A Deadly Sin: An epic dark thriller that will have you wanting to leave the lights on.

by Tracie Podger

  “Could even have been taken from the site,” I said.

  Dean frowned at me. “The school, it’s having renovations isn’t it? I bet they have a stack of wood ready for fencing or some other shit.”

  Dean stepped out of the room, I knew to make a call and ask.

  Eddie snapped off her gloves and pulled off her apron, she gently stroked Casey’s cheek before walking toward me. Dan would finish off. Once she’d scrubbed her hands, I followed to her office where she opened the top drawer of her desk and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. She grabbed two small glasses from a shelf behind her. I didn’t particularly like whiskey, but I accepted the glass. The situation called for it.

  Eddie sighed as she took a sip. “I’ll have an initial report for you in the morning. Although I’m waiting on toxicology and bloods to come back.”

  She slid a folder over toward me, which contained a copy of photographs taken at the scene. Although my guys would have taken some, these concentrated on the body and the word on the wall.

  “What do you know about Casey?” she asked.

  “Not too much, cheerleader, grade A student, liked by everyone…”

  “Drug user,” she added, cutting me off.

  “Drug user?”

  “Yes, there were traces of cocaine under one fingernail. So I’m going out on a limb to say that was self-administered. I’ll have it confirmed when her bloods come back, of course.”

  “Time of death?”

  “Between eight and ten p.m. is my best assessment. She hadn’t eaten that evening either.”

  “Because she couldn’t?”

  Eddie shrugged her shoulders. “That would be my assumption as well. She was held captive somewhere. But you say she was missing for five days? I’m wondering if she really wasn’t missing but partying hard somewhere. Or she got real friendly with her captor to the extent that she accepted cocaine from him.”

  “Is there a way of aging the coke?” I asked.

  “Not really. But I wouldn’t expect it to stay under her fingernail for any real length of time.”

  “And there was no intercourse?”

  “No. Even with a condom we’d see some sign, some residue of lubricant left. But nothing.”

  “So either we have a nice, wholesome girl who maybe isn’t a nice, wholesome girl. Or we have a perp who forced her to take the coke.”

  “I can’t answer that. The cocaine was under her fingernail; I’ll add that I doubt it was the first time she’d taken it. There were signs of damage common with drug use in her nostrils.”

  I slumped back in my chair. “So, who really was Casey Long?”

  We needed to go back to the beginning, reinterview her friends, her teachers, and her family.

  It had been two days since they had discovered Casey and two days of running around like headless chickens. The school hall was still closed off and it was laughable to see the candlelight vigils, the flowers laid by weeping students who had no idea who Casey was. I was having fun watching all the activities. I was having fun watching Mich and his love interest. Each night I sat outside the station, or his home, wanting to get my fix of him, desperate to see her sneak into his house when she thought no one knew about them.

  I’d gotten a little distracted in my desire to see them together. I’d even walked around his house, checking for a way in. I had a plan, you see. A plan to set up a concealed camera. I’m not sure Mich would appreciate me standing at the end of his bed while he fucked her. But the desire to see them was becoming overwhelming. Maybe I needed to bring forward phase two.

  I had enjoyed the media surrounding the beautiful, innocent Casey Long, though. If only they knew the truth. She was a slut, a dirty little whore who got exactly what she deserved.

  I’d decided that we needed to reinterview Casey’s classmates and teachers first. It was still too early to bring up our findings with the family. They’d been kept informed of course, and a viewing had been organized for them to see her. They had a right to all the details, but it was enough to discover their daughter had been murdered without knowing all the gory particulars.

  The autopsy had thrown no new evidence as to where Casey had been murdered. All we had was the truck with an arm and a strange tattoo. Pete had managed to enlarge the image and was currently trying to match that tattoo to anything he could find on the Internet. It was symbol of some kind, my initial feeling was that it was something religious, tying in the crucifixion, but it bore no resemblance to anything we could find.

  Dean and I pulled up in the parking lot of the school. We had decided to split classmates and teachers—he was to take the kids, and I would meet with Casey’s teachers. In his own words, Dean was the more charming of the two of us, and thought he’d be able to coax information from Casey’s friends. The reality was, I had one of those faces that the girls seemed to like. It was tiresome. I wasn’t, and had never been, one for flirting, especially with girls half my age.

  I headed to the staff room where a meeting had been called. Mr. Turner greeted me and introduced five of Casey’s teachers. Ms. Parkins sat with a tissue, dabbing her eyes, as she spoke about what a wonderful girl Casey was. She offered nothing that we didn’t already know. Casey had recently won an award, something to do with a cheerleading competition. She had been excited, kept talking about it to her classmates, according to Ms. Parkins.

  “Such a shame, such a real shame,” she said, as she shook her head.

  Each of the teachers said the same thing, a nice girl, one of the ‘in crowd,’ studious with her studies—I was beginning to think she was a little too perfect.

  Mr. Turner showed me her grades; she was pretty steady academically, never dropping below an A in any subject.

  “What about after school activities? Did she do anything outside of her crowd of friends?” I asked.

  “She was captain of the cheerleading squad, of course. Erm, I think she may have attended debate class, I know she spent a little time on the student newspaper, but I don’t think that was really for her,” he said.

  “Maybe I could talk to whoever edits your newspaper?”

  “Of course, we can head over there now.”

  Mr. Turner and I left the staff room and weaved our way through the throng of kids making their way from one class to the next. Mr. Turner looked through the glass window of a door before opening it. I followed him in.

  “Helena, this is Detective Curtis, he wants to chat with you about Casey Long.”

  At the back of the room and hunched over a computer was a girl with short black hair, black-rimmed eyes, black lipstick, in fact, other than her pale skin, there was not one shred of color on her. She stared up at me with a scowl. I sighed, internally. There were some people that loved the opportunity to talk to the police, there were others, and I suspected Helena was one, that wanted nothing to do with us. I made a mental note to catch her surname and find out what the deal was.

  “Mr. Turner, if it’s okay with you, I’ll catch up with you later,” I said.

  He nodded and left the room, closing the door behind us. Helena hadn’t spoken, but her face had changed from a scowl to one of amusement tinged with challenge. Her eyebrows were slightly raised and her lips formed a smirk.

  “May I?” I asked, gesturing to a chair opposite her.

  She shrugged her shoulders before dipping her head and focusing on her laptop.

  “I wondered if you could tell me anything about Casey Long. I understand she spent some time working on the newspaper,” I said.

  It was the humpff and snort that had a slight pang of excitement run through me.

  I didn’t speak, and for a minute there was silence, other than the clack of keys as she continued to type.

  “I’m just writing up her obituary,” she said.

  “And what does it say?”

  “What everyone wants to hear.”

  “So not the truth then.”

  She looked sharply at me. “Casey Long was the epitome of the successfu
l high school, all-American student. It is with great sadness that we report her loss today. Blah, blah, blah.” She’d read from her screen.

  “Does it kill you to have to write that shit?” I asked.

  “Kill probably isn’t the most appropriate word right now, don’t you think?” she said. Her black-coated lips twitched into a smirk.

  Take the crap off her face and she was a pretty girl. Goths, I think they called themselves. What the fuck a Goth was, I had no idea. She also came across as highly intelligent.

  “Maybe not, but I get the impression that you don’t believe a word you’ve typed. So, tell me, Helena, tell me who the real Casey was. I’ve had my fill of how wonderful she was, there’s more, isn’t there?”

  Helena leaned back in her chair and studied me. “Do you know what it’s like to be different? To have people mock your choices, tease you constantly because you aren’t the American ideal, that you aren’t interested in prancing around a football field, sucking up to the jocks? Casey spent her days doing that to anyone who wasn’t in her circle. She was a brilliant student, selfish, self-centered, boastful, not willing to help anyone she felt below her.”

  “And you’ve been on the end of that, I take it?”

  “Many times. She, her friends, made my life here hell for a while. It’s why she didn’t last long on the paper. She would have to answer to me and she didn’t like that. She wanted makeup articles, dating tips, fashion columns. That’s not what my paper is about, Detective.”

  “Did you enjoy the fact that you could get back at her?”

  “No, because that’s not the kind of person I am. In fact, it made life harder for a while. She was a bully, Detective. If you care to look close enough, you’ll find many students at Montford who aren’t mourning her.”

  “Why am I being told different?” I asked.

  Helena fascinated me. Her body language was open, she was being honest, and nothing was concealed. She kept her focus on me, there was no shift in her eyes, her pupils stayed regular, and she sat still. Or she was one of the three percent that had the ability to fake their way through a lie detector test.

  “I imagine it’s because it doesn’t do the school’s reputation any good to know their homecoming queen, their spelling bee champion, their cheerleading captain actually wasn’t a very nice person. Look around you. See that ad for the school? That’s Casey Long. She’s held up as someone to aspire to, unless you’ve been on the end of her spitefulness.”

  “Why did you not come forward with this when I came here after she’d gone missing?”

  “You never came and asked me. And why should I? I’m one person who’ll be classed as jealous; the outcast who only ever wanted to be down with the cool kids. No one would have taken me seriously. I’m just bitter and twisted.”

  “Are you? Bitter and twisted?”

  Helena snorted, again. “No, I pitied her. I tried hard to friend her but she wasn’t having any of it.”

  “Outside of school, did you ever run into her?”

  “Once or twice. At a party or the mall. The thing to know about Casey Long was there were two of them. In front of her peers she was a nasty, calculating, bitch. In front of her teachers, she was just a sweet girl.”

  “How did she behave at parties?” I asked.

  “She got high, she slept around, a lot. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to finish this article.”

  Helena shut down; she turned her attention to her laptop and continued to type. I smiled and, although she wouldn’t have seen, gave a nod. I stood and left the room, picking up a copy of the student newspaper from a table by the door before I did.

  So, Casey Long wasn’t the wholesome girl we were being led to believe, maybe.

  Dean was resting on the hood of the car as I walked out through the school doors. He looked over and raised his eyebrows, it was a look he had when he’d found out something interesting. I mirrored the look. We didn’t speak as we climbed into the car and headed away.

  “So?” I asked.

  “Casey Long was a bit of a party girl by all accounts. Loved by her circle, hated by the rest.”

  “I got the same from a Helena…” I flipped open the school newspaper. “Johnson. Editor of this,” I said, waving the newspaper in front of me.

  We shared the information we’d managed to obtain, what Dean had learned pretty much confirmed what Helena had said. Casey Long was not the wholesome American cheerleader we were being led to believe. How that helped us though, we didn’t know.

  “Curtis!” I heard my name being called as we walked into the station. The chief stood just outside his door and was waving me over.

  “Mich!” I said under my breath, as I strode toward him.

  “The mayor is on my case for an update and the press wants a statement. What do you have for me?” he asked.

  I hadn’t taken one step into his office before he’d spoken. I gave him a rundown on what we’d found out so far, detailed Eddie’s findings, and what we’d learned at the school.

  “And the truck? That’s our best lead at the moment,” he said.

  “Nothing as yet. We’re doing a house to house, but it seems to be a blue Ford, thousands of them around. The tire track matches a standard Ford tire and we have no leads on the tattoo yet. One of the team has taken a photograph and is circulating it around the local tattoo parlors as we speak.”

  “We need to give something,” he said.

  “It’s two days old, Chief. We have a lot of nothing written up on that board right now. Casey wasn’t particularly liked, but I don’t think that’s something we need to publicize right now. What I want to do is a formal interview with her close circle of friends. They’re all over the age of consent, but I’ll speak to the parents first.”

  “Do you think this party thing is a factor? I mean, most girls her age are at it.”

  “I don’t know yet. She had traces of cocaine under her fingernail, so I’m not convinced she was missing for the five days her mother thinks she was. I believe she was off somewhere, with someone who isn’t talking.”

  “Anyone she was particularly close to? A boyfriend, maybe?”

  “No boyfriend as such. She had a close circle; four or five friends that she hung out with regularly, two of those are star football players. It’s those friends that I want to interview. We need to narrow down exactly how many days she was missing. It was school break, remember.”

  “Any social media accounts?”

  “Yes, the normal, we’ve checked and didn’t see anything unusual there. I have her laptop, we took that when the missing persons’ was filed, but again, nothing to spark concern.”

  “Why are you so convinced she hadn’t been held captive for the five days she was missing?”

  “I just don’t believe she was held all that time. I think she went out partying somewhere first. We know she died the evening previous to being discovered. I come back to the cocaine under the fingernail, I mean, how long would that have stayed there? I can’t imagine it would be that long. The alternative, of course, is that her captor supplied her with the cocaine and she voluntarily took it. At the moment, my best guess is that she was partying with her killer.”

  “A classmate?” the chief asked.

  “I doubt that, although I’m not ruling anyone out. Hence, the formal interviews.”

  “Okay, set them up.”

  I didn’t need the chief’s permission, those students were all over the age of consent but it helped to have him understand where I was going. There was just something that wouldn’t let me believe Casey had been held captive for as long as she’d been missing.

  The incident room was a hive of activity when I walked in. I went straight to the whiteboard and wrote up the names of the closest friends to Casey. Five names were listed, Vicky Bell, Alison Jenkins, Kay Davis, those three were cheerleaders. Then we had Dale Stewart and Louis Chapman, both football players.

  I stared at the names; I wanted to know where they had all be
en the past few days. I turned to the team.

  “Guys, I want you to take one of these names and interview them. These are the closest friends Casey had. One of them, at least, knows where she’s been for the past few days, I’m sure of it. I want to know about parties, drugs, who is fucking who, everything.”

  Another cup of coffee was handed to me. I’d been surviving on caffeine, and little else, since we’d found Casey. I was exhausted, sleeping for an hour or so at a time on a cot in the station. I needed a shower, and I needed to shave. I ran my hand over my chin; the stubble scratched my palm.

  “Why don’t you head on home for a few hours?” Dean said.

  “I think I will, I’ll grab a shower and change of clothes, maybe get a couple of hours sleep, and then I’ll be back.”

  As much as I wanted to be pounding the streets, I was better at organizing, at studying information and determining the course an investigation should take. I got a feel for the victim, for the scene, for the suspect even, but when I was tired, that all went to shit.

  It was mid-afternoon when I left the station. I pulled my phone from my jeans pocket and sent a text to Eddie.

  Heading home for a couple of hours sleep, any results yet?

  I didn’t expect a reply immediately. I wasn’t a priority when she was working and I didn’t expect to be. She’d get back to me when she could.

  I drove through the sleepy streets until I reached my house. I made a mental note that the yard needed mowing; the broken fence needed repairing and painting. The single story house, which had been left to me by my mother, was in need of some tender loving care.

  I was in the shower, standing with my eyes closed, when I felt a small hand on my back. I kept my eyes closed as a naked body sidled behind me, wrapping two arms around my waist and planting a gentle kiss to my shoulder. In one hand, I noticed a small foil packet.

  “Hey,” I said, as I covered her hands with mine and slid them down my body. My cock twitched the closer she got.

  “Hey, yourself,” Eddie replied.

  “I’ve missed you,” I said, although it had only been two days. She didn’t reply.