Killer Dreams

I waited until the doors closed. "What the hell is going on, Hank?"

"It's like a perfect fucking storm. Celebrity murders are bad enough, but this killer is a sick fuck. I damn near lost it when I saw the scene." That was a shock; Hank had been on the force for over twenty years, almost ten in Homicide. If a veteran detective is close to tossing his cookies, you know it's bad. "James is the lead detective, but we'll all be helping out. Did you know Tracy Hardin?"

I nodded. "I caught a few cases with ACA Hardin's office during my Family/Sex Crimes rotation. We bonded over hockey, and she invited me to join her in the Wives and Girlfriends section at the X a few times." The X was the Xcel Energy Center Arena downtown, where the Wild hockey team played.

"Lucky you," he said as the door opened.

"She gets free tickets. Her fiancé is Lars Anderson of the Minnesota Wild."

"I know. That jacked this murder to a national story."

A dozen detectives stood in the hallway outside Apartment 51, gathered around my partner. James Maloney looked at me and shook his head. "Nice of you to join us, Talia."

"Monday on the mats, Detective. What do we know?"

"Crime scene techs are inside now. Tracy Hardin was last seen at ten-twenty last night. She'd invited six friends and coworkers over to drink wine and watch the Wild-Dallas game at her place. This morning, she didn't show up at the office or answer her phone. A patrol unit got dispatched for a wellness check just after ten. He got building security to open the door and found the body."

"What did the officer do?"

"He checked for a pulse while his partner called it in," Maloney said. "They didn't contaminate the crime scene much. They put up the tape and started the crime scene log. I got here about an hour ago, just before BCA arrived."

"What was the time of death?"

"I'd guess around midnight from the dried blood. We'll know more after the autopsy. Uniforms are canvassing the building for witnesses, but not many people are answering. Security said most tenants are professionals in their thirties and forties, so they're probably at work." He looked at me. "What would you do next?"

James liked to put me on the spot as the junior Detective. "Any sign of forced entry?"

"No marks on the door."

"Security cameras?"

"The building has them, but the hard drive is corrupt. Our tech guys are trying to recover it now. It's an old Windows system without a cloud backup."

"And building security?"

"Security officer at the main entrance desk, keycard access from the skyway and the underground garage. We've contacted the night-shift security guy. He didn't notice anything abnormal. Said it was a quiet Sunday night."

Shit. "So we expand out to nearby business cameras, adjacent buildings, and traffic cameras."

"Already on that. What else?"

"Any likely suspects? Known enemies?"

He snorted. "ADA Hardin prosecuted sex crimes, Talia. Rapists, child molesters, child traffickers, pimps, and abusers. I'm sure she has a long list of enemies."

"So we look for recently released felons she put away. It shouldn't be a long list."

Hank spoke up next. "It should be a short list of people capable of doing this shit. Look." As the others looked away, he showed me the pictures on his digital camera.

"Jesus Christ," I said. I could see why Hank almost threw up. Tracy Hardin was bound to the bed, blood everywhere on the sheets. I scrolled through the pictures, focusing on the words carved into her and the location of the killing blow. "She was alive for most of this."

"Yeah. My best guess is that the bastard worked her over for twenty minutes and an hour before she finally died, and nobody heard anything or called the cops. This here is some shit right out of the Cartel playbooks. They don't just kill people. They make examples of them."

"And the Cartels are into human trafficking," I replied.

Wait. I'd seen this before. I almost dropped the phone when I remembered where. I handed Hank his camera and pulled out my phone. Going to my Kindle library, I pulled up the book.

It was David Hardin's first novel, Bloody Knife. I found the right chapter while I talked. "You know Tracy was married before, right?"

Hank nodded. "Yeah, her ex is David Hardin. He was a Minneapolis cop until his partner shot and crippled him."

"That's him. He moved north and became a bestselling mystery novelist." I found what I was looking for and handed my phone to my partner. "Read this."

I watched Maloney's eyes bug out as he skimmed through the chapter. "What the FUCK?" That was soon followed by, "You're shitting me!" It ended with, "I don't believe this shit." He handed my phone to Hank. "I've got to tell the Captain we've got a prime suspect."

"It all matches, doesn't it? The carvings, the manner of death? The victim is even a lawyer!"

James already had his phone out and was dialing the boss. "The press is going to flip the hell out when this goes public," he told me.

We didn't clear the crime scene for another two hours. I stood in the back of our group at the press conference, where the Police Chief and Mayor vowed to bring the killer to justice. Her fiancé was downtown now, and Hank was interviewing him. He was on a road trip with plenty of witnesses, so he wasn't a suspect.

We only had one suspect, and no one wanted to believe a divorced ex-cop could do this.

It was common practice not to release all details of the crime to the public. "Hold-backs" were unreleased details used to tell if a tip or a witness was telling the truth. We held back the worst of the information on her manner of death. The Chief read a statement expressing his condolences for Assistant County Attorney Tracy Hardin, who he said was a tireless advocate against child trafficking and sexual violence. He was outraged at the sexual assault and murder of an officer of the Court, and a full investigation was in progress. He appealed for witnesses to come forward or call the department tip line.

The press conference went downhill from there, with almost all questions sidestepped. With the body removed and evidence collection continuing, we returned to our downtown offices around six. In the Conference Room, Detective Maloney used the dry-erase boards to outline areas of investigation.

"Devine, you came up with the book, so you're going to research it. Make up a spreadsheet with every aspect and piece of evidence in the book compared to what we found at the crime scene. Every little detail."

I nodded. "Are we going to talk to David Hardin?"

"Not yet. Right now, we don't have anything tying David to the crime except that book he wrote what, five years ago?"

"That sounds right since it came out in 2017. He's written three more since then, all of which became New York Times bestsellers."

"Take a look at those while you're at it. Perhaps some of the details match up, too." We had a dozen detectives in the room, and everyone had a job before we left for the night.

I drove through Portillo's for dinner on the way home to my Woodbury apartment. After eating the Italian beef sandwich and fries, I showered and put on my lounge clothes. I poured myself a big glass of red wine from the kitchen and returned to the bedroom. Patches, my calico cat, settled into my lap as I sat at the desk by my bedroom window. I opened my laptop, started a spreadsheet, and began a careful re-read of Bloody Knife.

I saved the file to a flash drive at midnight, needing to get a little sleep before the seven AM roll call.