Deadly memories, p.1
Deadly Memories, page 1
A Novel
S.D. O’Donnell
Copyright © S.D. O’Donnell 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
WindStorm Books
P.O. Box 7438
Broomfield, CO
80021
For more information about this book, visit www.sdodonnell.com
Edition ISBNs
Trade Paperback ISBN 978-0-9884556-0-3
E-book ISBN 978-0-9884556-1-0
Cover Design by Pete Garceau
Book Design by Christopher Fisher
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
For my father
You’ve been gone awhile but are still always with me
Prologue
She huddled on damp earth, knees to her chest, back pressed against something rough and wet, comforted by the smallness of her retreat. A thin cold film of moisture enveloped her skin. Why? When had that happened?
Honking geese broke the silence, reminded her that a bigger world still thrived, outside.
Dew. That’s what the film of moisture was.
She didn’t want the night to end, wanted to stay in the quiet, alone in the darkness, the smallness. She heard splashes, a duck’s quack, piercing yips that passed and faded into the distance.
Each sound scraped against her nerves.
Wet drops traced down her checks. Fat drops. Not dew. She heard a sob and realized it was hers.
Someone called out, “Hello?”
She gasped.
“Are you okay?”
She needed a new place to hide, one where morning couldn’t reach her. Without moving, without thinking, she escaped to a safer, even smaller place.
Chapter 1
Saul Becker surfed the wasteland of early morning television, one of his more successful tactics for overcoming insomnia. When that didn’t work, he sat for hours in the dark, thoughts tumbling through his head like clothes in the dryer.
He’d finally achieved a kind of mental numbness he would have happily called sleep when a shrill noise brought him out of his chair. He yanked a pistol from the end table drawer before the phone rang a second time. Feeling like an idiot, he glanced at the clock as he picked up the receiver. It was seven thirty.
“What?” he said, his voice like gravel.
It was his elderly neighbor, Mrs. Blackstone. Her voice sounded an octave higher than normal as she rattled off something he didn’t quite follow.
“Say again?”
He slid his custom Colt Series 70 M1911A2 back into the drawer.
“Get down here,” she said. “There’s a lady crying inside the tree.”
Saul took a moment to stretch in the cool August morning before jogging down to the lake behind his townhome. He could see the Rocky Mountains on the western horizon, the early morning air north of Denver still clear enough to make the foothills seem closer than they really were.
He worked hard to stay in shape, proud to still be lean and muscled as he edged over forty. He had fair skin, sky-blue eyes, and sandy hair with hints of red. Add his freckles, and he looked a stereotypical Irishman.
The townhomes were built on top of a hill and he kept his stride short as he ran down the trail to the lake. When he got close, he saw Mrs. Blackstone pacing beside a huge cottonwood tree. Two patrol cops watched from fifty feet away. They jerked around at the sound of his approach, hands moving toward the service pistols at their waists. Saul braked to a walk, holding his hands up, palms out.
When he was close enough to identify who they were, presuming they could do the same, he lowered his hands and called out a greeting.
“Roan. Mathews. Been a while.”
Roan’s height made Saul’s 6’4” look short and Roan was built to intimidate. Mathews was barely 5’ 10” and looked more like a geek than a cop, right down to the thick glasses sitting on the bottom of his nose.
“Becker.” Roan rubbed a hand across the stubble on his chin. His palm didn’t hide a slight frown. “What’re you doing here?”
“That’s my neighbor.” Saul nodded at the white-haired woman next to the tree, who interrupted her pacing to dab at her eyes with the edge of a thick shawl. “She called me, I told her to call you.”
“So we’ve got you to thank for this end-of-shift call,” Roan said.
“Thank the woman she found. You seen her yet?”
Mathews rolled his eyes. “We were just wondering if your neighbor isn’t quite right in her head. Maybe what we really need here is the loony toon squad.”
“Why?” Saul said.
A yawn cut off Roan’s snicker. “She pointed to the tree and yelled, ‘She’s in there.’ What would you think?”
“That the woman is inside the tree.”
Saul sprinted down the path and circled around to the side of the tree where Mrs. Blackstone waited.
“Finally.” She gestured at the tree. “Go see if she’s okay.”
Several years prior a lightning-induced fire had burned through about five feet of the trunk’s interior from the ground up, creating a hollow that still smelled of stale smoke, and a black-rimmed hole that allowed entrance.
Saul ducked inside and squatted for a minute to let his eyes adjust to the shadows. A woman sat with her legs pulled up, her arms wrapped around them, and her face buried between her knees.
She didn’t move when Saul said hello. She didn’t move when he tugged gently on her arm.
“Well?” Roan’s voice sounded muffled. “What’s in there?”
“I told you already,” Mrs. Blackstone said. “It’s a woman. She was crying.” Saul heard impatience in her answer.
“Not crying anymore.” Saul backed out of the tree. “Don’t think she’s all there mentally.”
“You couldn’t have brought her out with you?” Mathews said.
Saul shrugged. “I gave her a tug. She didn’t want to come.”
“Aw, shit.” Roan pressed his hand against the rough bark as he bent over, looking as if he had folded himself in half. He emitted a low whistle. “This is your job, Mathews. I won’t fit.”
Mathews took his turn to look inside.
“If I do this myself,” he said as he crawled into the tree, “you owe me big time.”
From outside, they heard Mathew’s grunts, interspersed with a string of curses.
“Do something,” Mrs. Blackstone said, with a light push on Saul’s shoulder.
“You know I don’t do this for a living anymore.”
“Hey!” Mathews yelled. “Need some help here.”
He’d maneuvered the woman to the opening. Saul took her elbow and held her head down with his other hand until she cleared the entrance. Once she was standing, he kept his grip until he was certain she wouldn’t bolt.
She was close to 5’ 11”, underfed, no older than her mid-thirties. Her shoulder-length pale blond hair resembled fine silk, though it was stringy and matted. Sapphire eyes with specks of gold blinked in an uneven pattern. Lines of dirt streaked across a perfect face. Even dirty and disheveled, she belonged in a class of gorgeous Saul had only seen on a movie screen.
She wore faded jeans, a dingy gray T-shirt, and a purple hoodie. No socks or shoes.
“I don’t see anything else in there,” Mathews said, flexing his back when he was out of the tree. “She seems okay except for being nonresponsive. What do you think, Roan? Call an ambulance or take her back and call Social Services?”
“We call an ambulance—one of us has to sit with her at the hospital.”
“One of us is gonna have to sit with her anyway.”
“Hanging out at the station beats the hospital.”
Roan placed his hand on the woman’s arm and took a few steps. She moved with him.
“Hold on,” Mrs. Blackstone said. “She’s barefoot.”
Roan glanced up the trail.
“Short of throwing her over my shoulder, I don’t think we have any choice here.” He shortened his stride to match the woman’s but began walking faster as they neared the parking lot. The woman stumbled.
Saul sprinted forward to catch her. The maneuver left her lax body tightly wound in his arms and he felt a memory playing hide-and-seek. It vanished before he could place it.
Within minutes of reaching their vehicle, Roan, Mathews, and the woman were gone. Saul and Mrs. Blackstone retreated up the hill to their homes.
They lived in a group of townhomes known as The Courtyard. Saul paused at the edge of the real estate’s namesake, a square yard in the middle of the U-shaped complex, hoping the sunlight would burn away the memory that had threatened him as he caught the stumbling woman.
Instead of burning away, it ripped open. Every muscle from his face to his feet clenched in a surge of rage and grief.
The woman in the park had felt like Martha.
Closing his eyes, he shoved all recall of her back into the off-limit corners of his mind.
He opened his eyes to Mrs. Blackstone watching him.
“Tea,” Mrs. Blackstone said. It wasn’t a question.
When they reached her door, they found her potted plants scattered across the ground. Some of the pots were broken.
“Well, look at the mess our raccoons have made,” Mrs. Blackstone said.
Saul bent to pick up a pot.
“Leave them be.” She slapped his hand away. “I’ll take care of it myself in a bit.”
A faint pattern in the scattered dirt looked almost like a smiley face. He startled, then shrugged. The wind must have swirled through the yard and used the dirt as canvas. He followed his neighbor inside, where he was greeted by the faint aroma of potpourri.
He waited on the sofa while she brewed one of her custom tea blends. She served his in a thick-walled mug, then sat in an armchair across from him. Her hands shook visibly and her china cup rattled against the saucer when she lowered it.
“I wonder what happened to her.” She sighed. “Poor thing. And so lovely too, wasn’t she?”
Saul grunted in agreement, happy that his neighbor’s equilibrium seemed to improve with each sip of tea. He put his empty mug in the sink and made it as far as the door before she spoke again.
“Saul?”
He knew that tone.
“I just can’t stop worrying about her. Would you go down to the station and make sure she’s okay?”
He didn’t think she really understood what she was asking, but then he wasn’t sure it would stop her if she did. He rubbed an open palm over his stomach as it hardened into a knot and wished he’d just let the damn phone keep ringing.
Chapter 2
Sights and sounds, all familiar, washed over Saul as he paused inside the door to the station that had served as his second home for ten years. A small, wiry sergeant at the front counter broke into a huge smile when he spotted Saul. Coming out from behind the desk, he grabbed Saul’s hand, pumping it enthusiastically.
“Becker! Great to see you, really great. You here to see Leonard? He’s out on a call.”
Sergeant Hendrix slapped Saul’s back and led him around the desk.
“I’m looking for the Jane Doe found in the park by my place this morning. Roan and Mathews brought her in?”
“You mean the la-la lady? She’s sitting by Roan’s desk in the bullpen. Hasn’t moved since he plopped her there.”
“He still around?”
“Yeah, he drew the babysitting gig.”
“Okay if I show myself back?”
Sarge nodded and returned to his paperwork, wide smile slipping back into a well-worn scowl.
Saul found the woman sitting straight-backed in a hard wooden chair next to Roan’s desk. Roan pounded on his keyboard, muttering to himself.
“Name? Got nothing for me? Okay, plain Jane Doe it is.”
“That’s a new one,” Saul said. “Plain Jane Doe. I like it. You just now starting the paperwork?”
“No rush. Social Services is moving slow.” Roan stifled a yawn. “I should’ve at least tried going into the tree. Now Matthews is home in bed, sleeping, and I’m…” He nodded his head toward the visitor’s chair.
The woman licked her lips and swallowed, a motion Saul interpreted as thirst. He fetched a cup of water and a spoon from the break area while Roan continued unleashing his frustrations on the keyboard.
Dropping to one knee at her side, Saul held the cup up to her vacant eyes.
“I brought you some water.”
No reaction.
He touched the tip of the cup to her mouth. Still no response.
He dipped the plastic spoon in the cup, then placed it between her lips. When she didn’t drink, he tilted the spoon. Water dripped from her closed lips down her chin.
Roan glanced over at them.
“Giving her a bath?”
Saul pulled up the edge of his shirttail and dabbed the water from her chin.
“Come on, Plain Jane. I know you’re thirsty.”
This time when he tried to give it to her, she opened her mouth and took a few sips before pressing her lips together. He felt someone move up behind him.
“You come down here after all this time and don’t even bother to say hello?”
The calm, even voice held an undercurrent, like a gentle wave washing atop a violent riptide.
Saul turned to face Chuck Leonard, his partner for the last five years of his career as a detective. They were exactly the same height, but Chuck had dark hair, soulful chocolate eyes with thick lashes, and a broad smile—not that his smile was showing.
Chuck had reluctantly given him space to work out his demons after Saul left the force. They hadn’t spoken in almost a year.
“Hard to say hello to somebody who isn’t here,” Saul said. “So now that you are, hello.”
Chuck shook his head. “I assume you’re not here to re-up and get me out of partner purgatory?”
“This woman was found in that hollow tree at the lake. My neighbor asked me to check on her.”
“Well, here’s your early warning order,” Chuck said. “You being here negates my promise to stay away. I expect you to start answering your door and returning phone calls. At least when it’s me on the other end.”
He waited until Saul grunted in agreement, then nodded toward Saul’s old desk.
“New guy,” he said and finally smiled.
The cop who walked to the desk holding a mug of coffee was young and had a face that looked like he might need a razor twice a week at most. His hair was a fraction too long for regulations, and his clean but wrinkly shirt wouldn’t stay tucked in.
When he sat down, the chair whooshed all the way to the lowest height setting, sending hot coffee into the air like a geyser. Laughter scattered around the room as the kid opened a desk drawer and pulled out a roll of paper towels.
“Your handiwork?” Saul said.
“Temporary partner,” Chuck said. “Breaking him in kind of thing. Hey, I need coffee—you want any?”
Saul shook his head.
Roan picked up his mug.
“Since you’re here, I’m sure you won’t mind taking watch while I join the detective,” he said and followed Chuck to the coffee pot.
Saul perched at the end of Roan’s desk and took a slow look around. The constant noise, phones ringing, people talking, some laughter, merged into a single, dull pitch. The relentless hum of a lawn mower seeped in from outside and mingled with the buzz. Except for a few new faces, nothing seemed to have changed in the year and a half of his absence.
He jumped when he heard a female voice beside him.
“Don’t call me that.”
“What?” Saul said.
The woman’s posture remained unchanged, her stare still blank, but she spoke again.
“I’m not Plain Jane.”
Her voice was soft, not much more than a whisper, but anger was there.
Saul rolled Roan’s chair over and sat so he could look directly into her eyes.
“Who are you, then?” he said.
Less than a second after he spoke, he saw a flash of intense emotion—fear?—and she was gone again. Just like that.
He waved a hand in front of her face.
“What the hell are you doing?” Roan said from behind him.
