Part 2
### Chapter 1: Chapter 1
This action packed suspense mystery has all the makings of a great story! Bad-ass Detective, maniacal killer and a twist ending you never see coming! As Seattle’s homeless population surges, a serial killer thrives. Slicing the throats of those unfortunate enough to be living on the streets and discarding them like garbage.
One man, familiar with the streets of Seattle, gave up a rich and successful life when his wife was brutally murdered. He went off the grid to live a life of nomadic freedom only to re-emerge into society seven years later amid the killer’s rampage through the Emerald City. The question is has he returned to help catch a cold-blooded killer or to avenge his wife’s death by taking victims of his own?
Luz Santos – one of Seattle’s finest homicide detectives – relentlessly seeks clues as to who would harm the displaced residents of her city. With each new phase of the investigation, she uncovers information that turns the killer’s focus towards her and those she cares about. Fiercely determined to catch the murderous maniac Luz pushes herself to the breaking point. With her career, her heart and the lives of so many on the line, will her sacrifices be enough to stop this butcher? Or will she, too, become a victim of forgotten rage?
Complete Chapters 34
Rating 5.0 ( 15 reviews ) Age Rating 16+
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Prologue
January 18th, 1995
“ O bjection!” Nicholas Mason shot out of his chair in the courtroom.
The judge heaved a sigh. “You are not the trying attorney in this case, Mr. Mason, and while I understand that you are an attorney, in this instance you are to remain silent. Please allow Mr. Marx to state any and all objections on behalf of the prosecution.”
Nicholas slowly sat, shooting the prosecuting attorney a scathing look. He bent over the banister so that Marx would hear him. “Why didn’t you object?” he spat.
Adam Marx turned only halfway toward his friend. “Because I don’t object to the defense attorney’s cross examination,” he harshly whispered back. “The only thing I object to is you trying to do my job for me. Now sit down and try to control yourself.” He turned forward, facing the witness stand and effectively dismissed his friend.
Nicholas clenched his jaw but took his seat. He and his partners had wanted to work this case all the way up through trial, but due to the conflict of interest, the court had demanded he find another attorney to chair the case from outside his firm. His friend, Adam Marx, had taken over and from the beginning assured Nick that he would see justice done.
Nick sighed and put his head in his hands. The case was slipping away. It had been six months since Adam had taken the case and they were losing points left and right. It began in week five of the trial when crucial evidence was thrown out due to contamination, and since then, they’d had one witness change her story, another disappear, and—currently—their only star witness was being ripped apart by the defense team’s cross-examination.
The judge seemed as blind as lady justice herself and the jury had looked bored throughout the entire trial. Nick badly wanted to shake them all and make them see what a son of a bitch Anthony Yates really was. Nick’s fingers ached from clutching the armrests in a white-knuckled grip, why couldn’t anyone else see it? he wondered desperately.
“Hey, Nick, let’s go.” Adam lightly shook Nick’s shoulder.
“What happened?” Nick asked, snapping out of his thoughts. People were filing out the door at the rear of the courtroom.
“The judge called a recess; the jury is deliberating. We’ll be called once they reach a verdict.”
Nick waited for Adam to gather his notes and place them into his briefcase before following him out of the courtroom.
The press crowded the hall. They flashed pictures and yelled questions as they followed Nick and Adam like a hungry pack of wolves, salivating for even the tiniest soundbite.
“Mr. Mason, given the validity of the defense, how can you believe the jury will find Mr. Yates guilty of murder?” shouted Emily Watkins, top news anchor from Channel four. She led the group of reporters, her designer heels annoyingly clicked against the marble floor as she kept pace with them.
Nick squeezed his eyes shut and kept walking, while the morbid slideshow of the murder scene flashed through his mind. Leah, his wife, lay dead in a pool of her own blood. Found on their houseboat with her throat cut from ear to ear.
Bile rose in his throat and he shook his head to distinguish the violent images, but the acidic taste remained, almost choking him.
“Mr. Mason has no comment,” he heard Adam reply as they pushed their way through the throng of reporters.
Nick stopped walking and looked around. The reporters fell silent and watched him. Their ravenous looks should have given him pause but he was too aggravated to care. He took a deep breath and began. “Mr. Yates is a power-hungry politician and I have no doubt that he has risen to his post as city council president through deception and scandal. Given his background as a police detective, he of all people would know how to cover his tracks after committing a murder. He’s guilty. I’d bet my career on it! And I hope the members of the jury remember that the victim here is not Mr. Yates but Leah Mason… my… my wife.” He got stuck on her name but continued. “She lost her life seven months ago at the hands of this monster and I pray to God that he gets punished!” Nick stopped to catch his breath; whenever he spoke of Leah he couldn’t help the rage that built inside.
She was so young, had so much to offer this world. Why couldn’t it have been me, instead? Over the last few months, he had pleaded with the universe for answers, but none ever came so he had dug his heels in and gone after the person responsible for tearing his life apart.
Cameras flashed, and reporters threw more questions out; hungry as ever after being fed the morsels they craved. Adam, however was not prepared to satisfy their appetite. He steered Nick into the nearest office and slammed the door.
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded, keeping his voice low.
Nick looked at him. “What?” he asked dully, feeling no remorse over his display in the hallway.
“What? What do you mean ’ what?’ ” Adam snapped, the vein in his forehead angrily pulsing. “What if the jury finds him innocent? He could sue us for slander. Or worse. I don’t think the DA’s office would appreciate you betting their careers on this case, I know I wouldn’t.” Adam’s eyes widened—in what Nick assumed was surprise and regret at his own words—and he backed away from Nick with his hands in the air. Nick looked at him, slack-jawed. He waited a beat before addressing the betrayal he felt.
“You don’t think Yates is guilty, do you?” he asked. “Well shit, Adam, if I would’ve known, I sure as hell wouldn’t have asked you to take on this case!” Nick shook his head. “I can’t believe this. Yates kills my wife and I have to justify my emotions to my best friend of all people. If I were trying the case—”
Adam exhaled and placed a hand on Nick’s shoulder, speaking softly to him. “Nick, she was your wife, which is why I’m handling the case. Normally, it would be a conflict of interest for the friend of a victim’s husband to take such a case, so I was careful not to mention that we knew each other when I was named first chair. I want whoever killed Leah punished just as much as you do, but how can we be sure it was Yates? You’ve heard the defense’s case every day for six months now, and you have to admit, our case isn’t exactly solid.” Nick began to shake again, but Adam kept talking. “I know we’ve had some bad luck with evidence and testimonies, so I want you to be prepared if the jury comes back with a not guilty verdict, okay?”
Nick sighed and shook his head. The pity in his friend’s voice was too much to bear. “Adam, you know how much Leah meant to me. How can you tell me to let go?” He looked up at his friend.
“I’m not telling you to let go. If Yates is guilty, he’ll go to prison, but if he isn’t, the police will continue the investigation. The best thing for you is to not waste time appealing the case and to help them as much as possible. Now I’m going to get something to eat. Would you like to join me?”
Nick stared at his friend and forced a smile. “No, I don’t think I could hold anything down. You go ahead. Meet me back here when you’re done.”
“You sure?” Adam’s hand hovered over the doorknob.
“Yeah, go ahead. I’ll be fine.” All Nick wanted was to be left alone. He had too many emotions to deal with and he didn’t need an audience.
“Okay but I don’t want you talking to the press, and I don’t want you going after Yates, either. Just promise me you’ll stay here—”
“Just leave me the fuck alone!” Nick snapped. “I said I’d be fine.” Looking up at his friend’s face, he knew he’d offended Adam, but he couldn’t muster up the effort to apologize.
“Whatever,” Adam said stiffly. He left the room, closing the door a little too hard behind him.
Nick sat and looked around the office. How the hell had all this happened? When the case began, it was open and shut. But now there was a chance Yates would walk. Nick briefly considered killing Yates himself, but he could never kill another human being, even one who had murdered his wife. Nick wiped at the tears that flowed down his face.
Leah, I’m so sorry , he thought, I should have been there for you.
There was a knock at the door and Fredrick James popped his head in. “Nick, the jury’s back with a verdict. Adam’s been paged.”
Nick stood up and headed for the door. “Thanks, Fred.” Nick walked down the hall to the courtroom. He paused before opening the door and composed himself; a quick deliberation by the jury usually meant a guilty verdict but he didn’t want to get his hopes up. He took a deep breath, walked into the courtroom and took his seat. He clasped his shaking hands on his lap, trying to breathe deep and stay calm.
The courtroom buzzed with anticipation. Nick scanned the room and waited. Soon after, Anthony Yates walked in behind his defense attorney. Yates was the picture of health at forty-seven; six feet two, with a medium build. He wore an impeccably tailored suit, as always, lending him an air of importance. Nick glanced down at his own rumpled suit with distaste. He had lost so much weight dealing with this case and mourning his wife, he had stopped bothering with his appearance months before.
He looked at Yates, whose face was set in a grim expression, but Nick could tell in the way he carried himself that Yates basked in the glow of the press; he was a politician, after all. His lawyer was enjoying the publicity as well, but publicity was nothing new to Paul Cummings.
Cummings and Nick had worked at the same firm until the year before, when Cummings left to work for the DA. They had worked side by side on many cases as prosecutors and eventually became good friends. But Paul had taken on a big case and lost, which garnered negative publicity for the firm. It was because of that publicity that the firm lost a significant amount of business and, in the end, the partners had cut their losses and let him go. Paul moved on to work for the DA where he built his reputation as a defense attorney. He then developed a massive ego and cut ties with everyone from his past, including Nick. Since that time, Nick and Paul had enjoyed a healthy rivalry in the courtroom.
But Paul had taken things too far with this case. Instead of treating it sensitively for Nick’s sake, he had been the most vicious Nick had ever seen him. He guessed working with hoodlums and criminals would do that to a person. One whiff of Nick’s emotional state and Paul had attacked and insisted he represent Yates. Every time Paul was in the same room as Nick, he smiled smugly, which infuriated Nick and wore down his patience.
But Nick wasn’t looking at Paul. His interest was in Yates. Yates, who sat at his counsel table, pompous and calm; Yates who had killed Leah with his bare hands; Yates who might get off and walk away a free man. Nick’s hands trembled harder and he felt nauseous.
Adam asked, “Are you going to be okay?”
Nick looked up at Adam. “Adam—” he started pleadingly but was cut off by the bailiff’s booming voice.
“All rise, the Honorable Judge Melbourne presiding!”
Everyone stood as a short, stumpy old man shuffled out of his chambers up to the bench. Judge Melbourne was an impatient man but was usually fair with his cases. Melbourne took his seat and ordered the jury brought back into the courtroom.
The jury filed in and took their seats, all the while trying to avoid eye contact with Yates. Nick took that as a good sign but held his breath anyway.
Judge Melbourne put on his glasses and faced the jury box. “Members of the jury, have you reached a verdict?”
Complete silence took over and the foreman—a pudgy, thirty-something man with a bad comb-over and sweat stains at his armpits—stood and replied, “We have, Your Honor.”
“What say you?” snapped Melbourne.
The foreman cleared his throat. “In the matter of the State verses Anthony Alan Yates on the count of murder one—”
“We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty.”
Murmurs rose from the crowd and Melbourne banged his gavel and called for order. Nick exhaled slowly as he watched the expression on Yates’s face turn from despair to surprise and finally to one of victory. Nick watched him shake hands with Cummings and watched Cummings turn to Nick with his arrogant smile.
“You bastard!” Nick yelled, starting across the room. Several reporters swung their cameras in his direction. “This isn’t finished, Yates! I know you killed her! I know you killed my wife!”
It was Adam’s hand that pulled him back. “Don’t do this. Let it go, man!” he hissed in Nick’s ear.
But Nick shoved him off and sat down. Again, he gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles were white. The room spun, and he felt sick.
A timeline of images played in his mind: meeting Leah at law school, asking her on a date, asking her to marry him, their wedding day, their beautiful honeymoon in Hawaii, the look on her face when they closed on their first house, the two of them celebrating with a bottle of wine at their favorite restaurant when he made partner at the firm, Leah sleeping soundly in their bed, her long hair fanned out on the pillow and her head resting on her arm. She had looked so peaceful… so beautiful… so… alive. He would never know that kind of happiness again.
Without warning, images from the murder scene flashed through his mind—all that blood, and the way her life had drained away, the way her eyes were no longer bright but dull and fixed. Even in death, Nick believed her eyes had stared at him asking him the question he’d asked himself ever since: “ Why weren’t you there?”
Nothing mattered. Not the case. Not his job. Nothing.
Completely numb, Nick got up and, without looking at anyone, shoved through the reporters and left the building.
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### Chapter 2: Chapter 2
The evil has long been restrained inside of me
The way to quench the thirst to kill
Is to succumb to this wicked thrill
Garbage was meant to be discarded and left alone. Yet the woman in the alley dug through it as if she’d discovered lost treasure. Disgusting, thought the spectator who watched the woman’s face light up when she pulled a half-eaten sandwich from the dumpster near the building. The woman tore off the moldy pieces of bread and greedily ate the remainder of the sandwich, licking each of her filthy fingers when she was done. She then took her cart and pushed it to the next dumpster. Carefully, she climbed in, using the three-wheeled shopping cart as a step stool, and rummaged around. The spectator moved then, entering the alley while listening for any signs that they were not alone. Satisfied there would be no interruptions, the killer pulled out a knife and crept toward the dumpster.
Mildred Jamison thought she’d hit the jackpot. Inside the dumpster, she found boxes of discarded Thai food. It had been years since she’d eaten Thai. She salivated at the memory of savoring it before she’d become homeless.
Mildred once rented a small, run-down house in south Seattle. It wasn’t hers alone—she split the rent with another woman, Anne. Mildred and Anne had fixed that house up so that it looked almost new. They were great friends and often confided in each other over rocky road ice cream and a pack of Newports.
One day, Anne came home from work late with track marks on her arm. Mildred tried talking to her, but Anne wouldn’t listen, saying the heroin wasn’t an addiction; that it was just for fun. But as time passed, Anne lost her job and began stealing to pay for her “fun”. Mildred tried to get her help but didn’t have enough money to send her friend to rehab. When the rent was due, Mildred couldn’t afford it on her own. Anne had sold everything of worth in the house.
Mildred didn’t have a husband or any family to go to for help. Anne was her only friend. So she stayed as long as she could until the power was shut off and she was escorted off the premises. Soon after that, she lost her job and was forced to live on the streets. She’d seen Anne twice downtown; the first time, Anne was offering her body to a passerby. The second time had been more recent. Anne was walking down the street with two other women; she was clean, well-dressed and looked very healthy. She looked as though she’d gotten the help Mildred had always wished for her and had turned her life around. So Mildred approached Anne to talk, hoping Anne would be able to help her now that she’d helped herself. But Anne barely recognized Mildred, and when there was a flicker of recognition, Anne had scoffed at her; told her she had no time for pathetic homeless people and walked off. Mildred’s face reddened, and her stomach sank. She felt hurt and abandoned as Anne walked away.
Since then, Mildred had fended for herself. She went hungry most of the time. Stomach pains kept her up at night in whatever shelter she landed in—if she found room. Food was hard to obtain, and the other homeless people were very territorial.
But that night, she had struck gold. She dug her hand in the Styrofoam container and scooped up a handful of day-old noodles and was about to thrust them into her mouth when someone grabbed her head from behind. Mildred, stunned, dropped the container of Thai food. A searing pain creased her neck and her breath left her body in one loud, final gasp. The last thing she saw before she died was the bottom of the rusted dumpster.
Headlights cut through the darkness, illuminating the small figure drenched in blood and the sound of tires screeching pierced the silence
Luz jerked awake gasping for air, her eyes wildly searching the room for something to anchor her back to reality. She tried to steady her breathing by slowly counting to ten and taking deeper breaths.
Her phone rang, startling her. She quickly tried to block the effects of the nightmare and answered the phone.
“Luz, this is Mike. Sorry to wake you, but we need you downtown. We got a body.”
Luz sat up straighter in bed. “I’ll be right there, give me the address.” She reached into her nightstand for her pen and paper.
“Just come to the corner of James and Second.”
“Come on, Mike, just give me an address, I’ll find it,” she said, irritated that her boss wasn’t more forthcoming with the information. God, I need some coffee, she thought.
“That is the address, Santos,” Mike said, sounding a little annoyed himself. “The vic’s a dead homeless person.”
Luz pulled the phone from her ear and stared at it for a beat before speaking to her boss again. “Oh… okay. Well then, that’s not my problem, Mike. Homeless people die all the time—disease, old age and exposure to the elements.”
“This one was murdered, so get up and get your ass downtown. I’ll expect a full report when I get in.” He hung up.
Luz laid back, looked up at the ceiling. She shook off the panic from her nightmare and sighed. “Well, chica,” she said to herself, “another day another peso.” And with that, she jumped out of bed and headed toward the bathroom.
She had a modest-sized living space with two bedrooms and one bathroom, a large kitchen with a connecting dining room and a living room. Her favorite aspect of the house was the fact that it was a boat.
No other houseboat on Lake Union had cost as little as hers. But nobody else on the lake had a father like hers. Her father once worked for a man who owned property all over the Puget Sound. When Luz had moved out on her own, her father convinced his old employer to let her move in at a huge discount. Once she graduated the academy and made detective, she not only could afford the place, she could afford to furnish it right. It was adios to Swedish furniture and hello to something plush, things more her style.
She hopped out of the shower and over to the mirror to dry her hair. She surveyed herself closely; promising to get her roots done as soon as she could. She preferred honey brown to her natural black; it made her look much more glamorous. She chuckled to herself; not that she needed to be glamorous—she was the only female detective in her precinct and she had already turned down offers from half the men in her department. She didn’t need to attract more attention. She smiled, gave herself an appraising look and returned to her bedroom to dress.
Once dressed she grabbed herself a Pepsi from the fridge and put on her coat. She didn’t normally drink soda but there was no time to brew coffee. On the way to the front door, she spotted her Chihuahua sleeping under the window. She went to the closet, pulled out a puppy piddle pad and laid it on the kitchen floor.
“Hey, Cheech,” she called, and the small dog popped up and came over wagging his tail. “Sorry, boy, no time for a walk. I gotta go.” She looked up at the clock and scowled; seven-fifteen.
“¡Dios mío!” she exclaimed, “traffic’s gonna be shit!” She ran out the door.
Officer Leroy Sacks had been with the Seattle Police Department for eleven months and had yet to see a body so sickening as the one he was looking at. They’d carefully removed the woman’s corpse from the dumpster—to not disturb evidence—and laid it on the ground. Leroy considered himself lucky that the crime scene guys got stuck with moving her. They had a very difficult job doing it.
Rigor mortis had come and gone, leaving the body as dead weight. What complicated things was the dumpster. It was so deep that after the body was photographed, one of the guys had to climb in and haul the corpse part of the way out before anyone could give him a hand. Once the body was freed, it was laid out on a plastic sheet for examination.
At this point, Leroy assumed he was no longer needed at the scene, so he’d gone to his patrol car, intending to go home. Unfortunately, his boss spotted him and ordered him to stick around until the crime scene crew finished up. Leroy had gotten out of his car and taped off the area so that passersby wouldn’t get the urge to rubberneck.
He couldn’t guess why anyone would want a glimpse of what he had seen. The woman they found had been dead a while and her pasty skin and glossy eyes were enough to give him nightmares. If that wasn’t bad enough, she was found with her throat cut from left to right, and thousands of maggots eating away at the tissue in the gash. The smell alone was enough to make him lose his breakfast and when he saw the body extracted from the dumpster, he found that he hadn’t gotten rid of all his eggs and bacon. Just thinking about it made his stomach churn.
“You’re looking green today,” a voice came from behind him.
Leroy relaxed when he saw it was his mentor. “You would be green, too, if you saw what they pulled out of that alley this morning,” he replied, shaking his head.
Eddie Lopez smiled. “Yeah, I just took a look, poor woman. Probably never saw it coming,” he said calmly.
Leroy looked at his friend, surprised. “That’s it? You didn’t even gag?”
Eddie shook his head. “No, it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve seen a murder vic like this, I’ve seen worse… way worse,” he said.
Edward Lopez transferred from East LA four years before and Leroy had no doubt his partner had seen more than his share of violent crime.
“But I guess you wouldn’t have seen much like this back in Rhode Island, would you?” Eddie asked him.
“No. The closest thing I’ve seen to this was an old man hit by a bus—there was blood everywhere—but at least he lived.”
Eddie patted him on the shoulder and smiled. “Leroy, my man, unfortunately you’ve been sheltered. But you’ll get used to it. For now, let me handle this scene and you can handle the paperwork. I’ll meet you back at the office. Deal?”
Leroy groaned; he hated paperwork, but the alternative was to spend more time with the body, so he readily agreed. “Sure,” he said. As he got into his car and closed the door, a silver Mitsubishi Eclipse, tires screeching, came peeling around the corner and pulled up to the curb.
“Here comes Speedy Gonzales,” Eddie called, the corner of his mouth lifting in a grin.
Leroy snorted. “That’s Detective Santos, right? Lutz is her first name?”
“Her name is Luz, pronounced like the word ‘lose’,” Eddie explained, keeping one eye on Luz as she got out of her car.”
“Got it. If you’re gonna go over and say hi, wipe the drool off your mouth first,” Leroy said giving his partner a smug grin.
Eddie shot him a stern look and asked, “Don’t you have paperwork to do?”
Leroy laughed and started his car. He watched Detective Santos head straight for the alley. Then he glanced at his partner, who stared as she walked by him in a rush, not even acknowledging his presence. Eddie had harbored a flame for Santos since the beginning. He’d asked her out several times and she’d always turned him down. It seemed she had a policy about dating other cops—not to. But that hadn’t stopped Eddie. Every time he saw her he put on that, “You’re Latina, I’m Latino” routine. Leroy thought it was time for Eddie to come up with new material, but his partner was determined. He watched Eddie follow Santos to the crime scene like a dog in heat. When will he learn? thought Leroy. He chuckled and drove away.
“What have we got, Ben?” Luz asked the medical examiner as she approached the body. She was aware that Officer Lopez was tailing her.
“White female, approximately thirty-nine, been rotting here for about four days now,” Ben said as he bent down to examine the body.
Luz crouched as well. The smell almost knocked her over. Atop the scent of death lay an aroma of rotting food and garbage. Luz did not regret skipping breakfast that morning. “Cause of death?” she asked, swallowing a gag.
Ben pulled back the sheet. Luz stood and backed away. She put her hand over her mouth then turned and spit. It’s not the first dead body you’ve seen, Santos, she thought. Get a grip.
“Knife wound. Looks like someone came up from behind and sliced her,” Ben said, tracing the wound from ear to ear with his latex-covered hand. “Why? I don’t know. She didn’t have any money or valuables on her. But these homeless people can get violent when their space is compromised.”
Luz looked down at the body and shook her head. She took a pair of gloves from Ben and pulled them on. “This doesn’t look like it came from just any knife. Look at the way the skin was cut, not a rip—a clean slice. It must have been a very sharp knife.”
“Could’ve been glass or a razor blade,” she heard someone behind her say. Edward Lopez leaned against the alley wall.
“Officer Lopez, don’t you have something better to do?” she asked and turned back around. “And I don’t mean checking out my ass while I’m investigating this murder scene,” she added.
Luz heard the others snicker, and Eddie snorted and walked over to the body.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Santos, not everybody wants to jump into bed with you,” he said with a smug smile.
Luz blushed slightly. She knew she’d embarrassed him in front of the other cops, but she had more important matters to attend to. She couldn’t worry about wounded pride. Instead of egging him on, she turned his attention to the victim.
“Did you find any identification on the body?” she asked. She saw his disappointed look and knew he’d wanted a chance to confront her in front of the group. She congratulated herself for not letting her temper get the best of her. This is why I don’t date cops, she thought. This is why I don’t date at all.
“Mildred May Jamison,” he read off of a driver’s license, “last known address is located down south toward the town of Whitecenter. Officer Sacks and I will check it out.”
Luz looked up at him and scowled.
“What? We were the first officers on the scene. I’m just following up,” he said, shrugging.
Luz thought this over. Her workload had been piling up and she could use all the help she could get. “Okay, thanks,” she replied reluctantly. She hated depending on Eddie for anything. The only thing she could count on was his desire to get into her pants, and as she looked up at him she could see that very thought written all over his face.
“Well, aren’t you going to leave?” she snapped
He smiled down at her. “Yeah, I’m going. Did you want to get some dinner later to discuss the details of the case?” he said in a way that Luz thought was an attempt to sound professional, but he failed miserably.
Luz narrowed her eyes and stood up so that her face was level to his. “You never give up, do you?” she asked, pointing a finger at him.
He smiled mischievously. “Not until you say yes and since that won’t be for a very long time, if ever, get used to having me around. I’ll stop by your office later if I come up with anything. Adios!”
Luz couldn’t help but smile as he walked away. As persistent as he was, Eddie was a good guy and a good cop. She just wished he wouldn’t look at her like a piece of meat whenever they were in the same room. She turned back to the body and found Ben smiling at her.
“What?” she asked raising her eyebrows.
“Why don’t you just give him a chance?” Ben asked. “He’s been after you for two years now. It’s not like you’re dating anybody.”
“I don’t date cops,” she snapped. “And if I did, I wouldn’t date that one. He’s got trouble written all over him.”
“How would you know?” Ben asked.
“I wouldn’t, but I have a feeling. He’s a typical jock cop and I don’t have room in my schedule to fit his ego.” She looked at Ben squarely. “Can we get back to work now?”
Ben threw his hands up and bent back over the body. He pointed at the throat where the skin had been sliced. “See here how the skin was cut? The wound is deep, the blade on the knife was wide as well as long. I’ll know more when I get the autopsy report back.”
“You don’t sound so sure,” Luz said, watching his expression.
“Well, something tells me this wasn’t an ordinary steak knife. But I’ll have to do some research and get back to you. You can see where the skin goes from ripped to sliced. That means the blade is serrated in some aspect near the hilt. I’ve seen only one other cut like this and it’s got me thinking,” he said, his brow furrowed.
Luz looked at the body. The woman’s face was pale and bloated. She wore a torn, matted wool coat and a wool hat that had seen better days. She was a small woman; maybe about five-foot two, a hundred pounds, and Luz wondered why anyone would want to kill someone so helpless.
“Why do you think someone would have wanted her dead?” she asked Ben.
He shrugged again. “That’s your job. However, homeless people are very territorial. They get greedy over food. I would, too, if I hadn’t eaten in days. But,” he paused and looked down at the body. “I don’t think this was your run-of-the-mill bum scuffle. There are no signs of a struggle, no bruises or scratches. If you ask me, she never saw it coming.”
Luz made some notes on her pad and approached the dumpster where the crime guys were working. “Anything?” she asked them.
The young blond guy working on the ground looked up at her. “Nothing so far,” he said. “I’m not sure anything will turn up. This alley has nothing but garbage in it. Even if we covered every beer bottle and gum wrapper, I wouldn’t expect to come up with anything.”
Luz sighed and walked back to Ben. “All right. Call me when you get something, even if it’s just a hunch, okay?”
Ben began packing up his things and ordered the body loaded into the coroner’s van. Ben glanced at her. “If I get a hunch, you’ll be the first to know,” he said with a warm smile.
Luz left it at that. She knew him well and trusted he would come to her if he thought of something that pertained to her case. She decided she would ask him after she had more information from the autopsy. “Okay then,” she said heading back to her car. “You know how to reach me.”
“Hey!” called Ben. She stopped and turned around. “Be nice to Lopez, he really likes you.”
Luz gave him a sour look and grinned. “I’m done being nice. I was nice to you and look what happened.”
Ben smiled at her with a gleam in his eye. “Yeah, but we had our good times,” he said with a wink.
Luz shook her head and laughed “Yeah, Torres, we had a blast,” she said sarcastically and got in her Eclipse. She rolled down the window as she drove by him.
“Ben,” she said, her tone serious. “I’m glad we’re still friends.”
“Me too, Luz. I only ever wanted you to be happy,” he said. He bent down and kissed her cheek. “We’ll talk later. I have to finish up here, but it was good seeing you again. Don’t be a stranger. You got my number, too.”
He turned and walked back to the crime scene and talked to the other officers. Luz watched him go, rolled up her window and took off.
She drove down to First Avenue, took a right and headed north. The sky above was unusually cloudless for a Seattle day, and the sun was climbing to the east. Days like that one made living in the Pacific Northwest worth it. She turned onto Westlake Avenue and noticed all the well-dressed people on their way to work. Many of them looked as though they were taking their time, soaking up as much sunlight as they could before beginning their dreary day behind a desk, in front of a computer. Luz didn’t blame them; days when the rain stayed away were few and far between, and she planned on spending her free time outdoors. She drove into the parking garage of the West Precinct building and pulled into her parking spot. Before going into the building, she took one last look at the sun-drenched streets, hoping she would be able to have that sort of free time.
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