The Dead Detective (4 page)

The flip words didn’t carry to their eyes. Each pair remained grim and focused. It was the charnel house humor again, two detectives forced to witness daily human carnage, trying to maintain their personal sanity.

Harry took a Polaroid camera from his crime scene case and took two photos of the body in situ. He took another of the woman’s feet, which were shoeless and relatively clean except for a dusting of beach sand, indicating both that she had been carried into the swamp and had recently visited a beach. Then he took a minute to study the area around them. It seemed peaceful and threatening at the same time, the way only a primal forest can, and except for the intrusion of the body of a young, modernly dressed woman he might have been standing in a place that had remained unchanged for hundreds of years. He let his eyes roam. Spread out before him were several large cypress stumps, like the one that stood next to the body, each one rotting with age; each probably there since the turn of the last century when loggers scoured Florida lands searching out and cutting all the mature cypress they could find. To the left were several Southern live oaks, their boughs heavy with Spanish moss. Between the oaks were small groupings of young pond cypress, many with butterfly orchids and resurrection ferns attached to their trunks. Larger patches of swamp fern grew in dense clusters across the black, spongy ground, their toothed edges providing protective shelter for small animals, and as Harry watched a cotton rat scurried from one patch to another, scaring up a pair of common yellowthroat, the small birds darting off in search of safer cover. In the distance he could hear the gooselike grunts of tree frogs and the high-pitched chirping of cicadas, and up in the trees he could see several parula warblers and white-eyed vireos flying from tree to tree.

He felt a hand on his arm and turned back. Vicky was staring at him strangely.

“You lost in thought, or just enjoying a Discovery Channel moment?” she asked.

Harry ignored the question and asked one of his own. “Why bring her here? We can be reasonably sure the killer drove a car in, at least as far as the swamp. But why risk it? Why risk being seen? He could have been spotted by a park ranger driving on a trail, or by any number of hikers. Why risk any of it when there are so many places to dump a body? The beaches, at night; all the thick pine forests in the middle of the state. He obviously didn’t kill her here. He brought her body here and posed it in this setting. Why? Why was that part of the overall plan, or does this place have some special significance?”

Vicky looked back at the body and the area around it. It was as the deputy had said. The woman’s throat was cut so deeply that the head was nearly severed from the body. It told her that the killer was either very powerful or very angry to use that degree of cutting force. But there was no blood splatter on the cypress trunk or the cluster of swamp ferns that grew beside it. Somewhere there was a large pool of blood that had pumped from her body when the carotid arteries had been severed, and had kept on pumping until her heart stopped beating. When they found that pool of blood—
if
they found that pool of blood—they would have the real crime scene. Harry’s voice brought her back.

“You’re the sex crimes expert. You see any indication she was raped?”

Vicky looked at the body more closely. “I see what looks like a small amount of dried semen in her pubic hair. But I don’t see any signs of violence. There’s no bruising or cuts or scratches.” She pointed to the woman’s right hand. “She’s got two broken fingernails, but that could have happened while she was being killed. I’m just not seeing what’s usually there when somebody’s raped. Maybe the autopsy will tell us more.”

Harry nodded. He was squatting next to the body, studying the Mardi Gras mask that covered the woman’s face. He took out the Polaroid again and took two more photos. Vicky squatted on the other side, joining him. The mask was a deep iridescent purple, with highlights of silver. There were cat’s ears at the top and whiskers sprouting from the cheeks and small, dark red plumes rising from high on the forehead. Clouded green eyes looked out blindly through the holes in the mask, giving the only hint of the face that lay beneath. The mask was not held in place by any band. It had simply been placed on the face, so Harry carefully lifted it, using one finger of each hand, and laid it on the woman’s chest.

When the woman’s face was exposed an audible gasp escaped Vicky’s throat and Harry’s head snapped back. They knew this woman. Like most of the people in the United States they had seen her picture countless times in newspapers and magazines and television screens, although now the exquisitely beautiful face had been altered. A single word had been carved in her forehead with a very sharp knife—the word
EVIL.
The mutilation jolted Harry, his mind immediately flashing to the small silver crosses his mother had placed on his and Jimmy’s foreheads; the way she had covered their eyes with towels.

“It’s really her,” Vicky said, bringing Harry back to the present. There was no trace of a question in her voice.

“Yeah, it’s her.” Harry felt his fists tighten into balls.

Vicky rose slowly, shaking her head. “Holy shit, it is gonna be a circus out here. We better call the captain. If this gets out we’re gonna have media moving through here like Sherman through Georgia.”

“Back out the same way you came in,” Harry said. “Try to step in your own footprints where you can.”

Vicky started to move carefully away. Harry stood there for a moment, staring down at the body of Darlene Beckett. He picked up the camera and took two more photos with the mask removed. Even then he didn’t move. He could almost feel the killer standing next to him, the last person to see her without the mask. He continued to stare at the body, bringing back the last image he had of the woman. She was standing before the TV cameras, giving them that slightly sly, very self-absorbed little smile she had displayed so often when appearing in court. Slowly, almost imperceptively, Harry nodded his head. Evil, he thought. Yes, you were definitely that. But somebody finally got to you. Somebody finally presented the bill and told you it was time to pay. He continued to stare at the woman’s face, uncontrolled words racing through his mind. The word
religion
kept returning, but he couldn’t tell if it came from Darlene Beckett or memories of his mother. He drew a long, steady breath as he took in the look of disbelief on her face—a disbelief that had begun to change into abject terror as the life rushed from her body. Then it all stopped—that mix of disbelief and terror frozen on her face as her life ended. He stared into her eyes. They had begun to cloud, but it was still there as well, that same mixture. Who was it you saw and why did it surprise you so? He drew another deep breath. It was all there in her eyes, but it was fading fast. He crouched down, still staring into her eyes, thinking about what the woman had done. The word
evil
played over and over in his mind and the image of a cross began to form. Was that it? he wondered. He continued to stare into her eyes. “Talk to me, Darlene,” he whispered. “It’s alright. You belong to me now.” He closed his eyes and drew a long breath. Now it’s my job to find out who put that disbelief and that fear in your eyes. And I’ll find him. I promise you I’ll find him. His jaw tightened and he opened his eyes and once again stared at her beautiful face. And when I find him, Darlene, maybe I’ll give the son of a bitch a medal.

The figure watched the trail that the two detectives entered. He stood in the shadows, his back to a line of trees, and he knew he was invisible, or as close to invisible as a person could be. Just one of many shadows in the preserve, blending into his surroundings like he had planned, into the foliage, the earth itself; completely unnoticed by anyone who could pose a threat. It was the way it had to be. He had become a lone branch on the spreading boughs of a large oak, a part of the whole, indistinguishable from all the rest. There for anyone to see and yet invisible. He fought off a smile. They would never find him unless he made a mistake, and he was much too smart to let that happen.

By now the detectives would have reached her body. And they would know. They would
know
who it was; know who had been made to answer for her sins. The small smile began to return but was quickly forced away. The dead woman was not the only one who had to wear a mask. Masks were necessary right now, very necessary. Another smile began to form but it, too, was driven away. Patience was also necessary. Just wait and watch. That is all you can do now. Wait, watch, and take pleasure in the fruits of your labor. But don’t let anyone see your pleasure. And soon you will be able to do even more.

C
HAPTER
T
WO

D
arlene Beckett was tall, statuesque, blond, and beautiful.
She was a former bathing suit model, whose picture had appeared in various magazines, primarily those devoted to motorcycles and automobiles. At twenty-four she left modeling, married, and entered the teaching profession. Her first job was teaching health at a Tampa middle school. Two months into her new career she took a fourteen-year-old student home with her and had sex with him. The sexual encounters continued for several months. They took place in the home she shared with her husband of six months, in her school classroom, and in the backseat of her car. Like the good health teacher she was, she always provided the boy with condoms. Her undoing came when she performed repeated acts of sexual intercourse with the boy as his fifteen-year-old cousin drove her car along county roads and watched through the rearview mirror. The fifteen-year-old was later overheard telling a friend how he had watched this beautiful teacher “screw the shit” out of his cousin. And all the time she did it, he told his friend, “she kept watching me watch her, and she kept smiling at me.”

Darlene was subsequently arrested and after a year of legal haggling, the state’s attorney agreed to a modest plea bargain. To save the boy from testifying, prosecutors allowed Darlene to plead guilty to sexual assault of a minor and accept the following penalty: registration as a sex offender, surrender of her teaching certificate for life, the inability to live within 1,000 feet of a church, school, or playground, and three years of house arrest, which required her to wear an ankle monitor and to be inside her home by ten o’clock each evening.

Harry thought about the woman as he stared out into the pond at the side of the hiking trail. He had just completed a cell phone call to his captain, Pete Rourke, and had been told not to proceed with his investigation until he got further instructions. That meant Rourke was calling the chief of detectives, which meant that the crime scene would soon be overrun with brass. Harry wasn’t sure which he liked less, fighting off the media or fighting off the brass. He’d probably end up with both. The chance of the story leaking from a commander’s office was even greater than it leaking from the field.

“What are you thinking about?” Vicky asked.

“That nine-foot gator,” Harry said. “I finally spotted it.”

“Where is it?”

Harry elevated his chin toward the other side of the pond. “It’s in that patch of duckweed just opposite us.”

Vicky stared at the duckweed, a floating emerald-green plant so tightly formed that it makes the water it covers look like solid ground. Tourists have been known to step on it unawares and come up sputtering for air and covered in a green film. In the center of the weed bank she could just make out the gator. “He is a big boy,” she said. “I’m surprised he didn’t sniff out our corpse.”

“He would have by tonight,” Harry said. “And if he didn’t the vultures would have for sure.”

Vicky inclined her head toward the gator. “What do we do if he decides to come across the pond?”

“We shoot him.” Harry took in the slightly shocked look on her face and smiled. “Back when I was on patrol, I was sent out to back up a deputy who was trying to keep a four-footer from crossing a highway. Ten minutes later we were calling for backup again. There were five of us before it was all over, four deputies and an animal control officer. This little four-footer chewed up the pants leg of one deputy and beat the hell out of the rest of us with its tail. The animal officer finally got a capture wire around its jaws, but it still took all of us twenty minutes to wrestle it back into the retention pond it had crawled out of. And that pond was only fifty feet away.”

Vicky nodded her head. “I knew they were nasty, but alligator wrestling … I missed that little thrill during my time on the street.” She gave him an impish smile. “But you just got my vote, Harry Doyle. That nine-footer comes over here, we shoot it.”

The brass arrived twenty minutes later. Pete Rourke led them in, keeping everybody to the side of the trail. You’d think they’d know that without being carefully directed, Harry thought. But he knew this wasn’t the case. He had endured enough compromised crime scenes at the hands, and feet, of senior commanders to know better. Above squad commander, which was Rourke’s level, promotions were based purely on politics—who had most ingratiated himself in Florida’s political quagmire. And the sheriff’s department offered some of the biggest political plums to be had. At the county level the department commanded more jobs, more authority, and a bigger share of the budget than any other. That made the elected office of sheriff one of power personified. And promotions to the upper levels of his department were reserved for those who had served the sheriff politically and could be considered trusted allies. It was mostly a question of earned patronage rather than competence, although occasionally you found someone who was a clever politician and who also knew the job. But it was rare. In Harry’s view, the three men who Rourke now led into the crime scene did not fall into that rarified category.

Marching along directly behind Rourke was Kyle Rothman, the chief of department, a man who had jumped to that post from a lieutenancy in patrol after working tirelessly for the election of Dave Oberoff, the incumbent sheriff. Oberoff, himself, had never seen the inside of a patrol car. Prior to taking control of the county’s police force, he had headed one of the state’s largest real estate firms—a multimillion-dollar company that was now operated by his wife. Rothman supposedly ran the department for him. In reality, Rothman, a tall, slender, hatchet-faced fifty-year-old with fast receding black hair, contented himself with issuing the sheriff’s directives and planning press conferences that would make his boss seem like an “in charge” police executive, while assuming that the real cops under him would keep the department functioning. And that’s what Harry assumed he was doing here now—evaluating the crime scene for press potential—that and amusing himself by playing detective, a rank he had never achieved.

Following directly behind the chief was his right-hand man, Rudy Morse, whose main job was to drive the chief’s car and open his doors. Morse was in his late thirties, a weightlifter gone to seed, with a square head shaved in a high and tight military cut, who despite a questionable I.Q. had been hired into the newly created post of assistant to the chief. He did have one essential qualification: he was the sheriff’s nephew.

Last in line was Jim Mabrey, a fifty-five-year-old former assistant editor for the
Tampa Tribune
, and now the department’s public information officer. Mabrey would probably have been competent at his job if he was allowed to do it unimpeded. But that was never the case where the press was concerned. Especially in a politically charged situation, where one ranking officer or another always thought they knew how to best handle the media. Mabrey was tall and paunchy, with thick salt-and-pepper hair, a large nose, and heavy bags under his eyes, all of which made him look a bit like a bassett hound. He considered his job part of his retirement, and looked at it with a world-weary eye. If the higher-ups didn’t want him to do the job the right way, he would do it the way they wanted and smile all the way to the bank.

“Okay,” Rourke began, as the quartet came to a halt in front of Harry and Vicky, “you’re in charge of the crime scene, Harry. Tell us where we can and can’t go.”

Harry gave Rourke a look that asked if he really wanted an honest reply. Rourke gave him a stern look of warning in return.

“I really don’t want anyone to go any further than this,” Harry began. “The more people allowed in, the greater the chance of compromising the scene.” He inclined his head toward Vicky. “My partner and I can fill you gentlemen in and show you the Polaroids we took of the body.”

Rourke let out a heavy sigh, knowing what was coming.

Rothman glared at Harry, bristling at the rebuke. “I’m going in and you’re taking me,” he snapped.

“You’re the chief,” Harry said.

“That’s right, I am,” Rothman replied.

“Then why don’t you follow me and step exactly where I step,” Harry said as he turned and started back into the swamp.

That’s my partner, Vicky thought, as she fought back a smile. Mr. Personality.

Rothman uttered a string of expletives. Harry assumed that one of the chief’s highly polished, dress cordovans had slipped into a soft spot in the swamp’s surface. His back was to the chief, so it was safe to smile without risking the man’s ire, but Harry knew he would have done it even if they were face-to-face. He decided to find another soft spot on the way out, one that would take the chief down to his ankle.

When they reached the body Harry stopped four feet away and extended an arm to keep the chief from stepping any closer. Then he dropped his arm and pointed to the mask that rested on the victim’s chest.

“The mask was on her face when we got here,” Harry said. “So I think it’s safe to assume that we’re the only people, aside from the killer, who know her identity. I’m hoping we can keep it that way a bit longer.”

The chief let out a grunt. “That won’t be easy, detective. The media turned this woman into a national celebrity over the past year. We try to hide who it is, they’ll have our livers for lunch.”

“I just need the department to hold it back until we clear the crime scene,” Harry said. “We stand to lose a lot of evidence if an army of reporters and photographers come marching through here or start hovering overhead in helicopters.”

The chief’s eyes hadn’t left the victim’s body, and now seemed concentrated on the thong underwear that had been pulled aside, exposing Darlene Beckett’s trimmed pubis. “You guys pull that underwear away like hat?” he asked.

“No, sir, that’s the way we found her,” Harry said. “About keeping her identity quiet …” he started again.

“You think she was raped?” the chief asked, ignoring him.

“We can’t be sure until the M.E. conducts an examination. I think she had sex recently, but I don’t see any indication it was rape. About her identity …”

The chief let out another grunt. “We can seal off the trail and keep the press out,” he snapped. “I can get as many men in here as you need to get it done.”

“Chief, there are 8,000 acres in this preserve, and as many ways in. We can’t seal off the whole thing. And we can’t stop helicopters from flying over and telling reporters on the ground where we are. These guys are resourceful as hell when they smell something big. The only way to keep them out is by not telling them until we’re ready.”

Rothman glared at him, his voice turning to ice. “You tell Captain Rourke how many men you need. He’ll tell me, and I’ll send them. That’s what I want from you, detective. End of subject.”

Harry gritted his teeth but kept silent. Nothing he could say to this man would make any difference. Behind him he could hear Vicky briefing the others about the crime scene. She might as well do it on a bullhorn, he thought.

“I’ve seen enough,” Rothman said. “I’m ready to go back.”

Harry stepped past him and began the long circle around to the hiking trail. “Try to step in the same footprints you left coming in,” he said over his shoulder.

Rothman ignored him. Harry tightened his jaw and looked for another soft spot that would swallow Rothman’s shoes.

Harry, Vicky, and Pete Rourke stood next to the pond and watched the two deputies who had been guarding the body lead the brass out.

“Lovely day for a walk in the woods,” Vicky said.

“Don’t you start on me too,” Rourke warned. “We have what we have, and we deal with it.”

“Yes, sir,” Vicky said.

Rourke turned to Harry. “Okay, Doyle, let’s get it over with. Say what you have to say.”

Harry looked at him, his face expressionless. “I’d like to keep all information about the mask and the mutilation away from the media as long as possible.”

Rourke drew a long breath, but it was clear his frustration was not directed at them. He kept his gaze on Harry. “I’ll do what I can, and I’ll do it as forcefully as I can.” He waited for Harry to respond and when he didn’t, continued: “While you were in there with the chief we got a call from the deputy at the head of the trail. The crime scene unit is here. They’re working their way back right now. When I get to my car I’ll call the M.E. and tell him to stop screwing around and get his ass out here; I want that broad’s body out of here as fast as possible. I’ll also tell him to keep his mouth shut. The damn woman’s as much trouble dead as she was alive.” He gave each of them a sharp look. “Now get to work and process the goddamn scene.”

Harry sent Vicky to interview the woman who had found the body and the park ranger who was the first officer on the scene. Then he took his crime scene case and went back in to the body. Squatting beside Darlene Beckett he studied the wound in her throat. Because of the depth and the angle of the cut he decided she had been attacked from behind, that the killer had pulled back her head and drawn the blade across her throat. The cut also appeared to have gone from right to left, indicating the killer had used his left hand. It could also mean that fingerprints from the killer’s right hand might be found on the woman’s face.

Next he studied each of the woman’s hands. There was no clear indication of anything beneath the nails, but as they’d noticed earlier, two nails on the right hand were broken. Clearly Darlene Beckett had tried to fight off her killer. A more detailed examination of what might still be lodged beneath her nails could prove valuable, but that was the medical examiner’s job. Harry took two paper bags out of his crime scene case and bagged each hand, making sure nothing that was still under the nails would be lost when the body was transported to the morgue. In the process he noted that rigor mortis had fully set in. Right now he needed to know an approximate time of death, and he knew rigor was the least likely way to get it. He tried a simpler, more accurate test and inserted a hand into Darlene Beckett’s underarm. It was cold and clammy to the touch, telling him she had died eighteen to twenty-four hours ago. That time period would be narrowed during the autopsy, when the M.E. examined the contents of the gastrointestinal tract. He also checked for postmortem lividity and found that Darlene Beckett had probably been transported on her back after being killed.