Craving Vengeance (2 page)

Walker chuckled. “Yeah, now there’s
absolutely no hope at all for those poor souls searching for true
love.”

Marsh walked up and handed Spinelli and
Walker their coffee mugs. Spinelli wrapped his freezing hands
around the mug. His fingers began to thaw. Another minute or so and
the feeling might actually come back.

All three detectives stared at the photos on
the board.

“You know, the guy looks like he’s about six
feet tall or so and in great physical shape. It probably wouldn’t
have been easy for someone to manhandle him one on one. And there’s
no evidence of a struggle, either at the scene or on the body
itself. The guy looks like he just fell asleep in a snow bank,”
Walker commented.

Spinelli yawned and skimmed his hand over his
face. He didn’t like getting up early. The nerve of someone,
murdering Cupid on Valentine’s Day before 8:00 a.m.

Spinelli cocked his head to the side. “I bet
he was poisoned.”

The others looked at him and nodded.

“It would be nice to get the pathologist’s
report. Spinelli, why don’t you go down there and sweet talk
Bethany into putting a rush on this case?” Marsh urged as a cocky
smile stretched across his face.

Spinelli scowled at Marsh. He was probably
the last person the department’s pathologist wanted to see. He’d
only gone out with Bethany a couple of times, but evidently she
thought much more of the short relationship than he had. Now every
time Spinelli had to deal with Bethany, she was colder to him than
the mortuary cold chambers.

Spinelli’s cell phone buzzed. He pulled it
from his hip, tapped the screen, and pressed it to his ear. “Uh
huh, okay. Hold on a second. Let me flip you on speaker so Walker
and Marsh can hear.”

They gathered around Spinelli’s phone. The
officer working the front desk continued talking, “We’ve got a
young woman down here looking for her brother. She hasn’t seen him
since last night around 11:30. Judging from the description she
gave, I thought he could be your John Doe from this morning. She
brought a picture of him with her.”

“I’ll be right out,” Spinelli replied before
he ended the call.

Spinelli made his way to the waiting area. He
glanced at the uniformed officer working the front desk who pointed
at a woman seated in the first row of chairs. She stared out the
window. Her hands nervously fondled the shoulder strap of the purse
resting on her lap. She looked to be in her early thirties. Her
dark brown hair was pulled back and bound at the nape of her neck,
allowing him full access to her face. He knew already that the dead
cupid was her brother. She resembled him. God, how he hated this
part—having to deal with the survivors. He always got such an
adrenaline rush when he nabbed the killers—he lived for it—but
looking into the eyes of the survivors nearly kicked his ass every
time.

He stepped toward the woman. His movement
caught her attention, and she looked up at him through her long,
thick lashes. Worry flashed in her eyes. She rose to her feet.
Spinelli extended his hand toward her. “I’m Detective Spinelli.
What can I do for you?”

“I’m Cindy Carter. I’m looking for my
brother. I think something happened to him. He didn’t come home
last night,” she said as she reached into the side pocket of her
purse and pulled out a small photo.

Spinelli made no movement to take the photo.
He already knew. “Why don’t you come with me, and you can tell me
about your brother.”

The woman nodded and followed him back to the
detective area where Marsh and Walker waited. Spinelli glanced at
their crime board. The pictures of Cupid had been removed. They
walked past the board and into the interview room.

Spinelli gestured toward a chair and Cindy
took a seat. He sat across the table from her. Walker and Marsh
pulled up chairs as well. “Ms. Carter, this is Detective Marsh and
Detective Walker. Can you tell us about your brother and why you
think he’s missing?”

“My brother’s name is Mike. He’s been living
with me for the past several months because he was downsized out of
his job about six months ago. Anyway, last night he left the house
at about 11:30 p.m. which was unusual on its own, but it’s even
stranger for him not to come home at all.”

Walker leaned forward. “How old is your
brother?”

“Twenty-eight. I know what you must be
thinking, but it’s just not like him not to come home.” Her eyes
pleaded for belief.

Walker continued the questioning. “Did he say
where he was going when he left last night?”

“Like I said, I thought it was odd that he’d
be leaving at 11:30, so I asked him where he was going, and he just
said out.”

“Was he acting strange?” Marsh asked.

Cindy shook her head.

“What did he do before he became unemployed?”
Walker questioned.

“He was a numbers analyst for a brokerage
firm downtown.”

Cindy pulled the photo from the side pocket
of her purse and handed it to Walker. Spinelli and Marsh craned
their necks to glance at the photo as well. It was Cupid all right,
minus the wings, and bow and arrows. Mike looked all business-like
in the photo, wearing a gray suit, white shirt, and red tie.

After a brief conversation with Ms. Carter,
Spinelli knew Walker and Marsh were of like mind. She didn’t have a
clue as to what happened to her brother, nor any knowledge about
any life-threatening activities in which he may have been
involved.

Now for the hard part. Spinelli sucked in a
breath and let it out as he captured Cindy’s gaze. “Ms. Carter, we
received a call early this morning about a homicide down on Water
Street. I’m sorry, but the victim fits your brother’s description,
so I’m going to need you to come with me.”

“No,” Cindy whispered, and covered her mouth.
Tears instantly ran down her rosy cheeks. She squeezed her eyes
shut and rocked back and forth in her chair for a few moments
before she opened her eyes and swiped her hands across her cheeks.
She stared forward at the three of them.

“Ms. Carter, we need to know for sure. I need
you to confirm the victim’s ID. Can you come with me to do that?”
Spinelli asked.

Cindy nodded slowly before she placed her
trembling hands on the table to steady herself as she stood to
follow Spinelli.

Chapter Three

Spinelli had just
delivered Cindy Carter to the front door of the precinct when his
cell phone rang. Walker’s mug flashed across the screen.

“Spinelli here.”

“Hey, you need to get back here. We gotta
go.”

“Why, what’s up?”

“We got another one.”

“Another dead body?” Spinelli inquired.

“Not just another dead body but another
freaking dead cupid.”

“You gotta be kidding me.”

“Nope. Hurry up.”

Spinelli met Walker in the parking lot where
they climbed into their unmarked police car. He’d instructed Marsh
to hang back to work on gathering and analyzing information about
Carter. Perhaps he’d find something useful in Carter’s financial
records, or maybe one of the people on his contact list would be
able to shed some light on what he was up to and what went
down.

The morning traffic was terrible. It took
them nearly thirty minutes to arrive at the crime scene.

A uniformed officer approached them the
second they entered the bar. He pointed at a distraught older woman
talking to another officer as they stood at the opposite side of
the room near the entrance to a long hallway. “That’s Gail Boyd.
She’s the cleaning woman. She found the vic in the office when she
arrived at 8:00 a.m. The office is down the hall on the left, just
past the bathrooms.”

“Okay,” Spinelli acknowledged as he studied
the woman who looked to be in her late forties. She was of healthy
size. She wore faded jeans and a dark gray sweatshirt. Her sleeves
were pushed up to her elbows. Her eyes were red and swollen, and
she’d obviously been crying for a while.

He and Walker headed toward the office and
stopped in the doorway to take a look. Sure enough, there was
another cupid sprawled out on the desk buck-naked. His thin,
pillowed, satiny wings pressed between his body and the surface of
the desk. The quiver full of arrows lay on the floor next to the
bow. Just like the first dead cupid, this one was also a tall
muscular man with dark hair.

“Jesus Christ. What the hell? Two in one day
and on Valentine’s Day of all days,” Walker said as he eyed the
dead man.

They stepped closer to inspect the body,
peeking around Debra, the medical examiner. She glanced up at them,
“Cause of death isn’t blatantly evident.”

“What?” Spinelli questioned as the acidic
stench of vomit stung his nostrils and caused his eyes to
water.

Debra looked up at him again. “He wasn’t shot
or stabbed, no sign of struggle. Judging from the vomit and strong
smell of almonds, I’m guessing he was poisoned. Did you get any
reports back from Bethany on the first cupid yet?”

“No, nothing yet. I’ll talk with her when I
get back,” Spinelli replied as he shot her a frown. “You smell
almonds?”

Debra arched a brow. “You don’t?”

“Christ, how can you not smell that?” Walker
questioned.

Spinelli shifted his gaze to the vomit
splatter on the floor. “To me it smells acidic, almost tinny.”

Debra shifted her gaze between the detectives
and shrugged. “For some reason the almond smell associated with a
poisoning isn’t always evident to everyone. I don’t know why, it
just isn’t. No big deal.”

Spinelli and Walker went back into the bar to
question the cleaning woman. She was still talking with the
uniformed officer when they approached her. She looked a bit calmer
than when they first saw her.

“Ms. Boyd.”

“Yes.”

“I’m Detective Spinelli,” he gestured toward
Walker. “This is Detective Walker. Can you tell us what
happened?”

Ms. Boyd blew out a heavy sigh. “I clean the
bar five days a week. I came in through the back door as I always
do, and the door to the office was open. It’s never open, so I
peeked inside and found Tony, the bartender, sprawled out on the
desk. At first, I thought maybe he’d just passed out or something,
but when I stepped closer I realized his wide-eyed stare at the
ceiling was that of a dead man.”

“So you didn’t see anyone else here this
morning?” Walker asked.

Ms. Boyd shook her head. “Nope, just Tony.”
She shifted her gaze between them. “So you think someone murdered
him?” she asked as her voice cracked.

“That’s what we’re trying to determine. How
well did you know Mr....”

“Rosso,” Ms. Boyd finished for Walker. “I
didn’t really know him that well. I’d see him sometimes when he
opened the bar as I was finishing the clean-up. We’d chat for a
moment before I left. He was such a nice young man. I can’t imagine
why anyone would want to kill him.”

They asked Ms. Boyd a few more questions, but
she wasn’t much help.

“Ah, Christ, not on my desk. On all my
papers,” a gruff, smoker’s voice bellowed from down the hall.
Spinelli looked in that direction to find a large older gentleman
standing in the hall staring through the office doorway.

“Sonny,” Ms. Boyd yelled as she waved him
over, “these detectives need to talk to you.”

Sonny’s head snapped in their direction. His
jowls jiggled. He nodded and headed toward them.

“That’s Sonny Tomes. He owns the bar.”

Sonny waddled toward them. The cigar pinched
between his teeth smelled sweet. Smoke trailed behind him. He
pulled the cigar from his mouth. “Hi, I’m Sonny. What in the hell
happened here?”

“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. I
take it Tony worked last night,” Spinelli inquired.

“Yeah, he was scheduled to close.”

“Was anyone working with him?”

“No, it was a weeknight. During the
weeknights, he closes on his own. Once we’re through the happy hour
rush, I go home.”

“So you worked with him until what time?”

“I tended bar until about 7:00. Then I worked
on paperwork in the office until I left at about 8:00.”

“How was Tony last night? Was he acting
unusual?”

Sonny paused for a moment. “He seemed fine.
We were kind of busy, so we didn’t talk much.”

“How about the clientele? Was there anyone
unusual or anyone acting different last night?”

Sonny nodded and smirked. “This is a bar.
It’s not uncommon for people to act strange.”

Spinelli shot him a hard-eyed scowl.

Sonny shifted from one foot to the other.
“No, sir. It was like any other routine night.”

“Can you think of anyone who’d want Tony
dead?”

“No...I don’t know. He was just my
bartender.”

“We’re going to need an employee contact list
and a list of any of Tony’s acquaintances you know of, including
regular customers, friends, and girlfriend or wife.”

Sonny chuckled.

“What’s so funny?”

“If I knew their names, the list of his women
friends would be extensive.”

Spinelli arched a brow. “What do you mean by
that?”

“Look at him. I hate to say it because I’m a
guy and all, but Tony was a hell of a good looking guy. He did
wonders for my business. I swear, all the professional women that
work downtown came in for happy hour just to watch him work. Some
of them hung around on occasion, if you know what I mean.”

“I think I get the picture. Make sure to
include their names on the contact lists.”

They followed Sonny to his office, and he
compiled the lists they’d asked for while the ME and her crew took
Tony’s body away.

Sonny pissed and moaned the entire time he
drafted the list of customers. He set his pen down and hesitated
for a brief moment before he handed the list to Spinelli. “Are you
sure this is necessary? Do you really have to talk to all these
people? Tony’s murder will be bad enough for business as it is, but
to question my regulars on top of it. I may as well hang the ‘Out
of Business’ sign up right now.”