Chapter Club: The Shadowrunner Chapter 2
Here is what I currently have for Chapter 2 of The Shadowrunner! Let me know what you think in the comments and if you have a friend who might like this kind of story, don’t be afraid to send it to them!
Luke let the door to the police cruiser slam close behind him. Four police cars and an ambulance crowded the street corner. The houses around them, suburban ramblers, glowed in alternating red and blue. The sun peeked over the horizon, turning the clouds orange and filling their breath with light.
Luke could see people looking through their windows, wondering how they were going to get their kids to school. The woman who found the victim was standing on her porch in a bathrobe and slippers. She was probably cold, but morbid curiosity kept her rooted in place.
Luke walked over to the rest of his team. The victim, a middle-aged Hispanic woman, lay on the sidewalk in a pool of dry blood. Bile burned at the back of his throat. Homicides belonged in Phoenix, not Abeja. Not where he was raising his daughter.
“Rebbecca, what are we looking at here?”
“Stab wound,” the medical examiner replied. “Nasty one.”
Luke turned to Officer Muna, his deputy. She was taking pictures of the scene around the body. She would have already gotten pictures of the body itself. Later, Sally would print them out for review.
“Any witnesses?” he asked.
“Not of the murder itself, sir. As far as we can tell, that woman,” she nodded in the direction of the one on the porch, “was the first one to find her. She was going to check her mail.”
Luke looked up and down the street. For all intents and purposes, it looked like any other residential street in the city. Respectable houses. Lawns petrified by the autumn chill.
Turning back to the murder victim, he grabbed the blue latex gloves Rebbecca offered him and poked at the woman’s pockets. When he found the wallet, he pulled it out and opened it. Several dollar bills poked out of one pocket, an ID clearly displayed behind a film of plastic.
“She wasn’t mugged,” Officer Muna said.
Luke placed the wallet in the plastic bag she was holding open. “Let’s get her to the morgue so these people can go about their day.”
She nodded and started directing the ambulance crew. The younger members were moving shakily, their hands trembling as they reached down to pick up the body. Rebbecca tutted at them when they forgot some detail in securing the gurney.
Luke turned back to the street. The street lamps were still lit, caught at the moment right before they would turn off. His eyes stopped on the post directly over them, its bulb dark. He glanced down at the pavement, searching for any sign that the post had been tampered with. This was a newer neighborhood. The street lamps were too new to have burnt bulbs.
“Officer Muna,” he said, tapping her on the shoulder. “Let’s get someone from the city to look at this post.”
She nodded, and the two of them turned to watch the ambulance drive away. The lights turned off as they started. There was no need to hurry.
Luke met Rebbecca in the morgue, which was even colder than the morning outside. The victim’s body was partially covered in a white sheet, the rest of her clothing removed. Rebbecca was moving about the stainless steel table like something between a spider and a cheerful grandmother. Every so often she would pick up an instrument from the rolling side table, perform a quick maneuver with the tool, then set it back down with the crisp snap of metal dropping onto metal. She had been here for years and seemed to be the only one not deeply disturbed by a murder.
“Poor dear’s name was Silvia Montes. Fifty-two years. Best guess is that she had been dead for a couple hours before someone found her.”
Luke looked to the officer holding the summary sheets, Officer Pollard, and beckoned for him to start. The overhead lights shone on his balding head as he looked down at the notes.
“Visitor. She had just checked into a motel a couple of weeks ago. Primary residence was in Texas. Owner said that she was from the university, studying desert ecosystems.”
“They have that in Texas. Why was she here?” Luke asked.
“We’re working on that,” Pollard replied.
“Have we contacted the family?” Luke asked.
Pollard shook his head. “No family. Parents died when she was in her thirties. Never married. No children.”
“Unofficial significant others?” Luke pressed.
“The owner said she didn’t had people over.”
Luke looked down at Silvia’s body. “In other words, no leads.”
He shrugged. “Might be a straightforward case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“H. O. A. isn’t going to like that,” Luke muttered.
“Yeah, well, they don’t like a lot of things.”
More importantly to him, Jenni wouldn’t like it. One of them would need to make arrangements to walk Lucy to the bus stop. His thoughts were interrupted by the secretary walking in, her black heels clacking on the tile floor with her long, confident strides.
“Have we gotten cleared to search the motel room?” he asked.
“The judge wasn’t in her office when I called. Once she gets in you’ll have a warrant within the hour.”
“Thank you, Sally. We’ll be patient,” Luke replied.
“I also heard back from the city. There was nothing wrong with the lamp when they looked at it. No evidence of malfunction.”
Luke nodded and turned back to Silvia’s body. Uneasiness pricked at his shoulders. A random murder in the suburbs, committed against someone who didn’t even live here. Murders were supposed to be tears in the fabric of a community, not a splash of blood over the top of it. If gangs were moving into Abeja, he needed to know.
Luke pointed to Officer Pollard. “Contact the university and see if you can get an interview with someone who knew her well. Students, boss, whoever you can get. I want to know if anyone had a reason to kill her.”
Pollard nodded as Luke turned back to Sally. “Please tell Officer Bradley we’re going to Ms. Montes’ room as soon as we get that warrant.”
He turned back to the coroner. “Rebbecca—“
She looked up from behind her glasses.
“Thank you for your help.”
She smiled. “You’re welcome, Officer Alden.”
Sally’s prediction proved to be correct. He had just enough time to give the morning briefing before she paged him, letting him know that the warrant was ready for him to pick up. He grabbed the paper from her desk, fetched Officer Bradley, and got into the police car to make his way to 2400 Delta Row.
Though he didn’t turn on the lights and his siren, the cars around them still pulled away as he sped forward. He allowed himself a small grin. Traffic always worried about him when he was driving the patrol car.
Within minutes they had arrived at the motel. It was a quiet, boxy building stretched out along the street. It was only two floors tall. The trees that separated the parking lot from the street were showing their fall colors. A pool behind a black iron fence boasted its winter tarp-covering. Not somewhere a criminal decided to use as a staging area for their crimes.
The car had barely rolled to a stop before Luke and Bradley were making their way to the front office. As they entered the building, the receptionist shrunk back from the door. When Luke had first started in the service, it had been something that bothered him. Now he understood that it was nothing personal. Most people didn’t like to confront the law, and when he wore the badge, he was the law.
“Can I help you officers?” the receptionist asked.
“We have warrant to search room 14,” Officer Bradley said. He placed the notarized piece of paper on the desk.
“Would you be so kind as to let us in?” Luke asked. He paired it with a smile, hoping it would do something, however small, to put her at ease.
“Of— Of course,” she said, grabbing a set of keys from the hooks hanging behind the desk. Luke and Officer Bradley followed her as she wound her way over the pavement to room 14.
“Am I supposed to knock?” The receptionist ask as she placed the keys in the door.
“No one’s home,” Luke replied.
The woman paled in response and pushed the door open. Luke and Officer Bradley brushed past her into the room. They kept their hands on their holsters until Luke had found the light switch and flipped it on.
The room was clean, spare. Even with the books on the shelf and the suitcase on the second twin bed, he would have thought someone had dropped their luggage and gone somewhere else. No threats.
Luke entered the spartan bathroom and paused. Besides the mirror above the vanity, there were two other mirrors hanging on the back of the door to the room and the shower door.
The victim hadn’t been wearing any makeup when she was murdered and the clothing they had found her in was plain. She hadn’t struck him as a particularly vain woman. So why all the glass?
As he walked back into the main room, Officer Bradley said, “Didn’t look like she was making herself at home.”
“She was on sabbatical,” Luke replied. “Probably didn’t want to go through all the effort of moving a lot of furniture just to move again in a year. Especially if she was living alone.” He sighed. “The exciting part’s over Bradley.”
“Nothing like combing through papers.”
“I’ll get you lunch when we’re done,” Luke promised as he went to look through the shelves in the living area.
Over the course of the next two hours they found a personal laptop, a field journal filled with messy handwriting, a copy of international fairy tales, and a legal pad of lined paper with notes on it. The legal pad was dismissed immediately; grocery lists were going to get them no closer to figuring out what was going on. The other items would bear further scrutiny. The judge had made it out so that they could confiscate personal documents. If there had been anyone else in the picture, that probably wouldn’t have been the case.
After securing a copy of the apartment key from the receptionist and locking the door behind them, they drove to lunch. Luke took the field journal in with him, keeping it tucked under his arm until they got to the table.
“You really don’t know how to relax, Alden.” Officer Bradley said as they slid into a booth.
“Should I be relaxed?” he replied. His voice was level, trending neither toward anger nor disinterest.
“You’re not going to find out who killed her just by looking at a journal. Might as well enjoy a little grub in the meantime.”
“You’ll forgive me if I don’t have much of an appetite,” he replied. It was true. He had only been able to eat a protein bar on the way to the crime scene, and he hadn’t eaten since. Jenni would have noticed and told him to eat. But he couldn’t. There was a killer on the loose. And until they knew something, Luke couldn’t relax. Yes, he felt a responsibility to the community, but that was overshadowed by the responsibility he felt as a father.
While Officer Bradley entertained himself people watching, Luke opened the journal and started tracking the dates. Officer Pollard had said Silvia had arrived a month ago. He flipped pages until he found September and then started scanning the text. Most of it was brief, clipped bullet points filled with jargon that someone with a college degree might have been able to understand.
He had made it halfway through September when a folded piece of paper fell out between the pages and onto the table. Luke unfolded it, revealing a picture made up of indistinct scribbles. His eyes fixed on a large space near the bottom right corner labeled “Park”. There was a circle around it and several arrows pointed away from it towards a line that crossed the rest of the page. There were three x’s on the map as well, one labeled, “next.”
It was a map. A map of Abeja.
“Officer Bradley,” Luke said. “Take a look at this.”
He started to push the map in his colleague’s direction just as the waitress arrived with their food. When Officer Bradley immediately started eating, Luke pulled the map back and looked up at the waitress.
“Thank you.”
“Don’t mention it,” she replied before sauntering away.
Turning to Officer Bradley, Luke said, “You really ought to be more polite, Bradley. You know that women are going to notice if you never thank the staff at a restaurant.”
“Who said that I would take them to a restaurant?” he replied between mouthfuls of hash browns slathered in ketchup. “Besides, they love me.”
Truth be told, Luke thought if Officer Bradley spent as much time worrying about his career as his romantic conquests, he would be a much better man. His lack of focus and manners were major reasons why Luke wouldn’t advance him in the department as quickly as some of the other hires. The lack of interest in this murder investigation wasn’t doing him any favors either.
Luke glanced back at the park. If the line was the river running through town, it was Serenity Park. It was only a few blocks from the murder scene and from there it was a few blocks in the opposite direction to his and Jenni’s house.
Lucy loved that park. Last weekend there had been a pleasant fall breeze, and Lucy had asked to go fly a kite. He had shown her how to fly it, wrapping his arms around her to guide her hands as she pulled on the string. After a full afternoon of bobbing and giggling, they had returned home to include Jenni in a quiet night of board games at home. The thought of murder in the town where his little girl was living was disturbing.
No sooner had he thought it than he realized that one of the x’s was right where his house would have been if he had placed it on the sketch. He had spent a long time learning to control his fear responses. All of that practice almost wasn’t enough to stop the surge of emotion he felt twisting his guts before it could completely overtake him. Yes, it looked close to his and Jenni’s house. He would have to investigate that at some point, but for now he had to focus on the most important task. There were two other x’s on the map, one beside the school and then the one labeled ‘next’ along the river.
“Bradley, I think our victim visited Serenity Park.” He showed him the map and tapped on the circled park.
“And where did she die?”
Luke pointed to the spot.
“Maybe she was meeting someone there. Drug deal or something.”
Luke frowned, remembering how austere the apartment had been. “I’ve never seen a user live in such a clean apartment.”
Officer Bradley shrugged. “You never know. It would make sense. Drug deal went wrong, tried to get rid of the evidence. Couldn’t get away from a buyer. Simple.”
Luke shook his head. “You really think it’s as straightforward as that?”
Bradley nodded, his attention returning to the plate of food almost completely consumed. Luke placed the map off to the side. First food, then he would visit the places marked on the map. Even if his stomach churned and his first instinct was to keep searching, Jennifer would be mad if he didn’t eat anything until he got home. If he found anything out there, he’d need his strength.