Fool Me Once (Codie Snow #1): A Romantic Suspense Series (3 page)

Chapter Four

PETE LET OUT a heavy sigh, but Codie saw no signs of defeat in this man.  After a pause the length of the Mississippi River, he said, “Yeah, we were supposed to give you a vest.”  He blinked a couple of times before he added, “But a body like yours shouldn’t be covered up like that.”

Of all the things she’d expected Pete to say, that wasn’t it.  She felt herself frown as she tried to wrap her mind around it.  Was Pete
still
attracted to her all these years later?

Holy shit.  Was there a chance?

But she couldn’t let that cloud her judgment.  She
should
have been given a vest, no matter Pete’s personal feelings on the matter.  “So I’m being punished because—”

Pete suddenly pulled the car over and parked it, switching off the lights, and Codie felt her heartbeat begin to race as she lost her train of thought.  What the hell?  She half expected Pete to pull her close (which would be difficult in the cop car but not entirely impossible) and profess his undying love.  But when she looked over, his eyes were focused outside the car.  “You know where we are?”

Codie shrugged.  They were in north Dalton.  Whoop-de-doop.  Looked the same as any residential area in south Dalton, east Dalton, west Dalton, central Dalton.  Most of it looked exactly the same…especially without the sun beating down on any of it.  “No clue.”

“You remember the Dalton Devils—at the bar early this evening?”

“Uh,
yeah
.”  She put as much
duh
into her voice as possible. “The biker gang.”

She could barely hear the sardonic sound of Pete’s voice when he said, “They prefer the term
motorcycle club
.  Like how calling a strip joint a
gentleman’s club
seems to make it classier.”  A voice on his radio broke a short silence as Pete scrutinized the house.  “This is the house of the president of the Devils.  Right next door is the junkyard.  Did you know the junkyard is owned by the Devils?”

“I don’t know.  Maybe.”  The better question was if she
cared
.

“What you might not know is their clubhouse is directly in the backyard of the president’s house.  Now…the club pretends they only have legitimate businesses and everything’s on the up-and-up, but we know better.  It’s just hard making shit stick to ‘em.  They have a good lawyer too.”  Codie’s ears perked up at that.  Her sometimes-boyfriend Slade wasn’t their lawyer, was he?  If not, Slade was sure to know who was.  “So I make sure I drive out here at least once during every shift, sometimes twice, and I just observe.”

“That’s not illegal?  Or harassment?”

The lights on the dash allowed Codie to see the slight grin appear on Pete’s face, but he didn’t say a word.  After another minute, the radio caught his attention again, and he picked up the mike.  “Eighteen here.  Go ahead.”

“A possible one-eight-seven at 807 Central.”

“Roger that.  On my way.”  Pete turned on the ignition, and they were once more speeding down the highway, the force of his acceleration pushing her back in the seat.  What the hell was the hurry?

“What’s a one-eight-seven?” Codie asked.

“Murder.”

“
Murder?
  Oh, shit.”

Pete didn’t blink, keeping his eyes on the road.  “
Oh, shit
is right.”

* * *

Even though it only took a few minutes to get to the address of the murder, there were already two other police vehicles there, one in the form of an unmarked car.  Pete unbuckled and looked over at her, saying in a voice that offered no arguments, “Stay here.”  She watched him get out and walk over to a plainclothes officer standing beside the other cop car.  They chatted for a few minutes, their faces focused on the house, but there was no way Codie could have tried to eavesdrop without being noticed.  The window was rolled up and the car off.  More than that, though, was the constant police radio.  The sound of
that
damned thing was going to drive her nuts.  In the darkness, Codie tried to make out the neighborhood.  She knew she’d been here before, and she was fairly certain it was a part of Dalton where one of her middle school girlfriends used to live.  It had been a newer subdivision at that time, but the trees at least seemed taller nowadays.

Soon, Pete walked back to the car and opened the passenger door.  “Want to come inside?”

Holy shit.  Did she ever.  Now
this
was what she’d signed up for.  She didn’t want to seem too eager, though, so she tried to keep her voice calm as she stood up.  “Yes, I’d like that.”

“Let’s go.”  She followed pace with him and the other guy.  “Not a word.”

“Okay.”  She was finally getting her wish, so if Pete needed her to keep her trap shut, no problem.

Before they got to the front door, Pete said, “Codie, this is Detective Adams.”  The detective looked over at her and nodded but didn’t say anything.  Codie could practically feel an icy chill oozing off him and figured he needed to have that kind of veneer to do his job.  That was fine.  She wasn’t going on the ride-along to make friends.

There were lots of people crowded into the huge two-story home, and it made Codie feel a little unbalanced at first.  She looked around and missed part of what was being said, but then they were escorted to the basement.  After Detective Adams started following a uniformed police officer, Pete placed his right hand on Codie’s arm while holding out his left hand, indicating that she should follow the detective while he brought up the rear.

The feel of the house was tense.  Codie could sense a quiet fear and anxiety, the feeling of waiting for another shoe to drop, almost like there were eggshells under their feet, but she kept silent and continued walking.

When everyone stepped off the stairs onto the carpeted floor, she looked around the room.  To the left was a door; to the right was an open living area with a large throw rug, two sofas, and several chairs and past where the rug ended was mere concrete.  Two washing machines, two dryers, a small clothesline hanging from the ceiling, and some shelving took up the rest of the space.  The officer led them through the door on the left.  It was a large bedroom with two double beds…and a body on the floor.  The detective asked the officer, “Forensics been called yet?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Secure the scene.”

“Already done.”

The detective turned to Pete.  “Statements are being taken upstairs and forensics is on the way.  I’d like to have a quick peek at what we’re looking at.”  Pete nodded and looked at Codie, and the three of them approached the body on the floor.  Codie caught a whiff of strong—
was that urine?
  She kept her mouth shut, but inside her head, she was thinking,
Ewwww.
  She slowly grew used to the smell, but she started looking at the body.  The men weren’t saying much.  Detective Adams only once broke the silence by saying, “The name of the deceased is Michelle Dinsmoor.”  The man was writing in a small notebook (
how cliché
, Codie thought), but Pete was just observing—and was deep in thought, near as Codie could tell.

She was curious herself.  Before they’d gotten closer to the woman, Codie had thought the woman’s head had been covered with a pillow, but she realized now that it was several white shopping bags.  She noticed the woman’s gray sweatpants were soaked, and then she knew that was where the pee smell was coming from.  Seeing the body up close was starting to creep her out.  The bags covering the woman’s head were pulled snugly down over her face and the handles were tied over and around her neck. 
Jesus.
  Codie wondered then if the woman had been killed by suffocation or if the murderer had just wanted to cover the victim’s face after the deed was done.

There was also an empty bottle of store-brand acetaminophen and an envelope next to the body.  Codie would have loved to have opened that envelope, but she knew there was no way she was going to get to.  A few minutes later, two more plainclothes cops, a man and a woman, came in the door, and Pete told her they were forensics.  Then he said, “You ready?”

Not really, but she knew she couldn’t make that call, so she nodded.  Once they were heading back up the stairs, Codie sucked down a deep breath.  She hadn’t realized until that point that the air had been heavy—not just with urine but death.  She’d never seen a dead body before and it felt strange.  The mood in the place was dark, and she was sure that also colored how she was seeing everything.  Being out of the room was a huge relief.

Upstairs, the living room full of people felt almost like an intimate party, and Pete looked around the room until he found who he was looking for.  He crossed the room and stopped when he got to a balding guy in a suit.  “Forensics is here.  Do you need me for anything?”

“We still have two people to interview—the victim’s husband and another housemate.  They’re both in the kitchen.”  After a moment, he added, “Save the husband for me.”

Pete nodded.  “Got it.”  He gave Codie a look and she got the message.  She followed behind him as he strode toward the kitchen.

Two men sat at the table drinking coffee.  Neither seemed to be particularly broken up about the dead woman downstairs.  Codie found that odd, because she would have expected a husband to look sad—or at least a little shell-shocked.  Instead, both men acted like they’d just gotten home from a football game or a concert.

“Which one of you is the husband?”

The man on the right—a guy with short brown hair and dimples—stood.  He was probably about six-foot-four and thin.  The guy didn’t smile, but he wasn’t near tears either.  He held out his hand to Pete and said, “Caleb Dinsmoor.”

Pete shook his hand and nodded, speaking again in an authoritative voice, almost scary compared to the way he usually talked.  “Someone will be with you soon, Mr. Dinsmoor.”  He turned to the other man.  “Can I get your name?”

“Tanner Johnson.”

“I need to speak with you.”  Looking from one man to the other, he asked, “Is there a place where we can go?”

“We can’t just stay here?”

Pete said, “My lieutenant will be in shortly to speak with Mr. Dinsmoor, and I think he wanted them to have a little privacy.”

The guy named Tanner stood.  “We can maybe go to the prayer room.”

Codie loved that Pete’s facial expression didn’t change, because she was pretty sure hers did, no doubt displaying the fact that she was curious as hell, brimming with questions.  Maybe those would get answered soon enough.  Pete said, “Let’s go,” and they were once again moving, walking through the kitchen deeper into the large house.

As the three of them walked toward the back of the house, Codie tried to wrap her mind around the oddness of the situation.  There was a woman’s dead body in the basement.  The house was packed with people, as though there had been a party of some sort, and the deceased’s husband and one of his friends had been chatting in the kitchen over a cup of java, acting as though it were just another evening.

Oh, and the prayer room.  What the hell was that?

Codie knew she’d find out soon enough, and in a few moments, the thin blonde man named Tanner turned a doorknob and switched on the light before stepping aside to let Codie and her cop friend inside.

She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but she hadn’t anticipated the room she walked into.  It was a stark white space without windows—whether this room had been built that way or modified later, Codie didn’t have a clue, but it was unusual.  It was bright inside with the lights on.  The wall to the right was nothing but several sliding doors over what Codie assumed was a closet and the other three walls were all but bare, save for a few crosses hanging strategically, so that if a person’s eyes were open, it was hard to avoid seeing at least one.  Most of them were simple crosses, but one was a depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.  The carpet was a light beige and a few gray mats were scattered here and there on the floor.  There was a stack of blue plastic chairs in one corner and one short table in another that held one Bible and a couple of pamphlets, but Codie couldn’t see what was on them.

“This is the prayer room,” Tanner said, announcing the obvious.  He looked at them through pale blue eyes framed by some of the longest lashes Codie had ever seen on a grown man.  “It’s a little bare, but that’s to keep our minds as free from distraction as possible.”

Our
minds?  So several of them prayed together in this room?  Codie had more questions and wondered if any of them would be answered, but she kept her mouth shut.

Pete pulled a small notebook out of his front pocket, and Codie almost laughed.  She’d had no idea he had one of those too…but it made sense, of course.  She knew for his job he needed to record details.  “If you’d like to sit, we can take some chairs off the stack.”

“I’m all right,” Pete said, not asking Codie or the other man if they wanted to sit.  She imagined he wouldn’t want to after being crammed in the patrol car for hours on end.  Standing was likely a welcome break for his legs.  “Mr. Johnson, can you tell me your relationship to the deceased?”