Cold Blooded Lover

by Eliza Lentzski

  Julia made a noise into her wine glass. “Good for her. That’s challenging work.”

  “Is it? I didn’t want to seem out of my element, so I didn’t ask.”

  “Victim’s advocates work with those against whom a crime has been committed, but it’s typically for more sensitive crimes—sexual abuse, domestic violence, things like that,” she explained. “If she’s working cold case, she probably helps the families who’ve lost a loved one know what their legal options are, but also to provide emotional support. They’re essentially law enforcement with a heart.”

  I snorted. “You don’t think cops have heart?”

  Julia arched a skeptical eyebrow. Her facial expression told me everything I needed to know.

  “Hey, I can be sensitive!” I defended.

  She patted my thigh, clearly meant to pacify. “I know you can, dear. But you’re also an exception to the rule.”

  A long pass down the playing field momentarily distracted my attention. The quarterback’s back-shoulder throw was perfectly placed, but the receiver bungled the catch.

  “C’mon, eighty-eight!” I yelled at the TV. “He hit you in the hands!”

  I heard Julia’s murmur: “Very sensitive indeed.”

  CHAPTER FiVE

  Sarah Conrad’s voice rang through the central office space in the basement of Minneapolis’ Fourth Police Precinct. “Hey, Miller. You wanna play Truth or Dare?”

  I didn’t bother looking away from my game of solitaire on the computer. The ancient processor couldn’t handle anything more sophisticated. “What are you—thirteen?”

  “No, I’m bored. Humor me. Plus, what better way for us to get to know each other?” she tried to reason.

  “You could always just ask me what you want to know,” I pragmatically pointed out.

  “So what you’re saying is—you’re boring. That’s okay,” she quipped, returning her attention to her computer, “I know all I need to.”

  I glanced at the wall clock. Stanley was at the evidence warehouse, and the day was crawling by. I wasn’t even sure the clock worked anymore. Our office supplies in the basement of the Fourth Precinct were decidedly primitive.

  I pushed away from my computer and rolled my office chair towards the center of the room. “Fine, I’ll play. But nothing that’ll get me in trouble with my girlfriend,” I qualified.

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself, Miller. Truth or Dare,” she challenged.

  I hesitated. “Truth.”

  “What’d you do to get assigned down here?”

  I blew out a deep breath. I had too many secrets—or rather things I didn’t feel comfortable my office mates knowing about. Maybe boredom would have been the smarter choice. The safe choice.

  “It wasn’t a punishment, if that’s what you’re suggesting. My old supervisor told me about the opportunity, and I thought it might be a good fit.”

  It was the truth, if not a little incomplete.

  “What do you think about it now?” she asked.

  “Nuh uh,” I clucked. “My turn.”

  Sarah wrinkled her nose. “Great. A rule follower. Truth,” she picked.

  I turned her question around on her. “What’d you do to get stuck down here?”

  “I wanted to work for Victim’s Advocacy, but they didn’t have a full-time position. This opportunity presented itself that let me do what I’m really passionate about while only having to babysit this tomb two days a week. Truth or Dare.”

  “Truth.”

  “What are you passionate about?”

  “Doing good. Helping people out. Feeling like I have a purpose, and that I’m making a difference.”

  “Aww, that’s cute,” Sarah admired.

  I couldn’t tell if she was teasing me or being genuine. Either way, I hadn’t meant to be so earnest and forthcoming. It made me sound green.

  “Your turn,” I grumbled.

  “Dare,” she grinned.

  I wasn’t prepared for that. Besides, Truth or Dare wasn’t exactly workplace appropriate. I was sure we were probably violating some Human Resources rule. “Uh. Uh, I dare you to, uh ….”

  I wasn’t able to finish my sentence before Stanley Harris unexpectedly burst into the office.

  “I found something!” He bent over from exhaustion, with his hands on his knees.

  “I thought you were at the warehouse today,” I observed.

  “I am. I was,” he panted. “But I found something that couldn’t wait.”

  “Jesus, did you run all the way here?” Sarah remarked.

  Stanley finally stood to his full height. “Remember that Jane Doe case? The one who died from botulinum toxin poisoning?”

  “Sure. Death by Botox,” I said. It had been Stanley’s passion for giving the woman an identify and fighting for her when no one else even seemed to realize she was missing that had convinced me to take the job. “What about her?”

  “I think I’ve got a lead.”

  Taking the bait, I followed Stanley the few feet to the central table that was the epicenter of the cold case unit. Sarah left her computer station to join us as well.

  Stanley spread out the files from the Jane Doe case on the long wooden table. The details on the case were slim. The body of an unidentified woman had been dropped off at a local hospital. The autopsy had revealed an alarming amount of botulinum toxin in her system—the chemical better known by its cosmetic surgery moniker, Botox, that cosmetic surgeons used to fill frown lines and crow’s feet. Normally the toxin wasn’t problematic, but when ingested, it caused all kinds of health complications, and if left untreated, could result in death. Beyond the cause of Jane Doe’s death, there were no other leads to the case.

  I picked up one of the color photographs that had been taken on the autopsy table. If not for the extreme pale color of the woman’s skin and the hint of the autopsy incision in the center of her chest, she could have passed for sleeping, not dead. I’d experienced my share of death in Afghanistan. But none of the dead bodies I’d ever seen had looked like they might open their eyes.

  “What happens to the bodies?”

  Both Stanley and Sarah looked in my direction. I hadn’t intended to speak aloud.

  “Gruesome, I know,” I backpedaled. “I guess I was just wondering what happens to unidentified bodies. Is there a special cemetery for them?”

  “Unclaimed bodies are cremated,” Stanley told me.

  I dropped the image to the worktable. “Oh.”

  “The coroner receives at least five hundred Jane and John Doe bodies every year, but they’re usually identified within a couple of days. If we don’t have fingerprints on file, or dental and DNA processing brings up nothing either, at least one or two bodies go unclaimed a year,” Stanley remarked. “If it’s an open case, the morgue can hold onto the body, but only for so long. Then it gets cremated, placed in an urn, and assigned a number. The remains are stored in a city-owned mausoleum with other unknowns.”

  “Wow. That’s … really sad,” Sarah remarked.

  Stanley nodded. “All the more reason to give this woman an identity.” He pulled a piece of rolled up paper out of a poster tube. He laid out a blueprint—the detailed map of some location in Minneapolis—on the table’s center.

  I looked over the official-looking document. “Where did you get this?”

  Stanley ignored my question. “Jane Doe was dumped at St. Mary’s Hospital’s fire lane,” he began. “No papers, no note, no identifiable markings on her body.”

  “Hence the Jane Doe moniker,” I pointed out the obvious.

  “The original homicide detectives working this case pulled surveillance footage from the hospital and neighboring businesses,” he continued, “but none of that video produced a single image of who might have dumped the body.”

  “And the case went cold after that,” Sarah noted. “What’s your point?”

  “We’ve been looking at this all wrong,” he said. “We don’t want the surveillance vi
deo of the buildings currently in the area. We want footage from stores there in 2005, when the body was discarded.”

  “The original detectives didn’t do that?” I questioned.

  “It was sporadic coverage. They didn’t bother canvassing every business.”

  “Which ones did they miss?” Sarah asked.

  Stanley stabbed a stubby finger onto the blueprint. “This auto parts store used to be a video rental store. It has a perfect vantage point of the hospital’s entrance. If they had a security camera in their parking lot, and if someone kept those tapes, we might be able to see who dropped off Jane Doe. And who knows—if someone’s holding onto the store’s old video inventory, maybe they kept onto security footage, too.”

  Sarah continued to inspect the blueprint. Her eyebrows bent together. “What makes you think someone kept video footage that’s a decade old from a defunct video store?”

  I didn’t want to pile on, but it was a stretch. “Sarah, right. That’s a lot of Ifs, Stanley.”

  My co-worker looked somber. “I know. But if this doesn’t result in anything, Jane Doe goes back to the Freezer. Captain Forrester wants results—not open cases.”

  “Okay, I’ll bite,” I conceded. “Who do I have to lean on to find this hypothetical security footage?”

  The excitement returned to Stanley’s features. “I’ve got the home address of the person who owns the storefront. He’s renting the space to the auto parts shop, so maybe he knows what happened to the video store’s inventory.”

  “No phone number? E-mail?”

  “No. Sorry.”

  I grabbed my jacket off the back of my office chair and pulled it on. “It’s a long shot, but go ahead and text me the address. I might as well get used to hunting down farfetched leads, right?”

  Sarah’s lips curled into a Cheshire smile. “And playing Truth or Dare.”

  “Hah,” I barked out a laugh. “Have fun with that, Stanley.”

  My co-worker looked justifiably confused.

  I stopped in the doorway, suddenly remembering. “Hey, do I get a police car?”

  I stood before the unmarked, dark blue Crown Victoria in the parking lot of the Fourth Precinct and frowned. It was obvious the vehicle had seen better days. It had been put out to pasture and assigned to the cold case division, no longer able to keep up with the daily grind of having its own beat. I had a lot in common with that car.

  “Don’t tell me that dinosaur is yours.”

  I turned at the sound a familiar voice. With the exception of running into my friend Brent on my first day on the job, I’d successfully avoided running into anyone I knew from my days upstairs.

  “Rich. Hey.”

  “Hey, Mama Cass,” he greeted with an easy smile.

  “What are you doing in the Fourth?” I was startled to see my friend. Rich worked for Internal Affairs downtown in the First Precinct.

  He held up a slim manila envelope. “I’m apparently a postal worker now. They’ve got me delivering paperwork.”

  “Better than me,” I said, unable to mask the bitterness in my tone. “They’ve got me chasing ghosts.”

  Rich gave me a sympathetic look. “Not what you thought it would be?”

  “I shouldn’t complain. It was this or unemployment. Or Mall Security,” I said, making a face.

  “You wanna ditch and go grab lunch?” he proposed.

  “I should go do this,” I regrettably declined. This errand could wait, but I doubted Stanley could. “Rain check?”

  “Sure thing. I’ll see you later, Rookie,” he waved.

  “I got a promotion, you know,” I futilely protested. “I’m not low grunt on the totem pole anymore.”

  Rich flashed me a boyish grin. “You’ll always be a Rookie to me.”

  + + +

  The address Stanley had procured for me had me driving out of the city to a distant suburb dotted with corn silos and red barns. The pungent stench of cow manure or an equally ripe natural fertilizer was sharp in the air. In this part of the state it was hard to tell you were still in Minnesota and not Iowa or Wisconsin.

  I double-checked the rural address Stanley had texted me before exiting the vehicle. All I had was a name and an address. I had a feeling much of this new job would be based on incomplete information.

  My right hand reflexively settled on my hip where my duty gun would have been holstered. This was little more than a fact-finding mission, but I was still on guard. I regretted leaving my gun back at the office.

  A slender man with lean, sinewy limbs exited a white placard farmhouse as I made my way down the dirt driveway. He wore loose, dirty jeans and a stained white t-shirt. The wooden screen door slammed noisily behind him like the crack of a firearm. “Can I help you?” he called to me. “You lost?”

  I touched a finger to the badge affixed to my belt. “Detective Cassidy Miller, Minneapolis PD,” I introduced myself. “I’m looking for Frederick Wilson.”

  The man’s gaze floated from me to the unmarked squad car I’d left parked on the side of the road. He wet his lips, eyes looking unfocused. “That’s me. What can I help you with, Miss?”

  I mentally flinched at his choice of honorific. It wasn’t the first time my title had been ignored, and it wouldn’t be the last. As both a Marine and a police officer, people often saw my gender before the badge or uniform.

  “I’m hoping you’ll be able to help out with a case I’m working on. You used to own a video rental store across from St. Mary’s Hospital in Minneapolis, correct?”

  He slowly nodded as he set his jaw. “Until people decided they didn’t wanna rent DVDs no more. Didn’t see that coming. I’m renting the spaceship to an AutoZone—unless people stop driving cars, I suppose”

  “This is a bit of a long shot, but did you have a security camera outside of your store? One that faced out into the street?”

  “Sure did. You’d be surprised how many punks thought our store would be an easy mark. Probably figured they could sell the stolen movies in a parking lot or something.”

  My heart hammered in my chest. Maybe this wouldn’t be a dead-end. “You wouldn’t still be holding onto that old security footage for sentimental reasons, would you?”

  The man was silent, and I noticed for the first time the chewing tobacco he worked between his lower lip and bottom teeth. He turned his head to the side and spit out a long, thin jet of orange-tan juices. “I suppose we could check out the inventory and see what we’ve got.”

  He turned on his heel and headed back towards the farmhouse, which I took as a sign that I should follow. He bypassed the white house and strolled into the backyard while I trailed a few steps behind. The grass was knee-high where it wasn’t stamped beneath rusted cars, trucks, and farm machinery—a venerable graveyard of steel, rubber, and glass. It reminded me of the setting of too many horror films.

  I clutched uselessly at my belt, silently cursing myself for not having the foresight to bring my firearm. Stanley and Sarah knew where I’d gone to, which provided a modicum of comfort. If I didn’t return to the station in a few hours, I hoped they had the sense to send in the cavalry.

  We traversed deeper onto the property in the direction of a dilapidated barn. The barn’s heavy sliding door practically hung off its metal hinges. With a grunt, the man pushed the massive door open. I peered past him into cavernous darkness. The sun was still high in the early afternoon sky, yet all of the day’s sunshine seemed to have been swallowed by the barn entrance.

  Frederick Wilson stepped to the side. “Ladies first.”

  I took a tentative step forward, expecting the worst. I felt again for the sidearm that I knew wasn’t there. For better or for worse, this would be the last time I’d leave my duty gun at the office.

  I flinched when the structure unexpectedly flooded with light. Bright lights hung from the vaulted ceiling and illuminated my surroundings.

  Mr. Wilson stepped inside behind me. “Motion sensor lights,” he explained.

  Th
e inside of the barn was far from what I’d expected, based on the structure’s worn exterior. Giant shelving units, each crowded with storage bins, flanked the barn’s inner walls. It reminded me of the cold case division’s orderly evidence warehouse.

  Mr. Wilson shuffled down the central aisle while I continued to soak in my surroundings. “The DVDs are collecting dust over here,” he spoke. “I should probably sell the damn things on eBay, but I suppose I’m holding out hope this streaming stuff is just a fad.”

  He pulled a blue, plastic bin off of a lower shelf and shoved it across the floor in my direction. I removed the top lid to reveal stacks of movie cases. There had to have been at least a couple hundred movies in just that single storage container, and he had an entire barn full of plastic blue bins.

  I crouched down and shuffled through the top few layers of the stacked DVDs All appeared to be actual movies and not security footage.

  “Got a favorite one?” I asked.

  “Shit, that’s like asking if I’ve got a favorite kid,” he countered.

  I leaned back on my heels to give my knees a rest. “Do you happen to know where the security tapes are?”

  He nudged the toe of his boots against one of the bins. “Nope.”

  “So we have to dig through all of these bins?” I lamented.

  “We don’t have to do anything,” he noted. “I’ve got a six-pack waiting on me in the house.”

  I exhaled, disturbing a few blonde strands of hair that had escaped from my bun. There had to be at least forty or fifty identical bins. “You’re gonna trust me to rummage through your things?”

  “Why not?” he shrugged. “This country’s really gone to shit if I can’t trust a cop. Besides, I’m not asking you to guard a box of donuts.”

  I snorted, despite myself.

  Frederick Wilson waved on his way out of the barn. “Have fun, Officer.”

  CHAPTER SIX