A Life Removed Read online

  A Life Removed

  Copyright © 2016 by Jason Parent. All rights reserved.

  First Print Edition: May 2017

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  Cover and Formatting: Streetlight Graphics

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to locales, events, business establishments, or actual persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

  PROLOGUE

  Fall River, Massachusetts. A new millennium.

  The night was cold, far too cold for her to be out on the streets. Early fall in New England was a crapshoot—hot one day and blistered ass cheeks the next. The opposing temperatures had blanched the leaves, a holocaust of swirling colors.

  Fall was a pleasant time for most New Englanders, but for Eliza, the season meant the coming of winter and harder times. Cold or not, work beckoned.

  She’d been pretty once. Eliza’s parents had encouraged her ambitious dreams of modeling, but that was before they’d thrown her out, before she’d fallen into bed with cocaine. Those dreams of modeling had turned into a reality of stripping. As the addiction wore her down, she’d turned to a life of whoring. With every snort, she looked a little more beaten and strung out. At twenty-seven, she was fruit gone rotten, her core porous and withered. Her oversized fake tits hung awkwardly against her frail body. Her eyes were sunken, and her mouth was spoiled by crooked fences, courtesy of her last boyfriend.

  In the right light, Eliza was still beautiful, a fleeting reminder of an earlier, more innocent day. But after five years, a thousand lines, three abusive boyfriends, and more johns than she could ever hope to forget, Eliza’s pinup days were over, as gone as her money and her self-respect. She had a need to fulfill. Her body was a means to an end.

  Eliza preferred to work Bedford Street. People only went to Bedford Street after hours for two reasons: alcohol and pussy. Fewer cops patrolled Bedford than Plymouth Avenue, so her odds of spending the night on her back were far better than passing it in a holding cell. She would probably run into Lexi or Carla, but otherwise, her competition would be slight. On Bedford Street, Eliza could earn enough to get her off later, picking up a regular or hustling a drunk exiting one of the countless dives.

  Prostitution wasn’t exactly rampant in Fall River. The decaying city full of downtrodden people had once been a bustling textile city. The mills had long since closed, leaving a generation jobless. Unlike that of a big city, serious crime in Fall River was limited mostly because there was nothing to do and no reason to go there, except for those unlucky enough to live there. Just fifteen minutes outside Providence, it had a few wannabe gangs, a noticeable drug problem, and the occasional murder.

  Eliza called it home. She’d been born in Fall River, and she would die there, her chances for escape as dead as her dreams.

  Still, she scraped by. Occasionally, tricks turned out to be a bit rough, but she hadn’t experienced anything she couldn’t handle. So like so many nights before, she walked along Bedford Street in short heels and a shorter dress just before closing time. It was her need, not the cold weather, that made her shake.

  “I said, how are you doing tonight?” a voice called from behind.

  Eliza whipped around, startled. She hadn’t noticed the van pull up or the man calling to her from its passenger-side window.

  Bingo. Eliza’s nerves quickly settled. Her thoughts were well past the callous sex, focused on her next fix. She approached her first customer of the night, and by the look of him, it would be easy money. The man resembled a fifties crooner in some silly doo-wop band. Pat Boone meets Buddy Holly, only much more handsome and minus the nerdy, thick-rimmed glasses. He was well dressed, clean-cut, and chiseled like a Greek statue.

  It can’t be for him. The driver must be a pig. Eliza couldn’t make out the driver, whose face was hidden by shadow.

  “Are you looking for some company?” she asked, knowing they wouldn’t be talking to her for any other reason.

  “Actually, we were looking for you.” The man’s smile and his voice’s velvet tone oozed with charm.

  Eliza grew suspicious. “You a cop?” She’d been with her share of lonely men, but even the decent-looking ones lacked his confidence, his seductive stare. Although she was a whore, the man’s charms were not wasted on her. But they did make her question his intentions.

  “No, nothing like that. We’d like to hire you.”

  New to this. Eliza grinned. I’ll make it easy for him. “Thirty for head. Fifty for pussy. No anal.” She knew she would blow the guy for a cigarette, but it never hurt to negotiate.

  “Sure, sure.” The man’s smile was unwavering, his poise unflinching. “Can we go someplace more private?”

  “Where’d you have in mind? I have a spot I use around the corner.” By “spot,” she meant “alley.”

  “How about the back of my van? It’s much more comfortable than it looks. Come on, get in.”

  She was no fool. She’d heard all the stories about hookers who’d gone with the wrong guys. You get a bad vibe, you run. But she got no bad vibes from that guy. His eyes were kind and soft, almost angelic, and she briefly imagined him as her Richard Gere, her savior, come to take her away from her life on the streets. Eliza was too smart to cling to that hope. Not that she had a choice. Her shakes were getting worse by the hour. It could be a while before the next business opportunity presented itself. She was definitely getting into the van.

  “All right. But I don’t do groups. One at a time.”

  The man opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle. He was dressed all in black, except for a silver chain looped around his neck and tucked into his shirt. His eyes, like soothing springs, invited her in, and for the first time, she felt afraid, not of imminent danger but of not being in control. She feared she would do anything he asked, anything he wanted. She was his for the taking. She might not even ask for the money up front. He was a gentleman going about ungentlemanly business, and she liked the façade of chivalry.

  When he slid open the van’s side door and took her hand, excitement tingled through her body, a sensation she’d never felt from her work. The back was empty, and she slid into the middle seat. The man closed the door and returned to his spot up front. The driver remained silent as he pulled away from the curb.

  “So, who’s fir—”

  Someone put an arm around her neck from behind. The assailant’s grasp came quickly and was unrelenting, so fierce that she bit deeply into her tongue, clenching hard against the sudden force. Her head throbbed. Pressure built around her neck, blocking the flow of blood to her brain. She tried to scream but had no voice.

  Even in her terror, she knew what was happening. Her heart knew it
, too, pumping feverishly, speeding along her unconsciousness. Her eyes rolled back. She dug her nails into the arm around her neck, but her assailant wouldn’t let her go. Her vision blurred as tears began to flow.

  As her need for air became vital, Eliza’s eyes shot open. She reached out to the man in the passenger seat in front of her, the man in whom she’d foolishly placed her trust. Please stop this. She clung to the hope that in those last waking moments, he could still be her savior.

  He stared back at her, flashing that charming smile.

  CHAPTER 1

  Aaron Pimental woke feeling as though he hadn’t slept at all. His muscles ached. His tongue lolled, dry like a slug on hot pavement, a film that tasted like broken pills coating it. The alarm clock flashed 7:00 a.m. His shift started in an hour. He eased out of bed, trying not to disturb Arianna, who didn’t need to get up for another half hour. Looking down at her long dark hair curving around her ear and under her chin, he envied her that half hour.

  After six years with her, he still found her beautiful, still loved her. But they had been spending less and less time together of late, and he was beginning to wonder if she still loved him. Something or someone had infected their former bliss, spreading like a cancer through all aspects of their relationship.

  Or maybe just through me.

  He stared at her, wondering how long it had been since they’d last had sex. Listening to the air whistle through her nose as she snored, he couldn’t even recall when he’d last wanted to.

  She shifted and moaned, and he slid away. He headed to the bathroom to begin what would be just another long day in a long, sad string of them. The definition of living.

  After his shower, he stuffed his close to two hundred pounds into his navy-blue uniform pants. They had fit him so much better only a year ago, and he had to wonder if tedium made a man idle. Even so, he was in decent shape for a twenty-eight-year-old. He dried and combed his mostly still-pepper hair, trying to remember his last good night’s sleep. Beer helped, but it wasn’t helping his uniform issues, his sex drive, or his relationship with his girlfriend. He blamed it for the disappearing trick his abs had pulled.

  Once dressed, he stepped out into the hallway, which was lined with photos of a once-happy couple. He stopped before his favorite and sighed: a simple shot of Aaron, looking tall and lean, smiling, his arm around Arianna as snow-capped peaks shot up like arrowheads behind them. He didn’t smile like that anymore, not that big and bright and genuine. And Arianna…

  She looks as good today as she did then. Allowing himself the memory, Aaron did smile, if only just a little.

  He fed, walked, and brushed his dog then headed to work. Wonder where the captain will stick me and the radar gun today? Four years… I’ve been doing this for four years, and I haven’t gotten anywhere.

  Just as he’d guessed, his shift began with speed control during rush hour on Plymouth Avenue, where the chances of speeding were next to nil. Fender benders, though, were a regular occurrence, and they meant paperwork.

  Fun, fun.

  Aaron was sitting in the lot of a small café, sipping piping-hot coffee, when a call came over the radio. A woman’s body had been discovered in a dumpster behind a sandwich shop on Plymouth Avenue, not more than three blocks from the café. He would have been fine letting someone else take it, but the dispatcher knew his cruiser’s location. With a groan, he headed toward what he prayed wouldn’t end up being a shit show.

  When Aaron got to the sandwich shop, the shift manager was hysterical. Aaron sat the man on the curb and waited patiently for him to calm down before taking his statement. During a spot check before opening, the manager had found a bigger mess than the usual litter. The body lay atop a mound of garbage bags, naked and exposed. Flies had already started laying eggs in her wounds. Whoever had placed her there obviously didn’t care if the body was found.

  Aaron cordoned off the crime scene and walked over to take a look at the body. The deceased was the first murder victim he had seen and only the second dead body he’d ever encountered. His first had been in an open casket at a relative’s funeral, and that alone was enough to creep him out.

  But the body in the dumpster filled him with sadness. A life wasted.

  Aaron shook his head in disgust. He knew nothing of how the woman had lived her life, but the mutilated corpse painted a dreadful picture of how she had died. It hit him like a punch to the gut, and he choked on his Adam’s apple. He covered the body with a blanket, much like a father lovingly tucking in his child, then waited for the cavalry to arrive at the front of the restaurant.

  Perhaps her slashed wrists had affected him most, bringing back the pain from years long past. His own scars were physically faded but emotionally irremovable. He looked at his wrists, where a horizontal line of raised whitish flesh crossed each. When he thought about them, they itched. Despite the scars, the Fall River Police Department had welcomed him with open arms.

  I guess they figure time heals all wounds. Or they were desperate. He sneered. But he knew the truth: his decent grades, the years past, and the fact that he had only harmed himself had little to do with his rise in the academy. His girlfriend’s lawyerly connections—she had graduated with half the scumbags who controlled the city politics—had secured him the position, though he often wondered if she had offered them a few positions of her own. Whether she hung that over his head consciously or not, it was always a debt he felt he owed her. It made him feel small.

  He shrugged it off. Times had been worse. He scratched his scars. Vertical slits, you dumbass. Everyone knows that. You couldn’t even do that right. Running fingers across the marks brought to mind the same stinging sensation he’d felt while carving them. His mind drifted back to their inception.

  “You’re such a prick!” The words had shot from Ricardo Jimenez’s mouth like bullets from an AK-47. “Why? Because of a fucking girl? If you want a near-death experience so badly, why don’t you just try skydiving, like most people?”

  Shame washed over Aaron. He couldn’t even look his best friend in the eye. “It wasn’t just because—”

  “Shut up, man. Just shut the fuck up. I don’t want to hear your melodramatic bullshit. You don’t know how lucky you are. You have friends, family, and a good future ahead of you. You’re such a fucking ingrate. You don’t appreciate what you’ve got.”

  Aaron shuddered. Wallowing in his own self-pity, he’d forgotten that some people had it rougher. People like Ricardo. “Your vision’s still getting worse?” Aaron asked.

  “It sure as hell isn’t getting better. In a few more years, I’ll have to walk with a cane.”

  Ricardo had been born with a degenerative eye condition. He’d been from doctor to doctor, specialist to specialist. Each told him the same thing—he was going blind. Aaron imagined that being born blind, never knowing what it was like to see the world in all its color, was hard enough. But Ricardo had been forced to sit by helplessly as his vision deteriorated.

  He’d always handled it with poise and strength… until the night Aaron had slashed his wrists. Along with himself, Aaron had dragged down the only person who gave a damn—a real damn, not that superficial Hallmark brand—about him.

  Aaron stared into space, still feeling the shame even after all the years that had passed, still not appreciating all that he had. He didn’t notice the detectives until they were standing right in front of him.

  “Where’s the victim?” a gruff voice asked.

  “Huh?” Aaron shook himself out the memory.

  A gaunt, narrow-faced man with slicked-back black hair tapped his tattered brown loafer. His entire body, from his blue blazer to the cuffs of his Levis, seemed to vibrate with impatience. One look at the guy’s smug grin and those glasses that seemed to hover over his beak-like nose made Aaron feel as if he’d just swallowed something bitter. Oh, great. Detective Marklin. This should be fun. I hope I didn
’t fuck anything up.

  No one liked Detective Bruce Marklin. He was a hard-nosed, arrogant prick, but for a Fall River detective—hell, for any detective—he was pretty damn good. And smart. Too smart. Aaron had heard he’d graduated summa cum laude from Harvard but had shirked a more lucrative future for the thankless work of public service. Rumor had it that his choice had something to do with a murdered family member—or girlfriend or boyfriend, depending on who was telling the story.

  Regardless, Bruce Marklin was the best damn detective in the state outside of Boston, and maybe inside of it, too. Unfortunately, he knew it. He was a loner and generally always pissy, which made it all the stranger when he had taken on a partner a year ago. Aaron figured the guy had just been trying to get laid.

  Detective Jocelyn Beaudette was an ambitious woman only a few years older than Aaron but light-years ahead of him on the force. She was every bit the opposite of her mentor: polite, approachable, and soft but not weak. Genuinely likable. She tied her shoulder-length blond hair back then flexed her fingers as if readying for battle. With her lanky build, like a not-so-ugly duckling that never quite transformed into an elegant swan, she ought to have been clumsy. But Aaron knew she was deft when she had to be: he had seen her take down more than a few overzealous recruits in the self-defense courses she taught at the academy.

  Aaron’s eyes lingered. Even in her unflattering jeans and flats complemented by a schoolteacher blouse that hung on her small, flat-chested frame, something about Beaudette made him tingle. Maybe it was her social awkwardness that he found appealing; her self-doubt often cast a shadow over her competence and determination. Never overconfident or overbearing, she hid all that under a long wool overcoat. He wondered what else she hid under there.

  His eyes lingered too long. Heat rose from his cheeks as she caught him staring.