Justice Served: A Barkley and Parker Thriller Page 3

  Carole felt the pain he was going through. She knew it took a lot for a Stuart to break out of his shell to ask anyone for anything. Especially someone who had, in effect, sent him into the arms of another woman. She wondered if he was asking too much of her. Or was she merely making it harder than it had to be?

  “I’ll think about it,” she told him as a compromise.

  Stuart grinned, as if he had locked her in. “Thanks, Carole. I owe you one.”

  You may owe me more than that, buddy.

  He put his arm around her and Carole immediately recoiled, shaking him loose like a snake that had encircled her and was about to release some venom.

  “Don’t,” she said with snap, hitting him with the brown heat of her eyes.

  He blinked in surprise. “Hey, I’m sorry, baby. Didn’t mean to—”

  “I know.” Carole took a deep breath, realizing she had overreacted. “Don’t worry about it.” She hoped he would leave it at that.

  Stuart sighed. “Well, I guess I’d better be going then.”

  She forced a tiny smile. “All right.”

  They both headed towards the door.

  “By the way,” he said, facing her, “in case you didn’t already know, that guy—Roberto Martinez—was found beaten to death tonight.”

  “Roberto...” Carole tried to place the name. “Martinez?”

  “Yeah. The asshole you told me about last week who was going to trial for beating his girlfriend half to death.” Stuart raised a brow. “You even suggested he might be able to use a good attorney like me. Apparently the lawyer he had was more than sufficient, considering he got him off, and was probably a lot cheaper, too. Though little good it did Martinez, as it turns out.”

  “Yes,” Carole said, nodding, “I remember now. Roberto Martinez was released because the prosecution’s case was simply too weak.” She paused. “I guess with my heavy caseload, it’s hard to remember all the names of the sickos who come through my courtroom.”

  “Well this is one less sicko to see in the future,” Stuart hummed. “Someone saw to that!”

  “I’m sorry to hear about Martinez,” she said sincerely.

  “So am I. It’s about the third time this has happened in the past few months. Seems like there’s someone out there hunting down men accused of abusing their women.”

  Carole stared at the notion, sipping her drink. “If it’s true, I certainly hope the police get the party responsible. The last thing we need is to have some damned vigilante taking the law into his or her hands.”

  “I’d say it’s too late to avoid that,” Stuart said flatly. “It’s already happening. Stopping this killer is a whole different story—”

  Carole showed Stuart out, locking the door behind him. Curling up on her Normandy sofa, she finished off the wine. She thought about Roberto Martinez. As far as she was concerned scum like him got everything they deserved, including a painful death.

  Now maybe the victim of Martinez’s fists could somehow regain her dignity and get past what he did to her and would have continued to do had an avenging angel not come forward and meted out their own form of justice on the batterer.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Nina Parker had known she wanted to be a policewoman since she was five years old, which was her earliest memory of her father as a cop with the Detroit Police Department. When the family moved to the Pacific Northwest after her father retired, she kept her dream alive, entering the Police Academy in Portland at twenty-one. By the time she was twenty-five she had been on patrol, done vice, and gotten married and divorced.

  She had been a homicide detective for the last seven years, the past five teaming up with Ray Barkley. They had a short and passionate affair when both needed some companionship and physical affection.

  Nina still had some feelings for Ray, but vowed to never allow them to show or interfere with the job. In her mind, such feelings were always there for ex-lovers, even if kept in their proper perspective as a thing of the past.

  She glanced at Ray as they took the elevator to the third floor at Portland General where Lucie Garcia was being treated. He was already staring at her, as if she had toothpaste on her face.

  “Sure you’re up for this?” he asked.

  “Are you?” she challenged him, knowing that each liked to go one better than the other in testing their mettle and fortitude under fire.

  “I can certainly think of better things I’d like to do with my time than having to tell a battered woman that her abusive boyfriend was beaten to death.” Ray blew his nose with a handkerchief. “But someone has to do the dirty work. Looks like the onus is on us.”

  Nina knew this also meant they would have to ask Lucie Garcia questions regarding her possible knowledge of Roberto Martinez’s violent death. Even if he got his just due in theory, in the real world it was still cold-blooded murder and someone had to be held accountable.

  They entered the room and saw a nurse tending to Lucie, who appeared in bad shape with numerous injuries that would keep her in rehab for some time to come. The detectives showed their identifications to the nurse and Lucie, verbally introducing themselves.

  The nurse, a stout, white woman in her fifties, gave them a stern look. “Can’t this wait?”

  “Afraid not,” responded Ray tautly. “It’s important.”

  The nurse eyed her patient. “I’ll be back shortly.” She left the room.

  Ray and Nina exchanged glances before she took the lead, favoring Lucie Garcia. “I’m afraid we have some distressing news for you—” she began.

  Nina wondered just how distressing it would truly be, given that Martinez had really done a number on her. Surely Lucie could do without being used as Martinez’s personal punching bag? If any asshole ever laid a hand on me, I’d kick his ass from here to kingdom come. But she had read that many abused women tend to have a loving attachment to the abuser that belies the abuse itself. Was that the case here? Or was the attachment more one of hateful vengeance?

  Lucie regarded the detective uneasily, clearly in physical discomfort. “What happened?” she mumbled instinctively.

  After a sigh, Nina said dolefully: “Roberto Martinez is dead.” As in never coming back to hurt you again.

  Lucie put a shaky hand to her swollen mouth. “Dead? Roberto?”

  “He was found in an alley,” Ray informed her. “He’d been beaten to death.”

  Lucie seemed in a state of shock, almost disregarding her own condition. “Oh, Roberto,” she cried. “My honey. You can’t be dead. Who would want to hurt you—?”

  It was obvious this lady was not the killer, Nina decided. He’d beaten her up too badly to put her in any type of shape to retaliate directly. It was likely that Lucie Garcia had nothing to do with Martinez’s death.

  But they still had to ask.

  “Do you know of anyone who would have wanted to kill Roberto?” Nina gazed down at the victim of abuse.

  Lucie’s eyes flooded with tears. “No. Roberto was not a monster,” she claimed. “He never really meant to hurt me.”

  Nina looked at Ray. He shook his head slightly in frustration and dismay. They had seen it all before. Complete denial, even after what the bastard had done to her. She still found a way to be in love with him, as though he truly cared for her.

  “Could someone you know have wanted to avenge what happened to you?” Ray’s eyes narrowed at Lucie Garcia.

  “No one I know would ever do such an awful thing,” she insisted in an uneven tone.

  “So you’re saying Martinez had no enemies that you know of?”

  Lucie hesitated. She suddenly seemed to have trouble breathing. As if on cue, the nurse raced in. She put an oxygen mask over Lucie’s damaged face, and then snarled at Ray and Nina.

  “I think you’ve asked enough for now! I want you to leave. She has to get her rest.”

  “Whatever you say,” snorted Ray. “But we may need to see Ms. Garcia again.”

  “Not until she’s physically up to i
t,” countered the nurse. “Which could be quite some time.”

  Nina looked at the patient, having little doubt that a long recovery, both physically and mentally, would be needed.

  Out in the corridor Ray asked Nina: “So what do you think?”

  “I think she loved the creep and would have jumped into the ocean if he’d asked her to.” Nina drew her thin, arched brows together. “Whoever murdered Martinez was not acting with Lucie Garcia’s consent,” she said with near certainty.

  “Maybe not,” he allowed. “But the killer sure as hell was acting on her behalf. Same as the other battered women who found their problem with being knocked around solved with the death of their alleged abusers.”

  Nina sighed. “We’ve really got our work cut out for us. This woman vigilante—if it is a woman—is obviously not going to lay out on the walkway for us to nab like a drug-addicted hooker. She’s in no hurry to get caught. Not when she feels she can rid the streets of Portland of guys like Roberto Martinez.”

  “That’s where it starts to get scary,” Ray bristled. “There are too many damned potential targets this person can go after. And we have no idea what triggers the attacks, per se. Yet.”

  “We know at least one thing that does,” said Nina ominously. “Domestic violence. Hitting a woman, or any female, is not smart. Especially these days. She just might strike you back tenfold!”

  Nina considered the implications of her words on the local community. She wondered how many others had to die before they started to get the message and the killer was stopped.

  I don’t even want to speculate. But that didn’t stop her from doing so anyway, with frightening possibilities.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The sun shone brightly over Portland, its heat bringing the temperatures in the city to near ninety degrees. Inside the medical examiner’s office, air conditioning did little to block the effects of the warmth or the smell of dead, rotting bodies. Ray and Nina did their best to ignore both as they entered the examination room that held Roberto Martinez’s remains.

  Standing precariously above him was the medical examiner, Doctor Clark Terris. In his late fifties, he looked like the perfect Santa Claus, only with dark red hair and matching beard. Wearing a stained white jacket and plastic gloves, he greeted the detectives like houseguests.

  “Glad you could make it.”

  Ray frowned. “Not like we had much choice, Doc.” As it was, they already had a pretty damned good idea what killed Roberto Martinez, if not who. But they had to make it official.

  Terris removed the gloves and set them beside the covered corpse. “Simply put, he died from massive blunt trauma to the head,” he said. “Just as the other two victims did. His skull was crushed like an eggshell; right jaw fractured in a dozen places. There were other fractures as well, including multiple ones to his vertebrae, but most came after he was already dead.” He clawed at his bushy beard. “It’s all in the report.”

  “Tell me, Doc,” asked Ray for the record, “do you think a woman is capable of inflicting such damage?”

  Terris studied Nina beneath thick brows, as if using her to consider the matter. “Of course,” he said. “Especially if she was mad enough—and I don’t mean crazy, though that also can’t be ruled out. It helps her cause if she’s using an object like a bat that can make almost anyone seem like Hercules.”

  “You find anything on the victim that we can use to nail the killer to the wall?” asked Nina.

  She suspected that, similar to the earlier victims, the perpetrator had left no real clues to tie them to the crime. Aside from the bat itself, which had no fingerprints or other identifying characteristics other than those belonging to the victim.

  All three bats left behind at the murder scenes were wooden, the same model and manufacturer: Jefferson and Company. They were made in North Carolina and sold across the country, mainly to high schools and colleges. A number of local stores also sold them, as well as mail order catalogs. The investigation into the bats had gotten nowhere. It seemed there were no unusual amounts purchased recently either locally or directly from the manufacturer. The consensus was that they had been purchased inconspicuously at different stores, maybe even out of state.

  Terris confirmed Nina’s suspicions. “Only some blonde hair fibers from what appears to be a wig,” he answered. “And clothing fibers that may or may not belong to the killer.”

  “Thanks for your help,” Ray told him routinely.

  “No problem,” Terris said. “It’s my job.” He paused, then added with a catch to his voice: “Let’s hope I don’t have to make a habit of this type of autopsy. Don’t believe everything you hear about medical examiners having thick skin. Personally, I prefer victims who died of coronary failure. Much less stressful on the eyes and stomach.”

  Ray got the gist. If they did their job, he wouldn’t be left with the mess to clean up. “Believe me, Doc,” he said in a controlled voice, “if we could have solved this case yesterday, we would have.”

  He looked at Nina who sneered back, and they left.

  Once outside they headed towards the car. “Are you okay, Barkley?” Nina asked with concern.

  Ray shifted his muscular frame her way. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he lied. He never was very good at lying.

  “You don’t look so good, Ray,” she noted. “Sure this case isn’t getting to you just a bit?” She squinted from the sun’s rays beating down on them like a spotlight. “Men having their brains bashed in like that can have a sobering effect, even on people trained to deal with it. Or is it the thought that a woman could be responsible for the killings that’s left you on edge?”

  He sighed. “All right, so maybe this one does have me spooked, but not the part that a woman might be behind it. I don’t like serial killing bastards of any sex playing judge and jury.”

  “And you think I do?”

  He raised a brow. “To be honest, Parker, I think you may be finding this all just a little satisfying—under the circumstances. Brutal men getting their just do, and all that crap.”

  Nina stopped on a dime and peered at him. “Give me a damned break, Barkley, will you? This is Nina you’re talking to. Your partner, remember? And we go back deeper than that. I want this son of a bitch as much as you do. I’m not going to stand here and tell you I’m in favor of assholes beating up their wives and girlfriends till they’re black, blue, red, and hospitalized, if not on a cold slab. But that doesn’t mean I want them brutally murdered as payback.”

  Ray nodded respectfully. Guess I had that coming. He was ashamed that he had challenged her commitment to this case. She was the best damn partner he’d ever had and she was always above board in her professionalism. But he wasn’t about to tell her that.

  Not today anyway.

  “What do you say I buy you lunch?” he offered instead.

  Nina rolled her eyes. “I don’t know about that, Barkley. Sounds like a bribe to me.”

  He smiled. “So arrest me afterwards.”

  She grinned. “Don’t tempt me, honey,” she teased him. “I just may take you up on that.”

  He didn’t doubt it for one minute.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Where to?” asked Ray, his gaze centered on Nina behind the wheel. They had just chowed down on some soul food and now he felt like he was about to burst.

  “Criminal Court Plaza,” she intoned flatly. “Seems as if our dead dudes have one thing in common. Each had a date in Judge Carole Cranston’s courtroom prior to death, on charges related to domestic violence against women. Trouble is, in every instance, insufficient evidence or some other luck of the draw got them off the hook. At least temporarily. Seems as if their sinful ways caught up to them—”

  Ray drew his brows together skeptically. “You think someone attending court proceedings may be making sure these batterers don’t get away scot-free?”

  Nina jerked her head in his direction. “Hey, it’s worth checking out,” she said defensively, “unless you’ve
got a better idea.”

  “None that I can think of right now,” he admitted.

  The Criminal Court Plaza was part of a renovated downtown structure that included the jail and district attorney’s offices. It was adjacent to the Portland Police Bureau Headquarters and near the city center.

  Judge Carole Cranston was holding court when they walked into Courtroom 1A. The detectives sat in the back as the sharply dressed young female prosecutor hammered away at a juvenile defendant being charged as an adult on trial for murder. On several occasions Judge Cranston hammered down her gavel, matching the tone of her voice in keeping control of the proceedings.

  From where he sat, Ray couldn’t help but be more than a little impressed with the lady. How about really impressed. He hadn’t been in the judge’s courtroom before, but had heard she was a no-nonsense tough lady who could more than hold her own with any male judge in the criminal court. What he hadn’t been told was that she was also a knockout and younger than he’d imagined. Whether she could help them or not on this case remained to be seen.

  Just after the judge announced a recess, the detectives approached the bench. The judge barely seemed to notice them during the commotion of people moving about. To Ray it seemed as though her mind was elsewhere, as if she had drifted off to sea in some deep probe. She somehow seemed ill at ease in her black robe and judge’s stature. If she were not a judge, he could well imagine her being a Wall Street lawyer. A college professor. A hotter than hell actress. Or maybe a tough as nails newspaper reporter.

  Even a super lover crossed his mind.

  When they reached the bench, Nina cleared her throat, and said: “Judge Cranston?”

  Carole looked down disinterestedly. “Yes,” came her customary reply.

  “I’m Detective Parker and this is Detective Barkley.”

  “Detectives,” she said politely.

  “We’re investigating the murder of Roberto Martinez,” Ray told her.

  Carole lifted her eyes in recognition of the name. “I see,” she spoke levelly. “Why don’t we go into my chambers?”