by Jeff Carson
Munford had her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. “I’m sorry, Gene.”
“This fighter! Ball kick, to the—”
“Yeah! We saw the ball kick, all right!” Zach said.
“All right, all right.” Sensei Masterson looked at his watch. “Line up.”
They lined up and listened to Sensei Masterson give his parting words. Once class was dismissed, Patterson took her time getting her sparring equipment back in her bag, waiting for the dojo to clear out.
She was stalling, because outside Munford and Gene were talking and giggling some more in the parking lot. And also in the parking lot was her car, which would bring her home to her husband and son. And her mother in law, with her disappointed, judgmental glares.
“You okay?” Sensei Masterson was watching her with his hawk eyes.
“Yep. No problem.”
“Have you been practicing for the test?”
She shrugged. “Not enough.”
Sensei Masterson was seated at a chair in front of a computer screen. It was where he called out his goodbyes from, staring over crescent glasses as he pecked out emails one letter at a time with board-breaking strong fingers. Now he lowered his glasses on his nose, staring at her with ice intensity. “Not enough?”
The test was for sixth degree black belt, something she’d been working toward for the last eleven months since she’d committed to her karate practice again. It would prove to be a brutal test of mental and physical strength. If she failed, her black belt could be revoked.
Fishing her tennis shoes out of the cubbyhole, she sat on the bench and put them on. “Not nearly enough.”
His eyes softened and he leaned back, crossing his legs. “Tommy?”
The sudden glossing of her vision startled her. “Jesus. I don’t know why it’s …” she was going to say bothering me so much but nothing came out of her closed up throat.
Sensei Masterson stared at her, and then nodded like he understood. He did understand. The man understood everything. He always had.
For the last eleven months, Patterson had renewed her commitment to her martial arts practice. The reasons were many, but most of all it was an outlet for the stress that was damming up inside her. Apparently it was far from working.
Wiping a tear before it fell down her cheek, she nodded. “Yeah. Tommy.”
She looked outside. Munford and Gene were watching her through the windows. They walked away further into the darkness of the parking lot, giving her and Sensei Masterson some privacy.
Or maybe they were going to go screw once and for all. What was she going to tell Rachette when she saw him back at the station? And he was going to ask. Was Charlotte there? How about Gene? The more she hung out with these two, the more she felt like a traitor.
“Parenthood will test you far more than anything martial arts can throw at you,” Masterson said.
“I once heard somebody say that parenting is never done right or wrong. It’s just done.” She tied her shoes.
“And this is what you’re thinking about while crying?”
Straightening on the bench, she shouldered her gear back and stood. “I should get going. I need to go home and sleep.”
Sensei Masterson pushed his glasses up his nose and pecked the keyboard. “Later.” The man wasn’t exactly Confucius.
“See you Wednesday,” she said.
“Practice.”
“Yeah.”
Nipping, but not biting, the air outside was heavy feeling with humidity from the river. She let her bag drop at her feet and pulled on her hooded sweatshirt, zipping it to her chin.
“Hey,” Munford called from across the parking lot, her toothy smile glowing in the semi-darkness.
The crunch of Patterson’s footsteps on pea gravel was faint against the low roar of the river.
The dojo was two streets off and across the Chautauqua from Main, in an old pizza joint that never survived the eighties. Past the rushing water, rear porch lights of houses built fifty years ago swarmed with bugs. Above them the sky glowed from light streaming off the Adrenaline Games festivities on Main. A guy was yelling something into a loud speaker over bumping bass.
“How’s the nose?” Munford asked.
“Not bad.” It sounded like nod bad.
Gene made a pained face.
She pulled out her cell phone and checked the time—8:06. “What a day, huh?”
Gene and Munford’s chipper mood dissipated.
“Yeah. Talk about a rude awakening,” Gene said. He looked at his watch. “Speaking of … shoot. I have to get back to the hospital to finish up the prelim with Dr. Lorber. We probably have an all-nighter ahead of us.”
“Any earth-shattering news to tell us from the autopsy?” Patterson asked the assistant ME.
“Other than the severed ear, and working the first Van Gogh killer scene in two years?”
She chuckled humorlessly. “Yeah.”
“We’ve been working all day on her,” Gene said. “We just have a few more tests. Need to take some photos. You’ll know what we know tomorrow. I’m a little nervous, standing up in the front of that huge room.”
Munford put a hand on his chest. “Oh, you’ll do fine. You have a lot of experience talking in front of classes, right?”
“I guess.”
Patterson eyed Charlotte’s hand on Gene’s chest, and the way they stood so comfortably close to one another, and she suddenly felt like a third wheel. “Okay. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
Gene and Charlotte looked at her and nodded, as if she was already an afterthought.
She walked to her Jeep and got in, eyeing them laughing some more in the rearview mirror as she drove out of the parking lot. The news would not be good for Rachette. Things were definitely progressing, and she could hardly blame Munford.
Gene was the opposite of Rachette. If she wanted to date a grownup for once, more power to her. Even if the grownup was old enough to be her father. Albeit a handsome, young-looking father.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out. It was Scott.
“Hey,” she said.
“Are you coming home?” The earnestness in his question broke her heart. It sounded like he was holding back saying the words ever again.
“Yes. I’m on my way now.”
Chapter 11
W
olf stopped at the bridge crossing from his side of the Chautauqua to the highway side and got out of his SUV.
The eastern peaks were silhouetted against the brightening sky. A symphony of bird noises filled the air. It seemed less like a crime scene today and more like a peaceful morning along the river, save the news van parked across the highway where a man scrambled to set up an umbrella light stand.
“Morning.” Yates was sitting in a camp chair with a thermos of coffee perched on the ground next to him.
“You still here?” Wolf asked.
“Nah. I just showed up. Had Johnson here all night.”
Wolf nodded. He thumbed to the north. “Mind if I take a walk?”
Yates cracked a smile. “Would it matter if I said yes?”
“No.”
Wolf snaked through the dew-laden brush and made his way out to the bluff above the river. When he was about even with where Sally Claypool’s body had been, he found the game trail and hiked down.
Through the reeds and bushes he went, and then he was back out on the beach where she was found.
Evidence of the crime scene processing was everywhere—holes and footprints, scrapes and indentations—but there was no evidence of the crime that had taken place.
With unblinking eyes, he stood in the cool air surveying the ground. He transported himself to two mornings ago, becoming an observer of the crime as it took place.
He saw a man parking, probably somewhere in front of where Wolf’s SUV was now. He saw the man in a raincoat with the hood pulled up over his head, keeping himself dry against the curtains of freezing rain while he carried a naked, shive
ring, Sally Claypool over his shoulder.
He saw him struggle down the slope next to the bridge, down to the river, and then he saw the killer walk along the swelling banks to this point. Splashing. Stumbling.
He wondered if Sally would have been resigned to her fate, too far gone mentally and too taxed physically after her torture to care anymore about what happened to her. Or maybe she was kicking and screaming the whole way. She had been tied up. Sliced with a knife. He suspected she would have been no more than half-conscious for the moments before her demise.
He saw the man put her down. Saw him reach his hands around her neck.
Wolf shut his eyes but the vision remained. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and scanned the other side of the river. There were three news vans now with satellite dishes raised high on telescoping poles, and three reporters with their cameramen. One of the male reporters was live, gesturing over his shoulder toward Wolf.
Wolf turned around and made his way through the reeds and bushes again. Hiking back up the bluff, he took a breath at the top of the rise, taking a final look below.
Picturing her body on the grass and rocks, the angle at which she was set, he followed the line up to where the race registration tent had been.
The registration tent had long been removed. The race organizers were scrambling to set up another course north of town, over two miles away. Now, in its place, was parked a maroon sedan with a man standing at the back bumper.
The man had a black beard and shoulder-length hair, wore jeans and a black fleece jacket with a white North Face logo on the breast, or so Wolf thought. It was too far to tell.
A tingle swept through his body as he stared at the man.
The man looked to be preoccupied with the news teams and the crime scene below. He hadn’t seen Wolf.
Wolf pulled out his cell phone and opened his camera function. When he swept it up the man was climbing back inside his car.
As the man’s brake lights blossomed, Wolf started snapping pictures.
On his fifth photo, his phone seemed to shut down. “What the—”
It vibrated and Dr. Lorber’s phone number was displayed on the screen.
He quickly pushed the call end button and the camera function reappeared. Raising it again, he pressed the button over and over, getting useless photographs of receding taillights that disappeared around a bend.
His phone vibrated again and Wolf answered. “Yeah.”
“Hey, you coming in or what?” Dr. Lorber asked.
“Yeah, why?”
“It’s almost seven and you’re not here. I’m just making sure.”
Wolf looked at his watch. He only had ten minutes. “Yeah, I’ll be there.”
Chapter 12
The department parking lot was packed with the full fleet of cruisers, black Chevys Tahoes, and then some. There was a gaggle of reporters being held back by two mute deputies at the rear of the building.
Ignoring the flurry of questions as he walked inside, Wolf made his way to the third floor. Walking straight past his locked office, voices echoed down the hall, growing louder as he entered into the squad room. Deputies were bunched together speaking excitedly.
He spotted Patterson and Rachette, and they hurried over to meet him.
“Hey,” Rachette said.
“We’re not on the case?” Patterson stepped close to Wolf and put her hands on her hips. “We’re cut out?”
Wolf straightened, and then craned his neck to see inside the open doors of the Sit Room.
The Situation Room, or Sit Room, was like a modest sized college classroom he’d seen at CU Boulder when he’d dropped Jack off last semester, with arced rows of seats that climbed up at an incline. A group of coffee-sipping suits and uniforms were conversing down at the front of the room, displayed behind them a huge picture of Sally Claypool on the projection screen.
“It’s the first I’m hearing about it.” Wolf’s voice was louder than he wanted it to be, but the anger was boiling over. “Who told you?”
“Luke,” Patterson said, backing away a step. “Wait. You didn’t know about this?”
Wolf looked at her squarely. “About us getting cut out? No.”
“No, Rachette and I are cut out. Not you. Shit. I thought it was your idea. Sorry. I …”
Patterson backed away, and only then did he realize she’d been squaring off with him.
Wolf took out his cell phone and gave it to Patterson. “Can you check out the last of these photos on my phone? See if you can get a plate.”
Patterson took his phone. “Yeah. Sure.”
Wolf noticed half the squad room was watching their exchange.
“Chief, you coming in?” Undersheriff Wilson was pulling closed the auditorium doors.
Wolf slipped inside.
He skirted the rear of the room and walked down the side stairs near the windows. The men at the front of the room ignored his arrival, some of them conversing in hushed tones and more than a few of them preoccupied with Special Agent Luke’s backside as she bent over a laptop computer, as if preparing a presentation.
He recognized ASAC Todd, Agent Hannigan, and a few of the others from yesterday. Then there was DA White speaking in hushed, serious tones to another elected official. Dr. Lorber sat in the front row with his new assistant next to him. Behind them sat four more elected officials Wolf recognized from the county council.
Sally Claypool smiled on the big screen above Luke. She looked vital and happy, holding an orange drink in her hand. It could have been her cell phone screen saver, her Facebook profile photo.
Luke looked up and saw Wolf, and then got back to tapping her computer. “Can you help me?” She pointed at Gene Fitzgerald.
The man pointed at his own chest.
“Yes, you. Are you good with computers?”
Dr. Lorber stood up. “If you need computer help, then I’m your man.”
“Good, fine.”
Wolf reached the front of the room and sat down, leaving four buffer seats between him and the nearest FBI agent.
Lorber was pressing keys and tapping the mouse, and then he tested a laser pointer-clicker. The screen switched to a power point presentation.
“Thank you.” Luke put a hand on Dr. Lorber’s arm, and Wolf felt the heat coming off the man’s face from twenty feet away.
He couldn’t blame him. Kristen Luke did look good, and it wasn’t just his current rebound state of mind. Normally past her shoulders and pulled back with some sort of fastener, she’d cut her hair and given it some blonde highlights, and now it was just above her shoulders, pulled back behind her ears like parted drapes.
Her face was deep brown, like she’d been in the Bahamas tanning for a week before today, and her eyes sparkled. As ever, she was impeccably fit, filling out her pantsuit perfectly.
She was nervous and smiling a lot, and that was probably what did it for him. Wolf hadn’t seen her smile since the last time he’d seen her, which had been over a year ago. She wasn’t normally a smiler, but the prospect of standing up in front of a group of people did strange things to a person.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “All right everyone. Let’s get started.” She stared down two men at the front of the room and they hurried to their seats.
“My name is Special Agent Luke. I’m the assistant lead investigator for the Van Gogh task force. Special Agent with the Denver field office. My colleagues are Special Agents Hannigan, Wells, and Shecter, and this is Assistant Special Agent in Charge, Brian Todd.”
“Sally Claypool.” She turned to the big screen and began pacing the front of the room. “I’m going to start off this meeting by giving up the floor to your County Medical Examiner, Doctor Lorber.” Luke tossed a clicker to the front row and Dr. Lorber caught it with two hands, just avoiding being hit in the face.
She turned and walked straight toward Wolf and sat down next to him.
Her familiar aroma of shampoo and perfume swirled against him.
“H
ello, friend.” She spoke quietly without moving her lips, drawing out the word friend.
Doctor Lorber stood and flipped his ponytail back with one hand. He wore a white lab coat over black jeans and a blue-checkered button up shirt. The ensemble hugged his limbs, making his movements arachnid-looking.
With a wave Lorber summoned Gene to stand up with him.
Gene dressed much the same as his boss, with jeans and a button up shirt under his own lab coat.
The two men were opposite body types and it looked like a giraffe and a man were now standing at the front of the room.
The County Medical Examiner pressed the clicker and began comfortably pacing the room, while Gene looked lost for a moment and settled on facing sideways and standing motionless.
The picture changed to the naked, spread eagled version of Sally Claypool on the riverbank. It was white skin on green grass, brown river sand just below her feet. The picture had composition, almost like a work of art.
With another click, the picture changed to Sally Claypool lying on the cold steel table in Lorber’s lab. The photo was focused on her neck, which was black and blue.
“Fractured larynx, damaged neck muscles, thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone were damaged. Cricoid cartilage is almost exclusively fractured in throttling, and all the other signs point to exactly that—death by strangulation.”
Click. The victim’s naked torso, dark nipples on white skin that was striped with angry red marks.
“Shallow slashing with a sharp blade.”
Click. Her back, striped with angry red marks.
“Same thing on the back.”
Click. A red mark on the back of her neck.
“I believe this is where Sally Claypool was injected with a knockout drug. Prelim toxicology suggests Fentanyl. Which is fifty times more potent than heroin. One hundred times more potent than morphine. Has a rapid onset, and a short duration. In other words, a perfect drug to incapacitate a victim upon first meeting. You found her keys on the floorboard of her car. Which suggests she was attacked, injected, right when she was climbing in.”
Click. Her left wrist, which was deeply bruised and scabbed.