A Forest of Corpses (2 page)

I flipped the page. A booking photo of the old, dead black man, from a previous arrest for vagrancy, stared up at me, showing serious signs of the chronic alcohol abuse and malnutrition that marked him even then as one of the multitude of Santa Barbara's homeless. So what had possessed someone to put a pair of slugs into a man who had nothing and whose biggest offense was probably his hygiene—or lack of it? I'd probably never know what was behind this senseless killing. But I'd be happy tossing the mutt who was responsible into Pelican Bay for the duration of his miserable life.

Of course I had to find the guy first. And the problem with crimes that had no obvious motive, was there were also no obvious suspects.

I dragged a yellow legal pad over and dug a Bic out of the chipped coffee mug I used as a pen caddy. Chewing on the already battered end, and tapping my restless foot on the 14

A Forest of Corpses

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floor, I read through report after report, studying the crime scene photos and scene sketches, notes I had jotted, notes from Miguel and everyone we had interviewed. Finally I scanned the twenty-page autopsy report, trying to niggle out the one overlooked detail that would give me the lead I needed to clear this case. It wasn't there. Or maybe my mind couldn't focus.

Against my wishes, it kept going back to this morning's missed opportunity. I had met Jason seven months ago. After a rocky beginning, we had become lovers and, I thought, friends. Then a couple of months ago we'd taken the next step and moved in together, something I hadn't done with anyone in over five years. Something I gather Jason had never done. We were still feeling our way around that. Still in the honeymoon phase, I guess you could say. I only had to remember this morning to bring that home. I couldn't remember a time or a person who had made me feel the way Jason did. Sometimes that made me nervous. I had one failed marriage behind me. I wasn't sure I was ready for another one, even with someone as perfect as Jason Zachary. I also knew there was no way I was ready to send him away. By this time I sported a low grade, painful erection as I thought about the sounds he made with my prick down his throat, or pumping up his ass. I shifted in my chair, trying to give space to my swelling dick. I tried to concentrate on the words and images in front of me, using the tip of the pen to guide my wandering eyes over the pages of the murder book, and the excruciatingly detailed coroner's report. Hard to believe more 15

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detail could go into a man's death than he'd ever earned in his life.

My efforts to forget Jason weren't working. They rarely did.

I squinted and stared harder, as though I could force some meaning to come from the combination of words in front of me. A shadow fell between me and the nearest light source.

Even before I looked up, I knew who it was.

I glared over my glasses at Lieutenant Nancy Pickard, my boss and ex-partner.

"You ever consider getting reading glasses there, Detective? Or maybe bifocals?"

"I don't need no fucking bifocals," I snapped, since the same thought had been going through my head. But that would mean admitting I was getting old, and I wasn't ready to go there. I was barely thirty-three—hardly old, right? "Did you want something, Lieutenant?"

"What are you looking at?" She leaned over to study the pages of the murder book. I leaned away from her, my arms crossed over my chest. "Which one is this?" she asked.

"The Isaac Simpson case."

"The homeless guy in the john?"

"That's the one."

"Any new thoughts on it?"

I braced my booted feet on the floor and unfolded my arms to lean toward her. "No." I tapped my chewed up pen on the page we were both staring at, the one that detailed the autopsy report for the hapless Simpson. "This might give us something." I pointed to the recording of the 9-1-1 call.

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"Not sure what it is yet." I filled her in on the circumstances of the call.

"Let's hear it."

I signaled Miguel to come around and join us. Once he was standing behind Nancy, I punched the on button. A scratchy smoker's voice barely identifiable as female came out of the speakers. The voice was low and indistinct. I'd have to send it down to the lab to see what they could do with the quality.

But for now all three of us strained to make out the mumbled words.

"They're the devil, Momo. He didn't have to die. It wasn't right. He promises he stop them." The voice went off muttering and mumbling into incoherence. Then, "Stop them." A wail like a thousand cats being tortured made me wince and pull back. Nancy did the same. Only Miguel didn't react. His eyes narrowed when they met mine.

"Who is Momo?" he asked.

"The victim?" I said. "Isaac Simpson? Her invisible playmate?"

"Any idea who the caller was?" Nancy asked.

I shook my head. "Call came from a payphone near Milpas Market. Maybe another witness? I was going to head out there this morning." I threw another look at Miguel, who watched me without blinking. He nodded once, then spun around and returned to his desk. "You and me," I said across our desk.

Nancy looked pleased. "See that I get a report ASAP."

Since I doubted anyone higher up was breathing down her neck on this DB, this had to be personal. Face it, Mr. Isaac 17

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Simpson would barely register on any one radar in city hall. I knew for a fact none of the local news media had gone beyond a mention of the homicide on their back pages.

Simpson, one of the homeless nobodies, came and went in the city's awareness.

"Will do," I said, more determined, like Nancy, to find the man's killer. I don't like it when people die in my city. I like it less when no one seems to notice, or care, about their passing.

"Well, I hate to be the one to say it, but don't get locked too tight into this one. How many others are you working on?"

I glanced over at Miguel, who I knew was still watching us and listening in on our little
tete-a-tete
, like any good partner would. So I directed my next question at him. "How many we on now, Miguel? Total."

"Eleven, including that one. Most ag-assaults, four rapes, one attempted rape. A failed drive-by. Only three homicides—

our two drive-bys and this one."

"You wish it was more?"

"No!" He looked furious as though my question disgusted him. It was the strongest emotion I'd seen from him since we'd been partnered. He threw his hands up as if pushing me away. "How can you say that?"

"Just wondering." I threw Nancy a look and found her frowning at me. Okay, baiting my new partner wasn't cool.

"I'm going to keep looking at this one for now. It is our only active homicide."

"Just don't neglect your other cases, okay?"

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"We wouldn't dream of it, would we?" I directed that to Miguel.

"No, we won't, sir. We'll take care of all our cases, Lieutenant."

Nancy looked amused. "Carry on, then."

She returned to her office and shut the door. Nancy practiced an open door policy most of the time, but when it was time do the political dance with her bosses, she kept the rest of us out of the loop. For which I was very thankful. That was her game. Not mine. I threw a shrewd glance at Miguel, who watched me with that hawk-like gaze of his that looked a lot like the one I used. I wasn't too sure about the loyalties of my newest partner.

In fact, I was beginning to suspect he was a very political animal, with about as much loyalty as one, which was going to make an interesting partnership in the weeks and months ahead. How much could I trust the guy?

Nancy came out of her office. She bent down and spoke briefly to Miguel, who nodded and picked up his phone. She came around to my desk, looking pensive. She leaned toward me, her feet planted wide. Her look was grim. Had she figured out what I was thinking? Sometimes I swore my newest boss was a mind reader. Not a pleasant thought.

She jerked her head at her office. "Can we talk?"

I followed her in and watched pensively as she shut the door.

"Something up, Lieutenant?"

"You could say that," she said, then fell silent. She stared at the stack of papers on her desk beside the phone that 19

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could connect her to every division and half of the city's emergency services, if the need arose.

I waited, standing at parade rest. Watched her scribble a signature on a form and shove the paper into her out basket.

I waited some more. Finally I glanced at my watch. It was nearly four-thirty.

Even though I swore she wasn't looking at me, she saw where my eyes went. She instantly straightened. "Got a hot date, Spiderman?"

"Jesus, didn't I ask you not to call me that?"

She fiddled with the papers on her desk, shuffling them in some order that didn't mean anything to me, but must have been important to her. She put them back down decisively.

"And don't I usually ignore you?"

I knew Jason would be getting home from UCSB soon, and would be getting supper on in anticipation of my arrival. He might be getting something else on too, like the skin-tight leather pants I had recently purchased for his last birthday, along with some other gear, so maybe I was going home to a hot date. Not that I'd ever tell her that. There are definitely some things your boss should not know.

"What I've got is an empty stomach," I said to fill the silence and keep her talking. "And I have a yen to fill it."

"Gotcha. I just got off the phone with the University.

They're looking for a guest lecturer to give a series on crime scene processing for their first year criminal justice students.

They asked me to see if any of my men might be interested."

"And you thought of me? Why?"

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"Since Robertson retired, you're my most experienced detective. There's Paige, but he's more of a gang expert.

These people want an all around investigative pro. I agreed to find someone. Plus, I thought it would be good PR for us."

It never hurt to have someone in the public sector look positively on our little corner of the world. I could see where her devious mind was going. But did I want to follow it?

"Me, teach?" I thought about it and frowned. "Me?"

"You're personable, behind that stone wall you put up to keep us all out. And you're professional. Both good qualities.

Besides," she grinned, relaxing into the Nancy I had partnered with for so many years before her promotion,

"Don't you want to influence the next crop of LEOs?"

"Uh..."

"Good. I'll let them know you'll meet with their department head tomorrow to plan out your curriculum. I'm sure she has some ideas she wants to run by you."

"Oh does she? Lucky me." I knew it was a done deal and sighed. I guess I was going to be a teacher. "God help us all."

I was thoughtful on my way home. It wasn't something I would have sought out, but now that it was in my lap, so to speak, I was intrigued by the idea of teaching.

By the time I pulled into the drive behind Jason's Honda, there was a bounce in my step. Jason was in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on chicken mole, grilled potatoes and asparagus. My boy had gotten a lot more adventuresome in the kitchen of late. I patted the soft mound of my belly and knew I was going to have to do something about that. Maybe 21

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start spending more time at the station gym, or join Jason on his numerous walks through the back hills above our place.

I came up behind him, took a moment to admire his trim ass encased in hot black leather, remembering what it had looked like this morning, and slipped my hand between his legs. I grabbed his balls at the same time as I pressed my lips on his neck. He smelled of herbs and apple and tasted just as good. A pulse jumped like a skittering mouse under my lips, and I licked him.

He jumped and spun around, holding a potholder in one hand, his face suffused with a flush.

"Alex! I didn't hear you."

"Good." I hauled him against my chest and went in for another taste. My own pulse thundered as our tongues tangled in a deeply satisfying kiss. We were both breathing hard when I broke away. "So, when are you going to feed me, boy?"

"Twenty minutes."

I swatted his butt. "Good. Time enough for a shower."

Dinner was excellent, as I'd come to expect. Jason had selected a fine Syrah for our dinner wine. We both had one glass. I no longer overindulged; a promise I had made to myself and Jason in the aftermath of that violent explosion fueled by jealousy and alcohol. It was hard enough controlling the jealousy, I didn't dare add booze to the mix anymore.

Jason always followed my lead in everything we did.

I spent most of the meal with a swollen dick pressed against my thigh. The remainder of the evening we lounged on the leather sofa in front of the TV, watching Lauren Bacall 22

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films. Jason nestled, half asleep under my arm, his hand firmly planted between my legs as Bacall and Bogart found their way in a hostile world.

Over a Mexicali beer I ordered him to get, I told him about my offer.

"You're going to be a teacher?"

"Tweed jacket, corn cob pipe and all."

He grinned up at me from the shelter of my arms. "Sexy professor."

"You think?"

"I know." He outlined the shape of my swelling dick though my jeans. "When do you start?"

"I go talk to someone tomorrow. I guess I'll find out then."

"I think you'd be a good teacher." He withdrew his hand and sat up. Then he dropped his first bombshell of the evening. "I'd like us to take a vacation. I'd say we both have lots to celebrate."

I had visions of Vegas or Hawaii. Sun, sand, a little gambling, hot sex. We'd never gone anywhere together. Then he dropped his second bombshell.