The neighborhood was dark and quiet. The only visible light came from the houses themselves and one stray streetlight a few blocks up. Tom squinted at a mailbox as he walked past. “Eight twenty-six, next one,” he said.
He continued past the house and made a left off of the sidewalk into the yard. He stood in the darkness of the trees. A duffel bag hung from his shoulder. As he pulled the gloves over his hands, he caught the light from a television flickering through the side window.
“They’re still up,” he said under his breath.
Tom hugged the tree line as he made his way up the small hill through the yard. Once in the back, he took a minute to find the door for the screened lanai covering the pool. He gave the knob a twist—locked. He knelt down and unzipped his duffel bag. He reached his hand inside and removed a large pocket knife. With a quick wave of his hand, the blade made a confirming click on its lock. He poked the tip of the knife through the screen and cut around the door latch. The blade slid through with ease. He put the knife in his pocket and reached through the cut screen to unlock the door. He lurked around the pool. No light came from the rear windows of the home. The back of the house leading out to the lanai had two sets of glass sliding doors. He walked to the first and cupped his latex gloved hands around his face. He looked inside. A corner of a bed was visible through the blinds. It was the master bedroom.
Tom walked across the cement patio to the next set. He could hear the television from the outside the house. He peered in. The house was an open concept. In front of him was the kitchen, the living room sat to his left. He saw the couple parked in front of the television. A man lay on the couch, spread out with his head on a pillow. He appeared asleep. The back of a woman’s head showed over the chair that sat beside the couch.
Tom dug through the bag and removed the clean room suit he purchased online. He unrolled it and pulled it over his clothes. The zipper was pulled up. From the bag, he pulled out a tire iron. Tom tried to slide the door open.
To his surprise, it was unlocked. The door moved a few inches. His eyes locked on the couple in the living room looking for any kind of movement—they didn’t budge. He pulled the sliding door open the rest of the way as he focused on the couple. They still didn’t move. He sat his duffel bag down on the concrete patio and pushed the hanging blinds to the side. He stepped into the house one foot at a time. Behind his back he slid the glass patio door closed. He waited in the darkness of the kitchen watching the couple. After a few minutes crouched to the side of the door, he was sure they didn’t hear his entrance. The high volume of the television had masked the sound.
He went to the living room. Neither turned around, neither noticed his presence. They were asleep. A few more strides and he stood behind the woman in the chair. Tom raised the tire iron.
His muscles flexed as he put everything he had into bringing the tire iron down into the back of her head. The tire iron hit with an audible crack, followed by a high pitched scream from Margaret Miller. The one blow was not enough. She lifted her hands to her head. Tom raised the tire iron again, giving her another strike that rendered her limp. The man, James Miller, rose from the couch unaware of what just happened—his wife’s scream was enough to startle him from his nap. His eyes caught her fate. She sat hunched over. Blood poured from her head. He looked up and saw Tom towering over the back of the chair. From the waist up, the white clean suit Tom wore was spattered in blood. A little of Tom’s red hair protruded from under the suit’s hood—in his hand hung the bloody tire iron.
James Miller looked at Tom was a mix of panic, disbelief and then recognition. Before his mouth could make a word, Tom lunged across the end table next to the chair and delivered a blow between the eyes. The attack was quick enough that James never had time to defend himself. His eyes rolled back as he fell to his knees, then face down. Tom stood over him, striking him in the back of the head until he was sure he’d never get up again. James Miller lay dead on the living room floor at his wife’s feet.
Tom stood in the living room taking in what he’d done. He reached for the woman’s throat to search for a pulse—none. He did the same for the man, though the damage to the back of his head would confirm it either way.
In the kitchen, Tom slid out a bar stool from the breakfast bar and took a seat. He was out of breath from the attack. Tom took a few minutes to lower his heart rate before he stood and walked to the sink. He turned on the faucet and rinsed the blood from the tire iron. A few stubborn chunks of flesh needed to be persuaded off with his finger. It was time to push forward.
He unzipped the front of his clean suit and reached inside for his pocket knife. The blade flicked open. James Miller was rolled onto his back. Tom sat on his chest and began to carve his message into the man’s forehead. The wife was next. The Millers were the last involved that he found, but the first checked off his list.
Chapter 4
We’d been slow in the homicide department for the last few weeks. It was a good thing. With no new homicides to look into, it allowed us to dig into unsolved cases and try to get some closure for the families. Before I could get back to the unsolved cases, I needed to finish my team’s schedule for the month.
Our Homicide Division had been put on nine-nines—nine hour days, nine weekdays straight. I now had weekends and every other Monday off. It helped with having somewhat of a life, though I was always on call unless I put in for vacation. Weekends were covered by myself and another rotating detective. The problem was everyone on the team wanted either Fridays or Mondays off. When figuring in vacation requests and who had to be in court on what days, it was a challenge. The schedule needed to be turned into Captain Bostok by the end of the day. I had it almost wrapped up.
Thunder shook the building and a flash of light came through the windows of my office. Our station, District Three of the Tampa Police Department plunged into darkness. The screen of my laptop went black. The dim lighting of the station’s back up power came online.
“Son of a bitch.” I slapped the top of my desk. I gritted my teeth and rolled my neck from side to side letting out three good cracks.
The station’s power flicked back on. My computer greeted me with a cheerful tune and welcome screen. I stared at it in disdain.
Sergeant Hank Rawlings, for all intents and purposes, my partner, walked through my office door and plopped himself on the couch in the back.
“Just sit in the damn chair.” I pointed at the guest chair across from me at my desk.
Hank shook his head. “Those things suck.”
“Whatever.”
When I purchased my new office chair a few months back there wasn’t a lot left in my budget for fancy guest chairs. I scooped up a couple of cheap ones from the office supply store. The only people that ever sat across from me were the captain and Hank. I never heard a complaint from the captain but Hank reminded me often that he wasn’t a fan.
He flipped a leg up over his knee. I couldn’t help but notice that his socks matched his tie. His dress shoes had pointed tips with a thick buckle that reflected the light from the flickering fluorescents overhead. The shoes looked uncomfortable. His wife Karen must have been dressing him again. Yet, these weren’t the pink or yellow department store clothes that she’d selected for him in the past. He wore a light blue shirt under a navy sport coat and a brown and blue argyle tie. His dark hair was styled. A week old stubble of mustache and beard covered his face. He shaved off his signature police mustache a few weeks prior.
“Something the matter?” he asked.
“Yeah, I just lost everything I’ve been working on for the last three hours.”
“How?”
I pointed to the lights still flickering as they regained power. “Laptop battery crapped out on me a few days ago. Replacement won’t be here until the tail end of the week. When the power goes, so does my work.”
“That sucks. You don’t save it as you go?”
I gave him a look of annoyance.
“Wh
at’s with the outfit? Karen get a hold of your credit card?”
“Nah. I signed up with the Box O’ Style.”
He said it in a way that almost sounded like I was supposed to know what he was talking about. I shrugged and held my palms up.
“Box O’ Style. You’ve never heard of it? Really?”
“I can’t say that I have.”
“Oh, well you should check it out. Karen put me on to it. What they…”
“Figures,” I mumbled interrupting.
He paused and held a finger up—the middle one. “Just listen.”
I crossed my arms. “Go on.”
“What they do is assign you a fashion consultant to go over what colors and styles you like. They start by getting a take of where you are at with your level of style. From there they put together a complete outfit, head to toe, and send it to you in a nice wooden box. You get two new outfits a month.”
“So it’s a subscription thing?”
He nodded. “Sort of.”
“How much is it?”
“Well, you set up a budget and they try to work with it.”
“How much is the budget?”
“Not much.”
“What’s not much?”
“I don’t know.”
“So what you are saying is that Karen got it set up and you don’t know what you are paying?”
He sat quiet for a moment. “Whatever. It can’t be that much, couple hundred bucks an outfit maybe.”
I smiled and nodded. “Let me know when you get that bill. So how are the new wheels? Are you getting a lot of miles per electricity?”
Hank just took ownership of a brand new hybrid. The car was an awful shade of green somewhere between baby snot and pea soup. Beside the horrid color, it was so small that when he sat in it his head rubbed against the roof.
“It’s great! I’m averaging around forty miles a gallon.”
“Forty miles a gallon?”
“Yeah, right around there.”
“Don’t most new cars that aren’t hybrids get around forty miles a gallon these days?”
“Some do, sure.”
“But you chose that one?”
“Well, it’s not just the mileage. It’s also doing my part for the environment.”
“Environment, huh?”
“Yup. Every little bit helps.”
“Right. So Karen didn’t have a hand in your vehicle choice?”
He changed the subject confirming what I already guessed. “See the Crime and Conviction show on Cross last night?”
It had been three months since my encounter with Bob Cross. The local news coverage of the case had faded, but I wouldn’t be able to forget him that easily. A four inch scar spanned the side of my head from the bullet that almost took my life. It would remind me of Cross every time I looked in the mirror. I had tried growing my hair to cover it, but it just didn’t feel right. My sister suggested seeing a plastic surgeon while I was up in Wisconsin visiting. She claimed that they could make the scar almost unnoticeable. I opted to not. The events that took place were always going to be a part of me, and now, so would the reminder.
The buzz around the station over the last few weeks was the COP channel airing a recreation of the Cross case. I had no interest in tuning in. Watching some actors portray what happened wasn’t high on my list of must see TV.
“I must have missed it.”
“They made you out alright. It was a pretty accurate portrayal.”
“Oh yeah?” My interest peaked.
He smiled. “Yeah, they got some big meat head to play you. Apparently you talk like you are from Canada too. Lots of ehs and aboots.”
“Great.”
“They guy that played me was pretty good. I have to say that I would’ve liked to see them build my character more.”
My desk phone rang saving me from more of Hank’s ramblings about the television show.
I scooped up the receiver. “Lieutenant Kane.”
“It’s Bostok, come to my office. Bring the male model with you.” The captain hung up.
I smirked, pointed to the door and stood. “Cap wants us in his office.”
Hank scooted his chair back and followed me out.
I gave the captain’s door a quick rap with my knuckles. I saw him waving us in through the glass.
Captain Bostok looked up from his desk and took off his glasses. He was wearing a new style of mustache that was taking a little getting used to—it was thick, white and extending down his neck. I believed it to be a fu-manchu style. The section of mustache to the sides of his mouth had collected the crumbs of the blueberry muffin he was three quarters through with. More crumbs had fallen to rest on his shelf of a stomach. He tossed the last bit of muffin in his mouth and took a sip of his coffee. He brushed the crumbs from his belly and desk into the trash bin. The captain pointed to his guest chairs, signaling Hank and I to sit.
The captain looked to me. “Where are you at with the schedule?”
“I was almost done. The power going out just wiped out what I was working on.”
“Just bring me what you have and I’ll take care of the rest. You guys have work. I just got a call from the guys over at District Two. Someone called in a double homicide. I need you guys to go head it up.”
A look of confusion spread across Hank’s face. “You want us to head up something at District Two?”
“Lieutenant Rothstein is on disability leave for a few months getting a fresh knee replacement. Budget cuts have prevented them from filling the position for their number two. Major Danes offered up our department to cover the slack.”
“Alright. Where are we headed?”
“Eight twenty-six, Pike Terrace, New Tampa.”
Hank and I made our way out of the station and outside to the parking structure where we kept the cruisers. We headed over to my unmarked Charger and made our way from the station. I’d been driving the undercover police issue since the demise of my Mustang while working the Cross case. The insurance company totaled it and paid me out. I was up in the air about what to purchase to replace it. I’d been leaning toward a new Corvette but Callie and I were doing a lot of outdoor activities. We had been going camping and fishing, plus I bought a pair of kayaks. A two seated sports car wasn’t conducive to those things. I had been trying to talk her into trading her BMW in on a Jeep. It was a work in progress.
The drive from the station took us almost forty-five minutes. Normal traffic, while annoying enough, increased threefold when there was a drop of rain. This was more than a drop. The rain drove sideways. Cars turned on their flashers and pulled to the side of the road. The cruiser’s wipers on high could barely keep up with the sheets of rain cascading down the windshield. Like someone hitting an off switch, the rain stopped four blocks from the address. We pulled into the subdivision and spotted the scene a few blocks up the road. Squad cars lined the sides of the street. The county’s familiar coroner’s van was backed into the home’s driveway next to a blue Hyundai, which I assumed belonged to the homeowners.
We pulled along the side of the road and parked behind another unmarked cruiser. I killed the motor. My phone vibrated against my leg. I slid it out of my pocket. It was a text message from Callie asking if I wanted to do dinner and a movie. I typed in sure and tossed it on the dash. Hank and I hung our badges from our necks and stepped out of the car. Scott Clark, the captain of District Two’s Homicide Division greeted us at the front door. He was a stocky man in his early fifties with brown and gray short hair—no mustache, no beard. His peaked hat with plastic rain guard sat atop his round head. His shoulders were broad and wet from standing out in the rain.
“Captain Clark,” I said.
“Lieutenant Kane, Sergeant Rawlings, thanks for lending a hand here.”
I shook his hand and gave him a nod of the head. “No problem. What are we looking at?”
He motioned us to follow him inside.
Chapter 5
Captain Clark t
ook off his hat and shook the beads of water onto the ground. He stuck it under his arm and led us into the house’s living room. “Call came in about nine-thirty this morning.”
I looked down and caught the time on my wrist, it was a little after eleven. “Who called?”
“Someone from James Miller’s cell phone—James Miller being the homeowner. He was dead prior to the call. So we’re thinking it may have been the perpetrator. Anyone else and they would have stuck around.”
I nodded. “Were you able to track the call?”
“No. We haven’t found a cell phone here either. We found two cell phone chargers plugged into the wall, no phones.”
“So, there’s a chance that our killer took them.”
Clark nodded. “That’s James Miller there.” Captain Clark pointed to the dead man lying on the living room floor. Next to him, in a chair, a woman lay slumped over. The room was spattered in blood. A thin, gray haired man in a white coat knelt with his face no more than an inch from the back of the dead man’s head. Ed Dockett, the county’s chief medical examiner, appeared to be getting up close and personal with the cause of death. The man’s skull was sunken in.
Ed took his face from the man’s head and rolled him onto his back. The man’s eyes were open and staring at the ceiling. Ed looked to Hank and I. “These two have been dead for about twelve hours or so.” Ed waved me over. “Come here and check this out, Kane.”
I walked to Ed, Hank followed.
“Got writing carved into these two’s foreheads.”
“Writing?” I asked.
Ed raised his gray eyebrows. “Look here.” He ran his finger in the air over the man’s forehead and traced out the letters. “It says Justice.”
I nodded.
Ed pulled himself to his feet and walked to the woman slumped over in the chair. He again traced the letters in the air in front of her forehead. “The writing on her head says For.” Ed used the back of his gloved hand to push his glasses back up his face. “Justice for,” he said.
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