BLUE MERCY (2 page)

When she tossed the container back into the drawer,
the pills clattered, the plastic striking the metal slide of the Glock.

The 9mm in the shallow drawer lay in shadow. It was more her knowledge of its presence that delineated the square contours of the heavy, Austrian-tooled sidearm. It wasn’t loaded. But then, she didn’t keep it by her bed for protection. For that she had the .38, tucked in its leather holster, hanging from her bedpost. She’d bought the Chief’s Special months ago, a heavy snub-nosed revolver with a Pachmayr grip and a smooth, clean trigger pull. And she’d kept it by her bed ever since. A by-product of the fear Eales had implanted.

Kay hated the fear that lived in her now. Resented that Eales had taken up permanent residence in her head.

She shoved the drawer shut. No, the 9mm was there for only one reason. To remind her.

Spencer charging around the side of the house, the look of disbelief on his face when he took the bullet, the way he seemed suspended for a moment in the thick night air before crumpling to the wet grass less than thirty feet away, his mouth gaping like a fish drowning on air, its rhythm keeping tempo with his slowing heart, and then his eyes. He’d stared at her well beyond his last breath.

The Glock in her nightstand kept the images alive.
Her
Glock. The one Eales had smashed from her hand the second he came out the door. The one he’d used to gun down Spencer.

She imagined the fine layer of dust dulling the nine’s once-buffed surface. She hadn’t touched it since the day Ballistics had finished their testing, and the technician had casually slid the gun across the counter. She could still remember the strange weight of it in her hand. She’d never holstered the gun again, reverting to the off-duty,
subcompact nine that she had qualified to carry. And the departmental-issue stayed in the drawer.

Kay moved to the window, its bottom pane propped open with her Koga, the protection stick’s handle firmly wedged against the low frame. The night air sucked at the curtain, heaving the sheer material out, then in again, caressing her naked, sweat-slicked skin.

Below, Hamburg Street dead-ended at Federal Hill, empty except for parked cars. Over the neighbor’s roof, she could make out the top of the hill, and past it the lights of the city across the Inner Harbor. The bass of an overamped car stereo pulsed through the damp streets. Then the wail of a distant siren.

Kay shivered, but didn’t move from the window. She embraced the bite of reality the chill offered and wondered what her shrink, Constance O’Donnell, would think of this latest slant on the same old dream.

When the phone rang seconds later, it made Kay jump.

“Delaney here.”

“Kay? It’s Sarge. Sorry to wake you.” Sergeant Ed Gunderson cleared the smoker’s phlegm from his throat. “But we got a situation. I think you’ll wanna be in on this one.”

Static crackled over the line.

“Are you there, Kay?”

“Yeah.” She lowered herself to the bed again. “What’ve you got?”

“A murder down here in Canton. Twelve hundred block of Luther. Body’s burned up pretty bad. Found it in an abandoned warehouse. We don’t have a positive on the body yet, but …” More static, only this time it sounded like Sarge fumbling with the cell phone. “Thing is, we could get some heat on this. From the media. And the brass. A real red ball.”

Kay took another sip of warm beer, enough to wet her throat. “What is it?”

There was a burst of interference, then voices in the background. And finally Sarge whispered, “I think it’s your girl, Kay. Your witness. Valerie Regester.”

THE RAIN HAD COOLED
the September night air, but had little effect on the charred remains of the former Dutton Mannequin warehouse in Canton. Heat radiated from the concrete floor where ashes and soot swirled in greasy pools of water.

Detective Danny Finnerty sidestepped a scorched mannequin, its head a mass of boiled fiberglass, its blackened arms reaching out. Wearing rubber boots, he sloshed through the debris and sludge, passing the torched delivery-bay door. Outside, another fire truck backed away from the curb, its beeper piercing the silence of the gutted building. A radio car’s siren blurted once, then there was only the drumming of water from the rafters overhead.

Finn ignored the residual sting of smoke in his eyes and trained his gaze back to the body. Arson detectives had almost missed her, initially mistaking her for one of the destroyed mannequins.

With Arson scouring the rest of the warehouse, it was Ed Gunderson who kept watch over the body. The toll of thirty years on the job was visible in the big man’s posture; under the rumpled tan trench coat his shoulders sagged inward as though he carried the weight of his entire squad on them. And his receding hairline seemed directly proportional to the receding clearance rate of cases within the unit.

In one gloved hand, Gunderson held a purse. He looked decidedly uncomfortable, like a dutiful husband gripping his wife’s handbag at the mall. Gesturing to one of the Mobile Crime Lab technicians, he unloaded the scorched purse before turning to Niles Fischer, the medical examiner’s investigator.

In the glare of the portable halogens, Fischer’s pristine white coveralls and matching hair glared in stark contrast to the burned wreckage around them. He squatted next to the remains, gnarled, latex-encased hands planted firmly on each knee until he lifted his wrist to check his watch.

Finn navigated a path toward them, keeping his breathing shallow. A three-year stint with Arson years ago had taught him a trick or two.

“Give her another ten minutes,” Gunderson instructed Fischer. “She’s on her way. In the meantime, nothing gets moved.” The sergeant’s voice had an edginess that Finn doubted was entirely due to the late-night hit of caffeine they’d picked up on the way over.

Fischer stood, sidestepped the body, and started for the exit. “I’ll be out in the van having a smoke.”

When Gunderson turned his gaze, Finn saw more starkly the exhaustion in the man’s pocked face. Well past his eligible retirement, Ed Gunderson was an anchor in the unit. Homicide was the man’s life. What he knew best. And the way Gunderson saw it, Finn guessed, leaving would be tantamount to picking out his own headstone and calling it quits.

“Thanks for coming along, Finn,” Gunderson told him. “I know you were on your way home. If you gotta go—”

“No. I’ll stay.” Fact was, he hadn’t been on his way home when the call had come in to Homicide almost an hour ago. At the end of night shift he’d had his jacket on and one foot out the squadroom door. But it was O’Reilly’s bar
he’d been headed to. Last place an alcoholic should frequent. Still, when the desire for a drink was strong, sometimes a familiar setting helped the most, even if he only ever ordered a soda.

“So did you get anything from Arson?” Gunderson asked.

“They’ll be a while still. Fire was definitely deliberate though. Perp tossed the gasoline can on his way out. Most of the damage is back here. Luckily there weren’t as many flammables in the rest of the place, otherwise it might have taken out the whole building.”

“And she’s the reason.” Gunderson nodded to the body.

Finn followed the sergeant’s gaze. It didn’t matter how many fire deaths he’d seen while working Arson—the sight of blistered and seared skin, of fabric melted into flesh, was never an easy image to stomach. Harder still was the eerie yet familiar posture of a victim’s burned body: the intense heat of the blaze causing tendons and muscles to contract, drawing the limbs of the victim into what the texts referred to as a pugilistic attitude. To Finn, the position had always resembled a boxer caught in a defensive stance, as if the victim might have been alive in the fire, fighting the flames. But it was almost never the case. The heat and smoke usually killed them first.

“So Kay’s coming?” he asked Gunderson.

Gunderson nodded, his gaze never leaving the body in the shallow pool of grimy water.

“Does she know it’s her witness?”

“Yeah.”

“And this was on the Eales case, right?” Finn asked.

“Hm-hmm.”

Bernard Eales
. Finn hadn’t heard the name spoken aloud in months. Not many dared around the offices. Mostly out of respect for Kay, Finn liked to think. But also because of what Eales represented: every cop’s worst nightmare.

And it wasn’t just Joe Spencer’s death, or Kay’s close brush herself, that had made the incident a year ago so horrifying. It was that even with six seasoned detectives working the murders of three prostitutes over the span of several months, no one had recognized the potential of Eales as a suspect. Finn, though, had always wondered if Kay
had
.

The media had been all over the story. Like hounds on fresh blood they’d covered the manhunt as every cop— uniformed or otherwise—took to the streets. Finn suspected it was actually the pressure of the media coverage and the citywide alert that had forced Eales to call in and surrender three days later. They’d picked him up at a junkie friend’s house several doors down from his own, still holding Kay’s 9mm.

The story had gone national after that for a brief time. But Kay had borne the brunt of the local coverage. For weeks. And Finn could do little but sit at the sidelines and watch.

It had been a fleeting moment of redemption when— only a week out of the hospital and still recovering—Kay had convinced Valerie Regester to come forward, positively identifying Eales as the man she’d seen dump one of the women’s bodies down a slope in Leakin Park.

“So you’re giving Kay the investigation?” Finn wondered if Gunderson was aware of the personal interest Kay had vested in Regester since the girl had agreed to testify, if he knew about Kay convincing her to get off the streets.

“I’m not sure,” Gunderson answered.

“You think she’s ready for the street?”

“She’s been out there.”

Finn hadn’t heard. He’d stopped keeping tabs a few months ago.

“Sent her out on a couple slam dunks. Easy cases. This one though …” Gunderson looked past the glare of the
crime-scene lights. “I think I’ll let Kay decide if she’s ready. She deserves a real case. How would you feel about working it with her?”

“Me?”

“I can clear it with your sergeant. This case needs experience, Finn. And Kay needs a partner. Someone to ground her.”

Someone like Joe Spencer,
Finn imagined Gunderson wanted to add.

Finn had seen how much Kay invested in each case, never giving up, leaving no stone unturned, and often taking directions others wouldn’t even have considered. Spencer had been a good fit for her. An old-school, by-the-book cop who maintained perspective on the case while Kay chased her intuition.

“She won’t stand to have her hand held,” Finn said.

“I know.” Gunderson nodded to the bay doors. “She’s here.”

She was lit from behind by the strobe of cruisers outside as she stepped over the scattered debris. Still, there was no mistaking her. Or the tension that stiffened her stance when one of the uniforms pointed her toward him and Gunderson.

Finn watched her pick her way around oily puddles toward the circle of lights. She’d cut her hair, and Finn realized then that he couldn’t remember when he’d seen her last. Weeks or months?

The cut was short. The kind that gave an air of confidence that might turn most men off but looked damn sexy to Finn. The suit, however, bordered on masculine. He’d seen her wear it before, only now it looked different. The material drew tight at her shoulders, while the rest hung loose off her thin frame. And when she finally met Finn’s gaze, the year of wanting her hit him like a ton of bricks.

“Sorry I dragged you out, Kay.” Gunderson offered her a hand as she straddled the blackened beam, then he gestured to Finn. “I asked Finn to tag along. With his Arson stint, I figured he could give us some insight.”

Kay nodded. Her cool gray eyes caught his, and her fleeting smile seemed little more than professional courtesy. What had he expected?

“So it’s Valley?” she asked.

“We found her purse just through the door there. It fared better than she did. ID in the purse is all Regester’s. Thirty-two dollars and change still in the wallet. No car ownership or insurance cards. Not even a Maryland driver’s license.”

“Any vehicle outside?”

“Not in the immediate vicinity.”

“So her killer drove her here.”

“Unless she walked.” Gunderson nodded to where the halogens flooded Regester’s body behind him. “You ready to see her?”

“Yeah.”

Sarge stepped aside then, allowing Kay to take in Valerie Regester’s twisted remains.

“Christ,” she whispered, her voice suddenly shaky. “Are you sure that’s her?”

THE SMELL ALMOST KNOCKED HER OVER.
The stench of burned meat. Cooked organs and singed hair.

Kay worked her fingers into a pair of gloves as she moved past Sarge. She brought her hand to her nose, welcoming the usually objectionable odor of latex.

Water rippled in the wake of Kay’s duty shoes, washing against the soaked and blackened remnants of the victim’s clothing. Squatting, Kay swallowed hard, her breath clutching against the acrid stench. In her mind, Valley’s rare smile flashed.

“She was half under this beam.” Gunderson gave the alligatored surface a tap with his shoe, letting loose a burst of charcoal shards. “Finn figures the killer counted on it helping with the burning. Old, dried wood fires up better than a fresh body.”

Kay shifted, allowing full illumination from the crime-scene lamps. Along the victim’s throat she could just make out the braided pattern of a chain. She reached for it, plucking the necklace out of the blistered flesh and sliding her fingers along its length behind the neck. Searching. Then finding what she’d prayed she wouldn’t.