The following is an excerpt
of the opening chapters of
The Dead Detective
by William Heffernan
“The Dead Detective is a meaty story that offers an intriguing and conflicted protagonist, a darkly fascinating victim, solid police procedural detail, a knowing look at the Tampa Bay area and its politics, an unlikely murderer, and a creepy denouement that hints that Harry [protagonist] will be back.” —Booklist
PROLOGUE
Tampa, Florida
The mirrored ball rotating above the stage sent small patches of light spiraling about the room, and together with the grinding beat of the music it seemed to accent the faint film of sweat that covered the dancer’s body. She was a beautiful woman, young and lithe and erotically proportioned, and she was dressed in the skimpiest of thongs with a bikini top so small it failed to cover the aureoles of her breasts. Yet none of that staged eroticism found its way to her dancing, and the perspiration on her body came from the heat of the stage lights rather than any degree of exertion.
Darlene Beckett studied the woman and tried to think of a single word that would describe her performance. Somnambulistic was the only one that came to mind, and she wished she could go up on the stage and push the woman aside; show her how to arouse the men who sat staring up at her; show her how to use her body, how to put that little pout in her lips, how to make her eyes call out with an open invitation, how to use all of it until she had them slipping their hands under the table and reaching for themselves.
A faint smile played across Darlene’s lips as she thought of doing just that. But of course she couldn’t. The media would jump on any misstep she made, and the courts would be right behind, just waiting for a chance to slap her down. Darlene had been able to get rid of the ankle monitor she was supposed to wear. That was no longer a problem. She had bedded her probation officer within a month of her sentencing to house arrest, and he had helped her remove it on two conditions. First, that she always wear slacks to hide its absence, and second, that she keep it with her at all times, so she could claim it had just fallen off if she was ever questioned about it. She smiled again. She had ignored that second condition from the very start. The monitor sat atop her bedroom dresser, deactivated, and there it would stay. As far as the courts and the probation department were concerned she was home asleep in her bed.
“Hello, there, pretty lady.”
Darlene turned to the sound of the male voice. It was the man who had been watching her most of the evening, and she had been wondering when he would get up the courage to approach her. She had even asked one of the dancers about him, just to make sure he wasn’t a well-known creep. He was certainly young enough. He was also tall and lean and fairly good looking. He was wearing a cowboy hat, western-style boots, and a wide belt with a large silver buckle to hold up his jeans. There were a great many horse ranches scattered across the nearby counties, but he didn’t carry with him that always lingering smell of horse. Just a barroom cowboy, she decided.
“Hi there,” she said, thinking that despite the costume this one just might do.
“The name’s Clint. You who I think you are?” he asked.
“Who do you think I am?”
“That lady who was on TV all the time a few months back.”
“You have a good memory for faces, Clint. My name’s Darlene in case you forgot that part.”
“I didn’t forget.” He flashed a wide, very white smile. “I just never thought I’d get a chance to meet you.”
Darlene put some sparkle in her eyes and allowed her lips to play with the idea of a smile. “And now you have.”
He gave a long, slow nod of his head. “You like this place?” He raised his chin indicating the room.
“I like to watch the dancers,” Darlene said. “The good ones anyway.” She let her eyes go to the woman on the stage and gave a small shake of her head, letting him know this one wasn’t one she enjoyed.
“I like everything about it.” Clint drew a deep breath. “Place smells like sex.”
Darlene took a long, slow, less obvious breath, filling her lungs with the intermingling odors of stale liquor and cigarettes and sweat. She let her playful smile return. “Hmm, it does,” she said.
The cowboy leaned in close. “You wanna take a little ride? I could pick up whatever you’re drinkin’ and maybe we could head over toward the beach. How’s that sound?”
CHAPTER ONE
Harry Doyle sat in his car outside the front gate of the Central Florida Women’s Correctional Facility. He remained nearly motionless except for the occasional rise of one hand to bring a cigarette to his lips. He seemed to be staring ahead at the white brick buildings as if studying them for flaws. The main building was a long, low, sprawling structure with a collection of smaller buildings off to one side, all of it surrounded by eighteen-foot chain-link fences, set in two rows with a twenty-foot no-man’s-land between them. Both rows of fences were topped with three additional feet of razor wire, the edges of which glistened in the bright Florida sun. Escape was possible, of course, as it was from any detention facility. But anyone who made it over those fences would carry the gift of that razor wire, and would leave a blood trail that pursuing dogs would easily follow.
Harry looked beyond the edge of the road where he had parked his car. The prison was set in a patch of Central Florida wilderness. In every direction thick scrub land and swamp met his eye. It would be hard territory to cross, filled with all manner of danger. A game warden had once told him that anyone walking through a patch of Florida wilderness would pass no less than one hundred venomous snakes per mile traveled, and while most would try to get out of the way, sooner or later you would meet one that could not or would not. There would also be countless gators in the deeper swamps, and while the patches of dry open land would hold scorpions and fire ants, the thicker woods would offer up a variety of creatures you wouldn’t care to meet unarmed, even the occasional Florida panther, black bear, or wild boar.
Harry took a long drag on his unfiltered Camel and ground out the butt in an overflowing ashtray. It was his fourth cigarette since he’d arrived. He had given up smoking five years ago, and had only smoked on this one day every year since.
When he looked back at the prison he noticed two guards standing just inside the main gate staring back at him. After a few minutes, the gate opened and one of the guards walked slowly toward Harry’s car. He was a tall, angular man with a large nose and thin, pinched lips. He looked to be about twenty-five and he walked a bit stiffly, as if he were tightly wound and ready to react. His hand was on the butt of his holstered Glock automatic. It was a touch of hoped for intimidation that almost made Harry smile.
Harry lowered the window on the driver’s side. The guard stopped, his eyes scanning what he could see of the car’s interior. They settled on the police radio.
“You a cop?” the guard asked.
Harry raised his shield and credential case. The guard bent over to look at it more closely.
“Pinellas County,” he said, a slight grin coming to his lips. “That don’t carry a lot of weight out here in the boonies.” There was a smirk on his face that Harry didn’t like; an unearned arrogance. Harry was six-one, with enough lean, well-conditioned muscle to fill out a fairly large frame, and he had little compunction about using it. People often misjudged him. He had craggy features that made him seem a bit older than his thirty-one years, wavy brown hair and soft green eyes that made him appear almost docile. It was a misconception that usually disappeared as soon as Harry opened his mouth.
“I guess you didn’t hear me,” the guard snapped. He shifted his weight and tightened his grip on the butt of his weapon, clearly irritated by Harry’s lack of response. “I said that Pinellas County don’t carry a lot of weight out here.”
Harry studied the man’s name tag. It said, L. Bottoms. “What’s the “L” stand for?” he asked.
The guard hesitated, uncertain if an answer might cost him control of the situation. Finally, he gave in. “Leroy,” he said, accenting the second syllable of his name.
Harry nodded. When he spoke it was in a slow, soft, well-modulated voice. “Well, Le-roy, how much weight would it carry if I got out of my car, took hold of that Glock you keep playing with, and shoved it eight inches up your ass?”
Leroy’s jaw dropped, and his face paled. Then he began to stammer. “Now wait . . . now wait . . . a . . . a damn minute.”
“No, you wait, Le-roy. Then you turn your skinny ass around and get back to work. I showed you my tin and that’s all you need to see. So, fuck off. And fuck off fast.”
“Well . . . well . . . fuck you too,” Leroy snapped. He hesitated, trying to decide what to do. Then he cursed Harry once more, made a quick pivot, and headed back toward the main gate.
Harry watched him walk away. Leroy seemed a little deflated at first. Then he stiffened his back and added a bit of swagger. Harry assumed it was a touch of bravado for the other guard who was still watching from inside the gate.
Ten minutes later another figure emerged from the gate. He was tall and slightly overweight, the bulge of a belly hanging over his belt, and he wore lieutenant bars on his shirt collar. His name was Walter Lee Hollins and Harry had known him for more than ten years.
“How ya doin’, Harry?” he offered as he reached the car window.
“I’m good, Walter Lee, how about yourself?”
“Tolerable. Better on days when I don’t have to put up with assholes like Leroy. He give you a hard time?”
“He was just playing badass, and I just wasn’t in the mood.”
“Shouldn’t have to be. Not once you showed him your tin. You did, right?”
Harry nodded. “He saw the police radio and asked. So I showed him.”
“That’s what I figured. Anyways, he’s makin’ a big stink.”
“To you?”
“Oh, no, he knows better’n that. He’s talkin’ to the captain. He’s new, and on the young side, and almost as stupid as Leroy. Just thought I’d warn you to expect to hear about it.”
Harry nodded again. “Thanks, Walter Lee.”
“Oh, and in case you were wonderin’, your mama’s still inside, still healthy. You ever change your mind about wantin’ to see her, I can arrange it to happen out of the way and real quiet.”
Harry nodded but said nothing, and Walter Lee gave the top of the car a light rap and headed back toward the prison.
Harry watched him go; then turned his attention back to the surrounding landscape. Little had changed in all the years he had come here, which was exactly as he wanted it to be. He came once each year, always on the anniversary of his brother Jimmy’s murder. He never saw his mother on any of these visits. He only saw the place where she was caged. It was a necessary trip; one that only he could make. He had lived and Jimmy had not. On his way home he would stop at Jimmy’s grave and tell him that their mother was still behind bars.
“I’ll make sure she stays there, Jimmy,” he would promise, as he did each year. “I’ll make sure she’s there until she’s dead.”
* * *
Harry Santos and his brother Jimmy died on June 7, 1985, on a hot, humid Florida morning. The boys were ten and six years old and on the morning of their deaths they were seated in the kitchen of their home waiting for their mother to join them at the breakfast table. Jimmy, the youngest and the family clown, was imitating their three-year-old next-door neighbor who sang the same song day after day while playing in his backyard. It was a simple, childish song about a spider and a water spout, but Jimmy’s hand gestures and facial expressions perfectly mimicked the three-year-old and produced gales of laughter from his older brother Harry. Across the kitchen their mother Lucy smiled at their antics. Then she turned her back to them and began crushing four sleeping pills into a fine powder. She divided the powder, put equal amounts into two glasses of freshly squeezed orange juice, and brought the glasses to the table. Twenty minutes later, when the boys were unconscious, Lucy dragged them into the garage and placed them on the floor side-by-side next to the exhaust pipe of her five-year-old Chevrolet. As both boys slept she carefully folded their hands across their chests, placed small silver crosses on their foreheads, and covered their eyes with hand towels, then stood quietly for a moment, viewing the scene she had created. Slowly, a look of pleasure crept into her eyes and she turned and walked quickly to the car, opened the driver’s-side door, slipped inside, and started the engine. Finished, she went back into the house and closed the door to the garage behind her. After placing a folded towel at the base of the door to confine the exhaust fumes, she smiled again, collected her Bible, and walked the two short blocks to the evangelical church she attended each Sunday. There, she prostrated herself on the floor of the altar, just below a large stained-glass window depicting the three crosses of Golgotha, and asked God to deliver her sons to His heavenly peace.
While Lucy was praying an elderly neighbor walked past her house, heard the car running inside the garage, and became concerned. He knocked on the front door and after getting no response, hurried home and called 911. Two patrol cops arrived at the scene minutes later and forced their way into the garage. They found Harry and Jimmy just as their mother had left them and carried them outside. Both boys had stopped breathing and neither had a heartbeat. The two officers called for emergency service backup and immediately began CPR. Harry, who was big for his age, was brought back to life before the EMTs arrived. Jimmy, who was much smaller and quite frail, never regained consciousness.
When she returned home from church, Lucy Santos was arrested and charged with the murder of her son Jimmy, and the attempted murder of her son Harry. Under questioning she admitted drugging the boys, placing them on the floor next to her car, and starting the engine. She told the arresting officers that she was making sure her sons would be waiting for her in heaven. When asked why, she said that June 4 had been her thirty-third birthday, as if that alone explained her actions. A psychiatrist hired by Lucy’s court-appointed attorney theorized that Lucy, as a devout Christian, believed that Jesus Christ had been crucified, died, and was buried shortly after his thirty-third birthday, and then had risen from the dead and ascended into heaven three days later. He said Lucy believed that God had chosen her to follow that exact same path, and that she had not wanted to abandon her sons to the care of strangers.
The state’s attorney, who was eyeing a future run for governor, told the press that he wasn’t buying any of it, and announced that he would seek the death penalty and would have ten-year-old Harry testify that his mother had been perfectly rational in the days—even the hours— leading up to the murder. Harry, who was now in state custody, became an instant media darling. Reporters swooped in like seagulls at a picnic, easily manipulating the child into a series of sensational quotes. The few child welfare workers who tried to intervene were pushed aside by the state’s attorney, who insisted that Harry was under the protective custody of his office. With that door opened wide, the media played its part and gave the state’s attorney just what he wanted. The initial headline in the St. Petersburg Times read: Ten-Year-Old Ready to Put Mom on Death Row, while the Tampa Tribune intoned: Harry Says Killer Mom Must Die.
After the initial barrage of outrageous quotes and comments, the story made its way to the back pages and a year passed in relative quiet before the case was ready for trial. By that time, closely held psychiatric evidence had begun to build indicating that Lucy Santos was insane. Two days before the trial was set to begin, the state’s attorney held a press conference with Harry at his side. There, surrounded by the media, he announced that a plea bargain had been reached that would send Lucy to prison for the rest of her natural life. Harry, now eleven, was asked how he felt about the decision and the fact that he would not have to testify against his mother. The young boy, well coached by prosecutors, stared back at the reporters with very lost, very empty eyes and told them that he had been prepared to testify. Then he paused, and in words that had not been scripted for him, said: “I just want to be sure my mother never gets out of prison.”
Three weeks after his mother was sentenced, the county agency that had taken charge of Harry placed him in permanent foster care. The foster family’s name was Doyle. The father, John—Jocko to his riends—was a sergeant with the Clearwater Police Department. The mother, Maria, was a Cuban exile, who ran her home with endless amounts of love, and the efficiency of a Marine drill instructor. There were no other children, and after two years Jocko and Maria Doyle petitioned the courts to adopt Harry and make him their son. Harry had no objection and the courts saw no reason to deny the request. Harry had never known his father, he was simply a man he vaguely remembered who had occasionally come into his mother’s life, remained awhile, and then left again. They had never married and by the time Jimmy was born he was gone for good.
Harry remained with the Doyle’s for eleven years. Over time he learned to care for them, but he never allowed himself to love them, or to look on them as his parents. His affection tended more toward respect and gratitude for the care and love they had generously given him. Trust was never an issue for Harry. Throughout the time he lived with them, Harry Santos Doyle never went to sleep without first locking his bedroom door.
* * *
Harry arrived at the Pinellas County sheriff’s office at three-thirty, parked his unmarked car in the lot reserved for police vehicles, and headed for a rear door that would take him to the second-floor offices of the homicide division. He was working four to midnight, which meant he’d probably finish up at three or four in the morning if the night turned busy. But the extra time didn’t matter. It was his favorite shift, one that his fellow detectives, most of whom had families or lovers, preferred to avoid. It also encompassed the hours when the most complicated murders took place. Daylight killings, and those that happened after midnight, usually turned into ground balls—simple, straightforward homicides that often left the perpetrator standing at the scene, murder weapon still in hand. Those, anyone could handle. It was the more difficult, more intricate cases that Harry loved, and as far as the other homicide dicks were concerned, if the dead detective wanted the more complex cases, and the extra, unpaid hours they inevitably involved, it was fine with them. The job was tough enough and dangerous enough as it was.
They had been calling Harry the “dead detective” ever since his appointment to the division. During his time in a patrol car he had kept a fairly low profile about his past. But once he reached homicide the cat quickly left the bag. Detectives have a tendency to remember cases, especially the big ones, and when Harry was promoted to homicide five years earlier at the tender age of twenty-six, there were still older cops who remembered the case of the two murdered brothers. They also remembered that a Clearwater patrol sergeant named Jocko Doyle had adopted the one who came back to life. Given the morbidity of cop humor, Harry’s new name was immediately set in stone.
Harry had joined the sheriff’s department shortly after graduating from the University of South Florida. Everyone thought it was a tribute to his adoptive father, who had become a stabilizing force in his life. To some small degree that was true, but there was also another more driving reason that Harry never spoke about. The sheriff’s department handled most of the homicides throughout the county, and Harry had one very personal goal: to devote his life to the pursuit of murderers.
As Harry approached the rear door of the sheriff’s office, a small, lean figure stepped out from behind a thick pineapple palm. He was dressed in an oversized basketball shirt and baggy basketball shorts, with a Miami Heat cap sitting slightly askew on his head. Even though the boy was squinting into the afternoon sun, Harry recognized the size and shape of his favorite twelve-year-old gangsta, Rubio Martí.
“Hey, Doyle. Wassup?” Rubio offered.
Harry shielded his eyes and saw that Rubio was grinning up at him. It was an infectious grin and Harry had to force himself not to smile back. “What’s up with you, you little weasel,” he said. “And why aren’t you in school?”
“School’s out, man. It’s been out for three weeks. Where you been at? Maybe they still goin’ ta school up north, but not in Florida.”
“I thought you’d be in summer school,” Harry said, playing a game they always played about Rubio’s school work.
“Hey, man, I’m too smart for summer school. You know that. That’s truth.”
“The only thing smart about you is your ass,” Harry snapped back. “And that’s truth.”
“Don’t you be dissin’ me. You do, I’ll have to whoop you good.”
Harry put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. Two years ago he had stumbled across the kid while investigating the murder of a Cuban crack dealer. Rubio, who was ten at the time, was working for the man as a lookout, and being paid in both money and drugs. The dealer had been trying to get the kid hooked—something he had succeeded in doing with a number of others. It was a way of guaranteeing both dependence and loyalty from the children who comprised his last line of defense against the police. But Rubio had sold the drugs he had received and given the money to his mother in a vain effort to keep her off the streets. Harry had befriended him and talked him into going back to school. A year later he found himself investigating the murder of the boy’s mother. She had been found in an alley beaten and stabbed fourteen times. It had been a ground ball that ended with the arrest and conviction of her pimp. It had also been one more devastating blow in Rubio’s young life. Now he lived with his grandmother and peddled information to the police—mostly Harry—whenever he could.
“So you down here to have a late lunch with me, or what?” Harry asked.
“Naw,” Rubio said. “I got sumthin’ for you.” He jabbed the index finger and thumb of each hand at the ground as he spoke, playing the gangsta wannabe to the hilt. But with his soft brown face, liquid brown eyes, and strands of curly hair sticking out from beneath his cap, he looked more like a wayward cherub. This time Harry couldn’t keep the smile off his face.
“So whaddaya got, hotshot?” he asked.
The boy kept using his hands and shoulders to emphasize his words. “Hey, you know that woman down in my hood got herself offed? That scaggy ol’ junkie broad?”
“Yeah, it’s not my case, but I know who you’re talking about.”
“Hey, I know it’s not your case, man. It belongs to that tall, skinny dude you work with. The one with the fat partner who’s such a mean-assed mutha.”
“Weathers and Benevuto,” Harry said. “What about it?”
“Yeah, well, they tryin’ to pin it on that scaggy ol’ junkie’s boyfriend.”
“And he didn’t do it,” Harry said.
“You bet you ass he din’.” Rubio was grinning again.
“But you know who did.”
“You got that straight.”
“So who did it?”
“You tell that skinny cop—don’t you tell that mean, fat one—that he oughta check out the ol’ lady lives next door. The real ol’ one.”
“The old lady killed her?”
Rubio shook his head. “Nah. Was her son. That scaggy ol’ junkie broad was robbin’ that ol’ lady’s Social Security checks. Pissed the son off real bad.”
“You sure about this?” Harry asked.
Rubio jabbed his index fingers and thumbs at the ground for emphasis. “Truth, man. You check it out. You see.” He grinned up at Harry. “You know, you shoulda had this case. You coulda solved it right off, usin’ that power you got.”
Harry suppressed a smile. “What power is that?”
“You know what I’m talkin’ about. That way you have to talk to dead people. The way you can look in a dead person’s eyes and see stuff there, because you was dead once yerself.”
“Who told you that?”
“I heard other cops talkin’ about it.” Rubio grinned. “I hear lots a stuff you cops say.”
“Well that one’s a fairy tale.”
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” Rubio said. “You jus’ don’t wanna let on about it.” Harry put his hand in his pocket and took out a fold of bills, slipped a twenty off the top, and handed it to the boy. “You put that to good use,” he said. “Buy a couple of books. Do something for your brain.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Rubio said. He shrugged his shoulders, becoming the tough guy again.
“And come see me later in the week so we can grab something to eat,” Harry said.
“I will. I will.”
“No, you won’t. But think about it, anyway. And say hola to your grandmother for me. Tell her I’ll be by someday to check up on your ass.”
Harry watched the boy head across the parking lot, then turned and entered the building. When he reached the homicide office, he found John Weathers and passed along Rubio’s tip, without explaining where he had gotten it. Weathers didn’t seem that interested. Harry decided not to push it. At least not until they arrested the boyfriend.
* * *
Harry spent the first hour working at his desk, reviewing the paperwork on a case he had closed the previous day. It hadn’t been a particularly satisfying one—an elderly man killed during a robbery gone sour. Harry had tracked down the killer within forty-eight hours. It turned out to be a teenage boy raised in a home that the ASPCA wouldn’t have allowed to keep a dog or cat. It was a case where everyone had lost except the people who really deserved to. A voice barked across the room, interrupting his thoughts: “Doyle. In here.”
He looked up and saw Pete Rourke, the division captain, going back into his office, a trailing finger beckoning Harry to follow. When he entered the office Rourke was already behind his desk. There was also an attractive, dark-haired woman, somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties, seated in one of the two visitors’ chairs.
“Doyle, meet your new partner,” Rourke snapped. “This is Vicky Stanopolis. She’s new to the division, just came up from sex crimes. She also claims she can work with anybody.” Rourke looked at each of them, then shook his head. “We’ll see if she can work with you. God knows, nobody else wants to.”
Harry fought off a smile. “Thanks, cap.”
“No problem.” Rourke turned to Vicky. “Harry doesn’t have a life, so he likes to work long hours. You don’t have to try and keep up when he goes crazy that way. But you might learn a few things working with him. Including things you shouldn’t do. But it’s like I told you before he came in, he seems to have a special talent, let’s call it an intuition about killers—an intuition that some people consider a little spooky. Other partners he’s had claimed that the victims . . . told him things.” He gave Harry a long look as if awaiting some confirmation. When none came he turned his attention back to Vicky. “He’s also an enormous pain in the ass.” He threw Harry a stern look. He was a big man with a square, fleshy face, unruly black hair, and piercing blue eyes. His voice, as usual, was gruff, the words sharp and to the point. “I got a call from the women’s prison . . . a corrections captain who said you threatened one of his men.”
“It wasn’t much of a threat,” Harry said. “The guy was a professional jackass. I just let him know that I knew he was a jackass.” Amusement flickered in Harry’s eyes. “I guess he complained.”
“Yes, he did.”
“Sort of proves my point.”
Rourke glared at him. “Next time, try a nice, warm smile when you tell somebody you’re gonna shove their Glock up their ass. It’s good public relations.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rourke shook his head as if the entire conversation had been pointless. He pulled some papers from a pile, ready to get back to work. “Take Vicky out to the bullpen and introduce her around. The desk across from you is empty, right?”
Harry nodded.
“Now it belongs to her.”
* * *
Introducing Vicky to the other detectives proved easy duty. She was tall and slender and shapely, with long brown hair that fell almost to her shoulders, pale brown eyes that looked like they could swallow you whole, a straight nose, and a mouth that seemed just a bit large, a bit sensual. None of that had registered in Rourke’s office. Now, confronted with the wide-eyed stares of his fellow detectives, Harry couldn’t help but notice.
Most of the male detectives were overly friendly but respectful. They had been taught respect from the only other woman in the division, Diva Walsh, the sergeant in charge of assigning cases. Diva was a heavyset black woman, who could probably kick half the asses in the room, maybe more than half, and she easily kept most of the detectives in line. One of the few exceptions now followed Harry and Vicky back to their desks.
Nick Benevuto was a silver-haired lothario with an expanding waistline. To his fellow detectives he was known as Nicky the Pimp, owing to the fact that he had once worked vice and most of his snitches were still aging hookers. He also had a reputation as one mean son of a bitch just as young Rubio Martí had claimed earlier. Right now he was busy playing office Romeo. Vicky seemed to have his number from the start.
“So, Vicky, honey,” Nick began, only to be cut short.
“Don’t call me honey,” Vicky said. She hardened the words with a cold smile; then added: “I have a gun, and I’m good with it.”
Nick raised his hands defensively. “Hey, darlin’, I was only—”
“Don’t call me darlin’ either.”
“Okay, okay. No offense. Jesus, you Greek women are hard.”
“You bet your bippy,” Vicky said.
Nick drew a long breath, turned, and started back across the room. “You’re gonna get along just great with the dead detective,” he muttered.
When Vicky turned back to her desk Harry was already seated across from her, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His eyes told her it would be a nice smile if he ever let it grow.
“I guess Rourke will be talking to you soon,” Harry said.
“About what?”
“About how you treat jackasses.”
Vicky fought off her own smile. “So why did he call you the dead detective?” she asked, as she slid into her chair.
“I died once,” Harry said. “It was a long time ago.”
“Duty related?”
“No. I was only a kid.”
“You wanna tell me about it?”
Harry gave her an indifferent stare. “No, I don’t. In time you’ll hear all about it from them.” He inclined his head toward the room, indicating the other detectives. “It’s a better story when they tell it.”
Harry went back to his paperwork, sorting out reports for two cases that were now set for trial. Vicky watched him. She was more than a little curious about the man, about this “spooky” intuition he was supposed to have about killers. She had already dismissed Rourke’s comment about victims talking to him as little more than cop shop nonsense and she wondered how it all tied into this dead detective business. But she was also smart enough to know that it was a subject she couldn’t push. There was a sense of intensity about Harry Doyle that seemed to infuse everything he did, the way he moved and spoke; even the way he looked at you. She wasn’t certain why, but she found it very appealing. Too much so, she told herself. And it didn’t help that she liked the way he looked. He was tall and lean, just a bit over six feet, she guessed, with wavy brown hair, penetrating green eyes, and a strong jaw. He wasn’t a pretty boy by any means. Ruggedly handsome would better describe him. But those strong features seemed to soften when that sense of playfulness came to his eyes and that small smile toyed with the corners of his mouth.
Vicky thought about that. She didn’t want to get involved with Harry Doyle or anyone else. Her personal life was a shambles at the moment, and she didn’t need to make it worse by falling for her partner.
“Doyle. Stanopolis.”
It was Diva. Harry got up quickly and headed for her desk. Vicky followed.
“Whaddaya got?” Harry asked.
“We got a woman in the Brooker Creek Preserve, a very dead woman. Some old lady out on a bird watching jaunt found her and started screaming for the park rangers. They called it in and we sent two units. First car at the scene said the vic’s throat’s been sliced. Also said she’s been posed and that it looked like a fresh kill.”
“They seal off the area?” Harry asked.
“Deputy said he did,” Diva answered. “Couple more cars were dispatched just to make sure it stayed that way. The preserve’s got a lot of groups hiking the trails this time of year.”
“You call the crime scene techs, or is that something we should do?” Vicky asked.
“Already did it,” Diva said. “But thanks for asking. Most of the honchos around here would just assume Diva got it done for them, and then bitch and moan if for some reason the call didn’t get made.” She offered up a small laugh. “Hell, I got three kids at home who don’t need their noses wiped as much as these clowns do.”
“Not their fault,” Vicky said. “They’re men. They’re all born with that ‘Hey, baby, bring me a beer’ gene.”
This time Diva barked out a loud laugh. “You got that right, honey.”
Harry cut the conversation short by spinning on his heels and heading for the stairs. Vicky hurried to catch up.
“Hey, you two be careful,” Diva called after them. “Sounds like you might have a psycho on your hands.”
“Slow down, the vic’s not going anywhere,” Vicky said.
“Yeah, but there’s always the chance somebody else might get there ahead of us. I like to get to a crime scene when it’s still fresh, before anybody screws it up,” Harry said, taking the stairs two at a time. When they reached the parking lot he glanced back and grinned. “How come Diva gets to call you honey?” he asked over his shoulder.
“’Cause I want her to,” Vicky said. “But don’t let that give you any ideas.”
“Never happen,” Harry said. “I won’t even ask you to bring me a beer. And I won’t ask you to drive either,” he added as he slid behind the wheel of their unmarked car.
Vicky got in, slipped on her sunglasses, and looked at him over the tops. “That’s good, Harry. I don’t want your feminist side to start running amok.”
* * *
The Brooker Creek Preserve is 8,000 acres of raw Florida land, a mixture of sandy pine forest and cypress swamp that sits on the northern edge of Pinellas County in a densely populated and pricey residential community known as East Lake. A series of wetlands in neighboring Hillsborough County flow lazily across fifteen miles, constantly feeding the preserve, and only a three-building environmental education complex and two and a half miles of hiking trails mar a landscape that was once prime hunting grounds for Seminole Indians.
Harry pulled up to the preserve’s open iron gates, stopping at a sign that listed the hours it was open to the public. He jotted them down in his notebook—Wednesday, 9 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.; Thursdays through Sundays, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday. It was now five-thirty on a Wednesday afternoon. Harry studied the gate. It was electronic, run from a keypad so it would have to be opened each morning and closed each night by someone who either knew the code or had an override key like the ones police, fire, and rescue personnel carried. He turned to Vicky.
“We won’t know until the autopsy, but if our victim was killed here, or dumped here right after the park opened, whoever was in charge of this gate may have seen our perp entering the preserve. We need to find out who that was.”
Vicky stared into the forest that spread out from the gate. “Sure is a lot of cover for a dirty deed.”
Harry started to laugh. “A dirty deed?”
“What’s wrong with that?”
Harry shook his head. “What’s next, ‘Curses, foiled again’?” “I’m saving that for when Nick Benevuto kicks me out of his bed,” Vicky quipped. “Nicky the pimp has never kicked anyone—or thing—out of his bed,” Harry said. “Well it’s true then,” Vicky snapped back. “God is good.” Harry put the car in gear and started down the mile-long macadam road that led to the Environmental Education Center. Two hundred yards in he pulled off to the right behind two sheriff’s patrol cars that had been parked on each side of a partially overgrown hiking trail leading into the forest. A uniformed deputy stood guard at the head of the trail.
Harry left his coat on the front seat, walked to the rear of the car, and opened the trunk. He took out the small crime scene case he carried to all homicides, then removed a pair of rubber boots and slipped them on. He glanced at Vicky, who had come to the rear of the car and was watching him intently.
“You should get a pair of these boots, or something similar,” he said. “We can have the size and sole prints on file with forensics. It’ll save time eliminating your footprints at crime scenes. It’ll also save you from replacing three or four pairs of ruined shoes every year.”
Vicky grinned at him. “I’ll do it.” She glanced at his rubber boots. “But something a bit more stylish, I think.”
Harry smirked. “Whatever,” he said, as he turned and walked toward the deputy guarding the head of the trail, looking him up and down as he did.
The deputy was tall and lanky with a country boy’s raw-boned strength, but behind a pair of intense blue eyes a good amount of intelligence looked back. Harry was certain they had never met before and made a mental note of the man’s name tag, which read, Morgan.
“What’s your first name, Morgan?” he asked as he came up beside him.
Morgan’s eyes drifted to the detective’s badge attached to Harry’s belt. “Jim,” he said.
Harry extended his hand. “Harry Doyle. I’m with homicide.” He tilted his head toward Vicky. “This is my partner, Vicky Stanopolis. I understand you’ve got a body for us.”
“Sure do,” Morgan said. “Back up that trail about a quarter of a mile at the edge of a cypress swamp. It’s a weird one for sure.”
“How so?” Harry asked.
“Lady’s all posed . . . sexually posed. And she’s wearing a mask and all. Like one of those they wear at Mardi Gras.”
Harry nodded and studied the ground. Fresh tire tracks ran off into the trail. “You guys drive in there?” he asked.
The deputy shook his head. “No way. I was the first one here and I saw the tracks right off. I asked the ranger who called us if he drove in, but he said he didn’t. Said they never do unless they’re running a work crew. He said they haven’t worked on this particular trail since last spring. After I heard all that I made sure nobody else drove in.”
They’d lucked out, Harry thought. Morgan was sharp, much more so than a good percentage of deputies.
“Okay,” Harry said, “when the crime scene boys get here, tell them I want photographs and casts on those tracks. Tell them I want all four tires if they can get them. They’ll probably have to do it on a curve in the trail, but they’ll know that. Anybody else going in, you tell them to keep to the sides of the trail. And no smoking, no candy bars, no anything that’ll screw up my crime scene. You got all that?”
“I got it.”
Harry looked Morgan in the eye. “One more thing, Jim. You did a nice job. Thanks.”
Harry and Vicky slipped on latex gloves and started in, each one using a different side of the eight-foot-wide trail, which was little more than heat-hardened earth, covered in dry, matted grass. A heavy growth of pines rose on each side, obscuring much of what lay beyond . . .
The deputy called after them: “Be careful when you get to that cypress swamp. There’s a nine-foot gator back there thinks it’s his.”
“Thanks again,” Harry called back.
They walked in slowly, checking the trail for any discarded items that might have been left by the killer, finding only three scattered cigarette butts, a chewing gum wrapper, and a number of shoe impressions. Close to where the tire tracks ended they found an empty book of matches advertising a topless bar in Tampa. Harry made a note of the name. All in all the items they found could have been dropped by anyone too lazy to stick them in a pocket to discard later. But every item had to be checked, so they took their time, placing small orange marking flags next to each one. This was only preliminary, an effort to save them time. The crime scene unit would do a far more thorough job; they would literally sweep the area around each flag that Harry had left and comb the entire area in much greater depth, carefully looking for hair, clothing fibers, anything that might be linked to the crime. Still, Harry gave the trail a reasonably thorough search. He didn’t want to wait several hours for the CSI unit to give him an obvious clue.
It took them twenty minutes to reach the cypress swamp where the land and vegetation suddenly changed. There was a long, narrow pool at the swamp’s center, dotted with water lilies, and it forced the hiking trail, which now turned into black, loamy earth, to veer to the left. A green heron strutted along the bank of the pond hunting frogs, its sharp dagger beak and snakelike neck poised to strike. Harry saw no sign of the gator he had been warned about. Thirty yards ahead, where the trail skirted the pond, he could see two uniformed deputies standing guard over something unseen. He motioned Vicky to his side of the trail, away from the edge of the pond.
“Don’t wanna use me as gator bait, huh?” she said.
“I’ll wait for gator season,” Harry shot back.
“That’s my new partner. Just a sweet, sensitive guy.”
“Always,” Harry said.
When they reached the deputies they could just make out one leg of the body. It extended out past a rotting cypress stump located ten feet off the trail.
The deputies were a Mutt and Jeff combination, one tall and slender, the other short and beefy. Harry introduced himself. Vicky did the same, as Harry studied the ground leading to the body. It was soft and spongy and there were footprints leading in and out. He counted four or five sets, some appeared to be the same size, making the exact number hard to determine on first glance. He turned back to the deputies.
“How many of you went in there?” he asked Jeff, who seemed to have the sharper eyes of the pair.
“Let’s see,” Jeff said, counting mentally. “We went in.” He nodded toward the other deputy. “So did Morgan, the deputy you met coming in. And so did the park ranger. He was first. He went straight in after the bird watcher told him there was a body out here. Then he called us.”
“What about the bird watcher?” Harry asked. “Do you know if she went in?”
“When Morgan questioned her, she told him she didn’t. Just saw the leg stickin’ out and went for the ranger. But she’s still up at the preserve office with another deputy if you want to talk to her.”
“The deputy at the office, did he go in?”
Both deputies shook their heads. “He came later—after us; after the crime scene was set up. He was sent to guard the witness; never got out here at all.”
Harry nodded. “Okay, good work. Now, I’d like one of you to call the office and make sure our witness stays put. I’m also gonna need to get the shoe sizes of everyone who went in to the body, and later, when the crime scene techs gets here, I’m going to want casts and photographs of the soles of everyone’s shoes. We’ll have to eliminate all of you from any prints the perp might have left. Also, I need to know if anyone touched the body.”
This time it was Mutt, shaking his head. “None of us,” he said. “Morgan was the first one here and he made sure no one did. The park ranger said he felt her wrist for a pulse. I don’t know why he bothered. Her throat’s cut back almost to her spine. Same as O.J.’s wife.” Mutt shrugged, suddenly embarrassed by the comparison he had just made; then added: “At least that’s what they said at Simpson’s trial.”
Vicky looked away and rolled her eyes. “Morgan told us she’s wearing a mask. Did anybody touchit?” she asked, turning back to the two deputies.
“Not after we got here,” Jeff said, taking over again. “Morgan got here first and made sure nobody touched anything. I can’t swear about the ranger, but he says he only touched her wrist.”
“Okay,” Harry said. “We’re going in to check the body, but we’ll circle wide to avoid adding our footprints to the mix.”
“Watch where you step,” Jeff warned. “There’s a few cottonmouths around these swamps.”
Vicky wrinkled up her nose and gave a small shudder. “Snakes, alligators, and a dead woman in a Mardi Gras mask—I’m really starting to love this case.”
Harry studied her for several moments. The toughness was well established behind her eyes, and that charnel house humor was a definite plus, a necessary survival tool for a cop working homicide. Yeah, he thought, she’ll do just fine. He gave her an amused smile. “Tomorrow we get vampires,” he said.
“I’ve got to wait until tomorrow?”
“They only show themselves on Thursdays.”
What about werewolves?” Vicky said.
“Never saw one in Florida—too hot for all that fur.”
“Damn. And I could’ve sworn I’d dated a few.”
They moved toward the body in a wide circle, looking not only for the snakes the deputy had warned of, but also for any evidence the killer might have tossed out into the thick undergrowth from the immediate crime scene. The walk in proved uneventful, but a more thorough, wider search would be made later. Right now they needed to learn all they could from the body.
The body lay on its back on a rich, dark bed of rotting vegetation. The woman had been clothed in a straight black dress that would have stopped just above the knees had someone not used a knife to slice open the entire front. Black thong underwear was the lone undergarment and it had been pulled aside exposing a neatly trimmed blond pubis, the same shade as the woman’s hair. Her breasts were also exposed and they were full and round and pointed rigidly up.
“Implants,” Harry observed.
“You betcha,” Vicky said. “Even when all the muscles go soft and slack, these boobs will not sag or lose their shape. Plastic surgeons should use that line in their advertising.”
“I thought they already did,” Harry said.
The flip words didn’t carry to their eyes. Each pair remained grim and focused. It was the charnel house humor again, two detectives forced to witness daily human carnage, trying to maintain their personal sanity.
Harry took a Polaroid camera from his crime scene case and took two photos of the body in situ. He took another of the woman’s feet, which were shoeless and relatively clean except for a dusting of beach sand, indicating both that she had been carried into the swamp and had recently visited a beach. Then he took a minute to study the area around them. It seemed peaceful and threatening at the same time, the way only a primal forest can, and except for the intrusion of the body of a young, modernly dressed woman he might have been standing in a place that had remained unchanged for hundreds of years. He let his eyes roam. Spread out before him were several large cypress stumps, like the one that stood next to the body, each one rotting with age; each probably there since the turn of the last century when loggers scoured Florida lands searching out and cutting all the mature cypress they could find. To the left were several Southern live oaks, their boughs heavy with Spanish moss. Between the oaks were small groupings of young pond cypress, many with butterfly orchids and resurrection ferns attached to their trunks. Larger patches of swamp fern grew in dense clusters across the black, spongy ground, their toothed edges providing protective shelter for small animals, and as Harry watched a cotton rat scurried from one patch to another, scaring up a pair of common yellowthroat, the small birds darting off in search of safer cover. In the distance he could hear the gooselike grunts of tree frogs and the high-pitched chirping of cicadas, and up in the trees he could see several parula warblers and white-eyed vireos flying from tree to tree.
He felt a hand on his arm and turned back. Vicky was staring at him strangely.
“You lost in thought, or just enjoying a Discovery Channel moment?” she asked.
Harry ignored the question and asked one of his own. “Why bring her here? We can be reasonably sure the killer drove a car in, at least as far as the swamp. But why risk it? Why risk being seen? He could have been spotted by a park ranger driving on a trail, or by any number of hikers. Why risk any of it when there are so many places to dump a body? The beaches, at night; all the thick pine forests in the middle of the state. He obviously didn’t kill her here. He brought her body here and posed it in this setting. Why? Why was that part of the overall plan, or does this place have some special significance?”
Vicky looked back at the body and the area around it. It was as the deputy had said. The woman’s throat was cut so deeply that the head was nearly severed from the body. It told her that the killer was either very powerful or very angry to use that degree of cutting force. But there was no blood splatter on the cypress trunk or the cluster of swamp ferns that grew beside it. Somewhere there was a large pool of blood that had pumped from her body when the carotid arteries had been severed, and had kept on pumping until her heart stopped beating. When they found that pool of blood—if they found that pool of blood—they would have the real crime scene. Harry’s voice brought her back.
“You’re the sex crimes expert. You see any indication she was raped?”
Vicky looked at the body more closely. “I see what looks like a small amount of dried semen in her pubic hair. But I don’t see any signs of violence. There’s no bruising or cuts or scratches.” She pointed to the woman’s right hand. “She’s got two broken fingernails, but that could have happened while she was being killed. I’m just not seeing what’s usually there when somebody’s raped. Maybe the autopsy will tell us more.”
Harry nodded. He was squatting next to the body, studying the Mardi Gras mask that covered the woman’s face. He took out the Polaroid again and took two more photos. Vicky squatted on the other side, joining him. The mask was a deep iridescent purple, with highlights of silver. There were cat’s ears at the top and whiskers sprouting from the cheeks and small, dark red plumes rising from high on the forehead. Clouded green eyes looked out blindly through the holes in the mask, giving the only hint of the face that lay beneath. The mask was not held in place by any band. It had simply been placed on the face, so Harry carefully lifted it, using one finger of each hand, and laid it on the woman’s chest.
When the woman’s face was exposed an audible gasp escaped Vicky’s throat and Harry’s head snapped back. They knew this woman. Like most of the people in the United States they had seen her picture countless times in newspapers and magazines and television screens, although now the exquisitely beautiful face had been altered. A single word had been carved in her forehead with a very sharp knife—the word EVIL. The mutilation jolted Harry, his mind immediately flashing to the small silver crosses his mother had placed on his and Jimmy’s foreheads; the way she had covered their eyes with towels.
“It’s really her,” Vicky said, bringing Harry back to the present. There was no trace of a question in her voice.
“Yeah, it’s her.” Harry felt his fists tighten into balls.
Vicky rose slowly, shaking her head. “Holy shit, it is gonna be a circus out here. We better call the captain. If this gets out we’re gonna have media moving through here like Sherman through Georgia.”
“Back out the same way you came in,” Harry said. “Try to step in your own footprints where you can.”
Vicky started to move carefully away. Harry stood there for a moment, staring down at the body of Darlene Beckett. He picked up the camera and took two more photos with the mask removed. Even then he didn’t move. He could almost feel the killer standing next to him, the last person to see her without the mask. He continued to stare at the body, bringing back the last image he had of the woman. She was standing before the TV cameras, giving them that slightly sly, very self-absorbed little smile she had displayed so often when appearing in court. Slowly, almost imperceptively, Harry nodded his head. Evil, he thought. Yes, you were definitely that. But somebody finally got to you. Somebody finally presented the bill and told you it was time to pay. He continued to stare at the woman’s face, uncontrolled words racing through his mind. The word religion kept returning, but he couldn’t tell if it came from Darlene Beckett or memories of his mother. He drew a long, steady breath as he took in the look of disbelief on her face—a disbelief that had begun to change into abject terror as the life rushed from her body. Then it all stopped—that mix of disbelief and terror frozen on her face as her life ended. He stared into her eyes. They had begun to cloud, but it was still there as well, that same mixture. Who was it you saw and why did it surprise you so? He drew another deep breath. It was all there in her eyes, but it was fading fast. He crouched down, still staring into her eyes, thinking about what the woman had done. The word evil played over and over in his mind and the image of a cross began to form. Was that it? he wondered. He continued to stare into her eyes. “Talk to me, Darlene,” he whispered. “It’s alright. You belong to me now.” He closed his eyes and drew a long breath. Now it’s my job to find out who put that disbelief and that fear in your eyes. And I’ll find him. I promise you I’ll find him. His jaw tightened and he opened his eyes and once again stared at her beautiful face. And when I find him, Darlene, maybe I’ll give the son of a bitch a medal.
* * *
The figure watched the trail that the two detectives entered. He stood in the shadows, his back to a line of trees, and he knew he was invisible, or as close to invisible as a person could be. Just one of many shadows in the preserve, blending into his surroundings like he had planned, into the foliage, the earth itself; completely unnoticed by anyone who could pose a threat. It was the way it had to be. He had become a lone branch on the spreading boughs of a large oak, a part of the whole, indistinguishable from all the rest. There for anyone to see and yet invisible. He fought off a smile. They would never find him unless he made a mistake, and he was much too smart to let that happen.
By now the detectives would have reached her body. And they would know. They would know who it was; know who had been made to answer for her sins. The small smile began to return but was quickly forced away. The dead woman was not the only one who had to wear a mask. Masks were necessary right now, very necessary. Another smile began to form but it, too, was driven away. Patience was also necessary. Just wait and watch. That is all you can do now. Wait, watch, and take pleasure in the fruits of your labor. But don’t let anyone see your pleasure. And soon you will be able to do even more.
End of Excerpt
More about THE DEAD DETECTIVE
The Dead Detective is available in hardcover from our website and online and brick & mortar bookstores everywhere, and as an eBook at eVendors around the world. For more information visit our website.
Praise for The Dead Detective
“The Dead Detective is a meaty story that offers an intriguing and conflicted protagonist, a darkly fascinating victim, solid police procedural detail, a knowing look at the Tampa Bay area and its politics, an unlikely murderer, and a creepy denouement that hints that Harry [protagonist] will be back.” —Booklist
"In his first new novel in seven years, Edgar Award winner Heffernan (Tarnished Blue) delivers a readable, tidy police procedural that echoes any number of popular television series, from The Mentalist to Criminal Minds, whose many fans will find this series debut enjoyable." —Library Journal
"After a lengthy hiatus, Edgar-winner Heffernan (A Time Gone By, 2003, etc.) makes a welcome return. […] Tough, troubled Harry Doyle will keep readers in line." —Kirkus Reviews
"Heffernan has a classic lean, tough-guy style and effectively combines tense drama with the nuts-and-bolts details of investigation. And he knows the territory, from Tarpon Springs to Tampa." —St. Petersburg Times
"We have a feeling that Heffernan is setting us up for more dead detective novels, which we welcome like the zealots we are." —Time Out Chicago
"William Heffernan is one of the finest craftsmen in mystery fiction. The publication of a new Heffernan novel is an event worth cheering, and the The Dead Detective is no exception. A mystery treat. A literary treat." —John Lutz, author of Night Kills
“The Dead Detective breathes new life into the classic police drama. Jam-packed with strong characters and a powerful plot, this is as fine a book of its genre as I’ve read in decades.” —Reed Farrel Coleman, three-time Shamus Award–winning author of Innocent Monster
"William Heffernan has written some crime fiction classics, and this much-anticipated return delivers a promising new protagonist, a plot with all the heat of its Florida Gulf Coast setting, and a finale that settles with beautiful, gentle menace. The Dead Detective is a veteran pro proving that he has much more to offer. Heffernan writes in a way that challenges the mind and the soul." —Michael Koryta, author of The Silent Hour
HARRY DOYLE WAS MURDERED as a ten-year-old child and brought back to life by two Tampa cops. Twenty years later he has dedicated his life to putting killers behind bars as a homicide detective who has the unwanted ability to hear the postmortem whispers of murder victims. Dubbed "The Dead Detective" by his fellow cops, Doyle now faces his most difficult case—a beautiful murder victim who was a notorious child molester. It is a case that will shake Harry to his very core.