Eating Crow (The Birdman Series Book 1)

by Hayton, Lee

  He switched direction when he saw Victoria and Freddie in the waiting room and walked over to them, extending his hand out to Victoria.

  “I’d like to say, Ms. Collins, that I’m very grateful for your efforts in protecting the people of our county. I’m sorry that we put you through this today.”

  Victoria shook his hand, frowning at Freddie as she did so. Freddie shrugged his shoulders.

  “It’s not over,” Mrs. Mancini shouted from the doorway. “The judge granted me leave to pursue this case against the police and that’s what I intend to do.”

  “I can’t stop you,” Mr. Jackson replied. “But you’ll have to find another lawyer to represent you. This is a vendetta, not a lawsuit.”

  “I pay you—”

  “Not anymore, you don’t.” Mr. Jackson walked to the left and pressed the down button.

  Mrs. Mancini turned her wrathful gaze on Victoria, but she just closed her eyes and rubbed at her forehead. When Mrs. Mancini started to rail against her, Victoria yawned and got to her feet.

  “Thanks for that, Freddie. I’m going to the station if you want a lift.”

  He shook his head. “Nah. I’ll finish up here and make sure our part is finalized.”

  Mrs. Mancini had disappeared back into the conference room and was speaking to someone, her voice low and urgent. Maybe an emergency phone call to someone who gave a shit.

  “What happens if she does find another lawyer?” Victoria asked. Her voice was tired and empty. “Will I have to do this again?”

  Freddie shook his head, then shrugged again. “They can call you back in, but only to ask new questions. Anything covered here is already evidential discovery, so you’ll never have to recount that story again.”

  Victoria nodded, then gave him a small, grateful hug. “Thank God,” she said as she withdrew before walking to the lift.

  “Thank God,” Freddie agreed. He gave a small wave as the doors closed between them.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “Collins. Didn’t think I’d see you back in here.”

  Dr. Guardiola’s amused glance held a touch of kindness. His face fell back into folds of concentration as he turned back to what he was doing.

  Victoria felt her cheeks warm with color, her memory touching on shame. “It was a one-off. Jet lag.”

  Arbeck snorted but moved aside to let her stand nearer the table.

  She’d come straight from the lawyer’s office. When Victoria called in to update Haggerty, he’d told her what was happening. He’d also generously offered her the chance for her to skip it, “Given recent events.”

  After her dressing down the day before, the challenge had worked wonders. Victoria had immediately switched course to come to the ME’s office, ignoring the protests from her anxiety-riddled nervous system.

  Stanton handed her his notebook, and Victoria quickly scanned the contents before passing it back. The victim’s name was Coby Thorpe. She was fifteen-years-old. From the statements gathered so far, she ticked all the boxes for a typical Birdman victim.

  Guardiola had been busy, and Coby’s sternum was already opened for examination. The wide cavity was emptied of organs, as Guardiola delicately cut each one free. Weighed it, noted any abnormalities, placed it to one side. Victoria knew the ritual well. After he’d finished the examination down to her stomach contents, he would work backward to replace each where he’d found it before stitching her back up. At her age, the family would probably want a viewing so his stitches would be meticulous out of respect. Even though the opening would be covered with her funeral dress, Guardiola wouldn’t risk the chance that a grieving clasp might free an unseemly sight.

  Victoria let her eyes travel the length of Coby’s body, seeing if it twitched at anything. The girl’s knees had a small graze on one side, but more akin to scraping on the pavement than falling directly on it. There was a bruise on one shoulder as though she’d been punched, or landed heavily on something. Victoria had sported her own a few weeks back when the door frame moved an inch to the right for no good reason.

  Gunshots were easy compared to this. The destruction of a gunshot was immediately apparent; the cause of death prime place in Show and Tell. Even when young victims were brought down by bullets they didn’t drag at her heart like Coby lying on the slab was. No matter if they were equally innocent, to look so able to carry on living when you were relentlessly dead was devastating.

  Her eyes scanned over Coby’s neck, moved to her face, then snagged back down to her neck again. Frowning, Victoria tapped Stanton on the shoulder and pointed to his notebook. He handed it over, and she looked through his jottings again.

  “What?”

  She gave him the book back and pointed at the girl’s neck. “She has deep scratch marks.”

  Guardiola looked up from weighing Coby’s liver. “I’m pretty sure they’re self-inflicted, though we won’t know for certain until we get the DNA tests back for the tissue under her fingernails.”

  When Victoria raised her shoulders in a query for permission, he nodded. She stepped forward to the table. This close to Coby’s face, it was hard not to be distracted by her mouth, her eyes, her perfectly tilted nose. But Victoria leaned forward until her field of vision was focused entirely on the vicious wounds on Coby’s neck.

  That they were self-inflicted seemed almost certain. Guardiola was as careful as his profession dictated, but the lines of the scratches and the angles they bit into the soft flesh of Coby’s neck fitted perfectly with that scenario. About to step back, Victoria stilled and looked again. What was it that bothered her?

  Of course, it was natural to scratch at her neck. The poor girl had been strangled, after all. The same damage recorded to her hyoid bone and trachea as had been evident in Miranda’s autopsy just days before. Victoria touched her own neck lightly, in the same position as the scratches were deepest.

  And then she got it.

  “Where were his hands?” she asked. Not for an answer but to voice aloud her confusion. “These scratches are defensive wounds, trying to claw away her attacker.”

  “We’ve been through this, Collins,” Stanton said behind her. His voice bored with an edge of wishing he was out of there.

  “But look.” She reached out and took Stanton’s hands, placing them around her neck. She could feel Guardiola pause to watch, see Arbeck’s bright stare. A sarcastic comment probably itching to emerge from his buttoned lips.

  “If your hands are up here, strangling me, how am I going to scratch myself?” Victoria put her hands up gently, on top of Stanton’s. “Even if I were catching my skin it’d just be at the top or bottom. Then I’d be catching your hands and trying to wrench them away.”

  Stanton shook her hands off and pulled his arms down, rubbing the skin on the back of his right hand with the other, erasing her touch. “So he moved his hands away, or she slipped.” His voice was testy and spoke of long hours, getting nowhere.

  When Victoria looked to Guardiola he was staring at the edge of the table, his brow furrowed in thought. He looked at Victoria’s neck as though the demonstration were ongoing, then down at Coby’s supine body.

  There was a magnifying glass on a stand to his right, and Guardiola pulled it down to look at the wounds more closely. Feeling behind him, he selected a pair of tweezers from his worktable and slowly pulled a scrap of tissue to one side. For ten minutes, he worked in silence. Examining and re-examining.

  Guardiola stood upright and stretched out his lower back. He knocked the glass back into position. “You’re right. It looks more like the wounds we see in cases of anaphylaxis than strangulation.”

  Stanton looked from Victoria to Guardiola and back to Victoria. “Alright, so tell me. What does that mean?”

  Victoria shrugged while Guardiola answered, “I have absolutely no idea.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “Captain, do you have a moment?” Victoria asked as soon as she walked in the station house.

  Haggerty gave her an ap
praising look. “If it’s about the lawsuit, Lawson already called me. Congratulations.”

  “No, it’s about the case.”

  He turned on his heel and walked to his office, holding the door open for her to follow. “What about the case?”

  “With the body we discovered yesterday, it’s clear that the killer is targeting young, pregnant females. It’s also clear that with two cases in a week, he could kill again at any time.”

  “Thanks for pointing out the obvious, Collins. Always a great help.”

  “I thought maybe I—or one of the other officers—could go around the local high schools. Warn the girls not to be out alone after dark. Get them to set up a buddy system, so they’ve always got someone just a phone call away.”

  “You make it sound like a prostitute’s collective.”

  Victoria shrugged her shoulders. “It doesn’t matter what it’s called, so long as it works.” When he didn’t say anything further, she added, “I could call the school secretaries. See if they could fit us in somewhere. Class by class, or at a general assembly.”

  “Okay.” Haggerty seemed to make his mind up. “Sounds good. There’s a young detective on the unit, don’t know if you’ve met him. Edwards.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Grab him before you go.” At Victoria’s raised eyebrows, he smiled and shook his head. “You’ll see why.”

  #

  Detective Edwards was six-foot-two of gorgeousness. Struggling to keep up with his long steps, Victoria felt every day of her forty-two years.

  “So, I’ve set up appointments with six of the high schools. Two today, four tomorrow.” She skipped forward a step to stay in tandem, her breath started to come harder. Long nights in Florida hadn’t been conducive to keeping up her exercise regimen.

  “The other two are checking out with the boards to see if it crosses the line into sex education.”

  Edwards laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Victoria shook her head. “Because of the pregnancy aspect. Can’t mention pregnancy if your school is full of virgins.”

  “Don’t worry about that,” Edwards tossed over his shoulder, hitching up his belt. “When I’m on the case, no school is full of virgins.”

  Collins burst out laughing. Usually, a show of bravado rubbed her up the wrong way, but he was so over-the-top it struck her funny bone. And okay, a strong jawline didn’t hurt.

  “Got a script?”

  Victoria shook her head. “I’ve got a list of generalized warnings, and that’s about it.”

  She pulled open the driver’s side door, surprised that Edwards hadn’t headed for it automatically. Maybe he was doing the age before beauty thing. “How do you feel about winging it?”

  “It’ll be cool. At that age, girls, they’ll have respect.” He snorted. “Wait until they’re a few year’s older, and it’ll be a different story.”

  “Surely not,” Victoria teased. “Don’t you have badge bunnies following you all over town.” She pulled into the stream of traffic, mapping out the route in her head. “We’ve got a class at the first one, woman’s studies. An assembly at the second.”

  “Doesn’t everyone have to take woman’s studies? I thought we were just speaking to the girls.”

  Victoria cocked an eyebrow. “We’re speaking to anybody who’ll listen, but yeah, there’ll be a mix.”

  “Turn coming up.”

  She turned her attention back to the road the rest of the way. There was no parking out in front of the school, no parking inside except for a few handicapped spots. She chose the one farthest away, an odd guilt even though they were there on official business.

  “Who’s starting this thing?” Edwards asked as they walked through the hallways, searching for room 21B. “I’m happy to kick it off if you like.”

  “Thanks. It’ll give me time to sort through a few thoughts.” Victoria smiled. “I need the extra space in my old age.”

  The room, when they found it, was packed full. Teenagers slumping against walls and lined up along the back.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” Mrs. Sanderson, the teacher, whispered as she led them in. “We called the study periods in too. Figured they’d learn more here.”

  “That’s great,” Victoria assured her. “The more students we can reach, the better.”

  “Pupils,” Mrs. Sanderson corrected her, and Victoria felt like she’d been rapped on the knuckles.

  “Well, hello there,” Edwards led off, clapping his hands together and rubbing. “I’m Detective Edwards, and this here is Detective Collins. We’re here today to talk to you about safety, in the wake of the latest Birdman killings.”

  Victoria’s mouth dropped open, ready to protest, then she shut it again. So hard, her teeth snapped against each other. A girl seated in the front row stared at her, ignoring Edwards. After a minute, she turned to the girl behind her and whispered, hand cupped around her mouth.

  Victoria shifted on the spot, nerves getting the better of her. She was used to talking in front of a crowd, used to getting people’s attention and holding it. Adults, though. Not children, nor teenagers.

  Her stomach turned over once, clenched, then turned over again.

  “There are some basic rules we want you to follow, okay. And Collins is here to talk you through all of those.”

  Edwards stepped back, and Victoria felt for the teacher’s desk behind her rather than stepping forward into his void.

  “The first rule we’d like you to follow is not to be out alone at night,” she said. Her eyes swept the room from left to right. Not catching anyone’s eye, but giving the pretense of eye-contact. “Especially you girls.”

  There was a snigger then, maybe at her dated language, and Victoria felt a flush of shame crawl up her cheeks. She’d given presentations in front of Mayors and Senators, for goodness sake.

  Get a grip.

  She looked out the window and saw a teenage girl sauntering by. A lit cigarette glowed like live ammunition in her mouth. Adorned with the same corrosive shield of distrust and aggressive disapproval that Shelly had once worn to cover her insecurities

  “It’s been a long time since I was your age,” Victoria said.

  She clenched the side of the empty desk hard, forcing herself to speak quietly. Her natural tendency was to boom as loudly as possible, hoping to inspire with volume. That wouldn’t work here.

  “My sister was a lot younger, though, so I got to see a lot of what she went through, attending high school. She was a bit . . .” Victoria cocked her head to the side, as though confused. Knowing what she would say but giving the pretense of thinking. “A bit wild. She liked to drink, she liked to party. Shelly never came across a rule she didn’t want to break, or a boy she didn’t want to fuck.”

  There was a gasp, but Victoria could tell without looking up—it wasn’t one of the pupils. Mrs. Sanderson was the one surprised and shocked. Well, let her be.

  “When Shelly got herself knocked up, she thought that was the end of the world. She had told me before she told our Dad.” Victoria smiled and leaned forward, her voice even gentler. The room leaned forward, eager to hear. “So that, if he killed her, I’d know the reason why. She was only fourteen years old, and he was furious.”

  Victoria jumped up to sit on the edge of the desk rather than lean. She crossed her ankles in a studied show of nonchalance and let them swing.

  “Once he found out, he tried to make sure that she didn’t go out partying any longer.” She smiled, amused and sad. “Shelly was far more determined to sneak out of the house than he was to keep her in.”

  There was a murmur of assent from some of the class. A few quick smiles exchanged.

  “One night, she didn’t come home at all.”

  Victoria looked out the window again, as though the clear glass opened up a portal she could peer through into her past. A past she’d never quite come to terms with. A past she wasn’t eager to revisit.

  “At first, we thought it would ju
st be the partying. I’d moved back home when Dad started to have trouble with my sister, so I’d caught a couple of months of her behavior. For a few hours, I sat at home while Dad had to go to work. I waited for my sister to wake up with a hangover and crawl back home, spouting whatever pathetic excuse she’d thought up.”

  Victoria had waited anxiously on the couch. She’d called in sick to the academy, though she hated to do it. Skipping necessary classes because her dad had become less able to cope with each passing year.

  It was as though when her mother died, her father had decided what his daughters needed was less of a parent. Instead of two, half of one. A quarter of one. He issued half-hearted lectures, a few aggressive rants, but that was the extent of it.

  All that morning, she’d sat fuming. Concerned and furious. Angry with Shelly because if Victoria directed any more anger toward her father, she’d start to hate him.

  The landline sat on the glass-covered coffee table in front of her. Not that anyone called it a landline back then. Back before mobiles ruled the world, it was just the phone. The only phone Shelly could call her on.

  When the clock hit ten o’clock, Victoria had gone out to look for her. Not with any real expectation of finding Shelly, but needing the exercise to defuse her emotion. Otherwise, when Shelly did make it in, she’d unleash the whole thing on her.

  Victoria saw her sister. Really saw her, in a way that her father had stopped doing years before. Shelly may as well have painted “I need you” on her forehead. Her eyes hungered for love, red raw and pain-filled.

  If Victoria gave up on her, then Shelly would have no one. Apart from a bunch of druggie mates heading down the wrong path with dogged determination.

  The park had been her first destination. There was a playground there that Victoria could remember using as a child. By the time Shelly was old enough to play there too, it had stopped being a place for children. Unless you were sending them there to stock up the household allocation of crack.