The Sour Cherry Surprise

by David Handler

  “Why, what else have you got?” he asked, peering at her.

  By now they’d arrived at the trampled marsh grass where Des had found the blood. Yolie was huddled with the medical examiner’s man and several techies. Lots of ears. Too many. The rest of her story would have to wait.

  “He’s been in that water no more than two hours, boss,” Yolie reported as they approached.

  “Totally consistent with the time of the nine-one-one call,” Des said, glancing at her watch.

  “Mind you, that’s strictly a preliminary estimate,” cautioned the death investigator. “This is a tidal estuary. You’ve got your colder salt water from Long Island Sound ebbing and flowing with the warmer river currents. A formulation for determining the mean water temperature for any prolonged amount of time is highly complex. I’ll have to reference the tidal charts for this evening as well as factor in the—”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” blustered Soave, who had an extremely low geek speak threshold. “He put up any kind of a fight?”

  “Doesn’t appear so,” Yolie answered. “No obvious defensive cuts or bruising. But we won’t know for sure until they get him on the table. We’re looking at a single cut, very deep. A smooth, sharp blade. Something along the lines of a carving knife. The cut was most likely made from behind, which means we’re talking about a person who was strong enough to overpower him.”

  “Unless there were two of them,” Des said.

  “I’m down with that,” Yolie agreed. “It would explain how the body was moved from here all of the way down to the water. We’re talking, what, thirty feet? The victim was good-sized, yet there’s no sign he was dragged.”

  “Meaning he was carried.” Soave tugged at his goatee thoughtfully. “Got to figure his blood got all over the person or persons who did this. There ought to be bloody clothing and shoes around here somewhere. Not to mention the carving knife. Only, jeez, is it dark down here or what? Have they ever heard of a little thing called streetlights in this place?”

  “You’re in the country, Rico,” Des reminded him.

  “Whatever. Come daylight, I want our scuba divers down here searching the river for the knife and for weighted-down clothing. They can hook up with the DEP if they need a boat. And I want all available men combing this marsh, that brush back there, the woods, everywhere.”

  “Right, boss.” Yolie flipped open her cell phone.

  “Anything I can do to help, Rico?”

  “Would you mind informing the victim’s wife? We’ll catch up with you in a minute.”

  Des strode back to the Procter house, her thoughts straying to Carolyn’s sister Megan. Wondering if she was en route here from Maine at this very moment. Wondering if her arrival just a few precious hours sooner would have saved Richard’s life tonight.

  Clay and Hector remained seated on the porch, eyeballing her calmly. They were cool customers. Des had to give them that much.

  She tipped her hat and said, “Gentlemen, I need to give Carolyn the news about her husband now.”

  Slowly, Clay reached for a cigarette and lit it. “I’ll be the one to tell her, if you don’t mind.”

  “I appreciate you wanting to soften the blow, Mr. Mundy. But according to the laws of this state it’s my official duty to notify the next of kin. You’re not going to impede me, are you?”

  “No, ma’am,” he assured her. “Absolutely not. Do what you got to do.”

  A nightstand light was on in the bedroom, which was a soiled zoo cage reeking of sour sheets, overflowing ashtrays and its sweaty, unwashed occupant. Carolyn lay naked atop the wrought iron bed with an iPod plugged into her ears, head nodding lazily to the beat. Her eyes were open but she did not seem to notice Des standing there. Or Clay hovering behind Des in the doorway. She was in a stoned-out stupor. The lady was sporting a couple of fresh cigarette burns on her arms, Des noticed. But she did not spot a blow pipe or ice any other illegal drugs on the nightstand. Only beer cans.

  “Carolyn …?” she said, standing over her.

  No response. Nothing.

  She reached down and pulled the earphones off. “Carolyn …?”

  Slowly, Carolyn’s eyes began to focus. Or almost. “You … still here?” Her voice faint and dreamy.

  “That was yesterday, Carolyn. I’m back again now. I need to talk to you about Richard.”

  “He … left. I-I told you.”

  “I’m very sorry, but I’m here to inform you that he’s dead.”

  Carolyn blinked at her. “Away. Richard went away.”

  “Carolyn, I just found him floating in the river. His throat has been cut. He’s dead, do-you-understand?”

  With tweakers there was no such thing as an emotional middle ground. One moment the lady was lying there in a persistent vegetative state. The next, as the reality of her husband’s death hit home, Carolyn Procter turned into a wild woman.

  “Where’s Richard?” she screamed, vaulting from the bed with a surge of instant rage. “Richard, where are you …? Richaaard …?“ She was still calling out his name as she went flying out of the room—past a stunned Clay—and right out the front door of her house, stark naked. Des in hot pursuit. The others, including Molly, standing out there in the lane gaping at her. “Where’s Richard? I have to be with him! Richaaaard …?“

  Big Yolie, who happened to be there talking to Kimberly, grabbed Carolyn at once and frog-marched her back inside the house as Des phoned the Jewett sisters on her cell.

  “Where’s the bedroom, girl?” Yolie hollered, puffing as she wrestled the squirming madwoman across the living room.

  Des led the way. When they got there Yolie threw Carolyn down on the bed and pinned her there. Although Carolyn wasn’t done fighting her. She even tried to take a bite out of Yolie’s forearm.

  For which Yolie slapped her hard in the face. “Behave yourself! Your little girl is out there. Want her to see you this way?”

  Des found a man’s white button down-shirt hanging in the closet. Richard’s most likely. It took both of them to muscle Carolyn into it.

  “He needs me!” she groaned, thrashing around wildly, her head swiveling from side to side. “Richard needs me!”

  “Richard is gone!” Des hollered at her. “It’s Molly who needs you now!”

  At the mention of Molly’s name the fight seemed to melt right out of Carolyn. She lay there limply now, panting for breath, foul-smelling sweat pouring from her.

  “Are you going to behave?” Yolie demanded.

  Carolyn nodded her head up and down. Yolie released her. Slowly, she sat up and fumbled for a cigarette on the nightstand, her hands trembling so badly that Yolie had to light it for her.

  “I need a drink,” she gasped, drawing the tobacco deep into her lungs.

  “You need to get clean,” Yolie countered angrily. “What are you into? Crack? Smack? Ice? All of the above?”

  Clay reappeared in the bedroom doorway. “Everything okay in here?” he inquired, the picture of tender concern.

  “Fool, what do you think?” Yolie snarled at him.

  Now Carolyn had the full-blown shakes. Des could hear her grinding her teeth. It was not a pretty sound.

  “I think Carolyn got upset,” Clay informed Yolie politely. “Which is perfectly understandable. Plus she’s been under the weather lately.”

  “Oh, is that what you call it?” Yolie’s eyes were daggers.

  Outside, Des could hear the Jewett sisters rolling up to the state police cordon. She went out there to meet them. Hector watched her coolly from the porch, saying nothing.

  “Where is she, Des?” asked Marge, her eyes taking in all of the residents and sworn personnel gathered there. Mary was getting their gear out of the back.

  “In the bedroom,” Des answered, lowering her voice as they hurried inside past Hector. “I want Carolyn Procter out of here, okay? Get her admitted to the hospital for acute psychological trauma. Or shock. Or a severe allergic reaction to prescription medication. I don’t care what
. Just take her where she can get help, understand?”

  “Afraid not,” Mary said briskly. “What kind of help?”

  “Have either of seen her lately?”

  They shook their heads.

  “Then you had better prepare yourselves,” she said as the sisters barged past Clay into the bedroom.

  Mary let out a gasp as soon as she laid eyes on Carolyn.

  “Can you do it?” Des asked Marge.

  “Consider it done,” she promised Des.

  “Carolyn’s doing okay, really,” Clay tried to assure them. “Just needs a little shot of something to settle her nerves down.”

  Marge ignored him completely. “Honey, you are coming with us,” she told Carolyn. “Can you walk?”

  “She can walk,” said Yolie, pulling Carolyn roughly to her feet.

  “Where am I going?” Carolyn wondered, gazing at Mary in bewilderment.

  “To get you a hot shower, for starters,” Mary replied, wrinkling her nose. “You used to be the prettiest, most accomplished young mother in all of Dorset. I’d see you shopping for groceries in the A & P, always a smile on your face, always a polite word, and I’d say to myself that is one classy lady. Lord, honey, what on earth has happened to you?”

  In response, Carolyn spat right in her face. Then began fighting with Yolie all over again. “Leave me the hell alone!” she cried out, struggling in Yolie’s iron grip.

  “Out of our way, mister!” Marge barked, elbowing Clay aside as they hustled Carolyn out of there.

  Clay didn’t try to stop them. He knew when to fold his cards. Just watched from the porch with Hector as the sisters loaded Carolyn into their ambulance, kicking and screaming.

  Happily, Molly was no longer out there to see any of this. Jen had taken her inside her own house.

  “Molly can stay with us for as long she needs to,” Kimberly promised Des after the sisters had rolled out of there, lights flashing.

  “We’ll all look after her,” Amber chimed in, clutching Keith’s hand. “The important thing is that Carolyn get well.”

  “I’d like Molly to stay out of that house while her mother is away,” Des said to them. “I don’t want her in there. Kimberly, please make sure Jen understands that, okay?”

  Kimberly glanced over at Clay and Hector on the porch, swallowing. “Yeah, sure. Whatever you say.”

  “It shouldn’t be for very long. I’ve been in touch with Carolyn’s sister Megan up in Maine. She’s already on her way down to take charge of things.”

  “That’ll be great,” Amber said enthusiastically. “Megan’s a really capable person.”

  “In fact, I’m expecting her to turn up pretty much any minute now.” While she’d been waiting for the crime scene techies to arrive, Des had phoned Megan’s farm in Blue Hill. Woke up her partner, Susan, who sleepily told her that Megan had left for Dorset that very day at around noon. It was generally an eight-hour drive if the traffic was light, Susan said. Ten if it wasn’t. Which, according to Des’s calculations, meant that Megan should have reached Dorset at about the same time Richard was murdered. Unfortunately, Susan had no idea where she presently was or how to reach her. Megan would not buy a cell phone. She was convinced they caused brain cancer. “Amber, would you mind keeping an eye out for her?”

  “Be happy to, Des. I’ll let you know just as soon as Megan gets here.”

  Now Soave waved to Des from his slicktop, where he and Yolie were hashing things over.

  “Cut to the chase,” he said to her when she joined them. “I know you schooled me to keep an open mind and all of that, but Clay Mundy’s a slam dunk, right?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, I dunno. Maybe because he stole the guy’s wife. Got her strung out on dope. Moved into his house. Beat the crap out of him a few nights back. Plus he looks seven different kinds of skeegie around the edges and he has a running buddy. Two-man job, remember? Otherwise, I can’t imagine why.”

  Des watched Clay and Hector there on the porch, smoking and talking. “It’s whacked-out, Rico.”

  “Yeah, you said that before. Whacked-out how?”

  Her cell phone rang. She took the call and listened. “Right, I understand,” she said. Then she flicked it off and showed them her smile. “Prepare to get funky.”

  They were setting up a temporary command headquarters in the auxiliary conference room of Dorset’s town hall, a stately, white-columned edifice that smelled all year around of mothballs, musty carpeting and Ben-Gay. Troopers in uniform were busy booting up computers and plugging in phones. Which was standard procedure for a murder investigation. But there was absolutely nothing standard about the collection of law enforcement professionals who had assembled by the time Des arrived with Soave and Yolie. Cavanaugh, the bland, cautious supervising agent from the DEA, was there. And Grisky, the testosterone cowboy from the FBI. And Captain Amalfitano from the state’s Narcotics Task Force, alias the Aardvark. Also a very polished and polite U.S. Attorney out of New Haven by the name of Brandon Stokes.

  Who Yolie absolutely could not stop staring at. She looked as if she were going to hyperventilate when Des introduced him to her. “Girl, have they got any more like him at home?” she whispered after Brandon had crossed the room to confer with Cavanaugh. “Has he got like a brother? A cousin? Distant cousin?”

  “Sorry, Brandon’s one of a kind.”

  “I’m down with that. Mitch was cute but this one is the bomb. Real, know who he reminds me of?”

  “Let me guess—Harry Belafonte?”

  “No, I was going to say Denzel.”

  “My bad.”

  “What’s up with Maverick over there?” Now she was checking out Des’s non-favorite G-man. “He ever stop flexing?”

  “That’s a no,” Des replied, making a face.

  The Aardvark asked the other uniformed troopers to let them have the room. Then he closed the door and they seated themselves around the conference table. Someone had picked up bags of burgers and spiral fries at McGee’s diner before it closed for the night. Grisky attacked the food ravenously, biceps bulging in his tight T-shirt. So did Brandon, who had eaten no dinner. Neither had Des, but she wasn’t hungry. Or happy. Her eyes found Brandon’s across the table. He wasn’t happy either. They were both thinking the same thing: So much for our wild and wet getaway to the Cape. So much for escaping from our responsibilities for a few days. That will have to wait. We will have to wait.

  Soave listened to Cavanaugh’s Operation Burrito King rap in respectful silence, nodding his shaved head as the soft-spoken DEA man detailed their six-month investigation into the Vargas drug cartel, the Atlanta connection, Clay and Hector, the stash house on Sour Cherry, it all.

  When Cavanaugh was done talking Soave sat back in his chair, tugging at his goatee thoughtfully for a moment. “This is all awesome stuff, guys,” he declared finally. “But I’ve got a homicide investigation to run. Homicide takes priority over whatever you’ve got going on. So I sure hope you aren’t trying to strong-arm me.”

  Des had never been prouder of her little man.

  Cavanaugh and Amalfitano exchanged an uneasy glance before the Aardvark said, “That’s absolutely understood, lieutenant. Obviously, we’ve got a vested interest in keeping our own investigation under wraps. But we in no way wish to impede yours. We’re just here to offer you whatever assistance and support we can.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Soave said, turning his gaze on Grisky. “You can start by telling me what your men saw and heard from your setup in the woods.”

  “That would be me.” Grisky dipped a spiral fry in a puddle of ketchup and chomped on it with his mouth open, splotches of blood-red ketchup flecking his lips. And Des couldn’t imagine why she wasn’t hungry. “I was up tonight. I was set up maybe a hundred feet behind the Beckwith house, angled slightly toward Turkey Neck so I’d have a direct sight line with the Procter place. That means the Sullivan cottage stood right smack dab between me and the crime scene. I was bl
ocked out is what I’m saying. Didn’t see a thing.”

  “Did you hear anything?” Yolie asked him.

  “Maybe I did,” he replied, taking a starved bite out of his burger. “Maybe I didn’t. What I heard was a shriek of some kind. I thought maybe coming from the direction of the river. But I really wasn’t sure. It’s a warm night. People’s windows were open. I thought maybe the Beckwith girls were watching a scary movie on TV. Or Amber and Keith Sullivan were getting it on yet again. They never quit, those two. And they are not quiet. Or maybe it was a couple of alley cats out there in the brush fighting over territory. I didn’t know. I hear all kinds of noises in those woods at night.”

  “And so you did what exactly?” Soave asked him.

  Grisky stuck out his jaw and said, “Stayed put. No way I’m about to compromise my setup because of anything like that. Trust me, it wasn’t that much out of the ordinary.”

  “I hear you,” Soave said, nodding. “Subsequent to this, what did you call it, a shriek …?”

  “Shriek, scream, whatever,” Grisky said with a shrug.

  “Did you see or hear anyone leaving the scene—either through the woods or up Sour Cherry Lane? Did you observe a car going by? Any kind of activity whatsoever?”

  “Not a damned thing, lieutenant. Not until she rolled in.” Meaning Des. “At which point I checked in with Agent Cavanaugh by cell phone.”

  “After I spoke with Agent Grisky,” Cavanaugh interjected, “Captain Amalfitano and I interfaced jointly with Captain Polito of the Major Crime Squad.”

  Polito was Rico’s commanding officer, not to mention his brother-in-law.

  “And we’re all in agreement,” the Aardvark declared. “Our best move right now is to stand back and give you folks a chance to do what you do.”

  Brandon didn’t say a word. Just sat there and listened as he polished off his burger. The man was the tidiest burger eater Des had ever seen. Even his very last teensy-weensy bite was a perfectly arranged stack of patty, bun, lettuce, tomato and onion.

  She cleared her throat now and said, “If I might …?”

  “Jump right in, Des,” Soave urged her.