The Red Haze (The Webber and Ko Series Book 1)

by D. M. Wicks

  "No problem, detective Webber. Officer Ko, it was a pleasure to see you. I dare say it is quite the honor really. It's rare to see a blue eyed police officer. I would love to get a coffee together and pick your brain sometime..."

  I interrupted. "Sure thing, Moreteese. We really do have to get back to work though. Maybe some other time."

  The coroner walked us all the way back to the lobby doors and Declan and I had to say our farewells several times before we were able to make our escape.

  I slammed the car door shut and let out a sigh. "What was his deal?"

  Declan chuckled, "I told you he was eccentric. He spends a lot of time with dead people. It doesn't help that he's a natural chatter box, but it has its own endearing appeal."

  "Yeah, I guess you could call that endearing if not a bit overwhelming."

  Declan shrugged. "You get used to it."

  I said, "Where to now?"

  "Next, we inform the next of kin."

  I started the engine. It sputtered for a few seconds before catching and roaring to life. Declan had already put his headphones back in and was blaring rock music. I sighed and thought over what Moreteese said as I pulled out onto the road. I already knew where Jeramy's parents’ house was from the file Faye had given us. Moreteese brought doubt on the theory of suicide. Now it was more a question of who killed the man rather than a why he killed himself. My windshield wipers whined when I turned them on. The rain picked up. I just hoped my car didn't break down before the end of the day.

  ***

  Liam

  Once again Liam was standing next to Faye's desk completely forgotten as she typed away at her keyboard. She cursed and slapped the side of her clunky machine when it froze, then smiled when the screen came back. Liam sighed. He was about to leave when he noticed something on Faye's desk. It was a small box about the size of a cigarette case. Liam reached down and picked it up. Half of it was black while the other half was silver and had the lieutenant’s name engraved into the lid. Liam realized that the black dust was soot when it came off onto his hands.

  "Hey, lieutenant, can I open this? It looks like something that survived the fire."

  She muttered something that could have been consent without looking up from the computer. Liam shrugged and tried to pry it open, but it only lifted slightly. He picked up a pen from Faye's desk and shoved it into the crack, prying the container open. He shook the contents out and a USB fell into his hand. His first thought was, Great, another USB that will probably corrupt any computer hard drive when we try to look at it.

  He was about to throw it into the trash bin when he realized there was something else in the container. He reached in and pulled out a sheet of paper.

  "Lieutenant?"

  "What?" she said, but didn't look up from what she was doing.

  "I think you should look at this."

  "I'm a little busy right now."

  "I think this might help you."

  Faye looked over to Liam, her mouth open to reprimand him, but she paused when he passed her a piece of paper. It had three words in the center, 'The Red Haze'.

  "What is this?"

  Liam then passed her the USB. "It came with this. I think we should look at it."

  Faye scowled. "It's probably a virus."

  "Maybe, but what is the Red Haze? Let's at least just take a glance at it. We can get one of the guys from the electronic division to set up a dummy computer so we can look at it without corrupting anything important."

  Faye tapped her fingers on the desk before nodding and saving her work. The two of them left the office and made their way to the elevator. Faye smirked when they passed a scowling man with salt and pepper hair.

  "Having a bad day, Larry?" she said.

  The man looked up. "A bad day, you ask? I'd say it's just peachy. I love to start my days off with a bang. A fire is fucking grand. A grand fucking fire. Burned all my files and my backups are in the vault. I won't get them until later tonight. Just peachy."

  Faye laughed. "Hang in there, detective, you're not the only one who got fucked. What's your partner working on?"

  "That fruit cup is giving the commander a report. We just closed the case. You know; the battered wife one. The husband beat her to death with a monkey wrench, and then jumped out of their fourth story bedroom window. They were juicing on Aphrodite."

  "Shit, that stuff fucks you up."

  "Well, they were fucked alright."

  "I'll expect a full report on my desk tonight, Larry."

  "Cut me a break, LT. It takes me a while to type this shit up."

  "Then get that fruit cup of a partner to do it for you, you old dog."

  "Jesus Christ you're a hard ass."

  "Love you too, Larry."

  Faye and Liam climbed onto the elevator and she pressed the button for the third floor. When the elevator stopped they walked off.

  "This better not be a big fucking waste of my time, Liam."

  "We need to check all leads, right lieutenant?"

  She muttered something under her breath as they turned into the electric division. It was a stark contrast to the fifth floor where the homicide division was. The people were dressed in bright colors and there was techno music playing in one of the cubicles. The chief had called in some favors to make sure ED had all the equipment they needed to keep up their workload. Faye shivered. The electronic division always freaked her out. The detectives were too happy. They were always smiling and it grossed her out. She made a beeline to a cubicle off in the far right corner. Liam ran after her. She stopped in front of the cubicle where a young man sat wiggling in his chair to the techno music blaring from the mini speaker next to his computer.

  "Wiz," Faye yelled.

  Wizard Lancaster immediately turned down his music and swiveled around to greet them. "Lieutenant long legs, what can I do for you?"

  "Unless you want these long legs to plant the foot attached to them up your ass you'll turn that music off."

  Wizard laughed, but turned off the speaker. "Come on, LT, it was a joke."

  "Do I look like I'm laughing?"

  "That's beside the point. Anyway, what can the Wizard do for you?"

  Faye shook her head and handed him the USB. "I want to know what is on this."

  "I take it you think there is a virus or something on it?"

  "I got it in my mail. I would have thrown it, but Liam wants to know what is on it. Can you just check real quick so I can get back to work?"

  "Sure thing." Wizard pulled out a laptop from underneath his desk and hooked it up to another laptop. He booted up both computers and plugged the USB into the first one.

  "Well there doesn't seem to be anything harmful on here. It's just a list of names. Does this mean anything to you, LT?"

  Faye moved so she was behind Wizard and glanced at the information on the screen. Her eyes narrowed. "Can you print off this information for me? I'll take the USB back so long as it's safe to use on my personal computer."

  "It's safe. Give me a minute and I'll have the paper copy for you."

  Wizard made a few clicks then stood and walked over to the printers. He came back and handed the packet of papers to Faye along with the USB. "Is that all I can do for you? You don't have something more challenging to work on?"

  Faye shook her head. "No, that's all I need."

  "Damn! Work has been boring since the fire earlier. We've mostly been given the burnt computers and surveillance footage that the firemen managed to salvage and were told to see what we can save. I've been pulling half corrupted data off smoked computers all day. I hear you guys are swamped with work too."

  Liam nodded, "Yeah man, it sucks. A bunch of our guys were transferred to the other districts."

  Faye had already walked in the direction of the elevator without looking up from the packet of papers. "I'll catch you later Wiz, I have to keep up with her, and she's always taking off without me."

  "Sure thing, Liam. Just one question. How does it feel to finally
have a detective’s badge?"

  "Fucking great!" Liam said as he chased after his partner, barely making it onto the elevator. "So, what was on the USB, lieutenant?"

  "Hmmm? Oh, I think this is the mistake I've been waiting for," she said absently without looking at him.

  Liam nodded and continued to watch the floor numbers change. "The mistake? That's good."

  Liam jerked his head back to his partner. "The mistake? What do you mean? What do those names mean?"

  Faye was startled out of her thoughts at her partner’s sudden enthusiasm. "The USB had names that I recognized from the case we've been working on. It's the names of the red eyes as well as the blue eyes that were killed. The names that I don't recognize on here are the ones under the category of the Crew. I don't know what that is, but I suspect it has something to do with why evidence goes missing. I need to run a search on those names to confirm anything. Where did you say this USB came from?"

  Liam relaxed as the elevator door opened to their floor. "I don't know. It was in a container that somehow survived the fire. It had your name engraved into it. You did say I could open it. By the way, I'll take half of the names on the list."

  "Good, it will go faster then. I also want to look into who gave us this list. Do you know anything about our surveillance tapes from the District Six Police Department surviving? Have we managed to uncover any of them?" she asked as her long strides carried her back to her office.

  Liam grinned. "I don't know. Wiz mentioned that the ED was working on that. I'll ask him to send us whatever they manage to salvage. Damn, this is our chance to finally figure something out. What is the Red Haze? And why is it being covered up?"

  "Don't get too excited. To answer those questions we are going to have to deal with the Crew and if they are what I think they are, I suspect we should go about this carefully or else we could lose our upper hand. They don't know that we are this close as of yet and I don't want to scare any of these people back into the shadows. They make unbreakable alibis and leave no evidence. I imagine if they wanted to disappear they would have the resources to do so."

  "Should we speak with the commander? We may need more people to deal with this accordingly."

  Faye glanced up as they entered her office, "I have to give my report to the commander in a few minutes anyway, and I'll bring it up then. In the meantime, start running searches on the names from the middle to the bottom of the list. I'll take the top half when I get back. I'm not going to fuck this up. I've worked too long and too hard to get to this point and even though I caught this break from an unknown source I'm not going to choke."

  "We don't know who gave us this list. Could it be a trap?"

  Faye sat down at her desk. "I don't care if it is. This is the only real lead I've had all year. It's too good to ignore. We will just have to follow it down the rabbit hole and hope we make it back alive."

  Liam swallowed. "Yeah, okay."

  Faye looked up at him. "Are you going to earn that detective’s badge or are you just going to pussy foot around cases that don't seem like they'll be easy?"

  Liam jerked his head up. "What? No, lieutenant, I didn't mean it like that. I'm your partner. I don't know why you picked me, but I want to prove to myself that I deserve it and that it wasn't out of pity."

  "Good, because I need a partner who will work with me not against me." Faye stood and patted his shoulder. Then she left the small office. As she made her way to the elevator her cell phone buzzed. Pulling it out of her pocket, she slid her pattern to unlock the phone and saw that she had a new text message. She opened it and was immediately puzzled.

  "What the hell?"

  The message on her phone was from a sender named Patient X and it read, 'Don't ignore me!'

  Faye frowned and immediately deleted the message. She climbed off the elevator with a bad taste in her mouth. She just hoped this went well. When she reached her boss’s office she immediately entered without knocking. Commander Drake was expecting her.

  Chapter Five

  Oda

  For as much as I loved my unofficial job as a partner to Declan, I hated how he made me do all the shitty jobs, for instance, informing the next of kin.

  When I pulled into the Alcotts driveway Declan pulled out his headphones and turned to me. "So, Oda, do you want to earn that detective’s badge?"

  I should have known he was up to something with that comment, but sometimes I could be really clueless. I blame it on my need for perfection. Anyway, I was now sitting on a floral love seat, alone, across from a middle aged couple. The file had informed me that Sarah and Robert Alcott were from the hard working middle class. Sarah was a waitress at a donut shop downtown while Robert worked at a warehouse. Robert was a stout man, but had muscular arms, which were wrapped around his wife's hunched shoulders. Sarah was sitting with her hands in her lap and was nibbling on her bottom lip.

  She broke the silence. "So, Mr. Ko, how can we help you? You said you needed to speak with us regarding our son. Does this have to do with his debts? I know he may be slightly behind, but he will have the money soon. He's working hard to pay you back. I'm sure if you just give him more time he will have your money."

  "Did Jeramy have a lot of debts to be paid off?"

  Robert answered, "Are you by any chance a police officer?"

  "Sorry. I'm officer Ko from the Webber Detective Agency."

  Robert sighed. "So, he's finally gone and done it has he?"

  "Done what, Robert? What has our son done?"

  They both turned to me and I cleared my throat. "I'm sorry to inform you that your son, Jeramy Alcott, was found dead this morning."

  Sarah gave a shaky, hollow laugh. "You must be mistaken. Our son just called us yesterday. We are meeting him this evening. Aren't we, Robert?"

  Robert, who was holding my gaze, broke it when his wife addressed him. "Sarah."

  "No, Robert! We are meeting Jeramy tonight, aren't we?"

  "Sarah, honey."

  "Robert! He's better now. He's been better for years now. He can't be dead. He said he had someone special for us to meet." Tears began to stream down Sarah's face and she stood. Her husband stood as well and engulfed her in a hug. She suddenly began to wail as Robert whispered to her. I looked down at my hands only to realize that they were fisted. I relaxed them and looked back up.

  "Please give us a moment," Robert said as he slowly moved his wife into the next room. I could hear the wails fading until I heard a door close.

  "Shit," I said as I stood. I sat. I stood. I sat. Sitting was better. I gripped my hands together and looked around the room to distract myself. It wasn't a big house. It was one story, but the living room was spacious. There were knick-knacks scattered about the room and family photos littering the walls, most of which I suspected were of Jeramy through his varying stages of childhood. Robert came back a few minutes later carrying a bottle of water.

  "Sorry about that. I managed to calm her down; she's outside on the deck cooling off."

  "Once again, Mr. Alcott, I'm sorry for your loss."

  He sighed. "Honestly, I was expecting a day like this."

  "Why?"

  Robert took a seat across from me. "Jeramy was a reckless kid. He was the kind of child who always dove into things head first regardless of the warnings people gave him. I had hoped he changed, but I knew he was still doing something of questionable morals."

  "What do you mean? He was a taxi driver, right?"

  "Yeah, I guess, but most taxi drivers’ wages wouldn't be able to pay off the debts he racked up from his drug addiction years. He borrowed from a lot of people to feed his hobby. When he wanted to get clean we supported him and lent him money for the clinic. He managed to pay it back in a week. Then he got the job as a taxi driver. It just struck me as strange."

  "He could have just gotten his pay check advanced to him."

  "It wasn't just that though. There were signs. Like how he would disappear for days and reappear with nicer clothes and stuf
f. I don't know, maybe he just finally learned how to manage his money, but I always suspected he had something on the side."

  "Do you know what he was going to tell you about today?"

  Robert opened the water bottle and emptied it in a few gulps. "Probably a girl."

  "He had a girlfriend?"

  "Sure, he was an attractive guy and he always had luck with women."

  "So you know who she is?"

  "No, we've never met her. He never spoke about his girlfriends, not even the ones he dated in high school. It was a big deal that we were finally getting to meet one. I wouldn't be surprised if he was engaged to her."

  "Do you know any of the people that your son owed money to?"

  "No, not really. I guess the usual people like his landlord, but I'm sure there were some shady people as well; you know the sort I'm talking about."

  I nodded and stood. "That's all I need from you right now, Mr. Alcott. I'll be in touch. Call me if you remember anything or come across some information you think would be useful."

  I pulled out a business card and handed it to him. As I pulled my hand away Robert grabbed it and held it. "You get the person who did this to my son, officer. You get them and you make them pay."

  "Your son is my client now, Mr. Alcott, and I never leave a client unsatisfied."

  Robert let go. "Good."

  "I'll see myself out."

  Robert stopped me again with his comment. "I've never seen a blue eyed cop. I always thought of your kind as being lazy. Prove me wrong, officer. I want to be proven wrong for my son’s sake."

  I nodded, opened the door, and left.

  Declan was waiting outside in the rain. It had turned into more of a drizzle and he was leaning against the car in the middle of putting his cell phone back in his pocket and pulling his headphones out. I reached him and punched him in the shoulder. He winced. "What the hell, Ko? I did you a favor," he whined and put the mp3 player away.

  "A favor, my ass. As a matter of fact, you're an asshole," I said as I climbed into the car and slammed the door.