Girls In White Dresses: A Detective London McKenna Novel Read online

  Girls In White Dresses

  A Detective London McKenna Novel

  Alex Gates

  Contents

  Contact Alex Gates

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Epilogue

  Contact Alex Gates

  Coming 7/1/2017 From Alex Gates!

  GIRLS IN WHITE DRESSES

  Copyright © 2017 by Alex Gates

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof

  may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever

  without the express written permission of the publisher

  except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Cover Design: Pink Ink Designs

  Created with Vellum

  Contact Alex Gates

  Thank you so much for picking up your copy of Girls In White Dresses!

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  AuthorAlexGates

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  1

  Don’t you love beginnings, London?

  The first touch. The first bite. The first taste…

  -Him

  The roses wilted, and the champagne went flat.

  Romance wasn’t dead, but this couple sure was.

  A puddle of blood pooled from the lifeless bodies and trickled to the door. One unceremonious boot print later, and I accidentally autographed the Air B&B’s spotless white entry rug with my boot’s heel.

  “Damn…” I stepped out of the blood, cursing the unnecessary blemish to the crime scene. I doubted the couple cared. Calling to the bodies was probably idiotic. I did it anyway. “Hello? Cora? Anyone hurt?”

  Yeah, hurt. Ever the optimist.

  I surveyed the blood, bodies, and gun. The couple had planned quite the romantic night before the murder. Warm fireplace. Fur rugs. Wine glasses. They’d even scattered rose petals over the box of unopened condoms. At least the carnage had been ribbed for her pleasure.

  Blood and leather didn’t mix well, and neither did uncompromised crime scenes. I kicked off my boots, but the blood had already soaked into the material. At least it cleaned off the trail of crusted salt. Unfortunately, my knee-highs didn’t match. One black stocking peeked from under my slacks, contrasting the other—charcoal grey and in desperate need of a mate before laundry day. Classy. Not that my missing person would care.

  Even if Cora had been dressed to kill.

  Usually, people didn’t mean it literally.

  I skirted the blood and tip-toed a path through the tiny cottage, checking the secondary rooms for any other crimes, witnesses, or a reason for the date-night slaying. But Cora and her mystery man had planned to be alone. Figured.

  Soft music still hummed from a Bluetooth speaker. Sexy songs—the Celine Dion, Michael Bolton. The soundtracks of movies from the nineties used to set the mood. I paused the weepy ballad before the romantic instrumental became a dirge.

  Homicides.

  Some of the guys said they were easier than Missing Persons or Family Crisis/Sexual Assault cases.

  This didn’t look easy.

  This was a goddamned tragedy.

  And such a waste.

  They’d obviously intended last night to be a hot date. Cora was nothing but frigid now, courtesy of an opened window in the corner. No sign of forced entry—the night had just become a little too steamy for the couple. January’s chilly wind sliced through the room. It’d make the time of deaths harder to determine.

  But time wasn’t as hard as answering why.

  I wasn’t a medical examiner, but, if I had to guess? The date ended somewhere after the kiss at the door but before the first bite of dinner. Red, flaking wax slipped over the silver candleholders and onto the otherwise pristine tablecloth. The Cornish game hens remained untouched. I hoped the cauliflower rice smelled better freshly prepared.

  Someone had put a hell of a lot of effort into impressing their partner, but the evening had tipped from bad to criminal before they’d toasted their champagne.

  I’d my share of terrible dates before, hitting thirty meant my date nights consisted of Netflix marathons and avoiding lactose after nine. Not exactly puppy-love or cinnamon spice, but James never complained.

  Even if I avoided most romantic movies, music, and declarations, I respected Cora’s efforts. Dying scattered in rose petals. It’d be poetic if it wasn’t so regretfully pointless.

  No. Cruel.

  It was cruel.

  I carried my boots, picking a path over a once immaculate hardwood floor. The couple had collapsed in an undignified heap before the fireplace. Not even touching in their final moments.

  From the shoulders down, the man had a decent body. Lean and fit, he filled out his clothes with a subtle muscle—the kind that bulked in everyday use, not the occasional lift at the gym. Blood soaked through his outfit, but at least the caked crimson enhanced his tan. His collar had opened. A peek of pale skin contrasted his bronzed neck. Maybe he worked outside?

  The bullet to his jaw marred his silhouette. Bits of bone and tissue disfigured what I assumed was a once-handsome face. Brown hair? Potentially. Sun-bleached at the very least. I doubted it could handle any gel or product, but the matted blood and other tissues wasn’t great for his style either.

  Cora crumpled near him, her body blown backward, crashing near a decorative wicker chair in the corner. The bastard shot her in the chest. Did her heart break before he obliterated it?

  Those were the sort of questions I couldn’t ask myself. It was hard enough staying detached from my cases when the missings showed up alive. I’d lost a couple victims to drug overdoses. More than a few were still missing with no leads.

  But murder?

  Rare.

  Heartbreaking, but rare.r />
  I radioed in the discovery and petitioned for a tech team to hurry to the scene. The promised backup had an ETA of thirty minutes. Not bad for a Tuesday morning. Enough time for me to scope out the Air B&B. An opportunity to figure out what had gone so terribly wrong.

  A murder-suicide? Nothing in Cora’s past had indicated she’d been in any sort of trouble. Hell. No one even mentioned a relationship, let alone something as intricate as…this.

  The candlelight and soft music surrendered to police lights and sirens. Dinner sat untouched on the table. Even the bathtub, surrounded by more melted candles, was now cold and bubbleless.

  The only evidence of fun was the nibbled down bar of chocolate tucked into Cora’s purse. Only one square missing. She hadn’t wanted to ruin her appetite.

  At least she died with some chocolate in her stomach. If she had drowned in a vat of coffee, it’d have been the perfect way to go.

  Forensics arrived after twenty long minutes, pulling along the cottage’s quiet street only to blast it with slamming doors, flashing lights, and the stomp of cold feet trying to warm up in the cold morning. Homicide joined minutes later, taking their time to investigate the perimeter. Funny how the cigarette smoke cordoned off the area better than police tape. But I couldn’t blame them. Eight AM was too early to uncover a murder scene.

  Especially when it never should have happened in the first place.

  Not that there was ever a good murder to discover.

  I should have chased her credit card report instead of her ex-boyfriend. I thought I was saving time—that I’d find her in a moment of weakness with an old flame. Damn. I’d thought that low-life drunk would be this case’s only dead end.

  And that was the sort of guilt the veterans on the force warned me to ignore. Unfortunately, I hadn’t accepted the complimentary pack of cigarettes or binge night at the bar just yet. I’d find another coping mechanism. Grinding my teeth had worked well so far. And who could resist the allure of the vending machine on the second floor? Twix was my preferred stress reliever—one candy bar for each thigh.

  “Nice place.” One of the techs admired the kitschy cottage. “Looks nice.”

  “A cute place to visit,” I agreed.

  But not to die.

  The cottage breathed clutter. Quilts and cuckoo clocks and vases of pussy willow were smooshed into five hundred square feet of whimsical charm. For a quiet retreat, the Air B&B was nice, nestled in the prosperous neighborhood of Highland Park. Which, until today, had been the scene of only one crime—vacationing during January in the heart of Pittsburgh.

  And now their rented cottage had become their tomb.

  The home was quiet, private, and isolated from the street. If the lovebirds had met in a hotel, someone might have heard a disturbance. Fighting or gunshots. Suspicious activity. But here?

  Cora Abbott and her mystery suitor took their secrets to their graves, and who knew what sort of ugly, dirty truth I’d dig up.

  The cavalry descended on the scene with the usual bluster of flashing cameras and early morning smoker’s cough. Within minutes, the solemn misery of death shattered with the frenzy of squawking radios, the crunching of equipment, and impractical demands.

  “Who’s the responding officer?” Detective Lucas Riley assumed command of a situation that required tact and a delicate touch—traits as foreign to the veteran detective as leaving an aluminum beer can uncrunched on his forehead. “Who found the stiffs?”

  His younger partner, Joey Falconi, tossed a digital camera to a patrolman and pointed in my direction. “This is McKenna’s mess.”

  “London?” Riley scanned the room, found me, and gave an amused nod. He directed me to his side with a snap of his fingers.

  That had never worked before, not sure why he kept trying it.

  Riley’s smirk lacked charm, but it never stopped him from opening his mouth before. The tug of his beard was meant to darken his expression. It didn’t really work. The scruff was hardly more than a three o’clock shadow. Fortunately, the peach fuzz wasn’t what intimidated his perps. On his thirty-fifth birthday, he gave a gift to himself—bench pressing his own weight. The washboard abs came courtesy of a messy divorce. She got the kids, he got the gym membership, and the station was plastered with his flyers for an after-hours weight-lifting club.

  “I thought you were working Missing Persons?” Riley asked.

  I stole a latex glove from a passing tech and blew into it before snapping it over my hand. I pointed to the dead woman. “I am. I just found her.”

  “Easier to find when they’re lying still, huh?”

  Not entirely untrue. “Yeah, but I wish I’d found her breathing. Definitely worth the extra paperwork.”

  “Way of the world. Some live. Some kill. Everyone dies. Least they can do for us is die in new and interesting ways.” He picked a path through the blood just to shame the dead man. “Couldn’t even do that, could ya, buddy?”

  “I’m sure he sends his regrets,” I said.

  Riley glanced at the boots in my hand. “Why don’t you make yourself at home, London? Get some champagne. We’ll make it a real party.”

  His grin was crooked, but so where his teeth. It balanced out.

  I held up my boots and took an evidence bag. “Stepped in the blood.”

  “Rookie mistake.”

  I wasn’t a rookie. Far from it, but hell if I could convince veteran homicide detectives that working for two years in Missing Persons and the Sexual Assault/Family Crisis unit had opened my eyes to more horrors than stepping in a pool of blood.

  Falconi leaned in beside me, his voice low enough to seem sensitive but still loud enough for Riley and the rest of the techs to hear. “This scene’s pretty damn gory. You doing okay in here, McKenna? Wanna step out?”

  Yes. And no. But I didn’t need protecting from a little blood. “I’m fine. I just want to figure out what happened.”

  But Falconi had donned the white knight armor, and it was too damn heavy to drop as easily as the subject. “But if this makes you uncomfortable…because of what happened…you know…”

  Jesus. I’d worked hard for ten years so people wouldn’t have the opportunity to pity me. I tapped the badge hooked to my belt. “Blood doesn’t bother me anymore.”

  Riley snorted. “Yeah, it’s what people do with the blood that’s the problem.”

  I focused on the crime scene before the two newbie techs asked any intrusive, clarifying questions about my past. “This is Cora Abbott. She’s twenty-seven years old, lives in Lawrenceville with her toy poodle and half a dozen potted plants. No drugs. Drinking only on the weekends. Her mother reported her missing yesterday morning. Cora took her mom to her chemo appointment every Monday. She’s never missed an appointment since her mom was diagnosed—breast cancer, stage three.”

  “She might be missing a couple more appointments…” Falconi ducked into the bedroom and returned. “The bed’s untouched. Only fireworks these lovebirds saw shot out of the gun.”

  “Of course, you’d notice that,” I said.

  Falconi sipped from his travel mug like he choked down gold. His uncanny ability to conjure coffee out of mid-air was legendary. He claimed he hated the stuff, but two sets of twins under the age of four fostered the man’s caffeine addiction. “I’m just sayin’. All this effort? Dinner and dancing? Half a rose garden chopped into potpourri on the bed? A man would expect more than a mint on his pillow.”

  “I’m sure he didn’t expect a gun in his face.”

  “Maybe he did.” Falconi winked. “Did it himself. Check the gun.”

  Riley edged around a tech, nearly knocking over a little yellow card marking the location of a bullet shell. “So, hubby and wife share their glass of champagne…” He walked himself through the night. “Pay attention, McKenna. You might learn something.”

  “I’ll bask in your wisdom.”

  Riley winked. “So hubby dearest agrees to this fabulous night out with his sweet little wife. Brings ho
me a bouquet of roses. She gushes about dinner. Everything is going to plan.”

  Falconi took his cue. “But the gloves came off before the panties.”

  Riley agreed. “The little missus pissed him off. Said too much.”

  “Or not enough.”

  “Tempers flare. They start to fight.”

  Falconi licked his finger and smoothed his unruly eyebrow, but the bushy cowlick popped back immediately. “It’s not your typical fight though. He was upset. Shot her point-blank. She saw it coming.” He gave the brutal play-by-play like he discussed last’s night final score at the buzzer. “Seen it before. Maybe the wife’s getting a little on the side. Hubby learns about it. This is their last attempt to reconcile the marriage—a romantic getaway to cure all ails. Celebration of their love…”

  “Till death do they part,” Riley said. “But something happens. She says the wrong thing. He refuses to listen. They start to fight. She can’t calm him down. And then…pop!”

  His clap echoed in the room. Everyone flinched.

  “She goes down…” Riley shakes his head. “And not in the good way. Might have avoided this if only she had.”

  Falconi was a bit more sensitive. “But the husband comes to his senses. Once he realizes what he’s done, he’s insane with grief and regret.” He tapped his chin with his fingers poised like the barrel of a gun. “One shot, and that’s the end of the happy couple. It’d be tragic if we didn’t find one of these every six months.”

  “Bleak,” I said.

  Falconi always was a bastion of half-assed insight. “The way to a man’s heart is through is stomach…but the way to his grave is paved with the shells of a .45.”

  “Get that written on a fortune cookie.”

  The detectives gestured for the techs to take their spot and begin their forensics investigation. I stopped them with a raised hand. Cora deserved better than a crackpot theory as a eulogy over her body.