Lawman Lover

by Saranne Dawson

  “It can happen anywhere. You, of all people, should know that,” he replied, though with surprising gentleness.

  “I know it rationally, but not emotionally. Can you make any guess at all as to how old the body could be?”

  He shook his head. “There are too many factors to consider. How deep it was buried, soil composition—things like that. The only other time I was involved in something like this was right after I got my shield. We found a body buried out at Piney Haven, when they were first developing it. It turned out to be a man who’d disappeared about thirty years earlier. He was identified by his dental records.

  “Unfortunately, our chief suspect had dropped dead of a heart attack a few months before we found the body. I always wondered if the heart attack was a result of his knowing that the body was likely to be dug up.

  “Anyway, it seemed to be in about the same condition as this one, but I’m not sure that means much.”

  “What about its size? Does that tell you anything?”

  “It’s fairly small—probably female. The forensics team should be able to establish that right away. And I think the cause of death might have been a blow to the back of the head. There’s a pretty serious crack in the skull.”

  Amanda winced. The skeleton was beginning to seem all too real. “Well, I suppose there’s nothing to do now but wait. I hope we find out who it was.”

  Michael frowned thoughtfully. “The more I think about it, the less sense it makes for someone to go to all the trouble of carting a body out there to bury it—unless the island had some special significance to either the victim or the killer. Or unless it happened there,” he added after a brief pause.

  “That’s impossible!”

  “Murder happens even in the best of families,” Michael said with a shrug.

  A sudden anger surged through her. It seemed that all her emotions were raw and close to the surface when he was around. “Maybe you’d like to think that, but I know these people.”

  He held up both hands in a placating gesture. “Hey, don’t go off on me. I was just stating the obvious. I understand that there was some resistance to the construction. It could be that someone was worried.”

  She fought down her anger. He was right, of course. They were just questions he had to ask. But she couldn’t help thinking that he was enjoying the prospect of casting her family and the others as suspects.

  “There was resistance. It’s been nearly 150 years since anything was built out there, and we all like the island as it is—or was. I wasn’t too happy about it myself, and I certainly didn’t bury any bodies out there.”

  “So who really resisted the idea?”

  “Stop it, Michael! When you find out how long the body’s been there, then you have the right to ask those questions. For all we know now, it could have been buried long before any of us were born.”

  “Okay, you’re right. It isn’t as though I don’t have enough on my plate at the moment.”

  She was rather surprised at his meekness; that wasn’t like him at all. Of course, angry outbursts weren’t like her, either. It seemed that both of them wore their emotions on their sleeves where the other was concerned.

  They began to talk about another case, where an indictment had just been handed down in a case of attempted murder. Michael and his team had built a strong case, even if it was all circumstantial.

  When they kept their conversation focused on business, there were times when she could almost forget the impact he had on her. But that never lasted long. There’d be brief pauses or quick glances or words spoken in innocence that echoed with double meanings.

  And there were times, as well, when she could draw back and watch Michael Quinn with utter fascination, as though he were some sort of exotic species. He was so different. He was all hard edges and barely leashed aggressive masculinity, despite his expensive wardrobe and all the other accoutrements of his newfound wealth, the result of amazing success on the part of his small software firm.

  “I understand that your software company is doing very well,” she said into a brief silence, following her thoughts.

  He grinned, a look of such boyish pleasure that it startled her. “Yeah, it is. I managed to hit a big new market with software to train police officers. I just hired someone to run it for me, and that was a real big step. It means I’m giving up day-to-day control. In case you haven’t already noticed, I’m a control freak.”

  She laughed. However much she disliked some things about him, his occasional outbursts of self-deprecating honesty both amused and charmed her.

  “Most cops are,” she said. “Did you ever consider leaving the force to run it yourself?”

  “Yeah, I thought about it, but not for long. I can’t see myself as a businessman. And then, when the chief created the major-crimes unit and asked me to run it, I knew I couldn’t leave.”

  They skimmed over several other topics, and then Michael abruptly shifted to the subject of her sister, Jesse, asking if she’d talked to her lately.

  “About a week ago, I think. Why?” She felt a slight twinge of uneasiness, as she always did when her sister’s name came up. Her sister regularly attempted to find Amanda a husband, and she often wondered why Jesse hadn’t pushed her toward Michael.

  “According to Steve, there’s some trouble.” Michael was a friend of Jesse’s husband, Steve.

  “That doesn’t really surprise me. Jesse can be difficult, and Steve isn’t exactly perfect himself.”

  “I like him. He’s a damn good handball player and golfing partner.”

  Amanda laughed. “That sounds like a man. Believe it or not, Michael, there are more important things in a marriage than being good at sports.”

  “I didn’t say there weren’t, even though I’m not so sure what makes you such an expert. You dated Steve for a while, didn’t you?”

  She nodded. At the time, she hadn’t known that Steve and Michael were friends. “It was never that serious. He’s not my type.”

  As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. But to her surprise, Michael didn’t follow up with the obvious question. Instead, he turned the discussion back to Jesse and Steve.

  “He says she’s having an affair.”

  “She may well be. It wouldn’t be the first time.” Jesse was on her third marriage, and she hadn’t been faithful to the other two, either.

  Michael drained the last of his beer and tilted back in his chair. “I don’t understand that kind of thinking. Hell, if you want to keep screwing around, why get married? Maybe it’s because I’ve seen too many battered wives and too many bodies that resulted from someone forgetting that they were supposed to be married for better or for worse.”

  For the second time this night, Amanda found herself touched by something he’d said. It was very disconcerting. But as usual, she felt compelled to defend her sister.

  “Some people seem to need the security of marriage, and I think Jesse is one of them. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that she’s any good at it.”

  “Steve also says that she’s drinking again. He says she had a problem with alcohol before—and with coke, too.”

  Amanda felt a surge of anger with Steve for talking about Jesse’s former addictions. But Michael’s words also confirmed her own fears that her sister was drinking again.

  Michael was watching her intently. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to blab your family’s secrets all over town. Drug addictions—like murder—can happen in the best of families.”

  Despite his words, she was angry—and getting angrier—even if she didn’t exactly know why. “But it pleases you to know that little secret, doesn’t it, Michael?” she asked coldly.

  “Yeah, maybe it does. When you grow up with a father who’s a two-bit criminal and a mother who’s a part-time hooker, it can be sort of comforting to know that the big folks up on the Hill have their problems, too.”

  She could think of nothing to say to that and she didn’t want to talk any more a
bout secrets, lest he bring up their own little “secret.”

  “What I don’t understand is how two sisters can be so different,” he stated. “But maybe that’s because I’m an only child.”

  “Just because you’re raised in the same family doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re raised the same way,” she said, thinking that they’d just exchanged one uncomfortable topic for another.

  “So you’re saying that your folks favored you over Jesse?”

  “No, it was just the opposite—especially with my father.”

  “Huh? I would have thought that your father favored you, since you seem to be following in his footsteps. Or is that why you did it?”

  “That was part of the reason—at least in the beginning. Now it isn’t important anymore.” She was uncomfortable talking about these things with Michael. It seemed too intimate, laughable as that sounded, given their history.

  Michael studied her a moment longer, and once again, she held her breath, waiting for him to raise the topic. But instead, he stood up and carried the remains of his dinner to the sink. “I’d better get going. I still have to make my rounds.”

  “What rounds?” she asked, both glad and not glad that he was leaving.

  “Down in the Bottom. I talked the chief into letting me hang on to my string of informants down there. It took a long time to build them up, and I didn’t want to let them go.”

  “You are definitely a control freak, Michael,” she said with a laugh as she followed him to the door.

  He opened the door, then paused, half-turning back to her. “But not always. I can think of a thing or two I’ve let go.”

  Then he vanished into the night, leaving behind the echo of his words to torment her.

  THE STURDEVANT COTTAGE sat on the highest point of the island, at its south end. Though its view of the rest of the island was mostly obscured by the huge old trees that covered the land, the twelve-room “cottage” had a superb panorama of the lake and portions of the mainland on both sides.

  Amanda spent most of the day on the big porch that wrapped around three sides of the old stone cottage. She would certainly have preferred to while away the gentle spring day reading a mystery novel, but instead, she spent it buried in her work. But at least the setting was more congenial than either her office or her condo. Birds called in the thicket, and the distant drone of boats on the lake was soothing.

  Finally, late in the afternoon, she shoved the last of the papers into her bulging briefcase and got up from the old porch swing. Having completed the work she’d assigned to herself, she now felt free to give in to her curiosity.

  When she’d arrived at the dock just before noon, a police boat was already there, together with a big barge loaded down with concrete blocks. She grimaced, thinking that if Michael’s cherry red cigarette boat had been there, as well, she might not have gotten any work done.

  She knew what kind of boat he owned because she’d seen him a few times at the marina, generally with one of the women who seemed to pass through his life with great regularity.

  For nearly nine years, they’d moved along the periphery of each other’s lives. But now, with her appointment as acting D.A. and his promotion to head up the newly created major-crimes unit, that was changing.

  Amanda thought that she was beginning to move beyond embarrassment over her obsession with him to a sort of amusement. They were so clearly unsuited to each other in every way that she was quite certain the obsession would fade with regular exposure to him.

  Besides, there was her position—and his—to consider. A romance between a D.A. and a cop could be a problem—and it was further exacerbated by Michael’s new position as head of a unit involved in high-profile crimes.

  One very important part of her job was to decide if there was sufficient evidence to bring a case to trial—something that the police quite naturally always wanted. So if she were to become involved with Michael, her judgment could easily be called into question.

  She walked down off the porch, calling for Angus, her mother’s old cairn terrier. When he appeared, they both set off through the woods. Angus loved the island, having spent every one of his sixteen summers here. But since her mother’s death years ago, her father had been coming less often to the island, so Amanda always picked up the little dog and brought him out with her.

  She’d called her father last night in Washington, where he was, as he put it, “politicking.” He was currently a judge on the court of appeals, and had his eye on the Supreme Court, where a vacancy was anticipated soon. He wasn’t at his hotel, but he’d returned her call this morning, and had been as shocked as she was at the discovery of a body on the island.

  She told him about Michael’s suggestion that one of those who had opposed the new construction might have done so out of fear that the body would be discovered. But he’d pointed out, quite correctly, that if that had been the case, the murderer could simply have dug up the body before construction began. They’d all known since last fall that Jan and Stacey wanted to build on that particular spot.

  Amanda decided that she wouldn’t pass on that bit of wisdom to Michael. Let him interview her father. Judge Thomas Sturdevant would waste no time destroying Michael’s theory. She rather wished that she could be present for that encounter.

  She’d left a message for Jesse, both at home and at her sister’s clothing store, but hadn’t received a return call before she left for the island. Michael’s revelation that Jesse was having an affair and was also drinking again continued to trouble her.

  As she walked through the woods toward the construction site, her thoughts remained on her beautiful older sister. It seemed to Amanda that Jesse’s life had always been a series of crises, between which were periods of relative calm such as the past few years.

  She wondered who her sister’s new lover could be. In the past, though married herself, Jesse had always taken single lovers, once making the absurd claim that she didn’t want to be a “home wrecker.” That was unfortunately typical of her sister’s twisted logic.

  Then she left off her thoughts as a break in the trees gave her a glimpse of the dock. The police boat was still there, but there was still no sign of Michael’s boat. The disappointment she felt suggested that her obsession with him hadn’t begun to fade, after all.

  Through the trees, she could see part of the construction site: big, raw-looking mounds of dirt and some bright yellow excavating equipment. She wondered if the mystery of the body would ever be solved. It would probably depend on how long the body had been there. But she didn’t doubt that Michael and his unit would do their best.

  One of the qualities that made Michael Quinn such a good cop was his extraordinary tenacity. Lewis Brogan, her predecessor, had once said that Michael took every crime personally—that he gathered into himself all the rage, if not the anguish, of the victims or their families. And she’d already seen proof of that herself as he doggedly pursued a suspect, interviewing and reinterviewing until he’d gleaned every last shred of evidence and followed every lead, no matter how tenuous. He just didn’t let go.

  Then she recalled his parting remark last night. She still didn’t know if she was the one he’d let go, but a brief glimmer in those dark Celtic eyes had suggested that’s what he’d meant.

  Her thoughts had just begun to veer toward that night nine years ago when they were blessedly stopped short by a full view of the construction site just ahead.

  When she had arrived at the dock earlier in the day, Amanda hadn’t really seen the site, which was largely hidden from view by trees. So now, her first reaction, upon seeing the piles of dirt and the uprooted trees, was anger over the desecration of her lovely island. She hadn’t actually spoken out against the construction, but only because she was fond of Jan and Stacey. In truth, though, she did resent it, no matter how much care had been taken by the architect to design a cottage that would blend well with the existing structures.

  There were half a dozen people milling
about. She recognized all but one of them as being members of the crime-scene squad: the people whose unpleasant task it was to sort through all manner of debris, take photographs that sickened juries and carefully bag and label all possible evidence for later study.

  Jerry Hoffman, the head of CSS, saw her and raised a gloved hand in greeting. Amanda liked him. He had a dry sense of humor and was an excellent witness in court, with his quiet but competent manner and his ability to explain even the most arcane matters simply and clearly.

  “I guess you already know about this,” he said as he came over to her.

  She nodded. “Michael told me last night.”

  He waved an arm at the mess around them. “In my nightmares, I’ve imagined a crime scene with a bulldozer, but this is the first time I’ve actually had to deal with one. The only good thing is that the construction workers had enough sense to stop as soon as they found the body.”

  “Have you found anything else besides the skeleton?” she asked, recalling what Michael had said about the importance of finding fabric or other items.

  “Yeah. We’ve bagged some stuff that looks like fabric and we found one of her shoes.”

  “‘Her’?” You’re sure, then, that it’s a woman?”

  “Ninety-nine percent sure. Young, I’d say—probably somewhere in her teens. And the probable cause of death is a skull fracture. Looks like someone clobbered her from behind.”

  Amanda winced. “Do you have any idea how long ago it happened?”

  Jerry gestured to the one man she didn’t know. “That’s John Saunders, the new state-police forensics expert. At this point, he’s guessing about twenty years—somewhere in there. But it’s too soon to be sure.

  “Actually, right now, the best basis for guessing is the shoe we found—assuming, of course, that it’s hers. Annie says that style was popular about twenty years ago.” Annie Phelps was one of Jerry’s crew.

  Amanda suppressed a shudder. Twenty years. She’d been hoping that it would be much longer than that—that it had all happened long before her own lifetime. But now it appeared that sometime during her childhood, when she’d wandered this lovely place in total innocence, someone had killed another girl and then dumped her body here in an unmarked grave.