Frost Read online

  Crow and I glanced at each other and I made a mental note to ask Sarah about Donna Blankenship and Jason Frost when I got home.

  "So Mr. Frost came in to help with the kids," Crow continued. "What exactly would he do as help?"

  She traced the lip of the cup with her index finger. "He entertained them with magic tricks."

  Apparently this was a good memory of my doppleganger because her face brightened again with a genuine smile as she refocused on us. "That's what made him so sweet. He had these magic tricks he used to do with ice and water. He'd somehow freeze water, make a bowl of snowflakes, and one of the kids said he made it snow."

  "Made it snow?" Crow glanced at me. "In the hospital?"

  "In a patient's room. Amelia had a birthday so a few of the kids that could, organized a party and Jason helped them. I stepped out to get more trash bags and when I came in the floor was wet. The kids said it snowed but," she smiled. "You know kids and their imagination."

  "You're right. Doesn't sound like this guy would have any enemies."

  "None. Everyone loved Jason."

  "Even you?" I blurted out. I'd somehow lost control of my mouth.

  "I loved Jason—but not the way I think he loved me."

  "He was in love with you?"

  "I suspected it, yes. Jason was so sweet and kind, and he was so good to those kids. But there just wasn't any—" she looked at me with a befuddled expression. Or what I thought of as a visual image for that word. "I don't know. There wasn't that spark. That push you feel underneath when you meet someone."

  I felt a little flushed and put my hand to my cheek. The skin was warm but I wasn't perspiring. And who could in this house's sub-arctic temperature?

  "Do you have a home address for him?"

  "No. We usually met up somewhere or he came here."

  "You didn't think that was odd?"

  "No."

  I made a face at Crow the Interrogator.

  "Look—" she shifted in the chair. "I'm not sure how much I can help you. I didn't know Jason all that long. We were friends. He was on his way here for pizza and a movie." And again her gaze settled on me. "Your voice is different. It's deeper. And your mannerisms are completely opposite. Jason was always timid—like he was unsure of himself. But yours are more confident. And your face—it's not exactly like his. You have something—fiercer."

  Oh. Kay. Now. On to more awkward moments.

  Crow slipped his phone back in his pocket. "I think we have what we need, Donna. Kids in this area are sometimes high on meth or crank. They see a young man walking down the street and think of him as an easy mark."

  Her eyes teared again as she sniffed. "It's just so wrong. He never hurt anyone and he died alone in the street."

  While Crow typed on his phone I thought of something. "Do you have any enemies? Someone that might have targeted Mr. Frost to get to you? A jealous ex-lover?"

  "No lovers," Again she looked at me and then looked back at Crow. "As for enemies I make them all the time, detective," she said in a very calm manner for such a loaded statement. "My job at the hospital is counselor. I work with battered children. Some are abused, others abandoned. When I find evidence of physical abuse—especially sexual—I report it to the police. So," Donna stood with her mug in her hand. "I've made quite of a few enemies over the years."

  She walked out of the kitchen.

  Crow and I followed. I took a closer look at the place. Half bath under the stairs, a living room with a small Christmas tree twinkling in the corner beside a fireplace. Plastic mistletoe hung from the light in front of the front door. I caught her looking up at it, then she looked down and stepped outside.

  The heat hit me like a wall of hell. The air pressed against my skin and made it feel as if I wore a wetsuit. In a sauna.

  Crow paused at the top of the stairs and I moved to Donna's side to get a look at the thermometer hanging on the post by the stairs. 96º. In December! And who said there wasn't global warming? This was ridiculous. The numbers on the thermometer blurred and I blinked several times, thinking I had something in my eye. I put my hand to my forehead. I felt the heat but not enough to sweat yet—

  Oh God no…

  "Donna," Crow reached into his back pocket pulled out his wallet and then slipped a card from the side pocket. He handed it to her. "If you think of anything else—"

  I knew it was coming. I'd experienced heat exhaustion enough during my life to spot the signs—nausea, dizziness, blurred vision. Once it started there wasn't anything I could do to stop it.

  I just didn't want it to happen in front of Donna Blankenship.

  I grabbed the post where the thermometer hung to steady myself. Nausea rushed forward and I had to swallow a few times to stop myself from throwing up coffee and condensed milk.

  "Jack?"

  I felt Crow's hand on my shoulder. I pushed it away—afraid he'd knock me down the steps. Most of the houses in this neighborhood were built up from the road, the lower half of their yards encased in waist-high retaining walls of tile, brick and stone. Their staircases were cut into the yard to give a much less graded path from the house to the sidewalk. "Don't—" I said. "I jus' needa laydown…"

  "He's slurring his words." Her perfume surrounded me when she stepped closer. Her cool hand felt good on my forehead but that good was abruptly replaced by a harsher, harder hand on my upper arm. "He's not sweating but he's burning up. I'm not sure getting cool and then hot was the best for him. Damn—this is just like Jason."

  Crow caught me as my knees gave. This one was fast—faster than any other time I could remember. I lost control of everything at once and went limp in his arms. "This is a bad one. Jack? Can you hear me?"

  I couldn't answer him. The attack was taking me out too fast.

  "I'd swear he was running at a hundred and three," Donna said again. "Can you carry him down? We need to see if we can get him into that ambulance that drove up. Jason can wait—he's beyond help. But if we don't get Jack to the hospital and get him cooled down, he'll be beyond help too."

  -3-

  "He's coming around."

  "Oh Christ, finally," Crow's irritated tone was unmistakable.

  I swallowed first just to make sure there wasn't anything shoved down my throat. Been in that situation before. I opened my eyes and saw two bleary faces hovering over me so I blinked back at them several times. "Shit, not so close. Damn Gawain, you know I don't swing that way."

  My voice reminded me of a home-made duck call. I cleared my throat and coughed.

  "Here," a soothing, familiar voice spoke on the other side and I turned as a straw was shoved against my lips. "Drink this. It's just water but it's cool."

  Cold water—it was mana from heaven. I gulped it and reached up to take control of the straw. I refocused on my savior and fiancé Sarah Heine staring down at me. I spit the straw out. "Hi baby."

  Now when she leaned in close I felt my stomach flutter. And when she gave me a quick kiss, sky rockets in flight. "Don't scare me like that, asshole." She wore one of those long white lab coats and a stethoscope.

  "Aren't you a kid doctor?"

  "Yes," she straightened with a slight sideways smile and set the water on a side table. "But since they all know you're mine around here, I got first dibs to treat the cute cop in triage."

  "Jack, that was a bad one."

  I turned my head and looked up at Crow. He looked washed out. "How bad?"

  "Worst attack so far. It's just past 6:00 am. You were unconscious just over 5 hours. You came pretty close to slipping into a coma this time."

  Ouch. In the past unconsciousness lasted only an hour or so. The doctors always warned me about the dangers of heat exhaustion and believe it or not I had listened and taken measures to prevent it. I usually did a pretty good job of not overworking outside in any heat, keeping hydrated, and I always making my doctor appointments. "I don't know how it happened this time. We were inside an air-conditioned home and then all I did was step outside."
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br />   "You were dehydrated," Sarah volunteered as she slipped her cool hand into mine and squeezed. "Baby you have got to keep drinking during the day—especially in the heat. One attack of heat exhaustion makes you more susceptible—"

  "—to more. Yes, I know. I live with this."

  "And so do I." She leaned in again and cocked an eyebrow at me. It was supposed to look all business. But to me it just made her all the more desirable. "I want to marry you, but I want a long life with you, Jackson. It's bad enough worrying about you getting shot in the line of duty. With this heat wave," she reached up and ruffled my hair off my forehead. "You're such a delicate flower, aren't you?"

  She knew how much I hated it when she called me that.

  "Yes he is," Crow laughed. "Just a little rose."

  "Shut up Tonto." I rubbed at my eyes. The headaches that immediately followed these episodes wiped me out. And this one was had doozy all over it. "You got aspirin?"

  "Crow's got it. Be nice to him." Sarah gave my hand a final squeeze, released it, and moved to the bottom of the bed and squeezed my socked foot. "You are under orders to stay in bed and rest. Just take it easy, keep cool and hydrate." With that she left the room.

  I raised my eyebrows questioningly up at Crow. "Coma?"

  "Doc hasn't left your side all day. It's 5 pm. You got a good woman there, kimosabi. Do what she says. I can take this case. You go home and relax."

  "Like hell." I didn't let the small amount of dizzy I felt hinder my sitting up and yanking the IV out of my arm.

  Crow grabbed my hand. "What are you doing?"

  "I'm going to work this case. Did you tell Sarah about Jason Frost?"

  He let go of my arm. "No. But I did a bit of research on our vic." He reached inside his leather pea coat and pulled out a case file. Even if Sarah hadn't left my side, Crow had. "The lack of information we have on this guy will astound you."

  Normally in any one case file I'd find copies of any reports from officers, detectives, forensics, snapshots of the victim, a full write up of name, birthday, place of birth, address, latest photo alive—but the only things in this folder were a few shots of the body on the asphalt outside of Blankenship's home. "You didn't find anything?"

  "Nope." He pulled a chair up and sat in it so he could lean in close at my reclined level. "It's like he's a ghost wearing a Jack mask. He's got no finger prints. None."

  I blinked at him. "Are you serious?"

  "Fuck'n A." He shrugged. "No prints on his toes either. Noel sent samples of hair and nails for DNA testing, see if it's in the system."

  "That'll take a month at least. We need to know who he was now. So," I hit the call button. "Did you find anything on Donna Blankenship?"

  "I did ask Sarah if she knew Donna Blankenship."

  Leaned toward him. "And?"

  "And she said yes. Confirmed Blankenship was on staff. They've met a few times. It's Blankenship's job to report the more heinous injuries to the police. So," he turned and grabbed another folder from a side table. This one had paper inside of it. "I compiled a list of every one of Blankenship's clients, ten years back. Got a few hits but this one stuck out. Guy's name is Brian Bishop."

  I opened the folder and winced when a seriously angry dude's mug shot glared back at me. He had a roundish face with dark eyes and relatively small nose for his other features. It gave him a kind a rodent look. I glanced at the file tucked behind it. "Multiple counts of child abuse and molestation?"

  "Yep. Seems one of the kids brought into the ER about six years ago was one of his victims. The kicker? It was his daughter. Little girl, pretty badly beaten, and showed signs of molestation. Blankenship ordered a rape kit—caught hell for it—but was able to positively ID the DNA. This guy raped his daughter and then beat her to stop her from telling. And because of that successful revelation, his samples were tested against three unsolved cases. All of them matched. The dude's MO? A knife."

  "Christ," I swore and looked at the report for a release date. "Sonofa—he's out on parole."

  "Yep. Good behavior. Could be he came back to cap her ass and saw Mr. Frost heading to her house. Or maybe even Frost caught him peeping in the window and the guy did him in then. Sarah and I were talking about it before you woke up. I think we need to let Miss Blankenship know there's a possibility this guy's gunning for her. But since we don't have any evidence this is our guy—" he sighed. "I distributed his picture when he couldn't be found at the address his parole officer had."

  "So he's in the wind."

  Crow took the folder back and plopped it on top of the empty one for Mr. Frost just as his phone buzzed. He looked at the face before answering it and after a one sided conversation put it back in his pocket. "Noel wants to see us as soon as possible. Said she wants to go over what she found."

  The door to the room opened and an adorable brunette with a pleasant smile entered. Her scrubs had faded blue flowers on them. "You okay detective?"

  "Yes. I need to check out."

  "But the doctor said—"

  "It's okay," I held out my arm and pointed to the IV, hoping she'd get the idea to remove it. "I'm just going downstairs."

  To the morgue.

  -4-

  "I'm afraid I don't have any explanation for this," Noel said after Crow and I came through the door. I'd worked with Liz Noel for nearly a year and I couldn't remember ever seeing her this kind of frustrated. I'd seen her mad, moody, irritated, happy and drunk. She and Sarah were good friends.

  "Anything you can tell us would help at this point," Crow moved around to the other side of the table where Mr. Frost lay. A blue green sheet gave my doppleganger a bit of dignity.

  I'm not going to say it didn't bother me, looking down at him. Same face, same hair, same chest.

  "You okay?" She put a hand on my arm. "I was there when Crow brought you down the stairs, Jack. I've seen you go through heat exhaustion before, but you've never been unconscious that long until now. Crow said you went down fast."

  Everyone was worried about me. Like I didn't already know last night was different somehow? I mean, I was there. But I was polite and nodded. "What is it you wanted to tell us?"

  Liz switched gears into professional mode, which was a lot different than drinking mode and partying mode and hug-all-over everyone mode while suffering from intoxicated mode. Professional mode sort of scared me. "Remember how I told you he had a different core temp than surface?"

  "Vaguely," I said as Crow nodded.

  "The only reason for that I can come up with is the body was frozen."

  I frowned but didn't say anything. None of this was making sense.

  "That's ridiculous, Liz. He was up walking and talking, and he bled fresh warm blood." Crow removed his hat as an afterthought. Being around the dead, no doubt.

  "Now give me a minute to make it all muddier." She straightened her smock. "If you freeze a body for a long period of time, and you allow it to thaw naturally, then eventually the surface would warm faster than the inside. But even after it was thawed there would still be ice-pockets. But this guy? No ice at all. Nothing. I'm still not sure I'd swear by that time of death call I made."

  "Because of the cold core?"

  "Yep. So," Noel put her hands on her hips. "Right now the body's the temp is where it should be and I was able to identify the type of blade he was stabbed with." She pulled the sheet down to expose the wound. "See here and here? How the cut is rounded on this end but much more fine point on the opposite?"

  I saw it, and it was making me queasy. Okay, maybe I should have stayed in bed.

  "Your weapon's a Chef's knife, most likely a Global cook's knife. They're made in Japan, very popular and you can get them in Bed Bath and Beyond."

  "That's one of my mom's favorite places to shop. I used to wish she'd get lost in Beyond."

  Crow shook his head as he pulled out his phone and touched the screen for notes. "Thanks Liz. I'll check to see how many of those have been sold in the area. Anything else?"

&nb
sp; "No. And that's what bothers me. The lab hasn't got back with me on the DNA."

  "Are—" I cleared my throat. "Are you going to compare his DNA to mine?"

  "You're damn straight I am. See if maybe you have a twin." She snapped her fingers as if remembering something and pulled down one of those round high powered magnifying glasses, flipped on the light and maneuvered it over his hand. I pressed my face to the concave glass as she moved and turned the guy's fingertips. "Take a good look at his fingers and tell me what you see."

  I couldn't say what it was I saw, but I can say what I didn't see. No ridges or grooves. She moved the finger a different way so the light caught the fingers' edges—

  "Shit—" I straightened up. "Are those snowflakes?"

  "Huh?" Crow came around the body and I moved out of his way so he could see what I saw. For a split second I expected to hear his laughter at me 'cause I obviously needed glasses.

  But he didn't.

  Crow stood back, pointed at the guy's hands and looked at Noel. "That—that's not right. Did he have them made that way?"

  She shut the glass off and pushed it back up on its anchor arm. "Nope. His usual prints weren't scrubbed off, or cut off or scared with acid. This is his natural finger print on his fingers and his toes. If it's a prank it's a hell of a good one." Noel made a pained face. "His face really creeps me out. It's like I'm working on you, Jack and I don't like it. Are you sure you don't have a twin?"

  "With snowflake finger prints?" I leaned my neck to the right then the left to relieve the stiffness. "I can ask mom again—if she'll talk to me about it."

  Crow spoke up. "You two still not speaking?"

  "Not really. She stays in her little house reading her bible and praying for my sins even when I tell her I haven't committed any sins."

  "Doesn't your mother know what a cop is?" My partner held out his hands. "We're the good guys. That means we do good."

  "I didn't know your mother was a Jesus freak." Noel snapped off her gloves. "You two have a falling out?"