“Apparently, he has a health issue. He’s going to have some sort of procedure, but that’s all I know. I got a call from your police chief to come in and cover for him.”
“Really? Where are you from?”
“I’m the coroner in Hondo.”
Vanessa nudged Jason. “That’s where Dan Carpenter is.”
Darrel lit up. “Dan’s a good friend of mine.”
Jason nodded. “He’s good people.”
Darrel walked over to the office and returned with a folder. “Here’s the autopsy on Mr. Dabney.”
Jason took it but, didn’t open it. “What was the COD?”
“Technically, undetermined. But the heart was enlarged, which is in keeping with cardiac arrest.”
“Was that the same with each of the first three victims?”
The young man shook his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t do the other three. I believe it was one of Doctor Davis’s assistants who did those.”
Vanessa took the folder and flipped through it. “Why is it ‘undetermined’ instead of cardiac arrest?”
“I want to wait for the tox screen to come back. I don’t like to declare until I see it.”
“Did they do a tox screen on the other three?”
Again, the young coroner shook his head. “I haven’t had time to check.”
Jason started for the door. “Okay, Darrel. Thanks, I’m sure we can find the rest of the answers in the first three files.”
Vanessa snapped the file shut and followed. “Nice to meet you, Darrel.”
*******
Back upstairs at their desks, the two detectives poured over the first three victims’ files. Each had been declared as a natural cause death due to heart failure. Two of the victims showed significant levels of alcohol in their system, but none had tested positive for any drugs.
Vanessa looked up from the file she was studying. “Where was victim one found?”
Jason turned back a couple pages before finding the answer. “In an alley behind a law office on East Quincy.”
“And victim number two?”
Jason opened the next file, and located the information. “The second vic’ was found on the loading dock of the Kidney Center on East Quincy.”
Vanessa looked down at the file she was holding. “This victim was found in an alley behind Victory House Mission, just off Quincy.”
“That’s not unusual, though. Most of these folks are looking for a quiet place to hunker down overnight.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Besides, you keep referring to them as victims, but right now they’re people found deceased from natural causes.”
Vanessa closed the file. “I know, but four in ten days is a lot. And the fourth was also found at the end of an alley.”
Jason leaned back in his chair. “Okay, let’s say these are killings and not natural deaths. What’s your theory?”
“It’s not a theory, really; just that it seems all four might have been targeted because they were in secluded locations.”
“Makes sense, but that speaks to opportunity more than motive. Why were these people selected? Robbery is unlikely as most of them had only what was on their backs.”
“Maybe these people had something else in common. An enemy or an acquaintance.”
Jason sat forward and opened file one. “Pull out the list of personal effects for each of your files.”
Jason found the first list, opened file two and found the second person’s list. He laid them on the desk and Vanessa put the two from her files next to them. They both scanned the lists, looking for anything similar between them.
There were the normal items they expected to find—gloves, hats, socks, soda cans, bottles, and scraps of paper. Vanessa saw it first.
“Here!” she pointed at an item on the third list. “A business card from Recycled Lives.”
Jason saw the same listing on lists one and four. He scanned number two, but came up empty. Still, it was three out of four. “Maybe we should pay a visit to Recycled Lives, but technically, we still don’t have a homicide to investigate.”
“Well, the fourth case is still labeled as undetermined.”
Jason pushed back his chair. “That’s good enough for me.”
*******
Recycled Lives had their office at the far east end of Quincy Street. The building, formerly a small warehouse, had been remodeled and divided into several office spaces. Recycled Lives was on the ground floor.
Jason and Vanessa walked in out of the late November sun to find a covered entranceway with a locked glass door. Jason spotted a button next to the sign instructing Ring Buzzer. He pushed it.
After a few moments, Vanessa grew impatient and pushed the button three more times in quick succession. Finally, a voice came from above them. “Can I help you?”
Both detectives looked at the ceiling. A small speaker was mounted in an acoustic tile, and next to it, Jason spotted a small fish-eye lens. “Yes, my name is Detective Strong and this is my partner, Detective Layne,” Jason held his badge up to the camera. “We’d like to speak to someone from Recycled Lives.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Less than a minute later, a short man with receding brown hair came to the door. He put his key in the lock, turned it, and pushed. A rush of stale air breezed over them when the door opened. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting; I’m here alone today.”
The man stood back and allowed the detectives inside. “Please, come in.”
Jason re-introduced himself and Vanessa. “What’s your name?”
“Mark Lane.”
“Are you in charge here?”
“Yes.”
“What is Recycled Lives?”
“It’s a social services group focused on getting the homeless back to work.”
Vanessa was standing against the far wall, watching the man and checking out the office. “Is there anyone else working with you?”
“I have a secretary, Diane Bowers. She’s off today.”
Vanessa took her notepad out. “What exactly does this group do?”
“We try to get the homeless off the street by giving them gainful employment. They can stay at Victory House, or somewhere similar, while we train them. I’ve been at it for five years now.”
Jason gestured toward the front door. “Why all the security?”
“I’m alone, and other than when the Diane is here, there’s no one to watch the front room. What was it you needed to speak to me about?”
Jason pulled four photographs out of the file folder he was carrying. “I need you to look at these pictures and tell me if you recognize any of them.”
Mark Lane took the pictures, slowly flipping from one to the next, until finally handing them back to the detective. “Maybe, I’m not sure. What’s important about these people?”
“They’re all dead.”
“Really? What happened?”
“That’s what we’re looking into.”
Jason removed the picture of case number two, and then handed the photos back to Mark Lane.
“These three people all had a card from Recycled Lives in their possession. Are you sure you don’t recognize any of them?”
The program director looked them over, faster this time, and handed them back. “Like I said, maybe. I’ve handed out hundreds, if not thousands, of cards in the last five years. I’m very sorry.”
Jason put the photos back in the file. “We’d like to show them to your secretary. When will she work again?”
Mark Lane walked to the door and held it open. “She’ll be here tomorrow and the next day.”
“Okay, thanks. We won’t trouble you further.”
Jason and Vanessa stepped out in the cool November air and walked back to the car. Jason looked at his partner. “What do you think?”
She shook her head. “He seems okay, I didn’t get a sense he was hiding something.”
They climbed into the car. Jason noticed his partner seeme
d distracted. “You feel okay?”
She looked at him, then pointed a finger. “Don’t you go there!”
Jason laughed. “Where? Go where?”
He quickly started the car and pulled into traffic.
Chapter 3
“Hey, Shasta!”
The bundled-up woman in her mid-forties turned to see who was calling out to her. An old friend from Victory House was coming up from behind her. “Hey, Jewels.”
Jewels was in her sixties, and had been homeless most of her adult life. As far back as Shasta could remember, she’d been running into Jewels on the streets of San Antonio. She was always friendly, and always in a hurry to be somewhere, but never wanted to discuss where exactly she was headed.
“You gonna go over to the soup kitchen, Shasta?”
“No, think I’ll bed down for the night somewhere out of the wind.”
“Well, I ain’t goin’ there, either. I gotta run, bye.”
Shasta smiled to herself as she watched the old woman disappear around the corner.
Turning down an alley off East Quincy Street, Shasta let her mind wander to her hometown. She’d got her nickname from her love of orange soda when she was a young girl in Chicago. She’d come to San Antonio to escape the winters in the Windy City. When she first arrived, the South Texas winters were no problem compared to her hometown, but they got harder as she got older.
Out of the wind, she slowly made her way to the far end of the alley to a spot near the back of a Chinese restaurant, where she occasionally scrounged for leftovers. A quick look in the dumpster revealed nothing particularly appetizing, but she wasn’t very hungry anyway. She set down her cloth bag, then the paper sack, and finally the plastic garbage bag. Lowering herself to the ground, she wrapped herself in her coat and fell asleep.
*******
Jason and Vanessa had spent the afternoon going through the East Quincy area showing pictures of the dead homeless to business owners and other residents of the area. Nobody seemed to know for sure who the people were. Most homeless have a nickname of some sort, and their real names were unknown to most people.
One homeless man did recognize case number two. “Sure, I know him. That’s Woody.”
The file Jason carried bore the name Jerry Baker. “Woody? Why was he called that?”
“I think he was a logger in Oregon or Washington, somewhere in the northwest.”
Unfortunately, the man hadn’t seen Woody in several weeks and couldn’t help much. The rest of the contacts they made were fruitless.
When they arrived back at the station, a note was on Jason’s desk. Call Darrel Chase. Jason dialed the morgue.
“Coroner.”
“Darrel, this is Jason Strong.”
“Oh, hi Detective. I got the tox screen back on Mr. Dabney.”
“And?”
“Nothing. At least, nothing that would change the cause of death. It appears to be a case of cardiac arrest.”
“Okay, Doc. Thanks.”
Jason hung up and answered the question on Vanessa’s face. “Tox screen was clean. The Dabney file is to be changed from undetermined to cardiac.”
Vanessa was shaking her head. “It doesn’t make sense. Four dead in ten days, all homeless people from the Quincy area, all cardiac arrest.”
“Coincidence?”
“I don’t like coincidences, especially when it comes to people dying.”
Jason smiled. A suspicious nature was one of the things that made for a good detective and his partner was a good detective. “I agree, but what now?”
Vanessa shrugged. “Let’s stew on it overnight; maybe in the morning we’ll come up with an idea on how to attack this. We must be missing something.”
Jason laughed. “I know I’m missing something. Dinner.”
“And you were making fun of me for being hungry all the time!”
“True, but at least we know I’m not pregnant!”
“Who’s pregnant?”
Both detectives turned to look at the elevator door. Just getting off was Lieutenant Banks.
Jason threw up his hands for the third time that day. “Not me!”
Sarah Banks looked at Vanessa. “You pregnant, Layne?”
“No…definitely not.”
Jason wasn’t so sure.
*******
Shasta was roused from her sleep by the sound of footsteps. The hard-soled shoes echoed loudly off the alley walls. Her eyes fluttered open, and she sat up to see a figure coming toward her. She couldn’t see the face in the darkness and pulled her bags closer to her.
“Who are you?”
The figure stopped, looming over her, and a light crossed the familiar face. Shasta relaxed slightly. “Oh, it’s you.”
“So you recognize me?”
“Sure. I’m homeless, not stupid.”
The figure bent down, stabbed her in the shoulder with something sharp, and walked away.
“Owww, what was that?” Shasta rubbed her arm. “Why did you do that?”
The figure kept walking, ignoring her questions.
Shasta continued to rub her shoulder, but suddenly her hand dropped to the ground. She tried to open her coat, but couldn’t get either of her hands to move.
“What the …”
She fell face first onto her plastic bag.
*******
The next morning, Jason and Vanessa were sitting at their desks when the lieutenant’s door opened. Banks leaned into the squad room and spotted the two detectives. “You two, can I have a minute?”
Jason slid back his chair. “Sure.”
Vanessa followed Jason into the office, each of them taking a seat across from their lieutenant. Jason noticed a flashing light on the phone, and when they were seated, Banks pushed the blinking button. “Go ahead, Captain.”
“Good morning.”
Jason instantly recognized John Patton’s voice. The two detectives answered in unison. “Good morning, Captain.”
“What have you got for me on the homeless case?”
Jason looked at Vanessa, who nodded for him to go ahead, then opened the file he’d brought.
“Not much, John. The deaths have all been classified, including number four, as natural,” he paused. “By the way, where’s Doc Davis?”
There was a moment of hesitation before the captain answered. “I gather you two haven’t heard?”
“Heard what?”
“Doc was diagnosed with cancer a couple weeks ago.”
Jason and Vanessa exchanged shocked looks. “What kind of cancer?”
“Skin cancer…melanoma.”
Jason wasn’t as familiar with skin cancer as apparently Vanessa was. The look on his partner’s face told him more than a medical encyclopedia. Vanessa leaned forward. “Where is it?”
“On his back.”
“Has it spread?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Jason noticed Lieutenant Banks didn’t seem surprised. “You knew already?”
Banks nodded. “I wasn’t sure it was my place to tell you two. I’ve known Doc Davis only a short time, and you’ve been friends for years.”
Vanessa still had questions. “What is the next step in his treatment?”
John Patton sighed, the burden of delivering this news evident in his voice. “They’re doing surgery tomorrow afternoon to remove the cancer. At the same time, they’ll remove something called the ‘sentinel node’ from his back to see if the cancer has spread.”
Jason could see the explanation had gone beyond Vanessa’s knowledge.
Sarah Banks answered the question on both detectives’ faces. “Melanoma spreads primarily through the body via the lymphatic system. The sentinel node is the lymph node closest to the site of the cancer. If the cancer has spread to that lymph node, it means more surgery, and a much more questionable outcome.”
Both Jason and Vanessa sat back in their chairs, and Jason tried to absorb the news. He had first met Doc at the city morgue, during his first
year on patrol. Jason still can’t remember meeting anybody smarter than Doc Davis.
“Where is he?” Vanessa asked.
“SAG.”
San Antonio General Hospital, or SAG as the locals called it, was on Jason’s way home, and he decided to stop by after work.
John Patton broke the silence hanging over the room. “I’m sorry for you to find out this way, but I had wanted to find out how the surgery went before saying anything.”
Jason could tell Patton was not telling the whole truth. “You mean Doc wanted to see how serious it was before bothering us, don’t you?”
“Well…yes.”
“Sounds like Doc.”
Patton cleared his throat. “I need you to focus on the homeless thing for a few minutes. Can you do that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Do you think there’s more to the deaths?”
“We identified a social services group that had contact with at least three of the dead, but nothing seemed askew with them. All four of the dead were found in secluded places, where they could have had interaction with someone and not be seen, but that’s the kind of place most homeless people prefer to sleep anyway.”
There was another hesitation on the captain’s end of the line. Finally, he asked the question most important to his boss. “Do we have anything to suggest this is anything other than a run of bad luck for these homeless folks?”
The lieutenant’s phone lit up with another call. “Hold on, Captain.” She pushed the newly lit button. “Banks.”
“Yes, Lieutenant, this is dispatch. We’ve received another report of a body in the East Quincy area.”
“Give me the address.” Banks jotted it down and gave it to Jason. “Thank you.”
She pushed the button that brought the captain back on. “John, you asked if we have anything suggesting these deaths aren’t natural. Well, how about a fifth body?”
“Seriously?”
“Yes, sir. Strong and Layne are getting ready to go out now.” She waved her hand at the two detectives, indicating they should be on their way. “I’ll get you a report as soon as possible.”
LETHAL INJECTION (Det. Jason Strong(CLEAN SUSPENSE) Book 8) Page 2
