Ghostly Justice (Seven Deadly Sins, #2.5)(38)

Equally frustrating was the fact that Dr. Bertram was her best lead in finding two murder suspects. Fiona O’Donnell and her daughter Serena were both wanted for questioning in multiple homicides.

That they were witches was irrelevant to Skye. They were cold-blooded killers, which was enough reason to put them at the top of her Most Wanted List.

She glanced at Deputy Bruce Jorgenson, who’d been one of her few allies in the Sheriff’s department since the riots three months ago. She couldn’t very well explain to anyone that something supernatural had caused people to act violent. She hadn’t even discussed it with Jorgenson, but he seemed to intuitively understand. Skye had a few other supporters—cops who’d seen things they couldn’t explain, but hadn’t gone off the deep end like her lead Detective who hadn’t been back to work in months.

Assistant Sheriff Thomas Williams, who was her only opposition in the upcoming Sheriff’s race, had been amassing endorsements and support right and left—blaming Skye for every unsolved crime and the increasing acts of violence in their previously quiet coastal California town. The election was five weeks away, and Skye was pretty sure she was going to lose. But damn if she was going down without a fight.

She said to Jorgenson, “What do you know?”

“His housekeeper found him this morning.”

“He’s unmarried? Lives alone?”

“Affirmative. Single, never been married, no children, forty-four years of age. Edith Martinez is his housekeeper—”

“Edith?” Santa Louisa was a small town, and Skye knew more than half the residents either by name or association, but Edith was a long-time friend of her family, as well as the mother of Detective Juan Martinez, who’d been on-leave for nearly six months.

This couldn’t be a coincidence. Juan had been on disability for six months. He’d been injured in the line of duty, but there was far more to the story than recovering from a simple knife wound. While his body was healed, he was mentally slipping further from reality every time she saw him. He’d been possessed by a demon and had killed a man. A friend. Skye had covered it up because no one else would believe something supernatural had killed, but she doubted Juan would ever be the same. He certainly couldn’t return to active duty.

“You know Mrs. Martinez?”

“Detective Martinez’s mother.”

Jorgenson wasn’t from Santa Louisa; he’d moved here after being honorably discharged from the Army three years ago because his only living relative—his grandmother—was here. He lived with her in a big, rambling Victorian in the downtown area and helped keep her house in order. He was a big cop, formidable in appearance, but kind-hearted and a bit soft around the edges. Skye still couldn’t picture him on a battlefield, but he made a good cop.

“Where’s Mrs. Martinez now?”

“Next door, with a neighbor and a patrol office.” He glanced at his notes and continued his report. “Mrs. Martinez comes in three mornings a week. Cleans, shops, prepares meals. She arrived at eight a.m. and didn’t expect the doctor to be here. She walked in and smelled something foul, thought it was rotten food, went to the kitchen but it was clean. She then saw his briefcase in the dining room, called for him, walked past his office where she saw the mess, then his body. She immediately left the house and called 911 from next door.”

“Call the hospital, find out when he left. Then canvass the neighbors, see if anyone remembers when he came home or if they saw or heard anything unusual last night. Have you called Dr. Fielding?”

“He’s on his way.”

“Go out and wait for him, bring him in as soon as he gets here.”

Rod Fielding was the acting medical examiner. He’d been in charge of the CSI unit until the former M.E. retired early, shortly after the massacre at the mission that left twelve reclusive priests dead. Though Rod was a rock and rarely talked about the horrors they had seen over the last six months, Skye knew those murders had shaken him. Rod was planning on retiring as well, but promised he’d wait until after the election so as to not give her opposition additional fodder against her.

Rod understood that what they faced was not wholly natural. He processed evidence and information like the scientist he was, but he also listened to alternatives, things she couldn’t well explain. She hoped the murder of Richard Bertram had nothing to do with the supernatural, but considering he’d been in the middle of some crazy-ass things that had been happening in Santa Louisa, she feared there was more to his death than she could see in front of her.

Skye stood in the doorway of Bertram’s in-home office. The foul smell that Mrs. Martinez had mentioned to the responding officer was coming from here. Bertram was long dead, his body stiff, eyes open and glazed—at least the one visible eye. The rest of his head had been caved in by whatever he’d been hit with. There had been multiple blows—at least, Skye didn’t see anything in the room that could have made that big of a gash with only one hit.

Bertram was on the floor, partially obscured by his desk which faced the room. She tried to picture what happened, but every scenario didn’t work for her.

For example, if he’d been working at his desk—as it appeared he had been based on the location of his body—why was his briefcase still in the dining room as if he’d just entered the house? If he’d heard something in the den and confronted the intruder, why wasn’t his body closer to the doorway? Though CSI would process the entire house, there had been no sign of forced entry. Had Bertram known his attacker? Had he brought someone home with him? Had they argued? Had he been killed in a fit of rage? The violence in this room certainly suggested anger at work.