Justifiable (31 page)

Kirsten kept inching her way down, taking her eyes off where she stepped only long enough to keep from running into anyone.

One officer stood at the top of an A-frame ladder that had been propped against the Dumpster. He was talking to the ME who stood several feet away, shaking his head. The ME pulled his ball cap off and used the same hand to scratch his head.

Who would have ever thought to look for a body in the police Dumpster? Why did the killer drop it there?

The aroma of coffee, in practically every hand circulating the area, was lost the closer she got to the Dumpster. A rancid smell snuck in on her next breath and threatened to ruin what had been a tasty breakfast an hour ago. The body wouldn’t have decomposed enough to stink unless it had been there a long time. Not in this cold. She might toss her cookies later, but she damn sure wouldn’t do it here in front of all these officers.

The next inhale undermined her conviction so she switched to breathing through her mouth.

Detective Turner met her halfway. From the strong whiff of his clothes she could guess where he’d been.

“We’re securing the body and photographing before they pull it out for the ME.”  He sniffed at himself and moved downwind of her. “He saw rats running out of the bin and won’t get inside.” 

“I don’t blame him.”  She shivered against the visual
that
invoked, then glanced around. Still no Riley. “Same MO?”

“Best we can figure.”  Turner paused to yell at one of his men to keep the damn media from blocking the entrance. “The call Riley got this morning came from a phone booth. I sent a warrant over to get the location of the call, but getting an answer from one of the fly-by-night phone companies won’t be easy or fast.”

Kirsten felt for Turner. This had to be the most frustrating job on earth. “Hell of a place to dump a body. I suppose there’d be a certain irony to his choice of locations if not for the gravity of this situation.” 

Turner cut his head around, lips twitching. “Is that the same as saying this would be funny if finding dead people didn’t suck so bad?”

“You could say that, yes.”  She licked her lips to keep from smiling over the macabre humor. Could they be getting a break? Had the killer made a mistake with this bold action of dropping the body here? “How long could the body have been here to smell that bad?”

“The body doesn’t smell. Someone threw a dead possum in there right after it was last emptied. That’s the odor.”

Ah. “Anyone see a person or vehicle here last night?”

“Back here? Uh-uh.”  He was shaking his head. “No one’s back here after 5:00 PM unless they’re trying to sneak out early on a shift.”

“Security cameras?” 

“Here? Be serious.”

Kirsten stared at his sarcastic laugh. “Are you saying
no one
saw this person drop a body at the back of a police station?” 

Any soft line in Turner’s face disappeared.

She held up a hand. “Hey, I didn’t mean that to sound like criticism. I’m just surprised by a body dumped in the PD’s backyard.”

“Don’t apologize.”  He crossed his arms and let a whistle of disgusted air slip past his lips. “I said almost the same thing but in a much more...colorful way when I found out. This is a brilliant place to dump a corpse. All they have to do is cruise along 8
th
Street then swing down to the Dumpster. No one would look twice at a vehicle coming back here, especially in the middle of the night. Hell, I wouldn’t come back here after dark without my weapon drawn.”

She stared at the scene of policemen scrambling across the lot looking for any piece of evidence and the tedious job of removing garbage from the receptacle before the body was lifted out. Hours and hours of work just sifting through trash when she knew they wouldn’t find anything more than a body with no prints, no hair, no DNA. No calling card of the killer like a personal mark. Not if it was anything like Sally Stanton’s body. Unbelievable. 

She considered all the common denominators and one was missing from this picture. “Where’s Riley?” 

“Been here and gone. WNUZ got overhead shots, but nothing from Riley. He gave me a statement and left.”

“Any idea who the vic is?”  She’d walked out of a meeting with the DA to find a blunt message to meet Turner about a body at the station. She could see how this was newsworthy due to the corpse being left at a police precinct, but not why she had to come immediately. Unless...they knew who it was.

“No ID yet. White male, mid thirties, dressed in discount store jeans, beer insignia T-shirt, stainless-steel biker emblem earring, calluses on his hands and work boots. I personally checked the body before anyone else got in there. Gunshot wound to the head.”

Kirsten grimaced.

When Turner continued speaking his voice dropped down to a conspiratorial level. He glanced around then said, “There’s a clear liquid on his head and wrist.”

“So how
are
all these deaths related?” she asked in an equally low voice.

“Hard to say for sure. The profiler said so far the one constant is all the inconsistencies, but the kills are specific enough to not be random. I’ll get a sample of this oil to Riley’s lab.”

He studied her for a moment, looked away as if considering something, then back at Kirsten. “Here’s the thing. If you mention around City Hall that we got an outside lab to test the oil samples, they’ll want me to move up testing on some other cases.”  He leveled her with a judgmental gaze, prepared to pass sentence on her response. Waiting to see if he’d offered a sliver of trust to the wrong person.

“You’re absolutely right. I totally agree that we keep our source private.” 

The glimmer of admiration in his eyes counted as one of the best gifts she’d ever received, because it meant his trust came with it.

Turner yelled directions at two of his men then turned back to her. “If this oil comes back as all being from one source, we’re going to have to at least consider Riley’s point about looking at St. Catherine’s.”

“I agree. I’ve been thinking about oil being marked on the forehead in a cross design.”

“Can’t let Walker find out.”

“No way.”  Kirsten shoved her hands in her coat pockets and worked her fingers to keep circulation moving. “That’s all he’d need to add to his
theories
.”

“Speaking of Riley’s theories, that’s the other thing I wanted to tell you,” Turner added. “The caller said something about a child in a car.”

“What child? Enrique? What car?” 

“We don’t know. The message on Riley’s phone was cut off before the caller finished.”

She saw kill-Riley-red. “If he’s jerking us around to get to that child first – ”

“Whoa.”  Turner chuckled softly, which surprised her. “I don’t think he’s yanking anyone’s chain. I heard the message myself. Sounded legit, plus Riley’s pretty stressed out over trying to find that kid. If it’s not Enrique....”  Turner shook his head in pity.

She hadn’t even considered that possibility. Her heart had plummeted to her knees last night at how Riley had looked when she’d told him about the blanket. But that still didn’t mean she could let anyone with something to prove screw around on this investigation. “Riley’s suspended, so that means he’s not reporting this at the station himself, right?”

“Uh, yeah.”  Turner scratched his chin and started looking around like he planned to exit this conversation the minute he saw a viable reason.

“So where is he?”  She was beginning to feel like Turner and Riley’s rapport was a little too solid, leaving her excluded. Silly, but that rubbed since she’d worked hard to build a professional bond with the police, and in particular Turner. She didn’t like being odd man – woman – out.

“Said he was going to find out what he could about the call origination, hunt for the kid and let me know anything he discovered.”

Great. Kirsten had just spent the morning going through the ringer about how much was leaking to the media and why they needed Riley Walker in the middle of this case. Couldn’t Kirsten and the police handle an investigation without the help of a reporter whose track record was full of potholes?

Now Riley was off on his own hunt without clueing her in.

Kirsten had stood her ground, defending Turner and his team’s methods and defending Riley, so she was in no mood for any shenanigans if he thought he could do what he wanted after last night.

Her cell phone played a jingle that indicated an unknown caller. “Massey.”

“Kirsten, I figure J. T. has told you about a kid in a car by now,” Riley said in a rush as though he didn’t have time to chat.

“Yes. What else do you know that you haven’t told me about? We had a deal that we’d share, which means you calling to inform me, too. I’d hate to lock you up and ruin your imposed vacation by spending it in a jail cell.” Yes, that had come out of her bitchy side, but old habits died hard. Especially when Riley should have called her before this.

“You keep threatening me and I’m going to start thinking you want to put me in handcuffs...play cops and prisoners.”

Leave it to Riley to flip that around on her. 

She felt her face heat at the comment and hoped Turner thought the cold air was behind any blush in her cheeks. Thankfully, he hadn’t heard Riley’s comment.

“Excuse me.”  Turner cocked his head toward the Dumpster, indicating he had to get back to the scene.

She waved him off then lowered her voice to warn Riley. “You’re not helping your
own
case right now.”

“Lighten up, Kirsten. I’ve got an idea that might give us a chance to find this kid before he or she freezes to death. If the child is still alive.”

That got her attention and forced her to overlook his use of her first name during office hours. “What is it?”

“Let me release the details about a missing kid in a car to the media so people will look for a child in an abandoned or parked vehicle.”

She clenched the phone, cursing herself for believing his motives were honest. He wanted to break loose a story after all. “Why are you even asking? The media all of a sudden get a conscience, especially the one who stands to get the scoop of the day?”

The silence that answered her rolled on for a few seconds before Riley said, “When exactly did I become the bad guy? I thought we agreed that I was trying to help find this kid and help the police find a murderer. Just to be clear, I plan to contact
all
the television and radio stations at the same time so whoever gets the
scoop
can have it if they find this child. Give me a break, okay?”

Stop acting like an inconsiderate bitch. Riley is not your father or any of his team
. His comment about being the “bad guy” hit too close to the truth. She’d ranked all media, especially the power players, as the evil ones who made life difficult for most law enforcement.

Like her dad and Landry, her father’s right hand man, who would come down hard on one of the anchors at her father’s television station for missing the exclusive on a story like this. But Landry had been there for her when her mother died, a decent guy in this business, too, even if he did harbor unrealistic expectations about her.
Not the time to dwell on that problem.

Riley sounded sincere about putting this child’s welfare first. And she was making his life miserable because hers was. What happened to being fair to everyone? Why didn’t that reach to newsmen? Especially one who was doing everything he could to find a child.

That stirred something warm inside her chest for the renegade reporter.  “Okay, fine. That’s a good idea and we appreciate your help.” 

She’d ease up on him some, but he still needed to stop calling her Kirsten when she was on the clock.

“You’re welcome. Got a list of pay phone locations in New Liberties owned by small companies – ”

“How’d you find
that
?” 

“I know someone in the business license department.”

“They just handed over a list?”

“I was nice to the lady who helped me.”

Only nice? More like charmed the woman into giving up everything, including her own phone number. A part of Kirsten wanted to applaud him for getting that much, but another part suffered a moment of an emotion that edged toward jealousy. Absurd. “When can you get this on the news?”

“Should be all over the place in the next half hour. Talk to you later...Kirsten.”

She rolled her eyes. He knew how much that bothered her. But right now they had to find that child. How long had the child been in a car with the temperatures hovering in the low twenties? She doubted the killer left the car full of gas and running. A kid in a vehicle with no heat and vulnerable to someone who might steal the car.

Was the killer screwing with them, playing a tick-tock game? Giving Enrique back alive, but only if they found the child before he died of exposure?

Chapter 42

Riley made the corner from Lawrence Street to Vine in the Northern Liberties area, peeking into empty cars. Felt good to walk in the sun after the overcast skies first thing this morning. The sidewalk was filling up with office workers leaving early for lunch.