Hey, Daddy: Chapter 3

I like to drive my own car in case I have a mood swing and need to leave.

—Haze’s secret thoughts HAZE I got out of my Ford F-250 and took a look around.

The parking lot in which I was parked was damn near empty, thanks to what time of night it was. However, there was a Whataburger and an IHOP in the same parking lot, so not empty enough for my liking.

The rest of the shopping center was closed—minus the Amazon Locker location where we were now standing.

Already, there was a group of people standing in the IHOP parking lot talking and smoking while simultaneously watching where I’d just parked my truck to help block what was happening.

I was glad I wasn’t the first on scene.

Gladder that by the time that I did arrive on scene, the entire area had already been roped off.

There were already people loitering outside the protective police area that was roped off by bright yellow crime scene tape near the front doors.

Employees of the big box store were also in the parking lot.

“What do we have?” I asked as I walked up.

“Female,” the closest cop answered. “Cut up and stuffed into a box.”

I blinked. “As in really cut up?”

My mind was already racing, trying to make a picture despite the ugliness.

“As in, hacked up with some sort of hatchet or something. Stuffed into that box right there.” He pointed at said box.

The box hadn’t been disturbed despite the top flaps being ripped open.

“Was the box taped?” I asked.

The cop at the line shrugged and pointed to a cop beyond the police tape. “Ask him.”

The cop looked…sickened.

Understandable.

He looked young, like maybe this was his first murder. He still had that bright and shiny look, as if the terrors of this life hadn’t fucked him up yet.

It would, if he decided to stay with the job.

It was only a matter of time, really. Eventually the job would wear on you. You’d have plenty of sleepless nights. You’d find humor where there wasn’t any, and ultimately, you’d get to the point where you’re doing anything to feel something.

That was where I was.

“Will do,” I said and headed to the cop.

The closer I got, the greener the newbie cop looked.

“You the one that found her?” I asked.

He nodded, his face getting whiter as I stepped up to him.

Likely because I was going to ask him what he found, and he didn’t want to relive it.

“Yeah,” he croaked. “Me.”

Despite being young, he was very informative as he gave me a breakdown of the call.

He’d just started to explain when my partner arrived.

He didn’t interrupt, just listened.

“So there was a call that came in,” he said, then explained. “An hour ago, a call had come in about a white SUV in the Costco parking lot having the back hatch open. When they’d gone to close it, they’d seen a liquid leaking from a box that was in the back and had decided to call it in instead.”

I nodded and he kept going.

“Got here and saw the white SUV. So I go up to the car and look at the box, and that’s when I see a massive amount of what looks to be blood leaking out of this box.”

“Was the box upside down like that when you got here?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s exactly how it was positioned when I cut it open with my pocketknife,” he explained. “When I opened the box, the first thing I saw was a white plastic film. Thick plastic. Like you would use to hang up on the walls to keep things from getting too messy. You know?”

“Yes,” I said.

“So I cut through that, too. When I did, the first thing I saw is a woman’s shoulder and some hair. That’s when I backed away and called in for backup.”

“Good.” My partner asked, “What else did you touch?”

When the crime scene tech had arrived on the scene, they’d checked the box and found a dismembered body in it.

The plates had come back as being registered to a shell organization out of Thailand, and since no one had come back to get their SUV in the four hours that I’d been at the crime scene, the next step was to look at the tapes and see what we could find.

“Let’s go take a look closer,” I said. “Then go to the Costco and see if they have any footage of the parking lot. The Amazon Lockers will take longer to get information out of.”

My gaze took in the expensive Audi, then the box in the back of the car.

It was a nugget ice maker.

A big one.

One that said “commercial use” on it.

Not big enough, though, that it didn’t fit into the back of the SUV.

The box was flipped over onto the top, and the officer had cut through the bottom of the box and the plastic.

I imagined had it been left upright, it probably wouldn’t have leaked.

The car was parked closer to mid-way in the lot, which had me questioning why, if they were going to pick up something and they knew they wouldn’t have any help, why’d they park so far back?

“What are the odds that this takes place in a goddamn box store parking lot and not a single person sees?” I asked.

“It was dark,” my best friend and partner, John Ramey, pointed out. “And people are expecting big things to be shoved into cars at big box stores. I saw some old lady shoving a rug into her car just last week. It’s normal here.”

He had a point, but still.

A box, I could see.

A massive television, also yes.

But a body?

No, I couldn’t see that.

“Let’s go ask for the camera footage,” I grumbled.

John and I fell into step beside each other, heading toward the crowd of Costco employees.

After letting her know what we needed, the manager disappeared, leaving us outside standing there with a bunch of employees.

John and I stepped away from them so we were far enough away that we could talk without being overheard.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

“I’m thinking that this doesn’t make any sense,” I pointed out.

“Same,” he said. “Had to be multiple people to get that box from those lockers to the car.”

“Yeah,” I said. “We need to get in touch with the manager of the lockers.”

That would be the first step anyway.

“I’ll call in and find out where we need to go,” he muttered and stepped away.

A throat cleared and I looked over to find the manager once again standing there, though this time she was clearly antsy.

I waved her closer, and she hurried toward us.

“You got the footage?” I asked as the night manager came to a stop next to me.

“Yes,” she confirmed, handing it out to me. “It’s all on a thumb drive. Everything that’s happened in the last twenty-four hours.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Have a good night.”

She nodded and walked away, shooing her employees inside to get to work.

Since the scene was still being processed, and there was nothing else that I could do until the owner of the car arrived, John and I decided to head back to the station to watch the tape.

“You eat yet?” John asked as he took a seat at his desk.

“No,” I admitted. “Had a beer, though.”

“Don’t tell Cap.” He chuckled. “But I did, too.”

We weren’t supposed to drink when we were on call, but I was beginning to get to the point where I just didn’t fucking care.

Which sounded bad when you thought about it.

I wouldn’t drink so much that I’d be driving drunk, but if I wanted a goddamn beer, I’d have it.

“The ‘I’ in my name stands for ‘I don’t care,’” I told him.

My partner blinked. “You don’t have an I in your name.”

I grinned. “I know.”

He rolled his eyes and jerked his chin toward the back wall. “I’m ordering Indian food.”

“Butter chicken,” I ordered as I queued up the video footage.