The Blood of Brothers: A Sycamore Moon Novel (Sycamore Moon Series Book 2)

 

 

by Domino Finn

 

 

Copyright © 2014 by Domino Finn. All rights reserved.

 

Published by Blood & Treasure, Los Angeles

First Edition

 

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to reality is coincidental. This book represents the hard work of the author; please reproduce responsibly.

 

Cover Design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design LLC.

 

Print ISBN: 978-0-692-32955-9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A 6 a.m. phone call was never a good thing. Whether a family member in trouble, a friend who needed a favor, or a telemarketing recording from another time zone, it didn't matter—the call was a recipe for immediate anxiety. An overbearing ring that demanded attention, right at that moment. It was a jarring, imbalanced way to wake up, creating an edgy tension that wouldn't dissolve until the day ended with a beer in hand.

In short, early phone calls were unwelcome.

As the sole homicide detective in Sanctuary, Arizona, Maxim Dwyer knew these calls heralded an entirely different kind of pain. To a lot of people. And he was the lucky one.

The darkness of the morning was foreboding. In the peak of the summer, the bedroom should've been bright by now. Some days it was a struggle just for the sun to come up. But it always did, in the end. As did Maxim.

Sanctuary was a small town. The police force was nine men strong, including the marshal, and Maxim was the only assigned detective. That meant he handled all sorts of calls: robberies, violent crimes, and cases that required tact. The uniforms managed the day-to-day stuff: domestic violence, drunk and disorderlies at the biker roadhouse, accidents, theft, and vandalism. Most of the work this season involved keeping ornery groups of campers in line. But the officers on duty were trained to handle light investigative work if needed. For Maxim to be summoned this early, there was only one explanation.

No time to shower or shave. No brushing or flossing. A slap of cold water to the face was an amazing stimulant when it needed to be. And breakfast was overrated.

Maxim threw on an old suit and headed to the crime scene. An unnatural fog hung in the air, blocking out the sky. On the way, his sleep-filled eyes squinted as the sun gained ground in the sky. It pierced the glaze of weather and seemed to burn it away. By the time he pulled his silver Audi TT into Sanctuary High, daytime was official.

The detective idled past the large building of gray and brown brick. Wide paths of concrete and asphalt with newly painted lines covered the lot all the way into the parking area in the back. It was summer break, so the only two cars present were the brand-new cruisers driven by Hitchens and Cole, the department's oldest veterans. The cars were pretty slick for Caprices, making it look like the Sanctuary Marshal's Office had better resources than it did.

Maxim parked his coupe between the squad cars and scratched his prickly chin. He gazed across the large green field before him. Surrounded by a chain-link fence, it shared the school's back grounds with the parking lot. The asphalt section didn't need an outer fence, however. The curb was enough.

Besides the current police presence, nothing appeared amiss. An empty school, an off-season, and a whole lot of quiet. Immediately, Maxim decided the serenity of the location played a part in the crime.

He exited his car and spied the police tape across the field, where the metal fence kept out a thick cluster of trees. The forests in the greater Sycamore area were dense. The tree line had only been cut back as much as the school needed, and even that encroachment seemed unwelcome. Sanctuary was a beautiful town precisely because it hovered on the edge of civilization. Its inhabitants appreciated being reminded of the wild. As the detective watched Hitchens and Cole work outside the fence, he realized nature had inched a little too close to society once again.

Maxim strode through the open gate and made his way across the field. The lawn was freshly cut and still wet with dew. The expanse was mostly wild grass, natural in this climate and easy to maintain. The football field, along the street beside the school building, was laid with sod and more meticulously cared for. Closer, there was a cement court for basketball and other activities. The larger area here, where it was more natural, was mostly used for pick-up games of soccer and other general activities, like running.

Large swaths of grass were cut, but other sections grew long and appeared ignored. Maxim noticed the ride-on mower on his side of the fence, right next to the scene, and immediately ran the events through his head. The groundskeeper was mowing the lawn as he probably did once a week, judging by the grass length. He had only managed to do about a third of the field before he made the grisly discovery and called the police. As Maxim approached the officers standing on the other side of the fence, he noticed a Mexican man in his late forties hunched next to them. He wondered why he hadn't seen his car in the parking lot, and made a mental note to check on that.

As Maxim reached the fence, the other two officers shared a smile.

"How's it going, rock star?" asked Cole through the chain-link. The tallest of the three, and the most built, he was an imposing figure, but his demeanor alternated between bouts of sobriety and jest in a way that was unexpected. He wore black nitrile gloves and held a small camera—standard investigative procedure for crime scenes.

"I told you not to call me that," said Maxim tiredly. Ever since he'd closed out a federal case the year before, things had been different. To the media, he had captured a serial killer. To the Centers for Disease Control, he had saved their reputation. It was a huge win for the marshal's office and for the detective, but the unwanted attention made his job more difficult. And that was without the added torment of his fellow officers.

"Sorry, just trying to make you feel good after we rousted you from your beauty sleep."

Maxim clenched his jaw. Hitchens and Cole weren't like most veterans who punched in and out of work watching the clock. They were in prime physical condition. Even Hitchens, who didn't look it because of the extra weight. They liked action and they liked the midnight shift. Maxim knew they were as reliable as any on the force, and they knew the same of him. The banter was just how they passed the time. "I work nights when I need to."

"Yeah?" asked Cole. "I'll remember that next time a drunken camper stabs his buddy with a s'mores stake."

Maxim grimaced. It was Cole's favorite story. Only two weeks old, he repeated it loudly and often. Two best friends had gotten into an argument. One had stabbed the other straight through his forearm with the metal wire. The hot end of the pole had gone in and out cleanly, but the melted marshmallow and chocolate burned his skin pretty badly. Cole had handled the call without involving Maxim.

"If I hear that goddamned story one more time..." grumbled Hitchens. He had less patience in this early hour than the others. Unlike Cole, he hadn't been on shift, but as acting sergeant, Hitchens had been awakened alongside Maxim. He appeared especially irritable today. "I don't wanna hear about s'mores or rock stars. I don't wanna hear about how the media attention got extra funds for the department and that's the reason we have our new cruisers. I don't wanna hear that the CDC gave us a wide berth as thanks. And I especially don't want to hear anymore goddamned Spanish today."

Maxim and Cole shared a look of warning. Within the span of seconds, Barney Hitchens had simultaneously predicted and headed off the direction of their banter. They knew not to press him.

Allowing the rant to simmer, Maxim again looked to the groundskeeper. The man sat in the grass on the other side of the fence. "He doesn't speak a word of English, does he?"

Hitchens scowled and turned his back to them. Cole shook his head. "Negative."

"And none of us can translate." Maxim chuckled to himself. Arizona was a good place to know Spanish. He'd been meaning to learn. But who had the free time? "I assume you have Gutierrez en route?"

Hitchens turned around. "I called his ass three times. Imparted to him a sense of urgency." Then he stormed off again. Maxim smiled. Poor guy. As the rookie, Gutierrez would be feeling the brunt of the sergeant's ire today.

The detective could see part of the body from where he was standing, as the groundskeeper first did, but he preferred to walk through the crime scene systematically, examining the stage before he watched the play. "Any vague translation of the 911 call?"

"Didn't call it in," answered Cole. "Doesn't have a phone. He flagged me down in the street as I happened to be driving by."

"Any sign of anyone else? Any other vehicles?"

"Negative. Just him. I've seen him cutting the grass here before. He works alone in the summer."

"So what do you know?"

"Well, it's pretty clear the man was working and stumbled on the vic. He ran around with a wild look in his eyes for a while until he calmed down. I think he's worn out from the shock. What do you think? Can you use your famed 'stubborn grit' to understand Spanish?"

Maxim flashed a fake smile. The veterans liked to quote media reports to comedic effect. Maxim was just happy none of them had picked up the line comparing him to a pit bull. It was just part of the extra shit he had to deal with for being on TV. Apparently, the joke still wasn't old nine months later. "I'll wait for the translator. And you shouldn't believe everything you hear, Cole. All I am is an observer of life. I know what people do and why they do it."

Cole nodded, only half listening. "Yeah, well, not this time."

Something in the man's voice, a sense of surrender, said he didn't even want to make jokes about this. Maxim peeked past the tall man again. He could already tell this was a morbid scene. Refocusing on the officer, he decided to cut to the chase. "What about the vic?"

Cole stepped away from the chain-link toward Hitchens. "Well, I think you'd better come to the other side and take a look."

Maxim considered the high fence that separated them, then checked down its length to the left and right. "Where the fuck is the gate?"

Cole chuckled. "Tell me something. If you're such a great observer of life, then how'd you manage to wind up on the wrong side of the fence?"

Maxim's face turned red as his eyes traced the path to the street, past the school. There was probably a gate there but it might be locked. Better to go around the back way, where the cars were, and circle the outside fence from the parking lot, through the wild ground. "Well, why the fuck didn't you drive your cruisers around?"

"The groundskeeper jumped into my car and I drove in before I knew where to look."

"What about Hitchens?"

Cole shrugged. "I guess he just parked where I parked."

Maxim cursed and considered climbing the obstacle but figured that would only give the officers a better story. He turned and made his way back to his car.

"For the record," called out Cole, "the sergeant didn't fall for it."

Maxim Dwyer smiled, careful not to let the others see. It was a funny joke. He would need to repay the favor.

When the detective got back to his car, he considered driving it over the curb and into the hilly grass, but only for a moment. Sports cars weren't built for that abuse. Looking at the shiny new police cruisers, Maxim realized that Hitchens had the same thought. Maxim hiked up and around, carefully examining the ground for any clues that might have been left by the events earlier in the morning. He reached the others without seeing anything amiss.

There were two lines of crime scene tape, each tied to the fence on one end and a tree on the other. Cole hadn't bothered closing off the border in the trees. The officer held the tape up as Maxim ducked underneath.

"I didn't touch a single thing," said Cole. "You might not want to either until the doc shows up."

"You have the ME on the way? I thought Medina was on vacation?"

"Nope. ME-dina just came back yesterday. You believe that luck?"

Maxim whistled. He'd assumed they would tap the morgue in Flagstaff. That would have been slow going because County had a larger caseload. Sanctuary didn't have a backlog of autopsies to deal with. Having the doc back meant they could expedite things locally.

Maxim approached Hitchens, who silently contemplated the body. Maxim stepped in line with him and caught the whiff of a butcher's shop. "Hell of a way to go," said the sergeant.

A large sycamore towered above its neighbors. Its stout trunk split into two main branches. Hanging on the heaviest outcropping, upside down, was a mutilated man. There was no skin on the body.

Maxim grabbed a pair of black nitrile gloves from a cardboard box and snapped them up to his wrists. "I don't suppose anyone checked vital signs."

"Oh shit," said Cole. "Did I forget that?"

A thick rope tied to the overhanging branch held up both legs by the ankles, which were bound together. The victim's hands hung loose, barely brushing the ground, leaving his head at waist height. Empty, dark eyes stared from a meaty skull. Bone was visible in some places, but most of the surface area was exposed muscle and fat. The naked man had been strung up and skinned like a deer.

The grass on this side of the fence was unkempt. Deeper beneath the canopy, the shade prevented too much from growing, but the growth along the tree line fared better. It was thick enough to prohibit footprints.

"How close did either of you get?"

"This is it," answered Hitchens. "Cole figured there might be all kinds of evidence that fell around here."

Maxim nodded and stepped forward carefully. He circled the body, giving it a wide berth. As he passed the tree trunk, he carefully examined it. Even though there was plenty of sunlight, he took out a flashlight and ran the beam up and down the bark. Not finding anything, the detective finished his circuit around the body.

"Well, he wasn't killed and skinned here," he said.

Hitchens shook his head slowly. "Not enough blood."

"Not enough is right. The vic was drained dry. Time of death is gonna need to wait for the lab, I think. Lividity and body temp are gonna be thrown off by the drainage. Probably rigor, too."

Hitchens let out a heavy sigh that seemed to empty his wide frame. "Have you ever seen anything like this?"