Hot on his tail is one of the best Homicide Detectives in the country - Sterling Hawkins. He is one cop you don't wanna mess with.
The Galveston County Medical Examiner, Dr. Jennifer Stokes is the best at her game: Forensics. Deciphering the language of the dead.
CHAPTER ONE
Galveston Texas was the perfect place for killing. Crabs. No more nightmares about fibers left on the vehicle. Or fingerprints. Or DNA or blood. Or semen. The crabs took care of it all. Little blue crabs that stubbornly refused to release their tiny claws attached like magnets to the flesh of the corpses. Eating away the evidence like a paper shredder.
There was one infamous case when the renowned Medical Examiner couldn't discern whether the victim had been killed by a gunshot wound or the slice of a knife. It had been a rusty serrated knife borrowed from a shrimpboat.
Ashley Ann Anderson slowly stepped off the school bus right in across the street from the Flagship Hotel. Directly in front of the new, mega-expansive, overrated condos. Everyone knew that this was "the" place to live. She smiled at the driver, looked back over her shoulder to the friends she'd made since she moved here over a month ago who were now preoccupied with the boy sitting in front of them, threw the backpack over her shoulder and stepped onto the sidewalk.
Ashley wore a man's white shirt which hung out over her tight Levi's, disguising the perfect curves of her young but ripe, innocently sensuous hips. Her long brunette hair had the look she wanted. Windblown sexy. Wasn't she trying to tell him something, wearing jeans too tight for a fourteen year old?
Ashley reluctantly watched the bus pull away. Out of sight. She was Cinderella and it was midnight. She hesitated just a moment to make sure the bus was around the corner. Gone. She looked down at the sidewalk and kicked an empty pack of green and white "Salem Ultralights" into the gutter. Frowning at her empty dish of life, she began the mundane trek to the Galvez Hotel where her mother worked as a waitress. How could she be accepted at school if they knew she lived in a rundown garage apartment across from the old hotel? It was only one mile to the
Galvez.
Ashley, Ashley, pumpkin pie, sweet to eat and sweet to die.
He was less than a hundred yards behind her. Whistling. Twisting his head back and forth like a boxer before the first round. A giggle escaped his thin lips like a caged bird. Sounded like a crow wheezing.
Closing in. Closing in.
Ashley would have worn a jacket. Should have. She was freezing cold as she nonchalantly strolled along the Seawall with Galveston Bay's muddy waters going through their endless, rhythmic ritual. The air smelled of dead fish and distant refineries. Oily sludge. But, to wear a jacket would give away her guise. It was just a few steps from the bus to the expensive townhouses. A few steps wouldn't require a heavy coat. The kids on the bus might know. Might tease. She'd rather freeze.
Still a hundred yards to the Galvez. She looked to her right. No one on the beach. The waves swept in reminding her of a ferris wheel going 'round and 'round. With no passengers. No music. The song of her life.
Simon Stecker sang out loud to the beat of his walk. The knife had been sharpened so that it had easily sliced a hole in his pants pocket. Like a jet through clouds. The wooden handle held it secure. Bobbing against his leg like a buoy in a rough sea. The cold steel blade felt erotic against his skin.
Detective Hawkins sat at his desk in the tiny cubicle which hardly sufficed as an office. It was located on the second level of the five story Galveston Police Department. An ancient building. Old as sin. Leaning back in his old wooden swivel chair, feet spread on his desk, Hawkins tossed another dart at a picture of Police Chief Rankin D. WaIters. "A--hole!" He almost got a bullseye. Chief WaIters sat next to him, threw a dart at his own caricature, missed entirely and grunted. "Frickin cheap darts. Get some straight darts, will you?" he scoffed, replicating his usual serious mode as he got up to stretch.
"With what you pay me..." Hawkins slid his feet off the desk taking several papers along with them to the floor. Looking at Walters as seriously as a Doberman at a prowler, he completed the sentence: " 1 couldn't afford to...fart."
His phone rang, Walters left the room and Hawkins answered: "Yo."
Sterling Hawkins spent little time in the office. H-O-M-I-C-I-D-E. Written 1950s style. Calligraphy from a simpler time taunting those poor souls unfortunate enough to pass them on the way to interrogation.
Walters was a blur through the semi-transparent office window. "I've got Amherst acting as liaison with the FBI. Unless you'd like the job."
"Screw you." Hawkins retaliated. He despised the Feds.
No one, not even the County Commissioners would dare joke with the Chief of Police like Hawkins did and get away with it. Walters was a tough Chief. Had been for going on ten years. But Hawkins was tougher. Hawkins was one mean son-of-a-b------'-cop.
He ran his fingers through his too-long thick black hair, shoving some of it out of his eyes. The thought entered his mind: should he try some of that stuff that hides the gray. A little gray around the temples and lots of gray on the chest. He hadn't yet counted the gray hair developing elsewhere. But Jennifer had.
The cubicle of an office was claustrophobia's best friend. When he stood, Hawkins nearly bumped the low ceiling. Well over six feet tall, he had the look of an only recently retired professional boxer. Not particularly muscled, more like proportioned. Chiseled. Sculpted. Toned. He looked like somebody you wouldn't want to mess with. His suit, despite it's thousand dollar price tag, didn't offset that toughness. He wore a tie with what appeared to be little crescent moons on it, an off-white shirt, black loafers and a Glock 45mm. He smelled of Obsession, was evenly tanned and drove a Harley Fatboy when he could and a Ferrari 348 when he had to. Jennifer was rich.
Probably a young girl who'd probably had her throat slit. All probables. Nothing certain. No fibers. No blood samples. Forget DNA. No signs of a struggle. No fingerprints. No nothing. The damned crabs had eaten the evidence. It would probably be officially recorded as another drowning.
The Galveston County morgue was a part of what used to be the anatomy lab adjacent to The University of Texas at Galveston's John Sealy Hospital. The doctors were some of the best in the world. But then there were the over-eager med students who had screwed up more than one of Hawkins' victims by mistakenly assuming possession of it before the corpse had officially been released. They needed the dead to study life. The Medical Examiner looked at the other side of the coin. And perhaps who'd tossed it.
All decent M.E.s know that the detective in charge of the case needed to be present when the autopsy is performed. If the cop and the M.E. worked together, more often than not, some piece of evidence could be seen, found, dug up or traced that otherwise would have been lost.
"Exactly where was the body lying when you got there? What were the weather conditions? Anybody move the body?"
Guilty or innocent? Might depend upon the trajectory of the bullet or what type of knife had been used. Was the victim raped? Was she dead or alive when she was raped? Were there slash marks on her fingers, hands, arms or blood or skin under her fingernails indicating that she'd attempted to ward off the attacker? Any chemicals on the victim's clothes? Any fibers of any kind that might be particular to a certain make of car, or carpet, or piece of clothing or place or time?
CHAPTER TWO
"I've been waiting." Jennifer looked away from her corpse toward Detective Sterling Hawkins as he gently tapped on the glass outside the Autopsy Room. A body on the gurney. The same sickening expression he'd seen a thousand times. Face rigored. Frozen. Gray in death. Body split open. Vital organs waiting to be sliced into sections. Like momma's home-cooked ham. Five more lifeless souls waiting like jets on a runway for a chance to tell their story. Dead people talk. And Dr. Jennifer Stokes was the best of the best at translating that special language. She held the long scalpel in her right hand as if it were a spoon and the soup was ready.
Hawkins donned a surgical mask and tentatively stepped into the icy room. He put the Oakley's back on until his eyes adjusted to the intense light and at the same time, for no other reason than habit, removed his coat. Putting it back on usually helped stifle the smell that clung to one's clothing.
"Doesn't look like we've got much to work with," he stated matter-of-factly.
"We won't know until we get inside," Jennifer said referring to microscopic organisms colonizing the corpse. How old were they? What generation? She stood on her tip toes, received a smack on the forehead.
"I missed you. "
"I missed you. ..." Hawkins took one look at the young body and stopped in mid-sentence as Jennifer turned away and tapped the exposed white skill with a small rubber hammer. Only moments earlier, the Stryker saw had buzzed it's way through the bone, cutting it from top to bottom in a near perfect oval. Jennifer struck the bone with the same precision that a jeweler might display when while cutting a precious ruby. Tap. Tap. The sound of the skull bone cracking resembled a huge knuckle being popped. The bone easily came free, exposing the brain.
With nothing more than her gloved hands, she easily removed the white spongy brain which seemed to move around as if it still had life. She was assisted by a nauseated University of Texas medical student who was, at this moment, considering the expanding field of computerized forensics. The brain was inhabited by razor thin, inch long sea creatures. Tiny black worms slithering away from the light.
"Oh, thank you so much young lady," the man greeted Ashley as he fought back the urge to lick her. Sticky white saliva resembling pasty flour clung to his lips as he spoke.
"Everything I have in this world is in that bag," he offered demurely, pointing to the old brown duffel bag which he had covertly tossed from the sidewalk. It was fifteen feet straight down to the rocks below which led directly to the beach.
She re-adjusted her backpack, looked at the ground, and kicked a stone over the seawall. Almost afraid to look him in the eye. Wanting to help. Not wishing to share his pain.
"If you could just walk down to those steps, " he feebly raised his hand, gesturing toward a rusted steel walkway not more than ten feet from where he sat. It led to the deserted beach.
"It's right down there, " he pointed. "Just below me." Stecker suppressed a giggle. "If you'd be so kind as to just toss it to me, I'd be forever grateful. If it wouldn't be asking too much?" He asked, rocking back and forth and rubbing his knees.
"Hurt 'em in Vietnam, " he lied.
Ashley looked over her shoulder as she walked toward the steps. Then ran. "My father was in Vietnam. I know. I'm sorry ." She understood the pain. With the pain had come the drinking. She skipped down the steps two at a time. Didn't want the man to feel like he was putting her out. What a pity. Poor man, out in the cold. Legs injured serving his country, all alone. Like her. She was now directly below him. Her eyes met his. His left hand pointed to the duffel bag. "It's right there. Thank you so much. "
Ashley couldn't really hear what he'd just said. Not with the wind in her ears, the waves lapping above the shore only thirty feet away. But, she nodded and smiled as if she had. She looked between the rocks, then back to the man. Smiled and waved. A signal. She'd found it. Ashley perched on one rock, jumped to another and leaned down to retrieve the old brown duffel bag.
From here no one else could see. She was his at last. He opened his bag of medicine. Knelt over her. Looked from side to side and to his back towards the beach. No one. Just as he had planned. He turned her over, allowing him to press himself against the open flesh of her forehead. The premeasured Tubex of Thopental Sodium was his insurance policy. Faster acting than Rohypnol. Much stronger. The needle bit into her neck. Now she wouldn't want to play games like some of the others. He removed the needle then jabbed it into her neck again. Into her arm. Stuck her behind the ear. She moved. He felt the lust building. He stuck her again and again. No movement.
He wanted to dance with her as he had the others. But not yet; not quite yet. He opened the duffel bag, pulled out a much larger body bag, looked around him for the tenth time, saw no one and placed Ashley in the bag. He effortlessly slung her over his shoulder and walked towards the beach. As if destitute. Assuming the attitude of the beggar. The behavior. Until he became a mere subtlety of his surroundings.
Pausing to stoop over, he examined an aluminum can before tossing it into the bodybag. Looking for aluminum cans. Just in case. Just in case someone was watching. Pick up a can. Toss it in the bag.
His rusted 1987 Ford pickup was parked less than thirty yards away. Behind a relic of a building which had gone from a go-go establishment in the late sixties, to a disco inferno in the seventies, had closed in the eighties and begun to deteriorate in the nineties. Stecker walked the beach allowing the night to settle over the two lovers. Providing a sweet blanket of darkness. For lovers only.
Hawkins sat in the beach house waiting for Jennifer. Theirs was THE beach house on Bayou Vista, an exclusive subdivision just off Galveston Island on the mainland side of the Galveston Causeway. The home looked like a wooden castle on stilts. Three stories. Four if you counted the open upper deck built solely for star gazing. It sported a five thousand dollar telescope.
The home smelled of sunny freshness. Herbs and spices laced with the sweet scent of cedar. The sweet smell of affiuence.
Pilgrim, Jennifer's twelve year old tomcat, slept on the mantle. His tail draped above the fireplace, moving from side to side only when the electric can opener was in use. Not a worry in the world. Five lives to go.
The floors were hard wood. Antique radios, bottles, cans and clocks disregarded time as they led the living room into another dimension. A place of happier times. An old, fully restored barber chair sat like a throne in the middle of the spacious den. James Dean would have wanted to sit there.
Hawkins leaned back in the antique chair as if he were awaiting an old fashioned shave, oblivious to his surroundings. But on the detective channel of his built in radar, static. Something was wrong. For cops, a sixth sense. In the military, sniper's sense. You didn't know how you knew from where the shots were coming. You just knew. He felt it as one feels a stranger's stare. A monster was loose on Galveston Island.
Dr. Jennifer Stokes. He never really thought of her as a doctor and smiled at the thought. It hadn't been an instant kind of attraction. Never an infatuation. She grew on him. He liked long brown hair, hers was short and blonde. He liked tall women. Jennifer was five two. Nice legs. Enticing breasts. The perfect ass. For her, it was love, hate. She loved the man. Sensitive. Gentle. Fun. A lover and a best friend. And attractive. She loved the man but hated his job.
He'd known the woman before he knew about her money. He wasn't into the money thing. She had all they could want. Mostly inherited.
Hawkins wanted to get on the Harley and just cruise. Good cop medicine. It was theraputic. His mind cleared when he rode. Relevant thoughts appeared from nowhere as the mundane thoughts of the day were blown away like ashes on an old campfire. Maybe it was the rush of the wind. Maybe it was the isolation. Just him and the bike. He needed to sort it out. Missing teenage girls. Cause of death: Unknown. The first had come in August and was conveniently listed as an accidental drowning. That made sense in August, but not in October. That was number two. Then, two more. Now today's guest at the morgue. Five unsolved deaths. All teenage girls. All crab bait. No tick. No tack. No toe. Where to start nobody knows. Right now there were no lines for the X's and O's.
Thus far, only one of the girls had been identifiable, her cause of death was something other than drowning. She had attended Moody Junior High. Hawkins would personally make the rounds at Junior High Schools tomorrow. Again. See if a pattern were developing. A line he'd missed along the way.
"Honey, Help me. I've got a sack of groceries."
Jennifer had said it twice from the porch as she fumbled for the keys before Hawkins heard her. His mind was caught in the deathtrap and he was looking for a way out. There would be more. He knew it.
"Coming!" It was almost 8pm. She'd been at the morgue since six that morning. Her hours were worse than his. He wondered if she were back on the amphetamines.
CHAPTER III
Ashley lay on the table in the center of the room the Crabman called home. Her hands and feet tied. Her mouth bound with circle after circle of dark silver duct tape. He licked her forehead as he stroked her hair.
The walls were a dirty gray. They had been blue, but that was years ago. Something resembling watered down glue seeped from one of the walls. In one corner was a sink. It stood about four feet off the ground. Old fashioned, metal bars supporting its oversized frame; it was about the size of a small washtub. There should have been two metal bars holding it up. Only one. Its other side was supported by part of a broom handle propped up another four inches by a stack of porno magazines.
Simon Stecker had no use for that anymore. The porno. It had been replaced by videos. His own. Homemade. The small camera hovered menacingly like a noose over what he considered his love bed. It was an operating table. There was an old stove next to the sink. It had once been white. Lines of black now ran across and down its frame like the devil's drool. Another door opened into a bathroom. A small shower, a commode choked by thick algae which circled the water-line and another small sink stood in the bathroom where the faucet dripped continuously.
Around the perimeter of the room were two rows of shelves, each containing hundreds of old coffee cans. Old jars, their contents long forgotten. A few antiquated still cameras. A refrigerator hid in the corner next to the sink. The kind people kept at their beach houses to store a few beers. The only thing in it were a few beers with rust forming on the tops of the cans. And a prized bottle of what looked like pickles, but weren't.
An old nineteen inch Montgomery Ward television sat along the wall leading into the bathroom. Below it, with video tapes strewn almost in a perfect circle on the floor, was a video player. Dangling from the side of the recorder was a nameless pawn shop price tag. Price $100. He'd gotten it for fifty.
The floor was concrete. A mop stood at sleepy attention in the corner, a bucket filled with rusty looking water next to it. It wasn't rust. The room smelled of old pennies. Copper. Blood.
"Simon says smile. Smile for me Ashley. I want to capture this moment."
The operation had taken two hours. Ashley now emitted a slow wheezing sound from deep within. A gurgle. Bubbles of blood surfacing, popping at her lips.
"You are quiet my love," he whispered as he licked the palms of her hands.
The occasional after-death twitches gave her new life. Again and again.
"You must be free now," he said as he untied her hands and feet and removed the tape from her mouth. He sang quietly as they danced. Her feet dragging across the concrete floor leaving trails of blood in the shape of a "Z."
Tah-da-da-da. Tah-da-da-da.
There was a knock at the door. “Anybody in there? Open up!"
By merely twitching his hand ever so slightly, an imperceptible movement to the eye, Hawkins layed rubber and was doing 85 mph in less than a heartbeat.
He thought of his last solved crime. That was more than two months ago. Since then he had been going through a dry spell.
Hawkins had the best record in homicide. Until recently. And his last case didn't really count. One black dude had been selling dope on 31st Street to turn over some quick cash. It was Friday night and he needed a hit. Bad. Trouble was, the stuff he was selling for $25 a bag was baking soda. Nothing but baking soda. He had gotten greedy, stayed on the corner long enough for one of the buyers to find out he'd been sh-- on, and come back for a little revenge. The seller had gotten it five times with a .22 rifle. Gangs don't shoot .22 rifles. Unless they are major pi----, not thinking, and in a hurry. That was the case.
Eyewitnesses saw it come down. They saw the rifle and the driver and the kid riding shotgun who had fired six shots, only one missing. But Hawkins was white and this was a black neighborhood. Everyone knew nothin.' "Didn't see nothin'. "Happen so fast-you-know-officer, sir." Yeah, right."I seen two white boys, couple of hillbilly boys what I saw." Sure you did.
The seagulls scattered as Hawkins made his way along a private stretch of East Beach. A crescent moon was cutting its way into the night. He let his mind wander back. He smiled as he thought of his best friend in the world. Ben Washington. Hawkins had called in his black buddy who, years ago, had driven the streets of Galveston with him passing out speeding tickets, directing traffic in the rain. Frying their asses off during the summer months. Keeping the crowds out of the paths of the parades no one except the mayor gave a sh-- about as His Honor smiled and waved from the paperboard float.
Ben had parked his unmarked car, walked the streets around 32nd where the shooting occurred, gotten names, addresses, and even a phone number of one of the perpetrators of the shooting. When he'd gotten back to the car, Hawkins had asked him if he was crazy. Walking that neighborhood alone. Asked him what he was carrying-a tommy gun? Washington had reached into his jacket, flipped his holster like a rubber band, was honestly shocked and admitted: I musta forgot my gun."
How do you walk through 32nd street playing, "who done it?" to the glassy eyed crowd of drug dealers that lined the streets like rat turds on a wedding cake? And not carry a gun? Washington said it was simple. He was black.
Back on the Causeway headed to Tara. Eighty. Ninety. A hundred. Through two l8-wheelers like a tongue between a whore's t---. They never knew.
Hawkins had the senses that are only awarded by Father Time. Time in classrooms. Time in uniform. Time on the street. Time poking around dead bodies. Talking a broken bottle out of the hands of a psycho when you couldn't talk the psycho out of the broken bottle. Doing some narc work until the long hair got dirtier than the lifestyle. Robbery. Sexual offenses. Now, the ultimate. Homicide.
The Crabman jumped. Startled by the knocking at the door. Tap-tap-tap-tap-tap...tap-tap. Who-is-an-asshole...you-are. Dammit, what was she doing here? What did she want? He'd have to dispose of the body. Quickly. The dance was over.
"Just a minute Mrs. Norman."
"I want in there and I want in there now," she demanded. Stecker heard her key turning in the lock.
The sound was deafening. No! He covered his ears. She's coming in. She shouldn't see this. She will think that it's wrong. She doesn't know. She can't possible understand unconditional love like Ashley showed. Quick, put Ashley in the bathroom. In the shower. Not so heavy.
"Just a moment Mrs. Norman. Stay quiet my darling. The door opened.
"You having women in here again?" Her voice was piercing. High and squeaky. Nerve knawing. Especially when she was irritated.
"Now do you see any women in here? Mrs. Norman, I wish you'd respect my privacy. I don't really think you should just come in when you like," Stecker's voice shook even as he tried to lend it some authority. He was no match for Mrs. Norman.
In the hall it crept. Slowly. Licking itself. It stopped just under the water fountain across the hall from the Crabman. It licked a little water from the floor. A tomcat.
"What's that mess on the floor'?" she asked. "Well, what is that?"
"I'11 get the mop. It's nothing." Simon Stecker backed away from her.
The cat froze for a split second. Its fur stood up as if a million volts had zapped it. It hissed from fear not anger, and with four giant leaps, was out of the building.
Mrs. Norman left. But not before she'd told him a few things. She'd cursed him. Made him feel guilty, and slammed the door behind her.
Simon Stecker ran the mop across the blood drenched floor. Back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. He heard a voice: It can't be Ashley. The voice again. It was Ashley alright. She was alive and mad at him. It was almost midnight before Stecker could get Ashley on the old fishing rig. He would have to get rid of the b---- quick. They would be looking for her.
The old fishing boat had once doubled as a shrimpboat. Certainly it had seen its better days. The once white deck was black with diesel smoke and sludge from Galveston Bay. The sometimes cranky old engine started up the first time; Simon was quite the handyman. Heading for the ship channel. Waters were deep there. Forty feet at least. He knew the weights he'd attached around her neck with a chain and a cheap combination lock would not keep her safe forever. Once the crabs got to the body, they'd eat past the flesh to the bone and the chains would loosen. But, he couldn't worry about that. Get rid of the body.
He looked at her in her hefty bag coffin. "B----!" Ashley lay in two heavy duty Hefty bags, one each for the upper and lower torsos. She was naked expect for the chain around her neck. Her mouth was rigored shut in a twisted smile. Her eyes were frozen open in terror. The old tug chugged along, now with its lights off in the monstrous Galveston Ship Channel. From here he could see a few flickering yellowish lights mocking him from the affluent Bayou Vista. He knew who lived there. Simon Stecker glanced menacingly and yelled into the cold night wind. Screamed. He'd heard of this doctor named Stokes. Out to get him. His voice rose over the splash of the cold water against the old tug and the clank-clank of the rusty engine. As he wrapped the final chain around Ashley's bloody throat, he laughed. The wheeze of a crow.
"Baby's back. Baby's back." Jennifer was asleep when Hawkins got home but she had fixed his special plate for him, leaving him a note in his special place next to the old barber's chair. She'd put an ice cold glass of tea in the refrigerator and had written him a note: "I'm sorry I missed you. Poor baby. Take it easy on yourself. Enjoy. It's in the fridge. I love you. Wake me if you want to. You know where I'm ticklish when I'm asleep. Love you. Jennifer."
Another reason she was right for Hawkins. Tolerance for a detective's idiosyncrasies. After sampling only too little of an excellent supper, he tip-toed upstairs to the bathroom and cracked a window even in the cold. She'd gone along with that absurdity, too. Sleeping with the window open when it was freezing cold. Another unselfish move on her part that gave him more breathing room. Hawkins' mind wandered like the game pieces on a chess board suddenly come to life with no players. Aimlessly. Was there really a psycho on the loose in Galveston? He crossed his hands behind his neck, leaned his head back and wondered just how far away he was from a clue. Any clue. The killer seemed a million miles away. He tried to let the murders drift away into the sound of the ocean. Then he saw the girl on the slab in the morgue. He forced his eyes closed and let the sleep wash over him. He liked the sound of the waves. And the clankety-clank of an old tugboat making its way back home on a windy, cold, dark night. It had been three weeks since Ashley's death when another body was discovered by a fisherman. Got caught in his oversized net which was dragging too near the ocean floor as he was doing some illegal fishing. The page two "Galveston Observer" headline: Hawkins didn't even call the station to report in. He never liked to be around WaIters after a bad headline or a bad hangover and this morning Hawkins' guess was that the Chief had both.
He arrived at Moody Junior High School at 7:00 am, and when the doors opened, he entered only after flashing his badge twice. Security had been beefed up since he'd last been here only a few weeks before. Hawkins nervously twitched his tie. He opened his wallet and obsequiously counted his bills. Needed something to do. Murder scenes he could handle. Sitting outside the Principal's office made him nervous. He felt like a school kid about to get licks. Her door looked much like his. Old. Calligraphy. Fifties. Miss LINDA PERKINS - Principal.
The school smelled of old gym socks, new pencil shavings, musty old books, and a mixture of a thousand colognes and perfumes. Kind of like week old sweet and sour sauce. His visit last time centered around another young girl who had just vanished. Miss Perkins had explained that this kind of thing was not uncommon these days. Families just pack up and leave. It was so inconsiderate, but then so were the "kiddos" for the most part. And it was the parents' fault. Should raise those kiddos better. To Hawkins a lot of these little pukes seemed more like hostile armed forces than "kiddos."
"Detective!" It was Perkins. As tall as he'd remembered. Too much makeup. Sixty-ish. A dark green suit that seemed to make the least of her rather full figure. Gray hair and a full head of it. A wig? She looked the part of a principal. He finished the sentence for her.
"Sterling. Sterling Hawkins, Miss Perkins. Homicide. I'll certainly understand if you have other obligations. I should have made an appointment, but I just feel this thing I'm working on is...l'd like to talk to you about it now."
"Yes. Ashley. I recall." she looked serious, a frown creasing her otherwise almost pleasant face as she tossed the morning paper on the window sill and sat down. "Coffee?"
Her office was small and off white. Governmental. A computer occupied space on the desk facing her, but he had gotten the impression during his last visit that she was still into filing paper. The floors were polished white linoleum with green specks. Her desk was mahogany and just a little too elegant in such bland surroundings. He felt her glare. Hawkins got his notepad out which detailed their last visit, flipped past the previous encounter and several other unrelated pages, and came to Ashley Ann Anderson.
Susan arrived with the papers and picture, set them on the desk, and walked toward the door, again without a word. Miss Perkins continued, "An xceptionally attractive young lady. It's such a shame." She opened her drawer, pulled out a Kleenex, and wiped some spilled coffee from the saucer.
Hawkins looked out the window which sat a half level down. A basement office. The view only revealed the latest in over-priced sneakers. For some reason, Hawkins had a burning desire for a cigarette. He'd quit four years ago. Ignoring the question, he asked, "Any new teachers since the last time I was here? New staff? Last time you gave me a list of the teachers, cafeteria workers, bus drivers," he looked at his notepad as if the list were written there, "and school nurse. All that still the same? Anyone new work here?"
Hawkins glanced out her office's half-window, caught a glimpse of a pair of workboots that stood out like a sore thumb among all the expensive running shoes.
Hawkins beeper went off. He noted the number, his forehead crinkling a signal of urgency. "Is there a phone I might borrow?" Hawkins reached her from the Ferrari. "Tell me something good," he said when Jennifer answered.
The antiseptic smell of the morgue was like a breath of fresh air. A lead? He opened the door to the Examination Room, looked down as Jennifer looked up, and waited. This arena of their lives was all business. Sterling and Jennifer occupied a corner table at the University of Texas at Galveston
Cafeteria an hour later. Not much of a crowd on a Friday afternoon. Med students had a peculiar trick of vanishing into thin air on weekends. She was munching on a Caesar Salad with ham and cheese while Hawkins drank a glass of iced Coke and nibbled on a few crackers. Autopsies didn't make him puke anymore, but they didn't improve his appetite.
Hawkins knew she wasn't talking figuratively. Jennifer found the discount card and slid toward the edge of the booth.
Detective Washington had sat at Hawkin's desk while Mr. Sterling, as he sometimes liked to call him, made phone call after phone call. Hawkins had been on the street the rest of the day Friday and had come up with nothing. The Feds in Quantico had promised some word on the janitor, Mr. Henry Aaron Lucas by the end of the day, but nothing had been faxed or emailed. The name didn't show up locally as the owner of a registered vehicle. Apparently the guy didn't drive or if he did so, he didn't do it legally. Hawkins had been down this bumpy road before and didn't like the ride. Washington looked down at his stomach, made an effort to hold it in after the "Denny's Super Meal Deal."
Hawkins knew he should leave his work at work. Discovered the hard way a long time ago he'd have to if he were going to survive in homicide and remain somewhat sane. And he was getting better at it after twenty years. He and Ben were heading for the Country Club.
Jennifer intended on taking full advantage of the beautiful November day, with temperatures in the 70's, to work in the yard and oversee the work on Tara's bulkhead and pier which needed its yearly maintenance. Plus, she was getting the heater serviced after the first real winter blast had hit a couple of days before. She heard a door slam from the vicinity of the driveway. She looked at her eight-function Casio. Thirty minutes early. But, better early than late. She wiped her hands free of the dirt that had accumulated as she had removed weeds from the garden.
Have to get her in the house. Too many people out today. Have to be quick. The serviceman she was expecting will be here in thirty minutes.
"Ah, sure." Jennifer was a little put out. Not at his request, but at another interruption. This was one little absurdity Hawk allowed her. She could work on the garden for hours and he would just watch her while rocking in the swing made for two. Look at her and smile. Never rushed her. He knew she loved working with her hands on something besides dead people.
Such a b----. Too bad I don't have more time.
"Simon? Simon? It's Ashley Ashley puddin' pie. You bast---!"
"Simon, I'm coming to get you Simon. I'm coming to get you Simon."
He dropped Ashley's tongue into the jar. He expected the usual plunk. When it hit the others, the tiniest air bubble popped out of it. Thum-pah. He screamed and quickly closed the lid. He screwed it tightly shut. She joined the others. Thirteen in all. 
"I'11 cut out your heart and feed it to the seagulls!"
Seagulls flew overhead, made a quick pass, and disappeared into the night of the crescent moon. He idled the tug without turning offher engine. That would be risky. This would have to do for the b----'s final resting place. He couldn't resist just one more look at that lovely face.
But she can't talk can she?
He struck her again and again with the oar. She rested in a bed of dense seaweed. He shoved her down with the end of the oar, nearly falling on top of her in the process. Finally she sank, slowly drifting downward in the cold brown waters. Five feet. Ten. Fifteen. There she remained, still snarled in the seaweed, her eyes staring at the startled mullet and salt water catfish. Chapter IV
"Yes, thank you."
She keyed the intercom without looking, "Susan, get us two cups of coffee. Both black." To Hawkins:
"I remembered correctly?"
"Yes. Black. Thank you."
"Ashley Anderson. Do you have a picture I might have? Her files? Any other information, the usual. " Hawkins' wasn't asking.
"Certainly. When Susan gets back with the coffee, I'll have her get you a school picture of Ashley. And the file. We'll get that, too. I think...let me...see...see. Yes. She was here when the school pictures were taken. Has her death been ruled a...what? Not a murder?" Miss Perkins was wearing fake eyelashes. Susan was already delivering the coffee. Hawkins took the warm saucer.
"Thank you. I'll just hold it here." Smelled fresh but was too hot to drink. He ignored her question.
"Susan, run and get Detective Hawkins a picture of that Ashley Anderson. She was new. Ninth grade I believe...let me see...yes. Ninth grade." Perkins kind of swished Susan away with her hand as if swatting a fly. "And be a sweetheart and get me all her public files. The usual." Susan left the room without speaking.
"Miss Perkins, this makes two girls missing from the same school. This is all we have to go on right now so..." Hawkins was interrupted.
"Well, the first kiddo is not dead is she? She's gone. That happens all the time. We can't track them down when they just disappear." There was a defensive edge to her voice. Almost confrontational.
"Of course." Hawkins set his coffee on her desk and leaned forward, only three feet from her face.
"Put another way Miss Perkins, should any student from this school leave this school for any reason, I want to know about it immediately. You will do that for me, won't you?" The tone in Hawkins' voice didn't leave room for any static.
"Why, yes." She twiddled with a pencil, tapped the eraser on the edge of the saucer, and set the cup down with a clink.
"Did Ashley have any enemies that you know of? Like boyfriends? Any problems of any kind here at school? Drugs?" Hawkins sipped the coffee. Tasted like the cafeteria.
"Not that I know of. And we're not having any serious problems with drugs that I know of. Marijuana is back...and of course, alcohol. But we've had no incidents this year, at least thus far." She patted her hair and placed both hands in her lap. "Ashley. Let me think. She was only here for a short time. Bless her heart. Attractive kiddo too. She didn't really hang around with anyone in particular. You know, it's the 'new kid on the block' thing for the first week or so, then they blend right in."
Miss Perkins rolled the chair back and reached for the morning paper, opened it and set it on her desk without looking.
To Susan, "Thank you dear." Susan left the room. It was obvious she took care not to let the door slam behind her as it shut slowly, the door handle twisting closed.
"Miss Perkins, can you think of anyone who might have any information that might somehow tie the two girls together? Something or someone they knew in common?"
She put on her glasses, took them off, wiped them with another Kleenex, and put them back on. She leaned forward and said, "I haven't done a comparison on them Detective. I have no reason to believe there is any relation between the two."
Hawkins sat his coffee cup and saucer on the desk with an air of hostile abandon.
Perkins was a bit startled as she continued, looking at the cup as she spoke, "I wasn't thinking of a connection between the two. But, yes. That is your job and I will assist you in any way i can." She picked up the pencil and looked toward Hawkins. "Maybe it would be best to talk to their homeroom teachers. Mrs. Bartley, I believe was Ashley's homeroom." Perkins quickly regained some of her lost composure. "I can call her in before class starts. Or..." There was the slightest twinkle in her eye as she offered: "She might still be in the teachers lounge, if you want to try there?" A little trail of steam came and went from her coffee cup. She had yet to take a sip.
"Well, I...no," she stammered. "I am going to be frank here. I am just not fond of the government going through my life." Her glare into Hawkins' eyes quickly shifted to the floor as she added, "How many times are you going to question my teachers? Lord God Almighty." She forced another smile as she disguised her anger as profound amazement.
"Who's that?" he asked, stepping quickly toward the window. Again ignoring her question. She rose and let out a sigh as she craned her neck to get a glimpse. Her face only a foot from his. Her perfume reminded him of an old person's funeral. He noticed just how heavy her makeup was. Her glasses hid her eyes behind Coke bottle lenses.
"That is Henry. Our maintenance man. But he's not exclusively ours. He does some work around the district. This is his base however. I may have forgotten..."
"Did you give me his name last time I got the list?" Hawkins had a photographic memory when it came to names and Henry was not showing up on the screen.
Flustered again, she sat down, took a deep breath, and the "I don't know, " escaped as she exhaled.
"Miss Perkins, when I ask you for a list of employees, employed by this city in this school, I mean everyone. Let me make that clear to you. We are dealing with children dying here and I need this information. I know you have a full agenda in just keeping this place running. I realize you are busy." He looked her in the eye. "We're on the same team here, okay?"
"You think Henry is a murderer?" she asked, sarcasm dripping like honey off every word.
"If there was a murder, as far as I know, you did it!" Hawkins caught his temper getting away from him and reigned it back in.
"1'11 see to it that you get his files, " she said, still apparently aroused.
"1 would appreciate that. I'll wait." Hawkins sat down and crossed his legs.
"Susan," Perkins buzzed her secretary. Get me Henry Lucas' files. Whatever we've got on him. Detective Hawkins thinks...he needs them right away." She began to read the paper on her desk as if he wasn't in the room.
Miss Perkins pointed to the corner of her desk and offered hers with the sweep of a hand.
"Thank you but I need something private." Hawkins never wasted ink when getting to the bottom line.
"I'll 1eave my own office." She turned the swivel chair, placed both hands on its arms as if she needed the leverage, and started to rise.
Hawkins knew that Galveston schools recorded their calls. Too many disgruntled parents wondering why Johnny got in trouble at school today. Or a parent accusing the school of racism if their kid didn't make the basketball team. G.I.S.D. needed that stuff on tape in case of a lawsuit.
"That's very nice of you. Tell you what, I'd better get it in the car on my way back to work. Don't wanna be late. Thank you so much." Hawkins said in a hurry, no longer wishing to engage in a battle ofwits. He was going out the door just as Susan was coming in.
"Detective, here are the files on Henry Lucas I believe you requested," she offered in a very pleasant, almost sensual voice. Was that a gleam in her eye? She looked at Miss Perkins as if asking permission.
"I will get 'em back? Those aren't copies." Perkins asked now reading the paper, both eyes squinted, not bothering to look up.
"Promise. You'll be the first to know when I'm through with them." Hawkins nodded as he tucked the file under his arm and smiled as he gave Susan the once over just for the hell of it, and was out the door.
"Something good?"
Hawkins' silence confirmed the expected. "Ah oh."
"We've got another body. Same general age as the rest. She just washed up on the beach. Real ripe. Not much to deal with but it's something."
Hawkins was already moving and about to run a yellow-turning-red light.
"Well...the good news?" Rubber squealed on the old brick road as both the car and the adrenaline rushed. The subtle but tangible vivacity in Jennifer's voice didn't match the bad news.
"Sterling, I think I've got a link. " It was as if her end of the line went dead as she and Sterling thought the same thought. This is not something you discuss over the air.
"I'll be there in two minutes, " Hawkins said as he looked both ways before running a red light.
"You look tired, " she reached towards him, realized her rubber gloves were dripping red, and motioned him a little closer.
"Two bodies Hawk. Two bodies and we've got something. Not a lot, but something."
"It hit me today like a lead balloon," Jennifer said just after she swallowed a mouthful of salad. Hawkins touched her cheek with his napkin to wipe away a drop of low-cal Ranch Dressing.
He went over it again. "The tongues."
He looked at the ham in her salad, looked away quickly, and then into her eyes. "...were cut?" He removed his sunglasses and set them near her purse.
"That's what you're gonna see in the lab when the slides are blown up. I'm sure of it. It'll take a couple of hours." She glanced at her watch, then back to the salad. "I'm keeping the original stills and video. I wanna get court-room-sure we've got a definite clean section of sliced tongue and not a shark or whatever-the-hell." She dabbed her napkin on her lips as she finished her salad and fumbled in her purse for her ID which would save 20% on their meal. She was rich. Not stupid.
"So, whoever's killing these girls is slashing off the tongues?" Hawkins stuck a straw through the center of a squared ice cube, let it slide up and down, then caught her eyes again. "You can prove it?"
"No. With all the decomposure a bailbond defense lawyer would eat us alive on the stand," she answered as she applied just a little fresh lipstick. "I wouldn't want to go to the media with it, but I'm as sure as I can be that something cut both girls clean, straight through, from the left to the right."
She wore white scrubs as did most of the clientele at the UT MB cafeteria.
"It was especially evident on the Anderson girl. She'd rigored with her mouth snapped shut so tightly that we had to cut sutural ligaments.." She paused, realized she was talking medical jargon, patted her lips with her napkin and continued. "We had to pry it open with the jack."
"Considering all the time she'd decomposed, it was still relatively easy to see. But then, I'm the best," she added with a wink as they got up to leave.
"You're better in bed, " Hawkins walked behind her admiring her ass even in the medical garb.
"You're the detective, " she said looking down at her ass and back at his face. Then his pants. "I believe that would stand up in court."
Washington rolled a cinnamon toothpick from corner to corner of his lips as he read the news in the abbreviated Saturday paper. The story had advanced to the front page, but was still a secondary headline. Not the major story of the day. Yet.
"Damn thing says here..." Washington tugged his bifocals a little further down his nose and continued reading: "Sources close to the Medical Examiner say that it appears that the two Moody Junior High School victims, Ashley Anderson and Juanita Gomez, may have been killed." Washington glanced up at Hawkins who was turning redder by the minute.
He continued reading: "...where was I? ...'may have been killed by the same person. When asked about the possible connection, Chief Medical Examiner Jennifer Stokes had no comment." Ben stood up, set the paper on the desk and removed the glasses.
"Nobody in this department ever considers you the source. You know better than that."
"You know I don't give a rat's ass what anybody thinks over here. It's just gonna get Jenny in a pile of holy dogsh-- with her board. Screw 'em. I'd like to get my hands on the a-hole who leaks this stuff."
"You know newspeople, bi---. They don't have to have a source if the source is unnamed. C'mon."
"Yeah, but who's leaking this stuff? Who knew there was a connection between the two bodies if somebody inside didn't leak it? Bullsh--." Hawkins picked up the paper and tossed it into the garbage can as if in doing so no one else would read it.
"I can't find the girl's parents. " With his mouth wide open, he looked at Washington as if to ask "Can you believe this sh--?"
"Her mother is listed here as living at the Oaks. I'll be damned if anyone over there ever heard of her." Hawkins stood and stretched: "I guess I'll have to meet Ashley's mother at her daughters funeral." Hawkins looked at Ben out of the comer of his eye, retrieved a putter from behind his file cabinet and tossed it to him.
"If you can't make par with this, you pay." There was a glimmer in his eyes as he suddenly changed modes.
Washington studied the putter. He used a wadded piece of paper for a ball and took a practice swing. Hawkins had brought the club to work on Monday and kept Washington guessing all week where it was, or if he were going to remember to bring it for their not-so-regular-Saturday morning golf game. Chapter V
Their fishing pier and boat launch were just twenty five yards from the back door of the beach house. A couple of boards were loose on the bulkhead which kept the water from the bay from eroding the soil of their back yard. The Bayou Vista Board of Directors was always quick to point out anything they felt was not befitting of the neighborhood. Once Hawk had taken the garbage to the curb a day early and she'd heard about it. Jeez. She considered them a real pain in the ass bunch of rich-bi----hussies that probably just needed a good l-y and she'd come very close to telling them that on more than one occasion.
"Howdy Miss Stokes " the man said as he rounded the corner of the house with a large tool box and a heavy all-steel ax.
"YouTe right on time," Jennifer kidded. "Let me show you where it needs the most work. Kinda cracked." She looked at the repairman and rolled her eyes as she studied the huge ax.
"Don't get carried away with that thing," she laughed as they strolled toward the pier. She pointed to the damage and made circles around her ear with one hand. The universal crazy sign.
"A friend of mine kind of missed the pier last summer and kind of slammed into the bulkhead here." She sounded apologetic. Hawk and Ben had done it.
"I can certainly see that." Stecker knew she was talking about that detective as he knelt down on the pier and leaned his head precariously over the side to approximate the damage. And he'd read the paper. She was the one who was out to get him. Damned wiseass Medical Examiner. He wondered what kind of a sicko would get her cookies tearing up bodies for a living. What clues was she onto? How were the two girls linked? B----. Hawkins. That was his name. Hawkins. Why didn't the b---- just come out and say it? He smiled and looked her in the eye.
"I'll get right after it."
Jennifer noticed the cut in his shirt as she stood over him. She kind of felt sorry for the guy. Looked like he'd cut himself in the back. Small slit. A little dried blood. Probably came with the job.
He stood, dusting off the cream colored shirt, looking from side to side as if he were measuring the length of the pier.
"Before I start, would it be possible for me to use your phone to call the office...let 'em know I'm here?" Simon Stecker smiled and almost giggled at the idea of getting her alone in the house. He knew Hawkins was playing golf. Stupid game. 
"I'm outta shape." She stood, still wiping her face. "It's not really hot is it? But just a little humid?" She started to settle back down to attend to the godforsaken weeds.
"No!" Watch it. That was a little too loud. Keep your cool if you'e gonna kill the b----.
Calmer now, "I'm sorry to be such a pest. Company policy. You know. Insurance. Would you mind just showing me in and waiting. Really quite an inconvenience I know, but company policy." Stecker was getting frantic and trying not to let it show. All he'd wanted was thirty seconds. Now he'd settle for ten.
She looked up at him, came close to telling him to screw the company policy, and thought about the tea she had made for Hawk when he got home. She needed to set it out in the sun.
"Sure." Jennifer seemed almost carefree as she walked toward the covered patio. Stecker's heart pounded as he followed. Almost too close behind. Savoring that unquenchable taste of power. Control. He imagined the metal ax ripping her flesh. The sound. Like a zipper being opened. Zip. Zip. Zip. The erotic snap of the cartilage. Like biting into gristle. The pop of the bones. He would do her good. Real good.
She stood erect, arching her back, arms outstretched like she had just woken up.
The thick, white paste in the comers of his mouth now resembled pigeon sh--. He shook his head back and forth in a success£ul attempt to pop his neck. He felt the rush of adrenaline as he followed her up the stairs which led into the house. He laughed to himself. So easy now. He barely contained the giggle as he thought of the detective coming home and finding her. We hope you've enjoyed our preview to "The Crabman." Order the remainder of this new murder/mystery online now.
