The Blood Dahlia (The Dark Angel Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  Social media was next and, as Lynch had hoped, she was just as naïve as most have been in the fifty years it has been the common communication. Her profile was public, as was everything she posted. This made her information easy-picking for him, and anyone else that might look into her comings and goings. There was a good chance he would find a post on there that mentioned something about what time and day she went to class. What was right in front of his face was she wasn’t shy around a camera, anytime or anywhere. Tons of food pictures, and pictures of her eating food, covered her profile. Some were from local joints he recognized the name of, and some were from her travels, like the one of her drinking some purple concoction in front of the Eiffel Tower. That would either be in Paris or Las Vegas.

  As he scrolled through picture after picture, he saw most of her travel destinations documented. What wasn’t pictures of food were pictures out with various friends, most of which she tagged who she was with and where they were. That always made life easy for him, but it also made life easy for those looking to do harm to someone else. Lynch didn’t have to worry about that himself; he didn’t have a profile and didn’t want one. When the phone system merged in with social media, he was afraid he may have to bend on his resistance, but those running the multi-billion credit earning conglomerations were pretty smart about it. They realized not everyone would join and kept a method open that would let someone use their communication network without having to go full in with social media.

  A search of her name pulled up several news stories, but nothing of significance. Most were society page references. The rest, pictures of her alongside her father or family members at one of the dozen or more charities they were involved in. That was always a point of irony for Lynch. You make weapons that can kill thousands in a flash, but sponsor and work for charity after charity to help soothe your consciences. The chances that would cancel out all of your sins when you stood in front of St. Peter at the pearly gates were nil in Lynch’s mind.

  Lynch looked at the several panels of information that hovered above his desk and surrounded him. Each contained a ton of information, but none of them provided very much. Sarah Tyson was a pretty normal 19-year-old American female, who was the daughter of one of the world’s wealthiest men, by all accounts. Nothing jumped out, but he wondered to himself if it would if it were there.

  “Sir, are you working the case Miss Gina was here about last night?” asked Totter from the door leading out to the hallway. He was gathering the day’s laundry and wanted Lynch’s white button-up shirt, which was now dotted with drops of beef stew.

  “No, T. Just curious. That’s all.” Earlier in the day it was ‘just curious’, after Gina left, it was a ‘piqued interest’, now the flowing of his old investigative juices had it border-lining on an obsession.

  “Then you might be curious to see this story I picked up on the evening news, sir.”

  A new screen displayed above his desk. Images flashed, moving in reverse in front of him, then stopped before the video played for him. An anchor that has been on the local news longer than Lynch could remember, sat behind the news desk. If his memory was right, she once interviewed him about a case he and Lucas had solved, but he couldn’t remember her name.

  The anchor starts, “Tonight, we have breaking news…”

  Lynch watched the story about the disappearance of Sarah Tyson, but halfway through it he looked at Totter and said, “This is not telling me anything I don’t already know.” Which was true. In fact, it covered less than he knew. There was no mention of the white Autoride.

  “Just wait,” Totter said. Lynch didn’t know it was possible for a machine to both look and sound smug. He continued to watch as he was requested. At the end of the story, three pictures were flashed up on the screen with the anchor’s voice providing the backstory for the pictures. “This is the third young woman from a well-to-do family that has been reported missing in the last four weeks. We reported two weeks ago that Courtney Bell, daughter of well-known local attorney, William Bell, was missing. Before that, Allison Walsh, daughter of Senator Cynthia Walsh. Police still need your help in locating all three girls. If you have any information on their whereabouts, you are asked to call 911. There is a reward for any information leading to their safe return.”

  Lynch didn’t wait until the end of the report before he started typing on his terminal. The number of screens already displayed tripled in just a matter of minutes. Police records, driving records, travel records, social media accounts, press clippings, and the few financial statements available, most of which were Allison’s. They were released as part of her mother’s campaign. Lynch thought poor little rich girls as he scanned through all the pictures of their glitzy and glamorous lives. Their police records weren’t much of anything either. A few traffic and parking tickets on each of the first two he looked over, but when he looked at the third one, he asked out loud, “Why, Miss Bell, how do you have this many possessions, yet only were fined or had a few hours of community service?”

  The answer was simple, her rich daddy, who had run for States Attorney twice with the complete endorsement of the local police union. Lynch actually remembered that question coming up during his last campaign, yet somehow disappeared from all media reports before any answer was offered. It is a funny thing what money can do.

  With no details sticking out about the girls, his next stop would be the families. Inside, he knew this is where it would lead anyway. There wasn’t much of a chance he would find the golden answer sitting there on the surface, but it was where his training told him to start. All investigations were to be a top-down search for clues. Start with the most probable answers and then, as you eliminate them, work your way down deeper.

  This was a lesson he learned a few times just in the first week on the detective force. The number of people they were looking for that would be found at their address of residence was a shock to him. Lucas, who was the senior investigator responsible for his training, explained that they stay in plain sight, assuming they would never look anywhere so obvious. His second arrest, Daniel Meigs, laughed when he answered the door. The mid-30s simple drug dealer said, “I guess I don’t need to ask how you found me.”

  There were others that Lucas called deep investigations. Those were ones they spent months and months on, going through every clue from the top to the bottom. Some they reached a few times, and expanded their definition of what the bottom was, until they found what they were looking for. Lynch always felt better about this when it was a search for a person. Once you found them, then it was black and white that the investigation was correct. Motive was something different. If you found motive at the top of the search, it was easier for the State Attorney to get a jury to believe it. The further they moved down the investigative tree, the more farfetched the motive seemed. Lynch presented motives to them at times that even he didn’t buy, it was just all they had.

  Starting down the path of the families would have to wait. Either the scotch, or this mental work, was taking its toll. Once again, he hoped it was the scotch and took another sip to help improve its chances.

  On his way up the stairs to his room Lynch requested, “T, contact Lucas. Arrange for him to meet me at Stiffies at 7 tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir. Shall I prepare your long black coat?”

  “No! I don’t do that stuff anymore!” echoed down the stairs as his footfalls continued two more steps, but stopped one short of the top. “Not yet,” he added as his steps completed the trip up the stairs.

  10

  Just after 7, no purpose in being on time, Lynch walked into Stiffies bar. The same strained expressions on the regulars’ faces greet him tonight, like they do each time he comes in. They don’t bother him. Lynch isn’t the type to want to walk into a place and have everyone scream his name or anything. That kind of attention would make him feel uncomfortable, and given he had rubbed everyone in this joint the wrong way at one time or the other, if all they did was give him the evil ey
e when he walked by, he would take it.

  Stiffies was the typical hole in the wall cop bar. A dense layer of smoke hung just above head height, filtering the overhead lighting into a glowing haze. Shot-glasses, mugs, and mason jars, containing varying shades of brown liquids, lined the long worn wooden bar with one too many coats of gloss urethane, which contains bits of trash trapped in it, hinting that they put the coats on before they cleaned the bar. Stiffies sported a rather lengthy drink menu, and Phil, the barkeep, bragged there wasn’t a drink he couldn’t make, not that anyone ever challenged that. The drinks in every glass covered the wide range of either beer or scotch, which meant Phil never had to wash his jiggers, strainers, or stirrers.

  Simple metal-legged stools with leather wrapped seats, which all but one are torn clear across, line the bar. On a normal night, every stool was occupied by a beat officer or detective nursing a drink, walking that fine line that borders the need to drink enough to forget the horrors you’d dealt with today, but not drinking so much you can’t wake up sober in the morning and go at it again. Lynch would start the dance each evening, but it was never in question what side he would end up on. The bar itself ended halfway down that side of the building, to make room for 2 ratty old blue felt pool tables, and a dartboard that nothing stuck to unless you threw the dart hard enough to drive a nail into a board from ten feet away.

  The other wall was lined with booths, where occupants nursed their drinks, walking the same fine line those at the bar were, but chose to either do it in a group or added a bit of risk to their evening by ordering some of what Phil Abbott, the proprietor of this establishment, called food. It was at one of these booths where he found Lucas waiting for him. He had been smart enough to not order food, but his best decision was to go ahead and order a scotch with no rocks.

  Lynch sat down and took a long sip of the waiting drink. The glass hit the table, and he put his hand up to signal the barkeep to start another.

  “Hey, Lucas.”

  “Hey, Lynch, what’s the occasion?”

  “No occasion. Just wanted to get a drink, maybe watch the game.”

  Lucas gave his old partner a cockeyed look and called, “Bullshit!”

  Lynch played it innocent and said, “What? I can’t just want to get a drink and watch a game?”

  “Not a chance. How many years have we known each other? Twenty three…” “Twenty four,” Lynch threw in.

  “Okay, twenty four… and you have never asked me to have a drink or watch a game. It was always me that offered.”

  Lucas was right, but there was a good reason. Lynch didn’t like people. To be straight about it, he didn’t hate people, he just didn’t like them. They weren’t necessary for his life and, in most instances, they complicated it. If you didn’t have anyone in your life, there wasn’t anyone you could disappoint, or that could disappoint you. Lynch found life hard enough not disappointing himself, that was at least until he got to the point he didn’t care anymore.

  The social entity of a police department was a balancing act. He found the longer you were on the force, the more you became like him, but there were still social engagements they expected you to participate in. Birthdays, the birth of someone’s first child, retirement party, and worst of all, the memorial when one of their brothers in blue lost the good battle. In all but the last, the general protocol you saw were the newer members of the force showed up and hung out laughing, drinking, and enjoying themselves. Those more seasoned by the world, and the hell they worked in, showed up long enough to take advantage of the free drinks, and to be noticed to say they were there, and then headed out. The other, everyone showed and stayed until the family was comfortable. They owed their brother that, whether or not they knew him well.

  Those occasions were the least awkward to Lynch. His personality kept anyone from asking him to tell a story about the fallen member, but that wasn’t his purpose. He always saw the fallen brother there, moving among their loved ones, grieving with them. While the others were comforting the family, he was comforting the fallen, letting them know they all had their back. Whether it was just a look, a tip of the glass, or the few times he found the need to slip below the world and tell them directly, he could always tell when the message was received.

  Then there was the unofficial social event known as a rough day in the office. Most days in their business were rough days, but some stuck out more than others. The first time Lucas invited Lynch out for a drink after a shift was one of those days. Lynch was never the bright-eyed idealist that most rookies were when they were assigned to the ranks of being a detective. He was more cynical than that from day one, but that didn’t mean he was immune to the rookie mistake, such as kicking in the wrong door at an apartment they were serving a warrant for. Lucas told him it was the apartment to the right, Lynch ran up the stairs and, before his partner was up the stairs, he kicked in the apartment that was to his right, not Lucas.

  “Maybe I thought it was about time?” offered Lynch.

  “Not a chance. Are you dying from something?” asked Lucas. Lynch was feeling how the hundreds of perps that sat across the table from Lucas had felt. The intensity of his look made the silence uncomfortable. He muttered, “You and I both know that won’t happen. So, what is it?”

  A fresh glass of scotch, no rocks, clinked against his partially empty glass on the table. A quick moan stopped the barkeep from moving to the next table. This gave Lynch a chance to toss what was left in the first glass into the back of his throat. With the glass now empty, he held it up for the barkeep to retrieve. He asked, “Another?”

  Lynch responded with a quick, “You know it.”

  “So, are you going to tell me what this is about, or is it twenty questions?” asked Lucas. He picked up his long island, his same escape for as long as Lynch had known him. One swig was followed by another as Lynch answered his question.

  “Just something interesting I saw on the news.”

  A choke and several coughs came from his partner as he struggled to catch his breath. “More bullshit. Since when do you watch the news?” he croaked out in between coughs.

  “I do from time to time. In truth, it was something Gina told me about and Totter found on the news. The missing rich girls,” Lynch confessed before taking another sip of his scotch. He intended to have this glass empty before the barkeep returned with his third.

  “Oh, that. Nothing, just three girls ran off.” His right hand reached inside his coat and pulled out a familiar green and white striped pack of cigarettes. A tap of it against the table forced a single stick up through a hole in the top. He deftly gripped it with his lips and then lit it with a single strike of his lighter.

  “Doesn’t sound like nothing. You got beat cops walking around questioning girls.”

  “Ah,” said Lucas with the cigarette firmly in his mouth. He retrieved it with his left hand before continuing, “and here I was thinking you were doing some kind of detective-ing thing. You got a tip from your girlfriend.”

  “She isn’t my girlfriend, not anymore, so knock it off. She said the Tyson girl’s father was walking around one night showing everyone he could find a picture of his daughter. The next morning, two beat cops were walking around with a missing poster.”

  He took another draw and let the smoke seep out from between his lips. “I’m surprised he knew what streets to find those kinds of girls. Maybe we should look into his free-time activities. Honestly, you know as well as I do, girls run off and don’t tell their parents all the time. Probably ran off with a boyfriend they didn’t approve of.”

  “I know, but how often do you have 3, in the span of a few weeks, all climb into the back of a white Autoride, never to be seen again?”

  “Done your homework, I see. Trust me. It’s nothing.”

  “Do their parents think it is nothing? Seems they are throwing around some large credits.”

  Lucas looked around and then slid to the inside of the booth, up against the wall. He watched and wait
ed. Lynch got the hint and grabbed his scotch and slid over as well. This was not some private corner, or cone of silence, but it was the best they could manage in here. With the music playing in the back around the pool tables, and two different games on the various televisions, the chance that anyone would overhear them was next to nothing, but this removed any chance that someone who walked by them might catch a spare word here or there.

  He leaned forward, closing the gap between him and Lucas even more, “This is just as a favor, here is what we know so far. The white Autoride is true, but the company has no record of a car, so it wasn’t one of theirs, which you probably already figured out.”

  “I assumed,” Lynch responded with a nod.

  “None of the girls have anything in their past that makes them a target, or nothing we found.”

  Lynch interjected, “Which leaves the parents.”

  “Yep,” Lucas said as he pointed the light end of his cigarette to emphasize the point. “The large reward is to try to get someone to turn and return them before we dig too far. Remember what I always said about people that are anywhere?”

  “They have stepped on and hidden their fair share of skeletons. So, any clue what the skeletons are here?”

  “Nah, nothing firm. Two of them are involved in the political spectrum, that usually means dirty money of some sort. The million credit reward hints at something dirtier though.”

  Now it was Lynch’s time to choke on his drink.

  Lucas asked the obvious question, “You hadn’t heard?”

  “Um, no. It was 100,000.” If the original reward didn’t give him a reason to get out of bed, this new revelation may have just set his alarm.