Share No Secrets

by Carlene Thompson

  “What kind of car is that?” she asked sharply.

  Drew looked surprised at her tone. “It’s a Camaro.”

  Adrienne scrutinized the dark blue, two-door car with its long hood, short hatch, and spoiler. It looked just like the car she’d seen cruising stealthily past her house several times last night.

  “Do you like it?” Drew asked. “It’s mine.”

  4

  Lucas Flynn wanted a cigarette. He’d given them up six weeks ago and had been making do with the nicotine patches, but today they weren’t working. He felt jittery and irritable as hell, and he decided he couldn’t stand the craving anymore. As soon as he finished reading the autopsy reports that had just come in, he’d break down, sneak outside, and have a Marlboro. Maybe two. Probably three.

  One of the tasks Lucas liked least about his job was wading through autopsy reports. Cold, scientific analyses of gaping wounds, blood loaded with toxins, and corpses nearly decapitated by strangulation with wires turned human beings into soulless pieces of meat, little more than hapless frogs dissected by bored high school biology students. But the reports were essential and Lucas knew the faster he read them, the quicker he could reenter the world of the living and of simple pleasures like smoking. And having a good lunch. He decided to treat himself to a midday meal at the Iron Gate Grill.

  He pulled a sheaf of papers toward him, put on the reading glasses that last month the optometrist had deemed necessary and that Lucas hated passionately, and began to read about Julianna Brent, age thirty-six. She had never borne a child and appeared to have been in excellent health, except for a blow to the skull caused by a blunt object and a deep puncture wound to the carotid artery on the left side of her neck.

  Lucas knew the blow to her head had come from the heavy ceramic lamp base whose pieces he’d found lying beside the hotel bed. Bruising on Julianna’s scalp had been scant both because the skin tightly stretched across bone bruised less easily than loose skin, and because death had occurred shortly after the blow. The puncture wound was not so easily analyzed. Something sharp had been thrust into the neck with tremendous force, but the edges of the wound bore no tearing, indicating the weapon had been round with a sharp point. No weapon capable of inflicting such a wound had been found at the crime scene, but judging by the depth of penetration, it must have been approximately three inches long. Possibly it could have been a bit shorter, the force behind the weapon driving it deeper into the soft tissue of the neck and leaving a longer cavity.

  The massive blood loss indicated that Julianna had still been alive when the carotid was punctured. The fact that she lacked defensive wounds suggested that she’d been knocked unconscious by the lamp base, then attacked with a sharp object and allowed to bleed to death.

  Lucas stopped reading and looked at the tan wall lined with file cabinets across from him. Only he didn’t see the cabinets. He saw Julianna lying on that bed, her beautiful face peaceful if almost supernaturally white, her hair spread over the deep and bloody wound in her neck, the butterfly clip sparkling with pink and blue Austrian crystals against her right temple. Someone had brutally murdered her and then posed her, even pulling the sheet and blanket over her naked body.

  According to forensic psychologists, covering the body after a murder indicated the killer felt conflicted, and while his desire for someone’s death drove him to personally slaughter the person, he then felt compelled to bestow a bit of dignity by covering his victim.

  But Julianna’s murderer had not felt conflicted. Lucas somehow felt sure of it. He just hoped no one else did. The fact that she’d been carefully covered to her neck with a satin sheet, and her hair had been combed, had not been released to the press. But Rachel Hamilton was a reporter. She was also related to the people who had found Julianna and could describe the loving state in which she’d been left. He trusted Adrienne to keep her mouth shut about those details. He was afraid a girl of Skye’s age would not be able to keep such knowledge from her cousin Rachel, whom she idolized.

  Lucas realized he’d been staring at his file cabinets, lost in thought, for nearly five minutes. Mentally groaning, he picked up the autopsy report on Claude Duncan.

  He stared at the typed page for a moment, not seeing the print, only the puffy, bleary-eyed face of Claude as he’d looked the morning he stood outside the room at la Belle Rivière, holding his ax in a ridiculous attempt to guard the room where Julianna lay dead. Ridiculous. That was a word most people would have applied to Claude. Ridiculous. Absurd. Dumb. Pitiful. A waste. And they would have been right, Lucas thought. In the great scheme of things, Claude Duncan hadn’t counted for much. But Claude was also the kind of person no one disliked enough to bother murdering. Unless he knew something. With Claude’s luck, he’d merely been in the right place at the wrong time.

  The first part of the report told Lucas little that he hadn’t already guessed from viewing the remains. Over fifty percent of Claude’s body had been covered by third-degree burns, which destroy the skin and leave underlying structures exposed. Second-degree burns took care of another thirty percent. The high temperature of the fire had caused the tissues to rupture, resulting in the splitting of skin all over Claude’s body.

  His skull had been fractured, but the medical examiner did not believe Claude had received a blow to the head, which would have caused the bone fragments to be localized and shoved into the skull. Instead, intracranial pressure had produced brain lesions, and the bone fragments from the skull were displaced outward. Both injuries were common phenomena resulting from intense heat and did not necessarily point to Claude being killed before the fire was set. It looked more as if the fire, not a physical assault to the head, had caused Claude’s death. Supporting this conclusion was the fact that he had a carbon monoxide level in his blood of around five percent and carbon particles had been found in his air passages, indicating that Claude had still been breathing while the fire raged.

  The puzzling thing was that in most deaths by fire, the carbon monoxide blood concentration exceeded ten percent, and more carbon particles were located in the air passages than had been found in Claude’s. Therefore, it appeared that while he had been alive during the fire, he had not been breathing normally.

  Lucas frowned in thought. He was certain Claude had been drunk at the time of the fire, but drunkenness doesn’t usually cut down on air intake. So, Claude’s condition had to have another explanation.

  Results of the toxicology tests provided it. Aside from a high alcohol content, Claude’s blood had contained a large amount of oxymorphone hydrochloride, a semisynthetic opioid substitute for morphine.

  Lucas already knew the principal effects of opioids, such as respiratory depression. They also repressed the cough reflex, which would explain why Claude had a much lower carbon monoxide blood concentration and fewer carbon particles in the air passages than would be expected. He wasn’t breathing normally and he’d had little capacity to cough up the small amount of carbon he had been able to inhale.

  Lucas also knew opioids resulted in sedation.

  “Sedation,” he said aloud. “Must be very convenient to have your victim sedated, unable to run or even crawl, but still breathing if you want his murder to look like an accidental burn fatality.”

  “Something you need, Sheriff?”

  Lucas looked up at Naomi, his perky new secretary and a part-time dispatcher, who had the bad habit of constantly interrupting his thoughts. “Nothing, thanks.”

  “Well, it’s just that you were talking. I thought maybe you were talking to me. Wanting something. Coffee, maybe.”

  “No, thanks.”

  ‘Okay.” Naomi had inched into the room as she chattered and now nearly stood on tiptoe trying to peer over the top of the papers in his hand. “Is that an autopsy report?”

  “Yes,” Lucas said in irritation.

  “Anything interesting in it?” she asked, blue eyes snapping with curiosity.

  “A couple of very interesting things,” he r
eturned sharply. He’d had enough of cigarette abstinence and also of her badly concealed curiosity. He rose from his chair.

  “Interesting things about Julianna Brent?” Naomi continued, undaunted.

  “About her and Claude Duncan.”

  “Oh, him,” she said with indifference. “Nothing juicy about her, the model?”

  Lucas gave her a withering look, deciding that she didn’t just annoy him. He definitely disliked her. “Sorry, nothing juicy enough to satisfy you, I’m sure.” Naomi looked bland, totally missing the insult. “If I’m needed, I’ll be outside for the next ten minutes or so.” He saw her eyes on the autopsy reports and picked them up. “I think I’ll take these with me and look at them in the light of day.”

  ‘Oh, okay. But I could file them for you.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Well, if you’re sure.”

  “I am.” And I’m also sure this will definitely be a three-cigarette break, Lucas thought as he strode past the unnerving innocent-faced girl with the rapacious eyes. Just as sure as I am that you will never get a chance to even glance at these reports if I have to lock them in a safe.

  Naomi wore a sharp-edged cologne that made Lucas’s nose tingle, and she’d frozen her silver-frosted mouse-brown hair into immobility with some kind of hair spray that seemed to contain Super Glue. She did not step aside and he had to press himself against the doorframe in order not to rub against her body as he passed by. “You enjoy your smokes, Sheriff. You work so hard, you really deserve a break, even if smoking isn’t a healthy habit.” She smiled insinuatingly and nearly cooed, “Maybe someday I’ll get the chance to make you stop. Smoking, that is.”

  By sheer force of will, Lucas did not shudder. He did decide, however, that Naomi would not be working here this time next week.

  5

  “Henri Toulouse-Lautrec is probably most famous for two things,” Adrienne said to her art appreciation class. “First, for being a dwarf, or to use the more politically correct term, a little person. Second, for leading what many consider a dissolute or wild life in the nightclubs and brothels of Paris.”

  “He sounds like my kind of guy,” a grinning, blunt-featured boy in the back row said loudly. “The part about the nightclubs and whorehouses, not the dwarf part.”

  A prim-faced young man near the front muttered, “She said brothels, not whorehouses. Also, Toulouse-Lautrec was a great artist. That’s what you should remember him for, cretin.”

  “What was that, dork weed?” the brash one challenged loudly.

  “He just pointed out that Toulouse-Lautrec was a great artist,” Adrienne said quickly. The two guys had been at war since the class had begun and, in her mind, acted like they belonged in the seventh grade, not college. “Toulouse-Lautrec was greatly influenced by Degas and Gauguin, but he developed his own style—that of a graphic artist. This is what makes his paintings so suited to lithography, or posters. Let’s look at a few.”

  “Fantastic. Can’t wait, can you, dork weed?” came loudly from the back of the room.

  Dork weed sighed in martyrdom. Adrienne gritted her teeth, dimmed the lights, and placed a slide of At the Moulin Rouge into the projector. “This really isn’t a scene of gaiety as it appears at first glance. The characters in the painting don’t look truly happy. Another interesting aspect of this piece is the figure of the short, bearded man standing next to the tall man at the back of the room. The short man is Toulouse-Lautrec. He put himself into his own painting!”

  Adrienne looked around. What had she expected? Gasps of awe? Yelps of delight? The class was silent. Doric weed stared at the slide in grim concentration while cretin yawned hugely. Ignoring the lack of verbal reaction as she plowed on with what she’d thought was a fascinating slide show, Adrienne glanced at her daughter.

  Adrienne slumped at the back of the room. The girl had been of two minds about coming. Attending a college class had made her feel grown-up and sophisticated. But she’d been embarrassed about being dragged to a class taught by her mother. During the first half hour, she’d looked alert and even took notes. Now, in the second hour, she had abandoned her notebook as well as her scrutiny of the other students and looked positively glassy-eyed with ennui. After all, no notes were being passed, no one was chewing the gum forbidden in secondary school, and there were no cute boys under the age of eighteen who might be interested in a fourteen-year-old girl.

  To top off her misery, Skye’s favorite television show was on right now. Adrienne had set the VCR to time-tape the program, although Skye had complained that taped shows lost their “immediacy,” a term she’d picked up from Rachel. But in light of the break-in along with every other horrible thing that had happened in the last couple of days, Adrienne wasn’t going to let her daughter stay by herself this evening, even though the class ended at nine o’clock, before Skye’s bedtime. In fact, she wondered if she’d ever feel safe leaving her precious Skye unattended ever again.

  • • •

  “That was really a good class, Mom,” Skye said as they walked through the lighted parking lot to their car.

  “Thanks, honey.” Although a few times you looked like you were going to lapse into unconsciousness from boredom, Adrienne thought. “You know, those two guys calling each other names aren’t typical college students.”

  “I figured. They seemed like guys in my school. I didn’t pay any attention to them. Just you.”

  “Maybe you’d like experimenting with painting soon.”

  “Uh … I think I take after Daddy more than you. I want to be a writer.”

  “Your dad wasn’t a writer.”

  “When he was in Las Vegas, he wrote his comedy routines. He told me.”

  Adrienne didn’t want to think about those mildly amusing routines Trey had created and thought were hilarious. “I thought you were more interested in writing murder mysteries.”

  “Oh, I am,” Skye assured her. “I hope your feelings aren’t hurt because I don’t want to be an artist. I just don’t think I have any talent for painting.”

  Adrienne put her arm around Skye’s shoulders. “My feelings aren’t hurt. My father wanted me to be a doctor, but I didn’t want to be a doctor. So, I followed my own desires. That’s always the best way to go.”

  “It wasn’t for Daddy. Being a hit in Las Vegas was his big dream, but it turned out to be a disaster for him. I think it broke his heart.” Adrienne was surprised by her daughter’s mature observation. For a moment, she didn’t know what to say. Then she began slowly. “Your dad didn’t have the talent for a musical comedy act, but he had great charisma. After we came back to Point Pleasant, he was a fabulous salesman at your grandfather’s furniture store.”

  “I’m glad. But I’m still sorry Daddy didn’t get to do what he really wanted to.” Skye paused. “And I’m sorry I don’t remember him as well as I used to.”

  Adrienne wondered what was the correct response to that remark. She couldn’t very well say that Trey wasn’t as real to his own wife as he used to be, either. Or that she sometimes wondered if she’d loved him as much as she’d told herself she did because she thought marriage to a good-looking, charming young man would make her forget a silly teenaged infatuation with Drew Delaney, an infatuation she couldn’t let flare to life again, especially after seeing his car today had raised questions about his actions toward her.

  “I didn’t mean to make you sad about Daddy,” Skye said.

  “You didn’t.” Adrienne gave Skye a squeeze. “Daddy died four years ago. It’s natural for our memory of him to dim a little bit so we don’t get sad all the time. But you loved your daddy very much, and he knew it. That’s what’s important.” Skye gave her a small, relieved smile.

  “Here’s the car at last,” Adrienne said. “Next time we’ll come earlier. I don’t like having to park at the back of the lot even if it’s well lighted.”

  The college was only about ten minutes away from their home and Adrienne was glad. She felt unusually tired after what
had been a fairly easy class to teach. But when they neared the house, she was surprised to see a small, red car sitting beneath the new dusk-to-dawn light the electric company had installed near the street that afternoon.

  “That’s Rachel’s car!” Skye said excitedly.

  They found the young woman sitting on the front porch steps, her chin propped on a cupped hand. “I didn’t think you two would ever get home.”

  ‘Is something wrong?” Adrienne asked anxiously. “Are Vicky and Philip all right?”

  “Sure. Off on another campaign trip. I talked to them on the phone about three hours ago. Dad was practicing his speech. Honestly, I think he’s forgotten how to talk normally. He just booms out sentences along with all these sweeping gestures. It’s weird.” Skye giggled. “Anyway, I felt kind of lonely in that big house by myself and I thought I’d come by to visit two of my favorite people. I forgot that you had a class tonight, Aunt Adrienne.”

  Adrienne caught the forlorn note in Rachel’s usually animated voice. “We’re delighted to see you, Rachel, but you shouldn’t be sitting out here by yourself after our break-in.”

  “We had one, too. Besides, you’ve got this place lit up like a parking lot.”

  “Yes, it’s a bit bright, but better safe than sorry.” Adrienne looked at the picture window to see Brandon peering out, his tongue lolling. He adored Rachel. “Let’s go in and get comfortable. I don’t know what possessed me to wear high heels tonight.”

  “I’m so glad you’re here!” Skye took Rachel’s hand as Adrienne opened the front door and began punching numbers on the alarm system she decided she’d never get used to. “So many exciting things have happened the last few days and we didn’t get a chance to talk about them! But I thought you’d be with Bruce tonight.”

  “He wanted to go to a movie, but I wasn’t in the mood. Bruce is okay, but I don’t want to spend as much time with him as he wants to spend with me.” Rachel grinned and tapped Skye’s nose. “You are much more fun than Bruce Allard.” She stooped and hugged an elated Brandon. “And you’re much more handsome!”