Walking Shadows

He hung up and called Radar, who said, “Jaylene Boch is on disability.”

“Yeah, I just found out that a car accident left her a paraplegic eight years ago. If Joseph Boch is Boxer and he’s missing, who’s taking care of Jaylene?”

“I’ve got her phone number. Call it and let me know if she answers. If she doesn’t, go ahead and make a forced entry, just to make sure she’s okay. Knock hard.”

“Got it.” Decker hung up. He called Jaylene’s cell phone. After three rings, there was a beep and Decker left his name and number. But he still didn’t feel comfortable about walking away. He went over to Baccus. “We’re going to do a forced entry for a welfare check. Turns out Jaylene Boch—”

“Is a paraplegic.”

“Looked it up on your phone?”

“Yep.”

“Radar gave me her cell phone. No one is answering. I just want to make sure she’s not in there, lying on the floor and incapacitated. Agreed?”

“Absolutely.”

“All right, let’s do this.” Decker took out a set of lock picks, and then he backtracked and put them away. Instead, he took out a credit card. After working it back and forth, the bolt retracted and the lock popped. As he opened the door, the stench was overwhelming. Involuntarily, he turned his head. Then he brought out a handkerchief. Lennie was a few steps behind him. She had turned ashen.

Decker took out his revolver. “Watch my back. I don’t think this is a fresh kill.” He waited for her to respond. “You do have a firearm, don’t you?”

“Yes, sorry. Of course.” Lennie disengaged her gun from her shoulder holster.

Single file, they walked into a messy living room—paper cups and plates, food wrappers, soiled clothes, dirty towels, all of it scattered on tables, the sofa, and the two chairs opposite the sofa. Off the living room was the kitchen in an equal state of disarray and mess. Dirty dishes and used pots and pans piled in the sink. Ants were crawling in neat little roadways on the counters, down the cabinets, and onto the floor.

Decker said, “These two rooms are clear. I’m going to check out the other rooms. You okay?”

“Fine,” she said.

Slowly he walked down the hallway that had three doors. With his back to the wall, he opened the one closest to the living room. As soon as he did, the stink grew stronger.

He pivoted, gun drawn, and went inside.

She was tied to her wheelchair, head lolling to the side, her eyes closed, her lips parched and cracked. A rag was stuck in her mouth.

“Damn it!” Quickly, Decker checked out the room closet. Empty. He felt for a pulse and was shocked to find something thready and weak. He turned to Baccus. “She’s alive. Call an ambulance!” Carefully, he removed the rag from her mouth. She had defecated over herself, down the chair, and onto the floor. Decker patted her sweaty forehead with his handkerchief. As he did this, she moaned. “Mrs. Boch, we’re the police. We’re taking you to the hospital. Just stay with me, okay.”

Baccus said, “Ambulance is coming. I also called for additional officers and SID.”

“Which police station?”

“Hamilton, sir. It’s in their jurisdiction.”

“It’s related to our case, but you’re right. It’s their call.”

Jaylene moaned again.

Lennie said, “Is she going to be okay?”

Decker put his fingers to his lips. “Just hang in there, Jaylene. Just a few more minutes.” To Baccus. “We’ve got to clear the two other rooms. Otherwise emergency services won’t come in. C’mon.”

“We just leave her alone?”

“You have to protect my back, Baccus. We have no idea who else is in the house.”

“Yes.” Lennie wiped sweat off her brow. “Of course.”

The door across the hall was a bathroom—broken toilet, cracked tile floors, and a browned acrylic tub/shower for the handicapped. He took out his handkerchief, ran it under the faucet, and wrung out the excess water.

“C’mon,” Decker said. “One more to go.”

The last room was all the way in the back and looked over the rear yard. He stood with his back against the wall and threw open the door. The stench was horrible. Blood was everywhere—on the walls, on the floor, on the bed linens, and on discarded clothing. Decker quietly walked over to the closet and opened it. It was the only area of the room not smeared with blood.

Definitely a crime scene, but no body.

He rushed out of the room and back to the old lady and wiped her brow with his damp handkerchief. To Baccus, he said, “Stand guard over the back bedroom. No one goes in without my say-so.”

“Got it.”

The wail of the sirens got louder. Within moments, paramedics were knocking at the door. Decker let them in. “House is clear. Follow me.”

Once Jaylene was being ministered to, Decker walked over to the back bedroom and peered inside. He took off his shoes. “See that over there?”

“What am I looking at?”

Decker said, “He tried to make it to the door. He didn’t get there. You can see a massive amount of spray on the door and on the walls near the door. He runs to the closet—see the footprints? Doesn’t make it to the closet, either. He’s mowed down there. See these smear tracks? They’re dragging the body out …” He looked at the hallway. “Nothing bloody here.” He went over to the windows. Blood was dripping onto the floor even before he opened the drapes. Once he did, he opened the window and saw blood on the bottom of the frame. “They pulled him out the window.”

He paused, then looked outside.

“No real visible blood outside. They might have washed it down. I’ll take a closer look.”

“How could they have dragged him away without leaving blood outside?”

“Someone’s waiting on the other side with a trash bag.” Decker walked back into the first bedroom to check on Jaylene Boch. They had taken off her soiled clothes and were cleaning her body. Decker looked away, but not before noticing an IV was in her arm and an oxygen tube was in her nose. He went back into the hallway as two paramedics were bringing in a gurney. “How is she?”

“Badly dehydrated. She’s conscious but barely so. It’s hard to tell what damage has been done.”

Ten minutes later, they put her on the mobile gurney, leaving the dirtied wheelchair behind, and loaded her into the ambulance.

“Where are you taking her?”

“St. Luke’s.”

The major hospital in Hamilton. “I’ll meet you there,” Decker said.

The paramedics nodded.

Baccus was still guarding the back bedroom. Decker said, “I’ll wait with you until Hamilton police arrive. They should be here any moment.”

“I’m okay by myself.”

“This is a crime scene. Who’s to say someone’s not coming back, or someone could be hiding outside. I’ll wait with you.”

A few moments passed, and then they heard sirens. “Okay,” Decker said. “You wait here and direct Hamilton police to guard the house. No one in or out until you’ve talked to a detective. Don’t tell him or her too much. Just that I’ll call later on. Then you all stand guard until Forensics comes out. If you get lip from the detective—someone tries to throw around weight—you stand your position. If someone gets nasty, tell him your last name is Baccus. That should shut the person up. When SID comes, you take them to the crime scene. And then once that’s taken care of, you give Hamilton PD the case—temporarily. I’ll call later and let them know what’s going on and why we were there.”

“What are you doing now?”

“I’m going to the hospital. If Jaylene becomes conscious and sentient, I’m going to want to talk to her. Unless you want me to stay and help you out?”

“No, no, I’m fine. Thanks for the trust.” She looked at Decker with pleading eyes. Her nails were clicking a mile a minute. “That poor woman. Will she make it?”

“I don’t know, Lennie, and that’s the truth.”

Tears formed in her orbs. She wiped them with her finger. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“Just …”

“Don’t apologize for normal emotions. When it stops getting to you, that’s when you need to worry.”

CHAPTER 10

THE WAITING ROOM in the ER was furnished with orange plastic chairs and a ceiling-mounted TV that had settled on CNN news. Doctors, nurses, orderlies, and volunteers went back and forth between two doors, looking very busy with white coats and clipboards. Triage was located behind glass windows with phones constantly ringing. It took a while before Decker made contact with someone who knew about Jaylene Boch’s welfare. ER docs were generally young, and the one who came up to Decker appeared to be in his late thirties, slim build with bags under his brown eyes. His name tag said Dr. John Nesmith.

“You probably found her just in time,” he remarked.

“She’ll pull through?” Decker asked.

“No guarantees, but I think so. She’s sleeping, but even if she were awake, it’d be useless for you to talk to her. She was barely conscious when she was brought in. She didn’t even know her name. But that’s par for the course with extreme dehydration.”

“Could I try to talk to her? Her son’s missing, and there was a lot of blood in her house.”

“She’s sedated, Detective. And if she can’t remember her name, she won’t be able to tell you anything. Stop by tomorrow. Twenty-four hours could make a big difference.”

Decker knew that Nesmith was right, but it didn’t make it any easier to accept. “Could someone call me if she’s up and alert later in the day?”

“Up, yes. Alert?” Nesmith shrugged. “But sure. Give me a number.”

Decker gave the man his card. “We might place someone on her.”

“You mean for her protection? She wasn’t killed the first time.”

“Until we know what’s going on, it’s better to err on the side of caution. Any objection?”

“Not from me, but you’ll probably have to run this by hospital security.”

“Thank you. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

As soon as he left the building, he called up McAdams. “Where are you?”

“At Crane Street, in a pissing contest with Hamilton Police over jurisdiction. Since it is in their city, we don’t have much of a case. On the other hand, if they want our information, it would behoove them to cooperate. I’m trying to impress them with my impeccable logic, but I’m getting mixed results.”

“How long have you been there?”

“Maybe an hour. Detectives and techs from Forensics are all over the place.”

“Who are the detectives?”

“Randal Smitz and Wendell Tran. Do you know them?”

“No.”

“They seem competent. Kevin’s here as well. They’re less proprietary than the uniforms. Radar has a call into Baccus’s office to help smooth the way, but he hasn’t called back. Are you still at the hospital?”

“Yes. Jaylene Boch will probably pull through, but I couldn’t talk to her because she’s heavily sedated. Is SID from Hamilton there?”

“Yep.”

“They’ve got a bigger department and more manpower, so that’s okay. Ask them to take numerous blood samples around the room. It could be Neil’s crime scene as well as Joseph Boch’s. Is anyone canvassing the neighborhood?”

“Hamilton is on it, but Kevin put a couple of our own officers with them. The police know what they’re doing. Judging by the city’s crime statistics, it’s not their first rodeo.”

“What have you told them about Brady Neil?”

“Just that his murder brought you to the house. They pressed for details. I told them I didn’t know the full story yet and that you’d fill them in.”

“Perfect answer. That means they’ll talk to me.”

“That’s my motto, boss. Always leave them asking for more.”

SENIOR INVESTIGATOR WENDELL Tran spoke with a broad southern accent. He was born in Louisiana, the son of a Vietnamese shrimp fisherman, and had come to the Hamilton Police Department about ten years prior. How he got here was anyone’s guess. He was thirty-eight and average height with black, straight hair and brown eyes. He and Decker were doing the five-minute small-talk thing on the rotted front porch outside the house, sizing each other up before getting down to the case. Inside, Forensics was collecting and dusting, but the house was so disorderly it was hard to know what was normal and what might have been tossed.

“How do people live like this?” Tran asked.

“She’s in a wheelchair.”

“Then I reckon her son isn’t much of a housekeeper.” Tran pronounced I as Ah. He shook his head and looked Decker in the eye. “You want to tell me your connection?”

“We found a body dumped in our jurisdiction yesterday morning. He was identified as Brady Neil. He lived in Hamilton with his mom, Jennifer Neil. He and Joseph Boch—a.k.a. Boxer—worked together at Bigstore.” Decker filled him in on the details. “Neil wasn’t murdered where he was dumped. That’s why I asked SID for multiple samples. I think this might be his murder scene.”

“Which would make Neil’s murder in our jurisdiction.”

“Yes, that is true. I’d like to see this through, but it’s your call.”

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