The Rapture of Omega by Stacy Dittrich Read Free Book Online Page A

daughter.”
    The least I could do for Lola was give her mother a proper burial, a place she could go as she grew older to find some peace. I couldn’t imagine explaining to her, fifteen years from now, how I allowed her mother to be cremated and thrown in a field somewhere.
    I looked out my office window at the sky; it was all clear. It had been another sizzling day with high humidity, but so far there weren’t any storms in sight. I thought it would be a perfect day to take the girls to the park for a picnic.
    While driving home, I happened to glance down a side street and saw several police cars with their lights on, parked in front of a run-down motel. I flipped my police radio on just in time to hear an officer call for the coroner. After turning around in the nearest driveway, I headed back to the motel.
    I was surprised I hadn’t gotten a phone call about what was going on. I parked on the outside of the crime-scene tape, where I was met by a uniformed officer who was in charge of keeping onlookers out. Barry Kingman, a veteran of the department, recognized me immediately.
    “Hey, Sarge, I didn’t realize they called out Major Crimes for this,” he announced as he opened my car door. “I mean, I told my lieutenant I didn’t see anything suspicious about it.”
    “You’re probably right, considering I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.” I slammed my door shut. “I just happened to be driving by and heard someone callfor the coroner so I thought I’d be nosy. What’s going on?”
    “No biggie, just an overdose. The motel manager hadn’t seen the guy in a couple of days and he wasn’t paying so he went in the room. The stink is something awful with the heat we’ve been having. Needles and empty heroin balloons were next to the bed and the guy already made friends with the flies. There was some methadone, too. Could have OD’d on that. The manager freaked and called us. He still ain’t doing good, but other than that, it looks pretty cut and dry.”
    I saw the other officers standing in front of the motel room door, room twelve, waving their hands in front of their faces in an attempt to blow the stench away.
    “Why don’t I go in and take a look to see how cut and dry it really is?”
    So much for a picnic at the park.

Chapter Five
    Overdose deaths and suicides are quite different from an average homicide scene. Most law enforcement officers have little sympathy for someone who takes their own life or is ignorant enough to play with fire and unintentionally cause their own death.
    Suicides are bothersome if family members are around. People don’t realize the havoc they wreak on relatives when they stick a double-barrel shotgun in their mouth while sitting at the dining room table. Imagine the emotional state of a wife who walks into a room and sees half of her husband’s face, including mustache, stuck to the ceiling, while the other half of his face is on the wall. His brain is scattered in pieces throughout the room. The wife is never “right” again. Suicide is such a selfish act in my opinion.
    Overdoses are similar. You screw around long enough with a drug like heroin and it’s bound to happen. Dealers nowadays are cutting the drug with whatever they can get their hands on. It could be drain cleaner for all a user knows. Injecting a dose of heroin into your arm is like playing Russian roulette; the fatal bullet is eventually going to fire. Stupid.
    Needless to say, if there aren’t any family membersaround, you won’t hear much compassion out of the officers on the scene. Therefore, I wasn’t surprised when I approached the room door and heard some of the conversation going on between the other officers.
    “God works in mysterious ways, boys, ain’t no doubt about it. That asshole probably liked little kids, too.” An older, shorter officer was pointing into the room. “That, my boys, was the man upstairs sending a message.”
    The other officers laughed. One of the