by Elaine Viets
Right. Now that Bella was telling her story, I noticed her cough had vanished.
“She didn’t believe me, so I told her the details. Dex had laughed at her and said that Juliet thought this was true love, when all he wanted was a fuck. He said rich girls didn’t screw as well as poor ones. He laughed about her small tits.”
I tried to control my fury. Bella was a nasty little creature, and plain by Forest standards. Chunky Bella had the kind of short, muscular body that would be good at sports. But I was sure Bella didn’t want that skill.
“And how did Juliet take that news?” I asked.
“She got kinda hysterical. She said Dex was the only boy she’d ever loved and if he treated her that way, she’d kill herself.”
“You don’t think she would, do you?”
“Of course not.” Bella was scornful. “She’s such a drama queen. People who talk about suicide never do it.”
“Not true,” I said.
Daisy jumped into the conversation from the back seat. “She never said anything about suicide to me. I offered to drive her home, but Juliet wanted to confront Dex. She was sure he’d never say anything so mean. They drove off in his car a little before midnight.”
“At 11:42,” I said.
“How do you know?” Bella asked.
“Her parents told me. They got the time from your security.”
“Okay. She left before midnight in Dex’s car. Before the snow started. Can I go home now?”
My phone gave the special alert. Both girls jumped. “Jesus! What’s that?” Daisy said.
I checked the text. “You’re in luck, girls. There’s a car accident on Gravois Road. The medical examiner’s office wants me to go to work.”
“Is someone dead?” Daisy asked in a small voice.
“Yes.”
“Is it… is it Juliet?”
“I don’t know.” I caught Daisy’s flour-white face in the rearview mirror. It had finally dawned on the girl: death was real. It could even strike someone in their enchanted circle.
CHAPTER 5
Tuesday, December 27, 3:44 p.m.
All the way to the accident scene, I prayed that Juliet wasn’t dead. Why didn’t I ask if the victim was a man or a woman?
Because I was in a hurry. And I wanted rid of those obnoxious girls.
Well, I’d find out soon enough. I could see the flashing emergency lights ahead on Gravois Road. Red flares burned a warning along the snow-piled road, and traffic slowed to a crawl. An impatient silver Mercedes in front of me shot out of the waiting line to pass the accident scene. The driver lost control when he hit a slick spot and his shiny new car slid into a ditch.
I held my breath.
Please don’t make this a double death scene, I thought. The cars ahead of me didn’t move and neither did the Mercedes, now with a demolished front end. At last, the driver emerged from his wrecked car, so shaky he held onto the door frame. He was greeted by a uniform who calmly wrote a series of tickets.
I was close enough now to see the death investigation site, but that car was hidden by a white folding privacy screen. All I could make out was a broken maple tree atop a black car. A red ambulance was parked off to the side, lights flashing. Did that mean there were survivors? I hoped so.
I waved to the uniform at the scene, pulled over and parked on the shoulder. I opened my iPad – the Forest had great WiFi – and called up two forms: Death Scene Investigation and Vehicular Related Death, then pulled up my hood, tucked my wool scarf up to my eyes, and pushed out of my car into the searing cold. I dragged my death investigator suitcase out of the car trunk and rolled it toward the scene. A uniform rushed forward to help, but I stopped him. “Thanks, Jim. I can handle it.”
Now I could see the accident clearly: A black Lexus had crashed into a huge maple, cracking the tree trunk. The raw wood was exposed, and bare, broken branches speared the car’s front end. The Lexus was smashed almost to the shattered windshield. I still couldn’t tell where the driver was. In the ambulance?
Detective Jason “Jace” Budewitz, the new hire, was working the fatal accident. He was a muscular six feet two, made bigger by a bulky gray hooded parka lined in fake fur. His short blond hair revealed lots of cold-reddened scalp. He had an open, almost boyish face.
“Angela!” he said.
I could see his breath. “Is she dead?”
“She? The victim’s a man.” Jace had a distinct Chicago accent. His accent was even more nasal than ours, and he spoke faster than we did
Then Juliet was alive – the girl hadn’t been driving the wrecked Lexus. Ashamed of my unprofessional reaction, I tried to hide my relief. A man is dead, I reminded myself. “Who is it? What happened?”
“The wit – she’s over there with the paramedics – saw it happen. She’s part of a group searching for the missing girl. She was walking along this side of Gravois when she saw the Lexus coming straight at her. She dove into the ditch, and the car roared past and slammed into the tree. Wham! Guy musta been doing a hundred when he took out the tree. Didn’t even try to stop. Two men in the search party pulled the wit out of the ditch and someone called 911.”
“Suicide?”
“Looks like it. No skid marks, his foot’s on the gas pedal, and his hands are gripping the steering wheel. We’re gonna have to pry his fingers off.”
“What about his air bag?”
“Never deployed. Either he wasn’t wearing a seat belt or it failed. We’ll check that out later.”
I could see the paramedics comforting the witness, a thin, weeping woman shivering in a blanket, while uniforms kept back a crowd of curious searchers.
“Was the witness injured?”
“Couple of scratches. Nothing serious, but she’s in shock. She identified the dead guy as her neighbor Delano Corbet. Says this is his car and his license and registration confirm that. License says he’s fifty-six years old and the address matches the one the neighbor lady gave us. She plays bridge with his wife, Iris. She’s known the victim for twenty-five years.”
“At least his wife won’t have to ID him,” I said.
“I’m not sure the ME would let her, the shape he’s in.”
When victims are badly decomposed or injured, the ME often uses dental records to ID them. Sometimes family members insist on seeing their loved one. In that case, I have to explain the possible trauma they risk. I urge them to remember the dead person as they’d knew him. Some still insist on viewing the body, saying they need closure. In that case, the family member has to sign a paper absolving the ME’s office from any legal consequences.
“Brace yourself,” Jace said. “It’s bad.”
I could see the upper part of Corbet’s body through the broken side window. The victim’s bloody head and shoulders were on the dashboard, surrounded by pebbles of red-tinted safety glass.
“The paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene at –” Jace checked his notebook – “3:17 p.m.”
“Did they try to resuscitate him?”
“One look and they knew he was a no-hoper.”
I wrote on my form that Corbet’s car was a black Lexus IS 250 with Missouri plates, a medium-priced luxury car. I photographed the death scene: first a wide shot, then a medium, and finally a close up. I noted the time – 3:49 p.m. – and the weather conditions: sunny daylight, wind out of the northeast, temperature minus six degrees. Definitely getting colder. The car was heading westbound on Gravois Road, and the speed limit was forty. The road was straight, the roadway cleared of snow and ice, and there was no glare from the setting sun to blind the driver. Nothing natural caused this accident.
A frigid wind tore at my face. I pulled my hood tighter and tried to ignore it. My gloved fingers ached from the cold already.
Corbet was in the driver’s seat, black, leafless branches grabbing his gory head. The back of his black wool topcoat was drenched in blood. I started the body actualization, working from the top. Corbet would have to be moved for me to finis
h.
His head was slightly turned toward the right. I measured the wounds on the back of his bloody head: Corbet had a deep eight-inch gash (officially a cut-like defect) at his crown – almost to the parietal bone. A tree branch with a half-inch circumference had pierced his right eye. I shuddered at the wound and forced myself to continue documenting. There was a two-inch cut-like defect on his right cheek over the temporal bone. I photographed and measured the blood from those wounds, then noted the eighteen superficial cut-like defects on his right cheek and neck, all less than half an inch long. I guessed those were from the tree branches and the broken windshield, but it wasn’t my job to speculate. I photographed the broken twigs, dead leaves, and glass pebbles on his head and shoulders, then tweezered them off and bagged them.
Corbet wore a black wool topcoat, blue wool scarf, and black leather driving gloves. I saw a Cartier tank watch on his left wrist and recorded it as “a yellow metal watch with a rectangular face, worn brown leather strap, brand name Cartier.” He also had “oval yellow metal cuff links with the initials DAC.” I didn’t know if he was wearing a wedding ring. The medical examiner would remove his gloves.
Corbet’s blood-soaked hair was gray and thinning at the crown. His bald spot made him look vulnerable. Along with the coppery odor of blood, I caught the strong stink of liquor. On the floor of the passenger side foot well was a nearly empty bottle of Laphroaig single malt scotch.
“The man went out with the best,” the detective said.
I noted the liquor odor and photographed the scotch bottle. The ME would check his blood alcohol level.
“That’s all I can do with him in the car. Can we move him, detective?”
“We’re ready,” Jace said. He laid out a black body bag on the snowy, frozen ground. I removed a sterilized sheet from a plastic bag in my suitcase and spread it on top of the open body bag. A paramedic cut the tree branch in the victim’s eye about three inches from his face and left it in place in the victim’s head. Then the paramedics and Jace pried Corbet’s fingers off the steering wheel and placed the dead man on the sheet face up. I measured his height at five feet eleven inches and estimated his weight at two hundred pounds. The ME would weigh him.
What was left of Corbet’s face was smashed. I kneeled next to the body, then struggled to describe it in factual language. I noted suborbital lacerations, cut-like defects on the nose and lips, and a compound fracture of the right mandible – his broken jaw bone stuck through the skin. The damage was hard to document because of the blood on his face, neck, shirt and coat. Dead leaves, twigs, and glass pebbles mingled with his blood. I photographed them, then picked them up with tweezers and bagged them.
Corbet’s topcoat was open, and I saw he was dressed for the office, not the extreme cold. He wore a starched blue dress shirt, blue striped tie, black leather belt with a gold metal buckle, and a navy suit. I cut a small hole in the dress shirt beneath his ribs, and took his body core temperature with a meat thermometer. I didn’t use the professional forensic thermometers – they weren’t as exact. I circled and initialed the cut I’d made in Corbet’s pale skin and also in his shirt, so the ME would know I’d made the mark.
I could see the steering wheel imprint on his blood-drenched chest. I photographed that, too. Corbet’s suit appeared clean and pressed but the knees were shiny. He wore no boots or waterproof shoe covers, only polished black lace-up dress shoes with salt stains along the edges. The shoes’ new half-soles were encrusted with crushed road salt except where I saw the impression of the gas pedal on his right shoe sole.
I photographed the shoes, then said, “Detective, did you see this?” I pointed to the right sole. “Here’s the evidence he crashed with his foot on the gas pedal.”
The detective squatted to look, then shook his head. “Another sign of suicide.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“Haven’t found it yet.”
“He may have been on hard times,” I said. “He has a good watch, but the band needs to be replaced, his suit pants are shiny, and his shoes have been re-soled at least once.”
“Maybe he’s just cheap. Aren’t rich people frugal?”
“The ones who don’t go into an office are more likely to dress like bums. This man worked somewhere.”
I stood up, brushing snow and dead leaves off my pants. “I’m finished.” My teeth were chattering.
A plain black van parked next to the detective’s unmarked car. “Good timing,” Jace said. “The morgue van is here.”
I gave Jace points for that. Less sensitive cops called it the meat wagon. I made sure the body was properly tagged and the paperwork in order, then the attendants quickly loaded the body, slammed the doors, and tried to take off. The van, stuck in a snow drift, rocked and roared, then fish-tailed and broke free.
“I’ll go with you to break the news to Mrs. Corbet,” Jace said. “Helluva thing to have to tell a wife during the holidays.”
I flashed back to the young uniform on my doorstep the day Donegan had his fatal heart attack and my heart twisted.
“Helluva thing to have to tell a wife any time.” I was trembling, and not only from the bitter cold.
CHAPTER 6
Tuesday, December 27, 5:37 p.m.
Delano Corbet’s three-story mansion looked impressive – from a distance. The Tiffany stained-glass windows glowed in the setting sun. Up close, I saw the drive wasn’t plowed, the hedges needed pruning, and the trim could use a coat of paint.
Jace and I parked our cars in the circular drive. The detective rang the bell, and a fifty-something blonde in a beige cable-knit sweater answered the door.
“Mrs. Corbet?” Jace asked.
She might have been attractive, but I couldn’t tell. Before we could introduce ourselves, she screamed, “No! He’s dead! Del’s dead. No! No! No!” She beat her head against the door jamb.
Jace and I gently stopped her, then half-carried the weeping woman into a pale green living room. I settled her in a tapestry wing chair, found a tissue for her, then introduced myself. “Mrs. Corbet, were you expecting this news?”
She blew her nose. “It’s Iris. Iris Corbet.”
I could see the remnants of a haunting beauty in Iris’s tired, fine-boned face. Her faded blue eyes were red with worry and bruised with dark circles. Her makeup-free face was blotched and pale.
She clutched the crumpled tissue and fought to control her tears. “I knew something was wrong ever since Del called me this morning.”
“Was your husband at work this morning?” I asked.
Iris shook her head. “He lost his job ten months ago. My husband was a broker with Hanley and Hobart.”
The most successful firm in the Forest. Even Jace knew that. “H&H was letting staff go?” he asked.
“Del didn’t make his quota.” Iris looked sad, then turned defiant. “That’s what they said. But you want to know the real reason? He was old and tired. Del gave his life to that company. His life! Old Mr. Hobart appreciated that, but when he retired, the new management didn’t care. They gave him some severance, but this house ate it up.”
She opened her arms to take in the vast room, and I realized how empty it was – and how threadbare. I saw four large, pale rectangular spots on the grass-cloth wallpaper. Did the Corbets sell their art? The chandelier was Waterford crystal, but the room was missing the usual pricey, frivolous knickknacks. No candlesticks on the empty fireplace, no porcelain, silver, or cut glass. Had they been sold, too? The house wasn’t decorated for the holidays, not even a wreath on the door, defying Forest custom.
“We can’t sell this white elephant. Friends lent us some money, but that’s gone, too. We’re barely getting by.”
Iris was shivering uncontrollably. The room was so cold I suspected the heat was off. I pulled a throw off the beige couch and realized it hid a hole in the fabric. I pretended not to notice, and wrapped the new widow in the warm blanket.
“How did Del die?” Iris asked.
Jace hesitated, and her anger flared up in the awkward silence. “Was it his car? His God damned money-eating car? He could have sold it for almost thirty thousand dollars and bought something reasonable, but no, he had to keep up appearances. He said to make money we had to look like we already had it.”
I suspected Iris raged at the car to avoid blaming the man who’d abandoned her.
She repeated her question, minus the anger. “Please tell me how my husband died.”
“His car went off the road,” Jace said, “and hit a tree.”
She flinched. “Did he suffer?”
I pushed away the vision of the tree branch spearing Corbet’s eye.
“It was quick.” Jace avoided the answer. “You were telling us your husband lost his job.”
“Del’s been looking for work. He called everyone he knew, cashed in every favor, reached out to every contact, but he couldn’t find anything.”
“Is that where he was going today?” Jace asked gently. “He looked like he was dressed for a job interview.”
“Today…” she said, and stopped. “Today…” she tried again. “Today he thought he was going to finally get a job.
“Yesterday, Del got a callback from a company where he’d interviewed two weeks ago. The human resources manager asked him to come in at ten this morning. Del was sure he’d be hired.”
She studied her hands and tried to talk again, but her words were drowned in tears. I handed her a box of tissues that had been sitting on a lamp table. Iris dried her eyes, blew her nose, then took a deep breath and spoke quickly, as if she was afraid she’d lose her words in another tear storm:
“This morning, Del woke up cheerful, ate a big breakfast, and whistled while he dressed. He –” she stopped, then plunged ahead as if she was diving into icy water. “He kissed me goodbye and said we’d go out and celebrate tonight.”