It was the last conscious thought she had.
Out on a rural property that had a lot of junk on its grounds, Erika ducked her head as she entered a dilapidated trailer. Inside, there was mess everywhere on everything, pizza boxes, crumpled cigarette packs, and empty booze bottles choking out the details of the galley kitchen, the floor underfoot, the ragged furniture. Unsurprisingly, there was also a collection of bongs, syringes, plastic baggies, and bricks wrapped in supermarket bags.
The body was over on a couch that was so stained it looked like it had started its life a muck brown. Victim was a male, somewhere in his twenties, and he was sprawled back against the worn cushions, his face frozen in a stare-ahead, the single execution-style bullet wound nearly dead center in his forehead.
As her eyes went down to the front of his chest, as opposed to the red wash on the wall behind his skull, she heard her sergeant from back late in the afternoon.
You need a night off, Saunders. You’ve been going too hard for too long—
We’re short-staffed after Pam went on maternity leave and Sharanya moved. What else can we do—
—and that’s how mistakes are made.
I haven’t made any. And I won’t—
This is not a request, Erika. I can’t remember when your last break was, and neither can you.
“The father called it in,” one of the uniforms—the younger of the two—reported. Because the older one was on the phone. “Poor man. Nobody wants to see their son like this.”
Erika leaned down and checked out the bullet wound in the forehead. No gunpowder residue, so it hadn’t been a point-blank kind of thing. The shooter had been back some distance.
“Professional shot,” she murmured.
The uniform continued, “The victim’s name is David Eckler and he’s got a record. Mostly selling stolen property, but he has a number of drug charges, two of which were just dropped on technicalities. Detective de la Cruz took the father down to the station to talk.”
Outing her penlight, she looked around at the mess on the floor. “Here’s a shell.”
She bent down to put a marker on it, and before she straightened back up, she found herself going eye level with an off-kilter coffee table that had had one of its legs replaced by a milk carton. In the midst of its clutter? A leather box about a foot long and five inches wide. Unlike everything else in the trailer, the thing was of fine construction and without dust or scratches.
“Surprise, surprise,” she murmured as she peered through its glass top.
The lineup of watches inside were big names even someone middle class like her would know: Rolex. Piaget. Okay, fine, she’d never heard of Hublot.
“How’d you even say that,” she said. “‘Whoo-blot’?”
“Huh?”
And that was when she saw it. A little wink in the far corner off to the side of the couch: A lens that had caught her flashlight beam.
“We have security,” she announced.
“You mean a dog chained in the yard? I didn’t see one—”
“No, as in a camera.”
She leaned in and carefully inspected the recording unit. Then she followed the wires around the back of the sofa—avoiding the victim—to a cupboard. Inside? A laptop that was shiny new and plugged into a surge protector. The thing was running.
“Thank you, baby Jesus,” she muttered.
“Aren’t you supposed to be off?”
Erika straightened and looked at the uniform properly for the first time. “Dick?”
“Rick.” The fresh-faced guy pointed to his badge. “Donaldson. I’m still on the beat, but I hope to transfer to homicide soon.”
“I’m Detective—”
“Oh, I know who you are. And I thought you were supposed to be off tonight—”
“How do you know my schedule?”
The guy looked around like he was hoping someone else would answer that. Unfortunately for him, the older officer was still on the phone.
“Ah . . . everyone knows your schedule, Detective.”
As headlights washed the front of the trailer, slices of illumination speared into the interior.
“Well, you’re in luck.” Erika clicked off her flashlight. “I’ll see you in the morning. I’m going home to get some sleep.”
While Dick-Rick-whoever Donaldson looked relieved, like someone had spared him a trip to Target on Black Friday, Erika hit the broken door. It took every ounce of self-control to step out of the trailer, but the reality was, the crime scene folks were going to need four to six hours to clear everything, and it was now, what—? She checked her watch. Three a.m. Perfect. She could be in her bed at home in forty-five minutes, with her teeth brushed, her feet in fresh socks, and her head wrapped in a blanket to cut the noise of the early-risers who lived in the apartment above her.
Totally living the high life, she thought as she started her unmarked and waved at the crime scene investigators.
She would be back in the proverbial saddle no later than eight in the morning. And then the sergeant couldn’t have a good goddamn thing to say about her shift work. Nailed it.