by CJ Lyons
“Mr. Hansen, I’m Detective Sergeant Luka Jericho. Can you tell me what happened here?”
Larry Hansen didn’t do more than glance at Luka before dropping his gaze. He wiped his face with his palms, took a deep breath, and said, “I wasn’t even supposed to be here. But I forgot my tennis racquet and I have a doubles game today.” He wasn’t talking to Luka as much as the air in front of him. “I have other racquets, but that one is my favorite, so I thought I’d swing by on my way to the club.”
Typical distraught witness, obsessing over meaningless details to avoid talking about the crime. Luka humored the man, hoping to ease him into discussing how he’d found Standish’s body. “The Porsche Cayenne parked in front of the house, it’s yours?”
Hansen nodded. “No one answered the bell, but I figured I’d take a look in the pool house—Tassi and I had drinks there on Friday after our game, so I might have left it there.”
“Tassi? That’s Natasha Standish, correct?”
“Spence’s wife.” Hansen jerked his chin up, as if in sudden realization. “She’s not here—she doesn’t know! How am I going to face her? I can’t tell her that Spence, Spence—” He turned to the garage, wide-eyed.
“We’d appreciate it if you say nothing.” Luka interrupted him. “We’ll contact Mrs. Standish. If you could give us her details.” Both the house and the Escalade were leased by an LLC registered in Delaware, and Luka wouldn’t have access to Spencer’s phone contacts until the coroner’s unit arrived.
“Of course.” He slid a phone out, scrolled through, then handed it to Luka, who handed it to Harper.
“Walk us through what you saw and heard after you arrived, please, Mr. Hansen.”
“No one answered the door, so I was walking down the drive—the tennis courts are back behind the stables, beside the pool. As I passed the stables, I heard the sound of a car running. So, I thought, that must be Tassi or Spence, lucky day, I caught them before they’re going out. And I looked in the window and saw Spence’s Escalade, sitting there, running, and the place was filled with smoke.” He sniffed as if holding back more tears.
“Filled?” Luka prompted.
“Maybe not filled, but definitely too much. Enough to surround the Escalade, like it’d been idling there for a while. I opened the door, but only made it a few steps when I saw—” Another choking sound. “I saw Spence.”
“And you—”
“I couldn’t breathe.” Now he sounded defensive. “I ran outside and called 911. Then I went back, hoping to help Spence, but as soon as I touched him—I knew it was too late.”
“You opened the door into the garage and the driver’s door of the SUV?” Luka asked. Hansen nodded once more. “Did you touch anything else?”
“Spence’s neck—checking for a pulse. I might have braced myself on the driver’s seat. I’m not sure, maybe other parts of the car? I was in shock.”
“No problem,” Luka told him. “We’ll need your fingerprints—just for elimination purposes. Any thoughts as to how this happened?”
“How?” Hansen’s gaze became unfocused again. “It was an accident, right? Had to be. Spence started the car and something happened before he could open the garage door.” Then he met Luka’s eyes. “A heart attack. I’ll bet that’s what it was. Poor guy had a heart attack.” He sighed. “Poor Tassi. She’s going to be devastated.”
Luka tried to get him back on track. “Mr. Hansen, can you tell me anything about any stressors in Mr. Standish’s life?”
Hansen shook his head vigorously. “No, nothing. Spence and Tassi—they’re the happiest couple I know. Never bickering, not even a crossed look. And Spence loved his job. He always said it was the best of all worlds, helping people, both the haves and have-nots.”
Luka exchanged a puzzled look with Harper above Hansen’s head. “What does that mean? What did Mr. Standish do for a living?”
Hansen hesitated. “On paper, I guess you’d call him a hedge fund manager. But Spence was so much more than that. He found a way to make double-digit profits for his investors through packaging micro-loans to the less fortunate. Individuals, schools, churches, non-profits. It was a fantastic business model. So successful that his fund was open to investors by invitation only. Plus, they had to agree to tithe a percentage of their net profits to the charity side of the fund, but they all made so much money with Spence’s investment model that no one cared. He has a brilliant mind.” His lips tightened as if he were holding back more tears. He seemed pretty overwhelmed for someone who appeared to be a casual friend, Luka thought, filing away the details. “Had. Spence had a brilliant mind.”
“Were you a part of this financial fund?”
“Not the first round—those guys made the big money. But I convinced Tassi to put in a good word for me and I’m in the second cohort. We had a fourteen percent return on our initial investment in the quarter ending in June. And all the earnings reports have been looking even more promising this quarter, so there’s no way Spence could have been stressed about work.” He glanced up at Luka. “No. You know what this was? An accident. Spence was a workaholic—he must have fallen asleep in the car before he opened the garage door. That must be it. A terrible, terrible accident. That’s better than a heart attack—because Tassi would blame herself forever if she thought Spence was under that much stress and she didn’t know it.”
Luka let his contradictions slide. He’d learned it was best to observe the way witnesses tangled their own logic and then untangle it later when he had actual facts. “Do you know where we can reach Mrs. Standish?”
“Tassi? She’s at a spa weekend. The Greenbriar.” He glanced at the clock on his phone. “Should be on her way back already.”
“Can you think of anything else that might help?” Luka liked to give witnesses a chance to expound without limiting them to a specific question.
Hansen made a show of thinking hard, then said, “No. That’s everything.”
“Thank you, Mr. Hansen. We’ll be in touch. I’d appreciate it if you don’t speak to anyone about what you’ve seen here. And please do call me if you think of anything else.” Luka handed the man his card, then nodded to Harper.
Together they left Hansen and followed the path back to the garage. Like the main house, it was an old building, most likely built in the 1800s when Craven County’s coal mines and steel operations were at their height. A time when coal barons would keep offices and homes in the city during the week, but then travel up the mountain to palatial estates where their families lived for weekends and holidays. Best of all worlds.
The garage held eight stalls, four to a side, each with their own set of double doors wide enough for a car. Despite all the windows and doors being open, it still reeked of auto exhaust. Only one stall was occupied, the one with a black Cadillac Escalade and a body behind the wheel. Maggie Chen had just arrived in the coroner’s van and was photographing Spencer Standish and his death scene. When she spied Luka and Harper, she quickly put her camera away. “I expect you want me to check for a phone?”
“There’s none in the car,” Luka told her. “I’m assuming it’s in his pocket.”
They stood, observing the corpse through the open driver’s door. Spence was dressed in plaid Bermuda golf shorts and a polo top. He appeared to be in good physical shape—Luka didn’t observe much in the way of a middle-aged paunch despite the body being slumped over the steering wheel. His hair was blond, but his skin was rosy with pale splotches and his lips were ruby red.
“Classic carbon monoxide discoloration,” Maggie told Harper, indicating the skin. “CO displaces oxygen from red blood cells.”
“I’m more concerned about any other factors contributing to the cause of death,” Luka told Maggie.
“Why?” Harper asked. “Do you see anything that makes you suspect it isn’t suicide or an accident?”
Luka hesitated, uncertain of how to put his intuition into words. “Too early to say. At this stage, we can’t take anything for gr
anted.”
Maggie patted down the body and searched Spencer’s pockets. Only coroner’s personnel were allowed to touch a body. “Nothing here.”
“No phone?” Where was Spencer going without his phone? Of course, if he did kill himself then he wouldn’t have needed it—which could mean Luka’s instincts were wrong.
“If you’re suspicious of something other than suicide, we could use the car’s computer system to calculate exactly what time he turned the engine on,” Harper volunteered.
“Good,” Luka said. “I want to know if that was enough time for the carbon monoxide to kill him.”
“I can build you a timeline once I get labs and the firefighters’ CO levels from when they entered,” Maggie said. She crouched down, examining the floorboard beneath the corpse. “I’ve got something.” She stood and pointed. “There’s an envelope down there, pretty thick. Still no signs of a phone, though.”
Luka sighed with impatience. Unlike in movies, where detectives routinely grabbed any evidence they saw, he’d need to follow protocol: after Maggie’s team removed the body, the crime scene techs would document where the evidence was found and bag it to maintain the chain of custody. Then, preferably back in the lab, they would photograph everything again, swab for touch DNA, and dust for prints. Only then would Luka be allowed to examine the envelope and its contents.
Thankfully Maggie was a step ahead of him. Before he could ask, she grabbed her camera and knelt beside the corpse’s legs, taking a photo of the envelope. She stood and showed it to Luka and Harper.
There, easily read on the camera’s digital screen, was Spencer Standish’s final message to the world scrawled across the outside of the envelope:
To whomever finds this, inside please find my full confession. To my dear, beloved Tassi—I am so very sorry. S.
Six
Leah knew she was probably in the running for worst mother of the year, but all she wanted was to get away from the noise, heat, and crowds and go home. She was exhausted from Emily and Nate—and Ruby—all trying to pull her in different directions, talking to her in loud, fast, sugar-hyped voices. Her shoulder ached from carrying the bag with all their supplies—no way was she about to pay five dollars for a bottle of water—along with all the “prizes” the kids—and Ruby—had won. The inventory now consisted of an assortment of troll dolls, plastic cars, stuffed animals, a fake feather boa, lumps of pyrite that the kids insisted were “gold nuggets,” and two goldfish in water-filled plastic bags that she had to carry by hand to ensure that they were visible and obviously alive each time Emily or Nate ran back to check on their new friends. By the time they reached the judging tent, she felt more like a pack mule than a woman.
But finally, it was almost time for the judges to announce the results for the kids’ age group in the non-livestock categories. And then, please God, they could go home, where Leah had decided she’d lock herself in the bathroom for a solid two hours of soaking in bubbles and reading a book without interruption. It was a blissful fantasy, even if it would never happen. Especially not tonight—she still had budget reports to review, along with the latest batch of résumés from applicants to her new Crisis Intervention Team. She wanted people experienced enough to handle a variety of mental health emergencies, disciplined enough to operate side by side with the police, and motivated enough to want to work the front lines where anything and everything was in play.
“Mommy.” Emily tugged at Leah’s elbow and pointed at a stand beside the judging tent. “Look, they’re selling the chickens. Can we get some?”
Nate ran up to the stand then jogged back to where they waited in line for the judging tent to open to the public. “They’re not selling them as pets,” he told Emily. “Sign says ‘butchering included.’”
“Butcher? They’re killing the chickens?” Emily’s voice rose to a screech, drawing scowls from a group of older kids wearing Future Farmers of America shirts.
“And plucking and cooking,” Nate told her.
“It’d save time for dinner,” Ruby said. “How many should I get?”
Emily was jitterbugging in place, at risk of toppling Leah as she tugged on her arm. “No! Mommy, we have to save the chickens!”
“Where did you think the chicken you eat comes from?” Ruby asked in a teasing tone, ignoring Leah’s glare.
“But I met these chickens! We saw them in the barn with the sheeps and the pigs and the bunnies—” She clapped both hands over her mouth and looked aghast. “Mommy, are they going to eat the bunnies? No, they can’t!”
“No one is eating bunnies,” Leah told her in a firm voice, hoping the thought of the rabbits would distract Emily from the idea of chickens.
“Nah, they don’t eat bunnies. They cut off their feet to make lucky rabbit’s feet,” Nate said, dangling a white furry keychain he’d won at one of the games over Emily’s head.
Before Leah could explain that the rabbit’s foot wasn’t real, Emily took the bait, leaving Leah as she chased after Nate. By the time they returned—Emily now in possession of the obviously fake bunny foot—the tent was open, and the line surged forward as other families with school-aged kids entered to see the fate of their children’s baked goods, sewing crafts, woodworking projects, fruit preserves, artwork, knitting, photography, calligraphy, candle making… and about every other craft and skill that didn’t require a blow torch.
Each group had its own display of winners, crowding the tent with cheering families as well as the occasional sobbing child—although Leah was relieved to see that, unlike the adult categories, here the ribbons were arrayed in a rainbow of colors beyond only the top three red, white, and blue ones, allowing most of the kids to win at least some recognition of their efforts. Which meant both Emily and Nate should probably leave happy. She hoped.
Not that they didn’t deserve to win. Emily had tried every recipe in Leah’s great-aunt Nellie’s old notebooks, experimenting as if it was a chemistry lab instead of a kitchen, learning what worked and what didn’t. Then she’d created her own unique variations of Nellie’s truffles, combining chocolate, rose, lavender, and fruit. Her attempts at decorations were a bit clumsy, but after taste-testing dozens of Emily’s throwaways, Leah could testify that her flavors were spot on. And Nate had spent hours perfecting his photography skills, at first with Luka’s help, then on his own.
“This way.” Emily pulled Leah’s hand, the goldfish bouncing in its bag. “I see all the food stuff over here.”
“But Nate’s art section is on the other side. We should go there first.” Emily had a tendency to be a bit forgetful of her manners—she wasn’t a bully, but she did enjoy being bossy, and Leah was trying to teach her to be more considerate of her friends’ feelings.
Nate, as always, was a gentleman. “It’s okay. Let’s see how Emily did, and then we can see how I did on the way out.”
Leah realized she’d lost Ruby in the crowd. It was worse than having a third child to keep track of. Then she spotted her over near the cooking section, shaking hands with one of the judges and smiling. Surely she hadn’t bribed a win for Emily? But, given Ruby’s inherent belief that no rules applied to her, she wouldn’t put it past her.
Ruby waved to Emily, who ran through the crowd toward her. Leah started forward but something caught her eye. She turned, peering through an opening in the tent.
She saw a woman’s face contorted in pain as she leaned against one of the two-by-fours supporting the tent’s rigging. She was young—in her twenties—with long dark hair that fell forward, only allowing a glimpse of one eye and her mouth.
Nate spied her as well. “She’s in trouble.”
The woman raised her hand to her mouth, biting back a cry, and turned away, heading toward the trees behind the tent.
“Go,” Leah told Nate, handing him the goldfish. “Tell Ruby and Emily where I am.”
She edged her way past the displays and families surrounding them, heading through the slit between two edges of canvas. The fairgr
ounds were part of Craven Peak State Forest, a rugged wilderness expanse that encompassed two mountains, a river gorge, and a multitude of waterfalls. Was the woman running from someone at the fair? Or someone from one of the many camping areas in the forest?
Leah scanned the area behind the tent. It was filled with packing containers, trash bins, a recycling sorting area, and other detritus from the fair. No sign of the woman.
Then she heard a moan of pain coming from behind a wall of stacked pallets of water bottles. She rushed over. The woman had collapsed into a squatting position, both hands cradling her very pregnant belly, blood trickling down past the hem of her loose-fitting sundress.
“Help me,” she gasped, before falling into Leah’s outstretched arms.
Seven
Luka had just convinced the lead crime scene tech to open the envelope containing Standish’s confession there on scene instead of waiting until they were back in the lab, and Maggie’s crew was wheeling the body out to the coroner’s van when a woman’s scream sounded from the driveway.
“Noooo!”
Harper was faster than Luka—although, to be honest, he was more than happy to let her be the first to greet the woman, whom he presumed was Natasha Standish. He could gain more by observing and waiting for her to calm down before asking her questions.
By the time he reached the driveway, Harper was supporting a platinum blonde in her thirties. As the widow sagged in her arms, Harper sent a pleading glance in Luka’s direction. He relented and together they helped the sobbing woman over to the bench where he’d interviewed Larry Hansen earlier. Since Luka hadn’t yet called Standish’s wife, he assumed Hansen had—despite Luka asking the man not to talk to anyone.
“Mrs. Standish?” He offered her a handkerchief, which she immediately smeared black with make-up and tears. Harper took a step back, discreetly out of the widow’s line of sight, and began to record their conversation. “I’m Detective Sergeant Luka Jericho and this is Detective Harper.”