Murder in Just Cause

by Anne Cleeland

  They both crouched down to take a long look at the corpse—careful not to get too close, so as not to disturb the evidence—and then suddenly Doyle felt a strong surge of surprise from Munoz.

  Alarmed, Doyle glanced at her sidelong. “What? What is it?”

  There was a small silence. “It’s my kook,” Munoz replied.

  Chapter 2

  Another man down. It grieved him, every time.

  The two detectives cleared an approach path for the Coroner—or more correctly, for the Assistant Coroner who would be assigned to this particular homicide—and then they waited on the balcony for the luckless gurney team to negotiate the stairwell.

  “What’re you thinkin’?” Doyle asked. It seemed too much a coincidence—that Munoz’s kook was the victim—and Doyle’s first reaction was to think that he’d planned it, somehow, so that she’d be the one to find him; he may have wanted her attention, even in death. But the problem with this theory was that it would have been impossible to know that Munoz would be assigned to this particular case; a low-priority homicide like this one would be randomly assigned to whoever was currently available.

  “I don’t know.” Munoz’s brow was knit, as she contemplated the tape-swathed balcony. “On one hand, we could wrap it up because he was obviously a paranoid schizophrenic, and taking drugs. On the other hand, it seems a bit strange—that he’d bother to walk into the Met and warn every one of crazy conspiracies just before he decided to check out.”

  Doyle glanced through the open door at the decedent, where he lay on the floor. “He might have just overdosed; it may not have been a suicide.”

  Munoz glanced toward the two officers who were still standing at a small distance and guarding the perimeter, neither one speaking to the other. “He thinks the victim’s been moved, because he’s prone on the kitchen floor, and not on the sofa or the bed. I suppose it’s possible—maybe there was someone with him who tried to drag him over to the sink, and then panicked and fled.”

  “Mayhap,” Doyle agreed. “Although that doesn’t make it murder, Munoz; the friend may have been tryin’ to pull him up to put his head under the tap, or somethin’.”

  “I don’t know,” the other girl said. “His arms are lying straight by his sides.”

  “Oh—right,” Doyle agreed. “Not a good theory, then.” It was unlikely that a panicking friend would have carefully re-arranged the decedent’s arms before rigor set in. “But we’ll soon know, one way or the other; there’ll be post-mortem bruises, if he was moved.” Post-mortem bruising could be distinguished from the bruising which occurred when the victim was alive, and their presence on a corpse was an easy indicator that the victim had not been alone, after his death.

  “Or the Sergeant might be wrong,” Munoz offered fairly, and glanced over again at the two silent officers. “She seems to think he’s wrong.”

  Again, Doyle ventured, “They’re not happy with each other, I think.”

  Munoz leaned in toward Doyle and lowered her voice. “He’s a Peterson, you know.”

  Doyle wracked her brain and came up empty. “Remind me what that means, Munoz; I haven’t a clue.”

  Munoz explained, “It’s that famous copper family; there’ve been Petersons at Scotland Yard since the very beginning. His brother’s Brody Peterson—the one who died saving the squadron.”

  “Oh,” said Doyle as the penny dropped. “That’s right—we were in the Crime Academy when it happened.”

  “I went to the funeral,” Munoz said. “They practically closed down the city.”

  In light of this revelation, Doyle ventured, “So—are we inclined to think he’s right, and we should call in the SOCOs?”

  Coming to a decision, Munoz pulled her mobile. “I’ll play it safe. Williams is the SIO, so I’ll see if he’s available to come by.”

  Whilst Munoz was on the phone, the Coroner’s team emerged from the stairwell’s fire door with their equipment, looking tired and harassed, and so Doyle went over to soothe their sensibilities and explain the situation.

  “Well, I hope she figures it out soon,” the Assistant Coroner said, as she texted in her arrival time. “They’ve scrambled all extra personnel for the West End murder, so we’re short-handed.”

  “Short-handed and short-of-breath,” Doyle remarked with sympathy. “A shame, it is, that the lift’s not workin’.” Then—because it always behooved one to be friendly to the Coroner-people—she asked, “What’s happenin’ in West End?”

  With a significant look, the assistant paused to meet Doyle’s eyes. “Sir Cavanaugh’s been murdered—or at least that’s what it looks like.”

  “Ah—the poor man,” exclaimed Doyle in mock-surprise. “Whatever is the world comin’ to?”

  “Everyone’s shocked and horrified.” The woman gave her another look.

  “Small blame to them,” Doyle replied. “It is shockin’ and horrifin’.”

  The woman nodded in unspoken understanding, and no more needed to be said. There were persistent rumors that the members of the Health Professions Council—an oversight organization made up of worthy laypersons—had been hip-deep in a recent corruption scandal, a horrific scandal that had featured sex slavery and child trafficking.

  Being as the members of the Council tended to be well-respected do-gooders, there’d been a general reluctance to delve too deeply, and so—apparently—certain members of the public had lost all patience, which tended to be the unfortunate result when there was the widespread perception that law enforcement was playing favorites.

  In fact, this would be the third member of the Council to die under mysterious circumstances, and a fourth one had up and fled the country, so as to take up permanent residence elsewhere. Good luck to him, thought Doyle; the vengeance business was a dedicated one, and she should know, as she was married to one of its star performers.

  The Assistant Coroner began directing her team, whilst Munoz came over to say to Doyle, “Williams is too busy—they had a high-profile murder, early this morning, and he’s on-site.”

  “I just heard about it,” said Doyle. “I don’t envy him; it’s one of those cases where no one’s goin’ to be rootin’ for law enforcement.”

  “They’ll probably want Acton to handle it, then.”

  There was a slight pause before Doyle agreed, “Probably.” The CID brass tended to recruit Acton when they were dealing with politically delicate cases—such as when well-placed villains managed to get themselves murdered whilst the general population nodded their heads in approval. In this instance, however, Doyle very much doubted her husband was at the scene, no matter who’d requested it.

  Munoz glanced again toward the open doorway. “I hate to bother the SOCOs, but I don’t like how this looks—with me being one of the last people the victim spoke to.”

  “That’s unlikely, Munoz,” Doyle pointed out. “The body looks fresh—rigor is barely startin’ to set in. If you spoke to him last week, it’s unlikely anyone’s goin’ to think there’s any sort of connection—it’s been too long between.”

  Munoz blew out a breath. “I suppose you’re right. Still, I’ll feel better about it if I ring up the SOCOs, just to be safe.”

  But then—much to Doyle’s surprise, her private mobile phone pinged. She’d two mobiles; one was police-issue, and the other was her private mobile, given to her by her husband. Acton was the grand-master of security, and so he’d asked that she communicate with him strictly on a personal mobile phone. To her astonishment, the text message informed her that he was below, and coming up to join them.

  “Acton’s on his way up,” she announced, and tried to tamp down her nervousness. Please God, she thought; let’s not let this go sideways.

  “Acton’s coming here?” asked Munoz with some relief. “Good—let’s check in with the Coroner’s people for time-of-death, so we have something to report.”

  “Right-o,” said Doyle, and hoped for the best.

  They moved to the flat’s doorway, watching
as the Coroner’s team gathered around the corpse to do their methodical work. Doyle saw that the Assistant was taking organ temperatures, which meant they’d have an accurate time-of-death shortly—an investigation always started with a time-of-death, so that a timeline of the victim’s last hours could be painstakingly constructed.

  “Six hours?” Doyle guessed. “Not full rigor, as yet—so time-of-death would be in the wee hours, this mornin’. If that’s the case, it leans it back toward suicide, or overdose.”

  “He may have had a companion,” Munoz reminded her. “I’ll still want the SOCOs to take a pass-through.”

  But the Assistant suddenly paused in surprise, and then interrupted her check-down to stand and approach the two detectives. Doyle could sense that the woman was brimful of excitement—or at least as excited as Coroner-people allowed themselves to be—and wondered what she’d found. Mayhap it was space aliens, after all.

  “Here’s a surprise; we’ve got an outside-in situation,” the Assistant announced, and waited with barely-suppressed glee for their reaction.

  The two detectives stared at the woman in abject surprise. “Holy Mother,” Doyle breathed. Normally, decomposition worked from the inside-out, with the internal organs decomposing first. If it was an outside-in situation, that meant that decomp was happening backwards, which could only lead to one conclusion—

  “This body’s been frozen,” the Assistant Coroner confirmed.

  Chapter 3

  He was headed to the scene—good. The enemy was inside the wire, and things were desperate.

  Her decision now an easy one, Munoz called in the SOCOs as they waited for Acton to climb the stairwell. The girl was openly relieved, since it went without saying that Acton would take over the supervision of the evidence team.

  Doyle shook her head in wonder. “Faith, Munoz; here’s a wrinkle. Strange, that someone would go to the trouble of freezing him, but not keep him frozen for more than a few days.”

  Munoz pointed out fairly, “It may not be murder, but even if it’s not, someone’s gone to great lengths to pull a misdirection play.”

  This seemed a massive understatement; obviously, it took some doing—to freeze and transport a body—and so the two girls stood silent for a moment, thinking over this strange and unlooked-for development.

  “It would also explain why the neighbors aren’t havin’ any of it,” Doyle noted. “Somethin’s fishy, and they’re all stayin’ well-away.”

  “I’ll have the patrol officers start a canvass,” Munoz decided. “We’ll need the neighbors’ statements, one way or the other.” She then called over the two Sergeants and explained that there were some unusual aspects to this case, and that DCI Acton would be along shortly.

  Doyle was surprised to feel a strong surge of dismay from both officers. For the first time, they glanced at one another, their expressions giving nothing away.

  Ruppe, the female Sergeant, said, “Right then, ma’am; I’ll start on this end.”

  “We should do it together,” Peterson said firmly. “That’s the protocol for this location.”

  “Together,” Munoz agreed. “And be ready for trouble.”

  Sergeant Peterson doesn’t want to leave his counterpart alone to make a call, Doyle realized, and decided that whatever-it-was that was going on here, she should lay it before Acton prior to taking any investigative steps—something was causing a massive tension betwixt these two, which made this already-unusual case even stranger. Best leave it in Acton’s capable hands—assuming, that was, that Acton was himself. Nowadays, it wasn’t a given.

  Because she couldn’t very well tell Munoz what she was sensing about the two patrol officers, she ventured, “I don’t know, Munoz—mayhap we should wait a bit, before stirrin’ up the neighbors? We may need some back-up—considerin’ where we are, and also considerin’ that no one has come out-of-doors to be curious. A neighbor might decide they’d like to have a look for more drugs on the site.”

  Unfortunately, this happened more often than not; if a burn-out overdosed, his neighbors tended to scour the place for drugs first rather than report his unfortunate demise to the police, and the pertinent evidence would thus disappear. It had been a shocking revelation to Doyle—what drug addicts were willing to do so as to feed their habit; any and all considerations of basic humanity tended to be shoved aside in the overriding need to secure the next fix.

  Seeing the wisdom of this suggestion, Munoz nodded, and released the officers back to their perimeter duty. “You’re right, Doyle—we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. I think I just wanted to look busy before Acton got here.”

  “Best be safe; it may be an integrity-check, after all,” Doyle joked.

  An integrity-check was a means by which the Anti-Corruption Command guarded against wrongdoing by the rank-and-file officers at the Met. A bribe may be offered, or—as in this case—drugs may be openly left somewhere to see whether the police officers would take the bait. Integrity-checks served two purposes; they helped weed out corrupt officers, of course, but they also tended to prevent officers from being tempted in the first place, since he or she wouldn’t know whether the situation was as it appeared, or whether it had been deliberately staged by the ACC.

  “If it’s an integrity-check, someone’s goofed,” Munoz replied. “I don’t see any drugs.”

  “Oh,” Doyle realized, glancing again at the paraphernalia on the table. “Mayhap the neighbors did get into them, first.”

  “I suppose we’ll find out.”

  “Here’s Acton,” Doyle announced, and couldn’t suppress a pang of dismay upon viewing his tall figure as it emerged from the stairwell door. Haggard, she thought with a sinking heart; the poor man looks a bit haggard.

  Very soon after she married Acton, it became clear that he was—well, he wasn’t exactly what one would call a normal man. The young detectives called him “Holmes” behind his back, and with good reason—he was equal parts brilliant and reclusive, and famously did not suffer fools. But Doyle had come to learn that he’d a darker side, too—aside from his penchant for vigilantism, which was dark enough.

  On occasion he’d descend into a black mood, where he’d shut himself off and drink an impressive amount of scotch, brooding and quiet. He’d had what one would call a tumultuous childhood—tumultuous being the charitable term—and it seemed clear that there’d been scars left as a result. And—although Doyle was far from a psychologist—she sensed that his alarming desire to mastermind-from-behind-the-scenes stemmed from those long-ago feelings of helplessness; he would see to it that he was never helpless again, or unable to control what happened to him. That, and he very much enjoyed meting out justice on his own terms.

  Usually, the black mood came upon him after something had penetrated his substantial defenses and upset him, somehow—a shame, it was, that he wasn’t prone to stomping and throwing things about so as to let off a bit o’ steam, but he wasn’t your average lad-on-the-dale, after all, and it only went with the territory. Instead, he’d demons, had Acton, and they’d bite at him, hard.

  Until, of course, one fine day when he’d got a glimpse of the fair Doyle from his office window and—as near as she could figure—immediately focused all his unfocused demons on her, in a strange fixation that trumped all other considerations in his life. For her part—after having realized this rather disquieting state of affairs—she’d been attempting, slowly but surely, to get his demons tamed into a manageable situation, so that the black moods were fewer and further in-between. In this, she’d seemed to have had some success, and there was reason to be cautiously optimistic that he’d reined in his brooding impulses. Or so she’d thought.

  Earlier in their marriage, Acton had sought psychiatric treatment for a brief time, but that hadn’t worked out so very well—and in fact, seemed to have made things even worse. In acknowledging his own failures, Dr. Harding had mentioned that Doyle’s having a child might trigger a crisis of sorts, in that it was not clear how Acton woul
d react to a rival for Doyle’s affections.

  Saints and holy flippin’ angels, Doyle thought uncharitably; I wish stupid Dr. Harding was still alive so I could read him the riot act—the idiotic man missed the mark by a long shot, and I’m at a loss as to what to do about it.

  The two detectives walked over to greet Acton, Doyle wishing she could have a preemptive private word with her husband but knowing that Munoz would make the report, since she was the lead officer. Small matter; she and Acton had their own ways of communicating, and she’d get the message across.

  Acton looked unruffled, as always—even though his clothes rather hung on him—and it did not appear as though he was under any kind of duress, even though Doyle could sense his anxiety, carefully suppressed.

  “Sergeant,” he nodded to Munoz. “Have you a report?”

  Whilst Munoz began to fill him in, Doyle met her husband’s gaze for a significant moment.

  “We haven’t begun a canvass,” Munoz concluded, “because it seems odd that no one’s come out, and we’re wondering if more back-up should be secured, first.”

  Acton took a cursory glance along the long balcony. “If no one’s come out to have a look, then it is unlikely anyone will respond to a knock at the door. I’d go ahead, Sergeant—but don’t expect much of a response.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Munoz, and walked over to address the two patrol officers.

  Acton immediately bent his head to Doyle, listening, and she offered in a low tone, “There’s somethin’ strange about the patrol officers, Michael. They’re at daggers-drawn, for some reason. Ruppe was inclined to close it up, but Peterson thought the body had been moved—even though it wasn’t very clear, either way. And they were both that unhappy to find out that you’d taken an interest.”