Picture Perfect Corpse

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  Copyright Information

  Picture Perfect Corpse © 2013 Joanna Campbell Slan

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Midnight Ink, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First e-book edition © 2013

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-7387-3674-7

  Book design by Donna Burch

  Cover art : Bats: iStockphoto.com/jojo100

  Frame: iStockphoto.com/lolon

  Knife: iStockphoto.com/gokcen yener

  Leaves: iStockphoto.com/Kathy Konkle

  Cover design by Kevin R. brown

  Midnight Ink is an imprint of Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.

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  dedication

  To Katigan Campbell Hutts, with love.

  one

  Late afternoon of the shooting

  “I’m pregnant?” asked Detective Chad Detweiler, as his face filled with wonder. To his credit he didn’t flinch at the news. No, he continued to hold me in those strong arms of his as the paramedic proceeded to shine his flashlight into my eyes.

  “I’m going to have a baby,” Detweiler repeated what I’d just told the paramedic.

  “No,” I corrected the big cop firmly. “I am the one who is pregnant. You’re the daddy.”

  In the strobing red light of the ambulance, his face registered a series of emotions. Concern. Shock. Surprise. And finally happiness. “Hey, everybody! I’m pregnant!” Detweiler whooped to no one in particular. “I’m going to be a daddy!”

  “Ouch!” I winced as the paramedic stuck me with a needle to start an IV. The smell of rubbing alcohol floated above the copper-like smell of the blood running down my face.

  “Sorry. Any other health issues I should know about? Allergies? Pacemaker?” said the medic. The blinking red lights of police cruisers imparted a surreal quality to the man’s round face. “Any issues besides the baby?” he prompted me, trying to be heard over the crackle of police radios and the screams of sirens.

  “Yes!” yelled Detweiler, doing a fist pump. “We’re pregnant!”

  Two Illinois state policemen paused while processing the crime scene to stare at us. Their Dudley Do-Right mountie hats looked cartoonish, but their expressions were grave.

  “I meant to tell you about the baby, but I didn’t get the chance! You cut me off when we were talking …” I gasped to Detweiler.

  With a firm hand, the medic cleaned the blood from the bullet wound to my head and a pain washed over me. I love color, honest I do, but I could feel myself turning a sickly shade of green.

  “Shhh,” said Detweiler, taking my hand. “It’s okay. We’ll celebrate later. Things have been sort of crazy.”

  No kidding.

  “You’ve had your Hallmark moment. Now move it, bud. This is a crime scene. Don’t you have a murder to process?” The medic pushed Detweiler aside and took his place.

  “I’m the one who shot him!” I sobbed. “Bill Ballard. I killed him!” Losing all sense of control, I wailed in misery.

  “It’s going to be all right.” Detweiler came around the other side of the emergency worker to stroke my hair. “We heard. The cops who found you are giving their testimony now. It’s all over, sweetheart. Shhh. You did good. You did what you had to do. I’m proud of you.”

  An EMT appeared. In a choreographed effort, he and the medic lifted me onto a stretcher. Detweiler helped, but after they strapped me down, the medic shoved him aside. “We need to get this lady into the bus and to the hospital.”

  “I killed a man!” I cried to Detweiler.

  It was true. I could scarcely believe it, but I’d shot and killed Bill Ballard, the man who masterminded my husband’s murder.

  After running from the law, Bill had returned to the St. Louis area only to hire a crackerjack attorney who had managed to keep him out of jail. This turn of events left Bill free to hire someone to do me in!

  Fortunately, the would-be “assassin” was my friend Johnny Chambers. Knowing I was in danger, Johnny and Police Chief Robbie Holmes had concocted a plot to entrap Bill, a scheme to make sure that Bill would wind up behind bars where he belonged. But unbeknownst to all of us, Brenda Detweiler, Chad Detweiler’s wife, had partnered with Bill. Using my mother-in-law, Sheila, as bait, Brenda had forced me into driving over the Mississippi River to a secluded boat dock in Illinois. When we arrived, it looked to me like Johnny might have been drawn into their plot. But he wasn’t. He was only biding his time—and he proved his loyalty to me by purposely “overlooking” the gun I was carrying when he patted me down and loosely taped my hands together.

  What happened next rivaled the sort of mayhem you might watch in a Quentin Tarantino movie, a scene replete with stomach-churning violence.

  Crazy high on drugs, Brenda shot Johnny in the gut. Because Johnny had barely bound me, I managed to work my hands free and remove my blouse to press it against his wound. Meanwhile, Brenda hopped into her car and drove away. I looked up from Johnny in time to see Bill push Sheila face first into a boat. After she hit the bottom with a sickening crack of bones, he jumped in and grabbed her by the throat. With Johnny dying on the gravel and Sheila being choked to death, I had no choice. There was no one left to save us.

  It was up to me to kill Bill. Time slowed. As I raised my gun, I became totally focused and in the moment. Even when I heard the crunch of tires, and realized that Brenda had come back, I didn’t break my focus. I knew what I had to do.

  I had been taught to aim for center mass. But a bullet traveling through Bill’s chest would have hit Sheila. Instead, I pointed the muzzle at his head, took my time, slowed my breathing, squeezed the trigger and blew him away. His head exploded in a red mist.

  Simultaneously, a bullet from Brenda’s gun grazed my temple, and my world went black.

  Our wild drama had been witnessed by two off-duty cops who’d planned a quiet afternoon of fishing. That’s how I came to be strapped on a stretcher, shivering, shirtless, and disoriented, surrounded by sirens, flashing red lights, and disembodied voices coming over radios. The only comfort was that somehow Detweiler had magically appeared at my side. His coat was wrapped around me, and my fingertips clenched the fabric as thoug
h it were my favorite blankie.

  “My baby will be okay, won’t it?” I asked the EMT closest to me as they carried me to the ambulance. Detweiler was right at the man’s shoulder.

  “I hope so,” said the tech. He turned to snarl at Detweiler. “For the last time. Back off, buddy! Why don’t you go arrest somebody?”

  “How’re Sheila and Johnny?” I called to him.

  “Johnny’s on his way to the hospital,” said Detweiler. “He’s touch and go, but I’m pretty certain Sheila will make it.”

  Almost on cue, her voice cut through the chatter. “You idiot! Get those scissors away from me! You are not going to cut my blouse open! This is silk! Do you know how much it cost? My dry cleaner will have a fit!”

  Despite the pain, I chuckled. “Wait ’til she hears I’m having a baby.”

  “My baby,” echoed Detweiler. “I’m going to be a dad!”

  two

  Tuesday, Day 1—morning after the shooting

  “You, Mrs. Lowenstein, have a very hard head,” said the male nurse, one Ned O’Malley, as he cleaned my wound. The sting of the alcohol wipe was subsiding but the smell lingered.

  “That bullet could have done a lot more damage. Instead, it skidded along the side of your skull. Scraped a nice-sized groove in your temple. You’ll sport one nasty scar as a memento of your adventure.”

  His wild, carrot-red-haired head bent over me as he gently pressed a fresh bandage on the wound that ran the horizontal length of my right temple. Finishing his work, he stepped back, looked me over, and nodded to himself.

  “Please call me Kiki,” I croaked. My throat was dry and my voice was so hoarse that Kermit the Frog and I could have done a duet.

  “Kiki,” he repeated. “I’m known as Ned the Red, because of the orange hair.” He removed his swinging stethoscope and tucked it into a pocket of his bright red scrubs with the dancing Elmo on them. The juxtaposition delighted me. I’m a scrapbooker and a very visual person, so I love putting orange and red together.

  “You’re a lucky, lucky girl.” Easing his way into the seat beside my hospital bed, the nurse leaned forward on his elbows and smiled at me, a bemused sort of half-grin. His face betrayed the fact he’d lived a hard life, what with the creases, sunburned skin color, and pock marks. Probably in his forties, if the crow’s feet and the white hairs in his beard were any indication. Mixed with the spicy fragrance of his cologne was a hint of antibiotic soap, the kind they put in the dispensers at McDonald’s. Strong stuff that not only killed germs but also peeled the skin right off my fingers.

  “Yeah. I feel really lucky,” I said.

  “I’ve heard you’re a good shot. One of the cops who brought you in nicknamed you ‘Dead-Eye Dora.’ Believe me, he said it with total admiration.” Ned punctuated this statement with a short laugh.

  “Thanks. I think.” I grabbed the box of tissues on the stand next to my hospital bed and dabbed my eyes.

  “One of the side effects of any head injury is strong emotions. Of course, that’s also a part of being pregnant.”

  “How is my baby?” Afraid to hear the answer, I stared down at the mountain range my toes made under the pale green cotton blanket that covered the crisp white sheets tucked over my legs.

  “Fine. A mother’s body is an incredible vessel. The best space capsule ever. NASA’s got nothing on Mother Nature. I doubt your little passenger even knew his mama had been hurt. But I have a hunch these tears aren’t about the baby, are they?”

  “No,” I said hastily, wiping at my eyes. “Okay, maybe. Some. I shot a man. Killed him.”

  “That’s what’s bothering you?” Ned raised an eyebrow.

  “Wouldn’t it bother you?”

  “How about if I contact someone for you to talk to? Do you have a priest? A minister?”

  “Rabbi Sarah Caplin. Montefiore Temple. Over in St. Louis. We’re still in Illinois, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. We were the closest hospital to the slough.”

  “How are my friends?” My heart raced and a cold sweat broke out on my upper lip.

  “Mrs. Lowenstein is fine except for a broken collarbone, a fracture of her forearm, a concussion, and bad bruising. Mr. Chambers is in critical condition. His spleen had to be removed to stop the bleeding, and he’s in a coma.”

  “Oh.” A tear trickled down my cheek.

  “Mr. Chambers did respond to stimuli though, and that’s a good sign.”

  Thank goodness.

  Johnny’s sister Mert Chambers was my best friend. She would never forgive me if he didn’t pull through. Mert was a typical Scorpio. You didn’t want to get on her bad side. Once you crossed her, you were toast. And we’re talking burnt toast here. She was under the impression that I’d cooked up this whole scheme and put Johnny at risk. Nothing could be further from the truth, but I knew she wouldn’t give me a fair hearing. Not now. When someone she loved was involved, Mert led with her emotions. It made her the best of friends and the worst of enemies.

  That reminded me: “What about Brenda Detweiler?”

  “Brenda Detweiler? Who’s that? She didn’t come in with you,” Ned said.

  “Brenda Detweiler is the woman who shot Johnny and me. I’d like to know if she’s in custody.”

  “You probably need to talk with an officer for details on your assailant.”

  My assailant. Yeah, that described Brenda Detweiler to a T. Although she’d thrown her husband, Detective Chad Detweiler, out on Christmas Day, she’d grown furious when he decided to give in to our mutual attraction. I’d met Detweiler when he investigated my husband’s murder. We’d fallen in love despite our best efforts to stay “just friends.” But propriety and good sense had kept us at arm’s length until Brenda tossed him to the curb. Then, despite our best intentions to go slowly, our relationship moved forward at breakneck speed. In fact, he was all set to divorce Brenda when her father, Milton Kloss, asked him to wait because she’d agreed to go into drug rehab—for the third time. Without Detweiler’s insurance, the treatment would have been financially prohibitive. After we discussed it, Detweiler postponed the divorce proceedings. But finding a place for Brenda in a rehab facility didn’t happen overnight. Meanwhile she had grown bolder and bolder in her attacks on me.

  At the same time that Brenda was making my life miserable, I was also receiving nasty letters and taunts from Bill Ballard.

  Ned brought me back to the here and now. “You sure are lucky. Those two off-duty policemen crept through the cattails and discovered a crime in progress. They called for backup and ambulances, but if you hadn’t shot Mr. Ballard, both of your friends might have died.”

  “I killed a man.” The words came hesitantly. The tears came easily.

  “Listen. I served in Iraq.” He rubbed his mouth with a clenched fist. “There’s blood on my hands, too. Few people in our society ever are forced to make the sort of choices that you and I have made. But what else could you have done? Would you have stood by and watched your friends die?”

  “I … I don’t know.” I blew my nose.

  “Sure you do. The news reports call you a hero!”

  I covered my face with my hands. “I don’t want to be a hero. I just want to be left alone.”

  three

  Hospitals are not very good places to recover from an injury. You’d get more rest if you sat on the floor in the middle of Union Station. At times, I wondered whether I was really in a hospital bed, or if I’d somehow been transported to a parade reviewing stand. The stream of people coming in and out of my room astonished me. Last night, right after I was admitted, Police Chief Robbie Holmes brought my daughter, Anya, by to see me and her grandmother.

  “We’re not going to stay long,” said the man who planned to marry my mother-in-law. “But I thought Anya needed to see for herself that you both were all right. Jennifer Moore told me to tell you that An
ya’s welcome to bunk up at their place as long as necessary.”

  “Love you, Mom.” My daughter had kissed me.

  “Love you, too, Anna-Banana,” I had said, and they bid me goodnight. I slept soundly until my breakfast arrived, called Anya before she went to school, assured myself she was fine, thanked Jennifer for taking care of my daughter, and drifted back to sleep.

  New footsteps awakened me, and I rubbed my eyes with both fists, sure that I was dreaming at the sight of my new visitor. “Amanda?”

  There stood my younger sister, almost my spitting image, but three years and twenty pounds shy of me.

  “Hey. That male nurse you have told me you’re on the mend. What’s his name? Ned? Yeah, that’s it. I stopped by to tell you that your daughter is fine.”

  “All the way from Arizona?” I marveled.

  “Well, I had been planning to fly here to see about Mom, but before I could book my ticket, she called. Said you’d run off and left her at a stranger’s home. Phoned every fifteen minutes to say she was having a heart attack. I got here, took a cab to your mother-in-law’s house, and discovered our mother living like a queen. Tracked down your daughter at her friend’s house. Anya gave me the lowdown. And according to the news this morning, you’re quite the hero.” My sister propped her feet up on the rails of my bed. Her brown leather flats went nicely with her khaki cargo pants and black knit top.

  There was that word again: hero.

  I ignored it.

  Amanda kept talking. “Have you seen today’s newspaper? You’re big news, big sister. Here, I’ll read it to you.” From a fabric bag, she pulled a folded copy of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

  “No!” I said sharply. “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “Well, I’ll leave it here.” She rummaged around inside the bag and lifted out two magazines. “I brought you clean clothes and magazines. I know how much you love magazines.”

  “Thanks. How’s Mom?”

  “She went on and on about how upsetting all this was to her. Leave it to Mom to make this her personal tragedy. It’s always been all about her, hasn’t it?” Amanda chuckled.