Ann stuffed his wallet and passport into the left pocket of the jacket and hung it on the coat hook by the front door. She took the angel to the mantle to return it to its proper place and paused.
All the other angels were missing. A layer of dust covered the shelf with ten roughly circular shapes where the wood grain showed through. Angel footprints. She swiped her finger through the grime. Her dad hadn’t dusted in months. She wiped down the shelf and put the figurine in the middle, so lonely without its companions.
Ann sat on the couch, but the quiet of the house was unsettling. To combat the feeling, she headed to the diner for a late lunch. Maybe being around the people of her home town would make things feel better.
Chapter 6
Ann wandered down Forest Parkway, the main thoroughfare through town, and marveled at the complete lack of change. How were some of these shops still open? Mrs. Baker’s Scrapbook Store, Mike’s Shoe Repair, Mullen’s Bait & Tackle. In high school she joked about the shops being fronts for drug operations or money laundering. After being in law enforcement for the past fifteen years, it actually made sense.
She briefly wondered who from high school had stayed, who else had left, which old lifers had died. What events happened in her absence that would live on in infamy, like the Billy Rogers incident of ’99, Carl Conrad’s dog from ’58, and the fire of 1912?
Harmony was a town that never forgot.
The streets were empty. The town folk were all probably still at work this time of day, but the general absence of people gave her goosebumps. A thought that everyone had abandoned the place crawled through her mind.
She left that thought at the door when she entered Mac’s Diner, the town’s only real restaurant. It was full of the early supper crowd. White hair at every booth. Ruthie Gill, a girl Ann went to high school with, almost dropped her coffee pot when she spotted Ann in the doorway.
“Ann Logan? Is it really you?” she said with a huge smile. Though they hadn’t been close in high school, she hugged Ann, then turned to the dining room. “Ann’s home!”
All the guests looked up from their greasy meals and clapped. Some even stood. A sharp whistle came from the back of the restaurant. She wasn’t a war hero. She wasn’t a hero at all. Surely, they read the paper.
Heat flushed across her clavicle and instantly cooled. She peeled off her coat, hung it on the coat rack by the front door, and pushed her sleeves up.
She glanced at the exit. But she couldn’t allow the creeping anxiety to turn her into a hermit.
“You can sit wherever you want.” Ruthie touched Ann’s arm. “We’re not that fancy.”
“Can I just get a sandwich to go?” Ann asked. “Chicken salad if you have it?”
Ruthie nodded.
Ann willed her internal thermostat to function properly. Cold and heat chased each other through her core. She ignored the faces beaming around her by alternately looking at the old stained carpet and up at the ceiling tiles.
Ruthie came back. “Bobby’s on it. He makes damn good chicken salad.”
“Hey . . . have you seen my dad?” Ann asked.
Ruthie turned to her, mouth open to answer the question, but someone across the restaurant cried out. Ruthie shoved the half-empty coffee pot into Ann’s hand and rushed to the scene. Ann peeked around a divider.
Ruthie patted an old lady’s back. “Don’t worry, it’s just water.” She dropped a stack of napkins on the spill. Then brought the lady a fresh glass and went into the kitchen.
Ann briefly wondered why they hadn’t been friends in high school and remembered Ruthie had been the type who drifted from clique to clique, except for the more exclusive ones. Like the jocks and cheerleaders. Ann hung out with the jocks, but not the cheerleaders. She always felt more like one of the guys than one of the girls.
Ruthie came back and retrieved the coffee pot. “I know I’m grinning like an idiot, but we’re all so proud of you,” she said. “Our own being the one to catch the killer.”
“My partner caught tons of bad guys last year,” Ann said and took in a quick breath. No training could ever prepare a cop for notifying next of kin, or how grief or pride could be overshadowed by blame. By guilt. Bruce’s wife never forgave her.
“I’m sorry about what happened to him.” Ruthie touched Ann’s arm again. “I’m sure folks back in his home are damn proud of him, too.” She nodded solemnly. “I’ll go check on your sandwich.” She hurried off.
Ann went outside and chuffed her boots against the sidewalk. The cool air chased the anxious heat from her body. She rubbed her arms.
“Hey, Magnum PI!” an all-too-familiar voice shouted. Ann looked up. Derrick Hart peered at her from across the street. “Ha! I knew that was you!”
Fifteen years had passed, but it was like she’d left him yesterday. A giddy feeling trembled in her gut. She wanted to ignore him or run back into the restaurant or hide in the bushes, but it was too late. She suddenly didn’t know how to stand normally. She tucked her hands into her pockets. Derrick trotted over and opened his arms. Ann grabbed his hand and shook it.
“What . . . a handshake?” He pulled her into an awkward hug. Then he pushed back and held her by the shoulders at arm’s length. His dark eyes darted all over her face as if taking inventory to make sure she still had two eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
Eye contact didn’t feel natural. “If it isn’t Doogie Howser,” she said, a slight waver in her voice. “I didn’t think you’d still be here.” She didn’t know what else to say.
Derrick released her and ran his left hand through his hair, messing it up. He’d done that all through high school too. She used to love it for some odd reason. Until she didn’t. Until everything she loved about him became annoying.
The sun glinted off his wedding band.
“I came back.” He shrugged.
“Your wife let you drag her here?” Ann laughed because it seemed like the right thing to do, but it sounded as fake as it felt. He looked at his left hand and crossed his arms as if to hide it. “Who’d you end up with, anyway?”
“No one from here,” he said. “After you left . . . me . . . I . . . uh . . . had to split town too.” He looked at anything but her. “So I went to med school, got married, had . . . a kid . . .” The words rushed out and then tapered off. He glanced at her, then back at the ground, and rubbed the back of his neck—his tell for discomfort. He was just as nervous at seeing her as she was at seeing him.
“What about you?” he asked. “Take the plunge?” His face flushed.
Ann shook her head. When she moved away right after high school graduation it shocked everyone in town. They all thought she and Derrick would be together forever. Everyone had some predetermined life picked out for her, trapping her here in a place where potential got stunted. So she’d left and hadn’t been in a serious relationship since.
“Married to my career,” she said.
“Me, too.” Derrick’s lips momentarily frowned, then smiled again. “Hey, I opened my own clinic here in town.” He waved vaguely over his shoulder. Ann glanced that way. The Post Office and Sheriff’s Department were on the same block.
“That’s great. Hey, have you by chance seen my dad lately?”
To treat a bloody stump perhaps?
The diner door pushed open, the bells clattering against the glass. Ruthie came out juggling a paper bag in one hand, a to-go cup of coffee in the other, and Ann’s jacket tucked under one arm. She halted briefly and smiled at the two of them while the door banged shut.
“Oh, you two,” she said in a gosh-oh-gee voice. Ann took a step away from Derrick. Ruthie looked back and forth at them. She opened her mouth to say something, but Ann intervened.
“See you around,” Ann said to them both. She took the items from Ruthie and hurried across the street to the Sheriff’s Department.
Chapter 7
The dispatcher, a bored-looking woman, probably in her early twenties, glanced up but didn’t smile.
“Hi, Rachel,” Ann said, reading the name plate on the girl’s desk. “Is Sheriff McMichael here?”
“He’s still out on patrol.” Her eyes shifted upward over Ann’s shoulder. Ann turned to see a clock on the wall. “He should be about done. You might find him out the road.” Rachel’s gaze focused on her computer screen while her mouse hand clickity-clicked.
Ann thanked Rachel, left the station, and walked west to the dirt road that ended at the old funeral home. She ate her sandwich on the way, juggling the bag and the cup of coffee.
The air grew chillier near the narrow creek that dipped over and ran alongside the road. When she was a kid, she thought it was the ghosts from the old cemetery. Harmony stopped using that cemetery in 1912 after a fire swept through town and they ran out of room. Now, it was overrun by ponderosa and lodgepole pines. Grave markers, some blackened like rotten teeth, jutted up among the trees.
The abandoned funeral home, which had been spared in the fire—contributing to local folklore about the house and the man who’d lived there—still slouched among the foliage, shrouded in darkness. The warped front steps gave it a sinister grin. The two windows on the upper level lent the old house a pair of eyes. They glared at her. She glared right back.
After what she’d been through, the stupid old house no longer scared her.
A stick snapped in the darkness. Ann inhaled a shriek, dropped her coffee and chips, and reached for her gun—which, of course, was back home locked up tight in her closet. She had thought about bringing it, but the more she’d stared at the black metal, the harder her heart pounded. She wondered if she would ever be able to fire her weapon again.
“Sorry to scare you like that.” A man in Castle County Sheriff’s Department khaki came out of the woods. Ann would recognize that voice anywhere. Frank McMichael had a deep baritone that rumbled from his barrel chest.
“Just the man I was looking for,” Ann said.
He tipped back his wide brim hat. “Well, I’ll be. Little Annie Logan, back in Harmony.” He came out of the gloom and stepped over the creek onto the dirt road.
“In the flesh,” she said. He surprised her and pulled her into a quick hug. He didn’t often show affection. A pat on the head or a handshake. His wife, Lisa, rest her soul, was the one who gave out hugs—and candy. Ann’s hand brushed his gun. She ignored the quickening of her pulse.
Twenty years had been rough on the old sheriff’s waistline, but the twinkle in his eyes hadn’t dimmed in all that time. Clever eyes for a clever man.
“Little jumpy,” McMichael said with a grin.
“Just a tad.” Ann couldn’t help but smile back. Being near him was like being next to her dad. They were best friends their entire lives. McMichael was more uncle than anything else.
“With reason—the Salida Stabber. Boy howdy, what a case. Followed that one day and night. We were all rooting for you, Annie. Whodathunk a gal from a small town like ours would make the Denver Post?” He grinned, rocking forward onto his toes and back onto his heels. The only thing missing was a hearty a-yup. “How’re you holding up?”
Ann bent to pick up the dropped coffee cup and ignored his question. “What are you doing out here?”
“Oh, just makin’ sure no pesky kids are using the old funeral home.” He squinted his eyes toward the woods. “Got your phone call.” He turned back to her. “What’s going on?”
Ann glanced down the road toward town. “It’s about my dad.” They started walking and Ann filled him in on the details of the box.
“You send in a print?” He scoffed. “Of course you did, you’re Bram Logan’s daughter.” He winked at her. “Did you call it in?”
Ann winced and shook her head.
“Why the hell not?” He stopped walking.
“I don’t trust the other cops in Salida.” She looked anywhere but at his eyes. “I wanted to see what I could find out first. If I called it in, they would have taken it away from me. He’s my dad.” She shrugged. “Besides, I sort of did call it in, didn’t I? I called you. Bram Logan is from Harmony, not Salida.”
“Fair enough, young lady.” He continued down the road. They meandered in silence for a few seconds.
“I would be lying if I said I’m not worried,” Ann said. “I know a finger isn’t a body, but . . . It’s not good. Is it?”
“No return address, no stamps, no fingerprints—he’d never be without his bomber,” he said, as if the jacket was more of a tell than the severed body part.
“I haven’t heard from him in months,” Ann continued. “After the Stabber, I called him every day. I thought if anyone could coach me through my first use of deadly force it’d be him.” She stopped, and McMichael turned to her. “He never called me back.” She looked into his eyes.
I’m struggling McMike. Please help me.
“Maybe he’ll still show up.” McMichael looked doubtful. He took a few steps ahead of her. His next words came out a whisper. “I should have been there.”
“What was that?” Ann asked, though she heard him.
“Oh, nothin’.” He smiled at her.
“When did you last see him?” Ann stopped herself from grabbing his arm. The begging tone in her voice irritated her. They’d reached the edge of town.
McMichael slid his hat from his head and scratched his scalp. “Few months. Six? Eight? Not sure. Sometimes he breezed through without stopping in.” The corners of his mouth dropped. McMichael motioned toward the diner.
“Can I buy you another coffee—seein’ that I scared this one right out of your hand?”
“Does the station have coffee?” She lifted one shoulder. “Save you a couple bucks?”
The sheriff grinned. “You betcha. It’ll melt the skin off your tongue, but we’ve got it.” He patted her on the shoulder. “I’m sure your dad is fine,” he said in a low voice.
“How can you be so certain?”
“He’s a smart man. Strong, intelligent, observant. I don’t think anyone could get a jump on him.”
Ann thought about the contents of his wallet. The Lufthansa mileage card. “What if he was in Egypt when it happened?”
“You think someone in Egypt sent you his finger in a box with no postage?” He lifted an eyebrow at her.
Ann pursed her lips to the side. Good point. They reached the Sheriff’s Department, and McMichael opened the door for her.
“Afternoon, Sheriff,” Rachel said. “Did you get the bad guys?”
McMichael introduced Ann to Rachel. This time, the young woman acknowledged she knew who Ann was—the lady who got the Stabber—and offered Ann a sincere congratulations before returning to the game of Solitaire open on her computer. McMichael motioned to a seat at one of the desks in the main area and disappeared behind the saloon style doors Ann knew led to a kitchenette.
“Your dad asked me to keep his locker for him,” he called over the doors. “Sweaty socks and dirty underwear, I reckon, but you’re welcome to try to open ’er up. It’s number seven.”
Ann wandered back to the locker room where four full-size lockers stood across from filing cabinets. They were numbered one, five, seven, and ten.
Ann tried various number combinations to no avail. She went back to the main office and sat down opposite McMichael.
“No luck?” He pushed a cup of black lava toward her.
She shook her head, took a sip, and cringed. The sheriff was right. Her tongue would never be the same again.
“So, what’s new?” Ann asked.
“Just the usual. Louise Marga calling in suspicious activity every couple weeks, though honestly, I haven’t heard from her in a few months.” He looked at his watch. “I’d say we’re due for something. Usually it’s just kids yelling in the woods, raccoons in the attic, a butterfly fart—who knows with her.” He chuckled. “I seem to recall your daddy calling me one night ’cause you went missing.”
Ann laughed. “I’m sure we were out there tapping on Looney Lou’s windows with sticks.” She and Derrick and De
rrick’s goon friends, who’d given her the sort-of-cruel nickname. Louise lived on the other side of the old cemetery. It was all too easy to stir her up. “I can’t believe she’s still alive.”
“And sharp as a pair of fresh-honed shears. Still stirs up the town from time to time. End-of-the-world bullshit.” He sipped his coffee, and they sat in an amicable silence for a few seconds.
Ann nodded to a stack of files on his desk. “Any good cases?”
“Nothing big since an infant death a few years back. Accident my ass. Never believed a bit of that woman’s story, but, you know how it goes. Lack of evidence, good lawyers.” His mouth twisted in disgust.
“Anyone I know?” Ann asked.
He took a breath to answer when the front door burst open and a burly guy ducked inside. He hung his Castle County Sherriff’s ball cap on a hook by the door. When he turned around, he met Ann’s eyes and froze. She glanced over her shoulder in case someone was about to attack. Her heart sped up. There was no one there. He was staring at her.
Damn.
“Is that . . . is that . . .” the man said. He pointed a thick finger at Ann. “Is that Detective Ann Logan of the Salida PD?” He rushed over and grabbed her hand. “Deputy Riley. George Riley. It is an honor and a pleasure.”
He couldn’t be older than twenty with his baby face and smooth skin. Ann pulled her hand out of his grasp. Deputy Riley pulled a chair over and sat facing her. He placed his huge hands on his knees, brushing her knee caps with his knuckles. Ann pushed her chair back, but it hit the desk. Trapped.
“How’d you do it, Detective?” Ann darted a glance to the door. “I read the paper, but I want to hear it from you. Straight from the horse’s mouth as they say. I think that’s what they say.” He cocked his head.
What did he want? A play by play?
“I have a case—do you think you could take a look at it?” Deputy Riley leaned over Ann. His badge brushed her nose. Ann did everything she could to stop from pushing him out of her personal space while he rifled through a stack of files. Finally, he sat back to flip one open across her lap. “See if you confirm my suspicions?”
The Blood of Seven Page 3