Scars (Nevada James #2) (Nevada James Mysteries)

by Matthew Storm

  Scars

  Matthew Storm

  Copyright © 2015 Cranberry Lane Press

  Follow Matthew on Twitter: @mjstorm

  Matthew Storm is also on Facebook.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Many thanks to Michele, for reading yet another of my painfully bad drafts.

  Also thanks to Banks, MS MR, S.J. Tucker, Lindsey Stirling, M83, and Kosheen, for the soundtrack.

  Chapter 1

  I’d been thinking about killing myself for half an hour when my cell phone rang and Sarah Winters asked if I’d come out and look at a crime scene. “It might be him,” she said. I figured I might as well. I could always kill myself later if I couldn’t come up with anything better to do.

  The body was in Hillcrest, a small neighborhood just north of downtown known for its restaurants and nightlife. I parked next to an ambulance and got out of my Mustang, putting a hand inside my black leather jacket to check that my Glock was still there as I stood up. I’d known it was there, of course, tucked away in its shoulder holster. It was always there. That knowledge never stopped me from making sure of it, though. I’d gotten obsessive over it recently. Not that anyone in their right mind could blame me.

  The moon was high and clouds were rolling in from the sea as I locked the Mustang’s door behind me. The wind felt cool and moist, as if it might rain, but it probably wouldn’t. San Diego was a tease that way. I loved the city, but the weather was as predictable as a Swiss watch. There were times I would have killed someone if it meant we could get a good storm for a change. Well, maybe not killed. Slapped around a little, maybe. That didn’t seem too unreasonable.

  I looked around for a moment before heading for the line of yellow tape that had been set up to cordon off the alley. A small crowd had gathered nearby and a white television news van with an array of electronics on its roof had parked just behind them. A camera crew was already setting up lights and a reporter would be on camera soon. They couldn’t have much yet, unless they’d been tipped off to the fact that this might not be just any other murder. If they hadn’t been, my presence here was going to be a big clue as to what was going on. It was still early enough that they might get their report onto tonight’s ten o‘clock news. Then again, if this turned out to be what the media no doubt wanted it to be, they might be willing to break into America’s Super Teenage Singing Extravaganza, or whatever it was that people were watching these days. A serial killer who had gone silent, only to resurface some three and a half years later, might even get national coverage.

  The SDPD uniforms guarding the alley didn’t bother asking for my ID. I wasn’t a cop anymore, but there was little doubt every cop in the city would recognize me. Fame is a funny thing. Cops tended to act like I was some kind of mythological figure; something people talked about but never expected to actually see. That could either work for or against me, of course. Plenty of people were probably happy when Perseus chopped the Medusa’s head off. But others probably thought Perseus might be a bit of a loose cannon, and wondered when he was going to flip out and kill them.

  “Detective,” one of the uniforms nodded at me, holding the yellow tape up for me to pass under. I didn’t bother to correct him. Dan Evans, my old boss, had told me once a cop, always a cop. I nodded back at the uniform and started down the alley.

  The body was under a white sheet next to an overfilled dumpster. The CSI guys had finished up, then, and they were just waiting for somebody to come and cart the body off. But then I noticed two of the medical examiner’s guys waiting a few yards away next to a stretcher. One of them was smoking a cigarette. I hadn’t realized anyone in California still smoked. But that meant Sarah had made them wait for me. That had been sweet of her. Probably unnecessary, but still sweet.

  Sarah was easy to spot in these surroundings, there being a distinct lack of pretty blonde women standing around the body. She wore a dark belted coat with boots of some stylish design I’d never have been able to name. Everything I knew about style could be written on the back of a postcard and then set on fire for all I cared about it. She was speaking to a man I didn’t know but left him when she saw me coming. “Nevada,” she said. “It’s good to see you.”

  “Hey, Sarah,” I nodded. Sarah Winters had been new to the Homicide Division back when I’d been on the Laughing Man case. She’d been around to see my implosion and the end of my career. Sometimes I didn’t know why she still talked to me, but then again, I didn’t really understand why anyone still talked to me. Nobody outside of Oscar the Grouch would have called me a ray of sunshine. I was more the type people crossed the street to avoid.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said. “I wasn’t sure if…” she hesitated and looked at me as if I was a puzzle she was trying to solve. “I mean, I thought maybe you’d be busy, or…”

  I didn’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to know the question she really wanted answered. It would probably be easier to show her rather than tell her. I dug into the front pocket of my dirty jeans, pulled out a small plastic medallion, and handed it to her. Her eyes widened just a bit as she read the text printed there, and I allowed myself one brief instant of pride. Just one, though. I managed to catch the smile that was trying to reach my mouth and pound it back into submission before she noticed.

  “Three months?” Sarah asked. “You’ve got three months?”

  “And a few days more, now. One day at a time, as they say.” I hated A.A. clichés. I hated them even more when they happened to be true.

  I waited for her to hand the medallion back, but her lip trembled and then she stepped forward and threw her arms around me, nearly making me lose my balance. “Okay, I guess we’re doing this,” I said. Sarah was a hugger. I wasn’t. I patted her once on the back, thinking that this might be the signal that we were done hugging now. It wasn’t. She held on for a good ten seconds before letting me go.

  “I’m so proud of you,” she said, wiping a tear away from one eye.

  “Yeah, well…thanks,” I said as she handed the medallion back. “It’s really not a big deal.”

  “It’s a very big deal,” she said. “I really thought we were going to lose you.”

  “Still might,” I shrugged. “The night is young.”

  The man Sarah had been speaking with earlier had been loitering a few feet away. Now he stepped forward. “You must be Nevada James,” he said. “The prodigal daughter returns.” He held out a hand to shake.

  “Do you know what prodigal means?” I asked.

  His hand stayed suspended in the air like it was attached to a helium balloon. “Um…it means the one who left.”

  “No,” I said. “It means wasteful, or extravagant. It could also mean overly abundant. It’s got nothing to do with me, though.”

  “Oh,” he said. He put his hand down.

  Sarah cleared her throat. “Nevada, this is my partner. Brad Ellis. Brad, meet Nevada.”

  Ellis was about six feet tall and looked like a dumbass Ken doll. Or maybe I wa
s just annoyed with him. It was definitely one or the other. He had close-cropped blond hair and I knew he hadn’t bought his sport coat at the Men’s Wearhouse. It looked like it had been sewn around his body while he stood there and preened in the mirror. I tried to think of something clever to say, but I’d worn myself out defining the word prodigal for him. “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he nodded. “It’s going really well so far.”

  I looked back at Sarah. “So what have you got?”

  “Male vic, Caucasian, early thirties…” Ellis started.

  “Sarah?” I asked, ignoring him.

  Sarah shot Ellis a look that said you should probably shut up now in no uncertain terms. “Male victim, Caucasian, early thirties. Single stab wound in the back of the neck as the cause of death. Looks like it was a small blade, maybe four inches, but we’ll know more later. It’s consistent with a Laughing Man kill.” She nodded at the covered body. “Lips and surrounding skin removed postmortem to make the smile.”

  That last part was the Laughing Man’s signature mutilation. He’d done it to all his victims, the last one as I’d watched. I’d seen it more times than I cared to count.

  I nodded. “I’m going to take a look.”

  One of the medical examiner’s guys pulled back the sheet when he saw me coming. He didn’t need to ask who I was, either. A while back he’d wheeled a body out of my house; there had been a hit out on me and the guy who had come to snuff me wound up with a broken trachea. I hadn’t meant to kill him. Sometimes shit just happened.

  The man on the ground probably was in his early thirties, but I wasn’t great at guessing ages. I’d take Sarah’s word for it. He was lying face-up now so I couldn’t see the neck wound, but that wasn’t what I was here for, anyway. I knelt down to take a close look at his face. The medical examiner looked away while I turned the victim’s head so I could see both sides clearly. I’d have had to admit it was fairly gruesome, but this wasn’t new to me. The man’s lips had been cut off and a triangle of skin leading back to where his jaw hinged trimmed away on each side. The exposed teeth gave him the semblance of a wide grin, although a grotesque one.

  I’d seen all of this I needed to see. I stood back up and nodded at the medical examiner, who draped his sheet over the body again and stepped away. I took a look up and down the alley. There wasn’t a great deal to see, other than the dumpster and the normal trash scattered around that you’d expect. A pile of flattened cardboard boxes lay not far away next to a shopping cart full of plastic bags stuffed with God knew what.

  I heard a step behind me. Sarah stood there, with Ellis just behind her. Ellis didn’t look all that pleased with me. He’d probably assumed meeting me would be a different kind of experience. In all fairness I’d probably been too hard on him, but I hadn’t cared much for his tone. Prodigal daughter, my ass.

  “What do you think?” Sarah asked.

  I looked back at the covered body and shrugged. “What do you think, Sarah?”

  She looked at the covered body for a moment, hesitating, as if she could see it through the sheet and find the clue she needed to answer me before she spoke. Then she met my eyes again. “It’s a copycat.”

  “It’s a copycat,” I nodded. “How do you know?”

  Sarah bit her bottom lip. “The marks on the face aren’t clean enough,” she said. “Not precise enough, I mean. When we get the report, I’m betting it says the cuts were made with a knife. Not a straight razor like he uses.”

  “Good,” I said. “What else?”

  “What else?” Ellis asked. “Fair enough, the cuts weren’t done right, but what else are you looking for here?”

  “Art,” I said. “The Laughing Man is an artist. It’s important to him.”

  “It’s not really what I’d call art,” Sarah said quietly.

  “I didn’t say I wanted to see it in the fucking Louvre,” I said, “but it’s still art. This body isn’t posed. There’s no scene here. There’s no story. When the Laughing Man kills someone, that’s just the medium he works in. You see this?” I nodded at the body. “This is just some trash in an alley.”

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” Ellis said.

  That hadn’t come out exactly right. “I mean, it’s terrible that a guy died, of course.” I was perfectly aware of how sincere I didn’t sound, but there wasn’t much to be done about it. “But whoever did this is just a garden-variety murderer with delusions of grandeur. He’s just a fan who wants to be the real thing. It’s not the Laughing Man.”

  “Thanks, Nevada,” Sarah said. “I’m sorry we dragged you all the way out here.”

  “No, don’t be. It was the right call. I’d have been pissed if you found this and didn’t call me. One of these days he’s going to start the game again. It’s just not today.”

  That was what the Laughing Man had told me when he reappeared in my life three months ago. He’d missed the game. He wanted a rematch. And I was the only person he wanted to play with.

  Sometimes I wondered what the hell he was waiting for.

  “I’m surprised Dan’s not here,” I said. Dan was the captain of the SDPD’s homicide division, my old boss and probably my best friend. Not that there was a lot of competition in that department. He took anything potentially involving the Laughing Man very seriously.

  “He’s visiting his mother in Santa Fe,” Sarah said. “I didn’t think I should call him until we knew what we were looking at.”

  “Probably for the best,” I said. “If he thought the Laughing Man was active again he’d have run all the way here. Anyway, check with the homeless guy who lives over there.” I pointed at the shopping cart and flattened boxes. “He’ll come back eventually. I doubt he saw anything, but you never know.”

  “We did notice the shopping cart,” Ellis said.

  “Just remember he’s not the prodigal homeless guy,” I said. Ellis scowled at me. “Oh, come on,” I protested. “That was funny!”

  Ellis turned and walked away. “Sorry,” I said to Sarah.

  “Forget it,” she said. “He’s a decent guy, really. He thinks he’s hot shit, though.”

  I made an expression of mock horror. “Sarah! Did you just say shit?”

  She smirked. “I did.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you swear before.”

  “It’s not a habit of mine. I do know the words, though.”

  I looked back at the body on the ground. They were getting ready to hoist the victim onto a stretcher and take him away. “I do appreciate the call. When you see Dan, tell him I haven’t forgotten about him sending over my case files.”

  “I thought he sent them already?”

  “He left a few out,” I said. “The ones he doesn’t want me looking at because he thinks I’ll start having flashbacks and flip out. He’ll know which ones they are.”

  She nodded. “Your last case. I know that one, too.” She squinted at me. “You wouldn’t start flipping out, would you?”

  “Would anyone know the difference if I did?”

  She didn’t answer that question, looking back at Ellis, instead. He was talking with the two uniforms at the end of the alley. Maybe he was giving them a vocabulary lesson. “So how would you tackle this?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t bother.”

  “Nevada!” She looked like I’d just slapped her face.

  “Oh,” I said, “I don’t mean just let the guy go. But you’re not going to catch him before the Laughing Man does.”

  Sarah gave me a look as if I’d told her to start her investigation by building a rocket ship and flying to the moon to look for clues there. “What are you talking about?”

  “Didn’t I already explain this?” I asked. The look she gave me suggested I hadn’t. “The Laughing Man is an artist.”

  “And?”

  “And he takes his work seriously. Very seriously.” I frowned. “I’m not sure it’s something I can explain very well. It would be like if you were Miche
langelo and you caught some guy doing crayon drawings on the wall of the Sistine Chapel and signing your name to them.”

  She nodded. “That’s a terrible analogy. I get what you mean, though.”

  “Okay,” I said, “so as soon as this hits the television news, which will probably be about…” I looked toward the end of the alley where I could see a cameraman trying to get a shot, “five minutes from now, he’s going to start looking for whoever did this. It won’t be a job for him like it is for the police. It’ll be an obsession. And in the end, whoever did this is going to wind up in one of his still lifes.” I thought it over. “It’ll probably be something that suggests the copycat was stupid, or childish. You might find the body in a school. Art class, maybe. I don’t know.”

  Sarah stared at me. “If I didn’t know better, I might think you were the Laughing Man.”

  “Good thing you do know better, then.” I shrugged. “I don’t have a lot to do until he starts the game again. I think about him pretty much…yeah, all the time.”

  “You need to get out more,” Sarah said. “Come have a drink with me sometime…” she caught herself almost immediately and I could see her face flush. “God, I’m sorry, I don’t mean have a drink.”

  “Damn it, Sarah, do you want me to relapse?”

  “I’m so sorry, Nevada, I…”

  I held up a hand. “I was kidding. Forget it.”

  She sighed. “I just meant it’s not good for you to be sitting around obsessing over him all the time.”

  “Could be worse,” I said. “I could be obsessing over him and drinking.”

  Chapter 2

  Two of the SDPD uniforms kept the media off of me as I walked back to my Mustang. The reporters were swarming around like flies on shit now, shouting questions about the Laughing Man and asking if that was why I’d been called to the crime scene. I ignored them. I hadn’t answered a reporter’s questions since I’d been a cop, and even then I hadn’t done it very well. I wasn’t about to start again now. The police would make a statement of their own soon enough, and once they’d established that it wasn’t the Laughing Man who had done the killing, nobody would want to ask me anything anymore. I preferred it that way.