Closer Than Blood

obvious that she’d been crying. A lot.

“Secretary Susan Piccolo,” the officer said.

“She found him. He’s been dead a while.” Just inside the doorway to the church, a tall African American officer whom Kendall had met at a fund-raiser for a crime victims’ group greeted her with a smile and a nod.

“Fishing knife,” Charlie Turner said, “recovered in the pastor’s office.” He motioned for Kendall and Josh to follow him inside. Yellow cards had been taped to the fir floor in the pattern that suggested the obvious— footprints.

“Left tracks,” Josh said. Charlie nodded.

“Yeah. The scene is pretty clean except for five small imprints left by the toe of a tennis shoe. Tech says Nike. Lab will confirm, of course.” The body had been dead long enough to emit the gasses and stench that comes with death, but not long enough for blowflies to lay their eggs.

“Cause of death is pretty obvious,” Josh said kneeling next to the body. Kendall crouched closer, pointing to the gaping wounds cut through the fabric of what had been a plain white shirt. It was now dark brown and red. Blood had coagulated in a kidney shape, like an old Hollywood swimming pool, on the floor next to the body.

“He was sliced pretty bad, wasn’t he?” she asked. Josh nodded.

“Overkill.” Kendall used her silver Cross pen to point.

“Bound at the wrists with tape.”

“Red tape,” Josh said.

“Wonder if the poor SOB was tortured. Maybe this is one of those cases in which the abused choirboy comes back with a blade and a plan for payback.” Kendall stood and scanned the scene. Everything was serene, the lilies, the prayer books, the banner of doves and olive branches to the side of the altar.

“Let’s get everything photographed and mapped and get him down to Birdy’s table.”

Men know it because they were once teenage boys. They know that the power of desire and lust is a steel cable that runs from their penis to the body of a pretty girl. Sometimes any girl. If the real thing is not a possibility, the image of a woman in the foldout of a spank magazine is a surefire catalyst for sexually charged fantasy. Teenage boys are embarrassed by the stiffness that comes from the thoughts in their heads. Yet it cannot be helped. Teenage boys think of sex twenty times a minute. No adolescent male can stop himself from standing at attention. Most teenage girls, average ones anyway, don’t understand their true power until their youth has faded and they no longer can command the eye of a horny male. But a beautiful woman always remembers how it’s done. How a look, a movement, a voice can excite a male. How she can cause something small to grow in size. Smart beautiful woman never forget. Smart, beautiful, and cunning women, like Tori Connelly, know how to use it. Sex is joy. Sex is a weapon. Sometimes sex is an ecstasy-filled prison camp. Tori sprayed on some Attraction by Lancome perfume, checked her hair and makeup in the rearview mirror of her Lexus, and went into the Tacoma Police Department. If heads turned when she passed by, that was fine. She was used to people studying her with both adulation and disdain. Look all you want; you can hate me. You can want to fuck me. But you’ll never touch me unless I say so. Kaminski met her in the lobby.

“Detective,” she said, “I hope you don’t mind the intrusion.”

“Mrs. Connelly.”

“Tori. That’s what people who know me call me.”

“Mrs. Connelly.”

“Don’t be so cold, so professional,” she said.

“I know you can be friendly when you want to be.”

“What can I do for you?”

“I’m not sure. I’m here to clear the air a little.” She looked over at the bench in front of the display of an old paddy wagon.

“Can we sit? My leg still stings a little.” The detective nodded. They sat, and she scissored her legs. They were long, lean, and bare. Her calves were among her best features, and she rotated her heel slightly to make sure he got a look. Leg man? Kaminski moved his eyes back to Tori’s face, catching a look that indicated she’d tracked his gaze.

“I’ve been hearing things from Port Orchard that you’re still investigating me, which is odd because I’ve heard you’re about to arrest my stalker for the murder of my husband.”

“Just doing some background,” he said.

“Fine. So I’m here to answer your questions about my past. And yes, I have one. And even though my so- called criminal past occurred when I was a juvenile and was expunged upon my release, I’ll tell you about it. I also previously lost a husband in a tragic accident.”

“That makes three deaths?”

“Tic-tac-toe, detective. So what?”

“You feel good about that? About the coincidence of it all?”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“Two of those deaths made me rich. One made me the woman I am today.” Kaminski chugged his tepid Mountain Dew.

“Detective Stark thinks you might be a black widow.” Tori shrugged as though the remark was nothing.

“She has an overactive imagination. Comes from being a nerd in high school and fantasizing about being a detective.”

“Oh, really? You seem to like her a lot.” She shifted on the bench.

“I honestly came here to check in on the investigation. You know, to make sure everything is just fine.”

“We’re good,” he said, noticing a beat cop coming their way.

“Thanks for coming by.” The young officer from the crime scene happened by with some paperwork, but his eyes stayed on the beautiful blonde. Tori got up to leave. She looked Robert Caswell up and down.

“The uniform suits you,” she said.

“If you say so,” he said, accepting the compliment. She smiled as she walked away toward the door on a cloud of perfume.

“She’s hot,” Robert said.

“You can put your hard-on away,” Kaminski said. But yeah, falling for her is slipping into a danger zone, for sure, he thought. Kaminski noticed Kendall Stark’s number pop up on his phone as he walked toward the elevator, but he ignored her. Not even your case, detective, he thought. This one belongs to me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Port Orchard

Fifteen years ago

There were lots of bland names for the place. Euphemisms, really. Kitsap County authorities and those who worked there liked to call it a Secure Crisis Residential Center, or S-CRC. It sounded so civilized, so ordered. The facility off Old Clifton Road, tucked behind a curtain of evergreens, was institutionally bland in every way. Except for the goings-on inside—and the reasons why anyone had been sent there. Eight units called pods made up the living quarters for the 100-bed juvenile justice facility. Despite the best efforts of the custodial staff, each pod was vile, smelly, ripe with the odors that come with boys who refused to shower, girls who won’t change their clothes. Defiant teens times ten. S-CRC, not hardly. The inmates who did time there thought of it as juvy, or jail. The place hadn’t been remodeled for twenty years and it needed it. When government funds finally came through in the late 1990s, it was decided that floor-to-ceiling renovations were in order. New furniture, too. The place was closed and “students” (times had changed and the teens incarcerated there were no longer called “inmates”) were sent to facilities in Belfair and Bremerton. A pair of day laborers who’d started carrying the bed frames out of 7-pod (“Unlucky 7”) were the first to notice the messages.

“Check it out,” one man said to the other. The other bent down and started reading.

“Shit. We’re talking screwed-up kids, for sure.”

“Yeah. Big-time. Wonder what became of this twisted little puke?”

Under the widely spaced wire mesh of the bed frame was a smooth, almost melamine-like surface. The writer was not the first to scratch out words of rage there. Others had done so, too, using everything from a jagged shard of glass to the bloody tip of a fingernail.

I want to kill my family.