Murders of the Zodiac Boxed Set

by Paris Morgan

  “Sure. Where and when?”

  The words stared back at me. I was about to set up a coffee date with a complete stranger.

  “Seven…at The Donut Shop on Harry Hines.”

  My finger hovered over the send button, I jumped as Joe rapped his knuckles against the desk, startling me.

  “Hey, are you done with the report yet?”

  “Yeah. I was about to hit send on the request for IT to check those cameras.”

  “Well, hurry it up. We’ve got another body.”

  “What? I didn’t…” I trailed off as I looked at my phone.

  A message had come through from dispatch, and I’d pressed send when he’d startled me. I cleared the phone’s screen and pushed print.

  “I’m driving this time,” Joe informed me as I shoved the laptop back into my bag.

  “You’re the one in charge,” I acknowledged, grabbing the request off the printer as we passed. I’d hand deliver it if by some miracle they didn’t get my email request done by the morning.

  ***

  Joe drove to the scene without using the lights, and the message hadn’t indicated anything specific except we had another possible homicide.

  “Is there something I’m missing here, Joe?”

  “No. Why?”

  “We already have one dead body assigned to us, and we haven’t even gotten a list of possible suspects yet. Why didn’t they send this to one of the other teams?” I braced against the dashboard as he turned a corner on two wheels.

  “This one appears to be another home entry with no explanation of why. Same M.O. as this morning, even though they were twelve hours apart. It’s only two neighborhoods over, and they could be connected, but we won’t know until we check it out.” Joe grinned. “And unlike television, we could have any number of cases in a given day. Just because someone dies, doesn’t mean that we drop everything and only work on their case. We don’t have an hour to do a month’s worth of foot work like they do. Although, we don’t normally have two murders before lunch.”

  “I’m well aware of the many other cases that come up during the course of a shift. I’ve worked them from the patrol side, remember?” I wasn’t going to take a lot of crap from my partner. Just because I was new, didn’t mean I hadn’t been trained.

  He frowned. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. This isn’t normal, but it does happen. We could go the rest of the week and not have another murder. We do get called to anything where death is involved, such as suicides, suspicious deaths, even the elderly when they pass to verify there was nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Sorry. I think my nerves have gotten the best of me.” Not wanting to make things awkward between us, I took the olive branch he’d offered.

  “It’s normal. You didn’t flinch this morning, and you saw a few things that other newbies would have missed. Now, let’s see how you do on this one.” Joe parked with a screech of tires, alerting everyone to the fact that we were there.

  ***

  Much of the crime scene was similar to the one from this morning. A middle-class neighborhood that didn’t see a lot of crime on a regular basis. The front door was open, and I could see the body lying in the entryway.

  “Seems to be the same type of crime,” I commented, snapping on a pair of gloves as I approached just behind Joe.

  Blood had never been a problem for me, unlike my mother, who would almost pass out whenever we would need a tooth pulled or required stitches. My sister, Karen, and I, hadn’t found it to be a problem in our line of work, and it was something that you grew used to when working with the worst kinds of scenes.

  The patrol officer kept his back so he couldn’t see the body as he began informing us as to what brought us here.

  “We got the call about twenty minutes ago. Her brother was going to surprise her by taking her out to lunch for her birthday. He called when he got here, but she didn’t answer. As he knocked on the door, it opened, revealing her body. The paramedics got here first and pronounced her dead. The blood’s fresh, so it couldn’t have happened more than an hour ago, two at the most.”

  “Where’s he at?” Joe asked him.

  “We took him to sit on the back patio and out of the way. We advised him not to call anyone until he’d talked to you.” The officer pointed to the side of the house where a path led to the back.

  It felt different to be on this side of a crime scene, where people I’d worked with just a few days ago were treating me like I was the boss. Normally, I’d have joked around about the events to keep things light. This detective gig was going to take some getting used to.

  Making my way around the house, I found him exactly where he’d been told to go. He glanced toward us as we approached, but didn’t make eye contact. “We understand that you’re the one who found your sister?” I questioned.

  It was always better to start out with a gentle approach, and I just automatically took the lead. If Joe had a problem with it, he didn’t say anything in front of the witness.

  “Yes. I was going to surprise her since she worked from home by going out to eat. Nothing fancy, just a chance to get out and away from things to celebrate her ‘advanced’ age.” He looked up with tears in his eyes. “She was my older sister, and I always teased her about how old she was. It was kind of our tradition.”

  “You were coming to take her to lunch?” Joe asked, flipping open a small notepad.

  “Not exactly. See, she was up all night working, and doesn’t get up until at least ten or eleven most days. I was going to surprise her taking her out to breakfast. When I called she didn’t answer, and I assumed she was in the shower or something, so I went up to ring the bell. I knew she was up because she opens the front blinds when she’s up for the day. The door wasn’t quite latched, and when I pushed on it…she was lying there, bleeding.”

  “Did you touch her or move anything?”

  “I was afraid to. It looked like her brains had leaked onto the floor. I almost threw up, but pulled myself together and called 9-1-1. I’m such an idiot. I could have done something.”

  “No, you did the right thing. She was already gone, and now we can try to find her killer. I’m sorry for your loss. Do you need to call your family?”

  “Oh, God,” he groaned, putting his head in his hands. “My parents are going to be devastated.”

  “Again, we’re sorry for your loss…and thank you. If we have any more questions, we’ll be in contact.”

  The patrol officer had gone through the house and opened the back door so that we could go straight inside.

  “Anything strike you as odd about these two cases?” Joe asked.

  “It was their birthday. He or she has watched them long enough to know their routines, and that it was a special day.”

  “Exactly. But, there’s no real reason that stands out as to why they were murdered. This is the fun part, kiddo. Finding out the ‘why’ behind it.”

  I didn’t take his calling me kiddo personally, since he was almost old enough to be my father.

  We slowed as we approached the front door, and the body, from a different angle.

  I tilted my head, then walked around the circle of the house, each room lead into the next one, to come in from the living room to the entry.

  “She opened the door to someone she thought she could trust. These flowers look fresh too, and I think she had the towel wrapped around her hair.” I pointed to where it had been dropped just inside the door, lying next to the body.

  “I think the person delivered the flowers, when she took them from them, she turned, and they hit her over the head like the first victim. Only with the towel up on her head, it wouldn’t have caused as much damage, so they had to take a second swing.” I pointed to the ceiling where there were splatters of blood.

  “When the killer pulled back, it would of course have caused some mess. They would have had to swing again in order for the blood to have hit the mirror. If the end of the object had already connected, it wou
ld have had loose blood to fling in more places. Also, as far as trauma goes, this is much worse. I think they hit much harder the second time to make sure they did the job.” I paused, surveying the scene.

  “The towel was gone when they swung the second time. They didn’t want to take a chance that it was going to stop the blow. Then they wiped the blood off the weapon and dropped it to the side, which is why it doesn’t match where her body landed.”

  Joe remained silent, and I thought I’d gone too far describing what I could see in my mind. I always talked when I got nervous or excited. Combine the two, and I was a blabbering mess.

  He took a step back. “This was premeditated, and not an argument or fit of anger. I’m going to say we’re dealing with a man at the moment because of the height and swing, but this was planned, almost like a hit.”

  “The killer didn’t show emotion in the fact that he didn’t hesitate. If he had only swung the weapon once, then she might have been dazed, but she would have tried to run or fight. But she didn’t, so he was able to react quickly when the first hit didn’t kill her immediately. I get the impression that he might have stood here for a second to make sure she was dead before calmly cleaning the weapon and closing the door behind him. We need to ask the neighbors if they saw something. He was here a little longer than the other house.” I combed the house for anything that might stand out.

  They had moved the body by the time we got back, and I stepped around the pool of blood to look at the flowers.

  “There’s a card in here.” I pulled it out, but the only thing on the card was the sign of Aquarius with the words, ‘Happy Birthday’.

  Taking it, I walked out the back door to the brother.

  “Was your sister into her zodiac sign and horoscopes?” I slid the card onto the table in front of him.

  “Not that I know of. I mean, everyone kind of knows what their sign is, but she didn’t follow her horoscope or get readings. Honestly, I don’t think we’ve ever discussed it before. I don’t have a clue what her sign is.” He shrugged helplessly.

  “Okay. Did she have a boyfriend or anyone that would want to hurt her?”

  “No. She was a medical transcriptionist for a doctor’s office. That’s why she worked at night, doing their records for the next day. If things were slow, or she wanted some extra spending cash, she would take on some work from the hospital or another doctor. Nothing that would make someone want to kill her.”

  “She might have seen something about a patient that she wasn’t supposed to know about,” Joe commented. “We’ll need to get the name of the company that she worked through, and the doctor that she coded for.”

  “They were done by patient numbers, so she didn’t have access to anyone’s name. We joked about some of the more interesting stuff whenever we got together, but it didn’t mean anything because she had no idea whose records she’d imputed that day. They were sent from the company. I don’t think they even had her doing the same doctor’s records each day for that very reason.”

  “All right. You’ve been helpful. We’ll check it out, but she didn’t have anyone special in her life?” I brought the question back up because he’d ignored or forgotten it.

  “She’d date occasionally, but mostly she’d meet someone on the hookup app. It was never a regular thing, just a night here or there. I’m her brother, so other than the occasional reference, we didn’t discuss her intimate life.”

  “Joe, anything I missed?”

  He shook his head no, and I took the card from the table because I wanted to do some foot work and see if there was a florist that might have done the delivery earlier in the morning.

  “Let’s knock on a few doors and see if we can find someone that was home this morning,” he suggested. “You take the other side of the street and I’ll get this one.”

  It was almost noon and starting to get hot in Texas, even for January. The first two houses directly across from the victim were no answers, but the third house was pay dirt.

  A stay-at-home mom who kept watch on the neighborhood answered the door.

  “May I help you?” She peeked through the chain until I showed my badge.

  “We’re checking to see if you saw anything that happened at the house over there this morning?” I pointed to the obvious house of interest.

  “Of course I heard the ambulances, which is a little unusual for our quiet street, but I did notice a delivery van over there at about ten. A regular looking guy got out with flowers, but the van blocked my view of the door. I do hope nothing’s terribly wrong.” She held up a shaking hand to steady herself against the door.

  “Well, your neighbor didn’t make it. Her brother found her and called for help, but he was too late.” I wanted to let her know a little bit without revealing that she had been murdered.

  “What happened?” The neighbor gasped in shock.

  “That’s what we’re trying to figure out, ma’am. We’re just trying to get a timeline and see if you noticed anything that can help us determine how she died.”

  “Did that delivery man kill her?” the woman barked, jumping quickly to a conclusion.

  “We know he made his delivery, but at this point, we’re not certain when she died. She may have been allergic to the flowers.”

  “That’s just horrible to get a gift like that, and then to die from it. If I hear anything, I’ll be sure to let you know. Do you have a card or something?”

  “I don’t…” I started to answer, and then remembered I still had my old ones from patrol. “Here, this is my old card, but it still has my name, and someone can put you through to me.”

  Joe motioned me back to the car, meeting me there.

  “No point in checking out any of the others. The ones with a good sight line are all gone or at work. My older lady three doors down didn’t even know there were rescue vehicles out here until I rang her bell.” Joe opened the door to get in.

  “Any chance you can drop me at my car before we get lunch? I’d like to check out a few of the local florists and see if they can point me in the direction of who might have delivered here this morning.” I tried not to cringe at the floor covered in trash.

  “My car’s too much for you, huh? No worries, you’re not the first partner to want their own vehicle. It’s just the only place I can be messy because my wife is all over my ass at home.” Joe grinned at my discomfort.

  “Yeah, it’s a little more than I’m used to, but I’ll get over to it. I also want to have the IT guys run any delivery vans that were in the area last night near the other crime scene and this one. It’s a shame neighborhoods don’t have cameras. A criminal could hide completely by just going out three miles away and we’d never even know to flag it.”

  “True, but nobody wants everything they do to be tracked. Even the good guys like a little privacy.”

  ***

  While Joe was driving, I pulled up florists and quickly had a list based on how close the locations were to the crime scenes.

  “One of these is just around the corner. Wanna save some time and stop on our way back to the station?” I motioned to the shopping center on our right.

  “I’ll drop you off and run through that drive-thru chicken place for lunch. What do you want?” He turned into the lot faster than was necessary.

  A quick glance at the clock showed it was almost lunch time. “A snack pack of chicken and a sweet tea.”

  He dropped me at the curb and swung around, making a beeline for the chicken joint.

  The door to the florist shop was nicely decorated with hand-painted roses by someone with talent. A bell rang, bringing the clerk’s multi-colored head up from her phone. “May I help you?”

  “I’m hoping so.” I flashed my badge for the first time as a detective with no one looking over my shoulder. “I need to see if you had any orders for flower deliveries to this address this morning.” I took the pen from the counter and wrote it down on one of the cards sitting on the counter.

  She l
ooked at it, turned to the computer, and began typing. “I don’t see anything from us, and there’s nothing in the national system for me to link it to either. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful.”

  Seeing all the blank cards that anyone could pick up, I turned on my phone and flipped to the picture of the card that had been in the flowers.

  “Do you have anything like this available to send out with your flowers?”

  “Oh, that’s a wonderful drawing, but we don’t have anything like that. It’s all the same stock for anyone that orders online or walks in. Something like that would be done in smaller shop, or someone with connections to an artist.”

  I pointed to the front door. “Who did the front door?”

  Her face flushed. “I did.”

  “Would you know anyone that could do this kind of work and where they might sell it?”

  “Most artists that do drawings like that use tablets now. They could have either drawn it and uploaded it, or done it on the computer. It looks more like it was done on a tablet. The style isn’t something that would work on paper as well as in an app. You could change the colors to match whatever words you have over here on the card.” Her shyness fell away as she started to explain the art process.

  “Thank you. Could anyone print out cards like this and make them look professional?”

  “Oh, absolutely. The things we can do now look just as great as something original. They sell cards online in small amounts, or in bulk for easy printing.”

  “Great. Thank you, you’ve been a big help.” I turned to walk away, but had a thought.

  “If you hear of or see anything like this again, would you let me know?” I placed one of my cards on the counter.

  “Yeah. I just hope you can find whoever you’re looking for.” She fingered the card between her different colored nails.

  Joe was sitting in the car eating when I approached.

  “How’d it go?”

  “There aren’t any deliveries in their system, so it wasn’t done online, and could have been a walk-in at any florist shop. Those aren’t registered on the national site, so unless we want to visit or call every florist within a twenty-mile radius, we’re at a dead end.” I took the box he offered. My stomach grumbled as the smell of freshly fried chicken hit my nose.