Hot Trick (A Detective Shelley Caldwell Novel) (3 page)

His mother had protected Jake from being turned into a full-fledged vampire the way she had been, and Jake had protected her in return, making sure she was safe during the day while she slept. I envied that kind of child-parent devotion, which I’d never experienced with my own mother. He’d stayed with her until the day she’d pushed him out of the nest by walking into the sun to commit vampire suicide.

Silke and I finished eating in sisterly silence. As usual, I tried to get the check, but for once Silke beat me to it.

“My treat.”

“Thanks.”

Considering she’d been out of regular work for a while, I was surprised but didn’t object. I didn’t want to undermine Silke’s generosity of spirit, another thing I loved about her.

Outside the bar, I said, “I’ll give you a ride home.”

“Nah, I’m meeting someone at a club in half an hour. I’ll take a taxi.”

“A boyfriend? You were drilling me and you were hiding your honey?”

“Not a boyfriend. Oriel Leger.”

“So you’re manhunting with Sebastian’s other assistant?” Who I didn’t particularly like. Then again, I didn’t really know her the way Silke must. I shouldn’t jump to judgment.

“We kind of hit it off, and we’re both dateless at the moment,” Silke said, quickly looking away. “You go home and get some sleep.”

I did have a long-awaited appointment with my shower and bed, not to mention two cats waiting to be fed.

Hugging Silke, I said, “We’ll talk tomorrow.”

Exhausted, I made my way back to my car but couldn’t keep from letting my mind wander back to Sebastian Cole. About the way he’d looked at me. There was a familiar air about him, but I couldn’t figure out what connection my tired brain was trying to make, so I told myself to give it up.

Falling into my Camaro, I decided I would think about it tomorrow.

I went on autopilot until I turned on my police scanner. Even when off-duty, I liked to keep abreast of the crime in the city.

“Drowning victim…the Chicago River north of Cermak,” dispatch said. “The woman was tied up and stuffed into the trunk of a car…”

I see a trunk…bound hands…water…deep water…

I did a U-turn and headed back in the opposite direction.

And wondered how the hell I could track down a supposed banshee.

My yearning for the comfort of my bed fled as I arrived on the murder scene already crowded with official vehicles circling a newer model Cadillac.

A model with a very big trunk.

I displayed my star to the uniformed officer trying to hold me back from entering what looked like a parking lot on the Chicago River’s South Branch. He waved me on and I pulled in, tucking the Camaro between a blue-and-white and an ambulance whose light bars flashed—one a luminous blue, the other blood red—against the night sky.

Its engine still running, a city tow truck sat a few yards from the car it had yanked out of the water. This stretch of the Chicago River was lined with trees, some old growth, more new. The vehicle had gone through several saplings. What was left of the young trees lay scattered across the ground like so many broken pick-up sticks.

Not many places where one could actually get right up against the river like this.

I took a better look around.

The intersection was sort of a no-man’s land. Bridges across the curves of the river served as shortcuts between Bridgeport and Pilsen and Chinatown. Amtrak and Orange Line rapid transit tracks ran parallel to the river, and warehouses in various stages of disrepair dotted the banks. The crumbling brick wall of one old building was painted with a mural, white letters advertising some product or other in Chinese. Across Canal, a marina was locked up against intruders.

The area was deserted except for whoever was inside a 24/7 restaurant to the north.

No one but cops around on foot.

Not even a damn banshee.

I wondered what the chances were of getting a witness to admit seeing the car take a dunk. Someone must have reported the accident.

Surveying the scene, I knew I would get my answer from the self-important detective in charge—my nemesis, Detective Mike Norelli.

Silently groaning, I put on my happy face and joined him. Wearing his usual ill-fitting suit—his tie no doubt holding vestiges of his last meal—Norelli was on his cell and didn’t seem to notice me. He stood next to the open car trunk, in the way of a crime scene investigator trying to work around him.

The body hadn’t been moved, and I could see the slight figure of a woman in what looked like an expensive business suit. Her body was still relaxed, the limbs not yet set by rigor mortis, which happened two to four hours after death. A fresh kill. Her wet hair appeared dark in the moonlight, and her face was turned away from me. Just as well. I’d looked into the face of death enough lately. I didn’t need to see hers. Didn’t need another one haunting me until I set things right.

I closed my eyes, offered a prayer for the victim’s soul and asked that her killer be brought to justice.

Preferably by me.

If there was anything I hated more than paperwork, it was the thought of a murderer walking free, with the potential to kill again.

My moment of contemplation ended when Norelli asked, “What the hell are you doing here, Caldwell?”

“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d join the party.”

“Party favors are all gone. You could be too. This is my case.”

“Uh-huh.”

I glanced back into the trunk for a better look at the ligatures around the woman’s hands and feet. My mind was already working.

Rope. What kind? Where had it been bought?

And the knots. Anything special about them?

I glanced back across the street at the marina. Sailor’s knots, maybe?

“No, no, no you don’t,” Norelli blustered. “I already told you this was my case.”

“You need a partner. Walker is on vacation.”

Detective Jamal Walker paired up with Norelli more often than not. CPD detectives weren’t assigned partners. Certain detectives just drifted toward each other because they worked well together. You work on my case and I work on yours. A time-honored tradition.

“With Walker off, you need someone to hold your hand.”

“You’re not my type.”

“I’m not asking you to dance with me, Norelli. Just work with me.”

“Like I said, it’s my case.”

“Correction.” I took a big breath and swallowed my pride. “I would like to work with you.”

Not really, but I
needed
to be on this case. There was some connection between the little Irishman who’d approached me and the dead woman.

Maybe Sebastian too.

I don’t know what made me think it, but I couldn’t shake the idea. And if Sebastian was involved, so was Silke, if only by association. Years on the job told me I was onto a lead. Following my instinct usually served me well.

“Why now?” Norelli asked, suspicion ripe in his voice. “Why this case?”

I shrugged and gave him my most heartfelt expression. “I finally realized I was missing out. Walker made me see that. He was right when he said you
are
the job, Norelli.” True. “You’re good, and you see that justice is served.” True, as well. “I want to learn at your feet.” Not so much.

He barked a laugh. “Sounds like a load of bullshit to me.”

“C’mon, give me a break already.” I kept my voice even and a smile frozen on my lips. “Haven’t I paid enough dues for you yet? Didn’t we work okay on the cult killer case?”

“You did a credible job.”

I had done a fantastic job, both of solving it and covering up the fact that real vampires had been involved, which he’d never even suspected.

My job was mega-important to me and I’d almost lost it once. When I found the first body in the cult killer case and called it in, it disappeared by the time backup arrived. Case closed. But not for me. I hadn’t been able to let it go and made it my mission to find out what happened. And my reward? Ordered to get psych evaluation, I’d been taken out of Homicide, demoted to a rubber gun cop until the psychiatrist deemed me ready to make a comeback.

So after getting back in the CPD’s good graces, I’d worked undercover, pretending to be Silke, at a Goth bar. That’s where I’d met Jake. And the vampire. Make that vampires, plural.

I’d solved the case and recovered my standing in the department, but ever since I’d known that vampires existed right here in River City, I’d been trying to avoid anything that would make me look bad or even foolish. I’d been walking on eggs around the department, blaming the past. I couldn’t imagine talking about the supernatural, stuff no one else believed in—stuff I hadn’t believed in myself until I’d been forced to.

“C’mon, Norelli,” I wheedled, “let me in.”

He thought about it for a moment before relenting. “All right. But everything goes through me.”

Everything he knew about. I wasn’t going to give him more than I had to, not if it meant protecting Silke. I’d become an expert at that.

“Deal?” he asked.

“Deal. So how did we get the tip on the victim?” I asked, wondering if he’d tell me about Casey Brogan.

Had the supposed banshee caught Norelli and given
him
the story after I’d driven off?

“Phone call. A man. He was driving past this intersection and saw the car head straight for those trees.”

“A man. No name?”

“He identified himself as Mr. Concerned Citizen.”

Norelli said it like I should know better. And really I did. But it never hurt to ask anyway. I always asked. Part of my M.O. A detective was closer to being a researcher than a street cop. Asking questions was what we did. Sometimes, when we got lucky, we even got the answers we were looking for.

“So what do we got?” Norelli asked the crime scene investigator.

“Fiber. Hair. The usual.”

“Any prints?”

“All over the place. Looks like three sets.”

“What are our chances of running them fast?” I asked.

Norelli gave me one of his special looks. “Tell me she’s related to the mayor or an alderman.”

I knew better about that too. If the case wasn’t what we called a heater—the victim being connected—it could take weeks, even months, to get results. It wasn’t like television. CSI gave viewers the wrong impression of the way a case was handled.

I said, “We have to ID her first.”

“Julie Martin, Wrigleyville address.”

“It’s a start,” Norelli said. “She wearing a ring?”

“Wedding and engagement. A big rock.”

“I wonder what the husband was doing while the wife was out getting herself killed,” Norelli muttered.

I didn’t comment. I doubted the husband was involved. Not unless he was somehow connected to Sebastian Cole. The idea that Cole had escaped a trunk in the river and the Martin woman hadn’t escaped a trunk if a different kind seemed too sweet a coincidence, and I didn’t believe in coincidences.

One of the uniformed officers approached. “Hey, Norelli, I ran the plates. Registered to one Joseph Martin. Here’s the address.” He handed the detective a slip of paper.

Norelli nodded. “I’ll follow up, inform him of his wife’s death.” When the uniform didn’t move off, he asked “Something else?”

“It’s just weird is all.”

“What exactly.”

“That the victim drowned in the river. In a trunk.”

Norelli spread his hands, as if waiting for the punch line.

My gut roiled. Here it came.

“You know that Sebastian guy?” the uniform said. “The escape artist?”

“What about him?”

“He pulled an escape tonight. From a trunk—the luggage kind, but a trunk—in the Chicago River.”

“You don’t say.”

“Honest. I heard about it on the radio.”

“Huh. An escape and a drowning, both in the river and on the same night.”

“Weird coincidence,” the officer said.

“Yeah, probably,” I said, “but it wouldn’t hurt to check it out.”

Okay, so I needed to tell Norelli that Silke worked for Sebastian without seeming like I’d set out to trick him. Norelli might be an idiot at times, but he wasn’t stupid. I decided diving right in and laying my cards on the table while the information was hot was better than letting the truth leak out later. I didn’t want him to think I was trying to hide the truth just in case I needed to be evasive later.

“Hey, Norelli, another weird coincidence…” I took a big breath and added, “I was at Sebastian’s escape event tonight.”

Norelli frowned. “So you saw this Sebastian in person.”

“Actually, I met him.”

He gave me another of those looks that didn’t bode well for me. “That wouldn’t have anything to do with why you wanted in on this case.”

I took a big breath. “My sister, Silke, works for him.”

“So you were playing me.”

“No! I don’t know that there’s a connection any more than you do. It’s just been a really weird night, starting with Casey Brogan.”

“Who the hell is Casey Brogan?”

“A wannabe informant who stopped me on my way to the parking lot.”

“He had information about the murder?”

“Nothing concrete. He was all touchy-feely, said he saw someone in a trunk in the water—”

“Saw?”

“As in psychic vision. I put it to the full moon. Then I went to see Sebastian’s performance and got a little uptight when that trunk went into the river. But no one died.”

“Only now someone did.”

“But Brogan didn’t know enough for me to take him seriously. C’mon, Norelli.”

“All right. But you coulda told me all this right off.”

“So you’d look at me like I was crazy?”

“Who said you aren’t?”

I took a relieved breath at the insult. The crisis was over. Apparently I’d passed inspection by laying out the truth. “So where do you want me to start?”

“With Sebastian. Get an address on him so we can see what he has to say about the similarity between his act and Julie Martin’s death.”

The Martin woman, in a body bag now, was being carried to the ambulance.

“I’m going to pay the husband a visit,” Norelli announced. “And then I’m going to talk to the medical examiner. You can meet me at the morgue. Then we can see what this Sebastian has to say together.”

“Assuming I can get a fix on where to find him.”

“You want on this case, get it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Norelli nodded and stalked off toward his vehicle, stopping to talk to the sergeant in charge of the crime scene.

I pulled out my cell and called Silke, but my sister didn’t pick up, so I left a message. I tried calling her place, but she didn’t answer there, either. Another message. She must still be clubbing with the uncongenial Oriel.

Not having any other way of getting a bead on the man, I decided to go home, take that shower and put on some clean clothes. Three days of working on a homicide and I was a long way from being fresh as a daisy or any other flower. My clothes could probably stand up by themselves.

About to leave the scene, I spotted someone hanging back by the line of trees along the riverbank. Dressed in black pants and a long-sleeved shirt, he watched the goings on, trying to make himself invisible. The thing was…I got itchy watching him. Surreptitiously moving closer, I felt the sensation increase. The guy looked familiar. I was almost on him before he realized my presence. As he turned, moonlight played over caramel-colored skin and eyes flat of expression.

He looked just like Snake Eyes.

“Hey, I want to talk to you,” I said, flashing my star.

He took a step out of the trees as if he were going to comply…and then whipped around and ran down a path toward the river.

I was right behind him. “Stop! Police!” My voice echoed off the water. When he didn’t slow, I yelled, “I need backup!”

Then I heard other raised voices behind me. Backup, I hoped.

“This way!” I ran faster.

Ahead, Snake Eyes was scrambling. When nearly caught up to him, I took a leap of faith. Literally. I flew at him, rammed him from behind. The bank was muddy and slanted down toward the river. His feet slipped and we both went down hard.

Cursing, he slid out from under me and tried to kick me. I caught his leg and twisted. He rolled with the motion and freed himself. I rolled, too, caught him by the ankle and jerked. Down he went again, while I got to my feet.

I pulled my gun. “Hands where I can see them,” I gasped, out of breath.

He whipped his hand up, all right, but it wasn’t empty and it went straight for my head. I saw the tree limb coming too late.