Passions of the Dead (A Detective Jackson Mystery/Thriller)

by L. J. Sellers

As he shuffled toward the desk in the living room, he heard the doorbell ring. A tingle of fear crawled up his spine. Who would ring the doorbell in the afternoon? His friends always knocked once, then barged in. Should he ignore it? Definitely. Nick took two steps toward his room, then stopped. Was the pot making him paranoid? He’d watched enough stoner movies to know it could happen. The doorbell rang again. What if it was something important, like a delivery package? His parents would be irritated if he didn’t handle it.

  Nick grabbed a banana, ate one bite to cover the pot smell in his mouth, then tossed the rest on the counter. He hurried to the front of the house, wondering what his parents had ordered. He pulled open the door and his heart nearly stopped. Two cops waited impatiently on the front patio.

  Shit! Nick’s heart pounded so loudly he was sure the cops could hear it. What did they want? Did they know about the pot? Were they here to arrest him? He tried to form a response, but his brain wouldn’t focus or make words come out of his mouth.

  “Are you Nick Walker?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to talk to you. Can we come in?” The guy cop asked the questions. The girl cop came in close and sniffed. Her blue shirt was stretched tight over big breasts. Nick tried not to stare.

  “Let’s go inside,” she said, sounding mean.

  “My parents aren’t home.”

  “We can talk here or we can talk in the police department.”

  Oh shit. Nick wished he hadn’t gotten high. He couldn’t think straight. He knew he didn’t want to get into the back of a cop car. Ever. After what seemed like an eternity of bouncing thoughts, he reluctantly let them in.

  “Let’s sit at the table,” the woman said, heading through the house like she owned it. “I’m Officer Freemont. This is Officer Gibson.”

  Nick’s legs shook as he followed her and he was glad to sit. He hoped it would help him concentrate too.

  Officer Gibson, an older guy with bad teeth and breath, leaned toward Nick and said, “We’re here about the baseball card. The Lou Gehrig you stole from your uncle. Do you still have it?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t bother to bullshit us. Kevin Compton wants his card back. The more you cooperate, the less likely you’ll end up in Serbu.”

  Every young male in the county knew Serbu was the juvenile detention center, but Nick had no idea why they thought he had Uncle Kevin’s baseball card. “I didn’t steal anything.”

  “The card disappeared while you were in their house. Try again.” Gibson’s eyes drilled into him.

  “I didn’t take it. Really.” Lame! The sound of his own voice made him cringe.

  “You won’t mind if we search your room?” The woman stood and gestured for him to follow.

  Shit. The pot was in there. Or was it in his pocket? “I do mind,” Nick stammered.

  “You smell like marijuana,” she said with an evil smile. “We have just cause to search the entire house for illegal drugs based on the reasonable assumption that you’re currently using drugs. Are you sure you don’t want to just give up the baseball card?”

  “I don’t have it.” The words came out in a squeal. Nick thought he might run for it. Just charge out of the house and get away from these cops before they ruined his life. His legs shook, his heart felt like it would explode, and he had to pee so bad his bladder hurt. Unwillingly, he followed them down the hall where they instinctively found his room.

  As the girl cop—he couldn’t remember her name—began to dig though his sock drawer, Nick realized he should call his parents. He started to turn around and head for the phone in the kitchen, then he remembered they had cancelled their landline. Nick glanced around his room, looking for his cell phone. Why couldn’t he keep track of it?

  Gibson picked up his backpack from the floor, pulled out a stack of old homework assignments, and tossed them on the bed. The cop rummaged around in the bottom of the pack and came up with the crust of a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Nick watched as they searched, knowing they would eventually find the little baggie, but he was too paralyzed with fear and brain softness to do anything. Oh shit. His parents would freak out when they found out about the pot. Especially if there were fines involved.

  Nick spotted his phone on the bed. The cop had tossed it out of his backpack and was now searching the closet. The closet. He’d hidden the pot in the closet. Nick lurched forward and grabbed the phone. “I’m gonna call my parents.”

  They ignored him and kept searching.

  Mom or Dad? Nick stared at his speed-dial choices. Mom. She would be calmer, less likely to start yelling. For only the second time he could remember, his mother didn’t pick up when he called her. Nick left her a shaky message: “I’m in trouble. The cops are here searching my room. Can you come home?”

  Moments later, Gibson found his pot. “Here we go.” The other cop looked up from her search as Gibson said, “You’re under arrest for possession of a Schedule 1 controlled substance.” He spun toward Nick. “I could cuff you, but if you cooperate, I won’t.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Nick’s bladder was on fire.

  “Get the baseball card and turn it over to us.”

  Nick shook his head and felt a tear roll down his face. “I don’t have it and I don’t know anything about it.” He stuck his index finger in his mouth and bit down hard. The pain distracted him. It looked stupid but it was better than crying. “I have to pee.”

  “I’m coming with you.”

  Having a cop watch him pee was only the first of his humiliations. Before his parents finally showed up at the police station, he had been hauled away in the back of a cop car, fingerprinted, and grilled again about the baseball card. Eventually, he was given a court date and allowed to go home. On the ride, his parents were mostly silent, which was worse than being yelled at. If they yelled, they got over it and not much more would happen to him. The quiet meant they hadn’t yet figured out how to punish him.

  He knew they were thinking about the cost too. The cops had said the judge would probably mandate a treatment program instead of sending him to Serbu. Nick was relieved, but his father had given him a look that made him want to disappear. Treatment programs cost money and they didn’t have any.

  His mother would not look at him.

  Chapter 15

  Wednesday, June 3, 5:23 a.m.

  Jackson pulled into his bungalow on the corner of 25th and Harris just as the sun was coming up. A sense of nostalgia mixed with a little loneliness crept into his bones. His home, snuggled in among giant oak and birch trees, was older and smaller than Kera’s, but it was charming in a different way. Her house up on the hill was bright, open, and minimalist, while he had cozy rooms with arched entries and dark crown molding. He wondered what it said about their personalities.

  Jackson put on a pot of coffee and headed straight for the shower. Around two that morning, after adding the day’s notes to his file, he’d stretched out on the couch in the soft interrogation room and slept for three hours. He’d driven home to shower, change, and brew coffee. As much as he wanted to see his family and eat a real breakfast, he couldn’t afford the distraction right now. Going to Kera’s the night before had been a mistake. He had to stay focused on this case. He would fill his tall travel mug with coffee and eat some toast on the way out the door.

  Jackson entered the morgue for the second time in two days. Nick Walker was on the table this morning and Jackson willed himself to stay in the room. Autopsies on kids were hard to take. He always ended up thinking about Katie and how he would feel if she were killed.

  “Are you okay?” Konrad said, making eye contact.

  “I’m fine.” Jackson avoided looking directly at the body. Nick Walker had fallen on his stomach after being stabbed, and the blood had drained to his front side. Face to ankles, he was dark red with lividity. “Tell me about the defense wounds on his hands,” Jackson said.

  “His right hand has multiple tiny cuts.” The pathologist paused
and thought for a moment. “It’s possible these wounds were made by the square edge of the knife blade found at the scene.”

  “You’re saying he had the knife in his hand at one point?”

  “Or he struggled for possession.” Konrad was still examining Nick’s hand. “He has quite a bruise around his wrist too. I’d say someone gripped him very tightly.”

  “He wasn’t struck with the bat?”

  “That’s probably why he was able to fight the attacker.” Gunderson, the ME who had been at the scene, offered the information.

  “The knife wound is in his back,” Jackson countered. “So he must have lost control of the knife and turned to flee.” He knew the pathologist liked to conduct the autopsies methodically, but he needed to get some information and get out. “Can we look at the wound on his back? Can you tell me how tall the assailant is?”

  Konrad sighed. Gunderson stepped up to the table and the two men rolled Nick over on his stomach. Jackson mentally mapped out the rest of his day while he waited for Konrad to examine the gaping hole in the boy’s back.

  “The wound is to the right of center, so the attacker is likely right handed.” Konrad used a stainless steel pathology ruler to measure the gash. “It’s 6.4 centimeters long and 4.4 centimeters deep and angles downward. I’d say the attacker is a couple of inches taller than this victim.”

  “Nick is five-seven,” Gunderson said. “I measured before I put him in the cold drawer.”

  “How tall is Jared Walker?” Jackson asked.

  “Six-one.”

  Jackson put it together. “Based on what you said at the scene about the attacker being shorter than Jared, we can assume our perpetrator is somewhere between five-eight and six-feet tall.”

  “As are most of the men in this country,” Gunderson noted with an edge of dryness.

  Jackson tried to visualize Shane Compton and Roy Engall. Roy fit the short end of the range and Shane was around six feet. Crap. No help. Jackson watched Konrad probe the wound, then decided his time would be better spent elsewhere. “I have a meeting to attend,” he said. “Will you call me if you find anything significant?”

  Gunderson gave him a quizzical look. “Sure.”

  The taskforce wasn’t scheduled to meet until ten. Jackson had time to stop for another coffee and sit at his desk for twenty minutes. He closed his eyes and pushed a dozen questions out of his mind. Sometimes, if he shut down his brain and stopped thinking for a while, answers would come to him later. He refused to call it meditation, but it was effective.

  This time he made the connection almost immediately. Carla Walker had a receipt for $1,700 from a pawnshop, and Kevin Compton was missing a baseball card valued at around two grand. Carla had stolen the card. Or Nick had stolen it and Carla had pawned it for cash. Had Kevin and Shane Compton killed the whole Walker family over a damn baseball card? Jackson didn’t want to believe it, but there was the brain injury too. First, one of the Walkers stole Kevin’s valuable card, then Jared Walker permanently injured his brother-in-law in a fight about it. Maybe it was a cumulative reaction. Maybe Shane had committed the murders by himself in a drug rage to avenge his father.

  Jackson saw Evans get up from her desk and move toward the hallway, so he followed her. He hoped the other detectives had something to report at this meeting, because he sure didn’t have much.

  He strode into the conference room and his muscles tensed. The windowless space felt cold this morning and the names of the dead on the board jumped out at him. Day three of the investigation and they had nothing solid. Why hadn’t the crime lab called? As he and Evans waited for the others, Jackson pressed speed-dial #10. When Jasmine Parker picked up, he said, “Jackson here. What have you got for me?”

  “Give me a moment.” There was a pause, accompanied by the sound of paper shuffling. “None of the prints from the front door or windows matched anyone in CODIS, but a partial print on the baseball bat matched a local drug offender named Shane Compton.”

  “Is it good enough to take to court?”

  “It’s only one partial print. The most prominent latents are from family members Lori and Nick Walker, but even those are smudged and inconclusive.”

  Crap. No help. A defense attorney would claim Shane had played baseball with his cousins. “Let’s reconstruct the crime scene this afternoon. Do you have the blood spatter analysis completed?”

  “Not quite. Is three o’clock okay?”

  “See you then.”

  Schak, McCray, and Quince had come in while Jackson was on the phone. None of them looked as tired as he felt. Should he delegate more of the work? He hated to step back from the most important elements of a case, especially the interrogations. “Good morning,” he said, slipping his phone into his pocket. “Who brought me coffee?”

  Schak rolled his eyes in mock disgust. “You had a little nip and tuck. I had a heart attack. If anyone deserves the prima donna treatment, it’s me.”

  McCray grinned. “If I can call you ‘prima donna’ I’ll buy you all the coffee you want.”

  “Where’s Quince?” Evans headed for the board.

  “He’s tracking down Shane Compton’s supposed alibi. It’s critical to close the net around Shane as much as we can.” Jackson scanned his printed notes, looking for the name of the guy Shane had given him. Aaron Priest. “I arrested Shane for possession and booked him into jail where he could get medical treatment. He’s a troubled young man, and I think we’ll eventually get a confession.”

  “What exactly do we have on him?” Schak wanted to know.

  “When I asked who attacked her, Lori named Shane. His prints are also on the bat used in the assault.” As he said it, Jackson realized how weak their case was.

  “Lori was only half conscious when she spoke to you,” Evans shot back. “Shane also spent a lot of time in the house and probably played baseball with his cousins. The print may not be worth much. Do we have any DNA evidence?”

  “Not yet, but we’re meeting at the crime lab today to reconstruct the scene. Be there if you can.” Jackson nodded at Schak. “What have you got?”

  “I have a dozen little details about Carla Walker, such as her appointment at Planned Parenthood, but nothing that helps this case.” Schak glanced at his notes and grimaced. “She was well liked by everyone. Her sister and her best friend think she’s a saint. No one could give me a single reason anyone would want Carla dead.”

  “I think she stole and pawned a valuable baseball card from her brother-in-law Kevin Compton,” Jackson said.

  “No shit?” Schak’s mouth fell open.

  “I found a receipt in her purse for Westside Buyers, dated April 25, for $1,700. I talked with all the Comptons yesterday, and Tracy finally admitted they thought Nick had stolen the card. They reported it to the police and Nick was arrested for possession of marijuana.” Jackson glanced at his notes. “Four days after Nick’s arrest, Jared Walker confronted Kevin Compton at the Time Out Tavern. Both men were drunk and they fought. Kevin got knocked against his van, struck his head on the door handle, and ended up with brain damage.”

  “How bad is it?” Schak asked. “Would it make him angry enough to kill?”

  “Kevin seems subdued, but Lisa described her brother and father as bitter. She also said Shane had been in a methadone program, then may have started using again after he lost his job.” Jackson waited for Evans to catch up with writing everything on the board. “My best working theory is Shane got high, then killed Jared and Carla in a vengeful rage. The kids just got in the way.”

  “I thought Shane was a heroin addict,” McCray countered. “Heroin addicts aren’t violent.”

  “They’re not picky either. If they can’t find H, they’ll take whatever they can get.”

  Evans turned to face Jackson, eyes wide with disbelief. “You think all of this was about a baseball card?”

  “It’s a working theory.” Jackson felt defensive.

  “What about Roy Engall?” Evans looked around.
When no one responded, she said, “Jared was blackmailing him, he has no alibi, and his van matches the description we got from the neighbor.”

  “We haven’t ruled him out,” Jackson shot back. “Did you get his shoes and DNA?”

  “I not only picked up the four pairs in his closet, I dug through his garbage bin and found the pair he’d wrapped in plastic and thrown out.” Evans grinned. “Why would he throw away the shoes unless he was worried about them?”

  “Well, hell. That changes things.” Jackson felt a little blindsided. “You should have called me.”

  “Sorry. I knew we were meeting this morning.”

  “If the lab finds a match, we’ll bring him in. And yes, you’ll get the arrest.”

  “There’s more,” Evans said, suppressing a smile. “I found a blackmail note.” She pulled the evidence from her bag. “I thought you would want to see this before I took it over to the lab.”

  Jackson slipped on latex gloves and scanned the white sheet of paper. Jared hadn’t signed his name, but the bullet points matched the list they’d found in his home. The lab would likely find his fingerprints too. “This definitely brings Roy to the front of our investigation.”

  “I hate it when cases ping-pong like this,” Schak complained.

  Jackson had learned the hard way not to focus exclusively on one, or even two, suspects. They had to question and process everything. He turned to Evans. “What did you learn about Lori’s restaurant boss?”

  “He’s a little creepy, but I questioned two other young women who work there, and they both denied being sexually harassed. They said Greg Blackwell, the manager, had seemed a little too friendly with Lori lately though.” Evans jotted boyfriend? on the board and turned back. “One of the young women said Lori had mentioned a new boyfriend recently.”

  “Did you get a name?”

  “No. In fact the waitress said Lori acted secretive about it and wouldn’t say who he was. I called Jenna, her friend from school, and she didn’t know anything about a boyfriend.” Evans wrote down why secret? “She says Lori hasn’t dated anyone in a year. It’s a little odd Lori would keep the information from her best friend.”