Maniacal: A Detective Jade Monroe Crime Thriller Book 1 (7 page)

Go, go, go, damn it. I have to catch the turn signal, or I’ll lose her.
He beeped his horn at the car directly in front of him. The driver, a young woman, appeared to be talking to somebody in the backseat, ignoring the green arrow. She looked at Dime through her back window, flipped him the bird, and then continued on. The object of his obsession had already turned left, but he made it through the light just as it went from yellow to red. He caught a glimpse of her Mustang again when her brake lights lit up and the blinker flickered. She turned right into the strip mall two blocks up. He drove by slowly and turned in at the second driveway to watch from a distance. The twenty-year-old strip mall held eight businesses. The majority were nine-to-five establishments, but three of them were still open. Pegasus Greek Diner, Yoga by Elise, and a discount store were brightly lit. He counted over twenty cars in the parking lot. He didn’t stand out as he inched his Jeep closer to her vehicle. She seemed to be preoccupied, staring down at her cell phone. He had the perfect view of her through the windows of the parked cars between them. Parked two rows back and three vehicles to her left, he watched as she exited the car and pulled several items out of the backseat. She entered the yoga studio.

The sign above the row of windows flickered in pink neon outlined in purple. To him it looked cheap and hideous.
Yoga by Elise, huh? I know one thing about you, Elise, you have no taste. Let’s find out more.
He Googled the studio and read her biography. Elise had opened the business in 2005. She held three daytime classes and three evening classes every week. A longtime resident of North Bend, she was happily married with two kids under ten. Her favorite pastimes, other than teaching yoga, were gardening and bicycling.
You sound as boring as hell. We need to liven things up. I’ll see what I can do about that.

He had a perfect view of everyone inside the studio, getting ready for their class. Young moms chatted among themselves as they placed their yoga mats on the floor and got into position. The teacher stood in front, facing the class and the floor-to-ceiling windows that spanned the length of the studio. The instructor was definitely Elise. She looked just like her biography photo. A blond, bubbly looking thirtysomething, she had a topknot ponytail that flopped around her head as she led the class through its yoga maneuvers. She already annoyed him. He checked the time and wrote it down. Yoga class—seven forty-five, Thursday night.

The class appeared to wrap up at nine p.m. when everyone gathered their mats and headed toward the door.

He slinked down in his seat as the group of women exited. Laughter and chatter surrounded him as they made their way to their cars, some right next to his. He remained behind as the lot emptied, and the interior lights finally went out inside the studio. He watched Elise exit the building, lock the door, and head to a white Malibu sedan near the entrance at nine fifteen.

That night, she would skate by. He only wanted to follow her home and pick out the darkest spot along the route to end her life soon.

“Did Mr. King come in yesterday and ID Morris’s body?” Lieutenant Clark asked as he stood in his office doorway, holding a cup of coffee.

I looked up from my desk and answered, “Yes, sir. Doug said he came in, made the ID, and signed off on the paperwork.”

“Good. What time are you two heading back to Milwaukee?”

“Lieutenant Colgate asked us to come back this afternoon. I guess the Vacant Building Registration Department won’t have the paperwork ready until then. The PD is going to pull the jackets for Bobby James and LeJon Clyde too.”

“That’s good. Hopefully this case can be solved, and the sooner the better. Even though Morris was a criminal himself, he certainly didn’t deserve that brutality. Where’s Jack?”

“He had a dentist appointment this morning. Guess it’s hard to get in these days. He didn’t want to change his appointment again.”

“That’s fine. Keep me posted throughout the day.”

Jack got in at ten thirty. The left side of his face was frozen, and he had to drink his coffee through a straw and hold a napkin under his lip in case he slobbered. I teased him.

“How am I going to eat lunch?” he asked, complaining.

“You’ll be fine in an hour or so. We’ll head out soon and have lunch in Milwaukee just before we get to the precinct. Your mouth won’t be numb anymore.”

Jack’s Novocain wore off by noon. We ate at a burger joint right off the freeway. The food was good, and the service was fast.

We arrived at the third district precinct just after one p.m. and were escorted to Lieutenant Colgate’s desk. He stood and shook our hands. According to the lieutenant, the home listings and addresses had been faxed over just minutes earlier. He called a deputy in the records department to bring them up.

“We should have the listings in a few minutes,” he said.

He excused himself to pull the jackets for Bobby James and LeJon Clyde. He returned five minutes later with the folders in hand. He slid them across his desk for us to page through and poured three coffees while we read the criminal sheets.

“Wow, these guys are no joke. Why aren’t they in prison?” I asked.

“They’ve both done time, but eventually they get out and go about committing more crimes. It isn’t long before they’re back in again. It’s like a revolving door with them.”

“Do you think they’re good for a murder like this?” Jack asked. He ran his hand through his hair as we both waited for a response.

“Murder, yes, but dumping a body an hour away, not so much. Neither of those boys have probably left Milwaukee county in their life, unless it was because they were incarcerated somewhere else.”

“Okay, thanks for the insight. We’ll check out their alibis anyway just to be sure.”

A female deputy entered the bull pen and handed the faxed vacant-house listings to the lieutenant.

“Come on. Follow me,” he said. “There’s more room in the cafeteria.”

He led the way, and over a table in the lunchroom, he laid out the paperwork and circled all the vacant houses within a ten-block radius.

“Sergeant Monroe, just as a heads-up, these are the houses that have been reported as vacant by owners who walked away due to foreclosures and the like. There’s probably a good twenty-five percent more that haven’t been reported. They’re the ones that have just been abandoned with everything left behind. They’re the perfect place for homeless, drug dealers, and so on. You need to be careful. This search can be a daunting task for the two of you, and you could run into trouble at any of these places. Criminal activity is ongoing and brisk in this area.”

“Apparently so,” I agreed. “How many houses did you circle?”

“Twenty-seven, and there are likely ten more that weren’t recorded. As a professional courtesy and safety measure from department to department, I can spare four officers for the afternoon. I’d prefer it if each of you went with one of our fellas rather than together or alone. We know how crime works around here and how these criminals think. They’re fast and sketchy, and many of them are armed and on drugs.”

I looked at Jack and nodded. “Let’s do it. We’re ready whenever your officers are. We’ll track down the boys later.”

“Okay, let’s section these streets off on this list and divide up the properties,” Lieutenant Colgate said. He called in the officers that would assist us, introduced us, and explained the situation.

I added, “We’re looking for blood and any obvious trace evidence for now, nothing more. If this gruesome murder took place in any of these houses on the ten-block grid, it will definitely stand out. The victim’s throat was slashed to the point of almost severing his spinal cord. There will be a mess. Let’s partner up and roll.”

We divided up, joined the officers in their squad cars, and headed out. With the support we now had and the number of houses we had to search, we could feasibly be done with the ten-block quadrant in a few hours. If we didn’t find what we were looking for, we’d have to regroup and come up with a different plan.

The officer I was searching with was John Tyler, in his fifth year at the police department. He was an ex-Marine and had served two tours in Afghanistan. He seemed friendly and had mentioned he was newly married with a six-month-old daughter named Lilly.

We cleared the first house. Aside from it being a dilapidated mess, nothing else stood out. A few blocks later, we entered the second. The house stunk and was littered with drug paraphernalia, soiled blankets, rotting food, cigarette butts, and empty beer cans and bottles.

“This place is hot—looks like the druggies are still using it,” John said. “We should take our time and see if there’s anything relevant to the case here.”

I nodded.

We searched through clothes and garbage and found nothing besides the obvious and an infestation of cockroaches scurrying about. I wrote down the address and the contents of the building in case we needed to return. We carried on. John radioed to the other officers—nothing yet.

I checked the time after hearing my stomach growl. I hadn’t eaten since before I left my house this morning. My watch showed it was closing in on two thirty, but we continued on.

We entered a two-story brick house with a blue plastic tarp covering part of the roof. Most likely a large hole was under that tarp. I’d been told that even in the city, raccoons could get in through openings and cause a lot of damage. All the upstairs windows had been boarded. We entered through the front door. The scent of moldy walls and carpet hit me as soon as we walked in, and it stung my nostrils. I covered my nose with the back of my left hand as we walked through the front rooms. Voices coming from the back of the house caused me to draw my service weapon from my shoulder holster. John drew his too. He nodded ahead to the room that was probably the kitchen. I acknowledged him and walked slowly in that direction. A closed wooden swinging door separated us from the voices on the other side. John took the lead as we approached. He leaned against the wall, his gun pointed at the doorway, and nodded. I readied myself, and with a sharp kick to the door, it flew open and smacked the wall behind it. Two black males stood at the kitchen counter, one counting money, the other with what looked like several ounces of weed.

John blocked their exit to the back door, and I covered the door we had just broken through. We ordered them to the floor and hooked them up. John called it in, and another squad picked them up. We had more pressing things to do.

We cleared the house and headed out. As we walked back to his cruiser, John’s radio squawked, and the officer Jack had paired up with said they had found something. They gave us the address, only seven blocks away, and we took off, red and blues lit and the siren singing.

Police tape was already going up to cordon off the property’s perimeter when we arrived. The last squad car that was out with us pulled up to the curb behind our cruiser.

“What have we got?” I asked as I stepped out of the car.

Jack’s brow furrowed when he looked at me. “Over here, Jade. We found a bloody mess inside.”

I stepped into the doorway at the back of the house and took in the sight. “This could be our scene,” I said. I ran my fingers through my hair. The sight in front of us told a violent, vicious story. Someone had met their death in that run-down room. We stayed near the door we entered, so as not to destroy possible evidence, and took in the scene. We stared at the massive amounts of dried blood that had sprayed forward and hit the cabinets, then continued down to pool at the counter. A five-foot wide area of blood stained the floor. I mentally tried to recreate how the murder took place. I snapped a few pictures with my cell phone, using the flash. We needed more light in the room, and the forensic team, immediately. With no electricity in the house, we might miss out on collecting some precious evidence. Even in the afternoon hours, the room was dimly lit.

“Everyone, glove up. Let’s get these doors and windows open to get more light in here,” John said. He called out for an officer to radio the station. We needed a generator, lights, and the forensic team, ASAP. “How do you want to handle this, Sergeant?” he asked me. “Washburn County has the body, and we have the possible crime scene.”

I stepped outside to think and John followed close behind. “Okay, John, let’s call your lieutenant and see what he wants to do. Jack, call Lieutenant Clark and give him the news. We don’t know yet if this blood belongs to Morris King. Only a DNA match is going to tell us that. Get Doug on the horn. Have him fax over everything he has on Morris so far to the third district’s crime lab. I’m pretty sure Morris’s blood profile is already done. To confirm this as our actual crime scene, we’ll need a definite match from a test sample here at the house.”

A black car pulled up to the curb. Lieutenant Colgate and Detective Lindstrom stepped out. They approached us as we waited outside on the driveway for the forensic team to arrive.

“Sergeant Monroe, Detective Steele.” Lindstrom nodded at us and shook our hands. “Guess we should take a peek. Forensics should be here in a few minutes. They had to load up a generator and lights in the van.”

Bill Lindstrom and the lieutenant excused themselves and walked up several steps to look into the kitchen. I heard muffled cursing coming from one of them. They came back out a few minutes later, both shaking their heads.

Lieutenant Colgate addressed us after he hung up from a call. “Sorry for the interruption. Gruesome scene, that’s for sure. I just spoke to the power company. They’re going to try to work with us to get electricity up and running again if they can. This house has been in shambles and vacant for over two years. We’re not quite sure if the wiring is still safe and viable. Animals often take over vacant houses and chew on things. The power company will check, and hopefully they can restore electricity, even if it’s temporary, while we work on this investigation.”

We turned to hear another vehicle pull up and stop. The forensics van parked, and the team got out with their gear. Lieutenant Colgate addressed a few officers, asking them to lend a hand getting the generator out of the back and setting up with the portable lights.