Detecting Lust: An Erotic Detective Novel (Sin Book 1) (3 page)

“
H
ey baby
, what’s up?” Seth said in a rush when answering the phone.

“Not much, I was just straightening up the basement and came across some of your pictures from the Marine Corps.” Zee said while putting the phone on speaker. “I really like this one of you standing on the catwalk at the barracks with your shirt off. Thank God you still have that body. Fuck you’re hot!”

Seth shook his head while sitting in his squad car. He wasn’t even going to respond to that. “Ah crap honey, I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to make dinner tonight. I just got a case I’m working on as we speak.” Seth was kind of reluctant to inform Zee of this news. While she and her sister couldn’t be more different, she still
liked
her sister and liked even more when Seth joined them.

“Is she ok?” Zee asked.

“Well, besides what she had to go through last night, yeah, she’s going to be fine… she’s one tough cookie.” Seth said, “She’s going to be a lot better once I catch this fuck-tard.”

“You always do baby.” Zee said, “Well listen, I’ll bring home a plate of leftovers for you if I remember, and I’ll let everyone know you said hello.”

“Thanks baby, I love you.” Seth said, breathing a sigh of relief.

“Love you too…be careful.” Zee seemed to always have to add that in.

* * *

A
s Seth pulled
up to the address he noticed a grassy park across the street with a parking lot next to a basketball court. Continuing around the block to try to get a better look around he grabbed his camera from the passenger seat. He started snapping pictures of everything around the area before Seth pulled into the parking lot and parked at the end spot.

Well, would you look at this…a perfect vantage point to see everything in Jen’s apartment.

Looking around there was nothing unusual: a standard basketball court and trashcan overflowing with empty water and Gatorade bottles. Seth pulled the camera up to his face and zoomed in, pointing at Jen’s living room window.

Hmm… from here with this camera I can tell what channel Jen’s watching on her tv.

Seth opened the door and noticed a small piece of paper on the ground.
Psshh, with a trash can less than two freakin feet away.
It’s just a gas receipt.

Seth stepped out of the car and looked around. It appeared like there was a sub shop catty-cornered from the apartment, and he definitely intended to go talk to the owner to see if they had a video camera outside that would have caught something. He opened the trunk to grab his fingerprinting kit and tossed the piece of paper in there. He put the fingerprinting kit and tape measure in his suit jacket pocket and his camera in the other pocket. Seth grabbed his phone and called Ashley.
One good thing actually came out of today… I figured out what the hell Ashley’s name is.
Seth laughed to himself.

“Precinct 41…”

“Ashley, its Seth…” Seth cut her off from going through the boring ass spiel.

“Hey, did Jen sign that paperwork for me?” He asked, “I’m getting ready to go into her building.”

“Yeah, she did. She said that she was going to hang out at the library this afternoon.” Ashley said.

“Cool. As far as today, I don’t think I’m going to need to go into her apartment, but listen… can you do me a favor and call the hospital and have them get me the results to the rape kit they did on Jen last night as soon as possible, please.”

“Will do.” Ashley said excitedly.

“Thanks Ashley, let me know when the results show up. Go grab one of my cards off my desk… my cell number is on them, call me.”

“Okie dokie” Ashley replied, trying to be cute.

* * *

W
alking across the park
, Seth looked at Jen’s apartment building and gazed at the surroundings.
Wow, not much for cover around here. If I were going to spy on someone where would I be?
He pulled his camera out and snapped pictures of everything he could see. He walked right up to Jen’s living room window, standing under it with his back up against the wall and looked around.
Hmmm… where I parked is about the only spot that I can see where someone could watch Jen. Ok then, at least I know where this guy sat.
He started snapping pictures of the entry points and area surrounding the apartment, looking for different vantage points.

Moving over to the front door, he inspected the door and frame.
Standard crappy apartment building door, and not a lot of area for me to pull a good print from.
With a deep breath, he threw his head side to side cracking his neck.
Let’s see what we’ve got inside.
He used his foot to open the door and noticed that the door didn’t even close all the way.
Yep, just as I thought. No forced entry here.
Stepping inside the hallway he spied a row of mail slots for each apartment on the right hand wall. On the left, Jen’s apartment door. Just beyond Jen’s door, hugging the wall on the left were stairs going up. And on the right was a walkway with a left turn leading to stairs going down.
Hmm…down we go to do some laundry.
With every other step, he snapped some more pictures so that he could recreate the scene later without returning to the actual apartment.
This new digital camera Zee got me for Christmas is awesome.

Seth made his way down the stairs to the laundry room. The downstairs was kind of dim and musky with damp air. The lights on the ceiling all worked, but it took a bit of time for his eyes to adjust. At the bottom of the steps to the left was the laundry room. The door looked like an old 7-Eleven front door, all glass with the single metal bar across the middle on both sides. The door only opened going into the laundry room.
Kind of an inconvenience with your arms full of a laundry basket.
Inside the laundry room it seemed kind of standard for this college town apartment: three washers on the right wall and three dryers on the left wall. As he continued to click away on the camera he remembered his notes. Jen was man-handled back there, back at the second and third dryer. Walking up to the third dryer Seth swapped the camera for the fingerprinting kit in his jacket pocket.

Now standing in front of the dryer Seth began looking for areas that might have been touched by sir fuck-face.
Oh well, let’s get to it.
Seth started dusting the tops and the front of dryer two and three, and just for shits and giggles, he covered the first dryer with lycopodium powder, and twisted the shit out of the sirchie fiberglass brush until his knuckles started to crack. He brought his face down closer, and looked for anything present, only to find not a single fucking trace of skin oils anywhere.
What the fuck? In an apartment building with half a dozen or more people living here, I get nothing?!?
Seth stepped back for a second.
In the horrific, tragic attack that Jen went through, could she have confused washers with dryers?
Turning around, Seth stared at the washers now, cracking his fingers and wiggling his wrist.
Fuck it.
He decided to start on washer three and work his way back to the damn door.

I’m going to dust the fucking out of this place if I have too.
He covered the tops and front side of the machines with the powder; and again, not a single fucking print.
Was this douche-nugget wearing gloves? No no, Jen described his hands. She knew that he was a white guy based off of them. I’m not even getting a print from Jen down here.
Seth was determined to find a print and began dusting the stair railing all the way to the front door. Near the top of the steps Seth found a couple of prints, not great ones but there were prints. And on the outside of Jen’s living room window Seth gathered a few as well. There was no bedroom window because of the connecting buildings.
Tomorrow, I’ll begin running these prints I got… on second thought… fuck tomorrow.
Walking back to the car, Seth pulled out his phone to call the precinct and noticed the time.
Damn its 5:30 already.

“Precin…..” Ashley started. Seth cut her off before she could even get the first word out.

“Ashley, its Seth, did you hear anything back from the hospital yet?”

“Nope, not yet.” Ashley purred, relaxing to the sound of Seth’s voice.

“Are the guys from the records and the lab tech boys still there?”

“Yep, those guys don’t seem to ever leave. They’re back there.” Ashley said in a slightly more business tone.

“Great, let them know I’m on the way back to the station and that I have some prints I want them to run.” Seth directed, while opening the trunk of the car and tossing the print kit back.

“Thanks Ashely.” Seth said quickly and hung up the phone.

While starting the car Seth called Zee.

“Hey there baby.” Zee said, not expecting a call so soon. “You’re definitely not going to make dinner tonight are you?”

“No baby, and sorry again. I’m actually on the way back to the station now. This one is going to be a hard one. I can tell already.”

* * *

B
ack at the
station Seth walked in and spotted Ashley sitting at the front desk.

“Anything from the hospital yet?” Seth asked as he stormed past the desk.

“Yeah, I called them again to see what the status was and they said some kind of machine went down. They’ll have the results in the morning for you.” Ashley replied while trying to follow Seth back to the lab.

“Keep on the that for me.” Seth said while walking through the lab doors.

“Hey guys, I pulled some prints today and I need some info on them quickly.” Seth said to the lab techs.

“Okie dokie.” The dorkier of the two lab techs replied.

“What do you think? How long until you can get me a name?” Seth wanted the answer to be a few seconds.

“Hmmm…not really sure, these look like good prints, but they might not be full prints. I’ll run them and call you with some updates Detective.” Jesus, the lab tech sounded like he was still going through puberty.

“Great, thanks kid.” Seth acknowledged, patting his shoulder.

* * *