Detective Damien Drake series Box Set 1 Page 4

  Before he crouched, he turned to Chase, still beaming.

  “I was only kidding. You can talk as much as you want.”

  Chase said nothing, and her face gave away less, and Beckett shrugged.

  “No external injuries as far as I can tell,” Drake offered.

  Beckett gestured toward a small black bag that he had set down after entering the curtain. Drake fetched it for him and then the coroner withdrew what looked like a scalpel missing the blade.

  “No, no external injuries. Except, of course, the injection site near his neck.”

  Drake grimaced.

  “The what?”

  “The injection site. Small pinprick on the left side of his neck. Little red dot, you know?”

  Drake, incredulous, walked over to that side and hunched down low.

  As he did, Beckett asked Chase for an evidence container.

  And there it was, something so small that Drake couldn’t really blame himself for having overlooked it. A tiny red dot on the man’s otherwise flawless skin.

  “Area still looks a little puffy,” Beckett continued. “Must have been some pretty serious inflammation to have lasted for… what? Eight hours since he died?”

  Chase confirmed the timeline.

  “Damn, I’m good,” Beckett muttered. “Oh, and there’s also this.”

  Drake moved to the other side of the body again and watched as Beckett eased the metal device into the man’s mouth and used it to push his lips to one side like a dentist attempting to clean his molars.

  And that’s when Drake saw it: a flicker of movement, a dark shape wriggling toward the back of the victim’s teeth.

  Drake felt his stomach lurch, and now regretted the second bottle of whiskey.

  And the third.

  “Jesus,” he muttered.

  “No, not him, I’m afraid,” Beckett replied. “Unless Our Lord and Savior was reincarnated as a caterpillar.”

  As the dark form wriggled completely out of the man’s mouth, Drake looked away. His eyes fell on Chase, and he was glad to see that he wasn’t the only one who was feeling queasy.

  Beckett brought the plastic specimen container close to the victim’s face, and then put his tool in front of the caterpillar. The insect crawled on top of it, which Beckett used to put it in the specimen container. After screwing the lid closed, he put it in a clear plastic bag and held it out to Drake.

  “Looks like your killer has a thing for butterflies,” Beckett said, hooking a chin toward the corpse. “But I guess you knew that already, didn’t you?”

  Chapter 7

  “Here’s what we know,” Drake said to the half-dozen detectives standing in the conference room before him. “A man in his mid-thirties, dead via some sort of injection—tox report should be back this afternoon or tomorrow morning at the latest. Our victim appears affluent, but without ID.”

  He saw several eyebrows rise.

  “His body was found in an abandoned warehouse on Luther Street in Clinton Hill. But he was a non-drug user, so far as we can tell. Again, tox will clear that up. This was no opportunist crime; this was cold and calculated. I want to know why this man was in Clinton Hill, if anyone in the local bar scene saw him around that night. Right now, it’s just an informal question and answer situation. We will be meeting every morning at 8 am until the case is solved.”

  Someone groaned at this, and Drake pushed his lips together tightly.

  Some things apparently never changed.

  “And based on the presumed status of the victim, we want to keep the media out of this for as long as possible. As soon as they catch wind of this, they are going to be all over it. Mark my words on that.”

  Drake paused for a moment, surveying the faces of men and women in the room. He knew all of them, of course, as they had all been here before… before the incident. But the faces of these people, ones that he had known for decades in some cases, seemed different to him.

  Only, it wasn’t their faces, per se, but the way they looked at him. He saw something that he never thought he would in their cold eyes, their flat expressionless mouths: disdain.

  Disdain and anger.

  He swallowed hard.

  “I’m sure you’ve all heard about the butterfly; I can confirm that there was a butterfly drawn in blood on the vic’s back. When canvassing Clinton Hill, keep your eyes and ears open for anything that might be related to insects—butterflies in particular.”

  He looked over at Chase and hoped that she got his mental message to keep the presence of the caterpillar to themselves for now. They had discussed this issue after speaking to Beckett again, who had since confirmed that the caterpillar in question was a Monarch, and it had been up in the air as to whether or not they should mention it to the other detectives. Chase was all for it, but Drake had his reservations. They had decided to play it by ear, and now, seeing what seemed to be the faces of strangers staring back at him, he had gone with his initial instinct.

  They would find out, but not right now. He couldn’t chance this information being leaked to the media. He had a sinking feeling in his guts that some of the detectives that he had once called friends, but now looked at him with distaste, might let it leak just to get back at him for what had happened.

  After all, they may have been his friends once, but Drake had no doubts that when it came down to it, they had much preferred the smile and calm demeanor of Clay Cuthbert to his brashness and straightforward nature.

  “Chase will now go into more detail about the witness, a junkie named Rachel Adams, no relation, and her account of what happened. If there are any questions, I’ll—”

  The glass door to the conference room opened, and Drake was surprised to see Sergeant Rhodes’s small eyes buried behind round spectacles peer in.

  “Chase will be heading the investigation,” he said curtly, his gaze locking on Drake.

  Disdain, distaste, and something else… something more visceral.

  “If you have any questions, direct them to her.”

  There were several murmurs, and Drake felt his face start to redden.

  “Drake, my office,” Rhodes finished before grimacing and allowing the door to close.

  Drake’s ears felt like they were on fire again.

  He had known that coming back would be somewhat of a transition, that he might have to regain the trust of some of his colleagues, but he hadn’t known that their scorn had run this deep. And Sergeant Tom Rhodes had quashed all of his efforts with an ill-timed interruption.

  Drake cleared his throat and fought the urge to curse out loud.

  Get a grip, he admonished himself, recalling the episode with Suzan’s psychiatrist.

  What a fucking day this was becoming, and it wasn’t even dinner yet.

  He cleared his throat and raised his chin.

  “Right, all questions to Chase,” he said without looking over at her. “And remember, no media leaks. Keep in mind that there is a dead man here—he’s a victim and despite eight-hundred-dollar alligator loafers, he demands the same respect as anyone from your family.”

  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he regretted his choice.

  Family. We—NYPD Detectives—had been a family once.

  Clay had been family. As had Suzan.

  Then Drake started to move toward the door as Chase started to recount the story that he had heard Rachel Adams recount a half-dozen times already.

  He had to snake his way between the detectives to exit the conference room; no one moved out of the way to allow him to pass.

  Chapter 8

  “To say you’re on thin ice is like saying a polar bear is just a large albino kitty,” Sergeant Rhodes said.

  Drake screwed up his face, no longer able to keep his emotions from bubbling to the surface. His relationship with Sergeant Rhodes had always been strained, what with the man more concerned with his reputation and ambitions, which, if the rumors were true, extended even beyond just the NYPD. But Drake, a no-nonsense
man who solved more homicides than just about anyone else in the department, was also an asset, and he knew it. And aspiring men like Rhodes needed someone like Drake. So long as he kept the media out of their affairs, Rhodes didn’t even seem to bat an eyelash when Drake stretched the rules. After all, Drake wasn’t like that fat idiot Steven Britt who had six convictions overturned for punching suspects in the face. And, besides, when things had deteriorated between them, Drake always had Clay to step in.

  He had Clay; as in past tense.

  The sergeant leaned forward, his elbows planting on his desk like spindly roots, his long, thin fingers interlacing.

  “You’re back for one reason, Drake: Internal Affairs said there was no way to get rid of you,” he nodded to a manila folder sitting in the center of the large oak desk. “You remember what I said? I said, think carefully before your psych exam? You remember that?”

  Drake simply stared at the man, watching his Adam’s apple slide up and down in his throat with obscene fascination.

  The truth was, everything immediately following Clay’s murder was a blur, a dirty smudge of reality obscured by copious amounts of whiskey and even more sleepless nights. And yet Drake thought he did remember Rhodes saying something along these lines. Only at the time, he had considered it a kind of, get well soon and come back to us, statement.

  Only now did Drake realized how very wrong he was.

  The two men stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity drawn out like sugar taffy.

  Drake was afraid to answer; afraid because he thought that the only response that he could manage was one of fury.

  Is he forgetting that Clay was my partner? My best friend?

  The faces of his fellow detectives came to mind then, the way they had looked at him first in the alley behind Luther Street and then in the conference room moments ago.

  They can’t all blame me for what happened to Clay, can they?

  He shuddered.

  Why wouldn’t they? A small voice inside his head chimed in. After all, don’t you blame yourself, Drake? Why wouldn’t they?

  Eventually, Rhodes broke the silence.

  “Chase will be heading the Clinton Hill investigation—she’ll be reporting directly to me. You’ll tag along and give her any and all support she needs to solve the murder. But that’s it. That’s the extent of your involvement. I want you to be a silent partner on this one; keep your interactions with suspects and witnesses to a minimum, and for Christ’s sake Drake, you are not to speak to the media in any capacity. Do you understand?”

  Drake swallowed hard and nodded.

  “Good,” Rhodes leaned forward and pointed directly at the center of his chest. “You slip up once, just once, and you’ll be lucky if your next assignment is giving out parking tickets in Long Island, I don’t care what IA has to say. Do you understand?”

  This time Drake didn’t offer anything as a response; no head nod, not so much as a blink.

  He was suddenly struck with the idea that Chase taking over the case the day he returned to work was no accident, no coincidence. This was part of a bigger strategy, one that Rhodes was at the heart of, one that was designed to get Drake as far away from 62nd precinct as possible.

  Parking tickets in Long Island…

  Rhodes wasn’t being facetious; that was exactly where he wanted Drake. After what had happened to Clay and the subsequent New York Times exposé about the Skeleton King, Drake had burnished Brooklyn Homicide and the 62nd precinct with a nasty, swollen black eye.

  And this type of thing just didn’t jive with Sergeant Rhodes and his damn aspirations.

  Drake suddenly wished that this morning when he had thrown the man in the V-neck and sport coat against the hood of his BMW that it had been Rhodes’s razor-thin nose that had been bloodied.

  Thoughts of earlier in the day also brought back echoes of Suzan’s words.

  You ruined everything!

  Drake bowed his head and started to stand, aware that Rhodes was still staring at him, but no longer caring.

  He half-expected the man to stop him on his way to the door, to utter another not-so-veiled threat. But Rhodes didn’t, and Drake left the Sergeant’s office with his head still hung low.

  ***

  Chase was waiting outside the Sergeant’s office when Drake stepped into the hallway. She had something between a grimace and a look of solemnity etched on her pretty face. Drake nodded an acknowledgment and she sidled up beside him as he made his way toward his office.

  “You alright?” she asked quietly, cognizant of peering eyes and perked ears.

  “Fine,” he grumbled.

  “You know that—”

  Drake silenced her by holding up a hand. The fact was, he knew that—he knew what she was going to say. Young as Detective Adams was, she seemed very much in tune with what was going on around him and the station. And for some reason, she didn’t let it faze her.

  He liked that.

  “I’m fine. I’m just here to solve a murder.” When her eyes softened, Drake’s did as well. “But I appreciate it.”

  This time it was her turn to nod.

  They made their way down the hall, both aware that nearly everyone they passed was staring at them, but this seemed to bother Chase even less than Drake.

  He liked that about her, too.

  “So what now?” Chase asked.

  Drake smiled.

  “You’re the boss, you tell me.”

  She made a playful hmph sound, realizing at once that he was making a joke.

  “You hear back from Beckett?” she asked after they had made it to his office door. One of the slots still read DAMIEN DRAKE, HOMICIDE, but while his name had always been on top and Clay’s beneath it, Clay’s had since been removed and Damien’s was now on the bottom. The top slot was empty.

  He wondered if this too had been part of Rhodes plan.

  “No, not yet,” he said, reaching for the handle. He paused and turned to face her. “Hey, let me ask you something… you wouldn’t happen to have a cell phone charger, would you?”

  She squinted.

  “What kind?”

  Drake slid a hand into his pocket and fingered the phone within.

  “Step inside, there’s something I need to show you,” he said, this time holding the door for her.

  Chapter 9

  “You took the man’s phone?” Chase asked, her tone matching the shocked expression on her face.

  Drake held the cell phone out to her as if to say, yep, and here it is. But Chase was having none of it and interlaced her fingers behind her back.

  “Drake, why the hell did you take the vic’s cell phone? Drake, you’re… the way the others look at you…” she sighed, trying to collect herself. “I think you know how the others feel about you. This is too risky; you need to get the phone into evidence, pronto.”

  Drake frowned and he shook his head.

  “How they feel about me? I could care less how the others feel about me, or whether they stare at me until their eyes dry out and fall out of their faces, or if they want me gone. Besides, Rhodes basically told me he’s going to do everything in his power to get me fired, so who cares about all that noise? I certainly don’t. All I care about is getting this case solved before I go.”

  Saying the actual words made the feelings Drake harbored more real, and it was a surprisingly cathartic experience.

  The feeling was short-lived, however.

  “So, let me get this straight,” Chase began, eyebrow raised. “Instead of doing everything by the book to make sure you don’t get fired, you go ahead and abandoned all the rules… you break the chain of custody so that evidence might not be admissible in court later on? You sure it isn’t you who wants to be fired?”

  Her final comment struck a chord with him, and Drake mulled this over for several seconds, first considering what had happened that morning with Suzan, then the events of this afternoon with Sergeant Rhodes.

  But then his mind flicked to
Clay lying on his back, a bullet in his chest, coughing up blood.

  The vest… why weren’t you wearing your vest, Clay? Shit, I was wearing mine…

  Realizing that he was taking too long to answer, he shook his head briefly.

  “Chain of custody isn’t broken, Chase—the phone just hasn’t been admitted yet,” he moved the cell phone even closer to her, but she took a step backward as if he was holding out a broken vial containing Ebola.

  “Why’d you take it then?”

  Drake smiled. Apparently, Chase didn’t know everything about being a detective in NYC yet.

  “Maybe things are different in Seattle, but here, in NYC? Once this phone goes into evidence, good luck getting it back out again. First, you need to get a judge to issue a subpoena, and as you’ve already pointed out, I’m none too popular around here. Jump through that hoop, and then you need to somehow open the phone. Good fucking luck with that. Apple’s privacy laws are tighter than North Korea’s. You’re going to need to get a second subpoena to get them to unlock it. That could take months. A year, even. Then what? By then our guy is already worm food.”

  Drake cringed at the last comment, wishing that he had chosen his words more carefully.

  While Chase and the other uniforms in the Luther Street warehouse had been watching Beckett tease the Monarch caterpillar from the vic’s mouth, he had slipped a hand into the dead man’s suit coat and had put it in his own pocket. Despite his previous diatribe, he wished that even half of much forethought had gone into the act. The truth was, he just did it, hoping that his ingrained detective skills hadn’t led him astray.

  He thought that Beckett might have seen him take the phone, but he was maybe the one man that Drake could still count on, as both a colleague and possibly a friend.

  Chase’s frown suddenly transitioned into something different, an expression that he had seen before and already started to recognize despite their short time together.