Shadows of Doubt Read online

  “Let’s get out of here.” Max ordered with a grumble as he lowered himself into the back seat of the town car.

  “With pleasure.” Frank slammed the door and walked around to the other side, slapping his hand on the roof of the car before he slid in, indicating to the driver they were ready to go.

  Lou walked into the morgue more than a little off her stride and it annoyed her to say the least. It was just a guy. An extraordinarily well dressed Greek god sort of guy, but still just a guy. He had been coming down the hall when she was coming in and normally she would never have even glanced his way had it not been for how tall he was. He had to have been six and a half feet and built to accommodate every inch. He wasn’t one of those vein-popping, muscle bulging types that absolutely turned her off, definitely not. Instead, he was statuesque with perfect posture, seriously broad shoulders and long legs all wrapped in one hell of a wrapper. The man wore an impeccably tailored three-piece suit, the color of burnt sable, topped off with a dark caramel three-quarter length overcoat that could only have been the finest cashmere. His hair was almost the same color as his suit, intensely dark chocolate with a few strands of gold here and there for good measure. It was just short enough not be trendy but long enough to make you want to yank it while you planted a wet one on those perfectly strong and purposeful lips. Oh and that face, pure chiseled marble that even Adonis would envy. His strong angular jaw and carved cheekbones along with that aquiline nose created a perfect balance between beauty and strength. He was definitely a pretty-bad-boy who never had to work a day in his life to be pretty. But it was the eyes that had gotten her. A fringe of impossibly thick black lashes framed those heart stopping golden eyes, the color of warm honey. They only flashed at her for a split second, but when they did, her heart nearly stopped dead in her chest. It took everything she had not to look back once he had passed her. “What the hell!” She scolded herself out loud as she walked into the morgue offices and the doors were safely closed behind her.

  “What?! I ... err.. I...” Peter Carpesh spun around, more than startled when Lou walked in, nearly shouting. “Uh.. I...”

  “Oh, crap...” Her partner’s nickname for the new Deputy Coroner flashed in her head immediately. “I mean... shit! Uh, I was yelling at myself.” Lou tucked her hair behind her ears and forced herself to get a grip and focus on why she was there. “I was just coming to get a file that Caroline left for me. Sorry for scaring you Carpesh, I didn’t see you there.”

  “Oh!” Relief washed over him instantly. “Yes, you did startle me Detective.” Chuckling, he walked over to Caroline’s desk to look for the file.

  Before she could even think about what she was doing, it slipped from her mouth. “Hey, who was that guy that just walked outta here?” Wincing, there was no taking the question back.

  Carpesh froze. He had been caught? “Err...uh... Which guy?” He needed a moment to think of something.

  Since she was stupid enough to let her hormones take control of her mouth, she may as well see it through. “The well dressed man, blackish hair, tall, early forties?”

  “Uh... Hmm...” Think, think, think! He demanded himself. Suddenly the lie formed crystal clear in his head. “Oh, that man. He was just dropping off the necessary papers so his grandfather can be flown home for burial.” Brilliant, he thought to himself, that will work.

  “Ah. Flown back?” Dear God she had lost her mind. Carpesh was going to put the screws to her inappropriate questions and she would never be able to walk into this office again.

  “Er... Uh... Back east, Washington I believe.” His Dominor would surely have his head for spouting out a piece of truth.

  “Oh. That’s a bummer.” What was she saying? “I mean that his grandfather died.” Good God she needed to shut up. “Let me help you look.”

  “No!” He shuffled papers around on Caroline’s desk desperately looking for the file so he could get the detective the hell out of there before he signed his own death warrant with his own tongue. Audibly sucking air in when he found it, Carpesh spun around and launched himself at Lou. “I got it!” He shoved a manila envelope at her, physically moving her backwards.

  “Oh great! Thanks. See ya.” Lou was too mortified by her own school-girl stupidity to notice Carpesh’s agitated state. She hauled out of the office as fast as she could and didn’t stop until she was safely behind the wheel of her car, at which time she proceeded to berate herself out loud. When Lou realized she must have look like a schizophrenic off her medication to anyone walking by, she promptly decided it was better to yell at herself while driving home.

  The minute Lou had left the morgue office Peter Carpesh began pacing and biting his nails. After several moments of wearing a path in the tile floor, he pulled his cellphone from his pocket and dialed frantically.

  Max looked at the ID on his phone when it rang, grumbling as he answered. “Carpesh?”

  “My Dominor, please forgive this intrusion so soon but...” Carpesh had forgotten to breathe since he took his cell phone from his pocket and was nearly gasping for air between words. “... you said that I was to contact you if anything came up and...”

  “Carpesh, breathe. Take a moment to breathe, nice and slow, that’s it.” Max glanced over to Frank just in time to see him rolling his eyes. He couldn’t blame him, Carpesh was extremely excitable over just about anything, it seemed. “Now, tell me what came up.”

  “A detective came in shortly after you left inquiring as to who you were.”

  Max stiffened a bit in his seat. “And what did you say?”

  “My Dom, I had little time to think and was ill prepared but I said that you were just a family member of a recently deceased, dropping off papers for their transport home for burial.” With a gulp of air, Carpesh continued. “The detective asked where the transport was to and I wasn’t thinking, I said back east, perhaps Washington. Please forgi...”

  “Carpesh, stop. Just tell me what was said.”

  “Well nothing really, my Dom. The detective expressed some pity at the loss of the loved one but that was all, really.”

  It was Max who rolled his eyes now. “Did they ask my name or any specifics?”

  “Oh, no my Dom. The detective was here to pick up a file, but I...”

  “This detective was there for something other then to inquire about me?” Max was patient with the man, barely.

  Carpesh blinked several times as things sunk in. “Yes, precisely. But..”

  “I was a civilian, unescorted after proper business hours in a restricted area, correct?”

  Carpesh suddenly realized how ridiculous he was being. “Yes my Dom, this is true.”

  “So, naturally someone might be curious, correct?” Max’s tone was becoming increasingly patronizing.

  “Well, that would be logical, yes my Dominor. I was just...”

  “Carpesh, please do not make me regret giving you my private number. I need you to think before you panic from now on. Alright?

  “No! I mean yes!” Carpesh sighed heavily as he slumped into a chair. “I am so embarrassed. Please accept my apologies, its just when I blurted out Washington, I did indeed panic.”

  “Do you know this detective?”

  “Yes! Detective Lou Donovan of Homicide...”

  “Alright...” Max cut Carpesh off. “... if this Donovan comes back asking specifics about me or any of our people, then you contact me. Is that clear?”

  “Crystal clear, my Dominor. Again may I say how sorr...” Carpesh heard the line
go dead before he could finish apologizing, again.

  Max stuffed his phone back into his pocket while he listened to Frank chuckle. He would look into this detective Donovan just to be cautious but from what he had come to know of Peter Carpesh, he was as high strung as he was meticulous with his work.

  “Call Abby and have her get some sort of drugs sent to that man to settle him down. We can’t have our primary in there flying off the handle every time he’s asked a question.” Max sighed and tried to relax for the duration of their drive to the hotel.

  “Right away, Domaliscious.” Frank grinned as he started to dial Abby.

  Max turned his head and stared at Frank. “She can get away with it. You, I will hit.”

  Frank laughed aloud knowing full well that despite the fact that Max could take him out by batting an eyelash, he hadn’t thus far.

  Stuck behind a sea of cars on the 118 freeway, Lou continued to berate herself for her foolish behavior. Perhaps it was due to the fact that she was really tired and had a crappy day that she had fallen to such juvenile depths over a perfect stranger she passed in a hall. Her day up to that point had been as futile as banging her head against a wall. She had started at dawn trying to find anything or anyone that would give a clue as to how Angela Talbott ended up in that alley. Lou had dug for one single scrap of something that would tell her where she was that led to the girl finding herself strapped down and being tortured. At this point Lou couldn’t even be sure the girl knew she was being tortured. For all she knew she had been hired for some freaky S & M party and had expected to get paid big bucks for letting whack-jobs cut her up some. It could have been exactly like Vinnie had theorized when they were at the scene. Some clean cut, well-to-do sickos pick up a nobody hooker outta nowhere to get their rocks off and it goes way too far. Or it was one sicko with a lot of energy and a lot more knives playing Benihana on her. Regardless of what it was, the powers that be had given Lou and her partner until the end of the day to come up with something to justify their taking jurisdiction of the case. Since they had come up with zero, the case went back to LAPD first thing in the morning, where it had belonged in the first place. The same LAPD who had done such a bang up job on the last case Vinny and Lou had to pass over. She had followed up on that one and found that it had been only four days before those detectives slapped a cold case sticker on it and sent it to archives.

  As she started up the drive to her parents’ sprawling estate which she called home, Lou was damn good and cranky.

  Casa de McAllister was a sprawling Spanish-Mediterranean labor of love that Joe McAllister had built for Lou’s mother for their twenty-fifth anniversary. Set on several acres of land nestled up against the northwest hills that separated Los Angeles and Ventura counties, the nearest neighbor was currently a quarter of a mile away.

  Joe McAllister had made his original fortune the good old Texan way, in oil. Then, like any shrewd businessman worth his salt, he went global. Branching his empire out into real-estate and shipping on what seemed to Lou a galactic scale. He was currently worth about a billion and change, liquid. Lou’s mother had commuted back and fourth from Galveston for twenty-five years to be with her husband when he wasn’t traveling for business. When he was away she would come back to be near her family who all resided in Southern California. Lou had moved back to Los Angeles after high school to go to college then enter the Sheriff’s Academy immediately after graduation. It had been very hard on both Lou and Shevaun to be separated from one another. When Lou’s uncle Seamus was nearly killed in the line of duty several years ago, Joe decided being close to family was the most important thing and set out to finding the perfect place where he and his wife could live, love and laugh surrounded by everyone they held dear. Three years later, and after more than plenty of sneaking and plotting on the part of Joe, Lou and her uncle, the twelve-thousand square foot compound was planned, built and ready for move-in on Shevaun and Joe’s twenty-fifth anniversary. One of the things Joe had insisted on was that Lou move in with them. He had even specifically had a second master suite built on the opposite side of the house to afford Lou privacy, but keep her close to her mother which was one of the most important things to Shevaun, and also to Joe.

  Lou barely remembered her birth father since she was only two when he was killed in the line of duty. Joe McAllister had been her father ever since she could remember. He had fallen madly in love with Lou’s mother the minute he laid eyes on her and subsequently with Lou, as if she was his own daughter. Lou’s mother, however, was not so easily swayed. She had resigned herself to being a widow and it had taken Joe nearly three years to win her over. But the second he did, they were as tight as any family could possibly get and perhaps even more so. To Lou, Joe and her mother were her best friends and the most important people in the world. As she rounded the drive and headed for the garages in back, she saw the soft glow of lights from the magnificent house that was filled with so much love. Her crankiness seemed to melt away in remembering how truly lucky she was and how much Angela Talbott was not.

  Lou’s mother was cozied up with a book in the sitting area of Lou’s room when she finally made it inside. As she often did, Shevaun had a steamy cup of tea waiting for Lou along with that brilliant reassuring smile.

  “Hey Momma.” Lou kissed her mother hello before anything else. “How are you?”

  “I am terrific! Thanks for asking.” Shevaun watched her daughter sigh as she tossed a large envelope on the coffee table then disappear into the walk-in closet. “But the more important question is, how are you? Any break in your case yet?” By Lou’s lack of immediate response, she knew that her daughter was not a happy camper. She closed her book and set it down on the table then retrieved her cup of tea, sipped slowly and waited until her daughter was good and ready to vent about her day. It was a ritual they shared regularly.

  Lou emerged from the closet a few moments later wearing gray sweatpants, a ratty old Los Angeles Kings hockey jersey that was about four sizes too big for her and fuzzy black and white convict style striped socks.

  “Uh oh.” Her mother groaned.

  “What?” Lou asked while she placed her holstered gun in the drawer of her bedside table.

  “It was a bad day. You’re wearing the socks.” Her mother eyeballed her over the rim of her cup and sipped slowly.

  “It wasn’t that bad. Ok, it was bad enough.” Lou plopped into the chair across from her mother and picked up the cup of tea that was waiting for her. “I got nothing. We got nothing.” She paused to take a sip and savored the warm comfort as it flowed over her tongue. “The captain gave us today only to find a legitimate reason to keep her, which we didn’t. So now we have to pass it back to LAPD since she was their jurisdiction to begin with.”

  “You know my feelings about the LAPD. No offense to the officers, but the bureaucrats there, well never mind.” Shevaun was clearly disgruntled. “I understand the socks now.”

  Lou chuckled and looked at the manila envelope that she had put on the coffee table. The message she had gotten from Caroline that evening had been a little vague. Caroline had said that the degraded saliva on Angela Talbott had been annoying her so she ran some searches to see if she could find anything to help explain things. Caroline had indicated that she found something odd and would leave a copy of her findings for Lou on her desk since she herself was leaving early because she had an engagement that evening.

  “Caroline called me while I was in with the captain. Left a message saying she might have something but it was already too late. I picked this up from her office on my way home.” Lou set her cup down, grabbed the manila folder and pulled out the file.

  “Oh coroner stuff! You know how much I love those things.” Her mother grinned
and nestled down into the chair with a cheery grin.

  Lou went through the file with her mother snuggled into the seat across from her with wide eyes as though she were a small child being read a bedtime story. The victim was a Marjorie Scott and had been found on October twenty-seventh, just after dawn in Lake Balboa Park. The crime photos showed the woman laying face up, naked with limbs carefully arranged. Her legs and ankles were set tightly together and her arms were resting snugly at her sides. The palms of her hands were upturned so that you could clearly see the gashes in each wrist. What you couldn’t see was any blood, at all. Though the death had been ruled as a suicide, there were obvious holes that didn’t seem to matter to the investigating officers. No clothing found at the scene, no tool or weapon used to make the wounds, no evidence as to how the woman got to the location, nothing. A lot of obvious, gaping holes. The coroner assigned to the case had ruled it a suicide with exsanguination from self-inflicted wounds to the wrists. There was evidence of scarring to the wrists from a from a previous suicide attempt which was in the woman’s record from when she was seventeen. The LAPD detectives had put in their report that the lack of clothing or ID was likely the result of theft given the numerous vagrants that were known to roam the park regularly at night. They also explained away the body being staged under the tree next to the lake as being another random vagrant’s disturbing the scene of the suicide. It was so bloody thin that it made both Lou and her mother grunt and groan at the report.