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  The Heights

  A Liz Boyle Mystery™

  Red Adept Publishing, LLC

  104 Bugenfield Court

  Garner, NC 27529

  http://RedAdeptPublishing.com/

  Copyright © 2020 by Kate Birdsall. All rights reserved.

  Cover Art by Streetlight Graphics

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  The Heights (A Liz Boyle Mystery, #2)

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  Acknowledgments

  Sign up for Kate Birdsall's Mailing List

  Further Reading: Warped Ambition

  Also By Kate Birdsall

  About the Author

  About the Publisher

  For my mom

  I had melancholy thoughts...

  a strangeness in my mind,

  A feeling that I was not for that hour,

  Nor for that place.

  ― William Wordsworth, The Prelude

  CHAPTER 1

  The assistant prosecutor and I are just sitting down to prep for a trial that’s supposed to start tomorrow when Lieutenant Fishner slams through her office door, red-faced, her gray-blond hair a mess.

  “The shit has hit the fan. We’ll be lucky to avoid riots. Get over to the East Side Shoreway twenty minutes ago, Boyle—they need you. Officer-involved shooting of an African-American juvenile who may or may not have been armed.”

  I don’t know what she means, exactly, when she tells me that I need riot gear and to pick it up downstairs because the fifth district ran out an hour ago. My partner went home early, so I’m flying solo.

  “I guess we can do this later.”

  Becker nods. “Text me when you’re done.”

  It’s fortunate that I follow procedure and keep a tactical uniform, complete with a bulletproof vest, in my work locker, that it still fits, and that I wear combat boots every day of my working life. It means I don’t have to mess around too much, not that I’m in any hurry to get to where I need to be. There won’t be much I can do there, anyway, other than watch my city come unglued.

  I change alone in our dingy locker room. As I pull the blue Cleveland Police baseball hat down on my head, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror: there I am, Special Homicide Detective Elizabeth Boyle, badge number one-seven-six-one. I turn away and run a hand across my forehead. My thirty-eight years are right there, every one of them etched onto my face. They’re in the silver strands that are making their way into my dark-red hair. They’re in the way I carry myself, I guess, now that the swagger has fourteen years of actual police experience behind it. The years are both in me and on me, and yet, with this uniform on, I almost feel like I used to: like I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m about to do it, anyway.

  I did five years on Patrol and three as a sex-crimes detective before I took this gig. These days, I’m in a unit that solves murders that appear to be sexually motivated, at least most of the time. We also get calls on high-profile cases, since putting the word “special” in front of “homicide” suggests something more than sex crimes to the public, something more than tracking down violent idiots who leave their DNA all over crime scenes and murder victims. I suppose it could have something to do with our 80 percent clearance rate, but I’m not so sure.

  Feeling like I have no idea what I’m doing makes me nihilistic, which isn’t an especially endearing trait of mine. But I’m going to act like I do know what I’m doing and hope that I learn something. It worked, way back when.

  I throw my regular clothes into my locker and move to the sink to wash my hands. I suppose I look more well-rested than usual, but we’ll see how long that lasts. I dry my hands then shove the door open and step into the hallway.

  Five minutes later, I’m even more cynical when I climb into a zone car with Marcus Morrison, a guy I went to the academy with and haven’t seen in a while. He looks like he’s taken the bodybuilding to a new level—the veins on his sizable forearms are visible.

  “You coming with me, Boyle?” When I nod, he asks, “What are you riding with me for, anyway?”

  “Fisher told me to ride with Patrol. Here you are. Call it serendipity. Where’s your partner?”

  “Already there. I just came back for another Taser and my helmet. Where’s your partner?” He holds up the Taser as if I won’t believe him otherwise.

  I would rather be riding with Tom Goran. He understands my need for silence. “Goran went home hours ago.” Another Taser, since we aren’t under investigation by the Department of Justice for using Tasers too much already.

  “Been a long time since I saw you in BDUs,” Morrison says, looking over at my navy-blue cargo pants and chuckling. “You got what you need? Where’s your plastic shield? You know homeboys be dangerous, ’specially to nice white ladies like you.” He keeps laughing, even elbowing me at one point as if I should be laughing, too, and I try to figure out what’s funny.

  “A twelve-year-old got shot. How can you laugh at any of this?” I ask the window as he pulls out of the parking lot. The Kevlar vest cuts into my left shoulder, and I try to loosen it through my navy-blue shirt.

  “What, cause I’m black, I shouldn’t laugh? That’s exactly why I can laugh at it. You know what I’m saying. I know you do.”

  I don’t ask what he means by that. Probably something about the fact that, since I’m gay—I finally told him the last time he asked me out—I get to laugh when assholes make dyke jokes.

  He’d been cool about it, said he wouldn’t talk a bunch of smack to the rest of the department. At this point, I’m not sure I would care, because it’s not as though it’s a huge secret. Marcus had seemed relieved that my rejection wasn’t personal and asked if we could be friends and if I wanted to go golfing with him sometime. I said no but that I’d go to the shooting range with him so we could relive our glory days and see if I’m still a better shot than he is. It hasn’t happened yet. I’m pretty sure I’m still a better shot. “What the hell went down, anyway?”

  “Reports that a kid waved a gun at a couple guys out in the fifth district. They took him out. He’s at MetroHealth. Nobody knows yet if he’s gonna make it, and people are filling the streets, blocking intersections. Brass is worried about looting and shit. I guess there’s video from a couple places.”

  I nod as he accelerates onto Ontario.

  On the way there, Morrison tries to make small talk about the brain-bender of a case I worked last spring, th
e one that ended with me getting a commendation after saving my brother from a psychopath. I don’t really have much to say, because I’m trying to focus on what needs to happen right now and what might happen tomorrow in the courtroom, and I don’t want to get sidetracked. So I give a series of “yeah, uh-huhs,” and Morrison seems to get the drift.

  We pull up near the Shoreway about twenty minutes later. I glance at my watch—it’s almost nine thirty—then push the door open. I can see why Fishner wanted me to ride in a cruiser—no other cars are getting through the barricades, not even unmarked police cars. I glance around and spot my partner’s blue Chrysler, his personal vehicle, behind the barricade in the grocery store parking lot. I sigh in relief.

  “You got a radio?” Morrison asks.

  I pat the radio on my left hip and slide its earbud into my left ear.

  “We’re on channel twenty-one. All of us, just for this. Body cam?”

  I nod and glance down at the eye affixed to my shirt. I pull out my phone to text Tom Goran: Where are you? “I’m staying back,” I tell Morrison. I don’t even know why I’m here. It’s been a long time since I wore a uniform, and I’ve never been in riot-standby mode—I’m a detective, not a member of the SWAT team. Blue and red swirls coat the asphalt and the decrepit old brick buildings. I take a deep breath and blow out the exhale as if it’s smoke.

  The scene appears to be nonviolent. People—families, men and women and children—line the street leading to the park. Some sit on stoops outside of the long-shuttered and graffiti-covered storefronts, and some lean against the crumbling bricks. A few look out of their open apartment windows, and some have gathered up front, against a bigger barricade—a line-of-cops kind of barricade—where a woman with a bullhorn leads the crowd in chants.

  A man’s voice comes through my earbud, telling us that we are to allow people to take all the cell phone video they want and that the media is everywhere. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t get punchy, now. Just be calm and let the people assemble, and let’s show everyone just how kind and gentle we all are.

  I’ve never experienced guilt before over being a cop, but that’s exactly what happens as I make my way through the crowd. I’m not afraid of people in general. I don’t walk around wondering what kind of criminal acts any one of them might be planning, because doing that is a fast track to burnout, alcoholism, or eating the gun. But I can’t help the palpable sadness, the anger that surrounds me. Beyond the signs proclaiming that black lives matter, beyond the balled-up fists, beyond the rhythmic chants and the tearful songs... Past all of that, there’s some kind of deep-seated sense of injustice and a sense that it’s happened again, as opposed to this being the first time, along with the feeling of visceral rage that comes out of being powerless.

  I might be afraid of what’ll happen tomorrow, after I give that testimony. I might be afraid that I won’t be in this club anymore, the one that I’ve called home for almost fifteen years. And I might be afraid that, at this moment, that could be okay with me.

  Near the front of the crowd, a teenaged boy wearing only a T-shirt in spite of the October chill is shrieking at a stone-faced male cop. “You shot my brother!” he wails. “My brother! And then you left him there! And then you arrested my sister! You beat her! She was just trying to help him! What the fuck? What the fuck?”

  The cop says something to him, and the boy escalates. He makes two fists, and the cop steps forward, holding his baton, his other hand on his Taser. The energy between them crackles like static electricity, and I know exactly what’s going to happen.

  No. I instinctively take several steps in their direction, pushing through the crowd, who recoil as though I’m radioactive.

  Just as I make it to the uni with the baton and hold up a hand, silently begging him to stand down, the woman with the bullhorn comes up next to the kid and takes his arm. He breaks down with tears and snot and everything. He holds onto her as if he’s a little boy, balls her jacket into his fists, and sobs, his face contorted with the kind of grief that’s recognizable only if it’s familiar. “My brother. My sister,” he cries into her shoulder, and the hot heaviness of my own tears stings my eyes. She whispers something to him, and they move away from the front of the line. I take another deep breath and step away.

  Channel Three’s camera catches it all on video.

  I move to the back of the crowd, where I stay for a while, just watching and hoping to everything holy that this doesn’t escalate into some kind of nightmare out of Gotham City.

  Fishner calls right as I’m deciding to get the hell out of here. “Leave. Meet with Becker,” she says in a weary voice. “Patrol has everything under control. We need to back off. They’re not violent.”

  “Okay,” I reply. “They’re not violent.” Does she mean the protesters or the cops? Some sensation that I can’t name uncoils in my chest. I’ve been working on this, and I should be able to name it. But I can’t.

  “You need to be fresh in the morning for court.”

  I hope she doesn’t give me a pep talk. She’s been all happy about my willingness to put my ass on the line and break the blue code of silence. I wait and listen.

  “You need to know that I think—I know—you’re doing the right thing. I also know you’re not interested in department politics, but what you’re doing tomorrow needs to happen.” I hear her close her office door. I’d recognize that squeak anywhere. When I’m silent, she keeps going. “If more people spoke out about the kinds of things that too many of us find ourselves getting into, the department would be better for it.”

  It sounds as though she’s talking about more than my little appearance in court, and I wonder how long she’s been planning this spiel, but I let it go. “Thanks,” I mumble, half hoping that I’m still part of “us” after tomorrow and half wondering what I’ll do if I’m not.

  I can’t find Morrison, and I’m too tired to talk to anyone, anyway, so I call my partner, who hasn’t responded to my text, to check in. He’s leaving, too, and tells me to meet him by the Chrysler in the grocery store parking lot.

  I lean on the hood for five minutes before I see him ambling my way, in his BDUs just like I am, looking as sad and tired as I feel. He raises his right hand at me when he catches my eye and speeds his gait.

  “You ready to get out of here?” Goran asks after he spits his gum on the ground.

  “You know it.” I force a smile. “Nice haircut. Having the sides short like that hides all the gray.”

  He winks at me.

  Halfway back to the station, he clears his throat as if he’s going to say something, but then he stays silent.

  “What?”

  “What?” he replies.

  “Tom. What?”

  “I just don’t want to see you screw yourself.” He jabs the space between his bottom incisors with a toothpick.

  I stare at the dashboard. “This doesn’t have anything to do with tomorrow, does it?”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see him flick his gaze at me as he switches on the turn signal. “Screw Grimes. It’s not about him. He was out of line. And he’s a scumbag. We’ve all heard about it.”

  I turn to face his profile and watch the tic in his strong jaw. If I’m staring at him, Goran has to answer me. “What, then?”

  “Just, well, I’ve heard stuff. I just want you to be safe.”

  “You want me to be safe,” I repeat. “You seriously think that—”

  His phone rings, and he looks grateful for the interruption. He pulls it out of his pocket and taps it. “This is Goran.” He scratches the side of his face. “Uh-huh, yeah. Okay.” He hangs up and slides the phone back into his shirt pocket. “One good thing about these damn itchy uniform shirts”—he makes brief eye contact with me—“is that the phone just fits right in. Let’s go get a drink.”

  I send the assistant prosecutor a text telling her that I’ll be back in twenty minutes. “I have to meet with Becker first. It shouldn’t take long.”

 
; CHAPTER 2

  I meet Becker in the conference room. She has files spread out all over the table and crime scene photos queued on her iPad, which she’s connected to the projector. She asks me, again, something about the knife that I’m not supposed to mention, and she keeps doing that thing where she asks the same question sixteen different ways, just to see if my answer changes.

  “Tell me exactly what you saw when you arrived at the scene,” she repeats, her hands in a pyramid with the fingertips together. Her French manicure looks fresh.

  “I walked into the house after Patrol called and found her body there.” I point at the crime scene photo, dated July of last year—the photo that I took when I arrived. The answer doesn’t change with me, not when it comes to this kind of thing. “Patrol found Mr. Reynolds in a second-floor bedroom, in his boxers, covered in blood and rifling through drawers. They then detained him. Goran and I made sure that the first floor was secure, then I went upstairs while he worked the grid.”

  “And the murder weapon?”

  “I thought I wasn’t allowed to talk about the murder weapon.”

  Her hands drop to the table. “You’re not going to mention the murder weapon, but I need to hear it again. The defense might bring it up, try to pin the mishandling of evidence on you.”

  “Oh, that’s just what I need. I still can’t figure out why we aren’t mentioning it,” I grumble.

  “Liz. Please.”

  We’re not mentioning it because the way we handled the knife reveals another incompetent cog in the machine that is the police department that employs me. I almost—almost—feel bad about it. “Fine. I observed Mr. Reynolds wrap something in what looked to be a pillowcase and throw it from the bedroom window. After he did that, he called me—and I quote—‘a motherfucking white pig bitch’ and then came at me with what I thought was intent to harm me. I sidestepped him then restrained him against this wall.” I swipe through the photos until I see the flowered wallpaper.

  Julia tucks a piece of her long copper hair behind an ear. “At any time, did you or any of the other officers on the scene use excessive force?”