Shadow Suspect

by Patrick Logan

  It was far-fetched, but at least it was something.

  “Maybe. Let’s get some eyes on Veronica. She might be involved, or she could be our next victim.” Chase rubbed her eyes. “Fuck.”

  “What next?” Detective Gainsford asked. “Interview Raul again? Talk to Weston Smith?”

  Chase shook her head.

  “No, we can’t go after them right now. They’re too hot… Rhodes…” she didn’t finish the thought.

  There was something about the way Rhodes seemed more interested in stemming the leak than solving the murders that was bugging her.

  Drake’s words suddenly reverberated in her mind.

  Weston and Ken are using Raul to pay off everyone involved in this case.

  “Detective Adams? You okay?” Detective Gainsford asked.

  “Fine,” she snapped. “Yasiv, you were with Simmons when he interviewed the teacher, correct?”

  The detective said he was.

  “Go speak to him again—put some pressure on him. I want to know if the boy in the photo is Marcus Slasinsky. I want to know why he wasn’t in the yearbook outside of that one photo. Gimme something, anything to go on.”

  Before the young detective could answer the door to the conference room suddenly opened and a disheveled looking Damien Drake strode in.

  His eyes were red, and he was wearing the same clothes as the night before, only today it looked as if he had slept in them.

  “I think I’ve got something,” he said without offering so much as a hello. “A source told me that something happened in high school… something at the Butterfly Gardens. And whatever it was, it was bad. Marcus Slasinsky ended up in the hospital, in a coma.”

  “What?”

  Drake swallowed visibly.

  “I don’t know what, but I know that Tim, Neil, Chris, and Thomas were involved somehow.”

  Chase stared at the man for a good minute before answering. She could smell the reek of alcohol on him from even fifteen feet away.

  “Clear the conference room,” she said softly.

  “Adams?” Detective Gainsford asked, an eyebrow raised.

  “I said get out!”

  All three men stood and moved toward the door.

  “Drake, you stay,” she spat.

  When the door closed and she and Drake were alone, she instructed him to take a seat.

  “My source is credible,” Drake said quickly. “Whatever happened in the garden all those years ago is the key to breaking this thing open.”

  Chase took a deep breath and an impending sense of dread overcame her.

  “Who’s your source, Drake?”

  Drake frowned at her.

  “It’s legit.”

  Chase slammed her palms down on the desk. The sound was so loud that it startled them both.

  “Goddammit Drake, who is your source?”

  “I can’t—”

  “It’s Ivan fucking Meitzer, isn’t it?”

  Drake didn’t say a word, but he didn’t need to answer.

  She could see it in his face.

  “Jesus Christ, Drake! You’ve poisoned this case! Rhodes wants your head, and you’re selling information to a New York Times reporter? Have you completely lost your mind?”

  Drake looked down at his hands.

  “I was with Ken Smith last night.”

  “You were what?”

  Chase couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She was beginning to feel like she was living a Twilight Zone episode.

  “He called me, wanted to talk. He—”

  “I don’t care,” Chase seethed. “You’re off the case. I have no choice but to report you to Rhodes.”

  Drake stood.

  “This is the key, Chase. Marcus—”

  “I don’t care!” she shouted. “Get out!”

  “—it’s Rhodes, he’s—”

  “Get out!” she screamed.

  Drake looked at her for a moment, and she thought that he was going to keep talking.

  Only he didn’t.

  Without a word, he spun on his heels and left the room, leaving Chase alone with her own thoughts.

  She massaged her temples, instantly regretting not getting more sleep the night before.

  All this time, Drake was sabotaging the case… for what? To get back at Rhodes for what happened to Clay? For not believing that Peter Kellington wasn’t the Skeleton King? Was that it?

  She swore several times then reached for her phone.

  “Officer Dunbar? It’s Detective Adams. I need you to look for a report from twenty odd years ago.” She paused. “No, forget about that for now. Look for something on a boy, Marcus Slasinsky. It was a serious event, landed him in a coma. Let me know as soon as you have something.”

  Detective Chase Adams hung up and stared up at the board.

  Where are you hiding Marcus? What is your story and how in the hell do you fit into all of this?

  CHAPTER 59

  Chase never had any inclination to follow Sergeant Rhodes; in fact, when she left the station, she was heading to the lab to follow-up on the fingerprints on the syringe and container found at Tim Jenkins’s house. But when she saw her boss leave in a hurry, she naturally watched him go.

  Then she got into her car and followed. She told herself that this was stupid, career ending, and potentially dangerous, but couldn’t help herself.

  It was strange the way that Rhodes had let Jenkins loose, SSJ backing him or not. They had forty-eight hours with the man before they had to let him walk or arrest him. And the nonsense about denying him council? That was bullshit, and all Rhodes had to do was watch the recording of the interview to know as much.

  None of this was sitting right with her, and she had learned long ago to follow her instincts.

  They had gotten her this far, after all.

  Rhodes took a circuitous route around the city, and Chase was beginning to think that this was intentional, an attempt to lose any potential tails.

  Or maybe that was just her own paranoia projecting.

  Eventually, however, when he pulled up to SSJ and parked in the underground garage, Chase could follow no further.

  And her suspicions were confirmed.

  She parked across the street and waited.

  Her phone suddenly buzzed and with her eyes still locked on the garage exit she picked it up.

  “Adams,” she said quickly.

  “It’s Officer Dunbar. I found something that you might be interested in.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I really think you should come in and see this.”

  “No, can’t come in now. Just tell me what you’ve found.”

  There was a pause.

  “I don’t know if it’s what you’re looking for, but there was an accident report filed in September 1994. The location was the Butterfly Gardens, just as you suspected.”

  Chase turned all of her attention to the phone call.

  “What happened?” she demanded.

  “The report is thin, something about a juvenile having an episode that resulted in hospitalization.”

  Shit. Maybe Drake was right. Maybe…

  “Anything else?”

  “No, that’s pretty much it, except…”

  “What? What is it?”

  “The report was filed two days after the incident, which is strange. Even stranger was the fact that it was immediately closed with no further investigation.”

  Chase took a deep breath, knowing the answer even before she asked the question.

  “Who was the reporting officer at the time, Dunbar?”

  “See that’s the thing, that’s what makes this a, uh, a little sensitive.”

  “Just spit it out, Dunbar.”

  “Well, according to this, the reporting officer was Heath Rhodes.”

  Chase’s breath caught in her throat.

  CHAPTER 60

  The man dressed in all black waited outside Jenkins’s house for several hours, expecting CSU to come and tear the
place apart.

  When they didn’t arrive after the first hour, he grew curious. And when the sun started to rise, he grew convinced that they weren’t coming at all.

  Slinking in the early dawn, he retraced his steps, using the table out back to hoist himself onto the awning. From there, he simply slid into the house via the window he had exited only hours before.

  It was pitch black inside, which suited him just fine. He tapped the containers in his pocket, and the syringes in the other, silently commending himself for having brought several sets instead of just the one.

  Last time had been sloppy, this time it wouldn’t be. This time he wouldn’t hesitate.

  The man slid under the bed and crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes.

  They would pay for what they did.

  All of them would pay.

  The man in black waited with bated anticipation. After all, he had waited all these years, what was a few more hours?

  CHAPTER 61

  Drake left the police station in a fog, the Johnny Blue still coursing through his system.

  He had known that he couldn’t keep this up forever, that eventually he would be ousted for selling information to the press. He just hadn’t thought that it would happen this soon.

  But he should have known.

  He should have known that Rhodes would do everything in his power to find the leak, and that Chase would be his proxy to do so.

  The Sergeant hadn’t just put Chase on the Butterfly Killer case because she was the only one who would work with him. Rhodes had also chosen her because she was an outsider, someone who would do anything to gain his favor, to stem any leaks that could potentially soil the Smith name.

  Drake hopped in his car and sped off, wondering how long it would be before uniforms came after him. He figured that he might have an hour, maybe more if Chase gave him a chance to get away.

  This is it, he thought with something akin to satisfaction. Rhodes got his way and I’m going down.

  There was just something he wanted to do first.

  Two people he had to talk to, to express how sorry he was for what had happened.

  It was with these thoughts rattling around in his head that he arrived outside Mrs. Cuthbert’s house.

  He parked across the street and waited.

  The seats in his Crown Vic were worn, cracked, and uncomfortable, but he fell asleep never-the-less.

  For the first time in the better part of a year, Drake nodded off without the fear of the nightmares returning.

  CHAPTER 62

  Chase didn’t feel comfortable meeting Beckett at the station, and instead instructed him to meet at Patty’s Diner.

  Part of her hoped that Drake might be there too, but she didn’t hold her breath.

  She was also grateful that she hadn’t gone immediately to Rhodes and reported Drake. She had a feeling that she might need him before the day was out.

  Beckett strode through the door with his hair spiked, a smile on his face.

  “Not the type of place I would have chosen for a first date, but hey, I’ll take it,” he said as he slid into the booth across from her.

  “Thanks for meeting me,” Chase said, ignoring the man’s comment.

  Beckett nodded.

  “And the reason we are meeting here is…?”

  Chase looked down.

  “I just needed to get away,” she said quickly.

  “Okay… and what do you need me for?”

  Chase mulled this over for a second. She needed to know about the syringe and caterpillar, but she also needed to know something else as well.

  “You’re friends with Drake, right?”

  Beckett smiled.

  “What’s this? You looking for dating advice? Need to know if Drake has a thing on the side?”

  She shook her head.

  “No, it’s not like that.”

  Beckett winked at her, and she rolled her eyes.

  “Just asking for a friend, huh? Well, go ahead. Ask away.”

  Chase leaned in close and lowered her voice an octave. She was positive that the handful of patrons wouldn’t pay her much mind—the place struck her as somewhere people went to be anonymous—but she couldn’t be too careful.

  “I need to know about his relationship with Rhodes.”

  “Ah, the big chief, huh?”

  Chase nodded.

  “Yeah.”

  Beckett shrugged.

  “Never saw eye to eye, not really. Back before… back when we used to go out for a few drinks, he usually spouted off on the man, talked about how he always got the impression that Rhodes was out for his own advancement, didn’t give a shit about solving any crimes, if you catch my drift.”

  Chase caught it alright; it was no smoking gun, but served to solidify her own opinions.

  “You ever get the idea that Drake was jealous of him? That he wanted the man’s job? Maybe pissed because Rhodes got the promotion to Sergeant while Drake toiled as a detective?”

  Beckett’s face turned serious.

  “What’s this about, Chase?”

  “Just humor a lady, if you would. Was he jealous?”

  Beckett chuckled.

  “Fuck no. Drake is exactly where he wants to be—in the field, getting his hands dirty. Shit, it would torture him to be behind a desk all day. You’ve seen him, you know what I’m talking about. Drake is… complicated, but he’s a good detective and a better man. The six months off nearly killed him.”

  Chase nodded slowly.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  The waitress came over, but Beckett waved her away.

  “Is that it? May I be excused, Madame?”

  “Just one more thing: did you hear from the labs? Were Jenkins’s fingerprints on the syringe? The container?”

  Beckett crossed his arms over his chest and pouted.

  “And why would I know that? I mean, I only deal with bodies, not with insects.”

  Chase continued to stare at him.

  “Alright, you got me. I may have called in a favor to a buddy in the lab. Asked about the evidence.”

  Chase offered a weak smile.

  “I thought you might. And?”

  “And there were no fingerprints. Not a single one on either the container or syringe.”

  Chase swore under her breath.

  “Well now, that’s not very ladylike.”

  Chase got to her feet.

  “That’s cuz I’m not one. I’m a detective.” She held out her hand. “Thanks, Beckett. I owe you one.”

  “And you can repay me by going on a date perhaps? A real date, not this shithole.”

  “Maybe another time, Beckett. Thanks again for your help.”

  Beckett held up his hands defensively.

  “Can’t knock a guy for trying, can you?”

  “Nope. Definitely can’t knock you for trying.”

  CHAPTER 63

  Drake awoke with his mouth so dry that it felt as if he had fallen asleep gorging on a bag of cotton balls. He clucked his tongue, tasted the familiar flavor of sour whiskey, and then his head started to ache.

  For several seconds, Drake was disoriented, unsure of where he was. He was in his car, that much was clear, but the street seemed unfamiliar to him.

  Am I at Tim Jenkins’s house? Am I watching for movement?

  His eyes eventually fell on a familiar black mailbox, this time with the flag down, and everything came flooding back.

  Sorry, no more cash infusions now and probably for a while, he thought.

  As Drake shifted his hips trying to work out the stiffness that had built up as he slept, a car pulled onto the quiet street. He had misplaced his Timex and the dashboard clock blinked 12:00, but judging by the way the sun had already started its descent, he thought that it might be early afternoon.

  Just around the time that Jasmine Cuthbert might be arriving home from work.

  When the car slowed as it neared the house, his heart rate quickened. Wh
en it pulled into the driveway, he was on the verge of hyperventilating.

  He hadn’t spoken to Jasmine since that night in the rain, the night he had knocked on her door weeping.

  Jasmine Cuthbert stepped out of her car and Drake was momentarily frozen. She was pretty, if tired looking, with dark brown hair pulled into a loose ponytail, pale features, and striking eyes. Sporting a tartan skirt that ran to mid-calf and a white blouse tucked in, she went directly to the trunk.

  Before looking inside, she glanced around, her eyes scanning the dusk for something.

  She never noticed Drake sitting in his car across the street.

  With a deep breath, a failed attempt to slow his adrenaline, Drake reached into the glovebox and cracked his final miniature and swallowed it in three gulps.

  He grimaced with the accompanying searing sensation in his throat, then tossed the bottle onto the floor of the passenger seat with the others and stepped out of his car.

  With hesitant steps, Drake started across the street, his eyes fixated on the woman’s back.

  It had been six months since he had seen Jasmine, and he wasn’t sure how she would react to his presence. If the woman was anything like her daughter, then things were destined to go very, very poorly.

  But he had to speak to her one more time. He just had to.

  “Jasmine,” Drake whispered. The woman was rooting in her trunk, struggling to hoist several brown paper bags out at once.

  “Jasmine,” he repeated. When she still didn’t hear him, he reached out and gently put a hand on her shoulder.

  Jasmine Cuthbert whipped around so quickly that she almost fell into her open trunk in the process.

  “Who—” she started, but then her gaze fell on his face.

  This is it, Drake thought. She’s going to scream and yell and hit me and I’m just going to sit here and take it. When she’s exhausted and collapses, I’ll hold her and then she’ll curse me and I’ll get back into my car.

  Then I’ll grab Chase’s gun from the glovebox, check that it’s loaded and stick—

  “Damien?” she said softly. “Oh, Damien, what happened to your face?”

  When she reached out and ran her soft fingers across his puffy cheek, Drake lost it.