Idyll Threats

by Stephanie Gayle

  “Make it early afternoon. I’ll ride with you,” I said.

  He arched a brow. “I’d love the company.” Sure he would.

  Revere said, “You’re working the case?”

  “Problem?” I said. Maybe he wouldn’t need a desk.

  “I’ve never known a police chief to work a murder.”

  “Small-town economics.”

  He set the unbent paperclip on Finnegan’s desk. “Perhaps you’d point me towards the bathroom? I’ve been on the road a long time.”

  I pointed. He walked. Finnegan swept the paperclip into his trash. Wright approached, a giant soda in hand. “Get anything from the golf-course security camera?” I asked.

  “Nada. It hadn’t been turned on in months.” Wright set his drink down and loosened his tie.

  Revere returned from the toilet. He and Wright met. Updates were given.

  “She was shot on the golf course, but that might not have been her destination,” I said. Time to lead them to the cabin. “She doesn’t live far from the course. She might’ve been headed home.”

  “From where?” Wright asked.

  “You tell me. Are there places in Idyll where young people go at night?”

  “If they want fun?” he asked. “Out of town.”

  “And if they’re making their own?” Come on, guys. Say the cabin.

  Finnegan said, “We’ve busted kids near the train museum. They love to pretend to drive the trains after they’ve had a few rum-and-cokes.”

  “What about the Sutter place?” I asked. Perhaps if they thought of abandoned places they’d get to the cabin.

  Wright said, “Have you ever been to that place? It has an attack goose.” He made his hand into a beak. Opened and closed it as he said, “Honk, honk, fuckers. Better security than an electric fence.”

  None of them suggested the cabin. Maybe they knew as little as I had. Revere cleaned junk from his desk while Wright checked the victim’s phone records. Finnegan added notes to the time line. I stared at the board. Nothing but her body for evidence.

  Maybe the autopsy would reveal something. Maybe she’d been sexually assaulted. Or done a shit ton of drugs. It’s not terrible to hope for such things. It’s practical. If our girl had gotten plugged by complete, random chance, it was a crime without origin. And we’d have more chance of locating the Holy Grail than solving it. I returned to my office and mulled over how to lead the detectives to the cabin. By the end of the day, I still had no answer.

  I hated everything about the morgue. The formaldehyde smell, the damp, chill air, the red biohazard bins. What I hated most was the drain in the floor. Picturing what sluiced down that hole made my molars ache. On an aluminum table, Cecilia North lay nude. I could have drawn her bikini based on the contrast between her pale and dark flesh. Her torso was grotesque. A golf ball would have fit inside one of her exit wounds.

  Dr. Saunders was scrubbed and gloved, his eyes bright behind a plastic face shield. “Got an early start. Already did the clothes and charted the wounds. And I’ve got good news,” he said. “She’s still got a bullet in her. Lodged in a rib.” He pushed a metal block under her back. I kept my eyes on her left heel. It had a pale, half-moon scar.

  He slit her chest and glanced up. “Not nauseous, are you?” I said no, but his grin showed he saw through it.

  “No defense wounds. Nothing to indicate a struggle.” He cut through her ribs and folded her skin back as if it were a blouse. I looked away. I was fine at autopsies, always had been, even that time a bit of kidney hit my hand. I hadn’t gotten sick. So today was harder than usual. Seeing her, dissected like a lab frog, was harder. Because her corpse reproached me. For keeping silent about the cabin. You’re fucking up my case, I imagined her saying. Why?

  “Now, for that bullet,” he said. I turned back to watch. The slippery sucking of her flesh made me grimace. Then came a high ping. The bullet hitting a metal bowl. The sound punched my gut as I thought of Rick’s wound. The one that killed him.

  “Got it,” he said. “Nothing like a bullet to make your day, huh?”

  “I wouldn’t mind a suspect.” I tried to smile. It felt wrong, so I stopped.

  “You okay, Chief? You seem a little foggy.” He said it like a man used to hearing excuses. I wasn’t making any.

  He cut into her abdomen. “She ate before she died. At least four hours. Looks like meatloaf and salad.” The smell of gastric acid made me breathe short and hard through my mouth. Mrs. North said they ate at 7:30. So at least 11:30 p.m. for time of death. So far, so good.

  He said, “You ever think about what your last meal would be?”

  “What?” I pulled my hand back. It had been stroking her foot’s scar, as if I could comfort her. Goddamn. Pull it together, Lynch.

  “You know how death-row inmates request a final meal? Ever think what yours would be?”

  I had. We’d played this game, Rick and I. We’d given it lots of thought. “A good steak, medium-rare, mashed potatoes with cream cheese and chives, a toasted roll with real butter, and a slice of blueberry pie with vanilla ice cream.”

  He reached for paper towels and knocked them to the floor. “I’ll get ’em,” I said. I bent and picked them up. When I stood, my shoulder knocked into the metal table’s edge. “Ow!”

  “You okay?” He touched my shoulder. His fingers felt hot, even through my layered clothing. “I’m sorry.” He gestured. There was blood on my jacket. He pulled his gloves off, tossed them in the biohazard bin. Snapped on a fresh pair.

  “It’s okay.” I held out the paper towels. Feigned indifference, though his touch had shaken me like a damn martini.

  He grabbed two sheets, lifted his plastic shield, and wiped his shiny face. “Guess you’ve given your last meal some thought.” His blue-eyed stare was too much. I returned to the end of the table. Kept my eyes on her scar.

  “Stakeouts get boring,” I said.

  He weighed the remains of her liver. The scale’s arrow marker ticked back and forth.

  “No doubt it was the bullets that killed her,” I said.

  “There’s more to do, but that’s the current theory.”

  He weighed her organs, as if it meant something. It did, to him. To me it looked like a grocery horror show. “I’ll have the report sent over,” he said. He walked to the sink, his gory hands held out and away from his aproned body.

  I left. The doors thwapped behind me. The gray hall was empty of people, living or dead. I hurried up the stairwell and outside, where the bright sunlight stung my eyes. I held on to the railing, its pocked, metal surface rough against my palm. I checked my jacket. Her dark blood on it. So much for leaving her behind.

  An hour later, I was at the station. It smelled of blueberries. The desk sergeant talked into the phone about a car accident. He said he’d send someone immediately. He set the phone down. “Berries?” He pulled a green pint from under his desk. Held it out.

  “No, thank you.”

  “My sister-in-law has a farm. Down the road, near Pond Street.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “Any time you want berries or apples, let me know.” He put a call through, at last, to request an officer check out the accident. I had a clue as to why our response times were slow.

  When I found him, Finnegan looked like something the cat threw up. And he smelled like half a pack of cigarettes. “Rough night?”

  “You have any ex-wives?” he asked.

  “No.”

  He scratched his stubble. “I’ve got a collection. Number three wants more money. She gets loquacious when she’s angry.” He had a habit of breaking out twenty-five-cent words rarely enough to surprise me every time he did it. “How’d the autopsy go?”

  “Blood and guts,” I said. “The ME found a bullet inside her.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  I nodded. It was.

  He belched and rubbed his chest. “’Scuse me. We’ve got an appointment with Helen O’Donnell at noon. She runs Human
Resources at Liberty Insurance.”

  “I’ll see you later, then,” I said.

  My desk was piled with more folders. Patrol-supervisor résumés were on top. I could review them and select the best. Or I could ignore them and watch Mrs. Dunsmore seethe. The second option appealed, but I opened the folder. Some candidates were underqualified. Two were overqualified. That worried me more. Why would a cop leave his station for a demotion? I set aside four and wrote, “Follow up.” Then I went through the vacation requests. Either the men thought I was born yesterday or they couldn’t count. I marked them and moved on to citizen complaints. Besides crazy Elmore Fenworth, we had Caroline Ross, who took exception to every ticket issued her. There were a lot. Lady couldn’t drive or park.

  A trio of door raps raised my head from Ms. Ross’s complaint of misogyny disguised as a ticket for blocking a fire hydrant. “Come in, Mrs. Dunsmore.”

  She wore her church bingo outfit, a black dress brightened by a lacquered parrot pin. “Good morning, Chief.” She saw the open folder in my hand. She couldn’t have looked more surprised if she’d caught me masturbating. “Is that—?”

  “The citizens’ complaints. Nothing unusual or unexpected.”

  “You’ve reviewed the résumés?”

  I held the folder out. “I have.”

  She took it. “Very good.”

  “You can take the vacation requests too.”

  She frowned. This wasn’t expected behavior. I smiled. “That’s a lovely dress.”

  She smoothed the fabric. “Thank you.” She hurried out.

  Finnegan didn’t look better when I next saw him, but he stood and said, “You want me to drive?”

  “Sure.” I regretted my decision when I saw his car. It resembled his desk. The backseat showed his devotion to Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s.

  He drove with one hand on the steering wheel. “Wright located the ex-boyfriend,” he said. Matthew Dillard had been traveling since the murder. “Doesn’t look like our guy.” I didn’t tell him that wasn’t a surprise.

  At Liberty Insurance, I stepped onto a parking lot the size of four football fields. “How you want to play it?” Finnegan pointed at the tall, glass building.

  “Friendly, curious. But if we meet any resistance, you keep nice.”

  He said, “So you want to be bad cop?”

  “Who said anything about ‘want’?”

  He laughed. That prompted a coughing fit. He hacked, hands on his knees.

  “Goddamn, Finnegan. Keep your lungs inside your body.”

  “Ah, fuck off.” He waved a hand at me. Then he straightened and checked me for a reaction.

  I smiled. No one had dared tell me to fuck off since I got here. It felt good to be back in the club.

  The head of Human Resources, Helen O’Donnell, sat in a corner office. She wore a navy suit that struggled to keep up with her. “Everyone was shocked to hear about Miss North,” she said. Everyone? Miss North? Interesting choice of words.

  “What was her job?” Finnegan asked.

  “She welcomed new employees. Got them set up in the system.”

  “I see. How was she at it?”

  She clucked her tongue. “It was too soon to tell. But she spent a lot of time with people.” She implied this wasn’t desirable. “She’d explain the finer points to new hires.”

  “Was that usual?” He hadn’t missed her tone.

  “Protocol is to greet the new hires, give them their materials, and once they’ve read it, if they have questions, they may schedule an appointment. It’s more efficient.” This lady really took the human out of resources.

  “Were there any problems with other staff? Disagreements?”

  She shook her head before he’d finished his question. “No.”

  “Had she made any friends while here?”

  “She got on well with Jenna Dash.” Jenna got first-name treatment, unlike our victim. Why?

  “We’d like to talk to Jenna,” he said.

  “She’s meeting with members of our risk-management team.”

  “When will she be done?”

  “Oh, not for hours. The survey involves a lengthy questionnaire and then she has to conduct interviews.”

  “We don’t have time to spare. We’re investigating a murder. I’m sure you appreciate that,” I said.

  “Of course, but this survey has taken months to develop. Thousands of dollars—”

  “Cecilia North was twenty-two years in development. Which is more important, would you say?”

  She made a noise in the back of her throat. Then stood and pulled her jacket down. It resisted. She walked to the door and barked an order at an underling. We waited in silence until the underling appeared, followed by a woman. Jenna Dash. Her face was pale, her blond hair pulled tightly off her face. Her body resembled a butternut squash. I saw why Ms. O’Donnell favored Jenna. Cecilia had been thin.

  “You wanted to see me?”

  “Jenna, these policemen are investigating Miss North’s death. They want to speak to you.”

  “Oh,” she said, looking at us. “Oh.”

  “Is your office nearby?” I asked.

  “It’s just down the hall.”

  “You can talk here,” Ms. O’Donnell said. “I’ll fetch another chair.”

  “No, thank you. We’ll join Miss Dash in her office.”

  Jenna led us down a hall, past employees who stopped talking as we walked by. She stopped before a door and fumbled her keys. “Sorry,” she said. She unlocked the door. Small tchotchkes lined her shelves. In a tank near her phone, a fish swam laps.

  “You worked here before Cecilia?” Finnegan asked. He sat. I followed suit.

  “Yes.” Her face had regained color. “I was hired last September. Cecilia started June first. I was assigned to show her the ropes. She was super nice.”

  “Did she like her job?” he asked.

  “I think so. She is—was—really outgoing. She didn’t have trouble meeting people. She always remembered names.” She flushed. Guess she didn’t have it so easy.

  He hummed agreement. “And Ms. O’Donnell? She was Cecilia’s boss?”

  “Supervisor. We don’t use the ‘b’ word here.” Too bad. Ms. O’Donnell was perfect for the “b” word.

  “How did Cecilia get on with her supervisor?”

  Jenna rotated a candy jar filled with mini chocolate bars. “Ms. O’Donnell can be tough. She thought Cecilia spent too much time with new hires, but,” she lowered her voice, “they came back fewer times with questions after they’d been processed by Cecilia. I did an informal study.” She typed on the keyboard, her fingers fast. “See?” She swiveled her monitor so it faced us. We stared at a graph with four colored lines plotted in various arcs. “Cecilia is blue. Her line is way below every other person in HR for follow-up questions related to new hires.”

  I admired her handiwork. She blushed until her ears turned red. “I like graphing. That’s why they have me conducting surveys. I did some ethnographic studies in school, and now they’ve decided I’m the Margaret Mead of insurance.” She turned the monitor. “Cecilia’s average would have been even lower if she didn’t have Gary Clark.”

  Finnegan looked like a dog that’s heard the word “walk.” He took a chocolate from the candy bowl. “May I?”

  “Of course.” She proffered the bowl to me.

  “No, thanks.” I patted my flat stomach. “Watching my weight.” Too late, I spotted a calorie counter taped below a picture of a thinner Jenna. Damn. I might not know much about women, but I know plenty about self-loathing. Jenna’s face glowed red.

  “Who’s Gary Clark?” Finnegan asked.

  She fumbled the candy bowl back onto her desk. “He works in the Life section. He started in mid-June. He’s a boomerang.”

  “A boomerang?”

  “Yeah. He turns up with a new question before you’ve answered the last one.”

  “So he took up a lot of Cecilia’s time?”

  “
She used to say that Gary was the nine-to-four in her nine-to-five.”

  “Did she mention what it was specifically that he needed help with?” Finnegan had his notepad out. Its wire top was unspiraling.

  “Little stuff like how to get reimbursed for expenses or how to set up voicemail.”

  Stuff he should’ve figured out himself. Finnegan looked my way. I nodded.

  “You obviously liked Cecilia,” I said. “Was there anyone here who didn’t?”

  “Not really, no.” She looked down at her desk.

  Finnegan said, “We won’t repeat it.” I wasn’t the only one telling lies today.

  She twisted a ring around her middle finger. “Patricia Jamison and Cecilia had the same job, but Patricia’s been here two years. She wants to be seen as this nurturing sort. You know, ‘My office is open anytime.’ But she’s not good at it.”

  “And Cecilia was?” I asked.

  “Cecilia liked people. I think Patricia thought Cecilia usurped her role.”

  “Is Patricia in today?”

  Jenna’s brows descended. “Ever since we learned about Cecilia, she’s been offering to help us if we’re grieving. As if I’d go to her.” Her eyes welled. “Sorry.” She honked into a tissue. “Why would anyone shoot Cecilia?”

  I gave her my card. “It’s our job to figure that out. Where does Patricia sit?”

  A small smile appeared. “I’ll take you to her.” With her smile, she was quite pretty. I almost said so, but I knew she wouldn’t believe me. Not with that calorie counter taped above her candy bowl.

  While we stood outside Patricia’s office, Finnegan nudged me. “You don’t think Cecilia was shot because she became the nicest one in the office do you?”

  “No. But it’ll be helpful to talk to someone who didn’t like her.”

  “What about O’Donnell?”

  So he’d noticed. “I’m hoping this one is chattier.”

  “Right then,” he said as the door opened. Patricia Jameson wore a flower-print dress and granny glasses and had the reddest hair I’d ever seen. And I’m fourth-generation-from-the-boats Irish. She gave me a dead-fish handshake. Then she suggested we come inside. Her office contained nothing personal. Even I had an unwanted plant.