When Johnny Came Marching Home (39 page)

“No, you won't. But think about it, anyway. And say
hola
to your grandmother for me. Tell her I'll be by someday to check up on your ass.”

Harry watched the boy head across the parking lot, then turned and entered the building. When he reached the homicide office, he found John Weathers and passed along Rubio's tip, without explaining where he had gotten it. Weathers didn't seem that interested. Harry decided not to push it. At least not until they arrested the boyfriend.

 

* * *

 

Harry spent the first hour working at his desk, reviewing the paperwork on a case he had closed the previous day. It hadn't been a particularly satisfying one—an elderly man killed during a robbery gone sour. Harry had tracked down the killer within forty-eight hours. It turned out to be a teenage boy raised in a home that the ASPCA wouldn't have allowed to keep a dog or cat. It was a case where everyone had lost except the people who really deserved to. A voice barked across the room, interrupting his thoughts: “Doyle. In here.”

He looked up and saw Pete Rourke, the division captain, going back into his office, a trailing finger beckoning Harry to follow. When he entered the office Rourke was already behind his desk. There was also an attractive, dark-haired woman, somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties, seated in one of the two visitors' chairs.

“Doyle, meet your new partner,” Rourke snapped. “This is Vicky Stanopolis. She's new to the division, just came up from sex crimes. She also claims she can work with anybody.” Rourke looked at each of them, then shook his head. “We'll see if she can work with you. God knows, nobody else wants to.”

Harry fought off a smile. “Thanks, cap.”

“No problem.” Rourke turned to Vicky. “Harry doesn't have a life, so he likes to work long hours. You don't have to try and keep up when he goes crazy that way. But you might learn a few things working with him. Including things you
shouldn't
do. But it's like I told you before he came in, he seems to have a special talent, let's call it an intuition about killers—an intuition that some people consider a little spooky. Other partners he's had claimed that the victims . . . told him things.” He gave Harry a long look as if awaiting some confirmation. When none came he turned his attention back to Vicky. “He's also an enormous pain in the ass.” He threw Harry a stern look. He was a big man with a square, fleshy face, unruly black hair, and piercing blue eyes. His voice, as usual, was gruff, the words sharp and to the point. “I got a call from the women's prison . . . a corrections captain who said you threatened one of his men.”

“It wasn't much of a threat,” Harry said. “The guy was a professional jackass. I just let him know that I knew he was a jackass.” Amusement flickered in Harry's eyes. “I guess he complained.”

“Yes, he did.”

“Sort of proves my point.”

Rourke glared at him. “Next time, try a nice, warm smile when you tell somebody you're gonna shove their Glock up their ass. It's good public relations.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rourke shook his head as if the entire conversation had been pointless. He pulled some papers from a pile, ready to get back to work. “Take Vicky out to the bullpen and introduce her around. The desk across from you is empty, right?”

Harry nodded.

“Now it belongs to her.”

 

* * *

 

Introducing Vicky to the other detectives proved easy duty. She was tall and slender and shapely, with long brown hair that fell almost to her shoulders, pale brown eyes that looked like they could swallow you whole, a straight nose, and a mouth that seemed just a bit large, a bit sensual. None of that had registered in Rourke's office. Now, confronted with the wide-eyed stares of his fellow detectives, Harry couldn't help but notice.

Most of the male detectives were overly friendly but respectful. They had been taught respect from the only other woman in the division, Diva Walsh, the sergeant in charge of assigning cases. Diva was a heavyset black woman, who could probably kick half the asses in the room, maybe more than half, and she easily kept most of the detectives in line. One of the few exceptions now followed Harry and Vicky back to their desks.

Nick Benevuto was a silver-haired lothario with an expanding waistline. To his fellow detectives he was known as Nicky the Pimp, owing to the fact that he had once worked vice and most of his snitches were still aging hookers. He also had a reputation as one mean son of a bitch just as young Rubio Martí had claimed earlier. Right now he was busy playing office Romeo. Vicky seemed to have his number from the start.

“So, Vicky, honey,” Nick began, only to be cut short.

“Don't call me honey,” Vicky said. She hardened the words with a cold smile; then added: “I have a gun, and I'm good with it.”

Nick raised his hands defensively. “Hey, darlin', I was only—”

“Don't call me darlin' either.”

“Okay, okay. No offense. Jesus, you Greek women are hard.”

“You bet your bippy,” Vicky said.

Nick drew a long breath, turned, and started back across the room. “You're gonna get along just great with the dead detective
,”
he muttered.

When Vicky turned back to her desk Harry was already seated across from her, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His eyes told her it would be a nice smile if he ever let it grow.

“I guess Rourke will be talking to
you
soon,” Harry said.

“About what?”

“About how you treat jackasses.”

Vicky fought off her own smile. “So why did he call you the dead detective?” she asked, as she slid into her chair.

“I died once,” Harry said. “It was a long time ago.”

“Duty related?”

“No. I was only a kid.”

“You wanna tell me about it?”

Harry gave her an indifferent stare. “No, I don't. In time you'll hear all about it from them.” He inclined his head toward the room, indicating the other detectives. “It's a better story when they tell it.”

Harry went back to his paperwork, sorting out reports for two cases that were now set for trial. Vicky watched him. She was more than a little curious about the man, about this “spooky” intuition he was supposed to have about killers. She had already dismissed Rourke's comment about victims talking to him as little more than cop shop nonsense and she wondered how it all tied into this dead detective business. But she was also smart enough to know that it was a subject she couldn't push. There was a sense of intensity about Harry Doyle that seemed to infuse everything he did, the way he moved and spoke; even the way he looked at you. She wasn't certain why, but she found it very appealing. Too much so, she told herself. And it didn't help that she liked the way he looked. He was tall and lean, just a bit over six feet, she guessed, with wavy brown hair, penetrating green eyes, and a strong jaw. He wasn't a pretty boy by any means. Ruggedly handsome would better describe him. But those strong features seemed to soften when that sense of playfulness came to his eyes and that small smile toyed with the corners of his mouth.

Vicky thought about that. She didn't want to get involved with Harry Doyle or anyone else. Her personal life was a shambles at the moment, and she didn't need to make it worse by falling for her partner.

“Doyle. Stanopolis.”

It was Diva. Harry got up quickly and headed for her desk. Vicky followed.

“Whaddaya got?” Harry asked.

“We got a woman in the Brooker Creek Preserve, a very dead woman. Some old lady out on a bird watching jaunt found her and started screaming for the park rangers. They called it in and we sent two units. First car at the scene said the vic's throat's been sliced. Also said she's been posed and that it looked like a fresh kill.”

“They seal off the area?” Harry asked.

“Deputy said he did,” Diva answered. “Couple more cars were dispatched just to make sure it stayed that way. The preserve's got a lot of groups hiking the trails this time of year.”

“You call the crime scene techs, or is that something we should do?” Vicky asked.

“Already did it,” Diva said. “But thanks for asking. Most of the honchos around here would just assume Diva got it done for them, and then bitch and moan if for some reason the call didn't get made.” She offered up a small laugh. “Hell, I got three kids at home who don't need their noses wiped as much as these clowns do.”

“Not their fault,” Vicky said. “They're men. They're all born with that ‘Hey, baby, bring me a beer' gene.”

This time Diva barked out a loud laugh. “You got
that
right, honey.”

Harry cut the conversation short by spinning on his heels and heading for the stairs. Vicky hurried to catch up.

“Hey, you two be careful,” Diva called after them. “Sounds like you might have a psycho on your hands.”

“Slow down, the vic's not going anywhere,” Vicky said.

“Yeah, but there's always the chance somebody else might get there ahead of us. I like to get to a crime scene when it's still fresh, before anybody screws it up,” Harry said, taking the stairs two at a time. When they reached the parking lot he glanced back and grinned. “How come Diva gets to call you honey?” he asked over his shoulder.

“'Cause I want her to,” Vicky said. “But don't let that give you any ideas.”

“Never happen,” Harry said. “I won't even ask you to bring me a beer. And I won't ask you to drive either,” he added as he slid behind the wheel of their unmarked car.

Vicky got in, slipped on her sunglasses, and looked at him over the tops. “That's good, Harry. I don't want your feminist side to start running amok.”

 

* * *

 

The Brooker Creek Preserve is 8,000 acres of raw Florida land, a mixture of sandy pine forest and cypress swamp that sits on the northern edge of Pinellas County in a densely populated and pricey residential community known as East Lake. A series of wetlands in neighboring Hillsborough County flow lazily across fifteen miles, constantly feeding the preserve, and only a three-building environmental education complex and two and a half miles of hiking trails mar a landscape that was once prime hunting grounds for Seminole Indians.

Harry pulled up to the preserve's open iron gates, stopping at a sign that listed the hours it was open to the public. He jotted them down in his notebook—
Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Thursdays through Sundays,
9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday.
It was now five-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon. Harry studied the gate. It was electronic, run from a keypad so it would have to be opened each morning and closed each night by someone who either knew the code or had an override key like the ones police, fire, and rescue personnel carried. He turned to Vicky.

“We won't know until the autopsy, but if our victim was killed here, or dumped here right after the park opened, whoever was in charge of this gate may have seen our perp entering the preserve. We need to find out who that was.”

Vicky stared into the forest that spread out from the gate. “Sure is a lot of cover for a dirty deed.”

Harry started to laugh. “A dirty deed?”

“What's wrong with that?”

Harry shook his head. “What's next, ‘Curses, foiled again'?” “I'm saving that for when Nick Benevuto kicks me out of his bed,” Vicky quipped. “Nicky the pimp has never kicked anyone—or thing—out of his bed,” Harry said. “Well it's true then,” Vicky snapped back. “God
is
good.” Harry put the car in gear and started down the mile-long macadam road that led to the Environmental Education Center. Two hundred yards in he pulled off to the right behind two sheriff's patrol cars that had been parked on each side of a partially overgrown hiking trail leading into the forest. A uniformed deputy stood guard at the head of the trail.

Harry left his coat on the front seat, walked to the rear of the car, and opened the trunk. He took out the small crime scene case he carried to all homicides, then removed a pair of rubber boots and slipped them on. He glanced at Vicky, who had come to the rear of the car and was watching him intently.

“You should get a pair of these boots, or something similar,” he said. “We can have the size and sole prints on file with forensics. It'll save time eliminating your footprints at crime scenes. It'll also save you from replacing three or four pairs of ruined shoes every year.”

Vicky grinned at him. “I'll do it.” She glanced at his rubber boots. “But something a bit more stylish, I think.”

Harry smirked. “Whatever,” he said, as he turned and walked toward the deputy guarding the head of the trail, looking him up and down as he did.

The deputy was tall and lanky with a country boy's raw-boned strength, but behind a pair of intense blue eyes a good amount of intelligence looked back. Harry was certain they had never met before and made a mental note of the man's name tag, which read,
Morgan
.

“What's your first name, Morgan?” he asked as he came up beside him.

Morgan's eyes drifted to the detective's badge attached to Harry's belt. “Jim,” he said.

Harry extended his hand. “Harry Doyle. I'm with homicide.” He tilted his head toward Vicky. “This is my partner, Vicky Stanopolis. I understand you've got a body for us.”

“Sure do,” Morgan said. “Back up that trail about a quarter of a mile at the edge of a cypress swamp. It's a weird one for sure.”

“How so?” Harry asked.

“Lady's all posed . . . sexually posed. And she's wearing a mask and all. Like one of those they wear at Mardi Gras.”

Harry nodded and studied the ground. Fresh tire tracks ran off into the trail. “You guys drive in there?” he asked.

The deputy shook his head. “No way. I was the first one here and I saw the tracks right off. I asked the ranger who called us if he drove in, but he said he didn't. Said they never do unless they're running a work crew. He said they haven't worked on this particular trail since last spring. After I heard all that I made sure nobody else drove in.”