The Rapture of Omega (5 page)

I hadn’t thought of that. “Listen, if no one claims her, call me. I’ll take care of her arrangements.”

“You sure?”

“Yes, please, I owe it to her daughter.”

The least I could do for Lola was give her mother a proper burial, a place she could go as she grew older to find some peace. I couldn’t imagine explaining to her, fifteen years from now, how I allowed her mother to be cremated and thrown in a field somewhere.

I looked out my office window at the sky; it was all clear. It had been another sizzling day with high humidity, but so far there weren’t any storms in sight. I thought it would be a perfect day to take the girls to the park for a picnic.

While driving home, I happened to glance down a side street and saw several police cars with their lights on, parked in front of a run-down motel. I flipped my police radio on just in time to hear an officer call for the coroner. After turning around in the nearest driveway, I headed back to the motel.

I was surprised I hadn’t gotten a phone call about what was going on. I parked on the outside of the crime-scene tape, where I was met by a uniformed officer who was in charge of keeping onlookers out. Barry Kingman, a veteran of the department, recognized me immediately.

“Hey, Sarge, I didn’t realize they called out Major Crimes for this,” he announced as he opened my car door. “I mean, I told my lieutenant I didn’t see anything suspicious about it.”

“You’re probably right, considering I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” I slammed my door shut. “I just happened to be driving by and heard someone call
for the coroner so I thought I’d be nosy. What’s going on?”

“No biggie, just an overdose. The motel manager hadn’t seen the guy in a couple of days and he wasn’t paying so he went in the room. The stink is something awful with the heat we’ve been having. Needles and empty heroin balloons were next to the bed and the guy already made friends with the flies. There was some methadone, too. Could have OD’d on that. The manager freaked and called us. He still ain’t doing good, but other than that, it looks pretty cut and dry.”

I saw the other officers standing in front of the motel room door, room twelve, waving their hands in front of their faces in an attempt to blow the stench away.

“Why don’t I go in and take a look to see how
cut and dry
it really is?”

So much for a picnic at the park.

Overdose deaths and suicides are quite different from an average homicide scene. Most law enforcement officers have little sympathy for someone who takes their own life or is ignorant enough to play with fire and unintentionally cause their own death.

Suicides are bothersome if family members are around. People don’t realize the havoc they wreak on relatives when they stick a double-barrel shotgun in their mouth while sitting at the dining room table. Imagine the emotional state of a wife who walks into a room and sees half of her husband’s face, including mustache, stuck to the ceiling, while the other half of his face is on the wall. His brain is scattered in pieces throughout the room. The wife is never “right” again. Suicide is such a selfish act in my opinion.

Overdoses are similar. You screw around long enough with a drug like heroin and it’s bound to happen. Dealers nowadays are cutting the drug with whatever they can get their hands on. It could be drain cleaner for all a user knows. Injecting a dose of heroin into your arm is like playing Russian roulette; the fatal bullet is eventually going to fire. Stupid.

Needless to say, if there aren’t any family members
around, you won’t hear much compassion out of the officers on the scene. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when I approached the room door and heard some of the conversation going on between the other officers.

“God works in mysterious ways, boys, ain’t no doubt about it. That asshole probably liked little kids, too.” An older, shorter officer was pointing into the room. “That, my boys, was the man upstairs sending a message.”

The other officers laughed. One of the officers, who happened to be my ex-husband, Eric Schroeder, put in his two cents.

“Fucking moron.”

Eric, Selina and Isabelle’s father, hadn’t noticed me approach. We’d been married for over ten years and got along fairly well. Our divorce was the result of his affair with a rookie he was training, Jordan, his current wife, and my feelings for Michael. Regardless, he was a good father and we did our best for the girls. Stocky, with a dark complexion, Eric was very handsome. There was a time when I loved him more than life itself. Funny how things change.

After their humorous jabs at the dead guy were complete, Eric noticed me when I was almost to the door.

“CeeCee? What are you doing here? The girls okay?” He looked concerned.

“They’re fine. I just happened to be driving by and thought I’d poke around a bit. Actually, I’m glad I got to see you—saves me a phone call. I need to drop them off a little early tomorrow.”

Eric and I shared custody of the girls. We did our best to split up each week between us.

“No problem. I have to work early but Jordan will be home. I’ll let her know.”

I nodded toward the door of the motel room. “Has the crime lab already processed the scene?”

“Go on in.”

I had been at this particular motel enough while on the job to know what to expect. The room, nothing more than a filthy, cockroach-infested cubicle, had a bed, a small nightstand, and a toilet behind a tattered lime green shower curtain. The yellow paint, probably full of lead, was peeling in thick strips down the walls, forming piles of flakes on the dark shag carpet. A sole framed picture, portraying a black Jesus Christ with his crown of thorns, hung crooked above the nightstand.

The aromas from the previous tenants still lingered along with the newness of death. Heat always proved to be a top accelerant when it came to pungent smells. I found that I had subconsciously put my hand over my nose, which did little to prevent the rancid odor from tickling its way in.

On the bed was a thin white male, who appeared to be in his early thirties, wearing only stained light blue boxer shorts; the victim. It was obvious that someone, probably the crime lab technicians, had turned him onto his side.

Livor mortis was visible; the dark patches along his back where the blood had settled indicated that much. His right arm was extended straight into the air, indicating full rigor mortis, and a small amount of blood and saliva had pooled onto the pillow where his mouth had been. It appeared to be an overdose. In my own estimation, the victim had been dead for at least eight hours.

“Eric?” I hoped he hadn’t left.

He appeared in the doorway seconds later. “Yeah?”

“How was it determined that methadone was the drug used? I don’t see anything.”

“There was a prescription bottle on the nightstand, with two pills left. Right now, it’s only an assumption. The crime lab took them as evidence.”

Of course they did. I didn’t bother asking myself how I could have been so stupid, since I’ve made many mistakes over the course of my career. But thankfully, this was a microscopic one. Regardless, I waved the thought off with another question for Eric, and for me.

“Why not take them all? Why leave only two?” I thought aloud. “Do me a favor, and make sure the lab checks the bottle for prints, would you?”

“Sure, Cee. Why? You think something’s up with this?”

I shook my head. “Doubtful, but we should play it safe just the same. By the way, what’s his name?”

Eric pulled his small notebook out of his uniform pocket and began flipping through pages.

“Here it is, uh, Benjamin Rader. Age thirty-three, checked in around four this morning, alone, no suitcases that the office manager could see, and no car. There weren’t any clothing or personal items in here when we arrived either. Just the pills, heroin, needles, and the stiff. We didn’t see any track marks on his arms so we assumed it was the pills.”

“He had to get here somehow. What’s his last address show?”

“Somewhere up around Akron.”

“Have the coroner forward his report to me when he’s finished. Did you check with the other tenants in the rooms? Did they see anything?” I stepped outside with Eric following.

“For crying out loud, CeeCee, it’s an overdose! Not everyone dies at the hands of a homicidal maniac.” He was unmistakably irritated.

I smiled. “Just appease me and check anyway—please. Let me know what you find out.”

Eric was still pissed off and shaking his head when I
left. I could only begin to imagine the stream of obscenities directed at me, that was flowing through his mind. What else could he do? I was a sergeant.

By the time I got home, it was late, and I could do little more than pack the girls’ clothes for their stay at Eric’s house. Once they and Lola had baths and were in bed, I found Michael watching the latest weather catastrophe on the news. My mother had gone to bed hours earlier, completely exhausted by the children.

Michael’s face looked grave as he watched the breaking news unfold on the television. I hadn’t listened to my radio on the way home so I was oblivious.

“What happened?” I remained standing, but faced the television, which showed a meteorologist standing waist-deep in water on a street.

“Another tsunami.” His voice was low.

“Where?”

“The Pacific coast. Oregon, Washington, Northern California. It happened about two hours ago but it’s just now breaking in the news stations. They’re saying it went almost two miles inland and is gonna make the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia look like an overflowed creek bed, basically.”

I sighed and sat down. I feared our days were numbered and thought, while the faces of my children and Michael flashed through my head, that I couldn’t take much more. One would think after all of this it would get easier to deal with, but it’s not. My stomach began to flip around before I took a deep breath.

“How many this time?” I asked quietly.

“They’re estimating a half million, at least. It happened so fast the sirens could only give about a minute’s warning. No one could get out.”

What was so frightening about this was there wasn’t a
damn thing anyone could do. It wasn’t a war, a bomb, or an attack that could be prevented, but, in my opinion, it was God unleashing his fury everywhere. All we could do was hope and pray we were in a safe zone. I spent twenty years of my life bitching about the fact that I lived in Ohio. Now, I thanked my parents every day for keeping me here.

Michael and I stayed up late, watching the ongoing news coverage. News helicopters showed video of rooftops poking out of the water with bodies floating around them. I remembered how horrified people would have been by such a display ten years earlier, but starting with disasters like Hurricane Katrina, bodies in mass numbers on the television were commonplace nowadays.

We eventually went to bed, but on nights like these, I found it extremely difficult to sleep. I slept maybe three solid hours, and was awake when I heard my mother downstairs in the kitchen. Resigning myself to a long, tiring day, I got out of bed and got ready for work.

My mother, who had been watching the early morning news broadcasts on the tsunami, was making breakfast for the girls. We talked briefly about the disaster before she brought up a topic I had almost forgotten about—the nanny. She said she had found one and asked if I could stop home later that afternoon to interview her.

“What’s her name?”

“Rena Sanchez.”

“Just make sure she speaks English and has her green card.”

“I’m sure that won’t be a problem since there haven’t been any illegals in this country for a while now. The borders are airtight.”

“I’m aware of that. I was just pretending things are the way they used to be.” I choked down my last bit of coffee.

After waking up the girls and kissing them good-bye, I was back in my office about half an hour later. Naomi was in shortly thereafter.

“Can you believe that tsunami?” She sat down in the chair that faced my desk.

“I can believe anything these days. What’s up?”

“I just got a voice mail from a woman whose husband overdosed yesterday down at the roach motel on South Diamond Street.”

I looked up at her from my pile of paperwork. “I was at the scene last night. Methadone. They didn’t know much about him when I was there, but apparently he’s married?”

“Did you get called out to it?” She ignored my question. “I told them not to call out Major Crimes on suicides and overdoses—”

I interrupted before she launched into a tirade. “Hold on, Naomi, don’t get your thong in a bunch. I was driving by, saw the cruisers, and heard them call for the coroner. I just poked around a little.”

She gave a brief chuckle. “Okay, I’ll loosen my thong a little. What was the deal?”

“Not much to it. The guy checked in around four in the morning and was probably dead by eight. No clothes, car, or any other personal items, except the pills.” I raised an eyebrow at her. “What did the wife want?”

“She’s adamant that his death was suspicious. She reported him missing about three months ago, which I confirmed. I haven’t called her back yet, but she said, without a doubt, he was murdered and demanded we look into it.”

I dreaded what was coming. I told her, “I hope you plan on calling her back and informing her that her husband was a dope addict who took one pill too many, and the case is closed.”

She was quiet. “Actually, CeeCee, since you were there, why don’t you call her back? You can give her more details than I can, and maybe she’s got a legitimate suspicion.”

I groaned like a small child. “C’mon, Naomi! I’ve still got the Dixon homicide and an entire pile of other cases to work! Put one of the junior detectives on it.”

“It’ll take five minutes to make a phone call.” She stood up and smiled.

“Fine, but it’ll cost you a girls’ night out with several bottles of wine.”

“Deal. Here’s her number.” She handed me a yellow sticky note with the woman’s phone number scrawled across the top. “Let me know if it amounts to anything substantial.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

Wanting to get the phone call out of the way before I started anything else, I called the woman, Brenda Rader. I assumed, since it was still early, it would take several rings before someone answered. However, Brenda answered on the first ring. Sounding tired and stuffy, as if she’d been up all night crying, she said she had been waiting on my call.

I explained I had been on the scene of her husband’s death, and saw no cause for suspicion.

“I don’t care what it looked like! He was murdered, plain and simple. Ben never took so much as an aspirin for a headache, let alone something like heroin.” She sniffed.

“Actually, there wasn’t any evidence that the heroin found was injected, but it looks like the pills ingested were methadone.”

“Whatever. He loved his children, and he loved me. We’re a very Christian family, and up until he met this guy at work, things were fine.”

“What guy?”

“Ben is, was, a computer contractor who made over $250,000 a year. Three months ago, he was contracted by an electric company to program their systems and met a guy named Derick, who I assumed worked at the electric company. I don’t even know his last name, but that was when this all started.”

“When
what
started, ma’am?” I kept my voice calm so she wouldn’t go into hysterics again.

“Ben got different somehow. At first I thought maybe he was having one of those midlife things, but mainly he started keeping to himself, and he quit going to church with us. He would be gone a lot, saying he had meetings with Derick. Every Sunday when I asked him to go to church with us he’d shake his head and say,
‘They got it all wrong, Brenda.’
He wouldn’t tell me what he meant.” She hiccuped and took a long breath. “Then, about three months ago, he left after dinner to meet Derick, and he never came home.”

She started really howling into the phone now, enough that I had to hold the earpiece a few inches from my head. I had come to my own conclusion, early into her story, but needed to figure out the best way to relay it to her. There really was no other way than to just come out and say it, so I prepared myself for her reaction. Of course, I let her calm down considerably before getting her worked up again.

“Brenda, I’ve done this job for many years, and based on only what you’re telling me, I have to ask you something that you’re probably not going to like, but I have to say it anyway.”