Snitch

Chapter 3

3

Crime scene tape stretched between traffic barricades at the alley between the First Arizona Bank and the Manila Grill. Two deputies sipped coffee by one of the barricades, redirecting the occasional pedestrian away from the scene.

Detective Toni Rios stepped from her warm car into the frigid morning air. She tightened the belt on her black wool coat and shielded her eyes against the rising sun, which had painted the buildings of downtown Ironwood in golden light.

“Morning, deputies.” Rios nodded as she approached. “Coffee smells good.”

Graham, the older deputy, wiped his mustache. “It’s hot. That’s all I care about. I moved from Detroit to get away from the cold and here I am still freezing my a*s off in twenty-eight-degree weather. I thought Arizona was supposed to be warm.”

Rios smirked. “You want warm, you should have headed farther south to Phoenix.”

Graham harrumphed. “Now ya tell me.”

“Coffee and doughnuts are on the front seat of the coroner’s van, if you’re interested.” Cruz, the younger deputy, stuffed his free hand under his other armpit. His breath billowed in a cloud of water vapor. “Dr. Crawford stopped on her way in.”

Rios’ nose wrinkled in distaste. “Not sure I want to eat or drink anything from the coroner’s van.” Her gaze turned down the alley. “What do we got down there?”

“Deceased white female,” said Cruz. “Looks like she had some kind of seizure. Detective Johnson’s canvassing the neighborhood for possible witnesses.”

Graham scoffed. “My money’s on an overdose. These dumb kids are snorting and shooting all kinds of weird s**t. What’s that new d**g making the rounds?”

“Hex, sometimes called magic molly,” said Rios.

“Yeah, that’s it. h****n mixed with ecstasy. I ask ya, how stupid ya gotta be to put s**t like that in your body? A wonder more of these kids don’t end up in the morgue.”

“It’s a tragedy.” The scene evoked memories of Rios’ h****n-addicted sister, threatening to unleash emotions she didn’t need to deal with when she had a job to do. “Stay warm, guys.”

A uniformed deputy with a shaved head and beefy build emerged the alley.

“Aguilar,” she mumbled.

“f**k you, traitor.” Aguilar bumped Rios’ shoulder with his elbow, nearly knocking her off her feet.

A few months earlier, Rios had been forced to kill her former partner, Detective Edelman, to protect Shea Stevens. Edelman and their boss, Sergeant Foster, had killed several people and kidn*pped Stevens’ niece while running an illegal h****n operation.

After Rios learned of Foster’s involvement, she’d reported him to Internal Affairs. When he and Edelman tried to murder Stevens, Rios had intervened. Since then, Aguilar and others had treated her as an outcast for crossing the blue line.

“Shut the hell up, Aguilar!” Rios shouted at his back. “Foster and Edelman were dirty. Maybe you know a bit more about that than you’ve been saying?”

Aguilar turned on her like a roaring puma. “If they were dirty, you should’ve arrested them instead of gunning them down like dogs.”

“I acted to protect an innocent civilian from being executed. It was a good shoot.”

“Good shoot, my a*s. Your little girlfriend was caught with a weapon tied to several murders and was fleeing a gangland shooting when Foster tracked her down.”

“Shea Stevens isn’t my girlfriend,” said Rios, her nostrils flaring. “And all charges against her were dismissed.”

“Such bullshit. You turned on your own so you could tap that skanky biker b***h’s a*s. Everybody knows that.”

“It’s a goddamn lie.” Rios stepped into Aguilar’s personal space, her nose inches from his chin. “I know you’ve been spreading rumors about me to people in my unit. That stops now.”

“And if it doesn’t, what? You going to shoot me, too?”

“No, Deputy, I’ll have your badge.” She held his gaze, refusing to flinch. “Do I make myself clear?”

After a long, tense moment, Aguilar turned on his heel. “Watch your back, Detective,” he said over his shoulder.

Rios took a deep breath to let go of her frustration. Hell with him, she told herself. You got a job to do here.

At the end of the alley, the stench of vomit and feces made Rios doubly glad she hadn’t eaten one of the coroner’s doughnuts. Two evidence techs placed yellow numbered markers by potential evidence. A third snapped photographs of the scene.

The victim lay on her side, body arched unnaturally backward. Fists were balled and held against her chest. Champagne blond hair partially obscured the woman’s ivory face. White foam coated her mouth, which appeared to be grinning.

Vomit dappled her emerald spaghetti-strap blouse. Black, four-inch heels clung to her feet, the left one with a broken heel. A few feet from the body, a black leather purse lay on the ground, the main zippered compartment wide open.

Winslow, a deputy with a boyish face and a pear-shaped body, hovered over the dead woman. Despite being Aguilar’s partner, Winslow had always been nice to her, even after Foster and Edelman were killed.

A tall woman in a Cortes County Medical Examiner’s coat crouched next to Winslow, studying the victim. She stood as Rios approached. “Good morning, Toni. If you’d like some coffee, I got some in the van. Doughnuts, too, if you’re interested.”

“Maybe later, Dr. Crawford.” Rios covered her nose with the inside of her arm. “What do we know?”

“Victim appears to be in her early twenties, dead approximately six hours. No lacerations aside from a scraped knee, no bruising or other indications of physical trauma. Hyperextension of the body, combined with the frothing at the mouth and a risus sardonicus grin suggests either tetanus or strychnine poisoning.”

Rios pulled out a notebook and wrote down Dr. Crawford’s findings. “Anything else?”

“The back of her hand bears an ink stamp of the letters THL.”

“Trip Hop Lounge.”

“That would be my guess.”

Winslow reached down and lifted a plastic bag containing a few dark pills from the victim’s purse. “We found these.”

Rios took the bag from him. Each of the four pills was stamped with a pentagram. “Could this be another hex overdose?”

“We won’t know for sure until the tox report comes back, but it is strikingly similar to two recent hex-related deaths.”

Rios shook her head. “I don’t get it. Hex has circulated in the clubs for months now. Why are people dropping dead all of a sudden?”

Crawford crossed her arms. “Drugs like h****n are cut multiple times before they hit the street. Usually with something inert like cornstarch, but that dilutes the potency. Cutting it with strychnine, which is cheaper than h****n, still gives a bit of a high. But too much can lead to stomach cramps, convulsions, and death.”

Rios turned to the deputy. “We got an ID, Winslow?”

“Not yet.” The young deputy pointed the open purse. “Her wallet is missing. We found a cell phone but the battery was dead and the screen cracked. We also found a partial footprint not matching the victim’s heels. I’d guess a boot, either military or motorcycle. Also got some fingerprints off the purse. Might lead us to whoever took the wallet.”

“Detective Rios!” At the entrance to the alley, Ebony Johnson, a young female detective, held the arm of a person clinging to a grocery cart full of belongings.

“Good work. I look forward to your autopsy report, Doctor,” Rios said to Crawford before jogging back to the street to talk with Johnson. “What’s up, Detective?”

Johnson gestured toward the person holding on to the grocery cart. “Detective Rios, meet Miss Luz Escobar.”

“Sergeant Escobar! I ain’t no miss. I’m a goddamned marine.” The husky woman wore an olive drab utility jacket over a gray hoodie. Her face was grimy and she smelled of body odor, garbage, and alcohol. It was hard to tell under the rough exterior, but Rios estimated the woman’s age to be late thirties, maybe early forties.

“Sorry, this is Sergeant Escobar. She witnessed the victim having a seizure.”

Rios gave Johnson a knowing look, then turned back to Escobar. “Sergeant, you hungry by chance?”

Some of the fire went out of the veteran’s eyes. “Yeah, maybe.”

“Deputy, could you bring the sergeant a couple of doughnuts and a cup of coffee from the van?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Johnson hustled off to the coroner’s van.

Rios gestured toward a bench along the wall in front of the Manila Grill. “Why don’t you and me have a seat, Sergeant?”

Escobar eyed Rios suspiciously, but shuffled to the bench without a word. One of the wheels of the grocery cart clacked over the seams in the sidewalk.

Johnson returned a moment later and handed the woman a couple of doughnuts and a steaming cup of coffee. “Anything else, Detective?”

“No, thanks.” Rios took a seat beside the homeless veteran.

Escobar set the doughnuts in the front basket of the cart, then sniffed the cup before taking a long slurp of coffee.

“You serve overseas?”

“Two tours in Afghanistan driving a Humvee till I got my a*s blown up. Took three pieces of shrapnel in the cabeza.” The woman pulled back her nest of dusty brown-black hair to reveal an indentation near her temple the size of a quarter.

“Sorry to hear that. How’d you end up on the streets?”

“Got arrested for kicking some butter bar’s a*s after he got handsy with me. Corps kicked me out for assault and insubordination. Dishonorable discharge. Can’t get no job, especially with this PTSD f*****g with my head. So here I am.”

“You deserve better after your service.” Rios met her gaze. “You see what happened to the woman in the alley?”

Escobar rubbed her face and peered at Rios over the rim of her coffee cup. “I mighta seen something.”

Rios let the silence hang heavy between them, waiting for the veteran to continue. The minutes dragged. Escobar scarfed down a doughnut, chased it down with coffee, then inhaled the other, glancing periodically at Rios.

“Fine, that junkie b***h woke me up stumbling down my alley, moaning and s**t. Looked like she was tripping on something.”

“What time was that?”

“Hell if I know. I don’t have a watch.”

“What did you do when she entered the alley?” Rios eyed the grocery cart, wondering if the victim’s wallet was in Escobar’s pile of belongings. All she could see clearly was a worn olive drab duffel bag underneath a dusty bedroll.

“I told her to shut the f**k up. She just moaned louder, like she was having some sorta fit. So I bugged out. Got no time to waste on junkies.”

“You didn’t try to help her?”

“Do I look like a goddamn doctor?” Escobar downed the last of her coffee, crumpled the cup, and tossed it into a nearby bin.

“Where’d you go?”

“Up a few blocks to Waldorf Park to sleep on a bench.”

“What happened to the victim’s wallet?”

“You think I stole it? I ain’t no thief.” Escobar shoved her cart toward Rios. “Search it if you don’t believe me.”

Rios studied Escobar’s face, then smiled. “That’s okay. I believe you. Did the victim say anything while she was still alive?”

“Naw, just made a lotta weird grunting noises, like she was trying to talk but forgot how.”

“Anyone else around?”

“Nope, just the junkie.”

“Tell me something. Why sleep in the alley? Why not in the Samaritan Shelter on Pinetop Street?”

“You ever stay at the Samaritan Shelter?” asked Escobar.

“Can’t say I have. Stayed in a group home for a while as a kid. Beat sleeping on the streets.”

“Trust me, the Samaritan Shelter ain’t no place for a decent person. Full of junkies, dealers, and hoes. Last time I stayed there, some b***h tried to cut me for my shoes. And don’t get me started about them bedbugs. Ugh! I do not need that kind of aggravation.”

“Can’t say I blame you. Still, must be hard when it gets cold like this.”

“Afghanistan was a helluva lot colder than this.”

“I suppose you’re right.” Rios pulled a twenty out of her wallet and held it out for Escobar to see. “Anything else you can tell me about who this woman was or how she died?”

“Ain’t no more to tell.”

Rios handed the woman the twenty. “Thanks for your help, Sergeant.”

Escobar pocketed the money and wandered off pushing the cart.

Johnson caught up to Rios as she returned to the crime scene.

“Get anything from her?” asked Johnson.

Rios shook her head. “She only confirmed what Dr. Crawford’s telling us. The victim died from a seizure, most likely due to strychnine-laced hex. But we still don’t have an ID.”

“So what now?”

“Contact the media and give them a physical description of the victim. Maybe we can get a lead from someone who knows her.” Rios checked the time on her phone. “Trip Hop Lounge probably won’t open for a few hours yet. When they do, we can check their security feed. If she paid for drinks with a credit card, maybe we can locate the transaction and put a name with the face.”