The Mourning Mail (FINAL)

Prologue

NINE MONTHS AGO

The sunset slowly faded across the neighborhoods abutting the U.S. Navy base. As the sodium-vapor streetlamps flickered on, their amber glow projected wide, oval arcs onto the potholes and cracks in the asphalt. A nondescript gray Toyota Corolla slowly slinked along between the curbs of Dalbergia Street, which were littered with discarded fast-food wrappers, broken liquor bottles, beer cans, and the occasional used condom or needle. The car meandered toward Main and Vesta, just off the busy intersection of I-5 and I-15.

Dalbergia bisected a seedy mixed-industrial area splattered in gang graffiti, the occasional gangbanger in a hoodie prowling the semidarkness. This strip of asphalt was well-known among sailors and locals as a place to pick up professionals plying the sex trade. The slow-moving Corolla seemed a little obvious as it cruised for just the right streetwalker to satisfy the driver's tastes. Still, it fit in with others on the road 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, up close she looked older than others walking the streets.

The shadowy figure behind the wheel wore men's reflective Ray-Bans and a ball cap. The driver pressed the door switch to open the passenger-side window. As the hooker leaned in, her come-on smile relaxed when 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."

"Me and you, we look the same; your man must like a certain type. Okay, five hundred. And the guy wears a condom."

"Done," the driver said, peeling five hundred-dollar notes from a roll she pulled from her purse. As the hooker at 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 when the car cut onto a dark side street, then swung into an alleyway beside an old brick building and continued to its end. The sedan stopped just past an overflowing dumpster surrounded by garbage bags and stacks of wooden pallets. Rusting steel steps at the side of the building led to a battered, gray metal door.

"We're going in there." The driver pointed toward the door, lit by a naked bulb, and exited the Corolla.

The working girl opened her car door. She paused and wrinkled her nose at the stench of urine, dead rats, and rotting food that drifted her way. As she gingerly stepped out into the alley, shadows cast by a stack of pallets blocked the light and obscured her vision.

A fast-moving figure in wraparound shades and a hoodie leaped out from behind her before she could 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 crack of bone was amplified by the echo chamber between the buildings.

Her assailant threw off his hood and ripped away his sunglasses. He grabbed his victim's wrist to feel for a pulse. "She's gone," he announced in the general direction of his accomplice, who was now leaning on the trunk of the Corolla. The woman in the ball cap had recorded the assault on her digital minicam, which she stuck back in her purse. If her partner saw the camera, he didn't acknowledge it.

"Goddammit!" he cursed. He was looking down at the jagged edge of the dead woman's shattered fibula. The broken bone stuck out from the side of her leg, and blood flowed freely in pulses. "That's going to be too fucking obvious. We'll be carrying her around by her feet and armpits. What if we drop her? Someone will notice."

He stopped, pondering what to do next.

"Son of a bitch... and she was perfect, too. The right height and weight. Shit. 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 have 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 reassess his priorities.

"I've got to be more careful how the new one falls when I do her."