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Standing on the front stoop of the address O’Dey has on record, I knock on the heavy wooden door. Once, twice, three times. This is a house where old money once lived. A three-story villa with large picture windows and ugly gargoyles sitting atop the roof.
The windows take up massive portions of the street-facing walls, but heavy curtains block our view—and all light that might try to get inside.
When no sound comes and no one answers the door, I knock again and cast a look across to Fletch. “Maybe he’s not home.”
“Someone’s supposed to be here with mother dearest.” He raises a hand and slams his fist to the wooden door. “Copeland PD! Is anyone home?”
“We don’t have a warrant to go in.”
“Nope. Mrs. O’Dey?”Thud. Thud. Thud.“Are you home?”
“But we have an elderly woman in residence who needs constant care and supervision. Could be that she needs assistance.”
“Good enough for me. Mrs. O’Dey. I’m going to knock once more. Please answer the door if you’re able. After that, it’s my obligation to perform a welfare check to make sure you’re okay.”Knock. Knock. Knock. “Mrs. O’Dey?”
“Warning given and received.” Stepping back, I lift my boot and slam it against the door so the locks ping loose and the handle skids across the hardwood floor inside the dim foyer.
The smell comes first, infiltrating my nostrils and staining my lungs. My hand goes to the gun on my thigh, pulling it free and removing the safety.
Though I wish I could bring a hand up to cover my nose and mouth, I keep them both wrapped around my pistol and slowly make my way into the house.
“There’s a dead body somewhere in here.” I speak quietly for Fletch, though I know there’s not a lot of reason to. If someone was in here and alive, they already know we’re here. “I can smell the decomp.”
“Fanning the bottom floor first.” He holds his service weapon in one hand and takes out his phone with the other. “Dispatch, this is Detective Charlie Fletcher. Suspected homicide at the O’Dey residence.” He rattles off the address and slowly makes his way through the room.
While he goes left, I move right and head into the living room.
“Requesting backup, and extra uniforms to secure the scene. Be on the lookout for Ethan O’Dey. Twenty-three years old, brown and brown, approximately five-nine, and a hundred and sixty. He’s a person of interest. Approach with caution. Keep an eye on his hands when apprehending; he might be our Opulus Killer, and his MO is to stick his victims with a deadly cocktail of chemicals. Aw shit.”
Fletch’s tone brings my head up with a fast snap.
“Arch? Come this way.”
I circle out of the living room in the almost darkness and pass the half-open front door. A cold drizzle falls outside; not snow, and not even the good kind of rain, but a nasty sleet that makes the roads wet and gets in a man’s eyes.
Stepping through the foyer and into the next doorway, the repugnant stench of death and decay grows stronger.
In the center of what is probably supposed to be the dining room, a single bed sits, medical-grade, with electronics on the side and hangers for drip medication. Side rails are lifted and functional, but the woman on the bed is tied to those rails so her hands hang limp and her body lies decomposing and rancid.
“Confirmed homicide,” Fletch murmurs. “Shit.”
“He just let her rot.” Circling the room, I press my back to the wall and check through the next door to make sure we’re alone. “Fletch?” I peek through the window into what I guess is an overgrown courtyard out back. “What do you see?”
“An elderly woman I assume to be Coral O’Dey,” he growls. “She fits the description. Confirmed dead. Dried bloody-ish foam stains her face. Her skin is predominantly red, and blood has pooled at the bottom of her body.” He places his fingers on her wrist. “She’s neither hot nor cold. She matches the ambient temperature of the room. No pulse,” he continues. “Her skin seems…” He considers that for a moment. “Filmy and bloated.” He brings his eyes up to mine. “Gotta call in the M.E., but I reckon she’s been down a week or two already.”
“So he’s just been living with her like this?”
Confident the ground level is empty but for us and a dead Coral, I step back into the foyer and head up the stairs.
“You can call Aubree,” I shout down so my voice echoes. “Minka should still be under lock and key at Copeland Memorial.”
“Can she come out to play if the doctors clear her?”
I falter on the stairs and pause to consider.
I don’twanther anywhere near this place or Ethan O’Dey, but that doesn’t mean I get to tell her what to do.
