“Are you kidding? Agnes visits Felix and Oscar every day.”
Kellen blinked. “Um…”
“Agnes Juettner. Spinster lady who donated a new fence around the cemetery in return for getting her dogs buried there. This is probably a suicide or an accidental drowning that washed up onshore in the high tide. Let me check in with the sheriff. She’s in Virtue Falls, north of here. I swear, Sheriff Kwinault’s got connections with everybody in the county, and with the state and Feds. She’ll know if anybody local is missing and for how long.”
“How did the hip bone get to the resort grounds?” Kellen answered the question herself. “Coyotes.” And said, “Oh God. Oh no.” She had connected the dots. The carcass she had sent Temo to collect wasn’t a deer or a raccoon. It was a woman. She pulled out her phone. It rang in her hand. She answered before the first ring finished. “Temo?”
His voice was tense. “I’ve got a situation here. We need the cops.”
Kellen looked at Lloyd Magnuson. “I’m here with the cop.”
“The cop. Of course there’s only one.” Temo laughed harshly. “Bring him—her?—and come out. Now.”
9
Kellen was pretty sure she already knew the situation out there in the scrubby grass, and she drove that ATV fast enough to make the rain splat against the windshield and Lloyd Magnuson clutch at his seat. He didn’t say a word, though. He, too, knew what they were likely facing.
When they got close to the place where Temo stood, draped in rain gear and leaning against a shovel, she rolled to a stop. Not only because she didn’t want to run over any evidence, but also…she didn’t want to see this.
My God, hadn’t she witnessed enough death in the war zones and…
A pickax, its long spike lethal and shining. Gregory lifting it above her cousin’s head… Kellen blinked the rain out of her eyes. It was just rain…
Lloyd leaped out before the ATV stopped moving and hurried to stand over the carcass. Except it wasn’t a carcass. Even from a distance, she could see that. The scavengers had stripped away most of the flesh and scattered some of the bones over the landscape. But the bones that remained were concentrated and arranged in roughly a human shape. This was a body.
Kellen got out, the wet turf squishing beneath her black leather shoes.
Lloyd stood over the remains, then backed away. “Gross.” Then, “Either of you got a camera?”
“Um. Yes.” Kellen pulled out her phone.
So did Temo.
They looked at Lloyd questioningly.
He retreated farther. “I’ve got a flip phone. Never seen a reason for more.”
“Now you have,” Temo muttered.
“How do you want this photographed?” Kellen didn’t want to take the pictures. She didn’t want to look.
“Um, like, all around. From a distance and close in.” Lloyd shoved his hands into his pockets. “Do you know the last time there was a murder victim around Cape Charade?”
They both shook their heads.
“Neither do I, and I’ve been here for over ten years.” Lloyd glanced at the body. “I’ve never seen someone who was dead and…and rotting. That’s creepy.”
How had Kellen managed to land in the middle of a death investigation with an inexperienced police officer? She asked, “How do you know this is a murder?”
“I’d say her hands have been removed. Wouldn’t you?”
“Dear God.” She didn’t want to know. But for the first time, she looked. Most of the smaller bones were gone or scattered. One hip bone remained, most of the leg bones, one with parts of the foot still attached. The rib cage had been gnawed, the spine had been dismembered and scattered. Wisps of hair clung to the skull…
Don’t look at the skull. Don’t think of Kellen, helpless under Gregory’s pickax.
The arms were there, close to the rib cage as if the victim was holding herself.
“I don’t see her hands.” Kellen had to hold her hood with one hand to keep the wind from slashing it from her head. “But that doesn’t mean they’ve been removed, only that the scavengers—”
“No, he’s right.” Temo knelt in the grass taking pictures with his phone. “The ends of the bones show rasp marks, like marks a saw blade would make, and little bits of joint are hanging in there.”
That’s horrible. She looked around, at the start of the path that led down to the beach, at the rise that led to the cliffs, at the one wind-mangled tree that pointed its defiance at the sky.
“You hope she was killed somewhere besides here,” Kellen said to Lloyd.
“Don’t you?”
Yes, of course she did. A death here at Yearning Sands Resort created problems she was ill equipped to deal with.
“She’s awfully dirty.” Temo was zoomed in on a piece of cloth. “Seems like with all this rain, she shouldn’t have dirt ground into her clothes and hair.”
“If this woman was buried around here, she wasn’t buried deep enough, but there’s not much in the way of clothing remaining, which means she’s been exposed to the elements in a big way. No coffin, no blanket, no care whatsoever for her remains.” For someone who allegedly didn’t know what he was talking about, Lloyd Magnuson sounded confident. “I’d say whoever did this hated her.”
“Or maybe hated all women,” Temo said. “There’s a lot of that in this world.”
Kellen had to say it. “High tide. Really high tide. She could be from one of the sea caves.”
“Sure. Wow. Murder. Definitely need to show this to Sheriff Kwinault. If she—” he gestured at the body “—washed out of the sea caves, maybe the murder took place here.”
“God forbid,” Kellen said fervently.
“Could mean there’s a murderer on the loose.” With a towel, Lloyd picked up a grubby piece of rubbery material and a torn piece of faded cloth and offered them to Kellen. “Take this and show it to the women at the resort. Ask them if they recognize the shoe or the material and remember who they belong to. Maybe we can figure something out that way.”
Kellen looked at the misshapen thing. A shoe. The sole of a tennis shoe. And a swatch of material.
She didn’t take it. “I’m not showing this to the staff! It would create a panic.”
“If you don’t show it to them and somebody else gets murdered, you’re responsible,” Lloyd said.
She didn’t need more guilt to deal with. Yet—“This body has been around for a while and no one else has been killed.”
Temo stuck his two cents in. “That we know of.”
She looked down at her friend. She thought of all the staff who were on vacation, how some of them had already called to say they weren’t coming back. She thought of all the guests who came and went, and never returned. Temo had a point. Still, she argued, “No one’s going to know who wore this tennis shoe. It’s just…a tennis shoe. I can’t even tell what color it is. Or was.”
“You have a better idea for identifying the body?” Lloyd was honestly asking.
“A coroner?” she suggested.
“We haven’t got a coroner. We’ve got an undertaker. He’s not busy and he likes it that way. But…good idea.” Lloyd pulled out his cell phone. “The county coroner is in Virtue Falls, too. Mike Sun has dealt with this kind of thing before—murder and whatnot. I’ll drive the bones up, deliver them to Mike, talk to Sheriff Kwinault and see if either one of them can figure out something about the death and who it is.”
“It’s a nasty drive in this weather,” Kellen said.
“I don’t mind.” Lloyd sounded positively cheerful. “I’ve got friends in Virtue Falls. Good time for a visit!”
“Go on, Kellen,” Temo said. “I’ll get the photos taken. I’ll get her up off the ground. You’re not doing any good here.”
Kellen knew she shouldn’t make Temo do something she wouldn’t do he
rself. But it wasn’t so much wouldn’t as couldn’t, at least she couldn’t without vomiting. “Thank you. Really. Thank you.” Gingerly, she took the towel by the four corners, carried it back to the ATV and drove back as fast as she’d driven out. She didn’t want to go in the front lobby and face the guests, so she parked by the back door to the spa, the one Destiny Longacre had left open for her boyfriend. Before she got close, Mara swung the heavy metal door open.
The wind caught it and slammed it against the wall.
Both women grabbed it, fought with it, got it under control and got inside.
“What a wretched day.” Kellen meant more than just the weather.
“I heard.” Mara had that significant tone in her voice.
Kellen turned to her. “How did you hear?”
“Lloyd Magnuson called Sheri Jean and asked for a storage box. Said he had to drive something out to Mike Sun in Virtue Falls. She knew you were picking up something the scavengers brought in. She figured it out. A natural death?”
Kellen shook her head.
“Damn it.” Mara looked around at her determinedly peaceful domain. “Damn it,” she said again. “Do you know who the body is?”
Kellen held up the towel she had twisted shut. “That’s what we’re supposed to deduce using a piece of cloth and part of a shoe.”
“This way. Don’t drop it, and don’t make a mess.”
She led Kellen to the spa waiting room, where nine anxious employees waited.
Sheri Jean + three concierge staff:
FRANCES:
34, CONCIERGE/FRONT DESK, CHICAGO NATIVE, TOUGH, SARCASTIC. EMPLOYED 7 YRS.
GERALD:
MALE, 42, FRONT DESK. GUATEMALAN, FLUENT IN SPANISH. EMPLOYED 16 YRS.
TRENT:
37, DESK STAFF. CAPE CHARADE NATIVE. EMPLOYED 7 YRS., THEN SERVED PRISON TERM FOR BREAKING AND ENTERING, REEMPLOYED 4 YRS.
Mara + four spa staff:
ELLEN:
23, BEAUTY PROFESSIONAL, CAPE CHARADE NATIVE. EMPLOYED 4 YRS.
DAISY:
67, CLEANING LADY WITH APPARENT SANITATION FETISH. EMPLOYED 42 YRS.
DESTINY LONGACRE:
19, MASSAGE THERAPIST. CAPE CHARADE NATIVE. BLOTCHY FACE, RED EYES. SILLY GIRL, PROBABLY DIDN’T DESERVE TO BE FIRED. EMPLOYED 13 MO.
Xander sat cross-legged on the floor in the lotus position, his hands resting upright on his knees.
Mara turned up the lights. “Kellen wants help identifying the body.”
Sheri Jean sucked in her breath.
Destiny gasped. “The body?”
Every eye was fixed to the towel.
Mara shook her head violently. “No, I don’t mean… That’s not the body. It’s clothes.”
Kellen pushed magazines off a low table, placed the towel in the middle and opened it. She stepped back and gestured. “It’s not much. We think she was wearing a dress and the white rubber thing is a tennis shoe sole with some of the canvas attached.” Her hands didn’t shake; being here with these people helped her get a grip on herself.
In a voice that sounded as if it was coming from far away, Mara said, “I never get used to seeing the sad scraps of another person’s life.”
Kellen looked at her in surprise. How many “scraps” had this pretty, competitive female looked at?
“So it was definitely a lady?” Destiny asked in a wobbly voice.
Kellen thought of that hip bone. “Definitely a lady.”
“She was a guest?” Destiny’s voice got higher.
“There’s no one missing from the area that I’ve heard,” Mara said. Which was no answer.
But Destiny said, “Good. I mean, not good, but I don’t want to think that’s one of us.”
Heads nodded.
“That cloth was against her skin?” Ellen dragged a table lamp over to the table and knelt on the rug to study the scrap. “It was sky blue at one time, cotton or lightweight wool, a natural fabric and probably worn in the summer. There’s a lot of disintegration here, but exposure to dirt, wind and rain will do that. There’s a lot of salt in the air here, too. That should actually preserve the color.”
Kellen stared at Ellen. The woman was talking like a CSI investigator.
Ellen looked up and saw the general wariness. “I’m a colorist. I’m a hairdresser. I understand how color fades, and hair is a natural fiber, too… You didn’t get any hair? Did you see hair?”
Kellen had captured a mental snapshot of the skull. She didn’t want to review it…but she did. “The hair was wet. It looked brown. Maybe ash blond?”
“But the hair could be dyed, and that doesn’t get us anywhere.” Sheri Jean was impatient.
Even more impatient was Frances. “How are we supposed to ID a body based on a scrap of cloth and a piece of tennis shoe?”
Mara disappeared and came back with a pair of large tweezers. She used the towel to pick up the rubber sole. She poked around inside.
Sheri Jean continued, “We could pull this apart and still it would be the same shoe that every woman wears when she’s—”
Mara jerked out the insole.
A silver ring flew out, landed on the rug, bounced to rest at Destiny’s feet.
10
Mara dropped the shoe.
The room settled into a profound silence, marred only by the soothing harp music that played in the background. Then—screams, high pierced and terrified.
Like a cartoon character afraid of a mouse, Destiny jumped onto a chair and shrieked and pointed.
Xander stood in one smooth movement and stepped away.
Kellen tried to calm them down. “It’s a ring. It’s okay…”
Heads shook wildly.
Kellen got it. There was something about this ring. “What? Tell me. What?”
The screams died down. Shock quivered in the room.
Destiny visibly trembled, and her voice trembled, too. “That’s Priscilla’s ring.”
“Who’s Priscilla?” Kellen asked. Someone they knew, obviously. Then she remembered. “Wait. Priscilla, the assistant manager before me? The one who left without notice?”
Destiny nodded her head, up and down, up and down.
Xander went to the pitcher of lemon-infused water and poured glasses full. He put them on a tray and started around the room, offering them like fine wine.
“I never thought…” Mara took a glass and tossed it back like a shot. “That woman was such a—”
“Don’t speak ill of the dead,” Ellen warned.
“Right.” Mara gathered her thoughts. “She disappeared one day and we all thought… Well, her car was gone and her cottage was cleaned out, and we thought… But that’s her ring. Her toe ring. She always wore it, a Celtic knot with a purple topaz. She said it was her lucky ring.”
Destiny crouched down in the chair and covered her face with her hands.
“She hid it under the sole of her shoe. She must have done that when she knew she was in trouble.” Sheri Jean waved Xander away and turned to Kellen. “What did you say killed her?”
Kellen thought about those hands cut off at the wrists. “I don’t know. I’m not a coroner.”
“The question isn’t what killed her, but who.” Mara leaned down, wrapped the shoe in the towel and placed it on the table again. With the tweezers, she picked up the ring and placed it beside the shoe.
“Why do you think it’s murder?” Frances asked.
“Kellen said it was,” Mara answered. “She said it wasn’t a natural death, and I have to say I agree. Why would Priscilla hide her ring in her shoe if she wasn’t trying to send a message?”
“Definitely murder.” Kellen accepted a glass of water and sipped, a wonderful dampness in a mouth that had been dry for too long.
Destiny lifted her head out of her hands. “Was he
r other shoe out there?”
“I didn’t see it,” Kellen said. Because she hadn’t wanted to look. “But as gloomy and wet as it was, I didn’t spot this one, either.”
“I wonder if she hid any messages in the other shoe,” Destiny suggested.
Kellen had her phone pulled out before Destiny finished speaking. “I’m texting Lloyd Magnuson and Temo right now. If it’s out there, they’ll find it.”
“Good thought, Destiny,” Mara said.
“The killer can’t be one of us!” Ellen said. “It must be a stranger. A vagrant! There are always weird people floating through town.”
“It could be a guest.” Destiny took a glass, too. She tried to take a drink, but her teeth chattered on the edge. “Some of them are not nice people.”
Kellen’s phone chimed. She checked the message. “Temo’s got the other shoe. When Lloyd gets back with his car, it’ll go to the coroner with the other remains.”
“Shouldn’t we examine it?” Frances asked.
“It’s evidence in a murder investigation. I suspect we shouldn’t have messed with the first shoe.” Kellen saw the look on Frances’s face. “I know. I half want to look, too.”
“How did it happen?” Sheri Jean was working it out in her mind. “Priscilla came in, all smiles, volunteered to take the tour. I sent her off with the group. One lady said she got sick out there, that she was white and sweating. She dumped the group, went to her cottage and…”
“Someone was there and abducted her!” Ellen said.
“And packed up her bags and drove her car?” Sheri Jean scoffed.
“So she packed and got ready to leave, and he jumped her?” Ellen was on the trail now. “Forced her in the car, forced her to drive, took her somewhere and killed her?”
“Or she stopped in town on the way out and he grabbed her there,” Destiny whispered.
“Maybe it was your boyfriend, the one you left the door open for,” Frances taunted.
“It wasn’t!” Destiny straightened out of her hunch. “In September, he was in Seattle at community college. He didn’t come home until Christmas.”
“Flunked out,” Frances told Kellen.
Dead Girl Running (Cape Charade Book 1) Page 8