Chapter Two DAWSON

Chapter Two

D AWSON

Almost two weeks earlier

Wednesday, July 10, 2024

2:00 p.m.

When Dawson’s phone rang, he was eating a sandwich. He’d had an early call at court that morning, which had meant no breakfast. His stomach was ready to eat itself, and he almost tossed the call to voicemail. He chewed faster, then swallowed before offering a gruff “Dawson.”

“This is Officer Margo Larsen.” He didn’t know the name, and the woman’s voice sounded irritatingly young.

“Yeah.”

“I’m at the scene of a homicide.”

He took another bite of his sandwich. “Okay.” He swallowed. “Where?”

“It’s a home near the Ghent District.” The neighborhood that bordered the Elizabeth River dated back to the 1890s, and it was filled with older homes with a European flair. “Dispatch received a call that there was a body on the premises behind a wall. Didn’t take long to find it. Looks like it’s been here years—a decade, even.”

He grabbed a paper napkin and wiped his mouth. “Who called it in?”

“Don’t know. Anonymous call to the nonemergency number on July 2. The report got lost in the shuffle.”

Dawson sighed. “Male or female?”

“There are several layers of industrial plastic wrap encasing the body. However, the clothes appear to be female.”

He dropped the second half of his sandwich onto the crumpled foil and wiped mayo from his fingers with the napkin. “Okay. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. Don’t let the medical examiner or anyone else move that body or anything attached to it until I get there.”

“Will do.”

Dawson was forty-five, and during his years on the homicide team, he had worked hundreds of investigations, including murders, suicides, and unexplained deaths. Early in his tenure, he’d caught all the late-night calls that took him to abandoned buildings, crack houses, back alleys, and even the landfill. Most of the victims had been young, and many of the crimes had been drug related. A body embedded in a wall in the middle of the day was almost a treat.

Dozens of questions rattled through his mind as he grabbed his jacket. When he strode out of the station, he caught a couple of sideways glances. One or two coworkers waved, but the rest ignored him as if his sins were contagious.

It occurred to him as he moved toward his car that he was wearing his good suit because of morning court. Six months ago, he’d have swung by his house and changed because his wife would have given him shit if he messed up a suit fresh from the dry cleaner’s. But the wife had kicked him out, and because the site sounded decent, he opted not to stop by his very depressing hotel room to change.

He hung up his jacket in the back seat and slid behind the wheel, and twenty minutes later, he rolled up on the Ghent District town house. He parked on the street behind the marked cruiser.

Centuries-old townhomes arched along the Elizabeth River and were sandwiched between the Norfolk Southern railyards and lower-income neighborhoods to the east. Renovations ranged from paint and plaster to total gut jobs.

He strung his badge around his neck, pushed up his sleeves, grabbed gloves and a notebook, and rose out of the car. He strode down the sidewalk toward yellow crime scene tape wafting around a brick brownstone. The air was moving, but instead of cooling, it churned the hot, humid summer breeze under plump gray clouds.

A uniformed officer, a stocky man with dark skin and bulky biceps, stood at the entrance to the town house. Dawson climbed cracked cement stairs and exchanged introductions.

“Officer Poole, you the first responder?” Dawson asked.

Poole shook his head. “Officer Margo Larsen got the call to check out the property. She’s the one that slung the sledgehammer and opened the wall.”

“How did she know where to look?”

“Caller gave specific instructions.”

“Where is she?”

He nodded his head toward the door. “Near the kitchen.”

“Thanks.”

He stepped into the dim interior, disappointed it wasn’t air-conditioned. If anything, it was hotter. He moved through the living room, past stacks of wallboard and two-by-fours toward skeleton walls displaying dangling wires, galvanized steel pipes, and wooden studs. On the wide-plank pine floors, pale strips hinted at old walls recently demoed.

Around the corner, he found a tall, fit woman wearing jeans and a sleeveless black blouse. Short blond hair accentuated a round face and large green eyes. Sweat dampened her brow. “Detective Dawson?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m Officer Margo Larsen, and it looks like you met Poole.”

“I did.”

She angled her head toward three forensic technicians. “I told the team to stand down until you arrived. They’ve taken pictures and sketched the scene; the others scanned the surrounding area for anything that might need collecting. Dawson, meet Sam, Bill, and Julie.”

Dawson’s gaze shifted to Sam, the shorter man standing behind her. He had the muscular frame of a weight lifter, thick black hair, and a sour expression. “We’ve crossed paths before.”

“Been a few months,” Sam said.

Bill and Julie, both dressed in hazmat suits, nodded. He’d worked with them all. “Can you show me the body, Officer Larsen?”

“Sure.”

He followed her to the kitchen, where chunks of wallboard and dust were scattered across the floor.

As he stepped around a pile of dusty white fragments, construction grit kicked up on the shoes he’d polished that morning. Larsen handed him a flashlight, and he clicked it on and shined it up the largest hole. Wedged in between the wall joists was a body wrapped in multiple layers of plastic and bound with duct tape.

“You’ve completed photographing the scene?” Dawson asked.

“Yes,” Julie confirmed. “We were waiting for you before we removed her.”

To wrap a body that carefully and shove it into a wall suggested the killer never wanted it found. But time tended to strip away secrets. Buildings got demolished, backhoes dug into vacant fields, and lovers and family members no longer felt the pressure to hold old secrets.

“Any idea when the kitchen was last renovated?” Dawson asked.

Larsen glanced at a small notebook. “I called the real estate agent. He said the house was a flip ten years ago and a renovation was done then. It’ll take digging to get the original construction crew’s names.”

Ten years ago—2014. Hell of a year. “Who currently owns the house?”

“An elderly couple. Both have recently moved to assisted living. The couple’s son ordered the renovations. Work started last week.”

“Okay.” He clicked off the light. “Let’s pull the body out.”

The forensic techs spread a large blue tarp on the floor in front of the fireplace and then moved toward the hole as he and Larsen stepped back. Julie and Bill grabbed the wrapped legs and pulled. Plastic grated against joists and pink insulation. The shrunken and shriveled form gave way after the second tug. Larsen took hold of the torso as Bill held on to the feet. They lowered the corpse onto the tarp.

Dawson moved closer. The figure reminded him of a horror-movie prop. The arms were folded across the chest, and brittle blond hair twisted around the face.

In 2014, Dawson had been on the job five years. He’d been engaged, newly promoted, and believed he could do no wrong. He thought about the girl he’d been searching for that spring. “Any idea who this is?”

Larsen squatted by the body and surveyed the length of it. Her gaze wasn’t rushed, and she didn’t appear repulsed. She was intently curious. “The purse might help.”

A small purse lay on the victim’s chest. Whoever had stowed the body appeared to have cared enough to ensure the victim could be identified in the distant future. Killers, like most people, could have complicated emotions and motivations. Grief for a victim was not uncommon.

“The purse is a pseudo–grave marker,” he said, more to himself. “Julie, can you open the plastic and get the purse out?” he asked.

Julie nodded. “Sure. Bill, be ready with the camera.”

“Will do,” Bill said.

Julie removed a small knife from a tool kit, but she waited until Bill was in position with his camera before she pressed the sharp tip into the brittle plastic. The wrapping cracked and creaked as she dragged the blade in a straight line.

When she had an opening that was about a foot long, she set the knife aside and gently pried open the plastic. Carefully, she removed the small purple purse; unwound the long, thin strap; and laid it on the tarp beside the body.

Dawson stared at the purse with anticipation as Julie opened it and pulled out six items: a silver vinyl wallet, a tube of coral-pink lipstick, a brown hair clip, a hair tie, a ring with three keys, and a silver bracelet.

“Can you check the wallet?” he asked.

As Bill’s camera snapped, Julie pried open the wallet’s synthetic material. Inside were three crumpled one-dollar bills in the side sleeve and a license in the clear slot.

“What is her name?” Dawson asked.

“Sandra Elizabeth Taylor,” Julie said. She dropped the license into a plastic evidence bag and then handed it to him.

Dawson released a breath that had been trapped inside him for a decade. He could never remember his ex-wife’s birthday or their anniversary, but he could recall vivid details of unsolved cases.

“Let me run a check on her,” Larsen said.

“No need,” Dawson said. “I worked her missing persons case in the spring of 2014.”

He didn’t need to see the DMV picture to visualize a young girl with thick blond hair and bright-blue eyes that sparkled with laughter. “Sandra Elizabeth Taylor was born in 1996. She was five foot four, pretty, Caucasian, and required glasses when she drove. She went missing April 1, 2014.”

“That’s some memory,” Larsen said.

“Her foster family didn’t report her missing until early June. After the report was filed, I chased tips for a week, but Sandra’s trail was already cold. Foster care, combined with a history of running away, put her low on the priority list, and my boss pressed me to move to the next case. She was last seen at the Shore Drive McDonald’s close to Cobb’s Marina on a busy Tuesday night, and no one noticed her leave. Her foster mother said Sandra had gone out with several guys, including Tanner Reed.”

“Hard to forget Tanner Reed,” Julie said.

“Help the new girl out,” Larsen said.

Dawson knelt and tried to make out the face obscured by thick plastic. Closed eyes. Tight, drawn features. A mouth pressed shut. “I never proved Tanner Reed was connected to Sandra Taylor.”

“Another girl vanished about that time,” Julie said.

“June 6, 2014. Tanner held and brutalized that girl for eighty-eight days and then used her to lure another woman into his van. But his captive called for help, so Tanner dragged her back into the van and took off. The van crashed. He came out weapon drawn.” And Dawson had shot and killed Tanner before he could fire the first bullet at the growing collection of cop cars.

“Think Tanner killed Sandra Taylor?” Larsen asked.

Dawson sighed. “I wouldn’t bet against it.” Memories edged forward. “Foster mom had refused to let Sandra date Tanner, who was twenty-nine at the time. I stood at a construction site blocks from here when I interviewed him.”

“What happened?” Larsen said.

“Tanner never blinked or appeared the least bit nervous. He had no police record. Said he’d shared a burger with Sandra but had broken any budding relationship off when she told him she was still in high school. The last time I had a conversation with him, he was walking back into the house he was renovating.”

“What was the name of the girl who was rescued?” Julie asked. “It wasn’t an ordinary name. Saffron. Serena. No, Selene.”

“Scarlett Crosby,” he said.

“Wonder if Sandra and Scarlett crossed paths?” Larsen asked.

“Very possible,” Dawson said.

“Red flags had to have popped up when Scarlett vanished,” Larsen said.

“Her mother didn’t report her missing until August 2, 2014.”

Larsen shook her head. “This case clearly stuck with you.”

“It’s not an easy one to forget.”

When the uniformed officer had opened the van door and they found Scarlett Crosby crumpled on the metal floor, he realized how much he’d fucked up months earlier. Could he have saved Scarlett Crosby sooner if he’d taken a few more moments when he’d interviewed Tanner? If he’d been sharper, smarter, more tuned in to Tanner, he’d have learned of his farmhouse on the Virginia–North Carolina line or that Tanner had been seen flirting with Scarlett, who lived across from where Dawson had interviewed him. Maybe, if he’d kept digging, he could have saved both Sandra and Scarlett.

Dawson stood silent, wrestling with the weight of failure. Add another check to the Loss column.