Hometown Homicide

by C. K. Crigger

  He fell silent, then swiveled his eyes toward Frankie. “Sonofabitch. You got anything for pain?”

  Frankie shook her head. “I’m so sorry. You may have a head injury. I can’t administer drugs without first consulting a physician.”

  “Well, consult then. Jesus Christ!” His leaned against the seat and took a couple of deep shuddering breaths.

  She peered over the deputy’s shoulder. “Lew?”

  He nodded and clambered up the embankment to the ambulance.

  Rain drummed on the Cadillac’s roof. Some entered through the broken windshield. Wind shook the open door. The nutty aroma of ripe wheat blew in from the surrounding fields, the scent all the more intense for being wet. Underlying that was a faint odor of spilled gasoline and hot oil. She hoped Ed was being careful, smoking up there on the road. Didn’t want him blowing them all up. She shivered, reminded again of Afghanistan.

  “What caused you to go in the ditch?” the cop asked. “Or did a deer run out in front of you?”

  “Nah,” Russ said. “Deer don’t come out in weather like this. They’re too smart. Some asshole sideswiped me, is what happened.” His grumbling voice was strong and angry. “The idiot crossed the center line over to my side of the road and damn near hit me head-on. My windshield shattered when I hit the ditch, showered me with broken glass. Scared the holy living shit right out of me, I can tell you. Thought I was going to get my throat cut.” He added as an afterthought, “Bastard trashed my car.”

  “I think your car can be repaired,” Frankie said. She couldn’t help thinking the accident could’ve turned out a whole lot worse.

  “What do you mean—repair my car?” Pettigrew snorted. “I wouldn’t keep a car that’s been wrecked for five frigging minutes. I’d be scared to drive the thing out to the mailbox and back. Who knows what’ll turn up after you’ve signed off on your insurance. If it’s later, you’re shit out of luck.”

  The deputy cleared his throat with a rough, dry cough that made Frankie glance toward him and smile.

  “Maybe I could just take the accident report in plain English, Mr. Pettigrew,” Deputy Zantos said. “I know you’re upset, but there’s no need to yell or swear at either of us. We’re trying to help you.”

  In the midst of reading Pettigrew’s blood pressure for the third time, she saw the needle quiver, then steady.

  After a moment, he said, “You’re right, deputy. I apologize Ms.…You’re little Frankie McGill, aren’t you? Jesselyn’s friend, home from the war. I’m sorry. Forgot myself.

  “I’ve heard worse.” She sensed, more than saw, the deputy’s quick glance.

  “Anyhow,” Pettigrew said, leaning back against the headrest, grumbled, “this is what happened.” He hacked a globule of blood from the back of his throat, spat past both the cop and her out the open door, and took up his story. “Wind drove the rain hard enough my wipers couldn’t keep up. I suppose the other guy had the same problem. The car seemed to come out of a regular wall of rain. I saw a flash of headlights. Next thing I know, bam! He scraped the side of the Caddy. I swerved enough to avoid a head-on but landed in the ditch before my brakes even cut in. That’s all. I didn’t even see what kinda car it was.”

  The deputy finished taking down Russ’ report and closed the book with a sharp snap. “Unfortunately, it’s unlikely we’ll find the other driver. Our best chance is if he brings his car into a body shop and claims damages on his insurance. Maybe we’ll be lucky enough to match a paint sample and make an arrest.”

  Pettigrew’s eyes drifted closed, the black spreading beneath them like a slow-moving oil slick even as Frankie watched. “Oh, hell, yes. My guess is it’ll be just like when somebody stole ten thousand dollars’ worth of tools out of the old man’s shop. Then a few weeks ago, we lost a chain saw, a roll of fencing wire, and a slew of other tools. A deputy took the report then, too, and that was the last we ever heard. We don’t even bother reporting the petty stuff anymore, like emptied gas tanks. We finally figured out as long as nobody gets killed, the law doesn’t give a shit. Maybe not even then. Depends on who it is, I suppose.”

  Now that, Frankie thought, sneaking a wary look at the cop, was voicing an opinion with a vengeance.

  Although the officer’s face remained oddly expressionless, a flush painted his cheekbones red. “Then be grateful you’re alive to complain.”

  “We’re done here,” Lew broke in, having slogged back to the car with authorization to administer a pain injection—which Frankie promptly did. “Let’s get Mr. Pettigrew transported.”

  The storm had rolled east by the time they finished loading their patient. Frankie climbed into the ambulance alongside Russ Pettigrew for the ride into Coeur d’Alene. The rain tapered off to a sprinkle, then stopped as Lew urged the four-wheel drive out of the slick stubble and onto the highway.

  “Look at this,” Russ said, sitting up against Frankie’s protest and gesturing at the rolling hills on either side of the road. “Crops flattened. Grain sopping wet, what the wind has left in the head. It’ll be three days before we can get in the fields again, and that’s supposing another gully-washer doesn’t blow through. Some harvest weather!”

  Frankie remembered hearing the same kind of talk all her life. She was looking for more of the same when he abruptly changed direction.

  “So what do you think about your tenant?” he asked.

  “My tenant?” Frankie blinked.

  “Yeah. The cop. District Deputy Gabe Zantos. The guy living in your grandma’s house. Your house now, so Jesselyn says.”

  “I don’t think anything about him. We haven’t even formally met.” Well, maybe she thought a little about him. But telling her patient, she admired the cop’s eyes wasn’t exactly kosher. Guess she could say she’d expected someone older, someone... different.

  “Not much formal about meeting a cop—or a tenant.” Russ lay back with a sigh. “Wonder when he’s gonna get off his duff and go after the criminal element around here.”

  Like who’d shot poor little Shine and why, for instance, Frankie agreed internally. And maybe investigate where Denise Rider had gone in such a hurry.

  She’d broach the subject when she saw the deputy again. After all, he was the guy who rented her grandmother’s house. He couldn’t blow her off.

  Chapter 6

  The neighborhood was quiet around Howie’s place when Frankie got home in the early morning. No real surprise since she doubted he was an “up with the birds” kind of guy.

  Just as well, too. Yawning, she let herself into the duplex. Discussion regarding his friend Denise would have to wait another few hours. Howie was going to be surprised when she started questioning him about his neighbor.

  Unfortunately, plunging right into bed didn’t come up big on Banner’s screen. The moment Frankie opened the door to let him in, he gave a sharp bark and dashed through the living room with his nose to the floor. Next came the bedroom, where he sniffed long and hard around the bed before going on to the bath. His final stop was the kitchen.

  “Oh, please, not again.” Frankie, sighing, dragged after him wearily. “Now what’s the matter with you? I swear—” She broke off, standing immobile in the doorway.

  “Crap,” she said. “Crap, crap, crap.”

  The back door hung open, swinging in the gentle breeze wafting through. Papers lay scattered on the floor. Chairs at the table sat at an angle, items on the counter had been knocked over and moved around. The bottom drawer in the bank of cabinets left of the fridge sagged open several inches.

  Banner growled; a first in Frankie’s recollection during the whole six months they’d been together.

  “Banner, my boy, I don’t like this any better than you do.” Speaking out loud, her voice echoed in a silence so deep she jumped when the refrigerator’s motor kicked on.

  Had Howie been in her apartment, by any chance? No surprise if his key worked in her lock as well as his own. But why would he do such a thing?

  Or, and here
a sinking feeling gripped her, had she forgotten and left the door open when she went to work? Remembering her hurry in shooing Banner out the front, was it possible?

  No. The storm, going strong by then, denied that. Besides, she distinctly remembered buttoning the place up. Verification came a moment later when her gaze touched upon several large, muddy footprints tracking across her clean kitchen floor. They alone were enough to confirm a prowler had paid a call—correction—another call. The chairs and the open drawer were added evidence.

  It hadn’t been Howie. The feet were much too big.

  “Come here, Banner.” Banner’s actions reminded her all too much of the bomb-sniffing war dogs. As if expecting one to go off in her kitchen, she called the dog away from his business of sniffing every surface the intruder had touched.

  Frankie breathed a sigh of relief when he made it back to her unscathed. Her hand on his neck, she led him outside again, to the pickup.

  They got in, Banner staring at her with questions in his eyes when they sat there without starting the engine.

  “I’ve got to do it,” she told him. But she didn’t want to. Especially not on only her second day in Hawkesford. Flipping open her cell phone, the cheapest pay-by-the-month model available, she gritted her teeth and punched in nine-one-one. Dispatch answered. She stated her problem.

  “No,” she said. “No one is in there now.”

  “Don’t go back inside the building,” the day shift dispatcher, a guy named Benton, instructed. “But remain available. Someone will be around as soon as possible.”

  “I’ll be out front.” Frankie reached for the handle that tilted back the seat and closed her eyes. A minute later, they popped open again.

  “Damn.” Righting the seat, she sighed and got out of the truck, telling Banner, “Stay here.” A cautious look around showed no lurkers hiding nearby. Any activity came from the sound of traffic on the highway three blocks over. Walking swiftly the few steps to Howie’s door, she gave it a good series of thumps.

  Nothing.

  Another round with her closed fist. Waited. Nothing. Either Howie hadn’t come home the night before, or— Forget that. He was probably just sleeping off the rigors of the night. Having done what she considered her neighborly duty, Frankie returned to the pickup. Howie was all right. He must be.

  Two hours later, Gabe Zantos woke her up, tapping on the half-open pickup window. Heart playing leapfrog in her chest, she squinted out at him.

  It was a damn good thing she wasn’t carrying a gun because—between the deputy pounding on her car and Banner, who’d been sleeping too, yelping in surprise—she just might have shot him. Meaning the deputy, not the dog.

  More moments than she liked to think of ticked past as, heart pounding, she stared into his eyes. Hazel, verging on green in this light, like deep lake water.

  Finally, he blinked and crooked a smile. “You all right?” he asked.

  Frankie sat up. Even with the windows rolled down and the building still shading the driveway, the pickup’s interior was stifling. Banner panted, tongue hanging out, as he tromped onto her lap to check on the intruder. Frankie pushed the dog aside.

  “Tired,” she answered, the deputy’s question finally sinking in. “I’ve been up all night.” Not to mention most of the day and all the night before.

  “Yeah, I’m aware,” he said. “Night shift. We met yesterday evening. You had a break-in?”

  “Yes.” Wits slowly coming back to her, Frankie opened the pickup’s door and stepped out. Banner jumped down beside her. “Somebody broke into my apartment during the night. Whoever it was came in through the back.”

  Zantos, making a come along gesture, led the way to the duplex. “Anything taken?”

  “I have no idea.” Frankie felt stupid. She hadn’t even looked, not really.

  The deputy pushed open the front door, stopped and peered inside. “Doesn’t look bad. Nothing broken that I can see, in this room at least.”

  “No, I know. I didn’t even realize anyone had been in here at first.”

  Banner squeezed into the house in front of Frankie. As he had earlier, he put his nose to the floor, sniffing out traces of the prowler.

  “He did that when we came home, too. I didn’t pay much attention until he kicked up a fuss in the kitchen. I followed him in there, which is when I found the back door open and stuff—” Frankie hesitated. “Stuff out of place. Poked through, disturbed, tossed around. And then I saw he’d gone through all the rooms.”

  “He?” Zantos held the door for her, and they followed the dog into the duplex.

  “Yes. A guy with big feet. Maybe even size twelves.”

  “Huh. And you know that how?”

  “Thanks to the storm, he left muddy footprints all over my kitchen.”

  “Careless of him. I hope you didn’t wipe them up.”

  “Of course not. I’m not stupid.” Wounded maybe, she added silently. A bit forgetful. And she couldn’t deny information often took a few clicks longer to process than before Afghanistan happened. But not stupid.

  Her tart reply brought his full attention back to her. “I didn’t mean to imply you are. I’ve had people do things like that. Destroy evidence without thinking.”

  “Oh.” Frankie shrugged. “It never occurred to me to clean up. I’m not that good a housekeeper, I guess, especially not at six in the morning after working all night.” Although, it did sound like something her grandmother might have done.

  The deputy smiled back. “I can relate to that. Busy night considering it’s mid-week.” A friendly statement, not a question.

  “Yes, pretty much non-stop until three. Then it tapered off.”

  He nodded. “Russ Pettigrew okay?”

  “As far as I know. His nose is the worst of his injuries. Treated and released.”

  “Good.” He sounded preoccupied. “That’s good.” Taking a small digital camera out of his pocket, he clicked off a few shots of the kitchen—the door askew, the littered floor, the most outstanding set of footprints.

  “Hiking boots,” Frankie said helpfully. “Cabela’s house brand.”

  “Yep.” Zantos didn’t seem much impressed by her observation. “But if you’re thinking we can trace the perp through them, I’ll remind you Cabelas has probably sold several hundred pairs out of their State Line store alone.”

  “But maybe not hundreds of size twelves. And the tread looks new.”

  Frankie refused to let him put her down, and to her surprise, he grinned and replied, “Good point.”

  The next item out of his pocket was a little notebook in which he wrote a few lines. When finished, he looked up and said, “You want to see if you’re missing anything?”

  A quick walkthrough showed her drawers had been pawed through, providing an almost overwhelming “ick” factor to the break-in. Curiously, her small store of DVDs, no more than a half dozen, had each been broken into quarters. In the kitchen, she found the garbage can under the sink, almost empty since she hadn’t fixed even one meal here as yet, had been dumped on the cupboard floor. The drawer intended to store her few bills and papers looked like it had been stirred with an electric mixer.

  The deputy leaned against the kitchen counter, watching her. Banner, smiling his Samoyed smile, stayed right with him, enticed by the way Zantos chose just the right spot under his ear to scratch.

  “Nothing is gone that I can see,” she said, at last, gnawed by the idea there was something. She just couldn’t put her finger on it. “Except I guess he didn’t care for my taste in movies since he broke all my DVDs. No great loss, I suppose.”

  “But curious.”

  “Yes.” She thought a moment. “Are you going to take fingerprints?”

  His hesitation was palpable. “You say nothing is missing?”

  Frankie, frowning, shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then I’d recommend changing your locks and getting a dead-bolt for your doors, Ms. McGill.”

  “Forget
it happened, in other words.” Just like Russ Pettigrew had said.

  “Not forget. Take reasonable precautions, so it doesn’t happen again.”

  “I’d rather you caught whoever did it.” The challenge sprang from Frankie’s mouth before conscious thought. “This is twice somebody has ransacked this place. You’d think he would’ve figured out by now that whatever he’s looking for isn’t here.”

  Gabe Zantos snapped erect. “Did you just say this isn’t the first time? Did you report the previous incident?”

  “No.” Frankie felt uncomfortable, aware now that she’d committed a blunder. “It happened the night before I moved in.”

  “So how do you know—”

  Frankie cut him off. “This place came up for rent suddenly. Jesselyn Pettigrew—you know Jesselyn?”

  He nodded.

  Of course. Everyone in town knew Jesselyn and the rest of the Pettigrew family.

  “Well, Jesselyn’s sister Victoria is the realtor who handles the property, and she told Jesselyn the previous tenant had just moved out. So we dashed over here after I landed the EMS job to take a look. It’s funny—not haha funny, strange funny—but the woman had left a bunch of her stuff here, good stuff. Weird. Anyhow, the next morning when I moved in, Howie St. James from next door was helping me open up, and we discovered the couch cushions ripped open and some other damage that hadn’t been present the night before.”

  “Sounds like Howie and I had better have a talk.” Gabe clicked his ballpoint pen and made a note.

  “It wasn’t Howie,” Frankie said. “He has a broken arm. And, for a guy, he’s got really little feet.”

  The deputy cocked an eyebrow.

  “He wears flip flops. Besides, I notice feet.” Women's feet mostly, especially if they wore heels, but anybody wearing sandals. Both fashion statements barred to her forevermore.

  “I’ll talk to St. James,” Gabe said again and put his notebook in his pocket.

  Frankie guessed he’d decided he was done here.

  Wrong guess.

  “That’s not all.” She planted herself in his path before he could get around her.