The Mourning Mail (final release candidate #7)

Prologue

NINE MONTHS AGO

In the neighborhoods abutting the U.S. Navy base, sunset was slowly fading. The amber glow of sodium-vapor streetlamps took over as they flickered on, projecting wide oval arcs onto the asphalt. A nondescript gray Toyota Corolla was slinking slowly down Dalbergia Street towards where Main and Vesta meet off the busy intersection of I-5 and I-15.

Dalbergia bisects a seedy mixed-industrial area splattered in gang graffiti. The occasional wannabe gangbanger in a hoodie prowls the darkness. The strip of asphalt is well-known among sailors and locals as a place to pick up professionals plying the sex trade. The vehicle seemed a little obvious as it cruised for just the right streetwalker to satisfy the occupant's tastes. Still, it fit in with others on the street doing the same thing.

The car slowed further. It pulled to the curb in front of a silicone-enhanced, diminutive blonde. Attractive from a distance, she looked older than others walking the streets.

The shadowy figure behind the wheel was wearing a man's reflective Ray-Bans and a ball cap. The driver pressed the door switch to roll down the passenger-side window. As the hooker leaned in, her come-on smile became more relaxed she saw her customer was a woman. "Sure, honey, I can do girl-on-girl. What kind of action are you looking for tonight?"

"It's for a threesome, nothing kinky, straight sex...," the driver replied.

"For how long?"

"Two hours."

"We look the same; your man must like a certain type. OK, five hundred, and the guy wears a condom."

"Done," the driver said, peeling five one-hundred-dollar notes from a roll she pulled from her purse. As the woman leaning through the window grabbed for the money, the driver yanked back the sheaf of bills.

"No, sweetheart, that ain't happening. Get in, pull the door closed, and lock it. Once we're rolling, you get the five hundred."

"Jesus, I wouldn't rip you off," the woman protested as she complied.

As the Corolla pulled away, the woman driving turned over the promised money. The working girl didn't seem to mind as the car pulled onto a dark side street. The vehicle swung into an alleyway beside an old brick building, and continued to its end. The small sedan stopped just past an overflowing dumpster surrounded by garbage bags and stacks of wooden pallets. Rusting steel steps on the side of the building led to a battered gray metal door.

"We're going in there," the driver said. She pointed toward the door and exited the Corolla.

The working girl opened her car door. She paused and wrinkled her nose as the stench of urine, dead rats, and rotting food drifted her way. As she gingerly stepped out into the alley, shadows cast by a stack of pallets blocking the light made it hard for her to see.

A fast-moving figure in wrap-around shades and a hoodie leaped out from behind her as she turned to close the car door. Her attacker slammed the back of her head with a thick, two-foot-long wooden club. The impact drove her head forward and snapped her neck.

Collapsing to the ground with a groan, her sudden movement jerked her right foot sideways. Her stiletto heel punched through the slat of a pallet protruding past the end of the garbage bin. Her leg bent out from under her awkwardly as all her weight came crashing down. The sickening cracking of bone was amplified by the echo chamber between the buildings.

Her assailant threw off his hood and ripped away his sunglasses. He quickly grabbed his victim's wrist to feel for a pulse. "She's gone," he announced in the general direction of his accomplice. The woman in the ball cap was just now coming around the back of the car from the driver's side. He may not have seen the tiny video camera in her purse recording the assault. If he did, he didn't acknowledge it.

"Goddammit!" he cursed. He was looking down at the jagged edge of her shattered fibula. The broken bone was sticking out from the side of her leg, and blood was flowing freely in pulses. "That's going to be too fucking obvious. We'll be carrying her around by her feet and armpits. If somebody drops her, they'll see something's wrong. "

He stopped, pondering what to do next.

"Son of a bitch... and she was perfect, too. The right height and weight. Doesn't matter now. We'll have to get another one."

The man grabbed the fallen working girl under her arms, dragging her toward the car's trunk.

"Can't we just leave her here?" the woman asked.

"If the street gets wind of a dead hooker, they'll go inside for the night. It'll be harder to find her replacement. Grab the money and help me throw her in the trunk."

The man grabbed a crumpled sheet of plastic from the dumpster and together, they rolled the corpse into it. Once they'd wrestled the body into the car, the man stared at it before slamming the trunk lid closed.

"Let's try our luck on the other side of the Navy base. We need someone tonight, and we need to get moving. I gotta scope out the right place. And I need time to get rid of any cameras.

He shook his head as he climbed into the driver's seat, pausing to re-assess his priorities.

"I need to be more careful how the new one falls when I do her."