The Next Widow: A gripping crime thriller with unputdownable suspense (Jericho and Wright Thrillers Book 1)

by CJ Lyons

  “I’m in the checkout now and headed over to the farm,” Janine answered after a long pause. “But I don’t do junkies and I don’t do criminals. If she’s high or has done anything against the law, I’m calling the cops. Don’t care if she is your family, she’s not mine and you can’t pay me enough to deal with that crap. Clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.” Luka was used to giving orders and having them obeyed, but somehow the older woman intimidated the hell out of him. Maybe because she reminded him of his gran—she’d been a force of nature, impossible to resist. “I—we—very much appreciate it.”

  “As for staying the night, I can tonight and tomorrow. At my usual hourly.” Ouch. That was going to eat into the budget—paying her for sleeping on the job? Was it worth it? “But we need to have a discussion about a more long-term solution. All three of us.”

  Luka was not looking forward to that. “That sounds like a plan,” he said in a neutral tone. “Call me if you need anything.”

  “You’re welcome.” She hung up just as he pulled into the Good Sam parking garage.

  He glanced at the clock—he had a few minutes before Tierney was expecting him. He could use it in a myriad of ways: interrogating the security guys about the man in the ER, following up on the hospital gift shop and the roses, interviewing more of Leah Wright’s co-workers. Instead, he sighed and dialed the farm.

  Tanya answered—as if she’d moved in, lock, stock, and barrel. “Hey there, big brother.”

  “What do you want?” He cut to the chase, no time or patience left to play her mind games.

  “Like I said, just to talk.” She sounded weary, her breath coming long and heavy.

  Dealing with Tanya was like a trip to the dentist—best to get it over with as quickly as possible. “I’ll be at Good Samaritan most of the morning, working. Text me when you get here and as soon as I have a free minute, we can meet in the cafeteria.”

  “My time ain’t valuable? I gotta sit and wait on Mr. High and Mighty?”

  “When Mr. High and Mighty is working a murder where a little girl is the only witness to her dad’s decapitation, yeah, Tanya, you have to wait.” He hated what he had to resort to in order to break through her narcissism and felt a tinge of regret dragging the Wrights into this at all. Not that the details of Ian Wright’s death weren’t already being broadcast over every media outlet.

  “Okay,” she relented. “I’ll text.” She hung up.

  Luka stared at the phone, wishing he could be in two places at once—here, doing what needed to be done for Ian Wright, and at home, jettisoning Tanya from Pops’ house, protecting him from whatever bullshit con she was very likely spinning in his ear. Pops was too susceptible, and Tanya was going to break his heart. Again.

  He walked through the garage, the only person on this floor, his footsteps echoing off giant concrete pillars, feeling as if he was moving across a desolate moonscape. He took the elevator to the basement level and entered the morgue, signed in at the security desk, took his pass, and turned his phone to silent mode. As he passed through the doors to the ME’s inner sanctum, he drew in a breath, returning his focus to the case, trying not to imagine the damage Tanya could do even in the short time it would take Janine to get there. When had Tanya gotten to the farm? Last night? This morning?

  “Dressing in?” Maggie Chen greeted him at the hallway leading to the locker rooms. With routine cases Luka would observe from the viewing room, where he could watch through the window and also on the video screen if the ME needed him to see something up close. But this case was anything but routine.

  “Yes,” Luka answered, eying the clock. Seven ’til eight. Just enough time—punctuality was Ford Tierney’s catechism. “Maggie—” He hesitated, knowing he was asking her to cross a line. “How well do you know the widow?”

  Maggie hesitated, obviously uncomfortable with his question. He remembered the way she’d avoided answering when he’d asked her about Leah at the crime scene. “Luka, I’d tell you if I knew anything pertinent to your case. But I won’t spy for you.”

  “No. Of course not. But, any insights? She’s so composed, restrained—I can’t get a good read on her.”

  Maggie twisted her lips, considering. “She’s good. Good doctor, always goes the extra mile when she can, even follows up on patients after they’ve left the ER.”

  “She just called me. It was weird. She wasn’t hysterical or upset.” He struggled to describe Leah’s tone. “More like her mind was moving faster than her words. It sounded as if she thought her husband was killed because she saved a kid in the ER last night.”

  “You mean the stabbing case? Eric Winters? I just reviewed his chart—he died a few hours ago, post-op blood clot. Andre Toussaint, he’s the chief of the trauma service, is livid because the death will be attributed to his care as a post-op complication. Says Leah should never have resuscitated the kid; he was down too long, it wasted precious resources.”

  Luka considered it from Leah’s point of view. She would have had to make a split-second decision that could cost a life but without knowing the full story—barely knowing any of the story. “So. Did she do the right thing? Bringing the kid back? Or should she have just let him go, used all those resources to save someone else instead?”

  “Andre Toussaint would say she made a mistake. The kid’s family wouldn’t agree.”

  “I’m asking you. What if it was you, what would you have done?”

  She thought about it a long moment. “Honestly, everything I see around here? What’s going to happen will happen. All you can do in the moment is the best you can.”

  They reached the locker rooms. “See you in there,” Maggie said as Luka ducked into the men’s locker room. He grabbed a pair of Tyvek coveralls, shoe coverings, and a scrub cap. When he emerged into the autopsy suite Ford Tierney and Maggie were huddled together at the oversized computer touchscreen, reviewing Ian Wright’s X-rays.

  The two made an interesting contrast. Maggie was petite, and despite standing still seemed to radiate movement and energy—fey, his gran would have labeled her even without her bright-dyed hair. The assistant medical examiner, though, was the opposite in almost every way. Although he was only in his late forties, his hair had already gone white in that way that redheads had; he was taller than Luka and weighed twice as much, a hulking figure with an over-ample belly barely contained by his scrub pants. Give him a beard and he might be mistaken for Santa—until his piercing scowl of constant disapproval burst that fairytale comparison.

  Luka joined them. They were staring at an enlarged image of Ian’s skull. Even Luka’s untrained eye could make out the multitude of fractures, shards of bones crisscrossing in unnatural angles that had him cringing. Tierney enlarged one area, highlighting a small shard of metal.

  “Is that a piece of the murder weapon?” Luka asked. “Broken off?”

  “Maybe,” Maggie said, obviously pleased with herself.

  “We’re not sure,” Tierney hedged. He backed away from the monitor, glanced at the shrouded body on the autopsy table behind them. He sighed, his near-constant scowl deepening. “One way to find out.”

  Luka and Maggie exchanged a glance as they each placed protective masks over their faces. Tierney hated anything that messed with his prescribed routine, which would have usually left examination of the head and skull until later in the autopsy.

  “Thanks,” Luka told Tierney while Maggie removed the body from its sterile coverings. He cut his apology short at the sight of the naked man lying before them. Despite having seen Ian’s body at the crime scene, Luka hadn’t fully appreciated the extent of the man’s injuries. Now, unclothed and with the blood washed clean, the damage was exposed. Luka exhaled, his mask creating a loud echo as his breath rasped against it.

  Tierney made quick work of the preliminaries, mainly noting new bruises and contusions that had appeared since Maggie did her initial documentation at the scene. Including evidence of restraints around Ian’s wrists and
ankles and a needle track in his left arm.

  “Tox screen show anything?” They all leaned over the small pinprick, examining it through the large magnifying lens that hung down on rails, easily positioned anywhere over the body.

  “Prelim was inconclusive,” Maggie answered. “We had weak presumptives for PCP, LSD, steroids, and methamphetamines.”

  “What’s that mean? He was a user and they were already out of his system?” Luka doubted that—how could a computer guy at Ian’s level function with a cocktail of hallucinogenic drugs poisoning his system?

  “More likely that we’re dealing with an unknown substance that shares similar toxicologic markers,” Tierney answered. “We’ve sent samples for further analysis and I’ll excise the needle track, send it as well.”

  “How long will that take?” Luka grumbled—he knew the answer, but still had to ask, hoping some miracle of technology had changed overnight.

  “Weeks, maybe months. Depends.” Maggie shrugged, her mask shifting on her face. “But whatever it was, it messed with his natural stress response. His biomarkers—adrenaline, cortisol, you name it—were off the charts.”

  “They restrained him then pumped him full of chemicals that would make him hallucinate and fight harder?” Luka asked. That made no sense. Especially as there was no evidence that the actor restrained the daughter—so whatever he’d done to Ian before the struggle that led to Emily’s room, it couldn’t have created too much noise if the kid had slept through it. “And then he broke free?”

  “We don’t know yet what drugs they gave him,” Tierney corrected Luka. “All we know is how his body responded. And remember, his response was also exacerbated by extreme physical pain and mental stress.”

  “Fear for his own life and his daughter’s, chemicals that heightened that response, the physical injuries.” Tierney glared at Luka’s assumptions—the ME preferred to deal in facts and findings, not speculation—but Luka stood his ground. “Any way to tell which injuries were inflicted while he was restrained versus during the struggle after he broke free?”

  “We don’t have evidence that he did break free.” Tierney raised the less damaged wrist and moved the magnifying lens over it. “See how the hairs have been removed? And we found residue from adhesive, indicating he was restrained with tape. No patterned petechiae or bruising suggesting that he tore free. It appears to have been removed by someone else. Wrists and ankles the same.”

  “They restrained him, injected him with a hallucinogenic cocktail, then let him loose? And after all that, they chased him through the house, fought, and killed him? Why?” What the hell had gone on in that house? Luka had never had a crime scene where every piece of evidence they discovered seemed to contradict the others. It was like a puzzle with too many pieces.

  “Your job, not mine. All I can do is document my findings.”

  Luka frowned. “It makes no sense, it’s too risky and too much work. Why not just put a bullet in his head if you wanted him dead?” Unless the idea was to maximize pain and fear—best way to do that was to dangle hope as bait. “They knew he’d do anything to protect his daughter,” he answered his own question. “Used her along with the drugs and the pain—it was the ultimate torture.”

  Someone had wanted Ian Wright to suffer greatly—that sounded personal, which usually translated to family. Could Leah Wright have arranged for her husband to be tortured and brutalized with their own child in the house? Then act the role of grief-stricken widow? He remembered the video of Leah extricating her daughter from beneath the bed. A defense attorney’s dream and a prosecutor’s nightmare—no jury would convict after seeing that display of maternal courage. Was Leah that cold and calculating?

  He glanced at the clock—still too early to get anything from the banks. But he texted Krichek to make sure their warrants covered the wife’s financials as well as the husband’s. Just in case. Then he reached out to Harper, following up on the motorcycle and its rider—still no joy there, either.

  “Are we talking more than one attacker?” Luka asked Tierney. Everything at the scene suggested one man, but everything at the scene had been staged, so…

  Tierney’s eyes tightened, but he relented. “I’ve found nothing to indicate multiple attackers.”

  Luka blew his breath out, desperate for a fact, some solid piece of evidence he could build a case on. “Can we see the remnant from the murder weapon?” That earned him another glare from the medical examiner.

  Maggie intervened, “You mean the shard of metal found in the skull X-rays.”

  “I mean the one piece of evidence that might not be inconclusive,” Luka snapped.

  Tierney humored him and moved to the head of the table. Maggie had inserted a colored pipe cleaner to indicate where the tiny bit of metal lay beneath the flayed and bruised skin. It was between Ian’s left eye and ear. Maggie adjusted the lights and repositioned the magnifier. This time she turned on the camera, directing the image to the large monitor.

  “This is interesting,” Tierney mumbled.

  “What?” Luka said, focusing on the monitor where Tierney’s gloved fingers glided over the dead man’s skin, a maestro and his instrument. Luka tried to be patient, but this was what always killed him when he had to deal with the forensic guys—they’d go off on some fascinating scientific tangent, ignoring what was right in front of them.

  “If that’s part of the murder weapon, you can possibly match it,” he said, unconsciously mirroring Tierney’s formal tone. “Right?” he added, remembering that he was a mere supplicant in these hallowed halls of science. And Tierney was doing him a favor.

  Maggie’s eyes crinkled as she held back a grin. Tierney seemed oblivious. He carefully excised the entire area of skin in a deft move that could have been called graceful if not for the macabre circumstances. Now it was just bits of muscle and bone and other things Luka couldn’t identify lying beneath the magnifier. At the center was a knot of thicker white tissue, glistening under the light. Embedded in it was the tiny metal sliver.

  Instead of plucking the metal piece out, Tierney used the handle of his scalpel to lift the knot of tissue. “Trigeminal ganglion,” he told Luka. “A collection of nerves.”

  “Trigeminal?” The word was vaguely familiar. “When I was a beat cop we had a lady who tore most of her face off. Thought it was PCP or something, but the docs said it was that. Trigeminal. Said it got inflamed, drove her mad with the pain.”

  Tierney nodded. “Trigeminal neuralgia or tic douloureux. There have been cases of suicide in the past—we had no effective long-term treatment until recently.” He angled the clump of nerves and focused on the piece of metal. “Looks like the broken tip of a spinal needle.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “They’re extra-long needles used for spinal taps and other procedures,” Maggie explained.

  “What’s it doing in my victim? Was it maybe there for a long time, left over from some surgery or something?”

  “I reviewed the medical records,” Maggie said. “There’s no mention of any facial surgery or injuries.”

  Tierney ignored them, probing the area from the broken needle tip down to Ian’s lower jaw. “There’s a track,” he said triumphantly.

  “Meaning?” Luka asked, his patience at an end.

  “Several things. First, this is a new injury. Most likely sustained in the perimortem period. Second, whoever inserted this had at least some limited medical or anatomic training. And third, you were right. Ian Wright was tortured before he was killed.” He positioned the magnifier and zoomed in on a faint line of darkened tissue surrounded by yellow fat globules.

  Maggie gasped.

  “What?” Luka asked.

  “Tissue damage,” Tierney answered. “Faint, but there if you know where to look. Which we wouldn’t have if the tip of the needle hadn’t broken off. Charred tissue. Probably from an electrical current. I’ll know more once we do the microscopic evaluation.”

  “You stick a needle in it and s
hock the nerve bundle with electricity, what happens?” Luka thought he knew the answer but needed to make certain.

  Tierney cleared his throat. “Pain,” he said as if confessing a sin. “Severe, extreme pain. Some have called trigeminal pain the worst torture imaginable.”

  “All those drugs—those would make the pain and terror even worse, right?”

  Both Maggie and Tierney nodded.

  “How difficult would it be for a layman to get to the trigeminal ganglion?”

  “Usually it’s done under CT scan guidance, although there is an older blind technique, using a spinal needle inserted up through the face,” Tierney answered.

  Exactly the path the needle used on Ian Wright took.

  “It was a doctor?”

  “Not necessarily. The technique used here was neither surgical nor precise.”

  “But a doctor would know how to get to that area?”

  Tierney shrugged. “Anyone with a working knowledge of basic anatomy would.”

  “Or five minutes with Google,” Maggie added. “There are YouTube videos of the technique.”

  Luka ignored them to stare at the mutilated man on the table. “Drugs and medical needles.” An ER doctor would have access to both. “They torture him, drive him mad with pain. And then they let him loose, tell him they’re going after his baby girl if he doesn’t stop them… so the scene looks perfect for a home invasion. It wasn’t simply staged—it was choreographed.”

  He stared at the tiny sliver of needle magnified on the screen. So small, yet the story it told was huge. Maggie finished her photographs and stood back as Tierney plucked it free and dropped it into a specimen cup.

  “Any way to trace it?” Luka asked.

  “No,” Tierney said.

  “Excuse me.” A man’s voice came from the viewing room’s door. They all whirled. A medium-sized Caucasian man in a dark gray suit strode through the door, holding a set of credentials before him as if it was a shield. “George Radcliffe. Defense Intelligence Agency. I’m here for Ian Wright.” He strode forward, eyeing the naked body on the table. “Guess I’m a bit late.” He chuckled at his own inappropriate joke, drawing glares from Tierney and Maggie.