“Positive. We found his student ID on the beach with a photo. He’s currently at the chief medical examiner’s office while they conduct an autopsy. We’ll know more then but by the looks of it they think that it was a robbery because his wallet was emptied out.”
Linda turned to Raymond and asked him if he could get her a glass of water. He got up and asked if Skylar wanted anything but she declined.
“When was the last time you saw Matthew?” Skylar asked.
Through the constant sobbing and dabbing her eyes she said, “About a week ago. He came down to collect a few things. He said he needed money.”
“How much money?”
“Oh no, it wasn’t a lot. Just a few extra bucks until his work paid him. He worked in a bar in Tallahassee on the weekends while he was studying. He was planning on going into pharmaceuticals. He had these lofty goals of finding a cure for cancer or creating one.” A strained smile flickered on her face for a second or two. Right then Raymond returned with a glass of water, and so did Harvey to confirm that her sister would be right over.
Skylar glanced at the photos and then back at the parents while Linda downed the water in one go as if she was putting out an internal fire. She turned to Raymond. “I was just telling the officer that Matt was studying chemistry and science.” Her husband nodded, his eyes drifting towards the photo of Matt on the mantel.
“Who would have done this?” she asked, shaking her head.
“Did he have any enemies? Anyone that he said he wasn’t getting along with at the university?”
“No. He’d been looking forward to going there. He only arrived there last year.”
“So he was driving back and forth each day?” Harvey asked.
She shook her head. “No. He stayed on campus.” She sighed. “I wanted him to stay here at the house as it was cheaper and only a thirty-minute drive but he wanted his space. You know how it is, independence and all.”
“Tell me about it,” Harvey said. “I have one that is considering what college to go to. I have to ask you, how did you ever manage to afford it? I have two kids and one of them is getting close to heading off to college and I never realized how expensive it could be.”
Skylar looked at him wishing he hadn’t asked that. It was the wrong time.
“Because my husband’s income was too high we couldn’t get approved for financial aid through a student assistance program and we didn’t have the money to give to him because of how much debt that we have, but we managed to get a line of credit. We co-signed.”
“So your name is still on the bill if he doesn’t pay,” Harvey said.
Skylar sat there shaking her head.
The reality that Matt wasn’t going to pay off the loan made her cry again. Skylar nudged Harvey and pulled a face as if to say in a sarcastic manner — well done. He simply shrugged. Skylar got up and took a break from asking her questions. She wandered over to the photos and looked at them without touching. She noticed that Iris wasn’t in any of the photos, though there was another guy.
“Did you know Iris Bowman?” Harvey asked.
“Who?” they both asked.
Skylar turned. “Matt’s girlfriend.”
Linda looked baffled. She turned to Raymond and he shrugged.
“So I’m guessing he didn’t tell you,” Skylar added.
“He never mentioned a girl. Maybe he had just started dating her.”
Skylar jotted down a few questions to ask Iris when she got back to the station. As she looked up and stared at one of the photos she noticed that Matt was wearing a red Florida State University sweatshirt with the letters FSU on the front, and a guy standing beside him was resting his forearm on his shoulder. “Who’s this?”
“Oh that’s Dawson Hughes. Matt’s best friend. They’ve known each other since they were in high school.”
“Would you have a number for him?”
“Sorry, no. It would be in Matt’s cell though.”
“Yeah, unfortunately we can’t seem to locate his cell phone.” She breathed in deeply and walked back to the couch. “Do you recall him mentioning what plans he had this week?”
“It’s spring break. He said some of the guys were going to head down to Fort Lauderdale.”
“Had he ever gone there before?”
“No. Matt was really never someone who partied. He was a quiet kid.” She got up. “I’ll show you his room.” Linda led her out and down the hall while Harvey continued to talk to Mr. Carr. Linda pushed open a door and Skylar stepped into an immaculate room. It was simple. No posters on the walls. A single bed, a study table, a chair, and a closet. There were a few sports memorabilia on the window ledge but that was it.
“Clean bedroom,” Skylar said.
“He always kept it that way.”
She believed her too. Their entire home looked unlived in. It made her feel almost embarrassed. Her boat was a state with clothes all over the place, and empty takeout boxes filling up the counter. Staying on top of daily duties wasn’t exactly at the top of Skylar’s priority list.
Chapter 5
It would take a few hours before the autopsy on Matt Carr would be ready so Hanson was running prints while Reznik checked surveillance cameras from some of the businesses in the area. Skylar might have gone for lunch with Harvey but he looked like he was about to blow a blood vessel and kept muttering under his breath about speaking to Elizabeth concerning college options.
They were now outside Ben Walker’s place for her weekly therapy session.
“Swing back in about an hour. I should be done by then.”
“Would you like me to bring you lunch too?” Harvey said half jokingly.
She was about to reply when Harvey drove away leaving her standing there in a plume of dust.
“Skylar, everything okay?”
She turned to find Ben standing in the doorway of his grandiose Mediterranean style house that looked like it had come right out of a home and décor magazine. There were lots of windows with turquoise shutters, a two-car garage, verandas and a landscaped yard with palm trees that would put even the nicest home to shame.
“Oh hey, doc, yeah everything’s dandy. Harv’s just going through a midlife crisis. Of course I suggested a session with you, but well… he took off.” She shook her head making her way over. “Crazy, right? I mean who doesn’t want to come here every week and pour out their life story to a stranger,” she said brushing past him as she made her way in.
“We’ve gone over this before. You don’t have to show up.”
“Ah but you would just keep calling me,” she quipped. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Maybe.”
Stepping out of the 80-degree humid heat into the air-conditioned home was glorious. She walked through the foyer with the near-perfect chandelier and hardwood floors before heading into his office, or study room depending on the day. Ben had recently updated it with a floor-to-ceiling library shelf that was stacked with books by Freud, Pavlov, Jung and Maslow. On another shelf were used fiction paperbacks.
“A new addition?”
“Well it can’t all be work.”
She bent and turned her head sideways to read the spines. “Pulp fiction? I would have never considered you a man for trashy thrillers.”
Ben walked past her. “Those were a gift from Scot.”
“Ah well now that makes sense.”
They shared a moment of laughter.
Scot Wilson was a close friend and colleague from her days as a U.S. Marshal. What she didn’t know before being introduced to Ben was that he had gone to college with him. Scot was also a man’s man, an all-American, warm-blooded guy who lived for the action. He was the male version of Skylar until she parted ways with the New York Marshals after the death of her fiancé.
She ambled over to the white sofa and sat down, and stared at his beach décor as Ben made his way around his desk and took a seat. Today he was dressed in sand-colored jeans with slightly darker shoes, and a light-blue shirt
that really drew out the color in his skin. He was a good-looking man and she was surprised he wasn’t dating. Skylar puffed up a pillow and kicked off her boots then leaned back on the sofa to get comfy. On the ceiling was a mirror.
“Okay, now how the heck did I not see that last time?”
“It’s always been there,” he said sifting through his papers.
“No it wasn’t. Are you sure this is just a study room?” She twisted and smirked. “Cause I’m kinda getting the vibe that you might be going all wild in here on the weekends.”
“Speaking of weekends. How are yours going?” he asked leaning back and moving into psychologist mode.
“Great. Never been better.”
“Yeah? Anything to do with the guys you’re taking home?”
She swung her legs off the sofa. “You are stalking me, aren’t you?”
“Nope. Just heard about it through word of mouth.”
“And whose mouth would that be?”
He smiled and tapped his finger against his tablet. “I have a lot of clients, Skylar. Locals. People gossip. I would have thought you’d know that by now.”
“Seems so,” she said lying back down again. “I don’t bring them home every weekend.”
“You sure about that?” Ben asked.
There was a long pause.
“Okay, I’ve been in the habit of it for the last couple of months but what’s the problem? It’s called dating. You should try it sometime.”
“This isn’t about me.”
“Isn’t it? As you seem awfully interested in how I spend my free time. Come to think, of it, so does Harvey. He’s been yakking at me about heading over there for dinner but I know that’s not him talking. That’s Elizabeth.”
“So why not go?”
“Because the last time I did, she tried to set me up with some friend of hers. It was crazy.”
“And did you go out with him?”
“No.” She stared at herself in the mirror. “Oh right, I get it now why you have this mirror. This is all part of the experience, isn’t it? Just like you spin questions back on me.”
“I’m not sure what you’re on about,” he said.
“For instance, I’ll tell you I felt bad about being set up. And you’ll say… ‘you felt bad?’” She sighed. “You repeat everything back… like a mirror. So tell me. What’s this for? Is it meant to reflect back to the client their physical response in order for them to see how their issues are affecting them?”
He didn’t reply to that so she twisted around onto her stomach and his eyes flitted to the ceiling. She looked up and then back at him and smiled realizing he’d taken a look at her ass.
“So the weekends?” he said, clearing his throat and trying to act all professional.
Skylar smiled realizing the effect she’d had on him. “So what about your love life?” She deflected his question and threw her own out there. His eyes met hers. “Come on, Walker, you haven’t been out with a woman in over six years. That can’t be good. You have got to miss the company of a warm body in your bed at night.” She squirmed around wiggling her body a little to see if she could get a reaction out of him. Anyone looking on would have said she was acting badly but the fact was after so many visits to him, he knew her quite well but him… she had barely scraped the surface.
“Who told you that?” Ben asked.
“Scot. He also said your wife died in a skiing accident.”
“We’re not here to talk about my life. Now back to those weekends.”
He was deflecting. In many ways she noticed he was a lot like her. His ability to twist conversation around was a marvel to watch. It wasn’t just in these sessions she’d seen him do it, the few times she’d bumped into him while out getting groceries, he always managed to have an answer for everything. Well not this time. Call it boredom, curiosity or just her need to get under his skin for once, she thought a little bit of flipping the script was in order.
“Okay, the weekends. Let’s talk about it. What do you want to know?” she asked.
“What do you want to tell me?”
She scoffed. “The sex is great. I don’t have to see them again and it’s the one time of the week that I don’t find myself thinking about Alex, or the baby I lost.”
“And your drinking?”
Skylar didn’t answer but arched her back, making her body raise just a little then drop. She moved enough to get him to lift his eyes. She saw the muscle in his jaw clench as he looked back at the table and jotted a few notes down.
“Why does it matter?” she asked.
“Well I just think that maybe your need to bring home a different guy every weekend could be the result of your drinking, not the need for company.”
“Maybe. Maybe it’s both.”
“In fact using men and alcohol as a way to avoid dealing with the pain some might say is a coping mechanism.”
“For?”
“The pain.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“It can be.”
Skylar stabbed the air. “You know, Ben, there is a way you can find out.”
His eyes locked onto hers. She twisted one of her long dark tresses around in her finger, playing off the reaction she was getting out of him. God, she loved to do this. All the times he’d made her feel uncomfortable with the questions, it was nice to be able to finally find a way to push his buttons.
“Oh yeah, how?” he asked.
“Come out with me on Friday night. Have a few drinks. Come back to the boat.” Now she slipped off the couch and walked over to the table, this time she undid her top button on her shirt and leaned over.
Ben jumped up looking flustered. “Okay, this session is over.”
“But we’ve only got started,” she replied with a smile on her face. Oh this was going to work like magic. Any time in the future the questions dug too deep, she was going to draw out her alter ego, the seductress. Perhaps she would even give her a name. Something snappy. She stifled a chuckle watching him get all flustered and head for the door. He held the door open. She slipped back into her boots and stopped at the door to reach up and play with one of the buttons on his shirt.
“Same time next week?” she said in a sultry voice.
He didn’t look impressed.
“Skylar. Why are you doing this?”
“Don’t you like it? Don’t you miss the company of a woman?”
Her hand reached up and he grabbed a hold of it and placed it back down. She realized he was serious. She scoffed a little and then her brow pinched. “Come on, Ben. I was just joking.”
“Yeah, well maybe that’s part of your problem.”
She stared back, nodded a little then walked out.
Ben made her wait in the heat of the day another forty minutes before Harvey showed up. Very little was said between them on the way over to the medical examiner’s office. By the time she got out of the truck and headed in, Harvey wanted to know.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” she replied casually while opening the door for him.
“Well you’re not your usual chipper self. Usually you come out with some wisecrack remark.”
She shrugged and walked in after him. Fortunately they didn’t have to wait out in the lobby long before Jenna met them wearing her usual white scrubs and led them into her sterile office. Laid out on a steel autopsy table was Matt Carr with a white sheet pulled up to his chest. Above him was a light that was turned on. Under the glow of the light his skin was a pasty white with a slight tinge of yellow. He had incision marks down his chest. On the far side of the wall were shelves stacked with bottles of chemicals and all manner of vials and jars of indistinguishable body parts.
Skylar wasn’t the only one that was acting out of sorts. Jenna looked downcast and in a hurry to get out the details. “He suffered from blunt force trauma to the head, torso and thighs. From my estimation the injuries occurred long before he was shot. Essentially it wasn’t needed. He also ha
d a blood alcohol level of .438 which is extremely high and more than five times the legal limit for drivers.”
Skylar frowned. “So you’re telling us he would have died from the multiple blows to the head and body if…”
“He wasn’t treated by a hospital in time.”
“How long do you think these injuries occurred before the gunshot?”
“Um.” She looked off into space as if lost in thought. “Maybe a few hours.”
Harvey looked at Skylar. “So he was beaten somewhere else, taken to the beach and shot?”
“Looks that way,” Jenna said turning away and tapping a few things into her tablet. “I figure it occurred sometime between ten and midnight.”
“We should check with the hospital. Find out if he was treated or turned up there,” Skylar said. Harvey agreed and got on the phone to Reznik to have him contact the hospital and find out if anyone under the name of Carr had checked in or had been brought in. While he was talking, Skylar walked over to Jenna who had her back turned. She placed a hand on the small of her back. “Jenna. You okay?”
“I’m fine.”
Skylar could tell she was trying to avoid talking about it. “You know, a friend of mine recommended I talk to someone after I lost my fiancé.”
“You lost your fiancé?”
She suddenly realized she hadn’t told anyone besides Donnie, Harvey, and Ben. She thought of her baby and considered telling her about that but thought what she’d told her was enough. “Anyway, um, yeah, a friend had me chat to a therapist.”
“I don’t need a therapist,” Jenna said. “No one died.”
“I’m just saying there are services out there. We refer people to them every day. There’s no shame in it and it’s private.”
Jenna frowned and looked at her. “What do you think happened?”
“Jenna, I saw the bruise on your wrist.”
Instinctively she tugged at her scrubs just in case her wrist was exposed.
“It’s not like that,” she said.
“You know how many times I’ve heard that?” Skylar replied. “If you need help. Just ask.”
Death Blow Page 4
