The Baker's Wife (5 page)

“Help's coming, okay?” Ed said. “But they wanna know if anyone's hurt.”

“Yes, but I'll go see.”

He stepped in the wrong direction around the periphery of the disaster, then disappeared.

“Ed!”

Audrey moved as quickly as the blood—
So much blood! Dear
Jesus!
—would allow. “Ed!” She was on her feet, tiptoeing to dry ground as if she might have more balance that way. The reach of the streetlights, diminished by the moisture in the air, cut across the sedan. She saw the steaming radiator and the disfigured bumper and the crushed metal under the tire. “Ed, wait!”

He was only steps away, and she nearly collided with him where he stood still, staring down at the mangled form of a small motorcycle. It was a motor scooter, actually, light blue or yellow or white, with a platform for feet directly in front of the stumpy seat. The shredded cushion was also spattered with the terrible liquid. The front end of the scooter had been swallowed by her car. Something that looked like a storage compartment had separated from the bike and tumbled down the road.

Audrey looked around. “Where's the rider?”

“I don't know.” Ed was staring at the wreckage. The hand holding his cell phone dropped to his side.

“He must have been thrown,” Audrey said, thinking she would have to find and follow a trail of blood leading from this lake. She was shaking, nauseated by the shock of what she'd done.

“That's what the dispatcher said.”

“What?”

“That the rider would have been thrown.”

Audrey turned away. “We'll look until emergency workers get here. I've got a flashlight in the trunk.”

Fog caressed Ed's shoulders. He was fixated on the bike.

“Go get your father. Ed, we need to find the rider.” The clammy moisture on her forehead and upper lip wasn't from the weather. “
Ed
.”

He gestured at the wreckage. “That's Julie Mansfield's scooter.”

CHAPTER 4

Sergeant Jack Mansfield was a city detective, not a patrol officer, and so under ordinary circumstances he wouldn't have been the one to respond to dispatch's announcement of an 11-83, even though both Cornucopia and its force were small. Vehicle accident, no details available, except that the caller described it as car versus motorcycle, which meant that injuries were likely. An ambulance had caught up with them half a mile back and now tailed the cruiser at a safe distance, only its flashing lights visible in the rearview mirror.

An 11-83 was as common as an orange tree in these parts, in this season, at these hours. For the next four or five months people would spend most of their time on the road driving blind. The locals were pretty good at that, having had their entire lives to practice, but enough people were idiots, especially the young ones, and ignorant of how their tragedies happened until some emergency responder explained it to them.

He didn't have a lot of sympathy for idiots.

Technically, Jack wasn't responding on this early Wednesday morning; he only happened to be in the car of the officers who were, because the last thirty-six hours had been anything but ordinary. He'd been on duty since five Monday afternoon, collecting and chasing evidence in a rare murder, only the third in the county this year. Even more rare, however, was a break with an eyewitness who had the information Jack needed to connect crime and criminal faster than a TV drama.

It was the paperwork, not the sleuthing, that ate up the hours in this particular case. Both killer and evidence had to be properly processed, and for this reason the paperwork on both had to be pristine. If any case as straightforward as this fell apart, it wouldn't be because Jack had lost his grip on it. Details, details. Jack never overlooked details.

Not even strange details, like the ones Jack's wife and the victim held in common: both were five six, 135, early forties. Both had their nails done at Studio Six Salon and bought locally roasted coffee at The Midnight Oil. The victim was a first-grade teacher at Hartford Elementary School; his wife taught math at Mazy High.

The parallels brought to mind the unpleasant scenario of how his life might change if Julie were no longer a part of it, and this brought grim memories of how their daughter, Miralee, had exited their lives in a flurry of expletives.

These details were curious but not relevant, so he moved on to other thoughts.

Specifically, to procedures. There was a reason for the many regulations and guidelines that governed scenes and labs and interrogation rooms. Follow the rules and reap the reward: another lowlife behind bars. Do it once, do it right. Renegade bad-boy cops who followed their own rules were the stuff of Hollywood myth—and perhaps New York City—and Jack would as soon shoot one on the street as allow him to walk through the doors of his precinct.

The principle worked in life as it did at the office. The theology of grace had been abused, in his opinion. Old Testament law made more sense to him than the ambiguous “everything is lawful” fluff. How could a man build logical systems of behavior out of that?

It was such a mind-set that allowed him, in less than two days' time, to cuff the victim's husband, secure the chain of evidence, dot the i's and cross the t's of his report, and finally go home.

This goal was hampered only by his mechanic, who didn't follow procedures with Jack's level of integrity and didn't have the Jeep ready when promised Tuesday afternoon. So Jack decided to take his vehicle somewhere else next time, and at 5:07 Wednesday morning, while Julie slept soundly at home, he caught a ride from Officers Carlisle and Rutgers, who would pass through his neighborhood on their routine patrol.

When Carlisle arrived at the scene of the 11-83 and parked the car in the middle of Sunflower, Jack considered walking home, just two miles away, or rousing Julie by phone in spite of the hour. Carlisle left the blues and reds going as a hazard indicator for inbound traffic, then called dispatch to ask for blockades on the other streets until the wreck could be cleared.

From the backseat of the cruiser, Jack saw the cone-shaped beams of streetlights cutting through the gray air on his right. On his left he saw the lights on inside a corner store and the silhouettes of three people standing outside in front of the bright window. Maybe eyewitnesses. Maybe passengers from the sedan in the middle of the intersection. One of the three approached the cruiser on Carlisle's side.

Through the distorting filter of fog, the no-details accident in the center of the intersection took on just enough clarity to capture Jack's eye: that was a hard-shell cargo compartment lying on the ground. It was light blue, like Julie's scooter, which had just such a chrome-plated top case mounted behind the matching blue seat. And that was a bumper sticker above the keyhole, and Jack thought he knew what it said even though he couldn't make out the words from his position.

I TEACH KIDS MATH. WHAT'S YOUR SUPERPOWER
?

He was out of the cruiser before the officers had unbuckled their seat belts. He measured his breathing and his steps and approached the wreckage as he would approach any crime scene. He noted the dismantled blue-and-white Vespa, the champagne-colored Corolla, maybe fifteen years old, the car fluids spilling out from under the car's carriage.

Where was his wife?

The ambulance had circled the block to approach from a different direction and came to a stop behind the wreck in the middle of Main, shining its low beams on the site. Those were not engine fluids on the ground.

Behind him, the voices of Carlisle and the bystander took calm turns. Rutgers approached with a flashlight. The officer whistled as the beam passed over the blood.

“That's a couple quarts, you think?” Rutgers said. “Two? Three? Where's the body?”

Jack motioned for Rutgers to hand over the flashlight. “Julie!” he called out.

The murmuring at the patrol car ceased. Rutgers glanced at Jack. “Your Julie?” he asked.

“That's her bike,” Jack said, refocusing. Of course, Julie wouldn't be here. “Where's the rider?” he called out in Carlisle's direction.

“No rider,” Carlisle shouted back.

“What do you mean, no rider?”

“Can't find anyone.”

“Well, who's looked?” Jack muttered. He circled the sedan, scanning it with the beam, and Rutgers followed. The EMTs were already on the other side of the wreck with their lights, sweeping.

“Sarge, let me take the lead on this.”

“Let's take it slow. Julie's fine. My guess is someone stole her ride.”

There was no good reason why Julie would have been out at this time of the morning. She had classes in just a few hours. She hated rising early after staying up late grading papers and prepping lessons. She'd been sleeping more than usual of late, recovering from a routine surgery. And if she
had
gone out in spite of all that, in these conditions she would have taken her car.

“Is the driver of the sedan on the scene?” Jack called out to Carlisle.

“Right here.”

“How fast was he going?” He homed in on the blood, looking for a source.

The answer came after a few seconds. “It's
she
. And about thirty.”

“Fast enough to throw a rider,” Jack said to Rutgers. “Grab another light. Clock's ticking if anyone's hurt.” Then to the medical techs: “Spread out. Could be anywhere, but most likely that direction.” He pointed.

A thief would have fled the scene. A victim who had been thrown wouldn't have left this much blood behind on impact. And a victim who had been thrown from a scooter shouldn't be too far from the scooter itself.
And
a victim who had lost this much blood wouldn't be going anywhere under her—his—own steam.

Jack turned these thoughts around in his mind but couldn't get any new perspective on them.

The blood seemed to have risen from the ground like a natural spring under the Corolla. It puddled under the driver's side door, which was still open, and a swirled mess like black finger paints smudged the ground beneath it. From there, sticky shoe prints led to the broken scooter and then away from the scene, back down Sunflower where Carlisle had parked.
Driver
, Jack registered.

Tracks behind the front tires were smeared as if the car had skidded through the stuff. There was blood on the scooter's carriage too, and on the seat, spilled in a pattern Jack had never seen in twenty years on the force.

He stared at the spatter, committing it to memory even though there would be photos taken. Holding the flashlight in his left hand, he pulled his cell phone out of the case on his belt and pressed the speed-dial button for home. It rang four times before the recording picked up. Julie was a heavy sleeper. He left a long, loud message instructing her to wake up. He called again, and a third time.

When she didn't answer, he called her cell phone, which might be on her nightstand or might be buried in the depths of her purse, depending on her frame of mind at the end of the previous day. She would make things easier for both of them if she would get in the habit of always placing it in the same spot.

No answer there either.

It was possible she was in the shower. Slim, but not out of the question.

The lights of Rutgers and the EMTs bobbed on the other side of the fog. Sun would be up in an hour or so. Jack would have dispatch send a team with a crime scene kit. He'd left his at the office. He'd also ask them to send a car to his house. Check on Julie. Take a report about the stolen scooter.

Jack turned around and followed the bloody shoe prints down Sunflower toward the cruiser. They led to the curb in front of the bright corner store, which actually was a bakery, which explained why it was lit up at this dim hour. It would open soon if it hadn't already. He glanced at the gold foil lettering that arched across one of the windows.

RISE AND SHINE

The Bofingers' new place.

On Sunflower and Main. That was right. He'd heard something about this from . . . from . . . from Mrs. Olsen, who wasn't sure whether she could in good conscience patronize the place.

Jack weighed this revelation and balanced it on his mental scale with the likelihood that the Bofinger kid had something to do with his wife's mangled bike. Swipe the ride, park it, get someone to run over it. Teenagers. The Toyota—

Of course. The Corolla belonged to Pastor Geoff, who was just Plain Geoff now. Sunday after Sunday for five years, that nondescript car had parked in the same slot under the oak tree as far from the church's front doors as it could get. There was no shortage of these cookie-cutter economy cars, but was it such a leap to think—

Yes, it was a great leap, and a good detective would not have taken it. Jack huffed and returned to the moment. Carlisle had separated the three adults, probably to take their statements. From several yards away Jack could hear the officer asking questions and another male voice responding. In the window of the shop, light shone around another figure, about six two, about 160, and by Jack's judgment also male.