The Death File: A gripping serial killer thriller with a shocking twist. J. Kerley A.

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СКАЧАТЬ other (the term always seemed ridiculous … other what?), our relationship entering its second year. I’d met her in the last months of her previous employment as a pathologist with the state forensics lab, but shortly thereafter Vivian had an epiphany: She needed to work with the living. Specializing in trauma medicine, she was completing her internship at Miami-Dade General, which involved long hours at the hospital and often sleeping there.

      Harry was staying at the Palace, a former hotel owned by a scumball the FCLE had busted for human trafficking. All his other confiscated properties had been sold, but Roy convinced the accountants to retain the Palace as lodging for visiting agents and consultants to stay and as a safe house for the occasional snitch wanting to stay alive.

      It was just past one a.m. when my phone rang: Vince Delmara.

      “What are you doing to me?” he said.

      “I’m not tracking,” I said, wondering if I was dreaming. “But then it’s two minutes after—”

      “I’m in a front yard in Coral Terrace, Carson. I’m looking at a body that has your and Nautilus’s cards in his shirt pocket. They’re next to a U of Miami ID. You know a Professor John Warbley?”

      My phone went off less than a minute after I hung up: Harry. Called by Vince, he was on his way to Viv’s to grab me up.

      We arrived at a single-story ranch-style house, two jacarandas up front, a bank of azaleas to the side, plus some big overhanging tree I couldn’t identify. The ME and forensics vans were in place, plus three cruisers and Vince Delmara’s black unmarked. The uniforms were working crowd control, horrified neighbors looking on as emergency lights bathed the night in pulses of white and blue and red.

      We pulled in behind a massive step van, one of the forensic department’s mobile labs and headed into the crowd, looking for Vince.

      “There he is,” Harry said, pointing to the right. We jogged over and brushed aside overhanging limbs to see the face of a man we had spoken with scant hours ago. Warbley stared into the sky with lifeless eyes, one reddened with blood seeping from burst veins, the grass beneath his head glistening with scarlet.

      “Any idea what happened?” Harry asked.

      “The rear of his skull is bashed in,” Vince said. “Something big and heavy, ball bat, hammer, rock.”

      I saw Harry wince; he’d been struck from behind some years ago, sparking a long hospital stay and convalescence.

      “Warbley worked with Angela Bowers at the U,” I said. “His specialty is medical ethics. We talked to him today.”

      “Jesus,” Vince said. “Think there’s a tie with Bowers?”

      “If not, it’s a strange coincidence.” But we’d seen strange coincidences before. Fate sometimes likes to play with you.

      “Wallet around?” Harry asked.

      “Nope. I got a tan line indicating he wears a watch most of the time. It’s not there. No phone, either, if he was carrying one.”

      Classic robbery signs. And like a lot of cops I knew there was a statistical probability that hours after interviewing Warbley, he would fall victim to an unrelated attack. But the hollow in my gut told me my belly wasn’t believing those odds, not just yet.

      “Who found him?” Harry asked.

      “Penn and Ortega,” Vince said, nodding toward one of the MDPD cruisers. “Standard patrol, Penn driving, Ortega flashing the spotlight over the houses, yards. Then they see the bottom of shoes.” Vince checked his watch. “That was at11.56.”

      “And this is his home?”

      “No,” Vince said, nodding down the street. “He’s four doors down.”

      We looked across the yards and saw a similar house, but lacking the heavy growth.

      “Opportunistic,” I said. “It’s a perfect ambush point.”

      “No call, no reports of anyone in the area?” Harry asked Vince. “Creepers, peepers, people out of place?”

      “Not that I’ve heard so far.”

      Harry got to his hands and knees and leaned his nose over Warbley’s open mouth, sniffing delicately, his bulldozer-blade mustache almost brushing the victim’s lips. “Scotch,” Harry said, standing and dusting his hands. “And he’s wearing a pair of Rockport walkers.”

      I caught the glint of an object on Warbley’s belt and leaned down to inspect it. “A pedometer,” I said. “Combine that with the walking kicks and whisky breath …”

      “There’s a neighborhood-type bar about four blocks over,” Vince said. “The Lucent. It’s the kind of place you find academic sorts: craft beers and single malts, a couple bookshelves with everything from Aristotle to Zen koans. A jukebox that plays the latest from Mozart.”

      “You keep a catalog of all the bars, Vince?” Harry asked.

      “I live about a mile north of here,” Vince said. “It’s on my radar.”

      Vince put his uniforms and pair of detectives on interviewing the onlookers while Harry and I booked to the bar. Vince and his folks would take Warbley’s house.

      We rounded the corner to The Lucent two minutes later, a corner bar with a side courtyard. The hardwood sign over the door was handcrafted artistic, the smooth name in scarlet in reverse-relief.

      “Damn,” Harry muttered, trying the door and finding it locked. “Closed.”

      Closing time was likely two a.m., ten minutes ago, but a light was on and tapping the window with badges brought a face to the embossed and decorative door, one Larry Milsapp. Milsapp was pudgy, in his sixties and sported a waxed and pointed mustache that would have sparked envy in Salvador Dali. Milsapp wore khakis and threadbare blue dress shirt under a white and damp-spotted apron. In the corner of the bar I saw a mop bucket; cleaning up.

      “John Warbley?” Milsapp said in response to my question, his eyes sighting between the twin antennae. “John was in here earlier. I guess from maybe nine until eleven or thereabouts.” He frowned. “What’s this about, if I may ask?”

      It was technically Harry’s case, which meant he pulled the ugly duty. He leveled his eyes into Milsapp’s eyes. “Mr Milsapp, I’m sorry to say Professor Warbley was killed earlier this evening, likely on his return home.”

      If the bar hadn’t been in front of him, Milsapp would have gone down. He grabbed it for support, wavered, but Harry had an arm under Milsapp’s shoulder and guided the man to a chair, where he buried his face in his hands.

      “Oh …” he said, trying to find a place to put his hands so they’d stop shaking. “Oh, oh, oh …”

      Harry pulled two tumblers from the glassware rack, poured a treble shot of Pappy Van Winkle in one, spritzed soda water in the other and handed them to Milsapp.

      “I, I, I …” Milsapp said. His wiring was shorting from sudden overload.

      “First a deep breath,” Harry said.

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