Twisted Truth (Rogue Justice Novella Book 1) Page 3

  “I’ll be right back,” Carly said to the boy.

  She followed the resident out of the room and down a short length of hallway to the nurses’ station.

  The resident talked while she scribbled on a clipboard. “He’s about six or seven years old. Physically, he’s slightly dehydrated and malnourished, but I don’t see anything a good bath and some meals won’t cure. His pupils are very sensitive to light. I suspect he’s been kept in the dark for some time. He has some minor scrapes and bruises but no serious injuries. His refusal to speak concerns me. I recommend a consultation with our new psychiatrist.”

  “I agree,” Cary said. “When can we have that done? I don’t want him to spend any more time here than necessary.”

  She was already sorting through possible foster homes. Her options were limited. Rogue County’s foster care system was inadequate.

  The resident finished her notes. “I’ll give you his number. He’s very good.”

  “Hey! Stop! Help!” a woman shouted.

  A loud crash sounded from the direction of the examination room. Carly spun and sprinted down the hall. Before she’d run three steps, a man dressed in a white lab coat over green hospital scrubs, complete with a surgical cap and mask, emerged from the room with the boy tucked under one arm.

  The boy looked back at Carly, fear opening his eyes until they were entirely rimmed with white.

  “Stop!” Desperation fueled Carly’s legs.

  This can’t be happening.

  But the man turned and walked briskly in the opposite direction.

  “Security! Stop that man!” Carly ran faster, horror congealing in her belly, the scene from a month ago replaying in a raw loop in her head.

  He was heading for the exit.

  With the child.

  She couldn’t let the boy be taken.

  CHAPTER THREE

  After Seth had watched his wife drive away with the boy, he turned back to the crime scene.

  “Where is the forensic photographer?” Seth asked the deputy at the door.

  “He finished with the first floor and moved upstairs,” the deputy said. “Forensic techs are here too. They’re working downstairs.”

  Seth went inside and pulled another pair of gloves from his pocket.

  “Detective Harding,” the lead forensic tech, clad in white personal protective equipment coveralls, called from across the room. “We’re done fingerprinting this room. Working on the kitchen.”

  Since the medical examiner was en route, they’d wait for him to arrive before they moved into the master bedroom.

  A thin film of black dust coated the light switches and door knobs. Seth opened the closet door and checked the pockets of the two jackets hanging inside. Empty. Seth moved on to the kitchen, where a tech was dusting the back doorknob, just below the missing pane of glass.

  When the tech was finished, Seth searched the kitchen cabinets and refrigerator. Food supplies were scarce: cereal, milk, lunch meat, bread, condiments. Takeout containers filled a garbage can.

  Gabe waited in the upstairs hall. “The photographer is almost done.”

  Seth climbed the stairs and peered into the master bedroom. The photographer stood in the far corner, snapping a wide-angle shot.

  Seth stood just inside the doorway, getting an overview. Wrappers from medical paraphernalia littered the bed and the floor on the female victim’s side. A numbered yellow evidence marker stood beside each object.

  “Seth, what do we have?” The Rogue County medical examiner appeared in the doorway.

  “Hank,” Seth greeted the ME.

  In his sixties, Hank was stooped and soft around the middle. With bushy eyebrows and white PPE coveralls, he was a strange combination of the Pillsbury Doughboy and Groucho Marx.

  Seth sketched out the case details for him, and then he followed Hank closer to the bed. The photographer shifted his focus to smaller pieces of evidence, taking pictures from various angles.

  Hank studied the body and bed for a few minutes before approaching the male victim.

  “The female was on this side.” Seth gestured to the large bloodstain on the bedding. “It appears as if they were surprised while they were sleeping.”

  Hank frowned at the mattress. “I assume she didn’t survive.”

  “Died on the way to the hospital,” Seth said.

  The ME set his kit on the floor, opened it, and took out a scalpel and thermometer. He made a small incision in the male’s abdomen and slid the thermometer into the liver to measure the body’s core temperature. A minute later, he read the thermometer. “He’s been dead about two and a half hours.”

  Seth checked his watch. It was now 5:30 a.m. He’d responded to the call for backup just after three o’clock. The timeline matched.

  Hank measured the neck wound. “Lacerated his carotid. He would have bled out within thirty seconds.”

  “When will you get to the autopsy?” Seth asked.

  “You’re in luck.” Hank examined the corpse’s fingertips. “It’s been a quiet couple of days. I can do him this morning and start on the female as soon as she’s transported from the hospital. Have you determined if these are the parents of the child in the basement?”

  “No.” Seth shook his head. “I’m hoping we don’t have to wait for DNA testing.”

  Which could take weeks, even if the test was expedited.

  “Anything else notable?” Seth asked.

  “The probable cause of death is exsanguination from gunshot wounds, to be confirmed on autopsy. The victim appears to be a healthy male in his late twenties.” Hank turned over the victim’s arms and checked his feet and legs. “No track marks or other obvious signs of drug use. Not much else I can tell you until I get him on the table.”

  “Thanks.” Seth stepped away to leave the body removal to Hank and the morgue assistants, who were bringing in a gurney preloaded with a black body bag.

  “Seems like most of the blood is on the mattress,” Gabe said over Seth’s shoulder.

  Seth scanned the walls. Four distinct blood-spray patterns stained the white paint behind the bed. The droplets started thick, then became smaller as they arced away from the mattress. Seth didn’t need a spatter analysis to read them. Based on the height of the spray, the male had been sitting up when he’d been shot.

  “The shooter walked in on the sleeping victims,” Seth said. “He surprised them in bed. They heard or sensed him come into the room and sat up. He shot the male first, seeing him as the greater threat.”

  Seth studied the position of the saturation stains on the mattress. The male’s was dead center of his side of the bed. The woman’s was concentrated on the edge of the bed.

  “The female was hanging over the edge of the mattress when we found her,” Gabe said.

  Seth nodded. “She had a second or two to react. She was trying to get out of bed when he shot her.”

  She’d had enough time to be terrified. She’d watched her boyfriend die. Had she been in shock or had she known the next bullets were for her?

  She tried to run. She knew.

  “And then he didn’t waste any time getting out of the house,” Gabe said.

  “No. But did he know about the boy?”

  “Hard to say.” Gabe scratched his chin with his shoulder. “Even if he did, we were on scene in minutes. He might not have had time to search the place.”

  Would he have killed or taken the child if he’d found him?

  Seth turned away from the bed and went into the bathroom. He found a pump bottle of hand soap, two toothbrushes and a tube of toothpaste by the sink. Two towels were folded on the vanity, two more hung over a chrome rack mounted on the wall.

  He glanced in the shower stall. Dry. Bottles of soap, shampoo, and conditioner sat in a niche in the tile wall. Crouching, Seth opened the vanity cabinet under the sink by the bottom edge of the door. Inside was a four-pack of toilet paper and pack of disposable razors. Nothing else.

  Being careful not to touch
the handles, he opened drawers and looked inside the medicine cabinet. Both were empty.

  “What do you think?” Gabe asked from the doorway.

  Seth straightened. “This isn’t where they lived, but they’d been here long enough to buy full-size soaps and shampoos.”

  Seth exited the bathroom as the morgue attendants zipped the body bag.

  He went into the master closet, which was tricked out with white closet organizers. A few of the drawers held jeans and T-shirts. On top of the drawers, a shelf held a small purse, a wallet, and a set of keys. Seth opened the wallet and read the driver’s license through the clear plastic pocket. Peter Green. The photo matched the male victim. Peter was twenty-nine years old. The address listed was an apartment in Portland. Setting the man’s wallet down, Seth opened the purse and removed a wallet. Kandi Hollis, age twenty-eight, lived at the same Portland address.

  Gabe leaned over his shoulder. “Kandi and or Peter could be the parents. All three of them are basic brown and brown.”

  “I don’t know. Brown hair and eyes are pretty common.” It didn’t feel right to Seth. Not that he hadn’t seen people do worse things to their own kids than chain them in a basement. But the whole situation felt off. But if the kid didn’t belong to Kandi or Peter, who was he?

  Seth and Gabe went back out into the bedroom.

  The ME staff and body were gone. A forensic tech waved to Seth. “Detective Harding. Over here.”

  On the male victim’s side of the bed, the tech lifted the mattress edge to expose a 9mm handgun.

  “Peter was definitely surprised,” Gabe said. “He didn’t have time to get his gun.”

  “The shooter knew what he was doing. Let’s see what kind of information we can find on Kandi and Peter.” Seth went outside and breathed in a few lungfuls of rainy air before getting into his vehicle. Gabe exited the house. When he approached the car, Seth lowered the window. Gabe leaned in to watch as Seth used his dashboard computer to verify the victims’ records.

  Peter Green had priors for burglary. He’d served six months in the county jail, but he’d stayed off the legal radar for the last two years. Kandi Hollis had a single arrest on a prostitution charge three years prior but nothing since then.

  “They lived together,” Gabe said.

  “Seems that way.” Seth copied the information into an e-mail and forwarded it to Hank’s office.

  “But why were they staying in an empty house with a kid chained up in the basement?” Gabe asked.

  “Maybe someone was paying them.” In Seth’s experience, low-level criminals like Peter and Kandi weren’t very imaginative.

  “Maybe the kid was being held for ransom?” Gabe asked.

  “He was being held for some reason.” Seth closed his computer. “Let’s knock on some doors. I’ll take the houses on either side and the guy across the street who called it in. Can you take a couple of deputies and work the surrounding blocks?”

  “Will do.” Gabe nodded. “I’ll take Bruce with me. Interviewing witnesses will be good experience for him.”

  “I want to know if anyone saw vehicles or people at this address. Did they see any activity tonight? Hell, I want to know if anyone saw any activity any night—even the normal stuff. This is a tight neighborhood. Folks are nosy. Someone must have seen something.”

  “Got it.” Gabe thumped once on the roof of Seth’s vehicle then stepped back.

  Dawn broke over the neighborhood as Seth got out of his car and walked to the next-door neighbor’s house. He raised his hand to knock, but the door opened before his knuckles made contact.

  “Are you with the police?” a man of about sixty asked. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt, but his short hair stood up in tufts, as if he hadn’t combed it after getting out of bed. Next to him, a petite woman clutched the lapels of a flannel bathrobe together.

  “Yes, sir. I’m Detective Harding. I’d like to ask you a few questions.” Seth showed them his badge.

  The man stepped aside and swept his arm toward the woman. “I’m George Hill. This is my wife, Betty.”

  The house smelled of bacon and coffee. Despite the scene Seth had just left, his stomach rumbled.

  “You need coffee,” Betty said. “Come into the kitchen.” She led the way to the back of the house and gestured toward a round oak table. George sat behind a plate of food.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Seth hung his wet coat on the back of a chair and dropped into the seat.

  Mrs. Hill set a cup of steaming coffee in front of him. “How about some bacon and a couple of eggs?”

  “I couldn’t trouble you, ma’am, but I’m grateful for the coffee.” Seth lifted the mug to his mouth. The coffee was strong and hot and just what he needed.

  “It’s no trouble. I just made George’s breakfast. Pan’s still hot.” Mrs. Hill waved away his refusal and turned toward the stove. She deftly ignited a burner under a frying pan and cracked two eggs into it one-handed. Hot fat sizzled as she bustled around the kitchen.

  “How well do you know the couple next door?” Seth asked.

  “Not well at all.” George lifted a thermal pot in the center of the table and topped off Seth’s coffee. “We’ve lived in this house for thirty years. We raised three kids here. Never had neighbors who didn’t bother to introduce themselves before.”

  “I knew it was bad business to have renters next door.” Betty flipped the eggs. “But Sally, that’s the woman who owns the house, went to live with her daughter after her husband died. She couldn’t sell the house, even at a loss. So I don’t blame her for taking whatever money she could get. She’s on a fixed income.”

  Betty set a plate in front of Seth. He dug into two perfectly fried eggs, toast, and bacon. She took the seat opposite him.

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Seth ate with gratitude. After being cold and wet and up all night, the hot food was appreciated. “Is there anything else you can remember about the people next door? Any odd activity?”

  Betty curled her hands around a mug. “The odd thing was that they didn’t mingle. They stayed in the house most of the time and kept the blinds down. I never saw them both leave at the same time. It seems like one of them stayed home all the time.”

  “Did you see anyone at the house last night?” Seth finished his eggs and toast and moved on to the bacon.

  George nodded. “I saw a black SUV driving down the street. It didn’t stop, but it slowed down as it passed.”

  “Do you remember what time?” After Seth cleaned his plate, he set down his fork.

  George leaned back, crossed his arms, and studied the ceiling for a few seconds. “Maybe between two and three. I didn’t look at the clock, but I tend to wake up every night about that time to use the bathroom. The headlights caught my attention, and the fact that it was going real slow. I thought it was odd at the time, but it didn’t stop, just kept going. The left taillight was out.”

  Seth took out the small notebook he carried in his chest pocket and made a note. “How about the make or model of the vehicle?”

  “No. Sorry.” George shook his head. “All those big, black SUVs look alike to me, especially in the dark.”

  “Was it an Oregon license plate?” Seth asked.

  George frowned. “I don’t know. Sorry.”

  Betty splayed a palm on the table. “Is it true there was a little boy chained up in the basement?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Seth said.

  “We had no idea he was there.” George pushed his empty plate away.

  Betty wiped a tear from her cheek. “That poor dear. I feel just awful.”

  “There’s no way we could’ve known.” George took her hand and squeezed it. “He’s out of there now.”

  Seth asked them more questions about the dead couple, but they didn’t know any more about them than Mr. Jenkins had. Seth wrote down their home number and that of Sally, the homeowner. Then he stood. “Thank you for breakfast, ma’am.”

  “It’s the least I can do.” Betty c
arried his empty plate to the sink.

  “If you remember any more details about last night or your neighbors, please call me.” Seth handed them each a business card.

  Back in his car, he checked in with dispatch, then used his dashboard computer to make case notes before he forgot the details.

  Gabe approached and knocked on his window. “We got a report of a disturbance at the hospital.”

  “Disturbance?” Seth’s heart stuttered. Carly!

  He swallowed the fear clogging his throat.

  “I don’t have any more details,” Gabe said. “But I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Thanks.” Seth pointed toward the house he’d just left as he shifted the car into gear. “The neighbor saw a black SUV. The left taillight was out.”

  “I’ll put a BOLO out.” Gabe stepped back. “Go.”

  Seth drove his cruiser around the emergency response vehicles and stepped on the gas. Desperate for information, he grabbed the mic on his radio and contacted dispatch. But his gut already knew the incident involved the boy—and Carly.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Carly ran down the corridor, her eyes fixed on the scrubs-clad man at the other end of the hallway—and the child who dangled, pale hands flailing and bare feet kicking, in his arms.

  The scrubs and lab coat made her pause, just for a second, her mind questioning what she was seeing. Then her gaze dropped to the heavy black boots on his feet.

  “Security!” she yelled again. “Stop that man!”

  The man broke into a run and skidded around a corner. Carly raced, lungs burning, legs churning, mind panicking.

  No!

  This couldn’t be happening. After everything this poor child had already endured, she couldn’t let him down.

  Last time he’d been chained in a basement, but he’d survived.

  God only knew what would happen to him this time.

  Bright blood shining on dirty wood.

  She shook off the image that threatened to take over. Her boots slid on the linoleum as she made the turn. Thirty feet away, the man stopped in front of the secure door that separated the corridor from the ER waiting room. The boy thrashed.