The Last Sister

by Elliot, Kendra

  Anita smiled as she opened the door. “Madison, so good to see you.” She ushered her in. The shop smelled like hair spray and nail polish. Anita had remodeled two years before, and the beauty parlor of Madison’s childhood had vanished. No more pink vinyl chairs or black-and-white-checkered floors. Now it was “soothing and modern,” with its clean lines of quartz counters, succulents, and whitewashed shiplap on the walls.

  But the smell was the same. The scent of promises and expectations from beauty products.

  Anita was in her sixties and impossibly thin. She always wore black from head to toe, and her hairstyle hadn’t changed in several decades, but she was perpetually chic. She’d mastered the secret of appearing timeless through classic styles. Her platinum hair was bobbed at her jawline but had a perfect lift at the roots and a subtle curl at one temple.

  She’d abandoned cigarettes years ago but still had a faint smoker’s rasp. Everyone passed through her shop—even the teenagers who pursued the latest cuts, because Anita was on top of current trends. But she would still do a wash and set for her older clients. With a flick of a wrist, she gestured for Madison to sit in one of the stylists’ chairs as Anita settled into another and spun to face her, gentle curiosity in her eyes.

  How does she know I need to sit for this conversation?

  “What’s going on with you, child?”

  Everyone was “child” or “darling” to Anita. Even the men.

  When Madison had decided to visit the shop, her questions had been clear in her mind. Now they were a jumbled mess of ridiculous elements. Doubt tied her tongue.

  Anita picked up on her hesitation. “Let me get you a cappuccino.” Anita hopped out of the chair and fussed at the huge professional espresso machine. She’d served her clients espresso and cappuccino before anyone had ever heard of Starbucks.

  “Anita . . . what do people in this town think of my family?” The question was vague, but it was a start.

  The shop owner didn’t look up from her task. “The Bartons or the Millses?”

  Madison frowned. People distinguish between the two? “Bartons.”

  The milk frother made conversation impossible for a long moment. “The Bartons are the foundation and backbone of Bartonville,” she finally answered.

  “That sounds like a statement from the chamber of commerce.” Hollow and rehearsed.

  “I’m sure it’s in a pamphlet somewhere.” Anita added the milk to the espresso and brought the cup to Madison. “These days when people say the Barton name, they’re referring to your great-aunts or your great-great-grandfather. Your uncle Rod has moved far away enough that people generally forget he’s of George Barton’s direct line.”

  “Emily and I haven’t.”

  “As it should be. You two are ‘the Mills girls.’ And Tara too, of course.”

  “What do they say about Tara?”

  Anita tilted her head as she held Madison’s gaze and handed her the cup. “Do you mean now or back when she left? And why are you asking?”

  “Both time periods.” Madison didn’t know how to answer the second question. “I heard some things.”

  “Mmm.” Anita returned to her chair and swung one leg over the other, all her attention on Madison. “I’m sure it was all bull, but many people thought she left because she was pregnant.”

  “I’ve heard that one.”

  “Others said your aunts drove her away. They were rather autocratic back then. All three of them.”

  “They’ve mellowed, but Aunt Vina will still go head-to-head with anyone.”

  Taking a sip of her cappuccino, Madison doubted the wisdom of her decision to ask questions. The old rumors hurt. “Dory made some odd statements this morning.”

  “I see.”

  “She kept implying that my mother was miserable and that people felt sorry for her.”

  “How old were you when she died? Nine?”

  “Ten. I knew she would get tired and stay in bed sometimes. It wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned she was manic-depressive.”

  “A child’s view is much different from an adult’s. And your mother was so doting and affectionate, I know she showered a lot of love on you girls. We all saw it.”

  “What else did you see?”

  “A sad, confused wife.”

  Mild shock ran through Madison’s fingers, making her cup quiver. As Dory implied. Anita had spoken carefully, her expression calm, her eyes sharp, watching for Madison’s reaction. There was a ring of truth in her words.

  “So they had marriage problems. Everyone does.”

  “No marriage is perfect, and your father deeply loved you girls. It was unmistakable.”

  “Did people say Dad married Mom for her money?”

  “Yes.”

  “But the Bartons weren’t rich. Vina says the logging business tanked, and some bad investments wiped out nearly everything in the eighties.”

  “That is what I understand too, but people believe what they want. They see your home and the restaurant and make assumptions.” She paused. “If you still want to hear old rumors, there was one that said your father’s death was a message to the Bartons for leaving working families in the lurch when the mill closed.”

  “That makes no sense at all.”

  “I agree. I don’t think people put much stock in that one. A lot still think you’re hiding money, though.”

  “That’s ridiculous. The mansion is crippling us with its upkeep, and the restaurant does okay, but it’s not making us rich. It’s how we get by.”

  Anita shrugged. “That’s what I tell people. But you know how rumors are.”

  “Dad was a gold digger. What else was said about him?” Madison’s muscles tensed as she braced for the answer. I know he loved my mother; I saw it many times.

  The shop owner sighed and looked out the window. “He was a good ol’ boy. Thought he was funny and had no qualms about telling ugly jokes. He was a racist.”

  The room went very still, the phrase from the watch ringing in Madison’s brain, and the female driver’s scared face flashed again. “Because of how he was raised.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Anita nodded.

  “He didn’t teach us to be like that.”

  “I doubt your mother would have put up with it.”

  “But he had similar-thinking friends?” She recalled Dory’s words about awful people—but she’d said they were gone now.

  “People always seek out others like themselves.”

  Madison wasn’t satisfied with that answer. “He hung around with other racists is what you’re saying.”

  Anita gave a half smile with no warmth. “Bingo.”

  The word sliced Madison’s heart wide open. She blinked rapidly.

  Regret colored Anita’s expression, and she leaned forward to set a hand on Madison’s knee. “He loved you, and you have every right to love him back. There is good in everyone, and he showed you girls everything that was positive about himself. It was the outsiders—and some family—who saw the rest. With most people, what you see is what you get.” She focused hard on Madison’s eyes. “But others present themselves in ways that don’t reflect their true selves. It’s like protection for their tender souls.”

  She sees me.

  Her defenses leaped into place, her hands tight on her cup, and disappointment shone in Anita’s eyes.

  “What did people say after he was murdered?”

  Anita looked away, her mouth clamped tight. “No one wanted him murdered. They just wanted him to take his racism and white supremacist views elsewhere.”

  “Who killed him?” she whispered.

  Anita started. “Why, Chet Carlson, of course.” Her brows came together as she studied Madison. “That’s an odd question.”

  “Chet Carlson didn’t even know him.” Madison’s brain spun in a million directions. “He wasn’t from around here. He knew nothing about how the town felt about my father. And he went through all the trouble to hang him?”
r />   “Your father’s bloody jacket was found in his hotel room. He was convicted on the evidence.”

  “Of course he was.” Madison closed her eyes, seeing her mother running in the woods and Emily standing in the backyard of their home, staring into the distance as smoke crept into the home.

  What did Emily see that night? Why didn’t she tell anyone she’d gone outside?

  “Now, Madison,” came the lecturing tone, “you’re letting this new information affect everything you’ve ever known about your father. It doesn’t matter. Nothing about your time with him has changed.”

  Who would thirteen-year-old Emily want to protect?

  Madison opened her eyes, her gaze heavy with the weight of her new knowledge. “Everything has changed. He was horrible.”

  “That doesn’t change that he was your father and he cherished you girls. You are still the same person who walked in my door five minutes ago. So is he.”

  Madison wasn’t listening. Emily must have a reason to carry a secret for this long.

  She’d probably done it for the same reason Madison had told no one she’d seen Emily outside that night or her mother in the woods.

  The reason was to protect them.

  Love for my mother and sister kept me quiet all these years.

  Who would Emily stay quiet for?

  20

  Zander slipped on the clear face shield and checked out his partner in her shield. Ava’s eyes crinkled at the corners, indicating she was grinning behind the blue mask over her mouth.

  “That’s a good look for you, Zander.”

  He looked down at his gown and booties, feeling slightly claustrophobic in the protective gear. Part of him wanted to rip them off and head into the hallway for fresh air.

  Fresher air, he corrected himself. As soon as they’d entered the medical examiner’s building, they’d encountered its unique smell. It wasn’t like a hospital smell or a funeral-home smell—both of which he’d experienced too many times.

  It was a combination of professional-strength cleanser, refrigerated meat, and an underlying hint of decomposition. His nose had already grown used to it, noting that the odor didn’t bother him as it had at first. He’d learned early in this job that he could handle most odors—death, excrement, rot—if he toughed out the first ten minutes or so. He also knew to shower afterward as soon as possible and immediately dump every scrap of clothing in the laundry. Today he’d left his coat in the car, not wanting it to soak up any odors.

  He and Ava stood in the autopsy suite. There were four stainless-steel tables, each with a sink at one end. A large hose and nozzle hung over each table, along with strong lights and a scale. Two assistants went about the suite, setting out instruments and getting things organized for the examiner.

  On the closest table, Nate Copeland’s corpse silently waited for Dr. Rutledge.

  Zander felt like a voyeur; he didn’t want to see the dead man, but it was his duty. The medical examiner had already done the Y incision from chest to groin but hadn’t removed the ribs. Ava fidgeted, and she lifted her shield to wipe her eyes. Usually she had no problem with autopsies, but she’d warned Zander that this one would be tough for her, given that she’d talked to the man the day before. At the Copeland house she’d held it together, but here the explicit details of the young man’s horrible end were laid out under the harsh lights.

  A stark contrast to the very alive young deputy she’d interviewed—actually she’d grilled and guilt-tripped—about the Fitch crime scene.

  Zander had told her not to feel sorry for doing her job.

  “I’d convinced myself that the person he’d been is gone. This body is an empty shell,” Ava whispered. “But then I see that.” She pointed at a tattoo on Copeland’s deltoid. “He’s suddenly very human again.”

  Zander understood. The tattoo represented something everlasting that Copeland had selected to carry with him. It symbolized a decision, a love, a permanence.

  The tattoo remained, but the person was gone.

  Copeland’s skin was pale, but along the edges of his lower back and legs, a dark bruised shade indicated he’d died faceup. Blood followed gravity after the heart stopped, and the livor mortis was in the right places for a man tipped back in a recliner. The dark color would also cover his backside.

  The suite door swung open, and Dr. Seth Rutledge walked in, slipping his arms into a gown. An assistant tied the strings at the back as he shook Zander’s and Ava’s hands.

  “Good to see the two of you. It’s been a while—I know, I know—that’s a good thing, in your opinion.” Seth focused on Ava. “Victoria said you’re getting married at a winery this summer?”

  “Yes.” Her voice shook the littlest bit, and she didn’t expand on wedding descriptions as she usually did when asked about her plans.

  Seth paused, but realized he wasn’t going to hear more. Sympathy filled his eyes. “That sounds great.”

  “You and Victoria are on the list.” She sounded stronger.

  “We better be.” He pulled on a pair of gloves. “Let’s get started.” He shifted into work mode as he neared the table.

  Zander spotted something new. “I don’t remember seeing that sign before.” He pointed at a large, elegant plaque high along one wall.

  THIS IS THE PLACE WHERE DEATH DELIGHTS IN HELPING THE LIVING.

  A bit morbid. Delights as death’s verb felt wrong, but Zander figured it was medical examiner humor.

  “Yes. Victoria gave me that for Christmas.”

  Zander exchanged a glance with Ava, whose eyes had crinkled again, agreeing it made for an odd gift too, but Seth’s wife was his forensic anthropologist. The two of them worked in grim professions.

  “The two of you are a match made in heaven, Seth,” Ava told him.

  Seth’s eyes lit up above his mask. “I agree. Now, I’d already done a few things before you called this morning to ask me to wait. The external exam is finished, and you can see I stopped after the Y incision, but I sent fluids to toxicology and had his X-rays done.”

  “Which fluids?” asked Ava.

  “Blood, bile, urine, and vitreous humor.”

  Zander was glad he hadn’t been present to watch Seth stick a needle in Copeland’s eye to draw the fluid. “You can get quick toxicology results?”

  “We can for the basic tests since we run them here. Anything outside the norm, I send to another lab.”

  “What’s the norm?”

  “Alcohol, marijuana, opiates, barbiturates, psychostimulants. We also test for arsenic and heavy metals.” He paused. “We found Nate had the same GHB as in the Fitches.”

  Zander and Ava looked at each other. “So this investigation has taken a new turn,” Zander said.

  “There’s more than that,” said Seth. “The GSR test on his hand came back very high. Well over a two-thousand-particle count. He definitely fired the weapon, but it was an odd pattern. Part of his hand had virtually no GSR, as if something had been covering it—like another hand.”

  Not suicide.

  Zander was satisfied to hear that the young deputy hadn’t taken his own life, but the fact that he had been murdered wasn’t an improvement.

  “I don’t know if one is better than the other,” muttered Ava, echoing Zander’s thoughts.

  “It appears the same person who murdered the Fitches may have murdered Nate.”

  “May have,” repeated Ava. “Even with this new evidence, it’s not definite. We need to remember that.”

  Zander agreed. “Anything else from the external exam?”

  “No abrasions or injuries,” the doctor went on. “Livor mortis matches the photos I saw of his position when he was found in the recliner. He has a tribal-style tattoo on his deltoid and one on his calf. A few scars. The X-rays don’t indicate any past broken bones, which I’ve found to be unusual in males. Usually something has been broken.”

  “Females are better at seeing consequences,” Ava muttered. “Even as kids. You men do stupid,
risky things.”

  Zander couldn’t argue with that.

  Seth peeled back the flaps of skin and muscles at the Y incision, exposing the rib cage. He took the large pruning shears from his assistant and started cutting ribs far under the flaps. The first sounds rattled Zander; they always did. But by the fourth cut, he was inured to the loud cracks. When Seth finished, he lifted out the front half of the rib cage.

  Ava sucked in a breath.

  “You good?” he whispered.

  “Good as I can be.”

  Next Seth systematically removed each organ, scrutinized it, weighed it, sliced it open for further scrutiny, and cut samples for testing and preservation. A recorder hung above Seth’s head to catch his observations, but an assistant also took notes.

  Zander watched closely as Seth cut open the stomach. “I can smell alcohol. Smells like beer,” the examiner said. “There’s no solids in here, but there is some fluid. I suspect most had already passed to the small intestine.”

  “Dr. Ruiz put his time of death at midmorning,” Ava said.

  “This isn’t the first person I’ve opened who had beer for breakfast. It’s more common than you think.”

  Even with a mask covering it, Zander saw Ava wrinkle her nose. “A mimosa for breakfast I can understand, but not beer,” she said.

  “Why not? Who decided champagne was acceptable in the mornings but not beer?” Seth shrugged as he set the stomach on the scale. “They’re both alcohol. I’ve gained a different perspective on a lot of things in this job.”

  “Do you have beer for breakfast?” Ava asked the examiner.

  “Nope. Sounds disgusting.”

  Ava snorted. “So there’s a good chance the GHB was in the beer.”

  “I’ll have the fluids from his stomach tested,” said Seth.

  “I don’t think any open beer bottles were found at the Copeland scene,” said Ava. “I’ll check with the team.”

  Zander wanted the autopsy to be over, ready to follow up on what they’d just learned.

  The doctor quickly sped through the rest of the organs and turned his attention to the head. He leaned close and palpated the skull with gentle hands. Zander wondered how he’d cut a cranial cap under the scalp when a large portion of the skull was missing. The primary concern was the presentation for an open-casket viewing.