The doctor gently pushed back wet black curls from the woman’s white face, then checked her pupils with the bouncer’s flashlight.
Garfield left the steps and went to talk to one of the officers that had arrived as backup. “Start talking to witnesses inside. I’ll get the doc’s contact info and get the vic on her way to the hospital.”
An ambulance siren grew slowly louder, its sound distorted by the humid night air.
Garfield cleared the crowd that had begun to form again by the time the ambulance arrived. The doctor was giving two paramedics instructions as they strapped the victim onto a backboard, and several firemen waited to help carry the unconscious woman up the stairs. As the group reached the ambulance doors, the doctor approached him.
“I’m going to ride to the hospital with her.” She stopped, took a deep breath, and then spoke before she lost her nerve. “Look, there’s a school a couple of blocks from here. A middle school or something. I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but if you’d seen how scared she was….” The woman’s voice trailed off.
“Don’t worry, Doc. I’m on my way over there right now. We’ll check it out.”
Garfield helped the doctor into the ambulance and closed the doors, banging his fist twice on the side in a signal for the driver to take off.
Chapter 5
Washington, D.C.
Saturday morning
Detective Sean Richter swore luridly when his pager went off in the darkness, sounding like a crazed hornet as it buzzed on the nightstand. His curses became more creative when he saw the time. 2 A.M. He’d worked until an hour ago on one of the cases he was investigating.
He worked in the cold cases section of the Homicide Division for the DCPD. Along with his partner, Sean handled cases that had no clues, few leads, and no real suspects after six to twelve months of active investigation. He was assigned to these difficult cases full time, but there weren’t enough hours in the day to do the job, so he often worked nights as well.
He grabbed his phone and dialed the number in the pager’s glowing display.
“Richter. What’s up?” he said in a rusty voice.
“Sean, my man, you owe me big for this.”
The voice belonged to a cheerful night person. Officer Ambrose “Banjo” Caulley often sat up until dawn listening to his police scanner and monitoring the communications of other D.C. Police Department staff.
“How about I be the judge of that, Banjo? What’ve you got?”
“A call came through a little while ago. Murder at a school near Dupont Circle. Young female, multiple stab wounds. She was practically still warm.” Banjo drew his story out with relish.
“I’m listening,” Sean said, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly.
“Seems the victim, a dark-haired female in her mid-twenties, was stabbed in the lower abdomen three or four times with a real big knife. No other signs of trauma. No sexual assault, no robbery.”
Sean’s pulse picked up. The preliminary description was similar to two other murders he was working with the Cold Cases Unit—cases he believed were related. But there wasn’t enough evidence to bear out this theory yet. His other cases involved prostitutes who were also drug addicts, women on the seamy edge of society.
“Was the victim a working girl?”
“Not clear yet. But here’s what you’re really going to like. They’ve got a witness, someone they think saw the crime.”
“You’re shitting me.” Sean jumped to his feet and reached for the jeans he had left hanging over the back of a chair. “Who? Where is he right now?” He pulled the jeans on over his boxers, then put on and buttoned his shirt one-handed while feeling around blindly with his feet in search of shoes.
“Hang on a second, I’m getting to it. The report is that an unidentified woman fell down the stairs at Suds ’nStuds. That’s a male strip club on Dupont Circle. According to people who helped her at the scene, she was incoherent and hysterical, saying something about seeing a man kill a woman at a school. The first officer on the scene went to a middle school off the Circle, just to check things out. He found the murder victim and called it in. Then I called you.”
“Where’s the witness now?” Sean asked.
He turned on the light, slipped on his shoulder harness, checked that the weapon on the nightstand was ready to go, and put it in the holster.
“She knocked herself silly, probably from falling down the stairs. She was taken to GWU Hospital, but I don’t think you can see her yet. She was apparently unconscious when they left the club, so she’ll probably be tied up in the ER for a while.”
“Damn. Is she going to be all right?”
“Officer on the scene couldn’t say. Why don’t you head out to the school first, talk to him if he’s still there? Name’s Reggie Garfield. You can swing by the hospital in the morning.”
“I’m on my way. What’s the address?” Sean scribbled the information on a tablet while attaching his pager and cell phone to his belt. “I owe you big time, buddy.”
“I know.” Banjo’s tone said he would enjoy collecting. “You want me to call Burke for you?”
“Not yet. His lady friend got back in town last night and is leaving again tomorrow, so he’s probably, ah, engaged right now. Anyway, I’ve been working the other two cases most recently. I’ll give him a call when I get a feel for whether this murder is related to the others. I’ll have my cell phone on if you hear anything more.”
Sean hung up and headed out the door. He reached the scene of the murder within thirty minutes. Despite the fact that it was nearly 3 AM., gawkers were gathered around the site, drawn by the flashing lights and predawn activity. They were held back by yellow crime scene tape, with a uniformed officer on the other side.
Sean pushed his way through a knot of milling teenagers. “Jesus, where are your parents? Let me get through, here—and go home!”
Even though he was a head taller and much stronger than the teens, they gave him a lot of attitude. He ignored it, flipped open his ID for the uniform on duty, and asked, “Where’s Garfield?”
“Over there,” the cop said, pointing toward a heavyset patrolman by the victim’s body.
“Officer Garfield?” Sean called out to him.
“Yeah.”
Sean approached him, ID in hand. “Detective Sean Richter. I’m with the Homicide Cold Cases Unit. I want to see if there might be some overlap with this murder and a couple of ongoing investigations.”
“What makes you think there’s any connection? Forensics hasn’t even assessed the scene yet.”
Obviously Garfield was feeling a little protective of his crime scene. But if the cases were linked, Sean’s claim would take precedence.
“Similarities in the victim’s physical profile, cause of death, and a hunch,” Sean said. “If you’ll tell me what you know about this victim, I’ll get out of your hair and wait for the report to come out. I just wanted to see the crime scene myself.”
Garfield raised his eyebrows. “Victim is in her mid-twenties, dark hair, slender build. No sign of sexual assault, but we’ll wait for the medical examiner to confirm. Cause of death looks to be multiple stab wounds to the abdomen. Her purse was found nearby, wallet inside. Credit cards, driver’s license, and eighteen dollars in cash. She has gold jewelry as well, so I’m thinking robbery wasn’t the motive.”
“Do you recognize her from the streets? Does she have any kind of record?”
“Nah, she’s not a working girl. The name on the ID comes back as a teacher at this school, Renata Mendes.”
Sean processed the information. The victim’s physical profile fit with the other cases, all young Hispanic females. But not the teacher bit. The two other murdered women had been drug addicts who had sold their bodies to support crack or meth habits. “What kind of stab wounds?”
“Big ones. Lots of blood.”
“Any defensive wounds?”
“Not so you can tell. Looks like the perp was a strong guy,
and he probably surprised her.”
That fit. “Who reported the murder?”
“Now that’s the funny part. Seems there might be a witness. In fact, that’s what sent us up here in the first place.” He briefed Sean on the incident with the woman injured at the Suds ’n Studs club.
“Were you able to speak to her?” Sean asked over the sudden squawking of Garfield’s radio.
“Nah. She was out cold when I got there, but people on the scene confirmed what she said right after she was found.” Garfield reached up to silence the radio on his shoulder. “My gut says she saw something that scared her half to death. She’s in the ER right now.”
“Thanks. I’ll take a look around, then get out of your way.”
Sean turned away and went to the victim’s body, where evidence technicians were just starting their work. They bustled around, testing equipment and setting up freestanding lights to illuminate the area for the video cameras.
While the techs worked on the lighting, Sean borrowed a flashlight from one of the patrolmen and briefly reconnoitered the area around the victim. He crouched over a bent umbrella and a leather-wrapped canister of pepper spray, or maybe mace. Both objects had paint around them, waiting to be photographed and tagged as evidence.
Sean made a mental note to check if the fingerprint analysis came up with anything that could connect the items to the victim. A little farther away, he found two more objects. Medium-heeled women’s shoes, sprawled a couple of feet apart, size 7. Glancing over at the victim, he saw sensible black flats on her feet.
“OK, team, we’re ready to start,” one of the technicians shouted. The forensics team had the scene lit up like center stage at a Vegas show.
Stepping closer to the victim, Sean examined the body objectively. He had seen death before, yet still he had to work to distance himself from the victim’s humanity and vulnerability.
This one had brown eyes that were wide open. Her mouth was open as well, as if she had died crying out. Sean’s lips thinned as he took in the victim’s clothing, hairstyle, jewelry. She looked like a kid.
Crouching down, he examined the stab wounds more closely. A decent-sized blade had been used. One stab alone would have been mortal from the look of things, yet there were at least four other wounds. Something to keep in mind about the murderer—he enjoyed his work and believed in overkill.
A technician shifted a piece of equipment, throwing a stark light across the victim from a different angle. Sean focused immediately on a cloth loop at the woman’s slender waist. Shifting around, he saw an identical bit of fabric on the other side. It looked like she had been wearing a belt, but he didn’t see it anywhere.
Sean motioned to one of the technicians. “Did one of you guys find a belt or sash? It looks like there was one here—see the loops? She wouldn’t wear the dress with these things just hanging off her sides, would she?”
The forensics tech studied the victim and nodded his agreement. He made a note on his tiny laptop and called out questions to his team members.
No one had seen any belt.
All of the victim’s other articles were there next to her body. Sean looked over her effects—a straw purse and umbrella, a Mickey Mouse key ring with four keys attached. No belt.
“We’ll look for it,” the tech assured Sean.
“Good, but I don’t think you’ll find anything.”
“Why not? Looks like maybe this was a robbery attempt or something. Sure, her money and stuff is right here,” the tech said, “but word is the killer was interrupted by a witness, which would explain why the valuables got left behind.”
Sean’s eyes were pale blue and cold in the artificial light. “I think our killer got exactly what he wanted from this victim, and then kept a little something to remember her by.”
“You think the guy wanted a trophy? The belt?” The tech sounded excited. “Hey, I bet you’re right!”
Sean didn’t say anything. Sometimes he hated being right.
About Heather Lowell
Heather Lowell is the daughter of bestselling author Elizabeth Lowell. When the Storm Breaks is Heather’s first novel. She lives in Arizona.
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