The touch of murder, p.4
The Touch of Murder, page 4
Instead, Veronica pulled a twenty from her wallet and placed it on the ground.
“This is for you, okay? You were a big help. Use it to buy some food.”
“Food, food, food.”
Veronica pulled Court from the alley, and they made their way back to the crime scene. Detective Blake was in the exact same place as before, but he must have moved at some point; Veronica saw vomit on his fancy loafers and between his feet.
She frowned, wishing she had some water to offer her partner.
Or anything other than a disapproving look.
“Did the coroner say when she was going to arrive? We can’t just leave the scene like this.”
Veronica’s phone chimed and she quickly took it out of her pocket.
“As soon as possible. Couldn’t be more specific.”
It wasn’t an incoming call but an alarm. A single word appeared on the screen: SHRINK.
“Shit.” Veronica raised her eyes. “I’m sorry, I have to go—I have an appointment. Detective Blake…” she was going to ask her partner to stick around and wait for the coroner, but reconsidered when she saw the state he was in. She looked at Court next, and was about to ask the same thing, but didn’t have to.
The man nodded preemptively.
“I’ll be here. I’ll wait for Kristin, send you an update if she comes up with anything.”
“Thanks, Court. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Chapter 8
When it came to psychiatrists, Detective Veronica Shade’s approach was completely opposite to crime scenes.
She wanted to know every single detail about the person who would be analyzing her life before she ever sat down with them. That way, when they inevitably said those two cursed words, “I understand,” she could reply, unequivocally, with “no, you don’t.”
This would quickly be followed up with, “You don’t understand because your home was not invaded when you were a child by two psychopaths. You were not tied up beside your brother, mother, and father. You were not told to select which one, of the four of you, would leave the house alive. You did not select yourself, and you did not watch your family burn.”
This, of course, made it very difficult for someone to actually treat her. Yet, Veronica was determined not to go back to her longtime psychiatrist, Dr. Jane Bernard. Not after discovering her decades of lies and deception.
The psychiatrist du jour was Dr. Simon Patel, a man of Indian descent in his mid-40s. He’d gone to all the best schools: Yale, Harvard, and even studied overseas at Oxford for six months. His specialty was soldiers with PTSD.
Seemed like a good fit and it started off well enough.
Veronica wasn’t forced to wait in a cozy yet chic room with magazines available to read, the specific titles carefully curated. Nor was she greeted by an intentionally bland and nondescript secretary.
Dr. Patel answered the door. He was a short man with deep-set eyes and short dark hair that he probably got cut every other week.
“You must be Veronica?”
“And you must be Dr. Patel.”
The man smiled warmly, an expression that reached his eyes.
“Just Simon, please.”
Already on a first-name basis, are we? Let me guess, making the session seem more personal is a good way to get someone to open up?
There were two chairs in the room and a small, round glass table beside each. On one of them was a jug of water and a glass, both of which were clear.
Ah, a nod to transparency, am I right, Simon?
“Please, take a seat,” the doctor encouraged.
Veronica asked which chair and he replied with whichever one she wanted.
Making me feel like I’m the one in control.
Veronica selected the chair closest to the water and sat. Dr. Patel occupied the other chair, crossed his legs, and rested an iPad on his lap.
“This is always the most awkward part, I must admit,” Dr. Patel said with a slight grin.
Veronica resisted the urge to roll her eyes. After leaving Dr. Bernard, she’d seen five psychiatrists. They all had different tricks, but their goal was the same.
“Not awkward for me,” Veronica remarked, shrugging. “Look, I don’t want to come off as rude, but can we just skip all the preamble? I assume you’ve read my file, and I’ve read yours. So, why don’t you go ahead and start asking the questions you want to ask and not waste any time?”
One of Simon’s eyebrows rose in silent inquisition.
“You are right, Veronica, I have read your file. But rather than ask questions, I’d prefer to just talk. To have a conversation.”
Veronica scowled.
More games. Okay, Simon, I can play, too. But something that probably wasn’t in my file, is that if I play a game, I play to win.
“A conversation? Like we’re friends?”
Another warm smile.
“Sure, if you wish.”
“Okay. Well, when I talk to my friends, I can ask them anything.”
A hint of gas in the air—Veronica didn’t really have friends.
“Then feel free to ask me whatever you—”
“When’s the last time you jerked off, Simon?”
To his credit, Dr. Simon Patel didn’t balk at the question. To her surprise, the man answered.
“The day before yesterday. How about you?”
Veronica leaned forward.
“I can’t remember. But I did get fucked last night.”
No reaction from the man.
“I hope it was good.”
“The best.”
The scent of gas graduated to more than a hint.
“I’m glad.”
“Are you?”
Dr. Patel sighed.
“Look, we can do this for the entire hour if you want. I’m getting paid either way. Or we can talk about something else, something that might be on your mind.”
“I don’t know what’s on my mind, because it’s a fucked-up place.”
Dr. Patel sucked his top lip into his mouth and Veronica felt bad for not giving the man a chance. She also recognized that this was a pattern of hers, and the primary reason why she bounced from psychiatrist to psychiatrist. It wasn’t that they weren’t competent, it was that she never gave them a chance.
Because, inevitably, it would all circle back to one thing: forgiveness.
And Veronica didn’t deserve it.
“Really?” Dr. Simon Patel shrugged. “Look, I’m getting paid for the session, and I suspect that, based on what already happened, it’s going to be your last. If that’s the case, if you want to sit here and say nothing, I’m okay with that too. If it makes it any easier, you can just tell me what you’re thinking about right now.”
Veronica peered into Simon’s eyes.
“I was thinking about the crime scene that I just came from,” she lied.
“You can talk about that if you want.”
Want was the operative word.
What Veronica wanted was to be out of there. But if she left, Dr. Patel might reach out to Captain Bottel and inform the man that she had not completed her mandated psych session. If he did that, she could be suspended.
If the doctor told her to leave, however…
Based on their limited, yet graphic, interaction, Dr. Patel seemed like a tough nut to crack. But everyone had their breaking points.
“Well, today I took my rookie partner to go a murder scene. The victim was naked, and his throat had been slit. Then someone stripped the skin from his back, broke his ribs, and tore his lungs out to look like angel wings.”
“Interesting,” Dr. Patel remarked.
“It’s fucking disgusting is what it is.”
“I’m sorry, of course, it is. But I find it interesting that you think they looked like angel wings.” Before Veronica could add the bit about SINNER being written in blood on the wall, Simon continued, “Are you familiar with a blood eagle?”
“Never heard of it.”
“Well, it was rumored that when Vikings captured an opponent in battle, they would tether their arms and legs to a table, cut their back open, snip the ribs, and pull their lungs out for display. This ritual was typically performed when the victim was still alive.”
It sounded uncannily like her crime scene, although the lack of blood on the man’s back suggested he was dead or very nearly dead when his lungs had been removed.
“Did they write ‘SINNER’ near the body in blood?”
“I doubt it. Vikings had their own unique beliefs—not sure if they even knew the word.”
Veronica mulled this over.
Could the display be a blood eagle instead of an angel?
“From your file, I gather that you’re not religious,” Simon continued. “But it’s worth noting that the thing about sin, at least in the catholic context, is that no matter how bad, it can be forgiven.”
There it was.
Veronica bared her teeth.
You chopped dad’s finger off with a knife, you fed your mother ice cream with bleach.
Some of Dante Fiori’s last words. Words that were impossible to corroborate. The ramblings of a madman or insights shared with him by her brother?
If only my fucking mind wasn’t so… so broken. If only I could remember.
Veronica clenched her fists.
Once a killer, always a killer.
“Veronica, are you okay?”
“No. I’m not.” She nearly leaped to her feet. “This—this isn’t going to work. I have to go.”
“Veronica, please—”
“No!” she yelled. “There’s someone out there who slit a man’s throat and pulled their lungs out like a… like a blood eagle, and you want me to stay here and talk about forgiveness?”
“We can talk about—”
“Fuck you,” Veronica spat and then left, no longer caring if Dr. Patel reported that she’d run off.
All she cared about was being out of there.
And finding whoever was responsible for this horrific crime.
Chapter 9
Veronica was halfway back to the crime scene when her phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Detective Shade, it’s Kristin.” The woman on the phone sounded more tired than usual, which was saying something. Bear County coroner Kristin Newberry worked long hours at her day job as a lawyer and was typically exhausted whenever Veronica met with the coroner. She was also in her mid-sixties and had probably been working eighty-hour weeks since law school.
“I’m almost at the scene. I’ll be there in ten.”
“Right, I haven’t made it out yet,” Kristin said with a hint of guilt in her voice. “Officer Furnelli called, but I’m tied up right now.”
This occasionally happened, especially if there was a big trial going on. But given the horrible fate of their victim, she would have assumed that Court had mentioned that expediency was key to avoiding prying eyes and potential panic.
Veronica heard the captain in her head.
…quick and easy with this one, detectives.
“The scene is pretty gruesome,” Veronica said. “No, scratch that. It’s downright horrible. The victim’s throat was slit, and his lungs were pulled out through the back. I don’t know what Officer Furnelli told you, but we’re going to need your help and get a medical examiner in to look at the body.”
“Right, no, he told me. I put a call in to Portland. ME should be there soon.”
“Dr. Thorpe?”
“Yeah, Dr. Thorpe.”
That was good. Veronica liked Kristin a lot and respected her even more. But the woman wasn’t a medical professional by trade. While there was no doubt that the coroner had experience and insights that made her invaluable to the cases, she was mostly limited to blood tests and superficial inquiries. Autopsies and more specific testing required the services of a medical examiner, who was often a forensic pathologist. Dr. Julia Thorpe was a plump no-nonsense woman in her fifties.
Veronica liked her, too.
“Good.” Veronica waited. She was unsure of why the woman had called. “Kristin, everything all right?”
“No, not really. I’m working that case for you.”
“Dylan?”
“Yeah, Dylan Hall. Veronica, I’ve done everything I can… I’ve asked for stay after stay, trying to get the DA to offer a better deal. Anything.”
Veronica cursed under her breath.
Dylan had been arrested after the Matheson police found him in possession of a kilo of heroin. A kilo. Veronica had confronted him about it, and he claimed it wasn’t his.
He was telling the truth.
But with his track record, Dylan was looking at some serious jail time. And nobody but Veronica would believe that someone had set him up.
Despite his past transgressions, Dylan Hall was a good man. He’d acted as Veronica’s confidential informant and had once even saved Freddie’s life. He’d also groped Veronica while high, but that was something that they’d put behind them.
The true reason, however, why Veronica felt such a kinship and responsibility for the man ran even deeper.
Like Dante and her brother Benny, Dylan Hall had been one of the Renaissance Home boys.
He had been doomed from the start, but had somehow, beyond all odds, managed to turn himself from a junkie into a man who wanted to start over.
Until someone planted a kilo of heroin on him.
“The problem is his priors. DA doesn’t even seem keen on pleading this one out—they might want to go to trial, and they never want to go to trial. With all the recent overdoses, I think they’re looking for—”
“Where are you now?” Veronica interrupted.
“Matheson Public Jail.”
Veronica looked out the window and then pulled a U-turn.
“Wait there—I’ll be there in fifteen.
***
“A kilo’s no joke, Veronica. It’s not something they’re willing to downgrade or sweep under a rug.”
Veronica’s eyes moved away from Kristin Newberry and to the one-way glass behind which sat Dylan Hall.
She’d seen the man at his worst; she’d seen the six-foot-nine man completely bald, running around in soiled underwear, his eyes so sunken that she could almost see the back of his head through his pupils. Veronica had seen Dylan coked out, then on the road to recovery. But she had never seen him like this.
Although he had hair now, short black stubble, and had put on weight, he somehow looked worse than ever.
Dylan Hall looked scared.
“The issue is, because he continues to claim that the drugs weren’t his, even if he were to flip on someone higher up the totem pole, I don’t think the DA would believe him.”
Veronica knew that was what usually happened in these cases. The big, bad DEA just wanted to catch a bigger fish. They’d trap a minnow, put that on a hook, feed it to a bass. Then they’d use the bass to catch a grouper. And up and up they went, hoping to eventually land a shark. It was like a twisted, aquatic version of the woman who swallowed a fly.
“There’s nothing you can do?” Veronica hadn’t meant to sound accusatory, but Kristin’s reply suggested it had been taken as such.
“I’ve done everything I can. My expertise is corporate law, not criminal. I reached out to some colleagues, I’ve called in favors, and I’ve exhausted all resources. The DA isn’t budging.”
“Thanks, Kristin. I appreciate it,” Veronica said, still looking through the glass. “Can I speak with him?”
“I was hoping that you would. If anyone can get him to flip, it’s you.”
Dylan was moving his hands from the tabletop to his thighs, to beneath his armpits, but couldn’t seem to figure out what to do with them.
“I’ll try my best.”
The second she opened the interview room door, Dylan’s eyes shot up.
“Veronica,” he said in his harsh voice. “I didn’t do this. They weren’t my drugs.”
Chapter 10
The room smelled of must but not gas.
“I know they aren’t yours,” Veronica said as she sat across from Dylan. “But, unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to matter as much as it should. Can you tell me what happened?”
Dylan stretched his fingers and then placed them down on the metal table. He was so tall and his arms so long that they nearly reached Veronica’s side.
“What happened? What happened is someone framed me. That night you came over with your fat-ass partner? The cops roll in with the goddamn DEA. Kick my fucking door in. If you think it didn’t close well before, imagine now. Then, get this, they find a kilo of smack in my house. A fucking kilo.”
The more he spoke, the angrier he got.
Veronica remembered the night in question. She and Freddie had visited Dylan to ask him if he knew anything about the caller who had harassed her on Marlowe. He hadn’t, but by sheer luck, Veronica had mentioned the song. That Dylan did know, and had led them to Renaissance Home, and eventually Sister Margaret.
“Let me ask you something, Veronica? You’ve been in my place. Did it look like I got my shit at IKEA?”
Veronica had to smirk. His idea of fancy was IKEA.
And no, it didn’t. She was fairly certain that most of Dylan’s belongings had come from less auspicious means—primarily dumpster diving.
“Right,” Dylan said preemptively. “Hey, you know what a kilo’s worth? A kilo of smack?”
Veronica shrugged. She honestly didn’t know.
“If it’s good shit? Seventy, eighty k. In my hands, I would chop that shit up six ways from Sunday and make four times that amount. And if I had that much cash, my entire goddamn house would be made of IKEA shit. Floors, ceilings, hell, even the walls would be put together with those little fucking wooden nub things.”
The narrative made no sense. Even if Dylan was still in the game, which Veronica was certain he wasn’t, no one would trust him with a kilo and he sure as hell couldn’t afford it himself.
But it wasn’t a bad idea to double-check.
“So, it wasn’t yours?”
Dylan threw his hands up.
