Wounded Animals (Whistleblower Series Book 1) (10 page)

The situation didn’t look good. Within twenty-four hours, two people I knew had shown up dead around me. I had been cleared of the first crime. I had an alibi. This second body, not so much. I didn’t remember seeing the body in my car when I stumbled out of the bar, but I was hammered. Could someone have inserted a dead body in the back of my car while I was passed out in the front seat? Seemed impossible.

I could think of no way out of this situation other than to get rid of the body. As crazy as that sounded, it seemed like the only viable option. Maybe if I’d had more time, I could have come up with something better, but time did not appear to be one of my luxuries.

I got back in the car, now noticing the smell coming from the back. Rusty, sour. Blood and bile. The same thing I’d smelled coming up the stairs in my house before I found Paul.

I hadn’t grieved for Paul on any personal level because I barely knew him. I didn’t know if I would grieve for Keisha, but as I drove the city streets toward Denver, I was overcome by the senselessness of the loss of life. They were both so young, smart, and full of promise. Now they were gone forever, and probably because of me.

Paul, then Keisha. Bushy-eyebrowed Darren probably wouldn’t be in any kind of danger because, for all I knew, he was the one who had slit the poor girl’s throat. I couldn’t remember the name of the other guy, was it Melvin?

Marion?

No, Martin, but the last name escaped me. Safe to assume that if I didn’t do what they wanted, Martin would be next to lose his life, probably in my bed next to me in the morning.

But what was it they wanted? I didn’t even know. The only thing they’d told me so far was not to contact the police.

There had to be a way to reach out to Martin, but I didn’t have his phone number. Maybe I could go into the office tomorrow and look him up in the company directory.

I drove past the highway turnoff to my house and into the suburb of Commerce City, into the industrial district. I couldn’t bury her; I had no way to dig. No pick or shovel, and the thought of dropping by a Home Depot to buy one nearly turned my stomach.

Commerce City was home to an abundance of old warehouses and junkyards and lots of places to stash things that would remain hidden. I saw an overpass and drove toward it. Might be a good hiding place, or I could at least take a break and consider my options.

I found a spot to park in the grass just beyond a barrier, a couple hundred yards from the overpass. Before me was a massive concrete bridge, with angled ramps on either side approaching the metal supports underneath. The ramps didn’t look too steep to climb. At the top of each ramp, where it met the bridge, were a few dark cubby-hole like areas.

If I could get Keisha up a ramp, I could put her body in one of those big cubby holes. They might never find her. Amazing how detached I could become from such a terrible thing, once I started focusing on the logistics of it.

I killed the lights and waited for my eyes to adjust to the dark. The only people I might have to worry about would be some homeless, and I didn’t see anyone. No other cars near the bridge.

Got out of the car, opened the back seat. As I dragged her body out, I had trouble maneuvering her already-stiff limbs. She was a big girl, and I was already exhausted from one of the busiest and most chaotic days of my life. I pulled her a few feet from the car and dropped her, my chest heaving.

My seats were covered in blood and guts, forever ruined. I went around to the glove box and took out my pocket knife, then cut up my back seats, trying to remove anything with any blood. I took off the top layer and a layer of spongy fabric beneath it that also appeared stained through.

My first thought was to fold the fabric and tuck it under Keisha’s blouse, but that might tie her directly to me. I didn’t know much about DNA evidence, but it seemed reasonable that the police might be able to link the fabric back to me somehow.

I grasped under Keisha’s armpits and started pulling her across the field. Slow going, and my back hurt immediately.

“That your wife?”

I froze. The voice had come from behind me. My knees started shaking, and I couldn’t hold on to Keisha’s body anymore. She fell from my hands with a
whump
.

I spun around and took in the man standing before me. Short and thin, with long scraggly hair jutting from a beanie. Matching beard peppered with gray. I couldn’t see him well in the moonlight, but his clothes looked dirty. Homeless guy. No idea how I could have missed him when I was checking out the area.

“No, she’s not my wife.”

He removed a hand covered with a fingerless glove from his coat pocket and stroked his beard. “Girlfriend, then?”

“No, not my girlfriend.” I was entranced by his stare.

“What did she do to piss you off, then? I’ve seen a few of them like this before, and she’s cut up pretty good.”

The paralysis broke and I jumped back a step. “I didn’t do this. I found her in my car.”

“Well, if this was one of them cop shows, I would say that the evidence seems… ah, what’s the word? Indisputable?”

I looked down at the corpse of the woman I’d known for only a few days. “I know, it doesn’t seem good.”

“You married?”

I nodded.

“That makes it look even worse, then. Might be hard to prove this ain’t your girlfriend, if you ask me. On the other hand, though, plenty of times I wanted to kill my wife. If she hadn’t left me and taken the kid with her, I might’ve gotten around to it.”

I was standing underneath a bridge in Commerce City, opposite a homeless man with a dead woman between us, and he wanted to talk about his family. He probably needed payoff money to keep quiet, but I didn’t think I had more than fifteen or twenty dollars in my pocket. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my wallet.

He dropped to one knee and looked her over. “Do you need some help moving her?”

“What?”

“I guessed you’re taking her up the ramp, to stick her in one of them wells under the big metal struts. Am I right?”

“Yes.”

“Figured you might need some help.”

I replaced the wallet and grabbed her legs. My new friend threaded his hands under her arms and clasped them over her chest, then heaved her up.

“Sweet Jesus, she’s a big one.”

“Thank you for doing this,” I said, almost to the point of blubbering. My life was starting to feel like a nightmare, something I wouldn’t even be able to believe was happening to someone else.

As we pushed and pulled toward the ramp, he started wheezing. “How did you come upon this girl?” he said.

“I know her. Someone is trying to send me a message.”

“That’s one hell of a message. I’d tell them you got it, loud and clear.”

Dragging Keisha across the grass to the concrete supports nearly made me pass out. I had to rest for a minute to keep myself upright. But I managed to get a second wind and press on. We went up the sloped support, and we stashed her body at the top, into a crevice between the concrete and the metal section of the bridge.

Out of breath, aching, and lightheaded, I slid down the ramp a couple feet until I was staring at the underside of the bridge. It roared and shook as cars thundered above us. “Thank you,” I said.

“If I ever get to see my daughter again, first thing I’m going to do is hug her until she can’t stand it no more. Seeing stuff like this, makes you think about a lot, don’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You got any kids?”

I looked at him above me, leaning against a column, his chest pumping up and down. “No.”

“That’s a shame. Then you don’t know what it’s like to love something so much you’d do anything in the world to protect it. Even something that seems crazy, like killing someone.”

“I didn’t kill that woman. Honestly.”

He shook his head. “It ain’t none of my business. Since I’m already up here, think I might grab some sleep. It’s warmer up by the highway than it is on the ground.”

I took the bills from my wallet and passed them to him. He thought about it for a second, then stuffed them into his shoe. “Much obliged, friend. You go on home now and get some sleep. Put this behind you.”

I wanted to ask him why he’d helped me. He had no reason to trust me, but he had anyway. Instead, I stared at him as he climbed onto the edge of a cubby hole and closed his eyes.

I stumbled back down the slope, close to hyperventilating. Could this really be my life now? Hiding a body with a homeless man, cutting up my back seat, with my wife missing and someone or some people watching my every move? All of this seemed like a dream to me.

I found a Bic lighter in the glove box and burned the pieces of back seat, next to the car. The flames warmed my face and reminded me how exhausted I was.

The interaction with the homeless man began to feel like a dream. They way he talked, it all seemed too staged. I couldn’t trust anything in my life anymore.

I needed to get home. I needed sleep. Once I got back to the car, I slipped a hand into my pocket and retrieved the business card Shelton had given me.

During my forced hike, when Thomason had talked about me being ready to cooperate, he hadn’t said
who
I was supposed to inform that I was ready. But he must have meant for me to talk to Shelton.

If I called the number and told him I’d do whatever they wanted, would it really put an end to all this? Would I really get my life back in order?

Somehow, I doubted it. Maybe all this chaos had nothing to do with me. Maybe it was all about something else, and nothing I could do would stop it.

I needed to find Martin, and somehow save his life.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

When I arrived home, I didn’t even make it to my bed. I was so exhausted, I passed out on the couch. Dreamed of ladybugs, a swarm of them crawling up my arm, like wearing a collection of writhing red bracelets.

I woke up to Kitty purring in my ear, kneading my chest with her prickly claws.

Every part of my body ached. The cut on my back felt like my flesh had been stretched. Still, I had to get up, so I lifted the cat off me and set her on the floor. She trotted toward her food dish, and I followed. Mixed the wet food, scooped some dry food, gave her some circular back scratches as she ate.

Checked my watch, I still had a couple hours until the office would open. My keycard might let me in early, but I’d never tried that before.

I’d intended to go back upstairs and nap some more, but something in the baby’s room caught my eye as I neared it. A squirrel outside the window, perched at the end of a long branch. It chirped at me as I entered the room.

Once there, I felt an urge to sit in the nursing glider, so I settled in and rocked it back and forth, imagining what Grace would look like in this chair with our son at her breast.

The day she’d told me she was pregnant was the same day IntelliCraft had announced they were closing down our local office in favor of hiring a whole new team in Dallas. I’d been in a foul mood, nervous about the future, resentful at them for disrupting the lives of so many good people. I wanted to be alone to stew in my anger, but Grace came home early with a pizza and a mischievous grin on her face.

“I’m not hungry,” I said with a sneer.

“This is an extra special pizza. It’s got aged pepperoni. You’ll love it.”

“I said, I’m not hungry.”

She shoved the pizza box under my nose, gave me the puppy dog eyes. “Please, baby. Try the pepperoni for me.”

When I flipped the box open, they’d arranged the pepperonis so they spelled out
BABY
in greasy circles across the face of the pizza. Took me a few seconds of ignorant staring to figure out what was going on. I could make out the letters, but I didn’t equate it with her miles-wide grin right away.

When it dawned on me, I gulped in air. My eyes shot wide open. She tossed the pizza box on the counter and leaped into my arms, planting kisses all over my head and neck.

We’d wanted a baby for nearly a year. Or, to put it more honestly, she’d wanted a baby for more than a year. We’d only been married for three, and I still wasn’t sold on the concept of parenthood. Add to that the fact that I’d learned I had a hard date to the end of my job, and therefore, the end of health insurance to pay for sonograms and pediatric visits… I didn’t take the news well. I grew distant. I started spending more time at dive bars like the one I’d met supposed-magical man Kareem Haddadi, going for long drives, often finding other excuses to be anywhere but home.

Would I be a father like my own? Would I take a passing interest in my son, signing permission slips then disappearing into my home office for the rest of the evening, then running out on the family before he’d even become a teenager?

Now, rocking back in forth in my wife’s nursing glider, I realized how distracted I’d been over the last few months. How I hadn’t been reading the pregnancy books she’d asked me to read and how I’d missed a couple of our doctor’s visits. Poor Tucker, always focused on himself and his own problems, not able to be bothered to pay attention to the woman who loved him and was growing their child inside her.

I’d been a selfish jerk.

After Keisha had appeared dead in my backseat, I could no longer believe that Grace had run out on me. The timing of both that and the recent deaths were too much in parallel. But, given what I now understood about my emotional absence over the last several months, I wouldn’t have blamed her if she had left me.

But how were Grace’s disappearance and these recent deaths related? I couldn’t find a connection.

Checked my watch again, and I still had too long to wait until I could go into the office. Maybe a walk through the neighborhood would clear my head.

I threw on some clothes, hat, and gloves, then ventured outside. The sun hadn’t come up yet, but I could see the dark sky beginning to soften. I made my way out of the cul de sac and down the street, which ended at the top of a hill and descended into a grassy open space of ten acres or so. The open space ran into a city park on two sides and a warehouse parking lot on the other, but the pure grassy area was truly open. Home to groundhogs, bunnies, and sometimes the occasional coyote. A little bit of the woods in the middle of a city.