by M. P. Cooley
“You got your phone?”
Ray patted all five pockets of his cargo pants before nodding.
“Pick up if I call,” Marty said. Ray waved a yes as he walked out the door.
Marty shook his head. “Too late for me to correct his manners.”
“Ray seemed wired into his phone when I met with him. I’m surprised you had to remind him.”
“I check all his messages, so he leaves the phone home half the time. Probably figures there’s no point in texting if he can’t be a jackass.” At the last word several people shot us glares, and Marty lowered his voice. “Sorry.”
I wanted to ask him why he was checking his brother’s phone but was afraid anything I said to him might be considered an interrogation, which he really didn’t need right now. The smell of carnation wreaths was thick in the room, coating my nose and mouth. Carnations were everywhere when Kevin died. I wanted to spit.
Marty stood up as Jason Byrne approached.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Marty,” Jason said, and shook Marty’s hand. Jason was wearing a light blue shirt and chinos, shiny with overwashing, a crease ironed into them. “Are you doing okay?”
Marty shook his head at the crowds. “Things are kind of crazy.”
“I left some coffee cake my mom made this morning with your brother. Did he give it to you? I know it’s kind of stupid, but Mom said we can’t afford to send flowers, like I wanted. And I know you have people dropping in on you, and you don’t want to have to worry about feeding them, and it’s what you do when someone dies. I think.” At this he stopped, having talked himself out.
“Well, I’m not much of a flower guy, so your cake, it was great—sorry for not thanking you before. The only people visiting are the cops, like Officer Lyons here.” He flicked a thumb at me, crooked from an old injury. “She’ll probably want to ask you a few questions.”
“Of course. I’m happy to help.”
I stood up. “How about after the wake? We don’t need to discuss police business here.”
He paused, darting a look at Marty. “I’m really sorry, I have to go back to the pharmacy after this. But we close at eight P.M., so I could talk to you after. Unless it’s an emergency.” His words slowed, and finally halted. He cocked his head. “Which I guess it is.”
As he gave me his number, Denise Byrne approached, her arms overflowing with two matching down jackets, a trail of feathers leaking from a ripped seam. “Jason, sweetie, I’m afraid you’ve taken more than five minutes. Every second here is a second the pharmacy might lose a customer.”
Little chance of that when every person in Hopewell Falls was here. “Denise, sorry for holding him up. Will you be available at eight as well? And your husband?”
“My husband?” she said, and Jason cringed. “He’s sick these days, and doesn’t really talk anymore.”
“He can talk, Mom.” Jason sounded insulted.
“I know, sweetheart. But do you really think it’s a good idea, when it wears your dad out so much?” She reached out, ready to smooth back her son’s hair, but at his glare her hand dropped. “But of course we don’t mind, and we want to help out the investigation any way we can. Tomorrow too late?”
“We can come before work, as early as you’d like.”
“Come at seven. Jason, sweetie, let’s get going.” Jason hustled out the door, brushing past Hale.
Marty touched Denise Byrne’s arm, and then quickly pulled away.
“Ma’am”—Marty’s proper streak was in full effect—“thank you for the coffee cake. It was delicious. I appreciate it.”
“Oh, I didn’t realize—I thought it was going to our neighbors, the Brouillettes. But I’m so glad you enjoyed it.” She slipped from his grip and left the room.
“What am I doing here?” Marty whispered, so quietly only I could hear. He took in the suit he was wearing, the wall of wreaths, and the crowds. His eyes settled on Danielle, and for the first time I saw tears. Before I could reach him he clomped out. Seconds later, the back door hit the wall with a bang.
I twisted through the crowds to the hallway. Dave and Hale were writing down names from the guest book.
“Subtle, guys.”
“Oh, you mean like how you provoked the bereaved husband into storming out?” Dave asked. “Nice form, by the way. I decided to stay well out of it once I saw you had things so under control.”
A funeral home employee was plowing as I left. He was being thoughtful and discreet, making sure none of the snow blocked in any of the parked cars. The drive home wasn’t bad, provided I kept the speed to ten miles an hour.
I was reaching for the lockbox when my daughter ran to the entryway. I quickly stowed my gun. With two parents in the FBI, Lucy had received the gun safety lecture early on, but I wanted to keep her curiosity to a minimum. To date, she’d only noticed my gun once, remarking how small my Hopewell Falls Glock was compared with the Sig Sauer I carried in the FBI.
“I’m the teacher,” Lucy called, waving two sheets of paper. She was wearing pink striped tights under a purple striped jumper, with a lime green belt tied around. Dad had lost the clothes battle again.
“Oh, really.” I sat down on the steps that led upstairs to wrestle my boots off.
“You have a quiz today,” and she showed me the handwritten test that consisted of a series of math problems written in Lucy’s six-year-old writing, the ink purple and sparkly.
“Okay. Can I eat dinner first?”
“No!” Lucy yelled and grinned and, holding on to the banister, swept out in wide circles.
“No? But won’t Grandpa be lonely?”
“No! It’s not Grandpa. He’s a student.” Lucy was now swinging closer, and making dramatic whoa-oa! sounds. As I stood up, my daughter careened into me, grabbing hold of my legs with an oomph. With Lucy still attached to my front, I backward frog-marched her into the kitchen, where my father was at the table reading a paper, spaghetti and salad—the greens a pleasant surprise—on the table. He had used my lusterware plates. When I’d moved in, I’d brought out the boxes of Depression-era china I’d collected since I was a teenager. I only had a chance to unpack one box before Kevin’s illness worsened and my attention moved back to him, but my dad used the dishes constantly.
Now he peered at me over the top of his glasses. “How’d the wake go? Was every politico in the state there sucking up to our future vice president?”
“More or less.”
“I thought I felt a hot wind coming from the direction of the funeral home.” My father put down the paper. “And I assume Jerry shook hands with every one of them, right?”
“At least it kept him busy,” I said. “He’s more of a menace when he thinks he’s ‘leading’ the ‘investigation.’ ”
I inhaled the smell of dinner. Real Italians would sneer at the sauce, and my father still hadn’t figured out al dente, but this was the food I grew up with, so I thought it was perfect. I wanted to dive right in, but remembered my manners. “How was your day?”
“Good, good,” he answered. He waved a glass of red wine at me. “Done for the night? Want one?”
“Half a glass would be good. I’ll slide out of my chair with more.”
Lucy chose to ignore dinner. “Mom, Grandpa, take your test.”
“Okay, but you have to eat one meatball while we do it,” I said. I read through the test, widening my eyes. “Wait, these questions are hard!”
Lucy cackled.
THE REST OF THE evening was peaceful. My father and I took Lucy’s tests. He curled his arm around three sides of the paper, guarding his answers. Dad had lost fifty pounds since his heart attack, but he wasn’t a small man. He made a big show of cheating off me, going so far as to copy my name in the top space of the sheet. Lucy gave us both a stern lecture on the evils of cheating after correcting our many intentional mistakes.
“I guess that’s the trade-off with a girl. Fewer fart jokes, but having someone around who knows what’s best for you, and re
ally, really enjoys explaining it to you,” he said, pulling the plate I had cleared from the table out of my hands.
“Get outta here,” he added.
After working twelve hours, I didn’t take much convincing. “Twist my arm.”
Lucy and I played poker. I liked cards, liked watching Lucy’s reactions to her hand, dark blue eyes peeking out from under her straight black bangs. At bedtime I walked her upstairs to what was my old room. On the day Lucy, Kevin, and I moved in, I discovered that light purple paint had replaced the pale blue walls of my teenage years, and a big canopy bed now sprawled in the center. More jarring, Dad had moved into my sister Jenny’s old room, leaving the master bedroom for Kevin and me.
“Creepy,” I said, the first night.
“What?” Kevin said. “It’s not like it’s their bed.”
I reached across and punched him in the arm.
“Very nice. Beat up the guy with cancer.”
The room had enough space for a bed and a few favorite things, and I stayed there even after Kevin died. I moved his clothes down into the garage with the rest of our belongings from California, in storage until the day Lucy and I could move out, which considering my finances and the cost of child care, might be never.
I rubbed Lucy’s back under the glow of the night-light, making nonsense talk that soothed her into sleep. I took a nice warm shower after that, and wandered downstairs in sweats. Dad was watching some sort of police procedural. He especially enjoyed pointing out everything they did wrong. During the commercial breaks I described the case.
“I don’t know,” I said. “This doesn’t feel like a situation of domestic abuse carried too far. I mean, it might be, I’m not saying Jerry’s wrong—”
“Why wouldn’t you? He’s a moron.”
“That’s true. But I think Ray’s lying about being asleep, and she either had some cash or was playing with someone who had some cash. You should have seen the earrings. . . .”
My cell phone started buzzing. At the same time, the home phone rang. I took the cell, while Dad took the landline.
“June, it’s Dave. There’s a dead body in the congresswoman’s backyard. Hale’s boys are securing the scene, but we’ll need to get out there fast.” The last words were muffled, and it sounded like he was dressing and talking on the phone at the same time.
Dad came in carrying the phone. “It’s someone named Hale Bascom. He says it’s an emergency.”
I coordinated with both of them, one in each ear.
I ARRIVED AT THE Brouillettes’ house almost an hour later. The snow was falling faster than the plows could clear it, and I crept along at five miles per hour until I came up on an accident. I stopped. It was Hale.
“God, lucky break,” he said as he climbed into the car. He was again underdressed for the weather. I would give him the address for the Army & Navy Surplus in the morning so he could get some real boots, or the Eastern Mountain Sports at the mall if he wanted something stylish. In the interim I cranked the heat.
I concentrated on the road while Hale gave me more details: One of Hale’s agents was patrolling the Brouillettes’ land. The agent turned on the barnyard lights and that’s when he saw the body, an unidentified male. Amanda and Phil Brouillette were now in the house, far away from the crime scene.
We arrived at the Brouillettes’ to find a path plowed up the drive. I knew I didn’t have the traction to make it even halfway, and I ended up backing out of the driveway and parking on the road. As we got out of the car, Dave arrived. The three of us trudged through the back pasture to the barn, almost a quarter mile away, the blackness of the open field swallowing us whole. We didn’t talk, Dave absorbed in forging a way through the rapidly mounting snowdrifts, Hale tucking his chin low in his jacket to keep warm, and me focused on the lights flickering through the falling snow, getting brighter and brighter until we arrived at the barn, which was lit up like daytime.
The place was still, the agents on scene securing the perimeter almost in shadow. Dave, Hale, and I were twenty-five feet from the body when we stopped: The blood spatter was wide. The artery the killer hit with the ax had sprayed the snow in an arc. Pink near the edges of the scene, the snow underneath was black with blood. Blood from the torso and the head saturated the victim’s clothes—khakis, white shirt, and a ski jacket. One of the blows to the throat had sliced away his tie. Hit so many times, the victim’s head was almost severed, and his face had an ax head lodged in it, obscuring his features.
I shuddered. “That’s Ray Jelickson.”
CHAPTER 9
IT WAS ONLY FIFTEEN steps between the barn and the crime scene tent, but by step three I had serious doubts about whether I would make it. I was tired and the snow was falling fast, and I could barely make out Annie inside, investigating the scene.
Crime scene tent was perhaps a bit grand a term. With techs slow to respond in the weather, we had constructed a shelter out of items scavenged from the Brouillettes’ garage, and Annie was working in an old patio frame with plastic sheeting wrapped around it, held together with duct tape and a prayer. It looked like a snow globe but in reverse, where the world was shaken and only inside the tent was there stillness, peace.
“Stay behind me, tight in my path!” Dave yelled over the wind. “Grab the edge of my jacket and hold on!”
High winds sent ice into my eyes, the only part of me not covered by layers of wool, down, and some space-age fabric that the manufacturers claimed would wick moisture away from my skin; they lied. I closed my eyes and blindly let Dave pull me toward the shelter, drifting left before being yanked forward two steps.
I was still recovering from the property search. Before being called off on account of the blizzard, everyone we could scrounge from any local, state, and federal agency had searched from the front road, across the field, up to the barn and beyond to the creek, to the arterial road. The search was successful, in a way; some state troopers found the Jelicksons’ car as well as a second set of tire tracks, and Hale and I pulled bloody clothes out of the creek. Even with waterproof gloves, the cold from the creek made my fingers ache as I fished out Dickies work clothes, a fleece-lined jean jacket, and utility gloves.
“So our suspect has frostbite,” Hale joked.
The killer took the time to submerge the clothes so the DNA evidence would be contaminated, if not destroyed—the lab might profile a trout. Nonetheless, we filled the evidence bags we were carrying, and I even hiked back for more bags at one point.
At the tent, Dave yelled to Annie, but she didn’t respond, either because she couldn’t hear over the wind or because she was ignoring us. Air gusts wrapped the tent door around Dave’s arm twice as he pulled it aside, and he carefully untwisted it. The warmth from the heaters came out of the tent in waves, and even two feet away, I warmed up.
I could see our presence register with Annie, who squared her shoulders and tilted her chin.
“What?” she said.
Dave stepped past Annie into the tent. “Can we come in and do our job?”
“Don’t mess up my crime scene.”
The three of us pressed as close to the wall as we could without tipping the whole structure over. Stepping into the pink-tinged mess that filled the tent, I made plans to throw out my boots when I got home. I assumed Annie had donned her waders for dramatic effect, but they were appropriate in this glop.
“Did those people”—Annie’s low opinion of the state troopers and FBI agents came through in her tone—“manage to get that phone working?”
Moisture—we weren’t sure if it was melted snow or all the blood—had left Ray’s phone inoperable. The troopers had managed to get it dry enough to take a charge, but the screen was still watery and unreadable. Personally, I would have dropped it into a bowl of rice, which worked for me when Lucy tried to give mine a bath a couple of years back. Of course, I had been working with a flip phone and not the smart phone Ray had on him.
“They’re working on it,” Dave said. He co
cked his head sideways. “What’s going on with this blood spatter pattern?”
“Didn’t you get the report from Figuera?” Annie waved in the direction of the barn and the blood spatter analyst graphing her findings inside.
“We did,” Dave said. “But why don’t you give us the big picture.”
I could see Annie struggling between being offended by having to redo the work of someone with lesser skills and reveling in Dave’s deferral to her expertise. She went for the reveling.
“Based on the position of the body and the blood spatter”—Annie pointed out where Ray lay crumpled, his feet twisted under his knees, a flashlight visible where his torso bent to the side—“I’d say our killer came up behind him and used the ax to sever his head.”
“How’d you know it was an ax?” Dave asked.
Annie gave him one of her best you’re a moron looks and pointed at the body. “Other than the ax head buried in his face?”
“I mean, was there a second weapon, a second attacker?”
Annie downgraded her look to you’re possibly a moron. “We’re still sorting out the footprints. Did you all line-dance around the body while you were waiting for me? Near the body, I found only one set. I mean it’s possible a second killer came along, but if he did, he was only there to cheer the real perp on. They took the weapon”—at this point Annie held an invisible ax over her head—“and swung from the right, sending blood spatter arcing over toward you. You can wait for the M.E. to confirm, but I bet this cut was made first.” Annie pointed to the slash that almost took Ray’s head off his body. She then traced a cut that split his right temple, eye, and cheekbone. “He was still alive when that one, the second swing, came down. He really, really wasn’t going to recover from that. While Ray was on his knees the killer took another whack. That finished him off. A fourth hit sliced the side of the face around the jaw and a fifth slashed along his brow. That’s where the ax head detached from the handle and embedded in his face.”