The touch of murder, p.5
The Touch of Murder, page 5
“No, it’s not mine. Jesus Christ, someone fucked me over and set me up. That’s what I’ve been telling that gray-haired broad, that’s what I’ve been telling that bald dude who smokes enough cigarettes outside to kill everybody in the city. It’s. Not. Mine. I’ve never seen it before. I’ve never touched it. Someone fucking framed me.”
Veronica kind of wished it was his. It might’ve taken some persuasion, but she thought she would have been able to make Dylan give up his source.
But being out of the game as long as he had and seeing how rapidly things changed in the drug game, she probably knew more major players than Dylan did.
And Veronica hadn’t worked a drug case in months.
“Veronica,” Dylan’s tone suddenly changed. “It’s been almost six months in County. I can do County. But… shit, I can’t do BCC or any big house. I fucking… I can’t.”
Dylan Hall had grown up in Renaissance Home, had seen horrible things, experienced even worse, and had been in and out of foster care his entire life.
Dylan Hall had been to prison more times than most people visited the bathroom, and yet he was terrified.
“I’m doing what I can.” Her comment was lame, but she didn’t know what else to say. “Hang in there.” Veronica touched his hand briefly. It was clammy. “I’ll figure it out.”
Veronica left the room and rejoined Kristin on the other side of the one-way glass.
“He’s not going to change his story,” Veronica said absently. “The worst part? He’s telling the truth. Someone framed him.”
“With a kilo? That’s an incredibly expensive frame job.”
Veronica shrugged and Kristin sighed.
“It doesn’t matter. If we don’t do something soon, he’s going away for a long time.”
“What’s a long time, Kristin?”
“Ten years on the low side. Most likely fifteen.”
Veronica cursed.
Dylan wouldn’t last fifteen years in Bear County Correctional. In Veronica’s experience, there was a big difference when someone who was facing considerable jail time said they ‘can’t’ do it compared with ‘won’t’.
Can’t meant that they didn’t want to.
Won’t meant that they would anything—absolutely anything—to avoid going inside.
As the two of them stared at Dylan, Veronica couldn’t help but think about how her life could have been different if Peter had not been the first cop on the scene, or if he had decided to adopt a son instead of his daughter.
If either had been the case, Veronica would have probably been on the other side of the glass.
No, that wasn’t right.
She would have been six feet under.
“I can stall for another week, maybe. Then we have to make a decision.”
“Right.”
Neither woman said anything for a minute.
“I guess I’m going to hit that crime scene now,” Kristin said. “Dr. Thorpe should be there soon. Wanna ride with me?”
The last thing that Veronica wanted to do was go back to Needle Point. She had to figure out a way to get the DA to drop the charges against Dylan.
And she could only do that with a clear head.
“I might sit this one out.”
“Sure, I get it. Anything I should know about this scene?”
Veronica licked her lips.
“Yeah, let me know if you see an angel.”
Chapter 11
Crowded spaces and Veronica Shade never got along. And, for some reason, restaurants were the worst. Maybe it was because a high number of patrons were on a first date, lying to try to impress each other, or maybe it was the old married couples, lying to keep their relationship alive. Whatever the reason, if Veronica found herself in a restaurant packed full of people, she would be overwhelmed by the smell of gas, ruining any enticing odors coming from the kitchen. Occasionally, she would see colors too, colors associated with impending violence. This always posed a moral dilemma for her. She couldn’t rightfully go over to a man who was angrily shoving chicken Alfredo down his gullet as he glared at his demure wife who sucked back martinis like they were water and say, “Excuse me, sir, don’t even think about it. Don’t even think about hitting your wife tonight.”
Cole, on the other hand, liked to go out and eat. He also liked crowds, although, for the benefit of them both, he typically chose restaurants that were off the beaten path and were often empty or close to it. And on the rare occasion that it was busy, he’d specifically request a table near the back.
Tonight, Cole had opted for a new Japanese restaurant. They ordered a sharing plate of sashimi, as well as some traditional sushi rolls and deep-fried octopus. Cole was deep into a tale about his most recent case. It had something to do with a missing bra, and judging by the expression on his handsome face, she expected that it was, at least to him, comical. But Veronica was having a hard time concentrating on anything he was saying. She kept thinking about Dylan Hall, thinking about him sitting in that cell, scared out of his wits about going back to jail.
It was no secret that the captain wanted her to keep her nose clean. That meant no interfering with other cases.
But fuck the captain.
Could she go to the DEA? Ask for a favor?
No, letting Dylan go wasn’t a favor. That was something else. Something much bigger.
What the hell could she do, then?
“What do you think?” Cole asked as he snagged a piece of tuna between his chopsticks.
“What do I think?” Veronica repeated as a stall tactic.
Cole popped the fish into his mouth, chewed a few times, then swallowed.
“Yeah? You think I should have him arrested? Seek the death penalty?”
Veronica’s eyes bulged.
What the hell was he talking about?
Did he move on from the missing bra?
“I don’t…”
“Yeah,” Cole said. “I think I’ll suggest to the DA that they seek the death penalty. Aim high, am I right?”
Veronica was completely and utterly lost.
Cole ate another piece of fish, looked directly into her eyes, and then broke into a grin.
“The death penalty.” He pointed at her with his chopsticks. “You should’ve seen your face, Veronica!”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged off the weak apology.
“So am I. I’m sorry that the most exciting thing I’ve done in the last two weeks is hunt down a missing size E bra.”
“I just—”
“This is my every day. Either I’m trying to catch a police officer stealing from the evidence locker or hunt down lewd pictures that a cop took of someone in lockup. A police-involved shooting? Forget it. They never give me those cases. It blows, Veronica. It fucking blows.”
Cole often griped about his job, but he seemed more intense today. He wanted to vent but he was also seeking guidance. Unfortunately for him, Veronica wasn’t in the right state of mind to offer much of anything. The good news was that she’d seen so many psychiatrists that she was capable of channeling them without so much as a second thought.
“When you were in basic training, did you ever think that you would end up in internal affairs?”
Cole laughed.
“Helllll no. I thought I was going to be a goddamn SWAT team leader in Los Angeles. I thought I was going to be—” he made a fist and thumped his chest, “—an alpha male, cracking heads, making the world a safer place.”
“How did you get into IA, then?”
Veronica snagged a piece of sushi, her first, and popped it in her mouth. She took one bite and then stopped.
It was fantastic.
Cole looked at her a little strangely, and Veronica wondered if he’d told her this before. Probably. But Cole liked to talk.
That was one of the main differences between them. After her day was done, Veronica wanted to push everything out of her mind, whereas Cole felt compelled to discuss every little detail.
“I was roped into it, actually. Loaned out, a sort of internship, you know? And my first case? It was interesting as hell. Bribery in a small town, corruption, a mayor who was coercing local businesses to sell their buildings at a loss—it would have made an amazing book. And I liked it. I liked it because everyone involved was bad. So, I hopped on the IA train. But then…”
Cole let his sentence trail off.
Unfortunately, not everything was so cut and dry. Instead of chasing unequivocally bad men, Cole ended up harassing morally ambiguous characters who chose the lesser of two evils.
And the occasional underwear thief.
“You said this morning that you wanted to start a PI firm.”
“Yeah, after my dream of leading a SWAT team died an agonizing death, sure.”
“And what kind of cases do you think you’d be investigating then?”
Cole closed one eye.
“Oh, you’re a sly one, aren’t you? More underwear capers? Maybe. But at least there’d be the occasional action shots of some hot stepmom having an affair,” Cole joked, miming taking photos. “But seriously, in IA, I just feel like I cause problems. As a PI, I’d be able to help people, you know? Cheesy, yeah, but true.”
“I’m not sure I help people,” Veronica whispered.
Cole sighed.
“No, you don’t help people at all,” he replied sarcastically. “Speaking of not helping people, how was your day? How’s your new partner?”
Veronica pictured Detective Ethan Blake standing in a puddle of his own vomit.
She didn’t want to talk about him. Didn’t want to talk about the victim with the slit throat, either. Veronica just wanted to eat and drink and go home.
But she knew Cole wouldn’t let her off that easily.
“He’s green, young,” Veronica said, pausing for a second to think of a way to steer the conversation in a different direction. “But you’ll be happy to know that he doesn’t have a twelve-inch cock.”
Cole was taking a sip of his beer and laughed midway through. It sprayed across the table and speckled Veronica’s shirt.
She couldn’t help but join in.
“It was ten and a half inches.”
Cole growled at her.
“I’ll show you ten and a half inches…”
***
Sex with Cole was good. It wasn’t great, but that wasn’t because the man wasn’t well-endowed—although she doubted the ten-and-a-half-inch claim—or that he wasn’t a conscientious lover. He was both. Sex with him was exciting, exhilarating, and Veronica liked everything about it.
The problem was that Veronica liked Cole, but what they had didn’t feel like love.
It was too… orchestrated. Too normal.
Things had progressed at a reasonable pace since that day in the hospital, since reading the article that Cole had written about her. There was a vulnerability to the man that she was drawn to. And he was undeniably handsome.
They took things slow, went on a few dates, and even managed to hold out having sex for the first three despite the obvious tension and attraction. After the first month, their bi-weekly rendezvous became a nearly daily occurrence. By month three, he was sleeping over more often than not. At month five, he had started leaving clothes in one of the drawers instead of bringing a new set every evening.
Despite talking—a lot—and mostly about himself, Cole cared about her. He was kind, affectionate, funny, interesting... he ticked all the boxes.
But Veronica didn’t love him. Maybe she would, in time.
But that night, like most nights after they had sex, when Veronica closed her eyes, she found herself not thinking about the man who lay beside her, but someone else entirely. Someone who was a bit older, someone who also wore a uniform. Someone whom she hadn’t spoken to since the day she flushed his drugs and screamed at him to leave her house and never come back.
That someone was Sheriff Steve Burns.
Chapter 12
When Veronica didn’t see Detective Ethan Blake waiting for her with a coffee when she arrived at work like Freddie used to, she realized that she was going to have to train the man better.
But when she made her way upstairs and saw that his desk was empty and he wasn’t there yet, Veronica thought maybe she should start with something more basic.
Like coming to work on time.
While she waited for Ethan to show up, Veronica looked at the folder that had been left on her desk. There was a sticky note on the front that read “From Officer Furnelli.”
She smiled and opened the folder.
At least one of them took their job seriously.
Inside was a rap sheet for a man named Jake Thompson. One glance at the mugshot confirmed that it was the victim from Needle Point.
It was their angel.
Apparently, instead of cutting loose early as she had done, Officer Furnelli had taken the man’s fingerprints and run them through the system.
Veronica wasn’t sure if she should be happy or sad that her impressions of the victim turned out to be correct. Jake was in his mid-thirties and, judging by his extensive rap sheet, had struggled with addiction for a considerable number of years. Maybe since his late teens or even earlier.
He was frail and thin. On his last arrest, which was just over a month ago, Jake was listed as weighing just one hundred and fifty-four pounds.
And he was a sinner, all right.
Jake had been arrested on more than twenty occasions, all of which, at least on first glance, appeared to be related to the possession, use, or sale of illegal narcotics.
Veronica wasn’t surprised to discover that the man’s drug of choice was heroin. This, of course, made her think of Dylan Hall. Veronica had no idea who had murdered Jake Thompson, but she couldn’t help but think that the victim could have just as easily have been Dylan.
Instead of sitting behind bars, the man could have been propped on a chair, his throat slit, his lungs pulled out his back.
“Detective Shade, could you come in here for a moment, please?”
Veronica raised her eyes from the folder.
Like yesterday, Captain Bottel was standing in his office doorway.
“Sure.”
She entered her boss’ office and closed the door behind her.
“What happened yesterday, Detective Shade?”
Veronica’s first instinct was that Dr. Simon Patel had reported her. Her second thought was that this question had something to do with Detective Blake.
Early on in her law enforcement career, Veronica had learned the value of pauses. Not only did they give you a chance to select the right words, but they also gave the impression of being knowledgeable and confident.
Veronica had become an expert at pausing and was comfortable with silence.
Pierre Bottel, evidently, was not, as he broke first.
“I sent you and Detective Blake to investigate the murder in Nettle Point.”
Veronica didn’t hear a question, so she continued to remain quiet.
Captain Bottel sighed.
“Detective Blake quit yesterday.”
Veronica’s eyes bulged. Silence was no longer an option.
“What?”
The captain nodded.
“Called last night, left a message. Said, under no uncertain terms, that he was done. Out. Not coming back. Do you want to hear it?”
Veronica did not, but if it had been anyone other than the captain telling her this she would have insisted. It was unbelievable. Detective Blake had been sick at the crime scene, but that was understandable. After all, Jake’s murder had been brutal, gruesome.
But quit? Quit?
Where the fuck did they find this guy?
“The thing that bothers me most,” the captain continued, “is that you didn’t know.”
Veronica shrugged.
“I barely even—”
Bottel silenced her by raising his hand.
“Now, I know you had an appointment with Dr. Patel.” It was his turn to pause, and Veronica fought the nearly irresistible urge to interrupt. “But afterward, you were expected to go back to the crime scene.”
“I—”
There was a knock at the door, one that the captain had clearly been expecting because he immediately said, “Come in.”
Court Furnelli entered, his eyes down.
Veronica couldn’t help the growing feeling in her gut that she was being ambushed.
“Officer Furnelli, you were first on the scene yesterday, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now, as I understand it, Detectives Shade and Blake arrived about an hour after you secured the scene.”
“Yes, sir.”
Yeah, definitely an ambush.
“After Veronica left for her appointment, what happened?”
Court licked his lips and glanced around nervously.
Veronica felt bad for him. He was just a rookie cop, and he was essentially being asked to rat on a detective.
“Captain, I just—”
Once again, Veronica was silenced with a wave. Oh, how she hated that. She clenched her jaw so tight that it started to hurt.
“Officer?” Bottel encouraged. “What happened after Detective Shade left?”
“Detective Blake started feeling ill. Said he needed to go lie down.”
“And after he left, you were alone at the scene until the coroner arrived?”
Officer Furnelli cocked his head.
“No, sir.”
This surprised the captain. It surprised Veronica, too.
“No?”
“No,” Officer Furnelli confirmed. “About an hour after Detective Blake left, Detective Shade returned. She helped me fingerprint the victim.”
The small office now reeked of gasoline.
“Detective Shade?” the captain asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “I have the fingerprint report on my desk. The victim is Jake Thompson, in the system for possession.”
Veronica suppressed a smirk. Clearly, this had gone differently than the captain had hoped. It was no secret that after the problems she’d caused the department not many wanted to keep her around. And the new captain wanting to be rid of the previous captain’s daughter surprised no one.
