The 9th Hour (The Detective Temeke Crime Series Book 1) (17 page)

Temeke’s eyes flicked toward Hackett’s office, finger pressed to his lips. He wasn’t about to pay him a visit, not after that sodding email. “We’ll grab a sandwich on the way, Marl. Make sure you bring some cash.”

The office of the medical investigator was located in a large blue and white glass building near the Big I. New, immaculate, state of the art, a facility after Temeke’s own heart.

After being buzzed in by security personnel, he had a strange feeling they weren’t expected.

“You didn’t need to come down here, Detective. I could have sooner talked to you on the phone,” Dr. Vasillion said, cinched tightly in a plastic apron and standing behind an autopsy table.

Temeke shot Malin a look and raised one eyebrow. “Always better to see you in person. Isn’t that right Malin?”

Malin gave a tight nod, eyes falling on a human skull which had been placed upside down on a roll of duct tape.

“I usually prefer a lot more meat on them,” the doctor said picking up the skull, “but we’ll use Hector here as our model. We know the girls were drugged and decapitated with the hatchet we found. Are either of you familiar with Egyptian mummification?”

Temeke nodded, seeing Malin’s cheeks graying out of the corner of his eye. What was the betting she threw up?

“The Egyptians used a metal hook which was inserted up through the nostril into the brain case.” Dr. Vasillion demonstrated with a finger. “I found a second incision where the spinal cord exits the skull which appears to have been smashed with a mallet.”

“So he cracked her skull and scooped out the brain,” Temeke said.

The doctor nodded, giving Malin a sideways glance. “Hence the metal hook, a mallet and a spoon. Basic, but very effective. The head was completely exsanguinated. I’m confident the cocktail of drugs didn’t kill her. It was the axe that did.”

“Didn’t see a metal hook in the house,” Temeke said, reading the message in the doctor’s expression. “Did you see a hook, Marl?”

He looked down at his partner bent over a stainless steel sink. The sound of her breakfast gurgling down the drain reminded him he needed to see to his waste disposal when he got home. He ambled over and patted her between the shoulders. “Got room now for a sandwich.”

The doctor escorted her to a chair and gave her a cup of water. Temeke saw him nod and grin, and walk back along the corridor swinging Hector like a bowling ball.

“I don’t know what happened,” Malin said ten minutes later as she sat in the passenger seat of the Explorer. “Couldn’t feel my legs.”

“I’ll tell you what happened. You came over all queasy at the thought of blood and brains.” Temeke started the car and turned the heater on high. “Not the first time a cop has made a complete prat of themselves in front of the doc. And it won’t be the last.”

When he’d finished telling about the other five, they were already on the west side of town and parked in the front parking lot of the Northwest Area Command. Malin had been unusually quiet all the way.

“Take the car and go home,” Temeke said, feeling a twinge of frustration. “I’ll tell Hackett you’ve come down with flu.”

“But I haven’t got the flu,” she said, rubbing one red eye.

Temeke opened the car door and lit a cigarette. He puffed out a smoke ring and watched it curl around the wing mirror before disappearing altogether. “Are you getting anything out of being a detective?” he asked. It was a pitiful stare she gave him, eyes watery. “I’m not sure you’ve got the stomach for it.”

“I love my job,” she snapped. “I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

“Got PMS?” he asked, knowing he wouldn’t like the answer.

“Don’t you dare. I’ve put up with your spite all the way from the northeast heights―”

“Can’t be PMS then.”

“No, it’s not PMS. I don’t get PMS,” she said, snatching a pile of papers from the glove compartment.

“Can’t come to work in a bad mood, Marl. Detective work is no joy. It’s bloody miserable actually, especially out in the field. Know what I mean?”

“Yes, sir. I know what you mean.”

“Throw up again on my watch and I’ll have you suspended. I can’t say fairer than that.”

“You can’t suspend someone for throwing up,
sir
!” Malin’s smile flickered and then sputtered out.

“And where are my gas receipts?” he said to the empty passenger seat. She was already running up the steps to the front door.

“Women,” he muttered and slammed the car door, grinding what was left of his cigarette underfoot.

He switched on his best smile for Sarge in the front lobby and nodded a greeting. “Any news on that surveillance video?”

“Still in Imaging, sir,” Sarge said without looking up. He was looking at the Best of Swimsuit Models in the Sports Illustrated.

“When you’ve quite finished poring over underage Busty Brenda there, I’d like a word.”

“All I know,” Sarge said, closing the magazine, “is that the wretched thing was too grainy to make a positive ID.”

“Why aren’t you at the hospital?”

“I’ve been there all day, sir. Watched her cry, watched her sleep. I’m glad she’s alive, but I don’t know what to say. Rae’s with her now. She’ll know what to do.”

“Right,” Temeke said, rubbing his forehead.

Sarge blew his nose and seemed to nod away the memory. “Oh, and I got a phone call this afternoon from an Edna Barnes. Said she saw a cop outside Cibola High about the time when Patti was taken. Said she used to be a police composite artist. Made her very own sketch and then went and gave it to Jennifer Danes.”

“She did what?”

“Headline news now. Oh and Edna’s a bit hard of hearing by the way.”

Temeke made a note to see this Edna Barnes in the morning and reluctantly climbed the stairs to his office. Hackett’s door opened and he poked his big fat head out. “Can I have a word?”

Brilliant, thought Temeke, pretending to dig deep into his pockets for those gas receipts. “I’m not playing pocket snooker, sir, if that’s what you’re thinking. I just can’t seem to find―”

Hackett pulled him in and closed the door. “You can quit your bellyaching. Malin already gave them to me. First things first. The public got their first taste of Eriksen in the morning news. A sketch drawn by a witness. Pity she didn’t bring it to us first.”

“The police don’t pay for sketches, sir. I expect she got a tidy sum from the Journal.”

“I take it you know what this means?”

“It’s all over the canteen and our killer’s gone to ground.”

Hackett sat down on his chair and huffed out a loud breath. He stared at the ceiling, cheeks redder than a baboon’s ass. “It’s a shame my officers couldn’t find poor little Becky Moran. She had to come home all by herself.”

“Not home, sir. St Joseph’s hospital. By all accounts she was helped in by one of their security guards. Similar uniform. Should pass as one of us.”

“You know what I mean. It’s embarrassing. Makes us look incompetent.”

“You feeling alright, sir?” Temeke wondered why the poor old git reminded him of something out of a Bram Stoker novel.

“Sit down, Temeke.” Hackett blew out a large breath, rocking his chair on its two back legs. He suddenly found a rubber band on his desk that required his immediate attention.

Temeke noted the use of his first name, felt the blood pumping in his head.

“Luis Alvarez has gone missing. There was blood on the floor of his garage.
His
blood by the look of it. His wife wondered why the garage door was still open.” Hackett looked over his half-moon spectacles at the rubber band so he didn’t have to look at Temeke. “He’s highest on our priority list right now. Especially since his nice new Charger’s nowhere to be found.”

“How much blood?”

“A lot.”

“Are you telling me he’s dead?”

“There’s no murder case without a body. You know that.”

“I’ll get on to it right away, sir.”

Hackett held up a hand. “Since he’s family I think it best if you didn’t. Like I said before, I want you and Malin out in the field. And I mean
out
. Oh, and before I forget, your jeep.”

“My jeep?”

“Slight accident. Someone backed into it. Took off the back fender.”

Temeke felt the heat rise to his cheeks, felt his hands ball into two tight fists. “It’s bloody Sarge. I’ve told him to check his wing mirrors every time he reverses. But, no! He has to put his bleeding foot down and bang goes my antique Hotchkiss. I bet it’s got a dent and all.”

Hackett leaned in a little closer. “It may have escaped your smug British ass that Sarge parks around the front. And your Hotchkiss is hardly an antique if it’s a rebuild. I’m sick of you correcting my English, sick of you calling Americans
Yanks
, and sick of you coming to work with stains down your pants. Anyone would think you’ve been having a bit in the bathrooms.”

Temeke looked down at his pants and sure enough, there was a nasty white stain on his fly. Probably mayonnaise from the sandwich he had at lunch.

“Were you sleeping with Becky Moran?”

There was an audible snap as Temeke’s head jerked up. “Of course I wasn’t sleeping with Becky Moran. She’s a kid.”

“I’m glad you noticed. Are you sleeping with Officer Lopez?”

“Who?”

“You heard.”

“You mean Flossy from Fingerprinting? You’ve got a bloody nerve. How am I supposed to get my leg over with all this overtime?”

“Go home,” Hackett said. “Malin will give you a ride.”

No she bloody won’t,
Temeke thought. He’d already told her to get lost. And what was this sudden interest in his sex life?

He heaved a sigh and stalked back to his office, sinking his rear deep into a leather chair. He’d hardly be fit for anything if he didn’t go home and get a nap. Sniffing the air he could smell traces of perfume and he lit up a cigarette just to get rid of it. Pushing out a series of smoke rings he let his mind wander to the last time he saw Luis flashing that big white smile of his.

He wasn’t dead. He’d probably just gone down to the Fat Jacks for a pint or two. As for his Charger, it was probably parked around the back by the dustbins.

He stared at the victims’ pictures on his wall, eyes darting from one girl to another. They were all alike in a way, same bright oval eyes, same smooth dark skin. Some darker than others. Patti’s eyes were pale blue though. That was the only difference.

Glancing through the window at the rear parking lot, he saw the empty space where his jeep had once been. Might never be the same
,
he thought, hearing the toll of a funeral bell in his mind.

He didn’t want to go home to a wife who froze him out because he was never there and kept her legs tightly closed when he was. A wife who was culinary-challenged and could only whip up a scrambled egg on good days. A wife who if she ever found his stash of weed in the backyard downspout wouldn’t hesitate to blow the whistle and get him fired.

He deserved it. All of it.

He felt a soreness in his throat when he thought of Serena. Sometimes he wanted to run from her, sometimes he wanted to run to her. He took a few deep breaths, hand rubbing his chin. Surely, her pain was worse than his.

My Serena
.

He was suddenly thirsty and he opened his desk drawer. There were a few quarters in his piggy bank, just enough to buy him a drink from the vending machine. He was a coffee man himself and it was the first time in years he felt like a good cup of tea.

A cold shiver trickled down his back and he felt uneasy. It was colder in his office than in the morgue, and all he could hear was Hackett’s voice raining down on him like a meteor shower.

There’s no murder case without a body.

Darryl began to shake. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten. It was sometime yesterday, two hours before Tess disappeared. He was teetering on the edge of some dark crater and if he wasn’t careful, he’d fall in for good.

It was no secret now that he wanted to end his life. He was tired of living the darkness, tired of the tears. Maisie had taken Sharek to stay with Pastor Razz. They were safer there. And here he was all by himself again, feeling uneasy, like he’d just woken up and found a hate-message written on his mirror in lipstick. There was something odd in the silence, something that gripped at his conscience.

Why him? Why his girls?

His stomach lurched into a state of panic. What if all this had somehow been his fault? The bad dreams had beaten him senseless and all he wanted now was peace. He caressed the phone with his fingers, willing the police to give him good news. Any news. And when it didn’t ring he opened the front door, heard the gentle roar of wind over the mesa. It was cold and he shivered in a flimsy button-down shirt and bare feet.

The sun tried to break through a cloud over the Sandia mountains, peaks gray in the waning light. It was a sight he would never forget and the more he thought about it, the more he felt a sick sensation in the pit of his gut.

He knew today was his last.

He could hear voices beyond the courtyard, cars pulling up in the road, laughter. He looked through the speakeasy grill and he was almost blinded by a sudden flash.

“Mr. Williams!”

Voices shouted, cameras whirred.

“Where’s your daughter?”

Rattling and hammering against the garden gate.

“Where’s Tess, Mr. Williams?”

“Have you heard from her?”

“Do you know where she is?”

He ran back into the house and locked the door behind him, heart thumping like those fists at his gate. They couldn’t access the courtyard but they could climb over the back wall. He closed the patio blinds. There was no sign of them yet, but he knew their accusing voices would find their way into his home somehow.

The phone buzzed on the kitchen table and he lurched toward it with a big gasp.

“Mr. Williams, this is Carey Johns from Eyewitness News. Both your daughters have gone missing within a month of each other. How do you feel about that?”

Darryl couldn’t speak, couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t take the phone away from his ear either.

“You’ve read the article in the Journal… the one that cited you as the kidnapper? I would want to argue that if I were you. Would you like to comment?”

The silence was longer this time and Darryl was suddenly shrouded in an emotional fog. A comment? Yes, he had a comment.

“Do you know what it’s like to lose your little girl to a serial killer? Have you any idea what he did to her? And now he’s got my Tess. And you’re accusing me of taking her?”

“I’m not accusing you, Mr. Williams, the people are saying―”

“What are they saying?”

“They’re saying if you didn’t do it, who did? And if you didn’t do it, Mr. Williams, you should be out there looking for her. You’re no longer working at the bank, right?”

How did she know he had been fired? All he wanted to do was grieve. He muttered something into the mouthpiece, gave her a piece of his mind.

“When you say
grieve
, Mr. Williams, are you saying she’s dead? Are you saying Tess is dead?”

Darryl snapped the phone shut and threw it across the room. He walked into the living room and slumped onto the couch, listening to it ring again.

He didn’t remember how long he sobbed, and then his whole world began to spin before it went black. He heard a faint buzzing like a dragonfly bouncing from stalk to stalk and the trees beyond the patio doors seemed to pulse with life as if something moved in the shadows.

Snow fell in clumps from dirty gray clouds that scudded in from the west and a far-away howl suggested a coyote nearby. Narrowing his eyes to the snow, he sensed in that moment that his body was not his own and his mind was the only part functioning.

A whimpering sound made him turn his head toward the chair by the fire. Huddled in her usual place was Kizzy, head thrown back in sleep. He hardly recognized her voice, faint, sweet over the crackling flames in the hearth. He was too afraid to move.

“Daddy.” It was only a whisper but he heard it all right. His heart throbbed so hard it almost hurt. Same green blazer, same pleated skirt.

He took his time standing, managing little more than a hobble. He could just make out two braids and a wealth of black hair, and large brown eyes that suddenly blinked to life.

She was not a blackened corpse as he expected and he wanted to take her in his arms, to feel the grip of her fingers. He began coaxing her with a slight tug. That’s when her head wobbled from her shoulders and fell with a thud to the floor.

He screamed himself awake, looked around the room to the same old dreary emptiness. It was love he needed, love he craved, but that love was long gone.

Funny how the dead don’t linger, not even to say goodbye
.

Words replayed in his mind, a mind full of verse and song. They were good words, too. Something about being convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, nor the present, nor the future… What came next?

Think, Darryl, think!
Take a deep breath and recite that old verse, the first verse you ever recited at church.

He had been nine then, the same age as Kizzy was when she died. A new beginning for him. A violent end for her. He had always believed he had a lion’s heart. Always thought he was a good father.

Had he been a good father? Had he done enough?

“I’m sick of crying!” he yelled. “I’m so sick of it. Please God take it away.
Please
.”

When God didn’t answer he sank to his knees, both hands gripping the coffee table. His favorite black and white tie slouched over a leather bound bible, a reminder of better days. Days when he had the money to provide. Days when people looked up to him, honked their horns in the parking lot. They even opened doors for him.

Days when his assistant told him how much she liked that tie. It looked good on him. Always turned a few heads.

Now they turned their backs, pretended not to hear. Walked down the other side of the street, sidestepping him in the grocery store. He felt like a beggar, an outcast, a thief.

He prayed in the bad times, asked God to show him what he should do. The only words he heard were those of his pastor.

Open the book, son. Read. That’s how you’ll know His voice.

How could he open the book? He couldn’t get past the first page. All that separating of light and darkness, and stuff about trees bearing fruit. Although God saw it was good, when he made man, he saw it was
very
good.

Darryl wondered how he was supposed to fit into that scenario. He wasn’t
very
good. He wasn’t even mediocre. He’d been fired, for crying out loud.

Although he had gone forth and multiplied.

And look what happened. His wife was dead. His youngest daughter mutilated. His eldest daughter missing, presumed mutilated, and last but not least, the middle one with a great future ahead of her if the police didn’t find the killer.

He snatched up that tie and walked into the garage. He had a better use for it now. That’s where the rafters were. Two sturdy beams across the roof, load bearing up to a thousand pounds. It would be brief. He wouldn’t feel a thing. Would he?

Taking the stepladder from behind the kitchen door, he climbed as far as the top step, hand out against the rafter. It was good and firm, just like he imagined. He put on that tie, that beautiful black and white tie. Carmel’s tie, the one she had given him as a gift. It takes class to know class.

He wanted those blood-sucking journalists to see what they had done, to realize they had pushed him to an act of such horrifying consequence.

His life began to replay itself in those final moments, a blur of faces just beyond his reach, floating in the sky. He would be floating with them in less than a minute. At least he hoped it was less than a minute.

Wait a minute. How long did a good strangling take? He wished he’d looked it up on the Internet first. Only they probably didn’t show purple faces dangling at the end of a rope. And there was probably no such thing as a
How To
website.

Unnerved to the point of shaking, he climbed back down.