Justification for Murder (6 page)

D
etective Lynch clicked the cursor on his computer to display the next picture. Another large hunting knife appeared. The specs detailed overall length, blade length, width, material, handle thickness and composition. The knives all looked pretty much the same to him. Some were completely smooth, some were serrated. Others were both. Some were long, others short. Most were black or gray and made of stainless steel, with rubber, wood or nylon handles…He clicked faster and faster to the next images, frustrated that none of the details meant enough to him to make a connection to the case.

Two files were open on his desk, staring back at him. Two cases. Both involving cars. He doubted that Lou or Rachel would be able to narrow down the type of knife much more than they already had. After all, the fringes of a cut seat belt could only provide so much insight. Or maybe he was just feeling negative.

He clicked the mouse one more time and another knife appeared, but he didn’t really look at it. He knew he was just wasting his time. He was trying to figure out what he could do that might be useful and knew that browsing knives on the Internet was not really it. He sighed, reached out for his coffee and took a sip. The liquid was dark, cold and stale.

“This is disgusting,” he said to nobody in particular.

He headed to the kitchen and saw Jon coming toward him.

“When the hell are we going to get decent coffee in this joint?” Darcy spat his words at him, as if the responsibility of good coffee fell on the young man.

Jon stared at him but didn’t engage.

“How was it?” Darcy asked the intern when he got back from the kitchen with a fresh, steaming cup.

“Which one?”

Darcy didn’t answer but gave him a quizzical look.

“We just came from Mrs. Robinson’s house. Ended up talking to the neighbor.” He swallowed, Darcy noticed that his face was still ashen, as if Jon was suffering from a really bad ulcer. “We went first to Sheila Rothschild’s house. It was awful.”

“There was so much blood.” Jon blinked a few times. “This woman carved her breast out and bled to death on her kitchen floor. What on earth could make a person do that to herself?”

“So, pretty much the same as the other two suicides, right? Just different suicide…tool?” Lynch asked, not quite sure how to phrase it.

“It looks like it.”

Darcy turned toward the hallway, feeling Sorensen’s presence the moment he walked out of the elevator. He was one of those men who could never sneak up on someone, and not only because of his size. There was something in the air that changed when he was present, as if his body heat was high enough to change the room temperature.

“Man, this is getting old. Have you reconsidered switching cases with me yet?” Sorensen asked Lynch when he came into the room.

“Anytime.”

“You know the weirdest thing?” he asked. “These women don’t seem to have a single thing in common. They are all from different parts of town, with different incomes, social circles, ages. Jesus, I just have no idea what’s going on.”

“Remember that movie from M. Night Shyamalan?” Darcy asked. “The one where people start killing themselves and nobody knows why, and at the end it’s because of something from the trees, or whatever?”

“
The Happening
,” Jon said.

They both looked at him. Jon looked away.

“M. Night is one of my favorite directors. I have all of his movies.” His face flushed.

“What about it?” Sorensen focused back on Darcy. He combed his hair smoothing out his blond curls.

Darcy smiled to himself, secretly hoping that one day Sorensen would lose his hair. He would look like a large egg if he ever shaved his head.

“Nothing. This case just reminds me of that movie. I bet at the end there’ll be some supernatural explanation.”

Jon looked at Darcy with piqued interest. When the detective winked at him, he saw Jon’s excitement fade as he blushed a little. Sorensen stared at both.

“Yeah, thanks, man,” he said and sat down, chugging the remainder of a Red Bull that had been sitting on his desk for hours. “If you come up with any more brilliant ideas about how to solve my cases, please make sure you share.”

Darcy found it funny that Sorensen always wanted to have the last word. Without engaging back, he picked up the phone and dialed. “Miss Meadows, this is Detective Lynch,” he said, leaving a voice mail. “I was wondering if you could come to the station for a little bit to take a look at some knives. I should be here for another hour or so. Please call me back when you get this.” He hung up after leaving his office number in case she didn’t have his card with her.

H
arper Johnson left the shooting range and headed home. Traffic was not too bad going toward the mountains. He took the Mount Hermon Road exit, and after a few miles he turned left into the McDonald’s drive-through.

“Good afternoon, what can I get you?” a teenage voice asked through the machine.

“Two Big Macs, large fries, large Cherry Berry Chiller and extra ketchup.”

“That’ll be thirteen dollars sixty-eight cents.”

He drove a few feet forward to the window, and a young girl with pink hair handed him a paper bag with the food. Harper set it on the passenger’s seat, grabbed the drink out and drove the last few miles to his house. Slowing the car, he made a left on the private road and checked the mailbox, finding nothing in it. He drove a few more yards and parked right outside his house.

The brown paint was peeling and there were several places where it was gone altogether. The screen door screeched when he opened it. It was gloomy inside, but the place was tidy and clean. He put the food on the dining table and grabbed a beer from the fridge. While he ate, he stared at the new list Tyler Warren had given him.

There were three names. Each had a picture, a work and home address, daily schedules, activities and a list of likely places where they could be found. The second name grabbed his attention. David Jameson. He read the bio and then flipped to the page relating to activities and possible whereabouts. Halfway through he stopped and checked the date on the magnet calendar on the fridge’s door and then his watch. He got up from the table, leaving half a burger uneaten on top of the paper bag but grabbed one last fry. If he rushed, he might be able to take care of him right away.

Harper moved the chairs out of the way, slid the table with the uneaten food toward the wall and lifted the rug. He then opened the trapdoor to the basement and descended. Only a couple steps squeaked in protest. He reached his gun safe underneath the stairs, punched in the code and stared at its contents. The safe held a lot less than it had a few years earlier. He went for the AR-15 rifle, leaving the Benelli 12-gauge shotgun behind. He grabbed a box of ammo and confirmed that there were enough rounds. After locking the safe he headed upstairs.

He replaced the rug and table and left, not bothering to lock his place up. He had already pawned everything of value, and nobody would ever guess there was a basement in the house. Before he started the car he saw Lasky running toward him. He opened the door and let the Lab mutt come up and lick his face.

“Where have you been, you crazy dog?” he said, smiling for the first time that day.

The dog continued to lick him while he rubbed her behind the ears. She got down on the ground and pounced, while her tail wagged the rest of her body.

“You want to come?” he asked.

The dog jumped into the cabin of the truck, leaving muddy paw prints on Harper’s already dirty jeans. She sat down shotgun and stared happily at him, with her tongue sticking out to one side.

Johnson turned on the radio but only half listened to it. He got back onto Highway 17 and drove for a few minutes until he reached the Scotts Valley Wildlife Ranch. He had not been able to renew his hunting permit in the last few years but knew the area well. He parked the car on the side of the road in a somewhat hidden spot and got out, letting Lasky come with him. He followed the fence a few yards until he found the opening he had been using since he stopped being able to afford the hunting license.

He knew the wannabe hunters’ routine. They started together, early, walking through the forest as if they knew what they were doing. A few hours into it, they started feeling cranky, their fancy coffees were gone, and their clothes started clinging to their bodies with sweat due to the increasing heat. He remembered being surprised when he took his first hunting party out as a guide. They had no stamina, no patience. After a few more tours, he wasn’t surprised anymore. He knew exactly what to expect.

Lasky followed him, only increasing the distance between them by a few feet when she thought she could catch something. She stopped, smelled the air, pricked her ears and pounced. Then did it all over again. She was used to hunting for food, as it was rare that Harper got any for her. He always thought that she had some Bluetick in her. He had almost called her Blue back when he got her but then decided that naming her after a color was stupid.

He listened for voices. That was the other thing the city hunters were not so good at. The moment they got bored, they started yapping away. He thought he heard something. He stopped and patted his thigh for Lasky to come and sit by him. In complete stillness he listened. After a few moments he discerned voices coming from the east. The sounds were moving away, so he walked toward them to see if he could spot his target. Two men strolled between the trees as if they were in a park. Maybe that was all they could do, Harper thought, shaking his head. Unless Jameson had put on over a hundred pounds, he was looking at the wrong party.

He continued to wait. He was good at waiting. He sat, leaned against a tree trunk and cleaned his nails with the tip of his knife. The sun was still bright, but it had started its slow descent. Harper folded the knife and checked his watch. He decided to follow a few well-known trails heading toward the entrance of the hunting ground, expecting Jameson would have to come that way eventually, if he was still there.

After almost another hour of searching, he sensed movement. He watched until he could see the men well. There were three of them, getting closer to him but not heading directly toward his location on the trail.

Harper looked around and found a large tree about ten feet to his right. He reached it and rested his rifle against the gnarled oak. He checked to make sure it was loaded. He knew he had loaded it in the truck before leaving but wanted to double-check. He was not sure David Jameson was among the three men who were coming, but he wanted to be ready if he was.

He pulled the printout Tyler Warren had given him and studied the photo. He didn’t want to kill the wrong guy. Harper concentrated on the sounds around him. The forest noises were increasingly displaced by the sounds of the approaching men, who started to come into view.

One was large, almost as tall as him, but probably beat him by fifty pounds. The one in the middle was David Jameson. He was the shortest of the three. His hair was gelled, just as Warren’s always was. He shook his head. It always amazed him that these city slickers didn’t know deer could smell that shit from miles away.

All of his hunting clothes were new. Harper was sure Jameson had just got them from the Cabela’s catalog and removed the price tags that morning before he put them on. The last man was the eldest. Harper recognized him. His name was Sam Baker, and he was the guide. They had shared some beers in better times and laughed at the ineptitude of the city hunters.

He knew he would have to separate them. He looked around and found a nice wooden stick. He grabbed it and showed it to Lasky. He seized his rifle. When he was ready, he looked at his dog, tempted her with the stick, glanced at the men walking about sixty yards in front of him and then threw the branch as far as he could toward his ten o’clock.

Lasky sprinted away, rustling the vegetation as she went by. The noise got the attention of the three men. They stopped talking. Harper saw them stiffen a little in anticipation of catching a decent buck. Sam gestured for his clients to get in position on opposite sides of the ridge overlooking a clearing. David Jameson and the other man exchanged glances and began to move away from each other, communicating via hand motions as if they were in a military operation. It took him everything he had to not burst into laughter.

Harper lifted his rifle and aimed. He had a clear shot at Jameson’s head. He pulled the trigger and felt the recoil in his shoulder. Before he could move his eyes away, the rifle slug entered Jameson’s back. The man stood for a moment and then fell against the tree he’d been hiding behind. Harper lowered the rifle at the same time Lasky returned with the stick, wagging her tail. Nobody would believe a shot to the head to be a hunting accident.

S
affron’s first surprise was to find Ranjan’s room empty. But that feeling was quickly replaced by disbelief, indignation and finally rage when she spotted a close-up picture of a beautiful Indian woman on the table by her boyfriend’s bed. She walked closer and realized there were more. The photographs were professionally made. The women were all smiling, with nice white teeth and deep black eyes that tempted the camera. Not one was over twenty-five years old. Saffron wondered who were the engineers and who were the doctors.

She then noticed the other papers on the table. They were bios. She glanced through them. All from good families with great dowries. She was still leafing through the documents when she heard Ranjan down the hall, joking with somebody. She thought about putting the photos down and pretending she hadn’t seen them, but she knew her face would tell Ranjan everything he needed to know.

He was pushed into the room in a wheelchair. His color was back and he looked happy. His smile faded fast the second he saw Saffron in the room, still holding the portraits. The male nurse awkwardly stopped in his tracks, without reaching the bed.

“I can manage from here,” Ranjan said. “Thank you for pushing me around, Albert.”

“Anytime,” he said and nodded at Saffron, quickly leaving the room after that.

Saffron raised the photos. Her hands were shaking and she couldn’t find the words she wanted to say.

“Saffron…” Ranjan started. “I told you in the restaurant that my whole family was insisting.”

She raised the pictures higher, still unable to speak.

“They just want me to meet them. That doesn’t mean I have to marry one of them.”

Her jaw clenched. She put the photos back on the table and finally asked, “And you can’t say no? Why do you have to meet them if you’re not interested? Or are you?”

He tilted his head as she spoke, recoiling from the high pitch. “Why won’t you understand that this is something very important to them?”

“Of course it is,” Saffron scoffed.

“Don’t do that.” He shook his head slowly. “Please, let me appease my family. Once I tell them I don’t like any of them, things can go back to normal.”

“Ranjan, you do know you’re lying to yourself, right? Your family is never going to give up.”

“Please, Saffron, let me handle this.”

“If you could win this argument, you would’ve done it already.”

“Can you just let me handle this?”

She looked at him. Her cheeks were flushed and she felt a drop of sweat slide between her breasts. She crossed her arms and stared at him with daring green eyes.

“I think you’re interested.”

He shook his head, suddenly looking worn-out.

“I think you want to check them out, because you might find exactly what you want. And you know what? I hope you do, because once I walk out that door, you and I are over.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because this is obviously what you want but you don’t have the balls to do it yourself.”

She waited for him to protest. When he didn’t, she knew she was right. Saffron fought every urge she felt to beat the crap out of him. She wanted to but knew she would feel even worse having assaulted a man in a wheelchair. Her phone began to ring, but she ignored it. The noise filled the room, but she didn’t feel any relief. After the third ring, it stopped.

“Good luck to you, Ranjan,” she said and walked by him toward the door.

She hoped he would grab her hand, ask her to stop, but he didn’t. Outside, she heard him get off the wheelchair and slide his feet toward the bed.