FOURTEEN
At first I felt only disbelief as I stared down at Christie Foxworthy's contorted face. I was so sure it had been Stuart Rowland locked in that trunk. Unable to speak, Bud turned from the trunk and staggered a few steps away.
“Okay,” I said. “Okay, Bud. Let's get a grip now.”
I slammed the lid, afraid more scorpions would scuttle out. Bud was leaning against the wall now, staring at me. His face was white; he looked sick.
“Okay,” I repeated, more than a little shook up myself. I walked to the front door where the police officer was standing. I said, “This is now officially a homicide crime scene. Let's mark it off with tape and if you can, keep anybody else out there the hell away from the house. Bud, you call Buckeye and animal control and tell them to get out here ASAP.”
Bud stared at me, ashen and silent.
“C'mon, Bud, snap out of it. You all right?”
He nodded, but didn't look so hot. He said, “Man, she was just so young to die. Not like this. Who could've done that to somebody like her? What kind of person?”
I shook away my own sense of horror. “The kind that did it to Classon, I guess. And we've got to get him. Black and McKay both told me he'd probably kill again. We can't let that happen.”
Bud needed something to do, something else to think about. I said, “Make those calls, Bud. And get hold of Charlie, too. Tell him who she was and how she died. See if he wants to come out here and take a look at the scene.”
I tried to ramrod my thoughts into order. But all I could think about were the clicking and scratching still going on inside the trunk.
Bud said, “I want her out of that trunk. Now.”
“Me too, but we can't, and you know it. Come on, man, do your job. We need Buckeye here before we remove the body. He needs to do the scene because the killer left clues this time, count on it.”
“What do you think Christie was doing here? At Rowland's place?”
“Let's go find out.”
Bud followed me outside. I sucked in some fresh air, but what I saw in that trunk wasn't going to leave me for a long, long time. Unlike Classon, I knew this victim personally, had talked to her. That made it different, more personal. Stuart Rowland had a lot of questions to answer.
We ignored Joe McKay. He hadn't gotten the victim right but he'd led us straight to the crime scene. He sure as hell wasn't off the hook yet. His information was pretty damn dead-on, even for a psychic. I'd seen a couple of those shows on TV. The psychics came up with random numbers and sketchy details, something like the victim was left in a cornfield near a red silo. They sure as hell didn't get the address down pat. McKay well could've done it himself so he could magically describe it to us. But the main question was why? And why Christie Foxworthy? How did she fit in to all of this?
Outside, I found Stuart Rowland sitting in the passenger seat of a red Ford Taurus. A woman sat in the driver's seat.
“Who's the lady?” I asked the officer.
“Mr. Rowland said she was his estranged wife. That's his word, estranged. Name's Nancy.”
Bud was still briefing Charlie on his cell phone, having to repeat himself before Charlie would believe him, I guess, so I walked over and rapped a knuckle on Rowland's window. It slid down, and he said, “What in God's name is going on? Nobody's telling me anything.”
“Come with me, Mr. Rowland, and we'll have that talk.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
“Okay.”
“My partner will need to talk to your wife.”
“Why? She just gave me a lift home. She doesn't know anything about this.”
“It's procedure.”
“I don't know anything,” the woman said, leaning over to peer out at me. She was a faded kind of pretty, blond turning to gray, early forties, maybe, a little bit heavy, stylish red rectangular glasses, perfectly groomed. She looked more than a little concerned.
“Yes, ma'am. Detective Davis will explain everything to you. Mr. Rowland, please step out of the vehicle.”
Rowland followed me to my SUV, and I let him in the passenger's side. I climbed in behind the wheel, twisted the ignition key, and waited for the heater to warm up. He was breathing heavily. I could see his breath pluming in the cold air.
He said, “Are you going to tell me what's going on?”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Tell you what? Good God, give me a break here! Who broke into my house and what did they take?”
I stared at him, considering. I decided to be forthright. “We found a dead woman in your house, Mr. Rowland.”
“What?” Drawn out, long, breathy, shocked. Genuinely, it looked like. “No, no, that can't be, that's impossible.”
“It's possible, trust me. And she hasn't been dead very long. My guess is maybe two or three hours. Where have you been the last few hours?”
“Me? Why, why, I've been with Nancy. We've been separated for a couple of months, so I took her out tonight and tried to patch things up. You know, we had dinner at the Five Cedars restaurant out at Cedar Bend Lodge, and I surprised her with champagne and roses and all that. But you gotta tell me. Who got killed? Why was she in my house? Nobody should've been there.”
“Good questions, Mr. Rowland. Anybody have a key besides you?”
“My wife does, of course. . . .”
“How about Christie Foxworthy? Does she?”
Rowland's face lost all color. I could almost see it draining away inch by inch. He stared at me, apparently stunned into silence. Then he said in a stricken voice, “Christie's not dead. She can't be.”
“I'm afraid she can be.”
“I don't believe you. I just talked to her this morning on the telephone.”
“Well, she's dead now. Did you kill her, Stuart?”
Stuart startled me by bursting into tears. He wept unabashedly for several minutes, his face cupped in his open palms. He kept saying, “No, no, no, she's not, she can't be, I don't believe it.”
I would've offered him a tissue if I had one. If he was faking those tears, he was a regular Sir Anthony Hopkins.
“I take it you had a close relationship with the victim.”
Rowland tried to stop crying but couldn't. His words were muttered hoarsely, between broken sobs. “Oh, God, God, I loved her, I did. I tried not to, tried to break it off. That's what happened with my wife. She found out about Christie and me.”
“Do you know why Christie was at your place?”
“No. She knew I was trying to get back with Nancy. She knew. I told her again today. I told her I was going to be gone tonight. Why would she come over here?”
“We'll find out. Do you know anybody who might want to do her harm? Anybody making threats against her?”
“No, of course not. The women at school didn't like her much. She was so young, so beautiful. . . .” He raised a teary face. “You sure it's her? Maybe you're wrong? You could be wrong, couldn't you?”
“No, sir. It's definitely her. I interviewed her myself the day Classon died.”
Charlie's blue Jeep Cherokee skidded to a stop across the street, and I watched him get out, slam the door, and stalk angrily toward the house. He ducked under the crime-scene tape and spoke animatedly to the off-duty Osage Beach police officer, who listened for a few seconds, then pointed in my direction. When Charlie looked at me, I raised my hand in acknowledgment, then turned back to Rowland.
“Tell me about you and Christie. Exactly what kind of relationship did you have with her?”
Rowland was sniffling, wiping wet eyes. He couldn't stop crying. His words came out in sobs, voice all choked up. “We were having an affair.”
“Did anyone else know about it?”
“No. She would've gotten fired. Me too, I guess.”
“And when your wife found out, she left you?”
He nodded. “Christie called once and Nancy picked up the phone in the kitchen. I didn't know she was there; she'd gotten home from work early. Oh, God, God, God . . . Why was Christie out here? She shouldn't have been here.”
“Anybody else see you at Cedar Bend Lodge with your wife?”
“Sure. We ate in the main dining room. Some of Nancy's coworkers came in and we chatted with them for a little while. After dinner, we sat at the lobby bar and listened to music and drank champagne. People saw us there, too, I guess. I paid with my credit card, so you could check that.”
“What about you? Anybody been threatening you? One of Classon's friends, maybe?”
“No, no. Remember, I told you, Classon didn't have any friends.” Comprehension dawned, and he said, “Oh my God, you think they came after me and got her instead?”
“Maybe. Maybe she came over for some reason, to pick up something, get some possessions she'd left here if you'd broken it off, something like that, and surprised the killer waiting inside for you to come home. Could've happened that way.”
“Oh my God. I can't believe this, any of it. This cannot be happening.”
I watched Buckeye pull up in the white crime scene van. He'd made good time. He and Shag got out and carried their aluminum cases inside the house. Charlie followed on their heels. Bud was still in the car with Nancy Rowland.
“Mr. Rowland, are you aware of any kind of connection between Christie and Mr. Classon?”
“She hated him, I know. Why'd you ask that?” He stared hard at me. “Did the killer hang her like he did Classon? Is that it?”
“I can't divulge the details, Mr. Rowland. Will you be available to come in tomorrow and finish this interview?”
He nodded, stifling more sobs. “What about my house?”
“Get a hotel room or go home with your wife. It'll take a couple of days to process the scene. Where does Nancy live?”
“She's leased a place in Camdenton.”
“What's that address?” I wrote down what he told me, then said, “Don't leave town, Rowland. We'll want to talk to you again.”
Rowland wiped his face with his sleeve and composed himself enough to face his wife. I didn't envy him the ride home with her. The poor woman's humiliation had just begun.
About the time I finished up, the animal control officer had arrived and was getting out of his truck. Brett Walker was a guy I knew pretty well from two nasty Rottweiler attacks I'd handled last year. He probably still had scars on his hand from capturing those vicious dogs.
“Hey, Claire. Did I understand Bud right? You really got scorpions in there?”
“Yeah. Lots of them. Not a word to anybody, though. I don't want the media getting hold of this.”
“Right.”
“Just a heads-up, Brett, it's pretty brutal in there.”
“Right. Thanks.”
Charlie was standing just inside the front door. He looked solemn, mad as hell, and ready to jump on somebody with both boots.
He said, “Where's Bud?”
“Interviewing Rowland's wife.”
“She gonna be able to alibi him?”
“Maybe. Bud'll know soon.”
Charlie gestured at the red trunk. “The vic still inside?”
“Yes, sir.”
“With a scorpion.”
“Yes, sir. But not just one. Dozens of them.”
“This is crazy. What the fuck is going on around here?”
Good question
, I thought. “We ought to get some trace this time, sir. He did her here, we're pretty sure. Percentages say he had to leave something of himself behind.”
Brett Walker was removing the scorpions one at a time, picking them up with some large tweezers and dropping them into a lidded metal box with breathing holes in the top. There was a lot of blood in the bottom of the trunk from where she'd been hit in the back of the head. Nobody said anything. I could safely say everybody in that room was rattled to the core. I was. And that sure as heck didn't happen often.
It took us all night to process the crime scene. Buck had summoned his people on call, and they were still working when I left around dawn. Bud left when I did, and he felt better now that Christie's body was out of that awful trunk and on its way to the ME's office.
I walked into my house, exhausted, and fell onto the bed with my clothes on. I lay awake, though, opening that trunk in my mind, over and over, and dreading to meet up with my old enemy, sleep. The nightmares started the minute I slept.
FIFTEEN
After four hours of back-to-back dreams that were more like horror flicks, I dragged myself out of bed, showered, dressed, and avoided looking at the footlocker at the end of my bed. My first stop was Charlie's office. I had a bone to pick with him. Mr. Psy-Fi had to go. And now, at least, I had the right kind of ammunition to shoot him right out of the investigation.
When I arrived, Charlie was yelling into the telephone, so I paced the corridor outside. I was anxious. Two victims meant a possible third, a probable third. I wasn't going to let that happen. Bud had been ordered back to the academy, re-interviewing staff and students about Christie Foxworthy. Better him than me. I felt fatigued, in the mood to kill anybody who messed with me. I hadn't heard from Black, either, which ticked me off considerably, but I'd be damned if I'd waste my hard-earned money on a transatlantic call. He was probably suffering a porn hangover from watching nude dancers all night.
“Okay, he's all yours.” That was Madge, Charlie's wee secretary, who'd run the station for the last seventeen years. She was a little birdlike munchkin who barely reached my chin, even with the stilettos she always wore to bring her up to five feet.
“Morning, Sheriff.” I tried to indulge in pleasantries right off the bat because he wasn't going to like what I had to say. Besides, I didn't feel flippant or glib. Not after seeing Christie's horror-frozen face. I felt like finding a psychopathic killer and watching his execution.
Charlie snorted. “Buck said that girl had over fifty stings on her body.”
“Brett Walker said she would've died pretty quick.”
“Thank God for tender mercies.”
I thought it wasn't too tender, or too merciful, either. It was a damn horrible way to die.
“Well, what's your take on this so far?”
“I think it's personal. Both victims. He wanted them to suffer. To experience stark fear. Another thing, he struck so fast the second time. Could be he wanted to shut her up, or Rowland. Could be a warning. And Bud and I think drugs might be involved. We found a stash of coke in Classon's house, and Bud's following up on a possible drug connection between Classon and Christie Foxworthy right now. Maybe he was her dealer.”
Charlie dropped down into his leather chair, making the springs squeal for their life. He swiveled back and forth and my tense nerves endured the racket, but barely.
“Sit down, Claire.”
I obeyed. He fondled his pipe like an old, adored lover. His wife hated his smoking, didn't allow it at home, so he made a point to enjoy it freely at work. The smell didn't gag anybody so nobody said anything, not that anybody had the guts to. Especially now, since two murders had occurred on Charlie's turf.
He said, “Tell me what you've found out.”
“We've already interviewed most of the staff about Classon. Bud's out there now working on Christie Foxworthy's friends.”
“Tell me about that school.”
“You ever been out there, sir?”
“I've met Johnstone. He seemed okay, if I recall.”
“He wears a white suit, sir. With Jesus sandals. He collects devil masks from Asia.”
“So, he's a crackpot?”
“Worse, he's a pompous crackpot.”
“You suspect him?”
“It's not out of the realm of possibility.”
“Find anybody else suspicious? With motive?”
“Everyone described Classon as a monster, devil, bastard, and it goes down from there. The librarian's cool, I think.”
“Really got it pinned down, huh? What about alibis? Everybody accounted for at the times of the murders?”
“Most are. Still have some to check out. More now than before.”
“Anybody you think is capable of this kind of cruelty?”
“Who knows? Nobody ought to be able to commit these acts. Whoever it is, he's a sociopath and has probably learned to hide his dark side from people around him.”
Charlie sighed. “At least the media morons haven't gotten word of it yet. Make sure they don't.”
“Yes, sir. It's probably too cold for prima donnas. All those pretty commentators might get chapped lips.”
Charlie grinned. Great. Just the moment I was looking for. Time to wipe that happy expression off his face and make him mad. I hesitated, afraid for my life, I guess.
“One more thing, sheriff. I really need to talk to you about that guy, McKay.”
Charlie's eyes pinned me to my chair, daring me to complain. “Yeah, what about him? I heard he put you on to the location of the second victim.”
I took the dare. I'm reckless like that. “True, which I think ought to put him first on my suspect list.”
Charlie didn't explode, just waited for me to go on. Good sign.
Now was the time for some fast, persuasive talking. “I had an opportunity to delve into the enrollment records at the academy. He attended classes there about fifteen years ago. And just take a guess what he was expelled for.”
Charlie leaned back in his chair. He stuck his pipe back in his mouth. “He put a snake in Simon Classon's roll book.”
Flabbergasted, yes, I was. “Good guess, sir.”
“I know all about Joe's past, Claire. So tell me exactly, why do you suspect him?”
Was Charlie nuts, or what? “He put a snake in the first victim's personal property and Classon got him expelled. That sounds like they weren't exactly Starsky and Hutch. Sounds to me like he might have resented Classon, hated him, even. Then he suddenly alerted Bud and me to the second vic's crime scene. Gave us precise directions. And nobody's shown me proof positive that he even has ESP abilities. Sorry, sir, his word just doesn't cut it for me.” There, it was out in the open in plain English. Good for me. I think.
“How did you know he'd gone to the academy?”
“He told me, so I looked him up on the school's computer system.”
“Doesn't sound much to me like he's trying to hide anything.”
“It could've slipped out.”
“Maybe.”
“Sir, with all due respect, you've got to let me check him out some more. My gut tells me he's involved, and I trust my instincts.”
“What else did you get on him?”
“I found out his tuition was funded by an anonymous source. Tell me that's not just a little bit suspect. Think about it, sir, don't you think it's kinda funny that he showed up here all of a sudden, immediately wormed his way into my investigation, and led us straight to the second victim? Maybe so he'd know what we're doing? Perps are known to do that, to keep themselves a step ahead of the police investigation.”
Charlie glared at me. I braced against the hard look and held to my guns. “I want permission to keep him at arm's length. I don't want to have to apprise him of my movements. I don't trust him, sir. I don't like babysitting him and having him tag along everywhere I go. Neither does Bud. And I want to interrogate him about his knowledge of the Christie Foxworthy crime scene. I don't believe he's psychic, and I want a chance to prove it.”
Charlie commenced with another heavy sigh, put upon and not liking it. He struck a match and puffed his pipe. He said nothing. I said nothing. This was procedure, actually. This is how Charlie relaxed and thought the deep thoughts. A minute later, he stood and walked to the windows. Outside, I could see snow spiraling down against a heavy sky full of gray cotton. I could see a lighted star swinging on its lamppost like a square dancer doing a do-si-do. We were going to have one helluva white Christmas.
“It's snowing,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
His gaze remained on the street below. I heard the sounds of tires spinning on ice. Probably Bud arriving. “You're good, Claire, very good. I should've told you the truth from the beginning.”
Double uh-ohs. I didn't like the sound of that. I didn't like the sound of what he said next, either.
“That confidential donor for Joe McKay?” He turned around. “That was me, Detective. I funded him, and I handled the problem with the snake in Classon's roll book.”
“You're kidding.” Please, please be kidding me.
“No. And you're right, it happened about fifteen years ago. I felt sorry for the kid. He had family problems and got into trouble for vandalizing an old building out in the woods. Tried to burn it down. He was pretty messed up back then. I saw something in him, I guess. His lawyer sent him to a child psychologist, who said he was really bright. Suggested the academy was a place he could lay low, get himself an education or skill to support himself until he reached eighteen. My Sunday school class at Trinity Baptist paid his tuition, you know, adopted him. One of his teachers told us she thought he really did have ESP.”
I sat there, staring stupidly at him. “I don't know what to say, sir.”
“He did all right a couple of years, then started pulling asinine pranks. He liked to scare people, pull practical jokes. He just went too far with the snake.”
Yeah, I'd say. “Why'd he do it to Classon?”
“He never did say. He told me Classon deserved it. Classon insisted on pressing criminal charges if Joe wasn't kicked out of school. So Johnstone expelled him. That's when I gave Joe a choice, jail time or join the military. So he joined the Marines, and that's where he's been until his discharge. I wanted to give him a chance to prove himself, especially after he warned me with his prediction last summer. That's why I brought him into this case. And I believe he's got some kind of psychic gift that I don't even try to understand.”
“Don't you think it's a bit of a coincidence that Classon suddenly shows up dead now, right after McKay comes back into the picture? Why should he care who offed Simon Classon if he hated his guts?”
“He said others were going to get hurt. And now he's been proven right again. He said he wanted to prevent that.”
I took a deep breath then another one, but I'd be damned if I'd let McKay in on my case. “I don't want him tagging along with me, Sheriff. I'm asking you to give me a pass on that, please. Bud and I can get this done on our own. You know that. And he's a primary suspect now, whether you like it or not.”
“I don't think Joe's capable of the kind of torture the perp's using on his victims.”
“Sir, all I'm asking is permission not to rule him out until I'm sure I can.”
Silence. One beat. Two beats. Three beats. “Okay, you got it.”
Pleased at Charlie's capitulation, I pressed him, but very gently. “Can you tell me what he did in the military?”
“Special Ops, secret missions, that kind of stuff. Highly decorated. Specialized in demolitions.”
“Top secret, huh?” Impressive, I had to admit.
“Yes. He turned himself around completely. It was the discipline, I suspect, and being a part of something. He had a tough life, lost some family members, had a mom who suffered severe depression. She finally committed suicide.”
“How'd he lose his family members?”
“I'm not sure. Maybe it was a car crash. I really don't know.”
“We got a file on him somewhere?”
“I'll have Madge look it up for you. Now get the hell out of here and get back to work. I'll notify McKay that he's out.”
I scuttled out of there pronto, pleased as punch.