“No wonder we’re getting no trace whatsoever from that garage,” he growled. “You sterilized the place within an inch of its life.”
“Well, yeah,” Sadie said, nervously. “That’s what I do. It was a suicide and—”
“Not a suicide,” Petrovich hissed at her. Looking around, he nodded to his car. “Wait here.”
She climbed into the passenger seat of his unmarked and waited.
Not a suicide?
Sadie thought about Hugh Pacheo and the fact that she hadn’t been able to reach him since cleaning up. She was getting a bad feeling about the entire thing.
She watched as Petrovich approached a couple other officers standing in the driveway. Simultaneously all three turned and stared at Sadie. She sunk lower in the seat under their scrutinizing stares.
Petrovich returned to the car and regarded Sadie coolly. “Couple weeks ago a neighbor got suspicious and called SPD. We came and found a young man hanging in the garage,” Petrovich began.
“Hugh Pacheo’s son, right?” Sadie said.
“House belonged to a young man named Lester Pacheo,” Petrovich continued.
“Right.” Sadie nodded enthusiastically. “After you guys did your job, removed the body and everything, I came in to clean up. His dad hired me,” Sadie repeated.
Petrovich sighed. “It looked standard to us. Homicidal hanging is not your everyday cup of joe. He left no note, but there isn’t always one. Anyway, the medical examiner had issues with the ligature marks and ran a toxicology test. Lester Pacheo was drugged using the exact same cocktail as the prostitutes.” He pinned Sadie with his most cop-like glare. “Do you understand what I’m saying? This case is connected to our finger-chopping serial killer.”
“Oh my God,” Sadie whispered. Her eyes were wide with fear as the realization dawned. “The dad, Hugh Pacheo, hired me to clean up!” The gears inside her head were turning. “Is he the killer? Did I take a job to clean up after a serial killer?”
“Sadie,” Petrovich said, blowing out a long breath and shaking his head, “Hugh Pacheo died over ten years ago.”
Chapter 14
Sadie felt suddenly sick. Not just slightly nauseated, but like she’d been swallowed by a tsunami of swirling sewage.
���Are you going to throw up?” Petrovich asked. “You don’t look so good. “
She was sweating like a Satanist visiting the Pope.
“I just need some fresh air,” Sadie said.
She climbed out of his car and drew in deep, cleansing breaths before she went down like a sack of wet cement in a dead faint.
When she came to, Detective Petrovich was crouched next to her and eyeing her like she was a specimen under a microscope.
“Do I need to call an ambulance?”
“No!” Sadie sprung to her feet and stood with her legs apart to give her a little extra balance. “I’ve been dizzy lately. I must be coming down with something. Maybe the flu.”
“This isn’t like you.” He scrunched up his face and looked at her stomach. “You’re not pregnant are you?”
“What! No, no, no.” Sadie laughed a little too loudly. “That would be entirely impossible.”
She thought about her hot and heavy night with Owen Sorkin and blushed to her roots.
“Huh.” Petrovich looked skeptical. “Then you need to see a doctor.”
“You’re absolutely right.” Sadie nodded and cringed at the thought of the cost of visiting her doctor and then paying for all the tests he’d probably order.
“If you’re not going to pass out again, I need a description of this guy claiming to be Hugh Pacheo.”
“Of course.” Sadie nodded enthusiastically. “Can we do this in my car? I’ve got a bottle of water in there.”
They walked over to Sadie’s vehicle and Dean Petrovich folded his legs up to his chest to fit. He couldn’t move the passenger seat farther back because she’d filled the backseat with cleaning stuff.
“Sorry,” Sadie said. “I was on my way to a job a couple blocks from here and SPD still has my van.”
“Right.” Petrovich angled his body so he was facing her. “We gotta figure out what your connection is here. Fingers have been left on your windshield twice, so he knows what you drive. A faked suicide just to get you out here to clean up? He’s playing cat and mouse with you. I’m guessing this is someone you’ve met, or at least dealt with in the past, and you must’ve pissed him off big-time.”
Sadie shook her head and felt tears well up. “I can’t think of anyone who hates me this much.”
“Describe exactly how you got the call from this Hugh Pacheo and where you met him.”
“E-mail. He, um, e-mailed me first. Left me a cell number and we talked, but the phone’s been disconnected since then.” She scrolled through her phone and forwarded the e-mail she received from him to Petrovich’s e-mail account. “I’ve sent it,” Sadie told him. “The cell phone number is included in that e-mail.”
“I’m betting we’ll find that the cell is stolen or it was a throwaway phone.”
Sadie described everything she could think of about her communication with Hugh Pacheo.
“You met him in the evening. Was it dark?”
“Starting to get dark,” Sadie agreed. “Streetlights had just come on.”
She nodded her chin toward the long driveway lined with a tall cedar hedge.
“We parked in the driveway and the nearest neighbor probably wouldn’t have been able to see us in our cars because of the trees.” She described the late-model gray Chevy he’d been driving.
“So he took you inside and showed you the place the body had been?”
She shook her head.
“We signed the contract outside of our cars and he only gave me a key for entrance to the garage through the side door. He didn’t come in with me.” She saw Petrovich scribbling notes. “But that’s not unusual. Most parents aren’t anxious to revisit the place where there kid died.”
“But he wasn’t the parent,” he reminded her. “Describe him.”
“He looked like a nice old guy. Early sixties. Full head of thick, salt-and-pepper hair. Blue eyes. Average build and height. He had nicely manicured nails, which I thought was unusual for a man his age.” Sadie shrugged helplessly. “I don’t know what else to tell you. He had the type of face that seemed vaguely familiar but I’m sure we never met.”
“Then why would he seem familiar?”
“Just had that look . . . like he was every kind, sweet grandpa you’d ever meet . . . your average guy on the street.” Sadie closed her eyes in thought. “Sorry I can’t give you more.”
Petrovich took a photo out of a manila folder and handed it to her.
“This guy look familiar?”
Sadie examined the picture closely. The bald man in the photo had a rotund face sporting numerous chins and a red bulbous nose.
“I’ve never seen him before.”
“That’s the real Hugh Pacheo.”
Sadie stared at the picture and shook her head. “Definitely not the guy who met me.”
The detective took the photo back. “Good. I’d hate to think the guy came back from the dead to hang his own son but, when dealing with you, I know not to leave any stone unturned.” He sounded less than happy about it. “I’m going to need you to come down to the station and give me a full report on the record.”
“I gotta do this job first,” Sadie said. “I’m not getting enough work these days. I can’t afford to throw one away. It’s two blocks away.”
“Fine. I can live with that.” He hooked a thumb in the direction of the house. “I got work cut out for me here anyway. This job you’ve got, is there any chance it could be connected to this one or the others?”
Sadie gave him the details of the suicide job and he nodded his head.
“I didn’t get the call on that one, so I’ll check with the officers involved. You think it’s a straight-up suicide though?”
“Yes.” Sadie nodded. “Although, I thought the same about this one.”
“Right. You’ll call me when you finish up and we’ll get everything you know on paper, okay? I’m going to want access to all your files too. This thing is connected to you and we gotta figure out what that link is.”
Sadie kept meticulous records and told Petrovich he was welcome to come to her house and go through them.
Before he hoisted himself out of Sadie’s car he asked her, “By the way, I don’t suppose you had any visitors when you were cleaning here?” He put the word visitors in air quotes.
Sadie shook her head. “No, but I don’t get suicides talking to me, so—” She stopped short. “But it wasn’t a suicide after all.” She tapped her chin thoughtfully. “I remember catching the glimpse of something in my peripheral vision when I worked in the garage. I thought it was my mind playing tricks on me. Do you want me to try and contact someone here?”
He looked pained as he shook his head. “How about we just go about figuring this out the old-fashioned way?”
“Fine. No trying to talk to the dead. Was there any evidence found on my van?” Sadie asked.
“Tons of prints. Yours and some of the workers at the hotel on the back door. Nothing on or near the windshield.” He sputtered loudly. “I don’t get it. Somehow you’re connected to this. It’s like the guy wants you to be the one to catch him.”
“I’m more than a little freaked out,” Sadie said seriously.
“I’ll arrange to have a uniform car drive by your place every hour or so, okay? But it would be better for you to stay with someone. A friend? Your mom?”
“I’ll think about it.” She nodded and thanked him. Sadie knew a lot of killing could get done in the fifty-nine minutes between the times an officer would drive by her place, but there was no way she’d bunk with her family while some serial killer had her in his crosshairs.
“Dean, there’s one more thing. . . .”
Sadie had left it to the end. She felt oddly reluctant to remove the necklace from around her neck, but now she handed it over to the detective.
“Hugh Pacheo . . . or the guy claiming to be him, gave me this necklace. He also gave me a song and dance about not being able to pay me until his pension check came and would I please wear the necklace all the time to bring me good luck until we met again with the payment for my services.”
“And you believed that load of crap?” Petrovich held the pendant up and stared at it hard.
“Well, like I said . . . he seemed like an okay guy and—”
She was interrupted by Petrovich reading the back of the gold disc.
“Carnalem concupiscentiam est insatiabilis.” He shook his head slowly as he looked at Sadie. “Do you know what that translates to?”
“I never studied Latin, but Hugh, um, the guy pretending to be Hugh, said it was some sort of good-luck message.”
“No,” Petrovich snapped. “It loosely translates to ‘Carnal desire is insatiable.’ Doesn’t sound like a good luck charm to me.”
Sadie’s throat grew tight and she chewed her lower lip.
“I didn’t know you studied Latin.”
“I dabbled in college.” Petrovich was still staring at the necklace.
“You’re right. It doesn’t sound like good luck,” Sadie sniffed.
“No, but it does sound like the motto of our killer. Wait here.”
He climbed out of the car and Sadie watched as he took the necklace over to his vehicle and securely tucked it away in an evidence bag he retrieved from his trunk. Then he approached the investigators in the garage and turned it over. When he came back to Sadie’s car he was silent awhile and she knew he was weighing whether or not to tell her something.
“The three girls killed at the hotels . . . ,” he began slowly. “They didn’t die from knife wounds.”
“Was it the drug cocktail that killed them? The same thing used to drug Lester Pacheo before he died?”
“No. The drug mixture was solely to incapacitate the victims so that he could kill them without a struggle.”
“Then if it wasn’t the drugs, and it wasn’t multiple knife wounds . . .”
“They were strangled. Before they were stabbed, they were choked to death and the killer didn’t use his hands.” He reached and placed a hand on Sadie’s arm in a rare showing of emotion. “From the markings on the girls’ necks, the ME believes the killer used a thick gold chain.”
Sadie shook her head violently, trying to erase the idea from her head.
“This was clearly a warning. He got off on the idea of you wearing it until he could kill you with it.”
Sadie’s hand went to her throat.
“What do I do?”
Petrovich offered to stay with Sadie until a friend came to get her, but she declined. She was still a professional and she still had a job to do, she told him. However, he wouldn’t be put off and insisted that she call a friend to find a place to stay. She thought about her sister, Dawn, or Maeva but they had babies, and that changed everything. Petrovich wasn’t leaving until she called someone, so, reluctantly, she dialed Rosemary. Sadie was careful not to tell her about the new evidence, particularly not in front of the detective who’d have a cow if he knew of Rosemary’s habit of video and blogging about events.
“She says it’s no problem if I stay with her,” Sadie told him.
“Good. Go do your job, but you keep in contact. I will bring you down and get your statement probably tomorrow.” He pointed to a patrol car. “He’ll be following you too.”
Sadie nodded and once she’d pulled away from the curb and left Petrovich to tend to evidence collection, her hand went to her heart pounding inside her chest as if she could stop her fear.
On her way to the self-inflicted gunshot job, Sadie called back Rosemary and thanked her for allowing her to stay. She also said that once she’d finished the cleanup job, she wanted to get together with her and Maeva.
“I’ll see if she’s available to come over,” Rosemary said. “You sound strange. Is everything okay?”
“No,” Sadie replied, her voice shaking. “Everything is far from okay.”
Chapter 15
Sadie returned to Bellefield Park Lane and was very relieved to see the patrol car follow her there. She immersed herself in cleaning up the blood spatter in the small bathroom. She hummed softly from behind her respirator and tried not to think about being next on a serial killer’s list.
It was just after seven when Sadie wrapped things up. She stacked the waste containers neatly near the door but figured she’d wait until she got her van back to haul it all away. She’d talked to the client and mentioned the job was basically done with the exception of some waste removal. The woman was fine with Sadie leaving the bins there for a few days if necessary.
Next on her agenda was, hopefully, a gathering of her psychic friend network for a brainstorming session. Sadie texted Rosemary that she was done in Bellevue and that her plan was to go home, shower, and pack an overnight bag before coming over. When she walked to her car, she stopped first at the patrol car parked behind her.
“I’m going home now to wash up and pack a bag before going to my friend’s for the night.”
“I’m to stay on your tail,” the officer stated, and he offered Sadie a bright smile.
Sadie thought he looked entirely too happy to be assigned the task of babysitting her. As she walked to her car, she began to wonder if he was happy about it because he considered her bait for a serial killer that he might get the chance a
t catching.
Sadie was prepared to spend only a small amount of time at home, but when she pulled up to her house, Rosemary’s Mini Cooper was in the driveway. Sadie pulled around the car and into her garage. When she walked into her house she was hit by the distinct smell of smoldering sage, cedar, and sweetgrass.
“Are you trying to burn my place down?” Sadie called out as she walked into her living room.
“We did a cleansing smudge,” Maeva called out with a half wave to Sadie.
“And a circle of protection too,” Rosemary added. “And now I’m just drinking your wine and Maeva’s drinking your juice.”
I really need to talk to my friends about the proper uses of an emergency key.
“You’re here without a baby in tow? Guess you’re taking advantage of the fact that Osbert will take a bottle?”
“Yup. Not only that, but Terry took a catering job out of town tonight and I’ve got the next-door neighbor teenager babysitting for two whole hours.”
“That’s great. I’ve gotta shower off,” Sadie told them. “Then we’ll get down to business.”
“Take your time,” Maeva called out over her shoulder as she flicked on the television. “I pumped before I left so there’s no hurry. I feel like a new woman.”
Sadie couldn’t help but feel it would be somewhat nice to have a conversation with Maeva that didn’t somehow center around her friend’s breasts.
It was twenty minutes later when Sadie felt properly unsoiled and sterilized. Even though she wore biohazard clothing to clean on a job, she insisted on showering off after work as an extra precaution. Of course, showering did little to remove the smell of body decomp from her sinuses.
Sadie slipped into sweatpants and a T-shirt and stuffed spare clothes into a small overnight bag before joining her friends in the living room.
Maeva had Hairy on her lap and was talking in a baby voice as she stroked his back. “You’re just the cutest bunny-wunny, aren’t you?”
Sadie settled onto a chair and regarded her friends with a weary smile.
Dead Suite Page 19
