The Good Son: A Suspense Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 2)

by Dustin Stevens

  Looking up to the signs posted on the corner of each aisle, The Good Son picked out the one announcing Garden Tools. He headed in that direction, the bitterness in him making way for a renewed sense of purpose.

  Tonight.

  Tonight would be different.

  It had to be.

  Chapter Six

  The midday sun beat straight down on the top of Reed’s car, turning the black sedan into a veritable sauna. With the air conditioner blasting on high, the temperature inside hovered somewhere in the vicinity of tolerable, though never came close to cool.

  Billie felt the heat, too, as she sprawled on the backseat, panting. Every time Reed checked his rearview mirror he could see her tongue hanging out further and further, dripping on the plastic seat cover.

  Arriving at their destination, Reed pulled the car into the far back corner of the lot and sought out one of the few parking spaces with shade from an ancient oak tree.

  After parking, he reached onto the passenger floorboard for a red plastic bowl. Placing it on the ground, he pushed it away a few feet and poured in a bottle of water, saving only the last inch or so for himself.

  Billie leaped from the car and headed straight for it, burying her nose and lapping away, splashing more water on the asphalt than she drank.

  Once she had her fill, Reed returned the bowl to the car and finished off the bottle, the water seeming to travel straight through his body and out through his pores. He could feel his shirt sticking to him as he fastened the short lead to Billie’s collar and closed the doors.

  “Yeah, you get to come along this time,” Reed said, as together they walked toward the Franklinton office of the Franklin County Coroner, one of the newer buildings in the CPD system. Built as one of three satellite offices meant to reduce the amount of work flowing into the main coroner’s office downtown, gradual escalations in violent deaths now had all three running at or above capacity.

  In the previous six months Reed had been here no less than a dozen times, the exterior of the building still never ceasing to surprise him. Instead of the brick one might expect, the place was all steel and glass with a fountain out front, looking more like a college library or modern art museum than a coroner’s office.

  As the passed Reed couldn’t help but think of how great it would be for Billie and him to jump in the reflecting pool out front, dismissing the idea quickly, before it became too tempting. Instead, he pressed the handicap access button and watched the front doors swing open.

  Cool air blasted them as they entered the wide atrium rising to a sunroof overhead. He could see a cafeteria in the distance, the last few stragglers of the day enjoying a late lunch. To the right was a bank of elevators, and dead ahead was the reception desk, a young woman seated behind it.

  “Good afternoon, Detective,” she said as they approached, lowering an iPad to her desk and flashing him a smile. Several years younger than Reed, she had dark hair and matching thick-framed glasses.

  “Hello, Chantel,” Reed said, raising his free hand in a small wave. “Dr. Solomon in?”

  “She is,” Chantel replied, nodding toward the elevators. “You know where she is, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Reed said, shifting to the side, waving once more in parting. Neither said another word as he and Billie set off, the interaction a carbon copy of one that had played out several times before.

  And would continue to do so over the ensuing months, Reed had no doubt.

  Half a minute later Reed and Billie were in the basement, leaving all traces of the atrium and its five-star hotel elegance behind. Concrete floors and block walls were adequate here.

  The smells of death were present in the air, though Reed was more than happy to put up with it in exchange for the 20 degree drop in temperature.

  Billie’s perked-up ears and wagging tail seemed to indicate she was of the same mind.

  With the short lead gripped in his hand, Reed led Billie halfway down the hall, stopping just outside the only office door with a light on inside. Stenciled across it were the wordsDr. Patricia Solomon, Medical Examiner.

  Reed rapped softly against the wooden door, but it still managed to rattle loudly, echoing through the empty hallway. Beside him he felt Billie’s body tense, the same reaction he had the first time he was in her position.

  “Easy,” he said, running his hand along the back of her neck, feeling the tension release beneath his fingers.

  “Come in!” a voice called from the other side.

  Together, Reed and Billie stepped inside to find an office that seemed to be getting smaller each time he visited. Gone was any semblance of free space in the room, the majority of it taken up by white cardboard boxes. On the ends of each was a series of identifying labels completed in blue marker, the stacks standing from floor to ceiling.

  Seated at a battered metal desk was the person he had come to see, Patricia Solomon.

  “Good afternoon, Doctor,” Reed said, shifting the lead to his left hand and extending his right.

  “Good afternoon, Detective,” Solomon replied, standing and returning the handshake.

  For his first two months in the 8th, Reed had worked with a cantankerous old man named Dr. Wilbern, someone as stodgy as anybody Reed had ever encountered. Forcing himself to stop by the coroner’s office then was an exercise in self-discipline, trying to refrain from rolling his eyes and throwing a quick sucker punch each time the doctor opened his mouth.

  In mid-Spring, Wilbern had retired, though, the county replacing him with Dr. Solomon. In her mid-40s, she was a woman with a few extra pounds and a head of red curls that came up to Reed’s chin. When she wasn’t wearing her surgical gear to perform an autopsy, she always seemed to have on a cardigan sweater and a pair of glasses hanging from a cord around her neck.

  Despite her age, she always reminded Reed of his grandmother, back before she passed.

  “Brought your bodyguard with you today, I see,” Solomon said, settling back down into her chair and motioning for Reed to do the same.

  “Down,” Reed commanded, watching as Billie lowered herself flat between them before taking a seat.

  “Yeah,” he said, looking up to Solomon, “that heat out there just isn’t for her. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” Solomon replied. “I will have to ask that she not enter the examination room though, for obvious reasons.”

  “Absolutely,” Reed said, already figuring as much. It was the same reasoning he applied when keeping her out of a fresh crime scene, the chance for contamination just too high to risk.

  “So...” he said, looking around the office, “I see things have really slowed down here for you this summer.”

  Solomon laughed in reply. “Something like that. Guess I should thank you for sending another one my way this morning, giving me something to do?”

  Reed smiled in response. At this point he knew Solomon well enough to know the question was rhetorical.

  If left to his own devices, Reed would prefer that he and Billie, and every other member of law enforcement, were nothing more than decorative. They would take turns driving around, being seen, their presence enough of a deterrent to ensure that the world remained at peace. There would be no need for a coroner beyond confirming the occasional heart attack, certainly no call for a building like the one he was in now.

  After a dozen years in the profession, though, he knew that would never come to pass.

  “Sorry about that,” Reed said. “I know how busy you are already.”

  “Actually,” Solomon said, raising her eyebrows, “this one I didn’t mind in the least. Pretty straight forward, one of the easier autopsies I’ve done in a while.”

  “Yeah?” Reed asked.

  Solomon nodded. “If they all went that fast, I’d be able to get ahead down here for a change.”

  Reed chose to remain silent, knowing Solomon would get to her findings soon enough.

  Wheeling around in her chair, Solomon took up a pair of files
sitting on a short stack of boxes beside her. She kept one for herself and handed the other across to Reed.

  “Esther Rosen,” she said, sliding her glasses onto the tip of her nose and opening the file. “58 years old, Caucasian, appeared to be in good health. No heart problems, liver and kidneys all looked good. Cholesterol was slightly elevated, though nothing to be a cause of concern.”

  Reed nodded as she went through the preliminary findings, checking over each thing as she highlighted it.

  “Cutting straight to the chase,” Solomon said, “COD was suffocation, most likely by a pillow or a similar object.”

  “Reason being?” Reed asked.

  Glancing up at him over the rim of her glasses, Solomon said, “Petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes was the first clue to manual asphyxiation. That doesn’t happen to heart attack victims.”

  She paused, letting Reed digest the information. “Furthermore, I removed polyester fibers from her throat. Appeared to be green and from heavy material, probably from a pillow, though I can’t be certain. I had them sent over to the crime lab this morning for confirmation.”

  “Thank you,” Reed murmured, his brow furled as he tried to recall his time in the house the night before. He couldn’t remember seeing a green pillow in the bedroom, though he would circle back later in the off chance that it could be something useful.

  “TOD,” Solomon said, returning to the file, “sometime between 3:00 and 4:00 this morning.”

  Again, Reed nodded, that being consistent with what he knew.

  “Any defensive wounds?” Reed asked.

  “Nothing like that,” Solomon said. “No marks on her hands, no skin or anything under her nails.”

  Something about the way she answered the question caught Reed’s attention.

  “Let me ask you though,” she said, “were you the first on the scene?”

  “No,” Reed replied. “Two uniforms responded to a 911 call, found her body in bed, asked me to come take a look.”

  Solomon’s left eyebrow arched as she stared back at him. “They didn’t try to revive her?”

  Reed paused, replaying the night before in his mind. “No. In fact, they were so certain she was gone when they arrived, they wouldn’t even allow the EMT’s in for fear of ruining the crime scene. Why do you ask?”

  Solomon maintained her position, giving Reed a long look. “Because somebody sure tried to. That poor woman’s sternum was cracked in two different places.”

  Chapter Seven

  Parked at the curb in front of Esther Rosen’s house, Reed repeated the drill with the water bowl for Billie. More than once during his years working with Riley she had chided him about his failure to consume enough water while working, often going entire shifts without eating or drinking a thing. It wasn’t uncommon for him to return home at the end of a long day to find his body sluggish, his reflexes dulled from dehydration.

  Reed knew it showed her concern, though he never much enjoyed sitting through the lectures. The part he couldn’t quite get her to understand was that his actions weren’t born from some misguided sense of machismo, but rather a tendency to focus all his energies on the case at hand.

  Partnering with Billie, though, had brought a renewed sense of responsibility to Reed. For the first time ever, he was acutely aware of the heat and humidity, whether outside, in the car, or in the farmhouse they shared. A small cooler stayed nestled on the floorboard of the car, filled with bottles of water for their shift.

  What he now understood, what Riley probably did as well but was just too nice to vocalize, was that hydration wasn’t only for his own good.

  It also ensured he could perform at full capacity in the event his partner needed him.

  Once already, Billie had protected Reed in the face of an armed attacker. If forcing himself to slow down and make sure she always had plenty to eat and drink guaranteed she was there when he needed her in the future, he was more than happy to do so.

  After the water was all gone, Reed clipped the long lead to her collar and walked her across the front yard. He tied it off around a Poplar tree, leaving her in the shade instead of the oven of the backseat.

  “Three minutes,” Reed said as he crossed the front lawn and hopped up the front steps with his badge swinging free against his chest, should any neighbors be watching. He ducked under the crime scene tape and pushed open the front door, the dead bolt still lying on the floor from the breach the night before.

  Ten hours earlier, most of Reed’s attention had been focused on the bedroom, studying Rosen’s body and its immediate vicinity for any clues. Now, standing just inside the door with ample sunlight passing through the front windows, he examined the house again.

  Just like the bedroom, the living room had a feel that told Reed the occupant was from a different generation. Everything in the room was clean and neat, but they were old and starting to show signs of wear. The sofa was an exact copy of the one his great aunt had when he was a child, and the television had a tube that stuck out two feet or more from the back.

  Clean, functional, but extremely dated.

  Reaching into his back pocket, Reed drew out a pair of latex gloves. He snapped them into place as sweat began to roll down his face, the heat indoors even more oppressive than outside.

  Armed with what Solomon had told him at the morgue, Reed did a quick scan of the living room, his gaze catching on a pair of green throw pillows on the couch. Crossing over the worn carpet, he kneeled and inspected each one carefully, looking for any obvious marking or residue that would indicate it was used to suffocate Esther Rosen.

  As he suspected, there was nothing visible.

  Studying the pillows, an idea came to Reed, something he wouldn’t have even considered six months before. He could hold each of them under Billie’s nose, letting her 225,000,000 scent receptors go to work, creating an olfactory blueprint far more advanced than even the human eye. From there he would tell her to search, allowing her to ferret out whoever had entered and where they had gone.

  No doubt, the trail would eventually lead to a dead end as the intruder climbed into a car and drove away, but it would go a long way in revealing how he gained access and perhaps even reveal some overlooked clue along the way.

  The problem was, he didn’t know which pillow was used, or if it was either one of them. He still had a few rooms to search, and there was always the possibility that the killer had taken the murder weapon with them.

  Complicating matters was the fact that the pillows and the home smelled like Esther Rosen and a 1,000 other scents after years of use. Foods, lotions, candles, all sorts of things that could make picking out the single smell virtually impossible.

  His new partner was good, but she was not a miracle worker.

  Reed stepped away from the couch, careful to touch nothing. He backed out through the living room and onto the porch, Billie standing at the sight of him. Snapping off the gloves, he shoved them back into his pocket and extracted his cell phone from his hip.

  With his right hand he dialed, while with his left he wiped away sweat.

  The line rang three times before it was picked up, a gruff voice saying simply, “Yeah?”

  “Earl, Reed Mattox. Can you send someone back over to the Rosen house for evidence retrieval? I think I might have found the murder weapon.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Hellacious work on the pillows,” Earl Batista said, blowing out a mouthful of cigarette smoke. It shot away from his head in a thick white plume, before slowly dispersing upward.

  How anybody could stand to have fire so close to his face, especially during this weather, Reed couldn’t imagine, but he knew there was no need broaching the subject.

  Besides, he didn’t like being lectured either.

  By any definition of the word, Earl was a large man, standing several inches above 6’ in height and weighing the better part of 300 pounds. A grizzled beard covered the lower half of his face and his balding head showed the first signs of gra
y just sneaking in.

  To Reed, everything about him was a throwback in the truest sense, from the bib overalls he wore regardless of weather to the unfiltered Camels he was perpetually sucking on.

  The only thing about him that didn’t seem to fit was the fact that he also happened to be the best criminalist in the state.

  “That one was the ME,” Reed said.

  Both men sat on top of a picnic table behind the building where the crime scene unit worked, the shared among several precincts on the west side, while Billie explored the nearby field.

  “She was able to tweeze some green fibers out of the victim’s throat,” Reed said, “so I went back and took a look. Throw pillows were the only things even close to what she suspected.”

  Taking one last drag off the cigarette, Earl raised his foot and snubbed it out against the sole of his shoe. He set the mashed butt on the bench by his heel and took another from his pack.

  “Still,” Earl said, shaking his head as he fitted the cigarette to his lips and lit it, “was a good catch on both your parts. Damn guys should have thought to pull them last night.”

  “So it’s a hit?” Reed asked.

  “Doesn’t get any clearer,” Batista said, nodding. “First pillow we looked at matched the fibers perfectly, even had some saliva on it from the victim.”

  Reed thought of the old woman simply drooling after falling asleep while watching TV, before pushing that aside. It wouldn’t account for the fibers actually getting into her airway.

  The initial reactions of McMichaels and Jacobs were correct. Esther Rosen had been murdered, and now he had the murder weapon.

  “Pull anything else from it?” Reed asked, hoping there might be something to potentially finger a killer.

  “Not yet,” Earl said, “but we’ll keep looking at both of them. Our first task was to match it to the fibers found in her throat. Catching the saliva was pure happenstance.”

  “How about anything else from the scene?” Reed asked.

  “Naw,” Earl said, giving his head a quick shake to either side. “Whoever did this was pretty careful, had at least some idea what they were doing. Back door had a rudimentary lock on it, looks like he popped it using a card. No prints of any kind.