Dark Vengeance: A Nash Peterson Novel

Chapter One

He killed her because of me.

Detective Nash Peterson stood over the corpse of Heather Campbell. The clothes that she had worn had been removed and replaced with bruises. The realization that she was murdered due to someone having an agenda towards him struck him like a sledgehammer; his resilience crumbled like sheetrock in an abandoned building.

Surrounded by walls made out of square, ceramic tiles and covered with framed pictures of flowers, fields, with a luminous background, an overwhelming and suffocating grip held tight to his chest. The sharp stench of bleach lingered in the rooms and nearly choked him with each intake of the repugnant air. Broken chatter filled the space of the apartment, but his ears were filled with an irritating ringing that developed the instant his eyes fell upon the first woman he had fallen in love with years earlier.

Eighteen years.

She had been his high school sweetheart. Hot, uncontrollable feelings filled each moment of every day. They had difficulty keeping their hands off each other. As a younger man, just the sight of her caused his heart to swell like a helium-filled balloon. Now, looking down at her made him feel as if someone was clenching his heart with an ironclad hand. Her future had been severed. There was no more love in her life, and no more dreams to see become a reality if she had any dreams at all.

It’s been years since they had talked, and after all that time, he didn’t get to see the alluring beauty of her smile. The glistening that owned her eyes like a fresh pearl found from within a mollusk off the shores of Sri Lanka. Instead, he was standing in her bathroom taking in the sight of her head resting against the porcelain edge of the bathtub. Her long blonde hair flowed over her shoulders, barely concealing her breasts. The tips of her hair no longer blonde, but instead a dark amber. Her left leg bent at the knee as her foot hung over the edge. Most of Heather’s petite frame was purplish-blue from a severe beating. When his eyes had to painstakingly see the width of the wound that spread across her throat, his struggle was less from the sight of death and more from the sudden savagery to someone in order to get to him.

The person who stole Heather’s life had had his own type of fun with her before he slit her throat. There was no possible way she hadn’t suffered before the enchanting light that once filled her eyes disappeared into some otherworldly atmosphere.

It was clear that her death had taken place well over twenty-four hours ago. He wasn’t the forensics expert, but it didn’t take one to know by her flaccid appearance and the color of her skin. Minus the bruises, the torso was pale from the lack of blood. From the waist down was a purplish-red discoloration from the blood accumulating to the lower extremities.

When Nash had first walked into the small apartment, he hadn’t been sure as to what he would have to see. This wasn’t how he had wanted to start his weekend. By no means would anyone in their right mind want to see such horror, but he hadn’t been so fortunate. The images of who lay in front of him and the contents of the crime scene would be cemented in the banks of his memory forever, joining the countless others he has had to investigate.

Her body wasn’t the only thing the killer had in mind. There was no doubt they had a message to send, and he was the recipient. On the shower wall, written in congealed blood, was something for him to see and meant for him only.

Once upon a time, Nash.

Air rubbed the inside of his lungs like worn sandpaper with the smell of death mixed in for good measure. Sighing, he raised his cell phone and took a photograph of the message. He shot several more of Heather, although the images locked into his phone would not be looked at by his eyes again. He wouldn’t need to.

Nash took a few moments more to scan the rest of the bathroom, in case something else stood out to him. His left hand flexed, relaxed, and flexed again, causing his knuckles to crack. A sign that his anger was rising like mercury in a thermostat. There weren’t any other words written in blood or without, but the counter, toilet, and mirror were now decorated with grisly sprays of crimson. Forensics would have a look, make their observations, take their pictures and do what they do. He didn’t want or need to see anything else and stepped from the room with his eyes facing the floor, stinging like hot coals as he turned away.

When he returned to the bedroom that was en suite to the full bath where Heather’s body was left in gory detail, there was another scene that told a story of its own.

Rumpled and twisted stained sheets laid across the queen-sized bed. More splotches of dark red were scattered and soaked into the delicate fabric. Plastic ties, the kind that would have tightened each time she jerked and writhed in fear and pain, hung precariously from the four posts. Nash thought the killer left them as another type of message. He also knew they explained the gashes that surrounded her wrists and ankles.

As Nash hoped to get some fresh air before the effluvias smell of bleach and death found a permanent home, he saw Clyde Bailey step into the apartment.

The medical examiner stood just over five feet, and it was challenging to say that he was even that tall. Dressed like a professor that was preparing to give a lecture in front of a room full of sleep-deprived students, in khaki slacks, a blue collared shirt that hung unbuttoned at his throat and a tweed sports coat. He owned a slight slump in his shoulders from years of looking down over corpses, dissecting them like a fish, searching for the cause of their demise. His thinning hair was silver, his eyes constantly observant behind wirerimmed glasses that perched on the end of his nose, and always full of information that most human beings would never know or care to learn. Clyde was a respected man in the field of forensics, and someone with who Nash had always enjoyed having conversations.

“Nash,” Clyde said as he slid latex gloves over his thin hands, wiggling his fingers.

“Clyde,” Nash managed to get out. “It’s not pretty.”

Clyde noticed the pale, haunted expression on his face.

“Did you know the deceased?”

Nash nodded and said, “Yeah. I’ll fill you in later. I know you have a job to do in there.”

Nash allowed Clyde to go past and walked across the room to Officer Cooper and told him to go next door and speak with the neighbors. The officer retrieved a small notepad from his shirt pocket and left the apartment without a word. Officer Cohen remained.

With one hand, Nash wiped the sweat that had begun to bead across his forehead and turned to face the officer.

“Cohen, tell me what you first saw or heard when you and your partner showed up and why you were called in the first place?”

The officer placed his hands on his hips, above the belt that held twenty pounds of gear. His uniform pressed and fit the officer's athletic form snuggly. The same badge that each officer wore or carried looked as if it got special attention on a routine basis; no scratches, nicks, and shined like it was hot off the assembly line. He looked at Nash and answered.

“The call came in from the neighbors. I think they’re the ones who own the building. From what I understand, and I’m sure Cooper will be able to find out for sure, they had been away on vacation somewhere, and when they came home, they said an overwhelming stink of bleach was what first caught their attention.”

“Did they say why the bleach was such a need to check on her and call it in?”

Cohen said, “Yes, they said they thought she was allergic to it and couldn’t understand why she would be using it in the first place. When they knocked on her door, and she didn’t answer, they took the liberty of using the spare key. That was what they found.”

Nash nodded at the information. His brow furrowed. His eyes floated to the floor. He didn’t remember Heather being allergic to a specific form of chemical when they were younger but knew the body changed over the years. Someone could be perfectly fine with something one day, and the next thing they knew their body would reject it.

Nash asked, “So when the two of you got here, was anything about the crime scene touched or bothered in any way?”

“No, sir.”

“Thanks.”

Nash returned to his car, sat behind the wheel, his chest heaved, and his gut clenched as if there was someone with a crescent wrench tightening it up into knots. The knuckles of his hands whitened like pearls as his grip squeezed around the steering wheel. After ten years on the force, the last three as a detective, there’s been numerous cases as bad or close to it, but this one was different. Maybe that was because of who she was, who she used to be to him. What made it worse was she had once been the girl of his dreams. They had talked about getting married. Raising a family had been in their future until things suddenly changed between them. Those feelings evaporated over the years, but the memories were still there. At one time, while they were rising in them, they meant something. She meant something. He wasn’t sure what caused the ebbing anger inside of him more, the fact that someone had taken her life because of him or that there was just one more sick freak in the world to be rid of.

Nash watched as Officer Cohen and Clyde stepped through the doorway. His throat tightened, and he swallowed hard, trying to relieve the pressure. The lump the size of a golf ball was relentless and wouldn’t move an inch. He wasn’t surprised by the wrack of anger, but anything other was unaccustomed. The years of chasing bad guys, seeing terrible crime scenes caused by pervs, addicts, and the mentally unstable had hardened his inner core. Or, that was what he tried telling himself.

Get a grip.

It wasn’t the first time he had seen a dead body. Nor was it the first time he had seen the remains of a loved one.

His burning eyes, hindered and hazed, scoured over the yard. As the sun filtered through scattered clouds that lumbered overhead and threatened to disperse tears for the dead, he asked himself, why did she have to be tortured and killed? And what did once upon a time mean?

~~~

During any other case, no matter the extent of the situation, he would have walked into the morgue once he arrived. He wouldn’t have dawdled around and sat in his car. Hesitation would’ve been little to none. Seconds wouldn’t have turned into long, drawn-out minutes. It wasn’t the usual case. Not for him.

Nash sat in the black, 2008 Crown Victoria that he used not only for work but for personal use. He hadn’t saved the money for anything better and hadn’t given the matter a lot of thought. The vehicle had been spending its years doing service for the good of man, for the most part, and has held up better than expected. In Boulder, Colorado, there hadn’t been any high-speed chases since his return to the force. What little damage the vehicle had suffered came from an occasional ding by another car being too close when a door was opened, and touches of rust from the mixture that the city trucks spread on the streets during the snow-filled winters.

Nash turned the engine off. A slight ticking from under the hood played over and over like a broken record as it cooled. He scanned the parking lot and noticed some cracks were forming in the blacktop. Jagged and branching out like limbs on a tree. He could see blades of grass and weeds easing their way through as if to bring color to the dismal world. He closed his eyes and shut out the images of the parking area. A deep part of him was ashamed at how he was allowing his emotions to control him; at how he was prevented from stepping from the car and marching into the monolithic, cinderblock building where he had been hundreds of times. An urge to clench his fist and punch the dashboard had come close to being more than a thought. A dry sigh leaked out and joined the others that had expelled over the last hour.

Why don’t you grow a pair!

The words that his Army buddies would have said to him if any of them were watching.

“Go screw yourself.”

His words of frustration aimed at the friends he used to drink with until the early morning hours. Men with whom he had served their country loyally. Men with whom he would have died with had they fought in any senseless battle. He let out a grunt. Grabbed the keys, and opened the door. It was now or never and never couldn’t be happening.