Dead Center (The Rookie Club Book 1) (8 page)

She dressed quickly and when John emerged from the shower, she was nearly ready.

"You got one?"

She nodded.

He frowned but didn't speak. John didn't understand her job. She'd never wanted to do anything else. He'd known that when they dated. When they married. When they decided to have kids. It was reasonable that the job didn't make sense to him. Sometimes it didn't even make sense to her. Doing it just felt right. It wasn't reasonable for him to ask her to stop doing it. He rarely said anything that directly. Raised by a career politician, John was great at saying things that he could insist were innocent comments even when they both knew better. He had never suggested she quit her job but more and more, it felt like that was exactly what he was asking.

He crossed the room, stopped in front of her. He fingered a lock of hair, tucking it behind her ear. "Early night, right?"

"Promise. Have the girls call when they're up." She pocketed her phone and unlocked her holster and gun from the safe in their bedroom closet. She peeked in the girls' room one last time and was in the car by 7:40.

Traffic coming in on Highway 80 was already bad, so she used her lights to warn people aside. By the time she reached the bridge, she had a caravan on her tail, like racing cars trying to take advantage of the leader's tail wind.

Her phone rang again as she was crossing over Treasure Island.

"Wyatt."

"Hey." The voice she heard now had been up for hours.

"You already at the station?" she asked.

"Not much to do at my house alone."

That was clearly a dig. "Buck—"

"I know. Asked and answered."

Buck never said anything he didn't mean. She switched lanes, passed a slow-moving Mercedes.

"When can I see you?" he asked.

"I caught one. At the Hall. Know what's going on?"

"No idea." He paused. "Any chance for tonight?"

Guilt. "I don't think so."

Silence. Disappointment.

"I wish it could be different," she said. It was true, but she wasn't sure how.

"It could be," he countered.

"Bruce."

He laughed. "I always know I'm in trouble when you use my given name. Like my mother."

"Thanks."

"Got to tell it like it is. Call me when you get in." He hung up without saying good-bye. When they were apart for too long, he grew sullen, cool. It made him seem like another person to take care of. She tried to explain it to him once, that she couldn't take care of another person. She'd fallen for him because he was strong, unwavering, but he wasn't. No one was, really. Some people just looked that way from first glance. What she'd seen was honesty and she appreciated it. Still. Adored it for him, but it made the relationship complicated. Too complicated.

Under a blanket of gray clouds and a shroud of guilt, Hailey crossed the bridge. Always guilty. For John. For Buck. For Camilla and Ali. For everyone except herself. She had it all. If only there was a way to make it work. But there wasn't. She knew there wasn't.

* * *

At 8:20 Hailey exited the freeway at Civic Center. When she reached the street entrance to the police parking lot, it was cordoned off with bright yellow crime scene tape. She pulled perpendicular to the tape, put the car in park and scanned the faces. Dozens of them. Most from the department.

Her stomach clenched. Christ. A murdered cop. There were too many people for anything else.

The police captain of the district that included the station was there. Captain Linda James stood with a younger woman Hailey didn't recognize. The other woman was thin and tan with long legs. A model from a Lands' End catalog.

Linda waved. Hailey looked past them, making a mental list. A half-dozen people from the crime lab. Beyond them, Jamie Vail stood alone, smoking. Several discarded butts littered the asphalt around her feet. If possible, she looked worse than she had the night before. Rail thin as ever, the cropped cut of Jamie's hair that had once seemed manicured now looked shaggy. Her hair had fewer highlights, and the cheeks Hailey once remembered as being covered with golden freckles were sallow.

Jamie stood ramrod straight, the veins in her neck taut, one leg behind the other like a runner ready to take off.

Hailey got out of her car as James approached, the younger woman behind her.

"Who was it?" Hailey asked, looking over at the two uniformed officers who guarded the car.

"Natasha Devlin."

Hailey's gaze immediately traveled to Jamie Vail.

Linda nodded. "She showed up less than an hour ago. I told her."

Hailey looked back. "Surprised?"

Linda shrugged. "I think so, but I wouldn't put money on it."

Jamie Vail had a reputation as a loose cannon in the department. Some rumors suggested she was dangerous to those around her. Some of the higher-ups agreed. But Jamie's captain, Ben Jules, was a fierce defender. Jules was no pushover and Jamie was no kiss-ass. Hailey knew that no matter what anyone thought, Jamie was as dedicated a professional as they came. And she was damn good at her job. If she wasn't, she never would have lasted after the shooting incident.

And Jules wasn't alone. Anyone who had seen Jamie with her victims knew she was as good as they came. That didn't always mean stable and easy. Most of them knew that, too.

James stepped aside and motioned the other woman forward. "This is Mackenzie Wallace. She found Natasha. She's one of mine—a rookie—came to get an evidence file from upstairs."

Mackenzie nodded, said nothing. She had long straight brown hair that hung in a clean line across her shoulders and a shorter line of bangs that covered the tops of arched brows. Her eyes were a dark brown with flecks of gold. They appeared large against her olive skin. Despite her height, she looked young to Hailey, especially her eyes. Like a child taking in all new sights, most of them terrifying. Hailey wondered if it was because of the body she'd found or if Mackenzie Wallace always looked a bit overwhelmed by the world around her.

Hailey flipped open her notebook. "What time did you find her?"

"Just before three a.m. Maybe two fifty-five."

It was almost eight thirty. "And no one's been out before me?"

"There was someone else," Mackenzie said. "A tall man with blondish gray hair. Nice-looking."

Hailey searched for a match in Homicide but failed. "In uniform?"

She shook her head. "Suit."

"What did he do?"

"Made a few calls on a cell phone and then when the crime scene team came, he left. I never talked to him." She glanced at Linda. "I tried to, but he sort of waved me off."

Hailey couldn't make anything of it. She focused back on the crowd. "Can you hang around a bit? I want to hear more, but I need to check in."

"Sure," Mackenzie said.

"I've already gotten a call from the chief on this," Linda added. "It's going to be ugly. Everyone knew her—she was popular." Linda's lips thinned into a straight line at the word 'popular.' Hailey guessed that was the chief's choice of words to describe Natasha and not hers.

Hailey thought about Natasha. They'd been friends once—sort of. They'd joined the department around the same time. Not in the same academy class, but close. Back then, there weren't many women. Hardly any, actually. Hailey had found a group she liked and tried to get Natasha to hang with the women.

Natasha had mostly passed. Said she preferred male company. Rumor was, Natasha had had plenty of it—from the seniors in the department all the way down to the newly initiated rookies. Married, divorced, single, it hadn't much mattered. And she'd pretty much gotten away with it. Even when she'd been caught in bed with Jamie Vail's husband and Jamie had unloaded her weapon—nine rounds—into the wall behind the bed, Natasha had emerged unscathed. At least until now.

Hailey wasn't one to pass judgment. Life was complicated. People, too. What they wanted or needed, and why, was up to the individual to sort out. What bothered her about Natasha's lifestyle was that made for a long list of suspects in her murder. If the rumors were to be believed, Natasha had split up more marriages than Jamie Vail's and those that had survived her weren't always the best for the experience. That meant a lot of people with a grudge against Devlin. Take those old grudges, add a big party, alcohol and Natasha flitting about, and someone might just have decided that enough was enough.

Hailey ducked under the yellow tape and studied the car where Natasha had been found. She pulled on a pair of small, purple latex gloves and pulled the car door open. Blood on the passenger side seat and headrest. Natasha had been there. A small plastic vase was stuck to the dash. In it, a single, fabric red rose. In the middle console were several lipsticks, a bluetooth ear piece, a tin of Altoid mints. Nothing incriminating. Hailey stepped away to let a CSU tech finish documenting the inside of the car.

Hailey found Sydney Blanchard and waited while she gave directions to one of her techs, a man holding a small handheld vacuum used for sucking up hair and fibers from the scene. When Sydney looked up, she gave Hailey a wide smile.

"Looks like a blow to the head," she said brightly, a short blond curl falling into her eyes. She pushed it away with the back of her forearm and then turned and started pointing. "But the real mess is upstairs."

"What do you mean?"

"Primary crime scene is her office."

Hailey frowned. "She was killed in her office, then moved?"

"Yep. Not nearly enough blood here for a primary site. She'd stopped pumping blood before she was moved. I'd say at least ten minutes before based on the blood quantity, but that's a guess." She pointed to the building. "Roger Sampers has a team up there. Down here, we've got some tire tracks. Maybe eight sets of good ones. We'll cast them.

"Also, we found prints in the car—a lot of them, actually. Some are clean—they might belong to the deceased or to the perp. The rookie cop touched some stuff. I need hers to rule them out. I've got fibers and hairs—it's a heyday of crap in that car."

Hailey looked back at the vehicle Natasha had been driving. It was a gold Ford Taurus, department issued. She frowned. "Sydney, it's a department car."

Sydney raised gloved hands. "I know. It's going to be a nightmare to sort out. Can you get us a list of who's been driving it?"

Hailey nodded. "No problem, but it'll be a dozen people in the last two weeks, easy. We'll need to go back further to rule them all out. These cars don't get cleaned much."

"Go back a month. Most of the good prints will be newer than that. We'll find as many as we can. You're the one who's got to find a suspect to match them."

"No prints on the skin, then?" Hailey asked.

Sydney smiled. "One very nice index finger."

Hailey looked over at the tall, thin rookie. "Hers?"

Sydney nodded. "Pretty sure. We'll check it, of course, but it's on the neck, right at the jugular."

"Checking for a pulse," Hailey thought out loud. "Anything else?"

Sydney let out an uncharacteristic sigh. "Not yet."

"We'll get him."

Sydney nodded. "It's why we do it."

Hailey smiled, excused herself, and pulled one of the uniforms away from the scene. He was on the skinny side, short reddish-brown hair and light eyes that seemed too young to be on the face of a police officer. She read his name badge. "Officer Grossen—"

"Grossenbacher," he said. "Means 'big river' in German."

"Okay, Officer Big River, I need you to compile a list of everyone on the scene right now. Get full names, phone numbers, when they arrived, and what they saw. Get your partner to help."

He jerked his right hand into the air as if starting to salute. He caught himself, stopped, his face going red as he turned away quickly. She glanced down at his shined boots. Army, she guessed. Law enforcement was a natural succession for people who'd served in the armed services. Always took a while to get the military out.

Hailey scanned the crowd until she found what she wanted. Get the worst over first. As Hailey crossed toward her, Jamie fumbled with her pack of cigarettes, shook one loose. Her hands seemed to shake as she lit it. If possible, Jamie looked more uncomfortable than she'd been at the awards banquet. Through the haze smoke, Hailey smelled a mix of something like lavender and peppermint.

"I figured you'd want to talk to me," she said as a flame flared from her lighter with a hiss. When she opened her mouth, Hailey noticed that her teeth were still clean and white. A sign of vanity, Hailey took it for good news. Deeply depressed people often had no regard for hygiene. Despite some of the signs, maybe Jamie wasn't as bad off as she could have been.

"Just what you saw."

"Nothing," Jamie responded, blowing smoke over her shoulder although the wind returned it directly into Hailey's face. "I got here about quarter to eight. I was just stopping through on my way down to the lab building to check on some evidence from the Osbourne assault last night."

Hailey frowned.

"Emily Osbourne was attacked and raped in the stairs last night."