Deadly Dozen: 12 Mysteries/Thrillers (6 page)

“But?”

“But their jurisdiction is mostly crime on the highway system. You should know that’s different from murder of a small town cop. And they ride one man per car, so they have to call in for backup. And they use radio to communicate. And people listen in and show up. Which causes problems. Things can get out of hand in terms of crowd control.”

Kim nodded. She’d handled more than her share of homicides, gang violence, domestic assaults. Law enforcement was a dangerous job everywhere, especially for women. The last thing Roscoe needed was chaos at the crime scene.

Gaspar asked, “How soon would you have heard if the nine-one-one dispatcher had called you first?”

“Within a couple of minutes, probably.”

“Literally?”

“More or less,” Roscoe said. “Two minutes would have done it.”

“Eleven twenty-eight plus two is eleven thirty exactly,” Gaspar said, and he met his partner’s reflected gaze again. Kim nodded back.

Gaspar saw it too.

#

The Black Road intersection was about two miles shy of the interstate. Roscoe told Gaspar to turn left, southwest, onto the dirt road. About fifty feet in the road became a mess of washboard grading, dust, and previous washouts. Gaspar slowed the Traverse to forty, which still bounced them around more than Kim found comfortable. She asked, “What did the GHP officer find when he arrived at the crime scene?”

Roscoe said, “Sylvia came out onto the porch with her hands on her head before the GHP guy got out of his car. She didn’t say anything to him.”

“Textbook,” Gaspar said. “For a perp, I mean.”

“She worked with us a while and her husband was a cop. She knew what to do.” Roscoe peered ahead down the narrow alley between the Georgia pines. Kim could see nothing worth the stare.

Gaspar asked, “And then?”

“The GHP guy put her in handcuffs, confirmed Harry was dead, called for backup, medical examiner, crime scene, and paramedics.”

“And then he called Officer Brent,” Gaspar said.

“All using the radio,” Kim said.

“Right.”

“Anybody question Mrs. Black since GHP arrived?” Kim asked.

“She’s not talking. We’ll arrest her, take her back to our station. And go from there. Once we see what’s going on.”

Gaspar concentrated on navigating the deserted country road around its multiple hazards. All three of them were bounced around in their seats. Gaspar said, “I remember Margrave as a pretty well maintained place for a rural community. Lots of newer buildings and fresh paint when I was here last.”

“Things change,” Roscoe said, a little coldly.

“Just asking. Nothing personal.”

Roscoe didn’t smile. She just stared on down the dusty road. Looking for what, Kim didn’t know. There was nothing to see. Piney woods either side of the road hid everything beyond its ditches.

Kim asked, “What did Sylvia mean by not being able to take him anymore? Is she claiming abuse and self-defense?”

Roscoe said, “Hard to say before I talk to her. Crazy talk, possibly.”

Gaspar glanced back again and met Kim’s gaze with a look that confirmed Kim’s impression. Harry was abusive. Kim had no use for a wife-beater. None. Even less use for friends and co-workers who covered up. She wondered whether Harry was a drunken abuser or just a power tripper control freak. And whether battered spouse defense was a legal excuse for murder in Georgia.

Roscoe said, “About five more miles, I think. Harry’s family owned this land for generations. He built the house himself about twenty-five years ago. He liked being away from people. He said the quiet was restful.”

Gaspar looked back at Kim again. She wondered if he was thinking the same thing:
Rest in Hell, Harry. You sick bastard.

CHAPTER NINE

They drove on. The car bounced and lurched, hitting potholes with regularity. Kim said, “Chief, we need to know about Reacher. Whatever you can tell us. Whatever you know. We need to find him. It’s important.”

It seemed to take Roscoe a couple of seconds to switch her mind back to Reacher. She asked, “What do you want him for?”

“He’s a potentially valuable asset. The FBI is telling you it needs him. Whose side are you on?”

Roscoe turned and stared a long time directly into Kim’s face. Still wary. Maybe searching for some hint that Kim could be trusted. The Traverse hit a big pothole. Roscoe smacked her head on the roof. She raised her hand to rub the sore spot, and glanced out the back window and realized where they were.

“Back up,” she said to Gaspar, and she pointed to a mailbox so obscured by weeds and kudzu only a previous visitor could find it. “The house is about a mile down that driveway you just passed.”

Deep dents marred every surface of the mailbox. Once painted white, now veined with rusty cracks, it dangled from its thick re-rod pole, held by a single remaining U-bolt and the grasping kudzu. The door to the mailbox was missing completely. “It wasn’t like that the last time I was here,” Roscoe said.

“When was that?” Kim asked.

“Couple of years ago, I guess. Maybe longer. Before they were married, I think.”

“Looks like extreme mailbox baseball,” Gaspar said. “Kids in a car with a bat. Vandalism, in other words. A federal crime, actually. If memory serves, two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollar fine and three years in prison for each offense. And each blow counts as a separate offense.”

Kim asked Roscoe, “Was Black targeted in some way? Kids would have to be pretty determined to come all the way out here just to beat the snot out of a mailbox for the fun of it.”

“I didn’t hear anything about it,” Roscoe said. “I don’t know.”

The Traverse’s tires bounced from one hole to the next. Dead skunk perfume came in through the air vents. Kim held her breath. Then she saw a good-sized dirt lot and a pea-gravel driveway full of two GHP cruisers, two marked Margrave squad cars, an unmarked sedan with a portable bubble light on the dash, and a county ambulance. A coat of red dust already covered them all.

Kim asked, “Anything special you want us to do?”

Roscoe paused a moment and said, “Do whatever you think you should, I guess. I’ll catch up with you inside. Check in before you leave and we’ll see where we are.”

Then she said, “We’ll talk more about Reacher later. After I get this situation sorted out. OK?”

#

Kim watched as Roscoe followed a line of cracked sandstone slate pavers by taking a little hop from one to the next and over the dirt between them, like she was crossing stones in a running stream. Withered plants filled cracked red-dirt beds along each side of the pavers. Uncut yard weeds thrived, impersonating a lawn. Thirty feet ahead a frame shotgun style house rested on a cement block foundation. Its metal roof reflected the glare of the sun. Between the roof and the foundation were four windows cut into the walls, all grimy. A porch ran the twenty-foot width of the house. On one end, a gray weathered bench swing hung crooked on a rusty chain, and on the other end sat two white plastic dollar-store rockers with an overflowing ash tray between them.

Roscoe stepped over the last weed gap, up the single plank step to the porch, and entered the house through the open front door.

Kim stayed where she was.

Gaspar, too, seemed momentarily transfixed.

“What a hole,” he said. “My wife would never have moved out here in a million years. What kind of woman lives like this?”

“The killing kind, apparently,” Kim said. She reached into her bag and found her camera. Then she opened her door and stepped onto the hard red ground.

The first thing she noticed was the quiet noonday, bizarrely still. She was a city girl. Noise was normal; quiet was not.

Out in the woods, no one can hear you scream.

“Did you know?” she asked.

“Know what?” Gaspar said.

“Why he gave us the eleven thirty deadline. Why he put us in that room at that time.”

“You don’t trust me, do you?”

“He wanted us to be there when the call came in. He wanted us out here at the crime scene. That how you read it?”

“Yes,” Gaspar said.

“What about Reacher?”

“Reacher’s irrelevant.”

“To what? This homicide? Or is the whole assignment bogus?”

He shrugged. “You’re number one. You figure it out.”

She could feel sweat above her lip. She couldn’t figure it out. She hated that. She said, “Take pictures, OK? And don’t be obvious about it.”

If Gaspar resented her orders, he didn’t show it. He just turned back to the Traverse and got his own camera. She watched him from behind her sunglasses.

Was he limping?
FBI field agents didn’t limp. Physical fitness was one of the basic requirements of the job. Definitely no limping allowed. She reached up and dabbed the sweat from her lip, and then she headed for the house, matching Gaspar’s longer stride step for step. As they walked his limp became less pronounced. Maybe it was just a cramp.

Maybe she could rely on him.

Only one choice.

CHAPTER TEN

Inside the house the tiny hallway was full of people and full of familiar muted crime scene sounds. Then one guy moved right and another moved left and Kim got a clear line of sight into a messy bedroom. Time stood still, like a single freeze frame in a video.

Harry Black’s body was face down on bloody sheets, right where his faithful bride had shot him seven times less than two hours ago.

Not a chance.

Complete bullshit.

Kim smelled him even over the skunk perfume. She saw the rigor and the lividity from all the way across the room. Every professional in the house had to know Harry Black had been dead a lot longer than two hours. The GHP trooper must have known when he called in the homicide.

People shifted again, blocking her view. The freeze frame ended. The video moved on. Gaspar looked at her and nodded. He had seen it too. The interior of the building matched its exterior for bleakness. There were four rooms. A total of maybe 800 square feet. Lots of pine, lots of gaps and warps. The living room had two worn recliners and a 60-inch flat screen TV. There were fashion magazines on a folding table. The windows were opaque with dirt.

Gaspar had moved farther into the house, observing everything, just as she was. He was taking pictures from time to time.

Of what?

Am I missing something?

Kim recalled Gaspar’s question. What kind of woman had chosen to live in this place? She glanced toward the kitchen and saw the answer right there.

Mrs. Sylvia Black sat on one of the two kitchen chairs, head down. Cuffed hands hung between her knees. She held her palms together, rhythmically opening and closing each set of matched fingers, one set at a time, like a metronome, counting.

Counting what?

She had a recent manicure. She had perfectly shaped nails, quite short, painted pastel pink. She had a large square onyx ring with a silver cable around it on her right index finger, and a smaller turquoise ring by the same designer on her right pinky. She was wearing the kind of black patent sandals that fashionable women covet, and she had a fresh pedicure. Her toenails were polished deep purple. Her yellow silk blouse had a pink and green designer’s monogram. Dark silk slacks tapered smartly down her calf, where an ankle bracelet sat near a yellow rose tattoo.

Then someone made a noise and Sylvia’s head snapped up, eyes darted wildly. Kim saw dark beauty, enhanced by skillful makeup. Sylvia’s eyes met Kim’s, and then she lowered her gaze to the floor and began her finger tapping again.

Kim reached into her pocket and pulled out her camera. She framed the shot and said, “Sylvia?”

The woman looked up and saw the camera. She squared her shoulders, raised her chin, and smiled, revealing bright white teeth offset by shimmering pink lip gloss.

She was posing.

Kim switched the camera to video mode and followed her gut.

“I love your shoes,” she said. “Jimmy Choos, right? They look great on you.”

Girlfriends.

“Thank you,” Sylvia replied, holding her leg out in front, the better to display her stylish footwear. “These are my favorites.” She looked up into Kim’s face again. “Want to try them? Your foot’s really tiny, though.”