Chasing the Ghost v5 Read online

  “Amen.” Porter frowned. “You know, it’s weird he didn’t call her in missing when she didn’t come home. Didn’t go drive over to the school to look for her. He just went to bed.”

  “Marriage,” Chase said, shaking his head.

  “You can’t judge everyone by your experience,” Porter said. “You aren’t exactly center of the bull curve.”

  Chase pretended to look hurt. “Hey.”

  Porter ignored him. “I don’t like the doctor’s story. He’s a surgeon. He could have done that cut.”

  Chase thought about mentioning it had been a garrote once more, but kept his peace. He’d never seen anyone’s throat that had been cut with a scalpel so maybe Porter was right. Scalpels were not standard Taliban combat equipment.

  Porter checked the time. “We’ll see what Hanson has for us after lunch, but I want to focus on the husband for now. Where do you want to eat?”

  “I’ve got an appointment for lunch,” Chase said.

  Porter stared at him for a second, and then nodded. While Porter drove them back to headquarters, Chase pulled the picture of Rachel Stevens out of the address book. The likeness was small, but he was struck by her just the same. There was something in the eyes. He wanted to see the larger portrait in the husband’s office.

  “What do you think?” Porter asked, glancing over.

  “I think you don’t trust me driving,” Chase said, passing the photo over to his partner. “I might not be able to do murder scenes, but I can drive at least.”

  “Last time you drove, you got all squirrelly on me,” Porter said.

  You drive along roads with IEDs for a while, Chase thought but didn’t say.

  Porter pulled over to the side of the road short of headquarters, to look at the picture Chase thought, but he was wrong.

  His partner turned to him. “What happened in Wyoming?”

  “What did you hear?” Chase asked.

  “Your team got alerted, you deployed but the killers made it back to their land in the mountains.”

  “That’s it?” Chase pressed, wondering how good security was on his FACT team.

  “There’s some rumors,” Porter allowed. “But I’d rather ask you than listen to rumor.”

  “I had clear long-rifle shots at the killers, but I didn’t take them. They got by me.”

  When Chase fell silent, Porter nodded, and started the car.

  “You don’t want to know why I didn’t shoot?” Chase asked, a bit surprised.

  Porter turned to him, looking equally surprised. “Jesus, Chase. I’m a fucking cop. We don’t shoot people in cold blood. We arrest them. You’d have shot them, I’d have left you standing there on the side of the road and you’d have needed a new partner.”

  ************

  The door to the apartment was unlocked. Chase opened the door and quietly walked in, shutting the door behind him and locking it. From the sheath tucked into the small of his back, he drew the double-edged commando knife. He held it at the ready as he entered the living room. The shades were pulled and it was dark. He stood perfectly still and took almost a minute to let his eyes adjust. She was on the couch, covered with a blanket, her eyes closed.

  With his other hand, he pulled out his handcuffs, being sure not to make any noise. He went over to the couch and put the blade just a scant inch from her neck. Her eyes opened and widened, but she didn’t scream as he pressed the knife against her throat.

  He efficiently cuffed her, then used them to pull her off the bed, the blanket falling aside. She was naked. He looped a scarf that was lying on the coffee table underneath the chain connecting the cuffs, pulling her across the room to the bedroom door. He tossed the free end of the scarf over the door, reached around, and jerked down on it, stretching her arms over her head. Taut.

  Then he shut the door, pinning the scarf in place, leaving her exposed in front of him. She was watching him, still silent, but she was breathing hard. He stepped closer and she closed her eyes as he brought the knife back to her throat.

  Chase slid the knife down from her throat, to the swell of her breast to her right nipple. The edge of the blade pressed into the flesh enough to be felt but not draw blood. It flicked over the nipple to the underside of her breast. Her breathing was coming faster, her ribs moving. As he moved the knife lower, across her tight stomach, he leaned forward and put that nipple in his mouth. He caught it between his teeth and exerted pressure.

  Her body tried to move away, but only had a few inches of slack. Her hands had wrapped around the scarf, taking the weight off the metal cuffs around her wrists. He could see the whites of her knuckles as she twisted the cloth in her hands.

  The knife reached the thin sliver of red pubic hair. It scraped over the hair, producing a slight crackling that he sensed rather than heard.

  He knelt in front of her, sliding the blade over the lips between her legs, then he reversed the knife, pressing the handle against her. He leaned forward and his tongue snaked out.

  She was wet.

  He pressed the top of the handle against her and her lips parted. He slid it in halfway. Then he pressed his mouth against her, his tongue finding her clit. He gently moved the knife handle in short strokes, putting slight pressure toward him, while his tongue moved, finding the rhythm of her body.

  She was gasping now. He could hear it and feel it through his tongue. He moved the knife handle faster, his tongue slower, his free hand grasping her ass, holding her tight in place.

  He lost track of time, focused only on the body he now controlled.

  She was moaning, whispering something to herself, something he couldn’t make out.

  Then she shuddered, her back hitting the door, his hand crushed by her tight ass pushing against the wood. She was on her toes, and as she slowly came down to put her feet back on the ground, he slid the knife handle out of her and slowed his tongue to a halt.

  He put the knife back in the sheath as he got to his feet. He opened the door, releasing the scarf, letting it fall to the floor. He uncuffed her and put those back in the case on his belt. Then he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the couch.

  She still had not opened her eyes, but she was smiling.

  He put her on the couch and slid the blanket back over her body. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. She sighed contentedly.

  Then he left, making sure the door locked behind him.

  *************

  Chase had had to go in cold rooms like this in Kandahar and Baghdad to see his men and claim their effects and make sure their remains were taken care of. Then he went and wrote letters. But this was different. Rachel Stevens hadn’t been a soldier. She was a civilian.

  The coroner was standing over an autopsy table, which held the remains. Chase didn't think of her as a person for now. Chase stood next to Porter and waited patiently. Hanson was talking into a microphone hanging from the ceiling while his assistant measured, portioned and weighed the parts he was removing.

  "I'm almost done here." Hanson pointed at the neck. "Cause of death was loss of blood from trauma to the neck. Her nails are clean. No apparent struggling." He frowned. “No defense wounds.”

  A clean kill, Chase thought, but didn’t say. Hanson rolled the head to the side so they could see the wound. Chase tried to look interested, but all he could see was the big gaping hole on top where Hanson had scooped out the brain. They usually didn’t do autopsies after combat action.

  “What kind of weapon made the cut?” Porter asked.

  “That a strange thing,” Hanson said. “I’ve never seen a wound like this. It’s too narrow for a knife.”

  “Scalpel perhaps?” Porter asked.

  Hanson frowned. “Maybe. But it would have to be a perfect cut with a very steady hand.”

  “Like a doctor might do?” Porter pressed.

  “That’s a possibility. But the wound is deep. Not a scalpel, though. Maybe a bone saw.”

  Hanson’s lack of commitment must have gotten
to Porter because he glanced at Chase, then asked: “A garrote?”

  Hanson nodded. “Maybe. A garrote would make sense.”

  Hanson removed his mask, immediately popped the unlit stub of the cigar in his mouth and motioned for the assistant to relieve him.

  Chase and Porter followed Hanson to an office and waited while he peeled off his gloves and used the sink in the corner of the room. He had a strong fan going. Chase remained standing. Porter took a seat. "That's it?"

  Hanson looked at Porter in the mirror above the sink. "No, there's more, but it will take some time to get all the results. I'm estimating the time of death between ten and midnight based on rigor mortis and her stomach contents, but I'd like a more accurate time on her last meal."

  Porter nodded his head while he made notes. "What about blood alcohol and drugs?"

  Hanson sat behind his desk and started leafing through a folder. "No obvious signs of drugs. I'll get blood back from the lab early tomorrow." He put the folder down and looked up at the two detectives. "I did find semen in the vagina."

  To Chase, Porter seemed a little put out by that information. "You mean she was raped?"

  "That I don't know. There weren't any lacerations or bruising. I've seen raped bodies and this one doesn't look like it. There's just semen in her vagina."

  Porter shifted in the hard wooden chair across from the coroner. "Then she had willing intercourse sometime before she was killed?"

  Hanson pulled the cigar out of his mouth. The wet end looked like something Chase used to dig up when he was a kid getting ready to go fishing during his time with his mother in the Low Country when they went on their yearly vacation. "That's my guess. Or she was raped and didn’t struggle for some reason—maybe threatened and acquiesced. It'll take some time to get the DNA tests back on the samples."

  Porter tapped his pen on his notepad. "Would you say she had sex where she was killed?"

  Hanson shook his head. "No. Wherever she had it, she stood up sometime afterwards. She probably had the sex somewhere else. And she was killed somewhere else since there was no blood on the ground, only on her body.” He slid a slim folder across the desk. "Here's the initial report that I wrote up on the scene. I'll call you when I get the autopsy results put together. Now, I have some more work to do in Denver so I have to hit the road." Hanson glanced at Chase. “Does he speak?” he asked Porter.

  “When he has something intelligent to say,” Porter said, looking at the contents of the folder.

  “You have anything intelligent to ask?” Hanson said.

  “Nope,” Chase said.

  “That’s intelligent,” Hanson said.

  Chase followed Porter out. When they got to the car, Porter handed Chase the keys. “All right. There are no explosives along the road, Chase. Don’t get squirrelly. Let’s go back and brief Donnelly. He’s not going to like this one bit. The housewife, CU, the sex. Bad. Bad. Bad.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It took about ten minutes for Porter to bring Lieutenant Donnelly up to speed on what had happened so far in the case, which wasn't actually worth more than two minutes in Chase’s opinion, but Donnelly was kind of slow and Porter had to repeat himself several times. Chase remained quiet, figuring he was on a roll with one compliment.

  Porter’s hunch had been right: Donnelly was real upset about the CU-Pine Brook Hills connection. Academe and wealth; that was going to mean a double load of pressure. Reporters from the Daily Camera and a Denver TV station were already flitting around downstairs looking for the story. When Porter mentioned the semen information, Chase could see Donnelly become even more agitated. He took his glasses off and cleaned them nervously. "Oh, God. Not a campus sex-killing."

  Chase winced. Sometimes Donnelly drove him right up the wall. The LT shouldn't have been in a profession dealing with death; he didn't have the temperament. Chase always felt that a person had to be a little crazy for this type of work. Chase had been to war in two different countries on the far side of the world and now he was in the streets with a badge in his wallet. He never doubted what the human animal was capable of. He figured that was a plus on his side.

  Chase saw Donnelly in his tweed jackets with their suede elbows as one of those people with a center-out view of the world. He had a hard time realizing he wasn't one of the original molds for mankind. Maybe he just wanted people to be better than they were, or maybe he just wasn't as cynical as Chase. Donnelly’s four years in civilian college and two decades working in Boulder showed as surely as Chase’s time in the army and years in combat.

  Chase sensed this was going to be an ugly case, the kind where all involved pondered the future of their career every time there was a downturn. Chase’s brief police career wasn't doing too hot anyway so he wasn't that bothered, plus he trusted his partner’s abilities as an investigator.

  For Chase, the bottom line was that Donnelly was just going to have to accept the facts. Besides, Chase knew he was going to be the shit magnet if things went wrong even though he wasn’t saying a word and Porter was lead investigator. That was another unexpected aspect of the FLI program. The locals could blame the Fed in their office, and the Feds could distance themselves from their guy working down in the local trenches. A win-win for everyone but Chase.

  Perhaps to justify his existence as boss, Donnelly gave Porter and Chase the benefit of his supposedly hard-earned police wisdom. "Put the heat on the street, men. It was probably someone from the neighborhood where she was found. Maybe some Denver punk joyriding over to CU."

  What neighborhood? Chase thought. She was found in open space. Should they interview the wildlife? Roust a squirrel or two? God forbid they hit up a prairie dog. Chase had a bad feeling about this case, beyond his partner’s misgivings. Donnelly was looking for the easy way. Chase had already experienced a few bitter lessons about the easy way. He’d learned in the army about Murphy’s law. Whatever could get fucked up, would.

  Donnelly stood up, effectively ending the meeting, and gave his version of a pep talk. "Men, you've got to wrap this case up quickly."

  No shit, Chase thought to himself. Unlike all the other cases that we dawdle over. But Porter nodded. "We’re working on the car next, Lieutenant. If we could figure out how she was nabbed, and where she was killed, we'd have some clues. So far, all we have is a rich, naked lady, found dead, who had just had sex, whether willingly or not we don't know yet. Not a lot to go on. We’re waiting on forensics to give us the complete report from the site and for Hanson's final results." Porter opened the door. "But no problem, lieutenant. We'll get it wrapped up."

  Chase slipped out, followed by his partner. “That was pretty upbeat,” Chase noted as soon as the door was shut.

  Porter led the way to their desks. “It always pays to leave things on a positive note with Donnelly. No need in bursting his bubble prematurely. I’ve got a feeling we’re probably going to be doing that soon enough.” He looked at Chase across their desks, which faced each other. “Why do you think it might have been a garrote?”

  “I’ve seen that kind of wound before,” Chase said. He started to say more, but paused.

  “Go ahead,” Porter prompted.

  “The cut was clean, which meant it wasn’t a butcher job,” Chase said. “Most people wouldn’t know how to use a garrote correctly.”

  “There’s a correct way?” Porter asked.

  “Most people are amateurs, but for the best, killing can be an art form just like everything else.”

  Porter opened his mouth to say something, then stopped.

  Chase stood up and walked around the desks. He pulled his belt off and showed Porter the piece of steel wire that was held on the inside of it by several strands of thread. Two small loops were at either end. “That’s a real garrote.”

  “You carry a garrote inside your belt?” Porter said, staring at him.

  “Ever since I went into Special Forces,” Chase said. “My first team sergeant showed me how to put this inside a belt. Gets missed o
n most searches.”

  “What other hidden weapons do you have on you?”

  “Main gun in belt holster, back-up gun in ankle holster, knife in middle of my back, the garrote.” Chase said all of this matter-of-factly, because they were just facts to him. He realized that the others in the room were staring at him. “Everyone on my team carried the same,” he added, as a sort of explanation. “Anyway, the correct way to use a garrote and not have the person you’re killing get a piece of you or get covered in blood, is to use their own weight to kill them. Stand up. Face away.”

  Porter did as instructed. Chase looped the smooth outside of his belt over Porter’s head, then around his neck. “Most people think you loop the wire over the neck and then pull. But what you really do is flip it over the head to the throat, hold tight, then quickly spin yourself back-to-back with the victim, crossing the wire to tighten it initially, and lift them—“ Chase spun about, the belt pulling tight and he easily lifted Porter onto his back as he bent forward. He heard Porter gasp.

  “If it was a wire instead of a belt, it would have cut through into your neck by now, severing your carotid arteries and your wind pipe.” Chase straightened, let go and stepped away. Porter pulled the belt away from his neck, rubbing the skin. “And you’d be on the ground now, dying and I’m clear. No blood spatter on me, no screaming and yelling. Clean kill.”

  Everyone in the squad room was staring at them.

  “What?” Chase asked, staring back.

  “Have you—“ Porter began, then stopped. He handed Chase the belt. “I’m going over to CU to track down the car. You write up everything we have so far. I’m leaning toward the bone saw and the doctor-husband.”

  Professor Plum in the library with candlestick. Chase sat at his desk. Briefing the LT had certainly been a waste of time and he had a feeling Porter wasn’t too happy with the garrote demonstration. He wanted the easy answer. Hell, Chase thought, Porter could well be right.

  So he began typing in everything they’d done into the computer. Porter had decided that Chase could use a computer and let him do their reports while he escaped the office as much as possible. Chase figured it was a fair trade since he didn’t contribute much in police experience. So he typed away.