Danger Returns in Pairs (Shawn Danger Mysteries Book 2)

by Nina Post

  Danger Returns

  in Pairs

  Nina Post

  Danger Returns in Pairs is copyright © 2015 by Nina Post, LLC. All rights reserved.

  For Jeremy

  And to Shawn in Vermont

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  "Friendship is a sheltering tree."

  Samuel Taylor Coleridge

  ***

  Sunday morning

  Detective Shawn Danger didn't like being at Erie's own Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Despite his sympathy for what they went through, he had waded through too much post-Vietnam crap to stand there without digging his nails into his palms.

  A tension headache pulsed, like a sculptor taking preliminary taps at him with a hammer. When his phone buzzed in his pocket, he quickly checked the screen then tapped the Ignore button. Not even seven a.m. on a Sunday, and his family had been calling for an hour. He never should have given them his new cell number.

  "Thanks for meeting me here," Joe said, in his deep, resonant voice that always made Shawn think of Laurence Fishburne. "You wake up as early as I do, seven starts to seem like the middle of the day. Nearly time for lunch."

  Shawn had kept in contact with Joe over the past few years. One of Joe's brothers was a name on the wall they were standing in front of, and that brother's son was the victim of a homicide, which made Joe an entry in his address book. The work one, not as if he had any other kind. He usually stayed in contact, if the family cared. Plenty of families didn't care one way or the other, if a case was solved or unsolved, so his address book wasn't as full as it should be.

  Shawn's old department always described him as "involved." It was a compliment, as far as he was concerned, even though it came wrapped in a tone that suggested maybe it wasn't such a good thing.

  While Joe watched the sky for birds, Shawn frowned with a sudden thought. If he were killed on the job, what would happen to Comet? Would Sarah want to take him in? He made a mental note to take care of that, because he'd been worrying about it lately. And if his death were ruled a homicide, would anyone in his family call the detective on his case to badger them about it, year after year, or would they just let it go? Too bad about Shawn. Pass the mashed potatoes and turn up the game, the Steelers are in the lead.

  He hadn't gotten the "involved" comment yet from the detectives in his new unit, Crimes Against Persons, but so far they liked to ask if he was heading up a seventh unit called Crimes Against Tortoises. Everyone had heard about the Sylvain case -- his last in Allegheny County -- but they didn't know anywhere near what Shawn knew about it. And he wanted to keep it that way.

  When Shawn left his house that morning, the clouds were wispy and feathery., but now they formed a veil over the sky, and the refraction of the morning sun made a fuzzy halo. He loved this time of year, and the day wasn't going to disappoint -- at least not the weather, which was pleasantly warm. The birds were singing and the POW/MIA flags flapped gently in the breeze. Shawn checked the caller ID on his buzzing phone, then silenced it again. Shawn often wondered if they knew he was a close blood relation, not just someone who worked for them on retainer.

  "I'm an early riser, too," Shawn told Joe. He naturally was, unless he was up late, if he slept at all. Saturday, he was up late. On Friday night he made dinner for Sarah, then slept a whole seven hours. That was a good night. A gem of a night. He made another mental note to practice making panna cotta. The texture had been off -- it hadn't set firmly, even after four hours, and was too watery when he carved his spoon into it. So he'd tossed it and served frozen cherry Greek yogurt instead. He was determined to get it right for the next dinner he made her.

  "I know your job isn't always nine to five, Detective. You read much about Erie history?" Joe asked.

  Lieutenant now, Shawn thought. "A little. We learned some in school."

  "The first people who lived here on the southern coast of Lake Erie were the Cat nation."

  Shawn immediately thought of Natasha Kinski, but that couldn't be what Joe was talking about. "Excuse me?"

  "The Erielhonan were an Iroquoian-speaking tribe. Their name meant the 'Cat' or 'Raccoon' people." Joe let a padding of silence slip between his sentences. He was a thoughtful, considerate man. "How about the lake's shipwreck lore? You read anything about that?"

  "I'm familiar with the basics."

  "The lake is shallow and the conditions can change just like that." Joe snapped his fingers.

  "You just described my childhood," Shawn said, only half-joking.

  Joe raised his chin at the sixty-seven names on the memorial. "It's a shame."

  Shawn didn't know if Joe was talking about his old man, or what happened to them over there, or the kind of crap they had to put up with from people who'd never get it, or how their families were affected. Maybe all of it. But when it came to Vietnam, he never, ever pressed for more.

  "Saw an oriole an hour back," Joe said. "Can you believe that? Been years." He pointed at a group of black-headed birds with orange legs. "Bonaparte gulls. Birds are on their way north. They pass through the Atlantic Flyway." Joe gestured in an elegant swoop in the arc of a shooting star, which made Shawn think again, morbidly, about what would happen to Comet if something happened to him. Last year, there were 126 line of duty deaths.

  He didn't have a plan, and now he was worried about it.

  The best thing to do would be to list the top three people (main, backup, alternate backup), talk to them about it, and write down instructions: what food Comet ate and what you shouldn't even attempt to give him unless you wanted the cold shoulder for the rest of the day and a surprise in your bedroom. How Comet hated Rush for some reason but liked Cheap Trick and The Who. How Comet liked to follow you from room to room and be involved in your life, and how he was playful and needed affection or he'd turn petulant and inactive.

  He'd have to write all these things down.

  "One of the perks of getting up early," Joe said. "All you hear is the birds, a chorus of them every morning. They're good company. Like you." Joe watched the sky as though watching for Hueys, but not with concern. Danger Sr. still had an antagonistic relationship with the sky and kept a wary eye on it. Joe was a Vietnam vet, too, but he was soft-spoken and peaceful, someone who could face the sky and find something beautiful there. His father considered everything a potential enemy.

  "Can you imagine a world without them? That'd be a terrible thing, a world without birds." Joe gave Shawn a flicker of a grin, eyes crinkling at the corners. "Or a world without persevering homicide detectives. No one to get justice for the dead. No one to get answers or peace for mind for the living."

  It felt good to hear that. It was the near-opposite of what he heard from his family. And being thanked or having your work acknowledged in a positive way was a rare thing and good for the soul.

  Joe fixed his sight on the high horizon. "I confess I listen to my birdsong recordings if they're quiet outside. Or when you don't get that wonderful cacophony befor
e the sun rises. They get restless before migration. Zugunruhe," Joe said, and Shawn raised a brow.

  "Migratory restlessness," Joe added. "I use a digital recorder when they're active, so I can listen to them when they're not there. When I don't hear birds, it's too quiet."

  Shawn thought of a homicide scene. There was something unique about that kind of quiet, of a life taken. If you played the video back, there would be chatter -- questions, answers, jokes, but underneath it, that void. At home, he needed to hear the purring of his cat. It was the only thing that attenuated his nerves when his job was getting to him.

  "You ever go to the Hoquiam sewage treatment plant?" Joe asked. At first Shawn wasn't sure he heard that right.

  "Mm, no."

  "Good place to see birds, if you can stand it." Joe turned then and held out his hand. "Next year?"

  Shawn clasped Joe's hand, warm despite the slight chill in the air. It wasn't a vise grip, but you could sense the formidable strength there. "Yes sir. Next year."

  Joe left then, taking light steps on the dedicated cobblestones.

  His phone buzzed again, but it was dispatch. He was still on call. The Memorial was close to the station, but the dispatcher gave him a residential address.

  ***

  Shawn parked his Acura at the curb near the house, a two-story brick with a sloping roof in a quiet cul-de-sac. He checked his most recent voice mails to make sure none of the messages were urgent. In his family's opinion, absolutely anything could be considered urgent.

  "Shawn, it's your mother."

  As if he didn't know who that voice belonged to.

  "Your dad needs some medical tests done, and we're all busy with Melly's engagement party, so we need you to take him. Your sister will be crushed if you're not there."

  Shawn laughed. That was a good one.

  And sure, he'd blow off his new job and this homicide and go to a party to celebrate his sister's engagement to some unlucky bastard -- on a weekday, so they could get a catering discount. And then he'd take Danger, Sr. in for tests, sit with him in the waiting room, spend some quality time together.

  "Sign me up," Shawn muttered as he left the car. "Then I'll stop at my dentist's office, ask for a root canal."

  On the front lawn of the house, a uniformed patrol officer was talking to a guy in sweaty running clothes. When they spotted Shawn approaching, the officer excused himself and walked over to Shawn.

  "What do we have?" Shawn flicked his eyes to the officer's chest. "Officer Marin," he added.

  "Victim's name is Jasper Stowe. No other residents, no guns registered to the address."

  Time stuttered.

  "Say again?" Shawn asked.

  "No registered firearms -- "

  Shawn held up a hand. "No, the name. Tell me the name again."

  "The victim's name?"

  Shawn wanted to shake him. "Yes."

  "Jasper Stowe."

  Shawn grabbed Marin's notes to double-check.

  "You know him?"

  Shawn stared at the name. "Yeah. Yeah, I know him."

  Officer Marin knit his brows and continued, referring to the report. "The neighbor, Andy Tunks, called it in at 6:17 a.m. The victim didn't show up for a morning jog. Neighbor tried to reach the vic on his cell phone; no joy. He went around the back, looked in the window, and saw Stowe sitting in a chair." Marin edged up a dark brow. "Naked."

  "Naked?" Shawn knew how he must sound, parroting everything back, but he still couldn't believe it.

  "Not a stitch."

  "Any wounds?"

  "Not that the neighbor could see. But he pounded on the glass, didn't get a response."

  Shawn looked over the notes and put Jasper into a compartment in his mind so he wouldn't get in the way of him doing his job. "Nice work with the documentation." Marin looked pleased. "I'm going to look around the house first. When the ME or the techs show up, have them go through the front and wait inside, but not in the room where the body is. No one gets in until I clear it, even after you sign them in."

  "Understood," Marin said.

  "And don't go anywhere else on the lawn except for where you've been standing."

  Marin looked down like lava was encroaching on his feet, but nodded. "You got it, Detective."

  "Then once the ME arrives, you can go."

  Shawn looked back to the house and the lawn for anything that stood out. He walked slowly around to the right of the house, after making sure he wasn't stepping on anything important. He followed two parallel lines that led from the middle of the paved path around the house to the back, where a wide ramp ran up to the deck. Did Jasper need a wheelchair now, or did he buy the house from someone who did?

  The entire rear wall was glass, with a glass door. "Now that is something I would never do," Shawn muttered. Retracing his steps, he scanned neighbor's houses for security cameras. He spotted two on the next-door neighbor's house and walked over. No one answered, and there weren't any newspapers or piles of mail. He cupped his hand to get a better look through the side panel, but it didn't seem like anyone was home. He wrote 'Please call' on his card, then stuck it in the door. He headed back into the house and paused in the entrance to pull on gloves and adjust booties over his shoes, noticing an alarm keypad on the wall to his right.

  Jasper's house. So this was where he'd been living, right here in Erie. Why was he back?

  According to Marin's notes, the body was in the living room to the left rear side. Shawn took some photos of the entrance and the front room. Ahead of him was a large sitting area and U-shaped desk, with a bedroom to the right. There were papier-mache monsters everywhere, all different sizes, in every room -- on the floor, perched on shelves, on top of furniture. Shawn knew immediately that Jasper had made them; he'd been drawing monsters since they were kids.

  The main thing Shawn had always admired about Jasper was that he seemed the strongest of all of them. This would seem unlikely to an outsider, who would pick John, with his physical strength and intimidating presence, or Darcy with her boldness and cutting tongue. Even him, quiet and maybe a little too intense. But not the pale, skinny, big-eyed kid who was always drawing or writing. To an outsider, Jasper might have seemed like the weakest, aside from hyperactive Paul. But he was willing to get close to the demons the rest of them didn't want to acknowledge, because he wanted to know what the demon was, where it came from, why it existed, how he should deal with it, and what it meant.

  The other four of them never had any interest in that. They wanted to be as far as possible from what hurt them, but Jasper wasn't afraid to open doors to where the nasty things lived -- the things that made them afraid, wounded them, held them back. The things that grabbed onto their ankles and said Oh no you don't.

  Shawn could never figure out how Jasper could do that. And here they were, in Jasper's house -- a reminder that they would always be there and that he could live with them. Make peace with them. Co-habitate.

  He went left through a dining room that had a huge and bizarre folk art painting on the wall, then turned right and passed through the laundry area that led into the kitchen. There were two pet dishes placed near the laundry, not that big, but probably for a dog, not a cat. He checked the laundry cabinets and for a name on the bowls. No name.

  On his patient, methodical way to the body that he hadn't seen yet, he quickly scanned the counters and island for address books, notepads, anything personal, or anything out of place. There was a photo on the fridge of a pug with an adorably forlorn and pleading expression. The name Charlie was on the frame. Underneath that was a magnetic notepad. The top note read, toothpaste, flatbread, gk olives, cherry tom, chs wheel, avoc, onion, hot sauce, white wine. Toothpaste aside, it looked like Jasper was going to have people over soon and make some guacamole.

  Who was Jasper having over to his house? It couldn't be the others; they had all lost contact a long time ago. Or were they in touch? He immediately rejected this notion. No way they were all in town, let alone in touch. Th
ey had all scattered to the four winds, except for him, and he was pretty sure none of them wanted to look back. He had no idea where they were, or what they were doing, and had never looked. The past wasn't his concern anymore. As a kid, he'd been lucky enough to find friends who were in the same shitty situation, and they had pulled through together -- but they weren't meant to be friends for much longer than that.

  Shawn thought briefly about what he pictured his childhood friends were doing with their lives. Darcy would have been restless and determined to get as far away from Erie as possible. Paul, obsessed with politics, always coming up with plans and schemes, would be in a city, Boston or New York. John, with his intimidating physical presence and hunting background, was probably in some elite special forces unit that didn't actually exist in any records.

  He was the one who didn't get far, not geographically, because he never saw the point. You couldn't outrun your own mind. But lately he'd been reconsidering. If Sarah were willing to go with him, he would probably move. He had no idea where, and knew it must be expensive and a huge hassle, though he'd be fine with taking just Comet. And his trampoline. And whatever Sarah wanted to take. Though maybe he would buy a new trampoline. He'd had his for a while.

  There was a post-it over the phone with the name Natasha scribbled down, and a phone number written underneath with the addition 'new cell.' He wrote the name and number down on his own notepad. 'New cell' implied Jasper had a previous number of hers, so it probably wasn't someone he'd just met.

  Shawn stopped at the entrance to a high-ceilinged, oak-floored living room. The light was beautiful, filtered through a scrim of clouds, with that clarity that came just before the rain.

  The body of his old friend was posed in a sitting position in a large armchair in the corner of the room. Just a glance quickened his heart and filled him with a cold dread.

  Normally he just did his job without emotion, but in this instance it was hard to look. He passed his eyes over other parts of the room under the guise of taking in the scene, when he really just couldn't bring himself to look at Jasper straight on.