The Thrill of the Chase (Mystery & Adventure) (15 page)

"Who is this?" he asked finally.

I took a deep breath. "My name is Detective Stikup, Mr. Daniels. I'm a PI working on an investigation with the Swedesboro Police. You
are
the husband of Ruby Daniels, are you not?"

"Jeff Daniels – that's me." His agitated tone suddenly took on a tinge of anger. I supposed that were I in his situation I would have been just as upset. "What the hell are you doing in my house?"

I cleared my throat. "I'm here..."

Investigating a murder.

But I hesitated, unwilling to disclose the information in just that way. I cleared my throat again, nervously pushing the fedora away from my forehead. The sweat on my back certainly hadn't been there just moments prior.

"Ah… your wife…" I gritted my teeth as the uncomfortable realization set in that this was my first time informing the next of kin. "Mr. Daniels, your wife was murdered last night."

Silence.

And then came the explosion I'd anticipated. It was outrage like no other, primordial and raw and bottom line righteous. The protector had failed his mission. This was a man who was denying truth, even though deep in his guts he already understood. The pain of knowledge is sometimes simply too great to bear, and anger has to come before acceptance.

"Is this some kind of joke, 'cause I'm not laughing! This is fucking
sick
– are you having an affair with my wife, Stikup? What's going on?
What the hell are you doing in my house
?"

He kept shouting, which gave me a second to sigh and collect my words. My insides felt desperately hollow, like my guts had packed up and left without leaving a forwarding address. "Listen, Jeff… I'm telling you the truth. It's the truth. Ruby's dead. They took her to Jefferson last night. I'm so sorry."

Silence, the kind that sets your heart to pounding.

And then, Jeff Daniels dissolved into tears. "No…
No
…"

My throat tightened, and I found myself consciously wishing to be somewhere else –
any
where else, wishing to
be
someone else. "I'm sorry, Jeff – I really am. I know what it's like to lose a loved one."

Heavy breathing punctuated his words as he hissed them out between sobs. "Who…
Who did this?
"

I could hear the mounting rage in his voice, like a fuse burning dangerously low. "I've got a couple names, but that's it. Chief of Police himself is looking into them right now, so I can promise you we'll have something on these guys really soon. For the time being –"

"Stikup, I want you to tell me
who
they
are
."

Irrationality works both ways, in grief and frustration. My lack of patience pushed the words out of my mouth, and had I been keeping track, the words that came out of my mouth next could have been chalked up as the fourth truly insensitive thing I'd said in my lifetime. The Biblical turn–the–other–cheek philosophy simply jumped out of my mouth before I could even think about it, even though I knew before I'd finished speaking that it would enrage the widower.

"Two wrongs don't make a right, Mr. Daniels."

"
Fuck you
!" he exploded, and his voice broke. "The bastards killed my
wife
! I want –"

"Mr. Daniels, I have to go," I interrupted gently. "I've got a lot of work to do on this case. But I promise I'll be in touch when I know something else –
any
thing else."

"Stikup," he bit out, choking on sobs. "Fucking
talk
to me! I want to know everything you know right fucking
now
–"

And he was off again, shouting, crying, creating a scene at the crowded airport terminal. Philly security was probably on their way already to calm him down.

"Look, let me give you my office number and we'll talk later," I said, speaking over him.

And I gave it to him, but I don't know that he wrote it down or was even paying attention for that matter. Mumbling apologies that went unheard, I gently replaced the phone on the base. There was no point in humoring Daniels' heartbroken rant: I was no shrink, and arguing with him would only make him more furious. I suppose leaving him hanging that way could be considered harsh and callous, but circumstance rendered it the lesser of two evils. But that goddamned thing called conscience always has a way of making you second–guess yourself.

Sure, Daniels wanted revenge. Sure, the death of his wife hurt – probably worse than any pain I would ever suffer in my lifetime. It might seem cold and impersonal to leave him hanging just after breaking the horrible news to him, but he needed to get through his grief on his own. This was his battle to fight.

I sighed and walked slowly through the empty house, hands deep in my coat pockets. There was nothing left for me to do there. The wind stirred up as I stepped outside, blowing through the front door and filling the entrance hall with icy gusts. Sunlight sparkled off the dark windows of the Daniels household, and the whole house seemed to sigh as I pulled the door closed behind me, locking Ruby Daniels' spirit inside.

For a long moment, I stood on the welcome mat, looking up at the second floor window where it had happened. Then I turned and started across the frozen lawn to the Anglia. Even as I crossed the street, I could still hear the telephone ringing and ringing inside the vacant house: the hopeless, wordless cries of a man who had nothing left to live for.

*  *  *

Jefferson Morgue was adjacent to the Swedesboro Police station, located on the 5th Street side of the precinct. The ugly block–building was joined to the station by the CSI office, around back from the main parking lot.

I parked on the street and entered through the back entrance, into the lobby. The lighting within was dim and gloomy, cold despite the active heating units. The temperature perhaps had more to do with the feeling of wrongness that hovered about the place.

The dead should be left to rest in peace, not examined and picked apart.

I drew my coat tighter around me and grimaced as the old conviction I had always held resurfaced in my mind. Obviously that was somewhat of a ridiculous stance, but it wasn't based simply off of my perpetual need for contention. Catholicism had declined significantly in radical philosophy through the ages, but there was decidedly a residual crusader even in the best of us.

As I waited at the receptionist station for a coroner, I checked my watch. It was almost 3:00, which meant I'd spent more time at the crime scene than I'd intended – even though it had seemed like mere minutes. There wasn't much else on my schedule, yet I still found myself hoping that this wouldn't take long.

Shouldn't,
I told myself.
I won't be asking her many questions.

A man dressed in surgical attire came to the desk. He was slim and balding, the stereotypical physician. "Hello, Detective Stikup. I'm Doctor Simms. You're here to see the Daniels victim, correct?"

I offered my best grimace. "So long as she's still dead, yeah."

Simms gestured toward the back. His face remained blank. "Right this way."

He led me down a long room, the walls of which were filled with countless drawers – deathbeds all, floor to ceiling. The atmosphere was thick and oppressive and only seemed to deepen as we walked deeper into the crypt. I'd never been claustrophobic, so this was as close as it came.

Dr. Simms finally stopped and, with a tiny silver key, unlocked a drawer level with my waist. He unrolled the bed contained therein and pulled on a pair of rubber gloves before offering me a pair as well. I pulled them on obediently and watched as Simms removed the cloth from the woman's face.

As I'd already gathered, Ruby Daniels had been an attractive woman with high cheekbones, a thin nose, and faint eyebrows airbrushed beneath a gently sloping forehead. Her brown hair was shoulder–length and had been dyed several times, as I observed from the vast shades of brown at the mousy roots lying close to her scalp. Her eyes were a brown to match, and there was a slight dusting of freckles on her face and down her arms. In death, her complexion was stark white, but I assumed she had appeared rosy and well–nourished before her untimely departure.

And she had been so
young
.

I concluded my brief examination of her, but found nothing. The cause of death had already been confirmed: the murderers had used the pillow to suffocate her – Simms' team had found tiny fragments of cotton in Daniels' nostrils that were identical matches to the material of the pillow we'd found next to her. She had also suffered a minor brain aneurysm at some point during the struggle, which had only quickened her departure from this world. The bruising on her arms, leg, and face were also results of the struggle, as was obvious.

"Can you tell me who touched her?" I asked Simms, peeling off my gloves.

The smaller man sighed. "It's almost impossible to identify fingerprints on a person, because of the different skin oils and things that mingle immediately after contact. It's even
more
impossible to identify marks on a
corpse
, just because sebum has all dried up. As far as my investigations lead me, I think we're dealing with two main points of contact. You've noticed the bruising for yourself, around the neck and shoulders, and on the inside of her right elbow."

Simms uncovered those parts of the woman's body as he spoke, pointing them out in detail. "There are also plenty of abrasions all over her from what would appear to be human fingernails. These are really our best bet toward identifying her attackers, although we still need to check her vaginal cavity for sperm or blood."

I sighed heavily. "Boy do I hate being right."

Dr. Simms covered the woman's face with the cloth again and slid the drawer shut, eclipsing the stiff from view. Once again, I had gained nothing essential – only confirmation of that which I'd already suspected. Really, it seemed that was how the entire investigation was destined to play out.

I turned to the coroner. "After you've DNA'd any bodily fluids that don't belong to her, I want the results sent to me pronto. You can get my fax number from Kevin Slyder."

That would get me the leverage the prosecutors would need once we'd apprehended the crooks. And I wanted everything I could get, just to put the monsters away for a long, long time.

Simms nodded agreeably. "Whatever you need, Mr. Stikup."

I could have made a joke, but found that I wasn't in the mood. It probably had something to do with setting and present company. Instead, I thanked Simms for his time and headed back out to my car, entertaining more questions than answers.

*  *  *

Six o'clock that evening found me buried up to my armpits in paperwork.

I was seated at my desk, straining to see in the darkness of my lightbulb–less office. The mess of papers was almost overwhelming and could have made lesser men pull out their hair. There actually wasn't a terribly vast amount of work to be done; it was more due to the fact that there was no semblance of order to anything that made it so daunting.

Included in the mess were the various tidbits of information I'd gleaned on the case (over which I'd been poring for the past couple of hours). Then there were police papers Kevin Slyder had sent to me for review and revision, warrants for the Daniels and Miles households, the envelope containing the first check from Miles, and Sergeant Cready's report from the night of the 2nd.

And that was only the half of it.

Grunting, I sank back in the chair. I was tired and I needed a caffeine fix. Sufficient lighting would have been nice too, or course, but you can't always get what you want.

As if on cue, Jill entered the dark room, mug in hand. She gave me a brief smile and set the coffee down on the desk before leaving the room – all without saying a word. Her eyes hadn't quite met mine during the five–second encounter, although in the darkness it didn't matter much.

I watched her go, wrestling with unwanted thoughts. Ever since earlier that moment when I'd held her hand, that awkward second of rude awakening, our relationship had snapped into a stiff type of formality – like starched pants, and I hate professional attire of any kind. But at the same time, I hadn't exactly made an effort to break the sudden ice that had developed between us.

Without a doubt, I enjoyed Jill's companionship, even if it wasn't
that
kind of a relationship. I'd been perfectly happy with usbefore the possibility of
us
had even occurred to me. She was a sweetheart, one of the closest – if not
the
closest – friends I had, and we had bonded in many different ways over the two years we had spent in the office together. There was no reason for us to lose that now just because we had both come to recognize the mutual attraction. Or maybe I was only imagining that it was mutual, and that was the problem. In a way, that would be somewhat easier to work with, although there could be no definitive solution.

I sighed and stood abruptly, tossing down my pen in hopeless exasperation. I couldn't concentrate.

That does it. We need to talk.

As I came around the desk, I realized that I wasn't quite sure how to approach Jill on the matter. It was a delicate situation, after all – ridiculous, but still delicate. I didn't really have anything that I wanted to say about what had happened, just that I wanted our friendship back. Besides, what the hell do you really prescribe for a case of romantic tension?