Bones Of Contention: The McKinnon Legends - The American Men Book 3 (39 page)

“What was that?” Slade asked over his shoulder only half listening to Green’s constant and ever-increasing complaining. Green was a major pain in the ass, but one hell of a detective.

“I said, same shit different day,” his sigh of discontent was audible and telling. Detective Green, in Slade’s opinion, was also on the verge of burn-out.

Green was stating the obvious, Slade thought. This was not a social call. Clearly someone was dead if they were on the scene.

“Damn it,” Slade cursed under his breath as he walked into the private part of the suite and into a very typical scene.

Slade wasn’t bemoaning the dead body in the room. He was cursing the fact that there were already so many live bodies in the room that credible evidence was going to be very hard to find.

Whatever happened to securing a crime scene, Slade wondered?

It was bad enough the scene was a hotel where hundreds of DNA samples would be found even on a good day. Add the extra bodies, including themselves, and it just made the job harder.

Green muttered under his breath. “This makes number 4,309. A new career high for me, but who is counting, right?” Green said with an indifferent shrug.

Slade certainly wasn’t counting, having stopped that ridiculous scorecard years ago. It only served to punctuate the nature of senseless death, and death was the world in which he dealt.

There was a halt to the mummer of the room as Slade walked in.

“I fucking hate it when they do that shit,” Green grumbled with a little resentment for the younger man who had quickly climbed the ladder of success on the force gaining promotions and commendations one right after another.

Slade’s Native American good-looks only enhanced the uniqueness of his appearance and there were very few times he did not turn heads and instantly take control of a room. Often, just as now, conversation halted as if the room was holding its breath waiting for Slade to give them further direction. He was a natural-born leader and his personification garnered respect even from those who might not necessarily like him.

Case in point: Detective Green.

Those observing Slade were always struck by the intensity of his deep brown eyes which seemed to be able to dig right through to a person’s core and straight to the truth.

Those same dark eyes had seen much in his years on the force here in Phoenix. With him taking terminal leave effective at the end of the month, it looked like this was going to be his last case. He had already confined himself to his desk to clean up all the loose ends generated from eleven years as a homicide detective. He would not have taken this case if it had not been for his chief personally asking him to head up the investigation. Green was not happy about that turn of events either.

In less than six weeks, Slade was reporting for duty in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, having accepted a chief of police position in the small metropolitan area. He was starting just before Memorial Day.

Slade stood over the bloated and rigid body of six-term, Arizona Senator Donald Roscoe. Having served on the Phoenix force eleven years, Slade only thought he had been at this job long enough to have seen it all.

Green leaned in closer. “I don’t know about you, Jericho, but this is a first for me,” Green voiced exactly what Slade was thinking.

Slade nodded silently. He had to admit this was a first for him, too.

It was not the fact a tenured politician was dead that was surprising to this veteran homicide detective, but more the condition in which the senator was discovered.

The senator was face up on the bed, nothing new there.

He was naked, nothing new there either.

However, his torso and upper legs were covered in artfully drawn black Sharpie marker tattoos.

That
was
a new one, Slade thought as he studied the tattoos more closely.

It was a map or some kind of diagram with the senator’s nipples, navel, and other body parts as reference points of interest.

“X” was marking the spot.

It was a treasure Slade was not interested in digging for anytime soon.

At first glance it was death by natural causes.

The senator was a heart attack waiting to happen in Slade’s opinion. The senator’s advanced years and the gut from easy living on a diet high in fat were enough to kill a person. However, as they came into the room Slade noted the four empty wine bottles sitting just outside the door that someone had pushed in front of the suite across the hall. Too bad whoever moved it had failed to take the room service tag off. It had the senator’s suite number on it.

Slade ordered for those to be collected immediately.

The traces of cigar ashes left on the night stand and on the desk were simply confirmation the senator was still smoking. The ashtrays had been removed and the butts were already being recovered from the senior aide’s room. The jury was out on whether or not Slade was going to arrest him for obstruction of justice and disturbing vital evidence in an on-going investigation.

“So?” Green asked. “What’re we looking at? Natural causes I’d say.”

“Too, soon to make that call,” Slade said as he turned the senator’s body up on his side. He needed to get a look at his back. The pooling of blood under the skin at the base of the senator’s spine was evidence that the senator was not moved after death.

Drinking, smoking, age, or weight, any one of those factors could kill you, Slade thought tuning out the noise of the hum of voices murmuring softly across the suite. The other detectives were taking statements and documenting the evidence. The photographer’s cameras clicked and flashed in the background.

Natural causes were definitely feasible, Slade supposed. Another option was the senator suffocated to death after aspirating into his lungs from being drunk, passing out, throwing up, and then choking on it. The dried vomit trickling out of the corner of his mouth was a good indication of it.

“Brian Parker, right?” Slade waved the young forensic technician over to the bed.

“Yes, Sir.”

The young man scrambled over in awe of this chief who somehow knew his name even though he had just joined the Phoenix force less than ten days ago.

Slade’s reputation preceded him. This was the first time Brian had the opportunity to work with this legend of law enforcement. Brian had recently moved from L.A. where Detective Jericho was a topic of conversation around many a coffee pot. He had been doing some reading up on Chief Deputy Director Jericho’s dossier. The man was unbelievable in his ability to solve a homicide. In eleven years any case Detective Jericho happened to touch was solved. A one-hundred percent closing ratio was virtually unheard of in their line of work. Yet, Brian was looking at the one man who had pulled it off.

“Be sure to get a sample of that,” Slade softly ordered Brian, pointing to the trickle at the corner of the senator’s mouth. “Have it tested for composition.”

Slade’s eagle-eyes picked up on a critical piece of evidence the senator’s aides had failed to discard before police arrived on the scene. He issued another order as he pointed out the lone cigarette butt and prescription drug bottle which had fallen between the bedside table and the bed frame, “Bag those, Parker,” Slade said pointing to the butt with deep red lip gloss around the filter. It was almost buried in the carpet and he might have thought it old except the gloss was still tacky with very little debris attached. It was freshly fallen.

“This belongs to our witness.” Or murderer, he added mentally. “Bag it separately.”

“Yes, sir, absolutely, sir.”

Slade turned the senator’s head slightly to the left.

“Brian, come here. Let me show you something,” he said after waiting for Parker to bag that piece of evidence.

“Strangulation?” Brian asked softly standing next to Slade.

“No, I don’t believe so.” Slade shook his head. “Use the dust to try and lift a print from the back of the senator’s neck. See the slight smudging of the markings here and here?” he asked pointing to the senator’s pelvic area. “Whoever, did this was sitting on top of him and reaching around his throat from the front, like this,” he said demonstrating.

The light came on in Brian’s eyes and Slade slightly smiled. “Autoerotic asphyxiation.”

“Yes, that’s using your head, Parker. So, tell me Brian, why not strangulation?” Slade continued to prompt.

“Because, the faint bruising on the senator’s neck and throat is not dark enough for it to have been fatal.”

“Good work, Parker. We’ll make a field agent out of you yet,” Slade offered placing his hand on the young man’s shoulder and giving him a healthy squeeze of approval.

The markings were probably from his mystery partner’s attempts to choke him during masturbation or sex for a heightened sense of euphoria. Slade couldn't fathom how being strangled during sex was enjoyable or why it becoming more popular to so. However, he was usually seeing deaths by autoerotic asphyxiation with the younger crowd. Usually it was not men in their sixties, but males in their mid-twenties that he saw dead after a miscalculation in how little time it takes to kill yourself by hanging. Not that the senator was above a little kinky sex, he supposed looking at the tattoos and the additional faint bruising on the senator’s wrists and ankles. He had been cuffed and tied. The slight marring of the bed posts could be from a round of bondage sex, however, not necessarily the senator’s round. This was a hotel after all.

Detective Green slightly pushed his shoulder between Slade and Brian from behind. “The senator’s aides are saying that he was here alone, on a retreat to mediate and prepare for the beginning of the new campaign trail,” Green offered with a look that was definitely telling.

Slade remembered the senator was due up for reelection in eighteen months and according to the political scuttle, he had some stiff competition on the horizon. His softer stance on immigration and drug enforcement had almost cost him the election the last round.

Green lowered his voice as he leaned closer into the young technician. “Personally, Brian, I think the aides are all full of shit as a Christmas goose.”

 Slade slightly smiled. Green did have a way of calling it like he saw it. “Now, Green, let’s not color Parker’s opinion of our elected public officials.” Slade felt Green was probably right. To him something did not feel right either about the crock of bullshit the aides were spouting. He wondered if the senator’s staff thought he and his men had just graduated from the academy and was here on the scene without a clue. Several of the aides were no older than Parker. That immaturity was showing itself because nothing fit with the story the aides were giving them. The evidence just said otherwise.

What man drinks four bottles of wine alone in a hotel room, drawing treasure maps on himself leading to his penis, and all the while trying to choke himself at the same time as getting off?   

So, Slade thought, as far as the senator’s drinking alone, he would bet that was not happening at the time the senator died. He would get Green to push them until they came clean with the facts. Green was damn good at that part of the job.

Senator Roscoe was no saint and his aides had undoubtedly ushered the young lady out before they got there, not to protect her identity and reputation, but the senator’s.

That act was totally lost on Slade. The man was known for his infidelities and indiscretions, and as far as Slade knew, he had never once apologized for them.

Maybe it was to protect Linda Wyatt, the senator’s steady “girlfriend” of eleven years, who he had been promising to marry for the last ten? However, unless the future Mrs. Roscoe drew the maps on her now-deceased fiancé that part of the mystery was no longer under wraps.

“We need to find out where Linda Wyatt was last night.” Slade sent Detective Foster off in that direction. "Who found the body?” Slade asked Detective Lacy his second in command. Lacy was a top notch and fine detective in Slade’s mind and in line to take his position at the end of the month.

“Housekeeping found him. The senator had a standing order for fresh towels to be delivered each evening before he retired. She knocked and then let herself in after she got no answer from inside.”

“Who called it in?” Slade stood there with his arms crossed looking around the room, just letting it speak to him.

“The hotel manager called it in directly to Chief Holiday’s personal cell. I think they play golf from time-to-time.”

Slade nodded. Ahhh, he thought, no wonder the chief had called him directly and not dispatch.

This was supposed to be his day off and the chief had just caught him coming in from his sideline job. A half hour sooner and the chief would not have reached him.

Slade was not going to rule this death accidental or natural because it was not obvious on the surface that it was murder. He was not going to rule anything out. That would be up to the medical examiner and the forensic specialists. He was just here to see that it all got done right and that none of the pieces fell through the cracks. He would rule it later, pending further investigation.

There would have to be a statement issued soon. The media was already all over it with speculation and rumors running wild. In his experience both were usually far from the truth.

     Slade understood better than anyone that sometimes the threads of truth bind together events which viewed separately were seemingly unrelated. Finding that thread of truth is what good investigating was all about and what he had devoted his life to doing.

“They say ‘the truth shall set you free’, Parker.” Slade did not like the feel of this space. It felt tainted.

Brian nodded in agreement. “Find it or die trying, sir. That is what my mamma says.”

Finding the truth and uncovering the secrets was always the ultimate goal as long as a person is willing to pay the price, and Slade knew better than anyone that sometimes knowing the truth can also kill you.

     The night air blew softly into the open window as Kari Ransom finished her article just in the nick of time. She was pushing her two a.m. deadline to the limit and sliding in sideways just under the wire.