When the dead speak sc-1

by S. D. Tooley

  She studied the picture. It showed two waiters and a waitress carrying platters of drinks and food. The waitress wore a French uniform and what looked like a doily for a hat. Her hair was short and platinum. Sam blushed. It was one of her self-directed undercover jobs from two weeks ago.

  “Right,” Connelley said. “Seems you didn’t think that Mayor Jenkins might have surveillance cameras in his house. You are just lucky he didn’t recognize you.”

  “Would you have?”

  Connelley ripped the picture into numerous pieces. “Maybe not at first but I’ve become accustomed to being suspicious whenever you look bored.” There was a slight twinkle behind his clear blue eyes.

  “I’ll just have to be more careful next time.”

  Connelley shook his head. “No, you are not, young lady.” He held up a finger to stop her from interrupting him. “I wasn’t born yesterday. Don’t think for one minute I believe this is your first charade.”

  “Where else do you think I got all the dirt I reported to you?”

  Connelley scooped the pieces of paper into the garbage can. “Things have changed. Once your face starts showing up on camera and the mayor asks me to check it out, I know it’s time to rein you in. My god, Sam. What if he gave the pictures to the FBI rather than me?”

  “My disguises always worked before. I’ll just lay low for a while.”

  “Honey, you’re not listening.” This time he didn’t hide the impatience in his voice. He tugged at the cuffs of his shirt.

  Sam stared at those cuffs, admired the fourteen-carat gold cuff links in the shape of bullets. Connelley followed her gaze.

  “Your father always did have good taste.” He and Samuel Casey had been college roommates, were best man at each other’s wedding. Chief Connelley was her godfather and had taken her under his wing since she graduated from the police academy five years ago. Although he claimed he had nothing to do with it, she was promoted to sergeant before her twenty-fifth birthday. “I’m trying to keep you out of harm’s way, Sam. I promised your father.”

  She should have been thankful for his concern. But all she could muster was, “There must be some hidden agenda here, Chief.”

  “Things have changed now, Sam. Jenkins told me I have a good chance of getting the commissioner’s job. Something like this…” His face took on a pained expression as he added, “Hon, face it. You’ve been bored here. I really think you need to spread your wings. It’s for your own good.”

  “Sounds more like it’s for YOUR own good.” The words stung but she could see in his face that nothing she said was going to change his mind. Connelley scribbled a name on a piece of paper and shoved it toward her. Her mind wandered, catching the gist of his speech, like how he felt it best she be transferred to Precinct Six effective tomorrow, and she should report to the captain whose name he had written on the piece of paper. It was for the better, he droned on, and he was sure she would understand. Instead, she was thinking of Preston’s reception and the security guard. Her gaze drifted to the piece of paper where Connelley had scribbled the name, Captain Dennis Murphy.

  Chapter 7

  By the next morning, crews had successfully removed the body from the concrete pillar. Just as Jake and Frank were ready to leave for the medical examiner’s office, Murphy appeared.

  “In my office,” Murphy barked at the two detectives. “Jake only,” Murphy clarified as the two started to rise.

  “We were just getting ready to go to Benny’s office.” Jake closed the door and sat down.

  “This won’t take long. I haven’t had the chance to commend you for making an ass out of yourself at Preston’s reception Saturday night.”

  “Sorry. I thought I took an oath to uphold the law.”

  Murphy slowly lowered himself into his chair. “I’ve been more than patient with you. You’re showing signs of burnout, drinking too much, and you just don’t seem to have that enthusiasm anymore. Your chances of being promoted are remote, at best.” He smiled as though the very thought delighted him.

  “Two beers after work is hardly the makings of an alcoholic,” Jake spit out.

  Murphy arched one thick brow saying, “You have three in your car before you even leave the parking lot, Detective. Care to try your math again?”

  Jake crossed his left ankle over his right knee. Murphy gazed at Jake’s gym shoes. Jake was a firm believer in following rules. But he never met a man he despised more than Murphy, and any way he could find to irritate the hell out of him, he did. Like refusing to wear a suit every day. The only reason he wore as much as a sportscoat was to conceal his belt holster. He preferred comfortable polo shirts or jersey pullovers, anything that didn’t require a tie. And seeing Murphy cringe every time he wore his gym shoes brought one of those rare smiles to his face.

  Murphy folded his hands over a manila file folder. His skin was leathered from the tanning spa, causing deep crease lines to form around his eyes.

  “Your file is impressive. Five years with the FBI, seven years with CHPD. It seems once you moved from FBI to police work, your enthusiasm went right down the toilet.”

  “All this because I almost halted Preston Hilliard’s illegal blackjack game?” Jake challenged.

  Murphy’s eyes narrowed. “I could bust you down to writing tickets if I wanted to. But I need your skills. The chief is transferring one of his people here, a Sergeant Sam Casey. I think Casey is a plant. Connelley would like nothing better than to see me out of here. But I’m going to stay two steps ahead of him. I want you and Frank to work with Casey. I’ll let Mick know that I want you to have every opportunity to redeem yourself. I want to know anything remotely suspicious Casey is working on. If you can do that, I’ll see to it you make sergeant.”

  Jake’s radar went on high alert. Murphy had an agenda and Jake’s suspicions and curiosity were kicking into overdrive. Jake studied him the way he would a suspect. “What makes you think I WANT to make sergeant?”

  “EVERYONE wants to make sergeant.”

  “What if I don’t come up with something?”

  Murphy leaned over his desk, close enough for Jake to smell his morning cups of black coffee. “Then you are free to do anything necessary to guarantee that you DO come up with something, if you get my drift.”

  Jake tightened his jaw, uncrossed his legs and stood up.

  Murphy walked him to the door and stuck out his hand. “Good hunting, Detective.” Jake looked at the uncallused hand with its manicured nails and walked out.

  Chapter 8

  “What do you make of it?” Frank asked Jake as they drove over to the medical examiner’s office.

  “Goddam prick. He knows how I feel about him. He should make his offer to Brandon Carter. He’s the one kissing his ass for that promotion.”

  “Because Brandon never sees things through. It doesn’t take much to sidetrack him.”

  “I thought I left the bullshit back in D.C.”

  “Same bullshit, different bull. Besides, Brandon has been pretty vocal about getting into Internal Affairs.”

  “I don’t like owing people, especially Murphy, him with his twelve-hundred-dollar suits and ostrich shoes.”

  Frank pulled into the crowded lot next to Headquarters. An enclosed walkway over the lot connected Headquarters to the County Medical Building. They parked near the rear of the building and walked around to the front entrance.

  “It’s no secret he’s had it in for Connelley ever since the mayor gave Connelley the chief position over Murphy.” Letting out a chuckle, Frank added, “All those connections didn’t do Murphy one damn bit of good. You gotta love it.”

  “And then his damn comments about my drinking…” Jake mumbled.

  “Well,” Frank started, “you do kinda…”

  Holding up a hand like a warning sign, Jake said, “You don’t want to go there, Frank. You take care of Claudia and Justin. I’ll take care of me.”

  An uncomfortable silence hung like a curtain between them. Jake starte
d to despise Sister Lucia from grammar school who had a way of ingraining guilt and shame in her students, sometimes for doing absolutely nothing. The case of the guilts that just grabbed him by the neck and throttled him had Sister Lucia’s fingerprints all over it.

  Frank took the hint and changed the subject. “Find out anything about the mystery thief in the video?”

  “Nothing yet. None of my contacts knows anyone fitting the description. Even Juanita wasn’t much help. There were a lot of wives and girlfriends there. I guess they all look alike to her.”

  Frank laughed that deep laugh that seemed to start at the base of his throat. “That was no wife or girlfriend,” Frank said. “That lady was good, a pro. Someone has to know her.”

  Chapter 9

  King Tut stood propped in the corner of the examining room like an archeological find. Long, fluorescent bulbs lined the tall ceilings giving the starched white tiled floor and walls an even more sterile appearance.

  Benny Lau smiled like a proud father. Benny had been the chief medical examiner for the past fifteen years. Small, dark eyes rested under a helmet of jet black hair. His deep olive complexion shielded his skin from the typical aging signs of a man just reaching fifty.

  “Unbelievable!” Sam couldn’t take her eyes off of the monolith. She detected a pungent odor drifting from the body and waved a hand in front of her face.

  “Adipocere,” Benny explained. “Due to chemical changes, the body turns to soap, literally. It’s the fatty acids from the hydrolysis and hydrogenation of body fats after death that gives it the odor.”

  Something other than the odor, however, was overpowering her. It was the aura. She had felt it the moment she stepped into the room. That’s usually when it is the strongest. Right after the person dies. In this case, King Tut’s death aura had been entombed with him.

  Sam moved toward King Tut. “May I?” she asked Benny as she started to place her hands on the body.

  Frank signed their names to the log at the reception desk. A young woman with porcelain skin and China-doll features glided gracefully over to the desk. The name on the badge clipped to her white lab coat said Tamara. She looked at their names and with a lilting voice said, “Doctor Lau is expecting you.”

  Jake carried his sportscoat hooked on the tip of his finger. They walked past empty, pristine offices crammed with computers and filing cabinets.

  Benny’s office was at the far end of the wide corridor. Stacks of reports cluttered a conference table. Two file drawers stood gaping, file folders left slanted like large Post-it99 notes.

  Two of the walls were plate glass giving a full view of both the large gymnasium-sized examining room and the smaller room where King Tut stood. The intercom into the smaller examining room was on while Benny’s voice and an unidentified female voice filtered through the air.

  Jake studied the woman whose back was to them. Her mass of untamed hair was pulled back in a clip. She wore a white lab coat but there was something familiar in the curve of those calves and the tone of her voice.

  Sam approached King Tut. Only the front portion of the body was exposed. The back side was still wearing a thin concrete jacket. The right arm hung straight at the side while the left arm rested across the chest. Pieces of skin, brown and leathery, hung like sheets of phyllo pastry.

  Fragments of clothing appeared well preserved but fragile. When her fingers touched what looked like a plaid shirt, the weaker sections of cloth crumbled in her hand.

  Gingerly she touched the concrete framing the corpse. Her hand rested on top of the skull, holding it there for several moments like a mother feeling a child’s forehead.

  “What on earth is she doing?” Frank whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Jake turned the volume up on the intercom.

  Sam closed her eyes. Immediately she saw lightning bolt shapes, smelled gun powder, blood. It all overshadowed the odor from King Tut. He spoke to her. Out of his gaping mouth she heard the screams of battle, of war. She sensed fear, terror.

  Sam jerked away, stepped back from King Tut.

  “Are you okay?” Benny placed a hand on her shoulder.

  “Nothing that a little air won’t cure.” Studying the deceased, she wondered what kind of horrors this man had suffered. “He died about fifteen or twenty years ago, maybe longer.” Sam peeled off the latex gloves. “And I believe he knew his killer.”

  Behind the plate glass window, Jake and Frank exchanged glances. Jake raised an eyebrow in skepticism. Frank’s eyes widened; he checked to see how high up the hair on his arms was standing. Benny waved them in.

  “Jake, Frank, have you met Sam Casey?” Benny asked.

  Sam turned and felt the blood slowly drain from her face. The tousled hair, ruddy complexion, and those interrogative eyes — there was no doubt he was the security guard from Preston’s.

  Frank stood a couple of inches shorter than his partner, eyes lively and animated. His full lips formed a wide smile.

  “Sergeant Sam Casey?” Frank almost seemed to laugh. And then he did, starting with a deep rumble in the back of his throat.

  “You three know each other?” Benny asked.

  “No,” Frank replied. “It’s just that we didn’t know our new sergeant was a… woman.” That low rumble started up again.

  He had a contagious laugh and Sam couldn’t help but smile. She also couldn’t help feeling that a little private joke was going on between Jake and Frank.

  Circling King Tut, Jake said, “Damn, ain’t he a sight.”

  Sam exhaled slowly. Maybe Jake’s memory bank came up empty.

  Jake glanced at King Tut’s face, studied the bone structure. “African American?”

  “Yes.” Benny pointed with a pen to King Tut’s eyes. “The eye sockets are farther apart and rectangular-shaped. And there’s a little thrust to the lower jaw.”

  Leaning against a stainless steel sink, Sam folded her arms in front of her and watched them.

  Jake walked behind the body again. Sam could feel his eyes on her. She kept her eyes on Benny.

  “Any guess yet, Benny, on how he died?” Jake asked.

  “We’ll run him through the CAT-scan. I prefer not to dissect this gentleman if at all possible.” Benny turned to Sam and said, “Of course, Sam might be able to save us a few steps. Sam?”

  “This was definitely a hit. No bullets, no knives. They buried him up to his neck just to watch him squirm and then covered him completely. He was buried alive.” She spoke matter-of-factly, letting her eyes glance at Jake and Frank only long enough to get their reactions.

  In a condescending tone which irritated her, Jake said, “If it’s all the same to you, I’d just as soon wait for the CAT-scan.”

  Sam shot a piercing gaze his way. “I’d say he’s been dead about

  …”

  Jake cut her off in midsentence. “The overpass was reconstructed about twenty years ago.” He turned back to Benny. “What about fingerprints?”

  Straightening up from his close inspection of the body, Frank asked, “You can get prints off a corpse entombed all these years?”

  “Sure. The most successful method for mummified remains is the use of disodium ethylenediamine tetracetic acid in a saturated solution of Coleo.”

  “How long will that take?” Jake asked.

  “With luck, twenty-four hours. We’ll also get dental and DNA.”

  “You can still get DNA outta this guy, too?” Frank asked.

  “They have successfully extracted DNA from teeth that had been buried for up to eighty years,” Benny replied.

  A young female intern walked in carrying an object. “Here you go, Doctor Lau.”

  “Lift any prints off of it?” Benny asked as she laid the pin in the palm of his hand.

  “Nothing.”

  “Our friend here was clutching this in his hand,” Benny explained after the intern left the room.

  Holding the pin up, Sam could see a similarity to the pin she found in Preston’s safe. She
wrapped her hand tightly around it. Almost immediately she saw dozens of lightning bolt shapes. The tiny hairs on her body did their own version of the wave as cold swept up her body starting at her ankles. In vivid color, she saw limbs and other parts of bodies lying in a field. Lightning strike. The words echoed, the same words, the same smell. Everything was the same as when she touched the pin in Preston’s safe.

  “Do you know what it is, Sam?” Benny asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure… yet.” She caught the puzzled look in Jake’s eyes, a look she couldn’t quite decipher. Taking one last walk around the body, she said, “I would check military records first. I don’t believe the deceased had a criminal record.”

  Jake and Frank shifted their gaze. If she had to place their reactions on a skeptic meter of one through ten, theirs just hit a twenty. But it didn’t faze her. It was a typical reaction to which she had become accustomed.

  “Do me a favor, Benny,” Sam continued. “Don’t mention to the press about the pin. I think it might be important.”

  “Fine with me, Sam.”

  Frank gazed back at King Tut, searching the body and clothing again as though trying to see where Sam was getting her information.

  Reaching behind Benny, Jake picked up a piece of the torn fabric. It was a faded blue plaid. “Any possibility of getting the label off the shirt?”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” Benny replied. “I’m hesitant to try to chisel any more of the concrete away. I could try. I just don’t want to decapitate our friend here. Besides, I think running the prints through military records might be our best bet.” He looked around for Sam.

  “Where did she go?” Frank asked.

  Peering into his office through the plate glass, Benny said, “Probably for some air. She’ll be back.” He looked at the two detectives and smiled. “You two have never seen Sam in action, have you?”

  “In action?” Jake repeated.

  Frank’s body shuddered. “It gave me the heebie jeebies. How did she know all that stuff?”