Tagged for Death

by Sherry Harris

  A woman came up to Carol with an armful of kids’ clothes. She didn’t ask for a better price, which surprised us both.

  “I need to do the same thing at my house,” the woman said, gesturing to the sale. “I just don’t have time to price everything. I’ve been to a lot of tag sales, but this one is organized better than any I’ve seen.”

  Carol gave me a little shove in the back toward the woman. “This is Sarah Winston. She organized the whole thing. I’m paying her a percentage of the profits.”

  “What percentage?”

  “It depends on how much stuff you have. She’ll come by to give you an estimate.”

  I looked at Carol like she was speaking in tongues.

  “I’m Betty Jenkins. Can I have your number?” the woman asked me. “My house has been overtaken by things. My mother died in January. What my brothers and sisters didn’t want is in my garage.”

  “My garage was stuffed, too,” Carol said. “My husband was about to blow a gasket. Threatened to set everything out on the curb.”

  “My husband has been complaining all winter that the cars are sitting out in the weather,” the woman said. “If we have any more snow, I’m in trouble.” She smiled as she said it. Her husband probably indulged her every whim, lucky woman. As Carol recited my number, the woman typed it into her phone. “Thanks, I’ll be in touch.”

  I looked at Carol after the woman left. “What just happened here?”

  Carol gave me an innocent smile. “Weren’t you just complaining about not having a job? Now you have one.”

  Oh, brother. I’d do it this once for Betty Jenkins, but I’d better start looking for a real job before Carol roped me into something else.

  At three-thirty, we closed up shop. We sorted and bagged the things that weren’t sold. Carol insisted on paying me. She totaled up her earnings and handed me a generous portion.

  “I wouldn’t have any money if you hadn’t done this for me,” she said.

  I stuffed the wad of money into my purse, smiling. Maybe doing a yard sale for someone else would be okay. I liked having some money in my pocket that I’d earned. Maybe this would be the impetus I needed to get off my duff and find work.

  I pulled up to the thrift shop. The area outside the thrift shop looked deserted. No cars sat in the parking lot or on the street. I fired off a quick text to Jessica saying I’d arrived. After finding the bones here, I wasn’t anxious to be here by myself. I wanted to unload quickly, talk to Jessica, and get home. It had been a very long day. If I didn’t hear from Jessica, I’d stop over at the dorm to see if she was there.

  The lift was down. I loaded it with Carol’s leftover boxes and bags before unlocking the shop. It was cold and quiet in the shop. My movements echoed as I hurried through the dim room. I hauled open the large steel door and raised the creaking, old lift. I quickly carried everything to the storeroom.

  Carol and I had sorted things as we packed. These bags would be easy to deal with later. The storage room was still stuffed to the gills with plastic bags, boxes, and mountains of clothes. The base fire inspector made periodic stops. If he came anytime soon, we’d be in trouble. It looked like the Friday Fun Day I’d skipped hadn’t been a big success. Apparently, it was right up there with the “Air Force Fun Runs.” The wing commander announced Fun Runs and all military members had to participate. It was part of their mandatory physical training, and usually nothing about them was fun.

  As I lowered the steel door, I looked out for signs of Jessica. Nothing. I hustled through the shop, relieved to be outside locking up. It smelled like spring out here, warm earth after the stale, cold air of the thrift shop. I stood on the top step and checked my phone, no word from Jessica. I scanned the area and spotted her. Jessica lay under the lift. I could tell from here that something was horribly wrong.

  CHAPTER 13

  I ran over to her. Jessica was on her back. A pool of blood spread out from under her head. I pressed shaking fingers on Jessica’s neck to check for a pulse. I held them there, silently begging Jessica to be alive. No beat stirred my fingers. I pressed harder, not wanting to give up. Surely, she couldn’t be dead.

  A car screeched to a halt behind me and two car doors slammed. “Stop. Don’t move.” I glanced over my shoulder to see James running toward me with a security forces woman not far behind.

  “It’s Jessica. She’s dead.” My teeth chattered as I stood.

  The woman checked Jessica’s pulse. She shook her head at James. “I can’t find a pulse,” she said.

  James pulled me away. I turned into him, buried my face in his shoulders. His arms went around me. “It’s okay, Sarah. I’m here.”

  I gathered myself and stepped out of his embrace.

  “You’re Sarah Hooker?” the other woman asked, staring openly at me. Obviously, she’d heard the gory details of my life. The woman, more of a girl really, must have arrived at Fitch after I moved off base. I didn’t know her.

  I shook my head and said, “Sarah Winston.”

  James led me over to the car and pushed me down on the seat. The front seat, totally against regulations. He instructed his partner to secure the scene. While she strung out police tape, he called in a report.

  James’s call to the security forces desk would kick in a rigidly followed protocol. They would notify the command post. The command post would notify the wing commander, the center commander, the judge advocate general, medical center, and the fire department. They’d contact the police forces from the towns around the base. And, of course, they’d contact the Fitch OSI.

  The process now was different than when I’d found the bones. Even I knew Jessica hadn’t been dead for long. It meant a murderer could be loose on base. Maybe ready to kill again.

  Minutes after he called in the report, the public-address system crackled on. Every base I’d ever been on had one. It was mostly used to play “Reveille” in the mornings, “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the late afternoon, and “Taps” in the evening. It informed us of weather issues and base exercises. Some people called it the “giant voice.” Half the time, when I had lived on base, if I’d been inside, I couldn’t understand what the voice was saying. I usually assumed it was an exercise.

  “Attention. Attention. Attention. This is the command post. The base commander has ordered all personnel to shelter in place due to a possible threat on the installation. If you are outside, please proceed immediately to the closest facility. All personnel are to remain indoors until the ‘shelter in place’ order is lifted. I say again . . .” The message repeated.

  By “all personnel,” they meant every person on base, moms, kids, DoD employees, everyone. The base gates would close, and no one would be allowed on except for law enforcement officials who came to help. No one would leave base—not even if they had an audience with the pope. Every building would lock down. People in the commissary were stuck there until further notice. The order meant go in and lock in. In case you couldn’t understand what the giant voice was saying, official notifications would go out via text and e-mail with the same message.

  Even though no one knew for sure at this point what had happened to Jessica, all security forces personnel would be called to headquarters. They’d hit the armory, gear up, and fan out across the base, searching building by building. They would follow the perimeter fence around the base.

  Parts of the fence went through the woods, which were rumored to be haunted by the soldiers who’d died there during the Revolutionary War. Any teenager on base could tell you stories of mysterious lights. It wasn’t just them. More than one adult had seen the same. Even though Fitch was a small base, a murderer had plenty of places to hide. Security forces would go house to house if they had to. Even though you couldn’t keep a base locked down forever, it looked like it would be a very long night.

  I’d seen all this hundreds of times during exercises, but never for real. People had to be scared. Moms would be gathering kids. A flurry of texts, tweets, and calls would circula
te as everyone tried to find out what was going on. Rumors would be flying faster than fighter jets. Nothing like this had ever happened on sleepy, small Fitch. They called it “Fabulous Fitch” for a reason. The worst part was nothing that took place now would help Jessica.

  James kneeled down beside me and took my trembling hand. “Did you see anyone?”

  I shook my head.

  “Hear anything?”

  “No. I backed the Suburban up, loaded the lift, raised it, then unloaded it.” I glanced over at Jessica under the lift, pale and still. Cold crept through me as if I were sitting on an ice throne instead of the seat of a squad car.

  “She must have been under the lift the whole time. If I’d lowered the lift instead of leaving it up, Jessica might have been there until next week when the thrift shop opened again.”

  Car after car screeched up. The fire department arrived, even though base fire departments don’t normally have EMTs and everyone knew it was too late. The security forces arrived, followed by OSI agents. Special Agent Bristow glanced at me before pulling James and his partner over with the growing group of people milling around.

  Police cars from all of the small towns surrounding Fitch—Lexington, Concord, Lincoln, Bedford, and Ellington—parked in the lot across the street. Police put on their bulletproof vests. The group listened to instructions shouted through a bullhorn. Police officers paired up with military members. It looked like the building-to-building search was gearing up.

  Bristow organized search groups. His agents started processing the crime scene. James took off with one of the groups. His partner stayed with me by the car. She looked mad that she got stuck babysitting me instead of getting to go on the hunt.

  For the most part, she ignored me and paced around the car. Occasionally she’d talked into her mike. At one point, she heard something that made her kick the tire, then hop around because her foot hurt.

  “What’s going on?” I asked her.

  She glared at me and walked away. A few minutes later, shouting erupted from behind the thrift shop. Bristow, followed by James and other searchers, came around the corner of the thrift shop. Bristow carried something in gloved hands. An Art Deco statue, its base crusted with blood. My Art Deco statue, the one CJ had given to me on our honeymoon.

  James’s partner said, “That’s Tiffany’s statue.”

  I stared at the woman. “Tiffany’s statue?”

  “She told me about it. I know it meant something special to her.”

  CJ had given Tiffany the statue he bought me on our honeymoon in Santa Cruz. My eyes blurred with tears. That day was ingrained in my head.

  We were at a flea market in Santa Cruz, California. The sky was a glorious blue, the sun warm after having burned off the marine layer. We roamed the market, hand in hand. CJ had never been to a flea market before. His mom felt the same way my mom did about secondhand stuff.

  I went to the bathroom. When I came back, CJ had a big grin on his face. He held a bronze Art Deco statue of a woman rising from the sea in his hand.

  “She reminds me of you,” CJ said, handing her to me. I studied the statue. She looked fierce and joyful all at once. I smiled up at CJ and gave him a kiss.

  “I love her,” I said. “And you. Where did you find her? I want to ask about the statue’s history.”

  CJ pointed to where he’d bought her and then headed off to buy a bag of kettle corn. The statue was about a foot tall, with a serene expression on her face. I could use her as a dumbbell for lifting weights. When I approached the two women, their expressions turned from all smiles to something akin to fear.

  “We aren’t taking it back,” the taller of the two women said. They looked so much alike they had to be sisters.

  The other sister took a couple of steps back.

  “I don’t want to return it. I just wanted some information about it. She looks like an Erté, but I can’t make out the signature.”

  The sisters exchanged looks. The shorter of the two gave a little nod. The taller one shrugged before she spoke. “Our uncle won it in a poker game.”

  “Supposedly, he cheated,” the short one added. “That’s why it’s cursed.”

  The taller sister gave her a withering look. “It’s not cursed. We just don’t take returns.”

  I looked from one to the other, wondering what was going on. Maybe they were a little crazy. You ran into all kinds at flea markets. Not all of them were stable.

  “If it’s not cursed, then why did our uncle die the week after he took it home to his wife?”

  “That’s why some in the family say it’s unlucky. But it’s not cursed,” the taller sister said to me.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. They must have sensed my skepticism.

  “Their daughter inherited the statue. She couldn’t have children,” the shorter one said.

  “Lots of people can’t have children,” I said.

  “Which is how it came to our mother.”

  “Let me guess, pox, pestilence, and floods,” I said.

  The sisters’ eyes widened in surprise. “Close enough. Our dad died after a flood. He had a strange rash the doctor couldn’t identify. Mom had to move out of the house because of an infestation of rats.”

  All of that was easily explained by the flood. These two had wild imaginations. “You two look healthy enough.”

  They nodded in unison. “Although we’ve been unlucky in love,” the taller one said.

  “Do you know anything about the signature?” I asked.

  “It’s an Erté,” the taller sister said.

  I smiled down at the statue. Erté or not, I would love it forever. I didn’t tell CJ anything about the statue’s supposed curse, just that it was an Erté, and he’d done well. We had a flat tire on the way back to Monterey. I glanced down at the statue nestled on the backseat. “The two women CJ bought you from would blame you for this—not a nail in the road,” I said while CJ changed the tire.

  That night on the local news, the lead story was about two sisters involved in a terrible crash on their way home from the Santa Cruz Flea Market. The police surmised that they’d come around a sharp corner and that the load in their pickup shifted, causing them to plunge over an embankment. Neither wore seat belts. Both were thrown from the car and died instantly. It was the two sisters CJ had bought the statue from.

  It was an accident, I told myself. They should have worn seat belts. They should have driven more carefully on the hairpin turns.

  I watched Special Agent Bristow place her in an evidence bag. Maybe the statue was cursed. She’d stored up all her trouble for years and was raining pain down on me with the wrath of a hundred-year storm.

  “Sarah, wasn’t that statue in your house?” James asked.

  Trust James to notice something like that. “I haven’t seen it since the . . . since I moved.”

  Agent Bristow came over. “Stay with her,” he said to James. “No one talks to her.”

  The giant voice crackled back to life. “Attention. Attention. Attention. This is the command post. The base commander has lifted the ‘shelter in place’ order. All personnel may resume normal operations. I say again . . .”

  I realized whatever the search party found, they’d concluded the ongoing threat to the base at large was over. Jessica’s murder had been a single act, although anyone wanting to leave the base would still have his or her car searched.

  CJ and Pellner drove up. I wondered why they were late. CJ squatted, as close as the crime scene people let him, to look at Jessica. He stood, heading over toward me. James, on Agent Bristow’s orders, stopped him before he got within ten feet of the car. CJ argued with James. At one point in their heated exchange, it looked like CJ was going to punch James. Pellner pulled him back, glaring at me like this was my fault.

  Agent Bristow saw the commotion and came over to stand by James. “Take Ms. Winston into the thrift shop to wait.” He dropped his voice. “No one talks to her. Not even you.”

 
I unlocked the front door to the thrift shop again. I flipped on lights, but I left the thermostat down. No need to heat the place, because, hopefully, we wouldn’t be here for very long.

  I headed back to the small office. The room was a bit warmer and had a space heater, which I flipped on. “We can wait in here.”

  CHAPTER 14

  I sat at the desk, shivering. I pulled my knees to my chest, clasping my arms around them. James left, came back with a crazy quilt that was for sale, and tucked it around me. He sat in an old, wooden library chair next to the desk, swiveling back and forth. I couldn’t shake the skeletal-remains image out of my head. The skull’s head had been crushed in one spot. I wondered if that was how the back of Jessica’s head looked, too. The bronze statue could easily have done the damage.

  “Tiffany had my statue,” I said, breaking the silence.

  “How did she end up with it?” James asked. He didn’t sound like he was asking as a friend. He sounded like a cop.

  I closed my eyes, breathing in through my nose, exhaling through my mouth. “CJ must have given it to her. He bought it for me on our honeymoon.” My voice caught on the word “honeymoon.” After my divorce, I didn’t think anything could humiliate me more. I was wrong.

  “Where’d they find it?” I asked.

  James quit swiveling. He looked at me with his thickly lashed brown eyes. “We aren’t supposed to talk.”

  “Please. You know as well as I do that statue used to be in my house. I feel connected, responsible, since the statue was mine.” When Jessica and I had gone to Tiffany’s room, Jessica had promised to track Tiffany through Facebook. I hoped what she’d found didn’t have any connection to her death. Or I might not just feel responsible but actually be responsible by involving her in my search of Tiffany’s room.