As she moved through the dark house, Martha said a silent prayer that Joseph would find a good job in spite of his arrest. One that provided adequate financial compensation, but more importantly, fed his self-esteem. He was playing basketball this evening with a club for teenagers, a program designed to let former convicts give back and hopefully keep youngsters from following in their footsteps. Moses was also a frequent player and said the kids loved trying to figure out which of the Mojos – their lifelong nickname – was the cop and which the robber.
Martha reached the kitchen and leaned her cheek against the cool door, resting and listening to the sounds of water rushing through the pipes to the shower. A smile of gratitude crossed her lips for her children, the convict and the cop. And as happened so often lately, images of both her dead husbands appeared in her mind, deepening her smile. Charles Franklin was the one true love of her life, and she had lost him too early, when the boys were only toddlers. Homer Radcliffe was a solid, reliable man, marrying her shortly after she arrived in Arcadia with her small twins in tow and only a job as a cook in the local school to support the three of them. He’d taken care of her and loved the boys as if they were his own for twenty-three years, until the good Lord took him home too suddenly. A brain aneurysm, the doctors told her. Dead before he hit the floor in his engine repair shop. Although she intended no disrespect to Homer, she took Charles’ name back after her second husband died, wanting to live out her days as wife to the man she had loved so dearly. Becoming a Franklin again had brought her a measure of peace. And in spite of the various tragedies in their lives, she knew that God indeed walked with her family.
Martha pushed through the swinging door and turned on the soft lights under the cabinets. Water spat from the faucet as she filled the kettle. She lit the burner and placed the kettle on it, then reached out a finger and touched the backsplash behind the stove. The hand-painted tiles created a stylized banty rooster and she’d adored him the moment she saw him on display at the DIY center. Homer protested mildly when she asked him to chip out the plain white tiles and replace them with her new friend, but whistled while he worked. She sighed at the memory and glanced at her reflection in the bay window overlooking the dark backyard. In her early sixties, Martha Franklin was still a handsome woman. Her ebony skin was smooth and supple, her athletic body trim and lithe. She smiled briefly at her shapely skull. Her comment to Moses had been true: with each bearing bald heads, she and her sons could be triplets.
The kettle uttered its first low notes and Martha opened a cupboard, reaching for tea bags. Her mind turned again to Joseph and his basketball game tonight. As she grasped a box of chamomile tea and closed the cabinet door, Martha’s last thoughts were a peaceful prayer that Joseph could make a difference in those boys’ lives, and they in his. She never registered the piercing of glass and the slight retort of a rifle firing the bullet that entered her brain and ended her life.
____________
THE SHOOTER LEANED BACK from his firing position and prepared to climb down the tree. The time spent sighting in the rifle and selecting ammunition had been worthwhile. His breath caught when he spotted movement in the dimly lit kitchen and he jerked forward again, brushing against the brass catcher as he stretched to look through the rifle’s scope. A mirror image of the man he had just killed was leaning over the body. He’d never seen the twins together before. The cop was the one he wanted, and this was the officer’s night off. Apparently the brother was home as well.
He smiled. Two for the price of one.
He pulled back the bolt to eject the spent casing into the catcher but it hit the tip of the catcher and disappeared into the gloom beneath the tree. Ignoring the hit of anxiety that flushed his system, the shooter used his chin to adjust the catcher, then slipped the bolt forward to push home a new round. He moved to his firing position and raised the rifle in one fluid motion, targeting the distraught man who lurched for the kitchen phone. Adjusting the rifle’s angle, he drew a slow breath, released it, and squeezed the trigger. He watched as the second bullet pierced the window pane and ripped through the twin’s chest, erupting in a spray of blood, bone, and tissue that blew through the steam rising from the kettle. Motionless, he waited for more movement. The bodies were perfectly still, and he’d even managed to destroy the tile rooster’s head. A nice touch considering how much he hated the homeliness of the thing. Satisfied, he stripped the glove from his hand and tucked it and the brass casing into a pocket, then climbed quickly down the ladder. For a moment, he searched for the lost casing before giving up and trotting for the edge of the clearing, the slight mistake already forgotten. In his mind, he could hear the kettle screaming in the house of the dead.
CHAPTER 7
“THIS THING IS TOAST, man,” Mark Grove whispered, slapping the flashlight against his palm. The moon was out in a cloudless sky, but its light left only faint patterns as it fell through the forest’s thick canopy. Mark squinted into the blanket of night that rested between the trees and he squatted on the narrow trail.
“Why are we whispering?” Matt Grove asked in a low voice as he switched off his flashlight.
“There’s freaks out here, man. Druggies. Escaped convicts. Killers.”
“You watch too much TV.” Matt watched as his brother knocked the flashlight again. “It’s dead because you keep banging it around, idiot. Why didn’t you bring extra batteries?”
“Why didn’t you bring batteries? You lost the damn phone.”
“That’s a dollar for the cuss bucket. Besides, this is your fault,” said Matt, aiming the bright beam of his flashlight off the narrow path that wove through Deadwood Hollow.
“My fault?” Mark asked, mouth gaping as he watched the narrow beam of his twin’s flashlight dissipate in the deep brush crowding the trail that the high school used for cross-country training. The boys wore their dark blue track suits, and with the exception of their pale faces and hands, were nearly invisible in the gloom. “How can it be my fault that we’re out here after dark looking for the cell phone that you lost?”
“You brought your phone. If you’d left it in the locker like coach told us to, Katy couldn’t have found me.”
“Wait a minute. She texted me looking for you, so I gave you my phone. What a nice thing for a brother to do.” Mark stood and followed Matt into the brush, tentatively feeling for brambles. “Instead of waiting until after training you text her right back. That’s stupid, texting while you’re running. Why not call?”
“I needed to keep my time up. You gunned it after you gave me the phone. Unfair.” Matt paused, handing the working flashlight to Mark while he pushed aside a mass of thick, twining wisteria vines. “Point it here. Come on man, how could I ignore her? Katy’s got bodacious hooters. Have you noticed?”
“Have I noticed? It’s amazing she can run cross-country without getting two black eyes.” The beam of Matt’s flashlight grew dim and Mark shook it. The light brightened. “Why would she text you on my phone?”
“Duh. Because her mother knows my number and checks Katy’s phone to make sure she isn’t calling or texting me. I told her to send texts to you.”
“Why does Katy’s mom care if she talks to you?”
Matt shrugged. “I guess she thinks I’m a bad influence and doesn’t want Katy to go out with me.”
“Why would Katy want to go out with you?”
“I’m better looking than you are.”
“We’re twins, ass-wipe. What did her text say?”
“You’re calling me toilet paper? That’s the best you can do? And that’s a dollar for the cuss bucket.”
Mark exhaled deeply. “Her text?”
“She wanted me to meet her at that fork in the trail, before we cross under the highway.”
“What for?”
“Sex.”
Mark coughed back a laugh. “Katy probably wanted to copy your biology homework. You’re the only one passing.”
Matt huffed farther off the trail, crash
ing between two slender pine trees. “She’s already copied my biology homework, idiot, so it has to be sex,” he hissed.
“Must be your math homework. Speaking of idiots, why didn’t you bring your phone tonight?”
“My phone?”
“If you’d brought it, all we’d have to do is call mine and listen for the ring,” Mark whispered, shaking the flashlight as he re-crossed the trail, his tall, lanky form bent double as he searched. A quiet hiss escaped him. “Shit. Another honey locust. I hate those things.”
“That’s another –” Matt stopped short as a retort split the night. Both boys ducked into a crouch.
“What was that?” Mark asked across the trail.
“A gun? It’s May. What’s in season?”
“Sixteen-year-old dudes, I guess. How should I know? We don’t hunt.”
A second shot snapped through the trees, and the boys flattened themselves against the forest floor.
“Damn. That one was closer,” Mark whispered.
“That’s two dollars for the cuss bucket,” Matt whispered back, lifting his head to peer over the path as the sound of hurried footsteps drew near, then turning his face quickly toward the ground. “Shit.”
A figure sped past on the trail. Wisps of moonlight slithering through the canopy glowed blueblack as they caressed the stock of a rifle cradled across the runner’s chest. Air whispered as cloth brushed between thighs and then fell silent as he passed. The boys lifted their heads, watching until the figure was enveloped by the night. Slowly, they stood.
“What was that about?” Matt asked, his voice low as he looked left and right down the trail.
“I don’t know, but your ‘shit’ took everything I said tonight out of the cuss bucket.”
“That does not eliminate all your curse words. I’ll put a dollar in, or you can back one out.”
“Whatever. I’m gettin’ out of here. That dude was freaky. You can tell Mom about the phone or we can bring yours out here after school tomorrow and try calling my phone.” The faint screech of metal impacting on metal sawed through the night air and Mark lifted his hands to his head. “Oh no,” he whispered, bolting down the path. “Don’t let that be the car. Not again.”
CHAPTER 8
KADO SLICED THROUGH THE rope, careful to preserve the knot that secured it to the sycamore’s branch. He was stretched along its length and slowly unwound the rope from the limb and placed it in an evidence bag, then stuck his foot out to try and find the ladder resting against the tree. Down below, Porky and Grey were moving the burnt corpse onto a plastic sheet with Martinez’ help.
“Uh oh,” Porky said.
Kado looked down. “What?”
“Definitely murder,” Martinez said, studying the corpse.
“Why?”
Porky Rivers reached out and traced a figure above the dead man’s chest. “Swastika.”
“Tattoo?” Kado asked, wiggling along the branch to better reach the ladder.
“Carved,” Grey answered. “Want a photo?”
“Yes.” Kado nudged the ladder with his foot and felt it scoot against the tree. “Carlos?”
The burly detective looked up.
“Would you hold the ladder so I can get down?”
Martinez ran his tongue along his teeth and sauntered over to the base of the tree. Kado quickly climbed down. “Thanks.”
He received a grunted reply.
Kado tucked the evidence bag in his kit and took several photographs of the jagged cuts. “Is this some sort of race thing? A swastika would be used by a white supremacist on a non-white, right?”
“Or maybe on a white dude who was spending too much time with the blacks or browns,” Porky said.
Grey and Porky wrapped the corpse in the plastic sheet, slid it into a body bag, and all four men helped lift the form onto a stretcher.
“This is more than a one man job,” Martinez said. “It took at least two people to get this body up in the air.”
“I think you’re right,” Kado said.
“Well there’s a first time for everything,” Martinez muttered.
“I’ll call you when the autopsy’s done,” Grey said. “Or stop by the morgue when you get finished out here.” He nodded at Porky and the two men maneuvered the stretcher through the gate that led to the sparse patch of dirt behind the shop, where Kado’s flags marked tire treads and shoe prints.
Kado turned to Martinez, who gazed at him with flat eyes. “What’s the problem?”
“I don’t have a problem,” Martinez replied. “Do you?”
“Yeah, I do. I’m happy to be out here doing my job working with you. From what I’ve seen and heard, you’re a good cop. But you don’t seem so happy to have me here. Unfortunately, I’m the only show in town. So until you persuade the sheriff to fire me, or find another forensics man to replace me, you’re stuck. We can try to get along and make this bearable, or you can keep freezing me out.”
Martinez pursed his lips but said nothing.
Kado shifted. “I know that my observations about Hank Comfrey pissed you off. Tact isn’t my strong point. But his processes and his lab were poor.” Kado held up a hand as Martinez started to protest. “You’ve told me they held up in court and I’ve seen the files for myself. All I can guess is that the defendants had stupid lawyers or guilt wasn’t really a question.”
Martinez crossed his arms and lowered his head, watching Kado from beneath a furrowed brow. Kado thought it made the man look like a bull preparing to charge. “Your record ain’t so great, hombre.”
“Are you talking about the DNA?”
“What I heard, you screwed up. Big time.”
“Stop by sometime and I’ll show you why it can’t be me who screwed up.” Kado glanced around the courtyard and pulled his latex gloves off. “Until then, can we call a truce? There’s a mountain of evidence here, and it’ll take at least two of us to collect and sort through it all.”
Martinez studied the ground and seemed to come to a decision. “At least two?”
“Scott Truman is on the front door. Do you know him?”
“Of course.”
“He’s young, but he’s smart and eager to learn. If we can put somebody else out front, I think we can use him back here.”
Martinez’ phone rang and he snapped it open. Blood drained from his face as he listened. When he looked at Kado, all traces of hostility were gone. “He’s with me. We’ll be there in twenty, tops.”
He snapped the phone shut. “Shots fired at the Franklin’s house.”
“Officer Franklin?” Kado asked, following Martinez through the stockroom.
“Two down. The mother and possibly Moses.”
“Oh no,” Kado breathed.
“Exactly.”
CHAPTER 9
CASS SANG ALONG WITH The Smithereen’s “A Girl Like You” as she drove home from taking Phoebe to Chubby’s and dropping the little girl at her dance class. True to form, her niece had dribbled chocolate shake in her lap, left a ketchup trail down her leotard when she missed her mouth with a fistful of French fries, and somehow tipped the ends of her tutu with mustard. Cass smiled while washing Phoebe’s hands and face, pleased to note that while the ballet outfit might be in ruins, the tiara was still firmly in place.
As Cass was leaving the dance studio, a familiar voice called her name and she’d wound up talking to a high school friend for nearly an hour. She deftly sidestepped questions about why she wasn’t back at work and steered the conversation around to gossip about other members of their graduating class. The entire encounter was exhausting. Cass had avoided Arcadia for just this reason, and now wished she had moved faster to get out of town.
Turning onto a two-lane road, she flipped the headlights to bright, cranked the radio’s volume up and tapped her thumb on the steering wheel. She was driving an ancient Ford pickup that had passed through the Elliot clan from child to child until returning to their father’s possession when Cass finished university. Thanks
to Abe’s meticulous care of the old vehicle, she was able to crank the Ford’s engine on the first try after her suspension. Unable to tolerate a complete black-out about what was happening on the force, Cass purchased two police scanners and with Harry’s help, installed one in the truck. The other was on the kitchen counter. She’d turned the volume down in the truck before leaving home tonight, wanting to limit the impact police chatter could have on her young niece.
Her mind drifted back to the events leading up to the banishment. She examined her actions before the shooting for the umpteenth time, searching for something she might’ve done differently, and found no fault with herself. The local newspaper, the Forney Cater, was steadfast in its support of her and the rest of the force. Cass thought the debriefing immediately following the incident, and her testimony to the Firearm Discharge Board a week later, had gone smoothly. Her only concern was how Sheriff Hoffner might try to tie her actions into what had happened to her partner. But Mitch’s accident wasn’t her fault. They had followed procedure and things had gone terribly wrong in the way that they sometimes do. Mitch’s accident aside, she was baffled as to why the Sheriff refused to put her back on active duty.
A dark mass careened around a tight curve and swerved into her lane. Its form was barely discernable, but Cass caught the outline of a pickup truck. She gasped and yanked the steering wheel to the right, riding the shoulder to get out of the way. She swore as the Ford lost its grip on the asphalt, spilled onto the soft verge, and went up on two wheels. Struggling to regain control, she heard an engine roar and watched as dim tail lights disappeared around the bend. Adrenaline slammed through her veins as Cass stood on the brakes and then gunned the Ford into a u-turn. She screeched to a stop again when two dark figures burst from the tree line and dashed toward a small vehicle parked on the side of the road. One collapsed to his knees by the front fender while the other stood holding his head with his hands.
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