by Anne Frasier
“Careful!” His words were lost in the noise.
It was all about timing.
He shouted, “Now!”
She looked back at him. In the darkness, her face was a blur of white, and her hair blew to the side like a flag. She was beautiful, and his heart leapt again. And then she faltered. Instead of increasing her speed, she slowed too much and he almost crashed into her, both of them coming to a halt. One of her hands grabbed his arm and she spun around to face him.
Poor girl. She was scared. He understood. He was too. But their chance to get out of there was hurtling past. They could do it. He smiled at her with reassurance, hoping she’d see his face in the semidarkness. “Come on! Run!”
Then she did something really strange. She placed both of her hands on his chest.
And shoved.
His boots slipped in the loose gravel. His arms flailed. There were her hands again, only they weren’t trying to help him. She was pushing him toward the train.
He grasped at the air, shouted her real name, his brain denying what was happening.
“I’m the bad thing you were talking about!” she screamed as he tumbled backward.
CHAPTER 26
Early the next morning, before leaving for Homicide, Jude knocked lightly on Elliot’s door. He answered and handed her a stack of flyers. “Printed them up last night. Already hung a few. How do you think the imposter cat looks? Pretty good, right?” Elliot was wearing flannel pajama bottoms and a black T-shirt. Yet another band she’d never heard of.
“Perfect.”
“You should probably hit the animal shelters,” he said. “There’s also a Facebook group for this neighborhood. I’ll post there too.”
She wanted to believe he was a good guy, but she still didn’t trust him. Was it her overall distrust of everyone? She didn’t think so. Despite his friendly attitude, or possibly because of it, he gave off a secretive vibe. “Why are you doing this? I haven’t been that nice to you.”
There had still been no mention of the screaming and the banging. From either of them. That was weird too, like the elephant in the room. Maybe he felt sorry for her. A lot of people did, and sympathy from anybody made her uncomfortable.
“I like to help people, that’s all.”
She juggled the stack of flyers, sliding them into her messenger bag. “Call or text me if you find him or get any leads.”
He laughed softly. “Leads. Like I’m a detective too.”
She didn’t laugh.
“It’s funny,” he said, gesturing to aid his explanation, “because we’re talking about a cat, not a person.”
“I don’t get it.”
“Never mind.” He closed the door and she hurried toward the parking garage, pausing in the stairwell when her phone rang. Uriah.
“I’ve got bad news,” he said. “Blaine Michaels is dead.”
She leaned against the wall, relieved that he wasn’t calling to report the murder of eight people, but not relieved because someone was dead. “Suspicious circumstances?”
“He was running away. Tried to hop a train. It was raining and he must have slipped. The scene has been processed and the county coroner is on site and ready to bag the body. Neither of us needs to be there, but I knew you’d want to know about it.”
“Call them. Tell them to leave Michaels where he is until I get there.”
“I thought you’d say that. They aren’t going to be happy, but I’ll see what I can do. It’s raining like hell out there,” he warned her. “Not a good day for a motorcycle.”
“I’ll catch a cab.”
CHAPTER 27
Uriah was right. The day wasn’t movie-set perfect, for a change. It had been raining several hours straight, the kind of cold rain that seeped into your bones and soaked through your clothes and shoes. From Jude’s position at the foyer doors, she could hear the patter on the trees.
When the cab pulled up in front of her building, she ran across soggy grass and leaves. Sliding into the vehicle, she gave the driver the location and he entered it into his GPS. “Sure about that address?” he asked. “I don’t think there’s anything there.”
“I’m sure.”
He pulled from the curb and they headed for a place where the tracks turned onto a metal bridge that spanned the Mississippi. Long before the turn, train engines were forced to reduce speed, slowing enough for people to toss their backpacks into cars and jump inside. Train hopping used to be a culture reserved for the homeless and desperate, but more and more kids from all walks of life had at least tried it. Some loved it, some hated it. Some disappeared.
Twenty minutes later, the cab pulled to a stop. Beyond the rapidly moving wipers were a white coroner van and a few other official-looking vehicles.
“Don’t you have an umbrella?” the driver asked.
“No.”
He fumbled, then passed one over the seat. Black, a little wet. “Take it. I get them cheap.”
She didn’t have the best history when it came to cabdrivers. She took the umbrella. “Thank you.” She paid and slipped from the car, open umbrella overhead, to navigate a muddy trail past a trestle covered in graffiti, toward a cluster of people in bright raincoats.
A few reporters were braving the weather. One young man spotted her and stepped forward. His suit was soaked and his hair was plastered to his forehead. He recognized her and asked, “Can you tell me anything about the body, Detective? Is this a suspected homicide?”
She held her umbrella higher—an invitation for him to step underneath, which he did. “I just arrived and probably know less than you,” she told him.
He blinked water from his eyes and tried to hide his disappointment. Somebody young and new, hoping for a scoop. It wouldn’t be coming from her. He thanked her and left the cover she’d provided.
At the drooping yellow tape, she flashed her badge. She didn’t know why, since all the cops knew who she was. Maybe it was wishful thinking that one day someone wouldn’t recognize her.
The death was being called an accident, but it would still be investigated. A glance around told her the scene had been processed in what was more a formality than anything else, quickly, with a small perimeter. Black umbrellas were everywhere. Leaving the scene were several men in suits, possibly from the National Transportation Safety Board. Whenever someone died from an encounter with a train, an investigation was required, no matter how obvious the cause.
The coroner spotted her. His expression didn’t bode well for her presence on the scene. He wanted this to be fast, and he wanted to get out of the rain. She made an attempt to placate him, give him some assurance that she wouldn’t waste his time. It did no good.
“We’ve been waiting to bag the body,” he said. “Have a look so we can get the hell out of here.” Rain beat against his yellow hood. Below that, his eyes were grim and his mouth was a straight line. It wasn’t unusual to call a coroner if the death wasn’t considered suspicious. He was old-school, which could be good—but in this case not so good, since he was known to prefer working with male detectives.
“The victim is someone I’ve dealt with,” she told him, thinking that might make him a little less hostile.
He muttered something she didn’t catch but figured was an insult. It was jarring to run into someone who seemed to think women shouldn’t be cops. Thankfully those men were rare in their department, possibly because of the leadership of Chief Ortega, but they weren’t as rare in other areas of the police force.
“It’s pretty gruesome,” he warned, his words a dare.
“I’ll be fine.” She had bigger concerns than this guy. If Michaels had gone to jail, he’d still be alive. This was her fault.
No one else was near the deceased. They either were finished or couldn’t handle it any longer. A few stood in clusters, talking quietly while waiting to bag the body and leave the scene. Wordlessly, she moved past the hunched shoulders and black umbrellas. The scents of strong coffee and cigarettes wafted her way.
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The ground slanted steeply where it had been terraced and graveled for the tracks. She focused on her footing while also remaining vigilant for anything that might have been missed in haste. She swung around and shouted to the coroner, asking how long the body had been there.
“Long enough to reach full rigor mortis.”
“So eight to twelve hours?”
“I’m not a medical examiner, and the rain, plus low ambient temperature, would play a role.” He shrugged. “I’d put it around there. We’ll know more once the rigor mortis begins to reverse.”
She approached the death site, careful where she stepped even though it hadn’t been designated a crime scene.
It was bad. Really bad. The train wheels had severed the body in two. It might have been the worst thing she’d ever seen, even worse than the mansion slaughter.
She squared her shoulders, moved closer, and crouched down, sheltering Blaine Michaels’s contorted face with her umbrella. Death had been quick, but not that quick. His heart would have continued to beat until he bled out. The knowledge that he’d probably lived a while was almost too much. She felt panic building and batted it away like the meditation balloons.
What a strange turn his life had taken over the past days. Someone had offered him drugs in return for tossing fake blood, and now here he was. Cut in two.
His hands were clenched into claws, held parallel to each other, as if he’d been reaching for something. Cadaveric spasm? It was rare, but it could occur in violent deaths that took place under extreme physical circumstances. She’d never seen it, but it would fit. And if it was cadaveric spasm, establishing time of death through rigor mortis wouldn’t be possible, because it would never reverse.
Without touching anything, she shifted her feet to get a better view of his clenched hands. A single strand of long blond hair was trapped in his fingers.
She straightened and walked over to the lower half of the body. Disturbing, but not as disturbing as looking at Michaels’s face. His jeans were still zipped and buttoned and he was still wearing a leather belt. Unlike victims of car accidents, who often lost their shoes, his boots were on his feet. Like the upper half of the body, this half was also contracted in extreme rigor.
She took her time and refused to allow the huffing and puffing and pacing man not far away to rush her. When she was done, she stood but didn’t leave. Instead, she circled the area where the body had fallen. Interesting how little blood there was because the rain had swept it away. But a pair of deep gouges in the ground, about the width of the victim’s boots, were still there. Signs of struggle? That, along with the hair in the hand, told a story. With her back to the crowd, she pulled out her phone and called Uriah. “You’re going to want to see this,” she said when he picked up. “It’s not an accidental death.”
He didn’t question her. “Be there in fifteen minutes.”
She tucked her phone in her pocket and turned around. This was a murder scene, and much of the evidence had already been lost, contaminated, or washed away. “Who found the body?” she asked a nearby officer.
“Some guy walking along the tracks.”
“Is he still around?” She tipped her umbrella back over her shoulder and let the rain hit her face.
“I don’t know.”
“Find him.” She tempered her command. “Please.” Nobody was going to be happy about the next words she spoke, in a voice that carried. “The body isn’t going anywhere. This is a homicide.”
CHAPTER 28
The cat’s missing,” Jude said.
Uriah glanced up from the severed body of Blaine Michaels. She’d had time to adjust, but he appeared understandably rattled. And queasy.
A tent had been erected over the scene. Trains had been rerouted, and the BCA was on site, taking photos and gathering evidence. More media were there too, along with vans equipped with satellite dishes that allowed for live, on-site broadcasting. And it was still raining.
“Roof Cat?” Uriah asked in surprise, appearing glad of the diversion. His dripping hair had soaked the collar of his jacket, and his black eyelashes were spiked. “How’d that happen?” Same expression she’d seen on Elliot’s face.
She told him. “I was getting ready to put up flyers when I got your call.”
“Well, shit.” Hands at his waist, jacket open. She could see he was trying to gauge how to justify her leaving right now to go home and search for her cat. The fact that he was actually considering excusing her from the scene said a lot about him.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Somebody is helping me.”
“I’m sorry.” He seemed puzzled that she knew someone, anyone, well enough to help her find a cat.
“I don’t think he liked being a house cat anyway,” she said in an attempt to make them both feel better.
“He would have adapted.”
“You keep saying that, but I don’t know.”
“Did you check the roof?”
“Yes, but I’ll check again later. And I’ll put food out for him.”
“I’ve heard you should leave something of yours outside. Like a shirt.”
“That could drive him away.” She’d been his captor, not his friend.
They ducked from the tent. Standing under umbrellas, they interviewed the person who’d found the body. A man who claimed he just enjoyed walking along train tracks. Might or might not be true.
“We’d like for you to come downtown so we can take your official statement,” Uriah said.
“Am I a suspect? ’Cause I was just letting you know about the body. I did a good thing, right? I mean, I could have just kept going and not reported it.”
“We thank you for that,” Jude told him. “This is routine, and the weather makes the present situation and location less than optimal.”
He calmed down a little. “Okay.”
“We’ll have someone drive you,” Uriah said.
As the partners left the scene, Uriah spoke on his phone, arranging for Detective McIntosh to interview the witness. As soon as he disconnected, he got a call about a lead on Michaels’s whereabouts last night. “He slipped out of rehab and was spotted outside a homeless shelter called Light in the Darkness on South Washington Avenue,” he said once his phone was back in his pocket.
Ruthie Logan had mentioned staying at a shelter on Washington Avenue. Was it the same place? Jude wondered.
They got in the car with their dripping, collapsed umbrellas, and latched the seat belts as Uriah made a three-point turn to head toward Washington Ave.
“What do you think?” He reached for his coffee mug.
“I don’t believe the witness when he says he just liked to walk along the tracks. Who walks along tracks in the rain?”
“He could be a suspect.”
“Why would he report it?”
“Stupid criminal? Because it looked like an accident?”
“Maybe.” People didn’t realize the majority of killers were easy to catch, mainly due to their stupidity. “I think he was a train hopper.”
There were around twenty shelters of various kinds in the Twin Cities. Jude was familiar with most, but the one they were looking for had sprung up after the blackouts to address the increased homelessness and need for more beds.
“We can sleep twenty-four people,” the director told them ten minutes later from her cramped, windowless office of concrete-block walls. Her desk and three bookcases were full of paperwork and bulging file folders.
Jude pulled out her phone and scrolled to a photo of Michaels taken the day of the dye incident. She turned her phone around so the director could see it.
“Blaine Michaels.” The director was large, with dark skin and dreadlocks, kind eyes, kind face, probably about forty. “He’s a regular. Visits us several nights a week. He and his girlfriend, although she’s not here as much as he is.”
“Girlfriend?” Jude asked. Could explain why he was in such a hurry to get back to Minneapolis.
The director pul
led a ledger close and began riffling through the pages. “I don’t have much information on her. We have a lot of underage kids come through here. I know you won’t approve, being police and all, but our focus is to keep those children off the street and safe for the night. Feed ’em, give ’em a pillow, don’t ask too many questions. I learned that fast. Too many questions and they don’t come back. They go into prostitution or end up raped or dead.”
“I understand,” Jude said.
The woman found what she was looking for. “She was here last night.” She glanced up. “We have everybody sign in, but we don’t require ID, and many of our guests use aliases.” She eyed the ledger again. “She checked in at six forty-five. That’s odd, someone must have messed up—there’s no checkout time written down for her. We lock the doors at eight p.m. and nobody leaves until we kick them out at six a.m.” She turned the book around so Jude and Uriah could see.
“That’s her.” The director pointed to a single entry, written in big, round letters.
“Clementine?”
Uriah picked up on Jude’s surprised reaction. “What does she look like?” he asked.
“Pretty. Long, straight blond hair.”
Blond. “How tall?” Jude asked.
“Average.”
“Age?”
The woman sighed. “She’s one I thought might be a runaway. But she has an innocent face that could make her look younger than she really is. And she acts older. Wise and bossy. But if you just saw her, you’d probably think she was about sixteen.”
They talked a little more, then Jude gave the woman her card. “We really need to speak to Clementine,” she said. “If she comes back, don’t tell her about us. Just call me.”
“That goes against our policy.”
Uriah wasn’t as easy on her as Jude would have been. “Let me remind you, Clementine’s boyfriend was killed less than twenty-four hours ago. Clementine might be the last person to see him alive. She’s also the prime suspect right now. We need your help.” He didn’t add that if she didn’t help, they had the power to shut down the shelter. It wasn’t something they’d do, but the threat could serve as leverage.
