“Temple,” said Hawthorne.
“Like a drive-up buy where the dealer sees the gourmet car and thinks fat wallet and puts one . . . here?” She pointed a finger pistol at Rook’s left sideburn.
“See, that’s where it started to fight our theory.” Eddie put a finger to his own right temple. “Entrance wound on this side. Passenger side.”
All these years later, Heat was back there in her mind with Montrose and Hawthorne, processing that first odd sock. “You sure he was done in the car?”
“No doubt. Brains and broken glass on the driver’s side.”
“The window was up?” Odd sock number two for Nikki; not inherently significant, just . . . odd. “What about the passenger window, open or closed?”
Eddie’s eye rolled upward while he thought. “Closed, yeah for sure, closed.”
“So whoever shot him was probably inside the car with him,” said Heat.
“Riding shotgun,” offered Rook. He saw their expressions, crossed his arms, and said, “All yours.”
Nikki continued, “And I assume no prints?”
“None that did us any good. Just his clubbing and party buddies, a few girlfriends, and plenty of no-matches.” Which meant no criminal records for the unknowns. “All the matched prints alibied out,” he said, a step ahead of Nikki.
“Anything else about his body? No signs of beating?” She wanted to know if Eddie knew about the TENS burns.
“Not beating, per se. His wrists had marks like he’d been tied up.”
“Or cuffed?”
He grew thoughtful. “Honestly, never thought of cuffs, but here’s what we did attribute it to. We check out the neighboring buildings, of course, and we come upon this empty loading bay inside a low-rise industrial space. Old sign said it had been one of those textile rental places that supply uniforms and coveralls to hotels and construction. Door’s unlocked and, inside, there’s nothing in the whole place but this wood frame lying in the middle of the concrete floor.”
Heat and Rook exchanged glances and Nikki said, “Describe it for me, Eddie.”
“Simple. Like a wood pallet hammered together, kind of crudely, but in the shape of a big X—about seven feet long, three wide. And the thing of it is, it had straps at each corner.”
“Like restraints,” said Heat.
“Yeah, but improvised. I think they were tie-downs, like you’d get for strapping a kayak to your roof rack. Of course, this was the point when me and Rose totally fell out of the drive-up-drug-deal-gone-bad notion. Somebody took that kid in there and lashed him to that rig.” When Hawthorne’s face grimmed up, it was like he was seeing something unpleasant right then and there instead of years ago. “In addition to the chafing at the young man’s wrists and ankles, he had these red marks like a bad sunburn. Only in blotchy areas all over his skin. I’m talking about his chest, his legs, his . . . his groin . . .” Eddie winced and said, “You get the idea. Charles and I worked it as best we could, but given the kid’s history of drugs and drug busts and all the crazy and dangerous stuff he got into, it went down as a sour drug deal.”
“What about the torture?” asked Rook. “Didn’t that play in?”
“Oh, yeah.” Hawthorne nodded. “OCME said it was electrical, something called a TENS. That just added credence to the bad drug deal theory, saying Huddleston wasn’t a drive-up target of opportunity but was probably dealing regularly with a player who the kid shorted on money, and the torture and killing was payback to make him an example to others or to increase the dealer’s status in the ranks.”
“I’m not accusing, Eddie, I’m just asking this to get into the load Captain Montrose was carrying,” said Nikki gently. “You guys didn’t take it any further?”