Page 37 of Manner of Death
“Threats?” Larue spun on his heel and hustled back with all the excitement of a hunting hound on the scent. “More threats? Detective, I can have your badge for this!”
“Really? You can?” Sawyer didn’t bother looking at Larue, though—he kept his eyes on Felix, who was turning red as the impact of what he’d just decided to throw out there on a whim hit him.
“Are you kidding?” Larue squawked. “I can file a suit against you and this department for—”
“Let’s just go,” Felix muttered before turning and hurrying down the hall with his tail between his legs.
Larue stared after him, a look of disappointment on his face, before turning back to Sawyer. “Anything you have to say to my client needs to go through me after this,” he said, nose in the air. “If I hear about you talking to him directly, I’ll consider that harassment and—”
“File a suit against me. I think I’ve got it.”
“I don’t think you do have it, detective.” Larue took a step forward. “Let me lay this out for you plainly—the police in this city have coasted for a long time. They’ve ignored a lot of problems and angered a lot of people by being a bunch of lazy, ineffective slobs, and don’t even get me started on the racism. I would love nothing more than to see this entire force thrown out of their positions so we could start over clean, so I’ll be watching not only how you interact with my client from here on out, but how you handle this case.” He tilted his head condescendingly. “You’re not off to a very good start on it, I’ve got to say. I hope you do better…fast.” He turned and walked off with the firm stride of the self-righteous.
Sawyer watched him leave, then pulled out his phone to check the messages that had come in while he’d been talking to Felix. The first was from Bashir. He opened it eagerly.
Had to go back to work. Shit. Of course he did, but it still bothered Sawyer that he didn’t get a chance to say goodbye. Bashir had followed that with, Assuming we can both get away, dinner tonight?
Getting away was always a gamble during an active investigation, but he chose to be optimistic. Hell yes, dinner tonight. Sawyer had to stop and restart his text twice because he was typing too quickly. Absolutely. Where?
The reply came gratifyingly fast. I was thinking my place. Eight?
Sawyer bit the inside of his lip hard in an effort to remind his body that this was not the place to be getting a hard-on. I’ll bring a bottle of wine.
All you need to bring is you.
Holy shit. He stared down at his phone with a feeling that was entirely out of place right now, and even more welcome because of it. How long had it been since he’d flirted with someone like this? At least a few years, since he and Jaz called it off. It felt like longer, though. Should he reply? At the very least he needed to get Bashir’s address, instead of looking it up in the database like a creeper—
“You…seem happy.” Sawyer glanced up to see Nan walking toward him from the other end of the hallway. “Way too happy for someone who just had an altercation with that bastard Larue.”
“Nan,” he said a bit chidingly.
“Don’t you ‘Nan’ me, he’s a son of a bitch on his best days,” she replied. “The worst thing about him is that he’s not wrong about everything, which of course makes him feel like he’s got to be right about everything.” She rolled her eyes as she stopped beside him.
“What’s he right about in particular?” Sawyer asked, putting his phone away.
“Oh, the fact that our department doesn’t have a spotless record when it comes to community interactions and proper policing. We had a big reckoning about six months before you came in; a lot of the old guard was forcibly retired, and a few even ended up serving sentences. I’m honestly surprised that Kurt didn’t quit then. Not that he was ever one of the bad ones,” she added, “but he’s had one foot out the door ever since he turned fifty-five.”
Ah. So Kurt’s attitude wasn’t just related to his wife’s health. “And Larue helped prosecute all that?”
“Not directly, but he was definitely one of the muckrakers. But he’s also willing to work with some of the worst assholes in the city in order to give us trouble, including defending our former mayor.”
Sawyer didn’t know anything about the former mayor. “And…why is that a problem?”
“Because the guy was into child porn.”
Ew. All right, it was time to change the subject. “Do you have anything interesting to pass on about the latest victim?”
Nan sighed. “Come look at this.” She led him back to the bullpen, where she’d swiped one of the big whiteboards and set up a map of the city. Everywhere one of the bodies had been found was marked with a small red magnet and a picture of the victim, while the empty sides of the board were slowly filling with handwritten information. Sawyer was suddenly very glad Felix hadn’t had a chance to look in here—he could only imagine the sort of sensationalist spin he could put on something like a “murder chart.”
“Gerard Johnson was found here.” She tapped a spot about two miles away from the precinct. “Chris White was here.” She pointed to a road at the very edge of town, about five miles from the first murder. “And Gilroy Upworth was in his home here.” That was in the farming community in the northeast edge of the city, next to the nature preserve. “Apart from them all being white and male, I’ve found next to no commonalities. They weren’t the same age, they didn’t have the same interests, and they didn’t live in the same neighborhood or go to church together. I’m still digging into their friends and families, but so far these present as crimes of opportunity.”
“Which they obviously aren’t, given the effort that the killer is going to,” Sawyer said.
“Exactly. But…I’m not sure if the victims are the point.”
Sawyer frowned. “If they’re not the point, then…what? A taunt for the police?” It wouldn’t be the first time a serial killer had tried toying with the cops that way, but it was vanishingly rare. Occam’s razor would probably indicate that there was a connection between the victims they were missing. Something the killer was honing in on. They just hadn’t found it yet. Or there were three separate and unrelated killers who happened to be killing in bizarre fashions in the same place at the same time. Not likely.
So what if Nan was right?