Cavanaugh on Duty(10)

“Take us to the unit,” she instructed. “And bring along your bolt cutters, please.”

“Sure thing,” Jennings bit off. Circumventing the two detectives, he got out in front of them and led the way to the storage unit in question, which was located at the rear of the facility.

Kari made a quick assessment of her surroundings as she and Esteban followed the manager.

At first glance, the facility looked like a mock-up movie set that had been abandoned before the designers could decide what it was supposed to look like. A haphazard collection of attached, short, single-story gray structures occupied the small lot.

At this hour of the morning, there were no other people about, taking inventory of their possessions or searching for that one elusive thing they were certain had to be in the storage unit because it hadn’t shown up anywhere else. As Kari and her partner walked behind Jennings, a sickening, somewhat putrid smell started to become evident. Once noted, it seemed to swiftly increase in intensity.

There was no breeze this morning and, unimpeded, the smell seemed to fill up every square inch of available air, hovering over them like an ominous, thick cloud.

Fighting back a gagging reflex, Kari automatically covered her nose and mouth with her hand.

He’d stopped before the offending unit. “You see? You see what I mean?” Jennings demanded, his tone of voice bordering on hysteria. “It wasn’t like this yesterday.”

Kari sincerely doubted that, unless whatever it was that was causing this smell had been deposited in the unit sometime during the night. “Were you here yesterday?” she asked Jennings.

“No,” he snapped, “but the guy who was here didn’t say anything about this stink to me.”

“He probably never left the office,” Esteban theorized, his deep, monotone voice rumbling across the surface of the would-be dispute.

Surprised that Esteban had actually offered an opinion, Kari bit back the desire to cry out, “He speaks.” She didn’t have to be a genius to know that Fernandez would be less than thrilled to be teased in front of a third party, but she did flash him a look of feigned shock at the two cents he’d inserted into the verbal exchange.

The storage-utility manager said nothing in response. Instead, he muttered something under his breath that was surely less than flattering.

“This is it,” Jennings said needlessly, gesturing toward the padlocked door of unit number 2041 as he choked out the words.

Kari nodded at the lock. “Go ahead, cut off the lock,” she ordered, uttering the words on a single breath. She was struggling to inhale as little as possible. Jennings raised the bolt cutters he’d brought with him. Opening the jaws, his biceps shook as he applied the cutters to the lock.

The pressure he exerted was not enough. The lock remained intact. A second attempt was as futile as the first.

Disgusted, Kari was about to take the tool from Jennings and attempt to cut the lock herself when she found her way blocked. To her surprise, Esteban commandeered the tool with the authority of someone who was accustomed to having no opposition—and not tolerating any if he did.

Taking the bolt cutters in his big, manly hands, he opened the tool as far as it would go, securely fitted the cutting edge around the lock and, with one quick, reverberating snap of his forearms, cut the lock clean off.

Useless, the heavy metal object fell to the floor with a solid thud.

Stepping back from the defunct lock, Esteban handed the bolt cutters back to Jennings with one hand while raising up the dull red corrugated door with the other.

The putrid smell of something rotting had been strong before. Without the door in the way to mute it somewhat, it assaulted them with a one-two punch that was almost unbearable.

Kari could feel her eyes begin to sting and threaten to water. The sooner they got this over with, the better, she silently told herself.

But before she could make a move to try to hone in on the origin of the smell, Esteban strode into the small, cluttered rectangular unit ahead of her.

He used the daylight that was streaming in behind him as illumination to help him carefully look around.

Rather than say anything or make a guess at the source of the awful odor, Kari watched as Esteban made his way to the back, moving through the piles of cartons and boxes that stood between him and the far wall.

Reaching the back, he started to push aside the obstacles he encountered, working his way down to the bottom of an exceptionally large pile comprised of half a dozen different things that were indiscriminately tossed on top of one another. At the end of his search, Esteban found himself looking at what appeared to be a rolled-up Persian rug.

Appearing unfazed by the pungent odor, he looked over his shoulder at Kari.

“There’s your smell,” he concluded with finality, not even bothering to first investigate whether or not the rug actually contained anything.

He didn’t have to.

He knew that smell, had come in contact with it more than once. Members of the cartel didn’t consider an argument actually won until the opposing side was tucked away in a fashion closely resembling this one. The rugs they used weren’t Persian, but the concept and execution were the same.

Not to be left out, Kari took it from there. She squatted down beside one end and, drawing in a deep breath that she fully intended to hold on to as long as humanly possible, she started to push aside as many layers of the rug as she feasibly could.

The unit was far too crowded for her to attempt to unfurl the rug—even if she could, which, at this point, she really couldn’t. There were protocols to follow.

The rug was fairly stiff and it offered a lot of resistance, but she refused to be defeated and kept at it.

Standing back, Esteban watched her for a few moments, amused by her efforts as well as somewhat impressed by them. He let her continue for a little while, then put his hand over hers, a silent indication for her to stop.

“What are you doing?” she asked in confusion.

“Keeping you from wearing yourself out.” With the ease of someone who was accustomed to strong resistance, he completed the job that would have taken her three times as long to finish—if at all. He pushed aside enough of the rug to expose what was housed inside. They were both looking down at an older, gray-haired man, who from all indications, had to have been dead for at least several days. Possibly even a week.

Eager to see just how ghoulish this sight actually was, the storage-facility manager pushed his way forward to get a better look at who—or what—was wrapped up in the rug.

When he saw who it was, his eagerness instantly faded. “Oh, hell,” he moaned. “I know him.”

Kari looked at Jennings, her interest piqued. “Who is he?” she wanted to know.

He frowned, but this time the frown was because of the situation, not because of her or her partner. “Don’t remember his name offhand, but that’s the guy who rents the unit.”

It was Kari’s turn to frown. “Congratulations, Fernandez.”

“For what?” he wanted to know.

“On the job less than two hours and you’ve already caught your first homicide,” she told him.

Esteban said nothing in acknowledgment of the dubious so-called “honor.” Instead, she saw him begin to clear away the piles of boxes and other various possessions that were surrounding the rug.

Kari shifted so that she managed to block his access to the closest pile of clutter. “Hold it,” she cried. “What are you doing?”

He would have thought that was self-evident, but maybe she wasn’t as savvy as he’d thought. “Pushing things aside so that we can unfurl this damn rug and take a closer look at the victim.”

But as he turned to get back to what he was doing, Kari caught his arm by the sleeve and tried to hold him back. Even though she’d managed to catch him off guard, holding his arm still took more effort than she’d anticipated.

“You can’t do that,” she told him.

The look he gave her clearly said he thought she’d lost her mind. “Why not?”

Rather than answer him, Kari glanced at Jennings. The storage-facility manager looked as if he had become one giant set of ears.

“You can go now,” she said, dismissing the man. “We’ll call you if we need anything else.”

“I got no place else to be,” Jennings said, remaining firmly planted where he was and intently staring at the rolled-up rug.

“Yes,” she informed him firmly, “you do.”

The man’s squinty eyes narrowed even more. “Where?” he challenged.

“Anywhere but here.” Kari’s tone left no room for argument. Having no choice, Jennings was forced to withdraw, and she heard him grumbling to himself as he stomped away.

Kari waited until the man was completely out of the storage unit before she turned back to look at Esteban. He was still waiting for his answer.

“We have to wait for the CSI unit to get here and process this crime scene before we can actually touch anything in it.”