Chapter 8
ARCHER
“Forty-five years old,” Fletch rumbles, pressing one hand to his hip and standing over the dead body of a dude who clearly got run over by a car. The tire tracks literally mark his skin. “Morty Presley. Morty,” he repeats. “That’s his actual legal name. Not Mortimer, or Morton. Morty.”
“His mother cut to the chase and went with his eventual nickname straight off the bat,” I murmur.
“Road rash along the left side of his body: face, shoulder, hip, and leg.” I recite the details for our record, since Lieutenant Fabian is looking for a reason to fuck me up and toss me across to become someone else’s partner these days.
Drawing a deep breath, filling my lungs and expanding my chest, I exhale again and run our case by the book.
No Chief Mayet on scene today. Not even Doctor Emeri.
It’s best this way.
“Vic’s jeans show old grease stains, which indicate possible employment inside a garage. Dark, calloused hands add credibility to this theory.”
“Slouchy, stained polo,” Fletch continues.
“Light brown hair, about three-quarters of an inch long. Blue eyes.” He doesn’t even have to kneel and peel the man’s eyelids open to check.
He’s staring right up at us. Poor fucker.
“No jewelry. No indent on his ring finger to imply he wears one regularly. Old Casio watch on his left wrist. Shattered screen… probably caused by the car’s impact. ”
“His torso is twisted, Detectives.” Doctor Kirk, Minka’s youngest, greenest tech, writes his notes and does his damned best not to meet my eyes.
Does he know about me and Minka? Has she told the whole office how much of a prick I am?
“I’m led to think our DB was not only struck, but the car rolled right over him and kept on going. ”
“I’d say you’re probably right. And…” Fletch tilts his chin toward a single foot, and half a leg, about twelve feet from the rest of his body. “I’d say the poor schmuck might’ve got caught up in the wheels during the collision. Tore the limb clear off.”
“The car will be a mess.” I follow the spray of blood from Morty’s body to his leg, and then for another few feet after that until it fades off.
“Car went that way. Hit and run, driver panicked, limbs are flying.” And fuck, why did I tell her not to come home?
Why, dickhead? “It’s getting on ten o’clock, the temperature’s already flirting with a hundred degrees, which means this body will start cooking if we don’t move it soon.
” I crack my neck—left, then right—and stare at the back of Doctor Kirk’s head.
“Call your transport van and get him off the street. I doubt the autopsy will tell us anything we don’t already know.
Vic was hit, vic died. Detective Fletcher and I now need to find out who was driving, and ask them nicely if they did this on purpose or not.
The answer matters to a jury. Fletch?” I turn on my heels and switch my recorder off, closing the twenty feet between our taped-off scene and the department cruiser we picked up before coming out today.
“You should take the day.” He follows me all the way to the car, wrinkles fanning from his squinting eyes to combat the sun beating down on our faces. “Go sort your marriage out. Trust me,” he grunts. “Letting this shit fester only makes things worse.”
My wife is not your wife, Charlie.
Mine isn’t gonna become an addict just because I sent her away.
“I don’t need to take a day.” I toss my notebook and pen into the car, and take out a ball cap in exchange, dropping it on my head to shield myself from the worst of the sun’s rays.
“We’ve got clear images of the car’s tire tracks, so I’m gonna figure out what kinda tires ran our man down, trace that back to what kinda car those tires fit on, then we can check traffic cam footage and find our perp.
We’ll tie this one up before the end of shift. ”
“Arch.” His jaw grits and swells, his temper set on a perilous, unbalanced tightrope. “I have no interest in stepping between you and a slam-dunk case like this, but I’m telling you, clean up your house. Don’t go Malone and burn this fucker down just because you’ve had a bad day.”
“I’m doing the opposite of burning,” I growl.
“I’m taking space, just like she told me to.
You need to mind your fuckin’ business and leave it alone.
Kirk’s moving him to the George Stanley soon; if you wanna go with it, go.
If you wanna do your actual fucking job and run tire makes and models with me, then great.
Lieutenant Fabian will be thrilled to know city resources are being used efficiently.
” I dip my hand into my pocket and grab the cruiser’s keys, ignoring the single, smooth rock I picked up before my brain reminded me I suck.
“Either way, I’m heading out now. You can ride with me, or you can walk. Your choice.”
Isit at my desk for hours, first to figure out the specific tire tracks stamped into Morty Presley’s back, and after that, to ascertain what kind of cars those tires belong to.
It’s busy work. It’s monotonous and brain-numbing.
Which is exactly the kind I need, so I take my time and go from line to line, reading every word. Every syllable. Every number.
Fletch sits across from me, a quietly flickering flame burning in his eyes, the muscles in his cheeks flexing each time he looks my way.
He keeps his thoughts to himself, at least. He shuts the fuck up and saves me from a day of worse pain… worse than the shit I’m already experiencing.
“Morty’s a married dad,” he grumbles, reaching across his desk and picking up a half-empty can of soda he pulled from the vending machine hours ago.
“Two daughters, fifteen and seventeen years old. He’s on his second wife.
The teens belong to the first one. He shares fifty-fifty custody of the girls, according to court documents, but it kinda looks like they come and go whenever they please, and the older one drives.
Makes their official address kinda fluid, depending on the week.
He’s a grease monkey and has been his entire adult life.
No college, no trade school. Learned on the job in his late teens and never stopped turning up.
” He sips his soda, his honeycomb stare flickering across the computer screen.
“No debt besides his mortgage and truck. Lives within his means. Pays his ex-wife a little child support every month. The girls attend a private school, but it’s not one of the crazy expensive kinds, so it’s manageable between him and the mother.
No legal trouble to speak of. No signs of gambling.
No signs of drug use. Not even a parking fine or speeding ticket in the last decade.
” Sitting back, he slumps in his chair and runs the can over his forehead.
I doubt it’s cold anymore.
“Figure I should swing by the garage in a bit and talk to the boss. Get a feel for the people he worked with and see what they think.” His eyes stop on mine. “You wanna come?”
“Mmhm.” Next line. Next line. Spreadsheets turn my brain to mush, and mush is the exact state I need to exist in right now. “I’ll come. Kirk’s probably finished with the autopsy by now.”
Fletch’s cellphone trills, the screen illuminating and George Stanley flashing in bold letters. “Speak of the devil.” He answers and taps the icon at the bottom, placing the call on speaker. “This is Detective Fletcher. You find anything interesting for us, Doctor Kirk?”
“Uh… N-no. This is Chief Mayet.”
I shoot up in my chair, my spine straightening and my stomach somersaulting. Her voice alone sends my pulse into a fucking frenzy. Six simple words, enough to taunt me with insanity.
Fletch’s fury-filled gaze swings my way, his finger hovering above the phone like he might take her off speaker and rob me of my chance to hear her.
“Sorry, Chief.” He rolls his bottom lip between his teeth and studies me. Staring. Glaring. “I was expecting a call from Doctor Kirk. You, uh…” He clears his throat. “You alright?”
“I’ve called with the results of pended case three-four-nine-three.
Tara Sommers.” Her voice is robotic. Unfeeling.
Unflinching. She’s the Mayet we all met a year and a half ago.
“Tox came back confirming trace amounts of Rohypnol in her blood. Your case has gone cold while we waited for results, so I wanted to get those over to you as soon as I had them.”
“Yeah. Sure.” He sets his soda down and massages the bridge of his nose. “Thanks. We kinda already figured she’d been roofied, though, Delicious. Our case stalled ‘cos we had semen and blood under her nails, but no one to connect the samples to.”
“Precisely why I’m calling. Two other files came back with Tara’s; all three are connected. You have a repeat offender, Detective.”
Stunned, Fletch sits taller.
“In two of those cases, we had semen and blood, but no suspects,” she continues. “In the third, you had a suspect, but until you could prove he was your guy, you had to let him walk.”
“That fucker Masslin,” he breathes. “He got all three of them?”
“Yes.” So formal. So firm. So fucking unfeeling. “All three cases came with different MO, which made them difficult to connect. But the blood doesn’t lie. Go get your man. The results will stand up in court.”
“Fuckin’ A,” he hisses, snatching up his phone and pushing to his feet. “I will. Thanks.”
“No problem, Detective. It’s my job. Goodb—”
“Wait!” He brings the phone closer to his mouth, his eyes widening. Panicking. Searching mine. “You there, Delicious?”
Silence.
“Delicious?”
More silence.
“Chief Mayet?”
“I’m here,” she rasps, drawing a long, pained breath, and exhaling again so the sound whistles along the line. “Did you need something else, Detective Fletcher?”