” phase of her relationship—Jenn blew out a breath. “After the Death Stare case is closed. Until then, I want to stay focused on this.” Her gesture took in the scene and the spatter, and for a moment the smell intruded, bringing a stab of pity for a man who probably didn’t deserve it, followed by a sting of guilt that she was letting Nick distract her again, and he wasn’t even in the room. Or her life.

Gigi sent her a long look. “You know what I think? I think that—” Her phone chimed, interrupting with the two-note tone that said it was incoming info from Dispatch. Jenn let out a sigh of relief as Gigi answered with, “Go for Gigi.” She listened for a moment, then nodded. “I’m on my way.”

“Please tell me it’s not another torture victim.” The Investor—or whoever was doing this—had never hit twice in one night before…but he’d also never shed this much blood before, or used his makeshift weapons with such vicious abandon.

“No, but it’s related.” At Jenn’s look, Gigi grimaced. “It’s a murder-suicide, guy and his girlfriend. Looks like he was flying high on Death Stare, and snapped before he OD’d.”

“Oh.” Jenn swallowed an uncharacteristic surge of nausea. “Damn it. I thought it was off the streets.”

“Apparently not all the way.” Gigi took a look around, lips flattening. “I hate to leave you here alone.” The analysts tried to work in pairs, but it wasn’t always possible.

Jenn waved her off. “I won’t be alone. There are plenty of cops in the building doing door-to-doors.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I know.” Gigi was the only one who knew how much the actual on-scene work bothered Jenn. But it was a part of the job, and one she’d learned to tolerate. “Go on. I’ve got this. We’ve nearly finished the first sweep, anyway. Another hour, maybe less, and I can take this stuff back to the lab and get started on the preliminary runs.” That was the part she was good at, and where she could make a difference for the case…and the victims.

Gigi was already packing her gear, of course. They didn’t really get a say in where they went, or when. “You don’t mind taking all of it back with you, mine as well as yours?”

“Not a problem. If I need to, I’ll get one of the cops to help me carry it downstairs.”

“Promise me you won’t try to do it all yourself?” Gigi’s tone was suddenly intense.

Jenn looked up at her friend. “What?”

Wearing her heavy parka now, cheeks flushing from the heat in the apartment, Gigi shrugged and looked a little sorry that she’d said anything. “I just…I don’t know. It worries me that you keep so much to yourself. I want you to know you can talk to me…or if not me, then Matt. Or someone.”

Not sure how they had gotten here, Jenn rocked back on her bootied heels. “I’m fine, really.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true.” Or close enough. And the parts of her that weren’t fine weren’t the sort of thing her new friends in her new home could help with. History was history, baggage was baggage, and she needed to deal with it herself. “Thanks, though. I mean it.”

Gigi wavered for a moment, then exhaled. “I need to get going. Damn that drug.”

Relieved by the change in subject—though equally frustrated by the situation in Bear Claw—Jenn said, “We’re going to get the bastard, Gigi. One of these days he’s going to make a mistake and we’re going to get him.”

Granted, that wouldn’t fix things for the victims who’d already died, or their families. But still.

Gigi headed for the door that opened from the small apartment into the fifth-floor hallway. She stripped off her booties and gloves in the doorway and took a long look back at the scene. “I hope to hell we get him soon.”

“Me, too.” Jenn lifted a hand. “Keep your eyes sharp.” It was a saying from her old crime lab, one of the few things she’d brought with her to Bear Claw.

“You, too. And don’t forget to have someone help you carry that stuff down.” With that, Gigi let the door swing shut behind her and her booted footsteps moved off down the hall.

Jenn blew out a long, slow breath that didn’t do much to ease the tightness in her chest as she found herself alone in a dead man’s apartment.

On one level it was a relief to have Gigi—and her probing questions—headed somewhere else. On another, though, her departure sucked the life out of the room, letting the smell crowd closer, until the atmosphere felt thick and cloying, like it was sticking to Jenn’s skin.

“Get a grip,” she muttered. “You wanted to be back working in a crime lab, and you got what you wanted. Now deal with it and do your job.”

It took her nearly an hour to process the main sitting area, where Dennison’s murder had taken place. With the knives, tools and tablecloth all documented, labeled and packed away, she moved into the victim’s bedroom.

This particular crime scene was unusual in that the victim was also on the P.D.’s most wanted list, which meant she wasn’t just looking for evidence that would help them identify his killer, but also anything that might lead them to the other fugitive militiamen…or their leader.

It was a complicated case, both challenging and frustrating.

The cops had already searched the other rooms, but she was seeking less obvious clues. And although the aha moment of an analyst finding exactly the right strand of hair sitting alone on an otherwise pristine carpet was pure Hollywood fiction—the reality was more along the lines of dust bunnies and dead ends—there were occasional aha moments in real life, too.

Her instincts quivered over some papers wadded in a wastebasket next to the bed, and again over a pair of boots lying near the closet as if they’d just been kicked off. They had dirt embedded in the treads…and that was her kind of evidence. Figuring out where the victim had been prior to his death could be very, very useful, and that was just the sort of thing she could do using the soil.

Maybe. Hopefully.

Whistling softly under her breath, she headed out into the main room and crouched down to rummage at the bottom of her kit for a larger evidence bag. The creak of the hallway door behind her shot adrenaline into her system and had her heart bumping, but logically she knew who it had to be.

“Gigi told you to come up here, didn’t she?” Straightening, she turned toward the door. “Well, I’m not ready—”

A man rushed her and slammed a fist into her face.

Pain exploded alongside shock and Jenn reeled back with a scream. Her foot snagged on her evidence kit and she fell. Her heart hammered as she grabbed the kit, tried to roll away, tried to get away, crying, “No! Help! Somebody help me!”

He followed her, wrenched the evidence case from her fingers and then grabbed her by the hair with brutal force. She caught a glimpse of lethal gray eyes and a thin-lipped mouth before he slammed her head into the floor. And the lights went out.