The Scent of Murder (A Veronica Shade Thriller Book 2) Read online

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  The Scent of Murder

  A Veronica Shade Thriller

  Book 2

  Patrick Logan

  Prologue

  PART I – Dolls

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  PART II – Watches

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  PART III – The Dollmaker

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Epilogue

  END

  Author’s Note

  The Sound of Murder

  Prologue

  PART I – The Interview

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Other Books by Patrick Logan

  For my mom.

  Your love of books is what started me reading and keeps me writing.

  The Scent of Murder

  A Veronica Shade Thriller

  Book 2

  Patrick Logan

  Prologue

  The display was nearly ready. He’d already painted her face an alabaster white and had drawn small red circles on each of her cheeks. Using the same red lipstick, he traced a perfect heart on her mouth, extending the curved lines just a little higher than her actual lips.

  Almost ready, he thought, taking a step backward and observing his handiwork. He was getting better at this. The first time, he’d been so disgusted that he was barely able to finish. And it showed. This time? This time, he viewed the corpse through a different lens.

  This wasn’t a person.

  It was a doll.

  And it was perfect—almost perfect. There was something off about the seated doll. Something not quite right.

  The man cocked his head to one side to acquire a new perspective.

  The legs, he concluded after a short pause, they aren’t wide enough.

  With a gloved hand, the man reached out and grabbed the doll’s left ankle. It was like a piece of dried timber in his palm and when he stretched it, the doll’s hips shifted. For one horrifying second, he thought it was going to topple.

  In his mind, he pictured the doll falling away from the tree, landing face-first in the grass. That would be a disaster—if the makeup smudged, everything would be ruined.

  He didn’t have time to apply more, to start all over again.

  The man adjusted the doll’s waist, pressing it firmly against the massive Douglas Fir. Using both hands this time, he forced the doll’s legs apart, moving his hands slowly from her ankles to her knees to assure maximum spread.

  That’s good, he thought. That’s better… but still not perfect.

  He set to work on her arms next, placing the doll’s hands behind her head, elbows high. Rigor had begun to set in, making the doll pliable but also allowing it to hold its shape. A firm push on the upper part of her back, right between the shoulder blades, forced her breasts up and out.

  The man bit his lower lip.

  There was still something flawed about the scene that ruined the illusion. So startling was this realization that, for a moment, he stopped thinking of the corpse as a doll, and instead considered her a human being.

  His stomach lurched and, to avoid vomiting, he averted his eyes, sending his gaze skyward to the canopy of leaves above. The moon that shone down on him, on his work, was bright and full, like a giant, unblinking eye.

  That’s it, he thought, a grin forming on his lips. It’s the eyes.

  He forced himself to look at the doll again. Its eyes were open, and the blue irises, growing paler by the minute, were fixed straight ahead. Even though they were lifeless eyes, they were still too… real for a doll.

  The man tried to shut her lids with a gloved forefinger, but the thin skin of her eyelids resisted. He got the right lid to half-mast before becoming frustrated at the lack of dexterity afforded him by the thick wool gloves. He pulled a glove off and then used his thumb to forcibly close each of the doll’s lids.

  That was it—it was perfect.

  But instead of feeling elation, the man only felt guilt.

  That, like the nausea, would also pass, he knew. But it would take time. Probably less than with the first, but it was impossible to know for certain.

  The man put his glove back on and stared at his creation one last time.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the woods. The only reply came in the form of a deep throaty growl—probably a bear—somewhere in the distance. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  PART I – Dolls

  Chapter 1

  “Are you really going to eat that?” Detective Veronica Shade asked, her eyes drifting to the heart attack in waiting on her partner’s plate. Pretty much every pork product imaginable floated in a puddle of rendered fat. There were some runny eggs in there somewhere, and perhaps some baked beans, but these were lost amongst the glistening juices.

  “Well, I didn’t buy it just to look at it.” As if this point needed proving, Detective Fred Furlow speared a sausage and took a large bite. “You want some?”

  Veronica looked down at her own plate. She’d ordered a three-egg omelet with ham and green peppers, and a side of rye toast. Hers was mostly gone on account of the kitchen needing extra time to finish cooking Freddie’s meal. And her partner, ever the gentleman, had insisted that she eat before it got cold.

  “What if we swapped plates?” she asked.

  Freddie groaned.

  “Not this again… these damn what-ifs of yours.”

  “No, I’m serious. What if we swapped everything we ate, just for one day? See how that goes?”

  Freddie finished his sausage and then patted his massive belly.

  “I know how that will go. I’ll starve to death.”

  “You won’t die,” she countered with an eye roll. “But you might be able to run just a little faster.”

  “I don’t run for anything,” Freddie said, moving on to a crispy slice of bacon. “Or anyone.”

  Veronica caught the slightest whiff of gasoline as if the diner’s door had opened and a breeze carried the odor in her direction.

  The door, of course, remained closed and the nearest gas station was a good three miles away.

  Smiling now, Veronica drowned out the smell by taking a sip of coffee.

  “What do you think about this Internal Affairs guy?” Freddie asked when he came up for air.

  The smile vanished and Veronica sighed. This being her first case back from leave, she hadn’t spent much time with IA Officer Cole Batherson. During her recovery, she’d visited Freddie and the captain several times at the precinct and had been introduced to Cole. The man seemed nice enough, but she was guarded. IA wasn’t usually stationed with you to make friends. They were there to identify problems, to find weak spots in the chain of command, but in Veronica’s experience, they ended up causing more issues than they solved.

  “What do I think of him? I don’t know yet. What do I think about having him around? Well, I think it’s been three months since Officer Ken Cameron was arrested. That’s a long time to have a man looking over your shoulder, correcting spelling errors in every police report you fill out.”

  “Most expensive spellchecker the City of Greenham has ever hired,” Freddie remarked with a laugh. “At least with my spelling, he’s earning his salary.” The detective burst an egg yolk with the side of his fork, spreading more liquid onto his already wet plate. “How much do you think those IA guys make, anyway?”

  Veronica had no idea how much Cole Batherson made, bu
t if his fancy double-monk dress shoes he always wore, monogrammed, no less, were any indication, it was a hell of a lot more than a detective.

  Veronica said as much.

  “Maybe… maybe I’ll go into IA,” Freddie suggested as he continued to tackle his meal.

  “Then who would finish my leftover bagels and doughnuts?”

  Freddie smiled, but Veronica felt an unexpected pang of sadness. She recalled her dad’s friend and mentor, Grant Sutcliffe, lying in bed, connected to so many machines that he’d become part of the matrix.

  “Fred, you know I love you, right?”

  “Here it comes.”

  “No, seriously. I’m worried about you.” Veronica hesitated, recalling her partner barreling through smoke and fire to save first her, then Sheriff Steve Burns. “I know you hate to run, but now that I know you can do it, have you ever thought about doing it a little more often? Like on a semi-regular basis, say?”

  Freddie’s mouth was full—no accident—and he didn’t answer.

  “I’m just worried about you, Freddie.”

  Freddie swallowed.

  “Running isn’t my thing. But I might consider taking up some sort of exercise.”

  Veronica inhaled sharply and, this time, no amount of coffee would mask the sweet smell of gasoline.

  It had been a while since she’d experienced such a visceral manifestation of her synesthesia. Her condition, a rare neurological mixing of the senses, caused Veronica to smell and hear things in response to specific visual cues and, conversely, experience visual hallucinations in response to certain odors.

  Weekly sessions with a psychiatrist helped curb her visions and control her emotions in response to these projections, but until very recently, they’d failed to provide insight into their origins. Veronica had accepted that her condition was developmental in nature and not linked to trauma or PTSD.

  And she’d held that belief until three months ago.

  Until her brother, a sibling she hadn’t known existed, targeted her. Memories of a long-forgotten childhood surfaced, revealing a horrible secret and an even more disturbing tragedy.

  The only good thing to come out of the reunion was that Veronica finally understood the origins of her synesthesia.

  A human lie detector, her subconscious picked up visual cues and converted them into the smell of gasoline: the more confident she was of the lie, the stronger the smell.

  The odor of sweat, and occasionally just the sight of it, caused a blue halo, like a watercolor aura, to waft from the source.

  And finally, Veronica’s most Pavlovian reaction was the sight of bright bursts of flame-like colors in the presence of extreme violence, coupled with the sound of a child—her brother—singing a taunting lullaby.

  Veronica had hoped that knowing the driving force behind her synesthesia would help her cope with her condition. But now, she was stuck wondering if she would have been better off not remembering what had happened to her and her family all those years ago.

  And what she’d done.

  Veronica found herself massaging the back of her right hand and forced herself to stop. The burns had healed completely, but she swore that she could still feel the heat of the fire.

  This, she knew, had nothing to do with synesthesia.

  “What’s wrong, Veronica?” Freddie asked.

  Veronica shook her head.

  “Nothing,” she said quickly. After nearly being burned alive by her brother, Veronica had been granted an indefinite leave from the City of Greenham PD. After two weeks, she’d gotten squirrelly and tried to come back. Her father had shot that idea down immediately. After a month and a half, and a full dozen psych sessions later, she’d once again attempted to return to duty.

  This time, Freddie had intervened.

  Veronica had finally settled on a three-month break. And even though the captain and her partner had agreed, they’d done so reluctantly, and she knew they were still apprehensive about her return.

  “You’re just—you were making a face, that’s all.”

  “What kind of face?” Veronica said more aggressively than she’d intended.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “No—no, it’s fine, Freddie, I was just… thinking. What kind of face was it?”

  Her partner raised an eyebrow as if asking, Do you really want to know?

  “All right, well, sometimes you pinch your nose and get this look in your eyes. The first time it happened, when we became partners, I thought it was me. I kept checking if I had BO or something.”

  Veronica smirked.

  “You smell fine, Freddie.”

  So long as you’re telling the truth.

  Detective Fred Furlow was of the old guard. In his late fifties, he nearly had more police experience—twenty-two years—than Veronica had been alive—twenty-six glorious rotations around the sun. Being a rookie detective, the captain’s decision to team her up with a seasoned vet like Freddie was no accident. It also wasn’t a coincidence that Veronica’s father happened to be the police captain and Freddie was Peter Shade’s longtime friend.

  But Veronica wasn’t bitter about what some might perceive as having a babysitter at work. Aside from being close to three-hundred pounds and not being able to run for almost anything, Freddie was a fantastic partner. He was a good cop, and an even better man.

  “When do I make this sniffy face?”

  Freddie chuckled, sending a ripple from his chin to his throat.

  “It’s not a sniffy face, it’s just a look. As for when? It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s almost always when someone’s lying to you—to us.”

  Veronica was surprised by Freddie’s insight.

  There was only one person who knew about her synesthesia—not her father, her partner, or her boyfriend—her psychiatrist, Dr. Jane Bernard, whom she’d been seeing for nearly two decades.

  Veronica’s phone rang and, at a loss for what to say, she was grateful for the interruption.

  “Detective Shade?”

  She recognized the voice as belonging to a rookie beat cop, Angela Turpin.

  “Officer Turpin, what can I do for you?”

  “We’re over here at Wellesley and Maine.”

  “And?”

  “And there’s been another robbery—this time at Alfred’s Jewelry.”

  Across from her, Freddie pushed his plate away and leaned forward in anticipation.

  “And?” Veronica asked again. Sometimes rookie cops said too little, while others couldn’t shut up. Officer Turpin was clearly the former.

  “And… I think you should come see this. This is third—”

  “Say no more,” Veronica cut in. “We’ll be right there.”

  Robberies, especially in the middle of the day on a Monday, typically weren’t the most exciting cases, but she’d been off for so long that anything was better than sitting on her ass watching Freddie eat.

  She snapped her phone closed and started to stand.

  “What is it?” Freddie asked. “Where we going?”

  “Robbery at another jewelry store.”

  Freddie nodded and started to remove his car keys from his pocket before laboriously pushing himself to his feet.

  Veronica reached out and snatched the keys from his hand.

  “What the—”

  “It’s only four blocks from here, Freddie. Race you?”

  And then she was off, not giving the man an opportunity to object.

  Veronica knew that Freddie was hesitant to run, but he could walk. It wasn’t much, but it was something. And all joking aside, she was genuinely afraid that if Freddie didn’t do some sort of exercise and clean up his diet, she would be looking for a new partner before the year was out.

  Chapter 2

  Bear County was the largest county in Oregon, encompassing a large portion of land east of Portland and north of Canyon City. More than half of the county’s population resided in the City of Greenham, with the rest spread out among the three next largest cities: Matheson, Sullivan, and East Argham. A smattering of folk lived in the unincorporated areas and were almost exclusively cattle or corn farmers.

  Yet, despite its name, neither Sheriff Steve Burns nor any of his one hundred and twelve deputies, had ever seen a bear in Bear County. Oregon had one of the largest populations of Black Bears in the United States, but they avoided Bear County like the plague.

  Until now.

  “Should we call in a Fish and Wildlife Warden?” Chief Deputy Marcus McVeigh asked.