by Liliana Hart
“Yeah,” I said. “Actually, I do. I know he doesn’t want to split all of his resources right now, but this guy would know hurting Jack would hurt me.”
“Don’t worry, Doc. Me and the guys will figure out something. We won’t let anything happen to him.”
“Thanks, Cheek,” I said, feeling more relief than I wanted to let show. I didn’t even know where Jack had put the flash drives. And I was guessing the reason Jack hadn’t told me was to keep them safe in case I was tempted to cut a deal with Malachi. That thought only refueled my anger at Jack. And now I had his safety to worry about on top of everything else.
I was hoping Malachi wouldn’t be stupid enough to tangle with Jack one on one. I believed in Jack’s abilities one hundred percent, but I knew he was handicapped by the fact that he was only one man. True, Malachi was only one man too, but the law or a conscience didn’t hamper him, and he’d never been overly concerned about playing fair.
Still, Jack was no one to tangle with up close and personal. Which made me all the more aware of the danger he was in. If Malachi wanted Jack dead, he’d figure out the most efficient way to go about it, and being up close and personal would have nothing to do with it.
I grabbed my bag, said goodbye to Cheek, and then headed out the front door. I didn’t see Jack’s unit until I’d already gotten in the Suburban and turned on the ignition. He’d parked on the other side of the three-car garage for some reason, and since he hadn’t come through the front door, I could only assume he’d gone around to the back.
My jaw ached from grinding my teeth together, and I decided I was still too angry for any kind of confrontation. I looked up at the house, wondering where he was. I guess that was the plan, to avoid each other until we couldn’t help it any longer.
“Fine,” I mumbled under my breath. “Just fine.” I threw the Suburban in reverse and pressed down on the accelerator, my tires squealing, and then I threw it in drive just as abruptly and sped down the long driveway.
It wasn’t until I’d gotten to the road that I realized I’d left the directions I’d written down on the kitchen counter. But it would be a cold day in hell before I turned around to get them.
CHAPTER FOUR
Jack and I lived on the outskirts of Bloody Mary on Heresy Road. It was a two-mile stretch of gravel that ran parallel to the Potomac River and acres of forestland. The few houses that were on the road were secluded and mostly obscured from passersby. We didn’t get a lot of trick-or-treaters, and there were some days we didn’t get mail if there was too much rain or snow.
The good news was it was easy to spot unfamiliar vehicles on the road. The bad news was there were countless hiking trails and other ways to approach the house. We were fortunate that we had motion detectors, sensors, and cameras around the perimeter where the clearing and the trees met. But Malachi had proven on more than one occasion that security meant nothing to him.
My childhood home was at the opposite end of the road, recently purchased by a couple from Ohio who didn’t know the unhappy memories that rested inside those walls. It had been falling down when I’d owned it, due mostly to finances and disinterest. But the new couple had started renovations, and there’d been construction trucks up and down the street since the weather had turned nice.
I took a left out of the driveway, heading toward Cromwell Road. I at least remembered the street name. Cromwell was even farther from civilization than we were, and the only reason I was familiar with the area was because the heavily treed fields had been perfect for high school parties, illicit trysts, and the occasional drug deal for the last fifty years.
A cop would patrol the area from time to time, but it was so far out of the way and took them so long to get there that the kids had plenty of time to be warned by lookouts before the cops arrived, so it was kind of a losing battle.
Gravel crunched beneath my tires, and when I finally turned onto Cromwell the terrain changed to a one-lane dirt road. Someone had taken the time to mow the ditches so it wasn’t overgrown with weeds, and it was much easier to see the tire tracks that veered off toward the woods. I drove for a mile or so without seeing a house or any cars.
It was Sunday, which meant I was on my own today. The good thing about a booming business was that I’d been able to afford to hire employees. I had a receptionist who worked regular weekday hours and an assistant who worked with me during the week, and on the weekends only if there was a funeral. I also had two interns, but their schedules were built around their classes. Which meant I was stuck transporting a body by myself, dealing with mounds of paperwork, and an autopsy.
The dirt lane seemed to go on forever, and I was just thinking about calling Nash to ask for directions again when I saw a police cruiser coming toward me. I pulled as far to the side of the road as I could so they could pass, but it was going to be close unless I went into the ditch.
The cruiser pulled to a stop next to me and the window rolled down. Officer Kristi Chen pushed her Ray-Bans on top of her head and smiled, though it was more of a grimace.
“Hey, Doc,” she said. “Great way to spend a Sunday, huh? I’ve got to say that I’ve had my fill of bodies for the week. And that’s something considering I came here from Atlanta.”
Now that I thought about it, it had been a pretty eventful week. Rosalyn McGowen and Carl Planter had both been murdered in their own homes. Rosalyn’s remains were some of the worst I’d ever seen, and I’d spent some time at the Body Farm studying various levels of decomposition from different elements.
Rosalyn had been eaten by her cats, so she’d been cremated, but Carl was still in my walk-in cooler, waiting for his final burial arrangements to be made.
“Now that you mention it,” I said. “It has been a red-letter week.” Then I stopped to look at her more closely. I could see she was pale and there were dark circles under her eyes. “You feeling okay? Maybe you need to take a sick day.”
“I had a rough night,” she said. And then a dimple flashed as she smiled, and she waggled her eyebrows. “But he was worth it.”
I coughed out a laugh, completely taken off guard. Chen was one of Jack’s newest recruits, and she was sometimes hard to read. She was one of the few who had big city experience, and I couldn’t imagine it was easy being an Asian-American woman in King George County, and holding a position of authority at that. This wasn’t a part of the country that was exactly progressive in its thinking.
I didn’t think she’d been here long enough to feel out the dating pool, as limited as it was, but apparently, I was wrong. But my interest was piqued. I hadn’t heard any rumors about Chen being involved with anyone. Either I was way out of the loop, or she was doing a great job keeping her mystery lover a secret. Cops were terrible at keeping secrets, especially if there were two of them involved in anything. I’d find out who it was eventually.
“I’m heading to the scene,” I told her. “Where’s the turn-in?”
“About half a mile up on your right,” Chen said. “It’s the only house on that side of the street. Husband’s a veteran firefighter, so there’s been a lot of traffic in and out.”
I sighed. Traffic was never good. “Lovely.”
“Pretty much Nash’s feelings too. I guess it gave the husband quite a shock to come home from shift and find her like that, but he called his station chief before he called 911. There were firemen here before paramedics or cops could assess the scene.”
It wasn’t what Chen was saying so much as how she was saying it. Being a first responder was a hard job. There was a lot of day-to-day grief and pain that went along with it. But the elephant in the room was that there was a tension between cops and firefighters that was always simmering under the surface. They worked together when they had to, but for the most part they stuck to their own. And when the two worlds collided it could be explosive. And not in a good way.
“Who’s on scene?” I asked.
Chen snorted. “Better question is who isn’t on scene.”
&n
bsp; I blew out a breath, already dreading the headache to come. “Well, I hope to God this is just an accidental death.”
“You and me both,” she said. “You just missed the sheriff. He came out and talked to Nash a few minutes and then said he was heading home to get some sleep.”
“It was a long night at the hospital,” I said, trying not to think about Jack. Which was stupid because I’d done nothing but think about Jack and the words he’d said since I walked out of the hospital the night before.
“Oh, right,” Chen said. “I heard about Carver. How’s he doing?”
“Still critical, and he’s still not breathing on his own, but he made it through the first surgery.”
“I’m sure he’ll pull through,” she said, dropping her sunglasses back over her eyes. “I think you might be right about taking a sick day. I don’t have the patience to deal with the public today. Good to see you, Doc.”
I waved goodbye as she moved on, and then I drove the rest of the way until I came to the first turn-in. The trees became sparse and the area opened into a square plot of land with a long driveway and a simple, two-story white house with black shutters. The flowerbeds were neat and weeded, with a variation of colored blooms, and the hedges had all been evenly manicured. There were no toys or other things scattered in the yard or on the driveway. There was a dark blue sedan and a white pickup truck under the carport.
It looked like the solid, middle-class home of someone who worked hard and took care of what they earned.
There were two police units parked in the driveway along with two other pickup trucks and a Jeep. They were parked so I didn’t have a clear path to get the body out of the house, and I sighed in annoyance. I could see the tire tracks in the yard from where cop cars and the rest of the parade had driven in and out.
I pulled in close behind them, not caring that I was blocking the exit. It was going to be a long day, and the sooner I could get back to the funeral home the better.
Lieutenant John Nash was standing on the porch by the time I got out of the Suburban.
“Need any help?” he called out.
“I’ve got it,” I said. “Just let me get my bag. We can mess with the gurney later. I’m without interns today.”
“Yeah,” he said, sighing. “It’s always a pain in the ass when someone dies on a Sunday.”
Nash was somewhere in his mid-forties and graying at the temples. He was tall and lanky, broad through the shoulders and narrow through the hips, and he reminded me of a gentleman cowboy in his Wranglers, boots, and button-down shirt. He wore a shoulder holster and his badge was on a lanyard around his neck. All he was missing was a cowboy hat. He was almost as popular with the ladies as Jack had been before he’d taken himself off the market. Nash was twice divorced and hadn’t given up on finding the next Mrs. Nash. He was a hopeless tease and a ridiculous flirt.
I opened the back end of the Suburban and dressed quickly in my coveralls and then stuck my feet into a pair of utilitarian black galoshes that came up to my knees. I went ahead and put on my gloves and then slung my camera around my neck and grabbed my medical bag.
It was only the beginning of summer, but the sun was ruthless without cloud cover. I was careful not to step in the flowerbeds since they were so well tended and the flowers in full bloom.
“Nice house,” I said, coming up to shake Nash’s hand.
“Gives me the creeps,” he said. “Like one of those Stepford houses. No one is this clean.”
“Maybe you’re just a slob.”
“I don’t think so,” he said. “My mama taught me better than that. But there’s clean and then there’s clean if you know what I mean. Apparently, Mrs. Walsh was a perfectionist. Liked things around the house and yard just so. The husband said she had a routine. Followed it like clockwork. Certain days for cleaning and weeding and baking. She was a professional homemaker.”
“Good for her,” I said and meant it.
I was pretty much a disaster in the kitchen, and boiling water exceeded my skill level, so I was always impressed with people who seemed to have a knack for homemaking. Jack had the talent in the kitchen, but we had a housekeeper and someone to take care of the lawn. Otherwise we’d be living under a layer of dust and weeds.
“You’ve let your hair get long,” Nash said out of the blue. “I like it. You should wear it down more often. Shows off those sexy cheekbones.”
“I’ll remember that when I’m elbows deep in a body and my hair is dragging through entrails,” I said dryly.
Nash chuckled and opened the front door for me, and I stepped inside the Walshes’ home for the first time. Sterile was the first word that came to mind. In fact, it was so sterile that it was impossible for it to feel homey, despite the fact there were muted rugs and comfortable-looking furniture throughout. And Nash was right. It was creepy.
It was two stories and shotgun in style. The living room was at the front, the dining room in the middle, and I could see the kitchen at the back of the house. I could hear several low voices and figured that’s where the husband and friends were gathered.
There were stairs to the right side of the room, and on the wall were framed photographs. Each frame was exactly the same and placed precisely the same distance apart. Everything was so perfect I didn’t see how people actually lived here.
“It’s creepy, right?” Nash whispered.
“Definitely,” I said. “Husband in the kitchen?”
“Yeah, and halfway to being drunk. Chief Edwards and some of the other firefighters are in there too. He started with a shot of whiskey to calm his nerves and then they all started. Lewis and Martinez are watching them, trying to get any extra information about the wife, but at this point they’re probably just babysitting to make sure they don’t do anything stupid.”
Since it was barely ten thirty in the morning, I figured that was probably a good idea.
“Sorry about the mess,” Nash said as we made it up to the landing. “It took me a while to convince everyone to get the hell out of the bathroom.”
Things weren’t quite so perfect upstairs. The hall rugs were bunched and someone had left boot prints on the floor, and several of the pictures on the wall hung askew. There was a dent in the sheetrock next to the master bedroom.
“Things got a little heated up here when I told everyone to clear the area. Roy didn’t want to leave her, and then he just flew off the handle at one of the guys who tracked dirt on the floor. I thought he was going to throw the guy out the window. Things kind of escalated from there, but Jack showed up in time and talked some sense into everyone.”
“Yeah, he’s good at that,” I said.
Nash snorted. “Maybe effective is more of the right word. Threatening to lock people up for the night tends to get the point across.”
“Da…” I started to say but remembered my swear jar and that there was already a healthy amount of money in it. I’d made the decision to clean up my vocabulary a few weeks back. It was a personal choice, and not one any of the cops I worked with understood, but I was doing it for me and not them, so I didn’t really care.
I peeked over at Nash to see if he’d heard me and saw his lips twitch. “It doesn’t count if you don’t say the whole thing,” he said. “All I can say is I don’t know what side of the bed the sheriff woke up on this morning, but it wasn’t the good one. I’ve never seen him so mad.”
“We had a rough night at the hospital. We’re both working on little sleep and a lot of coffee.”
“He mentioned that. I saw the crash scene yesterday. Your friend is lucky to be alive.”
“Yeah,” I said, but I was distracted by the room.
The master bedroom hadn’t fared much better in the scuffle, but I could see the same underlying tidiness that the rest of the house had, even amid the sopping wet carpet and boot prints everywhere. Even the curtains had been pressed and the lace doilies that sat on the furniture had been starched. A cell phone sat plugged in on the nightstand table.
“Hey, Doc,” Riley said. He and Walters were standing guard outside the bathroom door. They were both in their early twenties and in uniform.
“Long time no see,” I said.
Riley snorted out a laugh, but Walters was clearly not amused. Everyone had put in a lot of hours the past week.
“Man, you missed a good one,” Riley said. “The sheriff was pissed. Told everyone if they didn’t get themselves under control and clear the scene, they could answer questions behind bars. I thought Chief Edwards was going to have an aneurism, but he got his guys under control and got them out.”
“I always miss the good stuff,” I said, moving past Riley and Walters so I could enter the bathroom.
“Not true,” Riley said. “I saw you punch Floyd Parker the other day. You’ve got a mean right hook. It was probably best you weren’t here.”
“You’re probably right.”
My boots squeaked as I stepped onto the wet tile. Most of the water had seeped into the carpet and walls, but there was still a fair amount standing on the floor with no place to go. I saw Mrs. Walsh crumpled next to the tub, but I didn’t immediately go to her. I liked to get a mental picture before I looked at the body.
It felt odd being without Jack. We’d developed an easy rhythm working scenes together, and I felt out of my element with Nash. Cops were nosy, and I didn’t want to feed the gossip machine if even a hint went out about our disagreement. All I could assume was Nash was the primary working the case, and Jack had no plans of becoming involved. Fine with me.
The bathroom was simple in design. Beige tile and walls, his and hers sinks with white marble counters and a built-in vanity. The bathroom was perfectly square with a shower in one corner and a big tub with jets in the other.
“Huh,” I said.
“What?” Nash asked.
“The tub seems out of place. Big and fancy with all those jets. Seems like a splurge. Everything else in the house is in good shape and in perfect order, but there’s nothing expensive. The furniture, appliances and electronics…everything is within their means. Except for that tub.”