“We’ll take it from here,” Jerry said, pulling Roy from my arms. He laid the guy on the ground and began to assess his condition. “Where’s this blood coming from?”
“His head,” I said. “He did a reverse endo over the railing and his skull broke his fall.”
Jerry tossed me a thumbs up. I suppose he was telling me he got the info, but I like to think it was one of those congratulatory thumbs up for a job well done. After all, I hadn’t killed the guy and I didn’t let him take his own life. I deserved a pat on the back for that.
I relinquished my control of Roy over to Jerry and his firefighter buddies and then started down the spiral staircase that ran along the water tower’s outer wall, inside of course. Overhead light bulbs encased in black metal cages cast a yellowish glow that seeped over the railing. They probably would have provided me with a view to the bottom. I didn’t look to verify that. With every step my adrenaline level dropped. I certainly hadn’t overcome my fear of heights up there on that balcony. Temporary insanity helped me through it.
Two uniforms passed me at about the halfway point. Fresh faces. I didn’t know either of them. We needed someone on this side of the law to watch over Roy now that he’d been upgraded from person of interest to suspect. I sure as hell wasn’t going to do it. That’s what we paid the young guys for.
“What’s the scene like down there?” I asked.
“Sam’s out there,” the baby faced guy said. His red cheeks gave away his Irish ancestry. That or he’d been drinking on the job. Judging by the look on his face, his sack hadn’t dropped enough for that. I glanced at his nameplate. Jennings. Didn’t ring a bell with me.
“Did he light into that woman from Channel 3?” I asked. Sam couldn’t stand that woman. Attractive, yes. Even more of a pest, though. She was always the first to the scene of a homicide. Everything else, too, I suppose. I wondered how this young guy knew Sam. Didn’t ask.
“Oh yeah,” Jennings replied. “And that douche bag from Seventeen.”
“Hey, I like that guy.”
The smile dropped from Jennings’s face faster than his body would have fallen to the water tower’s ground floor. Or a ton of bricks, for that matter. Eighty or eight hundred. Laws of physics.
“I’m just messing with you, Jennings,” I said.
“You’re a douchebag, Tanner.”
Hey, look at that. The left one dropped. I couldn’t help but shake my head, laugh, turn, and continue on my way down that spiraling staircase. Their footsteps faded as mine echoed off the surrounding walls.
As I stepped off the metal stairs onto the concrete bottom, I noticed Sam standing right outside the doorway. At six-four and built like a linebacker, he blocked most of the artificial light from outside. He leaned against the frame with his left elbow propped up next to his head. His right leg was straight while his left leg crossed over the other at the shin, all casual and relaxed. Did anything faze the guy? Guess that’s what the Rangers does for someone. He had the door propped open with a red brick. I recalled seeing several of them on my way inside. At the time, I had thought about grabbing one to use on Roy.
Sam glanced over his shoulder, did a double take. “You look like ten-day-old garbage.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“That your blood?”
I hadn’t realized that Roy had bled on me. I had the sudden urge to strip down and find the nearest shower. I resisted looking down. “How bad is it?”
He pointed at my chest. “Just on your shirt. Your hands, too, I guess.”
“Dammit. Have to get tested again.” AIDS, Hepatitis, and any other blood borne pathogen — these guys out here carry all of them and don’t give two craps about warning you about them. In Roy’s defense, he didn’t have the faculties available at the time.
Sam laughed and punched my shoulder. “It’s not that bad, man. Come on, let’s go deal with the hyenas.”
Hyenas, Sam’s pet name for the media, wasn’t that far off in Philadelphia. Or most places, I suppose. Normally, Horace “Huff” Huffman, our Lieutenant and esteemed leader, would handle them for us. Not tonight. He was at the same poker game as the negotiator. Huff would ignore his pager no more than two times. Then he’d take his time getting down here and ream us for a job not well done. So Sam and I were on our own. Two sacrificial lambs wading through a pack of trained, vicious hyenas. There was only one thing to say.
“No comment,” I said.
“No comment,” Sam said.
The leader stepped ahead of the pack. Her dark wavy hair and eyes black as coal gave us reason to pause. Behind the beautiful facade something evil worked, though. “Detectives, do you think—”
“I think we said, no comment,” Sam said. “Now kindly get out of our way before I charge you with tampering with a crime scene.”
Sam had a way with words. He could say in two sentences what would have taken me two paragraphs. Or one obscenity laden sentence, which would do me no favors when the evening news ran the clip repeatedly.
The news crews backed up past the point where the tape should have been strung. They moved slowly, dragging their feet. I thought hyenas were a hyper bunch?
“Are Jennings and that other doofus the only two uniforms out here?” I asked Sam.
“Saturday night, that’s all we get this far out. Half the precinct’s on loan downtown for that festival.”
“Which festival is it this weekend?”
“There’s so freaking many, Mitch. I can’t ever remember.”
“Just another excuse to get loaded.”
“That’s right. So how’s about we finish up here and get down there?” He threw his thumb over his shoulder for emphasis.
I looked up at the pale blue tower and shook my head. Had I really stood next to that railing? “We gotta question this guy tonight. Hopefully forensics got a good sample of that blood spot and can tell us something new. If anything, we can BS our way with Roy. Maybe get him to open up.”
At that time, the firefighters emerged with a still unconscious Roy. Two medics met them at the door and loaded the guy onto a gurney. Jennings and his partner followed the group out. Sam headed toward them.
“What the hell were you two thinking going up there without cordoning off this area? Every one of them reporters trounced around in front of the entrance. What if that guy had dropped something? Now it’s pounded in the damn mud.”
I laughed at the tirade. For as smooth as Sam could be with the media, he could light up a rookie cop. He would have made a hell of a drill instructor if he’d stayed in the Army. I left Sam to the discipline and jogged over to Firefighter Jerry.
“Did a number on him, Mitch,” Jerry said.
“Kept him from jumping,” I said. “So, when do you think we can get at him?”
“He’s going to the hospital.”
“Evaluation, then we can bring him back to the station?”
Jerry laughed and hiked his thumb in the air toward Roy. “Guy’s been out of it for, what, fifteen minutes now? He’ll be under observation all night.”
“Dammit,” I said, looking toward the ambulance as they hoisted Roy up and inside.
“He might not even remember what he was doing up there to begin with.”
“Oh, he’ll remember once forensics processes that blood.”
“You mean those guys?” Jerry pointed over my shoulder.
I turned around and saw Sandusky leaning against his black crime scene investigation van. His arms were crossed over his chest, and his legs spread wide. A lit cigarette dangled from his mouth. I supposed that, to a man in his line of work, no one dies of natural causes.
“Hey, cookout tomorrow,” Jerry said. “You wanna come over?”
I started to move toward the van. “It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow, Jerry. Tropical storm something or another.”
Jerry cursed and said something else, but I ignored it. I hollered for Sam. Together we jogged over to Sandusky’s van.
“Fellas,” Sandusky said.
“Get that evidence?” I asked.
“What evidence?” he asked in reply.
“At the house,” I said.
“Ain’t been to no house, Tanner.”
“Are you kidding me, Sandy? Roy Miller’s house. I called it in and gave the address. Found a spot of blood outside. We need that processed.”
Sandusky jerked his body forward and started toward the front of the van. “Hey, all I heard was water tower, Tanner.”
A crack of thunder roared overhead. I looked up and noticed that the clouds no longer raced by the moon. They had consumed it. I felt the first drops of water hit my face. “Hurry, before this rain washes it away.” I opened the passenger door of the van and hopped inside. Looking back over my shoulder, I said, “Sam, get your car and get over there.”
Sam took off running. I watched him skirt behind the reporters who were still bunched up around an imaginary crime scene line. I hoped they wouldn’t see us. Last thing we needed was one of them following us back to the Miller’s residence.
Sandusky shot me a curious look.
“Just floor it, asshole.”
He dropped the van into drive. The tires spun in the dirt and kicked gravel everywhere.
“Go easy,” I said. “Gonna attract attention that way.”
He waved me off and ignored the narrow road that led to the street, instead choosing to drive through the grass.
“You know where we’re going?”
“I spent all day there yesterday, Tanner.”
Had it only been one day since Dusty Anne’s death? The episode atop the water tower felt like it lasted at least a week. How long till the calendar caught up with my brain this time?
“What do you think?” I asked.
“About what?”
One thing about Sandusky, the guy is incapable of giving a straight answer after one question. If I hadn’t been trained to go through this process, I’d have knocked him out and stole his van right then and there.
“Dusty Anne and that crime scene?”
“Who says it’s a crime scene?”
“That’s what I’m asking you, man.”
“Why would you ask me that?”
“Because you’ve processed thousands of crime scenes, so I’d like to get your opinion.”
“On or off the record.”
I’d almost had it by then. “Whatever, man, I’m just fishing for opinions, gut feelings, intuition. If the Holy Spirit came down and gave you any clues, I’d love to hear them.”
He cleared his throat as he turned the steering wheel and navigated toward the Miller’s house. “On the record, it looks like a woman, mid-thirties, fell and hit her head.”
“And off the record?”
“Signs point elsewhere, but you’ll have to wait for the ME to confirm that.”
Sandusky, despite his shaggy outward appearance and aloof mannerisms, had a tendency to be right on the money.
So he pulled the van up to the curb on the opposite side of the road. I heard Sam brake hard and stop on the other side of the street. I hopped out of the van and held my hand above my eyebrows to shield my eyes from the rain. That cursed rain. I said as much, too. We all met on the sidewalk in front of the Miller’s residence. Sam held his windbreaker over his head. The rain hit it with a dull, hollow sounding thump.
“Where’s this evidence?” Sandusky said.
“Follow me.” I walked up to the gate and lifted the latch, then kicked it open. The porch light was still on. That’s how I noticed the blood earlier that night. I headed right for it.
I stopped a foot from the hedges, and Sam and Sandusky came to a halt behind me. I frantically searched for the blood I’d seen earlier. My head jerked side to side, bobbed up and down. I probably looked like the world’s worst dancer at that moment, hands on my hips, doing some weird version of the Chicken Dance.
“Well?” Sandusky said.
“Just hold on a minute here,” I said. It didn’t matter though. The rain had washed it away. “Son of a…” I kicked my foot across the ground, breaking a few of the lower branches.
“Just point to the general area,” Sandusky said while fishing through his pockets. He pulled out a multi-tool and held it up in the light. In his other hand, he held a plastic evidence bag, upside down. “I’ll clip the branches and we can see what we find.”
“Will that work?” Sam said.
Sandusky shrugged. “Can’t hurt.”
I felt Sam grab my collar and tug me backward. It came as a surprise. Nearly took me off my feet.
“Let’s get out of the man’s way,” he said to me.
I took a few steps back and turned and started walking with Sam toward the gate. Our work was done.
“Want to go back to the office and look over the pictures?” he asked.
I did, but doing so would remind me of the blood trail we had just lost. I needed a distraction. “No.”
“How about we grab a beer?”
“Now you’re talking.”
I followed him through the gate. We passed in front of the black crime scene van. Both of us stopped when we saw Carla. She leaned against Sam’s Camaro, holding a large golf umbrella. It protected that fine, dark wavy hair. Her eyes still looked blacker than the night. To what did we owe the pleasure of a visit from the local news superstar?
“How’s it hanging, fellas,” she said.
“We’ve got nothing to say,” Sam said.
“You sure about that? It’s the day after an apparent accident, and I find you two, Philadelphia PD’s top homicide detectives, back at the scene with forensics. This after chasing the corpse’s widower up a water tower and then knocking him out?”
Neither of us said anything. Sam opened his door and got in. I walked around the trunk, past Carla.
She reached out and grabbed my upper arm. “Come on, Detective. Something’s up. At least toss me a small bone.”
I looked over at her. Our eyes met. She smiled.
“Least you can do for an old friend,” she said.
I broke free from her grasp, pulled my door open and stopped before getting in. “Go to hell, Carla.”
Her mouth dropped open an inch. I think I saw her smile. It was hard to tell in the darkness.
“And you can run that sound bite.”