“Of course.” He grinned.
“I didn’t mean to tell you how to do your job.”
“No offense taken.”
She pointed at the ground. “There’s no saturation of blood. It looks like he was killed somewhere else and dumped here. Judging by the drag marks, the killer had a difficult time of it.” Something near the victim’s right wrist caught her attention. She crouched to get a better look. “Did you see this, or did you leave it to see if I would see it?”
“Why would I do that?”
To test me. She shrugged. “Yes, why would you?”
“What is it?”
“A candy wrapper.”
Simon put down a numbered marker, photographed it to determine place, size and position to the body.
With her tweezers, she slid it into the plastic bag he handed her. “Smells like peppermint.” She examined it more closely. “Looks like the wrapper on those pink and white striped wafer candies.”
“Could we get so lucky to get a print?” He scrawled the date and name on the label.
“Stranger things have happened.” She stood and looked around. Other than the farmhouse across the road, there wasn’t another house in sight. “Who called it in?”
“Wills Raven.” He related the farmer’s accounting of the happening. “He saw someone dragging something into the field, then speeding away in a car. It was too dark for him to get a good look at the person or the vehicle.” He stared at her. “Did you bring mayhem with you from the mainland?”
She shivered. “If I would have brought back anything, it would have been warmer weather.”
Chapter Three
Evie watched Simon make a cast of the partial footprint, admiring the deftness of his fingers, his methodical and precisioned movements and how skillfully he worked. Nothing had changed about him.
Gathering the crime scene evidence together, he said, “Time to notify the next-of-kin.”
The asphalt shimmered like sugar crystals in the headlights of the four-by-four. Evie clutched the handhold above her head as Simon steered sharply around a corner. “Your driving hasn’t changed. Still the speed freak.”
He slowed, turned down the street where Miller lived, a suffocated subdivision of average income residents. “This is the worst part the job, telling a family a loved one’s dead.”
“Yeah. Then we’ll need to question them. I hate that part, too. Sometimes questions lead to revelations the family is unprepared to accept or believe.”
Under the glow of the street lights, the houses, bungalows mass-produced in the seventies, draped in clapboard siding with the mandatory cedar trees on either side of concrete stoops, looked all the same.
He pulled to the curb in front of Miller’s house.
She noticed lights inside. “Looks like she’s still up.”
Shaking off the image of a shocked and terrified face, she shuffled from the truck and followed Simon up the front walk.
The door swung open. “Where were you? Do you know what time it is? I was worried to death—” The woman, holding a ball of red yarn, circular needles and a length of knitting, halted abruptly. Small, frightened blue eyes stared at them. She placed a hand against her heart. “You scared me. I expected my husband.”
“Ma’am.” Simon removed his hat and showed her his badge. “I’m Chief Wolfe of the Honeydale PD, and,” he pointed to Evie, “this is Officer Madison. Are you Deborah Miller, Douglas Miller’s wife?”
“Yes.”
“Is there somewhere we could talk?”
She squeezed her eyebrows together. “What’s this about?”
“I’m afraid I have bad news.” He shifted his weight. “There’s no easy way to say this. Your husband is dead.”
Simon caught her before she hit the floor. He carried her to the sofa, propped her against the cushions. “I’ll get her a glass of water,” Evie said.
Deborah Miller came around slowly, sat up and looked first at Evie, then Simon. “H-how’d it happen?” She pushed Evie’s hand away when she handed her the water. “I don’t want any water.”
Simon stared at her and determined she seemed stronger now. “He was murdered, ma’am.” It only took a second for the words to sink in.
“Murdered? How?”
“He was shot.” Simon felt now wasn’t the time to tell her all of the details of her husband’s death. She would learn them soon enough.
“Shot?” Her body shuddered. She clutched her face and rocked back and forth. “Why would someone shoot Doug?”
“I hoped you could give us some insight into that.” Simon waited a moment. “Are you up to answering a few questions?” When she didn’t answer, he said, “Ma’am?” She stopped rocking.
“What?” It came out a whisper.
“I need to ask you a few questions.”
She sniffled and nodded.
He took a pen and pad from his jacket pocket. “How long were you and your husband married?”
“Nine years.”
“Where was your husband tonight?”
“He was work…working late.” She turned her eyes from the floor to look at him. “He often works…” Her face took on the look of someone experiencing a horrible thought before she said, “Oh, God. My girls. How am I going to tell them?” She swiped at the tears on her cheeks and looked into space.
“When was the last time you saw your husband?”
“This morning when he left for work,” she said without looking at him. “He was so happy…like he’d just won the lottery.” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
Simon gave her a moment, then asked, “Do you know why he was happy?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He just was.”
“Do you know anyone who would have reason to kill him? Did he have any enemies?”
“No, everyone likes…liked Doug.”
“Did he gamble?”
“No.”
“Did your husband have any girlfriends?”
She jerked her head toward him and glared. “No, of course not! My husband loved me and only me.” She jabbed a finger against her chest.
Evie stepped closer to the sofa. “I know these questions are hard to accept at a time like this, but we have to ask, Mrs. Miller. The sooner we know everything there is to know, the sooner we’ll make an arrest. You do want that, don’t you?”
“Of course, I do.” She heaved a huge sigh.
Simon looked at her. “Did your husband do drugs?”
“No, my husband did not do drugs.”
“Where were you this evening between the hours of seven and ten o’clock?”
“I didn’t kill my husband if that’s what you’re insinuating. I wouldn’t have done anything to hurt him. I really don’t like your questions. It’s time you left.” She jumped up and sped to the front door.
Evie looked at Simon.
He shrugged.
They followed behind.
“Is there someone you’d like me to call?” Simon asked at the door. “Your parents? A friend?”
“No.”
“We’re sorry for your loss, ma’am.” Simon tipped his Stetson.
In the Jeep, Evie looked at Simon. “That was strange.”
Simon grunted, staring straight ahead. “People react differently than we expect sometimes.”
“She’s hiding something.”
“Maybe.”
“But you don’t think so.”
He frowned. “Her surprise and shock seemed genuine. I’ll be back in the morning to question her more.”
“Do you think she did it?”
“I’m open to the possibility.”
***
Evie followed Simon through the rear door of the Sir Charles Dunn hospital, a one hundred-bed facility located in the center of town. They took the elevator to the basement. Simon held open the double doors to the morgue for her. She couldn’t escape the smell—a mixture of decay, formaldehyde and ether—and the quiet and the emptiness sounded unearthly. Unable to t
ake her eyes off the body bag lying on a metal slab in the middle of the room, she shuffled her feet.
“Looks like we’re the only guests at this party,” Simon said.
She poked him in the ribs.
They turned at the sound of the door swishing open. Harley, dressed in green scrubs and paper booties, strode toward them. He nodded at Evie and Simon and pulled on surgical gloves. The snap of rubber against skin echoed off the walls.
The door swung open again and all of them turned toward the sound.
“Nice of you to join us, Noah,” Harley said, eyeing his assistant.
“Sorry I’m late. I had car trouble.”
“You’re here now, and that’s what matters.” Harley secured a face mask and unzipped the body bag. Noah and Harley removed the body from the bag.
Evie and Simon stepped aside to let him x-ray and photograph the body and take scrapings from beneath Miller’s fingernails. Whether it was premonition or a gut feeling, Evie didn’t know, but she doubted they’d find any trace evidence.
Harley cleaned, weighed and measured the body. In a hand-held recorder, he entered the measurements, race, sex, age, hair color and length, eye color, old scar tissue, birthmarks and moles. He placed a rubber brick under the back of the body. Miller’s chest heaved upward and his arms and neck fell backward as though cooperating. He cut a deep Y-shaped incision from shoulder to shoulder, meeting at the breastbone and extending down to the pubic bone with a slight turn to avoid the navel. A gravity-fed thin line of blood trailed the scalpel. He engaged the stryker saw and sawed through the ribs on the lateral sides of the chest cavity, then removed the sternum and attached ribs. He removed the soft tissue fastened to the posterior side of the chest plate, exposing the heart and lungs.
Evie’s stomach heaved. She was wrong; this was the worst part of the job. She couldn’t stay one more second. “You don’t need me here, do you?” she asked, hoping her voice hadn’t betrayed her. She looked at Simon. He appeared to consider her request, then shrugged.
“When can I expect the autopsy report?” Simon asked.
“I’ll have a preliminary later tomorrow. Give me a call.”
“I will.”
Evie bid a hasty farewell.
Chapter Four
Simon entered the police station, which was located at the back of a four-story brick building built in the 1920s. He brought doughnuts from the all-night coffee shop. Aubrey sat at his desk and stared at the floor, looking as white as the moon. Henry, anxious and serious-minded, sat kitty-corner on his desk. He pushed a shock of midnight black hair off his forehead and looked at Simon out of dark, almost black eyes. “Chief.”
“Deputy.” He motioned them into his office and onto chairs. “What’ve you got for me, Aubrey?”
“Bob Bunker said he heard a gunshot around ten o’clock. He had just settled back to watch the news. He didn’t investigate. Said he thought it was Ches Harris shooting at coyotes again.”
“He didn’t even look out a window?”
Aubrey checked his notes. “No. He said the shot sounded far away and doubted he would have seen anything.”
“Help yourselves to a doughnut.” Simon grabbed a Boston Cream. Both deputies blanched like almonds. Simon grinned. After the mutilation they witnessed, he understood their queasiness. “Where does Bunker live in relation to the crime scene?”
“About a quarter mile before it.”
“Did he hear anything else or happen to see anything later on?”
“No, sir. Nothing.”
“Anyone else hear or see anything? A car, maybe?”
Aubrey turned over a page. “No, sir. Truth is, no one’s going to pay any mind to a car traveling that road. It dead ends and couples use it to make out in their cars.”
“How about Wills? What did you get from him?”
“He said his dog was barking, and he came out to investigate. Said he saw someone dragging something through his field across the road. By the time he got on his boots and came back out, the car was speeding away. Didn’t get a good look at the person, couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman. Tall enough to be a man, but he couldn’t say for sure. Didn’t get a make on the car, either.”
“That coincides with what he told me. Either of you know the deceased or know anything about him?”
Henry stood. “I-I kn-new…knew him. We…we went to school to-together.”
“Take your time.” Simon knew Henry only stuttered when nervous. “We’re in no hurry here.”
“He…he th-thought he was God’s gift to women and couldn’t ke-keep his hands off the la-ladies. He had the sweetest wife—”
“You know his wife?”
“We went to school to-together, too, and w-we keep in touch.”
“Go on.”
“A-as I wa-was saying, his wife is the sweetest thing and they have the cutest kids, bu…but they me-meant as much to him as…as a coon’s ass.”
“How about his wife? Did she know her husband ran around on her?”
Henry shook his head. “She thought Miller was perfect, and even if someone had told her he was a lying, a-adulterous bastard, she probably wo-wo-wouldn’t have believed it, anyway.”
Simon thought Henry might have a crush on the recently widowed Deborah Miller. “Henry, I want you to write down everything you know about Miller, anything his wife may have said about her husband in passing, a compliment, a complaint, weekends away on fishing or hunting trips, whatever. Everything. Even if you don’t think it’s relevant, and I want it on my desk before noon.”
“Yes, sir. Do-do you think a jealous girlfriend did that to Miller?”
“Why not a boyfriend of Mrs. Miller’s getting the husband out of the way?” Simon squinted and leveled a steely stare on his deputy. “You’re not our killer, are you, Henry?”
“No, sir!”
Simon smiled. “Okay, then. Now, for show and tell.” He walked to the antiquated combination cork and chalkboard. “Anything that applies to Miller gets copied in duplicate. One copy is pinned up here and I get the other. Henry, I need to get a look at Miller’s home computer and cell phone, if he had them, and I need to go through his things. Mrs. Miller wasn’t too happy with me when I left tonight. Maybe you could help me with her, explain to her I need to ask questions.”
He threw back his shoulders and puffed his chest. “Sure, chief. Be happy to.”
Simon flipped the board to the chalk side and took a piece of chalk in his hand. He drew two columns. In the first column he wrote: Douglas Miller, and in the second, wrote: Evidence. Under that he wrote: Candy wrapper, partial footprint, castrated, powder burns. He pinned the photos to the board, turned and looked into the faces of his deputies. “Now, the facts, gentlemen. What’ve we got?”
“Miller ran around on his wife,” Aubrey said.
Simon wrote “Womanizer” beneath Miller’s name. “What else?”
Aubrey pointed to the chalkboard. “The powder burns indicate he was shot at close range, so chances are he knew his assailant.”
“We don’t know that for certain. Maybe it was a senseless, random act of a psycho, and she…or he got the drop on him, or maybe his assailant didn’t pose a threat to him. Keep an open mind. Anything else?” Aubrey and Henry appeared deep in thought for a moment, then shook their heads. Simon focused on Aubrey. “What can you tell me about the crime scene?”
His face flushed crimson with embarrassment, obviously remembering how he gagged at the sight of Miller’s butchered body. He regained his composure. “You whisked me off to control the spectators almost as soon as I arrived. I didn’t really have a chance to study the scene.”
“I disagree. Take a moment and visualize the area and tell me what you see.” Simon paused. “Or didn’t see.”
Aubrey closed his eyes. After a moment, he opened them. “There wasn’t much blood.”
Simon nodded. “What does that tell you?” He watched Aubrey give the question some thought.
“Mayb
e he was killed somewhere else.”
“Do you have any idea where that might be?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Simon folded his arms across his chest. “Are you sure?”
Henry raised his hand. “Maybe he was killed in the car that brought him there.”
Simon smiled. “Excellent. What does that tell us?”
Henry cleared his throat. “Our primary crime scene drove away.”
“Exactly. Get cracking on finding that car. We’ve got a murder to solve.”
***
He wasn’t spying on her, he told himself, though she might see it that way.
Well hidden among the spruce and pine trees, Simon relaxed behind the wheel of the four-by-four and watched Evie’s cottage. Hardly a cottage, though, really, with its hardwood floors, cherry cabinets and the finest fixtures, appliances and furniture money could buy. The one concession at rough-it was the wood stove in the living room, and even then, the gold-plated finials adorning the top told a different story. The inside was lit like the Las Vegas strip, though none of the outdoor lamps burned. He found it strange. Most people feared what lurked in the shadows and darkness outside their homes.
Movement beyond the panes of glass caught his attention. Evie moved from room to room. What was she doing? Was she looking for something? He checked the time: 4:13. She should be in bed. Maybe she was too wound up to sleep. Viewing an autopsy would make even the seasoned and disciplined cop anxious. It had that affect on him, too, but thoughts of holding Evie in his arms shut his mind to the atrocities of the job.
His thoughts traveled back to the time when he thought he had it all: A degree in criminology, a job with the Honeydale PD and Evie. He was so in love with her, it made the slightest breath difficult. Six years later, she still made him feel the same way. Did he affect her at all anymore? At times, he seemed to.
Shifting his weight, he stretched his legs as much as the area below the dash of the Jeep allowed. The air was damp and cold inside the vehicle. The risk of her hearing the engine start was too great. He shivered despite the thick layers of clothing covering his skin, but he’d gladly suffer any discomfort, any pain for Evie.
Wolfe, She Cried Page 2