Alex Barclay - Killing Ways

She drew breath.

You are all looking at me funny. Am I talking too fast again? Keep up, bitches. Jesus.

‘So, here’s what we know,’ said Ren. ‘Hope Coulson was last seen, alone, at eight thirty p.m. leaving Good Shepherd Church on East 7th Avenue where she’d gone to host a youth meeting. Everyone else had left ahead of her — a person walking by ID’d her. She was to drive right home — that’s what she told Jonathan. He was out working at the pizza place, her last text to him at eight fifteen p.m. was “See you at home, kiss kiss”. That’s it. We have no witnesses. There are no HALO cams in the immediate vicinity.’

Denver had over one hundred HALO — High Activity Location Observation — cameras, all monitored from a central location by DPD.

‘Hope Coulson’s car was still in the church parking lot the next morning,’ said Ren. ‘Did she leave her car because she was planning on drinking? Wouldn’t she need her car to get to work the next morning? Was she having an affair? In that case, again, why wouldn’t she drive home if she was planning to take a guy back there? Unless she was going back to his place.’ She shrugged. ‘And if she was going for a drink alone, wouldn’t she have chosen somewhere near her apartment? She was a twenty-minute drive from there. So she either walked a route with no HALO cams, or someone drove by and picked her up. But this can’t have been pre-arranged on her phone, because there were no calls or texts to indicate that. And nothing came up with friends, family, acquaintances, work, church members, etc. The neighborhood canvas came up empty. We have a list of vehicles and owners with no priors.’

‘Could something have happened at the church?’ said Everett. ‘I don’t know — someone made a pass at her. Maybe she needed to go have a drink, calm down... she decided to have another...’ He paused. ‘Yet, no one from the local bars ID’d her. Her face has been everywhere. At this point, we would have heard something.’

‘My gut is just not liking Jonathan Briar for this,’ said Ren.

‘How many times has the partner killed the wife or girlfriend in the house at night, then claimed they never made it home?’ said Gary.

‘Many, many times,’ said Ren. ‘Just this is not one of them.’

As everyone dispersed, Ren sat down at her desk and dragged her keyboard toward her. She started typing up her notes, super speedy. Her phone rang.

Go away.

She kept typing.

Fuck. Off.

The phone kept ringing.

Her cell phone beeped.

Jesus Christ.

She glanced at the text. It was from Gary: Pick up.

She picked up. ‘Hi.’

‘Can you come into my office, please?’

‘Sure,’ said Ren. ‘What’s the emergency? Nothing you can say over the phone?’

Silence.

Alrighty then.

She walked into Gary’s office.

‘You stink,’ said Gary.

‘Wait ’til you smell me after the landfill search,’ said Ren, sitting down.

Gary was staring at her.

‘Hold on — are you serious?’ said Ren. ‘What do you mean stink? Literally?’

‘In a way that tells me if I don’t open a window, I’ll have to check my own blood-alcohol level.’

Oh.

Shit.

‘Please tell me,’ said Gary, ‘that you did not go drinking last night with some lost soul you picked up at your meeting.’

‘Jesus Christ,’ said Ren. ‘I didn’t even have a meeting last night.’ Which is the truth .

‘Just remember you’re not there to make friends,’ said Gary. ‘Or even eye contact. The rule is you walk in there alone, you walk out alone.’

‘That’s me — Renegade.’ She fired an imaginary gun. She paused. ‘Was that your way of trying to find out if I’m going to my meetings?’

He eyeballed her. ‘Lose the tone. This is about my concern that you are over the blood-alcohol level this morning.’

‘I apologize for my tone,’ said Ren. ‘And yes, I did drink last night. As people often do after work, meeting or no meeting. Is that forbidden? Is the whole of Safe Streets fired?’ Stop. Talking.

Gary dared her to hold eye contact with him.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Ren.

‘Go.’

Eight hours later, Ren and Everett were six drinks down in a new bar off Sixteenth Street.

‘Do not let me drink tonight,’ said Ren.

They laughed. Ren looked around her. ‘There is nothing more unattractive to me than a group of men in their late forties in leisure wear on a night out,’ said Ren. ‘Especially the ones who were once hot, you can see the traces, and now they’re just beat-down and filled with loss and white carbs.’

‘Jesus, Ren.’ Everett craned his neck. ‘I need to see who you are savaging. “Filled with loss and white carbs”...’

‘I know, I know,’ said Ren. ‘And, really, can something be filled with loss? Like, with an absence of something. But why abandon all hope at that age? You’ve half your life left. Go to the fucking gym.’ Like Ben. Like Gary. Like you. ‘And I say this while not actually finding super-buff bodies attractive.’

‘Which makes no sense,’ said Everett.

‘I maintain that a lot of unhappiness in life is caused by people trying to make sense of things,’ said Ren. ‘Try this: for one week when someone says something strange to you, just say to yourself “interesting and senseless, goodbye”. Like, goodbye to considering it any further.’

‘If I did that, I don’t think I could actually carry out my job,’ said Everett.

‘OK — maybe restrict it just to things I say.’

‘The things I can do with those reclaimed hours,’ said Everett. ‘Go to the gym, for example.’

‘Shall we dance?’ said Ren. ‘It’s filthy rap.’

‘Yes, we shall,’ said Everett.

They hit the empty dance floor and immediately drew attention. Everett was clean-cut, dark-haired, side-parted kind of handsome. Ren had an exotic look of wild abandon.

‘And so they danced, and the eyes of the onlookers fell upon them!’ said Ren into his ear.

This is high-larious!

Everett was laughing at her, but when he really started to move, Ren was the one who had to fall away to the side she was laughing so hard. He was an excellent dancer.

They went back to the bar and slumped into their seats.

I am soooo shitfaced. ‘I think I look like a whore when I dance the way I really want to dance.’

‘I agree,’ said Everett. ‘Don’t ever change.’

‘And you dance like no one is looking,’ said Ren. ‘Pinterest gold.’

At two a.m., a cab with Ren in it pulled up outside the home of Annie Lowell, a dear Bryce family friend, who had allowed Ren to house-sit her beautiful, historic home while she was touring Europe.

‘This is me!’ said Ren, reaching forward and handing the driver twenty dollars.

She looked out the window. Then back at the driver.

‘Oh, shit,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t live here any more.’

It was a beautiful ninety-degree morning in Denver: the landfill site sweltered under the same sun that was giving everyone else’s day a glorious start. Ren was sitting in the passenger seat of her Jeep.

This cannot be my life.

Outside, the rest of Safe Streets were already dressed in white Tyvek suits, Kevlar gloves, and black half-face masks, sharing a range of looks that covered misery, repulsion, sorrow, and panic.

The panic was flickering in the eyes of Janine Hooks, Ren’s closest friend, and ex-Jefferson County cold case detective. Janine had joined Safe Streets three months earlier. She was a brilliant, thorough investigator with a sharp, wise mind and a heart of gold. Ren was certain Janine had an eating disorder, but had never dared to raise it.