* * *
Clint Blacklock’s jaded chuckle abraded like concrete on a motorcyclist’s back.
“I knew it. You had ‘fuckin’ idiot’ branded on your forehead the moment you met her.” He hooked his fingers in parentheses for emphasis.
Jason closed his eyes against the harsh light of the detective office and inhaled the stale scent of damp, cigarette-impregnated clothes.
“You nuts, man?”
“I don’t know what the hell happened.”
“You want me to spell it out for you? F.U.C.K.U.P. How the hell you expect to make a case against this broad if you’re fucking her? You think of that?”
He held up a hand against Jason’s retort because those were fighting words. He hadn’t ‘fucked’ her—it was never that crass. Yeah, he’d been a fool to make love to Vallon Drake and even a greater one to tell his partner, but damn it, the investigation was both of their responsibility. If one of them royally screwed up, the other deserved to know.
“Oh, wait a minute. That’s right. You’re a fucking idiot—emphasis on the fucking part.”
Clint scraped his desk chair back and heaved his bulk up. Paced around the desks, cuffed Jason’s head, and then sat down again to face Jason.
“You’re damn lucky every one’s out on that gang shooting right now or I’d march you right into the Captain.” He shook his head.
Jason had enough. “You finished? Because I know what a fuckup I’ve made of the case. That’s why I told you. Like I said: there’s no excuse, but there’s something about her I can’t explain. It’s like—shit this sounds stupid as hell — but it’s like I’ve got her scent up my nose and I can’t get it out. Knew it from the parking garage. Like she’s under my skin.”
Clint said nothing.
“There’s something going on with her, too,” Jason ended lamely.
Clint raised brows that looked amazingly like unkempt hamsters, but his lips held a ‘prove it’ expression. “Like?”
“With that kind of attitude you think I’m going to share hypotheticals with you before I’ve got evidence?” And with that Jason broke from their usual modus operandi. He dug in his jacket pocket pulled out the slim packet of papers he’d kept with him and smoothed them on the desk.
“Whatcha got?” Clint leaned over the desk to snag the photocopies and Jason barely got them away.
“Mind your own business. You want to look at the evidence, look at it, and then we can compare notes.” He felt stupid saying it after he’d just shared an even bigger failing with his partner, but spilling the wild ideas that had been running through his head since he left her was just going to make his partner think he was ready for the loony bin.
Hell, he almost thought so, too.
He fanned the copies out in front of him. Photos of the scene.
Close-up: body on the concrete, face frozen in a mute scream, yellow light spilled across the scene emphasizing the lack of blood.
Middle-distance: Side angle of the body, paper and pen on the pavement, the wall beyond, the hazy, arched marking visible in the sidelight. A doorway, it looked like. Or what might have been one.
He pulled out the photocopy of Vallon’s sketch and laid it beside the photo.
Match. Like a fingerprint. The drawing showed the same curve of stone, same perspective, same proportions. Seriously the same.
He looked up as Clint slammed a large evidence box down on his desk and dropped the top on the floor. He pulled out the plastic bag with the leather pouch filled with pens and papers confiscated from Vallon Drake along with the bag that held the original drawing found at the scene. Clint glanced in Jason’s direction and he felt like a kid covering his exam from a cheater. He looked down at what he had.
“Police intelligence says to always look for all the possibilities that can explain a series of facts.”
“Yeah? Well police training also says eliminate the impossible and the remaining possibility is probably your answer.” Clint looked at him. “So what are you trying to say, Slick?”
Slick. At least he was using his favorite nickname, which suggested he missed their partnership as much as Jason did.
“I’m asking how many ways can we interpret this evidence? One, she was at the scene and sketched the death after it occurred. Two, she sketched the wall before anything happened. Three, like she said, she was sketching the scene to preserve evidence.”
“Four, a combination of 1 and 2 or 1 and 3. She knew the scene, planned to meet the Vic there, and after she killed him she finished her drawing.”
Jason shook his head, sliding into the old groove of police work. “I’m not buying. Yeah, she knew Lamrey and had a relationship with him, but they’d ended it. She had, according to her.”
“Well killing the poor bastard is one way to do that.”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Clint, would you get over your biases for a minute?”
“If you’ll get over yours.”
“I haven’t got any. Tell me, would a five foot seven woman have the strength to leave a body as crushed as that?”
Clint snorted. “With the right tools, yes—maybe. Besides, uniformed officers reported they saw her doing something strange to the body, so it was leaping and flopping like a beached fish—their words,” Clint said looking up from a printed statement and met Jason’s gaze. “Seriously, Slick, you really want to argue with that because your boffing some bimbo?”
“She’s not a bimbo.” Jason could have sworn at himself, because Clint’s hamster brows saluted again.
“That right?”
“It might have been CPR applied badly.”
“Might have been her applying electro-shock as well—if she’d had paddles in her hands. At least that’s what the unis said.”
Something nudged Jason’s brain, but darted away like a suspect he couldn’t catch. Something about electricity.
“Any possibility that might be the case?”
Distracted, Jason shook his head.
“This evening was another weird one. I followed her when she left home, but I wasn’t alone. Black rental SUV followed her, too. Rented to a company called CartosNationele on behalf of someone named Xavier de Varga. He stopped her and she took off like a bat outta hell. When he left she headed to Pioneer Square.”
“So she went out for dinner.”
“Not so much.” Jason leaned back in his chair, but kept Vallon’s photocopied drawing in his hands. “Went to a—place. A store. I thought I saw flame and I called it in.”
The memory proved harder to pull up than he’d expected. But it was—wrong.
He rubbed his forehead.
“You got a problem, Slick?”
He waved a hand in Clint’s direction. “Damn it, it doesn’t make sense either. I’ve got this feeling I helped pull a girl out of somewhere, but when the fire brigade arrived the shop was locked up tight.” Shop? Then why did the word flophouse come to mind, and the half-formed memory of a dim room and something brilliant through the smoke and flame?
“Has to have been a dream,” he muttered.
“What was a dream?”
Jason looked back at his partner. “You ever have one of those times when you….” The look in Clint’s eyes wasn’t promising. “Nothing. I’m just tired and having trouble keeping track of some things.”
Like how sometimes you can’t tell whether something is a memory, or a dream, Jase ol’ buddy, ol’ pal? He’d gone through a lot of that after Cheryl died. He’d thought that problem was over with.
And there was the scent of smoke in Vallon’s hair, the taste of it on her skin. He straightened at the thought. That was damned sure a memory, because his pulse quickened just at the thought.
“You seen the coroner’s report yet?”
Jason looked up from his ruminations. “What report?”
“Coroner’s.” Clint waved a sheaf of papers at him.
“What’s it say?”
Clint tossed the sheaf of papers. They fl
uttered down onto the stack of evidence before he could scoop it out of the air. He grabbed them, but in the process brought up Vallon’s original drawing. Clint had taken it out of the plastic case.
A burst of light behind Jason’s eyes and he fell back into his chair, momentarily blind. He blinked—blinked again — and gradually the room formed around him, Clint’s concerned visage across the desk.
“What? What’s happening?”
Jason blew out a breath to steady himself and shook his head. “Damned if I know.” He considered the papers he’d let go of on his desk. Then he picked up the Coroner’s report and gingerly poked a finger at Vallon’s drawing. Touching it was like poking your finger in a light socket and sudden recollections filled him. The scent of ozone at the flophouse. The scent of copper on her skin. What the hell?
Rather than make a scene he held his peace and scanned the coroner’s report. It confirmed that the ribs were crushed and broken. There were fractures of the occipital bone and skull, extensive bruising over the entire body consistent with crushing. But the blood was normal, the tox screen clear. The eyes, nose, mouth, ears all filled with dried concrete. Now that was weird.
No explanation of what had caused it, but death was attributed to asphyxiation due to a crushed ribcage caused by extreme pressure.
Jason looked at Lamrey’s recovered phone in its plastic cover. When pulled from the wall it, too, had been covered in concrete.
He nudged the edge of Vallon’s sketch with a finger nail and felt a tremor run up his arm.
Power surge like the one in Pioneer Square. An earthquake and electrical fire. Or no fire at all.
He shoved the original drawing back at Clint. “This should be bagged and kept safe. Have the lab run analysis on it.” He watched closely as Clint picked it up and slid it into its plastic holder. No way to know for sure if Clint was experiencing anything, but the chances weren’t good, given the calm expression he wore.
It was all Jason could do to stand up casually, but Clint’s gaze was on him.
“What is it now, Slick?”
Jason shook his head. “What else? The case? I’ve got some ideas to check out.” He grabbed his trench coat off the hook and headed for the door.
“You want I should come with?” Clint was half out of his chair.
“Nah. Hell-of-a night. I’ll do this on my own, but I’ll give you a shout if I get into a jam.” He patted his pocket for the cell phone, because he didn’t need Clint with him when he was trying to put some form to this case.
“One more thing, Slick.” Clint stopped him before he could exit. “I made a call to my man in Homeland Security. He’s gonna check whether they had something goin’ on at the garage. I should hear tomorrow. If there was—well I already talked to the Chief. He says we should bow out graceful-like and let them take the lead. You got that? The bowing out part?”
Jason met his gaze and gave a nod. “Sure thing, partner. But while we’re on the case I’ve got some leads to follow. I’ll let you know if it turns out.”
He ducked out the door and headed for his car parked at the curb. He had to see Vallon and see her now, because the something weird he’d suspected had just got a whole hell of a lot weirder. The question was whether Vallon Drake would give him an answer.
No, he corrected, the question was whether she’d talk to him at all.