A sneak peek!
Thank you for following me on Substack! I’m excited to share these first sample pages of The Myth Maker. I hope this introduction to Detective Cassidy Cantwell will have all of you as excited as I am for this book to hit shelves on July 8!
A pre-order link on my website, www.aliedh.com, will lead you to the order page that includes several book sellers to choose from! You can also pre-order in hardcover, paperback, or eBook! The audiobook will be also be available July 8, including on Spotify!
THE MYTH MAKER – CHAPTER TWO
It takes a flattening of all senses and instincts to walk into a room and stand over a dead body. It’s a learned skill. A skill I’m still learning after four months as Detective Cassidy Cantwell. Everyone talks about the acrid smells, the nausea, the nightmarish scenes. They equip you with menthol rub for your nose, ginger gum for the rolling stomach, and there’s red wine to help clear the images you take home with you.
What no one talks about is how hard it is to tamp down your own sense of survival. The reality of your own mortality is right there, front and center. The trick is to dull those feelings, not turn them off. A detective who goes numb will miss things. A detective who can quiet the emotions and still take in what’s around them solves cases.
I reminded myself of this lesson as my partner, Bryan Ramirez, parked our unmarked black Dodge Charger in front of our next crime scene. I was new to this team but not new to Bryan. When I first started with the Tacoma Police Department as a wide-eyed, twenty-two-year-old female rookie, Bryan Ramirez was my training officer. We rode together as partners for seven years before he made the jump to detective. When I pushed for a spot on the same violent crime unit, Bryan was my greatest supporter, and when I got the promotion, we paired up again as partners. Working together worked well for us.
I climbed out of the car and moved with the long strides necessary to keep up with my partner’s quick steps. A gaggle of nosy neighbors were gawking from the other side of the street behind a police barrier as we made our way across the lawn. We were greeted at the door by a baby-faced patrol officer named Derek North. Derek took a lot of ribbing for the multiple times his patrol car had been reported as a stolen vehicle since he’d started with our department. Each call came from a concerned citizen sure they’d seen a wayward teen taking a joyride in a patrol car.
“Get turned in for stealing your cruiser lately?” I asked.
Derek flipped me the finger before checking that Bryan and I were wearing our required blue paper shoe covers and adding us to the list of personnel on scene. “Did you hear the last guy actually followed me to the station?”
“I think everyone with a radio heard that one,” I teased. “Were you the initial here?”
“Cory and I arrived with medical. He’s still inside.” Derek waved us inside the redbrick bungalow with a sweep of his clipboard. “This one is all yours now, Detectives.”
“Hey, guys. Sorry for the end-of-the-day call,” Cory Stevens, a dark-haired patrol sergeant, said as we made our way through the front door. “The crime scene guys have already started, so be careful around the doorjambs.”
The entry opened to a tight living room where it was clear a fight had taken place. A potted philodendron was toppled, leaving a knotted pile of roots on the floor and a choreography of footprints in dirt on the beige carpet. A large abstract watercolor was on the ground, and a spiderweb crack splintered its way through the glass of the frame. A glass coffee table was centered by a dark-blue sofa, and in front of the table was the body of our victim. You could almost mistake her for sleeping if you ignored the deep purple stain that circled her throat. She was a petite woman with a loose blonde topknot and delicate features highlighted with smoky eyeshadow and red lips. She was on her back, hands resting in the center of her chest, her filmy red dress smoothed straight at the hem above her knees. Her bare feet were crossed at the ankles, and the stem of a white rose was trapped under her bare heels.
The floor crunched under my feet as I stepped into the living room for a closer look at the body. Soil and shards from crushed seashells were visible in the carpet along with blooms from what had been an impressive bouquet of red roses and anemones. The remains of the bundle of flowers lay on the table next to a blue glass bowl containing a glossy pink conch and a collection of smaller shells. It seemed someone had righted the bowl without cleaning the mess, putting it back with the flowers after the fight. Like the shells, some of the flowers had been pulled from the original bouquet, but even with the petals ground into the floor, the fragrance from the roses spiked the air.
“What do we know so far?” I asked as a camera flash from one of the crime scene technicians lit up behind us in the kitchen.
“Delivery guy called it in,” Cory said. “He was bringing flowers that were ordered for this address. He said he could see the body through the front window, tried the door and it was unlocked, so he came in to see if he could help. He came in far enough to decide he couldn’t help her, then called us.”
“He came all the way into our crime scene?” Bryan shook his head and pulled at the open collar of his blue dress shirt.
“He only came in as far as Cas is now, and I don’t think he’ll ever do it again, if that makes you guys feel any better.”
“Nope, not feeling any better.” I started for the next room as my back pocket vibrated for the fourth time since leaving the station. I ignored the buzzing, knowing who was calling and why. “So he was bringing another bouquet? The one in there is pretty fresh. Is someone making up for something?”
“Possible,” Cory said. “Neighbor across the street says our vic came home with her husband last night about eight PM and they were arguing in the driveway when they got out of the car. Husband left, alone, about an hour later.”
“Looks like the fight might have escalated once they got inside,” I said as my phone buzzed again.
“You might as well answer him, Cas,” Bryan said, stepping around me into the kitchen. “He’s not going to stop until you do.”
My phone had been buzzing like a force of angry bees for the past hour, and I knew Nicky, my boyfriend of almost two years, was holding out hope I’d make it for the dinner date he’d planned. I also knew I wouldn’t make it to dinner. Again. The growing list of canceled plans were responsible for more than one argument between us over the past few months. His own hectic schedule as chef and owner of a popular restaurant was enough of a struggle. My new schedule with unpredictable long days and random callouts made our time together even more sporadic. All of that combined had me ignoring calls more often when I knew I couldn’t give him good news.
I moved around the tiny kitchen peninsula, which was topped with a white stone flecked with vibrant green, as I decided to take my partner’s advice. I watched one of our crime scene technicians push clear strips into smudges of black powder on the back door and waited for Nicky to answer.
Nicky had already braced himself for disappointment. “Reservations are in less than two hours. What are my chances you’re going to be there?”
“We just arrived at a crime scene, and we’re going to be on this one for a while.”
“I knew this was going to happen.” His irritation came through loud and clear. “I guess I’ll see if your brother wants to do dinner.”
“I can come to your place when I get off if it’s not too late,” I offered.
“Brandon is off for the next seven days, so I have to be back here first thing to accept deliveries,” he said, dismissing my compromise.
His growing unwillingness to give me a pass on my long days while he ignored his own overwhelming schedule had my teeth on edge. “I didn’t do this on purpose. I don’t have just a regular end-of-shift time anymore.”
“This is the third time I’ve made these reservations.”
“I know.” My eyes stopped on a large painting over the kitchen table. The mass of shapes in their vibrant colors appeared abstract at first glance, but with a closer look, details unfolded. The forms in pink, red, and black came together as ballet dancers. If you didn’t know to look for them, you would miss them. My heart jumped for a second time since we’d left the station. “I gotta go.” I didn’t wait for Nicky to reply before ending the call. I made my way quickly back to the living room. “Do we know what her name is?”
“Dana Mayhew. Neighbor says she moved in four months ago with her husband—”
“Ethan Mayhew,” I interrupted.
“Yeah. Do you know him?” Cory asked.
“Worse,” I said, sucking in a deep breath. “I dated him.”
Bryan smirked. “That’s a plot twist. Did you know this was his house?”
I stared down my partner. “I would have mentioned that bit. Ethan is an artist. These paintings are all his. Last I heard he was teaching art at the community college, but I haven’t seen him in years.”
“When exactly were you two involved?”
“For a few months during the first year of college. We didn’t last long, though. Like I said, it’s been years since I’ve seen him, but out of all the guys I’ve dated, I’d vote Ethan least likely to choke his wife to death. We’d argue and he’d take off, he couldn’t do confrontation, and he was definitely not violent.”
“According to the card and the receipt, he’s the one who sent the flowers that were being delivered. The neighbors don’t seem to know either of them very well. So far, we’ve heard a lot of nice but kept to themselves descriptions,” Cory said.
“Sounds about right. I don’t see him attending many block parties with the neighborhood. He was difficult to date and even worse at general socializing back in the day because he was introverted and awkward; he wasn’t like this. I can’t see him being responsible for this.”
“Are you telling me Nicky isn’t the worst decision you’ve made in your dating life after all?” Bryan laughed as he circled back toward the front door. “You do have to admit, Cas, this scene is feeling textbook.”
At first glance, it was easy to agree with my partner. Parts of the scene I was looking at did feel textbook. A married couple. A fight witnessed by neighbors. An obvious physical altercation inside with the grim inclusion of a dead body. A missing spouse. It would be easy to agree with Bryan and put a target of suspicion on the husband. But this time, I knew the guy. As complicated as our young relationship had been, I couldn’t ignore the memories of a shy, passive man who’d never had a penchant for confrontation.
“The old guy kitty-corner say a man walking away from the house about an hour after the other neighbor said he saw the husband leave,” Cory said. “Problem is, he has no idea who the guy was, what he looked like, or if he stopped here. He was just letting his cat inside, noticed the guy on the sidewalk walking away from the general direction of this house, and then went to bed.”
“There’s a flower petal near the back door in the kitchen from the mess in here. If she didn’t answer the door, maybe he came in the back door.”
“Or went out that way.” Bryan anxiously cracked his knuckles. “Did you see the broken glass? It looks like someone threw a wineglass at the wall, but no one cleaned it up.”
I hadn’t noticed the broken glass, but I had noticed her bare feet. “She’s barefoot in there; she wasn’t walking through glass.”
“We’ve got people trying to make contact with the husband at work to bring him down to the station, and dispatch called the ME the same time they called you, so Shannon should be here soon,” Cory said. “I’m going to have my guys clear, since the scene techs have the house now. We’ll have reports on your desk before we clock out tonight, Detectives. Good luck.”
As I stepped back outside, I twisted a few strands of my dark hair and tucked them behind my ear, wishing I’d pulled it all up today. It had been years since I’d given much thought to the part of my past Ethan Mayhew occupied. We’d met as freshmen at a party neither of us wanted to be at and spent the next nine months together. Our relationship went through ups and downs because of his temperamental moods and my inexperience with relationships in general, before imploding on itself, as teen romances do. Still, I couldn’t accept the idea that he’d gone on to murder his wife.
It wasn’t simply that I didn’t think Ethan could have committed this murder. Standing in the chaos of the crime scene, I wasn’t as convinced as my partner that it felt textbook. I was mulling over the images when the black ME van backed into the narrow driveway. Shannon O’Mara was in the driver’s seat. He was the lead for the county medical examiner’s office and, by far, my favorite creepy guy. He showed up at crime scenes looking like Alice Cooper cast as a balding professor, with nerves of steel. Even at the cruelest of scenes, I’d never seen him react with anything other than calm. He pulled his equipment and stretcher from the back of his van, delivering orders to his assistant.
“Let’s see what you all have today,” Shannon said, skipping the pleasantries and charging into the house. I followed the pair inside, leaving Bryan on the porch on a phone call.
Once inside, Shannon made a circle around the body, getting to his knees to examine the bruises on her throat. “She was strangled, manually,” he started. “She’s in rigor, so she’s been dead at least twelve hours, possibly a bit longer. I’ll get you guys my report as soon as I can.”
I knew that was his way of excusing me from what was now his crime scene. I stepped over his kit and rejoined my partner outside.
“Patrol is bringing your friend to the station,” Bryan said. “Are you ready for a reunion?”
* * *