The Sins of the Mother (Miller & Stevens Book 1) Read online

  THE SINS OF THE MOTHER

  THE SINS OF THE MOTHER

  BY

  SCOTT PRATT

  WITH MARK STOUT

  © 2018 Phoenix Flying LLC

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  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 any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Thanks to Scott and Dylan Pratt. Without them, this project wouldn’t have been possible. Also, to my family. They refused to let me fail and believed in me even when I lost faith in myself. And most of all to God, for protecting me and watching over me all these years, eventually making it possible for me to tell these stories.

  I dedicate this book to those that have gone before, those I’ve served with, and those who will come after. Hold that line, brothers and sisters.

  -Mark

  This book, along with every book I’ve written and every book I’ll write, is dedicated to my darling Kristy, to her unconquerable spirit, and to her inspirational courage. She lost her 11-year battle with breast cancer on June 23, 2018. She fought like a lioness to her last breath. I loved her before I was born, and I’ll love her after I’m long gone.

  PROLOGUE

  The man had been watching them through the window for more than an hour. They were drinking champagne, snorting cocaine, watching porn and having sex on the living room couch, on the floor, on the recliner. They kept changing positions. He’d never met the young man who was having sex with his wife. He knew his name and knew he was six years younger than her. They’d been married for eight years and had two sons. He was a long-haul trucker and she was a cook at a diner in downtown Dalton, Georgia. He’d always been good to her, but he’d always wondered about her fidelity.

  Now he knew for sure, and he wondered how many others there’d been over the years.

  It was mid-June, warm and humid. The sky was clear. He’d parked his truck in a vacant lot about a half-mile down the road and walked to his house. He carried a Smith & Wesson Model 686 revolver. It had a six-shot capacity and was shoved in his belt beneath his T-shirt. The weapon was loaded with .357 Magnum cartridges.

  The man was sober. He knew what he was about to do would constitute murder. He knew he would go to prison, most likely for the rest of his life, but he didn’t care. He had loved this woman, adored her, believed in her. Now he’d learned that she was apparently nothing more than a coke whore. He felt like such a fool that he no longer cared what happened to him. His boys were in the house. He could see the faint light from the video game they were most likely playing coming through their bedroom window. He felt badly for them, for what they would undoubtedly go through, but nothing would change his course now. He was committed. The traitor and her lover had to die.

  He walked around to the back of the house and up the three steps to the stoop outside the kitchen door. He pulled the pistol from his belt and his keys from his pocket. He unlocked the door and stepped quietly inside.

  They didn’t notice him until he was five feet away. The gun was up, pointed at the male’s head.

  “Get off of her,” he said.

  Both of them began to beg for their lives. She apologized, said it would never happen again. It was as though they were talking underwater. He could barely understand what they were saying. He didn’t care what they were saying. After what he’d witnessed, their words were nothing but wind.

  He shot the man first. He aimed for his testicles but may have missed an inch or so one way or the other. The man screamed and fell to the floor. As soon as he hit the ground, the woman began to scream. The husband shot her between the eyes. He walked over to her and shot her two more times, once in the heart and again in the head. The man who’d been shot in the testicles was crawling toward the front door. The husband walked up to him and shot him twice in the back of the head.

  He picked up the phone and called 911, told the dispatcher there had been a shooting at his address and calmly hung up.

  Then he went upstairs to check on his boys.

  PART I

  Chapter One

  The red and blue strobes from the police and emergency vehicles gave the limp body the eerie appearance that she was dancing. She hung in front of the public library, a killer’s work on display among the pillars and the art that adorned the windows. A crude noose had been fashioned from a length of nylon rope and tossed over a cross beam that ran ten feet above the ground at the library’s entrance.

  The scene around the body was controlled chaos. Five marked police cruisers were stationed at strategic locations on the inner perimeter, blocking likely avenues of approach and doing as much as possible to block the view of the body. News trucks from three stations were parked at different locations, all jockeying for the best vantage point. The reporters from the various stations sported their affiliate wind jackets, a thin barrier to the cool, late-autumn night in Northeast Tennessee. They milled around, awaiting any information, official or unofficial, hoping for a sound bite from someone.

  A crowd of onlookers had congregated behind the trucks. Most of them had been drinking in the micro-breweries that had sprung up around downtown Johnson City. They peered at the grisly scene, talking amongst themselves in quiet contemplation beside the ambulance that would eventually act as a hearse.

  Detective Lukas Miller leaned on the hood of his white, unmarked Crown Victoria and watched the paramedics go over the body. Waiting patiently was never his strong suit, but protocol was protocol. The preservation of life always trumped the investigation, but Lukas didn’t think there was a chance there was any life left in the poor woman hanging from between the pillars. She was deader than four in the morning.

  “Looks like a long weekend,” Patrol Sgt. Don Adams said as he walked up and stood beside Lukas.

  Lukas nodded, still staring at the body.

  “No rest for the weary, I guess,” Adams said.

  “The wicked aren’t resting, either. Who found her?”

  “Officer Cragg, I believe. He was on routine patrol and noticed something odd from the parking lot. So, he went to check it out and found her. Coffee?” Adams held up a cup with a red stir stick through the lip.

  “Yeah, thanks. Do any of your guys recognize her?”

  Lukas eagerly accepted the hot drink and took a sip, glad for the warmth it offered.

  “Not that I know of,” Adams said, “but I’ll bet it’s one of our regulars.”

  Someone called Lukas’s name from behind him.

  A young officer Lukas didn’t recognize walked up quickly. He was nodding as he spoke into his radio. He broke off and addressed Lukas, “Detective Miller, we just got a call from headquarters.”

  “And?”

  “Sir, I hate to make the situation worse, but Captain Hunter has ordered that nothing be done to the scene until a detective from Kingsport arrives. The captain is on his way here, too.”

  Shit. Lukas glanced behind him. He’d left his portable radio in the car again, a bad habit he’d gotten into recently. He cursed under his breath. The old man would be hot about him not having his radio. Hunter had probably attempted to reach Lukas on the Criminal Investigation frequency.

  “Oka
y. Thanks, officer.”

  Lukas turned to Adams. “The brass has been on our ass about these murders so I was kind of expecting something, but this? This sucks.”

  “You’re damned right it does. I know I wouldn’t like having someone looking over my shoulder while I was trying to work.” Adams crushed the empty coffee cup in his hand and tossed it in a nearby trash can. “Any idea which detective is coming?”

  “If I were a betting man, I would say it’s ‘Supercop.’” Lukas laughed. “Supercop” was being heralded as an epic crime fighter. The stories were being exaggerated, Lukas knew, but he’d heard of her beating academy records, solving unsolvable cases, extracting confessions from the toughest of men. If half of what he’d heard was true, she was as good as two detectives. And everybody said she was good looking, too.

  “Supercop?”

  “Yeah, the detective working the murders over in Kingsport. She supposedly has more decorations than a war vet. She just won officer of the year over there.”

  “Oh, so she’s a hot shot.” Adams spat on the ground. “Like we can’t handle our own cases.”

  Lukas didn’t say anything, but Adams was right. What cop wanted someone looking over his shoulder on one of his cases, especially a cop from another jurisdiction? The only thing that kept him from heading straight for his radio and telling his captain he didn’t want any damned help – even if it was from a so-called supercop – was that these murders had been hell on the department. Four local women had been brutally killed in the last three months, two in Kingsport and now two in Johnson City, three of whom were prostitutes. And from what little he’d seen of the latest victim, she would probably take the prostitute tally to four. The two police agencies still hadn’t officially linked the murders in Kingsport to those in Johnson City, but the local news agencies had started referring to them as serial murders. They were quickly becoming a public relations nightmare that would have city hall breathing down the department’s collective neck.

  “Maybe it’s not such a bad thing,” Lukas said. “Maybe another perspective will shake things loose.”

  “Is she as good as they say?” Adams asked.

  “I don’t know. Haven’t even met her. But I guess I’m about to.”

  Lukas picked up the now empty cup from the hood of his cruiser and walked around to the rear door. He reached in and fumbled around in the back seat until he found his radio. Still charged. At least there was that. He looked up and noticed the department Command Center truck pull in among the other vehicles near the outer perimeter. It was followed by an unmarked black Chevrolet Impala and the Forensic Center van.

  “Wow, this is really turning into a gala event,” Lukas said, turning back to Sergeant Adams. The multipurpose police Command Center vehicle was only rolled out for major crimes or special events. This one qualified as both.

  He made his way over to the Command Center. It was positioned away from the news vans and onlookers for security reasons as well as convenience. There would be a media relations officer on board whose sole job was to handle the requests for information from the various news sources. This officer was specially selected and had to be equipped with the gift of gab. His or her job was to give the appearance of cooperating with the media without giving away information that would hamper an investigation or allow a potential suspect, victim, or witness to be compromised. It wasn’t a job Lukas envied or would ever want, be he appreciated them nonetheless.

  Lukas got one foot on the Command Center stairs before the front door opened and a woman with a long, blonde ponytail and hazel eyes came out fastening a tactical vest proclaiming her a police officer. She was followed closely by his Criminal Investigations Commander, Capt. Martin Hunter. Before Lukas could utter a sound, the Captain’s booming voice broke the silence.

  “Have you two met?”

  “Uh, no, sir.” Lukas looked at the woman as she gave him a once-over. He found himself wondering what she thought. He ran a hand through his short, black hair.

  “This is Detective Brooke Stevens from the Kingsport Police Department,” the captain said. He then lowered his voice and told them to follow him. When they were out of earshot of everyone else, he leaned in toward them and, in as low a voice as he could manage, spoke while looking directly at Lukas.

  “Okay, let’s clear the air before we go any further. Stevens is the lead detective on the recent homicides over in Kingsport. She has a working knowledge of the scenes, bodies, the whole thing. I just got off the phone with our chief, who just got off the phone with theirs, and he has promised us anything we need, from manpower to money and anything in between. And we are doing the same for them. Miller, if Detective Stevens needs anything, and I mean anything, from a pool boy to a grocery bagger, you better make sure she gets it. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Miller, you’re the best investigator I have. You get results. That’s why you got this gig. Now, I need you two to work together and figure out why some psycho decided to start killing prostitutes on my watch.”

  Stevens watched and listened, saying nothing. Her face was passive, unreadable. She kept her eyes on the captain, who barely slowed to catch his breath.

  “I know this is an unusual situation, Miller. I’m sure it is for Detective Stevens, too. But I want this stopped, pronto. I’ve got the chief crawling up my butt, and he’s got city hall up his. I want the chief out of my butt, and I want city hall out of his. That’ll be up to the two of you. Any questions?”

  “No, sir,” they replied in unison.

  “Good. Get to work. And Miller, it’d be nice if you’d keep your radio with you,” he said as he turned to leave.

  Damn it. Lukas thought he’d gotten by. He nodded at the captain and glanced over at his new “partner.”

  Detective Stevens started toward the scene. A small smile turned up one side of her full lips. “I think your boss likes me.”

  “Stevens or Brooke?” Lukas said.

  “Beg your pardon?”

  “Do you prefer I call you Stevens, Detective Stevens, or Brooke?”

  “Brooke is fine.”

  “Good. Call me Detective Miller.”

  She shot him a dirty look.

  “Kidding. Call me Lukas.”

  Lukas matched his stride to hers, which wasn’t rushed but purposeful. He had to admit, he already had a good feeling about her. He liked her confidence, and they’d been right about her being easy to look at. Maybe the grand experiment would work. They just needed to focus on the case.

  He started to take mental notes, sweeping his gaze over the scene before going up to the body. He noticed two uniformed officers standing on the top steps a few yards back from the scene, one of whom Lukas recognized as Officer Slater, a fifteen-year veteran. Slater was holding a clipboard that most likely held the crime scene log. The other officer had that fresh academy smell and looked to be having trouble holding his dinner down. Lukas took the steps two at a time with Brooke now on his heels.

  He addressed Slater, “Where are we?”

  “EMTs are gone. It’s your scene now, detective. No damage done. Scene’s good.”

  Lukas glanced over and pointed to the young officer standing nearest the body whose complexion looked as pale as the pillar he stood beside. Brooke shrugged.

  Lukas turned to Slater. “Is he new?”

  “Yep, first murder.”

  “Is he going to be all right?”

  “I think so. He’s coming around.”

  “Do you have the crime scene log?” Lukas asked.

  “Got it right here.”

  “Okay.” Lukas grinned. “Put us down. List me as Superman, and this is Wonder Woman.” He pointed to Brooke.

  “I know who you are, Superman, but I’m afraid I don’t recognize Wonder Woman.”

  “Detective Brooke Stevens with the Kingsport PD,
” she answered.

  The officer jotted the names on the log then handed it to Lukas to inspect.

  He looked over the names. “So, just the three paramedics, you two, and now us, right?”

  “That’s it. Paramedics are back sitting on their thumbs in the wagon. Waiting on you two, I guess.”

  “Good, keep that list running.” He handed the log back to the officer.

  Brooke broke away from him, going to the opposite side. She appeared to be taking in the scene in its entirety. They both started from the outer edges, gradually making their way to the body of the young woman. Lukas watched the way Brooke approached the task. Even though they came from different departments and had been trained by different people, they both used basically the same approach. They looked for anything leading to or from the scene. Footprints, blood, weapons, property, anything out of place. Many leads had been obtained by picking up clues or evidence on the perimeters of crime scenes. It was too early to know about the supercop stuff, but he liked the way she was handling herself so far.

  They met at the body at about the same time. Lukas fully took in the sad, macabre sight for the first time. The body was hanging approximately six inches off the ground. It was positioned directly in front of the main entrance, right beside the library’s community board. He glanced at the advertisement for the upcoming book drive and a poster with the dates of a pro-choice rally to be held here later next month. The library was apparently more of a happening place than he realized.

  Lukas looked out toward the command and emergency vehicles. A large crowd had gathered because some psychopath had chosen to display his work here. And it was one hell of a display. He shook his head and refocused on the victim. The woman was suspended by a cheap nylon rope that looked like it could have been purchased at any home improvement or big box store. The rope was tied around the victim’s neck haphazardly. The knot was a crude one, a granny knot or square knot. Nothing fancy there. Her hands were by her side, not bound in any way. Neither were her feet. This indicated several possibilities to Lukas. The victim was likely either unconscious or dead when the body was placed and there was little to no resistance from the victim when she was hanged. There was a slack of about three inches in the loop around her neck, indicating that the hanging was most likely not the cause of death. He felt sure the autopsy would confirm his suspicions. The crude basic knot? Someone not used to working with their hands maybe, or could he have just been in a hurry. They were all possibilities. He made mental notes that he would later commit to paper and digital files.