The Enemy Inside (8 page)

While Berg was gone, Jay looked into the life of John Rogers, their latest trucker victim.

That afternoon the pair headed to the morgue to get the preliminary autopsy reports.
 

Dwight again opened a morgue drawer and started reading from his file. “This trucker is the same, but also different. A different type of generic rope was used to bind him. No smelling salts residue, and a different stun gun was also used on him. I can tell from how far apart the element burns are. While the last guy was tied into what I assumed was a seated position on a chair, this guy was tied lying down on his front by hands and feet. And believe me when I say, if you had a choice of being killed the way this guy was as compared to the last guy, you’d be picking the latter.”

Jay snorted. “I find that hard to believe.”
 

“Trust me,” Dwight replied. “There was no evidence of any beating on this guy, no bruising apart from where he was tied down, hands and feet. But he died from massive internal injuries and hemorrhaging.”

“How?” Berg asked.

“He was repeatedly sodomized with a long, sharpened wooden object, possibly a modified broom or a mop handle. We are analyzing the wood splinters we found in his body.”

Jay took a step back, as if the words were blows. “Fuck! I stand corrected.”

“Over what we think was an eight-hour period he was repeatedly raped, to the point where his colon and large intestine were perforated and the object entered his abdominal cavity, puncturing his internal organs and mixing them about like innards soup. It was a favored torture method of the Turks and is a slow and painful way to die.”
 

Jay and Berg looked down at the body, too stunned to speak.
 

“Another personal murder done by a perp with a lot of rage,” Dwight said.
 

“Again with the sexual overtones,” Berg muttered.

“Exactly, Detective Raymond. I found very little useful trace on his body, except for a single hair located under the clothes. The follicle was attached, so I am analyzing it now and comparing it to our DNA database. If it matches anything we have on file we’ll get it soon, but I’m not holding out hope our assailant was that sloppy.” Dwight pushed the drawer back in and latching it with a click. “I’ll get back to you about the female victim shortly.” He handed the file over to Jay and then, absorbed in his clipboard, walked out of the cold room.

Considering themselves dismissed, the pair headed out the morgue door, smacking into two uniformed officers struggling to contain a man who was trying to twist out of their grip like a fish on a hook.

The man, who seemed to be in his late fifties, was wearing army fatigues, dog tags, black boots, and a multicolored knitted cap, making him look like a Rastafarian at boot camp. Berg noted he smelled like he hadn’t washed in several decades.

“Let me in!” the man screamed, struggling to get away from the young cops who each had a hold of an arm. “I want to see her!” He started his frantic dance anew. Managing to pull one arm free, he swung wildly at his captors with a clenched fist.
 

Jay and Berg rushed to help, looking at the officers in puzzlement. While all four officers struggled to get the man back under control, the elevator dinged. The doors slid open and Detective Hamilton stepped out. His eyes slid over the scene before him, and starting at the sight of the irate man, he did an abrupt about face and slid back into the elevator as the door closed.

“Hey!” Jay yelled after him.

“It’s okay, detectives, we got him. He heard about the body of Melissa Shipper,” one of the officers explained. “He’s Ted Shipper, the uncle.”

The man stopped struggling for a moment, eyeballing Berg and Jay with loathing. “Detectives?” he shouted. “You couldn’t detect a lake if you were standing in it! You couldn’t find her for eighteen months! Did you even try?”

“This is good, we need to talk to him about his niece,” Jay said to the officers. “Let him get control of his temper in lockup overnight. Put him in interview two in the morning.”

“I have rights! You can’t hold me!” The uncle was noticeably displeased about the prospect of spending the night in a cold cell.

“You just assaulted an officer, sir,” Jay replied over his shoulder as they walked away. “Pretty sure we can.”

The officers dragged the struggling man away from the morgue and off toward the holding cells.
 

“I’ll find the son of a bitch who killed Melissa. I swear he’ll pay . . .” he muttered as he was dragged out of earshot.

Somber, thanks to the ME’s findings and feeling the uncle’s obvious pain at the loss of Melissa, Jay and Berg trudged back to their desks. They chose to walk up two flights of worn stairs rather than taking the elevator, as if the exertion could expunge the day’s events from their memories.

Sitting heavily on his chair, Jay winced as he remembered the cause of death of their latest victim. “I think I have nothing to say except I am going out for a drink. With luck, I’ll kill enough brain cells to forget the way that last guy died. Wanna come?”

Berg smiled wanly at the invitation and shook her head. “No, thanks.” She was lost in thoughts about Melissa and how she had failed the young woman.

Jay shrugged off her refusal and left the station.
 

Berg couldn’t figure out why, but Melissa and the other hitchhiker cases were really getting to her. She could almost feel herself unraveling. She knew enough to recognize that Melissa’s life, and tragic end, could easily have been hers if not for a bit of dumb luck and providence. She remembered Melissa had grown up in a series of homes, sometimes with her uncle, sometimes with her parents—when they were sober enough—and sometimes with foster parents, before simple bad judgment sent her out hitchhiking one night.
 

It was a story repeated thousands of times the world over. Berg had been lucky, Melissa had not.
 

Feeling guilty, Berg knew who had deserved the dumb luck and it wasn’t the woman she stared at in the mirror each morning. Even more depressingly, she had no idea what happened to Melissa or how to stop it from happening again.
 

Jay sauntered into a sports bar located a few hundred yards from the station, to cat calls and hollers from various officers already in attendance.
 

The bar was a favorite station hangout after a long day thanks to its late opening hours, all-American fare, including Jay’s favorite, baby back ribs, and the big screens that were tuned in to any and all sporting action. Jay had a reputation for working hard and playing hard, and without being asked, the bartender handed him his usual: bourbon, neat.

Carrying his drink, Jay sat down in a corner booth and shrugged off his jacket, joining Hamilton, Arena, and a few beat police. They stopped talking and looked up as Jay sat down.
 

“Thanks for your help in the morgue before, you douche,” Jay said to Hamilton.

Hamilton laughed. “You guys looked like you had it under control. What did you need me for?”

Jay snorted as they settled into drinking and arguing about who had had the worst day in between watching the basketball highlights on one of the big screens.

“Fucking Booker is out for the home game next week,” Arena said.

“Who cares? Quit your bitching,” Jay replied. “Even with working ankles the guy can barely play. My momma’s a better starting point guard.”

“You shut your hole, O’Loughlin! Or I’ll shut it for you.”

Jay smiled. “Yeah, sure you will.”
 

“So where’s your pretty partner?” Hamilton asked, making a show of looking around.

“You know full well she’s still at the station,” Jay said. “She’s either there or at home; she has no social life that I can discern.” He took a swig of his fourth bourbon of the night.

“So, you banging her or what?” Arena asked. His voice was slurred, and he was weaving in his seat as he eyed Jay. “ ’Cause if you’re not, I might. She’s a stone-cold hottie.”

Jay rolled his eyes. This was their favorite drunken topic of conversation, and he wasn’t in the mood.
 

“Fuck off, Arena.” He didn’t know why, but the idea of Arena fucking Berg set his teeth on edge.

“Please.” Hamilton scoffed. “Big shot pretty boy Detective Jay O’Loughlin not getting pussy? We don’t believe it, do we guys?”
 

The men around the table all shouted their agreement.

“Oh, I’m getting plenty of pussy. My dick should have its own secretary—it’s so busy—just not hers. We’re partners; it’s not like that,” Jay replied, for what felt like the five hundredth time, before he took another mouthful of bourbon. The alcohol burned its way down his throat and hit his stomach, its warmth relaxing him from the inside out. “As far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t even have a pussy. She’s like one of those Barbie dolls my nieces play with.”

The boys laughed.
 

“Please,” Arena argued. “A fine piece of ass like that? Don’t pretend you haven’t noticed.”

“Yeah,” Hamilton said. “We can all see the way you two make the goo-goo eyes at each other. You’re totally fucking.”

Jay made an effort to join the hilarity, but looked away as he drained the last of his bourbon, wondering why his laughter sounded hollow.

Chapter Ten

The next morning Berg and Jay sat across from Melissa’s uncle, Theodore “Ted” Shipper, in one of the station’s chilly interview rooms. It was the second time Ted had been interviewed by the CPD, the first being just after Melissa went missing. Back then, Ted had reluctantly discussed her habits, boyfriends, whether she hitchhiked, and other relevant details with the interviewing officers. The details were now contained in the folder Berg balanced on her lap.
 

Earlier that morning, Ted had been allowed into the morgue to identify his niece. One of the technicians peeled the white sheet from her body while the detectives stood back and gave him a few private moments. Berg had watched as Shipper gazed at her blank face stonily before nodding, the twitching muscles of his clenched jaw the only outward sign of any emotion.

Still clad in his worn U.S. Army fatigues, Ted now stared at them with loathing, nursing his lukewarm, special order green tea in one of his weathered hands in silence. Berg noted his exposed skin was sun baked to the toughness of old saddle leather and his fingernails were caked with dirt and grime. With her sinuses closed over due to the sheer power of his stench in the enclosed space, Berg shuddered and resisted the urge to hose him down.
 

“Where’s my Miranda?” Ted shot, peering at the detectives with distrust.

“You’re not under arrest, Mr. Shipper,” Jay replied. “Although, you could be after you took a swing at an officer. But I’m happy to let that go, for now. We just want to talk to you about your niece, and then you can go.”

“She’s dead. Thanks to you, you commie dicks.”

Berg ignored the insult as she felt Jay stiffen next to her. “We’re sorry for your loss,” she said with sympathy.
 

Ted folded his arms across his chest. “Sure you are. Bet you’re real broken up about it.”

“We just need to know if you had any contact with her at all since she was reported missing.” Berg leaned forward. “Any contact at all. Maybe a phone call or a letter? An e-mail?”