The Intersection of Purgatory and Paradise (22 page)

With a sad smile, he realized Nate was right. He was lucky.

When he finally got Doug back to San Diego, Christopher was going to spend the rest of his life showing Doug how lucky Christopher was to have him by his side.

Christopher parked behind the detention center and turned off the car, looking at Nate expectantly. “Is his car here?” Christopher asked.

Nate snapped his head toward Christopher. “Huh?”

“Your dad’s car. Is it here? I don’t know if Doug got my message or not, but if your dad’s car isn’t here, you’re probably okay going inside.”

“Oh.” He looked around nervously. “No, he drives a big Dodge Durango. The same one I was driving, you know, the day Jeff chucked that rock at you.”

Christopher resisted the urge to say something nasty. He scanned the parking lot and the vehicles along the street. Doug’s truck was in the lot, but since he tended to drive a cruiser when he was on duty, that didn’t mean he was inside.

“Come on. Someone’s got to be here.”

B
RITTNEY
BUNDLED
the white paper hazmat suit and rubber gloves into a ball and shoved them into a clear trash bag. Doug watched Jackson watch her, his eyes wide with a mixture of horror, admiration, and badly disguised lust. Doug would be the first to admit there was something undeniably tenacious about a woman who wasn’t afraid to get her hands dirty, but he’d always found Brittney’s capacity to keep a clear head while buried in blood and entrails to be creepy.

Jackson noticed him staring and blushed furiously. “What?”

“Nothing,” Doug said, trying to keep a straight face. “You know she’s old enough to have been your babysitter, right?”

The blush on Jackson’s pale face turned into a deep, burning crimson.

“Oh, you’re kidding! She was?”

“She was what?” Brittney asked, tossing the whole bundle into a white plastic bin.

“Were you Jackson’s babysitter?” Doug asked.

“Oh no,” Brittney said, smiling. “No, I babysat his little brother and sister, though. My dad paid for my tuition and room and board in college, but I wouldn’t have had any spending money if not for that five dollars an hour. He was always there to help out, so it really wasn’t any work at all.”

Doug sniggered. “Yeah, I bet he was an angel.”

Brittney glanced between the two of them, locked up the cold storage and examination room, and shoved the keys into her pocket. “What’s that look for?”

Doug tried to look innocent. “Nothing.”

“You think I don’t know that look?” She pointed at him. “Do you really want to play innocent with the day I’ve had?”

“I’m not playing anything.”

“Doug Heavy Runner, if you don’t tell me what dirty thought put that smile on your face, I’m either going to cry or stab a pen through your hand.”

“Not a single dirty thought, I swear. I just thought Jackson was a lot younger than us, that’s all.”

Brittney looked at the shorter blond, who turned his gaze toward the floor and huffed. “Well, he’s what? Twenty-one? Twenty-two now?”

“Twenty-three in August,” Jackson muttered, kicking at the tile in the morgue’s lobby.

“Ten years isn’t a huge gap. Don’t worry, Doug, you’re not that old.”

“It’s not like we’re still in high school,” Jackson said quietly. “And I could have watched my brother and sister, but my mom wanted someone at home who was old enough to drive. You were a lifesaver.”

And probably fodder for every wet dream Jackson had had as a teenager, Doug realized.

Brittney smiled at him. She grabbed a stack of printouts, dumped them into an oversized manila envelope, and tossed it at Doug. “That’s the best I can do tonight. It looks like the lacerations in the colon and rectum are the same, but there was also a four-inch laceration in the victim’s neck that pierced the carotid artery. It’s jagged edged, with two points, so you’re looking for something with a square or rectangular point.”

“Our crowbar?”

Brittney shrugged. She gave Doug a look that said she agreed with him, but she wasn’t sure enough to give a professional opinion on it.

“Blood volume on his clothing and at the scene is too small to account for the blood loss, so he was killed somewhere else. There are lacerations on the backs of his legs that could be drag marks, but no bleeding, so the body was transported several hours after the time of death. Body temperature at the time of initial examination was 30.36 degrees, and rigor hadn’t spread to the larger muscles in the trunk and legs. He died around 1:00 this morning.”

“There’s no way he was that cold. It was warm outside this morning,” Jackson blurted.

Doug expected Brittney to snap at him, but she just smiled gently.

“Celsius,” she explained. “The human body is thirty-seven degrees Celsius. After death, the core temperature drops 0.83 degrees per hour until the body temperature equals the air temperature outside.”

“Damn, you’re smart.”

Brittney’s smile flickered a little, the way it did when she was flustered.

“I’m serious,” Jackson said quietly. “You should be, like, a real doctor. You could really help people.”

Brittney barked out a laugh. “No, not a good idea. You can’t be a physician if you want to smack every single patient who comes into your office. During my residency, all I did was prescribe blood-pressure medication, cholesterol medication, thyroid medication, and Viagra. Everyone who came in was more than willing to take any pill I threw at them, but if I dared suggest their health might be better if they just walked around the block, they took it as a personal insult.”

“The only people who would put up with her bedside manner are folks who are already dead,” Doug translated. He ducked in time to dodge Brittney’s hand as she tried to hit him in the back of the head.

“I’m doing the autopsy at ten tomorrow,” she said coldly. “Do me a favor and skip breakfast?”

“Uh, actually, Jackson’s going to observe the autopsy.”

Jackson’s eyes bulged. “I am?”

“You are, because I’m leaving. I gave Daniels my two weeks’ notice this morning, so Jackson’s the one who’s going to be taking this case.”

The horrified expression on Jackson’s face grew. “You are?”

“Yeah. I’ve decided to move to San Diego.”

They both gaped at him for a moment. When the shock faded, Brittney clapped her hands together, squealing. “You’re going with him?”

“Yes.”

“It’s about damn time!” she shouted, charging toward him. She tried to hug him, but she couldn’t stop bouncing up and down.

“Okay,” Doug said, trying to hold her still. “Okay, you can stop now.”

When she stopped bouncing, she slapped him. “I’m just happy for you, jerk! But you should still observe the autopsy tomorrow, if only to show Eric how to stay out of my way.”

“It would be better if it’s just the two of you. I don’t think he’ll have a problem,” said Doug, smirking at the way Jackson’s blush exploded across his cheeks again.

“I can do it,” Jackson piped up. “It’ll be interesting, right?”

“Fascinating,” Doug lied. “If we’re done, I’ve got to call Christopher and see if he’s still out at the house.”

When he checked his silenced phone, he found Christopher’s voice mail. Just hearing the clipped, professional tone in Christopher’s voice was enough to crush his good mood. He let the message finish, checked the time, and grabbed Jackson by the shoulder. “We’re not done. We have to get back to the station right now. Brittney?”

“No more bodies today. One a day is my limit, Doug.”

“We’re going to need to double-check things with you after we take a statement, okay? Nothing messy,” he promised.

She turned her lips so far down it was almost funny, but she also grabbed her purse. “Fine. But you are buying me coffee.”

“After. We’ve got to hurry if we’re going to beat them there.”

“Who?” Jackson asked, following Brittney out the door.

“Christopher and Terry Marshall’s son.”

“Another member of the football team? Is he okay?”

“If he wasn’t okay, they’d be going to the hospital,” Doug said with certainty.

They reached the station in time to see Christopher and a terrified Nate Marshall walking through the back parking lot toward the detention center.

“Christopher!” Doug called, climbing out of the car as soon as he killed the engine.

Christopher saw him across the parking lot and sagged with relief. He rushed toward Doug, throwing himself into Doug’s arms so hard, he made them both stumble back against the cruiser.

“Are you all right?” Doug asked, not letting go of him.

“No, but for the first time in a year, I think I will be. There’ll be time for that later, though. Nate Marshall wants to talk to you, and to Sheriff Daniels, about Caleb Owens and about his dad.”

“Nate?” Doug looked at the young man over Christopher’s shoulder.

Nate sniffled and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Daniels had warned him he’d missed quite the drama when he and Harris had decided to talk to Marshall about Caleb Owens’s assault. Marshall had been furious, evasive, and had stormed out when Daniels told him he was being suspended pending a full investigation. He could see how Marshall being angry would freak his son out, and the last thing he wanted was to drag Marshall’s family problems in to work. But something in Christopher’s expression told him this was a lot more than a family squabble.

“Okay. Let’s go inside. Daniels is waiting for the preliminary coroner’s opinion anyway.”

T
WO
HOURS
later, Doug felt like he was going to be sick all over again. Daniels and Jackson didn’t look much better. They’d listened to Nate describe his father tricking Jeff Lowe into coming out into the old shed behind their house, where he shot him in the chest with a shotgun. Nate described most of the injuries and atrocities Brittney had found during Jeff’s autopsy in gruesome detail.

Daniels made them take two breaks so he could confirm the details of each injury with Brittney, and each time he came back into the room, he had a new series of forensic-inspired questions.

“What about his motivation?” Jackson asked, his voice trembling slightly. “Did he say why he did it? And with you right there….”

“I didn’t go through the door,” Nate insisted. “He didn’t know I was there until he came out. I was too shocked to do anything but sit there and listen. But I heard him shouting at Jeff. He kept saying Jeff was too arrogant to keep his mouth shut, and he wasn’t going to let his entire career fall apart because Jeff was an idiot.”

“So how did you see everything he did?” Doug asked.

“The door was cracked. I didn’t see everything right then. I saw some of it after, when he came out. When my dad saw me, he made me help him….”

“Help him?” Doug prodded.

Nate squeezed his eyes shut, shaking. “He made me help him roll Jeff’s body up in a big tarp. We put him in the back of the car and drove out toward your place, Mr. Heavy Runner. He said since you were out of town, we’d be able to put the body there, and by the time you got back and reported it, it’d be too late to link it back to him.”

“Why Sergeant Heavy Runner’s house?”

“His boyfriend,” Nate said with a shrug. “He was so angry at Mr. Hayes. He’s always been angry about him. He said it was all his fault things at work were getting worse, his fault I thought it was okay to be with Caleb. He said since it was Mr. Hayes’s fault anyway, he should take the blame for it.”

“How did the fire start?” Doug asked, his stomach suddenly calmed by the rising tide of outrage.

“I am sorry about that,” Nate said quickly. “I started the fire in your garage. I didn’t want him to get away with it, that’s all. I set the fire the next day. I even stopped at a gas station in Ronan and called 911 on the pay phone. I told them I saw the smoke.”

“Can you tell us anything about Levi Campbell?” Daniels asked.

“Only that he was bragging about attacking Caleb too. I don’t know what happened to Levi. My dad’s been freaking out over everything, so I left yesterday. I didn’t have anywhere to go, so I headed south. It was dark by the time I got down the highway by the turnoff for Mr. Heavy Runner’s house, and I’d heard my dad talk about how he wasn’t staying there, so I figured it’d be a safe place to hide.”

“Does your father still have the shotgun?” Doug asked. “Or any of the other weapons used in the attack?”

Nate fidgeted. “I don’t know. I doubt it. It’d be stupid to keep something like that.”

“Evidence,” Daniels huffed, “has a tendency to turn up. We’ll find it, one way or another.”

“But there’s no time,” Nate said, suddenly sitting up. “You can’t just go search every nook and cranny of our house.”

“I rather think I can,” Daniels said, grinning.

“No, you don’t understand! There’s only one other person who knows what really happened to Caleb. My dad’s going to kill him, too! You’ve got to find my dad and stop him! You’ve got to kill him before he kills Mike!”

Daniels sat back and glanced at Doug and Jackson. “Mike Harris?”

Nate looked miserable. “Yes. He’s the last one. Other than me, I suppose.”