Chasing Justice (Gay Detective Romance Novella) (2 page)

The years Luke spent working Homicide had given the grungy, worn-down squad room a comfortable feel. The white board listing the names of current murder victims, written in different colored markers to differentiate between open, solved, and cold cases, covered an entire wall. A cork board propped up against a file cabinet—which had remained like that because no one could be bothered to hang it— was filled with various mugshots and wanted posters. The squad’s ancient coffee pot with the chipped rim burbled quietly to itself in the corner. Sometimes, Luke thought, being amongst the death and violence felt more like home than his house with Kathy and the kids did.

But Luke wouldn’t trade the Homicide atmosphere for anywhere else. And that included his co-workers.

Chase and O’Flanery were the old school detectives who looked at every case with a critical eye and a permanent frown. They’d been partnered for more than fifteen years, and their relationship had changed somewhere around Year Five from that of homicide detectives to a married couple.

“What did I tell you about leaving your coffee cup on my side?” Chase whined at O’Flanery. “Do you want me to shoot you?”

“You’re going to put me out of my misery for having to work with you? Please, Mother Mary, make it so!”

The rest of the squad’s detectives always laughed at their antics, and they were lovingly put up with because their case closure rate was almost ninety percent.

Before Luke could even start on T.J.’s paperwork, Captain Walton came up to him.

“Luke, I need to see you in my office.”

O’Flanery and Chase gave each other knowing glances.

“What did he do this time, Captain, hang a suspect up by his thumbs?” O’Flanery asked.

Luke scowled at him. “Why does everyone think I’m the hot head?”

“Because you are,” Chase said.

“I’m sure you two have roughed up a suspect on occasion,” Luke said.

“Not since they made us stop doing it,” O’Flanery said.

“Very funny.”

O’Flanery laughed. “Damn, he’s easy to rile up.”

“You better watch he doesn’t beat your ass,” Chase said mockingly.

Luke sighed, knowing that while O’Flanery and Chase were purposely trying to get under his skin, they were right. He was having trouble controlling himself lately. Like Beth had mentioned to him, he had been warned, but hadn’t been officially reprimanded. He had his captain to thank for that.

“I’d like to help, Captain, but I have a witness to talk to,” Luke said to him.

“I know all about the witness,” Captain Walton said, “and how he somehow smacked his face against a chain link fence.”

O’Flanery and Chase snickered to each other.

“Shut up, you guys.”

“You have anything to say about it?” the captain asked him.

“That in the process of chasing down my witness to a shooting that happened in plain sight in the middle of the day, said witness tried to scale a chain link fence and was subsequently apprehended with a notable amount of heroin on his person.”

“Was that before or after you hit him?” O’Flanery asked.

“I didn’t hit him. His face kind of…bounced against the fence a little. He’s fine.”

Chase and O’Flanery burst out laughing.

“Walk with me,” Captain Walton said.

He and Luke crossed the squad room and walked down the hallway leading to the captain’s office.

“You told me you had a handle on things, Luke,” the captain said. “I’m starting to see things I don’t particularly like.”

“I know,” Luke admitted.

“I don’t want to see you losing control. You could fuck up your whole career over some skel.”

“I’m distracted.”

“Is it because of Kathy and the divorce?”

“Among other things,” Luke said, not wanting to bother the captain with the rest of his problems, like the fact he hadn’t seen his kids in weeks, or that Kathy moved into her own apartment, or that he was completely alone in their family home in Queens he had worked so hard to make perfect, or that he and Beth had kissed. Shit, he was a ball of nerves lately.

“Elizabeth is going to be taking over Buddha’s killing case.”

“Captain, you can’t take me off the case! I’ve been going at that hard for the past month. I finally have the break I need if I can get through to T.J.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea. Elizabeth will be able to find out if he knows something.”

“But my CI told me he was standing right next to Buddha when he got shot. He has to know who did it,” Luke argued.

“Elizabeth is more than capable. See what she can get out of him.”

“I guess I have no choice, right?”

“No, there’s something more pressing that has come into the office this morning,” the captain told him.

“More pressing than a murder committed in broad daylight a few blocks from an elementary school?”

“Believe me, you’re going to want to hear what he has to say.”

“Who’s ‘he’?”

“Come on,” Captain Walton said to him. “Let’s go sit down in my office.”

Chapter 2

To Luke’s surprise, there was a man sitting to his left as he entered Captain Walton’s office. He was poured—rather than just sitting—in the leather chair, his body slumped in exhaustion.

He was long and lean, with blond hair that brushed the nape of his neck in loose, unkempt curls. Sharp eyes followed Luke as he walked in, taking measure of the detective. He was only slightly younger than Luke, although years of what looked like hard living seemed to have age him prematurely. A weathered leather jacket, jeans, and scuffed boots added to the man’s rough look, making him seem like he’d just had a motorcycle between his legs.

The man’s drooping mustache hid his expression, but Luke felt the unmistakable heat of his stare when he sat down. Luke met the other man’s piercing blue eyes for a moment, and then he turned his attention back to Walton.

“Don’t tell me we’re working with bounty hunters now.”

The blond man scoffed and Luke scowled, failing to hide his irritation at the sound.

“Detective Luke Everett, meet Deputy Edward Brock of the U.S. Marshals Service.”

“Eddie,” he said, holding out his hand. “Sounds cooler. Bounty-hunterish.”

“Sorry about that,” Luke apologized, not really meaning it. “I didn’t know you were a Marshal.”

Whatever got the Marshals Service here meant the agency was invading their little piece of Manhattan. Maybe it was the New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force, which instantly put Luke in a foul mood. He didn’t have time to lead around some Fed asshole with a badge.

He turned to Walton. “Listen, Captain, whatever this is—the RFTF, whatever—I really don’t have time to play paper chase with the Feds. I got enough to keep me busy.”

“Does it look like I’m here on a social call, big guy?” Eddie asked, nonchalantly lacing his fingers behind his head. “I’m hunting a murderer.”

“No shit. As a Marshal why else would you be here?” Luke asked, annoyed. “The three-day-old coffee?”

“Wow, this is going to work out fine,” Eddie said sarcastically. “You’re not nearly as surly as your captain made you sound.”

“Luke,” the captain sighed, sitting down behind his desk, “Deputy Brock is tracking a fugitive from Los Angeles. The New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force is involved in this one. The Southern District office called me to help facilitate this.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“You were the investigating detective back when my fugitive lived here in New York City. He got collared in L.A. for some small-time shit, but by the time the brain trust of the LAPD figured out who he was and what he had
actually
done, he skipped.”

Luke frowned. “Who is it?”

“Neils Rupert Thayer.”

The summer of 2013 suddenly jumped into sharp focus in Luke’s mind. A male prostitute, beaten to death, killed with a blunt weapon. He was found near Chelsea Piers, bound and gagged. The medical examiner could never pinpoint exactly what the object was the perp had used to kill the victim, but the marks were distinctive enough that they left wound impressions.

By tracing the last known whereabouts of the victim and who was last seen with him, Luke was able to focus his investigation on Neils Thayer. He was a rich, entitled, son of a bitch who was spending his inheritance on porno, prostitutes, and gay clubs. His late father was an investment banker who made his millions on real estate speculation, and that wealth allowed Neils to attend the best private schools and meet the most influential people in Manhattan high society.

Surrounded by opulence, he wore label designers and in high school drove two different Mercedes-Benz sedans and a Cadillac Escalade with custom rims when he wasn’t being ushered around the city by a fleet of drivers. He’d been raised by nannies while his mother celebrated her widowhood with endless European trips. Thayer had grown into an angry, sullen, and bitter twenty-one-year-old by the time Luke had met him.

He was a party kid in the underground club and circuit scene, and he’d met several boyfriends that way, to the disgust of his WASPy Connecticut-born mother. Experimentation with MDMA, poppers, and other club drugs followed, and soon Thayer had become a regular customer of the dealers at the gay clubs he frequented. Luke knew Thayer had moved onto stronger stuff like meth based on what the dealers had told him.

He then narrowed down his victim’s movements to a single gay club in Chelsea after tracking Thayer’s party trail. The victim was last seen alive with Thayer, but all the evidence Luke could ever find was circumstantial. The dealers had verified Thayer was the one buying drugs, and multiple witnesses identified Thayer from printed lineups. Luke
knew
this was his guy. But without more, or someone coming forward having seen the murder, the case went cold soon after that.

“He’s killed again?”

“You remember him, then,” Eddie stated, catching the look on Luke’s face.

Luke nodded, locking eyes with Walton. It was one of those cases that had haunted him, because in his gut he knew Thayer was guilty. As many times as he went at him in the interrogation room, the smug bastard knew just what to say. Without any solid evidence tying him to the death, Thayer’s high-priced lawyer had him back on the street in no time.

Eventually Luke had to admit to himself that obsessing over this guy was only causing sleepless nights and headaches. The unsolved case finally went into a file to languish among others that remained open, and Luke moved on. Hearing Thayer’s name again brought up a lot of the self-doubt he experienced during the investigation.

“You read my reports in the file, right?” Luke said to Eddie. “Of course I remember him. The fucking thing’s unsolved.”

“The casework is how your name came up.”

“Here to shove my nose in it?”

Eddie smirked. “That chip on your shoulder is big enough, Detective. I ain’t going add to it.”

“You want a thank you for that?” Luke said.

“
Luke
.” Walton barked his name in warning. “Brock came here for your help.”

“Oh, how nice of him,” Luke said snidely.

“I’m not here to pass judgment on why this bastard isn’t behind bars, Detective. I’m not blaming you, for Christ’s sake. We actually got lucky out in L.A. This guy fucked up—otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

Luke looked up at him. “He messed up. How?”

“They found the first victim bludgeoned to death outside of a gay club in Silver Lake.”

“Jesus. Now he’s killed
two
.”

“They were working that one when he tried again. Except this guy survived and gave a description,” Eddie said, brushing his hair back. “All the detectives had to work with was a composite drawn by an LAPD sketch artist. Then fucknuts got scooped up on a public intoxication and possession charge.”

“Let me guess,” said Luke. “Meth.”

“Yeah, only tweaked-out motherfucker that he was at the time, he actually gave his real name. Spent only a few hours in lockup before his fancy lawyer bailed his ass out. Then one of the detectives working the murder case was downtown and happened to see the mug shot, and she thought that Thayer’s photo and the victim’s descriptive composite looked really similar.”

“How did a murder police wind up down near central booking?” Walton asked.

“Said murder police might be dating the intake sergeant,” Eddie answered with a slight smile.

“Thank God for small favors.”

“They showed his mugshot to the victim, and he identified Thayer as the guy who tried to kill him. After that, the shit hit the fan. His picture went out everywhere; BOLOs across the state. Based on the witness’s testimony they got search warrants to storm Thayer’s house, his beach condo, even his yacht docked in Marina Del Rey. No sign of him. But they did find enough evidence for an arrest warrant.”

That caught Luke’s attention. “Like what?”

“Inside the yacht’s cabin they found one of those anti-theft locks you put on the steering wheel to keep people from stealing your car. Right there in plain sight. It was covered in blood and brain matter. They put a rush on the DNA and it came back linked to the first body.”