Murder in Misery (Spook Squad) (2 page)

“The baby is missing,” Matt muttered, “We put out the necessary info to units and the Captain has us processing the scene while the rest of the precinct is searching.”

“Do you have any idea of how long he’s been missing?” Keegan asked softly.

“Not sure until we get a time of death,” Matt answered reluctantly. Keegan nodded focusing on the door in front of her.

Matt stopped her as soon as she put her hand on the door handle. She looked up curiously at him and watched him swallow before explaining, “Before we go in there I just want you to know that it’s not pretty. A couple of the guys barely made it out the door before they were sick.”

Keegan stared into earthy brown eyes and rolled her lips together, “I can handle it.”

“I wasn’t saying you couldn’t,” Hollis shrugged, “I was just saying that it’s okay if you need to get out of the room for a minute. No one is going to think anything of it, especially when there is a kid this young involved.”

Keegan stopped Matt from opening the door, “Who called it in? A neighbor?”

“A neighbor called in and reported that there was a lot of noise and what sounded like screams. Dispatch advised the caller to remain in their location, away from the scene and officers would be there within a matter of minutes. The first officer to the scene was Officer Rickie. He checked for a pulse and when he found none he secured the scene.”

“So emergency medical has not
come through here? Or anyone else besides us for that matter?” Keegan closed her eyes trying to fight off the curl of nausea brushing against her belly from the coppery tang that tainted the air.

“
It’s just been us who have come through here,” Matt confirmed.

“All right,” Keegan nodded, “Let’s do this.”

Opening the door Keegan froze in her steps. The light blue room had been spattered red. The echoes of what had happened earlier grew louder, more incessant. She rubbed on her ear trying to ignore the lingering echoes. Inching her way into the room she stepped lightly. Spare shoe covers had been set out right inside of the entry way and she gratefully grabbed a pair and slipped them on over her boots before she pulled a pair of gloves from her jacket pocket and over her fingers. She breathed lightly ignored the iron taste of blood in her mouth. The smell, she couldn’t even comprehend it. She didn’t want to understand what comprised that scent. Death, blood, fear, panic all wrapped into one room.

She stared at the hand that was peaking out from beneath the nursery bed that was covered in blood. She squatted and traced the bite marks and cuts with her eyes. Standing she moved around the crib and took in the damage that had been done the delicate skin at the neck. The flesh was a mangled mess. Strands of long blonde hair had bee
n matted down into the wound and bits were torn from the scalp.

Ig
noring the turmoil in her stomach Keegan moved the woman’s lips so she could get a better view of her teeth. Her canines were distended, the inside of her mouth bloodied as if she had been hit in the mouth and her teeth cut in the fragile lining of the mouth. Following her gut instinct, Keegan gently opened the lids of her eyes and the bright cat-like amber flashed up at her. She was a supernatural.

Moving on, she
walked the path that had been cleared for investigators towards the second victim’s body. A man lay curled into him self as if he were protecting something. She exchanged the gloves she had used to examine the woman and pulled on a fresh set. She prodded at a large gash on the forearm and frowned. The gash wasn’t a gash exactly. It was a deeper set of bite marks. She leaned forwards and grimaced at the way the back of his neck had been gouged at. Moving his head she let out a sigh. His throat had been scratched at until there was nothing left but blood. She exposed his teeth and frowned, his teeth appeared normal. She opened his eye lids and a deep blue stared up at her. He was human.

She looked up to the group of detectives who had crowded together in the doorway and then back to the male victim’s body. “You’ve gotten the photos? I can move his body?”

The room went silent. The clicking of cameras, the techs lifting any finger print they could find in the room stopped. She felt her heart beating in her chest as she waited for an answer.

Finally Doctor Sarah Biggerson
, the medical examiner answered her. “The positions have been noted and photographed. You can move him and I’ll document what needs to be documented.”

Closing her eyes, Keegan braced her self for what she was afraid she may see curled up in the man’s arms.
It didn’t matter that everyone else thought baby Connor was missing. Something inside of her was saying that baby Connor wasn’t missing. The way this man was laying, curled into himself, his head tucked into his arms. That was a protective pose. He was protecting something other than himself if he left that much of his neck, even the back of it, exposed. It was too vulnerable of a pose. Anyone supernatural or familiar with the supernatural wouldn’t have done that.

Bending down Keegan grasped the arms in her hand and tugged. He was still in rigor, frozen until enough time passed.
Almost everyone in the room grew tense as she tugged the arm again and grimaced at the state of rigor. She looked up for permission to pull the limb out of rigor as well as she could manage and Doctor Biggerson nodded. With steady hands she worked until the muscles popped and crunched. She maneuvered the arm until she could see the bundle of bloodied green blankets.

“I need a tech,” Keegan’s voice was almost a whisper but Dr. Biggerson and a crime scene unit tech crouched beside her. His camera clicking away as she and the doctor worked to document this as well as they could.
As soon as they moved his body away from the bundle Keegan pulled back the blankets.

She heard someone run from the room, the tell-tale sound of someone emptying their stomach in the hallway.
Connor lay wrapped in his father’s arms. His face was spattered with blood and his clothes soaked down to the skin. There was a claw like gash crossing across his chest and out of nowhere Connor let out a mewling cry.

Her reaction was immediate. She pulled Connor from the protective hold and towards the nearest bathroom. She grabbed the towels from the rack and wrapped the baby in them.
It didn’t take more than a few moments for paramedics to crowd the living room and wrap the infant in blankets as they carried him from the house and out to the ambulance barking out orders and radios crackling.

All the crime scene techs and detectives stared after the paramedics as they rushed from the house and into the ambulance.

“How’d you know?” Detective Hollis’ voice cracked as he spoke. Keegan could feel the guilt for not knowing the baby was there the entire time, for not doing something for him earlier. Every minute he spent wrapped in his father’s arms was another moment that he stepped closer to death.

She could already feel death beckoning from the corners of the room. As soon as they whisked the child from the room death followed Connor to where ever he was going. One of the worst things about being
a necromancer was finding a victim on the edge of the living and the dying. It was even worse finding a baby, who had not had the chance to experience life give in to the bliss that death offered.

“I didn’t,”
Keegan rolled her lips together, trying to stave off the tears, “Certain supernatural species have been known to sacrifice everything in order to save their children. The way he was curled up meant one of two things. He was trying to protect himself or he was protecting someone he loved. He wouldn’t have left his neck exposed like that if he was protecting himself, not if he and the woman had been together very long. The question is, why did they die and who or what did Connor need to be protected from?”

She hadn’t
quite settled down behind her desk before her cell phone was ringing and the Captain was requesting conference with her and Detective Hollis. She trudged up to the third floor. The door was open and Matt was already sitting in one of the chairs in silence staring at his hands as they waited for her.

She knocked out of respect before stepping into the room.

“Close the door Detective.” Captain Perry directed her to sit. As soon as she sat down Keegan knew that Connor hadn’t made it. She had never seen Matt look so hollow before. His normally bright eyes were dark brown, his skin had turned ashen and it seemed like he was about to puke.

“This case is going to require both of your departme
nts to work together and to do so efficiently. I don’t want to hear about any squabbles between your men. I know the history between the SIU and homicide. You don’t get alone and you don’t trust each other. In all honesty, you can’t stand each other. I don’t care what your issues are. They don’t matter anymore. For the sake of this case, you need to get over it and work together. Because what we have here isn’t just a supernatural that was killed and it wasn’t just a human. Do you understand what I’m saying? We’ve got two separate groups in this community who are going to be blaming each other for the death of each of the victims. There are going to be people who target the Supernatural District and there are going to be supernturals who turn into vigilantes. I’m not having it. You understand?”

Keegan nodded, “Yes sir.”

“Yes sir.” Matt echoed.

“Good,” the Captain set his hands down flat on his desk before standing, “I know you two get along most of the time but I don’t think I need to reiterate why it is so important that the departments work together fully. Do I?”

“No sir,” Matt stood up, “If that’s all we’ll get back to work.”

“See that you do,” The Captain nodded before gesturing them out of the office.
They walked down the hallway and to the stairs in silence. Once the door to the stairwell closed, Matt placed a hand on Keegan’s arm. “Connor didn’t make it.”

Keegan nodded.
“None of us knew he was there. You couldn’t see him and Doc Biggerson and the techs didn’t move the bodies because they didn’t think he was there. You did what you could, calling units in to help search for him.”

“One of us
should have known, one of us should have checked rather than assumed. Maybe then he’d be alive.” Matt shrugged before heading down the stairs, “I’ve got men talking with their friends, seeing if we can get any leads. Call if you get anything?”

“Same to you.
” Keegan nodded and waited a few beats before following behind him. She passed through the bullpen to get to the basement stairs. She ignored the dark looks she got before disappearing to a relative safety that the basement offered.

Settling behind her desk, Keegan read the quick and dirty e-mail Biggerson had sent her and let out a harsh breath. Deep wounds along the neck and chest were what caused Connor to pass. Without more information
and until she could get the autopsy on all three victims started, she wouldn’t know what kind of animal caused the trauma, blah, blah, blah.

Keegan did the only thing she could do at this point. She worked. It
was the only answer with how to process what had happened. She needed start at the beginning, to go over everything in her head again. There had to be a reason for someone to want this family dead and to go as far as they did. A heavy book dropping against a desk had Keegan snapping her head up and out of her thoughts. She watched as Leeroy Thompson settled in at his desk with his feet propped up and proceeded to watch her.

“What?”
Keegan ignored the probing eyes and tried to play nonchalant but it didn’t work. Not with someone like Leeroy. Part of being Djinn meant knowing what was on a person’s mind along with what their deepest desires were.

“I heard about
what happened at the crime scene earlier. With you finding the kid still alive and then he died before they even got him to the hospital.” Leeroy tapped quiet rhythms out on legs. “Tough.”

“Yeah,” Keegan shrugged
. “It’s just hard seeing a kid so messed and hoping that he is going to make it through but he doesn’t.”

“
The only thing you can do now is find that child’s murderer. You have all of us with you on that front. We have your back even if we’re working other cases. No one is going to leave that family’s murder unsolved.” Leeroy leaned back in his chair offering the only comfort the Djinn knew how to for her. He pushed passed the moment and focused on what they needed to be working on and what they needed to find out.

“What did you get from the scene?” Leeroy pulled his feet down from the
top of his desk and rested his elbows there instead. “What did you hear? What did you see? You had to pick up on something while you were there.”

Slouching into the chair behind
her own desk she let out a sigh. She took in the bluish tinge of Leeroy’s skin and how he appeared ready for a fight. She wasn’t the only one on edge with having to work a family’s murder and work with homicide.