The Dead Detective Read online

  Three weeks after his mother was sentenced, the county agency that had taken charge of Harry placed him in permanent foster care. The foster family’s name was Doyle. The father, John—Jocko to his riends—was a sergeant with the Clearwater Police Department. The mother, Maria, was a Cuban exile, who ran her home with endless amounts of love, and the efficiency of a Marine drill instructor. There were no other children, and after two years Jocko and Maria Doyle petitioned the courts to adopt Harry and make him their son. Harry had no objection and the courts saw no reason to deny the request. Harry had never known his father, he was simply a man he vaguely remembered who had occasionally come into his mother’s life, remained awhile, and then left again. They had never married and by the time Jimmy was born he was gone for good.

  Harry remained with the Doyle’s for eleven years. Over time he learned to care for them, but he never allowed himself to love them, or to look on them as his parents. His affection tended more toward respect and gratitude for the care and love they had generously given him. Trust was never an issue for Harry. Throughout the time he lived with them, Harry Santos Doyle never went to sleep without first locking his bedroom door.

  Harry arrived at the Pinellas County sheriff’s office at three-thirty, parked his unmarked car in the lot reserved for police vehicles, and headed for a rear door that would take him to the second-floor offices of the homicide division. He was working four to midnight, which meant he’d probably finish up at three or four in the morning if the night turned busy. But the extra time didn’t matter. It was his favorite shift, one that his fellow detectives, most of whom had families or lovers, preferred to avoid. It also encompassed the hours when the most complicated murders took place. Daylight killings, and those that happened after midnight, usually turned into ground balls—simple, straightforward homicides that often left the perpetrator standing at the scene, murder weapon still in hand. Those, anyone could handle. It was the more difficult, more intricate cases that Harry loved, and as far as the other homicide dicks were concerned, if the dead detective wanted the more complex cases, and the extra, unpaid hours they inevitably involved, it was fine with them. The job was tough enough and dangerous enough as it was.

  They had been calling Harry the “dead detective” ever since his appointment to the division. During his time in a patrol car he had kept a fairly low profile about his past. But once he reached homicide the cat quickly left the bag. Detectives have a tendency to remember cases, especially the big ones, and when Harry was promoted to homicide five years earlier at the tender age of twenty-six, there were still older cops who remembered the case of the two murdered brothers. They also remembered that a Clearwater patrol sergeant named Jocko Doyle had adopted the one who came back to life. Given the morbidity of cop humor, Harry’s new name was immediately set in stone.

  Harry had joined the sheriff’s department shortly after graduating from the University of South Florida. Everyone thought it was a tribute to his adoptive father, who had become a stabilizing force in his life. To some small degree that was true, but there was also another more driving reason that Harry never spoke about. The sheriff’s department handled most of the homicides throughout the county, and Harry had one very personal goal: to devote his life to the pursuit of murderers.

  As Harry approached the rear door of the sheriff’s office, a small, lean figure stepped out from behind a thick pineapple palm. He was dressed in an oversized basketball shirt and baggy basketball shorts, with a Miami Heat cap sitting slightly askew on his head. Even though the boy was squinting into the afternoon sun, Harry recognized the size and shape of his favorite twelve-year-old gangsta, Rubio Martí.

  “Hey, Doyle. Wassup?” Rubio offered.

  Harry shielded his eyes and saw that Rubio was grinning up at him. It was an infectious grin and Harry had to force himself not to smile back. “What’s up with you, you little weasel,” he said. “And why aren’t you in school?”

  “School’s out, man. It’s been out for three weeks. Where you been at? Maybe they still goin’ ta school up north, but not in Florida.”

  “I thought you’d be in summer school,” Harry said, playing a game they always played about Rubio’s school work.

  “Hey, man, I’m too smart for summer school. You know that. That’s truth.”

  “The only thing smart about you is your ass,” Harry snapped back. “And that’s truth.”

  “Don’t you be dissin’ me. You do, I’ll have to whoop you good.”

  Harry put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave it an affectionate squeeze. Two years ago he had stumbled across the kid while investigating the murder of a Cuban crack dealer. Rubio, who was ten at the time, was working for the man as a lookout, and being paid in both money and drugs. The dealer had been trying to get the kid hooked—something he had succeeded in doing with a number of others. It was a way of guaranteeing both dependence and loyalty from the children who comprised his last line of defense against the police. But Rubio had sold the drugs he had received and given the money to his mother in a vain effort to keep her off the streets. Harry had befriended him and talked him into going back to school. A year later he found himself investigating the murder of the boy’s mother. She had been found in an alley beaten and stabbed fourteen times. It had been a ground ball that ended with the arrest and conviction of her pimp. It had also been one more devastating blow in Rubio’s young life. Now he lived with his grandmother and peddled information to the police—mostly Harry—whenever he could.

  “So you down here to have a late lunch with me, or what?” Harry asked.

  “Naw,” Rubio said. “I got sumthin’ for you.” He jabbed the index finger and thumb of each hand at the ground as he spoke, playing the gangsta wannabe to the hilt. But with his soft brown face, liquid brown eyes, and strands of curly hair sticking out from beneath his cap, he looked more like a wayward cherub. This time Harry couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

  “So whaddaya got, hotshot?” he asked.

  The boy kept using his hands and shoulders to emphasize his words. “Hey, you know that woman down in my hood got herself offed? That scaggy ol’ junkie broad?”

  “Yeah, it’s not my case, but I know who you’re talking about.”

  “Hey, I know it’s not your case, man. It belongs to that tall, skinny dude you work with. The one with the fat partner who’s such a mean-assed mutha.”

  “Weathers and Benevuto,” Harry said. “What about it?”

  “Yeah, well, they tryin’ to pin it on that scaggy ol’ junkie’s boyfriend.”

  “And he didn’t do it,” Harry said.

  “You bet you ass he din’.” Rubio was grinning again.

  “But you know who did.”

  “You got that straight.”

  “So who did it?”

  “You tell that skinny cop—don’t you tell that mean, fat one—that he oughta check out the ol’ lady lives next door. The real ol’ one.”

  “The old lady killed her?”

  Rubio shook his head. “Nah. Was her son. That scaggy ol’ junkie broad was robbin’ that ol’ lady’s Social Security checks. Pissed the son off real bad.”

  “You sure about this?” Harry asked.

  Rubio jabbed his index fingers and thumbs at the ground for emphasis. “Truth, man. You check it out. You see.” He grinned up at Harry. “You know, you shoulda had this case. You coulda solved it right off, usin’ that power you got.”

  Harry suppressed a smile. “What power is that?”

  “You know what I’m talkin’ about. That way you have to talk to dead people. The way you can look in a dead person’s eyes and see stuff there, because you was dead once yerself.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “I heard other cops talkin’ about it.” Rubio grinned. “I hear lots a stuff you cops say.”

  “Well that one’s a fairy tale.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know,” Rubio said. “You jus’ don’t wanna let on about it.” Harry put his hand
in his pocket and took out a fold of bills, slipped a twenty off the top, and handed it to the boy. “You put that to good use,” he said. “Buy a couple of books. Do something for your brain.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Rubio said. He shrugged his shoulders, becoming the tough guy again.

  “And come see me later in the week so we can grab something to eat,” Harry said.

  “I will. I will.”

  “No, you won’t. But think about it, anyway. And say hola to your grandmother for me. Tell her I’ll be by someday to check up on your ass.”

  Harry watched the boy head across the parking lot, then turned and entered the building. When he reached the homicide office, he found John Weathers and passed along Rubio’s tip, without explaining where he had gotten it. Weathers didn’t seem that interested. Harry decided not to push it. At least not until they arrested the boyfriend.

  Harry spent the first hour working at his desk, reviewing the paperwork on a case he had closed the previous day. It hadn’t been a particularly satisfying one—an elderly man killed during a robbery gone sour. Harry had tracked down the killer within forty-eight hours. It turned out to be a teenage boy raised in a home that the ASPCA wouldn’t have allowed to keep a dog or cat. It was a case where everyone had lost except the people who really deserved to. A voice barked across the room, interrupting his thoughts: “Doyle. In here.”

  He looked up and saw Pete Rourke, the division captain, going back into his office, a trailing finger beckoning Harry to follow. When he entered the office Rourke was already behind his desk. There was also an attractive, dark-haired woman, somewhere in her late twenties or early thirties, seated in one of the two visitors’ chairs.

  “Doyle, meet your new partner,” Rourke snapped. “This is Vicky Stanopolis. She’s new to the division, just came up from sex crimes. She also claims she can work with anybody.” Rourke looked at each of them, then shook his head. “We’ll see if she can work with you. God knows, nobody else wants to.”

  Harry fought off a smile. “Thanks, cap.”

  “No problem.” Rourke turned to Vicky. “Harry doesn’t have a life, so he likes to work long hours. You don’t have to try and keep up when he goes crazy that way. But you might learn a few things working with him. Including things you shouldn’t do. But it’s like I told you before he came in, he seems to have a special talent, let’s call it an intuition about killers—an intuition that some people consider a little spooky. Other partners he’s had claimed that the victims … told him things.” He gave Harry a long look as if awaiting some confirmation. When none came he turned his attention back to Vicky. “He’s also an enormous pain in the ass.” He threw Harry a stern look. He was a big man with a square, fleshy face, unruly black hair, and piercing blue eyes. His voice, as usual, was gruff, the words sharp and to the point. “I got a call from the women’s prison … a corrections captain who said you threatened one of his men.”

  “It wasn’t much of a threat,” Harry said. “The guy was a professional jackass. I just let him know that I knew he was a jackass.” Amusement flickered in Harry’s eyes. “I guess he complained.”

  “Yes, he did.”

  “Sort of proves my point.”

  Rourke glared at him. “Next time, try a nice, warm smile when you tell somebody you’re gonna shove their Glock up their ass. It’s good public relations.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Rourke shook his head as if the entire conversation had been pointless. He pulled some papers from a pile, ready to get back to work. “Take Vicky out to the bullpen and introduce her around. The desk across from you is empty, right?”

  Harry nodded.

  “Now it belongs to her.”

  Introducing Vicky to the other detectives proved easy duty. She was tall and slender and shapely, with long brown hair that fell almost to her shoulders, pale brown eyes that looked like they could swallow you whole, a straight nose, and a mouth that seemed just a bit large, a bit sensual. None of that had registered in Rourke’s office. Now, confronted with the wide-eyed stares of his fellow detectives, Harry couldn’t help but notice.

  Most of the male detectives were overly friendly but respectful. They had been taught respect from the only other woman in the division, Diva Walsh, the sergeant in charge of assigning cases. Diva was a heavyset black woman, who could probably kick half the asses in the room, maybe more than half, and she easily kept most of the detectives in line. One of the few exceptions now followed Harry and Vicky back to their desks.

  Nick Benevuto was a silver-haired lothario with an expanding waistline. To his fellow detectives he was known as Nicky the Pimp, owing to the fact that he had once worked vice and most of his snitches were still aging hookers. He also had a reputation as one mean son of a bitch just as young Rubio Martí had claimed earlier. Right now he was busy playing office Romeo. Vicky seemed to have his number from the start.

  “So, Vicky, honey,” Nick began, only to be cut short.

  “Don’t call me honey,” Vicky said. She hardened the words with a cold smile; then added: “I have a gun, and I’m good with it.”

  Nick raised his hands defensively. “Hey, darlin’, I was only—”

  “Don’t call me darlin’ either.”

  “Okay, okay. No offense. Jesus, you Greek women are hard.”

  “You bet your bippy,” Vicky said.

  Nick drew a long breath, turned, and started back across the room. “You’re gonna get along just great with the dead detective,” he muttered.

  When Vicky turned back to her desk Harry was already seated across from her, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. His eyes told her it would be a nice smile if he ever let it grow.

  “I guess Rourke will be talking to you soon,” Harry said.

  “About what?”

  “About how you treat jackasses.”

  Vicky fought off her own smile. “So why did he call you the dead detective?” she asked, as she slid into her chair.

  “I died once,” Harry said. “It was a long time ago.”

  “Duty related?”

  “No. I was only a kid.”

  “You wanna tell me about it?”

  Harry gave her an indifferent stare. “No, I don’t. In time you’ll hear all about it from them.” He inclined his head toward the room, indicating the other detectives. “It’s a better story when they tell it.”

  Harry went back to his paperwork, sorting out reports for two cases that were now set for trial. Vicky watched him. She was more than a little curious about the man, about this “spooky” intuition he was supposed to have about killers. She had already dismissed Rourke’s comment about victims talking to him as little more than cop shop nonsense and she wondered how it all tied into this dead detective business. But she was also smart enough to know that it was a subject she couldn’t push. There was a sense of intensity about Harry Doyle that seemed to infuse everything he did, the way he moved and spoke; even the way he looked at you. She wasn’t certain why, but she found it very appealing. Too much so, she told herself. And it didn’t help that she liked the way he looked. He was tall and lean, just a bit over six feet, she guessed, with wavy brown hair, penetrating green eyes, and a strong jaw. He wasn’t a pretty boy by any means. Ruggedly handsome would better describe him. But those strong features seemed to soften when that sense of playfulness came to his eyes and that small smile toyed with the corners of his mouth.

  Vicky thought about that. She didn’t want to get involved with Harry Doyle or anyone else. Her personal life was a shambles at the moment, and she didn’t need to make it worse by falling for her partner.

  “Doyle. Stanopolis.”

  It was Diva. Harry got up quickly and headed for her desk. Vicky followed.

  “Whaddaya got?” Harry asked.

  “We got a woman in the Brooker Creek Preserve, a very dead woman. Some old lady out on a bird watching jaunt found her and started screaming for the park rangers. They called it in and we sent two units. First car at the
scene said the vic’s throat’s been sliced. Also said she’s been posed and that it looked like a fresh kill.”

  “They seal off the area?” Harry asked.

  “Deputy said he did,” Diva answered. “Couple more cars were dispatched just to make sure it stayed that way. The preserve’s got a lot of groups hiking the trails this time of year.”

  “You call the crime scene techs, or is that something we should do?” Vicky asked.

  “Already did it,” Diva said. “But thanks for asking. Most of the honchos around here would just assume Diva got it done for them, and then bitch and moan if for some reason the call didn’t get made.” She offered up a small laugh. “Hell, I got three kids at home who don’t need their noses wiped as much as these clowns do.”

  “Not their fault,” Vicky said. “They’re men. They’re all born with that ‘Hey, baby, bring me a beer’ gene.”

  This time Diva barked out a loud laugh. “You got that right, honey.”

  Harry cut the conversation short by spinning on his heels and heading for the stairs. Vicky hurried to catch up.

  “Hey, you two be careful,” Diva called after them. “Sounds like you might have a psycho on your hands.”

  “Slow down, the vic’s not going anywhere,” Vicky said.

  “Yeah, but there’s always the chance somebody else might get there ahead of us. I like to get to a crime scene when it’s still fresh, before anybody screws it up,” Harry said, taking the stairs two at a time. When they reached the parking lot he glanced back and grinned. “How come Diva gets to call you honey?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “’Cause I want her to,” Vicky said. “But don’t let that give you any ideas.”

  “Never happen,” Harry said. “I won’t even ask you to bring me a beer. And I won’t ask you to drive either,” he added as he slid behind the wheel of their unmarked car.