by Mica Stone
The wound that had struck down the victim ran from her shoulder to her hip. A sideways slash that had pretty much destroyed every vital organ in her body. Some of them lay glistening on the tarp. Parts of them, anyway. Miriam thought if the body were folded in half along the weapon’s path, it would break. Like a piece of toast. Or a hot dog held together by its skin.
For the first time in ages, Miriam thought she might be sick.
“I want to know about these fucking tarps,” she said, standing over her partner with her nose buried in the crease of her notebook.
“Hard to do this sort of damage with any kind of knife. This was a big blade.”
Miriam looked from the body to the man who’d spoken. Wade Ackerman was her favorite death investigator, just like Karen Sosa was her favorite crime-scene tech.
He wore boots, jeans, a Western-cut shirt, and his ever-present Stetson. He was a big guy, tall and husky, and he knew his shit, which was kinda scary if she pondered too closely.
Then again, a whole lot of her life was death, too.
She digested what he’d said, then pressed. “Big as in . . .”
“Like a lawn-mower blade. It was thick. And sharp. Fiona will have to verify it, but it appears it may have had a nick. If you’ll look here at the skin . . .”
Melvin leaned in. Miriam turned and stepped away. She’d take Wade’s word for it. And check with Fiona at the autopsy. Where she’d stand as far from the body as she was doing now.
God, she needed a drink.
“You need a drink? I can probably find a bottle of water.”
She shook her head at Seth Branch’s question. She could use some fresh air, and for him to let her catch her breath on her own. And, okay, tequila. “I’m fine. It’s just—”
“The blood,” he said, following her toward the garage’s elevator. “I know.”
“Thanks for not making it a big deal.” She needed to be alone. Two minutes. That would be enough. She turned to a new page in her notebook and clicked the end of her pen twice.
Then she wrote: Autumn Carver.
Seth motioned toward the building’s entrance. “I’ll help Ballard with the garage people, then we’ll head inside and talk to any early birds who might’ve seen something.”
She nodded. “Get a couple of uniforms to walk this floor. The others, too.”
“Will do,” he said, heading toward the attendant’s kiosk.
Breathing better now, she joined Karen Sosa in front of the victim’s car. “I know you just got here, Karen, and I don’t want to ask if you’ve found something and jinx anything—”
“Good morning, Detective Rome. And, yes, I found something.” Karen looked up, her expression a mix of promising and don’t get your hopes up. “Not sure it’ll pan out as related to your crime, but look here.”
She pointed to what appeared to be a partial footprint. “Looks like a boot tread. A work boot of some sort. Since the killer isn’t buying new tarps, this may just belong to the last person to have used it. Not sure I can get a size or make. It’s only a partial.”
“It’s a place to start. Thanks, Karen,” Miriam said, feeling her balance return.
Making a note of Karen’s finding, she approached Autumn’s coworkers. They stood in a huddle, though they’d quieted down. She stopped first to talk to the uniform who had their information.
He flipped open his notepad, pointing with the butt end of his pen from one to the next. “One is the receptionist. Two are paralegals. One is the victim’s assistant. Cheryl Grant. She made the call. The one in the turquoise.”
“Thanks,” Miriam said, approaching the woman who thankfully appeared to have calmed more than the others. “Ms. Grant? I’m Detective Miriam Rome. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Cheryl Grant nodded, her brown eyes wide and fearful, her dark cheeks stained with tears. Gold hoop earrings swung with the movement of her head. “I can’t believe this. It’s unreal. It doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone do this?”
“How long had you worked with Autumn?” Miriam asked, pushing before the other woman choked up again.
Cheryl sniffed, and Miriam reached into her pocket for a tissue. “Thank you. I started here three years ago. I work for her and two of the other junior partners.”
Miriam jotted down the information. “Did she always come to work early? Or just when she had something big going on?”
“She always had something big going on. She could’ve been in the office twenty-four hours a day and still have work left to do. She liked the quiet. She said she got her best work done when she was here alone and could think without her phone constantly ringing.”
Adding to her notes, Miriam asked, “I guess that’s part of the job? The partner track?”
But Cheryl shook her head. “She was preparing to cut back—oh, God. Her little girl!”
God, not again. “She has children?”
“She was in the middle of a private adoption,” Cheryl said, twisting the tissue to shreds. “She was so excited. The baby’s due in September.”
Miriam flipped back a page in her notebook. Autumn Carver was fifty years old. This was going to need some explaining. “She’s not currently married, correct? Is she seeing someone? Does she have other children?”
“I don’t think she’s ever been married. Has she, Deb?” Deb, whom Miriam identified as the receptionist, shook her head, and Cheryl went on. “She broke up about two years ago with a man she’d been seeing for quite a while. The adoption happened after that. It was pretty sudden. And surprising.”
I bet. “Did she know the family she’s adopting from?” Because with so many young married couples wanting babies, it was curious that a family would choose a single career woman.
An older single career woman.
Had the killer known about the adoption? Was he making a statement about Autumn’s fitness as a parent? Miriam glanced back at the Bible verse painted on the floor.
“I don’t know,” Cheryl said. “She didn’t talk about the details. We all knew about the adoption, of course.”
“We were throwing her a surprise baby shower next week,” Deb put in, which started the foursome crying again.
“Thank you,” Miriam said, then turned to the officer. “Don’t let them leave. I’ll be back in a minute.” Then she crossed to where Melvin and Ballard stood watching Wade finish up.
“Autumn Carver was in the middle of an adoption.”
Melvin frowned, scratching out a note in his spiral. “Brokering one? As an attorney?”
“No,” Miriam said, waiting for that to register. “She was adopting a baby.”
“How old was she?” Ballard asked.
Miriam’s first thought exactly. Her second was about the money. “Private adoptions are pretty expensive, aren’t they?”
The two men exchanged a glance that said neither had more than secondhand knowledge. Melvin finally spoke. “Attorneys do make a pretty good living.”
True, though Miriam wasn’t comfortable with any of it. “She was a junior partner, but those hours still aren’t conducive to being a single parent.”
“Maybe she’d arranged for a live-in nanny,” Ballard offered.
“I want to see her closet,” Miriam said, pulling out her phone to photograph the Scripture. She ducked inside that section of the scene the responding officers had partitioned off.
And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death. Exodus 21:17.
“Her closet?” Ballard asked, as he followed.
“Well, her whole place,” Miriam said, thinking about the cost of her recent makeup splurge. “But her clothes will say a lot about her financial situation.”
And perhaps hint at whether they’d be finding that she’d recently deposited a check from Sameen Shahidi.
THIRTY-FIVE
Monday, 6:30 p.m.
It was dinnertime before Miriam and Melvin were able to leave the murder scene and meet the uniform who’d been stationed ou
tside Autumn Carver’s house. Ballard and Branch had spent most of the day doing interviews. No one who worked for the garage or in any of the offices housed in the building’s upper floors had noticed anything suspicious.
Of course they hadn’t. No reason for things to start going her way now.
Autumn’s place was at the edge of downtown, a section of Union Park undergoing heavy revitalization with an emphasis on eliminating carbon footprints and going green. The homes were within walking and riding distance of coffee shops, a produce stand, a bakery, a butcher.
The area, known as Crosstown, had the same amenities as Miriam’s warehouse in the industrial district, but the houses also had yards. It was a part of town Miriam had thought she might want to move to someday. If she could sell her place. If Thierry could get back into his . . .
“All quiet?” Melvin asked of the officer stationed at the curb. The two shared another few words while Miriam headed up the walk to the door, pulling on gloves and booties before reaching for the evidence bag she’d brought with her that held the victim’s keys.
Entering the residence of the newly deceased was never easy. Miriam closed her eyes for a moment before turning the knob. Even after she’d pushed open the door, after the smells from inside had rushed out—burned cinnamon toast and spicy air freshener and laundry soap and dust—she counted to ten while returning the bag and the keys to her pocket.
This was the home of someone who would never return to wash the breakfast dishes or clean out the toaster, or throw the wet laundry into the dryer before it soured. The dust would never be wiped away. The air freshener would grow stale.
She didn’t know why she couldn’t cross the threshold without this moment of silence, but it was the same every time. Melvin knew it and waited patiently for her to go inside.
The living room was pin-neat. The floor hardwood, the furniture casual and cozy. There were two love seats arranged at a right angle. Both were the same deep-maroon floral and covered with throw pillows of green and gold. A leather recliner in a matching reddish-brown, sans flowers, shared a lamp table with the one closest to the big-screen TV.
Miriam walked through and turned down the hallway for the bedroom, leaving Melvin to look through the kitchen. Similar to the main room’s furnishings, those in here were well made.
The bed was queen-size and covered with a peacock-and-navy-blue comforter. Coordinating pillows were tossed against the headboard. There was a vanity dresser with a mirror and bench, and an armoire to match, along with a floor lamp in one corner next to a cushy overstuffed chair.
“That answers that,” she said to herself, standing in the open door of the huge walk-in closet. A closet that had been appropriated for a home office—desk, chair, lamp, file cabinet, laptop docking station—leaving the second of the two bedrooms free to use as a nursery.
What the closet didn’t hold was clothes.
Miriam returned to the armoire. The door on the left opened to reveal skirts, jackets, blouses, and dress pants. On the right, drawers held jeans, shorts, T-shirts, and underthings.
Autumn Carver had been frugal. There wasn’t more than a week’s worth of any item save panties. Miriam thought she might actually own more, though looking at the labels in the blouses and suits, Autumn’s quality beat her quantity hands down.
Their victim had invested in suits that would remain stylish for years. She’d bought sensible but fashionable shoes; Miriam found the same pair in black and brown, and thought Autumn might have been wearing a third in navy.
“Find what you were looking for?” Melvin asked from the bedroom’s doorway.
“Not exactly.”
“Because you were expecting what?”
“She had good taste. Expensive, but in an investment sort of way. Quality. These shoes,” she said, waving an arm. “They’re not cheap, but they’re going to last, and they can go from the office to the opera to the pediatrician’s office. And she doesn’t have fifty pairs.”
“I don’t know anyone who has fifty pairs,” Melvin said with a huff.
“I know several women who do.” Miriam thought of her sister, who had to one-up their mother, though since the two wore the same size, it was hard to say who did most of the buying.
Melvin scratched at his forehead as if the idea alone was making him rethink closet space. “So, she would’ve had enough money for a private adoption.”
“I’ll need to see her financials to know, but she bought smart. And she had good taste. No obvious reason for needing a bailout from Gina Gardner.”
“Or the still-unavailable Sameen Shahidi.”
After Melvin’s visit to Chestnut Grove Pediatrics had netted zip on that front, Miriam had contacted Helen Hudson. The office manager hadn’t been comfortable giving up information on Sameen without a court telling her she didn’t have a choice. Miriam had sucked up the extra paperwork hassle and obliged, but nothing she’d learned from the missing nurse’s file had told her anything.
Her car hadn’t moved from where it was parked behind her apartment. Her neighbors still hadn’t seen her. Her passport hadn’t been used. Miriam was waiting for access to her phone records, credit cards, and the mysterious bank account from which she’d written a $40,000 check to Franklin Weeks. The longer she remained unavailable, the higher Sameen moved up Miriam’s list.
The next hour had Miriam and Melvin looking through more of Autumn Carver’s things. As with the items in her closet, the rest of her belongings had cost good money but weren’t extravagant buys. There was no jewelry other than a strand of pearls and a cross pendant with a diamond in the center. She wore designer—not drugstore—perfume and makeup found in Nordstrom, not Walmart.
Makeup Miriam couldn’t afford on a regular basis. Makeup Nikki couldn’t live without.
There was nothing at the residence to raise a red flag. Karen Sosa or one of the other scene investigators would go over the house more thoroughly, but Miriam and Melvin were done, knowing more than they had at the murder scene, but not nearly enough.
Nothing to point them to Darius and Corky.
Twelve hours after leaving the station this morning, she and Melvin made their way back. They rode in silence, entered the building in silence, headed to their desks exhausted, not saying a word. She wasn’t sure she had any words left in her. Words required a working brain, and hers was out of fuel.
She was so run-down, in fact, she wasn’t even surprised to find Augie at her desk, the case files in front of him along with the photo of the Scripture she’d e-mailed him from today’s scene.
She dropped into her extra chair, too tired to transcribe her notes or download reports from her e-mail, or anything that involved using her eyes. “I see you got my e-mail.”
He didn’t even look up, just flipped to the next page. “I did. Thanks for sending it.”
He was entirely too at home. As if her desk was as comfortable as wherever it was he worked. “You had nothing better to do with your evening than look at photos of dead bodies?”
This time he peered at her over the rim of his stylish black glasses. “I’ve been gone for five years, Miriam. I got thrown from the frying pan into the fire. Figured a refresher course wouldn’t hurt.”
“You know you’re not here to solve crimes, right?” She needed to hear him say he knew that he wasn’t here full-time, even though he’d set the rules. “Judah just wants whatever you’ve got on the verses.”
He took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, then looked at her as he folded them and slipped them into his shirt pocket. “Are you trying to run me off? Or are you afraid I’ll come back?”
“Neither,” she said, pulling her crossbody close in her lap. She wasn’t afraid of anything.
Augie gestured toward the photos of the bloody Scriptures. “I’m looking at the verses in the context of what you’ve discovered about the victims, though I’ll need to know more about Autumn.”
Miriam was pretty sure the killer was pulling the verses out o
f his ass. “We haven’t discovered much of anything so far. Nothing out of the ordinary, anyway.”
Save for that $40,000 check from Sameen Shahidi to Franklin Weeks.
“Knowing what your caseload must be like, the fact that you’ve had three connected murders in two weeks and have still found as much as you have is impressive.”
She started to say she’d learned from the best but stopped herself. “Melvin’s got a good eye. And Ballard has stepped up. Judah’s reassigned our cases until this is done. Branch’s, too.”
Augie sat back then, hooking one arm over the chair’s frame. “Still haven’t learned to accept praise, I see.”
It was strange seeing him here like this. The picture she’d carried so long of him in the station was one of a man who was much more worn. A man who was tired and weary and angry. A man she’d never been sure had it in him to hold on.
This wasn’t that man, and it was more than the collar that she liked in ways that would probably send her to hell. “I’m just doing my job.”
He nodded, waited a moment, then said as he turned toward her partner’s desk, “I’m going to grab some dinner. Melvin? You interested?”
“In food? Absolutely.” Melvin slammed his desk drawer and got to his feet. “But Violet’s got fried chicken waiting, so that’s where I’ll be.”
Augie twisted around to look at her. “Want to come along?”
“I could eat,” she said before she thought too hard about it. “How about I meet you somewhere? I want to look at something in the files first.”
“Del Pueblo?” He looked at his watch. “Say, nine?”
It was eight thirty. “I’ll be there.”
THIRTY-SIX
Monday, 9:20 p.m.
“I was about to give up on you,” Augie said, his gaze on Miriam as she slid into the booth opposite him. It was a small booth, one of several in the cozy Tex-Mex restaurant, with low-hanging lamps casting enough light for reading the menu and little else.
When the hostess had seated him, he’d started to object. Sitting in such close quarters, such dark quarters, their feet touching, their knees, their hands, as they reached for their drinks . . .