Morgan had entered plenty of crime scenes over the years, and he owed most of that to Gary. Having someone on the inside was nothing if not helpful, but the one thing it didn’t cure was the gut-wrenching disgust he felt whenever he saw a body.
In this case it belonged to a cop named Joshua Danes. The details had come through on the radio while they’d made their way to the crime scene, and Morgan had spent the rest of the journey picturing the victim—imagining how many kids he had. Did he have a wife? Friends? There were endless possibilities to the many factors that made up this poor guy’s life, but if one thing was certain, it was that the MPD would be in an uproar. Nothing stirred trouble in the police force more than one of their own being murdered in the street.
At least the perimeter had been sealed off. It wasn’t much, but when something like this happened Morgan was grateful for all the small things. He passed under the tape with Gary at his side, keeping an eye on the civilians that shoved each other out of the way to catch a glimpse of the action.
If only they knew what it looked like, he thought. They wouldn’t want to see.
The stolen car was here all right, but it was an empty victory. Beside the vehicle, a uniformed officer was being tended to by the coroner. The sidewalk was stained with the man’s blood, and Morgan felt his insides twist with both horror and sympathy for the man. Had it been the woman who’d done this? Was she so scared of being caught that she’d lashed out and killed an innocent police officer? If so, she was crazier than he thought.
“Don’t let it get to you.”
Morgan turned to the voice. Gary stood watching him. “What?”
“I can read your eyes. You’re thinking about the woman on the phone.”
“You’re right. I… think I’m ready to share the information with the police now.”
“Really?”
Morgan nodded. There was no doubt about it. This had quickly become a homicide investigation, and any information that kept stuff like this from happening again was sure to be put to good use. “I’ll write it up and send it over.”
“Thanks.”
Gary turned and led them toward a witness: an older lady with ringlets of white hair and wrinkled skin that sagged beneath her chin as she spoke. An officer was comforting her, but her cold stare fixed on Morgan as they approached.
“You here because of what happened?”
“Yes.” Gary tapped the officer on the shoulder. “I’ve got this.”
The officer disappeared without a word, running to join the other officers who were struggling to hold back the civilians. Morgan wasn’t sure if he was lucky to have made it beyond the tape, but it didn’t feel like it. If anything, it felt as though he’d been introduced to a whole new world of rage and terror.
“Tell me what you saw,” Gary said.
The woman rambled at the speed of an everyday busybody who was just too excited to be a part of the scenery. She covered all the events leading up to the violent stabbing, taking them through her entire journey. Apparently, she’d followed a suspicious-looking woman from the grocery store, keeping the cell phone in her hand in case there was trouble. Her intuition had come to serve her well, and she’d been the first to call in after the officer was stabbed.
“And nobody saw the killer after that?” Morgan asked.
“She ran that way. Two men ran after her, but I don’t think they caught her.”
“Was she thin, with black hair and… I don’t know. Good bone structure?”
The woman’s head fell to one side. “I guess. She had a funny accent.”
Fear knotted in his gut. “English?”
“Maybe. I get confused between that and Australian.”
“But it was one of the two?”
The woman nodded.
Morgan groped Gary’s arm and led him away to a secluded area where nobody could overhear. He realized how bad his hands were trembling, struggling to find grip on his friend’s sleeve while dizziness took over. “It’s her.”
“No shit.”
“What can we do?”
Gary shrugged and puffed as he exhaled. “Not much. Mrs. Patterson can’t have her car back until forensics have gone over it. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find some prints. But it probably won’t be me—Captain Bray doesn’t like us working together.”
“I’m not surprised. What should I do?”
“Whatever you can, but there’s nothing here for us.”
Morgan turned and stared back toward the body of Officer Danes, where a body bag was being zipped over his face. The body was wheeled away on a gurney, but the pool of his blood was soaking its way into the concrete on which he’d died, leaving a part of his legacy in this unsafe city. Morgan wondered how it’d come to this—what started as a simple missing persons case had become a homicide investigation, and now here he was, dead in the middle of it with the killer’s voice repeating itself over and over inside his head.
Don’t. You. Dare.