Read Online The Colour of Death by Michael Cordy - Free Book Online

orderly hissed, looking down the corridor after Jane Doe, “how could she , a woman who can’t even remember her own name, have known what happened in that room all those years ago?”

 
    Chapter 9
     
    Later that evening they found the first victim.
    Detective Karl Jordache was sitting down to dinner with his wife and two daughters when he got the call.  His wife was an excellent cook but tonight’s chicken dinner didn’t excite his palate:  no sauce on the grilled chicken breast, no dressing on the salad and no butter or salt on the boiled potatoes.  He knew it was for his health but, cholesterol or no cholesterol, he wanted some flavor back in his life.  Nevertheless, he was hungry and groaned when his cell phone rang.  He checked the caller, excused himself and took the call in his study.  “This better be important, Phil.”
    “We’ve got a one-eight-seven you should see, Chief,” said Phil Kostakis, one of the older detectives on his force.
    “Handle it, and give me your report in the morning.”
    “Trust me, Chief, you’ll want to see this.”  A pause.  “Could be kinda sensitive if the press got hold of it.  You’ll see what I mean when you get here.”
    Jordache cursed under his breath.  “Where are you?”
    “Old Town.  One of the abandoned apartment blocks near the river.”  He gave the address and Jordache wrote it down.
    “OK, Phil, I’ll be right there.  Secure the scene, and don’t let reporters anywhere near it.”  They had only just tied up the loose ends of Linnet’s involvement in the Russian sex-trafficking case and now this.
    Putting on his coat, he bent to kiss his daughters goodbye, but his wife shook her head.  “You’re not going anywhere until you’ve had your supper, Karl.  You need to eat and if you go hungry you’ll only be tempted by a taco or a burger.  So sit down and finish your plate.  The dead can wait.”  He considered arguing but knew it would only delay his departure further so he sat down dutifully and finished his meal.
    The drive to the address in Portland’s Old Town took a little over half an hour.  The crime scene was a block from the Willamette River, near Burnside Street.  Signs on the padlocked gates and chain-link fence around the derelict apartment building warned trespassers and squatters to stay out, but the fence had been breached in so many places that the gates were redundant.  As he got out of the car he was grateful for a fresh breeze blowing in from the Pacific.  Discarded condoms littered the cracked concrete of the parking lot and the soles of Jordache’s sturdy brogues crunched on used syringes as he ducked under crime scene tape and greeted the cluster of police by the main door.
    Phil Kostakis led him into the apartment lobby.  The detective was a short man with dark hair over most of his body, except on his head, which gleamed under the bare bulb hanging from the temporary electrical rig.  Kostakis led him past a disused elevator that reeked of urine, to an open door.
    “This is the emergency stairwell that serves the block.”  Lamps had been set up in the dark stairwell and men in white forensic suits were checking the handrails for prints.  The first thing Jordache noticed was blood on the walls.  Then he saw a Caucasian male in his fifties lying broken on the bottom step, naked except for a pair of women’s panties and a bra.  He was on his back but his neck had been twisted almost one hundred and eighty degrees so Jordache couldn’t see the face.
    “Any ID?”
    “Name’s Vince Vega, a local pimp and drug dealer.”  Jordache knew Vega.  The sleazeball had been a fixture of the neighborhood for years.  He wasn't a loved man and Jordache wasn’t surprised he’d come to a bad end but, as warped as the scene was, he still wasn’t sure why Kostakis had dragged him out here.  “There are significant traces of ketamine in his blood.”
    “What else?”
    Kostakis went to a large CSI kit bag and