“Sleep well, my friend,” he said as Trevor started to snore. His smile broadened. “Don’t worry about anything… you’ll be safe here. I promise.”
And then he started to laugh.
PART I – NATURAL CAUSES
~
CHAPTER 1
“HOW CAN YOU BE SO sure, Mrs. Armatridge?” Damien Drake asked with something akin to a sigh.
The woman across from him fiddled with the pearls that hung loosely around her neck like a rosary. Her heavily mascaraed eyes narrowed.
“I know, trust me, I know.”
Drake leaned back in his chair, tucking his hands behind his head.
“I need a little more to go on than a woman’s intuition, you understand. I get that you’re upset, but I have a business to run. I can’t go off and pursue everyone woman who thinks that their maid is stealing silverware. It wouldn’t do me any good to harass people for no reason.”
The woman scowled, and then started rooting around in her purse. This made Drake uncomfortable, and he unlaced his fingers and leaned forward in his chair. He slid his right hand under his desk and placed his fingers loosely on the butt of the gun that was taped beneath.
“Mrs. Arma—”
“Here,” she said, pulling out a check book.
Drake relaxed and took his hand off his pistol.
She scrawled a number on the check, signed it, and tore it off. Drake reached out and took it from her, his eyes scanning the figure.
He tried not to gawk.
“Maybe this will make you reconsider harassment, Damien. As you can tell, I’m serious about this. Very serious. I want proof that she’s stealing, and then I want her arrested.”
Drake nodded quickly, and then put the check into the top drawer of his desk, sliding it beneath the half empty bottle of Johnny Red.
“I understand your concerns, Mrs. Armatridge, and I can see that you are a woman of conviction. I have no issue moving forward with our professional relationship. But to do so, I’m going to need more than a check.”
A razor thin eyebrow extended high up her forehead. Drake tried to suppress a smile. Mrs. Armatridge’s eyebrow looked like a paperclip trying to find solace in her white perm.
“Such as?”
“I’m going to need a set of keys, and codes to any alarms that you might have. I also need a complete itinerary and schedule—for you, your husband, and the maid. To the minute. I want to know when you guys are home, but more importantly I need to know when you aren’t going to be there.”
The woman fiddled with her necklace again. Despite her previous gesture, and the check, Drake could see that she had become nervous.
And that had been his intention—to let her know just how serious things were about to get. Spying on people, even those you loved, family, had a tendency to end in strife.
“Why do you need keys?” she asked.
“I need to set up surveillance—cameras and what not.”
Drake expected to surprise the woman with this comment, but if anything it seemed that the opposite was true.
It seemed to offer comfort.
“And you’ll show me everything you record? Everything?”
Drake nodded.
“Of course. I’ll show the tapes to you, and only you. And when—if—we see anything illegal, we’ll inform you immediately. I have to admit, though, that these things don’t always work out as planned. If, after two weeks, we don’t see anything out of the ordinary, we’ll pull the cameras and then sit down and have another chat.”
The woman nodded.
“Good.”
“But,” Drake began hesitantly, “sometimes with these cameras, we pick up things that are… how can I say this delicately… not just theft. Things that are outside the realm of what one might consider ordinary. Before we move forward, you need to be aware of this and let me know what you want me to do with such videos, should they be recorded. Of course, at Triple D Investigations, you can be assured of our complete discretion.”
The woman smiled, and Drake suddenly felt slimy. He had a sneaking suspicion that Mrs. Armatridge wasn’t only concerned with missing spoons and forks. There was something else that she wanted to catch on video.
“Show me,” she said quietly. “I want to see everything.”
Be careful what you wish for, Drake thought. With a nod, he stood, offered the woman a tired smile and shook her hand.
“Thank you, Mrs. Armatridge. Please provide Screech with the information and keys I requested before you leave.”
The woman thanked him back, and then left his office.
“And close the door behind you, please!” he shouted, and the woman obliged.
When she was gone, Drake reached into his desk drawer and pulled out the check. He could barely believe it.
Ten grand for a job like this? It had to be some sort of joke.
Leaving the NYPD and starting the small PI outfit, first on his own and then with Screech whom he had found online, had been meant as a stop gap measure, a way to earn some petty cash while things cooled off at the precinct.
Before he could apply to be a detective again.
After all, Sergeant Rhodes couldn’t be around forever, could he?
He held the check up to the light, confirming its legitimacy.
But with money like this…
Drake chuckled, put the check back, then retrieved the bottle of whiskey and poured himself two fingers.
If anything deserved a celebration, it was this.
While he sipped, his mind wandered back to his bug-eyed ex-boss. Instead of searching for Sergeant Rhodes, however, when he turned on the computer, it was his own name that he Googled.
Two articles came up, both written by the same man: Ivan Meitzer.
The first was the Skeleton King expose that he himself had been the informant for, which despite being more than a year old was still the top hit, and the second was the one that Ivan had published shortly after they had captured the Butterfly Killer.
Drake had promised Chase that he wouldn’t do the expose despite the debt he owed to Ivan, but it hadn’t mattered; someone had gone ahead and spilled the beans, and it had predictably painted Drake in a less than favorable light. When Screech had first brought the article to his attention, he had gone on a rampage wondering who had been the source—Detective Simmons? Yasiv? The bastard Sergeant Rhodes himself? Chase?—but after his rage fizzled, he came to realize that it didn’t matter who had broken their silence. It was out, and that’s what counted.
Drake read the headline for what felt like the thousandth time.
Veteran NYPD Detective breaks all the rules in pursuit of the Butterfly Killer.
He shook his head.
Drake resisted the temptation to read the article again, and instead found himself searching for “NYPD Detective Chase Adams”, as was his habit.
One of the first results was Chase smiling broadly, a plaque held in both hands. Standing behind her was Sergeant Rhodes, his weasely eyes poking out from behind round spectacles.
Detective Chase Adams makes First Grade detective in record time, the heading beneath the photo read.
Drake smiled.
After everything that they had been through together, he was happy for her. And a little proud.
He was staring at her image when the door to his office opened, and Screech burst in. Tall, thin and wiry, Steven Horner aka Screech, was in his mid-twenties, but acted as if he had just entered his teenage years. His hair was shaved on the sides with a swooping pompadour on top, which made his face appear even more narrow. His thin goatee didn’t help him look any less like a Planter’s peanut, either.
“Well, that shit was interesting,” Screech said as he bounded toward him.
Screech also had a problem with walking; he simply hadn’t seemed to master the art of it. He either bounded, skipped, sprinted, or sauntered.
He never walked.
Drake raised an eyebrow, and deliberately peered around him.
“Don’t worry, the GILF is gone,” Screech said. “Listen, you really want me to set up cameras in her house?”
Drake didn’t answer right away. Instead, he reached inside the drawer and grabbed a second glass, filling it with a splash of scotch and motioning for Screech to grab it.
As he did, Drake laid the check on the desk in plain view.
“For ten grand, we’re going to videotape her cat taking a dump, if she so desires,” Drake said. Screech laughed, a high-pitched, irritating noise from which Drake imagined that his nickname had been borne, and then he took a sip of his scotch.
“Salud,” Screech said after he was done tittering. They clinked glasses and both of them drank.
~
Screech left shortly after Mrs. Armatridge with instructions to set up the cameras in her home the following morning when the maid was out doing groceries, the Mr. was out getting his car serviced and the woman herself was at church service. Drake, feeling more than a little buzzed, was just locking his office door, when a shadow appeared in the entrance to Triple D Investigations.
“You forget your dental dam, Screech? Because—”
But the door was thrown so wide that it bounced off the back wall and startled Drake. He removed the keys from the lock and whipped around and found himself staring at a lean, light-skinned black man who stood in the entrance.
“Detective Drake?” the man gasped.
Drake’s eyes narrowed, and he felt his body tense, preparing for action.
“Nobody’s called me that for some time,” he said quietly, trying to measure up the other man.
He was young, with neatly cropped, curly black hair and dark circles under his eyes. But for all of his bluster, his pose was non-aggressive.
He was scared.
“But that is you?” the man asked, moving forward.
Drake nodded.
“Yeah that’s me—Damien Drake.”
The man took a deep, hitching breath. When he reached into his leather messenger bag slung over one shoulder, Drake instinctively took a step toward him. Scared or not, he wasn’t about to be taken by surprise.
But when the man pulled out a folder, Drake felt his body relax and he admonished himself.
You’ve got to stop doing that. You’re going to give myself a heart attack thinking that everyone is going to pull an Uzi from their purse.
“We’re closing, so if this is about a job, come back tomorrow,” Drake said.
The man shook his head.
“No, I’m pretty sure you’re going to want to see this,” he said flatly.
Drake eyed him suspiciously, and when the other man didn’t falter, he nodded.
“Fine, step into my office, then.”
CHAPTER 2
The man introduced himself as Dr. Edison Larringer, Eddie for short, a pathology resident at NYU. He spoke in the rushed, hurried speech of a man that needed to be somewhere, everywhere, anywhere but here.
“How can I help you, Eddie?” Drake asked, sweeping the scotch and empty glasses back into the drawer. Business had been tough to come by, and he wasn’t about to turn down his second whale of the day.
And that said nothing of the other niggling fact, his gut reaction that this man had something important to show him.
Eddie didn’t answer. Instead, he swallowed hard and placed the folder on the table and spun it around. Drake picked it up and opened it. The first thing he saw was an 8 x 10 photograph depicting a man half on and half off a bed, his neck bent awkwardly beneath him, his face masked in shadows. There was a second photograph beneath the first, and without thinking, Drake held them side by side.
They looked to be copies.
Drake took his time looking at them, his eyes moving from one to another, trying to ascertain what was so important that the young doctor felt the need to burst into his office at half-past six on a Friday evening.
When nothing came to him, and he doubted that nothing would no matter how long he stared, Drake looked at the man across from him, an eyebrow raised.
“I’m not sure—” he began, but Eddie cut him off.
“They’re both dead,” he said quickly.
“Yes, I can see—”
“But they aren’t the same; they’re actually different. Look at the clock, it’s a different time, and the sweater isn’t exactly the same, the first has like this cross stitch pattern while the other has—”
Now it was Drake’s turn to interrupt.
“Woah, slow down there partner. Take a deep breath. Go slow. It’s late and I’m old.”
Eddie’s eyes bulged and his mouth twisted as if to say, How dare you tell me to slow down with something as important as this? Don’t you get it? Don’t you understand?
But in the end, the young man did as asked.
When Eddie spoke again, his words came out more slowly. Still fast by any measure, but slower on a relative scale.
“On the left is a photograph from the NYU forensic pathology course exam, the one with the clock that reads 3:41. The one on the right is a copy, but it’s a copy, if you catch my drift. See the clock? It reads 3:42 am.”
Drake turned his attention back to the photographs, and noted that what Eddie was saying was true. And yet he still didn’t see the significance.
“I see that, but what does it mean? The pictures were taken a minute apart. So what?”
The man took another deep breath.
“Okay, so the one on the left is from the test—we are given the photograph and then supposed to determine possible causes of death, differentials, if you will—and it’s a real photograph from a crime scene. I don’t know from when, but judging by the decor, it’s at least a decade old, maybe even more. It’s the same image used every year in the course.”
Drake nodded.
“Okay…”
“It’s supposed to be a trick; see how the bedspread is all messed up? The first inclination is that there is foul play involved, that there was a fight, an altercation of some sort that caused his death. At least that’s what the professor expects your final diagnosis to be. But the real cause of death is much more… ordinary. This man just got very drunk and fell out of bed. He was so drunk that he never woke up when his windpipe was closed off—positional asphyxia, it’s called.”
Drake looked at the photograph, tilting his head off to one side as he squinted. He had never heard of positional asphyxia, but it looked like a very unpleasant way to go.
He would much rather go out with his fists raised.
Drake shook his head and held out the second photograph, the one with the clock reading 3:42.
“And this one?”
Eddie blinked.
“This one is different; it’s not the same person, not the same crime. It’s been staged.”
Drake’s eyes narrowed.
“How do you know?”
“It’s been made to look like the first one, like the photo from the test, but it isn’t the exact same.”
Drake felt himself nodding.
“And where did you get this one from?” he asked, shaking the photograph in his right hand.
Eddie suddenly leaned back in his chair, and Drake thought he saw sweat begin to bead on his forehead. For the first time since barging into Triple D, the man seemed to be at a loss for words.
Drake waited and eventually Eddie lowered his eyes.
“I stole it,” he said quietly.
Drake stared.
It wasn’t the revelation he had expected, but it was something.
“From where?”
Again, Eddie hesitated. When he finally answered, his voice was barely audible.
“I stole it from the professor of the course—I stole it from Dr. Beckett Campbell. And I know one thing for certain: that man, the one in the photograph with the clock reading 3:42? He didn’t die from positional asphyxia. He was murdered.”
CHAPTER 3
“Wait a second, you stole this? From Beckett Campbell?”
A look of confusion crossed Eddie’s face.
“Yeah, I took it. But the important thing is that this man—” he reached across the table and took the photograph from Drake. “—was murdered.”
Drake stared at Eddie for a long time before saying anything; he was having a hard time reading the man. Eddie was convincing enough, but this whole thing about stolen photographs from Beckett of all people, of forensic pathology exams, positional asphyxia, if that really was a thing, all seemed like a cruel joke.
A setup of some sort, the reason for and the point of, Drake couldn’t begin to imagine.
He leaned back in his chair and prepared himself to put this young doctor—if he was in fact a doctor—to the test.
“Alright Eddie, I’m not sure what king of game you’re playing, but I’ll play along. But here’s the thing: if after I’ve drunk a fifth of scotch I decide that I don’t like the rules of this game, then I’m going to make sure that there is only one loser, and it ain’t gonna be me. Got it?”
Eddie screwed up his face and recoiled.
“Game? What are you talking about, game? Someone’s been murdered. Maybe you haven’t been—”
“How’d you find me, Eddie? Of all the private investigators in New York City, you came to me—why? If you’re so convinced that the person in the photo was murdered, why don’t you go to the police?”
Eddie dropped his gaze and said nothing. Drake grimaced and slid the photograph back into the folder.
“Thanks so much for coming in today, Eddie. But I’m afraid you caught me at a bad time. See, I was just about to go get drunk and celebrate signing a new client—a real client,” Drake said as he pushed the folder across the desk toward Eddie, an unfamiliar smugness forming on his face. “So if you’ll excuse me, I—”
Eddie’s eyes shot up.
“Suzan told me about you. Suzan Cuthbert.”
Drake froze.
“What?” He felt anger immediately start to mount inside him, and his body tensed. “You better watch what you say next, Eddie, or—”
“Suzan’s at NYU in her first year of medical school, and she started auditing the forensic pathology resident course,” Eddie said leaning away from Drake. “It… uh, the death of her father came up.”
Shadow Suspect Page 31
