One
“At least he died with a smile on his face,” a forensic tech said to Fort Lauderdale Homicide Detective Adam Rafael Suarez as he helped him turn over the corpse. The tech crouched down to inspect the victim’s tight, tanned backside, and the green-handled object still extruding from it. “And a… weed-whacker up his ass?”
“A cattle prod.” Detective Samantha Brown, Rafael’s partner, joined them. “Known on the streets as a ‘joy stick.’”
The tech grimaced. “I’m thinking he didn’t get much joy out of it, Detective.”
“Carjackers slip the tip through a window crack when the driver stops at a traffic light, zap, stunned driver,” she said, tapping the appropriate spot on her windbreaker. “You can buy them off the internet.”
“No carjacker would leave the prod behind.” Evan Tenderson, the assistant medical examiner, came to stand next to the body. “Prod… behind… get it?” He stopped chuckling when he caught Rafael’s gaze. “What’s your problem, Suarez? Didn’t Castro let you make puns back in Cuba?”
“Murder is not amusing,” Rafael said, “and I am not Cuban.”
“Hell, you Hispanicos all look alike to me.” Put out by the lack of response to his joke, Tenderson lit a cigarette and pointed one of his loafers at the victim. “Get these mitts covered, Brad.”
“A cattle prod,” the tech muttered as he bagged the victim’s hands. “What happened to the good old days, when people just killed each other with guns and knives?”
Rafael didn’t answer. In his good old days, people killed each other with crossbows, swords and battle axes.
Something about the color of the victim’s upper back didn’t seem right, and Rafael bent down to take a closer look. What had appeared to be random tan lines was a series of long, healed welts running from just below the neck to the small of the spine.
“Who called it in?” Samantha was asking Tenderson.
The assistant ME’s top lip curled over the end of his cigarette. “Do I look like a receptionist to you, Brown?”
“It came in as an anonymous tip, traced to a pay phone down the street,” the tech said as he clipped thin plastic bags over the victim’s hands. “The dispatcher said the caller sounded like a Latino.”
“Well, that narrows it down to, what, eighty-five percent of the population?” Tenderson gave Rafael a smile filled with malice and tobacco-stained teeth. “Good luck finding the perp.”
“Oh, shut up, Tenderson,” Samantha said, sounding bored.
“These are lash marks,” Rafael told her, indicated the fresh scarring. “This man has been repeatedly restrained and whipped some time in the recent past.”
“Detective Suarez.” One of the uniformed officers who had been performing a sweep of the grounds around the crime scene walked up and handed Rafael a large evidence bag containing something made of spiked leather and heavy silver chains. “We found this draped on that statue over there.” He indicated the life-size figure of the Virgin Mary, which paired with a matching statue of St. Theresa stood guard in oval shell niches near the convent’s walls. “Someone smashed the flood light or we would have spotted it right away. Looks like leather bar stuff, or maybe a Halloween costume. No blood stains that I could see.”
“Like you’d know how to look, Dipshit.” Tenderson grabbed his case and headed for the statue.
“Halloween isn’t until tomorrow night.” Samantha eyed the bag. “Is there a full-head zippered mask in there?” When the patrol officer nodded, she turned to the body. “Lash marks, sexual torture and fetish wear. I’ll bet he’s a sub.” She caught Rafael’s blank look. “A submissive, into bondage, beatings and other assorted masochistic kinks.”
“Aroused by torture.” Rafael felt pity for the dead man. “Perhaps he was with a lover, and things went too far this time.”
“Doesn’t explain why the body was dumped here, though.” She glanced around. “No drag marks, no wheel ruts, and it’s at least three hundred yards to the nearest parking spot. He looks like he’s about one seventy-five, one eighty, right? That’s a lot of dead body to haul around.”
Rafael waited until the patrolman had walked away before asking, “Did you touch him yet?”
“No point.” Samantha possessed a psychic ability to see the recent past of the newly-dead through their blood. Although her life had changed dramatically three months ago, she could still use that last, human gift. “The body has been completely drained.”
Rafael and Samantha worked Homicide’s graveyard shift for a specific reason. Their colleagues on the force thought it was because they were both single and had no families to go home to. No one suspected the partners were both nocturnal, blood-dependent immortals known as Darkyn.
“What are you thinking?” Rafael asked her.
“Kinky sex and a bloodless body dumped in front of a Catholic convent.” Samantha switched off her PDA. “Someone from our little vampire club having a good time, maybe?”