“We will.”
We started toward the car, then stopped abruptly.
“Goddamn. Goddamn the mother-fucking son of a bitch all to hell.”
I turned and stared at Sam. He shone his flashlight at his guidebook, then looked up at the towering sculptures again.
I looked where his light was shining. “My God.”
I closed my eyes against the night that had now gotten darker.
Chapter Three
Up. Sam had always preached that up was a direction too. Always look up. “Reaching Woman,” I said. “Reaching Woman. Her arms are full.”
“What’s wrong?” Dorothy asked. I was familiar with the place. She wasn’t.
“Whatever she is holding, it doesn’t belong there.”
“It looks like she’s holding a baby.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ.” I couldn’t see Sam’s face. His voice was barely above a whisper. I turned and looked at Dorothy, now as frozen in place as one of the statues. My mind raced. This was officially my investigation. Dimon had said so. But there was no precedent for this and I was certain Sam didn’t know how to proceed either. The moves were up to me. The first one was obvious.
I dug my cell phone out of my pocket and got ahold of the forensics team heading to Hays. “You need to turn around and come back. We’ve found something. Your job here isn’t done yet.”
We all stared up and I was aware that the three of us had jumped to a conclusion, but whatever was there had been deliberately placed.
“Well, one thing is certain,” I kept my voice brisk. “We can no longer keep these grounds pristine. There’s only one way I know of for a team to get up there by using the equipment that is likely to be in this town. The city crew that repairs lines and puts up Christmas lights will have a boom lift. John Winthrop will know who to call. It’ll tear up these grounds, but it can’t be helped. We need to do this right now.”
Apparently John had only been a couple of miles up the road because he was back in ten minutes and the state forensics team was close behind. The boom lift arrived in short order. Lights went on in several houses across the street. Sam was right. There was no way to keep any of this secret.
But the wind still howled and snow still blew. It would be easy for people to think this was merely a crew out to fix a downed line. That was common enough. The forensics team in one vehicle, Dorothy and me in another, plus Sam. Just three parked cars. Perhaps we would have a little time before people realized there was something wrong. It would not be unusual for John Winthrop to be out and about this time of night.
We were all inside the border of sculptures surrounding the block. The boom lift had to stay outside on the street. There was no truck-sized entry into this square—into this death-spattered nightmare.
The boom lift maneuvered into place. The senior man on the forensics team, Joe Nelson, climbed into the bucket. I had gotten acquainted with him when he proved that some old Spanish maps were legitimate. The man operating the equipment took him straight up and then rotated Joe toward Reaching Woman. He had a powerful digital camera capable of bursts of five rapid flashes with one exposure. An extension arm with a remote-control lever allowed multiple angles. He took more pictures than I had ever seen anyone take of a crime scene.
If it was a crime scene.
Then he removed his warm lined protective gloves. His hands were now covered with the thin latex ones that were no protection from the numbing blowing sleet. He rapidly brushed away the accumulation of snow on Reaching Woman’s outer forearm and took more pictures. He took a whisk broom out of his duffel and took more pictures of all exposed areas before they could be covered with ice again.
Then he carefully removed the bundle from Reaching Woman’s arms.
“Bring me down,” he hollered.
The boom lift operator lowered the bucket. He stepped out and we all gathered around. Joe held out a flannel-wrapped bundle. My stomach lurched. I pulled off my down gloves leaving only cold latex ones. I fumbled for the blanket. My hands trembled and it wasn’t from the cold.
The silence was eerie. I glanced at the solemn faces with eyes peeking out from balaclavas, heavy scarves, and hooded coats. Then I drew a deep breath, almost welcoming the sharp pain from the cold air. I pulled back the flannel.
“Oh, God.” Dorothy gave a cry and turned her face away.
It was a baby. Perfect. Frozen. Its tiny mouth pursed into a pink rosebud. My breath froze.
I’m good at hiding my feelings because of my work with oral histories. It’s important to not show any emotion other than empathy when people are spilling their guts out for the first time—when they are telling a shameful secret about their family that would be better left untold. My sister, Josie, can do this too. In fact, she is even better at maintaining the wooden mask. It’s part of her training as a psychologist not to show judgment or shock and to keep her disgust for aberrant behavior off her face. But this time…this time my mask failed me.
The wind howled and we were slammed with more sleet. Red eyes, red cheeks were a natural response to the icy force. Perfectly natural.
But I did not dare cry. I widened my eyes and took three deep breaths. If I shed any tears, I could hear these men saying later “She bawled like a baby. Should have seen her. Goddamn woman has no business in this job.”
But the baby. The baby. With thousands of couples yearning to hold this sweet thing in a rocking chair. Buy stuffed animals. Protect this child. Love it forever. How could anyone do this?
My breath started again. I could cry later. I needed to think.
We were all professionals here except Dorothy and the boom lift operators. I turned to the three men on the forensic team. “I want every single detail of this kept quiet until you men complete your work. Everything. Understand?” They all nodded. “I don’t intend to keep all of this secret for very long, but I want everyone to keep their mouth shut until we know how this baby died.”
I gave the boom lift operators a hard look. “Of course this applies to both of you. Topeka might need a couple of days to complete all of the tests. Do I have your word?”
They both nodded.
“Even after that there might be some restrictions on what you can discuss.”
They glanced at one another.
“What?”
“Who is in charge here? You or Sheriff Winthrop? Don’t mean no disrespect but we would like to know, in case you both tell us different things.”
I stepped in front of John immediately. “I am. I’m the regional director. All due respect to John, here, and he will be my main backup on this case. John, do you want to say a few words?”
“I guess you all know Lottie is trying to get a regional crime center started out here. She’s the main man and I’ll take my orders from her. And if she’s telling us all to shut up until the state boys do their job, then I’m going to shut up. And both of you will too or you’ll answer to me.”
Under different circumstances I would have pointed out that by “answering” to him, he was undermining my authority right off the bat.
Furious, Dorothy stepped forward to make that point. She needed to shut up too. I intervened fast.
“This is Dorothy Mercer,” I said quickly. “You may have heard of her. She has a New York Times bestselling mystery series. She’s Keith’s aunt and also will serve as a consultant for the new regional center.” I was winging a lot of this since her involvement hadn’t been made official yet. “She will be helping me with criminal characterization. I’ll welcome any insights she might have, because I’m sure we’ll need all the expertise we can get.”
Dorothy was a quick study. She took two steps backwards.
“Two days, that’s all I’m asking you to keep quiet about the death of this baby. Then I’ll issue a formal statement and have a press conference. We’ll releas
e details about the Suter boy as soon as we notify his parents.
I turned to the EMTs. “Go directly to the KBI lab. Don’t turn on your light bar or siren until you’re on I-70, then go as fast as you can.”
I glanced at the boom lift operators and the forensic team who were standing to one side. “Sorry. We need to finish everything up here tonight. As fast as possible. I don’t want anyone to look out the window tomorrow morning and see all of us prowling around.”
Dorothy stood to one side, most of her face shielded by a wool scarf.
“Dorothy, there is no point in your staying out here in the cold. Why don’t you go wait in the car while we finish up?”
She refused again. “No way, Lottie. Don’t worry, I’m up to it.”
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
Sam had been eying the area beneath Reaching Woman. “First thing I want to know is how someone managed to get a baby up there.”
***
The trip home took twice as long as it should. The roads were slick and the sleet mixed with snow. Dorothy didn’t talk much, and I didn’t want to. I focused on my driving.
“I want to rent a place of my own,” she said finally.
“There’s no need for that, Dorothy. We have plenty of room and you can stay with us as long as you want to. You’re more than welcome.”
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate your hospitality, Lottie. But I value my privacy. I need it. I want to be able to come and go as I please. And I want to buy a used car.”
“There’s plenty around. But we have an extra car. An old Thunderbird that’s in good shape. No need to go to that much trouble.”
“It’s no trouble. I plan on sticking around for a while. I’ll get some old trade-in and sell it again when I’m ready to leave. If I decide to leave. This town is really quite pleasant. It’s low energy compared to New York. “
“You’re kidding. You might want to stay here?”
“Why not? Not for good. Just occasionally. A lot of writers have summer homes in isolated places.”
“I don’t think you’ll like our summers much, but you’ve got the isolated part right.”
“I’ll just want a little cottage. Something with a front porch. A bungalow style. Just so there’s a place for me to set up an office and a place to sleep. A galley kitchen, a front room. Maybe a detached garage so I won’t have to scrape ice off my car.”
Her list kept growing.
“I would like to be able to walk to the grocery store.”
An OnStar call came through. I used my thumb to punch the button on my steering wheel. “Hello.”
“You okay? Where are you? I was expecting you two back four hours ago.
“I wish! Dorothy and I are fine, but we ran into bad trouble at Lucas. I’ll tell you about it when I get home.”
“Another murder?”
“Was that just a guess or have you already heard something?”
“No. I haven’t heard anything but I figured something serious came up to keep you gone this long.”
“Talk to you when I get there.” As far as I knew, OnStar was safe but I didn’t want to take a chance on anyone overhearing. I certainly didn’t want to talk about a dead baby, and it would be best if he heard about the Suter boy from me face-to-face.
Dorothy stared straight ahead. It was too dark to see her expression.
“Right now I need to pay attention to my driving.”
“Okay. Be careful.”
Chapter Four
Keith stared out the window and didn’t, or couldn’t, speak. Because they knew the family so well, just he and Sam had delivered the news to the parents after Dorothy and I got back to Carlton County. Dorothy went straight to her room, but I stayed up and waited for Keith to come back. It was useless to try to sleep.
A heavy accumulation of snow bent the branches of the cedar windbreak surrounding our farm. When we were first married, the trees had seemed like a blue-black prison fence through which I could not escape. That feeling was gone now. When I felt lonely and yearned for stability, the trees gave me a sense of security. But right now no outside element could whisk away last night’s horror.
Keith had taken the Suter boy’s death hard. The baby’s death even harder. Last night when I asked him how it went when he returned from the Suters’ his eyes flashed at the stupidity of the question. “Bad. End-of-the-world bad. Their son was everything to them.” I fell silent.
This morning, he was as restless as a caged tiger. Beneath his flannel shirt his muscles bunched with barely contained rage as he gazed at the whiteness. He is a man of action and there is no more dangerous combination than rage and helplessness. He turned away from the window and paced.
I said nothing. Simply watched. There is a type of body strength that cannot be obtained through working out. It’s acquired by physical labor starting in childhood on a farm. Calculated by wise fathers to not be so hard or dangerous as to break the boy, the relentless steady rigor builds men with bones of steel, stomachs as hard as a brick wall, and the shoulders and necks of linebackers. A lifetime of hoisting bales of hay, leaping from horses, branding cattle, corralling large animals that didn’t want to be vaccinated had made Keith into one hell of a man. But his power was of no use now.
He returned to the window and scraped off a feathery line of frosty crystals at the bottom. He fingered the break in the caulking and retrieved his memo book from his shirt pocket and made a quick note. I didn’t have to read it to know “repair caulking” would go on his to-do list immediately.
I sat curled in my leather chair sipping coffee. Thinking…thinking. Or as much as I could in between flashes of a perfect frozen baby.
The house phone rang. I answered it in the kitchen. It was Dimon.
“They pushed the autopsies right through. John Winthrop was there to observe because we wanted to include a member of the regional team and establish the authority of the new organization right off the bat.”
“So soon? All the lab work too?”
“No, we will probably have to wait for all those to be included, but I wanted you to know right away that it was a bullet lodged in the Suter boy’s heart. A close-range shot using hollow points. Someone who knew what he was doing. There’s no doubt about the cause of death, but of course we have to run all the other tests too.”
“A hollow point. My God, Frank.” A lethal bullet. Made to explode inside a body. Made to kill instantly. “And the baby?”
He hesitated. “Bad news on that. The little girl died of exposure. Sorry to say she froze to death. Better news would be that she was dead before this monster put her there. Not that the bastard just let her freeze.”
A little baby girl. I could cry freely now. In my own home with only my husband around to bear witness, the tears could flow. But I kept my voice steady.
“Okay. That will affect the investigation.” I didn’t want to talk to Frank Dimon anymore. Not for a while. “I’m going to hang up and tell Keith about the results of Brent Suter’s autopsy. He’s taking it pretty hard. He’s been out to that place a number of times since that kid was just a toddler.”
“Does he have ideas on all this?”
“No. He keeps asking the same things as all the rest of us. What was Brent doing out there? And why in God’s name would anyone want to kill him?” Wanting to know Keith’s opinion comes up a lot. His intelligence coupled with a strong dose of common sense carries a lot of weight. He has a reputation for being right. About a lot of things.
“His murder seems doubly puzzling to me now. A hollow point sounds professional.”
There was a noise in the background. Dimon had a habit of thrumming his pencil on the desk when he was thinking. “Some days I just barely have the stomach for this job.”
It was the first time I had heard him admit to any weakness.
I hung up the phone, went back into the living room and told Keith about the autopsy reports.
“A hollow point! Did the bastard use a rifle or a hand gun?”
“I’m sure it would have been a hand gun because of the position of the body. The killer couldn’t have gotten the right angle with a rifle. The coffin takes up most of the width of the mausoleum. There’s no room to go around it. Brent was a little to one side of the opening. Like a kid would scooch down in a closet.”
“Trying to hide,” Keith rammed his fists together. “Hunted down like an animal.” Then he looked at my tear-stained face. He held out his arms and pulled me against his chest. He’s a tall man and although I’m five-foot eight, my ear was against his beating heart. The steadiness should have been reassuring but it sounded like a war drum.
He didn’t need to say what he was thinking. There have been many battles in our marriage. He had married a historian and then I added undersheriff to my résumé. Now, despite his silent disapproval, I had gone a step further and agreed to be in charge of law enforcement in nine counties. A heavyweight. At risk when he wanted to keep me safe. Safe, as in writing academic articles.
“You’re up against an evil person,” he murmured into my hair. “Evil, Lottie.”
The phone rang again.
“Winthrop here. Has Dimon called?”
“Yes.” I caught him up on the autopsy reports. There was a long silence when I reported that the baby had frozen to death. “What kind of bastard…?”
“I don’t know.”
“How are the Suters doing?”
“Sam and Keith went over last night to tell them about Brent. I didn’t go because I don’t know the father at all and am just barely acquainted with Patricia. We hoped good friends might soften the blow a little, but no such luck. Keith said Patricia was in shock and not fit to answer any questions and Brent’s dad was in terrible shape. Sam went on home, but Keith hung around long enough to make sure they didn’t need any medical treatment.”
“That’s good.”
Fractured Families Page 3