Okay, surely, if this were a nightmare, sinks would not be getting cleaned—
The sound of her cell phone going off on her desk snapped Erika’s head around. Instead of lunging for it, she let the thing ring a second time, and when she picked the iPhone up, she turned the screen over slowly.
You know, in case a demon was calling or something.
Nope. Dispatch.
She took a deep breath. “Saunders.” Then she tried to focus on what was being said to her. “Ah, no, no, I left the scene at Primrose so I’ll take it. No reason to wake up Creason—you already did? Okay, fine. Where’s the body again?” A quick glance to the right gave her pause as she wondered whether a coat across the aisle had moved. “Another one under the bridge, huh. Do we have patrol there? Good. Tell them I’ll be there in five—what? No, I’m at headquarters. Ah, no, I didn’t go home.”
As she ended the call, she measured all the shadows on the carpet, on the walls, by the filing cabinets. Over at the bathrooms, there was a muffled singing coming through the closed door, the cleaning woman—Brenda—running through some kind of song that Erika didn’t recognize. Or maybe it was no song at all.
The strange tune was like something you could open an episode of American Horror Story with.
Grabbing her bag, Erika headed out, still unsure of what kind of reality she was in.
The sense that evil lurked everywhere persisted.
Or stalked her, was more like it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I know him.”
As Erika made the ID down by the bridge, she was kneeling beside the cooling body of a man who appeared to have shot himself in the head. The entrance wound was on the right temple, and the gun was still gripped in his hand.
Twice in one night, she thought as she noted the bomber jacket, the hoodie, the dark clothes and the bright white sneakers. But no pink nail polish this time.
“Who is he?” Detective Kip Creason asked.
She glanced up at her colleague. Kip was a lean man who always wore skinny cut slacks and bow ties. He and his husband were just back from their honeymoon, and she had a passing envy at his tan and the natural sun-streaks in his dark-blond hair. Kip was born and bred in California, and coming to Caldie hadn’t changed the fact that he always looked better, more rested, and happier than everybody else did. Even down here by the river, after two a.m., he was fresh as a daisy. And didn’t that make her feel older. More tired. More crazy.
“Christopher Ernest Olyn.” Erika refocused on the body. “He’s got a long rap sheet for drugs and assault, and he brushed up with homicide for the first time about six months ago. Remember the case? He almost beat his girlfriend to death—we were sure she was going to die as soon as she was taken off life support. She survived, but refused to testify, and there were no witnesses. The DA had to drop the case, but Olyn was ready if it went forward. He lawyered up with some big-time, mob-connected criminal attorney from Manhattan.”
“I remember, yes. You really were good with the victim. She trusted you.”
Erika stood back up. “I’m worried he finally killed her tonight—and then came down here, unable to live with himself. They had a really toxic, codependent relationship. We need to do a welfare check on her.”
“You should go over and do that. If anyone else in uniform or with a badge shows up at her place, I’ll bet she won’t answer her door. I can handle things here.”
Looking around, Erika took some quick mental pictures of the scene. The body was at the far edge of what was considered “under the bridge,” lying at the base of an old brick wall that encircled one of the original Caldwell warehouses.
“We’re not going to have any witnesses,” she murmured.
“No,” Kip agreed as he pulled his fitted peacoat closer across his chest. “Nobody will have seen a thing.”
No one was around to even be interviewed. The population who lived in and among the forest of concrete pylons had emptied out, the burning drums of trash casting flickering orange light over the littered, vacant acreage.
“Erika? Are you all right?”
She shook herself back to attention and smiled at her sun-streaked colleague. “Fine, thanks. And absolutely I’ll do the welfare check. They were living over on Market, assuming they haven’t moved. I can confirm with the probation database.”
Getting out her cell phone, she signed in to the CPD system and ran a search under the name of Constance Ritcher. Street name had been Candy. She’d had some prostitution convictions on her record, but no drugs, nothing violent.