by Nancy Bush
“I don’t know them. My father never mentioned them, so I doubt he knows who they are,” Liv said.
“Let’s look at that birth certificate again.”
“It’s the hospital certificate,” Liv said, as she dug into her backpack, pulled out the package and slid the contents onto the table once again. “The one with the impressions of my feet. My parents’ names are written on it.”
“How did your adoptive mother get this?” Auggie wondered aloud, picking it up. “Father, Everett LeBlanc. Mother, Patricia LeBlanc.”
Liv took the paper from him. “Malone General Hospital. The closest one to Rock Springs.”
“So, maybe your mother knew the LeBlancs,” Auggie hazarded a guess. He pulled out his cell and tried the white pages for Rock Springs and some of the neighboring towns. “There’s an Everett LeBlanc in Malone,” he said.
Liv inhaled and exhaled, her eyes huge. “Okay.”
“Want to call?”
“Who should I say I am this time? If I tell them Olivia Dugan, they could know I’m their daughter. And even if they don’t, my name’s been all over the news the last couple days.”
“We don’t know what they know,” Auggie said. “I’d be honest but a little careful. Tell them you’re Liv Dugan, not Olivia, just in case they’ve been listening to the news. Say you’re looking for the Everett and Patricia LeBlanc who gave up a girl baby for adoption twenty-five years ago.”
He punched in the numbers and handed her the phone again. She listened as it rang and rang and then left a voice mail almost verbatim to what Auggie had told her. Auggie quietly repeated his cell number and she echoed it into the receiver. She handed him back the cell and he clicked off.
“Now what?” she asked.
“We wait.”
September got the call from Channel Seven just after five-thirty. Luckily, it wasn’t Pauline Kirby but an underling, trying to find out information, and since there was really nothing new to report, their conversation was over in a few minutes. When she was off the phone, September assessed her feelings about the whole thing and decided she hadn’t liked being asked question after question by someone who was basically reading a script and hurrying her through the answers. She filed that aspect of the job under the heading of Try To Avoid.
It was getting later and she fooled around at her desk until nearly seven before she finally left. She would have stayed on, for lack of anything better to do with her time, but perversely she didn’t want her coworkers to think she was a loser without any social life. It wasn’t like she hadn’t dated. She just hadn’t dated in a while . . . a very long while.
She’d texted Auggie numerous times since his abrupt phone line cutoff. So far he’d been singularly unwilling to respond. How like him to play the cowboy and just run off with the investigation anyway he liked. Her investigation. Well, hers and Gretchen’s. She kinda wished Wes Pelligree were a part of it, too, but he was busy with other things, cases that were wrapping up and a court appearance where he was a witness for the prosecution against a man who’d faked his own death for the insurance money, which his wife then promptly absconded with and he’d run her down and shot her and now they were both having separate trials and heading toward prison terms.
On her way out she passed Wes’s empty desk and noticed the picture of Sheila Dempsey—something from her high school days, September guessed—which was propped up against his desk lamp. Dark-haired, in her thirties, slim and attractive, Sheila’s body had been found in a field just outside the city limits, in Winslow County, though her place of residence was an apartment complex not all that far from the station. She’d been strangled and the flesh on her torso had been scored with lines that resembled letters, but maybe weren’t. It wasn’t Wes’s case, it was county’s, but he’d met her once at a bar sometime recently and her death bothered him.
Or, at least that was the word around the office. Wes hadn’t said anything about her himself, but September had kept her ears open on the subject and had queried George about it a bit, at least until George had given her a look that said, “What the hell is it to you?”
There was no way September was going to admit she had a mild attraction to Wes, especially since he was deeply invested in his own relationship with a woman from his days as an athlete at a junior college. Their relationship was solid; that was fact. So, September kept her case of “the warms” to herself.
Liv lay on the couch in the darkness, staring at the ceiling once more. She moved onto her side and punched up the pillow, squeezing her eyes closed. Auggie was back in the bedroom and they were waiting for morning. Maybe someone would call them back.
There’d been an awkward moment or two when neither of them knew what to do. Auggie had finally said he was going to bed, but he was taking a shower first. Liv thought that sounded like heaven, but was too uneasy to strip off her clothes and spend a few moments naked with him around. Maybe in the morrow.
But then, before he’d gone to sleep, he’d actually walked past where she was sitting on the couch, removing her shoes. He was wearing boxers and nothing else as he strolled into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water.
He stopped by the couch briefly, made a comment about trading places with her, the bed for the couch. She’d vehemently shaken her head, and he’d shrugged and moseyed on.
She, meanwhile, had lain back on the sofa cushions fully clothed, her mind caught on the smooth muscles she’d seen moving beneath the skin of his shoulders, the hard curve of his back, his taut, hair-dusted thighs.
She was shocked at herself. In the midst of her terror and anxiety, this was the overriding emotion quickening her blood? Desire? Lust? Sex?
With an effort, she dragged her feminine attention away from him and concentrated on the more urgent problems at hand. Dr. Yancy. Think about Dr. Yancy. But a pair of faintly amused blue eyes crowded her inner vision. She flung her arm over her eyes, as if that would help, and squeezed her brain shut.
“Liv.”
Immediately she flung back her arm and popped her eyes open. The room was empty and dark. She was alone. Had only heard him in her head.
What? she answered silently.
The room was quiet. There was no sound anywhere. All in her head.
Then, a voice said, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Dr. Yancy.”
She recognized it. It was her own voice. Sullen and combative.
She saw herself at Dr. Yancy’s desk and the doctor was regarding her with concern.
“You saw something,” Dr. Yancy said. “Something you’re repressing.”
“What?” Liv demanded. “What? I didn’t see anything!”
“Something,” the doctor insisted. She was fading in and out, a watery vision.
“All I saw was my mother, hanging by her neck!” Liv practically screeched.
“Something else . . . maybe something that didn’t actually have to do with that day. . . .”
A cracked door. A beam of light. In the glint of illumination, the wetness of an eye as he turns and sees her . . . outside . . . outside . . .
“I don’t want to talk anymore!”
Slam! She was out the door. Running. Running. Running!
And Dr. Yancy’s voice was calling after her, “It was him, Olivia. You saw him.”
The memory sank away and Liv came fully awake, drenched in sweat. She heard the door to Auggie’s bedroom slam open and suddenly he was there, beside the couch, kneeling beside her.
“You cried out,” he said.
“I saw him. The monster. I saw him through a crack in the door. Dr. Yancy made me remember at Hathaway House but I ran away from her.”
“Who is he? The monster?”
“Monster?” She blinked.
“You said ‘the monster.’”
“I meant . . . the doctor. The zombie. The bogeyman. I think maybe I saw him, and he’s the serial strangler. But if he’s the doctor in the picture, that means Mama knew him. . . .” She swallowed. “Ma
ybe she knew about him and that’s why he had to kill her.”
“Okay, wait. Take it slow. We’ll start with him. We’ll call Dr. Yancy again in the morning, if she hasn’t called back. See what she knows about the doctor.”
“Okay.”
He smiled at her and actually had the audacity to sweep her hair back from her forehead before he turned to leave. Liv had to fight the desire to call him back. She kept her lips pressed tightly closed with an effort. The last thing she needed was to suddenly depend on him too much.
Chapter 14
The next morning Liv woke up when he walked past her to the kitchen in a pair of low-slung blue jeans and no shirt. She sat up, finger-combed her hair, then followed him into the kitchen. He’d picked up his cell and was looking at it.
“Let’s go somewhere for breakfast,” he said.
“I don’t want to be seen. . . .”
“If you’re with me, it’s less chance you’ll be recognized. Put on your baseball cap again.”
“I guess I’m buying, huh.”
That stopped him short and he shot her a look. “I . . . guess so.”
She smiled faintly. “No problem. But I’m going to take a shower first.”
“Do it,” he said, turning back to his phone.
“Is there . . . a towel?”
“Should be. Linen closet’s in the hall outside the bathroom.”
She left him working through his phone and wondered if he’d lied about being such a loner. Maybe he’d contacted someone. He could be texting someone right now.
With a last look back at him, she picked up her backpack and headed into the bathroom.
Auggie had indeed received a text. A raft of them, actually. Mostly from his sister. At least she’d shown the good sense to move from phoning to texting. He’d turned off the text “alert” and they came in silently.
It was Sunday. He had one day until he needed to bring, coerce or drag Olivia Dugan to the Laurelton police station.
He heard the taps turn on and he texted his sister, telling her to stop texting him. He would bring Olivia Dugan in tomorrow. Monday. And did she have any leads on the Zuma massacre, or Trask Martin’s death?
She texted back:
New case. Short-handed. Will get back to you.
New case? Something that superseded the Zuma shooting? Not likely.
“Hmmm,” Auggie said aloud.
What was that about?
September stared down at the cold, white corpse of the woman and felt ill. The woman’s body had been stripped to the waist and her abdomen was carved with the scrawled words:
DO UNTO OTHERS AS SHE DID TO ME
“Jesus, somebody went to a lot of trouble.” Gretchen’s nasal tones were normally cool, curling around the edges with disdain, but staring down at the female corpse she sounded shaken. “‘Do unto others as she did to me.’ What the hell does that mean?”
“Who is the ‘she’ he means?” September asked.
“Or the ‘she’ she means,” one of the techs corrected her. Bronson, September remembered.
“This wasn’t done by a woman,” Gretchen said with a cold look at Bronson.
“I’m just saying it’s possible,” he argued, although lamely. “She’s been strangled, too. There are ligature marks.”
“Anyone taking bets on whether she’s been sexually abused?” Gretchen asked.
There were no takers.
“You have all the charm of a boa constrictor,” Bronson said. He had a nerdy, prim look and a way of rolling his eyes that was epic theater.
“Shut up,” Gretchen said, though it was almost an afterthought. She was gazing around the clearing where the body had been found while they stood on the edge of a small, wooded area filled with Douglas firs, oaks and scrub pines.
“This is a lot like Sheila Dempsey,” September observed. She hoped to stall the pissing contest between Bronson and Gretchen, though they seemed to like to go at each other. She’d learned that much on her few weeks on the job.
Bronson rocked back on his heels. “Mebbe,” he allowed.
Gretchen’s lips grew even tighter, as if she were forcibly holding back another argument.
They were on the north side of the clearing where the shallow grave had been discovered by a couple of day hikers on a jaunt carrying a picnic basket and a bottle of wine. Now the basket was upended, the wine spilled in a red river on the ground and both hikers were sitting in bug-eyed silence on a moss-covered log, their arms entwined in a hug of support. The man’s mouth was twitching as if he couldn’t control it; the woman looked ready to keel over.
Sheila Dempsey’s body had been discovered in an overgrown field behind an abandoned building. Unlike this one, she’d been stripped bare, where this victim still had on her jeans, socks and a pair of running shoes. Her chest was bare; no sign of a blouse or bra.
“Dempsey’s the picture on Weasel’s desk,” Gretchen said, as if they’d asked.
September nodded. For a moment they all stood in silence in the shadow of the firs while Bronson slowly rose, brushing his palms together as if to rid himself of the taint, all of them sheltered from the noonday heat which was blistering nonetheless.
An hour earlier, D’Annibal had received the call. Neither George nor Wes had been available while Gretchen and September had shown up by mutual agreement to go over the Zuma case. Gretchen wanted to interview Camille Dirkus and September had offered to go along.
But then the call came in and they were sent out after the hikers called 911.
Now it was September’s turn to gaze past the body and over the dry, yellow field grass that ranged north from their large copse of mixed oak, fir and pine trees. This too, could be the county’s problem; this crime was right on the city line, but the dispatcher had called Laurelton PD.
D’Annibal had apparently claimed rights to this case, or maybe county was simply bowing out. Somewhere along the line, a guy from county named Jernstadt, since retired, had royally pissed off the lieutenant according to remarks she’d heard around the squad room. The result was nobody wanted to go head-to-head with D’Annibal, involving whatever he decreed, and therefore there was no strict protocol on jurisdiction. If the lieutenant wanted a case that could be considered county, the prevailing thought was to let him have it. So, though September and Gretchen were already working hard on the Zuma Software case, Laurelton PD was on this one, too. County might complain about it, but they would acquiesce. D’Annibal did things his own way and his attitude was, if county didn’t like it, they could just go screw themselves.
Said attitude didn’t exactly foster warm and fuzzy relations, but such was the way of things.
Gretchen dragged her gaze away from the body and shook her head. “Learn anything from those phone records, Nine?”
September shot a look at her partner who’d apparently detached from the scene around them. “Yes,” she said. She’d been scouring Kurt Upjohn’s phone records and had discovered several numbers that had yet to be identified from the myriads that he’d placed to friends, family and business associates. “I was hoping maybe Camille Dirkus could shed some light.”
“Yeah, whenever that interview takes place,” Gretchen grumbled.
“I was thinking about giving the list to George.”
Gretchen snorted. “Good idea. He’s bound to be back in the squad room now. He just always misses the calls to the field. Weasel’s on something else, drugs and gangs, like your brother was.”
Was being the operative word, September thought.
“I’m not stopping on Zuma. This has gotta be somebody else’s, or we need some serious help.”
“Yeah.” September gazed down at the body again for another moment, unsettled. “I wonder who she is.”
“We’ll check missing persons.” Gretchen made a face. “I wonder who he is,” she added, meaning the killer.
Bronson shot her a look as a hot breeze caused the oak leaves and fir and pine needles to dance lithely, as if waving at
the victim and the group of bystanders. Victims left in fields . . . something tickled the back of her brain.
“Get her covered and outta here before the fucking newspeople show up,” Gretchen ordered the techs.
“You do your job, we’ll do ours,” Bronson said. “The ME’s on his way.”
“Don’t get all testy on me, Bron.” Gretchen offered a humorless smile. To September, she added, “Maybe this second body will make our letter carver easier to find and we can get back to Zuma.”
September had her doubts, but she kept them to herself.
Waiting proved more difficult than Liv had anticipated. They went to a small café and Liv ordered an omelet that she moved around her plate as the morning dragged slowly by. For all the talking they’d done, all of a sudden it felt like she and Auggie had run out of things to say to each other. As they got up to leave he really struggled with the fact that she was picking up the tab, but what could he do? She wanted to suggest they go back to Bean There, Done That and see if someone had turned in his wallet, but she couldn’t.
“I can’t afford for us to get pulled over,” she said, to which he answered, “Okay,” and the subject appeared to be closed.
Now, back at his house, they were both sitting at the table, lost in their own thoughts, when his cell phone suddenly rang, surprising them both.
He swept it up quickly and got to his feet. “Hello?” he answered as Liv’s pulse began to race. He shot her a look. “Ah, yes. Talia’s right here . . .”
Carefully, he handed Liv the cell and she said, “Dr. Yancy?”
“Yes,” the doctor answered cautiously.
Liv could visualize the woman in her mind: small, birdlike, with short, dark hair and narrow glasses that she looked over the top of. “I was just wondering if you could maybe help me with remembering a few things.”
Dr. Yancy’s voice said, a bit uncertainly, “Did Hathaway House give you my number?”
“No, I took a chance on F. Yancy. I knew your first name was Fern. I—um—”