Page 7 of What Happened Last Night

“Detective Del Rey,” I said, taking the call.

“Jamie, good to have you back,” the chief said. His small talk ended there, and he was all business when he barked out the rest of his sentence. “We’ve got a body. Suspected homicide. It’s your case, Del Rey. I’ve got officers questioning two potential suspects. How soon can you get here and take over?”

“How old is the victim?” I asked.

I knew it wasn’t the question I should be asking. I shouldn’t be asking questions at all. I should be answering the chief and getting moving, but the very idea of another child’s murder on my plate made me want to curl up under the duvet and never leave the house again.

“We have a positive ID on the victim. She’s nineteen,” the chief replied.

He didn’t berate me for asking the question, and I thought I had even heard a note of sympathy in his voice when he answered me. Nineteen was still pretty young. Too young to die. But it wasn't like she was a child. I could do this.

“I’ll be there within half an hour, Chief,” I said, fully awake now and raring to go.

I hung up the call and shook my head, half smiling. It felt better to be back than I had thought it would, and this was exactly what I needed. A case to get straight into. It would stop my dwelling on my last case and remind me of what it was I loved about my job. I loved making the streets safer for people, of course, but it was more than that. It was the thrill of the hunt, putting together the pieces of the puzzle, and narrowing in on the guilty party.

I got out of bed, showered, and got dressed in record timing. I grabbed my things and drove to the precinct. I took a deep breath before I went in, ready for the barrage of questions as I made my way through the corridors. None came. Instead, I was patted on the back and had my hand shaken, my colleagues telling me they were glad I was back. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like their treating me with kid gloves, but I supposed I should have seen it coming. It’s exactly how I would have reacted in their shoes.

Now this case meant even more. I wanted to catch the killer and get justice for the victim, of course I did. But now it was about more than that. It was about proving to my colleagues that I was back. Properly back, in mind as well as body.

I made my way to the chief’s office and tapped on the door.

“Come in,” he called.

I opened the door and stuck my head around, but I didn’t go in. The chief looked up and smiled when he saw me. He looked older than I remembered him looking. The smattering of gray in his hair was more prominent than it had been before I left for Europe, and he had lines around his eyes that I didn’t remember him having. I guess the child murder case had taken its toll on him too.

“Just checking in, Chief,” I said. “What have you got for me?”

The chief checked a piece of paper on his desk.

“Officer Dumont and Officer Stanford were the first on the scene, and they’ve been running the show ever since. Relieve them of that duty and get briefed but keep them on your team. Let me know if you need anyone else, all right?”

I nodded. “Thanks, Chief.”

I left the chief’s office and made my way to the kitchen. I stopped in long enough to pour myself a large coffee and then I headed back along the corridor to my team’s incident room. Officer Dumont and Officer Stanford were waiting for me, and they both jumped to their feet when they saw me. I laughed and indicated for them to sit.

“I’m not the president. We’ll have none of that shit,” I said. “While you’re on my team, I expect you to do as I ask, and I expect you to give your all to the investigation. But I don’t expect you to kiss my ass.”

“Works for me, Detective.” Officer Stanford grinned.

“So, what do we have?” I asked.

The information was all displayed on the huge whiteboard that covered one wall, but I wanted to hear it from them. I always did better listening to someone talk than I did reading over reports. It was funny how often something triggered in my mind, something one of the officers said that likely wouldn’t have been in their report. A throwaway comment, a hunch, the things we talked about off the record but couldn’t include them in preliminary reports with no evidence in case our theories were wrong and negatively influenced the case. Those were the places I often found my inspiration and the key to cracking a case.

“Female victim aged nineteen. Candy Xavier. Her father has been informed and he’s confirmed the victim’s identity. She was found on the lawn of 1216 Winter Avenue in the Hollywood Hills. Address belongs to a couple, William and Carlotta Alden,” Officer Stanford said.

She reeled the information off without having to keep checking her notes, which I liked. I had a feeling I was going to enjoy working with her. She paused in her narrative and Officer Dumont took over.

“The victim had been pushed from a second-story window. The injuries she sustained were too intense to have come from a fall. She hit the ground with too much force to have merely fallen. She went straight through the glass, so obviously, her body has several lacerations, but she had a small cut on her hand that wasn’t consistent with the others. We believe it came from a knife and the wound could be defensive. No knife was found at the scene.”

“How long was the victim dead before you got there?” I asked.

“Without the coroner’s report, I can’t say for sure, but I’d guess around three to four hours,” Officer Dumont said.

“Which would have given the couple plenty of time to have disposed of the knife,” I mused. “Carry on.”

“We brought both William and Carlotta Alden in for questioning as they were both present at the time we arrived on the scene. An early morning jogger spotted the broken window. He moved in for a closer look, looking for signs that a burglary was in progress. He said he didn’t want to waste the police’s time if it appeared to be an old broken window that just hadn’t been fixed yet, and it was too early to knock on the door and ask the residents if they knew about the broken window. That’s when he saw the body and called us,” Officer Stanford said.

“And what do they have to say for themselves?” I asked.

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