Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 2 Read online

  Where could it have gone?

  Even though the most likely answer to that question was that the janitor had come by and swept it up thinking that it was just a piece of garbage. And now it was resting in a landfill somewhere. And yet, something told Drake that this wasn’t the case. That finger bone…

  Again, the image of Simmons’s skeleton lying on top of the pool table came to mind.

  What the hell was Simmons doing in the evidence room?

  Drake had known Simmons for several years and didn’t think the guy was dirty. But how much stock could he put in that assessment, given that he was half in the bag most of the time?

  It was terribly suspicious that the man had gone into the evidence on his day off, the one day that the cameras were down.

  Without realizing it, Drake had made a loop and was now back at his car.

  Full circle… I need to retrace Simmons’s steps from Wednesday morning.

  ***

  Drake parked out front of 62nd precinct and made his way inside, walking at a good clip.

  Simmons was here for less than half an hour, he thought, which meant that he had to move quickly and he had to know what he was looking for.

  It took Drake several minutes to navigate his way toward the evidence room and there he was greeted by an officer behind a chain-link fence.

  The man said hello as Drake approached, and he responded with a curt nod. He didn’t recognize the man, but it was clear by the way he looked at Drake that the officer knew who he was. Most likely the man was new, as working the evidence room was just a tiny step above handing out parking tickets.

  “Hey, question for ya: were you here when Detective Simmons came by Wednesday morning?”

  The man sighed.

  “Yeah, I let him in. He wasn’t in there for more than five minutes, and then he came out. He didn’t bring anything in or out.”

  “Any idea why he went in? What about his state of mind? Was he agitated? Anxious?”

  “He was… in a hurry, I guess. He didn’t seem upset or anything like that. He just said he had to check an evidence number. I didn’t ask too many questions, you know. He was a detective after all. Nice guy, too. Fuck.”

  Drake nodded. What the officer was describing wasn’t terribly uncommon; unless you wanted to forever stay as the evidence bitch, you didn’t spend time pissing people off. Especially those who outranked you.

  Drake leaned into the cage slightly and peered up at the camera. There were two, he noticed, one aimed directly at him, and the other toward the evidence room.

  “Both of these cameras were out? Or just the one in the actual vault?”

  The man looked up at the cameras.

  “Both. In fact, the only reason why I remember that he was here was because he signed the sheet. Otherwise, I might have forgotten—I mean, he was in and out. As for the cameras, shit, I don’t even know where the switch for them is.”

  The man was getting nervous, but Drake couldn’t tell if it was because he thought he was nervous about losing his job, or if he knew more than he was letting on.

  “Mind if I come in and take a look around?”

  The man cringed.

  “I—I don’t know, Drake. I mean, I know you’re a consultant and what not, and I wanna help, I really do, but you’re not, I mean, you’re not technically—”

  Drake reached over and grabbed the sign in sheet and scribbled his name on one of the blank lines. He checked his watch and then marked down 8:46.

  “Look, I can call Sergeant Yasiv, but he’s kinda busy right now trying to catch a killer.”

  The man cringed again.

  “Yeah, I know but…”

  I’m losing time with this shit.

  “I’ll tell you what, I’m just trying to re-create what happened to Simmons the day that he came in here. You can come with me if you want. Five minutes. Just like him. That’s it.”

  The man was still clearly uncomfortable with this idea, but Drake was already reaching inside and trying to unlock the door himself.

  “Okay, fine,” the man relented at last.

  The door had barely been unlocked before Drake burst through, pushing by the officer.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll be quick.”

  Chapter 29

  The evidence room was just the way Drake remembered it: rows upon rows of cardboard boxes and plastic bags. The metal shelves upon which the evidence was stored looked to be from the dark ages. Simple, metal frames that stretched to infinity.

  It had been a long time since he’d been in here, and seeing it again confirmed that Simmons didn’t have time to go on a wild goose chase. He had to have known what he was looking for.

  Drake chewed his lip and thought about this for a moment.

  How can I figure out what he was looking for? A bag or box with less dust on it, maybe?

  He shook his head.

  “No, that won’t help.”

  Drake walked down one of the aisles, chosen at random. As he did, his mind flipped back to something that the dickhead officer Kramer had said, something about how Simmons had been the first one inside Peter Kellington’s house after he’d been killed.

  Maybe…

  “Hey, let me ask you something; the evidence from Peter Kellington’s case… the stuff taken from his house… is it still here?”

  The man squinted.

  “Yeah, it’s still here. Normally after the DA concludes that there won’t be any charges in a case, the stuff is taken away by Iron Mountain. It just has to be signed off by the Sergeant. But with all the changes, I don’t think anyone did.”

  “Show me where.”

  This time, Drake let the man lead the way. The officer walked down to the end of the aisle, took a right, passed to other aisles, then went left. Ten more paces and he stopped directly in front of a large brown cardboard box with the words Peter Kellington scrawled on the white tag.

  Drake watched the officer very closely.

  By the man’s own admission, he was new here, and yet he knew exactly where to find the evidence from Peter Kellington’s house.

  “It’s here,” the officer said.

  Drake nodded and moved toward the box.

  “Just the one box?”

  The man chuckled.

  “No, it’s all of this,” he said gesturing to the entire shelf which housed at least fifteen boxes. “All of these are from Kellington’s house.”

  Drake swore and then took a step backward, observing the boxes from a distance.

  No time to search them all.

  He tried to pick out one that was different from the rest, an indication that it had been recently moved or opened. At first, he saw nothing, but then he noticed that the lid of the seventh or eighth box was slightly ajar, and the plastic corner of an evidence bag was sticking out.

  “Excuse me,” Drake said as he moved by the officer and towards the box. He reached up and pulled it off the shelf, noting that there were finger marks in the dust on the top.

  Drake started to remove the lid, when the officer spoke up again.

  “I don’t think—you can’t—”

  Drake ignored the man and turned his back to him in case he had any ideas of trying to force it closed again. He tossed the cardboard top aside and then grabbed the plastic bag that was hanging out, and held it up to the light.

  And then his heart seemed to stop beating entirely.

  There was only one item in the bag, roughly the size of a die, and of a similar shade.

  It was the final bone of a finger.

  Without thinking, Drake started to peel off the red evidence tape that sealed the bag and ensured chain of custody.

  “Hey, you can’t open that! You can’t—” this time the officer tried to grab the bag from him, but Drake blocked him with his elbow.

  “To hell I can’t,” he said, gripping the tape between his teeth and pulling hard.

  The tape finally let go and he reached into the bag and squeezed the finger bone in his pal
m, rolled it around his own fingers like a magician pulling a coin trick.

  It’s the same one, Drake thought. It’s the same goddamn finger bone that I had, the one that Ivan gave me.

  Drake didn’t handle finger bones on the regular, but he knew this one. He knew this one, because he had squeezed it every few hours for a month or more. He squeezed and rolled every time he’d thought of Clay.

  And Simmons put it here. Raul or Ken had somehow taken it out of evidence and got it into my hands, and then Simmons put it back in. But why?

  With a hard swallow, he put the bone back in the evidence bag and then thrust it against the officer’s chest.

  “You’ve got some paperwork to do,” Drake said absently.

  The officer looked at him with a mixture of scorn and disgust, but made no move to stop Drake as he walked back toward the front of the evidence room.

  Just as he was about to leave, Drake realized that he hadn’t caught the man’s name.

  “What’s your name?” He asked, turning back.

  The officer, still clutching the bag to his chest, leaned out from behind a row of shelves.

  “Mark Upton,” he said. “My name’s Mark Upton.”

  Drake nodded and then left the evidence room.

  I need to find Yasiv, and I have to find out why the hell Simmons had that bone.

  Chapter 30

  “Drake? I was just looking for you,” Sergeant Yasiv said as Drake strode into his office.

  Drake looked around, noting that Detective Dunbar was also in the room. Just being back in here brought about memories of Sergeant Rhodes’s face getting red as he chastised him.

  Glad that bastard is gone.

  His eyes fell on Yasiv, and wondered how the department had gone from Rhodes to Adams to Yasiv. It seemed that they were getting greener each and every time. Rhodes had been a shill for Ken Smith, of that Drake had no doubt, but since him…

  Palmer, the word flashed in his mind. Ken is simply pushing his influence up the chain. No point in owning the Sergeant when you can run things as the DI. Just how high does it go?

  He shook his head and tried to focus.

  “And I you,” Drake said. “I don’t understand it, but I’m pretty sure that Simmons went into the evidence room to—” Drake caught himself before saying, put something, —“go through Peter Kellington’s evidence.”

  Yasiv offered him a blank stare. When neither he nor Dunbar replied, Drake said, “Did you hear me?”

  Yasiv nodded and blinked several times in a row.

  “Why the hell would he do that?”

  Drake chewed his lip and wished he had another few shots of bourbon in him.

  The truth was, he had no idea why. It was becoming more and more apparent that Simmons was in bed with Smith, but the reasons behind this… behind the bone… they still eluded him.

  Drake shrugged.

  “I don’t know,” he said simply.

  Again, silence fell over the office.

  And, like before, Yasiv was the one to break it.

  “Okay, let’s keep that to ourselves for now. Sleep on it, try to figure out what it means before going forward with anything. Dunbar, why don’t you tell Drake what you just told me.”

  Detective Dunbar, who had been sitting when Drake came into the room, rose to his feet.

  “So, I did some more digging, and I found some curious connections between all of our victims.”

  Drake raised an eyebrow. He found this hard to believe; he had scoured the evidence with Clay for hours.

  “First, Jenkins wasn’t just a peeping Tom, but he had been arrested, and subsequently acquitted, of having child porn in his possession. Not only that, but all of the other five victims had rap sheets, as well. One for arson, one for money laundering, and three for domestic abuse—obviously, I couldn’t check on the unidentified victim.”

  This wasn’t new to Drake. Clay himself had seen the connection during the early stages of the investigation.

  “Yeah, I know. But none of them served time together. None of them were even in prison at the same time, none shared a PO, group housing, nothing tied them together. Besides, how does Clay fall into that group? Simmons? Because they were cops?”

  As Drake spoke, Dunbar appeared to become more fidgety, nervous even.

  “What?” Drake barked. “What is it?”

  Dunbar looked at Yasiv, who nodded at him.

  “Go on, tell him what else.”

  Dunbar cleared his throat.

  “Also, I don’t know if this means anything, but remember how earlier we said that Alice Monroe was arrested for drug possession?”

  Drake nodded, remembering what that asshole Kramer had said.

  “Yeah, well, the arresting officer? It was Clay,” Dunbar continued.

  Drake’s eyes narrowed. He wasn’t sure he liked where this was going.

  “Yeah? So?”

  Dunbar’s fidgeting increased.

  “Look, I know—I just—”

  “Just spit it out, Dunbar,” Drake hissed.

  “Well, it was just that Alice was holding a pound of heroin when Clay pulled her over.”

  “And?”

  Dunbar scratched his head.

  “Well, Clay just booked her for a simple misdemeanor possession. I don’t know—I mean…” Dumber let his sentence trail off.

  “Who told you this?”

  It wasn’t uncommon for officers to let people off, to downgrade their charges if the perp helped give up someone even more valuable to them.

  But a pound of heroin?

  “I’m not sure—”

  “Who told you, Dunbar?” Drake felt his temperature rising. “It was Kramer, wasn’t it?”

  Yasiv spoke up.

  “It’s been vetted, Drake.”

  Drake barely heard the man. He stepped forward and grabbed Dunbar by the collar and pulled him close.

  “What is it exactly that you saying, Dunbar? You saying that Clay was dirty? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Yasiv stood and made his way around the side of his desk.

  “Easy, Drake. Let him go. He’s on our side… he’s only telling you the facts.”

  Dunbar didn’t resist and Drake shook him once to see if he would react. Dunbar only stared at him, fear in his eyes.

  What the hell am I doing?

  Drake let go of the detective, and he stumbled backwards before falling into his chair.

  “Sorry,” Drake grumbled, wiping the sweat from his brow. “I haven’t had much sleep lately.”

  “It’s okay,” Dunbar said, fixing his collar. “None of us have.”

  Yasiv made his way back behind his desk again.

  “There’s one more thing,” Yasiv said.

  Drake’s eyes darted from Yasiv to Dunbar and back again.

  “What is it?”

  “Did Clay go to church?

  The question was so unexpected that Drake wasn’t certain he had heard correctly.

  “What?”

  “Did Clay go to church?”

  Drake thought about this for a moment.

  “I’m not… I’m not sure,” he answered. “Why?”

  It was Dunbar who answered.

  “Peter Kellington and Alice Monroe both went to the same church: Church of Liberation.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “Me neither, and I can’t find out much about it online. Only that they seemed to target ex-cons.”

  Drake raised an eyebrow.

  “Target?”

  Dunbar shifted uncomfortably.

  “Ugh, to get parishioners? Anyway, one of the other victims, George Horowitz, also attended this church.”

  “What about the others?” Drake asked.

  “Don’t know yet, but I’ve got some guys working on that,” Yasiv answered.

  Drake tried to process all of this, but he was exhausted and it was all coming too fast.

  He rubbed at his temples and took a deep breath.

  “I d
on’t understand what this means,” he said quietly.

  “We don’t either,” Dunbar replied. “But this is another potential link between the victims. So… did Clay go to church?”

  Chapter 31

  Drake yawned and stretched his arms high above his head. He was closing in on twenty-eight hours without sleep, and it was starting to take its toll. His eyes were burning, they were incredibly dry, and no matter how much he sipped—coffee or booze—his throat refused to be anything but parched.

  And his phone… his phone kept buzzing in his pocket. It was like having a hive of bees on him at all times.

  He knew it was Jasmine, had to be Jasmine, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer. He couldn’t put her through this again.

  And yet, he knew that he would have to face her eventually, even if it was just to clarify some nagging questions.

  Church… did Clay go to church?

  Drake didn’t think so; the man had never struck him as the religious type. But then again, neither did Simmons and his wife had since confirmed that he was an avid attendee.

  With a sigh, Drake walked over to the carafe and filled his coffee cup for what felt like the fiftieth time.

  After the confusing meeting with Yasiv and Dunbar, he found himself back at the conference room, sitting and looking over the same damn scraps of paper over and over again. Sergeant Yasiv was there with him, but the man was busy fending calls, trying to use what little influence he had to keep the media at bay.

  So far, the only connection they had between the victims was the loose link about all having some altercation with the law and the fact that some of them were involved with this bizarre Church of Liberation.

  And we know that Simmons was messing around with Kellington’s evidence, he reminded himself. So, there’s that. And Clay—

  Drake stopped his runaway thoughts.

  He refused to believe it.

  Dunbar knocked once on the conference room door then poked his head in.

  “Hey guys?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Found something online about the Church of Liberation. Apparently, there’s a meeting today on 41st street at noon. Bottom of some community center, or something.”

  Drake looked at Yasiv and then checked his watch.