Frozen (Detective Ellie MacIntosh) (14 page)

It was the inhumanity that got to him, Rick mused, lathering his face to shave. The way the body had been just dumped and left there, like refuse, in an untidy sprawl, her skirt hiked up immodestly. The county coroner was an aging doctor who had retired from his general practice in Green Bay and moved permanently to his vacation home near Carney. Since Dr. Phillips had only done a cursory exam without moving the victim, he’d been unable to determine the cause of death from the appearance of the body, but did say the victim was wearing not only her underwear but panty hose, so he’d guess there hadn’t been a sexual assault unless her abductor allowed her to dress again afterward.

Since the woman was dead, it wasn’t much reassurance, but had it been his wife, Rick would have wanted her to suffer as little horror as possible. He hoped that there was no rape proved to be true, but wasn’t sure what solace it would offer the families of the missing women. Since they had found both her shoes, it was likely Melissa Simmons had been dressed also when she’d run, or been dragged, from the cabin.

When he finished up in the bathroom, he put on a clean uniform, and then found Jane in the kitchen in a fuzzy blue robe and slippers, frying eggs. She glanced over her shoulder. “It doesn’t sound like you’ll be home for supper. I thought I’d make you something to eat now instead. The bacon is in the microwave. Take it out, will you?”

He did, stealing a piece, thinking of how different his life was since he’d met her. The idea of marriage scared him because his first one had been bad—really bad near the end—but Jane was nothing like Vivian and he wasn’t eighteen this time.

He should ask her to marry him. She’d never said so, but he was pretty sure she wanted him to propose. They’d talked around it a couple of times since she’d moved in, but he had a feeling she understood his reservations even more than he did.

She wasn’t beautiful—on the taller side, able to look him in the eye, a bit heavy in the hips, but he liked the curves, the full softness of her pale blue-veined breasts, and most of all the character in her face. Her heritage was pure Irish, and when they first met he’d half expected her to speak with a brogue, but she talked with the normal Wisconsin inflection, as if living in the north woods gave a special cadence to life, including speech patterns.

That fiery hair too looked hot when it was spilled over the sheets of his bed. Right now it stuck up on top of her head and resembled a frizzy clown wig. She religiously straightened it every day, but at night her hair reasserted its rebellious nature. Jane put the plates on the small little round table in the corner they jokingly called the breakfast nook, sat down opposite, and poked the yoke of one her eggs with her fork. She watched him eat for a few minutes before she said quietly, “I’m thinking of buying a gun. Would you teach me how to shoot it?”

She could have said she’d decided to flap her arms and fly to the moon and it would not have surprised him more. She was a pacifist in every way. The woman had a catch-and-release policy for spiders inside the house for God’s sake. Rick stared at her for a moment, then crunched into a piece of bacon, thinking it over. When he swallowed, he shook his head. “You hate guns. People who hate guns and are uncomfortable with them shouldn’t carry a weapon. Pepper spray is a good alternative. More accessible and no training necessary. Point and push.”

“I knew Margaret Wilson. Her mother was a cancer patient at the hospital. She came in pretty much every day.” Jane stared at her coffee cup for a minute. “It makes this all very immediate, you know? Her mother dying was an act of God, or if you don’t believe in that, a merciful act of nature then, because she didn’t have to add to her misery on this earth and know her daughter was found dead before they met in heaven.”

That was one of their hang-ups. She was a devout Catholic. He wasn’t so sure about religion anymore. Maybe it was the job. It wasn’t any great secret it could harden a person. “I know,” he said.

“This is different,” she said fiercely. “Why do people do shit like this? Kill each other? There’s no purpose to it. Here’s some of us, the doctors, the nurses, the lab techs, researchers; all of us working so hard to make sure other human beings live we devote our life to it. And then there are sick bastards out there who just
kill
them. I think I’m more angry than scared.”

“
Be
scared.” Rick said with emphasis, looking at her across the table. “I understand what you’re saying, but, baby, you should still be scared. Because one of those sick bastards is out there and he’s way too close.”

*   *   *

“Jody told me.
How awful.”

Ellie cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear and folded a towel. She hadn’t done laundry in almost a week. Not that she minded doing it, she just hated putting it away for some reason. “I won’t deny we’re pretty busy all of a sudden.”

On the other end of the line her mother said, “A woman murdered … it’s terrible. Who did it?”

Her laugh was short and explosive. “If we knew that, the investigation would be over, wouldn’t it? How’s Florida?”

“Warm.”

“Brag on.” An earlier glance at the thermometer outside the kitchen window had tagged the temperature at thirty-four degrees. Not bad, but not great either.

“Come see me. Sit on the beach. I’ll make key lime pie.”

“Pulling out the big guns as a bribe, I see.” She retrieved a pair of lacy black panties, wondered why the hell she paid so much for lingerie when no one ever saw her wearing those expensive little bras and thongs, and put it neatly in the pile. “When this case is finished, maybe I’ll fly down. I have time coming, that’s for sure.” It sounded nice. A beach, fruity drink in hand, the sun warm on her skin … and her mother did whip up a killer key lime pie.

If
they ever solved the case. At the moment they were still infuriatingly empty-handed.

“Bring a friend.”

“I’m not seeing anyone.”

“Since Brian, I know. Rather a long time, isn’t it? Jody and I talked about that too.”

Ah, what were sisters for? Ellie shut the door on the dryer and carried clean sheets into the bedroom. “I’ve had a date here and there, and really, Mom, I don’t mean to be rude, but not your business.”

There was a bit of dry humor in the response. “You work with a lot of men. Surely in a target-rich environment like that, you find someone attractive?”

Actually, the only man she’d found intriguing lately was the main target of their investigation and that was unsettling on many different levels.

Somehow she was sure her mother might be horrified rather than gratified to hear it. “Any romance with a coworker is ill-advised and I’ve never been sure that male cops like female cops in the first place.”

True enough. Though she’d never been precisely harassed in any definitive way, she wasn’t convinced that all of her colleagues thought women should be on the job. On the other hand, there were a lot of guys who had no problem with it at all. Like most of life, there was a balance.

After about five more minutes in which she dodged a couple of other interrogations about her personal life, Ellie managed to get off the phone, start another load of laundry, and methodically dress for work.

She hoped the case was moving forward, but Melissa Simmons was still out there. If there was any chance …

She slipped her Glock into her shoulder holster, buttoned her coat, and quietly locked the door behind her.

Chapter 11

Fate. He’d looked up the definition in the musty dictionary left in the spare room on the shelf. He’d always thought it funny his parents had put it there, like Webster’s was some sort of decoration that would welcome guests and make them feel at home.

It said: Primarily a divine decree or fixed sentence by which the order of things is prescribed …

Or better yet the list of synonyms; destiny, doom, fortune, death, destruction.

Yes, the Hunter believed in fate.

*   *   *

The medical examiner’s
report sat on the desk and Ellie stared at it as if maybe her prolonged scrutiny would summon up something new from the neatly typed words.

“She wasn’t raped,” Rick said. He took a drink from a Styrofoam cup, his face somber. “I’d already thought there was no sexual assault because of the panty hose. I can’t really imagine trying to get a pair of panty hose back on a dead woman. Really, why the hell would he bother?”

“Why the hell would he kill anyone in the first place?” Ellie asked woodenly. “Let’s face it, we don’t get how these guys think, Rick.”

“Good point,” he admitted and looked away for a minute.

“What about the cigarette butt?”

“It was pretty unproductive. Not old, but then again not fresh, and forensics was skeptical about getting any DNA.”

“Grantham doesn’t smoke.”

“Not that you know of.”

True. She’d been in his car that first morning, when he reported Melissa Simmons missing, but there were some smokers who were careful and only did it outside. She’d give him that point, but she hadn’t smelled it at the cabin either. “It could have been another fisherman who stopped by before, or after the crime, and maybe didn’t smell the body because it wasn’t there yet, or because it hadn’t been there long enough yet.”

“A long shot, but okay, I’ll give it to you.”

They sat at her desk on a busy Thursday morning, the bustle of the rest of the department around them. The office always smelled like coffee, the tiled floors the same institutional color as the walls, the ring of the phones punctuated by the conversations of various officers at other desks all around them.

She tapped the document with a forefinger. “She was strangled. Manually. I suppose we have that. At least we know the cause and manner of death. That means it is officially a homicide investigation and switches this whole thing into a different gear. I was hoping for more, for some DNA, but at least we have something.”

“It doesn’t look like she struggled.”

“The ME’s report says there is a bruise on her knee. Residue around her neck that indicates latex gloves, and it was cold out the day she disappeared. He probably wore a coat and it protected him.”

Rick eyed her from across the desk. “It’s something, yes, but not much. Where are we going next?”

“The families have been interviewed, and I doubt there is much point in doing it again because they don’t know anything.” Ellie sighed and ran a finger down the paper with her notes. “Even if the guy—and yes, I think we can assume now we are dealing with a man because if she was strangled, he was stronger—picks his victims at random, there still has to be a common thread. Our victims didn’t know each other, weren’t in the same places, and didn’t live near each other. He’s snatching them at different times of the year, but still, there’s got to be a pattern.”

“He has a definite connection to this part of Wisconsin, we know that much. Public records show Grantham’s grandparents bought that property in the forties.” Rick eyed the contents of his cup, apparently found something unappetizing, and set it aside. “Bryce Grantham fits in several ways. He’s not a small guy either, taller than me, looks pretty athletic. Physically I’d say he’s capable of overpowering and strangling a woman easily. One tiny bit of physical evidence shows up, and I say we arrest him.”

“We can’t and you know it. We still have a pretty tight timeline on Margaret Wilson, and even if he rushed up here after that lunch that gives him an alibi of sorts, why did she stop for him? She was in her car.” Conjecture didn’t hold up in court.

“You like him.”

The slight tone of accusation took her off guard. She glanced up. “Excuse me?”

“Grantham.”

“I think he’s telling us the truth.”

Unless he was very, very good at acting and she was overestimating her ability to tell the difference.

Shit
. She wasn’t sure what to think.

So, in other words, trust your gut feelings, but … not too much
.

That
helped.

The phone on the desk rang, making her glance up. Rick answered, said a few clipped words, and then hung up. “Margaret Wilson’s husband is here again. He knows we have the results of the autopsy and insists on talking to us.”

Ellie rubbed her forehead. “This should be fun.”

“Pearson said he’s pretty on the edge.” Rick looked stoic. He leaned back in his chair and it creaked, the small squeal sounding like a dying animal. “I can understand why. They’d only been married a couple of years.”

“What? It would be easier if they had been married longer?” Ellie gave him a sardonic look. “You know, you don’t do much for the image of holy matrimony.”

“I didn’t have a good experience. I had a shitty experience, actually. As a result, I’m not a fan, but it had some good results. I’ve got two great kids.”

Ellie had seen their pictures, both of them in little dance costumes, smiling and waving. Occasionally she thought about children, wondering if the urge to have one was ever going to kick in, but then again, she hadn’t met anyone yet she wanted to share that kind of a commitment with, and look at Rick. He was stuck dealing with his ex-wife for the rest of his life.

The Wilsons had no children. Good or bad thing? She wasn’t sure. At least some child wasn’t left motherless, but then again it might be some consolation to Matthew Wilson because Pearson was dead right about his current emotional state. When he pulled out a chair at their invitation and sat down, he looked both shaky and on the verge of tears. His thin face was tense and he continually ran his hand through short brown hair that was already receding from a high forehead. His sweatshirt had the UW badger on the front of it and looked as if he’d pulled it out of the dirty clothes hamper. “What happened to her? What happened to my wife?”

God, Ellie hated some parts of this job.
She’s dead and we don’t know why, or who did it. And we can’t promise you we ever will
.

Those were not words of comfort.

Rick was the one who said succinctly, “She was strangled. There was no conclusive evidence of sexual assault or defensive wounds, so we think she was taken very much by surprise.”