Gallagher Justice. Amanda Stevens

two detectives from Doggett’s unit, Jay Krychek and Skip Vreeland, glanced over their shoulders. Krychek immediately turned back to the body, but Skip nodded and spoke. He was a tall, thin man with a grim expression and stooped, narrow shoulders that made his rumpled suit jackets constantly ride up in the back.

      Krychek was partial to the gangster look—dark shirts, light ties, and in the daytime, he was never seen without his badass cop sunglasses.

      “Yo, Doggett, how’s it going?” Skip greeted him.

      “Not too bad.”

      Krychek turned back around to Doggett. “Took your sweet time getting here.”

      Doggett shrugged. “Fog’s a bitch out there.”

      “Tell me about it. Playing hell with Forensics. They won’t be able to find shit out here.” Krychek stepped back, making room for Doggett. “Take a look.”

       “It’s bad, kid. Blood all over the place. You don’t want to look.”

      The woman was lying on her back, eyes closed, her expression almost peaceful. To Doggett’s surprise, there really wasn’t much blood. On first glance, she appeared to be sleeping, but someone who looked like her wouldn’t be snoozing in an alley. She was beautiful, a real knockout. Blond. Young. No more than twenty, if that.

      Damn shame, Doggett thought.

      There was a dark stain on the pavement beneath her head, and her hair was matted with dried blood. She wore a light dusting of makeup—eye shadow, mascara, pale pink lip gloss—that didn’t detract from her natural beauty. The black dress she wore was short and slinky, her shoes spiked and sexy. Expensive and seductive clothing designed to attract the attention of the opposite sex.

      By contrast her jewelry was simple and unpretentious—tiny diamond studs in her earlobes and a pearl ring on the third finger of her right hand. The presence of the jewelry seemed to rule out robbery as a motive.

      “She was shot in the back of the head,” Krychek told him.

      “Do we know who she is?” Doggett asked.

      Krychek shook his head. “Not yet. CSU found an evening bag in the Dumpster that we think belonged to her. The wallet was missing, but they found a phone number scribbled on a piece of paper inside a gold compact. We’re checking the cross directory now to see if we can come up with a name.”

      Doggett’s gaze was still on the body. “Who found her?”

      “Wino by the name of Teddy Scranton. Says this alley is on his regular beat. He hangs around Restaurant Row until midnight or so, then heads over here where it’s quieter. When he spotted her, he walked down to the corner store and had the night clerk call 911. We’ve got him in one of the squads right now, trying to sober him up with coffee and food, but I don’t think he’s going to be much help. Claims he didn’t see anything.”

      “Could he have been the one who stole her wallet?” Meredith asked. “Somebody turned her over. Maybe he was looking for her purse.”

      “Don’t think so.” Krychek ran his hand down his tie. “If he lifted the wallet, why hang around and call 911? He would have hightailed it out of here ASAP. He got what he wanted for his good deed—a free meal and a little attention.”

      A cynical observation, but Doggett figured Krychek was probably right on the money.

      Doggett stood with his hands behind his back, a habit he’d picked up at the academy so as not to inadvertently contaminate the crime scene. When the tech gave him the go ahead, he donned surgical gloves and squatted beside the body, still careful not to touch anything as he examined the wound in her head.

      “Looks like a .45,” he murmured.

      “She was kneeling when he plugged her,” Meredith said.

      “Any other injuries?”

      “Ligature marks around her wrists. He had her tied up at some point.”

      “What about the exit wound?”

      Meredith shook her head. “The bullet’s still lodged somewhere in the body cavity. I’ll find it when I open her up.”

      “Any idea about time of death?”

      “Liver temp would be more accurate, but judging from the thermal scan, I’d say two hours, tops. But that’s just an educated guess.”

      It always was. Even with modern forensics, the most reliable way of pinpointing time of death was still to find the last person who’d seen the victim alive, other than the killer, of course, but that wasn’t always possible. Doggett glanced at his watch. If Meredith’s guess was accurate, that would put time of death around midnight.

      He bent over a tiny mark on the woman’s left shoulder. “You see this?”

      Meredith nodded. “Looks like one of those fake tattoos. I thought it was the real thing at first, but if you look closely you can see where the edges are blurred into the pores.”

      “You used to work in Gang Crimes, Doggett.” Krychek’s tone held an edge of resentment. “You recognize that symbol?”

      “It’s a trident,” Doggett said. “The Gangster Disciples use it, but they mostly operate on the South Side. This is a long way from their home turf. Besides, I don’t think this is a gang hit.”

      “I agree,” Skip Vreeland put in. “Look at the hoochie-mama threads she’s wearing. That girl was out for a good time.”

      “Hoochie-mama threads with a Michigan Avenue price tag,” Krychek, the fashion expert, muttered.

      “We need to get a picture over to Rush Street and start canvassing as many of the nightclubs as we can hit.” Doggett stood and walked back over to the other two detectives. “If she was there tonight, someone’s bound to remember a girl like that.”

      Krychek stuck his hands in his pockets, jingling his change. “So what’s the deal here, Doggett?”

      Doggett frowned. “What do you mean, what’s the deal?”

      Krychek shrugged. “Skip and I were the first detectives on the scene so that makes this our case.”

      “Quinlan called me at home and told me to get over here ASAP,” Doggett said. “It’s my understanding this is my case.”

      Krychek gave a nervous laugh. “No way.”

      “Then looks like we’ve got a problem.”

      The two men eyed each other warily until Meredith muttered behind them, “Oh, great. A pissing contest between two cops. How unusual.”

      Skip said gruffly, “Hell with this shit. Let’s just get on with what needs to be done and let the boss figure out whose case it is later. Right now, somebody needs to go check on that phone number.” He started to walk away, then turned back to his partner. “You coming?”

      Krychek held his ground for a moment longer, his gaze faintly menacing, before he stalked off behind Vreeland.

      Doggett moved back to the body. He was glad they were gone. He needed a moment alone here, needed time to think. He frowned as he studied the dead woman. He was missing something.

      Carefully he cataloged her features, trying to commit every detail of her person and the crime scene to memory. He’d go over it in his mind a dozen more times before this night was out.

      He rubbed his chin. Something was bothering him about that mark on her left shoulder. Doggett had the niggling feeling that he’d seen that symbol before, that it should mean something to him, but he didn’t know what.

      He was troubled by her appearance, too. The dress and shoes screamed for attention, but everything else, her makeup and jewelry, were understated. His gaze rested on her fingernails. They were neatly trimmed and squared off, but unpolished, as if this were a detail she’d forgotten because she wasn’t