by Denise Gwen
“Yeah,” he said, rolling his eyes, “I know.”
God almighty, am I glad she can’t see my face right now.
“Oh, sweetheart, oh, I understand completely. Oh, gosh, honey, oh, you poor thing.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
Because, really, it was.
“Well, okay,” she said, and snuffled. “Are you all right?”
I’ll be right as rain, honey, just as soon as I get my dick in your mouth.
But he knew better than to say these words aloud. Because women were funny about these kinds of things. Never mind how Josie had been telling him how much she wanted to be wife number three, just as soon as he got rid of wife number two, and she’d even gone so far once as to joke about wanting to kill Miranda herself, but deep down, women shared a strange and curious sisterhood, a bond he didn’t understand one bit, but certain key parts of it, yes, he did understand.
A woman would happily plunge a knife between the shoulder blades of another woman, especially if a man was involved, but if the man did the same thing . . . well, then, the sisterhood kicked in. He could easily see Josie on the witness stand, testifying against him at the murder trial for Miranda Randalls, and he could just as easily see what the fucking cunt would say.
Oh yes, Mr. Prosecutor, yes, I was desperately in love with the Sheriff, and I wanted dearly to become his wife, and I knew things were difficult between him and Miranda, but when I found out he killed her, well, I just knew I had to do the right thing. We women need to stand together.
And then tears would fill her eyes, and her chin would tremble, and the jurors would look over at him and hatred would fill their eyes, wafting over him like a toxic, poisonous rainbow cloud of acid, and he’d know he was cooked.
So, yes, Josie was ready to pretend Miranda had killed herself.
But if she saw even a shred of proof to the contrary, well, she’d turn on him like a cobra.
The venomous cunt.
Women.
They were all the fuck alike.
“I love you too,” he said, not really listening as she continued to cry.
And it made him wonder . . . how soon could he ask her for a blow-job?
A few minutes later.
Hank tried as hard as he could, but he still couldn’t get Ginny to tell him what’d frightened her so much at the Randalls’s home, but after assuring her everything was fine and she was safe, he dried her tears and left her to finish her soup, and he walked down the street to check out the commotion. As he drew near to 2354 Wells Falls Lane, he saw the firetruck parked in the driveway.
Okay, I’m right about one thing. Something bad happened here.
For sure, but what did Ginny see?
He asked around.
“The lady of the house killed herself,” a lady said.
“Yeah,” said a kid standing to her right. “She tied a rope to the dining room chandelier and hung herself.”
“Hanged herself,” the woman corrected him.
“Whatever, Mom.”
Hank chatted with some more people; folks with different theories, that kind of thing, as a lot of Rowan County Sheriff’s Office cruisers arrived on the scene, he milled around, standing on the sidewalk, just watching the chaos as a lot of people worked hard to process what was possibly being treated as a crime scene, but, judging from the fact the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office deputies were there, he figured, it was probably a suicide scene.
He shoved his hands in his pants pockets and rocked back on his heels. An ambulance arrived—a bit late for that, fellas—and some official-looking people. Such a different scene from what he saw earlier that same morning.
A woman deputy, dressed in the brown uniform of the Rowan County Sheriff, walked up from the street and stopped in the front yard, looking around her with confusion.
Well, I’ll be darned. Sheriff Randy really did stick to his election promise to hire more women officers.
A cute little thing, bare-headed, with her strawberry-blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, she gazed at a bunch of official-looking people with lariats attached to name tags on their belt-loops. She opened her mouth to speak, when a Rowan County Sheriff cruiser pulled onto the grass, forcing Hank and the female deputy to jump back, and when the deputy got out of the car, he saw it was Rob Billings, and winced.
I forgot he works for the Sheriff’s Office.
What was it about his daughter, and her attraction to inappropriate men? Thank God, he’d ended that relationship before it got too far. Bad enough she’d been married to one violent, manipulative man, but to then to watch her fall in love with one even worse . . . well, he had to wonder at his daughter sometimes.
But Rob did not notice him. His gaze focused on the female deputy sheriff, he scowled, and said, “Kathryn, what the hell are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same thing of you, Rob. I’m the duty officer.”
“Whatever, Kathryn.”
“Why isn’t everyone suited up to take down evidence?”
“At a suicide scene?”
“How do you know that?”
Just then, a Rowan County deputy sheriff stepped out of the house onto the front stoop and gestured for the people wearing the lanyards. “Okay, you guys. Come on in.”
Okay, so these people must be the investigators.
The investigators walked toward the house and the woman cried out, “Wait. Stop.”
The deputy standing on the front porch said, “When’d you break free of the loony bin, McGlone?”
Wow, that isn’t a nice way to address that young lady.
But the woman staunchly held her ground. With a level gaze, she said to the deputy, “As of seven o’clock this morning, and thank you for asking. Why aren’t all these techs wearing protective gear?”
“Come on,” the deputy said. “Let’s get going.”
The investigators continued to walk forward and the female deputy— McGlone, was it? —threw a fit.
“God-dammit. Stop right now and put on your protective gear.”
Everyone stopped and looked at her.
“Haven’t any of you assholes ever watched CSI? Don’t you people know the first thing about collecting evidence at a crime scene?”
The investigators looked from the Deputy on the front porch, to Billings, who’d been standing there throughout this exchange, and then back to the first deputy. Hank watched as Billings stuffed his hands into his pockets, spat ruminatively into the grass, then looked up and nodded.
“Okay, guys,” the deputy said. “You heard the man. Put on your protective gear.”
Deputy McGlone’s cheeks flared pink.
“Although if McGlone gets it into her fool head to think I killed this lady, then we’re gonna need to have a serious chat,” the deputy said and laughed.
The investigators walked over to a van and began suiting up.
Why do people have so much trouble accepting a woman in a place of authority?
“After all,” the first deputy said, strolling over to Billings’s side and jerking his chin at her, “if we’re gonna waste county dollars, let’s do it right, huh?”
“Yeah,” Billings said.
“I give her a week.”
“Yeah.”
Hank couldn’t help himself. “You fellas oughta treat a lady with more respect.”
“Mind your own business, old man,” the first deputy said.
Rob said nothing. Hank wasn’t even sure Rob had seen him.
Hank watched as the investigators and the female deputy suited up in white suits, booties, gloves, and plastic hats.
With nothing more to gawk at, he headed back home.
He’d seen enough.
He’d seen plenty.
As he turned on his heel to walk back home, he saw the newspaper that Ginny had delivered earlier in the day, lying in the grass.
A few minutes later.
But the moment Kathryn walked into the front foyer, an attack of nerves seized
her and she stood there, frozen, uncertain as to what to do next.
A voice from outside shocked her.
“What the hell’s going on here? Who’s walking around in there without protective gear?”
And then Dr. Bradley Chase, the newly-elected Coroner of Rowan County, walked into the foyer and she turned around and gazed at him.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said, holding out a white-gloved hand, “I’m Deputy McGlone, and I’m the duty officer at the Rowan County Sheriff’s Office.”
“I know who the fuck you are,” he said. “What I want to know is, why are you here? There’s a clear conflict of interest.”
As she struggled to find the words to defend herself, she saw Lauder and Billings standing off by themselves, their arms crossed over their chests, talking in low voices. When the Coroner attacked her, they looked up, smiled, and leaned against a firetruck. They weren’t going to help her out at all. They were going to let her hang there and die a slow, humiliating death.
“I’m terribly sorry,” she said again, realizing she was apologizing all over the place, “and I did call the Shelbyville Police Department—”
“Then why the hell is the Rowan County Sheriff’s Department here in force, and not the Shelbyville Police Department?”
“Stop it,” she said.
“What did you say?”
“Look,” she said, holding out her hands in a supplicating gesture. “I called the Shelbyville PD. I don’t know why they’re not here yet, but will you please crawl off my ass? I’m doing my best. When I got here, one of the other deputies was getting ready to let the techs in without any protective gear on, and I had to throw a major hissy fit just to get them to following the fucking rules, do you understand me, sir? Do you read me, sir? Because I don’t like this any more than you do, but I had to act quickly before a whole bunch of people started tramping in here and contaminating the scene, so will you please just crawl the fuck off my ass?”
“Oh hey, McGlone, what a gal, that’s the way to show loyalty to your fellow officers, all right,” Lauder called out.
“Fuck you,” she said to Lauder.
“I’m writing you up, McGlone,” Lauder called out.
He was her superior officer. He had the right. She hung her head.
The Coroner stood there for a long moment, apparently lost in thought. When Kathryn forced her gaze up, she saw a strange expression in the Coroner’s eyes. He gazed at her for a long moment, then turned around and looked at Lauder and Billings.
Lauder and Billings straightened up and stared back at him.
“Would you gentlemen mind suiting up for me?” the coroner asked in a pleasant voice. “My assistants are out at another death scene, and I need some strong arms to help me bring the body out of the house.”
Lauder and Billings exchanged glances, then silently walked over to the van and started putting on the protective gear.
“Thank you,” she said in a low voice.
But the Coroner didn’t hear her; he walked to his van and started putting on his own protective gear.
Somehow, though, Kathryn felt she’d scored a minor victory.
She walked into the house and stood in the front foyer. The coppery taste of blood singed her tongue and her nostrils flared at the odor of excrement. She looked left and right; the only deputy present, better grab the authority while she still had a chance, before either Lauder or Billings walked in and snatched it away from her. “Where’s the body?”
“Over here, Deputy,” a female tech said, leading her to a doorway to the right. They walked into a den. An enormous, plasma-screen television set filled an entire wall. The tech kept walking, Kathryn followed, walking into the dining room and there, hanging like a grotesque ornament, hung the body.
Oh, my God.
It shocked her; she thought she’d prepared herself, but it’d come upon her so fast and without any preamble, and she’d been so unprepared, and as she walked into the room and saw it, her legs trembled and she fell to her hands and knees.
“You okay?” the tech asked.
“Jesus,” she said.
“Yeah, I know. Awful, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay?”
“Give me a minute here.”
“Sure.”
She struggled to her feet, bent over at the waist, and held her face parallel to the powder blue carpeting, and closed her eyes and inhaled; held it, then let her breath out.
She opened her eyes and saw a small pile of vomit staining the pristine carpeting.
“I didn’t throw up, did I?” she asked.
“No, I heard the daughter threw up when she found her mother,” the female tech said, “but do you think I should still take a sample?”
“Um, yes,” Kathryn said. “Good idea.”
She sensed the other techs crowding up behind her in the den, hovering and peering over her shoulder to look at the body. She turned around and faced them squarely. “Okay, I want four people taking evidence from the dining room, and let’s look at the kitchen, which is this way, I think.”
She walked past the body to the swinging door and walked into the kitchen.
A male tech, walking behind her, stopped and said, “Oh, hey, I see something in the carpeting here.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, “right here, in the pile, where the door swings open.”
“Okay, well, good,” she said. “Get to work collecting anything you find in the carpeting.” She studied the floor and saw a streak of something red and wormy looking, peeking out from under the buffet. “Look at that, too, will you?” she asked, pointing.
“Yes, ma’am,” the man said, and got to work.
She walked into the kitchen and stood there. The room looked pristine. It looked perfect.
But still . . . if there was matter in the carpeting in the dining room, right between the kitchen and the swinging door, might it be reasonable to think something happened in the kitchen?
And then she remembered the warm Tupperware container of Mrs. Randalls’s tomato basil soup and then she remembered the look on Sheriff Randalls’s face.
A few techs had walked into the kitchen through the long hallway leading from the front entrance, and Kathryn quickly put them to work. She told them to take samples from the kitchenware on the drying rack, and then, because she remembered it from a movie she once saw with her dad, she also told them to check the garbage disposal. Who knew what might turn up?
“The Coroner’s on his way, he called,” a tech told her.
“Oh, well, let’s show him in.”
“He’ll be here in a minute and he says he wants to talk to you.”
“Oh, okay,” she said. “Sure, sounds good.”
She walked out to the front porch and saw the huge Coroner van—or the meat wagon, as the cops called it—backing up onto the lawn beside Billings’s cruiser. It parked, and a devastatingly handsome man with curly black hair got out of the driver’s side door and walked up to her, his black, bushy eyebrows bristling.
“Why the hell is the Rowan County Sheriff’s office here, and not the Shelbyville Police Department?” he barked at her.
Well, at least he’s cute.
“Who said you could enter the crime scene?” Dr. Chase demanded.
“I-I-I put on protective booties,” she stammered out, pointing at her feet. “And I put on gloves.”
“That’s good,” he said gruffly, “but do you know what you’re doing, young lady?”
“Um,” she said.
She admired this man. Dr. Bradley Chase had run against the incumbent on a platform promise to clean up the Medical Examiner’s Office, and thus far, he’d done his job. Kathryn followed the news whenever his name came up, and every article about him concerned some new fight he’d gotten into with this agency or that department. He’d fired a lot of people who didn’t perform up to his standards, hired an additional doctor to perform the autopsies, and retrained everyo
ne on staff to conduct themselves in a professional manner.
She admired him tremendously, and to stand here and bear his disapproval mortified her to her bones. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was the duty officer when the call came in—and”
“But you haven’t touched anything?” he asked her, his eyebrows upraised.
“No, sir,” she said. “I just walked in through the door.”
“Well, at least you had the forethought to put on protective gear.”
“Is there anything I can do to assist you, Dr. Chase?” she asked.
“Stay out of my way,” he said. “You Rowan County Deputy Sheriffs aren’t even supposed to be here.”
Amen to that.
“Where’s the decedent?” Dr. Chase asked.
“Oh, what, oh, the body?”
“It’s in the dining room,” Deputy Michael Poling said, pointing to his right. He wore, Kathryn noted with grim approval, the appropriate coverings for his feet and hands.
“I want only one deputy present,” Dr. Chase said. He jerked his chin at Kathryn. “She got in here first, so I want her to stand by and observe, but you, Deputy Poling, please let my team know that they can enter and get started on taking down the evidence.”
“Yes, sir,” Deputy Poling said.
“You know everyone in the Sheriff’s Office?” she asked him with surprise, after Deputy Poling left.
“Yes, to my regret, but I don’t recall seeing you before?”
“I was on an extended medical leave,” she said, her cheeks flaring with shame.
“Ah. A baby?”
“Um, sure,” she said.
He cocked his head at her, but there was no further time for discussion, for Dr. Chase’s treatment team, all suited up in protective coverings, gloves, and footies, had arrived, bearing a gurney.
“There you are,” Dr. Chase said. “Let’s get started.”
He turned to Kathryn. “If you want to observe, Deputy . . .”
“Deputy McGlone.”
“Deputy McGlone, then you’d better put on a pair of coveralls as well.”