The Boat Man: A Thriller (A Reed & Billie Novel Book 1)

by Dustin Stevens

  “Okay, then, please tell me what you might have seen at any time that would aid us in this investigation.”

  Placing a hand on the smooth tabletop between them, Gale swept her hand from left to right in front of her, sending the small pile of loose shells she’d amassed onto the floor. “Definitely never said I might have seen anything.”

  Reed could feel a rush of blood come to his cheeks, the warmth of impending sweat along with it. He pressed his lips into a tight line and rocked forward another inch, glancing out into the restaurant.

  Nearby, a pair of servers stood in idle chatter with a bartender, all three in their mid-20s, appearing to flirt with each other regardless of gender. Around the outside of the room most of the tables were filled, singles and couples in conversation or working their way through an early dinner.

  “Gale,” Reed said, careful to keep his voice neutral, “I’m very sorry if I’ve offended you in any way. I have spent the last two nights at crime scenes involving some of the most horrific things you can imagine and therefore seem to have forgotten my manners a bit.

  “Please, if there is any way you might be able to help us catch whoever is doing these unspeakable things, I would greatly appreciate it.”

  From across the table Gale stopped her work on the peanuts, her gaze boring into him, seemingly sizing him up. She remained that way, the folds of skin around her eyes creased tight, before nodding once in response to whatever she was trying to decide.

  “Thank you,” she said, her fingers going back to work while she continued to maintain eye contact. “When you first called me, and even started offering me bribes to meet, I couldn’t tell how serious you were taking this.”

  “I assure you, this is my top priority,” Reed inserted.

  “I don’t just mean the case,” Gale said. “I have no doubt you care about that. I meant about you coming out here to meet with an old woman and hear what she has to say.”

  The confusion that splayed across Reed’s face was far more pronounced than any contrived response he could have come up with. He genuinely had no idea what she was talking about, letting her see the reaction on his face, hoping it would persuade her to explain.

  “It didn’t always used to be this way you know,” Gale began, her gaze still meeting his. “When my husband, God rest his soul, and I first moved into The Bottoms, it was a respectable place. Poor, for sure, but it didn’t have all the stuff you see around there nowadays, the drugs and violence and whatnot.”

  As she spoke, a look of disgust passed over her features, her voice rising to match it.

  “Began in the late ‘80s, early ‘90s, things slowly starting to decline. Gangs showing up, businesses getting robbed, closing their doors and never looking back.”

  She paused a moment, moving her attention out the window behind Reed, her eyes glassing over. For a moment she fought to keep her face from crinkling into a sob.

  When she spoke again, her voice was clear, though her eyes remained rimmed with moisture.

  “I’m telling you this so you know, that place used to mean something, and it still does to a lot of us old timers. I don’t know who is cutting people up right now, but I tell you, I’m not so certain it’s a bad thing.”

  Of everything she could have said, Reed was reasonably certain nothing would have surprised him more. His cheeks puffed out as he pushed the air from them, his eyes widening.

  “Mrs. Pearlman, Gale, are you telling me the people of The Bottoms are supporting vigilante justice?”

  There were more things Reed could have said, giving her the full litany of standard police statements about letting them handle things, but decided to let it pass.

  “No,” Gale said, twisting her head in a shake of disagreement, “I’m saying we support justice. That’s the reason I’m sitting here with you now, and it’s the reason I don’t feel real bad about what happened to that boy the other night. Or the one last night.”

  Over the course of no more than a minute, Reed felt his reaction come full circle from shock to realization. As outrageous as the statements were, they weren’t an insight into the greater community or even a sweeping condemnation of the CPD, they were the thoughts of a woman who was longing for the old days, someone who had romanticized the past to a point of golden nostalgia in her mind.

  With that realization came a bit of peace, letting his shock and hostility bleed away, though maintaining his pose across from her, careful not to offend.

  “Gale,” he repeated again. “What did you see outside that house?”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Half a dozen homemade pork links sat on the passenger seat of the car, filling the space with the smoky aroma of meat. It permeated through the thin paper sack they were wrapped in, steaming up the window, driving Billie mad.

  Reed could see her stomping back and forth in the rearview mirror, her tongue flicking out, one long unending whine talking to him.

  “Not yet,” Reed said, sliding the car to a stop two doors down from the home of Edwin Mentor. Leaving the sausages in place he took up the long lead from the passenger seat and exited, clipping it to Billie’s collar and letting her out.

  “Come.”

  Just a single word spoken in the correct tone, and all thoughts of the sausage were gone. Billie dropped any pretense of even knowing they existed, bolting from the car and standing beside Reed, awaiting instruction.

  Attaching the opposite end of the leash to his belt, Reed said, “Search.”

  On his first day of training he had made the mistake of attempting to hold the lead, wrapping it around his palm. The instructor had seen the error right off but refrained from saying anything, letting Billie almost break his hand as a lesson.

  Reed had not repeated the misstep again.

  Attaching the lead to his waist gave him enough weight to anchor her, though the real purpose of the long lead was to allow her the freedom to roam. For the sake of the crime scene, and anybody who may be passing by, he couldn’t allow her complete autonomy, though in truth that would be best.

  This was a decent enough second though.

  The moment the command passed his lips Billie dropped her nose to the ground.

  While she worked, Reed scanned the neighborhood around him, seeing it for the first time under the light of day. Somehow it appeared even shabbier than he remembered, the illumination serving to make visible many of the blemishes that were masked by darkness.

  Mentor’s home was one of a string of seven exactly like it, low-slung structures meant for single families. All followed the same basic design and appeared to have the same sort of tenants, all losing battles with time and disrepair.

  On the opposite side of the street, a trio of multi-story brick buildings appeared to be empty, many of them with broken glass for windows, jagged shards on the ground. Graffiti of various colors covered the bottom floor of the brick, tapering off as the buildings grew out of reach overhead.

  A tug on the line drew Reed forward as Billie continued to work, her ears and tail all laying flat, her nose propelling her forward.

  The pairing with Billie was one Reed hadn’t been crazy about upon returning to active duty, but it was the only way he could come back to work.

  Faced with the options of a dog or a new recruit fresh off the beat, Reed had chosen Billie, preferring to work with a dog over having to train someone from the ground up.

  At least, that’s what he tried to tell himself.

  In the time since, he had come to respect the unique skill set the animal brought to him, gaining a new appreciation for her ability to track. Unlike humans, born with 5,000,000 scent receptors, Billie was blessed with more than 225,000,000 individual synapses in her nose that could detect and differentiate an odor.

  It allowed her to see an internal image of something using smells the way a human with perfect vision might with their eyes. She could not only tell if someone had passed through, but tell the previous people who had been through and how many times their p
ets had relieved themselves as well.

  Having worked with the Marines in a prior life, Billie had far superior training to many others in the precinct, able to alert on over two dozen possible explosives.

  For the purpose of this crime scene though, Reed only needed her to do something much simpler.

  Confirm Gale Pearlman’s story.

  Giving Billie a fair bit of lead, Reed steered her past the standing crime scene tape to where the murder took place, watching as she covered every inch of it.

  The Cadillac was still parked in the same place it had been, the stretch of concrete in front of it stained red in places with dried blood. The presence of so much water the night before had washed much of it away, though residue still covered the 10-foot square swath between the yard and house, save a few large blotches in the center where Mentor’s body had once been.

  At scenes in the past, when blood was pooled into a small location, Reed had seen it grow sticky and form mildew, attracting flies by the thousands. Here it did neither, the wide spread and cool temperatures allowing Billie to work her way over it without disturbing a thing.

  With his hands deep in the pockets of his sweatshirt Reed stood and watched, waiting as Billie made a complete inventory of the scene, content that should she ever come across anything again that had been present there, she would alert him.

  It took almost 10 minutes for her to find what Reed was hoping she might, picking up the scent just shy of the blotches in the center of the space. Reed felt his pulse increase as she picked up speed and traveled down the length of the driveway and out across the street, heading fast for the alley.

  “I saw someone watching from across the street,” Gale had said. “Maybe a week or more before it happened. At the time I thought it odd, but a lot of vagrants hang out over there.”

  “So what made this particular one stand out?” Reed had asked.

  “Because this one,” Gale explained, leaning forward, dropping her voice into a conspiratorial tone, “was sitting on the fire escape.”

  Reed could feel his belt pulled taut as Billie dragged him, gaining momentum, her own senses accelerating as she bore down on the target. She increased her pace to just shy of a jog before sliding to a stop.

  Glancing up at Reed, she moved in a quick circle, almost puzzled as she sat back on her haunches.

  The search was over. The scent was gone.

  “Good girl,” Reed said, reaching out and rubbing Billie behind the ears, his attention aimed at the wrought iron landing on the fire escape above. Standing 10 feet off the ground and back 8 feet from the corner of the building, it would be the perfect place for someone to conduct surveillance, masked from the world outside.

  The fact that Gale Pearlman had even noticed was nothing but dumb luck, a woman out walking her dachshund who just happened to be at the optimal angle and look up at the right time.

  For Reed, the tip was an enormous score, well worth the cost of a barbecue dinner. It told him that someone had in fact stalked Edwin Mentor with the intention of putting him down, and had probably done the same with A.J. Wright. It provided the possibility that DNA evidence might be up on the landing somewhere, perhaps attached to the cardboard he could see piled in the corner.

  It also meant that whoever was behind this was meticulous and had a significant head start.

  “Come on,” Reed said, tugging Billie back to the car. “Let’s get the crime scene crew out here to take a look at that balcony.”

  Billie balked a moment, remaining on her haunches. Reed pulled once more to no avail, the dog remaining rigid. She stayed like that, meeting his gaze, before sliding her tongue out over her nose.

  A smile pulled up the left side of Reed’s mouth as he read her directive, nodding in agreement. “Yeah, let’s go see if we can’t get you some of those sausages, too.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Any lingering effects of the canned espresso were now long gone. Reed could feel his eyelids starting to droop, his body fighting back against the odd schedule that had been forced upon it in the preceding days.

  The abnormal hours themselves weren’t the sole source of his exhaustion, more the proverbial final straw that was breaking the camel’s back. For three months now he had lived a vampire’s life, interacting with the world almost exclusively during nighttime hours, having as little human contact as possible.

  Mixed in was a healthy avoidance of sleep for fear of what might be lying in wait for him, a bout of self-imposed guilt that would make any Catholic mother proud, preying on his subconscious.

  The combined effects caused him to do something he hadn’t in over five years, not since his early days of pulling double shifts on patrol. Unable to summon the requisite strength on his own to keep moving with any degree of clarity, he moved past the occasional canned espresso and called on the coffee dispenser in the basement of the coroner’s office, watching as the muddy brown liquid filtered down into the paper cup held beneath it, a healthy cloud of steam rising from it. The huge machine rumbled as it dispensed the liquid, shaking the floor around it, before the stream stopped, a low hiss emitted in its wake.

  Making a face, Reed pulled the cup from the bottom rack and wrapped both hands around it, carrying it out in front of him to Solomon’s office at the end of the hall. Halfway there he raised it enough to blow across the top of the coffee before taking a drink, an involuntary wince crossing his features.

  “What the hell is that smell?” Solomon asked as he entered, peering up at him over the glasses perched on the end of her nose. She was still dressed in her lab coat and scrubs, right out of the examination room.

  Reed held the cup up for her by way of an explanation, dropping himself into the same chair he’d used just a day before.

  “So that’s what that rumbling was a little bit ago,” Solomon said, disapproval on her face as she looked at the drink in his hand. “That’s the first time I’ve ever known anybody to be brave enough to give that thing a try.”

  Chancing one more drink, Reed let the caustic beverage slide down his throat, the burn reminding him more of high-proof whiskey than coffee. Under any other circumstances he would have poured it out and flushed it away to ensure no other living creature stumbled across it, but at the moment the need for caffeine overpowered any lingering qualms about taste.

  “What were you able to find today?”

  Reed realized after asking that the question sounded pointier than intended, though Solomon seemed to brush by it without noticing.

  Busy people tended to be less caught up in such things.

  As Riley used to say, manners were a creation of the bored.

  “Two requests for rush jobs in as many days, Detective,” Solomon said. “When I got here this morning and was told another was en route for the 8th, I admit I was a little peeved. Once I got in there though, I understood why.”

  The words, serving as an opening, did more to jolt Reed’s system than any amount of coffee could have. He leaned forward, waiting for her to continue.

  In the chair opposite him, Solomon looked up from the file and said, “Don’t take this the wrong way, because I don’t imagine you appreciate someone telling you how to do your job any more than I do, but all signs point to you having a serial killer on your hands.”

  Reed felt his jaw drop open an inch as he stared back, not sure how to respond to the statement.

  “And from what I saw in there this afternoon, he’s escalating.”

  The only thing that could have possibly hit Reed harder than the first sentence was the second, smacking him in the solar plexus. He remained still to mask any reaction as the shock fell away, his mind taking over, processing what he’d heard.

  “Start at the beginning.”

  Pausing a moment, Solomon nodded in approval at his response and said, “COD: again a stab wound that pierced the aorta, TOD: best guess would be 12 to 16 hours before I opened him. ME on the scene marked it at 11:00 last night, which I would agree with.”


  She rattled off the information without glancing down at her notes. “That’s where the similarities to the previous night stop. On this victim there are two lacerations across the abdomen, not enough to disembowel but pretty close. Had the attacker wanted to, he easily could have.”

  Reed thought about the final statement, fitting it in with the report from the night before. “So he was playing with him?”

  “Seems that way,” Solomon said. “I didn’t have time to run a full tox screen, but took a look at his blood and found adrenaline levels to be through the roof. This guy was in serious pain when he finally passed.”

  The familiar sense of dread heightened with Reed. The killer was evolving, improving on his craft.

  “Defensive?” Reed asked.

  “No,” Solomon said. “Though I did find dirt under the fingernails of both hands, as if he’d been trying to crawl away.”

  Focusing his attention on the opposite wall, Reed pinched his brow in tight and remembered the scene from the night before. He had extensive photographs that were by now waiting on his desk, images covering every angle of the scene.

  From what he remembered, footprints from the dog were the predominant thing visible in the dirt.

  He made a mental note to check for signs of flight.

  “What about the arms?”

  “What a mess,” Solomon muttered, shaking her head. “I’m sure you noticed on site that bleeding was heavier on the right side than the left?”

  Again Reed furrowed his brow, thinking back. “Yes,” he said. “And that’s the one the dog had gotten hold of. There was a trail of blood from the body out through the dirt.”

  “That’s because the right one was removed while the victim was still alive,” Solomon said. “The veins and capillaries were still open, blood loss in the tissue surrounding the area almost complete.”

  “And the other was more window dressing than anything else,” Reed finished, working the sequence out in his mind. Once more he put himself back at the scene, thinking of what he had seen.

  “Dog did a number on the arm, too,” Solomon said. “Tore away a pretty good chunk of meat, scratched the hell out of the skin.”