Baby Girl Doe (Stephanie Chalice Thrillers Book 5) (12 page)

I propped myself up on a pillow.
We were just hanging out in bed, no wild or kinky sex, or smoked meats of any variety. It just felt good to have some quiet time alone with my husband. At first Ma’s unannounced visit worried me because I thought she’d never leave us alone, but it turned out to be a blessing in disguise. We moved Max’s Pack ‘n Play into her room, so when we closed our bedroom door at night, we were truly alone.

I studied my husband’s face. He seemed at ease and content. “Penny for your thoughts.”

Gus leaned over and stroked my hair. “Tate didn’t seem too happy about your discovery.”

“I don’t know that I blame him. He had everything put to bed, and now he has to deal with a possible homicide investigation. He’s a small-town fire chief. He needs interference from a wacky city detective like he needs a hole in the head.”

“I hear you, but I’m sure that he wants to get to the truth as much as you do. I tell you, babe, when you put your mind to something there’s no stopping you. You’re one of a kind.”

I wrinkled my mouth. “Do you hate me?”

“Hate you?” Gus looked taken aback. “What on earth—”

“For screwing up our vacation. Things haven’t exactly turned out the way we planned. I didn’t even get you a birthday cake.”

“Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean we’re not enjoying ourselves. There will be many vacations in our future. I’m not worried about two measly weeks in Montauk. However, you
are not
getting a pass on the birthday cake.”

I rested my head on his chest. “I worry sometimes.”

“About cake?”

“No, silly. That I’ll make you too crazy, and you’ll leave me for some hot twenty-two-year-old.”

“How much wine did you drink?”

“A lot. With Ma here, I’m not too concerned about drinking a little extra
vino
. But you didn’t answer my question.”

“You’re not serious, I hope. Have I given you any reason to worry?”

“No, but it’s a well-known fact that at some point in every man’s life, he dreams about scoring with a hot, younger woman.”

“What?”

“Come on . . . long, silky hair, slender bodies . . . and no one but no one has a tighter hooha than a college girl. Well, some college girls.”

“Don’t worry, Tugboat Annie, I like your hooha just fine.”

“Really? You’re not slipping and sliding around down there since I delivered Max?”

“No.”

“Not even a little?”

“Babe, you’re tighter than Melissa McCarthy’s pantyhose.”

“
Ha.
Good. Just checking.”

“You never struck me as insecure, Steph. Everything all right?”

“What can I tell you? Eventually all women get a little loose in the labia. I just want to make sure you’re a happy camper.”

“
Yes,
I’m a happy camper. Why are we talking about this anyway? Can’t we go back to talking about arsenic poisoning and women getting pushed in front of oncoming trains?”

I chuckled. “Sure, in a minute. Guess what? Ma and I had a conversation about anal sex.”

Gus’ eyes bulged. “No
you
didn’t.”

I nodded. “Ya-ha, we sure did. Did you know she thought ass play was a rock group?”

Gus laughed so hard I had to cover his face with a pillow. “Quiet! You’ll wake Max.”

“You’re totally out of your mind, do you know that?”

“I can’t say that I disagree.”

“Where would I find a girl with a sense of humor like yours?”

I shrugged. “I guess you’re right. Let’s get back to police work. Tate is going to submit the tainted pack of cigarettes to the police crime lab in the morning. We should have a yay or a nay on my poisoning theory by the end of the day. I’ve got an appointment to review the physical evidence from Alana Moore’s homicide and the case file on Sarah Fisher’s disappearance in the morning.”

“Sounds intense,” Gus yawned. “I think we’ll take Max to the petting zoo tomorrow.”

“No. Not the petting zoo—
I
wanted to take Max to the zoo.”

“Decisions, decisions.” Gus did the balancing gesture with his two hands. “Let’s see . . . solve multiple homicide cases or pet a goat.” He rubbed his chin to indicate he was contemplating a deep and complicated decision. “I’ll take the goat.”

“Now I’m sad,” I sulked. “I don’t get to play with lambs and chickies.” I placed Gus’ hand on my breast. “Make me happy. Pleasure me until my head spins.”

“All right,” he acquiesced. “We’ll do something else instead. We can go to the petting zoo the day after.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Sorry, I guess I’m a little slow,” he said with a smirk.

“Like hell you are.” I pulled him on top of me. “What about now, babe? Are you feeling me?”

“Can I gag you?”

“Seriously? Gus, you’re a fine specimen but let’s not get carried away.”

“No. I mean, can I tie something over your mouth . . . so your mother doesn’t hear you.”

“
Oh . . .
that’s kinky.”

Gus reached into the end table drawer and pulled out a bandana he had packed.

I turned away from him so that he could tie the knot behind my head.

He snuggled in behind me.

“I think I’m going to like this,” I said, moving the bandana away from my mouth.
Make me feel so good that I want to scream.

~~~

They reached a level of intimacy that had been lost to them since the arrival of their son. It was just a piece of cloth, just enough to change the familiar into the extraordinary and spark new passion into their relationship. He could hear her muted moaning and sense her heat growing until it became a flame and then he too blazed. It had not been planned, it just happened—a profound and perfect moment shared between a loving wife and her husband.

The hidden motion-sensing camera in the overhead lighting fixture betrayed their every intimacy.

“Your husband and your mother took your son to the petting zoo, and you’re here looking at cold case evidence?”
Pulaski turned his head askew. “Are you nuts? If I ever pulled a stunt like that my wife would chop off my balls.”

I shrugged. “What can I say? That’s not something I have to worry about. They were going to postpone it but I told them I’d catch up with them somewhere between the ducklings and the prairie dogs.”

“
No es bueno
, Chalice. Family time is precious, especially in our line of work.
Familia es todo
.”

“Gee, you know a lot of Spanish for someone with a Polish name.”

“Comes with the territory,” he said. “Besides, I’m a big fan of Breaking Bad. Tio Salamanca conveyed some very important messages, despite being a bell-ringing, crotchety old mute.”

Great, as if I didn’t feel guilty enough, Pulaski had to pull time as the voice of conscience. I moved the evidence box so that it was between us, a barrier of sorts. “I guess I can’t blame you for judging me.”

“I’m not judging. I’m anything but a saint. Just passing along an often overlooked pearl of wisdom.”

“Your pearl is duly noted.”

He picked up a pair of case files and slapped them on top of the evidence box. “Copies of the two files you requested. They can leave the house; the evidence box stays.”

He wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t know—I think he was just covering his ass. I scanned the tabs on the two files, case numbers, and case names: Sarah Fisher and Alana Moore.

“Great. Thanks. I’ll go through the evidence box and take the files with me to the petting zoo. With any luck I can catch up with my family before they feed the llamas.”

Pulaski winked. “That’s the ticket, Chalice—time isn’t exactly of the essence on these files. Catch up with your family and have a moment.” Pulaski stood. “I’m heading out. Our admin’s pretty friendly. She’ll help you if you need anything.”

I stood and shook his hand. “Thanks, Tom. I saw the copier—I’m fairly self-sufficient.”

“I have no doubt.” He left me alone in the interview room. I opened the evidence box like an eight-year-old girl tearing into a Christmas present looking for a Barbie doll. Crime scene evidence included Alana Moore’s purse and clothing, everything the crime scene investigators had found when her lifeless remains were removed from the Long Island Rail Road tracks. Sealed evidence bags contained her dress, shoes, undergarments, bag and the contents of it. I carefully began to examine each article.

Her black party dress was simple but tasteful and carried the H&M label, which indicated that she shopped on a budget. She had been wearing a pair of pink pumps but had a second pair of black shoes in her large bag. Where was she coming from? Where was she going? It didn’t look as if she was dressed for just hanging out with friends. I presumed that she was coming from or going to a party. The second pair of shoes led me to believe that she had doted on her appearance and couldn’t decide which shoe looked better on her. She had a decent wad of cash in her wallet, almost two hundred dollars—mostly twenties, all fresh bills. Her wallet contained her NYS driver’s license and her ID from Bennington College, her high school graduation picture, and some family pictures. Credit cards too—Pulaski had already told me that they had been inactive since she went missing.

Unraveling the thread on a missing-persons case was never easy. The ones who were recovered early usually found a way to escape on their own. The others . . . didn’t usually fare as well. Famous disappearances merely hint at the tip of the iceberg. Children and adults go missing all the time. The public only hears about the media-worthy cases. Alana Moore didn’t appear to be anyone’s prisoner, and if she had been, I doubt she had made her escape dressed to the nines with her purse and personal effects in tow.

This one is going to take some smarts.

“What was going on with you?” I asked her photo. The case file contained the crime scene, forensic lab, and personal photos supplied by her family. Sometimes I can look into someone’s eyes and read his or her story. Was she happy and content or did she have that wanderlust look in her eyes? I couldn’t read Alana one way or another. Pulaski felt she’d left home on her own in order to be closer to the New York theatrical scene and had met with foul play. It was his theory . . . but a theory is just a guess, and I wasn’t sure if Pulaski’s was accurate. I read through her case file, which made me feel more confused. I had learned just enough about this tragic woman to realize I knew nothing about her at all.

I spent a few more minutes going through the crime scene photos. Among them was a picture of a large black and white cookie with smooshed pink icing on it. I didn’t know how much it had to do with her homicide, but I guess the crime scene photographer wanted to be thorough.

I decided to change direction and had just opened Sarah Fisher’s case file for a first look when a shadow crossed the table. “How’s it going?”

I looked up and saw newly retired Detective Sullivan Smote.

Christ on a cross—I hope he’s not going to start flirting.

“Find something I missed?”

Oh thank God.
“No. Actually I just cracked Sarah Fisher’s file for the first time. What are you doing here? I figured you’d be in Florida by now, wooing unwitting divorcees out of their orthopedic pantyhose.”

He gnashed his teeth. He had a Tony Curtis mouthful of pearly whites. “You’re a real buzzkill, Chalice. You just made my golden years seem like a slow and agonizing plunge into the toilet.”

Oops.
“Sorry.”

He pulled out a chair and sat down. “I’m not moving down there until the fall anyway. I’m going to be one of those snowbird Svengalis anyway. I’m just here to have lunch with some of the boys, but when I heard you were here . . . well, you know, ego. I came in to see if you’d found something I should have caught when the case was mine. I mean, I’ve got a little time to kill if you need some help.”

“Feeling insecure?”

“Not usually. In all the years on the force, there was only one time I walked away from a case feeling unsettled: my aunt, Celeste. I’m pretty sure she was offed by one of the kids living in her foster home, but I was never able to make anything stick.”

“Sorry to hear it. I mean the victim being your aunt and all. I’m sure that one really stung.”

“Still stings.” He grinned sadly. “So, what about it? Did I miss anything on Sarah Fisher?”

“No such luck, Romeo. Actually, I was going to take a fast look and then bring the file with me. My family is visiting the petting zoo.”

“Petting zoo? Like Blackstone’s Steakhouse on a Thursday night?”

“Sorry, I don’t . . . Hey, what is that, some kind of vulgar reference to a cougar bar or something?”

Smote flashed his Tony Curtis teeth once more. “You
are
a bright cop.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it an inspired moment. No, I mean petting zoo as in actual duckies and other soft, cuddly creatures.”

“God.” He shrugged. “What was
I
thinking?”

Does this guy think about anything other than scoring?
“So is this a sincere offer of help or are you just hoping to catch me in a moment of weakness?”

“Somehow I don’t think you have many of those.”

No moments of weakness? He should see me when I’m around Nigel Twain and my legs turn to jelly.
“That would be correct. How about you cast your x-ray peepers on this stuff.” I handed him Alana Moore’s case file and pushed the evidence box his way. “A young woman went missing from a small upstate town and was pushed to her death in front of an LIRR train. It’s always good to get a fresh set of eyes on a tricky file.”

He checked his watch. “Yeah sure, I’ve got fifteen minutes to kill. Let’s see if the old dog can still hunt.”

“
Muchas gracias
.” I guess Pulaski’s Spanish chatter was still resonating with me. I turned back to Sarah Fisher’s file and began reading the reports. I noticed that Smote had drawn simple pictures over almost every inch of the file folder. I glanced at him quickly and smirked. A diddler
and
a doodler.

Sometimes doodles can have concrete representational meanings, and sometimes they mean nothing at all. Smote doodled a lot of women in erotic poses. If this guy spent as much time thinking about detective work as he did about the ladies, we’d have both cases closed before he went to lunch.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he replied.

I picked the right man for the right job. “What did you find?”

“This Alana, she shops on a budget: H&M dress, Steve Madden pumps. One of the pink shoes has fifty dollars written on the sole in black ink, which means she probably bought them in an off-price store like DSW or Marshalls. The black shoes are cheap too—the soles are raw leather. Swanky pumps are finished on the bottom.”

And you know this how? Oh Christ, his lips are parting. He’s about to tell me. Yikes!

“You can always tell if a woman has money by the shoes she wears to bed.”

I pictured Smote on top of one of his conquests with her legs up by her head.
Yuck! TMI.
“You’re perceptive.”
Disgusting but perceptive.
“I saw the H&M label and thought the same thing. Hadn’t noticed the shoes though. That’s a good catch.”

“Thanks.” Smote turned back to the case file. He was certainly giving me my money’s worth.

A sudden thought popped into my head. I checked the two different pairs of shoes and found that one pair was size seven and the other eight and a half. A half a size difference is no big whoop but a full size and a half? “Did you notice the shoes are different sizes?”

“No. What do you make of that?”

“I’m not sure, but it doesn’t make sense. Even if she borrowed a pair from a friend . . . I mean if she was a seven, she’d swim in the eight-and-a-halfs, and if she wore an eight-and-a-half, she’d never squeeze into the munchkin shoes.”

“Maybe she’s Cinderella,” he quipped.

“Thanks. You’re a tremendous asset.”

“Her bones were all but pulverized when the train hit her. I doubt forensics could back into the victims correct shoe size by analyzing body mass—I don’t even think they make that type of observation,” Smote said.

“I’ll make a note of it, but it’s a
long
shot. Hopefully I’ll find something more substantial to work with.”

There were lots of pictures of Sarah Fisher. She was a cute girl, not a devastating beauty but cute with blond hair and a big, engaging smile. She was short and thin—not thin as in sleek and sexy, but thin as in she could use a little extra meat on her bones.

Where’d you go, Sarah? What’s your story?

“What do make of this?” Smote asked. He held up the crime scene photo of the black and white cookie I had seen earlier.

“Anyone’s guess. It said in the notes that it was photographed because it was going to dry out and crumble. The crime scene technician wanted to preserve the appearance of the evidence as it was found. I don’t know if it was hers, or if it was just something lying near her on the tracks. It looks pretty smashed up.”

“What’s the story with the pink icing?” Smote asked.

“Some kind of design the bakery used to fancy it up I guess. Hey, was the accident before or after Easter?”

“Weeks after,” Smote replied. “I remember clearly.”

“There goes that theory—I thought maybe it was a pink Easter egg.” I stared at the photo from across the table. “Hey, let me see that.”

Smote handed me the photo.

I turned it in every direction because somehow I thought I saw something in the pink icing. “There’s something here,” I said. “There’s an embossed figure in the icing.”

“Where?” Smote stood and walked around the table to look at it with me.

I pointed to a faint outline, which was just visible in between the areas of the icing that hadn’t been smashed.

“My eyes must be going,” Smote said. “I don’t see anything.”

It took a brief moment for my brain to piece it together. “It’s a bouquet,” I boomed excitedly and pointed at it again. “And these are a pair of arms.” I looked Smote in the eye. “I bet it’s a bride holding a bouquet. It’s a wedding favor.”