The New Austin chief of police and Horton County coroner took hold of the woman’s body, then rolled her over.
The tall grass was matted and bloody where she’d been dumped. Except for the blood, the grass was dry.
Coroner Parks said, “She was dumped here post-dew fall and dew burn-off. Hell, I doubt she’s been dead less than two hours. And I seriously doubt that she was out here more than an hour before she was found.”
Shawn’s gaze was drawn to the small of the dead woman’s back. Spread across her lower back, just above her tailbone, was a tattoo—a too-familiar red and blue butterfly. It was the third time in twenty-four hours that Shawn had seen the tattoo. The first time had been the night before, when he’d been taking the murdered woman from behind. The second time was at sunrise, when he’d raised the sheet to get a better look at what he’d fucked the night before.
Shawn staggered backward and fell on his ass, vomiting uncontrollably.
The journalist heard Tell Lyon say, “Oh, Jesus Christ, Shawn!”
Shawn heard Able Hawk say, “For Christ’s sake, Shawn! Scoot the hell back from the crime scene if you’re going to keep puking, goddamn you.”
A raspy, grating snort from behind Shawn: “Holy fuck, this is how you two do business around these parts? You assholes invite weak-stomached reporters to come and puke all over and fuck up my crime scene?”
* * *
Able turned. Short, fat Vale County sheriff Walt Pierce waddled toward them, his hands shoved down into his pockets. Able extended a hand to shake; saw his hand was trembling. Walt, hands still in pockets, came on strong. “Take your pussy reporter friend, boys, and get out of here. I’m taking custody of the scene. My jurisdiction, boys, so she’s my meat.”
Able stood up, shaken and red-faced and put his hands on his hips. “Chief Lyon and me have this well in hand, Walt. ’Tween us, she’d have to be two hundred, maybe two hundred and fifty yards yonder to fall in your shithole county. She’s ours. And may be a friend of mine. Don’t fuck with me on this, W. Don’t show me your balls on this one.”
“Bullshit.” Sheriff Pierce looked at the dead woman and said, “Your coroner can stay, of course. At least ’til I can scare up my own.”
“This one is ours,” Able said again. “Victim, near as I can tell from what’s left of her face, is likely Thalia Ruiz. She’s one of my legals. And my friend. Like I pointed out to you the other day, Walt. You remember, that waitress serving us at Big G’s you were all eyes for. She’s also a New Austin citizen. So Tell and me have this one, Walt. This one is ours.”
“I dispute that,” Pierce said, hands still in his pockets. Shawn was on his hands and knees, dry-heaving. Walt said, “This is clearly in my county. I know my own boundaries.”
“You’re just plumb wrong,” Able said. “Now get your ass out of here if you don’t want to cooperate.”
Walt said, “Gonna file me some papers on you assholes. Get me a judge to set a fire under your asses.”
Able Hawk showed Pierce his broad, gray back. “Yeah, yeah, fine,” Able said. “You do all that, cocksucker. Chief Lyon and me will counter file. Now get your fat ass off our crime scene before you foul it further.”
Walt spat again, missing Shawn’s vomit by inches. He said, turning, “This ain’t anywhere near over, Hawk.”
Tell watched the fat little sheriff trudge off through the high grass. He said, “Thanks, Able. Thanks so much for having my back.”
Able said, “Screw that. I just eliminated half my competition for this collar.” He frowned, stooping down again next to New Austin’s chief of police. “Damn truth be told, this might well be Vale County acreage, Tell. It’s a question of feet if not inches. If we’re gonna make this one ours, we best be damned quick about it. And Thalia? I liked her like one of my own. If this is her, well, I want to go to the wall on this one. Lethal injection for the cocksucker that did this to her. I won’t stop short of an execution for this son of a bitch. ”
Tell looked at the woman’s body. “I couldn’t blame you.”
Able gripped Tell’s shoulder. “You pro-death penalty, Chief?”
“I’m not anti-death penalty,” Tell said. “Put it that way.”
“Subtle distinction,” Able said. “Why do I have dark visions of that hair-splitting maybe biting me in the ass later?” Then Able said, “No, don’t turn her back over quite yet, fellas.” He fished out his cell phone. “Going to see if I can get her mother’s number. Maybe get an ID via that tattoo. ’Cause I’m a sad son of a bitch if I don’t think that’s Thalia Ruiz there.” He paused and said to Tell, “If I’m right about this being Thalia, she’s leaving behind a little girl.” Able searched Tell’s face. He said, “That’s another reason I want someone to die for this.”
Behind them, Shawn gagged again.
* * *
Sofia Gómez frowned at the red and blue lights swirling across the walls of her living room. The knock at the door was like a punch to the stomach. She shooed her granddaughter into the next room to watch Nickelodeon, then flipped on the front porch light.
Moths beat at the light outside.
The man on the other side of the door was husky and older, and dressed all in gray. The lawman was holding a cell phone. Behind him stood more uniformed officers. The stricken look on the man’s face set Sofia’s heart beating faster.
He said through the screen door between them, “My name is Able Hawk. We need to speak, señora.”
TWELVE
Tell pulled into his apartment complex’s parking lot at half past eight. The lot was nearly deserted. The chief of police wondered whether there could be such a thing as a hopping Friday night in New Austin.
He hauled himself out of his SUV and stretched. His back cracked. He’d spent hours with his men talking to young ball players and their parents and coaches. Fruitless legwork: nobody had seen anything.
Tell’s apartment complex backed up to a wooded creek. He wasn’t quite ready to lock himself away in some tight and lonely little apartment that didn’t feel anything like home. He strode down the sloping hill to the creek side. He stood there for a while, watching the fading sunlight on the ripples over a bed of white rocks.
A voice behind and above him said, “Rough day, huh?”
Patricia was sitting on a small, bleached deck—its floor about three feet above Tell’s head. He said, “Long day, anyway.”
“Saw it on the six o’clock news,” she said. “Sounds nasty bad.”
“Terrible,” Tell said. “Would’ve expected you’d be at work, it being Friday night rush and all.”
“It’s a loose thing, my schedule,” she said. “Advantage of a family-owned business, I guess.” Patricia stood up and leaned over the railing, her arms crossed on the rough-cut wood. “Confession, Tell. I recklessly made a pitcher of margaritas a few minutes ago. Not a smart thing when a woman’s alone and in a dark study. And here at home, I don’t pour ’em like I own ’em. Or maybe I do. What I mean is, the suckers are muy potent. Save me from getting smashed alone, Chief?”
Tell rested his hands on his hips. His gun’s butt was hard under his right hand. Again, it felt like a mistake. But the coolness of the night and the sound of the creek water … the prospect of good drinks with a pretty, sensual young woman? How to say no to that after a day passed coping with a raped, beaten and murdered single mother? After jousting with the likes of Able Hawk and Patricia’s (ex-?) boyfriend Shawn O’Hara? Tomorrow he planned to be back in the office early, despite the weekend, combing through files and checking arrest records for similar crimes or beatings that might portend what had happened to Thalia Ruiz.
Tell said, “A drink sounds real good. Just give me a few minutes to wash up and change. Anything I can bring?”
“Just yourself, Chief.”
Tell keyed himself in, locked his service weapon in his gun safe, hung up his uniform and took a quick shower. He dressed in jeans, a worn, loose-fitting black Polo shirt and battered boots. He brushed
his teeth and grabbed a fresh bag of tortilla chips and a jar of Newman’s Own pineapple-flavored salsa.
Patricia met him at the door. Her black hair was loose and wavy. No makeup. She wore faded jeans and she was barefoot, her toenails unpainted. The T-shirt she’d been wearing a few minutes before had been discarded in favor of a white peasant blouse that bared her brown shoulders. Tell felt stricken.
He hoisted the bag of chips and jar of salsa. “Provisions.”
Patricia smiled and said, “Perfect. We’ll burn it off in the morning with our run.” She smiled and dipped her head. “We are still on for that run, aren’t we?”
He’d forgotten his promise. “Sure,” Tell said. “I mean, barring still more pressing developments at work. As it is, I’ll definitely be putting in some weekend hours because of today.”
Patricia pulled a big plastic bowl and a small, matching soup-size bowl from her cupboards. She emptied all of the chips and salsa into the bowls. “Now we’re committed to finishing,” she said. Patricia looked him up and down and smiled. “Gotta say, I like this look best of all. Hate to inform you—those black uniforms you and your people wear, well, they’re a little menacing.”
“I didn’t pick ’em,” Tell said. But he agreed with Patricia; they were particularly unsettling against the surrounding sheriff’s departments’ muted grays and tans. Tell said, “Uniforms are a little jackboot here in New Austin. But they’re more to my liking than the Border Patrol uniforms. Those are a kind of off-hunter green. You look more like a park ranger than a cop.”
She said, “Sorry, I wasn’t necessarily expecting company. Afraid I’m kind of—”
“Natural,” he finished for her. “I love natural. Prefer it, really, to painted-up.”
Patricia opened the door to her deck and he followed her out. A small table was positioned between two padded lounge chairs. A sweating pitcher of margaritas and an ice bucket sat on the table. Two glasses with salted rims were waiting.
She poured their drinks and offered her glass for Tell to tap.
He raised his glass, poised to click it against hers. “What are we toasting, Patricia?”
“How about to quieter and sweeter days in New Austin?”
“Definitely to that.”
Patricia surprised herself, saying it so early, “Just to get it out of the way forever, Tell. Shawn knows that he and I are over.”
Tell nodded, sipping his drink. Okay. That was just putting it out there. Tell took a deep breath, said, “How’d he take that?”
“You truly care?”
“Like you said, Patricia, it’s just a run in the morning. This is just a drink or two tonight. Right?” He searched her dark eyes.
Patricia turned around in her chair and leaned forward, arms resting on her knees, forearms crossed. She wore no rings and her nails were cut short. “No games, not this time,” she said. “Here’s where maybe I scare you away, like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I’m tired to death of the dance. I’m not looking for boyfriends anymore. I just want a good and decent man to be with. Whatever happens beyond that, happens.” She arched a dark eyebrow. “Too direct?”
Tell smiled.
Actually, Patricia reminded him a bit of his cousin’s wife, Salome: sultry, blunt and good-humored. Salome had sparked something in Tell. He sensed that his cousin Chris had caught it and had given Tell and Salome some room so Tell could harmlessly indulge it. His last day in Cedartown, Tell had taken Salome and his cousin’s youngest daughter, Vesper, to the zoo. Chris had begged off, citing looming deadlines on owed revisions for his next novel.
It was vintage Chris, the calculating, self-righteous bastard: not thinking that time with sexy, dark Salome and little Vesper would remind Tell of what he’d lost, but instead remind him of what he could have again … and maybe spark some other, primal impulses in Tell.
And damned if Chris hadn’t been right.
Tell said, “Direct is good, Patricia. Thing is, you’re what, twenty-four? Maybe twenty-five? Here’s where I maybe scare you away. I’m hard up against forty.”
“They say forty is the new thirty,” she said, smiling. “Read that in Vogue or Cosmo or somewhere while standing in the grocery.” She took his hand. He liked the way that felt. She said, “You’re a young near-forty. And you know what? I’m a world-weary twenty-five. I’ll have my degree in a month and I don’t find I have much ambition to use it beyond the family business. I’m ready for a lot of nights like this one, Tell.”
“Fourteen years between us,” he said.
“Irrelevant,” Patricia said, shrugging. “But it’s not been a year since … Well, I confess I’ve been reading a few items about you on the Net.”
“Makes sense,” Tell said.
“So I know about your family.”
“Sure,” Tell said. “After Able’s remark the other night, I’d have researched me too.”
“So it’s too soon for me to be talking with you like this?”
Again, not subtle. “It’s fine,” he said. “But we should take our time for other reasons.”
“So you don’t rule out the prospect of us maybe spending time together?”
Tell smiled and squeezed her hand harder. “Think I’d like that very much, Patricia.”
She smiled back and said, “I like that—that you call me by my proper name. It always seems to get shortened to ‘Tricia,’ or ‘Tish,’ or worst of all, ‘Patty.’ Ugh.”
Tell stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. “You’re very much a Patricia.”
A mourning dove cooed from inside the drape of a weeping willow. The tree’s drooping branches brushed the banister of Patricia’s small deck.
“I love the sound of mourning doves,” Tell said, retreating a bit. “Used to sit out under the trees at my grandparents’ home with Granddad after he retired. Those birds always nested in their trees. I hear one now, I always think of Paw-Paw.”
“It’s a family of birds that’s nested here for the four years I’ve rented this place,” Patricia said. “I think they sound sad. But they mate for life.” She hesitated. “You’re right about the neighborhood and how it’s becoming dangerous. I’ll hate leaving this place, but I’ll need to do it soon if things continue to deteriorate around here like they are now.”
“They’re apt to do just that,” Tell said. “Hell of a note for your chief of police to sound, huh? But it’s the stark truth. Force as small as mine, and a tide of undocumented migrants as this town’s getting? My force can’t make a dent in a neighborhood like this one you and I are living up against.”
“I’m kind of surprised you settled for an apartment, Tell,” she said.
“Haven’t really had time yet to scout around for houses to my liking,” he said.
“Neighborhood, you’re thinking? Community?”
“Acreage, I’m thinking,” Tell said, smiling and sipping his drink. “Solitude.”
She tipped her head to one side. “How much solitude?”
“Just me and mine.”
Patricia smiled. “Sounds wonderful.” She shivered.
“We can go in if you’re cold,” he said.
“No, I’ll just slip in and grab a throw.”
Patricia came back with a Navaho-pattern blanket. She freshened both their drinks. “You cold too, Tell?”
“I’m just fine.” It was the first time in memory he could say that with conviction.
“You’re supposed to say that you’re cold, Tell.”
He searched her dark eyes again. “It is a little brisk, Patricia.”
She smiled and pulled her chair alongside his and closed the blanket over them. The sun was nearly down and the first fireflies flitted in the branches of the softly moving willow.
“I’m going to be direct one more time,” Patricia said.
Tell’s right arm was wrapped around her shoulders. “Sure, do that,” he said. He said it with stomach flutters. This was all a little fast for his taste. And so soon after … ?
Patricia said, “A man loses as much as you did, he might not want to put himself at risk for that kind of hurt again.” She hesitated, said, “Could you imagine yourself maybe wanting family again someday?”
He hugged her closer. “Family is very important to you, isn’t it, Patricia?”
“Very much. I want my own family to be just as strong and safe-feeling as what I grew up with.”
That was a kind of gut shot. But at the same time, Tell had tried to keep his family safe, and he’d sworn to himself he’d never repeat any of the mistakes that had cost him his first wife and child. Tell took his left hand from under the blanket and stroked Patricia’s hair behind her ear. “Me too,” he said, leaning in to a kiss.
* * *
Across town, Shawn lay in his bed, bathed in sweat, his mind racing. The murdered woman’s roommate, Carmelita, knew Shawn’s first name.
They’d left Shawn’s ill-fated lover’s own car back at the club. It was just a matter of time until cops positively identified her and started asking questions that would lead to Shawn.
If he ran tonight, he could be in Windsor within four or five hours, be safely across the Canadian border before dawn.
Did Canada have extradition agreements with the States?
Mexico didn’t, Shawn was pretty sure of that. But it would take days of nonstop driving to reach and cross that border.
Shawn hadn’t worn a condom, drunk as he was; drunk as the woman had been. What the fuck was her name? Thalia? Could the cops compel Shawn to give them a DNA sample to compare against whatever they found inside Thalia’s dead body? Might they go back and draw some sample from his stale vomit back at the crime scene once they’d identified him as a suspect?
Shawn got out of bed and flipped on his computer, intent on searching for information on extradition laws, DNA tests.
Cursing, Shawn shut down his computer before logging on, realizing how such searches could be made to look later in court, if it came to that.
Frantic, pacing naked now, he punched the numbers for Patricia’s home phone. Patricia had called him on his phone earlier Friday morning—just a few minutes after he’d arrived back to shower and change following his night with the murdered woman. She had said she was no longer interested in seeing him; Shawn hadn’t put up much of a fight then. But he didn’t need Patricia then like he felt he did now. Now Shawn figured maybe he could smooth things over from their last conversation. Maybe Patricia could at least be persuaded to say they’d been together for a few crucial hours.
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