The Wife of a Lesser Man (LA Cops Series Book 1) (5 page)

“What’s wrong?”  I asked breathlessly.

“I…I don’t know.  Nothing’s happening.”

“What do you mean?”  I swallowed, trying to catch my breath.

“I mean….nothing is happening…I…uh…can’t get it up.”  His hand left my buttock and I felt him grab hold of himself.  I lifted my leg up and over, so I could see for myself.  Sure enough, a strand of my hair could have stood up better. 

“Jesus.  Are you feeling okay?  I mean, this is new, right?”  I asked, examining his penis with one hand and instinctively checking his forehead for a fever with the other.

“Yeah, I feel perfectly fine.  I mean, I thought I was horny as ever a few minutes ago.  Then it just went away.”

I took a cleansing breath.  “Well, maybe the doctor can help.  You go on Thursday, right?” 

“Yeah.” He answered, stunned. 

I lowered myself down next to him and laid in my favourite spot on his chest.  We lay there for a few minutes in silence.

“Well, don’t worry too much baby.  I’m sure it’s just the medication or something.  It’ll be fine,” I said, patting his chest, and then I rolled the blankets up to cover us.  After a while, Mark broke the silence. “I hope so.  Because if I have to give up sex as well as everything else.  I think I would
rather
die.” 

Chapter 5

“Good morning.” A noticeably brightened smile was on Richard’s face.

“Hey.” Mark looked up and did a double take.  “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing.” He shrugged, but he had a devilish grin.

Mark was in no mood for games after last night’s letdown on top of everything else.  Shelley had insisted he move up his doctor’s appointment.  Which meant Mark would see his cardiologist after lunch. 

“What the hell is your problem?”  Mark asked.  Richard sensed his frustrated tone.  “It’s no big deal.  I just went out to dinner last night.”  Richard’s eyes went over to Lisa’s desk and his chin rose slightly, as if to point in her direction. 

Mark’s eyes went back to the file he was thumbing through and his head waved from side to side “Well it’s about time.” 

Richard laughed.  “Glad you approve.”

Mark changed the subject.  “We got all the stuff back from the Reed case.  I’ve been through it all with Andy, do you want me to brief you on it, or have you got something else going on.” 

“Nah, I’m good.  Hey, you must have been here early again.  Jeez, it’s only seven thirty now,” he said, looking at his watch. 

“Yeah, I gotta leave for a bit this afternoon and I wanted to get through this stuff beforehand.”  Richard sat down in the guest chair and waited for Mark to start.

Mark handed Richard the crime scene photos first.  One by one Richard viewed them, turning them over to get a better angle on some.  His face screwed up to focus on a couple, and he closed his eyes in disgust for one in particular.  “Is that the one with the blood splatter?”  Mark asked, watching Richard wince. 

“Ugh, yeah.  That’s pretty nasty.  What’s Charlie saying about this?”  Charlie Thompson was their best crime scene investigator. 

“He says it was obviously done by someone she knew.  I think I told you before Charlie could find no signs of forced entry.”  Richard nodded while he looked at a couple of less gruesome shots.  “There’s not a lot to go on in this case.  We’re going to need a lot of Charlie’s help.”  Mark’s phone rang; he looked on the screen “Speak of the devil, here’s Charlie on the line.”

He picked up the phone and hit the speaker button “Hey Charlie I’ve got you on speaker with Richard here, what’s the word?” 

“Sorry I haven’t got better news.  My guys have been over the scene three times now and there are no prints or casings.  Nothing.  Zilch.  Nada.  Everything is hers and there are a couple of partial finger prints, but nothing we can work with.”

“What about anything wonky looking in the place?  Any of the samples look odd?”  Richard asked.

“Nope.  This guy was slick.  She was a clean freak, too.  Nothing but dust and normal stuff.” 

“One sec.”  Mark and Richard could hear the phone being covered and muffled voices in the background. 

Two seconds later Charlie came back on.  “Hey guys, sorry about that.  Reed’s house is still cordoned off and her body is still with the coroner if you want to have a look yourself.  Let me know and I’ll let Nelson know when to expect you.  He’s keeping watch until noon and then Wendell is taking over.”

Mark looked at Richard and he nodded.  “Sure, we’ll head over now.  Then we’ll hit the morgue,” Mark said.

“Sure thing.”  The phone clicked and Mark hit the end button. 

“Should we take the file with us?”  Richard asked. 

“Yeah, good idea,” Mark said, “In the meantime I’ll have Lisa dig up what she can on Reed, deeper than what the rookies have dug up so far,” 

“Yeah, Lisa’s sure got a knack for digging,” Richard commented.

“You would know,” Mark said, winking at him.  Richard jokingly seethed.

“She’s
late
for work you know.”  Mark teased.  “You keep her up past her bedtime last night?” 

“Nothing happened if that’s what you’re implying,” Richard said as he picked up his coat.  “Besides, how can she be late?  It’s not even eight o’clock.” 

“Not late by my standards.  Hers.  You never noticed before how early she gets here?”  Mark picked up the file after shrugging on his jacket. 

Richard nodded, opening the door and waiting for Mark to go ahead.  “That girl needs a raise,” Richard commented.

The word ‘raise’ made the hair on the back of Mark’s neck stand up.  Normally he would have said something like “I bet she got one last night”, but he declined to comment.

“My car or yours?”  Richard asked.  Mark was about to answer when Andy walked in.

“We’re just heading over to review the Reed scene.  You want to join us?”  Mark asked Andy.  Andy’s face looked pale, and he was sipping a large coffee and appeared to be taking small, slow movements.  Mark noticed the change in his pallor “Hey, you look like the way I looked a few weeks back, what’s going on?” 

Andy swallowed and cleared his throat.  “My brother surprised us last night with tickets to the hockey game.  We went out to the bar afterward.  Never let your brother talk you into drinking something called a ‘snakebite’.  They’re called that for a reason.”  Richard and Mark laughed.  The laughter prompted Andy to put his hand on his head and wince. 

“Sorry man.  Okay, we’ll catch you later,” Mark said, patting Andy gently on the shoulder.

“I don’t suppose you’re up for a noogie or two are you?”  Richard teased, speaking slightly louder than normal. 

“You do and I’ll puke in your hat,” Andy retorted, taking another sip of his coffee and walking away.  Richard grabbed the bill and back of his police hat and pulled tightly with a grin on his face.  The crown of his head peeked up from the material slightly, and then he pushed it back to its rightful place.

“We’ll take my car if it’s all the same to you.  If we run late, you don’t mind tagging along to the cardiologists with me, do you?”  Mark asked.

“Sure.  Hell, he can check out my ticker too if he wants,” Richard said, picking his keys out of his pocket.  Mark grinned.

…

The victim’s home was across town, about ten minutes from the police station.  When they pulled up, the red tape was still tightly wound around the perimeter of the house, which stood quaintly on a quiet street not far from the highway.  There was a large concrete wall partitioning off the residential area from the noise of the highway.  Karen Reed’s house was ordinary, like the cookie cutter style homes on the rest of the street.  The only difference between her detached bungalow and her neighbours’ homes was an awning on the front porch.  It was metal and painted robin’s egg blue.  It looked like it had been added recently since the paint wasn’t peeling or faded. 

Constable Nelson’s police cruiser was parked in the driveway.  He must have heard Mark and Richard’s cruiser pull up because the door opened and he suddenly appeared in the doorway.  When Richard exited the car, Nelson tipped his hat to greet him and Richard did the same. Nelson was in his early twenties, tall with short hair like all the rest of his peers.  He had only been on the force for a few months; hence he was given low risk tasks such as watching scenes under investigation.  He wasn’t assigned a partner yet, but it looked like he and Wendell, another newbie, would be partnered up soon.

“Good morning Chief Tame.”  Nelson saluted as Mark exited the car.

“No need for formalities, Nelson.  At ease.” 

“Sir, the scene is secure; no intruders today…er…at least as long as I’ve been here.”

“Great job Nelson.  Why don’t you grab a coffee or something while Richard and I have a look around?  Unless you want to stay.  You’re more than welcome if you’d like.”  Nelson gave Mark a swift bow and walked to his car.

Richard entered the house and realized the windows were all open; then he looked around and learned why.  The victim’s blood spatter was still all over the walls and floor.  There were bits of grey matter and clumps of hair mixed in with the blood.  All the particles must have begun rotting because the smell was enough to make Richard gag.   He took his shirt sleeve and tried his best to cover his nose.  Mark did the same. 

“God, it’s a wonder we still eat meat after all the blood and shit we’ve seen over the years,” Richard commented. 

“Somehow I’m not as desperate as I thought I was to get back into red meat,” Mark added.

“I’ll remind you of that when we go to the doctor’s.” 

“Thanks, but
you
can wait in the car,” Mark said.

They both looked around the house.  Mark along one side of the house where the kitchen, living room and powder room were located, and Richard down the hall towards the bedrooms and bathroom. 

“Charlie was right, this place is spotless,” Richard commented.

“I’ll say.  I thought Shelley was neat,” Mark responded.

There was not a thing out of place; no clutter whatsoever.  The entrance had a small console table for keys and mail and it held a small, organized pile of unopened envelopes wrapped in a thin elastic band.  There was one letter on top with a fresh stamp on it, waiting to be mailed.  Mark entered the powder room beside the console table and switched on the light.  The sink was spotless, there were no brushes or combs to be found since they were all gone to trace for DNA samples.  The toilet seat was down and there was a blue fluffy seat cover and matching floor mat.  The mirror had a small blue rosette in the same color as the cover and mat affixed to the top left hand corner.  The bathroom light was also in the shape of a rosette.

“She liked blue flowers,” Mark yelled from the bathroom, opening the cupboard under the sink.  The sound of his voice was muffled.

“Yeah.  She was into fitness and crap, too.  There’s a bunch of exercise DVDs in the master bedroom.  One left in the disc player as well,” Richard yelled from the back of the house.

Mark turned off the bathroom light and went into the living room.  There was a small, formerly blue sofa in the middle of the living room.  It was covered in blackish red blood.  There was a pool of blood right in the center of the couch.  The shape of it reminded Mark of those old cartoons where the character ran through the wall and a matching form was left in the void.  “She definitely died on the couch.”

Richard entered the living room “I’ll say.” He said, examining the bloodstained couch.  The wall behind the couch was equally spattered with blood.  Mark searched the room and found the box of latex gloves that the crime scene investigators left; standard procedure.  He walked over and pulled four gloves out of the box. 

“Here,” Mark said as he threw a pair of gloves to Richard.  Richard caught them and put them on.  When he had on both gloves, Mark walked back over to the couch.

“Give me a hand with the couch, will you?”

Mark removed one of three cushions and examined it. Richard bent down and looked in the gap between the couch and the floor.  The carpeting was off white, but in the area around the couch, it was peppered with blood spatter.  Satisfied, Richard stood up and took a cushion and examined it.  Mark loosely replaced the first cushion and picked up the last one.  The cushions were microfibre.  Like corduroy, if you ran your hand across it, the nap would stay in place.  The middle cushion had the least amount of blood on it.  The first one had the most.  Mark noticed a strange indent pattern in some dried blood on the side of the middle cushion. 

“Grab the file, would you?” he asked Richard.  Richard brought the file over and began thumbing through the crime scene photos.  When he found the ones taken of the living room, he brought them out and spread them across the carpeted area that was cleanest; by the door. 

“What are we looking for?”  Richard asked. 

“Are there any pictures of the couch?”