Memories of Black (eBook)

CHAPTER TWO

As always, the call came before the sun had risen from its night sleep. Paige rolled over and grabbed the invading ringing device and shoved it to her ear. She pushed a long strand of light brown hair from her face and mumbled into the offensive phone.

“They’re still going to be dead in two hours.”

“It’s a crispy critter,” the male voice stated.

“Shit, Carlos. I hate burnings.”

“Yeah, this one is especially vile. I’ll text you the address.”

Paige hung up without another word and stared at her phone as if it were the killer. She turned her head toward the window and lay very still, hoping the day would stay dark. A burned homicide victim was always her least favorite type of dead body. They stank, looked heinous in their blackened, rigor-mortis state and were impossible to identify with fingerprints that had been burned off. Many times even dental work disappeared in the flames and any DNA evidence scorched beyond use.

Pushing from her warm cocoon, Paige started dressing in discarded clothes that lay strewn around the room. She smelled the armpits of a t-shirt, scrunching her nose as the smell of her own sweat reached her olfactory nerves and tossed it toward her laundry basket. Finding another shirt hanging in her closet, she shrugged it on and padded into the bathroom, tripping slightly on an errant sneaker that lay in the middle of her path. A splash of water onto her face, a quick brush of her teeth as she emptied her bladder and then off to the crime scene. The shower would come later when the smell of human remains clogged her nostrils and lay like a death shroud over her own body.

Thirty-five minutes after the call, Paige pulled up to a small park, marked off by yellow crime scene tape. The brown Bermuda grass lay in blotches like acne on the face of the brown dirt. A single slide and a box of plastic, stacked, faded boxes were all that distinguished this small patch of earth from the city. To the left of the tiny playground was a lamp post and against this sat the homicide victim.

Paige sat and stared at the scene. Blue and red strobe lights winked at her from the roofs of three police cruisers, and their officers stood to the side in a small circle, sipping coffee and waiting for orders. She pushed open her door and grabbed her jacket that lay on the passenger’s seat. Crisp mornings followed by warm days were usual for February in Phoenix and she always kept a heavy sweatshirt in her car. She zipped it up and grabbed her coffee before setting off toward her fellow officers.

“Any witnesses?” she asked without preamble.

These city cops knew her and she, them. Her job as homicide detective always brought her to a scene that they had discovered. They had been here for over an hour already and were ready to move on with their shift.

“None, Paige,” one middle-aged officer spoke. “Raul and Andy are doing a door to door, but as you can see,” he paused and tossed his head to the surrounding brick walls that encompassed the area, “not much visibility for anyone.”

Paige glanced around at her surroundings. There were seven-foot brick walls on three sides of the tiny park and, behind that, backs of stores and one apartment complex. The windows to the apartments were high off the ground and with little visibility to the lamp post. Paige left the group without another word and stepped closer to the burned corpse. She stopped well short of the crime scene and glanced up at the light. The bulb had been shattered. So darkness had claimed this area when the crime had been committed.

After this cursory glance at the surroundings, Paige shouted over her shoulder, “Tony, you and Mark do a walk around to see if any of the homeless in this area saw anything. The rest of you can go back on patrol. Thanks.” She gave the orders without breaking stride and moved closer to the victim. A car door slammed in the distance and she knew her partner had arrived. Paige didn’t turn around but continued to stare at her new case.

“Lovely,” her partner sighed as he approached.

“Yeah.” Paige glanced at her partner of five years. His eyes looked tired, but he had obviously showered, his short, black hair still damp. “Everything all right?”

“Avery’s having trouble sleeping with the baby doing kung fu inside her which means I’m also awake.”

“It only gets worse.”

“Thanks for the pep talk, Paige,” Carlos chuckled and shook his head. He studied his partner with dark eyes and saw the tiredness in her too. “What’s your excuse?”

“Five AM calls.”

“Sure.” Skepticism laced his reply.

Phoenix tossed up vicious murders daily, but they both had been through a long man hunt prior to Christmas that had left Carlos in the hospital for several weeks and Paige on an emotional rollercoaster. The death of their suspect had Carlos and Paige treading in murky waters. Both held secrets close to their chest, like a hand of cards they were not yet ready to reveal. Since then, their friendship had been stilted. It was time to sit down over beers and hash out what had happened. They both knew today would not be that day, though, as they stared at the burned remains.

Carlos prowled around the edge of the crime scene waiting for the medical examiner to arrive. He stood only an inch or so above Paige, his body compact and muscular. His swarthy, Latino face was handsome, marred only by a slightly crooked nose, broken many years before. He was in his early thirties, a snappy dresser, and awaiting his first child with the love of his life. Planning a wedding and pregnant, his girlfriend Avery Thompson was a little too stressed for his liking and he had found being on the job helped him decompress. But this murder was not what he had wanted.

He glanced over at Paige and watched her take in the scene. She was tall and almost gaunt in stature. He had seen all he wanted of this crime scene and now waited for her to do the same so they could move beyond the smell of the charred flesh. Paige was taking notes, circling all around the lamp post and making mental pictures of the entire area. She was meticulous in her notes and would ask Carlos all kinds of questions as she tried to solve the murder. Carlos on the other hand, waited for the forensic reports and relied on these findings to explore the pool of suspects. Both went about their jobs differently, and together they had a great success record. But right now, they were out of step and one of them needed to shift; make the first move to talk and allow their march to move again in sync.

Carlos lifted his face toward the rising sun and closed his brown eyes. He had almost betrayed Paige only two months before when he was under the torturing skills of a drug lord. His last minute phone call to her had made her arrive too late for the maniacal murderer, but had saved anyone else from being hurt. Carlos had not cared that this evil man had been killed, but he knew Paige was not telling all that she knew about his death. There had been another man involved, of that he was sure. But what had truly happened that night was still a subject that stood like prison bars blocking their friendship.

Carlos shook his head and returned to the present as his partner moved to his side. She walked with confidence and a gentle rolling stride that made her look good. He had never seen her in heels, but was pretty sure they would not be high, since she was already tall. Slender arms and legs, a flat waistline and small breasts made her quick and agile. Light brown hair like a fluffy cloud around her head swirled and bounced as if it was always windblown. She was constantly trying to swipe away a strand of the unruly mass, as if taming a fly that was a constant pest. Her mouth was curvy but rarely smiled, keeping her from being outstandingly pretty. He loved this woman as a sister and had even asked her to be his future baby’s godmother, but their relationship was still strained. Soon, they would have to talk. Soon, but not today.

“ The medical examiner is just pulling up.”

“Good, I’ve already seen enough,” Carlos harrumphed.

“My guess is female, from the stature and few strands of remaining hair, and young, from the slightness of the body,” Paige stated as they both turned and watched an Amazonian woman part the growing crowd of curious bystanders, like Moses opening the Red Sea. “Glad we have Big Barb.”

Carlos chuckled and nodded. The approaching medical examiner was one of the best in the city. Brusque and haughty, she left no findings unexplored or unexamined.

“Crime techs done?” her voice boomed

“Yep, all yours,” Paige answered and stepped back as the six foot woman brushed past.

The detectives stood and watched as the woman set her case down, pulled on a pair of latex gloves and began her minute examination of the victim. She took a metal rod and tried to lift the bowed head, without causing any damage to the blackened flesh. She then knelt down on all fours like a giant mastiff and got within an inch of the charred body. Carlos instinctively brought his hand to his face, wondering how she could stand the overpowering stench from...