Catch Me

by Lisa Gardner

  Alex was supportive, caring, and most importantly, as a crime scene expert who taught courses at the police academy, wise enough to allow her plenty of space to do her job. He’d spent the previous night taking his turn being up all hours with the baby, so Alex definitely wasn’t the reason she was cranky.

  Granted, this was also her first major case after her eight-week maternity leave, but given the past two weeks of office paperwork, fieldwork seemed a great idea and definitely was not the reason she was cranky.

  Frankly, she didn’t want to talk about it. She just wanted others to feel her pain.

  D.D. pushed her way through the growing crowd of gawkers piling up on the sidewalk, then flashed her shield at the uniformed officer standing outside the crime scene tape. He dutifully entered her name and badge number in the murder book. Then she was ducking under the yellow tape and slipping on shoe booties and a hair net, before finally mounting the peeling wooden steps of the faded gray tenement building.

  Scene was on the second floor. One-bedroom unit of the low-income housing project. Victim was a forty-something Caucasian male, which from what D.D. could tell, made him the only white guy in an eight-block radius. Apparently, he lived alone, and they’d only gotten the call when neighbors had complained of the smell.

  D.D. hated tenement houses. If you could take despair, give it four walls, leaking ceilings, and very few windows, this is what it would look like. She hated the punk ass teenagers that eyed her boldly as she approached, already so grim they might as well piss off a Boston cop, because what else did they have to lose? She fretted over the shrunken, eighty-year-old grandmothers, forced to carry heavy bags of groceries up three flights of stairs to a bone-cold efficiency unit in the winter, or a 120-degree boiling kettle in the summer. She despaired over the packs of feral kids gazing distrustfully out of doorways, because at the ripe old ages of four, five, six, they’d already been taught to hate all authority figures.

  Race relations in Boston. Inner-city socioeconomics. Label it whatever you wanted; tenement buildings stood as a constant reminder to D.D. of all the ways her job was still failing a significant portion of Boston’s population.

  Guy here had been murdered. D.D. and her squad would investigate. D.D. and her squad would arrest the killer. And life for everyone in this building would suck just as much tomorrow as it did today.

  Sergeant Detective D. D. Warren was cranky. But she did not want to talk about it.

  D.D.’s squadmate, Neil, met her on the second-floor landing. The thirty-two-year-old lanky redhead used to work as an EMT before joining the BPD, and was their go-to man for all things gory. Currently, he was holding a handkerchief over his mouth and nose, which D.D. took as a bad sign.

  He took one look at the expression on her face and recoiled slightly.

  “The baby?” he asked tentatively.

  “Not why I’m cranky,” she snapped.

  He had to think about it. “Alex left you?”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake…” She loved her squad and her squad loved her. But just working with her was enough for them to believe that Alex, who lived with her, must be a saint. “Not why I’m cranky.”

  “You don’t have to go inside,” Neil ventured. “I mean, if you’re worried about the smell, or, or…” His voice trailed off. The warning look in her eyes was enough; he stopped talking.

  “My parents are coming!” D.D. blurted out.

  “You have parents?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “Florida,” she muttered. “They live in Florida. Where they play golf and bridge and do all the things old people do. They like being in Florida. I like them being in Florida. Just because I have a baby is no reason to mess with a good thing.”

  Neil nodded, then waited. When it became clear she was done speaking, he leaned forward slightly. “Do they have names?”

  “Patsy and Roy.”

  “Oh. Well, that explains it. Can we talk about the murder vic now? Please.”

  “Thought you’d never ask. What do we got?”

  “Two GSWs to the head. Probably three to four days dead.”

  D.D. raised a brow. “Bloated, gassy?” she asked, meaning the corpse.

  “Well, been brutally cold, which helped,” Neil offered.

  True. A four-day old corpse in the heat and humidity of August D.D. would’ve smelled a block away. As it was, standing three yards from the door of the apartment, she caught only the dull undertones of something rancid. Thank heavens for the mid-January deep freeze in Boston.

  Then she thought of something. “What about the apartment’s heating unit?” she asked with a frown.

  “Turned off.”

  She arched a brow. “By the victim, or the killer?”

  Neil shrugged, because of course he couldn’t know that yet, which didn’t mean he hadn’t wondered himself. D.D. often thought out loud, which, out of sheer self-preservation, her squad had learned not to take personally.

  “Who’s here?” D.D. asked now, meaning the other investigators.

  Neil rattled off several names. Their other squadmate, Phil, the family man. A couple of crime scene techs, latent prints, photographer, the ME’s office. Not too big a party, which D.D. preferred. Space was small, and extra officers, even so-called experts, had a tendency to mess things up. D.D. liked her crime scenes tight and controlled. Later, if things went wrong, that meant it would be on her head. But D.D. would rather shoulder the blame than ride herd on a bunch of uniforms.

  “What else do I need to know?” she asked Neil.

  “Won’t tell you,” Neil announced stubbornly.

  She glanced at him, startled. Their other squadmate, Phil, was known to go toe-to-toe with her. Neil not so much.

  “If I tell you and I’m wrong, you’re gonna be pissed,” Neil muttered, no longer looking at her. “I don’t tell you, and I’m right, you can feel good about yourself later—and take the credit.”

  D.D. shook her head. Neil would be an excellent detective, if only he didn’t hide behind her and Phil so much. He seemed content to let them be the forward members of the crew, while he spent his days overseeing autopsies at the morgue.

  She wondered if the medical examiner, Ben Whitley, was here. Neil and Ben had been dating for a little over a year now. Not an office romance, per se, but an industry one. Made D.D. uneasy about what might happen in the event of a breakup. On the other hand, given that she was forty, unwed, and now mother to a ten-week-old baby boy, she figured she wasn’t in any position to give personal advice.

  Life happened. All you could do was ride the ride.

  She sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and felt the full weight of her ride’s current sleeplessness. Jack had been snuggled into his carrier when she’d left him this morning. All wide blue eyes and fat red cheeks. When she’d kissed the top of his head, he’d waved his pudgy little fists at her.

  Did a ten-week-old baby know enough to miss his mommy, because a ten-week mommy sure knew enough to miss her baby.

  D.D. sighed one last time, squared her shoulders, and got on with it.

  FIRST SCENT THAT HIT D.D.’S NOSTRILS WAS the overwhelmingly astringent odor of ammonia. She recoiled as if she’d hit a wall, her eyes already tearing up as she frantically waved at the air in front of her, an instinctive motion that made no difference.

  She glanced down and noticed the rest of the story: piles and piles of animal feces, which accompanied at least a dozen pools of urine.

  “What the hell?” she demanded.

  “Puppy,” Neil supplied. “Cute floppy-eared yellow lab. Was shut up for multiple days with the body. Obviously, not good for housebreaking. Puppy survived on toilet water and a box of crackers it chewed its way into. Animal control already took her away, if you want a puppy for Jack.”

  “Jack sleeps, eats, and poops. What’s he gonna do with a puppy?”

  “Hmm,” Neil said, nodding sagely. “It’s probably just a phase.”

  D.D. stepped carefully over the puppy p
iles and followed Neil through the tiny living area into the even tinier kitchen. She waved to a couple of crime scene techs as she went, easing around them in the tight space. Each nodded in greeting but kept working. Given the smell, she couldn’t blame their desire to get in, out, and done.

  Off the kitchen was an open doorway that appeared to lead to the single bedroom. Inside, D.D. spotted her other squadmate, Phil, sitting at a tiny desk with his back to the kitchen. He was wearing gloves, his fingers flying over the keyboard of the vic’s laptop. As their technical expert, he was the most qualified for preliminary data mining. Later, of course, he’d deliver the laptop to the techies for a full-scale forensic eval. But in any investigation, time was of the essence, so Phil liked to see what he could learn sooner, rather than waiting for the full forensic analysis, which would follow weeks later.

  “Hey, Phil,” she called out to her older squadmate.

  He glanced over his shoulder at her, raising one arm absently in greeting, then, spotting her face, performed a double take.

  “Is it Jack?” he asked. Phil had four kids.

  “Not why I’m cranky,” she gritted out.

  “Alex…”

  “Not why I’m cranky!”

  “Her parents are coming,” Neil supplied from behind her.

  “You have parents?”

  D.D. glared at Phil. He quickly returned his attention to the victim’s computer, which allowed her to return her attention to the kitchenette, where a small wooden table had been shoved against the far wall. It featured two rickety wooden chairs, one of which was currently occupied by a corpse.

  The ME, Ben Whitley, was leaning over the body. He looked up at D.D. as she approached, but she noticed he was careful to keep his gaze away from Neil.

  Hmm, she felt like saying. It’s probably just a phase.

  She switched her attention to the vic, an either really fat or really bloated white guy with greasy brown hair and twin bullet holes through the left side of his forehead.

  “No one heard the shots?” she asked. Her eyes still stung from the stench of urine. She understood Neil’s handkerchief now and resiliently forced herself not to gag.

  “In this neighborhood?” Neil replied wryly.

  D.D. pursed her lips, acknowledging his point.

  Dead guy’s considerable mass was just beginning to contort inside the sausage-like casings of his jeans and button-down red flannel shirt. The force of the shots had sent his head back, where his features had probably locked in the first two to six hours due to rigor mortis. Within two to three days, however, rigor had passed, the muscles slackening, the flesh of his jowls seeming to slide down his face like wax melting from a candle. Next step in the decomp process: putrefaction. Within twenty-four hours, bacterial action inside the body produced gases, leading to swelling and a very distinct odor known to homicide detectives and MEs the world over. Skin around the lower abdomen and groin turned blue-green, while stomach contents started to leak out through the mouth, nose, and anus.

  Nothing pretty about decomp, which meant that all in all, D.D. was pleasantly surprised by the corpse’s intact condition. Bacterial action was just starting up, versus already running amok through the dead guy’s intestines. Made the scene more bearable, though she still wouldn’t want to be standing as close to the body as the ME was.

  “So you’re thinking three to four days?” she asked Ben now, the doubt obvious in her voice.

  He pursed his lips, considering. “Cold temperatures impede decomp. Given the apartment’s chilly ambience, I think that explains the slow putrefaction process. But won’t know for sure until I open him up.”

  “First thoughts?”

  “Cause of death is most likely twin GSWs to the left side of the forehead,” he stated. “Double tap, up close and personal. Notice the powder burn ringing the entry wounds, as well as the tight pairing. GSW one and GSW two are not even half an inch apart.”

  “Execution style?” D.D. asked with a frown, venturing closer in spite of herself. “Any defensive wounds?”

  “Negative.”

  D.D. trusted Ben implicitly—he was one of the best ME’s the city ever had. But she couldn’t stop from glancing at the vic’s hands because the lack of defensive wounds didn’t make any sense. Who sat at his kitchen table and just let himself be shot?

  “You’re sure it’s not suicide?” she asked Ben.

  “No gun at the scene. No GSR on his hands,” the ME reported, then added, as a slight rebuke for her questioning his findings, “Unless, of course, he was wearing gloves which he kindly removed after shooting himself to death and hiding the murder weapon.”

  D.D. got his point. She glanced back at Neil. “Forced entry?”

  The lanky redhead shook his head. He appeared smug. “First responders had the building manager let them in. No sign of tampering with the lock. Windows are intact, not to mention too warped to open.”

  D.D. eyed her squadmate. “You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

  “Nope.”

  “All right, all right,” she muttered. “Game on.”

  She continued her analysis of the scene. Entry wounds to vic’s forehead appeared tight and round. Given the lack of exit wound, she assumed a small-caliber weapon, such as a. 22. Easy enough handgun to conceal until the last minute, especially this time of year when everyone was bulked up in winter jackets. But also a questionable choice for a murder weapon—not much bang in a. 22. Gun aficionados generally referred to such handguns as “plinking” guns. Good for shooting at cans and squirrels, or maybe hurling at an opponent if all else failed. But plenty of people got shot by. 22s and lived, making the small-caliber handgun a dubious choice for an execution-style homicide.

  D.D. moved on with her analysis: Shooter was most likely someone the victim knew. Victim not only opened the door, but let the unknown subject into his apartment. Furthermore, sitting at the kitchen table implied hospitality. Would you like something to drink, that sort of thing.

  D.D. crossed to the kitchen sink. Sure enough, two chipped blue mugs sat inside the grimy stainless steel basin. With gloved hands, she lifted the first mug and peered inside. No noticeable dried residue, so either a clear liquid or the mugs were rinsed.

  She returned the mugs, which would be bagged and tagged by the evidence techs, then did a double take.

  Mugs had been rinsed, then placed in the sink? Because nothing else inside the apartment looked like it had been rinsed, wiped, or otherwise tended in at least six months. The countertops were sticky and grungy. Ditto with the urine-splattered floor, grime-covered floorboards, and stained walls.

  She glanced back at the wooden table, which also appeared suspiciously pristine. She ran a gloved finger along the battered surface. Old yes, battle-scarred definitely, but clean. So two mugs rinsed, one wooden table wiped.

  She looked up at Neil, who was smiling even more broadly now.

  “Shooter cleaned up after himself,” she murmured.

  He wouldn’t reply, but given his terrible poker face, he didn’t have to.

  Next up, D.D. wrenched open the refrigerator door. She discovered an opened can of dog food that smelled even worse than the rest of the apartment, a six-pack of beer, wine coolers, Hostess Twinkies, containers of leftover Chinese, half a dozen condiments, and the remains of a rotisserie chicken dated ten days prior.

  So the victim liked fast food and had a sweet tooth.

  D.D. tried some of the cupboards, discovering paper products in lieu of plates, plastic products in lieu of silverware, as well as multiple shelves of chips, crackers, cereals, and store-bought cookies. Last cupboard seemed to be for the dog—bags of dry puppy food, plus more canned food.

  D.D. continued to build her mental profile. Middle-aged single white male, living a bachelor life in a low-income housing project.

  Why this building? White guy had to stand out, feel uncomfortable. Lonely? Was that why he got a puppy? But he entertained. Had someone here, whom he invited in for a drin
k, perhaps, maybe come over, see my new puppy. Have a drink, have a snack.

  D.D. got that feeling. It was a distinct physical sensation that started at the base of a good detective’s spine, before zipping straight up the vertebrae to the back of her neck, where the tiny hairs stood up and made her shiver.

  She glanced at Neil, who beamed larger.

  “No fucking way!” she said.

  “Way.”

  “What’s Phil found?”

  “Don’t know about the computer, but we already discovered two shoeboxes of photos tucked beneath the bed.”

  “Is the vic in the system?”

  “No hits thus far, though we’re still running his name and prints through the national database.”

  “But the photos?”

  “All boys, all under the age of twelve, mostly black, but other ethnicities as well. I’d say he selected his victims based on opportunity, rather than race.”

  “Son of a bitch!” D.D. exclaimed. “He’s a pedophile. Set up shop right in the middle of his target population—unloved, unsupervised, highly vulnerable kids. Gets their attention when he’s walking his puppy, then invites them up for a cookie, chips, a bottle of beer. Son of a bitch.”

  “D.D.”

  She glared at the dead guy, the twin holes in his forehead, the melted wax face. “Kid struck back,” she muttered, then considered the carefully wiped down surfaces. “Or maybe a parent or an older sibling or a friend. Someone got wise, then he got dead. Good.”

  “D.D.”

  “What?”

  “It gets better.”

  “What’s better than one less pervert in the city?”

  Phil came walking out of the bedroom, snapping off his gloves. “You tell her yet?” he asked Neil.

  “Tell me what?”

  “You were on maternity leave,” Phil said, as if that explained everything.

  “Tell me what!”

  “Not one less pervert in the city,” Neil said happily. “Mr. Wanna See My Puppy over there makes two.”