Murder Stalks (2 page)

He spent the next hour pushing his body to
work harder, swim faster. A welcome exhaustion overtook him,
plunging him into a fatigue that emptied his mind. He stopped and
reached for the cold metal railing, pulling himself out of the
water into the heat of the empty natatorium.

Closing his eyes, he draped a small white
towel over his head and scrubbed at his short military cut. A firm
hand on his shoulder brought him around. He almost lost his
balance, but his arms swung wide and his hand fisted around the
sleeve of Rex Hague’s shirt.

“
Damn it, Rex. What are
you doing here?”

“
Why are you so jumpy?
Maybe you need another hour in the pool.”

“
Shit.”

“
Whoa there, buddy, I’m
just the messenger today.” Rex held up his hands and flashed a
smile.

Tony relaxed, letting his muscles uncoil. “A
little more warning next time.” He pulled his hand down his face,
wiping away the last beads of water.

“
You’re tight today. Wake
up on the wrong side of the bed?”

“
Damn it, Rex, what the
hell do you think?” Tony gripped his towel so hard his fingers
ached. Rex had nailed Tony’s mood. He was jumpy. A bad habit he had
sunk into, one that needed to die soon. When Marissa left, his
problems became too hard to hide. His anger had surfaced like a
fire breathing monster more than once, making him wish he could go
back and change the past.

“
Sorry dude, wrong choice
of words. Still smarts huh?”

Tony’s heart clenched, sending a burst of
pain through his body and making him want to punch the nearest
thing, which happened to be the overly chipper Rex. Maybe he’d take
a vacation next week. No, he’d never taken one without Marissa, and
he damn sure wasn’t about to start. Hell, he needed to keep his
mind off her. Work should be his focus.

“
I’m fine. Why are you
here?” Tony relaxed his fingers and draped the towel around his
shoulders.

“
Duty came calling early
today. Night officers found something.”

“
Oh God, I don’t want to
know.” Tony shrugged off the towel, letting it fall to the ground
as he pulled a dingy white ‘Don’t Mess With Texas’ t-shirt over his
head.

“
This ain’t something
you’ll want to miss,” Rex said.

“
Somebody run over a fence
and upset the neighbors?”

“
No, this is bad. An
apartment manager found a body.”

****

Marissa snorted as she shook herself awake.
Sweat soaked sheets twisted around her ankles, trapping her in
place. She pushed the pillow to the floor then groaned. Covering
her eyes with her hands, she blocked out the light pouring in from
two small windows where thin, wispy white curtains did little for
privacy.

She searched the bedside table for the
phone, punching in the first three numbers of their home phone
before remembering why she couldn’t call Tony. “Damn it,” Marissa
swore as she kicked at the covers, pushing them off the bed with a
whump.

With the bright sun streaming in, doubts
about last night nagged at her. Someone could have been outside her
apartment, creeping up the stairs behind her, but it could have
just as well been the neighbor’s fat cat. Mrs. Schultz hadn’t seen
anyone and neither had she, except for that man down in the parking
lot.

In the stark light of day her fear seemed
stupid. No one had been behind her on the stairs. The guy in the
parking lot was just passing through.

Marissa stumbled to the bathroom and growled
at her image in the mirror. You can be tough, she told her
reflection. Hell, who was she kidding? She needed help. But calling
for help would have brought out the cavalry, and they all would
have laughed at her ridiculous imagination. Worse, they would have
assumed she had been drunk and wanted to see Tony.

Drunk. Damn, she shouldn’t have had that
drink last night. The pregnancy test had turned out negative, but
something still didn’t feel right.

Defeat sucked at her spirit. She rejected
the feeling. The last few years she’d spent too much time being
wimpy, and wimpy wouldn’t help her now. One hot tear trickled down
her cheek. She swiped away the wetness. The time had come for her
to be strong without Tony. There was no reason for him to find out
how scared she was. She wouldn’t live in fear.

It was time to change.

Chapter 2

Tony slid his car into the spot beside Rex’s
black Hummer. Familiarity caught him in the back of the throat,
bringing a rush of memories he wished would have stayed locked
away.

He and Marissa had lived in this complex
before Ashley. It wasn’t the first place they lived, maybe the
second. The apartments were near the school where Marissa had
taught fifth grade. She’d been ecstatic. The kids had walked with
Marissa to school, letting her know that even though she wasn’t one
of them, she was still cool in a way that only a fifth grade
teacher could be cool. The memory brought a quick smile to his
lips. He shook his head and pushed away the unwanted thoughts,
turning his mind back to work.

The briny scent of the Gulf of Mexico didn’t
reach this place. Instead, the sickening sweet smell of jasmine
mixed with the unpleasant odor coming from the apartment sent out
an odor that repelled him. A wave of disgust washed over him,
turning his stomach sour and making him wish he had taken that
position in community policing. Then again, he never was into
glad-handing and babysitting a bunch of overly concerned citizens.
On most days, he loved his job, just not today.

He hated dead bodies. He hated having to
look at them, hated the smell that came from them, but the pulse of
his life was catching criminals.

His stomach clenched as he walked into the
tiny apartment, reminding him that a life could be taken anywhere
and from anybody. He scanned the place. Two picture frames sat on
the bar. One held a happy family at a theme park, the other a group
of girls at the beach holding drinks. A shabby orange sofa sat next
to an old milk crate with a piece of painted plywood used for a
tabletop. Above the sofa a neon sign hung, sporting a green and
yellow palm tree. ‘Angela’s Beach’ was scrawled across the bottom
in blue.

“
Do we have a positive ID
on the victim?” Tony asked.

“
Not yet. The manager
called it in.” Rex took out his Blackberry and read from the
screen. “Said he was doing a visual inspection of the place.
Cracked the door open and smelled the stench. Said he saw her hand
sticking out from behind the bedroom door. He ran back to his
office and called it in. That’s all he told us. He didn’t see her
face. We’re still looking for a picture ID.”

Jeans, t-shirt, panties and a black lace bra
were dumped on the floor of the living room. Tony looked around,
searching for any other clothing. He stared at the top of a
chipped, metal desk where Rex carefully pulled open the drawers,
searching their contents. The place was clean. There wasn’t even a
light dusting of particles that he knew usually stayed settled on
the top of his dresser at home. Dusting wasn’t his forte, and after
Marissa left, the thin dirt layer had grown thick, but this
apartment was spotless.

A glass containing brown liquid sat on the
kitchen countertop. That was the only indicator that someone had
actually lived here, that and the clothes on the floor. Tony made a
note to collect the liquid from the glass and bag the clothes after
Janice Owens showed up to photograph the room. The lack of dust on
the flat surfaces disturbed him. Maybe Angela was a neat freak and
dusted every day.

He glanced into the bedroom. The killer had
positioned the poor girl’s body. Tony rolled his shoulders, easing
the knots forming in his muscles. A chill settled over him. Just
knowing a dead girl lay in the other room, cut down before the
prime of her life, twisted his gut. An image of Ashley flashed into
his mind. It hadn’t been the same, not murder at all, but he was
her daddy and now she was gone. He steeled himself against the
barrage of memories, refusing to let the past stop him from doing
his job.

He paused next to the crime scene kit to
pull green booties over his shoes before heading into the bedroom.
A sliver of apprehension held him back. “It’s not her,” he
whispered. The memory of Ashley’s tiny body, broken and ripped
apart, shot to the front of his mind. His blond haired sprite of a
daughter was gone, and this girl, this victim, hadn’t been killed
by a ravaging mountain lion. Cold hard murder, that’s why he was
here.

A dim bulb hung in the center of the room,
casting a dismal glow. Tony pulled a small flashlight from his hip,
sending a narrow beam of light on the walls. He would ask Rex to
set up a couple of spot lamps after the initial walkthrough.

Tony swiveled his head, keeping his eyes off
the floor where the victim lay. He scanned for anything out of
place, something off kilter, or otherwise incongruent with how a
nineteen-year old college student kept house. No expensive jewelry
decorated the top of the dresser. However, he did spy a thin gold
chain with a jewel-filled pendant hanging from a hook next to the
mirror. Diamonds? Without a jeweler’s help, he could only guess at
their value.

A set of keys served as a paperweight for a
pair of twenties. From his years an investigator, he knew thieves
usually took all the cash they could get their hands on.

Finally, after he’d finished looking
everywhere else and couldn’t delay the inevitable, his eyes dipped
to the floor.

She was a young Caucasian, presumably Angela
from the neon sign. Her dark spiky hair reminded him of a hedgehog
stuffed animal, like the one his daughter used to sleep with. He
stared at the victim, wishing he could bring her back, change what
had happened. But no one could save her now. Damn it, no person,
good or bad, deserved to die the way this woman had.

****

Tony wanted to get the murder scene
processed. “Where’s Janice?”

“
I’m right behind
you.”

He turned to find her standing in the
doorway with her camera slung around her neck. Her blond hair was
pulled into a ponytail, giving her the image of a young girl, but
the sharp look in her eyes clearly showed she wasn’t a child.
Janice’s features were already masked, letting the guys know that
this murder, like everything else, didn’t affect her.

“
Do your thing so the ME
can join us.”

“
Consider it done.” Janice
removed the lens cap and began snapping pictures.

Tony watched, unable to leave the room. He
didn’t want to think about death, but with it right in front of his
nose, he couldn’t help but dwell on the subject. “Janice, you about
done?”

“
Almost, a few more shots
then you can ask Sekorski in. He’s out in the parking
lot.”

“
Good, at least we don’t
have to wait for him.”

The crinkle of booties on Janice’s feet
annoyed him. He hated the things but knew that any evidence they
took out of here on the bottom of their shoes would be lost forever
once they left the scene.

“
I’m done in
here.”

“
Shoot the other room, and
I want some outside shots too.”

“
Like always.” Janice
nodded and strutted out of the room.

Tony pulled his phone from his pocket and
thought about calling Marissa. He missed her. Instead he punched in
Sekorski’s number. “It’s all yours, doc.”

“
I’ll be there in a few.
Do I need anything extra?”

“
Tell Rex to pull in a few
spot lamps. It’s too dark in here.”

Tony moved aside when the medical examiner
came in. Sekorski didn’t waste any time with formalities. With
gloves in place, the ME started his examination. Tony gritted his
teeth as Sekorski placed a clear plastic probe in the victim’s
mouth.

Tony watched the procedure, hoping the ME
would pull something from her mouth, yet cringing at the thought of
him fishing out the perpetrator’s ear lobe or a finger. Few women
were strong enough to bite a full digit off their attacker, but one
could hope for undeniable DNA evidence...and that she had managed
to inflict pain on the bastard who’d done this.

Sekorski pushed the probe around the
victim’s mouth one more time before pulling it out. Her mouth was
empty. Tony sighed, letting go of the breath he unconsciously
held.

“
Sekorski, you think her
nose damage came recently?” Tony asked.

“
Are you asking because
you think this was domestic abuse?”

“
It would make our job
easier. Find the boyfriend, find the killer.”

Rex groaned as he entered the room. “Damn
it, I hate it when their eyes do that.”

Sekorski slid a glance at Rex. “Detective
Hague, death isn’t pretty. Her eyes are just bugged out a little
and rolled up in her head. So get over it. She was probably
strangled. See the ligature marks? Once I get her to my office I’ll
know if that was the cause of death.”

Tony glanced down to her arms and cringed.
The hands were gone. He bent closer. “The cut looks clean, no knife
marks above the amputation. Sekorski, when do you think he cut off
the hands?”

The ME turned the bright light, shining it
on the victim’s arms. He peered through a magnifying glass,
examining the stubs. “The edge is clean, no mistakes there. She
couldn’t have been alive. She would have jerked at the pain. Unless
he drugged her heavily. There is some blood, but no spray anywhere.
She was dead when he dismembered her.”