Shattered by Death (A Jo Oliver Thriller Book 2) (15 page)

We walked through the glass doors separating the assisted living area from the rest of the facility, pausing to look at each other when we reached the entrance leading to the parking lot. I checked my phone for updates; there were no new messages.
Good.

Nick popped an eyebrow up. “What do you think? Go for it?”

“Oh yeah.” I turned my head toward the main hallway that would take us to the front desk. “Might as well deal with it while we’re here and hopping mad.”

Nick adjusted his stride to match mine. “And while
I’m
here to keep you from killing the good Director Murray.”

“I prefer to think of it as knocking some sense into her.” I stuck my head into the café area flanking the hallway. Brightly colored streamers hung from the light fixtures. Plastic rabbits were stuck to the wall next to a painting of violets. Green, pink, and blue grass lined the tables, and the residents’ name cards bore festive little carrots and eggs in the corners. A six-foot rabbit-man in a dark brown tux, with his paws out as if waiting for a tray, had been stuck in the corner. Easter on steroids.

“I prefer to think of it as a friendly drop-in visit, giving us a chance to share some information and gather a little intel.” Nick hooked his arm through mine and guided me around the corner to the reception desk. It was abandoned.

“Must be on break.” He stretched his long body over the desk, turned the appointment book upside down, and read it. “Training slash rep luncheon at Hermann’s.”

“Of course they’re out to lunch. How convenient.” I rolled my eyes.

“For us. Practically neighborly.” Nick stepped back and looked at me. “So, beautiful, you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Lead the way, and we’ll find out.” I looked around the room and stepped into the hallway we’d just exited. The place was empty. “Let’s do it.”

It took me several long strides to catch up to Nick. He was standing at the end of the narrow corridor behind the reception area. Two doors stood on either side of the hallway leading to the only door with a nameplate on it—
Angela Murray, Director
.

Nick tried the doorknob. Locked. He pulled a set of picks out of his wallet and had the door open in less than ten seconds.

“Smooth.” I wasn’t an amateur when it came to picking a lock, but I’d never make it to his status. Lucky for me, I had other assets.

“After you.” Nick gestured me into the office and handed me a pair of blue gloves that looked suspiciously like the ones in a carton on the supply cart in the hall. I slipped the gloves on, and flipped up the light switch by the door.

We stood side by side, drinking in the details of the room before us.

“Stark.” I stuck close to Nick.

“That’s one word you could use.” He turned to the left, closing the door behind us.

The director’s L-shaped desk and executive leather chair took up most of the room. Two plastic-seated chairs that matched the ones in the café had been placed in front of the desk. A vintage gray metal filing cabinet stood to the left of it. “Utilitarian.”

“That’s a more interesting word.” Nick moved toward a closet door. He stood there, not moving for over a minute—clearly having some sort of moment.

“This is unexpected.” A plastic framed version of one of my favorite sayings hung on the wall behind Murray’s desk for every visitor to see. It was a quote by Andrew Jackson, written in big black script. I read it out loud for Nick. “I was born for a storm, and a calm does not suit me.”

“Where have I seen that before?” His voice sounded thoughtful, sincere.

“You’re joking, right?” I turned around.

“No. There’s something about it. Like I’m having a déjà vu moment. Something about the way the frame contrasts with the too-white wall behind it. The lettering in the last line. I’ve seen it before.” He stood with one arm bracing the other, chin resting between his thumb and forefinger.

“Of course you’ve seen it before. It’s on one of my favorite coffee mugs. There’s your déjà vu.”

“No. There’s something else. Something more. It’ll come to me.”

“Well, while you’re waiting for it, I’m going to take a little walk through this filing cabinet.” It wasn’t locked. My eyebrows flew upward. I pulled it open and started sifting through the files. “Here’s Mom’s file. One of them anyway. Looks pretty routine.”

“Keep looking, beautiful.” He was rummaging through the closet behind me.

“Not much here. Bills. Activities. Construction information for the expansion project. Nothing lively.”

“There’s something here. I can
feel
it.”

Whoa. The ‘following your gut’ stuff wasn’t like Nick at all.

I closed the last file drawer and straightened up. “What’s going on?”

“Something. I just don’t know what yet. There’s something off about this room. It feels staged.”

“
Staged?
” It was bland, I’d give him that. Spartan even. But staged? “So, what would that mean?”

“Who stages rooms?” He’d gone back into his thoughtful stance in the middle of the office.

“People trying to sell something. Like a house.” I put the desk chair back the way I’d found it. Replaced my mother’s file. Closed all the cabinet drawers.

“Right. Who else?” He turned around and closed the closet door.

“People trying to hide something.”

“My point exactly.”

We maintained a shared meditative silence as Nick drove through familiar territory on our way back home. When we hit the city limits, he turned right on 120 instead of left.

“What’s up? I thought we were going back to the station. Bit of a circuitous route, but still.” I frowned.

“
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 hospital 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.”