Chapter 1 #2
Pereira huffed. She wasn’t much older than him—maybe thirty—and she had tawny skin and an ovular face, big hazel eyes. Pretty. “I dunno, it’s a steamer today. His work’s closed Sundays and his truck’s here, so he’s gotta be somewhere in there.”
“And you’re sure this guy knew Eliza? I’m looking for someone with the initials DB, not BB.”
“You’re also looking for Eliza’s dealer, right? Brad ain’t a seller, but he sure is an addict. He’s gotta know who Eliza was buying from.”
“True. Too bad he’s not answering.”
A bad feeling cooked inside him. Seth moved to the bay window and peeked inside the house. The lights were off and the curtains were drawn, but as he leaned closer, an off smell—something rotting—hit his nose.
He knew that smell.
To be sure, he took another angle until he could see clearly into the living room.
Somebody was slumped on the couch inside. He could make out their arm, limp beside them.
And their green flesh.
“We’ve got a body.”
“You kidding!?” Pereira exclaimed.
“No. Call it in.”
With his gun at the ready, Seth booted the bottom of the front door. It flew right open, spewing out the pungent stench of decomposing human flesh. There was nothing else like it. He held his weapon forward while trying to shield his nose, at the same time Pereira choked and coughed beside him.
“Dispatch, this is Officer Pereira—I’m at 258 Willowdale Ave. We’ve got a dead body, advanced state of decomposition, suspected overdose. Requesting backup immediately.”
A man’s voice crackled through the radio. “Copy that, Pereira. En route.”
Seth moved up the hall and cleared each room.
There were only two, a bathroom and a bedroom, no basement.
No one else was here. He put his gun away and covered his face with his elbow as he returned to the living room.
The acrid stench burned his nostrils, no matter how hard he tried not to breathe it in.
“Oh, good lord,” Pereira was saying. “Good freakin’ lord, death has really got a thing for me lately. Damn it, damn it.”
He understood what she meant; she’d filled him in on the drive over.
Pereira had been the one to find Haylock dead from a heart attack behind the wheel, crashed into a pole with a bag of White Castle in the passenger seat.
A midnight trip for fast food had turned fatal, ending an esteemed homicide detective’s forty-year career.
She’d also been the one to answer the call about Eliza’s murder just days before and was the first officer on the scene.
This was a different kind of death. Brad Bailey’s body had become bloated, oozing liquids and turning all different shades of yellow and green. On the coffee table, next to an ashtray, there was a needle, a spoon, and a lighter. Heroin.
Taking in the room, covered in beer cans and garbage, the story here became clearer.
Seth’s stomach turned over. His mother once told him, somewhere in the haze between the ages of fifteen and nineteen, that he’d end up like this. Alone, surrounded by needles, rotting.
“How long you think he’s been here?” Pereira asked. “Dang, no one even reported him missing.”
Seth squared his shoulders and let himself breathe, putrid as it was. “I’m no coroner, but based on the color and stage of decomposition, a week or so.”
“Eliza died six days ago. She could’ve been here before he croaked.”
“Yeah, and looks like he was having a party. This should be treated like a crime scene—try to get forensics in, find out who was in this house before he died. I’d love to know how none of his ‘friends’ came back to check on him.
” He couldn’t hold back the edge of anger in his voice, but this one hit close to home.
“He needed a fucking hospital. I’m gonna go look around. ”
Snapping on a pair of latex gloves, Seth moved through the house.
It was borderline dilapidated with posters of naked women on the walls.
It reminded him of the type of seedy apartments he used to buy dope from back when he was growing up in Brooklyn.
He’d never liked the feeling of a place like this, even before he was a cop.
Inside Brad’s room, the bed was unmade and clothes littered the floor.
Careful not to disturb anything, Seth stepped inside and took in the picture of this guy’s life.
He wasn’t sure what he was searching for—something to show his murder victim had been here, but that could be anything.
He stopped at the cluttered nightstand beside Brad’s bed.
A photograph rested on top of a pile of junk.
It showed a teenage Brad Bailey in a suit and a pretty girl with a moonlike face, wearing a red prom dress.
She smiled drunkenly at the camera and held up a lit joint.
With her long, dark blonde hair parted in the center, she looked old school, the type of beauty you’d see in a 70s magazine; a girl out of time.
For a split second, he almost thought she was Eliza, but Eliza’s features had been sharper, more catlike.
Still, their palettes were nearly identical, down to the rosy white skin and light green eyes.
He was about to put it down when something on the bedside table made him pause.
Three dime bags.
He picked one of them up. A bag like this had been found in Eliza’s pocket, but that one was empty, and this one was full. Black tar heroin. He pressed the ball between his fingers.
A rush.
Hot lava in his veins.
Melting like—
“Winslow?”
He stood, holding the bag so tight his palm became sweaty inside his latex glove. “What is it?”
Pereira appeared beside him and saw the two remaining bags on the nightstand. She let out a toothy whistle. “Wow, surprised his good buddies didn’t swipe this from him.”
Without thinking, he slipped the third bag into his pocket before Pereira saw he’d picked it up. The regret was instant—old habits die hard—but it was too late to change it now.
He focused on the photo of Brad and the girl. “Who is this?”
“Oh, that’s Claire Dyer. Her daddy owns The Stalk and Barrell, restaurant and bar on the east side. Fairview homegrowns, been here for generations. They’ve even got their own corn farm. Practically makes them royalty in a town like this.”
Seth took out his phone and brought up Eliza’s high school yearbook photo from his case files. “What do you think?”
“They sure look alike,” Pereira said. “Coincidence?”
“Probably,” Seth said, putting the phone away.
“I’ve never heard anything about Brad dating Eliza, but I’ve been told he dated Claire Dyer in their high school days. She dumped him after grad, but I guess he never moved on. She sure did, though—she’s been with Dillon Beamish ever since.”
“Dillon Beamish,” Seth said, feeling out the name. “DB?”
“Shit. Maybe.”
He scanned the room and stopped on a short bookshelf piled with junk. Tucked at the bottom was a hardcover book with gold letters embossed on the spine: FAIRVIEW HIGH, CLASS OF 2017.
Pereira followed as he grabbed the book and flipped through the pages until he found Brad’s high school photo, and Claire Dyer’s not far after it.
They’d been sophomores. He flipped to the seniors and found Eliza Johnson’s photo, exactly as he had in his files.
And on the page before, there was a picture of a guy with a buzzcut, pockmarked cheeks, and eyes so dark, they were nearly black.
He wore a white beater with no hint of a smile. Dillon Beamish.
“Same class, same year,” Seth said. He closed the book and put it back on the shelf. “Haylock was so focused on Eliza’s recent history, but these are the people who knew her for her entire life.”
“Wow,” Pereira said. “Maybe Eliza and Dillon had a thing.”
“Maybe they never stopped.”
“Well, you’re in luck—both Claire and Dillon should be working at the bar right now.
” Nerves flickered over her face. “But hey, just a tidbit: avoid the accusations if you wanna stay in Chief Wells’s good book.
Claire’s daddy happens to be one of the biggest financial contributors to our humble police force. ”
“Don’t worry. If they have nothing to hide, they have nothing to worry about.”
“Famous last words,” Pereira said grimly. “You’ll find them at The Stalk and Barrell on East Street.”