It should have been an unremarkable crime scene. Martha Brisbane had hung herself in the conventional way. She’d looped a rope over a hook in her bedroom ceiling and tied a very traditional noose. She’d climbed up on an upholstered stool, which she’d then kicked aside. The only thing remotely untraditional was the bedroom window she’d left open and the thermostats she’d turned off. The Minnesota winter had served to preserve her body well. Establishing time of death would be a bitch.
Like many hangers, she was dressed for the occasion, makeup applied with a heavy hand. Her red dress plunged daringly, the skirt frozen around her dangling legs. She’d worn her sexiest five-inch red stilettos, which now lay on the carpet at her feet. One red shoe had fallen on its side while the other stood upright, the heel stuck into the carpet.
It should have been an unremarkable crime scene.
But it wasn’t. And as he stared up into the victim’s empty eyes, a chill that had nothing to do with the near-zero temps in Martha Brisbane’s bedroom went sliding down his spine. They were supposed to believe she’d hung herself. They were supposed to chalk it up to one more depressed, middle-aged single woman. They were supposed to close the case and walk away, without a second thought.
At least that’s what the one who’d hung her here had intended. And why not? That’s exactly what had happened before.
“The neighbor found her,” the first responding officer said. “CSU is on the way. So are the ME techs. Do you need anything else?”
Anything else to close it quickly, was the implication. Noah forced his eyes from the body to look at the officer. “The window, Officer Pratt. Was it open when you got here?”
Pratt frowned slightly. “Yes. Nobody touched anything.”
“The neighbor who called it in,” Noah pressed. “She didn’t open the window?”
“She didn’t enter the apartment. She tried knocking on the door but the victim didn’t answer, so she went around back, planning to bang on the window. She thought the victim would be asleep since she works nights. Instead, she saw this. Why?”
Because I’ve seen this scene before, he thought, déjà vu squeezing his chest so hard he could barely breathe. The body, the stool, the open window. Her dress and shoes, one standing up, one lying on its side. And her eyes.
Noah hadn’t been able to forget the last victim’s eyes, lids glued open, cruelly forced to remain wide and empty. This was going to be very bad. Very bad indeed.
“See if you can find the building manager,” he said. “I’ll wait for CSU and the ME.”
Officer Pratt gave him a sharp look. “And Detective GQ?”
Noah winced. That Jack Phelps wasn’t here yet was not, unfortunately, unusual. His partner had been distracted recently. Which was the polite way of saying he’d dropped the ball more than a few times.
“Detective Phelps is on his way,” he said, with more confidence than he felt.
Pratt grunted as he left in search of the manager and Noah felt a twinge of sympathy for Jack. Officers who’d never met Jack disrespected him. Thanks to that magazine. A recent article on the homicide squad had portrayed them as supermen. But Jack had borne the brunt, his face adorning the damn cover.
But Jack’s rep as a party-loving lightweight started long before the magazine hit the stands three weeks before and it was a shame. Focused, Jack Phelps was a good cop. Noah knew his partner had a quick mind, seeing connections others passed over.
Noah looked up into Martha Brisbane’s empty eyes. They were going to need all the quick minds they could get.
His cell buzzed. Jack. But it was his cousin Brock, from whose dinner table Noah had been called. Brock and his wife, Trina, were cops, they’d taken it in stride. In a family of cops, it was a rare Sunday dinner when one of them wasn’t called away.
“I’m tied up,” Noah answered, bypassing greeting.
“So is your partner,” Brock responded. Brock had been headed to Sal’s Bar to watch the game. Which meant that Jack was at Sal’s, too. Damn him.
“I’ve called him twice,” Noah gritted. Both calls had gone to Jack’s voicemail.
“He’s having drinks with his newest blonde. You want me to talk to him?”
Noah looked up at Martha Brisbane’s lifeless eyes and his anger bubbled tightly. It wasn’t the first time Jack had blown off his duty, but by God, it would be his last. “No. I’m going to get the first responder back in here and come down there myself.”
Sunday, February 21, 6:55 p.m.
“Come on, Eve, it’s just a little magazine quiz.”
Eve Wilson glanced across the bar at her friend with an exasperated shake of her head before returning her eyes to the beer tap. “I get enough quizzes at school.”
“But this one is fun,” Callie insisted, “unlike that psycho research project that has you tied up in knots. Don’t worry. You always get the best grade in class. Just one question.”
If only it was the grade. A few months ago, getting A’s was at the top of Eve’s mind. A few months ago the participants in her thesis research had been nameless, faceless numbers on a page. The mug filled, she replaced it with the next. The bar was busy tonight. She’d hoped to numb her mind with work, but the worry was always there.
Because a few months ago Eve never would have entertained the possibility of breaking university rules, of compromising her own ethics. But she’d done both of those things. Because now the test subjects were more than numbers on a page. Desiree and Gwenivere and the others were real people, in serious trouble.
Desiree had been missing for more than a week. I should do something. But what? She wasn’t supposed to know that Desiree existed, much less that she was Martha Brisbane in real life. Test subjects were assured their privacy.
But Eve did know, because she’d broken the rules. And I’ll have to pay for that.
Across the bar, Callie cleared her throat dramatically, taking Eve’s silence for assent. “Question one. Have you ever gone on a romantic dinner to-”
“I’m busy,” Eve interrupted. For the next few hours there was nothing she could do about Martha and her other test subjects, but Callie’s quiz was not welcome respite. Do you believe in love at first sight, my ass. I hate those quizzes. Which, of course, was the reason Callie insisted on reading them. “Look, Cal, I took your shift so you could party.”
Callie shrugged the shoulders her cocktail dress left bare. “Nice try. I had somebody to cover for me. You should be studying, but you’re here, procrastinating.”
It was fair. Grasping three mug handles in each fist, Eve clenched her teeth against the pain that speared through her right hand. But until last year that hand couldn’t hold a coffee cup, so a little pain seemed a small price to pay for mobility. And independence.
She lifted the mugs into the waiting hands of one of her most regular regulars, quirking the responsive side of her mouth in the three-cornered smile that, after years of practice, appeared normal. “Normal” was right up there with mobility and independence.
“You’ve been buying all night, Jeff,” she said, surreptitiously flexing her fingers, “and haven’t had a drop yourself.” Which was so not normal. “You lose a bet?”
Officer Jeff Betz was a big guy with a sweet grin. “Don’t tell my wife. She’ll kill me.”
Eve nodded sagely. “Bartenders never tell. It’s part of the oath.”
He met her eyes, gratitude in his. “I know,” he said, then turned to Callie. “Hot date?”
“You betcha.” Callie nodded, comfortable with the scrutiny she’d received since gliding into Sal’s on ridiculously high heels. Her tiny dress would earn her significantly better tips were she to wear it next time she tended bar. Not that she needed any help.
Clerking for the county prosecutor was Callie’s primary means of putting herself through law school, but she’d recently started picking up extra cash working at Sal’s on weekends, her tip jar consistently filled to the brim. That dress combined with Callie’s substantial cleavage would send her cup running over, so to speak.