Suicide Serial (2 page)

Fumbling through the closet, he grabbed a pair of black slacks and a white button-up shirt and got dressed. Brushing aside some more clothing, Jake grabbed the first tie that he felt in his hands, a bright yellow one with a pattern of small black dots. He buckled his belt and attached his detective badge and his holster to it, which now held a fully-loaded Glock 17.

Throwing on his windbreaker with “WPD Homicide” stitched into the back with reflective lettering and grabbing his wallet and other necessities, Jake headed out the door to his car. He wouldn’t realize until halfway to the scene that he had forgotten his cold medicine.

After an otherwise uneventful drive over, Jake stepped out of his car and into the brisk March morning. Any day now the last of the cold weather would leave and the summer heat would start to settle in. Police cruisers with flashing blue lights and a black and white van with “WPD Forensics Unit” on the sides lined the street in front of 1156 Maple Drive.

From the outside, the house appeared as ordinary as any other on the block. It had a manicured lawn, new-looking roof, and a bright red Mercedes sitting in the driveway. Jake took note of the “For Sale” sign planted in the yard. A few people from the neighborhood had gathered nearby at the perimeter and were speaking to one of the patrol officers and Detective Andrews. Andrews looked like he had already filled up a few pages of notes as he asked questions. Jake decided to leave them to it and investigate the house. The grass was still wet with morning dew, so he walked up the brick pathway to the open front door.

Everything looked normal inside, except of course the two uniformed officers holding coffee and talking in the foyer. They glanced over at him and nodded, acknowledging his presence. A look around the living room of the house revealed an obviously distressed man wearing a business suit, looking to be in his late thirties, with his head buried in his hands and sitting on the couch. A woman with blond hair tied back in a ponytail and wearing dark-colored slacks and a purple button-up shirt was interviewing the man. Even without noticing the gun on her hip and the police shield strung around her neck, Jake instantly recognized her as his partner, Detective Stacey King.

Stacey had been his partner for two years now. Straight out of the academy, folks knew she was going to make a great detective one day and they were right. She was bright, tough, and funny and could have done anything with her life and probably been the best at it. She was also quite attractive, but he never saw her like that.

She was more like a sister to him, a great friend that he often had hanging out at his house on weekends. His wife treated her just like family. The kids even called her their “Aunt Stacey.” She was comfortable to be around and easy to talk to. Stacey was a great partner and her help was always beneficial to their investigations. Jake doubted that he would have been able to solve nearly as many cases if it hadn’t been for her uncanny intuition and way to look around problems from a different perspective.

Jake cleared his achy throat, getting Stacey’s attention. She turned and gave a little wave before returning to address the witness.

“Well, sir, thank you for your help. That’s all the questions I have for you. The police forensics unit will be done here shortly. Please go and speak to Mrs. Strickner, I think she’s waiting right outside for you now. She’s with the county social services office and can help you with any questions you might have.”

The man nodded silently, his face wracked with sadness and disbelief. Stacey stuck her notepad into the back of her pants and helped the man to his feet. She led him to the door, where Mrs. Strickner stood waiting.

“This has been really rough on him,” she said quietly to the county’s social services agent, before turning back to Jake.

“I can’t believe it. This is the eighth suicide in just under two weeks. Just what the hell is going on around here? Did someone poison the water supply or what?” Stacey said, with an incredulous look on her face.

Jake just grinned. For all her differences, his partner sometimes had a mind just like his own.

He replied, “You took the words right outta my mouth, partner. I was thinking the same thing on the way over here. What did the husband have to tell you?”

Stacey whipped out her trusty notepad and flipped through it. “Let’s see…he got home from work this morning at about seven A.M. and unlocked the front door. He says he heard his children crying, but other than that he noticed nothing unusual. Then he told me that he called out to his wife but there was no answer, so he walked to the master bathroom only to find his wife dead in the bathtub and the kids crying their eyes out in the bedroom. Apparently they had just woken up right before he got home and found her first.”

She closed the notepad up and tucked it away again. Stacey’s eyes began to glaze over as she thought about it.

Looking down at her feet, she muttered, “I can’t begin to imagine how terrible this all must be for those children.”

Stacey recovered and continued to give a run-down on the investigation so far.

“The neighbors didn’t see anything or anyone unusual in the area last night or this morning. One lady said she thought there was an old car driving around she hadn’t seen in the neighborhood before, but it was dark and she was pretty unsure about it. She passed by it while driving, so she didn’t get a look at the person behind the wheel. Looks like a nice neighborhood. Most people in places like this notice anything really strange.”

Jake nodded his head in agreement and pointed to the hallway, “Let’s go take a look in the back, shall we? I’m sure the boys from forensics are just about done.”

The hallway was dark and peaceful, their footsteps echoing down it all the way to the bedrooms at the back of the house. Jake took a cursory look into the kid’s rooms. They looked just like any other, even his children’s. There were colorful posters on the walls and toys on the floor. He shuddered to think of the fear and sadness that had filled this house when they found their mother this morning.

Rounding the corner to the master bedroom, Jake saw the forensics team snapping closed the various bags and cases that accompanied them everywhere. The red-haired crime scene photographer snapped one last picture and began packing up his camera. They all looked tired, and with good reason. Murder and suicides were not all that common in Winchester.

There was plenty of standard criminal activity, such as drugs and theft, but the forensics team was used to a much less busy pace than there had been lately. They were still trying to focus on the last suicide from a few days ago, which had become a local media blitz, when this one happened. The county coroner leaned against the doorframe of the nearby closet with his arms crossed impatiently, waiting for the go ahead to take the body to the morgue. He had a similar look on his face.

Mike Woo, the lead forensics investigator, took off his blue nitrile gloves with a snap, balling them up and tossing them into the biohazard bag. He saw Jake and Stacey waiting to talk to him. With a sigh, Mike said to them, “Hey guys. Another one huh? I’m starting to wonder if this is all part of some crazy suicide cult or something. You would think they would at least get together and drink the kool-aid all at once or something. Would make my job a whole lot easier.”

Jake and Stacey just gave Mike a strange look and continued to listen.

Mike rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to relieve some of the tension. “Anyway, not a lot in there, uhm, except the dead lady in the tub. From what we can tell, looks like she took a razor knife and slashed her wrists and arms multiple times. No signs of a struggle or anything. We got some prints from the room, but they are most likely from the victim or the family. She’s got a small cut on her neck. Looks like she may have attempted to cut herself there, which is a bit unusual. Not a bruise on her though, from what I could tell. The rest of the room is totally clean; all the blood is in the tub.”

Jake asked, “Did she leave a note or anything? According to Stace, this was another one that didn’t match the profile for someone that was depressed or suicidal.”

Mike replied, “Nope. No note. The only thing that looks really suspicious to me is that she cut her self so many times, like she really wanted to die in a hurry. Most wrist-slashers I’ve seen just cut once on each wrist. I had one a few years ago though that slashed himself so many times I kept losing count.”

Mike gestured like he was holding a blade and mimicked slashing himself all the way up both arms, making a small “swish” sound with each pass of the pretend blade.

“I guess the M.E. can check it out and make sure it is self-inflicted or not, but everything else lines up like a suicide. Looking at her skin and body temperature, she probably offed herself sometime late last night. That’s it. We’ll let you know if we discover any trace evidence or anything else.”

With that, the rest of the forensics team finished packing up and headed out the door.

Once all the techs were out of the way, Jake entered the master bathroom. The air was thick with the metallic smell of blood. A drop of water fell from the faucet into the bathtub with a plop, creating small ripples across the previously calm surface. Claire Miller was lying naked in a bathtub full of her own blood, with her eyes open and staring up at the ceiling. Her skin was as pale as alabaster and her body looked like every ounce of life had been drained from it. The water was so red that she appeared to disappear from the neck down.

Jake looked at her face for a moment, recalling the last few victims. He would have all the answers if only he could talk to them. Examining the room a bit further, Jake turned up the bathroom rugs only to discover clean floors that had recently been replaced. The entire bathroom looked like it had seen a remodel in the last month or so, which was not generally something that suicidal, depressed people put much thought into. He opened the medicine cabinet and saw the typical contents; aspirin, lotions, band-aids, nothing unusual. No anti-depressants or self-help books. Nothing here was out of place at all.

Jake started running it through his mind, “Maybe all these suicides were just coincidental; maybe the moon was driving people mad, maybe…” then Jake saw the tiny smudge on the edge of the toilet tank lid.

It was barely there, and the light had hit it just right. It was almost like rubbing a pencil eraser across a clean desk. Any other bathroom and it might have gone unnoticed, but nevertheless there it was. Jake put on his gloves and took a close look at the smudge. It looked like someone had simply smeared a bit of water over the edge of the lid. There were no discernable fingerprints. Jake carefully lifted the lid and looked down into the water in the tank. There was a small object inside which he was not able to make out.

Jake looked over at Stacey and tilted his head, saying, “Here goes nothin’.“

Rolling up his sleeve, Jake reached into the cold water with his teeth clenched and retrieved the object. It was a chess piece.

“How did you know to look in there?” Stacey asked, shocked.

Jake turned the pawn around in his gloved fingers, taking in every detail. It appeared to be a normal, white, pawn chess piece. There were no weird markings. It was relatively heavy and composed of some type of stone. Stacey held out a clear plastic baggie, and Jake dropped the pawn into it.

“Hmmm. I saw a little smudge over on the corner of the toilet lid. Thought maybe someone had gotten in there. That oughta give forensics something to do, like they aren’t busy enough already, huh?”

Jake smiled as Stacey zipped up the baggie. He rose to his feet and removed his gloves, also tossing his into the biohazard bag. With a thumb pointed towards the bathroom, he motioned to the coroner and said, “All yours, Harry.”

“Thanks a lot, Harris,” the coroner said with a hint of sarcasm. “I can’t wait to fish her outta there.”

Jake walked outside the house, examining the perimeter. The grass along the sidewalk had been edged to perfection. Blooming flowers had sprouted up in a carefully arranged pattern in a little natural area in the front yard around a post lamp. There were giant, well-groomed azalea bushes lining the front and rear walls of the house. Colorful pink and white flowers covered every bush. Each bed of vegetation was surrounded by a lush, newly spread layer of mulch. It was obvious that the Millers took a great deal of pride in maintaining their home.

“Let’s see what we can find out here,” Jake said as he spread the bushes aside and began to take took a closer look around the window of the master bedroom.

“The mulch appears to have been disturbed here a bit,” Stacey commented, “But that could be from an animal or anything, really.”

The windows were clean and closed up tight. The frame had only the faintest hint of pollen on it, the universal signal that spring and hay fever allergies were quickly approaching. Then, on the underside of the window frame, Jake spotted two unmistakable thumb prints. They were plain splotches and would never give up a fingerprint for identification, but someone had obviously pushed up there to open the window.

Standing on his tip-toes, Jake could see marks where someone had similarly pushed down on the window to close it. The window was not very high off the ground. It would have been easy for a tall man to open and climb right in without a ladder. Heading back inside, Jake noted that the window was not locked. There did not appear to be any dirt or debris on the carpet.

Scratching his chin, Jake stared off into space for a moment.