Page 4 of The Broken Places

“Sores that indicate drug use,” she said aloud, breaking the quiet of the room, a verbal clinical assessment calming the nerves and the unwanted emotion that always transpired when standing amid a crime scene. The smell of urine was stronger near the body. “Victim urinated either in death or in fear.” She’d wait for the criminalists to arrive to turn the young woman over fully and determine cause of death. But whatever it was, it’d been very bloody. Lennon’s stomach churned. The pool from the woman’s injuries had spread several inches beyond her body. Lennon used her gloved index finger to touch the pool. It was dry and cracked around the edges with a gelatinous center. It appeared this woman, at least, had been here for several hours.

Lennon’s gaze moved downward to where the woman was clutching something, the item mostly underneath her, arm still wrapped around it.Is that ...?Lennon gently lifted the woman’s stiff arm. Yes, just as she’d thought. It was a teddy bear, its beady eyes staring at her. She lowered the woman’s arm again and covered the black, soulless eyes of the stuffed animal. “That’s creepy as hell,” she murmured.

She stood and walked around to the other side of the bed before leaning over to get a look at the man and the other female victim. The woman appeared older, perhaps in her fifties, and she estimated the man to be in his late twenties, his arms heavily tattooed.

At least these two didn’t have expressions frozen in horror, though they also didn’t appear to be sleeping, the way some DOAs did. Their faces were contorted, as if in pain, and this woman, too, had tear tracks through her makeup. And because of their positions, the cause of death was clear. They’d been stabbed, the blood pool indicative of the same timeline as the woman on the floor.

Lennon stood straight, glancing around the room, her gaze lingering on the array of sex toys on the bedside table that had been blocked by the bodies while she’d been standing in the doorway.Okay, that’s different.A purple dildo, a studded dog collar, a few butt plugs.Huh.So whatever this had turned into, it’d started out as a sexcapade—whether purchased or otherwise—in an abandoned motel? Pretty seedy all around. But honestly? This job ensured she was well acquainted withseedy.

She looked around at the other surfaces. There didn’t appear to be a weapon anywhere, unless it was still in the younger woman lying on the floor. There were, she noticed, items on the desk near the window. This was the similarity Sullivan had been referring to when Lennon had asked if it appeared to be connected to two other recent murders involving homeless victims. She leaned closer. There were the same pale-purple tablets with a “BB” imprint left at two other scenes, which had turned out to be homemade hallucinogens. Not thathomemademeant there wasn’t a lab involved, but it had been determined they were not an FDA-approved pharmaceutical product. Hallucinogens had been an oddity at the other scenes, and they seemed especially unusual amid sex toys. In fact, other than these recent cases, Lennon couldn’t remember ever seeing psychedelics at a murder scene.Weird.

Then again, she’d never seen a purple dildo either.

She turned back toward the bodies, considering the scene as a whole, and then removed her phone and took photos of each of the victims.

Her gaze moved back to the numerous stab wounds on the man’s body. The older woman’s held almost as many. Had they turned a weapon on each other? Or had someone else been here? “What happened to you?” she asked out loud, almost expecting her ex-partner to chime in with a comment of some kind. God, it was times like these that she missed Tommy the most. She missed the level of comfort with each other they’d come by over the last five years they’d been partnered up, both speaking aloud at scenes and bouncing initial observances off each other so nothing got overlooked. She missed Tommy’s ability to stay so even keeled at the most macabre of murder scenes. He’d provided an emotional buffer for her and sometimes a gallows humor that helped her separate herself from the victims so she could view the situation more objectively. She’d relied on him, and she knew that made her weak, and possibly not cut out for a job like this. But dammit, she’d been fine until he’d left.

Lennon turned when she heard feet ascending the outdoor steps, a woman’s voice greeting Sullivan.Thank God.For the moment, she’d had all she could take.

Teresa Wong came through the door, and Lennon felt a small release of tension as Teresa set down the black case in her hand. “Hi, Lennon.”

“Teresa. Hi. Is it just you?”

Teresa had been a criminalist with the SFPD about the same amount of time Lennon had been an officer, and they’d worked together often over the years. Teresa was excellent at her job, extremely fastidious and very professional. She also had an easygoing nature that put everyone on the scene at ease, even if the scene was one that naturally inspired upset, or even horror, in the most seasoned officers and inspectors.

“Just me for now,” Teresa answered as she started suiting up. “Did you hear about the shooting?”

“Yeah, unfortunately. How many victims?”

“About twenty injured, and two dead, including a five-year-old.”

Lennon cringed.

“It looks gang related,” Teresa went on, “but you never know.”

“A five-year-old. What the hell is going on in this city?”

“The lunatics are running the asylum. Anyway, the other criminalists are headed to that scene, so you’ve got me.”

“I’ve got the best. Thanks, Teresa.”

Teresa nodded toward the room. “Same Benjamin Buttons?”

Lennon managed a smile as she remembered the conversation about what the “BB” might stand for when they’d first come across it. “Yeah, they’re on the desk. I’m going to check outside while you do your thing. I’ll be back shortly.”

Teresa was already moving toward the woman on the floor and opening her bag.

Sullivan yawned as Lennon stepped outside. She peered down into the parking lot: her car, the two police vehicles, and now Teresa’s were the only ones there. “I’m going to walk around the grounds and see if I spot anything,” she said. “Maybe there’s a car out back that brought the victims here.”

Sullivan nodded. “A couple more uniforms are on their way to relieve me, so if I’m not here when you get back, it was nice to see you, Gray.”

“You, too, Sullivan. Take care.”

Lennon pulled in big breaths of dwindling morning fog as she descended the steps. The sun had fully risen, the yellowy light making the abandoned motel look all the more dilapidated and somehow unreal, like the wavery image from an old-fashioned film. This place appeared to have been built in the fifties and featured a pristine view of the bay. It was likely once used by tourists and businessmen who wanted to be central to a myriad of San Francisco attractions. Eventually they’d tear this place down, and all the stories of trips and perhaps honeymoons and weekend rendezvous would be carried away in an industrial-size garbage bin.

She made a slow walk around the parking lot, keeping her eyes peeled for anything out of place, but also allowing her heart rate to return to normal and her stomach to settle. She needed to regroup and get hold of her nervous system for a few minutes before she could begin attempting to analyze what might have happened in that upstairs room.

Thankfully she’d known better than to eat anything before answering this call. Once her equilibrium was mostly back to normal, she headed toward the motel and then took a few minutes to walk along the bottom corridor, peering into the rooms that had curtains open and trying a few door handles and finding them all locked.

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