Kiss the Witch Goodbye Read online

  “Right, let’s see if she had any friends with her at the concert too,” Nick agreed. “Brady, how far did you get on the social media angle?”

  “I actually dug up quite a lot,” he reported, turning to his desk to bring up the window with a few keystrokes. “Here’s Hayley’s personal page on Facebook. Prior to the show she made multiple posts about going to the concert. There’s no mention of the boyfriend going with her, but beyond the comments from most of her friends about how they’re so jelly, there is a comment from a Shannon Messinger that states she’ll meet her out front a half hour before the show starts.”

  “Shannon Messinger,” Nick said, making a note of the name. “Have you been able to find her?”

  “Yep,” Brady nodded, pulling up another tab. “I’ve got her profile here too. She’s a student at Clackamas Community College as well, and I’ve got her home address and phone number. But you’re going to want to see this first.”

  There was a quality of intensity to Brady’s voice that made Nick sit up and take notice. The detective had obviously found something to hold his interest – why hadn’t he pushed to the front of the line to spill when the briefing started? “Color me intrigued. What’ve you got?”

  Brady returned to Hayley’s profile, pulling up a series of selfies taken at the Crystal Ballroom. “We’ve got a status update around ten p.m. With Forsaken. Backstage bitches!”

  “Cute, but we already know she was there.” Natalie pointed out.

  “Here’s another one at eleven fifteen. It shows her backstage in front of his dressing room, saying – Jax May! Squee! Ima stalk him!”

  “Again, something we already know,” Nick prompted and this time after Brady clicked on the new picture, he turned to give him a look like he’d just ripped off a Band-aid and was too chicken to see how bad it was underneath.

  “Boss, you’re not gonna like this.”

  The picture showed Hayley with her best duckface, waiting outside the dressing room. The door was partly open, Jax turned away from the camera, his attention on the petite girl he was steering into the room, his hand all over her ass. The caption read – Boo, you whore! That’s my man!

  At first he didn’t get what it was he wasn’t supposed to like. It confirmed May’s report that he’d gone into his dressing room with a young girl who turned out to be underage. Underage… with electric blue highlights and dark eyes that so closely resembled his own.

  “Son of a bitch.”

  Nick did a slow blink, hoping to clear the image into something that made more sense, but Veronica stared back at him when he opened his eyes all the same. “Ah guys, I’m going to have to take a break. I’ll catch up with you later.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nick stared straight ahead as he pulled in front of Beth’s house, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get the rage any lower than a simmer. That made him entirely too close to boiling over the moment he started interrogating Veronica – because it was going to be a hostile interrogation, there was no doubt in his mind about that. Still, he drew from years of experience walking into volatile situations, approaching the door with a grim mask.

  Beth took one look out the sidelight window and yelled, “V, your dad’s here!” Instead of opening it, there was the sound of thudding feet and it was his daughter who greeted him.

  “Hey, Dad, what are you doing here? I thought you had to work over dinner.”

  It was hard to reconcile the girl in front of him in cutoff sweats and an oversized Mountain Dew t-shirt with the scantily clad image on Brady’s monitor. Part of him wanted to believe it was someone else in the picture, but deep down he knew. That sure knowledge put an edge into his voice as he spoke. “Get your stuff together and get in the car, now.”

  Her brow crumpled in confusion. “What? But why?”

  “In the car. Now.” It was all he could say without blowing up. Without uttering another word, he turned and strode back to the car to wait for her, hating how her eyes had widened in fear. But maybe that was all for the good? Maybe what she needed was some sense scared into her.

  She was back outside with her shoulder bag in less than five minutes, and Nick was silent for the entire drive home, letting her stew while he tried to work out exactly what he was going to say to her. Veronica crept along behind him once they pulled into the garage and he held the door open, waving her in with impatience. Nick took a seat at the kitchen table, craving that barrier between them the way he did downtown, waiting for her to sit before he spoke.

  “What do you think you were doing? And don’t insult me by trying to deny it, you know exactly what you did.” Nick’s voice was surprisingly calm, but Veronica still winced, moistening her lips before she spoke.

  “Let me start out by saying that I didn’t think I’d get to talk to him at all. I didn’t think he’d look at me twice.”

  “I saw the way you were dressed, you knew he was going to look,” Nick snorted.

  “Okay, but I had no idea it’d go as far as it did.”

  “Just how far did it go?”

  Veronica’s eyes widened in alarm in direct proportion to the thundercloud that appeared over Nick’s face. “I didn’t mean like that! I’m just saying I didn’t think I’d really get his attention. But then when he invited me into his dressing room…”

  “You thought that’d be a swell idea? Go someplace even more private with the accused killer?”

  “I thought maybe I could find something to help you out with your case if I could talk to him, really see how he is with girls, not just what he tells the cops. I figured I could get him talking and I did! It’s not like he pounced on me the instant I came through the door. We even talked about the tattoos,” she announced with a touch of triumph, but Nick remained unswayed.

  “I hate to break it to you, but you’re not, in fact, a cop. You’re just a kid.”

  “I’m not just a kid, I’m almost an adult,” she scowled, instantly offended.

  Nick didn’t care. He cut her off before she launched into an ageist rant. “But you’re not yet. And from the way things are going, I don’t have all that much faith you’ll ever be one.”

  “Do you seriously think a year is going to make all that much difference in how I’m able to handle myself in a situation like that?”

  “No, I don’t. Because a dangerous situation is always going to be a dangerous situation, no matter how old you are.”

  “Dad, I’m fine. He didn’t do anything to me.”

  “Nothing happened in there?”

  “Nothing, I swear. Why… what did he say?”

  Something about the worry in her eyes made him think she was all too quick to swear to the contrary. He suddenly recalled the way May’s face had looked when he first stepped into the interrogation room, when he’d insisted he hadn’t known she was underage. That didn’t sound like nothing. It sounded like a guy desperately trying not to get pounded by an irate father. If he’d known it was Veronica Jax had been talking about, he might’ve done just that.

  “He conveniently forgot to tell me he had my teenaged daughter in his dressing room last night when I questioned him today. I wonder how it slipped his mind?”

  “He probably had more important things to worry about with you interrogating him and all. Look, I told you this afternoon, he didn’t do it. I didn’t get a creepy stalker vibe at all. He was actually very sweet and kind of gentlemanly when he found out how old I was.”

  Sweet and gentlemanly. Not the words he’d use to describe a man who invited teenage girls into his room. “Why did he need to know how old you were, V? Even if you were eighteen, you had to both know he was still way too old for you. He’s Annaliese’s age for chrissakes. What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking I could help you, and I was thinking it was Jax May. Tons of girls would’ve done the same thing, only they might’ve lied about their age to…”

  “Stop!” Nick put his hand up to interrupt her. “I don’t need any more pi
ctures crowding their way into my head. My imagination is vivid enough, thank you very much.” This was starting to turn into a conversation about something else and he needed to get back on target and make sure she understood how inappropriate her actions were, regardless of whether or not tons of teens would’ve done the same.

  He took a deep, cleansing breath. “Maybe this is my mistake, my talking to you about the case the other night. But get this through your head – YOU ARE NOT A COP.”

  “I know, but he’s not…”

  “Veronica, it doesn’t matter if it’s him or not. There is a killer out there somewhere. Four girls are dead, one of them stood not three feet away from you that night. Does that not make any difference to you at all?”

  “She was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Says the pot calling the kettle black,” he snorted.

  “I was only trying to help.”

  “Look, I get that you wanted to help, but this is police business, baby. It’s not your responsibility, it’s mine.”

  “I’m just saying, you don’t have to worry. Nothing bad happened to me.”

  “But I do worry, that’s the whole point. In fact… get your bag, I think you need to see what it is I’m so worried about.”

  * * *

  “I’ve been to the station like a zillion times,” Veronica objected when they pulled into the precinct parking lot.

  “Not like this you haven’t. You want to play cop? Come with me.” Instead of taking the elevator up to the bullpen area he shared with other detectives, he took her down to the lower levels. To the morgue.

  “Hey, what is this?” she frowned when they stepped off the elevator, her pace slowing.

  “I want you to see the reality of what you came close to last night.” Nick didn’t pause, leading her to Fielding’s door. “Hey, Libby,” he said casually, leaning against the open door until Veronica followed him in.

  Fielding looked up, the magnifying glasses she wore making her pupils look huge before she pushed them onto her forehead. “What is this, bring your daughter to work day?”

  “Something like that,” he said with a thin lipped smile. “You remember my daughter Veronica then? V, this is Dr. Libby Fielding, she’s our medical examiner.”

  Veronica nodded, but she couldn’t take her eyes off the girl on the table. Nude, every mark and flaw were highlighted under the harsh lights, the wounds at her wrist raw and gaping. There was nothing peaceful about the girl in her final repose, the dark eyes blank and staring.

  The long Y cut had been made to give the doctor access to her internal organs, but the body cavity wasn’t splayed open, to Nick’s relief. That was never a fun thing to walk into, no matter what kind of a message he was trying to send to Veronica about the consequences of murder. Instead, Libby appeared to have been focusing on the tattoo on the victim’s thigh.

  “When my dad took me to work I ended up with sugar poisoning. He was a baker for Fred Meyers,” Libby smiled, unaffected by the display. “Are you interested in a career as a medical examiner?”

  “Not exactly,” Veronica smiled weakly, uncharacteristically subdued. “This is more like one of those don’t let this happen to you moments.”

  “Ah, bummer,” Libby nodded in understanding. “We can always use another smart woman in this field of expertise.”

  “Dad seems to think I fall into the not-so-smart category.”

  “I didn’t say that,” Nick interjected before Libby started giving him dirty looks again. “I just think you need to acquaint yourself with some consequences for once.” Steering the conversation back to his purpose, he turned to the M.E. again. “What do you have for me?”

  If it bothered Libby to have Veronica present for her report, she gave no sign of it. “A few things. I’ve got some preliminary results for you. Her stomach contents turned up a few swallows of whiskey, but her blood alcohol content was only .02% and there were no other drugs present in her system, recreational or otherwise. The whiskey is most likely the way she ended up with GHB in her system.”

  “She was dosed with GHB?” Veronica gasped.

  “Yep,” Nick said gently. “That means even if she made the decision not to drink or get high, someone else decided for her. Do you see what I mean now? No matter how in control she thought she was, someone else was manipulating her.”

  “There’s something else that’s funny,” Libby continued.

  “Funny ha-ha or funny strange?”

  “Definitely in the realm of strange,” Libby replied. “You asked me to take a close look at the tattoo.”

  “Right, were you able to figure out where it came from?”

  “No, I wasn’t able to identify the ink at all so I sent a sample of it to the lab. But that’s not all that’s puzzling. There’s a razor cut underneath the tattoo.”

  “What do you mean? The killer traced the tattoo with the razor blade?”

  “No… I don’t know,” Libby replied, flustered. “I mean there’s a cut under the tattoo, but not on the surface. The cuts are completely healed over so they couldn’t have been inflicted at the time of death. Take a look at this.” She swung a magnifying light over the victim’s thigh to illuminate the tattoo. Lightly, she passed a blunt probe over the surface of the mark as Nick and Veronica crowded close to watch under the magnifying glass.

  “As you can see, the surface is smooth and undamaged. But here… where I cut to take a sample of the ink, I tapped into an existing cut under the skin.” With a pair of slender prongs she pried the wound apart. “There is a cut, consistent with the blade used at the wrist. It travels along the length of the design. You can see it continues here, and here…” She switched to other tiny incisions she’d made to reveal the wound underneath the skin.

  “Nick… I’ve never seen anything like this before. I can’t figure out how the skin was healed from the top down instead of from the bottom up. The surface is completely smooth as if the cuts never happened, that’s not how the body heals. I checked the other autopsy reports and there’s no mention of anything like this, but none of the tattoos were studied in detail either.”

  “That is strange,” Nick agreed, staring down at the mark. There was a stain of dried blood surrounding the tattoo, but he’d assumed it was from the wound at her wrist, which was on the same side of the body. “Do you think she’d been cutting herself on the tattoo design prior to the concert?”

  “There’s no sign of scar tissue, just the appearance of a fresh cut below.”

  “I thought you said it wasn’t a fresh cut.”

  “Honestly, I have no idea what this is, Nick. It’s like someone cut her and then waved a magic wand, healing the top of the wound only, leaving the damage beneath the skin.”

  Magic. It might’ve been a glib comment on her part, but it set him to thinking. “Well, keep at it, Libby, I know you’ll crack it.”

  Veronica cleared her throat, her voice softer than usual. “Dad, do you think we could leave? The smell…”

  He didn’t even notice it anymore. It was far worse when the corpse was riper or when the doc first cut into the body cavity. “Sure, baby. Thanks, Libby. We’ll get out of your hair now.”

  The M.E.’s eyes flicked to Veronica, who looked a little green around the gills. “I hope you got what you needed.”

  “I hope so too,” Nick replied with a quick wink. “Let me know what the lab turns up about that ink.” Guiding a somewhat shell shocked Veronica back to the elevator, he took her upstairs, setting her down at his desk while he got her a soda from the vending machine.

  Veronica sipped dutifully, finally looking up from her stupor to fix Nick with a haunted gaze. “That poor girl,” she murmured.

  “Let me show you that poor girl less than twenty-four hours ago.” Leaning over his desk, he pulled up the pictures from Hayley Lambert’s Facebook page. “Here she is excited to be at the concert. And here… see anyone you’re familiar with?”

  Comprehension dawned as she re
cognized herself caught on camera. “So that’s how you knew.”

  “Do you understand now?” Nick said, turning the chair until she faced him straight on. “Do you see why I went out of my mind with worry when I found out you went in there with him all alone?”

  “Yeah. I’m sorry, Daddy.” She launched herself out of the chair and into his arms, which he gladly caught into a big hug.

  “Am I going to have to worry about you?”

  “Probably,” she said with a soft laugh. “But not about this. I’m done.”

  “Good girl.” Nick hugged her tight, about to offer to take her home, when she pulled back and he saw the light of curiosity come back into her eyes. So much for being done.

  “What was all that stuff about the cuts under the tattoo?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “We get all kinds of freaky details like that when we’re working a case. Sometimes we figure out what it’s about, and sometimes we don’t.”

  “What if it really was something to do with magic?” A year ago he would’ve laughed, but now… “You should talk to Annaliese about it. Maybe she could help?”

  “I don’t know. She’s not the best person to talk about this with considering who our main suspect is.”

  “But she’ll want to help clear him at the very least. Either way I’m sure she’d answer your questions.”

  “I don’t even know what to ask at this point.” He shook his head. They rested there in silence for a few moments, each lost to their private thoughts.

  “Do you really think he did it, Dad?” she asked at length.

  “I don’t know, honey. But I promise you, I’ll find out if he did.”

  There was something she was struggling with, Nick didn’t have to be a detective to see it written all over her face before she finally spoke. “He has a temper.”

  “What?”

  “Jax. When he found out who I was, he got so mad… it scared me.”