Cut to the Corpse

by Lucy Lawrence

  She rapped on Tara’s door, but there was no response. Shocker.

  She tried the doorknob, and much to her dismay, it opened. What was this girl thinking? Having been the victim of a nasty robbery in Boston, Brenna took her personal safety very seriously and was mystified when others, especially other women, did not. Maybe she was paranoid and saw a bad guy lurking around every corner, but it kept her safe and nowadays that seemed like a good plan to her.

  She knocked on the doorframe, hoping to rouse Tara without having to go inside. There was no answer. She did three more sharp raps and yelled, “Hello?”

  Still, no answer. Feeling like an intruder herself, she stepped into Tara’s small house. It was quiet. There was no sound of the shower running or anyone snoring. Maybe Tara had left already.

  Still, she felt that she ought to check. She walked through the narrow living room, where a rounded love seat and armchair were decorated in a pretty cobalt blue and white floral upholstery. Stacks of wedding magazines littered the glass coffee table, underneath which the shoes Tara had been wearing the night before lay discarded.

  A breakfast bar separated the kitchenette, which was clean and painted bright yellow. Beyond that was a short hallway with two doors; one led to an empty bathroom and the other was half closed. It had to be the bedroom.

  “Tara? It’s Brenna, are you up yet?” Brenna took a deep breath and pushed open the door. She really hoped to find the bed made and Tara gone, having left in such a hurry she forgot to lock her door. But no.

  The smell struck her first, a metallic odor that bit at her nostrils, causing her to recoil. Something was very wrong. She saw the rumpled bed next. Two heads were visible above the bunched-up purple comforter, one blond and one dark brown.

  Oh, gees! Tara wasn’t alone, and unless Brenna missed her guess the head beside hers did not belong to Jake. She thought about just leaving, but then she feared Tiffany would come storming in here and that made her feel badly for Tara.

  “Oh for Pete’s sake!” Brenna snapped, annoyed. She stomped toward the bed. She would wake Tara and then let her deal with the disaster she’d created.

  Tara was sound asleep with her mouth hanging open and her skin a pasty shade of gray. Brenna gently shook her, but she was nonresponsive. She wondered if she should douse her with ice water, but she didn’t want to wake Tara’s companion and have to bear witness to that.

  She shook Tara again and hissed, “Tara, wake up!”

  The bedclothes slid off of her shoulder, and Brenna stepped back with a gasp. Clutched in Tara’s right hand was a long, lethal-looking serrated kitchen knife, and it was covered in blood.

  Chapter 4

  “Wha . . . huh?” Tara mumbled. Her eyes cracked open a little and then she shifted as if she were going to roll over on the knife.

  “Tara, wake up!” Brenna yelled. She lunged forward and grabbed Tara’s shoulder to keep her from stabbing herself.

  “Brenna?” Tara blinked at her. “Oh, no, did I oversleep? I’m sorry.”

  Brenna ran her eyes over the young woman, looking for any signs of injury. Tara was wearing a thin pale blue nightdress. It had several blood smears on it, but she couldn’t find any gashes or open wounds on Tara. So where had the blood come from? Brenna glanced over Tara at the body beside her.

  “Tara, what happened last night?” she asked.

  Tara looked down at her hands and saw the knife she still held. She jumped and dropped it. She ran her hands over her gown and saw the brown stains, then she looked up at Brenna with confused eyes.

  “What is this?” she asked.

  “Blood,” Brenna said.

  “Whose?”

  “His?” Brenna guessed, pointing behind Tara to the body beyond.

  Tara whipped her head around, saw the man in her bed, let out an ear-piercing shriek, and leapt out of the bed.

  “Oh, my God, who is that?”

  “You don’t know?” Brenna asked.

  “No, I . . . wait, why did I have a knife in my hand?” she asked.

  Her blue eyes were huge, the pupils tiny, and she was so pale, she looked as if all of the blood had been drained out of her. She swayed on her feet and Brenna was afraid she’d faint. She put an arm around her and led her to a chair in the corner.

  “I’m going to see if I can rouse him,” Brenna said. “Wait here.”

  She circled the bed to the other side. The man was lying with his face buried in the pillows. His dark hair covered the side of his face, and all she could see was his bare shoulder peeking out above the fluffy purple covers.

  “Ahem, excuse me, sir,” she said. She reached forward and prodded his shoulder with the heel of her hand.

  He didn’t respond and he felt unnaturally stiff. Brenna stared at the covers; they weren’t moving, as in he wasn’t breathing. Panic hit her like a fist in the chest.

  She prodded his shoulder again. No response. She felt Tara walk up behind her.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “I don’t think he’s breathing,” Brenna said. “I’m going to try and turn him over.”

  She hunkered down beside the bed, and using both hands pushed his shoulder up and over. It was like trying to lift a car. With a grunt, she gave him a shove and he flopped over.

  It was then that she saw the wounds on his forearms and the huge, gaping hole in his chest. It was Clue Parker, and he was dead.

  Tara let out another earsplitting scream, and Brenna turned and pulled the girl into her arms. She was shaking and gasping and Brenna feared she was beginning to hyperventilate. She half carried, half dragged Tara into the kitchen, where she pushed her onto a stool while she foraged for a paper bag.

  Finding one in the third drawer, she shook it open and held it out to Tara. “Breathe into this.”

  Tara did as she was told while Brenna reached for the phone and called 9-1-1. She could imagine what Chief Barker was going to say when he arrived to find she had discovered another body.

  The chief was not happy to see her. He had Brenna and Tara stay in the small living room while he went to the bedroom to check on Clue. When he came back his face was set in grim lines.

  The medical examiner was on the way, and Officer DeFalco, the chief’s right-hand man, was busy putting up yellow crime scene tape all around the small bungalow. Brenna knew it was only a matter of minutes before the entire town knew.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Is someone hurt?”

  Make that seconds, Brenna thought. She turned and saw the two gray heads peering through the open door and sighed.

  Marie and Ella were even faster than she had anticipated.

  “Brenna!” Ella called as she spied her in the corner of the room. “What’s going on?”

  “Is it that Montgomery girl?” Marie asked. “Was she robbed? Is she hurt?”

  Officer DeFalco stepped in front of them, blocking their view into the house. Undeterred, the two ladies hunched down and stared at Brenna under his outstretched arms.

  “Was she assaulted?” Ella said the words in a gasp.

  “Was it sexual?” Marie whispered.

  “Ladies!” DeFalco barked. “Back up and move away from the house. We have crime scene personnel coming that need to get through.”

  “Crime scene!” the two ladies said together.

  DeFalco looked like he wanted to throttle them. Instead he took them each by an elbow and trotted them to the curb.

  “Do not put one toe on this property,” he warned. “Or I will take you in for obstruction of justice.”

  “Humph,” Marie sniffed.

  “Well, I never,” Ella huffed.

  They looked suitably miffed, but Brenna noticed that neither of them came any closer to the house.

  Chief Barker was questioning Tara in the spare bedroom, and Brenna paced while she waited for him to talk to her. She knew he was going to want a full accounting of this morning’s events.

  She hoped she could remember it all, but it had a
lready begun to blur in her mind. She was still reeling from the shock of finding Clue in Tara’s bed. Had Tara been fooling around on Jake with his best friend?

  It seemed completely out of character for the young bride. Brenna had been so sure that Tara was madly in love with Jake. Why would she have an affair? And why would she stab Clue? Had he threatened to tell Jake? It seemed the most likely answer, but still improbable given what Brenna knew about Tara.

  Chief Barker brought Tara back into the living room. She sank onto the sofa, her face splotchy from crying and her eyes red-rimmed and swollen.

  “Brenna, I’d like to speak to you,” he said.

  “Sure,” she said. She felt like she should have words of comfort for Tara, but she had no idea what to say.

  “Chief, the medical examiner is here,” DeFalco called from the door.

  “I’ll be right back,” he said to Brenna.

  She nodded.

  She knew this was going to take a while. She took the seat beside Tara and asked, “Are you all right? Can I get you anything?”

  Tara blinked at her. She was the picture of misery.

  “Jake can’t find out,” she said.

  “About Clue?” Brenna asked. “I don’t see how he won’t find out that his best friend is dead.”

  “He can’t find out that he was in my bed,” Tara said. “He’ll misunderstand. He’ll never forgive me.”

  “Misunderstand what?” Brenna asked. “Tara, did you sleep with Clue?”

  “No!” she wailed. She looked away from Brenna toward the door where gloved crime scene personnel began to file into the house. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

  She crumpled into a heap of sobs and Brenna put her arms around her shoulders. She believed Tara. The look of confusion in her eyes was genuine. She must have had so much to drink that she blacked out. There was no telling what had happened between her and Clue.

  Brenna had seen the look of malevolence in Clue’s eyes the night before at the bar. He had been angry that his friend was getting married; of that she was certain. Had he been so angry that he did the unthinkable? Had he attacked Tara, giving her no choice but to defend herself? If so, why couldn’t she remember any of it?

  “That’s my daughter in there. I demand that you let me through this instant,” a voice snapped from the door.

  Tiffany Montgomery stood there, going nose to nose with Officer DeFalco.

  “Mother!” Tara called. She bolted up from the sofa and ran across the room. DeFalco was forced to step aside as Tara threw herself into her mother’s arms.

  “Baby,” Tiffany crooned into her daughter’s hair. “Are you all right?”

  Tara wept and Tiffany held her, letting her daughter sob into her Chanel suit.

  “Ms. Montgomery.” Chief Barker reappeared, with a female officer. “This is Investigator Wheatley. She needs to take your nightgown for testing.”

  Mrs. Montgomery looked outraged, but the chief cut her off. “Feel free to call your attorney, but this is the scene of a murder and we will be treating it as such. Brenna?”

  Leaving the Montgomery women with the female investigator, Chief Barker gestured for Brenna to follow him into the spare room.

  He looked at her as if he wasn’t sure what to say. Brenna knew that he had to be thinking that there had been two bodies found in Morse Point in the past three months and she had been the one to find them both. It was even more eventful given that the town hadn’t had a murder in fifty years.

  “So, here we are again,” Brenna said.

  The chief had a thick gray mustache that he rubbed with the side of his index finger when he was thinking. He did that now.

  “Tell me what happened,” he said. “And don’t leave anything out.”

  Brenna took a deep breath and told him everything she could remember. She tried not to get emotional but she knew she blanched when she talked about finding Clue dead.

  “You were the first one here,” Barker said. “Was there any sign of a forced entry?”

  “No, the door was shut but not locked,” Brenna said. “I remember thinking how unsafe that was.”

  “Was the house in order? Did anything strike you as odd?” he asked.

  “Only that she was asleep and we were to meet her mother at the shop in a few minutes,” she said. “That’s why I tried to wake her up, even when I realized there was someone else in the bed, too. I didn’t want her mother to walk in and find her like that.”

  Chief Barker had taken out a pad and was making notes. He considered Brenna for a moment. “You know, people are going to talk.”

  “Well, yeah,” Brenna agreed. “I mean, no matter how it happened, Clue was in bed with his best friend’s fiancée.”

  “No, I meant about you,” Chief Barker said. “Two bodies in three months is grist for the gossip mill.”

  Brenna wanted to argue. It wasn’t her fault she had been in the wrong place at the wrong time twice, but she knew it would sound lame.

  “I suppose,” she said.

  “I just wanted to give you a heads-up,” he said. “You’re free to go, but I want you to call me if you remember anything else, and I may have more questions for you as the case progresses. Otherwise, you are to steer clear of this investigation. Understood?”

  Brenna nodded. She knew the drill.

  They left the bedroom to find Tara’s mother blasting one of the medical examiner’s people.

  “You will not touch my daughter, not one hand upon her person, do you understand?”

  Chief Barker hurried across the room. Brenna took in the sight of Tiffany standing in front of a forlorn Tara.

  “We will happily wait for your attorney,” Chief Barker said, his voice low and soothing. “But we do need to take some blood and hair samples, and we’ll use a subpoena if we have to.”

  “Let me through, DeFalco,” a voice said at the door. “I’ll either go around you or through you, but make no mistake I’m coming in.”

  “It’s Jake!” Tara clutched her mother’s arm. “Please, he can’t find me like this.”

  Chapter 5

  “Tara!” Jake yelled.

  “No, don’t come in,” Tara cried.

  “Talk to me, Tara. What’s going on?” he said.

  Jake was trying to get around Officer DeFalco, who was holding on to the doorframe in a remarkable impression of a brick wall, refusing to budge.

  “Nothing,” she said. Her voice was too weak to give the lie any substance and Jake knew it. He bobbed and weaved around DeFalco, looking for an opening.

  “Jake, this is a police matter.” Chief Barker stepped up behind his officer. “I’m going to ask you to leave.”

  “You’re going to have to haul me away,” Jake said. “I’m not leaving until I see Tara and know that she’s okay.”

  The chief let out a sigh and turned to face Tara. She was standing behind her mother and shook her head frantically from side to side.

  “No,” she whispered. “He can’t see me like this.”

  “Send him away,” Tiffany demanded.

  “Don’t do it, Tara,” Brenna said. Everyone turned to look at her, and she cleared her throat. She stepped closer and said, “Morse Point is a very small town. He is going to find out what happened, probably in the next ten minutes. Don’t you think it’s better if it comes from you?”

  “What will I tell him?” she asked.

  “The truth,” Brenna said.

  Tara’s blue eyes searched Brenna’s. She was looking for reassurance that it was going to be okay. Brenna wished she could give her that; instead she gave her sympathy.

  Tara stepped out from behind her mother and straightened her shoulders. She had changed into jeans and a T-shirt. Her feet were bare and her hair was still mussed from sleep. She looked tiny and vulnerable but resolved.

  “Okay, then,” she said. She turned to Chief Barker. “Can I see him?”

  “With me present,” Chief Barker said.

  “All right,” Tar
a agreed.

  “Let him in,” Barker ordered.

  DeFalco stepped aside and Jake all but fell into the room. He hurried across the room and snatched Tara into his arms.

  “Oh, thank God, you’re safe,” he said as he buried kisses in her hair. “The Porter sisters showed up at the garage. They said you’d had a break-in and that the police were here, and they feared you’d been assaulted. Are you okay, baby?”

  “I’m fine,” Tara said. She hugged him close, and Brenna saw her eyes close as she pressed herself against the full length of him. She looked as if she were trying to memorize the feel of him.

  After a long moment, she stepped back. “Jake, I have some bad news.”

  “What?” he asked. Then he gave a sideways glance at Tiffany, who was standing with her arms wrapped around her middle as if she felt her daughter’s pain all the way to her bone marrow. “Are you calling off the wedding?”

  Tara gave him a weak smile. “I’d never do that.”

  He sagged with relief.

  “But, Jake,” she said, her voice hoarse with emotion, “Clue is dead.”

  “Clue?” Jake asked. He looked confused. “How? I don’t understand. Was there an accident?”

  Tara bit her lip. It seemed as if everyone in the room had gone still, their attention focused upon her. She raised her hands in a helpless gesture.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Jake looked at her and then her mother. His gaze skipped over Brenna and he turned to face Chief Barker.

  “What’s going on, Chief?” he said. He sounded more authoritative than his years would warrant.

  “We’re trying to figure that out,” Chief Barker said.

  When he didn’t explain any further, Brenna realized he considered Jake a suspect. It made sense. If Jake had come here and found Clue in bed with his girl, he very well could have been the one to kill his friend.

  Brenna saw the confusion flit across Jake’s face. She didn’t think he was faking. He really had no idea what was going on.

  “I’d like to ask you some questions, Jake,” Chief Barker said. “If you’ll follow me?”