Shades of Passion

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, Simon snapped his cell phone shut and searched for Nina. He’d picked her up at her house that morning and they’d already gone on a couple of calls before stopping to have lunch back at SIG headquarters. Afterward, a victim on one of his cases had called wanting an update.

Nina had been across the room a few moments earlier, laughing with Carrie, but now she was nowhere in sight. He was about to check the break room for her when DeMarco came around the corner, his nose buried in a file, and almost slammed into Simon.

At seeing his friend, Simon immediately switched gears. “Hey. I was just looking for Nina but I wanted to get back to you about—”

“I haven’t seen her,” DeMarco snapped. “Besides, what do I look like? Your personal assistant?”

Simon frowned at DeMarco’s tone. Frowned even deeper at seeing his ramrod-straight spine and the quiver in his tightly clenched jaw. DeMarco’s swarthy good looks were pinched with tension. He looked about ready to blow. “What’s wrong? Did something happen on your date last night?”

“My date—? Oh, right. No. My date was fine.”

Given the way DeMarco averted his gaze, Simon didn’t buy that for a second. “You got something on your chest? Let’s get that drink you were talking about. Or a cup of coffee right now.”

Indecision flashed across DeMarco’s face before he shook his head. “You’re looking for Nina, remember? Besides, I’m fine,” DeMarco said. “I’ll catch you later.” He strode out of the office, leaving Simon to wonder what the hell was going on.

Sure, the stress of the job got to everyone at some point, but was that what this was about? He’d never seen DeMarco quite so on edge. Maybe Nina was right. Maybe DeMarco needed to talk to someone. Not just a friend but a professional...

Just as he had the first time he’d had the thought, Simon backtracked. Unlike before, he wasn’t so sure it was the right thing to do.

What? Now that he had a shrink at his side day in and day out, was he really starting to buy into the whole touchy-feely therapy thing? He wasn’t an idiot. He knew mental health professionals could really help people. Medicine, in particular, could do wonders for those who needed it.

But for someone like him? For someone like DeMarco?

No. They were stronger than that.

DeMarco didn’t need Simon to be all up in his business. He’d make sure they had that drink, but as for the counseling thing? DeMarco was a grown man and could make his own decisions.

He’d just started to look for Nina again when she rounded the corner, a cup of coffee in each hand, and proceeded to hand him one. “Cream, no sugar, right?”

“Uh, right. Thanks.” He gulped down the coffee, ignoring the burn in his throat, and said, “You ready to head out again?”

“Sure. I’m ready whenever—”

His cell phone rang again. “Sorry,” he said. “Let me just get this.”

“Sure. I’ll go say goodbye to Carrie.”

As she walked away, he answered his phone. “This is Simon Granger.”

“Simon, it’s Stevens. I’m out of the building but I just got word there’s been another murder in Golden Gate Park. I need you and DeMarco to check it out. SFPD is there right now holding the scene for you in case it’s connected to Louis Cann.”

Adrenaline immediately started pumping through Simon’s veins. Despite doing everything he was supposed to and then some, he’d hit a dead end in the Cann case. His gut clenched at the notion he might be getting another shot at solving that murder case but only at the expense of another victim. “Have they ID’d the victim?”

“Not yet. He didn’t have a wallet on him.”

“Was the victim stabbed?”

“Yes.”

“Any witnesses?”

“Not that we know of so far.”

“Any reason we should think this victim isn’t related to Cann?”

When Stevens responded in the affirmative and explained the details, the world around Simon seemed to still. A roar louder than the surf sounded in his ears. Horror and disbelief immediately crashed through him, and his gaze automatically sought out Nina.

She was walking toward him, a smile on her face, and he quickly averted his gaze so she wouldn’t see how freaked out how he was. He didn’t want to make her panic. Not until he had more facts. But he was acutely aware of his own feelings of panic. Of his immediate instinct to grab her and hustle her away someplace safe. Safer than SIG headquarters, even.

Coincidence.

It has to be coincidence, he thought.

“Simon, did you hear everything I just said?” Stevens asked on the other line, snapping Simon back to the situation at hand.

“I’m on it, sir.”

He hung up but immediately started dialing his phone again. “DeMarco?” he barked when the other man answered his cell. “There’s been another murder in Golden Gate Park.” Nina stepped up to stand beside him. He held up a finger to indicate he’d be another minute. He thought about walking away and hiding the truth from her, but then dismissed the idea.

She’d just been smiling, but now she was staring at him, a slight furrow between her brows, her expression one of concern. She’d obviously caught on that something was seriously wrong.

And she was right. Something was very wrong and unfortunately she was going to have to hear about it eventually. It was best she hear about it now, when he had his team close by, able to help him protect her. It was best she hear it from him.

Much like he’d done with Stevens, DeMarco peppered Simon with questions. Keeping his gaze level with Nina’s, he answered, “Yes. No. Yeah, same M.O. as Louis Cann. But this time, there was something else. The victim had initials carved into his back.”

Nina’s eyes flared and she sucked in a breath.

Simon placed a hand on her shoulder, trying to lend her his support. His strength. “The initials are BD,” he said quietly.

Nina turned ghostly white and swayed on her feet.

He tightened his grip on her shoulder. Coincidence, he thought again. It had to be.

BD.

The initials that had been carved into Nina’s cat.

The initials that matched those of Lester Davenport’s daughter, Beth.

* * *

SIMON HADN’T WANTED to leave Nina. All he’d wanted to do was hold her and do his best to wipe the fear and horror off her face, but, of course, there’d been no time for that. Knowing he had a job to do, he explained that Carrie would drive her home and stay with her until Simon got there.

She’d nodded. Said she’d understood. Tried to look brave.

And even as he’d gotten into his car and driven off, Simon had wanted to put his fist through the damn windshield.

He met DeMarco at Golden Gate Park. There, they met with the patrol officer holding the murder scene as several others kept the milling crowd at bay.

“A family of four was heading to their car after visiting the Natural History Museum,” the patrol officer, who introduced himself as Ken Richards, said. “They took a detour through the Aids Memorial Grove and found the victim lying behind a massive boulder. They haven’t touched him and neither has anyone else.”

“Show us,” Simon ordered.

Officer Richards led them onto a wooded trail and to a boulder that was approximately five feet tall and eight feet wide. Behind it, a man lay on his stomach. He was naked from the waist up, his back bloodied, the initials carved into his back jagged and grotesque.

BD.

He’d known they were there, but Simon still felt a jolt of shock. He could barely believe the same initials that had been carved into Nina’s dead cat had been carved into a dead man.

What did it mean? What possible reason would Davenport have for doing this? It didn’t make sense.

Unless...

His mind scrambled for any logical explanation.

Unless Davenport had been so determined to torture Nina that he’d studied up before coming to California. He could have easily seen the news coverage on Rebecca Hyatt and learned that Nina was working with the police. If he’d also read about Cann’s murder, he could have decided to commit a copycat, believing the addition of the initials on this victim might get back to Nina. It was a long shot, but still a possibility.

Assuming that’s what had happened, had Davenport singled out this man at random? Or was this man somehow connected to Davenport’s daughter? Or to Nina herself?

Before he could even begin to answer those questions, he needed to find out this man’s identity. Take photos of his face and show them to Nina. See if she could identify him or connect him to Lester Davenport or his daughter.

Since he couldn’t touch the body before the evidence techs processed the scene, he scanned the area immediately beside the man’s body for any clues in plain sight. The dirt around him was disturbed, indicating a struggle. The man’s face was turned in profile, but he had a beard and his hair was partially obscuring his face. Despite his naked torso, he still wore boots two sizes too large, and green-and-white-checkered golf pants—

A memory tickled at the corners of Simon’s mind and realization made him jerk. Black-and-white tiles, he thought. Fifty of them. “Aw, hell,” Simon muttered as he took a closer look at the guy’s face.

“What is it? You know something about the vic, Granger? Know who he is?” DeMarco prodded. He’d been unusually quiet. His face blank. Now his voice was stiff.

Simon blew out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and straightened. “Yeah. Or, to be precise, I know what he is.”

“And?” DeMarco prodded. “What is he?”

Simon faced DeMarco. “Homeless. And mentally ill. I saw him at the Welcome Home shelter the first day I went there to talk to Elaina Scott. He was a resident there. Same as Louis Cann.”

“Shit,” DeMarco said.

“Right. Shit,” Simon repeated. “Between that, the similar crime scene and means of death—stabbing—the murders are connected. Except for one thing. Why the deviation with the initials?”

“Who the hell knows? And who the hell knows what BD even stands for?”

Simon just grunted. He hadn’t told DeMarco or Stevens about the initials that had been carved into Nina’s cat or his suspicion that the initials stood for Beth Davenport. Until Stevens had called, he’d had no reason to tell them. He’d promised Nina he’d look into Lester Davenport’s involvement in those two things “unofficially,” and he’d been doing so. After Stevens’s call? He’d held back, not because he’d been hiding the ball, but because he’d wanted to know what all the facts were and put together some theories first. Now he needed to get Stevens up to speed. Then he needed to talk to Nina. Once Simon had a better handle on things, he’d tell DeMarco.

Thinking about dragging Nina even more into this disturbing nightmare made him wince. She’d already been through so much and he didn’t want to scar her with this additional ugliness. Unfortunately, he had no choice. Given the initials on this man, Simon needed to find out what Nina knew, if anything, that might help them.

Once again, he wondered how it was possible the initials on this man’s back could be connected to her. She was a doctor, a psychiatrist, but he’d never asked her about her patients. And he’d never talked to her about the Cann case. There hadn’t been a need to. Was it possible that she worked with homeless patients? That she’d done pro bono work for the Welcome Home residents or at a nearby clinic, just like the family practitioner who’d introduced herself to Scott on the day Simon had been there?

A hundred questions continued to flash through Simon’s mind even as the evidence techs showed up and swept the scene. Within an hour, they were done.

“It’ll take a while before the techs get us the results of their sweep,” DeMarco said, looking beat. “What’s next?”

“Go home. We’ll wait for a hit on who this guy is. In the meantime, I’m gonna meet with Stevens. Give him an update. We’ll start fresh in the morning.”

DeMarco nodded. “Right. I’ll see you bright and early.” DeMarco left and Simon was about to do the same when Officer Richards called out, “Detective Granger. There’s a woman here who wants to talk to you.”

“Here?” he repeated. Lord, he hoped it wasn’t Nina. He looked around but didn’t see her or Carrie. “What’s her name? Where is she?”

“She said her name is Rita Taylor.”

Rita Taylor. The prostitute who’d originally claimed she’d seen a cop running from the scene of the Cann murder. The same woman who, when Simon reinterviewed her, had changed her story, saying she couldn’t be sure she’d seen what she thought she had. And she was here now? At the scene of another murder victim?

“Where is she?”

* * *

RITA TAYLOR SAT IN OFFICER Richards’s patrol vehicle while Simon stood next to the open door looking down at her. The exotic and curvy brunette was dressed much the same way she’d been when Simon had last seen her—in her working clothes: a skimpy tank top, miniskirt and thigh-high lace-up boots. Her makeup had been applied with a heavy hand, which simply emphasized how pale she really was beneath it. Not fair, as in light-skinned. But pale, as in upset. In shock. Scared.

“So you didn’t witness this murder?” he confirmed. “Didn’t see anyone fleeing the crime scene?”

“No. I told you...I was working a few blocks down. I heard the sirens. Heard what people were saying. That another homeless man had been killed, stabbed in Golden Gate Park. Just like that first one.”

Frustration ate at him. She was beating around the bush. Giving him nothing to work with. “And you what? Remembered something from before? About the cop? Or bus driver? Or air-conditioning repairman?”

She glared up at him and he held up a hand. “I’m sorry, but I’m just trying to figure out why you’re here, Rita. You came to me, remember? But so far you haven’t told me why.”

“Do you think this murder is connected to the first one?” she asked. “That’s what I need to know before I say anything else.”

Simon hesitated, studied her tense posture then said, “Yes. I have reason to believe the two murders are connected.”

Rita dropped her face in her hands. “Oh, God,” she moaned.

“Tell me what’s going on, Rita. During our last interview, you told me you weren’t sure you’d actually seen a cop before. Have you changed your mind?”

Rita laughed, but there was a hysterical edge to the sound. “I’ve changed my mind about something. I’m just not sure if I should tell you.” She took a deep shuddering breath, then seemed to make up her mind about something. “But I didn’t sign up for this. For all I know, I could be next.”

“What are you talking about?”

She swallowed hard. Took another deep breath, then said, “Someone paid me to say it was a cop who murdered that first homeless man.”

Interesting. So she was copping to giving the police false information, despite the fact she knew she could be prosecuted for having done so. But all he said was, “Who?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh, come on, Rita!” he exploded.

“I’m not lying. I swear. When all of the ruckus was going on after the first murder victim, when we were waiting for the cops to show up, a man came up to me and offered me a thousand dollars if I would just say I saw a cop leaving the scene.”

“And you agreed? Despite knowing he might be the killer? You seem smarter than that.”

“He didn’t look like no killer. And he said he just wanted to take advantage of an opportunity. Teach you cops a lesson because you’ve been treating homeless people so bad lately. And you have! It’s been all over the papers.”

Simon swiped his hands over his face and fought to hold on to his temper. “I haven’t been treating anyone badly, Rita. Now what else did he say? Did he just hand you the money?”

“Yes. Cash. In a blank envelope. It’s all gone now.”

“Why didn’t you just take the money? Why’d you do what he said?”

“Because he scared me,” Rita confessed. “He said he’d know if I didn’t follow through. That I’d be sorry if I scammed him. So I did what he told me to. Convinced myself it would be the easiest grand I’d ever earned. And it was. I didn’t even feel that guilty about it. He didn’t want me to say it was a specific cop. I figured what was the harm? If a cop didn’t really do it, there’d be no evidence of it. And if a cop really had...”

“But then you backed off of your story when I interviewed you. Why?”

“I wasn’t expecting to be reinterviewed, especially by someone with the DOJ. When you explained who you were, I figured you knew something. I thought if I backed off a little, if I acted wishy-washy, you’d leave me alone. And you did. But I’ve been living in fear ever since. Wondering if what I told you pissed him off. Wondering if he’s going to come after me. And I’m even more scared now. There was something about him. Even though he was wearing sunglasses, there was something about his mouth that seemed sinister when he talked to me. It gave me the creeps. Now that another murder has happened, I’m afraid he’ll come looking for me. Because he wants me to lie again to you because he wants to kill me to make sure I don’t tell you about him.”

“But you are telling me about him. Why? And why me?”

“I don’t know. Call it a sixth sense. I get a feeling with people. I can sense their light and their dark. I just know when I met you, you seemed nice. Decent. When I came over here I asked if you were here. The patrol officer said you were and...well...I figured you’re the lesser of two evils.”

Simon blew out a breath. “Well, you were right about that.” He turned away. Paced for a few seconds before coming back to her.

“Here’s the deal. You’re going to need to get off the streets. You’re now a critical police witness and we’ll protect you. But you’re going to have to cooperate, Rita. Tell us everything you know. Testify in court if we need you, too.”

“You protect me, make sure I don’t go to jail for lying to the cops before, and I will. I promise.”

“You said you don’t know who this guy was. That he wore sunglasses. What else? What did he look like?”

“Older. Conservative. Well-dressed. He carried himself well. He looked tough. And he...” She paused. Bit her lip. Looked at Simon with suddenly uncertain eyes.

“What is it?”

“He wasn’t wearing no uniform, but I’ve seen a lot of cops in my line of work. Talked to a lot of them. Undercover ones, too. I can’t know for sure, but the way this guy carried himself? If I had to guess at what he did for a living? I’d say he was a cop.”