KILLER DELIVERY

Excerpt from Killer Delivery:

Following the homing beacon of blue and crimson lights, I headed around the side of the club to where the back alley was cordoned off. The scene only attracted passing glances from those still out this late on a weeknight. Two off-balance men with their arms slung over each other’s shoulder slowed down on the sidewalk opposite, rubbernecked momentarily, but didn’t stop. 

I’d already sweated through the back of my shirt by the time I ducked under the tape. It was humid as hell, and there was no way it’d dipped below eighty degrees yet, not with the heat still radiating from the asphalt like it was. This summer had felt especially brutal, and it was only going to get worse before it got better. Still, I was usually more acclimated by June. 

Here’s hoping the body is fresh. 

Old remains plus the heat were never fun, and it was a shock I’d remained in this line of work for so long with how sensitive I was to smells.

Popov spotted me first as I approached the small huddle of cops. The term for a group of police officers was generally “a squad,” but in my experience, “a huddle” more accurately described our kind. Or maybe a copse. A copse of cops.

“You got here quick,” Sergeant Popov said. 

“I was just on South Lamar.”

The question passed behind his eyes, but he was merciful enough not to ask it until we were separated from the group and couldn’t be overheard. “You been drinking?”

“Two beers over three hours.” I thought back to all the blackout drunks I’d pulled over during my days on patrol who would swear on their grandmother’s grave they’d only had two drinks before vomiting all over themselves during the standardized field sobriety test. 

I was telling the truth, though. Just two.

“You good to be here?”

“I’m not going to trip over my feet or barf on the body, if that’s what you mean. But I’m not exactly thrilled to be called in on my time off.”

“It’s not a pretty one, Capone.” The old sergeant’s pinkish face was ruddier than usual. I would need to get him out of the heat as soon as possible. 

“Sheesh. If you feel the need to prepare me for that, you must not be kidding. How long has she been out here?”

“Haven’t started interviews, but it’s fresh.”

“Small blessings. Let’s see it.”

He nodded and led the way further down the alley toward a dumpster. “Who found her?” I asked.

“One of the managers,” he said. “He was taking out the trash before closing up the place, and he found her as she is.”

As she is. And how was that?

I found out in just a few more steps. 

“Jesus, Pops.” I despised the first look at this kind of grotesqueness, but it was also an immense relief to know that even after seeing so many horrific things in my thirty-six years on this earth, I could still feel such intense repulsion at untimely death. There was a lot in me that was broken, but that mechanism, at least, remained intact.

My brain projected the stench of the trash onto the mangled girl in front of me, and the beer in my gut roiled. 

They’d been right to call me. The reason Popov wanted me instead of Towers or Krantz or any of the other Homicide detectives hung unspoken between us, and I’d keep it that way. It didn’t need to be said. Not with a scene like that.