Simon Says_. Walk (Kate Morgan #6)(29)
Author: Dale Mayer

 

Smidge pointed. “This guy may have come here to sleep off his stupor, but I’m pretty sure he found something else instead.”

 

“What do you mean?” she asked, puzzled.

 

“Look at his feet,” Dr. Smidge stated adamantly. “His bare feet have been walked on, almost to ribbons.” He took in a deep sigh. “The guy’s dressed, but I’m not sure that we won’t see more of this, more of these marks up and down his body.”

 

“Aw, crap,” she muttered. And then she thought of Patricia. That woman had probably been tortured like Luca too, yet why did she say she hadn’t been hurt? Kate shook her head. That poor woman. Given her former life as a prostitute, was this torture less that what she received daily from her johns? How sad was that thought? She nodded at Smidge. “Chances are you will find more wounds on his body,” she admitted, her voice grim. “This is top priority.”

 

He laughed. “You always say that.”

 

“Yeah.” She grinned. “Everything that you see here on Luca’s body, you should compare to Patricia’s wounds, who’s already in your morgue. It’s the same killer in both cases.”

 

“No, no, no,” Smidge said, his gaze widening in shock. “Not one more of your special cases again.”

 

“My special cases?” she asked, glaring at him.

 

He glared right back. “Yeah, your special cases. You always end up with the shitty ones. And maybe it’s because you’re good at it. I don’t know, but I don’t like serial killers.”

 

“You think I do?” she cried out. “This will be bad news, if we don’t get a handle on it right away.”

 

“It’s already bad news for these dead guys,” he pointed out.

 

She rolled her eyes at that because of course it was, but she didn’t have any knowledge or understanding of how these two people had gotten into this situation. One thing connected them both, and that unfortunately was Simon. She headed back out to the hallway, sat down beside him again. “It’s a little worse than we thought.”

 

He stiffened and slowly lifted his gaze from his laptop to her, waiting.

 

“We have to wait on the full autopsy, but it could potentially be a similar torture element that Patricia went through.”

 

Simon stared at her, bewildered.

 

She nodded. “I don’t understand it either, but I will. Believe me. I will. But right now I’ll go talk to the wife, see what the deal was with Luca being here and not at home—where he should have been—and if there’s been any strangers in his life recently.”

 

“And yet who would know?” Simon asked in a confused tone. “I got the definite impression that Luca and his wife were having some issues, quite likely due to his lack of employment. She seemed removed from his life in many ways.”

 

“That’ll often do it,” Kate murmured, “but that still must be checked. So, while they’re busy here”—she looked around, indicating Smidge and his minions—“I’ll run over there, and then I will be back. You want to head off to the rest of your day? You are free to go, but I’ll need to get your statement.”

 

“I can give it to one of the guys here,” he suggested, with a careless wave. “In circumstances like this, it’s probably better.”

 

She gave him a ghost of a smile and nodded. “Glad to hear that you’re so well versed in our oh-so-lovely procedures.”

 

“Way too much exposure to them,” he muttered.

 

She gave him a smirk and said, “I’ll see you later.”

 

“Do you mean that?” he called out, as she hit the stairs.

 

She glanced back at him, but a cop walked up the stairwell and entered at that time, giving her an excuse to escape without answering. Downstairs, she headed to her vehicle, looking up the address for the wife, making it as fast a trip as possible. It still took twenty-four minutes to get there, even with the GPS directing her. However, you always had to deal with the two seasons in Vancouver; one was construction, and the other was construction.

 

Laughing at the old joke, she headed up to the front door of Luca’s home and knocked.

 

A woman, a little tired and worn-out looking, answered the door, and she sighed. “If you’re trying to sell something, I don’t have any money to buy.”

 

And such a worried note filled her voice that Kate believed her. She held up her badge. “I’m not here to sell you anything. May I come inside?”

 

Fear immediately struck the woman deep into her gaze, and she held open the door and let Kate in. “What happened?” she asked. Without waiting for any answer, she panicked. “What happened?”

 

Kate waited for Luca’s wife to take a seat in front of her, and then she replied, “Your husband was found dead in a hotel room this morning. He’s been murdered.”

 

It took a minute for the news to sink in. She bolted to her feet and yelled, “What are you talking about? He’s at work. He told me that he was staying at a friend’s place because he was so tired from his new job, and he was having to do an awful lot of overtime because so many people had quit because he’d found out that they were stealing, and he would have to … in order to keep the job and to do as good at it … as he was doing, he would have to stay. Luca’s been working. He’d made a friend at work, and I knew Joe was around. … He’s my brother,” she babbled uncontrollably, staring at Kate, bewildered.

 

“You must be wrong. It won’t be Luca,” she argued, feeling almost immensely pleased at her conclusion. “Joe could identify this man. If it was really my husband, if you had found him, Joe would have called me. My brother would have called me.”

 

“I already spoke to Joe,” Kate replied, lifting a hand before the woman went on another emotional rant. “The ID that we found on the body is the same from his boss at the construction site. Both say that this is your husband.”

 

“I want to see him,” she declared, as she threw herself onto the couch and stared at Kate in shock. “I want to see him. It can’t be him. You’re wrong. You have to be wrong.”

 

“We can arrange that,” Kate noted, “but an autopsy must be performed first.”

 

At that term, the woman seemed to finally understand exactly what was happening, and all the color faded from her face. She started to sob.

 

Kate waited until she calmed down and then added, “So are you telling me that you didn’t have any contact with Luca last night?”