Clean by Alex Hughes

Author:Alex Hughes [Hughes, Alex]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery, Science Fiction, Thriller, Fantasy
ISBN: 9781101596395
Goodreads: 16063844
Publisher: Roc
Published: 2012-09-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

On the way into the station, I noticed two other interviewers from downstairs talking with the secretaries at the front desk. One of them, Clark, looked at me suspiciously.

I stopped by to say hello. “I’m working a case,” I told him. “Anything interesting come through?”

“A couple murder charges, a robbery. All easy targets,” he said. “Paulsen says we’ve got a clump of arrests coming through late afternoon.”

“I’ll be there,” I said, and followed Cherabino, who was waving impatiently.

An hour later, upstairs in the smaller Holmes conference room, papers from the case—and the murder book—were spread out all over the tables. The boards with their pictures took up half the wall, and Cherabino was on and off the phone coordinating the techs to go and take pictures of the scenes. I was sitting in front of the case notes. I couldn’t forget the soap residue, or the fact there was vomit in a corner of the first scene, the killer having dumped his lunch along with the bodies. Somewhere here there was a clue, something that would let us catch this guy.

A knock came on the door frame. Cherabino looked up.

“Michael,” she said. “Come in.”

It was the junior cop from the earlier meeting. “I just thought you should know the older kid remembered the man with the garbage bag very well. The sketch artist was pleased.” He put a page in front of Cherabino, then stood there awkwardly.

I reached over to get a better look. The sketch was of a fifty-something man with regular features and a thinning hairline. The face looked familiar, somehow; I knew I’d seen it before, but I didn’t know where.

“Good work,” Cherabino said. “This’ll give us a place to start.”

“Is there something else I can do to help you, ma’am?”

She looked around. “Looks like we’re getting out of order, and there’s a meeting in here second shift. Could you see if you can match up the right papers to the right victims? Get the murder book squared away? We’ll need to be out of here by four thirty.” She met my eyes, a clear implication I was supposed to help him since the mess was my fault.

I sighed and got up, paging through pictures and case notes, sorting through them by victim since Cherabino thought it was so important. Attaching papers to the correct pages in the battered gray book, flipping back and forth to make sure I had the timeline in order. Michael got the stack with the coroner’s reports first and—well, he was taking too long to hand me stuff.

I went back to his side of the table, my hands full of the book and loose papers.

He was frowning. “What does Ultrate mean?”

“It’s an artificial glands company,” I said. “Why?”

The cop flipped through the papers, putting his finger on one line of text on each. “Is there a reason why all of the reports have that name?”

Cherabino stood up. “Let me see.”

She ripped the paper out of his hands. Turned the pages. Then dropped them on the table and cursed a blue streak.

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