by Merit Clark
“You wanted to come up here and confront Vangie. After all of your assurances last night that you’d stay far away from Evan.” Jack tipped his head back and let out an angry groan. “Goddamn it. I shouldn’t have told you he was bringing her here.”
“I’m sorry I washed the glasses. I wanted to smash them to bits.”
“Don’t fucking lie to me. What did you really come up here for?”
Corie decided on the truth. As unconvincing as it was. “Personal things. Photos, ribbons from horse shows. Sentimental stuff. Jack, I didn’t know, I—”
He cut her off. “Where is it?”
“The ribbons?”
“The gun.”
Corie hugged herself and looked off toward the distant mountains. “In my purse. Do you need it?”
“You don’t need it. What the hell were you going to do?” Without waiting for an answer, Jack paced a few strides away and she wasn’t sure she heard him right. “I can’t find you. I can’t.”
Eventually he turned and walked back toward her and he seemed calmer.
She wanted to touch him but knew that would be wrong.
He paused, as if deciding. “What else did you take?”
She pulled the locket out of her jeans. “I thought this was Hennessy’s but the monogram is wrong.”
Jack turned the gold heart over and saw the letters “YH” engraved on the back in a fancy scroll.
Corie bit her lip. “Does this . . . I mean, did she die here?”
“Here’s what you’re going to do.” His hand closed around her wrist. “You’re going to drive back down to Denver to my house and wait for me.”
She spoke without thinking. “You’re not going to give me the speech about leaving town or anything, are you?”
His eyes were serious. “Promise me. You’ll drive straight there.”
“I promise.”
Chapter 46
Later that afternoon, back at the Office of the Medical Examiner in Denver, Jack looked down at what was left of Vangie—after being hacked at with a serrated hunting knife and then bouncing off the pavement at sixty miles an hour—and listened to Frank Yannelli describe his findings. Jack wondered not for the first time how he ever got used to this. He usually found autopsies fascinating. But this time, he couldn’t help wondering what he would do if it were Corie. And what he could do to make her listen. And then he reminded himself for the nine-hundredth time that day that he couldn’t control everything. It wasn’t a satisfying conclusion.
Vangie’s body on the metal table. Evidence. Corie waking up in his bed that morning, sleepy and beautiful. She couldn’t exist in the same universe with the sight in front of him. But try telling that to his brain.
Frank was asking him a question. “Got a primary crime scene?”
Jack snapped back to the present. “I don’t even have a secondary crime scene.”
“Signs of vaginal penetration. No semen. Whoever it was wore a condom. You guys find that?” Frank asked.
Jack shook his head. He noticed the blood smeared on the inside of Vangie’s thighs. “Did he have sex with her while she was bleeding out?”
“Sick son of a bitch,” Serena muttered under her breath.
Jack glanced at his partner. Was it possible for a black woman to be green?
“I can’t tell you exactly when in this process she had intercourse,” Frank said. “Only that she did and by all appearances it was rough.”
“Understatement,” Serena said.
Frank picked up one of Vangie’s arms with a gloved hand and the forearm moved at a funny angle, as if it wasn’t still attached at the elbow.
“He do that?” Jack asked.
Frank shook head. “I don’t think so. She was in full rigor, not to mention it was below freezing. This presents as a postmortem defect. Could have happened from the force of hitting the pavement.”
Jack looked warily at Serena again. “If you’re going to be sick . . .”
“I know, I know.”
“Just aim it away from me.”
Frank showed them a hand. Vangie’s reverse French manicure was in good condition. “Scraped her nails but didn’t get much. It doesn’t appear she scratched her attacker. Her wrists were bound together with duct tape. Found traces of adhesive on her ankles, too. Hard to say for certain but it appears she was restrained without a struggle.”
“Tied up willingly,” Jack said.
Frank arched a bushy eyebrow. “Taped, to be specific. And yes, it looks that way. No apparent defensive wounds.”
Serena stepped closer. “What’s that abrasion around her neck?”
“Doesn’t look like a ligature,” Frank said. “Too straight and defined to have come from a human hand. Something was around her neck, possibly her head. I’m guessing she fought against whatever it was when she was being cut.”
“She would have been in pain for sure,” Serena said.
Frank directed their attention to her genitals, or what was left of them, and allowed himself a rare editorial comment. “Butchered her pretty good.”
Jack’s eyes flicked to Serena again but she held her ground.
“When did the genital mutilation occur?” Serena asked.
“Perimortem. She was still alive.”
“So we’re looking at sexual sadism.”
“It’s consistent with that,” Frank said. “Combined with the injuries to her breasts.”
“Almost like he was trying to take the implants back,” Jack said.
Frank’s expression was somber. “This has the hallmarks of an extreme S&M session gone incredibly wrong.”
“Maybe Markham has a disciple,” Serena said.
“Or he wants us to think that.” Jack stared at Vangie. “Any useful trace?”
Frank grunted. “Road rash from hitting the pavement. She was wrapped in a sheet and then double bagged. Probably why she’s not in worse shape.”
“Would Shaun think to do that?” Jack asked.
Serena shook her head. “No. But the way he slashed at her—”
“And a condom? Shaun’s gonna wear a condom?”
“Based on lividity patterns she was moved not too long after death,” Frank said. “Then she bounced around in a pickup and spent hours in the cold. Then hit the pavement at sixty miles an hour. It’s a miracle she’s in one piece.”
“Sort of,” Serena said.
“Time of death?” Jack asked.
“Between eight and eleven Saturday night.”
“You sure?”
Frank favored Jack with a dry look. “Makes my job more difficult when they’ve been on road trips, Fariel. I’m running tox screens. I’ll let you know if I find anything that changes my estimate.”
“I was with Evan between eight and eleven.” Jack vented his anger on the swinging door on his way out of the autopsy suite. It slammed open and banged into the opposite wall. “I’m Evan’s fucking alibi. All of us—Corie, Aranda, Roger; everyone at the benefit. Evan could call any of us to testify on his behalf.”
Serena followed him outside into the harsh, late afternoon mountain sunshine.
“And I made him memorable. With his banged-up face I’m sure Evan made quite an impression. I feel like we’re playing a demented chess game and Evan’s three moves ahead of me. It’s like he wanted me to mess up his face at the hospital. He wanted me to show up at the museum and drag Corie out of there.”
Serena frowned, thinking about it for a minute. “So Evan leaves Vangie at the cabin and goes to a party.”
Jack laughed bitterly. “Where he fed me precisely the information he wanted me to have.”
“What isn’t he telling you?”
“Was she alive when he left? He didn’t tell me that. But with that time of death? Shit. Best case with that road, it’s a two-hour drive from the cabin to the western edge of Denver. Evan would have had to have time to kill her, bag her, get cleaned up himself, switch cars with Shaun—she would have had to have been dead by five and that�
�s way outside the window the ME gave us.”
“Hard to believe even Vangie would have partied with Shaun,” Serena said. “All he has to offer is crystal. And that handsome smile of his. They searched his apartment, his service station, and the trash and didn’t find any bloody clothes.”
Disgust and frustration were palpable in Jack’s voice. “And not a mark on him. But if she was tied—taped—up that could explain it.”
“We know Shaun’s truck has been to the cabin.” Serena hesitated. Considering his mood she was reluctant to even mention the next thing. “Why do you think Corie was there right afterward, cleaning?”
Jack acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “Another killing at another home of Evan’s. Another place he had every reason to be. If we determine he had sex with Vangie, so what? She was his girlfriend. We have to put that knife in Evan’s hand at exactly the right time and he has me for a fucking alibi.” Jack looked at his partner but didn’t really see her. “I don’t know how he did it, but I sure as hell am going to figure it out.”
Chapter 47
“Corie?” Jack let himself into his house through the back door, threw his keys on the kitchen counter with one hand, and loosened his tie with the other. It was after ten and he’d brought work home: crime scene photos, interview transcripts, police reports, 911 calls, lab results.
Murphy appeared in the kitchen doorway and broke into frenzied barking.
“Murphy!” Corie called.
Jack approached the dog and crouched down to his level. “It’s okay, boy.” He scratched Murphy behind the ears. Corie appeared in the kitchen doorway and Jack looked up at her. “Good watchdog. Bit of a delayed reaction, though.”
Murphy flopped down on the floor and rolled onto his back so Jack could give him a belly rub.
“He’s a whore,” Corie said. “What time is it? I must have fallen asleep.”
“Late.” She was wearing a t-shirt, a gray, wool hoodie sweater, and jeans. Her hair was mussed and Jack’s first instinct was to reach and smooth it down. He didn’t. “I’m surprised you’re really here. Relieved. But surprised.”
She bit her lip. “I left your key on the counter.”
“Might as well keep it until . . . things settle down.”
“It felt really weird being in your house without you here.” She walked over to the refrigerator. “I got a pizza. Are you hungry? There’s a lot left.”
He looked appreciatively at Corie’s ass in the jeans. “Starving.” She reached into the refrigerator for the pizza box. When she turned back toward him, he took the box from her with one hand and set it on the table; his other hand reached for her.
“Jack.”
“How sleepy are you?” He took her arm and pulled her close.
“Haven’t you had a very long day?” Her eyes looked amused.
“No day’s that long.”
Chapter 48
Evan sat gingerly on the bed in Jessie’s guest room and pushed a quilted, green satin camel out of his way. Plush velvet throws and pillows adorned the bed in deep shades of purple with beaded and jeweled trim. An elaborate brass lamp sat on the nightstand, its light obscured with an artfully draped scarf. It was an effect that made Evan think of a harem or an opium den. Or a whorehouse.
What made him think it would be tolerable to spend even one night at his mother’s? From a young age all Evan ever wanted to do was leave home. But Jessie had begged and wept and finally he succumbed. She said the house felt sinister with Len gone. She was out of her mind with terror and, besides, it was all Evan’s fault.
Evan thought his mother was dramatic, brittle, and unreliable. Jessie’s coping mechanism, if you could call it that, was to pretend everything was glorious. And it would be as soon as she found a Len replacement, which she would with alacrity. Zen, Jessie called it. Live in the moment. Stay centered. Evan called it garden variety denial, if he chose to think about it at all.
Corie looked up to Jessie for some unknown reason. Found her charming instead of ridiculous, creative instead of unstable, affectionate instead of wildly inappropriate. Evan refused to consider what had gone on downstairs in the master suite, in the massive, carved mahogany bed Jessie had once shared with Evan’s father.
Had Len used the guest room before he moved downstairs? Slept in this bed? Evan imagined the other man’s scent was still on the lime green silk sheets. It felt unclean. It was also hard to be in this room and not think of Hennessy—it used to be hers. That was another reason Evan stayed out of this house as much as possible. Usually he could push the memories away, but tonight he failed.
It must be the timing. The scrapbook, the model, his recent play bringing it all back.
Fifteen years ago Hennessy had been brought home for hospice care. Jessie begged Evan for help and he flew to Denver from North Carolina. Jessie opened the door for him barefoot, her face devoid of makeup or emotion, her hair wild. He was twenty-eight and hadn’t met the singer yet.
Jessie had hired a nurse who urged Evan into Hennessy’s darkened room. “Come say hello.”
“Isn’t she in a coma?” Evan asked.
“No. She can hear you.”
The nurse told him that Hennessy’s heart had grown too weak to adequately pump blood through her body. Her organs were failing. Her weight had fallen below eighty-seven pounds, her previous low-water mark.
“Maybe you can get her to eat,” the nurse said. “There’s still a chance. She’s young.”
“She might survive?” Evan had been surprised.
“She’s young,” the nurse repeated. “Only twenty. The effects of anorexia are reversible. But there’s no time to lose. She’s already lost heart muscle. When your body starts consuming muscle to survive it attacks the organs, too.”
Evan hadn’t known his sister well but she’d always seemed like a selfish girl. Not someone who would deny herself. “I don’t think she’ll listen to me.”
“You have to try.”
Did he? Evan sat in a chair next to the bed and tried to find his sister’s hand in the bedclothes.
When the nurse was gone Evan said, “Hennessy.” Then he repeated it a second time, louder. Did he imagine it, or did he see a slight flickering of her eyelids? Hennessy’s eyelashes were somehow still lush and dark, incongruous against her gaunt, bluish-white face. Evan raised her hand to his lips and kissed it.
In those days the room was painted a pale rosy color, the color of dawn. Fashion magazines littered the floor. Hennessy’s ribbons—all blue—from horseback riding events were proudly displayed, stuck around the edge of the mirror over her makeup table and tacked to the walls. A photo of her with her friend Corie was on the dresser. When Hennessy left for college Jessie left the room alone.
Various pictures of movie stars and fashion models were taped up on the walls. Was that why? Did she want to look like one of them? To be perfect? Evan understood the drive to be perfect. Machines whirred quietly. Hennessy’s chest barely moved the blanket up and down. The nurse said the disease ate her heart. Not that his sister had a big heart to begin with.
“Hennessy, it’s me. Evan.” They were far enough apart in age to be strangers. “I know I haven’t been around much, but I’m here now.”
Get her to eat, the nurse had said. And keep her eating for the rest of her life. The fatality rate from anorexia was higher than almost any other mental disorder. He looked it up. Constant vigilance was required, and even then, the odds of her ever being really healthy were bad. What if she ate just enough to drag this out? That would be torture for everyone.
“Hennessy, I want to help you. I know we haven’t been close, but I will do whatever it takes if you choose to live.” Did he feel her hand move? He looked down. She was so weak that even if she tried to squeeze his hand, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to feel it. “You have to choose.” He found himself speaking loudly, as if she were deaf, and lowered his voice to a more conversational tone. “You have to choose, Hennessy, and you have to let me know. You hav
e to let all of us know.”
Jessie used Evan’s homecoming as an excuse to cook. She busied herself for hours in the kitchen, her hair pinned up haphazardly, still barefoot, with cooking magazines open on the counters and pots simmering on the stove. His mother insisted on taking all of their meals together, on eating in the dining room even though it was only the two of them, and on using all of the fine china and crystal and silver.
So the two of them sat in the elegant, formal dining room, gorging themselves and making small talk, ignoring the irony of the young woman starving herself to death right above their heads.
You could smell the food upstairs which seemed cruel. Evan sat with Hennessy for hours each day while Jessie rarely made an appearance. His mother said that she preferred to remember Hennessy the way she used to be—beautiful, vibrant, and full of life. The specter in the bed was not her daughter. That was the word Jessie used: specter.
“Hennessy, none of us are mad at you,” Evan said the second day. “None of us can bear to see you suffer. Mom and I can’t bear it.” Was she suffering? It was hard to tell.
No sound other than the machines. Her shallow breathing was silent.
“If you want to live, I will help you.” Evan glanced over his shoulder. As usual, the nurse had left them alone. Still, she might be right outside the door. Evan lowered his voice to a whisper. “And if you don’t want to live, I will still help you. Do you understand?”
He gently set her hand down on the sheet and walked around her room. He picked up the photo of the two young rodeo queens from the dresser. Hennessy and Corie stared back, in heavy makeup and ridiculously large cowboy hats. Corie was Hennessy’s best friend. In the photo his sister looked happy, but looks, as he well knew, were most often used for deceit.
He set the framed picture down and walked to her makeup table. Fingered the ribbons stuck around the edge of the mirror. Trailed his fingers in some spilled powder. The closet was open. He straightened the garments on the hangars and made sure they were spaced evenly before he closed the door. This wouldn’t do at all. He aligned the edges of the magazines into neat piles and noted that the wastebasket needed to be emptied. He’d tell the nurse. When he was done straightening up he saw that his sister’s eyes were open. Terrible, shadowed eyes, as if already looking into an abyss somewhere beyond this room.