Blood Crimes: Book One (32 page)

      “That’s not quite true,” I told her. “She’s someone who’s had some tough luck recently. I’m taking her back to her parents as soon as she has a good meal in her.”

      Debra’s smile dropped, leaving her face pinched. Carol turned to her and put a hand on her shoulder. Debra shrank back from it.

      “You poor thing,” Carol said. “What do you feel like eating?”

      “Nothing,” Debra murmured.

      “Get her a cheeseburger and a chocolate milkshake,” I told Carol. “And how about getting me your meatloaf plate? Think you can hide some extra mash potatoes on it?”

      “I’ll think of something,” Carol said, flashing me a grin as she took the menus and headed back.

      Debra started tearing at one of her fingernails. “You’re the detective in the newspaper,” she said without looking at me.

      “That’s right. Ever read my stuff?”

      “Yeah, it’s okay.”

      “Everyone’s a critic these days.” I leaned forward. “Honey, they really are worried sick about you. When I met with your daddy today he didn’t look too well.”

      She giggled again and then looked up at me, her eyes stone hard. “I bet he didn’t call the police.”

      I didn’t know whether he had or not. “Why do you say that?”

      “You’re the detective. Figure it out.” She looked down at her nail and continued to tear at it.

      “You don’t think your daddy’s worried about you?” Her lips started moving, but she didn’t say anything.

      A sickish feeling pushed into my stomach. Carol brought the food. I pulled her aside and asked if she could watch Debra while I made a phone call. She said sure, and told me I could use the phone by the cash register.

      I called a Denver cop I knew and asked if a missing persons report had been filed for Debra Singer. He told me to wait a minute and he’d check. When he came back, he told me there wasn’t. “Is she missing?” he asked.

      “I’m not sure.” I hung up and went back to the table. Debra was nibbling on her burger, barely making a dent in it. I had lost my appetite. I waited until she put down the burger, and then asked her why she’d run away.

      She looked up and saw that I knew. Her face looked pale and pained. She squeezed her eyes shut.

      “Honey, what did he do to you?”

      “What do you think?” she asked in a tiny whisper. And then she told me.

      I had half suspected it when her daddy hired me. I guess I tried convincing myself it was the way he had explained it. I wanted to believe it was that way, that Debra was a troubled kid who had gotten into drugs and other bad stuff, but if I could bring her back, him and his wife would do whatever it took to straighten her out. If only I’d find her and bring her back . . . .

      If only it could’ve been that way. With all the lowlife cases I’d been handling recently, I needed it to be that way. I needed a chance to do some good for a change. Rescue the lost, wayward daughter. Bring her back to her heartsick parents. Instead I was right back in the gutter, scraping my nose against it.

      Debra was describing the abuse, about how it began when she was seven and how it had gradually progressed. As she talked, her small face tightened, her words coming out in an angry rush. Inside I was reeling.

      Tears had started to well up. One of them broke free and rolled down her cheek. It took a while before I could find my voice and ask whether her mother knew.

      “She couldn’t care less,” she said. Her bottom lip looked like it was about to give way.

      “Now, honey, that couldn’t be true—”

      “I said, she couldn’t care less!” she screamed. “She couldn’t care less! How many more times you want me to say it?”

      She pushed her burger away and dropped her arms and head to the table, sobbing. “You should’ve left me alone,” she forced out, her words choked and anguished. “I had a glass wall separating me from them. No one was going to touch me there.”

      I told her I’d help. That I’d work things out.
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y words sounded silly but there wasn’t much else I could say. Carol came over and asked if everything was okay. I didn’t answer her. She sat next to Debra, and Debra turned and fell against her and started sobbing harder than before.

      I sat and watched for a while, the sickish feeling in my stomach knotting my insides. Then I got up and called Craig Singer. I told him I’d found his daughter, but there were some problems and I needed to talk with him. He asked whether he should have his wife join us, and I told him it would probably be better if she didn’t. A hesitancy crept into his voice as he asked how Debra was. I told him we’d better talk about it in person and we agreed to meet at his home in a half hour.

      I walked back to the table. Debra had stopped crying, but it looked like she could start up again any moment. The short order cook yelled out to Carol that food was stacking up. I asked her if she could keep an eye on Debra.

      “It could be a while before I come back, but it’s important.”

      Carol looked uncomfortable. “I’ll try, Johnny. I have to get back to work, though.”

      I gave Debra a weak smile. “Stay put,” I told her. “Everything will be just fine. I promise you that.” She looked away.

* * * * *

      Craig singer lived in Arvada, a suburb on the western edge of Denver. As I drove, I found myself daydreaming, thinking about things I hadn’t thought of in years. It kind of shook me up, because they were things I really had no right thinking about. Things that wouldn’t do me any good at all. It shook me up bad enough that I had to pull over on the highway to collect my thoughts.

      As I sat there trying to clear my head, a state trooper pulled up behind me. He walked over to my car, bent his head towards the window and sniffed, trying to detect alcohol.

      “Everything okay in there?”

      “Everything’s fine. I was just feeling a little woozy.”

      “You haven’t been drinking, have you?”

      I laughed. “Not yet, officer. But I could sure use one.”

      “Why don’t you show me some identification?”

      I handed him my driver’s license. He studied it slowly and handed it back to me. “I enjoy reading your column,
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r. Lane,” he said. “You okay now?”

      “I think so, officer.” I had a sick feeling in my gut that told me I wasn’t. 

Bad Thoughts (Chapter 1)
 

      November 9, 1997.
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orning.

      The fingers on his right hand—the ones that had been broken and mangled when he was thirteen—were being squeezed hard, forcing him to move through the cold and darkness. He tried to fight it, tried to see who it was behind him, but the grip on his fingers tightened, heightening the pain. He gave up and let himself be pushed forward.

      He had no idea where he was. It was too dark to see anything. There was no sense of anything around him except that presence forcing his arm behind his back and squeezing his two fingers. He could smell a faint but oddly familiar odor, like formaldehyde and rotting garbage.

      Up ahead was something white and small. As he got closer he could see it was a woman. He was about thirty yards from her, but he could tell she was beautiful, thin and slender with yellowish blond hair. But there was something wrong. Her mouth looked funny, bigger than it should’ve. As he was forced closer he could see she was naked and her hands and feet were bound. He could see pure terror shining in her eyes. A red piece of cloth had been stuffed in her mouth. Thin red lines crisscrossed her body.

      Panic overtook him. He tried to fight whatever it was that was squeezing his fingers. He tried, but the pressure tightened and the pain became unbearable. And that smell . . . it was stronger now, gagging him, making his head reel. Whatever strength he had bled out of him.

      A knife was lying on her naked belly. He was forced forward until his free hand was inches from it. The pain made him pick it up, made him place the point of the knife against her throat. The pain was trying to force him to stab her in the throat. There was an unspoken promise—push the knife a little further, just break the skin—only draw a drop of blood, and the pain will stop. He tried to fight it. He looked in her eyes. A muffled sound escaped from her as she tried to scream. He dropped the knife to the ground. A loud obscenity was barked out from behind him. The voice was vaguely familiar. Where did he know it from . . .

      Then his fingers were twisted with a hard jerk, twisted to the point where they were about to break. The pain exploded inside him.

      And then somehow he was free. Falling . . .

* * * * *

      Bill Shannon awoke in bed. He was doubled over in pain, his two fingers throbbing, a cold sweat soaking his body. He grabbed his fingers and tried to massage them, tried to ebb the pain flowing from them. They were thicker than his other fingers and were a slightly bluish-purple color. It had been almost twenty years since they had been broken. They had been so badly damaged the doctors at first didn’t believe they could be saved. They were never quite right, though. Always stiff, always slightly purple in color, and at times, especially when it got cold and damp, they would throb like all hell.

      The pain faded. He pulled himself up and leaned forward until his forehead rested in his hands. His skin felt cold, clammy. At least he didn’t wake up screaming, god, at least he could be thankful for that. ’Cause if he had . . .

      It was still a few minutes before the alarm was set to go off. Susie stirred next to him. He looked down and studied her. She was an exceptionally beautiful woman. Although the only blood in her was Irish, she had a dark, exotic
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editerranean look about her. Small and petite with long black hair that now lay across her oval face. As she slept, Shannon almost didn’t recognize her. She looked so calm and at peace, so much younger than her twenty-nine years. Even though they had been married for ten years, at that moment it seemed incredible to him that they knew each other.

      Susie opened her eyes. As she recognized Shannon, and then as she focused on the perspiration dampening his skin, the color left her face.

      “You’re having nightmares again,” she said hoarsely.

      Shannon didn’t say anything.

      “What was it about, Bill?”

      “I don’t know,” he lied. “I really don’t. But I don’t think it’s anything to worry about.”

      She rolled over and turned her back to him. “It’s early for you to be having nightmares. Three months early. You told me you were making progress with your therapist, that this year was going to be different.”

      “I really don’t think this is anything to worry about,” Shannon repeated weakly.

      Susie lay quietly for a few moments. Then she got up and headed towards the bathroom. Before closing the door she turned to him and told him she hoped he was right. “I don’t think I can take it again this year,” she said.

      She closed the door behind her. A minute later the shower was turned on. Shannon fell back onto the bed and listened to the soft drone of the water. Susie was right, it was too early for him to be having nightmares. February tenth was still three months away.

      He closed his eyes and thought about his dream. Usually he couldn’t remember them. They’d be right at the edge of his subconscious, right where he could just about get a finger or two on them, and then they’d slip away. God, if this is what he dreamed about he could be thankful for that. This one, though . . .

      He never saw that woman before. He knew that. She seemed so real, though. Shannon shivered thinking about her eyes, the pure, raw terror that flooded her blue eyes. And that smell. It was so damn familiar . . .

* * * * *

      Neither of them had any appetite for breakfast. Shannon drank some instant coffee and then he drove Susie to the law office in South Boston where she worked as a legal secretary. During the ride she sat frozen, her small hands pressed together, her eyes rigid as they stared straight ahead. As she got out of the car she gave her husband an uneasy look.

      “Bill,” she said, her face softening, “please tell your therapist about your nightmare. Promise?”

      “Sure.” He tried to smile at her. “But I don’t think it’s anything to worry about. People have nightmares sometimes, right? It’s normal.”

      As she stared at him the softness from around her eyes faded, leaving her face both drawn and tired. Without a word she turned from him and walked away, her movement as frigid as the November morning air. Shannon watched as she headed towards the building’s entrance. He struggled to keep his smile intact. For some reason he hoped she’d turn around, that she’d relent and give him a reassuring look, let him know there was nothing to worry about. He watched as she disappeared into the building, not once looking back at him. He couldn’t blame her. He knew in the pit of his stomach his nightmare was anything but normal.

      But, as he told himself, February was still three months away. He could still beat it. Just block the damn thing out of his mind because nothing happened. Nothing but a crazy nightmare. His lips pressed into a tight smile as he pulled away from the curb. Twenty minutes later his jaw muscles ached as he drove into the back lot behind the Cambridge Central Square police station.