The Chilling Spree (10 page)

“You don’t have to protect me.”

“How many ways do I have to say this before
you finally start believing me?  I adore you, Crevan.  I
don’t know why I felt such an instant kinship with you.  It’s
like how things were between me and David Levine when I was still
with the bureau.”

A shadow fell over Crevan’s face
simultaneously with the same oppressive sixth sense that always
accompanied Johnny’s approach when he was unhappy.

Before either one of us could explain our
clandestine conversation, he started snarling.  “Is this why
you’ve been so goddamned weird around me, Crevan?  You’ve got
a thing for Helen, and were pissed that she was with me –”

“Johnny,” I tried to intervene.

“And you,” he spat.  “Seems like I was
pretty blinded by whatever.  Maybe a little amnesia was the
cure.  It sure as hell has opened my eyes to how many men
you’ve got vying for your attention.”

“Johnny,” Crevan pulled his other hand free
from my grasp, “shut up and listen to me.  If I’ve seemed
strange this past week, it isn’t because of you or Helen.  I
told my parents about the divorce on Christmas day.  Suffice
it to say that Dad was not pleased.”

I groaned softly.  “Crevan, are you all
right?”  We’d talked enough for me to know that his father was
one of the few people in Darkwater Bay that wasn’t Catholic. 
No, the Conall family’s variety of religion was far less forgiving,
a fundamentalist offshoot of the Baptist faith.  Divorce was a
sin.  Hell, just about everything was a sin.

Johnny scowled.  “I thought you said
that your final hearing was coming up in a couple of weeks. 
You put off telling Aidan until it was about to become a matter of
public record?  Why would you do that?”

I bit into the fleshy center of my lower
lip.  If divorce was a no-no, the rest of Crevan’s secret
would certainly be unacceptable to his father.  My gut twisted
with unease.

“It’s complicated, Johnny.”

He glanced at me.  “Yeah, I’ll just bet
it is.”

“This has nothing to do with Helen,” Crevan
spoke softly, weary words that hit with a sort of flat resignation
that nothing would ever be simple again.

“Oh?  So I didn’t hear her tell you how
much she adores you?”

“Crevan, maybe you should tell him the
rest.”

Johnny’s arms banded over his chest. 
“Yes, perhaps you should come clean with me, both of you, since
it’s become very clear that you’ve got some big secret the rest of
us don’t know.”

“This isn’t easy for me to say.  We’ve
been friends for a lot of years, Johnny.”

“And now you love her.”

Crevan’s breath blasted from his
nostrils.  “I said it wasn’t like that.  She’s a friend,
Johnny, one of the few people astute enough to see what’s been
right in front of you all this time.”

He snarled a curse.  “I knew it.”

“You know nothing, but you should’ve,”
Crevan said.  “This isn’t about Helen.  It’s me, all
right?”

“What about you?”

My fingers caressed Crevan’s arm in a gentle
gesture of soothing, support even.

“Johnny, I’m ...”

“What?  Dying?”

Crevan laughed softly.  “God, wouldn’t
that be simpler than the truth?”  Tortured eyes turned on
me.  “I can’t do this, Helen.  I can’t say the
words.”

“You can.  I’m here for you, and I
promise that nothing will ever change that.”

Johnny’s ire turned on a dime.  His
brow furrowed.  “What the hell is going on here?”

“I’m gay,” Crevan rasped.

The wrinkled forehead smoothed in surprise
before Johnny’s eyebrows met over his nose.  “Then ... ah,
shit,” he hissed and took a quick step backward.  “Is this
about me?”

I wanted to slug him in the enormously
obtuse head.  “Of course it’s not about you, Johnny.”

“Then he hasn’t been weird because of some
kind of –”

“You’re not my type,” Crevan’s grin turned
sly.  “Relax already.”

“Then what’s the big deal?”

“Do you really need me to connect the dots
here?” my patience was beyond thin.  “His parents are freaked
out over the divorce from a woman who full well knows why their
marriage failed and has used that fact to basically blackmail
Crevan into giving her exactly what she wants, no matter how unfair
or if she’s entitled to it as marital assets or not.  On top
of that, our dead girl tonight wasn’t a dead girl.  She was a
pretty dead boy with great makeup.”

Johnny’s eyes bulged.  “Shit.”

“This city isn’t known for being a wildly
liberal place, Johnny.  You don’t remember the conversation we
had about why Chief Don Weber has seen fit to resign his position
with the police department, but let me tell you, he and Crevan have
a couple of things in common.”

Johnny’s fingers raked through his
hair.  “I get it, Helen.  Crevan, why did you wait to
tell me all of this until now?  Oh God.  Please tell me
this isn’t something I knew but forgot.”

Crevan shook his head.  “Helen knew,
and Belle.  That’s it.  I didn’t tell either one of
them.”

“And now Belle’s sniffing around for a
story.”

“A dead body turns up at a concert by one of
Darkwater Bay’s more infamous former residents, and yeah, Johnny,”
I said, “it’s bound to draw a little attention from the
media.  The problem is that it’s Crevan’s case, and now it’s a
little more complicated that a dead girl.”

Johnny’s hand dragged slowly over his
goatee.  “Shit is an understatement.  Maybe OSI really
should take the lead on this case.  It would remove you from
Belle’s line of fire, Crevan.  And you know how I feel about
Tony, but if he catches wind of any of this other stuff…” he shook
his head.

My newfound disrespect of Tony Briscoe
became a little more entrenched. 

“I don’t think Tony would let it affect how
we investigate this case,” Crevan defended his partner again. 
“We’ve been partners for ten years, Johnny.  Don’t ask me to
believe that even if the truth came out that he’d treat me any
differently.”

“Care to test that theory?”  I jerked
my head toward the burly detective making his way toward us. 
“I’d strongly advise that you agree to let OSI take the lead on
this case and Downey assume an assisting role.  If for no
other reason that to take off some of the heat that Belle is bound
to apply.  Please, Crevan.”

Some of his confidence leeched away at the
sight of the gleam in Briscoe’s eyes.  He clutched a cell
phone in his right hand and grinned broadly.  “Don’t tell me,”
he said.  “Winslow already broke the news to somebody and you
heard.”

Crevan unconsciously stepped closer to
me.  “Heard what, Tony?”

“We got ourselves a bonafide he-she
murder.”

The air I’d been holding in my lungs began
to burn.  Did I not see this coming?  No one could’ve
convinced me that I was wrong about Tony Briscoe after seeing
another side of him last week.  I felt the surety that my
father must’ve known before a kill ignite in my veins.

“The correct term for our victim is
transgendered,” Johnny sounded stern, maybe even a little
defensive.

“Ain’t no reason to get in a huff, old man,”
Briscoe grinned.  “Ought to make this case a hell of a lot of
fun though, don’t you think?”

I had to walk away before the urge to draw
my gun overwhelmed good common sense.  Witnesses were a
detriment to depleting the world of its unsavory characters. 
Johnny’s voice followed me away from the unscheduled meeting.

“OSI is taking over the case officially,
Tony, and in the future, I’d appreciate it if you’d refrain from
expressing joy over any victim of a homicide.  Did you finish
talking to the potential witnesses?”

The rest was lost on me, out of earshot, out
of interest.  In its place boiled an oddly familiar
emotion.  I hadn’t seen red so vividly since the night I
killed my ex-husband.  This time, Tony Briscoe was in the
rifle scope of my mind’s eye and heart’s vengeance.

Crevan rode shotgun from the amphitheater to
the Bay County Medical Examiner’s Office.  The sun’s first
rays streaked the eastern sky in a muted clam shell pink, more gray
than I could almost bear with the mood of the man beside me.

“Let Johnny deal with him,” I said.

“Hmm?”  His gaze drifted from the
window in my direction.  “Oh, Tony.  I know you won’t
believe this, Helen, but what he said was just the way Tony deals
with things that make him –”

“Uncomfortable?  Homophobic?  A
nasty specimen of the human race?”

“I was gonna say nervous.  You were
right about how the city as a whole will feel about this case.”

“That’s what I find so hard to believe,
Crevan.  We’re well past the turn of the millennium.  For
crying out loud, there’s more than one state in the union that has
even gone so far as legalizing gay marriage.  Yet this place
inhabits some puritanical time warp, a bubble that has encased it
in ignorance and intolerance.”

“That ought to explain a few things,” he
said softly.  Crevan picked at the cuticle of his thumb. 
“Me, Weber, a lot of other people too, I’m sure.  Not many are
willing to be out and proud around here, and those who are have to
suffer the slings and arrows of loud mouthed bigots.  Like my
father.”

“He’d come around, Crevan.  I cannot
accept that a man who raised someone as wonderful as you are would
turn his back on you.”

I signaled and turned into the parking lot
at the morgue.

“Believe me when I tell you that my father
and I couldn’t be more distant opposites.  Sometimes I wonder
if we really came from the same gene pool.”

“Seriously?”  When I thought about
Wendell and me, there was no doubt.  I was an absolute chip
off the old block.

“Well, obviously he’s my father.  I
look just like him.  Where personality is concerned, we’re
like night and day.”

“I don’t think that’s unusual.”

“Isn’t it?  I’ve heard you talk about
Wendell, Helen.  Aside from the criminal parts, it sounds like
the two of you were very close and shared a good many things.”

More than he knew.  I cleared my
throat.  “I once believed that, but like you said.  It
turned out to be something different than what I believed.”

“Right,” he mumbled.  “Sorry.”

“Hey, let’s stay focused on something we can
accomplish, figuring out who killed Kyle Goddard.  Are you
ready to see what Maya’s got for us?”

He shrugged.  “Guess we don’t have much
choice.”

“Crevan, don’t let Briscoe or people like
your father make you feel like this case doesn’t deserve our best
effort.  It doesn’t matter who the victim is or what he
did.  He was a human being, and someone took his life. 
Let’s solve the crime.”

“I wasn’t doubting what needs to be
done.”

We made our way to Maya’s autopsy bay with
little more than silent reflection.  My friend mopped a damp
brow and grinned when we walked through the door.

“Well, I see it didn’t take much prodding to
get your head back into work where it belongs,” she said.  “I
hope you haven’t had breakfast yet, kids.  Wait ‘til you get a
load of this.”

Kyle Goddard lay on the stainless steel
table flayed open like the catch of the day.  I sensed
Crevan’s cringe at my side.  “If we must look at guts, I guess
we must.  What’s the cause of death?”

“Mr. Goddard, a nineteen year old Caucasian
male, died when his abdominal aorta was transected by a very sharp
object.”

“A knife?”  Crevan stepped forward and
peered at Maya’s handiwork.

“Sharp, but not a blade.  If I had to
make an approximation based upon the entry wound, I’d go with a
screwdriver,” Maya said.  “For the life of me, I can’t figure
out why someone would want one with a razor sharp tip, but that’s
exactly the evidence I found on the slice into the aorta. 
Damn thing was nearly cut in half.”

“Why didn’t we see some sort of spray at the
crime scene?” he asked.  “From what I saw, there was barely
enough blood on the grill of that stack to indicate something might
be wrong with the equipment.”

“Think in terms of a cork in a bottle,
Crevan,” Maya said.  She made a thrusting motion with one arm
toward his belly.  “I shove this weapon in, but if I don’t
pull it out before the heart stops pumping, any blood loss is going
to be a leak around the plug.”

“You’re saying that whoever killed Goddard
stabbed him and didn’t remove the weapon until his heart stopped
beating,” I said.

“That’s right.”

One fist pressed to my lips.

“Does that tell you anything you’d care to
share, Helen?” Crevan asked.

“Maybe.  I’m not sure yet,” I
said.  “You know how I hate to speculate.”

“Yet you do it with such great accuracy,”
Maya chuckled.  “I’ve yet to hear your instincts fail to pan
out in the end.”

“It could be a sign of premeditation,” I
said.  “Obviously, if the injury had been accidental, the
natural inclination would’ve been to pull the weapon out. 
Leaving it in until death could’ve been a sign of intent.  On
the other hand, if the killer knew anything about trauma like this,
he or she might’ve known that removing an object that has impaled
someone could kill him.”

“Want to hear what else I discovered?”

“Don’t dole out the facts with your typical
flair for drama,” I said.  “Tell us the whole thing.”

“Her panties were – how shall I put this –
askew, as if she at one point, planned to remove them,” Maya said,
“and there was evidence of ejaculate in the urethra.”

Crevan winced.  “You didn’t cut him
open there, did you?”

“Simple swab,” she grinned.  “So I’d
say that this guy was either in the act of gettin’ some when she
died, or she had hastily finished and was careless when she
redressed. But I don’t think the panties ever came completely off.
No evidence, just gut instinct.”