Wrath (The Lieutenant Harrington Series Book 1) Read online

  Before we could take a step, a uniformed officer appeared from in front of the van and walked to us. He looked to be in his later twenties. I didn’t recognize the guy from my time at Central. I imagined he was probably still in middle school when I was on the same beat he was now.

  “Lieutenant Harrington. This is Sergeant Walsh. Homicide,” I said.

  “Officer Kevin Heard,” he said. “The medical examiner is with the deceased now. Just at the front of the van on the other side of that dumpster there.” He jerked his chin at the area.

  We started walking over.

  “You were the first on the scene?” Steve asked.

  “I’m the only on the scene,” he said. “It wasn’t reported to us as a homicide. Just a DB that appeared to be a prostitute. I was up the block when the call came through. I reported here, saw she was beat up with bruising around her neck, and called back that it looked like a homicide. Dispatch said they would call the homicide bureau, so my job turned into ‘stand here and babysit a dead body’ until you guys showed up. I didn’t really need much help doing that.”

  “All right.” I stepped past the nose of the coroner’s van and saw Skip’s round body crouched next to what I could see of a brown-haired woman on top of a small dirty mattress.

  Skip stood up straight and turned toward Steve, myself, and Officer Heard. “Roughed up and strangled,” he said. “I’m guessing the little mattress arrangement here is the last resort if a John doesn’t want to drop the extra twenty on a room inside.”

  “That’s some really desperate shit,” Steve said. He furrowed his brow. “I guess for all parties involved.”

  “Any ID?” I asked. I took a couple of steps forward then one to the side to get a better look at the woman.

  “Negative,” Skip said.

  I glanced over at Officer Heard. “Do you recognize her?” I asked.

  “No. There’s always more coming in and out of the area. Too many to keep track of.”

  “Maybe we see if any of the Vice guys or gals recognize her. We can get some pics of her and get them distributed,” Skip said.

  “Not a bad idea,” I said. “What are we thinking on TOD?”

  He rocked his head back and forth, which caused the skin under his chin to wiggle. “Sometime last night. She’s pretty much in full rigor. Twelve hours, maybe, so the three a.m. neighborhood. I can probably give you a little better guess after we have her on the table, but that’s probably pretty close.”

  I stared at the woman. She was facedown in the twin-sized, striped blue mattress that was tucked into the area between the dumpster and side of the building. Her clothing of a small skirt, ripped fishnet stockings, and a hot pink tank top screamed prostitute. I could see only the right side of her face, which had some dried blood around her brow. “Thirties, you think?”

  “Could even be twenties. The streets are hard,” Skip said. “She’s got track marks, sores, scabs, meth mouth. Definite user.”

  “Who called it in?” Steve asked.

  “The front desk of the motel,” Officer Heard said. “A guy named Pete something. His name is on the statement sheet in the car. He said he saw her, figured overdose, called us, and went back inside.”

  “Is this Pete guy still here?” I asked.

  “Yeah, he’s inside as far as I know,” Heard said.

  “Okay. Skip, do you need anything from us?” I asked. “Otherwise we’re going to head inside and talk with the guy who found her.”

  Skip shook his head. “Nope. I’m actually waiting on the crime lab still. As soon as they get here, have a look, and take their photos, then I’ll take her back to the office.”

  “All right. Did you talk to Colt or someone else?”

  “I talked to Colt, but he was sending Gomez out. Colt said that he was still busy processing everything from this morning.”

  “Sure,” I said. “We’ll be inside if you need us.”

  “No problem.”

  I waved for Steve to follow, and we walked to our cruiser. “I’m going to try to move this out front or on the other side somewhere so we aren’t clogging the alley.”

  “I’ll meet you inside,” Steve said.

  I hopped in the car, fired the motor, and drove in reverse to the street. When there was a gap in the oncoming cars, I backed out, circled the block, and pulled into the motel parking area. While no free spots were available, I found a patch of grass about the size of a car just between the road and the sidewalk on the corner. It was perfect and basically the only option. I killed the motor and got out. As I neared, through the glass of the main office, I could see Steve at the counter. A male employee stood across from him.

  I pulled the door open and stepped to Steve’s side. The guy at the counter talked on the phone and punched away at the computer keyboard beneath a single monitor on the chest-high desk.

  I looked around the office, which smelled old and musty. The maroon carpet was thin and ripped up. Two mismatched chairs and a small table stood in the left corner. Between the chairs and the desk was a refrigerator with a glass door. The shelves held sodas, beer, mini bottles of champagne, and candy bars. On the wall behind the counter hung metal room keys on hooks. A closed door stood to the right of the room keys.

  The guy continued with his phone call. From the sounds of it, someone was calling to book a room. The word Canada was mentioned. I could only imagine the sheer disappointment and horror that would be involved when the people actually arrived. Steve and I waited for the guy to finish with his booking and hang up. A couple of minutes later, he was done.

  “Sorry about that,” the guy said.

  “Are you Pete?” Steve asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m Sergeant Walsh, and this is Lieutenant Harrington. Why don’t you just run through how you found the woman for us.”

  The guy—who was in his fifties, thin, and with a white ponytail and weathered skin— cleared his throat. “Sure. There isn’t too much to tell, though.” He grabbed a pack of smokes from the breast pocket of his shirt and lit one up. He sucked in a big drag then blew it out. “I took out the office trash and saw her. Just lying there. I gave her a bump with my shoe to wake her up. I was going to tell her to leave, but then I saw she was dead.”

  “How did you see that?” I asked.

  “Her eyes were open. Foggy.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So then you called the police?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Did you touch her at all?” I asked.

  He balked. “I wouldn’t touch a woman like that when she was alive. I damn sure ain’t gonna when she’s dead.”

  “Have you seen her around here before?” Steve asked.

  “Sure,” he said. “All the time. She went by Lulu. What the hell her last or real name was I don’t know. She’d bring a guy in here every now and then.”

  I pulled my notepad out and wrote down the assumed name.

  “So what you’re saying is that your establishment knowingly facilitates prostitution?” Steve asked.

  “I was under the impression that they were her boyfriends. It’s a shame that none of her relationships ever really lasted.” Pete took another drag of his smoke. “Seems after about an hour, they’d break up.” He smiled, seeming pleased with his humor, and blew the smoke from his nostrils.

  “Hilarious,” I said. “Any cameras around here?”

  He tapped the cigarette in the clear glass ashtray on the counter. “None that work.”

  “Are you familiar with any of the Johns that she sees?” Steve asked.

  Pete shook his head.

  “Did you work last night?” I asked.

  He shook his head again and took another drag of his smoke.

  “Who did?” I asked.

  “Brad,” he said.

  “Brad who? And how do I get into contact with him?”

  He held his cigarette in his lips and picked up a pen. The smoke rolled up his face, causing him to squint. He jotted a name and number on a
piece of motel letterhead near the phone, ripped the page from the pad, and pushed it across the counter toward Steve and me. “That’s his number there.” He pulled the cigarette from his mouth, took another drag, and blew out the smoke as he talked. “I doubt he’ll answer now, though. He’s probably sleeping. Actually, I doubt he’ll even answer when you call. He’s weird like that with his phone. Unless he knows the person calling, he isn’t picking up. You may have better luck just popping in here overnight when he’s working.”

  “Does he work tonight?” Steve asked.

  “He works every night. Comes in around ten, usually with his wife.”

  “He comes to work with his wife?” Steve asked.

  “She does some housecleaning for cash.”

  “Sure,” Steve said. “So nothing else you can think of that could help us? You didn’t see anyone strange around here? Nothing has happened out of the ordinary?”

  “Same old same old,” he said. “If you actually wanted to find out about what happened to her, you’d send a female cop down here overnight. I’d think the girls who come out when it gets late might be a little more willing to talk to a female. That would probably be the best chance to see what Lulu had been up to or who’d she’d been seeing. Just my two cents.”

  While we didn’t need investigation assistance from motel worker Pete, his advice made sense and would probably be the route we’d end up taking.

  CHAPTER 12

  Chris stared at Laurie’s Hyundai sedan. She was two cars ahead and one lane over, waiting at the stoplight. He’d been following her since she’d left the gym. The radio in his truck was silent. Chris was deep in thought, remembering his and Laurie’s relationship twelve years before. While the relationship might have lasted only a year, and the specifics of the day-to-day had deteriorated in his mind over the years, there was one thing he remembered with perfect clarity—the day it all went to hell. Chris remembered the look on Laurie’s lying face as if it was yesterday. She’d told him that she’d be back in a couple of hours. She ran her hand through his brown hair. She told him she loved him and gave him a kiss. He remembered staring a hole through the back of her head as she walked to her car.

  Laurie had spent the morning at Chris’s apartment, acting as if she didn’t want to leave. She’d spent time in the bathroom doing her hair and makeup, going on and on about the lame gathering she was going to. Her story was that she was having brunch with some family members for her aunt and uncle’s twentieth wedding anniversary. Chris had said he’d join her, yet Laurie said she wouldn’t put him through that. He said it would be fine and he didn’t mind spending time with her and her family, but she said he should take the time to do some guy stuff. He said he wanted to meet the members of her family that he hadn’t met yet. Laurie claimed that her grandmother, who would be there, was very religious and might not approve of their relationship. With every offer from Chris to join in, Laurie gave another reason why he couldn’t or shouldn’t attend.

  Chris had waited for her to leave, grabbed his car keys, and left a couple of minutes behind her. He didn’t drive to McGuire’s, the restaurant where she said she was going. He didn’t drive to her aunt and uncle’s house, which he’d been to before, so he knew where it was. Chris drove to the home of Tom Philmore—Laurie’s ex-boyfriend. A week before, Chris had seen Tom’s number pop up on her phone. Chris didn’t imagine that it was an out-of-the-blue phone call. He knew where the guy lived—they’d actually been friends in years past. Tom still lived with his mother in a little ranch on the outskirts of town. With Laurie’s obvious attempt to prevent Chris from joining her, he thought it might be worthwhile to take a drive past the ex-boyfriend’s house.

  From down the block, Chris could see the bitch’s car parked in the driveway of Tom’s house. He pulled straight into the driveway behind her car, got out, and walked to the front door. He tried the knob, which was locked. Chris banged on the door and covered the peephole. A moment later, he heard Laurie inside. He could hear her yelling to Tom that she’d deal with Chris. They knew he was outside.

  The lock clicked, and the door opened. Laurie slipped out from inside and closed the door behind her. She asked what the hell Chris was doing there. She tried to make up an excuse for why she was there. It was all just more lies. Chris didn’t even hear her words. He snatched her by the hair and dragged her toward his car. She swatted and flailed. The front door of the house ripped open, and Tom shot out to try to come to Laurie’s aid. He spun Chris by the shoulder and punched him in the face. Chris didn’t let go of Laurie’s hair. He kicked Tom between the legs with everything he had. Tom dropped to the ground like a ton of bricks. He lay in the fetal position while Chris kicked him in the face.

  Laurie screamed for help. She scratched at Chris’s arm and swatted blindly at his face. Chris lifted her by the hair, punched her in the stomach, and grabbed her by the throat. He pinned her against her car and, through gritted teeth, said he was going to kill her. Just as he started to squeeze, she kneed him between the legs, sending him to the ground. Chris saw Tom standing up and coming straight for him. A split second later, Chris saw the shoe on Tom’s foot before everything went black. When he woke up, he had police jogging toward him. Tom’s mother, a third-shift worker, had awakened from the commotion and called the cops. Laurie and Tom pressed charges. It was the second time Chris had roughed a woman up. He got sentenced to a year but served only five months.

  The stoplight had gone green a minute or two before, and soon Chris was back up to speed following Laurie. Thankfully, she’d posted an update to her profile, saying that she was headed home. She’d said her plans were to shower, eat a salad, and walk Zoey, which Chris had learned from her page was the name of a three-year-old Australian Shepherd. Chris also knew where she lived. He’d typed her name into a search engine and found her business profile. She’d listed herself as a personal trainer. The business address was a house in Hialeah, right where she was headed.

  Chris pulled in a big breath and let it out. He didn’t know how she’d react when she saw him, and he didn’t have a plan. He didn’t know how he’d kill her but imagined he’d use his knife—his only weapon. Chris didn’t know whether she lived alone, but he figured if she had a roommate or live-in boyfriend, he would have seen something about that on her social media feeds. He didn’t even know what he’d say to her when he saw her face-to-face. All were questions he’d soon have answers for.

  Ahead of him, Laurie waited with her left turn signal on to cross the oncoming lane and turn down her road. When a gap came in the cars, she made her turn. Chris turned behind her. He saw her house on the right two properties up, the waist-high orange concrete fence unmistakable. He took in the neighboring homes on the block around Laurie’s—all of the houses were single story and small. Most had some kind of fence line at the street. None had garages, just a gap in the front fence that led up the driveway to a carport.

  Laurie turned in to her driveway. He could see her pulling up under her striped canopy-covered carport.

  Chris’s eyes darted left and right looking for a place to park—he saw nothing. “Damn.”

  He pulled up right at the end of her driveway, scooped his knife from the driver’s side door pocket, and jumped out of his truck. He swung the driver’s door closed. After he rounded the front of his truck, he started up her driveway. Chris kept his hand in his pocket while holding the knife.

  Laurie stood twenty feet away outside of her car door and stared at Chris as he approached. Laurie wore workout pants and a sports bra under a tank top. She held a big water bottle in one hand and a phone in the other. A towel was draped over her shoulder. “Can I help you?”

  Chris kept walking toward her.

  “Chris Mercer?” she asked when he was ten feet away.

  She’d recognized him immediately.

  Chris was struck by an idea of how to handle the situation.

  Laurie put the arm holding her phone on top of her open car door. “What are you do
ing here?” Her tone wasn’t friendly.

  Chris stopped at the back of her car. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  She glared at him with a confused expression on her face. “Sorry? What the hell are you doing here? How do you know where I live?”

  “I saw you a couple of intersections back. You were driving right next to me. I didn’t mean to follow you. I guess that probably seems weird. It’s just that what happened has bothered me for a long time. I always wanted to reach out and say something but thought that, I don’t know, maybe it was best left in the past. Well, then I see you in the car next to me after twelve years, and I kind of felt like it was the universe telling me it was time to tell you that I was sorry. I mean, I don’t expect you to forgive me or, hell, even believe me. But I had to say it and wanted you to know that I truly regret what happened.”

  Laurie let out a long breath. “I forgive you, Chris. It’s something that happened a long time ago.” She stepped from the side of her car and swung the door closed. “We were different people then.”

  Chris nodded. “Do you remember why it happened?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “I mean, you do remember why I showed up there, right?”

  “Chris, let’s just leave this as it is. You said your apology. I accepted it. There’s nothing else to talk about. Now, I’m going inside. Thank you for the apology.”

  His head was on a swivel. As she was telling him that she was going inside, he was busy looking left and right for neighbors—he still didn’t see anyone outside. She’d turned her back on him and taken a step toward her house.

  Chris took three quick and silent steps after her. He pulled the knife from his pocket and flicked the blade open midstride. At the front of her car, he’d caught up to her. Laurie, the bitch, had never even noticed that he was coming up behind her. Chris reached around her head with his left hand and put his hand over her mouth. He pulled her back toward him and looped the blade around with his other arm. Chris pounded the blade down into her chest twice before pulling it across her throat. She never got so much as a yip of a scream out. Her phone and water bottle hit the ground. Chris took his hands from her, and she fell to the driveway.