Chasing Ghosts by Lee Driver

the body would be reduced to pieces
that could fit in a cigar box. But it was the shoes they had found,
the shoes with socks and feet. How many similar deaths had they
found in their combined lifetimes? Zip. Nada.
    Luther settled behind a gray metal desk that
looked like a holdover from his grade school days. If they ever had
another earthquake or tornado in the Northwest Indiana area, he
knew hiding under this desk would save his life. “Maybe my wife has
been serving me a dose of psychedelic mushrooms, but this is just
too bizarre.” Luther snapped up a piece of paper and flung it
across the desk followed by a second piece of paper.
    “ What am I looking at?” Padre asked.
“These are fingerprints. You found fingers?”
    “ The hands did their own walking, or
flying in this case,” Luther said, eliciting a complete lack of
humor from the detective. Luther cleared his throat. “They are
identical.”
    Padre stared at the prints then waited,
flapped his hand repeatedly for more information.
    “ The prints on the left are from our
guy in the quarry. The prints on the right are from our parking lot
victim.”
    “ No, no, no. Don’t do this to me again.
My old heart can only take so much in one lifetime.”
    The high back leather chair squeaked as
Luther rocked. His eyes took on a familiar gleam which told Padre
the M.E. anticipated a stimulating case. “Same blood type, same
prints, same socks, same damn shoes, and I bet once we get it back
it will be the same DNA.”
    Padre held his head and leaned back to stare
at the ceiling. “Why me, Lord? What’s wrong with Gary or South
Bend? What have I ever done? Are you pissed I quit the seminary? Is
that it?”
    “ If you are expecting an answer, you’ve
got a long wait.” Luther rattled more papers. “I’ve got
more.”
    Padre straightened and glared across the
table. “Can my heart take it?”
    “ Don’t know. Those red hairs we found
in the suite? Synthetic.”
    “ Wig. So maybe the maid was wearing a
wig.”
    Luther smiled. It was a devilish smile that
told Padre he was enjoying this way more than he should.
    “ Some of the clothing not completely
burned looked like a uniform. And there were women’s athletic shoes
near the wreckage.”
    Padre pulled out a stick of gum and shoved it
in his mouth. He wanted a cigarette so bad that as soon as he left
Luther’s office he planned to smoke ten in a row. Maybe he would
just crumble them up and graze on them. “You’ve got that
shit-eatin’ grin on your face. Let me have it.”
    “ No other remains.”
    Padre paused a beat. “Gotta be. How can you
tell with what little was left of the victim?”
    “ Shoes were empty. Only one blood type
on the remains.”
    “ Were the shoes right by the car?
Probably unrelated. It’s the employee entrance, someone probably
dropped her work shoes accidentally. Same with her
uniform.”
    Luther shrugged. “How many red-haired women
on the housekeeping staff?”
    Padre shook his head. “Only one and she’s
home nursing a newborn.” He could see Luther about to ask another
question. After working so many years together he could just about
anticipate how Luther’s mind worked. “We’ve gone over the camera
footage from the hotel lobby. The employee entrance doesn’t have a
camera, nor does the Presidential Suites floor. They want the rich
and famous to have their privacy.”
    “ What about your crime techs?” Luther
asked. “Did they find any fuses? Remains of incendiary devices,
something to point to how one body falling can result in such a
large explosion?”
    “ They had to wait for the cars to cool
down before transporting them to the lab. They’ll let me know what
they find.” Padre rose from the chair saying, “That it?”
    Luther placed what looked like a pen on the
desk. Both ends looked melted from the heat. “This was still
clutched in one of his hands.”

    Dagger inhaled the coffee and felt more like
mainlining it. They had come up empty-handed