Unfortunately, the rest of the place looked like a well-dressed chicken coop. The house and land were originally owned by the Craven family who, out of pity, had rented the two room shack on the northern edge of their vast property to a very young, very pregnant, and very poor couple – Abe and Nell Elliot. Over time, Abe had purchased the house on surprisingly favorable terms. He added rooms to hold his expanding family, the severity of tilt of each new room against the old in direct proportion to his degree of inebriation at the time of construction. Bruce planned to tackle problems with the large house one at a time. After the front porch, his eye turned to the kitchen, a project he had shelved in the spring. Once the kitchen was done, Cass wasn’t sure what would come next, but she enjoyed the processes of destruction and creation that were remodeling, and planned to help as much as her job – whatever it turned out to be – and brother allowed.
The front door swung open and Abe Elliot motioned her inside. She crossed the yard and enjoyed the satisfying thunk of her boots against the now sturdy porch, stepped into her father’s embrace, and sniffed surreptitiously; there was no smell of booze on his clothes or skin. Although she felt a twinge of guilt at using his display of affection to determine whether he had been drinking, her shoulders relaxed. “How long have you been home?” she asked.
He released her and leaned toward the living room door to check the DVD player’s display. It was one-thirty. “About two hours. You’re not usually out this late. Are you okay?”
A surge of pleasure rushed through her. “I’m back at work.”
Abe lifted a hoary eyebrow. “Hoffner signed the papers?”
“John Grey hired me as a temp.”
“The medical examiner? What happened?”
“Three murders tonight.”
His expression changed to one of concern and he motioned her to the living room. “I’ll get milk and cookies,” he said, acting out the immutable Elliot tradition of feeding in times of trouble. “Bruce went to bed but Harry and Goober are still up.”
Cass sat on the sagging couch next to her brother, who was bent over the paperwork and cloth swatches spread across and around the scarred coffee table. Goober was cross-legged on the floor in front of the television. The volume was low and he leaned forward to catch the actor’s voices. He was oblivious to anything but the world inside the glowing box, and Cass wondered if that wasn’t for the best considering what the man had been through this evening. “Hey, Goober.”
He looked up at her with glassy eyes. “Hey, Cass,” he said, and returned his attention to the “Gilligan’s Island” re-run.
Cass nudged her brother. “Hey.”
He ran his hands through his cottony-white hair, already in a considerable state of disarray. “Thanks for taking Phoebe to dance class. And I should thank you for distracting Carly.”
“What are you talking about?”
Abe stopped to give a glass of milk and some cookies to Goober. “You diverted Carly’s wrath from Harry. And given that woman’s temper, he ought to be grateful.”
“She’s mad about the tutu?” Cass shrugged. “It’s not like I could’ve cooked with the kitchen all in an uproar.”
“Cass, you can’t cook in any kitchen,” Harry said.
“There is that.”
“She was more pissed about the crown. Phoebe told her that Auntie Cass said it was all right if she wore it to dance class.”
Cass took a glass of milk from her father and reached for the cookies. “Yes, Auntie Cass did. If Carly’s mad about it, then Phoebe must have gotten home with the tiara still on her head, right?”
Harry bit into a cookie and nodded.
“So what’s the problem? The tiara’s home, Phoebe was princess for a day, and I’ll buy a new tutu and leotard if she wants. Everybody’s happy.”
“That crown is her most prized possession.”
“Paste jewels in the shape of a fire ant? Harry, how did you manage to marry this woman?”
“Temporary insanity that lasted fourteen years.” He finished his cookie, a wistful smile on his face. “What can I say? She had a crown.”
Cass grinned. “Too much information, man. So,” she motioned to the colorful mess on the coffee table, “what’s this?”
“I’m redoing the interior decorating for the Martins.”
“Isn’t that Carly’s job?”
“Technically, yes. But she refused to budge when the Martins explained the changes they wanted, so I got her out of the house before she could argue and told them we’d get a new plan to them tomorrow morning.” He glanced at the clock. “Which is now today.”
“What’s the big deal?” Cass asked.
“They want rustic, Carly wants country chic.”
“And the difference?”
“Rustic is big, dark, and simple with clean lines. Country chic is whitewash, florals, and frilly edges to everything.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
“Your sister’s back at work, Harry,” Abe said, glancing at Goober and keeping his voice low.
“Really? When did that happen?”
Cass drew a deep breath. “Tonight. Martha and Joseph Franklin were shot in their home.”
Harry’s jaw dropped. “Mojo’s mom and brother?”
She nodded.
“Man, she was my favorite lunch lady. She always brought me extra dessert if there was any left. I can’t believe somebody could kill that woman. Was it a break-in?”
“No. They were killed from a distance with a rifle.”
Abe cleared his throat. “You said there were three murders tonight, Cass. Who else?”
She motioned her father and brother into the kitchen. “Calvin Whitehead was murdered at his store. Goober’s the one who found him.”
“What happened?”
She rubbed the bridge of her nose and considered how much to reveal. The swastika was one detail that might be useful in the investigation and should be held back. Except for that, it didn’t matter how much she told them; the story was already weaving its way through Arcadia’s vast and efficient grapevine and would be on the Forney Cater’s front page in the morning. “The body was burned.”
“Whoa,” Harry said. “Did the store burn, too?”
“Just Calvin. He was hanged and then set on fire.”
Harry and Abe digested this. Their father wiped a thin film of dust from the kitchen table and placed his milk glass on its worn surface. Abe’s eyes, the color of honeyed oak, were clouded. “Calvin Whitehead was a grumpy old man, but who would want to kill him?”
“What do you know about him, Daddy?” Cass asked.
“Not much. He moved here in the late seventies or early eighties and bought that shop and house. Both had been deserted for years and he put a lot of work into them.”
“Where did he come from?”
Abe considered her question. “Out east somewhere. Or maybe up north. He didn’t talk about his past much. Never, that I can recall. He talked a lot about guns and hunting.”
Either topic would’ve caused her father’s eyes to glaze over. “Did he have any friends?”
He shrugged. “I think he was Catholic. There was one of those Christ-on-the-cross things hanging on the wall when he first opened.”
Cass usually paid at the pump when she stopped at The Whitehead Store. She tried to remember if she’d noticed the crucifix on those occasions when she had gone inside. “Was it still there last time you bought gas?”
“I think so, but I can’t be sure. It’s one of those things that become part of the environment. Once you accept that it’s there, you don’t really notice it again.”
“Harry, did you know him?”
Her older brother shook his head. “I’ve only started filling up there since I moved back home in March. He knew I was an Elliot, but we never talked except to say hello or about the drought.”
“Let me know if anything about Whitehead comes to mind, or if you hear anything tomorrow.” She washed their
glasses in the makeshift sink Bruce had rigged up. “What’s Goober doing here?”
“He was on the front porch when I got back from taking Phoebe home,” Harry answered. A grin played across his lips. “He said you told him that he could stay with us if he found another dead body.”
She cringed at the thought of the crucified man Goober had stumbled upon several weeks earlier. “I guess I did, but I didn’t really think he’d find another one.” She shuddered. “Seeing Calvin Whitehead like that must’ve been pretty dreadful. He’ll probably have nightmares tonight. I would.”
“Goober’s no bother. I’ve put him in Bobby and Mack’s old room,” Abe said with a reproachful glance at Harry. “It’s got the least amount of high school crap in it.”
“Sorry, Pop. I’ll clear out my stuff one day. But now, I’ve got to finish these plans.”
Cass checked the time on her phone. Almost two o’clock. “I need to get to bed. I’ll be up and out early tomorrow.” She grinned at her father. “Tell Bruce the crowbar and sledgehammer are all his.”
____________
BEFORE GETTING INTO BED, Cass checked her email and found no notifications of new search hits. She turned the computer off and tried to sleep, but her mind was buzzing with random details from the Franklin’s autopsies, Calvin Whitehead’s murder, and her time with Kado. At last, after trying desperately to focus her thoughts on work, she allowed herself to think about the man.
There was no point denying it: she was attracted to Kado in a way that she hadn’t known in years. Cass had been a reluctant dater since the rape, willing to endure society’s mating rituals only to preempt the gossip that would arise if she didn’t date. Somehow, she’d managed to avoid finding any man so attractive that she was unable to resist getting to know him other than on a surface level. Any physical attraction died as soon as the guy in question opened his mouth and revealed his IQ. But what she felt for Tom Kado was different. Sexually visceral, yes, but there was a mental connection struggling to develop as well. Cass couldn’t determine whether Kado felt the same way, and regardless, there were good reasons to steer clear of him.
While she was honing her internet skills in the search for her rapist, Cass also dug into Kado’s background. He’d joined the police force as Forney County’s Forensic Examiner back in March, coming from Oklahoma. With only his name and home state as a place to start, she soon learned more than she wanted to know about the circumstances that brought him to Arcadia.
Kado was full-blood Caddo Indian, which explained his last name, ruddy complexion, dark hair, and the flat planes of his high-cheekboned face. His name, and occasionally his photograph, had popped up in various news articles about crimes committed in western Oklahoma. His forensics department was lauded by the local sheriff and various state agencies for their exacting attention to detail. These comments probably helped persuade Sheriff Hoffner to hire Kado after old Hank Comfrey died. But his name also appeared in an online death announcement from a funeral home in Ada, Oklahoma, identifying him as the husband of a Caroline Kado. She had died a little over a year ago. The photograph accompanying the announcement showed a beautiful black-haired woman with mischievous eyes. In an article detailing the service, Kado’s eulogy was poignant and indicated a deep-seated love for the woman.
If Bruce was right that people grieved differently, there might be a chance that Kado was mentally healthy enough for a relationship. But they worked together, and Cass wasn’t sure whether Forney County had a policy on office affairs. She was sure that once Sheriff Hoffner learned about her involvement with Kado, whatever policy emerged would not be friendly to her desires.
And then there was the scar. Cass always wore jogging bras to work. They were practical in case she ended up chasing a suspect on foot, but their full coverage also hid the scar completely. As an added precaution, Cass never left more than the top two buttons on her blouse undone. But once in a physical relationship with Kado, she wouldn’t be able to hide the scar, or the cause of it, from him. Lying about its source wasn’t an option for Cass, and besides, she’d never be able to conjure up a plausible scenario for an accident that left such a deliberate mark. Bottom line: she wasn’t ready for the level of vulnerability that a relationship would create.
Cass expelled a deep breath and knuckled her eye sockets. All of this was wasted energy. Whether Kado reciprocated her feelings or not, she wasn’t about to step outside the perimeter of mental protection she had so carefully constructed. Her mind – and her body – would just have to accept that fact. She reached for the alarm and with a small groan that settled into a grin, set it for five o’clock.
____________
NEAR DOWNTOWN ARCADIA, KADO tossed and turned on the lumpy bed that folded out from his sofa. Despite a long shower, the smell of roasted meat and burned plastic still permeated the air around him. But that wasn’t what was troubling him. Guilt tweaked his guts as he tried to recall Caroline’s face and then gave in and glanced at the framed photo on his bedside table. And there she was, fully formed in his mind again. He closed his eyes. Since Cass’s suspension, his dead wife had eased herself from his dreams, as if offering him the emotional space to go on living, but he clung to her. He struggled with the thought of releasing her but Cass occupied his waking thoughts and his dreams with more and more frequency, seeming to squeeze Caroline from his mind. At a primal level, Kado was terrified that he might forget her and all that their life together had meant. For if he could forget his beloved so easily, who was to say that he couldn’t pass from this world and just as easily be forgotten? As if he had never existed.
Kado shook himself. This was part of the grieving process. Finding a way to move on after so much time and love was hard. But people did it. He would have to do it, or wither and die emotionally. And he wasn’t prepared to go that route. Not without giving life another chance. He mentally apologized to Caroline and imagined her memory settling into the recesses of his mind, but to a place not so far removed from his consciousness that he couldn’t recall her at a moment’s notice. He tested his hypothesis, calling her smiling face forward and allowing it to ease back into its corner. Satisfied that Caroline was still within reach, he finally allowed that stupid grin to roll across his face.
Hearing Cass’s voice over the phone tonight had stirred him in ways that he hadn’t felt in ages. The jolt he got from seeing her outside the Franklin home had been downright dangerous given the circumstances. He craved the feel of her face beneath his fingers and the taste of her lips against his, and he had fought mightily to still that urge. He’d managed to keep his back to her while she worked on Martha and Joseph Franklin with Grey. Thankfully, his focus on the shooter’s position in Deadwood Hollow kept his thoughts occupied while they were together in the woods.
But now, alone, he could replay the image of Cass as she stepped from the medical examiner’s shower room, her red hair darkly wet, violet eyes troubled, creamy skin paler than normal. She was even leaner now, whether due to exercise or stress Kado couldn’t tell. He was amazed at how badly he wanted this woman. To know her body, and her mind. The attraction was powerful and, he suspected, mutual. After living for more than a year in a state of frozen grief, he was thawing. The realization was frightening and exhilarating.
Thanks to the catastrophe of the compromised DNA from their last significant case, Kado’s future was uncertain. But he wanted Cass as part of that future, and not just as a colleague.
Kado felt the pleasure of his smile again as sleep closed in, and the woman with fiery hair stepped into his dreams and touched her lips to his.
CHAPTER 20
THE SHOOTER PULLED THE pickup into the old barn that served as his garage and cut the engine. He sat in the truck’s dim interior and listened to the engine tick, breathing quietly. After several moments, he flicked on the bank of fluorescent lights and ran a finger along the bumper. Thankfully, this truck was an older model, built when pickups were meant to last, and it bore the brunt of the encounte
r with little more than lost black paint and an added streak of burnt orange.
He checked his watch: two-thirty Thursday morning. Heaving a weary sigh, he took a can of black spray paint from a nearby shelf. With short, even strokes, he applied a thin layer of paint to the bumper, working steadily until the damage was covered. He removed the stolen license plate from the back of the vehicle, screwing the originals back in place and tightening the light bulb over the rear plate. Finally, he lifted the truck’s bench seat on the special hinges he’d installed, removed his rifle case from the narrow compartment, and dropped the seat back into place. He left the barn, pulling a chain through the handles of the double doors and snapping a padlock closed.
The little farmhouse was dark. As was his custom, he walked its perimeter checking doors and windows before working a key into the old lock in the kitchen door. He’d found the place when he first came to Forney County several months ago to discover more about the unusual threesome that seemed to share his view of the world. The old house was in passable condition, with only a few soft spots in the floor and one corner of the ceiling where the roof leaked. The overstuffed furniture was dust-logged, and he’d taken each cushion outside and beat most of the dust out of it, reducing the powdery residue that could mar his black clothes. But he hadn’t rented the place for its creature comforts. It served his purposes beautifully. Located on forty acres in a secluded section of the county, he could come and go without worrying about prying eyes. Although he was away at work for most of each day, the cameras he’d placed in strategic locations on the property revealed that with rare exception, the obese chick who drove the post office vehicle and the well-checkers who visited the gas well on the place were the only people who ventured out this way. He felt safe enough here to take the cameras down and leave only sensors on the doors and windows. The presence of expensive video equipment to protect a place as run down as this would raise more questions than he cared to answer.
Avengers of Blood (Cass Elliot Crime Series - Book 2) Page 9