The LoDo Murders (Detective Lauren Gabriel Mysteries Book 2)

Book summary

Detective Lauren Gabriel faces a harrowing challenge in Denver's LoDo district, where a string of brutal serial killings terrorizes the city. With a chilling lineup of suspects, including a sadistic drug dealer, an OnlyFans stripper, a newspaper reporter, and a rookie cop, this heart-pounding thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat as you join the quest to unravel the mystery of the LoDo Murders.

Excerpt from The LoDo Murders (Detective Lauren Gabriel Mysteries Book 2)

“YOU’RE NOT LEAVING ME, YOU WHORE!”

Detective Lauren Gabriel, a highly acclaimed, respected – and beautiful – law enforcement officer in the Denver Police Department, never let her numerous hookups know of her career. That would have been disastrous on so many levels.

“Fuck you, little boy!” Lauren yelled back to the nineteen-year-old who had replied to Lauren’s Tinder swipe an hour earlier. Lauren finished cleaning her private parts with a napkin, tossed the napkin into the nearby dumpster, and wiggled back into her panties. “An eight-second alley quickie does not grant you any more access to my pussy. Now go home to momm—”

BANG!

DETECTIVE GABRIEL HAD THE SAME DREAM every night since that horrendous encounter behind the Nocturn Tavern, recalling the frightening details of the shooting that had left her paralyzed and reassigned as an evidence locker technician at DPD District 3.

Lauren hated her new assignment. She was one of the youngest Denver police officers to ever make detective and she was great at her job, solving crimes. But now she hated the bullet that pierced her spine. She hated her assailant. She hated her wheelchair. She hated herself for being so careless with her life and her career.

Victor Garbow was in prison for life for the attempted murder of a police officer. The teenager had already accumulated a lengthy arrest record: burglary, illegal possession of a firearm, and vehicle theft (four times). He should have never been on the streets, let alone browsing Tinder for sex dates. Lauren Gabriel knew that her addiction to risky sex would eventually bite her in the ass. Or worse. But her inner slut did not listen to her rational mind when she swiped right on young Mr. Garbow’s image, which looked anything but a dangerous career criminal with a hairpin temper and a 45 stashed in his work boot. Plus, he had a tremendous bulge, which Lauren wanted to take for a spin.

DETECTIVE GABRIEL STARED AT DR. BUNNY HARRELSON, the DPD-assigned therapist treating Lauren since she returned to work after her lengthy hospital stay. Dr. Harrelson looked over the top of her bifocals, wondering when Detective Gabriel might open up to her. It had been five months since Detective Gabriel had returned to work, and she still was not eager to share her inner thoughts and secrets with the kind, soft-spoken, middle-aged counselor.

Lauren glanced at the clock on the wall, ticking away.

“Lauren, honey,” Dr. Harrelson said, “I’d like to help you. But you need to talk to me. I can see the pain inside you.”

“Yeah, hurts like a motherfucker.” Detective Gabriel’s vocabulary had become far more colorful since the shooting.

“YOU EVER SEE SOMETHING THAT GRUESOME, ROGER?” rookie officer Mandy Toboggan asked her partner, twelve-year veteran Roger Dorsett. “Officer Dorsett?” Mandy spun around looking for her partner. She spotted the giant, six-foot-five man heaving into a nearby garbage can.

Officers Toboggan and Dorsett were first on the scene to a call about “something bloody and wretched” coming from an alley dumpster behind a parking garage across from Coors Field in Denver. Officer Toboggan had recently abandoned a music career for the police academy. The twenty-seven-year-old ginger-headed guitarist was only on the job for a couple of months. Officer Dorsett had recently transferred from the Loveland, Colorado Police Department, where most of the crimes typically involved a car break-in or horse theft. He had never seen a mutilated body, let alone one that was disemboweled and shredded into a half-dozen pieces. The head was missing, but one of the eyeballs lay on the ground outside the dumpster. The officers could smell the stench as soon as they left their squad car.

“We need to call this in. Gotta get the CSU folks out here,” Officer Dorsett said, wiping his mouth with a McDonald’s napkin he had stuffed into his back pocket.

Within fifteen minutes, the crime scene was taped off and the alley was buzzing with detectives, crime lab personnel, and reporters clamoring for details.

“Who was first on the scene?” a gravelly-voiced female with a Sicilian accent roared. Lieutenant Pippa Cannone had arrived, rubbing some StinkBalm underneath her nose to block the horrid smell. The fifty-four-year-old was a Denver law enforcement icon. She was influential in helping to solve the “Game Night Murder.”

“Me and Officer Toboggan, Lieutenant,” Officer Dorsett replied. Lieutenant Cannone had approved the transfer of Officer Dorsett to the DPD, and she recalled rookie Officer Toboggan from the recent graduation ceremony. Noticing the two pairs of watery eyes, she offered her StinkBalm to the officers, who gladly applied the ointment.

“Welcome to Denver PD,” Cannone smirked. “What do we know?”

“It was called in by Miguel Spinks. His car was parked in the garage, just above the dumpster,” Officer Toboggan replied. “He’s still in his car. A bit shocked.”

“Let me ask you… is the head missing?”

Officers Dorsett and Toboggan stared at each other, amazed at the lieutenant’s intuition. Officer Dorsett nodded.

“Fuck! That’s three.”

“Three?” the rookie asked.

“Has anyone talked with these irritating reporters?”

“Not yet, Lieutenant. Why, what’s happening?” Dorsett asked.

Cannone lowered her voice. “We have a fucking serial killer.”

“GET OFF ME, YOU NAUSEATING SLOB!”

“Shut up, little boy, and enjoy it,” inmate 0781231 grunted. He outweighed his cellmate, a twenty-year-old convict, by at least one hundred pounds.

In the adjacent cell, another convicted murderer, Renaldo DeJesus, covered his head with a sweat-soaked pillow. Ren heard the same brutal cries and grunts every night for the past eleven months.

Ren was serving a twenty-year sentence for the murder of Hank Sanguillen – the highly publicized “Game Night Murder.” But Ren was innocent. The circumstantial evidence against him was insurmountable. He had a motive – a jealous love for Linda O’Neill, the game night hostess. He had the potential murder weapon – a fireplace poker that had inconveniently gone missing. And, he had a checkered past – a proclivity for hardcore, pain-inflicting, BDSM sex. It did not help his case that Ren ran from the police when they came knocking on his door and found O’Neill’s boyfriend Gregory Page curled into a ball on Ren’s floor, thanks to the psychedelics that Ren had slipped into Gregory’s drink.

DeJesus and his attorney had been petitioning the court for a new trial, claiming a lack of evidence. Judge Gerald “Mookie” Koosman had the request on his desk, but he was not in a hurry to review the petition. Meanwhile, Ren, a scientist with a doctorate from MIT, had to endure the ghastly rape sounds coming from the next cell every night. It was torture, although DeJesus was grateful he was not the recipient of the assaults.

Victor Garbow, the young prisoner on the receiving end of the frequent assault violations, was not so fortunate.

Neither Ren DeJesus nor Victor Garbow was aware of their close connection.

REN’S ONCE PERFECTLY TUSSLED BLACK LOCKS had become a mangy nest that twisted down over his face and to his shoulders. He had grown out his beard as well and now looked far more like a convicted murderer than he had during his trial. He had even gotten a tattoo while in prison – not the typical prisoner skin art, but a colorful mushroom. To Ren, the fungi symbolized his bad decisions and scrambled state of mind, leading to his false conviction and prison sentence.

Once the primal screams from the cell next door had quieted, Ren pulled out a legal pad from underneath his bunk and began to write a letter. He had been thinking for months about contacting the person who he thought was primarily responsible for putting him behind bars. Ren also believed this was the person most likely to help free him from his false imprisonment.

“What’re you writing, DeJesus?” cellmate Jon Polansky asked from the toilet in the corner of the cell. Polansky was in prison for cybercrimes that bilked six billion dollars from unsuspecting credit union members. He should have been sentenced to a minimum-security prison, given the white-collar nature of his crime. At six-foot-seven and three-hundred-eight pounds, Polansky looked more like a murderer than a cyber-criminal. His appearance came in handy, as no other prisoner would ever come at Polansky or think to harm him.

“Love letter,” Ren replied. Ren and Jon had developed a quiet friendship. They did not speak much, but with a combined IQ of over three hundred, DeJesus and Polansky might have comprised the most intelligent prisoner duo in the nation.

Detective Gabriel:

In the sixteen months, eleven days, and nine hours since my sentence was handed down, I have spent every day contemplating how my luck could have possibly been so bad that I would end up falsely convicted for the murder of my friend, Hank Sanguillen. I have also spent every day contemplating how I can convince the court to see the grave error of my conviction and grant me a new trial.

I have spent numerous hours meeting with my attorney, Sherry Kelly, who assures me there is light at the end of the tunnel, but I can see in her eyes that that is false hope.

It is now crystal clear to me that the one person with the know-how, and the resources, to help me is you, Detective Lauren Gabriel.

My lawyer has told me about a horrendous accident that has left you paralyzed and wheelchair-bound, and that you are now assigned to the evidence room at the Denver Police Department. While I have great empathy for your situation, I also cannot help but think it affords you a significant opportunity to help people like me. With your clever crime-solving skills, coupled with access to every bit of evidence, you are in a unique position to assist.

Please know that I deeply regret our one encounter from several years ago – the date that had gone awry, which no doubt had an impact on my case. Please know that was not the true me. I was under the influence of hallucinogens, which brought out a different, much darker version of Ren DeJesus.

I do not pretend to know the politics within the DPD and what it might take for you to resurrect my case. But please know that if you can uncover evidence that helps to free me from prison, I will find a way to reward you and thank you in the most appropriate manner.

I will continue to write a letter every week, whether I hear back from you or not, until the day that I am free.

Regards,

Ren DeJesus