Ground Zero Read online

  “I am,” Sawyer said, noticing the way Locke’s body tensed. Sawyer turned his attention to the officer who approached with an outstretched hand.

  “Diego Fuentes. It’s good to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Yeah?” Sawyer asked, lifting an inquisitive brow. Diego’s handshake was firm and friendly as was the expression on his face. If Sawyer wasn’t mistaken, the smile pulling on Fuentes’s lips was extra friendly, flirty even. He would’ve been tempted to find out what kind of things Fuentes had heard about him, but he was distracted by Locke rising to his full height.

  He was blond, six feet of muscle, broad shoulders that tested the mettle of the black cotton T-shirt he wore, and enough fury vibrating off him to choke a horse. Sawyer swallowed hard with the realization his job was going to be much more difficult than he’d realized. Suddenly, all the “good luck” wishes he’d taken as jokes made sense.

  “All good things,” Fuentes said.

  Locke turned, and their eyes met for the first time. Sawyer nearly sucked in a breath from the intensity in his partner’s gray eyes. Every warning he’d received—wild, rebellious, obstinate—showed in Locke’s stormy gaze. Of all the things he’d been warned about, no one had alluded to the emotion that struck Sawyer like a fist to his gut. Wounded.

  Wounded animals were known to strike out and bite anyone who came near, even the ones who only wanted to help them. Sawyer had seen the same look on the gray kitten he’d found hiding behind his trash can on the worst night of his life. All he wanted to do was pick up the hissing ball of fur and cuddle him against his chest, but sharp teeth and claws met his every attempt. It took weeks of calmly sitting on the stoop while the kitten ate the food Sawyer provided before he trusted him enough to allow a single scratch behind one ear, another week before Sawyer could run a hand over his bony spine, and another two before Sawyer could pick him up and feel him purr against his chest.

  Sawyer instinctively knew Royce Locke was the most wounded thing—man or beast—he’d encountered in his life. If he ventured too close, Locke’s teeth and claws would cut deeper than anything he’d ever experienced, scarring him, and his venom would poison his soul. Sawyer’s brain told him to turn around and walk away before it was too late, but the man who ached to heal wounded things couldn’t turn away from the challenge glaring at him.

  “It’s about fucking time,” Locke said tersely, striking the first blow.

  Stifling his irritation, Sawyer calmly said, “Sorry. My meeting with Chief Rigby went longer than I expected.” Which was especially odd considering she was the one who sought out Sawyer for the position, not the other way around. “So, Roland Putzinski, huh?”

  “Most of him anyway,” Locke replied, the scowl still marring his handsome face. Then he turned his back on Sawyer and returned to studying the body, leaving him to follow or fuck off. Sawyer chose the former.

  Instead of crouching again, Locke remained standing, his body coiled tight with tension, reminding Sawyer of a jungle cat on the verge of pouncing.

  Ignoring Locke’s brusque non-welcome, Sawyer moved to stand beside him. “Good morning, Dr. Fawkes,” Sawyer said to the medical examiner as he approached.

  “Good morning, Detective Key. I’d shake your hand, but I’m…” She lifted her bloody, nitrile-gloved hands. “It’s always nice to see you.”

  “Likewise.”

  Sawyer felt Locke’s scrutiny as he looked between Dr. Fawkes and him. He figured Chief Rigby would’ve at least given Locke the rundown on his background when she informed him he was getting a new partner. Maybe Locke wouldn’t be so pissed if he knew Sawyer had seven years of experience as a detective with the Chatham County Sheriff’s Department. Dr. Fawkes served as the medical examiner for the entire county, not just the Savannah Police Department, and she’d worked with Sawyer on many homicides during his tenure with CCSD.

  Sawyer ignored Locke and focused on the victim before looking at the gore inside the sound booth. Blood and brain matter sprayed the soundproofing material on the walls and ceiling in the booth. Sawyer noted several teeth and bone fragments in the pooled blood on the floor. “Christ. Are you even able to make a positive ID of the body?”

  “The disgusting tattoo on his right forearm matches the one seen in all of his publicity photos,” Dr. Fawkes said, not bothering to hide her revulsion. Sure enough, the tattoo on the victim’s right arm matched the God’s Chosen Race symbols in the painting above the couch.

  “I wonder if we’ll find his other repulsive message tattooed somewhere on his body?” Sawyer asked.

  Dr. Fawkes snorted. “I’ll be sure to let you know later.”

  “How do we know this isn’t one of his zealous fans with a matching tattoo?”

  “Excellent point,” Dr. Fawkes said, while Locke silently absorbed the conversation. “Facial recognition is out of the question with open and depressed skull fractures such as these. I can try to match dental records to his remaining teeth, but I’m not hopeful. DNA is our surest bet, but we’ll need something to compare it to. The techs will grab his toothbrush and hairbrush, and I’ll try to extract a viable sample.”

  “He’s been arrested before, so we can match his fingerprints,” Locke said, finally breaking his silence.

  “Good to know,” Fawkes remarked.

  Sawyer turned to his partner, no longer willing to be ignored. “Who called in the homicide?”

  “The better question is who didn’t call it in,” Locke replied dryly, his eyes still focused on Dr. Fawkes’s activities. He finally turned those turbulent gray eyes to Sawyer, sneer still firmly in place. “The Putz’s gruesome death was recorded during his latest podcast, which went live this morning. As soon as his equally vile fans heard his murder, calls started flooding in.”

  “Any sign of forced entry?” he inquired.

  “No.” Locke’s tone was devoid of any inflection, but Sawyer would take the robotic replies over being ignored any day of the week.

  Dr. Fawkes removed a thermometer from the small incision she’d cut in Putz’s abdomen to measure his liver temperature. “Based on the liver temperature and stages of rigor and livor mortis, I’m going to estimate his time of death to be twelve hours ago.”

  Sawyer looked at his watch and saw it was a quarter to ten. “Around twenty-one forty-five then?”

  “That’s my best guess.”

  Locke finally turned toward Sawyer, folded his arms across his impressive chest, and addressed him directly. The scowl was still firmly in place, but his tone was less pissed off and more resigned to his fate. “The sound booth was constructed to block outside noises from disturbing his recording, which meant he didn’t hear his assailant enter his house or his office.”

  “This home is immaculately kept. The front rooms aren’t disturbed in any way, neither are his kitchen or even his office,” Sawyer said, gesturing to the tidy desk where the only thing out of place was the black residue left behind after CSI techs dusted for prints. “As angry as the assailant was, there are no signs they disturbed or removed anything from the victim’s home.”

  “The motive definitely wasn’t robbery.” An African American tech wearing stylish black-rimmed glasses approached with a wallet in his gloved hands. He extended the black, leather trifold wallet with The Putz’s symbols embroidered on the front. “I can’t say all the man’s credit cards are in the wallet, but there are no empty slots.”

  Sawyer opened the wallet and noticed all the slots were filled, including the one with a plastic window showing Roland Putzinski’s license with his arrogant, smirking face. He turned the wallet upright and whistled when he saw how much money was inside it. Thumbing through the twenties and fifties, he said, “There has to be at least five hundred dollars in here. I’ve never seen a robbery where the assailant only took part of the money and none of the credit cards, but I guess it’s possible.”

  “Usually it’s the reverse,” Locke said when he moved closer to peer inside the wallet. “A lot of
times assailants stage robberies to make it look like a home invasion gone wrong. Not this guy.”

  “Or gal,” Sawyer added, trying to ignore how good Locke smelled. The dark blond stubble dusting his partner’s jaw and accentuating his lush, full lips meant the sandalwood, amber, and vanilla scent didn’t come from the man’s aftershave. Cologne? Body wash? Not that it mattered—or should matter, anyway. “It doesn’t take brute strength to bash someone’s skull in with a blunt object.”

  “True. It’s hard to tell which minority group of people hated The Putz more,” Locke agreed.

  “It looks like our perp got in and out without taking anything and without detection,” Sawyer surmised.

  “CSI is going over the back yard with a fine-tooth comb, and uniformed officers are canvassing the neighborhood.”

  “Detectives,” an animated voice said from behind them. Locke and Sawyer turned at once to look at the officer in the doorway. “CSI found the murder weapon in the trash cans out back.”

  Sawyer and Locke started for the door at the same time. Sawyer stopped and gestured for Locke to precede him and fell in step behind him. Sawyer’s eyes were drawn to his partner’s firm ass once more, but he didn’t dare permit them to linger. His gaze traveled the length of Locke’s legs and noticed he had excellent taste in footwear. Sawyer had the same pair of black leather Bruno Magli boots in his closet. He also couldn’t keep himself from appreciating the way Locke’s shoulder holster accentuated the muscles in his back and shoulders.

  “Finding anything exciting, Casey?” Locke asked the CSI tech when they walked into the kitchen. He was obviously one of Casey’s “friends.” CSI Griffin had moved on from swabbing blood droplets to dusting empty beer bottles for prints. It wasn’t likely the killer stopped to drink a beer, but stranger things had happened. It was better to leave no stone unturned than end up overlooking a key piece of evidence.

  “No, sir,” Griffin said. “All the excitement is in the back yard and I hear some guffawing coming from the other side of the house. Techs must’ve found something juicy that doesn’t pertain to the crime. Boys,” she said then rolled her eyes.

  Sawyer couldn’t imagine a situation that would justify crime techs laughing at the scene of a gruesome homicide. If a videographer were on the scene, their laughter could taint the jury’s opinion of the investigation if the footage had to be played in court. Sawyer glanced over at Locke who wore a similar perplexed expression on his face.

  “I’ll check it out,” Sawyer told Locke. “You head out and take a look at the murder weapon.”

  Locke’s expression changed from confused to irritated in a blink of an eye. He was either still pissed about Sawyer’s presence, irritated he had the gall to take the lead, or both. Sawyer didn’t care nor did he back down from the glare Locke gave him. After a few seconds of awkward silence, Locke turned and walked away without saying a word.

  Breathe in. Hold. Release.

  “Hmmm,” Griffin said. “That went better than I predicted.”

  Sawyer didn’t comment. He headed down the short hallway until he reached the master bedroom. The CSI techs had gathered around something that had caught their interest in the nightstand drawer beside the victim’s bed.

  “So, the big poster with Locke’s sister spread-eagled on the bed was just a front,” the tech on the right said.

  “Wait. Is that really Locke’s sister in the poster?” asked the tech on the left.

  “Hell if I know, but I thought it would be fun to razz him about it,” Righty said.

  Lefty snorted. “Ask him to get it autographed for you.”

  “I wouldn’t if I were you,” Sawyer said firmly. Both men spun around to face the newcomer, their eyes wide and mouths gaping open. “You are aware of how inappropriate your discussion is, right? Not only was the topic vulgar and offensive, but it could’ve been picked up by a videographer if one had been present. Can you imagine how the jury would respond to hearing your juvenile conversation in the background?”

  “Um…I…” Righty stammered. His face was beet red from embarrassment.

  Lefty, on the other hand, shook off his initial mortification and straightened to his full height. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded to know.

  “I’m Detective Sawyer Keys.”

  “You’re Locke’s new partner,” Righty stated. “Um, I’m Ned Givens, and this is Steve Lambros. I promise you we’re not usually this unprofessional; we were just caught off guard by what we found.” Lambros nodded but didn’t contribute anything else. “Come see for yourself,” Givens said.

  Both men moved away from the bed and nightstand, giving Sawyer a wide berth. Sawyer jerked to a stop when he looked into the drawer. He didn’t know why he was so damn surprised to find gay porn DVDs, a vibrating dildo, and lube beside Putz’s bed. Hadn’t he always known the homophobes who screamed the loudest were usually closeted gays?

  “Huh,” was the only verbal response he allowed to escape. Later, in the privacy of his own home, he might allow himself a good laugh at the irony, but he refused to lecture the techs one second about their lack of professionalism then burst into laughter the very next. “Make sure we get photos. Lots and lots of photos.” The small, petty part of him wished like hell there was a valid reason to expose Putz’s true nature to the world. The only thing worse than a racist, misogynist, homophobe was one who was also a hypocrite.

  “I hate to see what we find in his closet,” Lambros said. Sawyer turned and pinned him with a dark look. “Sorry,” the tech said, holding up his hands in surrender. “I think I got it all out of my system now. I’ll behave, Detective.”

  “See that you do. I’ll leave you to it,” Sawyer told them then went in search of Locke and the murder weapon.

  “This is how you know someone wasn’t messing around,” Locke told a tech. “They didn’t bring a wooden bat that might break during their furious beatdown; they brought an aluminum one.”

  “Ouch,” Sawyer said, looking at the bloody object Locke carefully held between his gloved thumb and forefinger.

  “It rained all damn night, so it washed away any trace evidence out here.”

  “Any muddy footprints we can get a mold from?” Sawyer asked hopefully.

  “Not that they’ve discovered so far,” Locke replied. “What did the techs find in the master bedroom that made them laugh so hard? A penis extender?”

  “A little more exciting than that,” Sawyer replied, pausing for effect. “Gay porn DVDs, a dildo, and very expensive lube.”

  Locke’s eyebrows rose at the last bit. Sawyer shrugged. Putz was a horrible human being who happened to have excellent taste in lubricant. Sawyer’s mother had taught him a person was rarely all good or bad. From what Sawyer could see, the only good thing about Putz might be his choice of masturbation aid. For a brief moment, the left side of Locke’s lip ticked upward, and Sawyer thought he might see a ghost of a smile playing across his gorgeous mouth, but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

  “I’ll bag the bat now,” a tech said to Locke. “Hopefully we’ll get some fingerprints off it.”

  “So, our person shows up with an aluminum ball bat, enters the house undetected, surprises Putz while he’s recording his podcast episode, bashes his head in, and tosses the murder weapon into his trash can on the way back out. No sign of interference anywhere else in the house and they didn’t steal his wad of cash or credit cards from his wallet. That’s what we have to work with so far.”

  “You left off one big clue.”

  Locke tilted his head to the side and squinted at Sawyer. “Oh, yeah. What did I leave out, smart guy?”

  “Someone other than Putz uploaded his podcast for his fans to hear.”

  The annoyance faded from Locke’s face when he realized what Sawyer meant. “Our killer made sure everyone heard his savage death.”

  “If we can gain access to his domain through the host, we’ll be able to see who uploaded the recording and possibly trace their IP address.”


  “Best lead we have so far.”

  “Detectives,” Officer Fuentes said, capturing their attention. “There’s a distraught woman making a scene with Officer Andrews at the perimeter of the property. She’s claiming to know who killed Mr. Putzinski.”

  “Well, maybe we’ll have this case solved before noon,” Locke said, turning to Sawyer with an appraising look in his eyes. “How good are you with hysterical females?”

  Sawyer groaned inwardly but knew it was his chance to step up and prove himself. “Guess you’re about to find out.”

  He followed Locke through the house until his partner stopped suddenly in the living room. Locke eyed the tacky poster of the woman on the wall for a brief second then yelled toward the rear of the house, “Yo, Lambros, do you think your sister has any posters left over? Think you could get her to autograph one for me?”

  “Damn it,” the tech said. It sounded like he was upstairs processing the second story. “He beat me to it.”

  Givens’s laughter drifted down the staircase. “You owe me twenty dollars,” he told McIntosh, aka Lefty.

  “Double the bet, Givens?” McIntosh asked. “My money is on the rookie not making it a week.”

  “I’m standing right here, fellas,” Sawyer called up the steps. They laughed but no apology followed.

  “I’ll easily take that bet,” Givens told Lambros. “Key is no rookie.”

  “No, but I bet he’s never had a pain-in-the-ass partner like Locke before either.”

  “Touché,” Givens added.

  During the entire conversation between McIntosh and Givens, Sawyer met his partner’s impenetrable gaze with one of his own. Sawyer’s message conveyed: I’m not going anywhere. Might as well accept it, while Locke’s said: We’ll just see about that.

  Apparently, Sawyer’s agreement to talk to the hysterical woman also meant he was responsible for transporting her to the police station. Neither he nor Locke wanted to interview her outside Putz’s property with so many reporters lurking around, and they couldn’t take her inside the house to talk either, because CSI was still processing the scene and the medical examiner hadn’t removed Putz’s body yet. The station was the only option, especially since Fuentes hadn’t been exaggerating when he mentioned the woman’s hysterical state.