Justice Served: A Barkley and Parker Thriller (4 page)

She had been a homicide detective for the
last seven years, the past five teaming up with Ray Barkley. They
had a short and passionate affair when both needed some
companionship and physical affection.

Nina still had some feelings for Ray, but
vowed to never allow them to show or interfere with the job. In her
mind, such feelings were always there for ex-lovers, even if kept
in their proper perspective as a thing of the past.

She glanced at Ray as they took the elevator
to the third floor at Portland General where Lucie Garcia was being
treated. He was already staring at her, as if she had toothpaste on
her face.

“Sure you’re up for this?” he asked.

“Are you?” she challenged him, knowing that
each liked to go one better than the other in testing their mettle
and fortitude under fire.

“I can certainly think of better things I’d
like to do with my time than having to tell a battered woman that
her abusive boyfriend was beaten to death.” Ray blew his nose with
a handkerchief. “But someone has to do the dirty work. Looks like
the onus is on us.”

Nina knew this also meant they would have to
ask Lucie Garcia questions regarding her possible knowledge of
Roberto Martinez’s violent death. Even if he got his just due in
theory, in the real world it was still cold-blooded murder and
someone had to be held accountable.

They entered the room and saw a nurse tending
to Lucie, who appeared in bad shape with numerous injuries that
would keep her in rehab for some time to come. The detectives
showed their identifications to the nurse and Lucie, verbally
introducing themselves.

The nurse, a stout, white woman in her
fifties, gave them a stern look. “Can’t this wait?”

“Afraid not,” responded Ray tautly. “It’s
important.”

The nurse eyed her patient. “I’ll be back
shortly.” She left the room.

Ray and Nina exchanged glances before she
took the lead, favoring Lucie Garcia. “I’m afraid we have some
distressing news for you—” she began.

Nina wondered just how distressing it would
truly be, given that Martinez had really done a number on her.
Surely Lucie could do without being used as Martinez’s personal
punching bag?
If any asshole ever laid a hand on me, I’d kick
his ass from here to kingdom come.
But she had read that many
abused women tend to have a loving attachment to the abuser that
belies the abuse itself. Was that the case here? Or was the
attachment more one of hateful vengeance?

Lucie regarded the detective uneasily,
clearly in physical discomfort. “What happened?” she mumbled
instinctively.

After a sigh, Nina said dolefully: “Roberto
Martinez is dead.”
As in never coming back to hurt you
again
.

Lucie put a shaky hand to her swollen mouth.
“Dead? Roberto?”

“He was found in an alley,” Ray informed her.
“He’d been beaten to death.”

Lucie seemed in a state of shock, almost
disregarding her own condition. “Oh, Roberto,” she cried. “My
honey. You can’t be dead. Who would want to hurt you—?”

It was obvious this lady was not the killer,
Nina decided. He’d beaten her up too badly to put her in any type
of shape to retaliate directly. It was likely that Lucie Garcia had
nothing to do with Martinez’s death.

But they still had to ask.

“Do you know of anyone who would have wanted
to kill Roberto?” Nina gazed down at the victim of abuse.

Lucie’s eyes flooded with tears. “No. Roberto
was not a monster,” she claimed. “He never really meant to hurt
me.”

Nina looked at Ray. He shook his head
slightly in frustration and dismay. They had seen it all before.
Complete denial, even after what the bastard had done to her. She
still found a way to be in love with him, as though he truly cared
for her.

“Could someone you know have wanted to avenge
what happened to you?” Ray’s eyes narrowed at Lucie Garcia.

“No one I know would ever do such an awful
thing,” she insisted in an uneven tone.

“So you’re saying Martinez had no enemies
that you know of?”

Lucie hesitated. She suddenly seemed to have
trouble breathing. As if on cue, the nurse raced in. She put an
oxygen mask over Lucie’s damaged face, and then snarled at Ray and
Nina.

“I think you’ve asked enough for now! I want
you to leave. She has to get her rest.”

“Whatever you say,” snorted Ray. “But we may
need to see Ms. Garcia again.”

“Not until she’s physically up to it,”
countered the nurse. “Which could be quite some time.”

Nina looked at the patient, having little
doubt that a long recovery, both physically and mentally, would be
needed.

Out in the corridor Ray asked Nina: “So what
do you think?”

“I think she loved the creep and would have
jumped into the ocean if he’d asked her to.” Nina drew her thin,
arched brows together. “Whoever murdered Martinez was
not
acting with Lucie Garcia’s consent,” she said with near
certainty.

“Maybe not,” he allowed. “But the killer sure
as hell was acting on her behalf. Same as the other battered women
who found their problem with being knocked around solved with the
death of their alleged abusers.”

Nina sighed. “We’ve really got our work cut
out for us. This woman vigilante—if it is a woman—is obviously not
going to lay out on the walkway for us to nab like a drug-addicted
hooker. She’s in no hurry to get caught. Not when she feels she can
rid the streets of Portland of guys like Roberto Martinez.”

“That’s where it starts to get scary,” Ray
bristled. “There are too many damned potential targets this person
can go after. And we have no idea what triggers the attacks, per
se. Yet.”

“We know at least one thing that does,” said
Nina ominously. “Domestic violence. Hitting a woman, or any female,
is not smart. Especially these days. She just might strike you back
tenfold!”

Nina considered the implications of her words
on the local community. She wondered how many others had to die
before they started to get the message and the killer was
stopped.

I don’t even want to speculate.
But
that didn’t stop her from doing so anyway, with frightening
possibilities.

CHAPTER SIX

The sun shone brightly over Portland, its
heat bringing the temperatures in the city to near ninety degrees.
Inside the medical examiner’s office, air conditioning did little
to block the effects of the warmth or the smell of dead, rotting
bodies. Ray and Nina did their best to ignore both as they entered
the examination room that held Roberto Martinez’s remains.

Standing precariously above him was the
medical examiner, Doctor Clark Terris. In his late fifties, he
looked like the perfect Santa Claus, only with dark red hair and
matching beard. Wearing a stained white jacket and plastic gloves,
he greeted the detectives like houseguests.

“Glad you could make it.”

Ray frowned. “Not like we had much choice,
Doc.” As it was, they already had a pretty damned good idea what
killed Roberto Martinez, if not who. But they had to make it
official.

Terris removed the gloves and set them beside
the covered corpse. “Simply put, he died from massive blunt trauma
to the head,” he said. “Just as the other two victims did. His
skull was crushed like an eggshell; right jaw fractured in a dozen
places. There were other fractures as well, including multiple ones
to his vertebrae, but most came after he was already dead.” He
clawed at his bushy beard. “It’s all in the report.”

“Tell me, Doc,” asked Ray for the record, “do
you think a woman is capable of inflicting such damage?”

Terris studied Nina beneath thick brows, as
if using her to consider the matter. “Of course,” he said.
“Especially if she was mad enough—and I don’t mean crazy, though
that also can’t be ruled out. It helps her cause if she’s using an
object like a bat that can make almost anyone seem like
Hercules.”

“You find anything on the victim that we can
use to nail the killer to the wall?” asked Nina.

She suspected that, similar to the earlier
victims, the perpetrator had left no real clues to tie them to the
crime. Aside from the bat itself, which had no fingerprints or
other identifying characteristics other than those belonging to the
victim.

All three bats left behind at the murder
scenes were wooden, the same model and manufacturer: Jefferson and
Company. They were made in North Carolina and sold across the
country, mainly to high schools and colleges. A number of local
stores also sold them, as well as mail order catalogs. The
investigation into the bats had gotten nowhere. It seemed there
were no unusual amounts purchased recently either locally or
directly from the manufacturer. The consensus was that they had
been purchased inconspicuously at different stores, maybe even out
of state.

Terris confirmed Nina’s suspicions. “Only
some blonde hair fibers from what appears to be a wig,” he
answered. “And clothing fibers that may or may not belong to the
killer.”

“Thanks for your help,” Ray told him
routinely.

“No problem,” Terris said. “It’s my job.” He
paused, then added with a catch to his voice: “Let’s hope I don’t
have to make a habit of this type of autopsy. Don’t believe
everything you hear about medical examiners having thick skin.
Personally, I prefer victims who died of coronary failure. Much
less stressful on the eyes and stomach.”

Ray got the gist. If they did their job, he
wouldn’t be left with the mess to clean up. “Believe me, Doc,” he
said in a controlled voice, “if we could have solved this case
yesterday, we would have.”

He looked at Nina who sneered back, and they
left.

Once outside they headed towards the car.
“Are you okay, Barkley?” Nina asked with concern.

Ray shifted his muscular frame her way.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied. He never was very good at lying.

“You don’t look so good, Ray,” she noted.
“Sure this case isn’t getting to you just a bit?” She squinted from
the sun’s rays beating down on them like a spotlight. “Men having
their brains bashed in like that can have a sobering effect, even
on people trained to deal with it. Or is it the thought that a
woman could be responsible for the killings that’s left you on
edge?”

He sighed. “All right, so maybe this one does
have me spooked, but not the part that a woman might be behind it.
I don’t like serial killing bastards of any sex playing judge and
jury.”

“And you think I do?”

He raised a brow. “To be honest, Parker, I
think you may be finding this all just a little satisfying—under
the circumstances. Brutal men getting their just do, and all that
crap.”

Nina stopped on a dime and peered at him.
“Give me a damned break, Barkley, will you? This is Nina you’re
talking to. Your partner, remember? And we go back deeper than
that. I want this son of a bitch as much as you do. I’m not going
to stand here and tell you I’m in favor of assholes beating up
their wives and girlfriends till they’re black, blue, red, and
hospitalized, if not on a cold slab. But that doesn’t mean I want
them brutally murdered as payback.”

Ray nodded respectfully.
Guess I had that
coming
. He was ashamed that he had challenged her commitment to
this case. She was the best damn partner he’d ever had and she was
always above board in her professionalism. But he wasn’t about to
tell her that.

Not today anyway.

“What do you say I buy you lunch?” he offered
instead.

Nina rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about
that, Barkley. Sounds like a bribe to me.”

He smiled. “So arrest me afterwards.”

She grinned. “Don’t tempt me, honey,” she
teased him. “I just may take you up on that.”

He didn’t doubt it for one minute.

CHAPTER SEVEN

“Where to?” asked Ray, his gaze centered on
Nina behind the wheel. They had just chowed down on some soul food
and now he felt like he was about to burst.

“Criminal Court Plaza,” she intoned flatly.
“Seems as if our dead dudes have one thing in common. Each had a
date in Judge Carole Cranston’s courtroom prior to death, on
charges related to domestic violence against women. Trouble is, in
every instance, insufficient evidence or some other luck of the
draw got them off the hook. At least temporarily. Seems as if their
sinful ways caught up to them—”

Ray drew his brows together skeptically. “You
think someone attending court proceedings may be making sure these
batterers don’t get away scot-free?”

Nina jerked her head in his direction. “Hey,
it’s worth checking out,” she said defensively, “unless you’ve got
a better idea.”

“None that I can think of right now,” he
admitted.

The Criminal Court Plaza was part of a
renovated downtown structure that included the jail and district
attorney’s offices. It was adjacent to the Portland Police Bureau
Headquarters and near the city center.

Judge Carole Cranston was holding court when
they walked into Courtroom 1A. The detectives sat in the back as
the sharply dressed young female prosecutor hammered away at a
juvenile defendant being charged as an adult on trial for murder.
On several occasions Judge Cranston hammered down her gavel,
matching the tone of her voice in keeping control of the
proceedings.

From where he sat, Ray couldn’t help but be
more than a little impressed with the lady. How about
really
impressed. He hadn’t been in the judge’s courtroom before, but had
heard she was a no-nonsense tough lady who could more than hold her
own with any male judge in the criminal court. What he hadn’t been
told was that she was also a knockout and younger than he’d
imagined. Whether she could help them or not on this case remained
to be seen.