Page 29 of Copper

My stomach rolls. I dislike men who threaten women, but I despise them if they threaten kids. “What specifically?”

“He says he’ll take my kids from the bus stop and find a buyer for them. He says twins turn a pretty penny.” She turns to me, her eyes desperate. “Don’t tell anyone. Please. I just, well, I just want it to stop. I want my damn kids safe. So I push his stuff. I slip buyers the package and then collect the money for Murphy. I swear to God I don’t do it to hurt people. I just don’t want to be hurt. If I tell Peter, Murphy will hurt my kids, and I’ll be out of a place to live. Who would believe me if I tell the police or ask for help? I’m a stripper.”

With what’s going on, I know for a fact that the county sheriff would believe every word she said, but it’s hard to reason with a cornered and threatened person who probably grew up distrusting authority.

She finally reaches for lipstick, opens it, and then sets it back down. Her hands shake so hard that she can’t put it on without smearing it everywhere.

“Is Sheri into this too? Is she being threatened?”

Cheryl’s eyes meet mine in the mirror. “I won’t rat out another woman, especially if she has kids, but I’ve seen the way he treats her.”

“Like what?”

“Worse than what I get. He forced her one night.”

“Sex?” I ask.

She nods. “I heard her crying the whole time, and he slapped her around pretty good for making noise. He must have good dirt on her because, even after that, she runs drugs for him and has to give him some of her tips. So far, he hasn’t asked for my tips.”

“He’s pimping her and running drugs. Has she been his all along? Is he putting women to work selling sex and has moved to strip clubs? It’d be a good way to leech off tips.”

“I don’t know. But if it comes to that, I’ll run. Grab the kids and disappear someday. I know she has a kid. Toddler girl. Sheri’s elderly mother watches her while she works, so an elderly mother is a liability, too. I’m sure Murphy has everyone threatened all the way around.”

Chapter 13

Aaron

“Letmeguess.Thisguy’s a piece of shit.”

“Nailed it in one,” Coleson replies.

I wave at Mitchell behind me before he can walk into the room and fuck anything up. Mitchell is my deputy, but he’s still young and green and has never been on a murder site before. “Stay here and keep the press out if they show up.”

He nods, his lips pale around the edges. He doesn’t want to come in. There’s no smell since the body is fresh, but I can tell he doesn’t want to come into the room in the off chance it’s messy. Blood splatter isn’t for everyone. Hell, it’s why I ran for sheriff and not detective. I’m just the guy that comes in for the update and brainstorming.

Coleson waves me through to the back porch where the dead man lies in a puddle of blood. “Todd Daniels. Age thirty-eight. Found by his sister when he didn’t pick her up for a doctor’s appointment he was supposed to drive her to. She got an Uber and came over to check on him.”

“I thought you said he was a piece of shit. A shitty person doesn’t drive their sister to the doctor.”

“Yeah, well a good person doesn’t have a list of hookers taped to his refrigerator. So here we are.”

“Hookers again. Why are all murder victims into hookers? It’s not even the hookers that kill them most of the time.”

“It’s the type,” Coleson says, nodding sagely. “They make poor life choices, in general. That’s why they get killed.”

I snap on an offered glove. “How’d this one die?” I ask, bending down but not touching the victim. I try to look under his neck to see if his throat was slit. There’s a lot of blood, though. This one wasn’t blunt force to the back of the head.

“Screwdriver up through the bottom of his chin.”

“Ouch.”

“At least we think it was a screwdriver. Forensics says it looks like the perfect size and shape for a flathead. No murder weapon that we can find.”

“Footprints?”

“We swept it. Nothing at all, and what we do find is oddly shaped. It’s like the person doesn’t wear normal shoes.”

“Like space shoes?” I chuckle at my own stupid joke.

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