by Jean Rabe
“Please,” Piper replied.
“We could share dinner this evening,” he suggested. “Talk some more about the skeleton, other cases I have consulted on.”
“I have dinner plans. And I’m going to be late for them,” Piper returned. Had he asked her out? “But, I would share breakfast with you if you’re an early riser.”
“Very early.”
“Six?”
“A good time. Breakfast, then. And perhaps dinner another time.”
Yeah, he had asked her out. She told him where Rockport’s small restaurant was.
He gave her a perfunctory nod, circled the area, and took pictures with his cell phone while she watched. “I’ll be collecting some soil samples now. There is still good light. We’ll talk more at breakfast. I hope your little restaurant serves a passable Eggs Florentine and a good cafetière.”
Biscuits and gravy. Eggs over-easy is about as complicated as it gets. Coffee, yes, but no French press cafetière.
The breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus were simple and all fit on one double-sided laminated sheet.
“I’ll see you at six.” Piper took another long look in the hole, raised her gaze to the edge of the bluff, and turned toward the sidewalk, noticing the two girls were gone. She headed to her car, her stomach growling with each step.
Her heart stopped a beat when she reached for the driver’s side door handle. “What the hell?” There was a deep scratch down the length of the vehicle, an angry mark from front fender to the back bumper. And on the driver’s door was an equally deep X. The marks weren’t from her run-in with the drunk on the tractor, and they’d not been there when she drove from her office to the bluff.
The nearby cars had no such scratches. Hers had been singled out.
The two girls on the bench? No. As soon as that notion surfaced, she squashed it.
Someone else.
Someone had been following her.
“Pay attention to those impressions,” her drill sergeant had said.
“Who?” she asked, staring at the scratches. “And why?”
The latest email came back, looming. BACK OFF AND KEEP BREATHING.
12
Twelve
“This is delicious,” Piper pronounced. “What’s in it?”
She’d arrived a half hour late to the May Day dinner in her father’s kitchen. But Nang had also been delayed because of a problem with the diesel pump at his quick mart, and so they didn’t sit down to eat until nearly seven.
“Chả Lụa is a traditional dish,” he explained. “Pork, very lean, potato starch, garlic, black pepper, and fish sauce. I pound the pork until it is like paste. You never grind it. The preferred way to cook it is by wrapping it in banana leaves and boiling it. You have to wrap it tight so no water gets inside. But I use aluminum foil. Can’t seem to find banana leaves around here, not even at the Asian grocers in Owensboro.” He winked at that. “Gà Nướng Xã, this dish is simple enough that it is often on my menu at the store. It is the marinade that makes the chicken delicious. I use soy sauce and lemongrass in equal amounts. Also garlic, papaya paste, chili powder, pepper, mushroom and kosher salt, lime juice, shredded lettuce and cucumber, shallots, green onion, peanuts, a few jalapenos, and palm sugar and mint leaves.”
“A simple dish?” Piper laughed. “Oh my, Nang! That’s more complicated than anything I’ll ever attempt. A simple dish is a frozen entrée I stick in the microwave.”
“Drew shouldn’t have called me,” Paul Blackwell said, abruptly changing the direction of the conversation. “Shouldn’t have told me everything going on. And I shouldn’t have listened, shouldn’t have asked him questions, and got him to tell me even more. But I could tell he was dying to talk about it.” He speared a forkful of Chả Lụa and wagged it. “And I certainly shouldn’t have mentioned the gun—any of it—to the people at the library. I don’t know what I was thinking. I certainly wouldn’t have done that if I was still with the department.”
Nang looked back and forth between the two, eyebrows raised.
“I’m going to talk to Drew about it in the morning,” Piper said. “I certainly don’t want to talk about it now.”
“So, the skeleton really is from a boy?” Paul ate the sausage and cut off another piece. “This is delicious, Nang. Buried in the park a long time? Would have had to been buried at night for no one to notice.”
Nang poured glasses of wine and sat. “A dead boy?”
“Skeleton of a boy,” Paul said.
Piper swallowed a bite of chicken and licked her lips. “This is soooooo good. And you are sooooo the only soul in this county not to have heard about the bones, Nang. By now I’m sure the old fart’s club has spread it everywhere. It’s probably made its way across the river and into Owensboro.” She gave them a brief description of her day, leaving out the scratches on the Ford and the sensation she was being followed. She almost mentioned the troubling email messages, but stopped herself on that count, too.
“The drunk on a tractor and the woman slaying mailboxes are better things to deal with than a nameless dead boy,” Nang decided. “And they would make good lyrics for a country song.” He passed the Chả Lụa around for seconds. “I like country music.”
“What about Mark the Shark? Mr. Conspiracy?” Paul asked.
Again Nang’s eyebrows went up.
“I went to the bank with him this afternoon. He thinks someone is withdrawing money from his account. At first I thought he was maybe moving money around and got confused. But the bank manager took him seriously and filled out a fraud report. She said she’d contact the main office and get the fraud department to investigate, and that it could take a few days to ‘follow the money’ and see what’s going on. Then work to get his money back. I think there really could be something unusual going on. I believe him.”
“Mark always has unusual things going on,” Paul said, tapping his head. “His wife died of dementia. After the crop circle incident I was pretty sure Mark had it, too, dementia. He was convinced it was aliens that cut the patterns. Couldn’t prove it, but I’m certain it was local kids messing with him. That was three years ago, and right after that he put the rest of his farmland up for sale. He’d built this new house in Hatfield, settled into it. He was ninety at the time if I remember right, didn’t need to be farming at his age anyway. He’s had a good run. Crop circles and all.”
“Crop circles?” Nang shook his head.
“For another dinner conversation,” Paul said. “Crop circles and Democrats. Wait’ll Mr. Conspiracy talks to you about Democrats.”
Piper noticed Nang slip a piece of chicken to Wrinkles under the table. Wrinkles was her father’s pug, who’d previously been owned by a victim of the county’s serial killer. The dog had quite a bit of age to him, and a fondness for table scraps. She refused to participate in the dog’s overfeeding.
And to prevent her own overfeeding, she declined a slice of the amazing looking red velvet cake. “Don’t offer it a second time,” she told Nang, “or I won’t turn you down.” She’d noticed that Oren had dropped some pounds and was looking almost svelte. She should lose a half dozen to get back to her Army weight. Piper attributed the gain to over-indulging on Nang’s cooking with her frequent stops at his quick mart, combined with her morning donut binge. The latter was going to stop. The former—she was becoming increasingly fond of the chef. She’d start jogging again to help make up for it.
After dinner Piper stood with him outside at his pickup, a 1966 Chevrolet stepside he’d restored in his spare time and painted burgundy with antique gold metallic trim. Nang had an automotive technician degree from Owensboro Community College, and was building a three-bay service-station garage next to his quick mart so he could repair cars. Piper found him delightfully ambitious for a twenty-seven-year-old who’d purchased his business from the proceeds of a scratch-off lottery ticket.
“Not inviting me up tonight.” Nang gestured with his head to her apartment above her father’s gara
ge.
“I’m working.”
“Ah, the cardboard box.”
“The skeleton.” She leaned into him. “I’m digging through old case files, looking for missing person reports. I can’t allow the distraction right now. I’m obsessed.”
“I’m obsessed, too.”
She grinned. “You could be obsessed after I solve my case.”
He hugged her. “You shine, Piper Blackwell. You are a most excellent sheriff and I am glad I voted for you.”
“Thank you for dinner. And for making so much of it my father will have leftovers.” She tipped her chin up. “And thank you for the May Day basket. It was a nice surprise. Everything was—”
He kissed her, and she thought he tasted like Chả Lụa and Gà Nướng Xã, red velvet cake, and bliss.
His truck was gone by the time she hauled the box upstairs to her big two-room apartment.
Her dad used to rent it out a long while ago. It had sat empty for more than a few years until Piper claimed it when she left the Army to come home and shepherd him through chemo. The place was complete with orange shag carpet and avocado colored appliances. She’d hung a couple of photos on the wall, of young people in battle dress uniforms, herself in one of them. A large matted photo in a wood-pitted frame hung above a gray futon couch—a Christmas tree in the background, Paul Blackwell and his ex-wife, Piper and her sister when they were little girls, were seated in front of them.
The kitchen connected, with a table for two with a Formica top and padded straight-backed chairs covered in vinyl. Her dad didn’t want rent; said he was just happy she was here and had won the sheriff’s post. Piper paid him anyway, and had to nag him to cash the checks. She thought she might fix the apartment—a fresh layer of paint, rip up the carpet and put down a shade of Berber that would complement the old appliances. It would make it easier for her father to rent it to someone else later.
A nice apartment, really, it shouldn’t go vacant.
Piper was thinking of moving elsewhere—nearby so she could easily keep tabs, but put a little distance. Her father cancer free again, she could afford to be a handful of miles away—maybe still in the same tiny town or one close. Maybe what she was really looking for was to put some distance between her and Paul Blackwell’s shadow.
Piper heard a thump outside, loud and odd enough that she padded to the window. She moved the drape aside and looked down at the street, seeing a small car parked directly across from the driveway, the door closing like someone had just gotten in it. A Honda or Toyota with some age to it, the dome light on but looking ghostly because the windows were tinted. There was one person in the car. Not enough light to make out anything more than a shape. Then the dome light went out.
Something…
Piper stared. When she’d drove to the bluff late this afternoon, there was a gray car along the curb near where she parked. Maybe it was silver. There were a lot of silvery gray cars on the road, a popular color. Could be a coincidence. Could be she’d caught more than a touch of paranoia from Mark the Shark.
BACK OFF AND KEEP BREATHING.
Piper intended to go downstairs and take an up-close look at the car, maybe talk to the driver. But the headlights came on and it pulled away.
She returned to the case files box, placed it on the table, and started to read.
In the morning she’d discovered what had made the thump. A brick had been slammed into the hood of her Ford, seriously denting it.
The gesture had made the email tame in comparison.
13
Thirteen
Wednesday, May 2nd
Oren stood at the edge of the bluff, peering down at the river.
Sixty to sixty-five years ago the boy had been killed—dead as long as Oren had been breathing.
The cold case dominating his thoughts, he’d been restless yesterday evening, tossing and wondering if chatting with people older than himself might prove more useful than searching moldy department records. When he’d radioed Piper and she’d mentioned her trip to the genealogy club he figured he could take a similar approach. After work today a drive across the river to Owensboro would be in order. He’d stop in to see his dad in the nursing home. Maybe go to Bee Bops downtown first for a sandwich, have them make up an extra-thick grilled cheese for his dad, who always griped about “the stuff here they try to pass off as food.” Oren was overdue for a visit anyway. Maybe his dad would be lucid enough to remember the decades past. His dad had joined the Spencer County Sheriff’s Department right after the Korean War, transferring to the Owensboro police department in the early 60s when he moved to Kentucky after the divorce. Law enforcement ran in Rosenberg blood. Maybe he’d remember a boy missing, a case he’d never been able to solve.
Rockport Police Chief Hugh had a clerk going through files in storage trying to find unsolved missing person reports. Oren would check in later with him this afternoon and see if any leads had surfaced. The police chief in Santa Claus was doing the same, but hinted he’d pass it along to someone else, as he was considering retirement. Henderson and Owensboro Police Departments also had been contacted.
JJ had video conferenced a lieutenant in Phoenix’s cold case division before she went off-shift yesterday. She said they’d be searching records, too. Phoenix probably had everything on computer, he mused, big city like that. Probably wouldn’t take long for them to get back.
A boy dead as long as Oren had been alive.
Even though there’d be no one to bring to justice, Oren still wanted to see this case all the way out. A point of pride and honor to close something like this, his duty. If he could solve it—at least get the boy identified—that might be a good note to leave on. His wife had mentioned retirement again at dinner last night. Talking to the Santa Claus police chief had stirred the notion, as well.
He growled from deep in his throat. Why was he so opposed to hanging it up? It’d make his wife happy if he walked away from the department. “More time together,” she’d told him. He loved her, but how much “time together” did she need?
Oren turned back and fixed a stare on Teegan’s canopy. A mist covered the ground, obscuring the grass. It had been knee-high when he got here, but the sun coming up was burning it off. He padded toward where the birches had been. It had rained again last night, a deluge; the ground was comfortable to walk on.
The canopy-covered hole, the wispy fog surrounding it, looked like the maw of some hungry beast. He was thankful the locals had left the area alone, respecting the yellow tape. The department hadn’t needed to station anyone here. Metal detectors had come up with nothing else, so he suspected it would be filled in tomorrow before someone could fall into it and bring a lawsuit.
He headed back to the station, stopping at the convenience store for the largest cup of steaming coffee they served—the sludge in the office was a small step above awful. He almost picked out a couple of donuts, instead opting for a low-fat strawberry yogurt—had to consider his calorie-laden trip to Bee Bop’s tonight.
It was nearly seven when he pulled into the lot. Piper’s Ford wasn’t there, but when he strolled in he noticed she was. Must have taken her ride in for repairs. She was at the dispatcher’s desk. A doughy-faced older woman in a polyester pantsuit sat in a chair a half-dozen feet away from her. They chatted about genealogy. Oren thought it an odd hobby. Why spend so much time searching for dead relatives when you could spend that time with your living ones?
Oren hung back behind the doorway, curious what Piper was up to. She had a stack of papers in front of her. Drew came in and brushed by him, stopped at the desk.
“Morning, Sheriff,” Drew said. “Where’s Lucy? She had to leave early?” He glanced up at the clock. Oren looked at his watch and saw it was five minutes past seven. “Ooops. I’m a tad late. I was walking Merry and hadn’t realized the time, I guess.”
Piper stood and stuck her hands in her pockets. “Drew, I need to see you in my office. Now.” She nodded to the doughy woman, who got up
and took the post at the dispatcher’s desk.
“What’s this about?” Suddenly Drew seemed nervous to Oren.
“In my office.” She started down the hall. “Oren, I’d like you to sit in on this.”
Oren followed the pair. He had a feeling where this was going—an unfortunate start to the work day.
She pointed to the pair of chairs opposite her desk. Oren let Drew sit first.
“I’m letting you go, Drew. Today. Now.” There were twin stacks of cardboard file boxes up against the wall, dates scrawled on them, the old case files Oren knew she and JJ had been picking through. But there was an open empty box on the floor nearby.
She gestured to the empty file box. “Gather your things.”
“What the hell?” Drew said, halfway coming out of the chair. “What did—”
“I warned you before, Drew, about calling my father—calling whoever—and talking about cases in progress. I can’t—”
“Sorry. The skeleton, the buckle and everything. It was just so interesting. I’ll try not to let it happen again. Your dad hired me, you know, after I was—”
Oren knew what he was going to say. Drew had lost a leg in an accident at the power plant. He used the settlement to buy a small house, and ignored the disability pay and instead took the dispatcher job. Drew contended he wasn’t disabled. For the most part, he’d been an above-average dispatcher. He just had a mouth that wouldn’t quit flexing.
“I can’t risk the chance you’ll continue the behavior,” Piper said. “Talking about cases like you did, that’s a violation of State Certification training and DCI standards. Your misconduct has liability issues. We risk losing the ability to run DCI checks for records, DMV, open wanted cases. We risk losing that capability for six months or a year if this behavior comes to light. It doesn’t matter who you chatter to—my dad, your neighbor, the media, the postman. It’s a violation. Pack up your stuff.”