Free The Specter by Jonas Saul

child.
     
    Detective Angela Wheeler wore a long overcoat for the evening, her hair done, makeup complete. Folley figured she had planned an evening out when she got the call. Or maybe she dressed up in heels to attend murder scenes. He just couldn’t be sure.
     
    She held out a small uncapped bottle. “Here, take this.”
     
    “What is it?”
     
    “Vick’s Vapor Rub.”
     
    He jabbed his thumb and forefinger into the container and applied the jelly liberally to the base of his nostrils. Instantly, the intense mint smell replaced the heady, horrible stench of gaseous bodies. The tip of his nose numbed as memories of childhood sicknesses flooded back, his mother applying Vick’s to his chest.
     
    Angela sealed the jar. “Five bodies in total,” she said, straight to business.
     
    “Do you have IDs yet?”
     
    “Yes …”
     
    “On all of them? Already?”
     
    “Yeah. Whoever did this wanted us to ID them right away.”
     
    “How?”
     
    Angela gestured to the bodies lying in various spots on the floor, all covered in blankets. “Each victim was killed in a slightly different fashion, except the Weeks brothers. Each vic had their driver’s license stapled to their foreheads.” Angela coughed into her hand and opened a notepad she’d been holding. “Follow me.”
     
    She leaned down at the closest body and lifted the edge of the blanket. “Jan Elliot, age twenty-eight. Appears to have been asphyxiated. Bruising around the neck indicates strangulation.” She stopped and referred to her notes. “She worked as a stripper at the House of Lancaster. Hasn’t been seen in three days.”
     
    Folley noticed how flat the blanket was over her chest.
     
    “If she was a dancer,” he pointed at her breasts, “I’m not trying to be a pig here, but …”
     
    Angela nodded. “They were sliced off after she was killed.”
     
    Folley’s face tightened. “ After she was killed?”
     
    “Yeah.” Angela walked over to the next body and exposed the face. “Frank Weeks, age forty-five. Stabbed in the heart at least five times. Worked at the Toronto Island Airport.”
     
    Folley nodded. He was all too clear on Frank’s place of employment. He suspected Gary would also be among the dead, too. Angela moved to the next body without pulling the blanket up. She pointed down as she read from her notes. “Gary Weeks, age forty-eight. Also stabbed in the heart. Worked with his brother at the airport.”
     
    Folley stepped back, his shoulder bumped the brick wall of the tower. “Wow.”
     
    “You okay, Folley? You don’t look good.”
     
    “It’s … this case just got a lot bigger.”
     
    “How so?”
     
    “I talked to a guy this morning that saw Gary get grabbed by two guys in a white van. He approached them, tried to stop it and reportedly got a gun shoved in his face for his trouble.”
     
    “We’re going to need to talk to this guy. What’s his name?”
     
    She poised a pen over her notebook. Folley knew the case just slipped through his fingers. No one challenged Angela. She made steel appear weak. But she did say, We’re going to need to talk to this guy .
     
    “Aaron Stevens.”
     
    She stopped writing and looked at him, one eyebrow cocked high on her forehead.
     
    “Stevens?” she asked.
     
    Folley nodded. Then he connected it. “Don’t tell me Joanne is here.”
     
    By the expression on Angela’s face, he knew that under one of the remaining two blankets lay Joanne Stevens, sister to Aaron Stevens. He wondered how Aaron would take the news. He remembered their conversation in his office that morning about how the system hadn’t worked for his family. Nobody ever stepped up to the plate for the Stevens’ family and now Joanne had been murdered. He didn’t want to be the one who told Aaron, but knew he would have no choice. It was his case. They would need a positive ID on the body from a family member.
     
    Or maybe homicide will take it from me.
     
    “You were working