"Spare me the guilt trip about the birthday party," Jack said. "Mother already laid a huge one on me."
Not huge enough, Hannah thought. She squared her shoulders, which would put them almost eye to eye, if Jack were a couple of hundred miles closer.
Rifts in their friendship aside, he was a silver-haired Irish teddy bear. One with nuclear capabilities, but a teddy bear, nonetheless. Her approach to compromise was key: a smooth, steady balance of experience, confidence and touch, like hitting the tarmac's black marks in a 757.
"Anything else?" he said.
"Nothing major," she stalled. "Wilma probably told you about yesterday's interview."
"First thing. She's still mad at herself for letting Ms. Mom slip by her."
"Well, I had a few reservations about Juline Shelton, even before I found out about her kids, but"
"Fuhgeddaboudit, sweet pea." A scraping sound and a thump indicated two hand-cobbled shoes had hit the floor. "I won't authorize using a two-bedroom resident's cottage for manager's quarters." Jack chuckled. "And yes, I know you too well."
Hannah ducked down to examine the desk's knee hole, suspecting a bug had picked up last night's heart-to-heart with Malcolm, who'd taken refuge there until the weather calmed. No button mics were visible. Possibly because the desk's underside could use a shave, too.
"What if I'd had a kid, Jack? C'mon, one lousy kid. Old enough to feed and dress himself. Old enough to eat, dress and drive himself to school, even."
"If you did, you wouldn't have quit Friedlich & Friedlich."
"The hell I wouldn't have." She paced the narrow aisle between the desk and built-in credenza. "As much as I traveled? The hours I put in? Nights. Weekends. National freakin' holidays. How could I possibly have raised a kidin Chicago, no lessin a condo where you had to squash your head against a window to see a damned tree?"
Aware she was ranting and enjoying it, despite Clancy's laughter, she went on, "If me having a child when you were desperate to hire a manager four months ago wouldn't have mattered, it shouldn't matter now that
I'm
the desperate one, trying after forty-three years to have a life, while you're free to fly off to Michigan on your birthday."
The swirling optical dots common to the oxygen deprived had dwindled by the time Jack caught his own breath. "Okay, all right. You win, as usual. I'll tell Wilma one child isn't an automatic out-skie."
"Oh, Jack." Hannah puckered and smacked a sloppy kiss into the receiver. "Thank you, I really"
"
If
the kid's over ten," he said. "Make that twelve. And both kid and parent have to come to the interview. And Valhalla Springs' board of directors has to approve it. And if absolutely necessary, a two-bedroom cottage is a loaner, until an addition is built on the manager's cottage. Agreed?"
Before Hannah responded, he tacked on, "No pets, ATVs, motorcycles, scooters, go-carts, skimobiles or pubescent wannabe Paris Hiltons, either."
"That's it?" She leaned against the credenza and tipped back her head as far as her vertebrae allowed. "Gee, this widens the employment field so much, I can almost hear the organist tuning up for the Wedding March."
"Musicians.
Christ.
I don't want any electric guitars, keyboards, drums"
"Goodbye, Jack." She pressed End, hesitated, then docked the handset. She hadn't talked to David since midnight, but the news of Jack's extremely conditional surrender could wait. By now, David was sleeping off one of Ruby Amyx's fabulous five-pound breakfast specials.
And life being metabolically sexist, he'd weigh the same when he wakened as he did before his head hit the pillow.
5
A
n electric utility bucket truck and a cable-TV repair van narrowed the mouth of the cul-de-sac to a single lane. David threaded his patrol unit through the aperture, then dodged a branch severed by last night's armada of thunderstorms.
None of the cloud rotations weather-spotters had reported had developed into tornados, but torrential rain, micro-burst winds and sixty-mile-an-hour gusts had downed power lines and caused minor property damage from the southwest corner of the county to the northeast.
Clear skies and the cool breeze blowing through the cruiser's open window lent a surreality to the shingles scattered across the pavement. Leaves and grass clippings plastered the windward side of a late-model pickup. On the opposite side of Greenaway Circle, a mature Bartlett pear tree was snapped off at the ground, smothering a flower bed.
Residents of the keyhole-shaped development clustered in their driveways and front lawns pretending to assess the damage. All eyes were riveted on the vehicles arrayed in the cul-de-sac's turnaround. David angled the Crown Victoria alongside Marlin Andrik's unmarked Chevy and behind the coroner's hearse.
On the right side of the horseshoe, crime-scene tape blocked entry to a split-level rancher. Uniformed deputies flanked the open garage to chase away those who couldn't parse Police Line Do Not Cross, or assumed it didn't apply to them.
David recalled the backyard barbecues he'd attended here, a holiday open house, the condolence call he'd made a few weeks afterward, then the number of times since that he'd intended to drop by.
Something had always cropped up and taken precedence. Nothing memorable. Just the stuff and nonsense that shifted today's list of priorities to tomorrow's. Before you know it, a month or two has flown by.
As David started for the house, Chase Wingate exited a minivan with Sanity Examiner in old English lettering on its doors. Before Marlin kiboshed radio transmissions, the county weekly's owner-publisher must have intercepted dispatch reporting a 10-18 at this address. Delbert Bisbee wasn't the only scanner-junkie who knew a dead body ten-code when he heard it. Far from it, unfortunately.
"Sheriff," Wingate said, "if you'll fax a personal quote about this sometime before Sunday, I'd appreciate it."
"Will do." David slipped Wingate's business card in his shirt pocket as a reminder. The newspaperman could be as persistent as his big-city brethren; he was just smart enough to know that anything he asked now, including the victim's ID, would foster a "No comment."
Veteran Deputy Bill Eustace directed David to the front door, saying, "They haven't had time to process the garage yet."
"You were responding officer?"
Eustace jerked his head at the rookie stationed on the other side of the garage. "It was kind of a tie between me and Vaughn."
"The garage door was up when you arrived?"
"Yessir. After the neighbor lady across the street couldn't raise anybody on the phone, she went in through the garage, then ran home and called 911. Me and Vaughn went in that way, too."
That meant at least three people had tracked in and out of the garage. If the killer had, as well, that portion of the scene was already contaminated. It couldn't be helped, but David's chief of detectives wasn't the forgiving type.
Eustace turned and waved at the garage's concrete apron and the white sedan parked inside. "Judging from the trash, leaves and twigs scattered around, I'd guess the door was open all night long."
David reserved judgment. Power outages and lightning can trip an older-model automatic garage door mechanism. So can a misaimed neighbor's remote control set at the same frequency. Or one from a burglar's private collection, often bought at garage sales for a quarterbattery not included.
Shaggy evergreens encroached on the home's curved walkway. The tips brushed David's slacks as he sidled past, toward a concrete stoop. Above it, the guttering sagged under a couple of seasons' debris. The wrought-iron handrail wobbled; a house number plaque dangled from a lone, rusty chain. The metal storm door's upper glass panel was sparkling clean, inside and out.
David peeled on latex gloves that proved the fallacy in one-size-fits-all. Anticipating the unmistakable stench of death, he thumbed the storm door's latch.
The outrushing air wasn't pleasant, but bearable. It was the foyer's refrigerated chill that raised the hair on the back of David's neck. Considerably colder than Hannah's cottage was yesterday. Enough that if he'd walked in blindfolded, he'd swear he was in a morgue.
To the right, the combined living room and dining room were as he remembered: as formal, uncluttered and spotless as a high-priced furniture store's showroom. Which, he admitted, was essentially what they were.
A carpeted stairway divided those company-only rooms from the family room at the back. The solemn voices, cryptic remarks and camera flashes revealed that the heart of the home was the primary crime scene.
Beginning just inside the archway, a field of plastic evidence markers resembled a miniature tent city. A coffee table had been overturned with enough force to crack one of the legs. Fanned across the carpet were magazines, a vinyl cigarette case, a paperback book, cork coasters, the TV remote. A filtered cigarette butt and ashes had spilled from a plastic ashtray. Mascara and lipstick streaked a wad of tissues.
Foreknowledge of the victim's identity and cause of death didn't prepare David for the sight of Beverly Beauford's corpse. The former sheriff's widow lay sprawled on her stomach. The exposed side of her face and neck were cherry red, and her chin slightly tucked. Impact with the floor had twisted her glasses upward. One lens magnified a bulging blue eye.
Junior Duckworth crouched beside her. The third-generation funeral home owner and three-term county coroner was shock-pale, his features taut. David knew Junior's wife and Bev Beauford had been high school classmates.
Opposite him, Marlin Andrik leaned in for a close-up photo of the lace scarf used as a garrote. The chief of detectives' customary emotional range went from inscrutably grim to inscrutably grimmer. Today, he looked as sick as David felt.
"I hate this fuckin' job," he snarled.
Marlin had said it before. Many times, yet never quite as savagely. Grief, rage and fear lacerated his voice. He took all homicides personally. This one hit too close to home.
Sheriff Larry Beauford had been an elected bureaucrat for whom crime scenes were photo ops, but Bev was still a cop's wife. Her murder crossed a blue line everyone in law enforcement wanted to believe was inviolate. Sacrosanct. An unalienable quid pro quo for putting their own lives at risk.
Marlin rocked back on his heels and looked up at David. "You need to hurl, go outside. Me and Duckworth already flocked the geraniums on the patio."
"If it'd help, I would."
"It won't." He wiped his mouth on the shoulder of his sport coat. "A smoke won't, either, but I'm gonna have one."
He passed off the camera to Josh Phelps. The trainee would assist the coroner when he rolled over the body, then commit that perspective to film.
Marlin was old school. Digital video and stills had their place, but in addition to, not in lieu of, traditional prints and Polaroids. A defense attorney who insinuated that court exhibits had been processed on Photoshop got their asses handed to them. Few things put the chief of detectives in a better mood.
David followed him to the front lawn, realizing the investigator was as eager to brief him as he was for a nicotine fix. They'd worked some horrific scenes togethera multi-fatality shooting sprang immediately to mindbut David couldn't recall Marlin's hand shaking when he lit a cigarette.
A deep drag was taken, held, then exhaled out his nostrils. "After all these years, shit's not supposed to get to me like this." The toe of Marlin's shoe eviscerated a clump of wild onion. "If you want Cletus Orr to lead this one, say the word."
"It's your unit. That makes it your call. No explanation necessary, either way."
David meant it, but hoped the case wasn't reassigned. Cletus Orr was a good investigator. He had seniority in years of service. There were reasons, though, that he'd twice been passed over for promotion to chief.
Cletus was also due to retire soon. If Jessup Knox won the electionDavid cursed himself. Hiring on as Orr's replacement hadn't occurred to him before, and damn well shouldn't have now.
"I'm just blowing off steam." Marlin's fingers raked his thick, rapidly graying hair. "I want this dirtbag. Want him about fifteen feet out and dead-bang in my sights, if possible."
He squinted at the sun, as though condemning it for shining at a time like this. "I thought it was a jolt when Larry Beauford kicked in the emergency room that night. Everybody could see, he was a coronary or a stroke waiting to happen, but
this
"
He flicked ash off the Marlboro pinched between his gloved fingers. "Bev? Strangled to death in her own house?
Jesus.
"
The pause demanded and defied a response. Seeing wasn't always believing. A kid doesn't have to see the monster under the bed to believe it's there. Cops know monsters exist. If they lived under beds and had claws and fangs, instead of looking like everybody else, Bev wouldn't be lying dead on the family room floor.