Chapter Two

“Levi, my office,” Captain Will O’Shay barked from the glass doorway.

Homicide Detective Levi Earlington froze in his chair.

Those were the last words heard of detectives who still had careers before them. A moment of doubt clouded his mind as Levi stood up from his desk. Captain Will O’Shay stood in his doorway, hands on his hips. Levi knew with his first step he was in trouble. Either he’d done something worthy of termination, some clerical error that would be his guillotine, or worse, he was about to be handed his demise in the form of a file. Matthew and Jerry saluted him, and Terry offered a weary grimace.

Harperville was so small it barely counted as a city. The only things that pumped life into Harperville were the famous cliffs and the luxury cabin vacation destination deep in the woods. The beach was made primarily of gravel and boulders, only good for photos and fishing.

And Levi was about to be a floundered fish in a tiny pond. “Sir?” he croaked over the lump in the back of his throat.

“Close the door behind you.” O’Shay marched inside his office.

Levi closed himself off from the office and took a seat. A ten-by-ten office of glass and thick gray shades that were pulled closed more often than not. Engulfed in dust and paperwork, the captain’s office existed like a whole other part of the precinct. It was packed wall to wall. Bookshelves lined the back wall. The glass windows drowning in stacks of papers and files. The only surface habitable in the office were the leather chairs that faced the captain’s desk.

O’Shay lumbered behind his desk, plucking a file off the top of a pile of identical files. His old computer whirled and groaned. Likely Captain O’Shay kept his office like he did his home and his whole life— a complete and utter disaster.

The grizzled captain had a boxy jawline with scratchy cheeks and a fluffy moustache. His shaggy red hair drooped over his forehead like a dirty mop. O’Shay settled into his plush leather chair with a groan. “I don’t like to do this, but you’re the only one who can look at this objectively.”

“What is going on, sir?”

O’Shay replied by plopping a file on the desk. Levi ignored the flutter in his chest and snatched up the file. A series of photos sat in the file. Security camera footage from the docks along the coast. A figure slowly climbed up from the end of an empty dock and stumbled down the dock. The photographs were blurry but the shadows were definitely a person. Maybe two.

O’Shay cleared his throat. “We think those are the suspects.”

“The suspects?” Levi peered up from the photos, cocking a brow. He took a moment to brush his locs off his shoulder and flatten his button down against his chest. The dress code for Harperville was more relaxed than it had been in Florida. Levi enjoyed the style of simple suit pieces. Silk or satin button downs tucked into fitted slacks with an embellished belt, sometimes a vest to accentuate the colors. All the other detectives wore polos and khakis or sweaters and slacks with sneakers.

“Next image.” O’Shay rubbed his brow hard with his fingers. He motioned at the file.­

Levi flipped over a camera footage and found more photos. Bodies, fished out of the water, half-eaten, eye sockets wide open. They were ripped open, pulled apart as flesh can be when mutilated by a meat processor. It churned his stomach acid, his throat clenched up tight. Levi snapped the file shut.

“Trust me, the thing in person was much, much worse,” O’Shay chuckled darkly.

Levi gagged. “How many victims?”

“At least six, who knows if we will find pieces of others.” O’Shay hung his head into his hands.

Levi sat back, horrified with his mouth hung open in shock. He gathered the courage to open the file again and inspect the evidence. He scrutinized the images, but couldn’t see anything. He put all the photos aside until he came to the end of the pile, which was a screen capture of an Instagram photo.

“No, sir,”

“She’s a witness, but I can’t ask any of them to ask her. She’s off limits to them.” O’Shay groaned as he sat back in his leather seat.

“Sir, if she’s a witness, then just ask her to come in.” Levi threw the file onto his captain’s desk. No wonder he was pulled in to take over this case. No one would take this case, let alone interview her. The reflection of precinct infamous Queenie Lowe stared back at him from a screen shot of her Instagram. Levi peered up from the file to O’Shay, his nose scrunched.

O’Shay avoided all eye contact as he ruffled his hair with his fat fingers. “I promised her mother that neither of them would ever be bothered by any of us. Levi, I can’t go against a widow’s wishes, much less a widow who has a restraining order on everyone in this whole department.” O’Shay shook his head.

Levi was flabbergasted. How was that even possible? “Then give it to someone else! Give it to the state, don’t work this case! Sir—” Levi pleaded.

“It’s your case, Levi. You’re the only one hired after Lowe died, you’re the only one allowed to touch this case now.” O’Shay tossed his arms out to the side, his voice a warning. He would not let Levi hand off this case. Written in Levi’s career’s gravestone, here lies the last bits of a short career in a tiny new town.

Levi blinked. “H-how did one widow put a restraining order on an entire department? That’s insane! It can’t hold up in court.” Levi blubbered. He fell back against his seat.

O’Shay folded his hands on his stomach with resignation.

Levi licked his lips tentatively before he gave in. No one would talk, no one ever had. Detective Lowe’s death had been a touchy subject when Levi first moved into Harperville. He’d been transferred from Jacksonville to a quaint little town on the east coast with more cold air and rocky hillsides than he could take.

How he wished Karla had picked any other town to raise their child in. He could hear his wife’s defense of Harperville from half-way across town. And so, Levi took his lumps and dropped the question, determined to figure it out without O’Shay’s help. Reason told him there was something keeping the captain from questioning it, as if he would rather accept it than question the logistics. Instead, he scooped up the file and put it back in his lap. “So why is Queenie Lowe a witness? What about this photo screams witness?”

“I had the I.T. boys search for any posts made that afternoon, hoping to find someone talking about it. That’s when they came across Queenie’s post,” O’Shay grumbled.

Levi scoffed. “Sir, that’s real slim pickings if you’re asking me. She could have taken this picture on any day and just happen to post it then.”

“Just look into it for me. I’ve got a hunch.” O’Shay plopped his hands onto the desk.

“Just give me some connection. Some reason to go harass this poor teenage girl, and I will. But I need more than just coincidence, sir. I won’t start a witch hunt on a hunch.” Levi pursed his lips.

“I can’t give you that,” O’Shay said through gritted teeth.

“I’ll take the case, but I won’t go near the girl without concrete reason to question her,” Levi spat. He was not about to upset the daughter of a dead homicide detective, especially knowing that her mother raged war on the whole precinct. Kelsi Lowe went rabid enough to foam at the mouth as she kicked officers and detectives out of his funeral. From the grape vine he’d heard that many of the officers avoided Hourton Lane just to avoid being spotted from her front window. The last thing he needed was to open up old wounds.

Levi scooped up the photos. Pushing past heavy doors, attention forward and away from those that pried, Levi stalked right out of the office side of the precinct. O’Shay put her photo in the file, almost like he wanted there to be a connection. Levi had never spoken much as three sentences to either of Kelsi or Queenie Lowe since he took up Will Lowe’s position. He knew something was up when he tried to ask why the position had been open for a year, unfilled. Had it been out of respect for the man? But none of the other detectives could speak about him; they always switched the subject. Levi didn’t like to start trouble and let it go. Yet it was always there, on the back of his mind when he sat at the desk.

There was a moment he hesitated in his step and almost whipped around to ask Jerry again. But then he ducked his head and trotted down the steps into the belly of the precinct. It was an older building made of ancient brick and mortar, with two stories with east and western wings. The main floor was a maze of investigation rooms, offices, lock-up, and detention rooms. The western wing was the homicide department while the eastern wing stayed mostly empty. There were desks no one sat at until something big happened, and Levi had not seen anything big happen in the entire time he’d been in Harperville.

The world buzzed around him as officers and staff loitered about in the middle of their own conversations. Citizens lingered in corners in varying states of concern and happiness, either to report lawn disputes, lost pets, child pranks, and so on. One woman cried in the corner over her husband still missing in the woods for months.

His attention stopped at the small group that huddled at the coffee stand to the right corner of the precinct. He walked straight toward the officers, coffees and folders in their hands. Their names had been in the file as the officers on scene. He hadn’t spent much time with the beat cops, but he knew their faces well. There were only a handful anyway. Harperville couldn’t afford more than a select few. The hollow, glazed over stares did not fill him with any hope.

There weren’t any coworkers who wouldn’t work with him. Unlike Jacksonville, there didn’t seem to be any animosity in the police force here. People also didn’t work on double homicides late into the night or worry that another cop would ruin their case out of spite. Harperville didn’t face trouble like Jacksonville faced trouble. But he tried not to stir the pot, especially not as the new guy. Except this hill—this ant infested, lie drenched hill—he was prepared to die on.

“Johnson, Mary, Winston, hey. Y’all worked the dock murder case?” Levi chirped with as much good morning cheer as he could manage.

The three officers glanced up from their own conversation to Levi.

“That was you Mary, wasn’t it?” Johnson addressed one female of the officers.

“Nope, that was definitely Marshall’s case.” Mary scowled.

“Do we have a problem here?” Levi eyed her suspiciously. “My reports say it was you—”

“No problem, not really,” Mary snapped her teeth closed with an audible click.

“Not with you,” Winston corrected. “Mary and I were first on scene yeah—”

“Winston, you rat—” Mary ripped toward Winston, the sound deep in her chest with fury twisting her face up tight.

“Shut up, Mary, there’s no such thing as ghosts, so stop losing your damn mind over it.” Winston rolled his eyes.

“Uh? What?” Levi stumbled back a step. “How do ghosts play into mutilated bodies on the dock?”

“Not at the docks, sir.” Johnson said.

“Shut up! Talking about it invites the spirits into your life. Fuck you both, I’m not about to get murdered by ghosts, I know better. I’ve got reports to fill out.” Mary spat upon the floor and whirled on her feet.

Johnson ground the saliva into the ground beneath his boot as Mary stomped further into the precinct. Levi watched with concern before he twisted back to Winston with many unvoiced questions.

“Alrighty then, what was that all about?” He drew out his words in utter shock.

Winston tossed back his whole cup of coffee. “When the coroner was loading the bodies, Mary and I were there trying to just case the dock for anything. Nothing, couldn’t find a tack out of place. Then we heard a scream. Like, nails on a chalkboard, hair raising kinda scream, all right? I turn around, thinking the coroner’s sliced their arm off or something, and all the bodies are standing up in the back of the van, screaming through the bags.” Winston tossed the empty cup into the trash can.

“Uh, what?” Levi choked on his own breath. He straightened up steadily until he could clear his throat. The file held flat against his chest. “The bodies?”

“Yup,” Winston replied curtly.

“Stood up in the back of the coroner van?” Levi’s heart raced.

“Yup,” Johnson whimpered, stepping back from the conversation with hunched shoulders. He ground the toes of his boots into the shabby tile like he were snubbing a cigarette.

“And you heard them scream?” He’d seen plenty of things in his time as homicide detective. Florida is no joke; all the rumors were true. Yet, in all his days in the thick of Florida crazy, he’d never heard of bodies standing up in the back of coroner vans and screaming in body bags.

“Look, Detective, I know. We’ve been up all night. We’ve been surviving on coffee and spite for the last who knows how long. My brain is playing tricks on me. You’re a purple dinosaur right now for all I know. But that’s what I saw. So I’m going to go sign off on some papers, hopefully make it home before I pass out. You got any other questions, go ask the coroner, he was there the whole time.” Winston licked his lips nervously, hands up in defeat.

“Yeah, thanks, I will.”

The last two officers shuffled away, leaving Levi alone and unsettled. What Levi expected to hear was how bad the bodies were, any thoughts they had, their reactions. He wasn’t ready for screaming bodies in bags.

Levi pulled out his phone from his back pocket and dialed Karla. The dial only lasted a second, the line clicked to life. “Hey baby, I’m gonna be late.”

“You get a new case?” Karla chirped over the other end of the phone.

“Unfortunately.”

“Oh no, that bad?” Karla’s voice grew worried in seconds.

“Sadly, I gave up fun cases when I changed to homicide.” He scratched in between his tight locs, his wedding band clicking against some of the golden rings that decorated his hair. “You mind leaving my dinner in the microwave tonight?”

“No problem, baby, just get home safe, okay?”

“Only because you asked nicely.” Levi laughed before hearing Karla smooch into the phone and hang up on him. However, he was unable to put his phone away. Levi stared at it, a dark mirror of his face. In the reflection he could see the front doors, Harperville Police Precinct spelled out in bold letters around a swirling blue circle. A light patter of rain splashed into the doors. The morning darkened overhead. Classic Harperville fog rolled over the ground, and all of the citizens were tucked in for a cold afternoon. If only they knew warm days would be far and few between with the late winter chill that rolled in on the storm clouds.