The Dead Soul Read Online Free PDF Page B

Vic, talking. D-15’s lead detective was preoccupied. Mo had got him thinking. Then the anxiety problem he had battled all his life took over from there. They were parked on Crest Hill Road in Somerville, the edge of the Mystic River, a putrid, skunky stank of oil and sewage infiltrating the car. Dickie was on stakeout. Couple of meth heads, a CI reported, lived in a nearby row house and cooked the drug in a mobile home parked in the back. Jake was there because a lead had come in from a couple of kids walking in the Garden the night before Miss Unknown DB had been discovered. The guards claimed to have seen a guy with a bag slung over his shoulder, walking toward the pond. Jake checked with park security who happened to note that one of its officers—he hated when security guards called themselves “officers”—had just been fired. The disgruntled employee warned his boss on the way out that payback was definitely going to be a bitch. “The guy had those serial killer eyes,” the guard had told Rookie. “Weird dude. Lives alone. Keeps to himself.” Another guard added, “Yeah, and, well, he liked his porn. I caught him checking out those Asian websites. Young girls in blond wigs.”
    Jake had heard his share of security guard theories throughout his career and knew it was probably nothing, but it needed to be checked out nonetheless.
    “I’ll take a ride over there this afternoon.”
    “You know, this case could be as easy as a whacko security guard,” Dickie said. “I’ll be tied up here”—he checked his watch—“until about three.”
    Jake made a point to tell Dickie he wanted D-15’s top tech on the Garden job, adding, “Make sure Anastasia is ready for me. We need to go through anything she found at the crime scene.” Anastasia Rossi was the Sports Illustrated swimsuit-hot Italian CSI in Jake’s Crimes Against Persons unit. She had swept the Public Garden scene after Miss Unknown DB was taken to the morgue. Snapped photos. Collected trace. Poured molds of footprints.
    Jake had not seen her report yet. “I need to get that info into my iPhone as soon as possible.”
    Dickie closed his eyes, gave a slow head-shake.
    They were making some ground. Jake was eager to head out and begin digging into the case himself, hands-on. But then Dawn called. Father John was at the house. “He said it was important.”
    Now Jake was on his way home.
    He drove by a woman pushing a stroller, her husband walking by her side. Watching them, it reminded Jake of the life he’d once had with Dawn. No matter how he felt about it, he knew the YMCA coaching gig Dawn had taken on this past spring was good for her. All those clichéd feelings that go along with giving back. It was an all-girls soccer team, composed of kids on welfare, abused, in all sorts of social situations many middleclass Bostonians never had to deal with. Jake had encouraged Dawn to do it. “ Get out, make a difference.”
    Jake pulled into the driveway. Father John stood with Dawn on the porch.
    Before getting out of the car, Jake hit the app on his iPhone and zeroed in on the location where Rookie had said he interviewed those security guards. He tapped out a brief note— check Rookie’s log —and hit save.
    The chime rang. He looked up. Sighed.
    Father .
    Jake walked up the path toward the house, noticing the spider-web cracks in the cement. Father John and Dawn sat on the porch swing. Brendan came around from the backyard after hearing his father’s car, jumped into Jake’s arms.
    “Hey, how you doing, buddy?”
    “Can we go to Buster’s for ice cream tonight, Daddy?”
    “We’ll see, Bren. Let me talk to Father and Mommy first.”
    Jake made the stairs and leaned against the porch railing, folded his arms in front of himself. He looked above the bench seat at the tin star he had put on the house when they moved in. It was as big as one of those along the Hollywood Walk Of Fame. Jake wondered why he bought it. He had picked the thing up