Shattered by Death (A Jo Oliver Thriller Book 2) Read online

  “We aren’t. I am.” He kept his eyes on the road.

  “Want to explain first or start the argument now? Good to go either way here.” I loved Nick, but he was going a little overboard on the protective pseudo-boyfriend stuff.

  “I’m taking you home. It’s been a heckuva day for all of us, but the personal connection makes it ten times worse for you. You need a break.” He still refused to look at me.

  Uber controlling or a symptom of love? Hard to tell. Either way, time to nip it in the bud. And what if it was something else entirely? Something much more sinister? I gripped the door rest and turned to face him, seatbelt tightening against my chest.

  “I appreciate the big brother stuff. I do. But I can’t have you keeping me from living, breathing, and being who I am. Period. No excuses, no censures, no gate keeping, no judgment.”

  “Leave this case to us—sit this one out. For me. Please.” He clenched his teeth hard enough for me to hear the tick of his jaw.

  “I’m a cop, Nick. First and foremost when on a case—with you or without you. And I’m on the case of my life right now. So turn this boat around before I abandon ship. Your choice. Either way, I’m not bailing on this case.” I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets. “Look, I appreciate your wanting to protect me. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

  Wrong word choice.

  His face turned dark red, and the tick of his jaw resumed. “And you’re so much more to me than you’ll ever know.” His soft tone carried sadness.

  We drove through back roads toward Haversport in silence, reaching the city limits in under ten minutes. His Federal version of municipal plates working in our favor once again. He extended the silence as he pulled the car into the station’s parking lot.

  “Thank you.” I reached over and squeezed his hand in an effort to repair the damage done by freshly slung arrows.

  He did not squeeze my hand back.

  “Back at the ranch. See you in a few hours maybe? I’m gonna go gas up. And I strongly suggest you take a nap on your office sofa. O.k. with you if we let Gino and Mitch give the team a few hours off, and then start the briefing at 2:00?” He pulled the car up to the steps.

  “Whoa, lovin’ the convenience factor. Go for it.” Was this an I’m-still-on-your-side kind of gesture? Or a distancing move? Either way, I was glad he wasn’t trying to talk me into going home.

  “Thanks, partner.” I patted his hand before opening the door and heading into the station. I trudged down the empty hallways, picturing the creamy white sheets on the sleeper sofa in my office.

  He’d done all he could to support me. He only wanted what was best for me, for us. Why did I feel like I was walking through a minefield at gunpoint?

  Mitch and Gino were in the middle of the briefing when I walked into the bullpen, none the worse for wear after a quick shower and change in the locker room downstairs. Mitch had insisted on hiring Gino as a consultant on the case. His background in surveillance and criminal apprehension would come in handy.

  They both looked up and paused. Detectives sat alongside at least half a dozen Feds, all gathered in a loose circle around the room. The room quieted as I leaned against the back wall.

  Whatever. I nodded at Gino and Mitch. “Carry on.”

  “Thanks, Chief. As I was saying, Schlichting makes the fourth vic that we know of. But there could be others.” Mitch glanced at Gino, cuing him.

  “Statistically probable. Likely well before this current spate of murders.” Gino was playing big shot consultant today. No pronounced Cuban accent.

  “What’s the difference between a nexus and a trail?” Contron snarled from the middle of the seated pack.

  “Excuse me?” Mitch was on it, one eyebrow cocked, lips pressed together in a vise grip.

  “When do we stop ignoring the obvious and start vetting our free range suspects a little more?” Contron didn’t turn around and look at me. He didn’t have to. Schlichting’s death hadn’t improved his overall disposition.

  I pushed off the wall and sauntered over to him, waiting for him to close his mouth. I put both hands on the metal back of his chair. He stiffened but wouldn’t face me. I stood there for a moment, as blotchy crimson marched across his beefy neck.

  “Do you really want to dance with me again, Ralphie? ‘Cause I got a little question of my own for you. What’s the difference between intellectual curiosity and insubordination?”

  “About two weeks, unpaid.” Commander Mike McCaskey piped in from the front of the group, breaking the tension.

  I grinned and sent him a grateful look. He was old enough to be my father. It had taken me a while to prove myself to him. I still wasn’t quite sure what I did that had finally won him over, but I’d been the grateful recipient of his respect ever since.

  I breathed deeply as I made my way to the whiteboards. Mitch turned her attention back to the screen. The third of the four photographs we’d reviewed over breakfast hours ago appeared before us. Schlichting’s brutalized body glared off the white background. A wave of dizziness lapped at the shores of my mind. Mitch flipped over to an empty screen. She hit a button, and the number ‘1’ appeared before us. Followed by the name of a drug I’d never heard of until it had shown up in the tox reports for both Del and his girlfriend.

  “What kind of mind are we dealing with here? What’s the link between the victims? There are three distinct signatures that we know of so far that have been present at every scene. And according to my search engine, ‘Scopolamine is a little-known drug used for motion sickness and vomiting, but it can also render the user open to suggestion and/or commands.’” Mitch put her phone down and paused, looking at the intense faces of the men and women in front of her.

  “This some new designer drug? Or am I just getting too old to keep up with the jonesing...” McCaskey’s play on words evoked real laughter and a few eye rolls. This man had a fine mind disguised behind his Columbo demeanor.

  Mitch looked him in the eye. “It’s not new, it’s just rare around here. Rare enough for us to send it out to university hospitals for IDing. But it’s apparently used often enough in Venezuela and Thailand.”

  McCaskey leaned forward in his chair. “Okay, so we got an unusual drug. Maybe our killer knows her way around a hospital. Or spent a little time in med school. Or traveled out of the country recently. What else you got?”

  Her way around the crime scene. Garrett had kept him up to date. They’d been partners for the past three years. Their solve rate was among the best in the state.

  Mitch hit the button, and a photograph of a sledgehammer with dark red stains appeared. Looked like the one previously lodged in my fireplace. Thank God for solid alibis.

  “A sledgehammer. It seems that our killer prefers to drug her victims. But in the first murder, she shot them in the knees. Why? Couldn’t get physically close enough to drug them? Or had it been planned that way? Is this just standard evolution of an M.O.? How would the killer know there would be very few people around the day of the lake house killings? And even more troubling, how would she be able to get close enough to plant evidence in the chief’s home?”

  That was my husband she was talking about, reduced to a party in “the lake house killings.” What would I do with the lake house now? Focus, girl. Focus.

  “Maybe she knew them. Maybe it was a neighbor. Maybe she got lucky. Maybe. The only thing we know for sure is that our killer used a sledgehammer in every single murder. We ran a check on the make and model of the ones we’ve recovered and learned nothing more than that each one was a different brand. Probably purchased off the internet instead of locally.”

  “And then she planted the dang thing in the Chief’s fireplace? That ain’t even smart, and it’s gettin’ a little ridiculous on top of it. How many more sledgehammers is this chick gonna go through? And where the heck else they gonna show up?” McCaskey spoke the words that everyone in the room had to have been wondering. “That poor louse Richardson, even with his hos
pital tech background, he doesn’t sing to me for any of this.”

  “And that leads us to the third signature element: ties to the Chief.” Mitch had one hand on her chin, lending her a professorial air.

  McCaskey nodded. “Which Richardson does not have for anyone beyond the lake house killings.”

  Mitch cleared her throat. “Back to the ties. The first goes without saying. The second, Derrick Deter, is a man she’s tracked and thrown behind bars on two separate occasions. And the third, Schlichting…” Mitch’s voice trailed off.

  “Was dirty, and we all knew it. The Chief was the only one with the guts to confront him. And she did. A lot. And suddenly he turns up as victim number three? Now ain’t that convenient.”

  “And then there’s the masks. Death masks maybe. I’m not sure. But, the first scene, with the fishing line mask. And Deter, an actual mask was left at the scene.”

  McCaskey leveled his eyes at me. “What are we missing with Schlichting?”

  His broken body, the raised leg. “The pose. It was a yoga pose. But how is a pose a mask?”

  “Too soon to say, but for sure we know he was posed. That in and of itself could serve as a mask. Masking the effects of the murder.” His hands moved as he spoke.

  I nodded my head. “It’s possible. Puzzling, but possible.”

  Mitch coughed, and then resumed her presentation. “And here’s the last piece to the puzzle for now. It’s pretty gruesome. The three pictures you’ve seen on this PowerPoint came from photos that were couriered over to the station last night.” Mitch paled a little as the room erupted into surprised shouts. “There was no note. But the message here is loud and clear.” Mitch hit the button, and the fourth photo filled the screen.

  “I ain’t seein’ it, commander.” McCaskey squinted at the screen.

  “Yes, you are. Assuming we’re right, and the woman in that shot was still alive when it was taken, it follows that that woman’s shot was taken recently. She’s very much alive, and the killer sent us a photo of her along with the four victims.”

  “Lord, help us all.” McCaskey said. “It’s like she’s sayin’ ‘try and stop me.’”

  “Yes. It is.” Mitch clicked her mouse a few times, and the screen went black.

  Wait. What was that? There was something familiar about that last photograph. Before I could get the words out, Nick’s confident voice floated up to the front. “Put that last shot back up. Would you please, commander? I think I’ve seen that office. In fact, I’m pretty sure I was in it a couple of hours ago. With the Chief.”

  Scenes of Angela Murray’s office. Her chair pressing against a barren wall. I was born for a storm, and the calm does not suit me. All cylinders clicked at once. “The Jackson quote! That picture on the wall—it’s the same one that’s shown on the top of picture number four!”

  Nick approached from the back, nodding his head.

  “We were just there. Riverside. My mother’s a resident in the A.L. wing. There’s uh… there’s been some trouble there this week.”

  “Evidently.” McCaskey was at it again. “Check this out.” He held up his cell phone, reading a report. “Riverside’s second-in-command just called dispatch. Apparently, Ms. Murray didn’t show up for work. It took them a while to notice her absence, because her car was in her usual parking spot and her calendar was filled with meetings. She’s not responding to any of her phones and it’s not like her.”

  I looked down at my phone, read the same message, and moaned. “Oh no. Besides this woman maybe being taken, there’ve been indications of abuse. I have concerns about my own mother. Maybe our killer does, too. It looks like the killer’s taken the Riverside director.”

  “I agree. But where? How long ago? How much time does she have left?” Nick pushed the podium to the side and stood in front of the whiteboard. He drew a rough outline of Paradise County and put four Xs in different locations, one just outside the northern border. One of the Xs was much bigger than the others. “Four bodies in three different locations. And Riverside is right in the middle of the kill zone. What’s the killer trying to tell us?”

  “And what’s with the creepy photos?” McCaskey was on his feet, arms crossed. “Why start toying with us now? Why not start with the taunts earlier? What have we missed along the way?” He scratched his chin with a thick knuckle. “I mean, sledgehammer littering ain’t exactly subtle.”

  “Right. But it is an unusually creative way to terrorize the Chief. Think about it—framing her for her husband’s murder, right off the bat.” Mitch remained silent on the girlfriend part.

  “And the sonuva—” I was just getting warmed up when Nick cut me off. In front of the guys. Talk about your disrespect.

  “Each of the victims shares an intimate connection with the Chief.” Nick still held the red dry erase marker.

  Intimate connection? What was he thinking? I waited for snickers to roll around the room. There were none. Maybe it wasn’t noticeable. To a room full of detectives. Yeah, right. Another reason to think about making a different choice with Nick. One of these days.

  Time to tune in. Nick was still droning on, with the occasional chirp from McCaskey. The rest of the staff in the room seemed fidgety, ready to hit the streets.

  “You got any more enemies left, Chief?” McCaskey looked at me.

  Nick picked up the thread without missing a beat. “Let’s put it another way, detective. Chief, if you were going to make a list of the people who might have the biggest ax to grind with you, who might that include? Think about it. Anyone out there you’ve arrested and thrown away that might still be harboring a grudge. Someone who could hate you enough to frame you for these murders? I was going to suggest the Mentor Sister Serial Killer, since he had accomplices. But he doesn’t fit. Who knows you well enough to be able to create a kill list that looks like it came right out of your darkest fantasies?”

  My head swirled, and I waivered on my feet.

  Besides Nick? Gino? Donna? Mitch? Who indeed?

  Tension pinged off the walls. Most of the detectives broke into motion, some jumping to their feet, some throwing hands through their hair, others pulling out cell phones, notebooks, pens. The blood was in the water, and we were on the move. McCaskey lost no time reading between the lines. “Isn’t elder abuse one of the top ten issues for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in DC and Springfield?”

  Nick looked at me, ignoring McCaskey, and softening his tone. “And your mother’s gonna be fine, what with you visiting her as much as you do. Right down the hall from a decorated vet we all know and love who experienced a strange episode while we were talking to the head nurse not quite three hours ago. There was a look of…”

  Nick paused.

  I didn’t appreciate him answering for me. Between his open expression of our inner relationship, and his take-charge attitude, was this is the kind of man I wanted to let any closer to my heart? Was this sentiment an expression of my nerves? Or inner alert system kicking in? Why was I spending so much energy looking under non-existent rocks? Why couldn’t I relax into the idea of having this great guy in my life? Three hours ago, I was ready to walk down the aisle with Nick, and now just being in the same room with him gives me the heebie-jeebies. What’s going on with me?

  “’Tragedy’ is the word you’re looking for.” I’d never forget the look in Nick’s eyes. Time to take back control of this investigation. Again. And let the love thing sort itself out later.

  “Yes, tragedy on his face. Even without this new twist, I’d want to go back and see what’s really going on. Something just isn’t right about that place. Elder abuse isn’t the only thing wrong down there.” He failed to mention the surveillance cameras he’d already installed that would let us do exactly that, remotely.

  “What are you waiting for? Saddle up and ride out there.” God bless McCaskey for ignoring Nick and directing all attention to me again. Could I get him to join me for any future near-dates with Nick? To make sure I behaved myself.
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br />   “Alright, Nick, Gino and I are heading back to Riverside.” A game plan formed.

  Mitch stepped in before I could send out my teams. “I know you want to go back and check on your mom, and nobody’s going to bring the passion to the table in tracking this director better than you right now. So go check on your mom while you interview folks out there. Two birds, one stone. You’ve given these muscle heads enough to do.”

  “Thanks.” I nodded to Nick and Gino, and the three of us turned and headed out of the bullpen toward the parking lot exit. “Let’s hit it, gentlemen.”

  Nick wedged himself in between Gino and me and slid his arm around my waist. I shrugged it off. “Gino and I are going to ride back to Riverside. I need you to follow up with your hotsy-totsy bad boy predictor program and add this new vic ID.” It wouldn’t change anything, but it sounded good. Didn’t it? If nothing else, it was a face-saving way for Nick to hit the road and give me some breathing room.

  He got the hint. He stared at me coolly for several seconds and then turned on his heel and headed toward his car, waving goodbye as he walked away in silence.

  This would give me a good reason to dump all my irrational fears of commitment out on the dashboard for Gino to dissect and reassemble on our way.

  He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Es cierto that we have much to discuss.”

  I managed a snort and a nod. “Let’s just put it this way, my friend—I wouldn’t mind a little friendly advice on the Nick front.”

  Gino was a master at figuring stuff out, especially with matters of the heart. But back to the case, I was interested in anything that could get us any closer to saving someone’s life—even if, in my own personal economy, I didn’t think they deserved saving. “Plus, I’m looking forward to hearing more about your new geo-locator toy.”

  “If only you were half as eager to spend time on spiritual matters.” Gino grinned at me.

  “Well, let’s hope I’m in the mood for that, too.” I’d been struggling with the concept of God being present in my life when it just kept going straight down the toilet. I knew God loved me and had a plan for my life, but I just wasn’t seeing how His goodness was reflected in the crap conditions I’d been served up ever since He came into my life. Gino had been trying to talk to me about trusting God in the midst of my circumstances, but I’d been avoiding the subject. It’d be more refreshing to talk about another business success in the colorful life of one of my dearest friends.