The touch of murder, p.11
The Touch of Murder, page 11
To test this theory, Veronica backed up, ignoring Court’s curious gaze.
Yeah, you can see him. Maybe not his upper body, but his legs for sure.
And if you could see something in Needle Point, then someone had. Because there were eyes everywhere.
The streets were poorly lit on account of neglected streetlamps, but Veronica still spotted some movement half a block away.
Veronica squinted and started in that direction. The person’s outline was familiar and unmistakable.
Thankfully, they didn’t run this time.
“Hey!” Veronica called, waving her hand above her head.
The man was standing in front of an alcove of what might have been a barbershop. As she approached, he moved onto the sidewalk.
“Hi,” Veronica said softly. “Do you remember me?”
The man nodded.
“Police… police… police…”
“Right. I’m with the police. Did you see anybody out here tonight?”
More emphatic nodding, sending his chins flapping, which reminded her of the old Freddie.
“Good. Do you know what they look like, or—”
“Midnight blue… midnight blue… midnight blue…” The man pointed away from the murder scene.
“Wait, the same car? The same one as the last time? When you saw the monster?”
The word ‘monster’ made the man stop nodding.
“Star… star… star…”
That was enough confirmation for Veronica.
“Show me.” When the man didn’t move, Veronica repeated the order. This time, he slumped his shoulder and started to walk.
“Veronica? Where you going?” Freddie called out.
Recalling how the man in the Oregon State sweatshirt had reacted negatively to Court’s presence the last time they’d approached him, Veronica hollered over her shoulder, “It’s fine, stay there. I’ll be back.”
“Back… back… back.”
The man led her down the street, took two turns, and stopped abruptly.
“Car… car… car…”
Veronica’s jaw dropped. The vehicle was indeed midnight blue, but she quickly realized that the man repeating ‘star’ had nothing to do with the sky or her badge.
There was a star on the side of the car.
It was Sheriff Steve Burns’ car.
“The man who owns this car, have you seen him?” Veronica grabbed him by the sweatshirt and pulled him close. He reeked of urine. “Where is the man who owns this car?”
“There… there… there…”
Once again, he pointed, but even though he started to move, Veronica knew that something was terribly wrong, and she didn’t wait.
She broke into a run, glancing down every alley she passed without slowing.
Where are you, Steve?
Desperation crept into her thoughts.
Where are you?
Five minutes… she’d been running for five minutes and nothing—
Black boots.
Veronica spotted a pair of black boots. They were the only thing that she could see in a particularly dark passage—a thruway, perhaps, or maybe it was another alley. If the toes of these boots hadn’t been routinely polished, she would have missed them.
“Steve!” Veronica shouted as she turned and sprinted toward the fallen man.
It was Steve.
He was lying on his back, his eyes closed. His entire body was blue, but Veronica couldn’t tell whether this was because he was sweating or if this was the actual color of his skin.
The foam in the corners of his mouth suggested the latter.
Veronica dropped to her knees and only then did she notice the needle sticking out of his arm. She pulled it out and tossed it aside before putting her ear to his lips.
He wasn’t breathing.
“Help! I need help!”
She moved her head to his chest.
Still nothing.
“Help me!” Veronica screamed as she started CPR. “Help! I need Narcan! Narcan! Freddie, help!” She pushed even harder on his chest. “Don’t fucking die on me, Steve! Don’t fucking die on me!”
Chapter 25
Officer Furnelli arrived first, and he came with Narcan in hand. Veronica grabbed the pre-loaded needle from him and jammed it into Steve’s shoulder. For a heart-stopping moment, nothing happened. Then, Steve gasped, sputtered, and his eyes flew open.
“Thank God,” Veronica whispered, holding Steve’s head as he gulped air. “Thank God.”
“What the hell? Veronica, what the hell happened here?” Freddie had arrived at Court’s side. “Is that… is that Steve?”
Tears streamed down Veronica’s cheeks and even though she wanted to answer, speech was impossible. She overheard Court confirm that it was the sheriff, and her partner called it in.
Things slowly started to happen around her—Court was examining the scene, Freddie was backing onto the street, waving someone over—but Veronica just cradled Steve’s head in her arms.
What happened? What happened to you, Steve?
Even though the man was breathing now, his eyes were still glazed over.
“I’m sorry.” That was the only thing Veronica could manage to say. She choked out a sob. “I’m so sorry.”
“Ambulance will be here in two minutes,” Freddie exclaimed. Veronica kept her eyes locked on Steve as she brushed his hair from his forehead. “Spoke with Deputy McVeigh, said he’ll meet us at the hospital with the DEA.”
Veronica sniffed again and was finally able to look at her partner.
“DEA?”
Freddie shrugged.
“I don’t know… McVeigh said he would fill us in there.” Freddie bit his lower lip. “Veronica? What the hell happened here?” He looked down and to his right, his eyes lingering on the syringe that Veronica had pulled from the crook of Steve’s elbow.
“I—” she began but was interrupted by a flood of memories. Of Steve standing in her loft bedroom, fury on his face. Shouting at her for his drugs. Drugs that she’d just flushed. “Fuck.” Veronica sobbed and looked skyward as tears spilled down her cheeks.
Freddie immediately dropped to her level.
“It’s okay,” he said, rubbing her back. “It’s okay. Whatever happened, Steve’s alive. We’ll get through this.”
They remained this way, with Steve’s head in Veronica’s lap and Freddie squatting while he gently massaged her back, until the ambulance arrived.
Even then, it took two EMTs to coax Veronica to release her hold on Steve. They loaded him onto a gurney and hooked him up to some monitoring equipment.
“Is he going to be okay?” Officer Furnelli asked. Veronica was fairly certain that the question was directed at her, but one of the EMTs took it upon themselves to answer.
“BP is stable,” the man said as he used some sort of thick leather straps to tightly secure Steve’s wrists to the metal gurney.
“Wh-what are you doing?” Veronica asked.
The EMT ignored her and continued to speak to Court.
“But if this is his fourth or fifth overdose, things might get dicey.”
“Fourth or fifth…” Veronica was trying to wrap her head around this when the EMT moved to Steve’s legs next. Like his wrists, the sheriff’s ankles were also slipped into leather straps. “What are you doing? Stop.”
“Ma’am, this is for our protection. Sometimes when Narcan is administered, these addicts can get fast-tracked into withdrawal. They can be violent and—”
“Stop!” Veronica yelled. She grabbed the EMT’s hand and forced him to let go of Steve’s ankle.
The EMT looked to Court for help but everyone, including the officer, was so taken aback by the scene that they did nothing.
“Ma’am, please do not—”
“This isn’t an addict!” Veronica spat. “It’s the fucking sheriff!”
“The sher—”
The EMT leaned closer to Steve and observed his face. Then his eyes widened.
“Oh, shit, I didn’t know.”
“And she’s not ma’am. She’s a detective,” Freddie said, finally finding his tongue.
The EMT backed up.
“Look, I’m sorry. This—I—what—” he finished this incomplete sentence with a series of mouth sounds.
Veronica had already unstrapped Steve’s ankles and was now working on his wrists.
“He’s not an addict,” she repeated softly.
A hint of gas entered her nostrils and, unwilling to accept what this meant, Veronica held her breath.
“I really… the sheriff…”
Freddie put a strong hand on the rambling EMT’s shoulder.
“Just get him to the hospital.”
“Yeah, right, of course.” But the EMT still didn’t move.
“Now!” Freddie snapped.
The EMT finally sprung to action, looking at his partner who had said and done practically nothing—Do ambulances have Uber drivers now? Veronica wondered incoherently—since arrival. Even now, in the height of the confusion, he just shrugged and got behind the wheel. It was on Court to help the EMT load the gurney into the back of the ambulance.
All the while, Veronica refused to let go of Steve’s hand.
“What about the body?” she asked when the EMT started to close the rear ambulance doors.
“Don’t worry about that,” Freddie replied. “Just worry about him.”
“Thank you.”
The doors closed and the lights flashed.
***
“Do you think he’s going to be alright?” Officer Furnelli asked as both he and Freddie watched the ambulance drive off.
Freddie wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even sure what the fuck just happened.
The sheriff dressed in a dirty sweatshirt, his face covered in filth, overdosing in a Needle Point alley?
What the hell?
He’d been gone for a while and had expected some changes but…
“I hope so.”
And he did. But there was nothing they could do for Steve now.
“Let’s get an officer here to collect evidence of… well, to collect evidence while we go back to our vic. Yeah?” He couldn’t remember sounding this uncertain while on duty, but he couldn’t remember anything like this ever happening, either.
Steve? Overdose on heroin in an alley?
“Sounds good.”
Freddie had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming.
“Coming?”
He shook his head.
“Yeah.”
The crime scene that he’d only briefly examined served as a formidable distraction. As Veronica had pointed out, it was different from the others. So different that if it weren’t for the word ‘sinner’ written in blood, he would’ve thought it unrelated. This was Needle Point, after all, home to the highest concentration of overdoses in Greenham. Also, the highest concentration of murders.
A copycat?
Highly unlikely. To Captain Bottel’s dismay, they had yet to release details of any of the crimes to the public.
Was Veronica right? Was the killer rushed?
Freddie grabbed a flashlight and a pair of gloves from Officer Furnelli.
Three deaths in three days.
Whoever was behind this was hell-bent on wreaking havoc.
Or punishing sinners.
“Detective Furlow?”
“Yeah?” Freddie was in the process of raising one of the victim’s wrists to get a better look at the wounds.
“I think this is his wallet.”
Freddie raised an eyebrow and looked at the cop. He was indeed holding a wallet between gloved fingers.
“Well? Open it.”
“Right.” Court opened the wallet and looked inside. “Aaron Decker. Lives in Meadowbrook.”
“Get someone to look him up in the system,” Freddie ordered as he turned back to the body.
Blood coated the man’s jeans and thigh. The cuts almost looked self-inflicted, with no hesitation marks or signs of struggle. Freddie checked the man’s nails and was surprised, and disappointed, to find them clear of blood or debris.
Freddie studied the man’s face. Aaron’s expression was calm, serene. If it weren’t for his pallor from blood loss, Freddie might have thought him sleeping.
Or dead from a drug overdose.
How did you get here? What were you doing here?
Freddie stood up straight and tried to take in the scene as a whole. The body, the blood, the lettering.
The lettering…
There was something different about that as well. It took Freddie a few seconds to figure it out.
“Hey, Court? The other scenes… sinner was written in all caps, wasn’t it?”
“Yep.”
“Not here—the ‘e’ is smaller case here.”
Court wandered over.
“No shit. Why—”
“Detective Furlow? What happened?” Both men turned to see the Bear County coroner hustling over to them, a black case in one hand. “Someone said that Sheriff Burns was in some sort of accident?”
Fuck.
The news was already getting out.
“I don’t know. I really don’t know,” Freddie replied. “I just hope that he’s going to be okay.”
“What the hell? Did he—”
Freddie cut Kristin off.
“I don’t know.”
Kristin was clearly confused, her gray eyebrows nearly touching at the center, but she detected something in Freddie’s voice and decided not to ask again.
“Alright. What do we have here, then?”
“Aaron Decker, forty-four years old. Lives in Meadowbrook,” Furnelli said, reading from the man’s wallet. “On his red cross card here, says he has a wife, Sylvia Decker. And… it looks like he sells cars for a living…?”
“Rap sheet?” Freddie asked.
“Don’t know.”
Kristin pulled a telescopic stage light from her bag and set it up. Freddie squinted and shielded his face. When his eyes adjusted, he took another look at the body. Now, Aaron looked dead.
The man wasn’t just pale, but his skin looked waxy and devoid of any color at all. Freddie was about to look away when something that was partially covered by one of the man’s legs reflected the light. He reached beneath Aaron’s thigh and used a gloved hand to pick it up.
It was a razor blade.
“Looks like our guy got sloppy,” Freddie said, holding the blade up to the light.
“Finally, some good news.”
The second the words left Court Furnelli’s mouth both Kristin and Freddie knew that he immediately regretted them.
There was no good news.
Not on a day like today.
Not with Aaron Decker dead and Sheriff Steve Burns in the hospital.
Chapter 26
Even before he heard the bear, Steve knew it was behind him. It was a feeling, like when you sensed someone staring at you even when you couldn’t see them.
Then he heard it: a deep, throaty growl, a snort, followed by a blast of hot air in his ear.
He ran.
Steve ran as fast as he could, his arms pumping, lungs burning.
The animal was behind him, gaining on him.
The recurring nightmare was always the same. And Steve was all too familiar with overwhelming fear and anxiety that was like poison coursing through his veins.
Just when he felt the bear’s rancid breath on his neck, Steve turned.
And there was no bear at all.
In its place was his wife, Julia Burns.
“Why did you do this to me, Steve? Why?” She held her hands out, displaying the ragged slices across her arms, running vertically and horizontally like a patchwork of stitches.
“Why? Why?”
***
Veronica glanced at her phone, hoping that it was Freddie calling but it wasn’t.
It was Cole.
She didn’t answer.
As she put the phone away, her eyes drifted to Steve in the hospital bed.
He was dead. The man’s eyes were open, and he was staring blankly at the ceiling. For some reason, this didn’t shock Veronica as much as it should have.
Then Steve blinked and Veronica, who hadn’t realized she was holding her breath, inhaled sharply.
Steve’s eyes drifted to her, and his face twisted into a mask of confusion.
“Where… where am I?”
Veronica sobbed once—just one solitary sob—and then she grabbed Steve’s hand and squeezed it. The doctors had said that his heart was going to be fine. What they were really worried about was his brain.
When Veronica had found him in the alley, he’d been blue from lack of oxygen. There was no way of telling how long Steve’s brain had been deprived.
But the fact that he was speaking was definitely a positive sign.
“In the hospital, Steve. Can you… can you remember anything?”
Steve blinked and swallowed dryly. Veronica brought the straw jutting out of a cup of water to his lips and the sheriff drank greedily.
“I was in Needle Point,” he said after swallowing. “I was in Needle Point when—”
The hospital door blew open and Deputy Marcus McVeigh entered with a big bald man whom Veronica didn’t recognize in tow.
“Detective Shade,” McVeigh said with a nod in her direction. He looked past her to Steve. “Can we have a moment alone with the sheriff?”
Veronica curled her upper lip.
“No.”
“Detective—”
“It’s okay,” Steve croaked. “It’s fine—she’s okay.”
“Sheriff, we—” McVeigh was interrupted by the bald man who roughly pushed by him and moved toward the bed. He reeked of cigarette smoke and didn’t so much as acknowledge Veronica.
“Who gave you the hot dose?” he demanded. “Was it Trigger? Did Trigger do it? I’ll fucking strangle that prick.”
“He just woke up,” Veronica protested, but her words went unnoticed.
“I don’t… I don’t remember.”
Veronica thought she smelled gas when Steve answered but couldn’t be sure because of the cigarette stench.
“It was probably that prick Trigger.” The bald man turned to look at Veronica. “When you found him, did you see any drugs around him? Any baggies? Baggies with a snake and an eyeball on them?”
