He gulped and nodded. “Dispatch called. They didn’t say it was a dead body.” They had. He hadn’t known the code.
I slipped surgical booties over my shoes. “Stay here. Let no one through.” I walked through the woods surrounding the golf course. The air smelled of sap and the pines blocked most of the sunlight. I was grateful; the sunshine hurt my eyes. Birds chattered, their songs needles to my brain. The trees thinned, and a lush circle of grass expanded before me. The ninth hole. Its flag was missing. Nearby, an officer squatted, his back to me.
I walked toward him, careful where I set my feet. The sun haloed his bright hair. Officer William Thompson. Only ten months on the job. Nicknames included “Slim,” “Rookie,” and “Hoops.” (He’d played basketball and was, by all accounts, terrible.) But I called him Billy, as in the Kid. He couldn’t grow more than blond fuzz on his face.
“Billy.” He spun, his thin body quick in the pivot. The dead woman lay belly down on the grass. I stepped closer. She was white, thin, and young. Her face, turned toward me, was covered by long brown hair. Her T-shirt punctured by bullet holes. Multiple. The last gunshot victim I’d seen was Rick. I swallowed, my mouth cottony. This was different. Just the job.
Impressions surrounded her. Too many. “How did you get here?” I said. The air smelled of blood. Its metallic taste coated my mouth. I swallowed, and the dark flavor slid down my throat.
“Drove over from the station.” He stood and wiped his cheeks. His eyes were red. Shit. He’d been crying.
I counted to five. “How did you get to the body?”
“Walked, like you did, through the trees.” He pointed. “Jim led me to her.”
“Yankowitz?” He nodded. “So whose shoe prints are these?”
He rubbed his nose. “Mine, probably. He didn’t get near her.”
“We’ll need your shoes for exclusion. His too. Please tell me Hopkins wasn’t here.” He said nothing. “Fuck!” He flinched. “You know anything about securing a crime scene?” I pointed to my covered shoes.
“I’ve never worked a murder.” Of course not. He was a rookie cop in a small town.
“Know her?” I asked.
“Yes.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. Mucus rattled. “Cecilia North. She hung out with my sister, Jenny.”
That explained the crying. “She live nearby?”
“Spring Street.” He pointed. “Couple of streets that way. She just finished college. Been living with her parents since then.” Pretty college grad. Whole life ahead of her. The headlines wrote themselves.
“You okay?” Maybe I should swap Yankowitz in. Then I thought about his parking job. I couldn’t let him near the corpse. He’d probably move it.
He sniffled. “Sorry. I just didn’t expect to find her like this.” He set his shoulders back. “What can I do?” His voice was hoarse, but he was trying.
“I need the ME, a crime team, and one of our detectives. Radio for those.” I’d let him stay, for now.
I noted the time, date, and location. Then I examined the corpse. She wore jeans and a black T-shirt. It had holes made by bullets. How many? One in the middle of her back, one up and to the right, and a third below that one by ten inches. Wait. There, above her left kidney, was shot number four. Behind her, a short path of flattened grass and a snail’s trail of dark blood. She’d fallen, probably after the first shot, and crawled. Not far. Her hands, flung in front of her, were empty. She wore a silver ring on her left pinkie. Pink sparkles on her right hand. Glitter? A part in her hair allowed me a glimpse of her right eye. It was brown-green. There was something about her. What? I checked her tan arms for track marks. None I could see.
Billy stopped talking into his radio. “Better call the staties, huh? This isn’t the sort of thing we get in Idyll.” No kidding. When I’d interviewed, I’d assumed their stats were fudged. Two rapes in six years and no homicides in five? But it had all been true.
Sirens sounded, far away, the sound as familiar as my father’s voice.
“What was she like?” I asked. Not every day I got a cop as a character witness.
He looked at her, and then away. “She was funny. Loved animals. Sassy, but not mean. You know how girls can be mean?” I didn’t. I’d never had much time for girls.
The sirens got louder, shriller.
“Don’t suppose you know who did this?” I asked.
“She was nice. No one…” He trailed off because someone obviously hadn’t liked her.
The sirens stopped. “If that’s the crime guys, let ’em in. But no more of our men come near unless it’s a detective. Where’s Hopkins?” Where had my other scene-mucker gone? What damage was he wreaking? Best check on him.
“At the clubhouse. Want me to call the staties?”
“I want the ME.” Until he came, I’d visit with Hopkins. I kept to the edge of the course, my eyes to the ground. The grass was brilliant, as if each blade had been hand-painted emerald.
A brisk four-minute walk brought me to the clubhouse parking lot. A pickup truck and police cruiser were the only vehicles there. Officer Hopkins stood with his thumbs tucked into his utility belt. The belt needed another hole punched in it. Hopkins was a twenty-year veteran of the force, and he looked it. He stood opposite a man with skin as leathered as a baseball glove and iron-gray hair. The man raked his hand through his hair, over and over.
Hopkins introduced me to Cal Jackson, the groundskeeper.
“I’m Police Chief Lynch,” I said. “You found the body?” I kept my voice low and gentle.
“This morning. I couldn’t believe it.” His Adam’s apple bobbed, prominent in his thin neck.
“Did you touch her?” I asked.
He lowered his eyes. “I wanted to be sure, so I poked her arm with my finger.” He shook his head as if he could dislodge the memory from his skull.
Hopkins said, “He found her around seven thirty a.m. Says she couldn’t have been here before ten p.m. last night.” Near his foot was a latex glove.
“Why not?”
Mr. Jackson tapped his watch. “Charlie sweeps through at ten p.m. He’s our watchman.”
“Would he have checked the whole course?” Not hard to picture a tired man shining his flashlight over the grounds and going back inside.
“Charlie’s reliable,” he said.
“Charlie’s last name?” I asked.
“Fisher.”
“Anything strike you as out of place this morning?”
He rubbed his chin stubble. Pointed downhill. “Just her.”
“Thank you, Mr. Jackson. If you think of anything else, please, give me a call.” I gave him my card. “Hopkins, where are our detectives?”
He glanced over his shoulder, as if one stood behind him. “I don’t know.”
“Here’s a question you might be able to answer. Whose glove is by your foot?”
He glanced down. Hitched his belt up. “Mine.”
“And you dropped it at a crime scene because…?”
He widened his stance. “It fell out of my pocket.”
I stared at him until his flabby face got pink. “There’s no corpse here,” he said, as if that was a valid defense.
“Don’t tell me what the scene is! And don’t drop stuff that the techs are going to have to bag and test. Do you have any idea how to do your job?”
He put his hands on his hips. “Yes.”
“Pick up your shit,” I said through clenched teeth.
“Um, Chief Lynch?” Mr. Jackson said.
“What?” I kept my eyes on Hopkins. Watched as he picked up his litter.
“Someone’s down there.” Mr. Jackson pointed. At the ninth hole, someone stood by the body. Someone not in uniform.
Fuck. Maybe I should deputize Mr. Jackson. So far, he was the only one giving me intel and showing common sense. I hustled back to the ninth hole, arriving corpse-side short of breath. “Who are you?” I said to the man bent over the corpse.
He turned and rose, nearly matchin
g me for height. A scar bisected his cheek. Faded white. Old injury. He had bright-blue eyes. “I’m Damien Saunders, the medical examiner.” His voice was quiet. I’d expected someone older or rumpled. Would’ve preferred it. I didn’t need handsome now.
“Chief Lynch.” We shook hands. He had calluses. Odd for an ME.
“She’s dead, in case there was any doubt. Rigor indicates she’s been that way several hours, but don’t quote me.” He walked around her and stared from a different angle.
A foot away, Billy watched, chewing on a fingernail.
“Billy, how’s the crime team coming?” I asked.
He dropped his hand from his mouth. “They’re on the way.”
“Good. Send a detective to interview the night guard, Charlie Fisher.”
“Which one?” he asked. Like we had a bullpen to choose from.
“Either. Hopkins can give you the address.” He followed the path I dictated. Good. Soon the ME would insert a rectal thermometer into the victim. Billy didn’t need to see his childhood friend violated.
“What’s this?” Dr. Saunders said. He peered at her shimmering hand.
“Glitter? Or drugs?”
“Unusual.” He pressed a gloved finger to her hand and lifted some of the crystals.
“Shouldn’t we wait for the techs?” I said.
He lifted his finger to his mouth and licked the crystals. Pop! Pop! The noises came from his half-open mouth.
“What the—”
“Pop Rocks,” he said. “The candy. Didn’t know they still sold it.”
“She had candy on her hand?”
He glanced at the victim and said, “Maybe she robbed the wrong baby.” Most MEs I’d encountered had an odd sense of humor. This guy was no exception.
“Thorough killer.” He gestured toward a starburst hole in her back’s center. “Close range.”
“Or panicked,” I said.
Crime scenes have moods. Angry. Cold. Confused. This was jumbled. It felt hurried and planned. Four bullets was no accident, but it didn’t feel like an execution. What the hell had happened here? I regretted last night’s drinks. What I needed was a clear head. What I had was a skull filled with wasps.
A whistle drew my attention toward the clubhouse. The crime-scene guys came, tools in hand. One said, “Great, when we finish, we can get in a game.”
Another said, “Sorry, Gary. Golf is a thinking man’s sport.”
The head of the team nodded hello. He was a burly man who looked as though he chopped trees for exercise. Sequoias. “This is going to take time,” he said. He looked at and around the corpse.
“Problems?” I asked.
“Lots of impressions.” He stared at the ground. “Only the ones we need help. The rest just add noise. It looks like you and your men have been square-dancing here.”
“They’re new to murder,” I said.
He glanced at my gloved hands. “You’re not. Aren’t you the big-city copper they hired?”
“I am.”
“Police chief, yeah?”
“Chief Lynch.”
“So who’s the detective in charge?”
“I am.”
He said, “Shouldn’t you have a detective here?”
I crossed my arms. “I was a detective for fifteen years in New York. Did homicide for twelve.”
He looked at my feet. “Least you’re dressed for it.” He barked orders at his team.
“She’s been dead a few hours?” I asked Dr. Saunders.
He checked his thermometer. “Seven or so.”
The techs took pictures. A sketcher drew the scene. The victim shimmered. Was it the light? I blinked. Just around her hand. The one with the Pop Rocks on it. I squinted so hard I felt wrinkles form. She couldn’t have moved. Just a trick of the light. Or last night’s drinks.
Billy returned from his errand. “You okay, Chief?”
I stopped squinting. Did I look hungover? Worried? I unclenched my jaw. “Fine. Where are my detectives?”
“Finnegan’s hunting down the watchman,” he said. “And Wright’s at the clubhouse, interviewing the owner.”
“Good. I’m going to notify her parents. Get Wright to send patrols to canvas every house within two miles. See if anyone heard the shots.” They should’ve. Not much competing noise out here.
“You want to talk to her family?” he said.
“I’d prefer it if someone experienced informed her parents. And I don’t see anyone qualified here.”
He nodded and looked at his boots. I hadn’t intended that parting shot just for him, but I wasn’t going to waste time explaining that.
1015 HOURS
The Norths’ house was a white two-story with a navy-blue front door. Pink roses bloomed in front. The wide driveway held three cars. A woman unloaded groceries from the rearmost one. “Mrs. North?” I said. She tightened her grip on the bags. “Ma’am, I’m Police Chief Lynch. Is your husband home?” Better to break the news to both.
“Jeffrey? He’s just back from the hospital. His mother had hip surgery. I’m going to make her a pie.” No, she wouldn’t. But she didn’t know that yet.
“I need to talk to you. May I come inside?”
“Why, certainly, but what’s this about?” Her voice fought to stay steady, but pitched upward.
“Your daughter.” I took the groceries from her. “Cecilia.” They had two. Billy had told me. Renee was older.
She opened the side door without keys. “Cecilia? She’s inside, sleeping.”
I almost missed the next step. Could Billy have made a wrong ID?
In the kitchen, Mr. North sat at a round table, sorting papers. A pair of half specs rested on his sharp nose. “Hullo,” he said. “Anything the matter?” His T-shirt read “World’s Greatest Dad.” What a thing to be wearing today. I introduced myself. He rose and shook my hand, then invited me to sit. There were four chairs. One too many for their family now.
“He wants to talk to Cecilia,” Mrs. North said.
Before I could correct her, he said, “She hasn’t come downstairs.”
“Really?” She glanced at the clock. It had a different bird at each hour. The little hand approached the robin. “Cecilia!” she called. No answer. “I’ll just go get her.”
We listened to her footsteps grow faint. She yelled, “Cecilia!” again. Then silence. Mr. North cocked his head to the side. The clock ticked, the only sound besides our breathing.
Mrs. North returned. “She’s not there. Her bed’s made.”
“I didn’t see her leave.” Mr. North was alert to danger now. Too late.
“Mr. and Mrs. North, I have some bad news.”
I’d had the techs take an instant photo, of her face only. She didn’t look bad. Could’ve passed for sleeping. The photo was what convinced them. Not my words and not knowing that Billy Thompson, whom they called “Will,” had identified her. Mrs. North clutched the photo. She checked it every few minutes as if it might change. We sat at the table. The liquid inside Mr. North’s mug had stopped steaming. “I thought she was sleeping,” he said, again. As if the repetition could protect him from the terrible fact that his child had been killed.
“When did you last see her?” I asked.
Each time I asked them a question, it was like starting a wind-up toy. They’d spring to life, then slow down, stop, and stare blankly. “Around nine p.m. We were watching TV. She came down to say good night. She hadn’t felt well since she’d come home from the pool. That’s why we thought she was sleeping in,” he said.
“Is her car here?”
Mrs. North wiped her cheeks. They were dry now, but she didn’t notice. “Yes, it’s parked in front of mine. The Toyota.” She reached past a mug and grabbed a jar of raspberry jam. Then she rose and stuffed it inside a cluttered cabinet.
Mr. North said, “It’s Cecilia’s jam. I put it out for her breakfast.”
“Do you have any idea why she left? Why she was at the golf course?” I waited for them to pro
cess the question. They were operating under shock, but were still functional and polite. Some witnesses were like this. They answered questions because they’d been raised to respect the police. What they didn’t realize, or perhaps they did, was that once I stopped asking questions, it would get worse. They’d be alone with their thoughts.
“Maybe she went for a walk,” she said. Her hands rested on the table. I pictured her dead daughter’s hands, small and empty.
“No,” her husband said. His knee banged the table. Mugs shook; a pen skittered and rolled into a saltshaker. “If she’d wanted to go for a walk, she’d have said so.” He reached to steady the mug, but his hand made it shake worse.
“What was she wearing, when you last saw her?”
“Sweatpants and a T-shirt.” So she’d swapped the sweats for jeans before she left.
“And neither of you heard anything after you’d gone to bed? A door or a phone?” The silence grew elastic. It stretched so far, I thought they’d lost track of the question.
“No,” she said, at last.
“Who would kill her?” Mr. North asked.
A whistle chirp split the air. I spun in my seat, looking for the source.
“The clock,” Mrs. North said. So that’s what a robin sounded like. High-pitched, cheery, and inappropriate. “Cecilia gave it to Jeffrey for his birthday last year.”
He rubbed his eyes. “I hate the damn thing. But I couldn’t get rid of it, because she…” He sobbed.
I cleared my throat. “Had she mentioned anyone bothering her lately, any strange encounters?”
He shuddered. “No. Nothing like that.”
“Does she have a boyfriend?”
Mrs. North said, “She did, until just before graduation. Matthew Dillard. Nice boy. But he got a job in New York, and he and Cecilia agreed that a long-distance relationship would be too much.” Last I checked, Manhattan was three hours away. Long-distance was a relative concept.
“You have a picture of Matthew?”
“You don’t think—” She stopped because she saw I did. I wondered if the nice ex-boyfriend had shot her daughter and left her on the golf course like a discarded ball.
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