FIFTEEN

The fact that Jose de la Cruz hit a Dunkin' Donuts drivethrough on the way into downtown Caldwell was one hell of a cliche. Collective wisdom had all homicide detectives drinking coffee and eating doughnuts, but that wasn't always the truth.

Sometimes there wasn't time to stop.

And man, screw the television shows and the detective novels, the reality was, he functioned better on caffeine and with a little sugar in his bloodstream.

Plus he lived for the honey dips. So sue him.

The call that had woken him and his wife up had come in at close to six a.m., which considering the number of nighttime ring-a-dings he got was almost civilized: Dead bodies, like live ones with medical problems, didn't play by nine-to-five rules - so the nearly decent hour had been a novel benediction.

And that wasn't the only thing going his way. Courtesy of it being a Sunday morning, the roads and highway were bowling-alley empty, and his unmarked made excellent time in from the burbs - so his coffee was still pipin' hot as he piloted himself down into the warehouse district, pulling rolling stops at the red lights.

The lineup of squad cars announced the location where the body had been found even better than the yellow warning tape that had been wound around everywhere like ribbon on some fucked-up Christmas present. With a curse, he parked parallel to the brick wall of the alley and got out, sipping and walking his way over to the knot of grim-looking blue unis.

"Hey, Detective."

"S'up, Detective."

"Yo, Detective."

He nodded at the boys. "Mornin' all. How we doing?"

"We didn't touch her." Rodriguez nodded over to the Dumpster. "She's in there and she's had initial photographs taken by Jones. Coroner and the CSI types are on the way. So's the man-sogonist."

Ah, yes, their faithful photog. "Thanks."

"Where's your new partner?"

"Coming."

"He ready for this?"

"We'll see." No doubt this grungy alley was plenty familiar with people tossing their cookies. So if the greenhorn lost his proverbial lunch, s'all good.

Jose ducked under the tape and walked over to the Dumpster. As always when he approached a body, he found his sense of hearing grew almost unbearably acute: The soft chatter of the men behind him, the sound of the soles of his shoes on the asphalt, the whistling breeze off the river ... everything was too loud, like the volume of the whole damn world was cranked up into the red zone.

And of course, the irony was that the purpose of his being here, on this morning, in this alley ... the purpose of all the cars and the men and the tape ... was perfectly silent.

Jose gripped his Styrofoam cup as he peered over the rusted lip of the bin. Her hand was the first thing he saw, a pale lineup of fingers with nails that were split and had something brown under them.

She'd been a fighter, whoever she was.

As he stood over yet another dead girl, he wished like hell his job would go through a slow month or week ... or for shit's sake, even a night. Hell, a career slump was what he was really gunning for: When you were in his line of work, it was hard to take satisfaction in what you did. Even if you solved a case, someone was still burying a loved one.

The cop next to him sounded like he was on the business end of a bullhorn: "You want me to open the other half ?"

Jose almost told the guy to pipe down, but chances were good he was talking like he was in a library. "Yeah. Thanks."

The officer used a nightstick to push the lid up far enough for the light to stream in, but the guy didn't look inside. He just stood there like one of those stiffs in front of Buckingham Palace, staring out across the alley while focusing on nothing.

As Jose rose up onto the balls of his feet and got a look, he didn't blame the uni for his reticence.

Lying in a bed of metal curls, the female was naked, her gray, mottled skin strangely luminous in the dawn's diffused light. Going by her face and body, she looked to be in her late teens, early twenties. Caucasian. Hair had been cut off at the roots, so close in places that the scalp was lacerated. Eyes ... had been removed from their sockets.

Jose took a pen out of his pocket, stretched downward, and carefully pushed her stiff lips apart. No teeth - not a one left in the ragged gums.

Moving to the right, he upped one of her hands so he could see the underside of the fingertips. Sheered clean off.

And the defacement didn't end at the head and hands.... There were gouges in her flesh, one at the top of her thigh, another down her upper arm, and two on the insides of her wrists.

Cursing under his breath, he was certain she'd been dumped here. Not enough privacy to do this kind of work - this shit required time and tools ... and restraints to keep her put.

"What do we have, Detective?" his new partner said from behind him.

Jose glanced over his shoulder at Thomas DelVecchio, Jr. "Have you had breakfast yet?"

"No."

"Good."

He stepped back so Veck could have a look. As the guy was taller by nearly six inches, he didn't have to arch up to see in; all he did was tilt at the hips. And then he just stared. No lurching over to the wall and throwing up. No gasping. No real change in expression, either.

"The body was dumped here," Veck said. "Had to be."

"Her."

Veck looked over, his dark blue eyes smart and unfazed. "I'm sorry?"

"She was dumped here. That's a person. Not a thing, DelVecchio."

"Right. Sorry. She." The guy leaned in again. "I think we've got ourselves a trophy keeper."

"Maybe."

Dark brows shot up. "There's a lot missing ... on her."

"You watch CNN lately?" Jose wiped his pen on a tissue.

"I don't have time for TV."

"Eleven women have been found like this in the past year. Chicago, Cleveland and Philly."

"Shiiiiiit." Veck popped a piece of gum in his mouth and chewed hard. "So you're wondering if this is the beginning for us?"

As the guy ground his molars, Jose rubbed his eyes against memories that bubbled up. "When did you quit?"

Veck cleared his throat. "Smoking? 'Bout a month ago."

"How's it going?"

"Sucks ass."

"I'll bet."

Jose put his hands on his hips and refocused. How the hell were they going to find out who this girl was? There were a countless number of missing young women in the state of New York - and that was assuming the killer hadn't done this in Vermont or Massachusetts or Connecticut and driven her here.

One thing was for sure: He'd be damned if some motherfucker was going to start picking off Caldie's girls. Wasn't going to happen on his watch.

As he turned away, he clapped his partner on the shoulder. "I give you ten days, buddy."

"Till what."

"Till you're back in the saddle with the Marlboro Man."

"Don't underestimate my willpower, Detective."

"Don't underestimate what you're going to feel like when you go home and try to sleep tonight."

"I don't sleep much, anyway."

"This job ain't gonna help."

At that moment, the photographer arrived with her click-click, flash-flash, and her bad attitude.

Jose nodded in the opposite direction. "Let's back off and let her do her thing."

Veck glanced over and his eyes popped as he got glared at but good. The fuck-off reception was no doubt a news flash for the guy - Veck was one of those types women gravitated to, as the last two weeks had proven: Down at HQ, the females were all over him.

"Come on, DelVecchio, let's start casing this joint."

"Roger that, Detective."

Ordinarily, Jose might have had the guy call him de la Cruz, but none of his "new" partners had lasted much longer than a month, so what was the point. "Jose" was out of the question, of course - only one person had called him that on the job, and that bastard had disappeared three years ago.

It took about an hour for him and Veck to nose around and learn absolutely nothing material. There were no security cameras on the outsides of the buildings and no witnesses who had come forward, but the CSI guys were going to crawl all around with their headgear and their little plastic baggies and their tweezers. Maybe something would turn up.

The coroner showed at nine and did his thing, and the body was cleared for removal another hour or so after that. And when folks needed a hand with the body, Jose was surprised to find that Veck snapped on a pair of latex specials and jumped right in that Dumpster.

Just before the coroner took off with her, Jose asked about the time of death and was told about noontime the day before.

Great, he thought as the cars and vans started to pull out. Nearly twenty-four hours dead before they found her. She could well have been driven in from out of state.

"Database time," he said to Veck.

"I'm on it."

As the guy turned away and headed for a motorcycle, Jose called out, "Gum is not a food group."

Veck stopped and glanced over his shoulder. "Are you asking me for breakfast, Detective."

"Just don't want you passing out on the job. It would embarrass you and give me another body to step over."

"You're all heart, Detective."

Maybe he used to be. Now he was just hungry himself and he didn't feel like eating alone. "I'll meet you at the twenty-four in five."

"Twenty-four?"

That's right; he wasn't from here. "Riverside Diner on Eighth Street. Open twenty-four hours a day."

"Got it." The guy put on a black helmet and swung a leg over some kind of contraption that was mostly engine. "I'm buying."

"Suit yourself."

Veck slammed the kick start down and juiced the motor. "I always do, Detective. Always."

As he tore off, he left a wake of testosterone in the alley, and Jose felt like a middle-aged minivanner in comparison as he schlepped over to his oatmeal-colored unmarked. Sliding behind the wheel, he put his nearly empty and totally cold Dunkin' Donuts fister into the cup holder and looked past the tape to that Dumpster.

Nabbing his cell phone out of his suit jacket, he dialed into HQ. "Hey, it's de la Cruz. Can you patch me over to Mary Ellen?" The wait was less than a minute. "M.E., how you be? Good ... good. Listen, I want to hear the call that came in about the body over by the Commodore. Yup. Sure - just play it back. Thanks - and take your time."

Jose shoved the key into the slot at the steering wheel. "Great, thanks, M.E."

He took a deep breath and cranked the engine over -

Yeah, I'd like to rahport a dead bahdy. Nah, I'm not giving my name. It's in a Dumpstah in an alley off Tenth Street, two blocks ova from th' Commahdore. Looks to be a Caucasian female, late teens, early twenties ... Nah, I'm not giving my name.... Hey, how 'bout you get down the address and stahp worrying 'bout me....

Jose gripped his phone and started to shake all over.

The South Boston accent was so clear and so familiar it was like time had gotten into a car wreck and whiplashed backward.

"Detective? You want to hear it again?" he heard Mary Ellen say in his ear.

Closing his eyes, he croaked out, "Yes, please ..."

When the recording was finished, he listened to himself thank Mary Ellen and felt his thumb hit the end button to terminate the call.

Sure as water down a sink drain, he was sucked into a nightmare from about two years ago ... when he'd walked into a shitty, rundown apartment that was full of empty Lagavulin bottles and pizza boxes. He remembered his hand reaching out to a closed bathroom door, the damn thing quaking from palm to fingertips.

He'd been convinced he was going to find a dead body on the other side. Hanging from the showerhead by a belt ... or maybe lying in the tub soaking in blood instead of bubble bath.

Butch O'Neal had made hard living as much of a professional pursuit as his job in the homicide department. He'd been a late-night drinker, and not just a relationship-phobe, but completely incapable of forming attachments.

Except he and Jose had been tight. As tight as Butch had ever gotten with anyone.

No suicide, though. No body. Nothing. One night he'd been around; the next ... gone.

For the first month or two, Jose had expected to hear something - either from the guy himself or because a corpse with a busted nose and a badly capped front tooth turned up somewhere.

Days had slid into weeks, however, and in turn had dumped into seasons of the year. And he supposed he became something like a doctor who had a terminal disease: He finally knew firsthand how the families of missing persons felt. And God, that dreaded, cold stretch of Not Knowing was nothing he'd ever expected to wander down ... but with his old partner's disappearance, he didn't just walk it; he bought a lot, put up a house, and moved the fuck in.

Now, though, after he'd given up all hope, after he no longer woke up in the middle of the night with the wonders ... now this recording.

Sure, millions of people had Southie accents. But O'Neal had had a telltale hoarseness in his voice that couldn't be replicated.

Abruptly, Jose didn't feel like going to the twenty-four, and he didn't want anything to eat. But he put his unmarked in drive and hit the gas.

The moment he'd looked into the Dumpster and seen those missing eyes and that dental job, he'd known that he was going in search of a serial killer. But he couldn't have guessed he'd be on another search.

Time to find Butch O'Neal.

If he could.