Erica Spindler - Dead Run

His first reaction was a sense of betrayal, of having been lied to. She hadn’t been honest with him.

“What you’re saying is she’s a nutcase and I shouldn’t believe a thing she says. Is that it?”

“Hardly. I’m checking out her claims. But I wanted to warn you. Be careful, Rick. She has an agenda, one based on emotions not logic. Desperate people do desperate things. They lie. They manufacture evidence. Use whatever means necessary to achieve their goals. And they can be pretty goddamned convincing. That she’s not playing with a full deck right now makes her a little scary.”

Rick had to agree. He felt as if his old friend had delivered a swift punch to his solar plexus, momentarily knocking the wind out of him. He wanted to champion her. He wanted to deny that what Val was telling him was true.

Despite his earlier intentions, he had lost all objectivity when it came to Liz Ames and this investigation.

Val’s cell phone sounded. “Lopez here.”

He listened a moment, expression tightening. “Say that again, Carla.” He waited. “I’ll be right there.”

He holstered his phone and stood. “What is it?” Rick asked. “What’s happened?”

“Seems Naomi Pearson didn’t run off,” he replied grimly. “She turned up on Dog Beach.”

“Dead, I’m guessing?”

Val hesitated, then nodded. “About as dead as you can get. Throat slit, torso carved up.” He met Rick’s gaze. “Looks like we’ve got a serial on our hands.”

Sunday, November 18

6:10 p.m.

A favorite with locals because of its “pets allowed” policy, Dog Beach was a sandy stretch between Waddell Avenue and the Atlantic Ocean, tucked up next to Louie’s Backyard restaurant. Naomi Pearson had been discovered by a golden retriever chasing a Frisbee. The dog’s owner had used his cell phone to call the police-after upchucking in a toy pail left behind by some kid.

Carla stood several feet from the deceased, a handkerchief doused in cologne pressed to her nose. The stench was, quite simply, unbearable.

Carla had known it would be and had come prepared. She’d been part of the team that had investigated a drowning last year. She’d gained firsthand experience that bodies decayed differently when submerged, reacting with the water to create a waxy, yellowish and rancid-smelling substance called adipocere. Over time, adipocere replaced the muscles, viscera and fatty tissues of the body, giving the corpse a bloated, nightmare appearance. The warmer the water, the faster the decomposition.

As corpses went, Naomi Pearson’s was pretty damn grotesque. Bloated beyond recognition, head half-severed, gaping wounds on her torso, the corpse looked at once human and creature brought up from the bowels of hell.

Carla glanced to the right, toward Louie’s dining veranda. No way Naomi had been here long. Even a light breeze in that direction would have shut the place down. So, where had she been all this time? Dragged back and forth by the currents? Hung up on something under the water?

From behind her came the sound of a car door slamming. She looked over her shoulder and saw that Val had arrived, thank God. Being alone with this vic was making her itch. She felt as though she should be doing something, but she didn’t know what. She was out of her depth here. Way out of her depth.

Carla signaled to Val, then waited as he crossed to where she stood. As he neared her, he brought a handkerchief to his nose. He, too, had come prepared.

“Who found her?” he asked when he came within earshot.

“Somebody’s golden retriever. Owner’s pretty shook up. Questioned him, then sent him on his way. Got his name and address, of course.”

“Scene’s secure?”

“As well as a place like this can be. Got it cordoned off. I put Reese on the north side and McKinney on the east.” She noticed a group forming on Louie’s dining veranda. “Wind must have shifted.”

Val glanced toward the restaurant, then turned his attention fully to the victim. For long moments Val simply studied her, then he moved closer, circling slowly, expression intent.

Finally, he lifted his gaze to her. Carla saw that his eyes were watering. “You know for sure this is Naomi Pearson?”

She nodded. “Her handbag washed up with her.”

“Touch anything else?”

“Are you kidding? No way.”

“She disappeared how long ago?”

“Last seen Thursday, November 1st. Seventeen days ago.”

Val frowned. “It doesn’t look like her killer tried to weight her with anything to keep her submerged. My guess is he tossed her and her belongings into the ocean. She must have gotten caught on something that kept her under. Her handbag, too. Tides changed, dislodged her and up she popped.”

“You think the same guy who killed Tara killed her?”

“Seems obvious to me. Doesn’t it to you?”

Carla always concurred with Val. Without Rick as her partner, she thought of Val as both her superior officer and her mentor. She opened her mouth to agree, but said instead, “ Tara was left where she was killed, Naomi was moved. Why’d he change his ritual?”

Val looked at her, obviously surprised. “Ritual, Chapman? Have you been doing a little reading at night?”

Her cheeks heated. She had been. She didn’t know why, but she had suddenly felt as though it was important for her to take a proactive approach to her career. Maybe she was tired of feeling like the KWPD bimbo. “Yeah, a little.”

“Good job.” He turned his gaze back to the victim. “As for your question, I don’t know the answer. Responding to his environment. Circumstances. But what I do know is, two killings on this island is two too many.”

From behind them came the sound of others arriving: the evidence-collection team, a couple of guys from the sheriff’s department and a medical technician.

Val met her eyes. “I need you to do something for me. Check out a kid named Mark Morgan. Run a priors on him. He rents a room over on Packer. Apparently he’s disappeared, but you can talk to his landlord. If you can get a legal look around, do it.”

She glanced at the approaching officers, then back at him. “What’s this about?”

“If we’re lucky, a murder suspect.” He looked at the remains of Naomi Pearson. “We sure as hell need one.”

Carla did as Val requested. Mark Morgan had no priors. No known aliases. He was twenty years old and grew up in Texas. His landlady, a Key Wester who claimed to have met Ernest Hemingway on one of his visits to Sloppy Joe’s bar during the forties, had nothing but good things to say about the young man.

“Sweet as pie, that one,” the woman said, leading Carla down the hall to Mark Morgan’s room. She stopped in front of a door and looked at Carla, squinting against the curl of smoke rising from the cigarette dangling from her bright coral lips. “Anytime I needed something, he was happy to help. Always ‘yes ma’am’ and ‘no ma’am’ from him. I was sorry to lose him.”

“He moved out for good?”

“Don’t know for sure. He didn’t pay his rent this week, and I haven’t seen him.” Her hands, knotted with arthritis, shook as she found her master key. “That’s the way it is with these kids. They rent by the week then move on. He was here longer than most.”

Carla didn’t hide her disappointment. “The room’s been cleaned then?”

“Not yet. My girl who cleans for me, she’s been under the weather.” She smiled; the cigarette wobbled, its inch-long ash dropped to the floor. “Besides, I kinda hoped he’d come back.”

“You ever see him with other kids? A girlfriend?”

“A girl sometimes. Dark hair. Pretty.”

Tara had dark hair. “You think you could identify her from a picture?”