Boston Cream Killer: Book 8 in The INNcredibly Sweet Series (7 page)

Hannah sent off an email, and took care of a couple of other online tasks and searches, while her stomach grumbled madly. Realizing that she wasn’t going to continue being productive until she had some food, she closed the laptop, ran a brush through her hair and headed out the door, looking for a decent meal. She never saw the man who waited until she stepped on the elevator before slipping quickly into her room.

Once inside, he gingerly picked up the phone with a gloved hand and made a call that would inspire a series of events that could quite possibly bring down the Beckett empire.

***

Hannah left the Thai Takeout Hut with a trendy paper bag that was emanating a delightful mixture of scents. She hadn’t been able to decide on just one dish, so she’d purchased three and would see which one suited her best. Munching on a spring roll and savoring the crunch of peanuts and julienned vegetables, covered by the delicate, spongy wrapping, she strode toward her rental car, looking forward to digging in and then putting together elements of her story on the Beckett family.

“Ouch… ohhh noooo… help me… please. Someone… please… I’m hurt.”

Hannah heard the soft cries coming from around the side of the restaurant. The area there was dark, bordering a vacant lot, and she couldn’t see where the sound was coming from. Normally, her first instinct would be to keep walking and mind her own business, but something about the helpless, plaintive sound made her curious. Not concerned, curious, the way that people are curious about car accidents and natural disasters. She didn’t care about whomever was hurting, but something compelled her to go see what had happened. She stood still for a moment, trying to decide whether she should go take a look, or simply go back to the hotel and fill her stomach, when she heard the cries again. Sighing, she knew that it would only take a moment to satisfy her curiosity, and then she could go home and eat.

Hannah rounded the corner of the building, walking slowly. She could have used her cell phone flashlight to see better in the dark, but she didn’t want whomever was there to see her coming. If she could just catch a glance without being seen, so much the better. If something was really awful, she’d just call 911 and head home to eat, or if it was just a wino, complaining because of a hangover, she didn’t need or want to interact, and would slip quietly away. Either way, she’d be parked back in front of her computer, slurping up noodles and spicy sauce in less than twenty minutes.

Picking her way carefully around dumpsters, stacked pallets, empty cardboard boxes, and various other castoffs from the restaurant, she made her way to the back corner of the building where she saw an elderly woman, in a housecoat and worn sneakers, lying on the ground, holding her knee and moaning in pain.

“Oh, thank goodness,” the woman cried weakly, curled up miserably, her chin to her chest. “Heaven sent me an angel. Can you help me?” she reached out a shaking hand to the hard-bitten reporter, whose first instinct was to turn around and take her Thai home, pretending like she never saw or heard the old woman. “Please?” the woman was clearly on the verge of tears.

Having no idea what was compelling her to suddenly take on the uncomfortable role of Good Samaritan, Hannah sighed inwardly, but approached the woman, bending down to see what was the matter.

The last thing she saw was the coldly professional look in the killer’s eyes as he reached for her throat.

Fiona McCamish nearly skipped into her boss’s office, excited by the phone call that had just come in.

“Timmy, we’ve got one,” her eyes sparkled a bit.

“Don’t call me that,” Timothy Eckels, the doughy, pale man behind the desk muttered. “Police or private?”

“Police… homicide,” she announced, trying hard not to let her enthusiasm bubble over.

Fiona had been working as the mortuary manager and personal assistant to Tim for several months now, and was learning gruesome and morbid new things every day. Her enigmatic boss had recently accepted a position as county medical examiner, which left much of the day-to-day routine of running Memorial Mortuary to her. She had badgered the shy, reclusive man for a job, which he begrudgingly offered, on the condition that she get rid of the spiky mohawk, black nails and makeup and multiple piercings that might scare off his customers.

He’d enlisted Missy and Echo’s help, Echo being his next door neighbor, in getting the attractive young gal a makeover, and the rest was history. It wasn’t as though Fiona enjoyed death, not at all, but she, like her mentor Timothy Eckels, saw the importance in properly preparing the deceased for the funeral, and reading the clues that the corpse displayed when doing an autopsy.

“We don’t know that it’s homicide until we get there,” Tim replied mildly, reaching for his bag.

“But they said…” she began.

“They don’t know. They’re guessing. That’s why we go to these events. We find the clues that tell us what happened, when and how, so that they don’t have to rely on their guesses,” he pushed his coke-bottle thick glasses up his nose with a forefinger and headed for the hearse.

“Is the…” he began.

“Yes, I put gas in it this morning, so we’re all ready to go,” Fiona jumped in, eager to get to the scene.

“Did you…” he tried again.

“Yup, I locked the front entrance before I came to get you, and I forwarded the phones to my cell,” she replied, knowing the litany of questions that he asked her every time.

“Are the…”

“Yup, directions are pulled up on GPS. I’m driving,” she said quickly.

“No, you’re not,” he blinked at her.

“Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she grinned.

To say that Timothy Eckels wasn’t a people-person would be a profound understatement, and spunky, mischievous Fiona had made it her mission in life to provide human interaction to him, whether he wanted it or not, which often came in the form of teasing. She had learned her boss and his quirks well, and usually knew what he was going to say before he said it. They were both misfits, in their own ways, but they worked very well together. Tim was a master of his profession, and had found a willing sidekick in Fiona McCamish.

***

Tim and Fiona arrived at the scene before Chas did, and the medical examiner was already taking photos of the corpse when the detective arrived. The woman was lying on her side in a pool of blood, her hair tossed over her face, obscuring it.

“What have we got?” Chas asked the uniformed cop who was observing the medical examiner while the forensics team was combing over the immediate area.

“Homicide, looks like it’s random. She stopped for food, got lured back here and some psycho offed her,” the officer guessed.

“Nope,” Timothy muttered, kneeling and bending to the side to get a particular angle for the photo.

Chas and the cop turned, staring at him for further explanation. When none seemed forthcoming, Chas spoke.

“Nope, what?” he asked, stepping closer to the scene.

“I don’t believe that it was random. I’ll know more after I finish the photos and am able to move the body.”

“What makes you think that it wasn’t random?” the detective asked, gazing down at the corpse and feeling a strange sense of déjà vu.

“When there is this much blood lost, it’s either from a large wound, or a precise one. I don’t see any evidence yet of a large wound, which means it was precise. Whoever did this knew what they were doing,” Tim replied, moving around for a different angle.

“Detective!” one of the forensics team called out to Chas from a spot by the dumpster. “We may have an ID on the woman,” he held up a purse in his gloved hand.

“I’ll be right there,” Chas acknowledged.

Tim instructed Fiona to carefully move the woman’s hair out of her face so that he could get another shot, and the detective stayed put to see, raising his eyebrows and sucking in his breath when her face was revealed.

“You know her?” the officer next to him asked, surprised, peering down at the woman whose mouth had been duct-taped shut.

“Sort of. I know her first name, it’s Darla,” the detective frowned.

The forensics tech had approached, and was standing behind him going through the handbag that he’d found in the dumpster.

“No, her name is Hannah,” he said, holding up an open wallet with a New York driver’s license displayed. “Hannah Folsom. We also found this,” he continued, holding up a large evidence bag which contained a curly, white-haired wig and a gaudy floral housecoat.

Tim, done with all of the original position photos, handed the camera to Fiona, and focused his attention on finding clues as to what had happened. Turning the body to its other side, the medical examiner found the mortal wound. He frowned and pursed his lips, motioning to Fiona to take another photo.

“This was done by someone who knows about DNA and crime scenes,” he concluded, his eyes roving over the woman’s face.

“What makes you say that?” Chas asked, peering at Hannah more closely.

“See the bruising around the nostrils and jaw?” he pointed with a pen at the bruising that looked like it continued underneath the duct tape. “That’s an indication that she was suffocated until she passed out, but clearly, as is evidenced by all of this blood, suffocation wasn’t what killed her.”

The pasty man, who had been holding Hannah’s head up in order to see more clearly, gently set it down, stood up, and used the back of his wrist to push his glasses up his nose. He moved around until he stood next to the top of her head, and squatted down, visualizing.

“The angle of the tiny cut that severed her artery slants upward, which means that whoever did this, moved around behind her to make the cut, but knew exactly where and how deep to make it, something that takes both knowledge and skill. The splatter pattern on her clothing indicates the arc and flow, and tells us that the killer turned her body away, so that none of the blood would touch them. They knew enough to keep evidence away from their body,” Tim explained, blinking like an owl.

“Male or female perp?” Chas asked.

“Based on the size and shape of the facial bruises, either male or a female with unusually large hands,” the medical examiner replied.

The uniformed officer looked at Chas uneasily. “Detective Beckett, what was the nature of your association with the victim?” he asked, reluctantly.

Chas sighed. “She was a stranger, with whom I had a very public argument,” he admitted, shaking his head.

“I think we need to call Detective Reubens in. No offense,” the cop said, flicking the switch on his shoulder radio.

“None taken,” Chas grimaced. “Do what you gotta do.”

Missy felt awful after Chas left. He was a fiercely loyal husband and a man of integrity, and she’d jumped to the most insulting conclusion possible. She’d fallen asleep trying to think of ways to make it up to him, and her head was fuzzy when her phone buzzed on the nightstand a few hours later. Seeing Chas’s name on the screen she picked it up.

“Sugar, I’m so sorry that I…” she began.

“Don’t worry about it,” he interrupted her, sounding oddly terse. “I’m coming to the house in a few minutes and I’m bringing Jim Reubens with me to talk to you, so I need you to make sure that you’re dressed, and please put on a pot of coffee for us. It’s been a long night.”

Missy looked at the clock on her nightstand, saw that it was nearly four in the morning, and frowned, confused.

“Are you okay? Is there something wrong?” she asked, alarmed.

“Don’t worry, sweetie,” his tone softened. “We’ll talk about it when we get there. I’ll see you soon.”

And with that, he hung up before she even had a chance to respond. Missy sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, blinking sleepily and trying to wrap her head around what might be the cause of Jim Reubens coming to the house with Chas. She got dressed, pulling on comfy yoga pants and a sweatshirt, and padded down the stairs, leaving Toffee and Bitsy snoozing soundly in their bed in the corner of the bedroom. Yawning repeatedly while making coffee, she was relieved to find that there were still some Strawberry Lemonade cupcakes in her pastry keeper, that she had made yesterday, and she plated them in case Chas or Jim needed a snack.

When the coffee was busy burbling to life in the coffee maker, she made her way out to the front door to see if Chas and Jim had pulled up into the drive. On her way back to the kitchen in the darkened foyer, she kicked something that skittered across the floor. Looking down, she saw an envelope, which had obviously been slid through the mail slot in the front door. There was only one typed word on the front, ‘Beckett,’ and the envelope had already been opened. Curious, she took it back to the kitchen with her and sat down on one of the barstools, waiting for the coffee to finish, and read it.

As President of the Board at Beckett Holdings Corp., you should be ashamed of yourself for doing business with those people, but clearly you’re not, because you’ve allowed it to continue. I’m not going to stand for it any longer. Beckett Industries is going down, and it’s going to take you, your brother and sister, and even the crusty old butler who runs it, down with the ship. I’ll get the story of the year, and you’ll get the shaft, which is exactly what you deserve. “Clean Cop Involved in Dirty Business?” How does that sound, Charles? Your day of reckoning is near, and no small town that you hide in, masquerading as a normal person, will save you.