Killer Love

His whole body relaxes. “I love you, too.” He lays me down in our bed. I cuddle into him, smiling against his neck. I have no idea what just happened but it was wonderful. I do know that I’ll be poking my husband a little more often if this is the consequence.

Chapter Thirteen

Lucas

“You’re in a good mood,” mentions the intern.

“Oh?” I don’t look up from the report I’m reviewing.

“You’re humming and you never hum.”

“It is sunny out,” I reply, not even bothering to check whether that’s accurate because in my world, the sun is shining.

She marches to the small window and flicks open the blinds. “I guess it is,” she says after a moment.

I make a few adjustments and slide the document over to her. “You can go now.” I have plans to plot out.

The intern turns to leave when the door flies open. Lee and Sanchez burst through, their arms full of manila folders. My brows crash together. I don’t like what I’m seeing.

“I think we’ve found something.”

“We think we’ve found something,” Sanchez corrects.

“Right. Anyway”—Lee drops his pile of folders onto my desk and slaps one open—“this is Dennis Graham. He was accused of abusing his foster kids. Three of them spoke out against him in a preliminary hearing. One died before the trial and the other two refused to testify at trial. The case was thrown out and he walked.”

“You have a new charge against him?”

“No. Look.” Lee stabs his finger against the autopsy report. “The guy was fileted about three weeks after the mistrial. His genitals were mutilated. He suffered from severe internal bleeding. He had blows to his chest and groin that were likely inflicted by a hammer.”

“Sounds sufficiently deadly.” I cock my head. “Are you suspicious about the manner of death and planning on having the body exhumed for reexamination?”

“No. I want you to look at this. Sanchez–”

“I’ve got it,” she says before Lee can finish his statement. “This is Val Cooper. She was the mom of the kid that was found chained in the basement. She claimed that her kid was possessed by the devil and she was forced to keep the kid there for the safety of others. She pled insanity and got sentenced to six months in a mental institution but got out after only three.”

“And the autopsy report says that she died of asphyxiation.” I peer up at the detectives. “These files appear to pertain to deceased individuals. Are you doing an audit of another coroner’s office?”

“No. Today Mr. Washington’s body washed up on shore, just north of the inlet where Old Man Dodd lives.”

So soon. Perhaps I should have weighted his body down, but, no, that would have defeated the purpose. Dead bodies are meant to be found and examined. The cases without bodies linger in people’s minds, encourage discovery missions such as the one that Lee and Sanchez are currently engaged in.

“And he is related to one of these two cases or”—I eye the folders—“or all of these cases?”

“Possibly. There’s one thing that connects all these cases,” Lee says. There’s a gleam in his eye that is making me uneasy.

“Bad coroner work?” I quip.

“All of these cases are unsolved and they all involve a person who was accused of a disgusting crime and either got a light sentence or no sentence at all,” Sanchez supplies. She dumps her files on top of Lee’s and starts going through them, listing off case after case—a pedophile here, an abuser there, a rapist two counties over.

I point that out. “Some of these files aren’t from us.”

“I know. I’ve—we’ve been working on this all week. Washington’s body is the nail in the coffin.”

“What are you suggesting?” pipes in the intern.

Lee whirls around to face the young woman. “We have a serial killer. Someone is killing all these people.”

“None of the killings are the same,” I say, flipping through the files. “This one was by blunt trauma. This one was from blood loss. This one says they died of a heart attack.” I was particularly proud of that one. It takes skill to induce heart trauma in an otherwise healthy person.

“It’s the randomness that is the common thread,” Lee declares.

Both my intern and I look at the detectives in slightly disdainful disbelief. “The fact that there is nothing similar about these deaths is what you’re using to connect them all?”

“Not just that,” SanchezSanchez says, her cheeks a bit pink. “It’s that they’re all—“

“Scum,” sniffs the intern. “It sounds like it’s good riddance.”

“It’s not our place to make that judgment,” I say.

The intern dips her head and pretends to busy herself with the report we just finished but not before I catch her rolling her eyes. “Some people need killing,” she mutters under her breath.

I pretend not to hear her. “What would you like me to do with these files, Detective?”