by Tami Hoag
“We’re waiting on the full results of the autopsy,” Mendez said. “But it appears she was strangled.”
Crane closed his eyes and rubbed a hand across his forehead as if the revelation had pained him.
“I hope she didn’t suffer,” he said quietly. “She was a nice girl.”
“How is Tommy doing?” Mendez asked.
“He’s pretty undone by the whole thing.”
“Dr. Crane’s son was one of the kids that found the body,” Mendez explained.
Crane looked sharply at Vince.
“I was out of town that night,” Vince said easily. “What a terrible thing for kids to have to see.”
“He doesn’t understand how one human being could do that to another human being,” Crane said. “He asked me last night if I thought the man who killed that lady was crazy or just really angry with her.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I told him I don’t think anyone really understands why someone turns out to be a killer.”
“That’s not very reassuring,” Vince said.
“My son is ten, and he’s very bright, Detective. He knows if someone is lying to him. I told him he shouldn’t worry about it, that just because a bad thing happened to that woman doesn’t mean anything bad is going to happen to him; that he has a lot of people looking out for him, to keep him safe.”
“Did he buy that?”
“I don’t think so,” Crane said honestly.
“Do you remember what time Ms. Vickers left here last Thursday?” Mendez asked.
“A cleaning and exam usually runs around an hour, so it must have been around five. Ava will remember,” Crane said. “Ava remembers everything.”
“How did Miss Vickers seem to you?” Vince asked.
Crane shrugged. “She didn’t make much of an impression on me. She sat with her mouth open and I looked at her teeth. She seemed upset when I told her she would need the two crowns. She was getting ready to start a new job at the Quinn, Morgan law offices. She was worried about having to take time off.
“I told her I doubted it would be a problem. I know everybody at Quinn, Morgan. I told her she should talk to the office manager and we would work something out together. Maybe she went by there on her way home.”
“Do you have patient parking here, Dr. Crane?” Vince asked.
“I have three spots behind the building. If those are full, they have to use public parking.”
“It’s all right if we take a look back there,” Vince said. “There’s a back door, right?”
“Yes. I’ll show you.”
He led them down a hall and out a door into the shadowed alley behind the building. Vince took it all in—the surrounding buildings, the lack of activity. The building directly next door had a large FOR LEASE sign up on the wall. JAMESON REAL ESTATE with the phone number of the agency and a photo of a pretty, smiling agent inviting interested parties to call.
Two of the three parking slots marked for Peter Crane, DDS, were taken. One by a sleek, dark blue Jaguar sedan, and one by a white Toyota Celica.
“I couldn’t tell you if Miss Vickers parked back here or not,” Crane said. “Ava might know.”
“Are there any surveillance cameras back here?” Vince asked, scanning the buildings across the alley.
“I don’t know. I don’t have one.”
The door to the office opened and the all-knowing Ava leaned out.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” she said. “But Miss Navarre called, Dr. Crane. There was some kind incident at school. She asked if you could please come pick Tommy up.”
“Incident?” Crane repeated. “What now?”
“She didn’t elaborate.”
Crane sighed. “I’m sorry, guys. I’ve got to go.”
“By all means,” Vince said. “Family first.”
Ava held the doctor’s car keys out to him, but looked to Vince and Mendez. “Our hygienist, Robin, will be in tomorrow. She did Miss Vickers’s cleaning.”
“Just for the record, Dr. Crane,” Mendez said. “Where were you last Thursday night?”
“Home with my family. Call me if you have any more questions,” Crane said, going to the Jag. “But I honestly don’t think I’ll be of much help. I’m sure I’m not the last person who saw Karly Vickers that day.”
“Why do you say that?” Vince asked.
“Because the last person to see her that day must have been the person who took her, and I know that wasn’t me.”
He opened the car door but stopped short of getting in. “Is there a search going on?”
“Not yet,” Mendez said.
Crane’s brow furrowed. “Shouldn’t there be? One woman is dead. One woman is missing. It would be terrible if she ended up dead too just because no one was looking for her.”
“We’re looking for her,” Mendez said. “You have my card if you think of anything.”
“He’s right, you know,” Vince said as Crane’s car disappeared down the alley. “Karly Vickers could be out there somewhere with the clock ticking down on her life right this minute—if she’s not already dead. She’s probably wondering if anyone is looking for her, if anyone has even noticed she’s missing.”
“Lisa Warwick went missing on a Friday,” Mendez said. “She was found dead eleven days later. Karly Vickers went missing last Thursday. Let’s hope our killer sticks to a schedule.”
Vince gave him a sober look. “I wouldn’t bet a life on it.”
31
Mendez stared down at the decayed human finger lying in the dirt near the end of the bench on the third-base line. Flies buzzed around it and crawled on it. The thing was so rotten, the skin had split and started coming off.
He glanced sideways at Vince, who had taken a seat on the bench. They had picked up the call as soon as they made it back to the car from Crane’s office. Go to Oak Knoll Elementary immediately. It seemed like an unlikely place for crime. And the crime didn’t seem like anything to call the cops over—one kid beat up another kid in gym class.
A severed human finger, Vince conceded, made all the difference. He shook a couple of pills out of a small white bottle and tossed them back.
“You all right?” Mendez asked.
“Headache,” he said. Like someone-had-put-an-axe-through-his-head headache.
“What do you make of this?”
“Your vic’s missing an index finger. There’s an index finger. We don’t need Sherlock Holmes for this one.”
Hicks bent over the finger too. He shooed the flies off it. They were back on it in two seconds. “Man, that’s gross. The Farman kid must have picked it up at the scene Tuesday night.”
“The girl told me he touched the body,” Mendez said. “She didn’t say he broke off a finger and stuck it in his pocket.”
“Bag the finger and let’s go talk to the boy,” Vince said, pushing himself to his feet. “I can’t wait to hear what he has to say for himself.”
They convened in the conference room. Dennis was sitting in a chair, sullen, his lip split, his clothes dirty. He hadn’t spoken a word since he’d been dragged indoors by Mr. Alvarez. The gym teacher told Anne it had taken a good ten minutes for him to calm down out on the baseball diamond.
“He just kept swinging and fighting, spewing out the filthiest language I ever heard,” he said. “It was like he was possessed or something. I had all I could do to hang on to him.”
That in itself was frightening, Anne thought. Dennis was bigger than the rest of her students, but he was still a little boy. Paco Alvarez was built like a fireplug with massive arms.
“I think if I hadn’t been there to stop him, he would have killed Tommy Crane,” he whispered, glancing over at Dennis as if he were expecting him to leap over the table and charge like a wild animal.
Dennis lifted his head and glared at them, as if to say, “What are you looking at?” then looked down once more at the tabletop.
“That’s some serious rage issue,” Alvarez said. “T
he kid had blood in his eye, you know? Like a fighting dog.”
Anne knew nothing about fighting dogs. She was beginning to think she didn’t know much about anything. Shouldn’t she have seen warning signs in Dennis Farman? Or had the warning signs been written off to the easy excuses: Dennis is insecure, Dennis is jealous, Dennis is a garden-variety bully? Maybe there was no such thing.
“I don’t know what to say, Paco,” she said softly. “He’s got bigger problems than I’m equipped to deal with.”
The door opened and Principal Garnett came into the room with Detective Mendez and two other men—a redheaded man in his thirties with a badge clipped to his belt, and a tall man in his late forties with chiseled good looks, an air of command, and dark eyes that set their gaze squarely on her.
He broke away from the others and came toward her, holding out his hand.
“You must be Miss Navarre,” he said. His hand was big and warm, and swallowed hers whole. “I’m Detective Leone.”
Anne turned her head to introduce Alvarez, but the gym teacher had moved on to speak with Mendez. They looked as if they knew each other.
“Detective.”
“You’ve had quite a shock today,” he said, still holding her hand.
She didn’t object. He was a big man—on the lean side, but still there was a solidness about him that seemed reassuring. Like he was here to take care of everything—a quality that was very appealing to her at the moment.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m a little shaken up,” she admitted.
“Were you on the field when all this went down?”
“No,” she said, finally slipping her hand from his. “As it happened, I was in Mr. Garnett’s office, having a conversation with him about Dennis. He spent the morning drawing this.”
She angled herself so Dennis couldn’t see the notebook she had been clutching. She opened it to the page of violent drawings.
Detective Leone frowned darkly as he studied the picture. “He drew these today?”
“This morning,” she said. “He’s been agitated all day. He’s one of the children who found the body.”
“Deputy Farman’s son.”
“Yes. I suppose you know him.”
Leone hummed an acknowledgment, but his focus was entirely on the drawing.
“How old is this boy?”
“Eleven. He was held back in the third grade.”
“Has he said anything about where or how he got the finger?”
“No. He hasn’t spoken at all since Mr. Alvarez brought him in from gym class.”
“This is very disturbing,” he said softly. Finally he raised his eyes from the drawing to her face. “And it was a young lady he attacked initially this afternoon?”
“Yes. Wendy Morgan. Then Tommy Crane.”
“Has he demonstrated violence against girls before?”
“No more than the average fifth-grade boy,” she said. “At least not that I’ve been aware of. But he had quite an outburst with me this morning.”
She told him about what had happened in her classroom and what had gone on the evening before when she had stopped at the Farman home.
“I’m afraid he might be blaming me for getting him in trouble,” she said. “His parents weren’t aware he had skipped school. I think he might have gotten a spanking for it. He wouldn’t sit down all morning.”
“Could I have a photocopy of this page, Miss Navarre?” Leone asked. “A couple of them, please?”
“Yes, of course.”
“The other children who found the body are in your class as well?”
“Yes. This has been a very challenging week.”
“I’d like to sit down and talk with you about the kids,” he said. “Are you free this evening?”
“Um . . . uh . . . Yes, sure,” she said, instantly thinking that Franny would kill her. Thursday was their standing date for Chinese.
“Good. Dinner at seven? Piazza Fontana?”
“Are you asking me on a date, Detective?” she asked, a little shocked at his audacity . . . and a little something else.
“That would be improper of me,” he said.
But he didn’t say no.
“I’ve been away,” he said. “Just got back last night. I’d like to get a clearer picture of what happened Tuesday. Your insights would be appreciated. Your pleasant company would be a bonus,” he added.
Mendez joined them then, and Leone had her show Dennis’s drawing to him.
“Jesus Christ,” Mendez said, then caught himself. “Sorry, ma’am.”
“Has the school notified the boy’s parents about this?” Leone asked.
“Deputy Farman is on his way,” she said, wishing the principal had called Dennis’s mother instead.
Mendez spoke to Leone. “I say we ask the kid about the finger before Frank gets here. If we aren’t going to charge him with anything, we don’t need a parent present to ask him questions.”
Vince shrugged. “Your call. The Cranes might want to press assault charges.”
“I’ll only ask him about the finger.”
He started toward the table then turned back in an afterthought. “Thank you, Miss Navarre. You’ve been very helpful.”
“I’m staying,” Anne said firmly.
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m staying while you talk to Dennis,” Anne said. “He’s my responsibility as long as he’s in this building.”
Mendez shrugged. “That’s fine.”
She grabbed hold of the sleeve of his sport coat as he started to turn away again. He swung back around and looked at her.
“And I don’t want you asking him about the drawings,” she said, keeping her tone low. “He doesn’t know I have the notebook. I don’t want him to know I betrayed his trust. I want to be able to help him—if I can.”
They went to the table together then and sat down to interview Dennis Farman. But Dennis had nothing to say. Not one word. He wouldn’t tell them how the finger came to be in his possession. He wouldn’t talk at all, and no amount of threats or cajoling could change his mind. He sat mute, staring down at the tabletop with God knew what churning around in his head.
Hicks headed back to the office to see if anything had come in on his background checks of the staff at the Thomas Center. Vince and Mendez walked out of the school and stood on the sidewalk waiting for Frank Farman to show up. The other kids were long gone before they had even made it to the scene—Tommy Crane picked up by his father and taken to the ER, Wendy Morgan picked up by her father also.
“Those are some violent fantasies that kid has running around in his head,” Vince said, offering Mendez a stick of Doublemint gum. “He’s got some deep-seated anger. Why is that? Kids don’t come out of the chute like that. It’s learned behavior. Who did he learn it from?”
“Frank’s wound a little too tight,” Mendez said. “But I don’t see him drawing pictures of women with knives stuck in their breasts.”
“That boy is a perfect candidate to go all wrong and end up really hurting someone. You’ll have to keep your eye on him for years to come.”
“Great. I hope the Cranes press charges. We can pack him off to a juvenile facility.”
“And he’ll be all straightened out when he comes out of there,” Vince said sarcastically.
They just stood there for a minute, taking in the momentary quiet, each turning their thoughts over in their heads.
“The teacher’s cute,” Vince said at last.
“Yeah.”
“She’s got spunk, sticking up for her kids. I like that,” he said. He looked at Mendez out the corner of his eye. “Have you asked her out?”
Mendez startled at the question. “What? No! I’m in the middle of a case.”
Vince shrugged. “A guy’s gotta eat.”
“I just met her yesterday.”
“So? I just met her an hour ago.”
Mendez stared at him. “You asked her out? She’s young enough
to be your daughter!”
“Yeah,” he said, grinning. “But she isn’t.”
“I can’t believe you asked her out! In the middle of all of that, you asked her out.”
“We’re meeting for dinner. To talk about the kids,” he added.
“She doesn’t know it’s a date.”
“She knows she’s having dinner with a charming gentleman at a very nice Italian restaurant.”
“I can’t believe you asked her out,” Mendez said. “She’s part of the investigation.”
“She’s not a vic. She’s not a witness. And she’s not the perp,” Vince pointed out. “There’s no conflict of interest. Life is short, junior. Carpe diem.”
A county cruiser pulled up at the curb and Frank Farman got out, his face a mask of steel.
“I can’t believe this,” he said half under his breath. “He had a finger?”
“He had to have taken it off Lisa Warwick,” Mendez said. “She was missing an index finger at autopsy.”
“For God’s sake,” Farman said, jamming his hands on his hips. “I don’t know what’s wrong with that boy. I try to set him straight, and he does something like this.”
“He beat up the Crane kid pretty bad,” Mendez said. “They might want to press charges.”
“Jesus Christ.” He looked one way and then the other, as if he expected Christ to appear on command.
He didn’t get Christ. He got Anne Navarre. The teacher marched out of the building with all the determination of Napoleon.
“Mr. Farman, can I have a word with you?”
“I really don’t have the time—”
“You don’t have the time to discuss the fact that your son brought a human finger to school today? What could you possibly have going on more urgent than dealing with this?”
“I have a job to do, Miss Navarre.”
“Yes. It’s called parenting. It comes with having children. Does it not mean anything to you that your son is having serious problems here?”
Vince watched Farman’s face redden. The deputy wouldn’t take being dressed down in front of his peers. Anne Navarre seemed to have no regard. She stood up to him like an angry mouse taunting a lion.
“Dennis needs help. Professional help.”