Veiled (A Short Story) (5 page)

“I’ll check.” Jack stepped out the back door.

She looked at Terry. She could tell his mind was making
leaps and bounds.

“You’re right. I stopped too soon. I saw what I wanted to
see,” he admitted.

“We’re all tired,” Lacey agreed, but her skin was tingling.
She knew she was on to something.

Jack came back in. “There’s nothing outside for bottles or
any other garbage. Lacey has a good point. Someone must have taken them. Or
else Will is one of those assholes that drinks while he’s driving and hurls the
beer cans out the window when they’re empty.”

“And what about the steaks?” Lacey asked. “That’s food for
at least two men, not one. Same with the two bags of chips. You don’t go stock
up on food when you plan to kill yourself. And why would somebody remove three
cans? Because he drank out of them and worried he left a DNA trace behind or
fingerprints? Seems our killer likes to watch
CSI
,” she said with a
grin.

“Will may have killed his ex-wife, but there’s a good chance
he didn’t kill himself,” stated Jack. “He wasn’t alone up here.”

“Maybe Will didn’t kill Patty,” Lacey pointed out. “The same
person might have killed both of them.” She and Jack looked to Terry. His deep
scowl would have made a child cry. He pulled out his cell phone and started
tapping the screen.

“Damn it. We need to find the other guys that share this
cabin,” Terry said firmly. “And I want a look inside the Marino house.”

It was close to midnight when Lacey and Jack made it
back to the tiny police station along with Terry and Mathews. They’d left
Garcia at the cabin to wait for the transportation to take Will Marino’s corpse
to the morgue, where he’d join his ex-wife. Terry had decided to process the
cabin thoroughly in the morning, when there was more light and his men weren’t
about to fall over from exhaustion.

When Dr. Pillai had shown up at the cabin, he
whipped out a miracle sprayer that shooed the flies away. But by the time he
arrived, there were already fewer flies, and from the little Lacey remembered
about entomology, that meant they’d already laid all their eggs. She didn’t
care to be present for the second stage, when the eggs hatched into maggots.
With his flashlight, Dr. Pillai confirmed an entry wound in Will’s soft
palate and Lacey’s findings that there’d been no exit hole in his skull.

“He looks like a thick-skulled kind of guy,”
Dr. Pillai had commented with typical medical-examiner humor. “I’ll find out
for certain tomorrow. I’ve seen .22s do this before. Now, if it’d been a .38 or
.45, we’d have a big mess to clean up. He’s kept it simple for us.”

Terry had winced at the doctor’s blunt
observation, and Lacey wondered if Terry had encountered head-shot victims
before. Or if he simply had a good imagination.

“I grabbed the wedding dress and veil from the
morgue,” Dr. Pillai had told Terry. “I figured since I was seeing you tonight,
I’d hand it off.”

“Thanks for saving us a trip. There was nothing
else on her body?” Terry asked.

“No. She was naked under the dress. The veil
was the only other physical item.”

Lacey still was stumped by the wedding dress.
She wondered if the killer had dressed her. Or had Patty put it on before she
was killed? She doubted it. Most women would have at least worn panties.

Lacey was starving, and there wasn’t a 7-Eleven
or Denny’s within fifty miles. Little in the small town was open after 8:00
p.m. Twenty-four-hour gas station? Forget it. Instead, they were making do with
a fresh pot of coffee from the ancient coffeepot, and half a box of stale
donuts. Terry had commented that they were lucky there were any left at all.

She followed Terry into the conference room and
collapsed in a chair. Maybe it was time for her and Jack to go home. But Jack
looked energized. He and Terry had talked the entire way back to the station,
bouncing ideas off each other about who could have staged the suicide in Will’s
cabin. She doubted she’d be able to drag Jack back to the hotel.

Lacey’s cell phone rang. It was Dr. Pillai.
“Hey, are you still with Chief Schoenfeld?” he asked.

“Yes, we just got to the station.”

“Put me on speaker. I think you’ll want to hear
this, too.” The doctor sounded grim.

“It’s Dr. Pillai,” she said to Terry as she hit
the speaker button. “He’s got something.”

“Go ahead, Doctor,” Terry said.

“I’m still at the cabin looking over some
things, and you’ve got a timeline problem.” Dr. Pillai’s rich voice was tinny
through Lacey’s speaker. “Will Marino was killed before your lady in the hot
tub. There’s no way he’s your killer unless he pulled a zombie maneuver.”

Terry looked at Lacey and Jack. “Seriously? He
died first?”

“Absolutely positive. This guy’s been dead over
twenty-four hours. I’d say he was killed yesterday afternoon sometime, based on
the bug life and decomp that’s started.”

Lacey remembered the swelling of Will’s chest.
She hadn’t known if he was just a big guy or if his insides had already started
to decompose and release gas.

“And his hands are too small,” stated the
medical examiner.

“What?” asked Terry.

“The marks on Patty Marino’s neck. I could see
every mark left by your killer’s hands. My own long fingers allowed me to put
my hands in the killer’s position, but this guy has short, squatty fingers and
hands. He couldn’t have made those marks.”

Lacey closed her eyes, remembering the arm that
hung off the couch toward the gun on the floor. Satisfaction rolled through
her; she’d been right about it not being suicide.

“His hands and arms don’t have the scratch
marks I was hoping to see either. Maybe Patty didn’t scratch at her killer, but
my gut tells me she did.”

“Anything else, Doctor?” Terry asked. He looked
stunned.

“Isn’t that enough?” Dr. Pillai joked as he
wrapped up the call.

“It’s a good thing we didn’t stop at the
obvious,” Jack said.

“We’ve got to find out who else uses that cabin
and who Will would have been willing to share beer and steaks with. And who
used his phone after he died.” Terry looked at Mathews as he measured coffee
for the maker. “Did you get the rest of the names of the guys who use that
cabin?”

“I’ll check and see if I have any texts or
e-mails,” Mathews said. “I left messages with a few people trying to track them
down.” The cop disappeared down the hall.

“Hopefully, one of those keys Will had on him
will get us into the Marino house.” Terry speculatively eyed Jack, who gave him
a wolfish grin.

“You want to look tonight?” Jack asked. He
sounded like a kid at Christmas.

What?
“Seriously, you guys,” Lacey
said. “Tonight? Doesn’t anyone need sleep around here?”

“Do you want me to take you back to the hotel
first?” Jack asked. Clearly, he had no intention of missing out on Terry’s
first look inside the Marino home. She was not going back to that hotel to
sleep alone.

“No. I’m going where you go,” she said firmly,
and his face lit up. Her fiancé clearly missed the investigative aspect of
being a cop.

Jack jumped up. “Let’s go.”

The Marino house
was a double-wide trailer. A nice one, Lacey had to admit, with two acres of
grassy fields that shimmered in the light of the full moon. Someone had built a
front porch on one side and a carport on the other. Flowerpots dotted the sides
of the driveway. Even in the dark, Lacey could see that the flowers were
drooping; they clearly needed water.

The four of them tramped up the stairs to the
front porch, and Terry dug out the keys that Jack had taken from Will’s corpse.

“Garcia’s coming, right?” Jack asked.

“He’s on his way. Will’s body is on its way to
the morgue. I told Garcia to go home, but he asked what we were doing. I think
he wants to get a look at the Marino house, too.” Terry grinned at Jack and
Mathews. “You cops are a nosy bunch. You’ll forgo sleep to get a look at some
possible evidence.”

He found the right key and pushed open the door
after glancing to see that the four of them were gloved and bootied. “Okay,
let’s see what we’ve got.” He flipped on the light switches next to the door,
and the inside of the home lit up.

The inside of the Marino home was eerily
silent; the only noise came from their footsteps and the occasional creak of
the floor.

Lacey’s goal was to find wedding photos. She
wanted to know if Patty was in her own dress or someone else’s. Would wedding
photos have survived if the couple divorced? She’d packed away her own in a box
in the garage for several years, unable to throw them out because they’d been
so expensive and she’d loved the images of her dress. She tossed them when Jack
entered her life.

She watched Jack as he studied the inside of
the home. He was a rock. Every day she counted her blessings that he’d found
her and wanted to be with her. She knew she’d have more wedding photos one day.

Lacey scanned the artwork on the walls. All
were simple framed prints. No photos of two people who used to be in love.
There was no warmth in the house created by homey touches. There were a few
dirty dishes in the sink, a few books and magazines on the table, and throw
pillows on the floor. Lacey wondered if Patty didn’t have any skill as a
decorator or if the home reflected how the two people felt toward each other.
Empty.

The men were still examining the living room,
and Lacey wandered down the hall, looking for photos and Patty’s bedroom. She
got to the master bedroom and frowned. It was a mess. Not a mess like someone
had thrown things around, but a mess like a slob lived here. Men’s clothes and
dirty tissues lay everywhere. She backed down the hall two steps and pushed
open another door. Here was Patty’s room. Apparently, Will had taken over the
master.

Patty’s bed wasn’t made, but everything else
was neat and clean. Still no photos on display. Lacey got on her knees and
peered under the bed. She slid out several large boxes and started sifting
through them. She found the wedding album in the second box. Patty hadn’t been
able to throw hers out right away either. She flipped it open and smiled at the
sight of the couple in love. Patty was beautiful, Will looked happy, and the
dress was the one from the hot tub.

Lacey slammed the book shut. What had happened?
How had two people gone from wedded bliss to murder? She’d spent a long time
being angry with her ex, but she’d never been driven to kill him. Even after
he’d put his fist through her face. Although that had finalized her decision to
leave him.

Would she and Jack hate each other one day?

She thrust the thought out of her head.

Jack wasn’t her ex. What she had with Jack was
different. They were meant to be together. She’d
known
the first time
she saw him that he was going to be a big part of her life. A positive part.

“Lacey?” he called, his footsteps moving down
the hall.

“In here.” She fought the urge to slide the box
back under the bed, to hide Patty’s failed marriage, to hide her own old
marriage. He stopped in the doorway, concern on his face. She understood. He
needed to see that she was physically safe. He’d suffered panic attacks for a
few weeks after he’d rescued her from the devil. His emotional healing was a
slow process.

This house was unnerving them. The foreignness
and the quiet and the knowledge that the occupants had died. There was an
oppressive air in the home that gave her the creeps and was no doubt triggering
his anxiety.

His concern seemed to vanish as she smiled at
him. She stood up, brushing at her knees. “I found the wedding photos. That was
Patty’s wedding dress. The veil, too. I wonder where she stored it.”

“Terry found a ripped piece of fabric in the
living room. White stuff caught on the edge of the hearth,” Jack said. He took
her hand and led her away from the photos. In the living room, Terry and
Mathews were crouched next to the edge of the fireplace. Terry glanced up as
she came in.

“Does this look like wedding-dress fabric to you?”

“It could be,” she said. The piece hooked on
the sharp brick could barely be called fabric. It was a five-inch swath of
sheer tulle. Exactly what Patty’s dress had been made of. Patty had been
married during the ballerina-style era when wedding dresses were huge skirts of
layers and layers of tulle. “Dr. Pillai gave you the dress back tonight, right?
Did you leave it back at the station? We could see if it has a tear of this
shape.”

“It’s still in my trunk,” Mathews spoke up. “I
forgot to take it into the station. I’ll get it.”

“I’ll help you.” Lacey followed him out. She
hadn’t told Terry she thought it was the same dress yet, because she wanted one
more look at the bodice. The skirt was clearly the same, but she suddenly had
doubts about the top of the dress.

Mathews hustled down the steps, jogged to his
car, and stopped at the trunk, fumbling with the latch. “Can you hit the button
on the inside of the driver’s door?” he asked her. “This isn’t working.” Lacey
opened the squad car and peeked at the mass of buttons on the door. She didn’t
see a trunk release.
“Which one—”

She felt cold metal in her ear. A gun.

“Get in. You’re driving. Scream and I’ll shoot
your brains out. I’ve already killed in the last twenty-four hours, and I’ve
got
nothing
stopping me from doing it again.”

Lacey couldn’t move. Her brain shut off.
Not
again.

Mathews shoved her into the driver’s seat, and
she fell forward, grabbing at the squad car’s steering wheel. “Sit!” he yelled.

She swung her legs in, and he slammed the door.
And before she knew it, he was in the backseat with an arm around her neck and
his gun in her ear again. Her breathing stopped and her hands turned to ice.
He
killed Patty. What does he want with me?

He briefly let go of her neck to lean past her
and put the keys in the ignition. “Turn it on.”

With a shaking hand, she reached out and turned
the key. Her foot moved automatically for the brake pedal. “I can’t reach the
pedals.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She felt him shift
behind her as he reached between her seat and the door. A low hum sounded, and
her seat moved closer to the steering wheel.