Part III: George’s Story
(A sequel to Trust the Night)
By: Sara Saint John
From jovial to pissed like quicksilver, now Aikens met him scowl for scowl. “You don’t have a choice.”
Mei spoke up. “I won’t work with someone biased against women.”
“I damn well do have a choice. I’ll take sick leave.”
“You’ll scuttle your career.”
“It’s my career to scuttle.”
Aikens stopped, took a deep breath and blew it out in good anger management style. He waited a beat, another. “I never took you for a coward, Loman.”
“I’m no coward. History has a habit of repeating itself.”
“You saved her, George. The Ripper sliced her sweater, but Beth didn’t so much as get cut. That makes you a hero in my books.”
“You weren’t there, Captain. Don’t make me out to be something I’m not.”
Mei frowned at both of them. “I won’t beg you to make me your partner. Other mentors won’t care about my gender. I don’t need protecting and I don’t need you, Detective.”
“You may not need him, but you are stuck with him. Loman, Jackson, shake hands. This argument doesn’t leave the office. It’s over.”
Sighing, George offered his hand. “Sorry, Jackson. Must’ve been something I drank.”
She accepted his handshake with reluctance, her eyes as hard as cold stone. “I’ll work with him, Captain, but I won’t like him.”
“I don’t care if you hate each other as long as you watch each other’s back. Get out of here, both of you. Catch her up to speed, Loman. You have a killer to catch.”
“First stop: the morgue,” George told her.
* * * * *
They exchanged hellos with the morgue technician. Then she led them to a gurney. Pulled back the sheet. The corpse shone as pale as marble. Cold and hard and as dead as a statue: a life gone to horrible waste.
“Detective, do you want to examine the body?” Mei asked.
George remained back by the wall. “I’ve seen this once. No need for a repeat performance.”
Mei moved forward and focused all her attention on the matter at hand. He watched as she studied the ragged hole in the victim’s chest. “What would have the strength to tear out his heart?” she asked.
The technician took an instrument and probed at the wound. “I didn’t find anything foreign inside the body cavity. No metal shavings, no debris of any kind. I haven’t a clue.”
Ignoring the stench, Mei leaned closer. “What about his throat? Some kind of wild dog?”
“Teeth marks don’t match up with any kind of dog known to man, yet they are teeth marks. Weird thing is he hasn’t a drop of blood left in his body.”
Big surprise, George thought.
Mei turned to him. “He drain out at the crime scene?”
“There was blood everywhere.” He shrugged. “It’s possible.”
“You find any witnesses?”
“It happened behind the Blue Dog. What possible witnesses we had were either too altered to make sense of it, or kept mum about what they saw. I questioned the guy who reported the crime. So far he’s our only suspect, but I don’t think he did it.”
“Why?”
“It’d take a powerful drug to give him that kind of strength. He wasn’t high when I talked to him and the crime scene was fresh.”
“What did he tell you?”
“It’s what he didn’t say that’s interesting. I ran a check on our victim here. College age. Seems he has Priors, petty stuff, been picked up for possession a time or two. Bet they were in the middle of a drug deal when the crime went down.”
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