Malevolent (Lieutenant Kane series Book 1) (2 page)

“We didn’t find anyone. The other officers went through the crowd that gathered. It seems everyone here now is just gawking.” He gestured at the ever-growing mob of people standing at the edge of the parking lot. They crowded the police tape.

I choked down another sip of the black swill in my Styrofoam cup. “Doesn’t this kind of seem like an odd place for a body dump?”

My question didn’t receive a response.

Like clockwork, news vans arrived on the scene. Reporters jumped out. The news crews began running cables and setting lights, preparing to broadcast. I surveyed the rest of the parking lot and spotted Rick Daniels, from our forensics department, leaning against the coroner’s van. A cigarette hung under his mustache. The buttons on his burgundy shirt were straining, as usual. He was talking with someone in a white jumpsuit. We left Jones to finish with the man who’d called it in and walked over to Rick.

“Hey, Rick,” I said. “What’s the word?”

“I thought you had today off.”

“Guess someone had other plans. I thought you were quitting smoking.”

He pulled the cigarette from his mouth and flicked the ash. “I cut back.”

“Who’s this?” I jerked my chin at the white-suited guy.

“I’m breaking in our newest edition.”

The kid was about five-foot-five and had a baby face. A faint trace of a peach-fuzz beard sat beneath his chin. He looked fresh out of high school at best.

The kid held out his hand. “I’m Pax.”

Hank accepted the handshake. “I’m Sergeant Rawlings. So, Pax? Is that a first or last name?”

“It’s my first name, sir. Pax McLain.”

I shook the kid’s hand. “Is that short for something?”

“Nope. Just Pax. It’s going to be great working with you guys.”

He was too chipper to be dealing with a D.B. at eight-something in the morning. As I looked at him, a single thought ran through my head:
Who the hell names their kid Pax?

“Any evidence from the lot? Prints on the fence here?” Hank asked.

Rick ran his hand through his short brown-and-gray hair. He shook his head. “Nothing. It looks like it was wiped down. We were just about to dig through the dumpsters to see if we can find any of her belongings.”

“See any video cameras on the building back here?” I asked.

“First thing we looked for.” He shook his head. “I talked with a guy inside. They have cameras in the lobby. Nothing outside, though.”

“All right, let me know,” I said.

We left Rick and Pax to do their dumpster diving. Hank and I headed for the gawkers at the police tape. Maybe some questioning with the building’s employees would shake something loose.

“What are you thinking, Kane?”

“Women don’t get brands on their hands.”

Hank nodded.

At the police barricade, reporters shouldered each other for position, each one trying to get the best footage of the scene.

I gulped down the last bit of coffee from my cup. “I’ll go deal with the press.”

Hank flashed me a look of surprise. “You sure you don’t want me to handle that?” He knew my disdain for the media.

“Nah, I got it.” I walked over to the group of reporters lined up outside the police tape. They went into a frenzy as soon as I approached.

Rich Martin, from Channel 11, waved at me. “Lieutenant Kane! Kane, over here! Can you tell us what happened?”

I knew to keep my answers succinct. They local media had a habit of embellishing. “We found a body.”

“Male or female?”

“Female.”

“Lieutenant, is this a murder?” a reporter from a local paper asked.

“We just started our investigation.”

“Do you have anyone in custody?” another reporter asked.

“As I just said, we just started the investigation.”

J.R. Steele, from Channel 6, pushed through the other reporters to get to the police tape. “We have information that the woman was held captive. Can you comment on that?” He held out his microphone for my response.

I eyeballed him. He looked like a Ken doll with his hair combed and styled to perfection. His face didn’t show a hint of stubble. He wore makeup. His suit looked like it cost a minimum of four figures. Physical attributes aside, the guy was a jerk. His voice dripped with arrogance. Every time I heard it, I became angry.

“That will be all. We will schedule a full press release when we have more information.”

I grabbed a uniformed officer and instructed him to move the police tape farther back to get the press out of our hair. The reporters had all the information they needed to concoct their headlines.

He stood just beyond the police tape, trying to get a view over the heads of the gathered crowd. The woman was nowhere in sight. In a matter of seconds, disappointment set in. The coroner’s van came into view between the people.

Damn, she died
.

A few cops wandered around, interviewing and talking with people. He spotted a bald, bigger man wearing a suit. Another thin man, dressed similarly, followed him. They walked from group to group, taking notes. Both men showed noticeable bulges from shoulder-holstered firearms under their suit coats. They looked like detectives. The bigger one held a cup of coffee. His body language was casual. He looked to be in charge. That could have been the officer whose job it was to catch him—but not yet.

He had big plans.

They walked toward him in the crowd. He caught a glimpse of their badges, swinging from lanyards on their necks as they approached.

Damn
.
She was alive when I left her here.

The two cops got closer. He coughed into his fist. He needed to leave—quickly.

We spoke with a few more people at the scene. None of the office workers could shed any light on what we’d found. I left and returned to the station a little after nine o’clock. I walked in and headed straight for the lunch room. A cup of coffee was in order, one that didn’t taste like burnt motor oil. A few minutes later, I sulked back toward my office, empty handed. The station’s coffee machine had been on the fritz again.

I walked through the bullpen—a large rectangular room with twenty-plus desks separated into cubicles by low walls. In the morning, the bullpen was quiet, but by the afternoon, it bustled with activity and noise. The crew that made up the graveyard shift had just headed home. Their nights consisted of dealing with the city’s drunks and domestic disputes. The day shifters were just starting their day.

Offices of department heads and detectives lined the perimeter of the bullpen. The two larger offices in the back left of the room were mine and Captain Bostok’s. I headed into my office. The interior of my glass box rode the line between order and mayhem. I made an effort to keep things inside my office organized, but the never-ending paperwork that funneled through my office made it a losing battle. File cabinets lined my back wall. They had been full for so long I didn’t remember the contents. The rest of my office was pretty standard—a small couch, two guest chairs, a couple tables, some miscellaneous books, and a computer. Service awards and photos of my nephew filled the shelves behind my desk.

I walked around and took a seat in my extra-large office chair. I’d picked it up a couple days prior—real leather, built solid, and made in the USA. The chair cost over a thousand bucks. It was worth every penny. My job could involve long nights of desk time. A good chair was a necessity.

I grabbed the phone and called Steinberg in missing persons. I ran the woman’s description by him. He had no one similar who’d been reported missing. He said he would call around and get back to me.

Hank walked into my office, holding two tall cups of coffee. He took a seat across from me and slid one of the cups over. “I stopped at a coffee shop on the way back. I didn’t want to roll the dice with the machine.”

“You would have lost.” I grabbed the cup and took a drink. The coffee was far better than the gas station swill I’d drunk earlier.

“That’s what I figured. Are you staying or going?” Hank dunked his mustache into the coffee cup and took a sip off the top. He squirmed in my guest chair.

The fact that it was my day off had escaped my mind. I kicked the idea around in my head. While the thought of going home was nice, I had no plans. I would just think about the case between reruns of whatever was on television. “Think I’m going to keep looking into the brand on the woman’s hand until I hear back from Ed at the M.E.’s office.”

“New photo?” He nodded at the picture on the shelf behind my desk.

“Yeah, it’s this week’s addition.”

Hank set his cup of coffee down and walked over to the edge of my desk. He picked the frame up from the shelf.

The photo was of my nephew, Tommy. Melissa, my sister, younger by seven years, managed to take, package, and send at least a dozen photos of my nephew to me each month. That was aside from the daily e-mails, which included more photos and videos. When I told her I didn’t have frames for all the pictures she sent, she started sending them in little photo albums. I’d only been back up to Wisconsin to visit a few times since moving. My sister reminded me of this with each conversation and e-mail.

“Little guy is getting big. When are you going back up to see him?”

“Well, I planned to this spring, but we had that spurt of gang shootings. The fourth of July would have been nice, but it’s too late to request off now. I don’t know—maybe fall. The thought of going up there in winter doesn’t do too much for me. My old man and stepmom have been laying on the guilt trips nice and thick as of late. I’ll have to go up there soon.”

“How are they doing?”

“Same as always. Living the retired life.”

Hank set the photo back on the shelf and retook his seat across from me. He squirmed again. “Did you get new guest chairs?”

“Yeah, why?”

“These things are awful.”

I tapped the armrest of my chair. “Most of the office budget is under my ass. They aren’t that bad.”

“You aren’t sitting here. This might be the most uncomfortable chair I’ve ever sat in.”

“Try the other one.”

“It’s the same thing.”

I shrugged.

He let out a long sigh as he rearranged himself and looked for a more comfortable position. “Don’t put off seeing your family for this job. It comes with vacation time for a reason.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ll get something set to go up there.”

He took another sip from his cup. “You need me for anything? I can’t sit in this torture device any longer.”

I shook my head. “Not yet. Finish up whatever you have on your desk. Check back with me in a couple hours.”

“Sounds good.” He got up and walked out.

I walked over to the guest chair and tried it out. He was right—it was pretty damn uncomfortable.

For the rest of the morning and early afternoon, I tried to find a reference to the brand on the woman. I looked online, which netted me nothing. I called over to the team that worked cold cases. They had nothing in their files that involved branding or lingerie. I went down the list of local tattoo shops to see which ones did branding. No one would admit to branding a woman’s hand in the last twenty-four hours. Rick called to tell me they’d come up empty with their dumpster diving. We were getting nowhere. My stomach rumbled and told me I’d missed lunch. It rumbled again and told me I’d missed breakfast as well. I dialed Hank’s desk.

“Sergeant Rawlings.”

“It’s Kane. Come to my office.” I set the phone back on the receiver.

He walked in a few seconds later. “What’s going on? You hear anything back from Ed yet?”

I rattled my fingertips across my desk. “I’m about to call him. He should have the autopsy report done by now. Want to grab lunch and go pick it up?”

“Works for me.”

I pulled myself closer to my desk and grabbed the phone. I dialed the medical examiner’s office.

Within a ring or two, the receptionist answered. “County Medical Examiner’s Office.”

“Hi, it’s Lieutenant Kane. Is Ed in?”

“Sure. Let me get him for you.”

I spun a pen between my fingers as the hold music played in my ear.

“Medical examiner.”

“Hey, Ed. It’s Kane.”

“Hey, Lieutenant. I was just going to call you. I got your report ready. Want me to send it over?”

“We were just leaving for lunch. We’ll stop in by you and scoop it up. Should be there within the hour.” I hung up the phone. “Ed says it’s ready. Take out from Dotana’s?”

“Sounds good. Real food will be a nice change. Karen has been packing me these microwave meals for lunch all week. She says they are good for me. You wouldn’t know it by the flavor. They are really bad. You ever taste a microwaved veggie burger?”

“Can’t say I have.”

“It’s not good. Not good at all.”

“Ever think of telling her you don’t like them?”

“I don’t know. I guess they’re not that bad.”

I shook my head. “So you’re afraid to tell her is what you’re saying?”

“Whatever. It’s not worth getting into it with her.”

I smirked.

We let Captain Bostok know we were taking off and walked to the parking garage. I grabbed the keys to one of the station’s gray, unmarked, Dodge Chargers for the trip. We popped into Dotana’s on the way. It was a little greasy spoon down the street from us. Most of their customer base was people from our station. I had a hunch they would be out of business if we all stopped going. I made a point to stop there often. We grabbed a few burgers and ate in the car.

Ten minutes later, we drove through the gated entrance of the county medical examiner’s office. Hank and I walked up to the front doors of the complex—a long, tan building with green-tinted windows. Our county opened the multimillion dollar facility in 2009. From what I heard, you would gag from the smell of the old place on Morgan before you ever got out of the car. I was thankful I hadn’t gotten to experience it. Hank and I pushed open the front doors.

Ed stood at the front desk, chatting up the receptionist. He cut his story short when we approached. “Kane, Rawlings, how we doing?”

“As well as could be expected. Tell us what we got,” I said.