Chapter 14 Kobe
Kobe
Friday was hell.
Rue and I agreed to meet at the station at seven, knowing we would have a busy day ahead of us.
Upon our arrival, Staff Sergeant Olivia Golding glared from across the bullpen, where she stood at a random desk, shouting into a borrowed phone.
She pointed in our direction and motioned to her empty office. The message was clear.
Golding smashed the receiver onto its base, abandoned the desk she’d usurped, and joined us.
She slammed the office door and sank onto her chair with a heavy sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose.
“What a shit show. I haven’t had a coffee yet, and I’m already fielding calls from the press, the mayor, and the goddamn university president. Have you IDed the third victim?”
Golding was in her early fifties, a harsh woman raised under the strict thumb of a military father.
She ran a tight ship and could be lethal if her subordinates didn’t obey her command.
Since I was not her favorite person, I often deferred to Rue when a case brought the attention of our superior, doing all I could to fade into the background.
“Yes, ma’am,” Rue said. “Our most recent vic is twenty-two-year-old Ford Carrigan.”
“And who knows this?”
“No one, ma’am. It was after one before we left the scene. We thought it prudent to wait until morning to inform the parents.”
“What else?”
“I ran his license last night from the car and managed to put together a rough profile. Ford Carrigan was a former university student in the accounting program. He started the same year as our second victim, Jesse Vargas, and we have reason to believe they were acquainted. Ford dropped out a couple of years ago. He was employed by Scotiabank. No record. We’ll know more once we chat with friends and family. ”
I had no idea Rue had done all that after we’d left the crime scene.
She’d been pissed at my comment, so I wasn’t surprised she’d gone off on her own to work, sending me home.
If she wasn’t mothering me, she treated me like a bratty younger brother who was always underfoot.
The previous night, my behavior got me sent to bed early.
Golding shifted her attention. “Nothing to add, Haven?”
I shook my head.
“Former student, you say?” Golding frowned. “What the hell was he doing on campus?”
“No idea,” Rue said. “Two students found him in the quad at around nine thirty and phoned it in. They didn’t know him.
The university’s vice-president, the provost, and a secretary in charge of legal affairs showed up along with a few professors.
By then, the area was cordoned off, so no one was able to get close enough to identify the victim. ”
“You sure?”
“I’m confident.”
“Has the press caught wind of his name?” I asked, eyeing my boss.
“Not yet. That was one of their questions. I told them they would know soon enough.” Golding rifled through loose papers on the desk. “Is the family local?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Rue read the address from a tablet. “Informing them is a priority.”
“Good. I don’t need to tell you how serious this case just became.
The headlines are already talking about a campus killer.
That tells me they’ve linked your victims. You need to keep things tight from here on out.
If you need extra hands, I’ll find them.
Keep me abreast of everything that’s happening.
Everything. You hear me? Do not talk to anyone.
The minute the family knows, call me. I’ll schedule a press conference and do what I can to control the narrative. Find this guy.”
Sergeant Golding’s icy gaze flicked from Rue to me and back. “Yes, ma’am,” we said in unison.
“We need to get to the bottom of this and fast. I don’t want any more bodies. Go.”
Rue and I landed at our joined desks to solidify our schedule for the day. The bite in my partner’s tone suggested she was still angry. Fine, I shouldn’t have said what I did, but facts were facts. Evidence was starting to show that these men had lived despicable lives.
Dominique seemed to get it. Why couldn’t Rue? I wasn’t condoning murder, but if you ran into a busy road, you were going to get hit by a car eventually.
Rue ordered me to make phone calls. After informing Ford’s parents of his death, we planned to talk to an administrator at the university.
Knowing Ford and Jesse were partners in crime at one time was our biggest red flag, and we needed to get to the bottom of their indiscretions and learn why the school hadn’t done anything.
Rue learned that Ford dropped out of school over a year before Jesse’s expulsion. We didn’t know why he left or if they’d stayed in touch. According to Blaze’s friends, Jesse had still attended the odd off-campus party. Had Ford? Hopefully, the parents could help answer some lingering questions.
Navid’s position on the committee that determined Jesse’s fate gave us pause. If the rumors were true and the doctor had voted against Jesse’s removal from school, it could be the reason he was dead.
Why would he support someone who was causing trouble on campus?
Either way, we had a lot of questions to ask and a lot of blanks to fill.
I discovered a message on my work phone from Dr. Delmar Housing, Dominique’s acquaintance, who studied fragrance transfer.
When I returned his call, I got a machine.
Great. Playing phone tag would accomplish nothing.
I redirected my call to his secretary and got an email address.
Since I had a minute, I typed up a query and sent it off, hoping I’d get a few questions answered before the turn of the century.
It would be nice to have something positive to present to Rue so she might forget about my runaway mouth.
I secretly hoped I would be able to escape to see Dominique that evening, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.
He didn’t care about my unfiltered comments.
Although the idea of venting about the case and my partner sounded refreshing, what I really wanted was to explore more intimate exchanges and see where they led.
“Let’s go,” Rue said, breaking me from a delectable daydream that involved Dominique’s mouth and tongue and far less clothing.
As I followed Rue from the bullpen, someone called my name. Frowning, I glanced over my shoulder, scanning the bustle of people milling about. A uniformed constable I vaguely recognized hustled toward me, weaving around the morning congestion of officers and detectives preparing for their day.
When he stopped, I glanced at the name badge clipped to his shirt.
Yates. A memory surfaced. Ari Yates. We’d been teamed up for Canada Day security a few years ago, along with a group of seven or eight other officers.
He was a rookie at the time. We’d chatted plenty during that blistering hot summer day as we’d walked the streets of downtown, ensuring there was no trouble during the festivities.
He’d grown a goatee and put on a few pounds.
“How’s it going, Yates?”
“Good. Better. Do you have a second?”
“Not really. Working a big case.”
“I heard.” He glanced at Rue, who was growing impatient by the second. “It’s kinda related.” Yates shifted his weight and heaved his heavy utility belt higher on his waist. “It’ll only take a minute. I promise.”
“What do you mean it’s related?”
“It might be. I can’t say for sure, but I think you should know.”
“Spit it out. We’re in a hurry,” Rue said.
Yates thumbed over his shoulder. “I have to show you something.”
“Christ,” Rue mumbled. “Later. We’ve gotta go.”
Something about the look on Yates’s face told me not to brush him aside. Details from that hot Canada Day came back to me. I’d volunteered for the extra shift. The department had needed more patrol staff, and by midday, I regretted the decision.
Yates had talked about his bumpy start with the department and the asshole they’d given him as a partner, a cranky old-timer close to retirement. I wasn’t someone people ordinarily looked up to, but listening to the rookie chat about his problems that day gave my self-esteem a solid boost.
“Bring the car around,” I said to Rue. “I’ll be there in five.”
“Haven—”
“Five minutes, Rue. Fucking relax. If it’s case-related, we need to listen.”
Her nostrils flared. “Fine. Hurry up.”
I was aware of Sergeant Golding’s open office door and her presence behind the desk.
She wouldn’t be pleased if she thought I was lollygagging or socializing unnecessarily, but I followed Yates across the bullpen.
The constable snagged a brown folder and kept walking down the hall and into an unused interview room.
He closed the door behind us.
When he stalled, seeming uncertain, I rolled my hand. “Get to it, bud. I don’t have time to waste, and I’m already on my partner’s shit list today.”
Yates nodded, staring at the brown folder like he wanted to give it to me but couldn’t find the courage. He spoke instead. “All right. Look. I don’t want this on my shoulders anymore. It eats at me.”
“Want what?”
Yates pressed his lips together, frowning. “I’m trying to do the right thing. Amend past mistakes.”
“Get to the point, Ari.”
“I am. This is going to paint me in a bad light. Honestly, if you were anyone else, I wouldn’t say anything because it’s probably useless information, and I could get myself in a world of trouble if the wrong people found out.”
“I don’t have time for cryptic.”
“A few years ago, when I was partnered with that jerk who finally retired, I was working a midnight here at the station. It was almost the end of my shift. About five in the morning. Two teenage girls and a squirrely teenage boy came in. The girls were young. Thirteen or fourteen. Dressed like… like they were twenty-one and looking for…” He seemed unable to find the right word.
Angry red blossoms colored his cheeks with his scowl.
“Looking for a good time?” I prompted.