by Dale Mayer
“So they saw the latest accident, or they didn’t?”
“No. Candy said they saw the cyclist but just like a casual glance and didn’t realize what had happened, until they turned around, and she was on the ground in front of the vehicle.”
“Did they say anything about hearing a scream or a thud?”
She paused, looked at him. “I don’t think she mentioned anything like that. Those would be things you’d think would be automatic, right? I mean, if you get hit, there’ll be a scream of pain, the sound of a crunched bike, so there should be noise. At least the sound of people hitting their brakes.”
“Yet the driver said he was already basically stopped, so there wasn’t any squealing of his brakes.” Rodney turned off Valiant Street and headed up East 1st Ave.
“You always like going this way, don’t you?”
“Yeah, I just like the road better. You can move along at a decent clip here.”
She shrugged. “We’ll get there soon enough.” She closed her eyes.
“Did you get any sleep last night?”
“Hell no.” She yawned. “But don’t go bugging me about it because, if you’re not bugging me to get laid, you’re bugging me to get some sleep.”
“You could try both.”
“If we didn’t have all these midnight calls”—she glared at him—“I would.”
He nodded. “Got it.”
“What about you?” she asked.
“I slept for a bit.”
“You realize that’s what the rest of the world is doing, while we’re out here running around, looking like idiots.”
“Hopefully we don’t look like idiots. That would ruin my stellar reputation.”
She snorted at that. “Just keep thinking that.”
He glanced at her. “Grumpy much?”
“No, I’ve just been doing a lot of thinking.”
“Nothing wrong with thinking, as long as you keep it reasonable and in perspective.”
“Whatever the hell that means.” She yawned again.
As they approached the boulevard, she looked at the intersection and sighed.
“I know it’ll be hard every time you drive past this now,” Rodney said.
“I do that already at a bunch of places in town,” she said quietly. “It seems like, when you’ve already seen so much violence at one particular spot, you approach it gently.”
He nodded. “I do the same thing.”
“We know the city so well because we’re in it constantly, and we’re driving around, dealing with the aftereffects of shitty people. I’m still struggling to believe these kids are out there, picking on people who already have enough challenges, just because they can. Whatever happened to helping people just because they can instead? Why is that not a thing?”
“I don’t know. When we get them in for questioning, you can ask.”
“I don’t think they’ll give a crap.” She shook her head.
“These rich kids, I’m sure they’ll probably grow up one day. Or … do they ever grow up, you think?”
“I don’t think so. They probably just become arrogant rich entitled adults.”
As he pulled up outside the apartment building they’d been dispatched to, she stared at the big building in front of her, and she just knew. “Damn. It just had to be this one.”
“Is this the apartment where Candy lives?”
“Yeah. It’ll be her. I just know it.”
“Hey, don’t go there. Lots of people live in a building this size, so it might not be her. Remember that.”
She nodded. “I know. I know. I’m trying to be objective.”
They got out to find cops everywhere already, hanging around, making sure that nobody came or went.
When Kate questioned one, the cop shook his head. “No, everybody is still sleeping, so we were told to leave them be.”
“Good. We might get a little privacy for a bit.”
“Not likely. Somebody knows, and the word will spread like wildfire. Not to mention these emergency vehicles and all.”
He was right. She just didn’t want to deal with it. She opted for the stairs, even though Rodney had been looking for the elevator, but she shook her head. “I need to wake up and to get sharp in a hurry, and exercise will do it.”
“It’ll kill me.” He groaned, as he patted his stomach. “Too much pizza for dinner.”
“You had pizza?” she said enviously.
“I live for pizza. When did you last have any?”
“Not for way too long. Simon keeps insisting on all these weird and wonderful foods, but somehow a good old-fashioned pizza never seems to make his list. Of course when I’m alone, I could get pizza, but then I’d feel guilty, since it’s hardly a healthy food group.”
“Hey, don’t go knocking my pizza,” he protested. “I live for that shit.”
“Ha, we’re too cliché.”
As they finally got to the fourth floor landing, and she opened the door, he asked, “How did you know it was on this floor?”
She stopped, looked at him. “Is it?”
He nodded slowly.
She turned her grim face down the hallway. “This is also Candy’s floor.”
They headed down the hall; a security detail stood outside one of the doors. She walked past them into Candy’s room and looked, but it wasn’t Candy. She shook her head in shock. “That’s an interesting twist.”
At her side, Rodney whispered, “What’s the matter?”
“It’s the other female from the bully group. It’s not Candy.” He looked at her, startled, and she nodded.
“So this is her apartment? This is Candy’s place?” he asked.
Kate nodded, then stopped, hesitated. “You know something. I’m not so sure about that. This is where I interviewed Candy yesterday though.”
She walked over to the desk, looking to see if anything there identified it as Candy’s. But nothing was here. As a matter of fact, it looked like it had been completely cleaned out. She turned toward Rodney. “It looks like Candy has left. Everything is missing.”
“Everything except her friend,” Rodney said in a hard tone.
Kate frowned at the crumpled body on the floor, facedown. The woman’s hands were to the side, as if to break her fall as she’d fallen forward. Only she hadn’t broken anything.
Smidge walked in, took one look at Kate, and groaned. “You again?”
“Yep, it’s me. You don’t have too many choices when it comes to detectives.”
“Nope, and you keep bringing me the best cases.”
“Glad you think so because I have a hunch this will be another one.”
He sat back on his haunches, before he looked down at the woman. “What do you mean?”
Kate explained the little bit she knew.
“Oh, shit, well, this will be a fun one. So she’s part of the wealthy group then?”
“Potentially, yes. I’m not exactly sure because my understanding yesterday was that this was Candy’s room. But, if it was, then she should be here at this hour of the night. So I don’t know where Candy has gone.” She turned, walked through the little bit of a room to the bathroom, then came back and shook her head. “Everything is cleaned out.”
“Exams are potentially over, depending on their schedule,” Smidge said.
“I know, but she didn’t make any mention of leaving, and this is not what her place looked like when I was here yesterday.”
“You were just here?”
“Technically yesterday at this point, I guess. I was looking for more information on the woman killed at the intersection.”
“Right, so this is one of the witnesses?”
“Yeah. She was part of the group who went on to the pizza parlor, instead of waiting around for questioning.” He looked at her sideways, but she shrugged. “They didn’t seem to think they would be needed right away, so why waste time with some fatal accident scene, when they could be sitting inside and enjoying life.”
&
nbsp; He shook his head, as if to say, What the hell?
A sentiment she completely agreed with. She waited and watched, as he did a quick visual on their victim.
“No obvious cause of death. We’ll get her on the table, and we’ll find out what’s up.”
Kate stepped back to give him space and then asked, “Anything on that projectile in the head on Sally Hardgens?”
“Yeah, what about it?” He turned to face her.
“Ice?”
Looking surprised, he replied, “Yeah, that’s what we’re looking at. Water in the brain cavity. How’d you know?”
“A case about ten years ago. Something similar.”
“Interesting. I’ll look it up.”
“Good, thanks.” As the coroner went about his work, she turned to look at Rodney and the rest of the room and asked, “Do you see anything here?”
“Nothing but an empty room, which in itself is suspicious, given that you just spoke with her.”
“She surely couldn’t have taken everything,” she said.
“I don’t know,” he murmured, swinging his arm around the room. “If not, she’s sure given it a good old college try.”
Even she winced at the unfortunate phrasing. “What the hell is going on here?” she asked quietly.
“You didn’t want it to be Candy, and that’s what you got, but the problem now is that it’s somebody else.”
“It is, indeed,” she whispered, then shook her head. “And now we still need to track down Candy.” She stopped and hesitated; then she looked intently at the floor where the dead woman was. “I know forensics will get to all this, but look.” She pointed at the carpet.
“What about it?” Rodney asked, Smidge listening in.
“It looks like a double stain,” she said quietly.
Rodney bent beside her. “What do you mean?”
“It looks like old blood atop new blood.”
“Not necessarily old on new, but they are definitely both pretty fresh.”
“Yeah, we need to check Paula’s room.” She stopped, hesitated, and looked back at him. “What if—” She winced, hating to even say this. “What if it’s two separate bloodstains?”
*
Simon woke up, then rolled over and reached out an arm to tuck Kate up close against him, only to find the bed was empty. He groaned, as he sat up and stared around. “Kate?” he called out.
But the empty hollowness to the room meant she was gone. He didn’t even remember hearing her leave, and just that lack of awareness drove him nuts. He used to be extremely alert, always aware, and wary of being woken up. He was always the first to leave somebody’s apartment, often sneaking out on them. But he sure as hell wasn’t used to being snuck out on himself.
Disgruntled, he got up, had a quick shower, intentionally avoiding the soaps and shampoos, but wondering, he opened one of the bottles and sniffed it, then the others, but each was a neutral scent. He smiled at that because it was so Kate; no time for fripperies, as she would call it. Yet most women would say that it was something in the shampoo, so why not? But, no, not Kate. She was all about getting to work and about forgetting all that feminine stuff.
He smiled because it was just so her, and that again brought him back to the fact that she was incredibly honest, whether he liked what came out of her mouth or not. She was there 100 percent, and that just meant that she must have been called into work. He got dressed, looking around for a shaver or razor, and saw absolutely nothing here he could even borrow. “We’ll have to fix that,” he said.
Then he wondered how she’d handle it if he moved in a razor at least. Probably not well but then it was also way the hell more comfortable at his place, so he should just move her over there. At that thought he almost froze. It’s not that he was getting old, but he did like his comforts, and his bed versus her place was a hell of a different story. He wasn’t a snob by any means, but his body certainly appreciated his high-end mattress, and his bones appreciated that hot shower with double sprays and the rain showerhead.
But was it fair to ask her to move in with him? He figured that he would probably get a pretty damn fast answer of hell no. Because it would be a commitment that she didn’t want anything to do with. He wasn’t sure if it was commitment or fear of the future that would get to her. She had this notion that she didn’t do relationships, and she was constantly mumbling about it too. He’d heard her and had ignored it because what was he supposed to say to something like that?
If this were just a quick lay for immediate gratification, well, he didn’t find anything quick about it. He didn’t want there to be anything quick. He wanted it to be a whole lot more than that; yet sometimes he didn’t know quite what the hell he wanted either. Groaning, he walked into the kitchen and winced, when he saw the instant coffee on the counter.
“Hell no.” He stared at it. Shaking his head, he put away the food they had left out in a disarray last night, when things got more than a little interesting. He quickly cleaned up, then walked out the door, locking up behind him.
As he headed downstairs, an older woman looked at him, saw where he had come from, and her face lit up. “So, you’re her new boyfriend, are you?”
“Who?” he asked, as if not understanding what she was asking. Old busybodies were not his favorite people.
“It’s a good thing. Kate is a good person, and she needs somebody.”
“Oh? And why is that?” He studied her quietly.
“Because she does so much for everybody else.”
“Do you know her well?”
“Oh, I know her, though not as well as I’d like to, but only because she keeps everybody at arm’s length. People who do that are just afraid to get hurt more than they already have been.”
The truth struck him in the gut, and he thought about the older woman’s words, well after he’d left and started his day, because it was true. After loving her brother and her mother, only to be abandoned by one and then blamed for the loss of the other, Kate had kept herself behind a wall. Even in the relationship with the married cop, she took the blame. Now she preferred to keep herself safely away from everybody. So, in that way, the old lady was quite correct, and it spoke to how well she knew Kate.
Kate would want time and space and everything that was her own.
In all of his previous relationships, they’d all been very willing to move into his place, as it was obviously high-end, secure, peaceful, private, and gorgeous, with a view to match. There had never been any discussions about it. Kate’s place, while clean and neat, was a cramped little dump by his standards, but it was hers, and that mattered.
Chapter 11
Back at the office, tired and worn out, Kate sat at her desk, huddled over a cup of coffee. The others in the team came in bright and cheerful soon afterward. Rodney walked in and smiled at her. “Anything back from forensics on Candy’s and Paula’s rooms? At least we found Candy’s stuff. But having Candy’s boxes of her things in Paula’s room just adds to the mystery.”
Kate wondered about that. “Looks like a setup, pinning Paula’s death on Candy.” Kate hesitated, then added, “And preemptively pinning Candy’s death on Paula.”
“Uh-oh, looks like you guys got a call last night, huh?” Andy asked.
“Yeah.” Kate sighed, shook her head to wake up. “I’ll go over the related deaths as soon as everyone’s settled. You’ve got five to grab a coffee.”
When the rest of the team had their coffee and gathered around the bullpen, Kate stood and gave them all a rundown on the case they had caught overnight.
“So it wasn’t the woman you had spoken with, but it was her room?” Lilliana confirmed.
“Yes, not Candy’s body, although Candy’s room had been cleared of personal possessions—but we found them in the dead woman’s room. Compliments of assistance from the RCMP, as Paula’s dorm is on the campus.”
“Interesting,” Lilliana said.
“Yeah, that’s one word for it. I don’t know
if Candy has skipped town, but I’m having forensics go over that carpet stain with a fine-tooth comb.” Kate hesitated and looked at her partner. “I don’t know if I’m projecting and seeing something I want to see—which, in this case, would be really sick—but it seemed to me that the bloodstains could potentially be from two different victims. Or at least spilled at different times. And given Candy’s possessions were in the dead woman’s room, … Paula could quite possibly have killed Candy. I expect we’ll get notice of her body soon.”
“So, you’re thinking the other female, Candy, was killed first?” Owen asked Kate.
“I suspect so, yes. I hope not. I really hope I’m wrong. But what are the chances that she was killed first, and then Paula was killed right afterward?”
Lilliana frowned. “But this known DB is one of the long-term members of the group of bullies though, right?”
“Yes,” Kate said, “but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t disposable as well.”
At that, Lilliana winced. “Hard to imagine people thinking like that about another person.”
“Maybe so, but remember. These are the same bullies who are knocking over disabled people for kicks.”
“Does any of this have to do with the cyclist killed on the street?” Lilliana asked her quietly.
“I don’t think so. I haven’t been able to tie any of it in yet. At any rate, I’ve barely even gotten through all the witness statements, and we’ve got nothing back from forensics yet. I did talk to the coroner about ice bullets though.”
“Right.” Lilliana nodded. “That was a good catch.”
“And I told Smidge about another similar case that happened ten years ago around the same area.” Her team stopped, looked at each other, and she nodded. “He’ll check into it.”
