Chapter 21
I hadn't bothered to look at the screen.
"I need you and that nitwit to get down here. We've got another body."
I groaned. "Who is it?"
"I don't know. I just got here, and I'm waiting for Brenda.”
Daniels gave the location, and I yanked myself out of bed. I pulled on some clothes, hustled down to the main deck, and banged on the hatch to JD’s stateroom. "Get up. We've got another homicide."
Jack made some kind of noise that sounded partially human.
I listened for commotion, but didn't hear any.
I banged again. "I'm serious. Get up!”
He grunted, and I slipped into the galley and nuked a couple of breakfast burritos.
Jack staggered into the galley moments later, looking like he'd been hit by a tornado. I filled him in on the situation while we shoveled breakfast into our mouths. Then I hustled back upstairs, grabbed my pistol, and holstered it for an appendix carry.
I said goodbye to Buddy on the way out, and we hustled to the parking lot, hopped into the Porsche, and sped across town to the warehouse district. Lights flashed atop patrol cars as they surrounded a dumpster near an abandoned warehouse.
Jack parked the car, and we hopped out and approached the scene. Brenda's van was already there. Paris and her crew pulled up just after we did. Her cameraman hustled to get his rig shouldered and capture a shot.
JD and I caught up with the sheriff.
Dietrich snapped photos of the deceased through the side door in the dumpster.
Brenda snapped on a pair of nitrile gloves, ready to go to work. I'm sure she wasn’t looking forward to climbing into the bin.
"Who found the body?" I asked.
The sheriff pointed to a homeless guy standing nearby in tattered clothes. “Said he climbed into the dumpster to rummage through it and found the deceased.
"Scared the bejesus out of me," he said, standing within earshot.
He staggered close, and the whiskey on his breath hit us with a sour gust. "I figured I oughta tell somebody.
I went down to that convenience store on the corner of Hibiscus and Industry and told them to call you boys.
I didn't want anybody to think I’d done it.
I don't need that kind of trouble in my life. "
"What's your name, sir?"
"You can call me Hank.”
Hank looked somewhat familiar. I was sure we had talked to him previously about Jesse.
He was in his mid-40s with saggy, puffy blue eyes and a face like the flats of Death Valley. A few of his teeth had gone AWOL. Skinny as a rail, and weathered beyond his years, I figured he'd been on the street for a long time. Probably decades.
Blood stained the gravel and asphalt by the dumpster. It looked like the deceased had been killed outside and moved into the bin. Crusted blood stained the rusted green metal around the side door.
I moved to the dumpster and peered inside. The sour stench of trash, urine, and death twisted my nose.
What I saw in the dumpster knotted my stomach. I clenched my jaw and may have grumbled an expletive or two.
"What's the matter?" Daniels asked.
"That's Shane Dalton's brother, Wade."
Blood stained his shirt. He’d taken one to the chest and another to the forehead.
"Friend of yours?"
"I just met him the other day. Served in the Navy with his brother."
"Got any idea why he's in the dumpster?”