ON A QUIET STREET
Copyright © 2019 J.L. Doucette
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, please address She Writes Press.
Published 2019
Printed in the United States of America
ISBN: 978-1-63152-537-7 pbk
ISBN: 978-1-63152-538-4 ebk
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019902943
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She Writes Press
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Interior design by Tabitha Lahr
She Writes Press is a division of SparkPoint Studio, LLC.
All company and/or product names may be trade names, logos, trademarks, and/or registered trademarks and are the property of their respective owners.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
“The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one’s own.”
—Willa Cather, My Antonia
For my daughters,
Stephanie and Deirdre
PROLOGUE
The church bells rang out at six o’clock in the morning, the exact moment the Sheriff’s Department received the call about a dead woman in a house on Cedar Street.
Sometime in the pre-dawn hours of the first day of summer, Stacey Hart was strangled in her home on a quiet street in Rock Springs, Wyoming.
It was the first homicide of the year and the second time the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Department engaged my services in a murder investigation.
I’m a forensic psychologist, trained to work where the mental health and criminal justice systems intersect. Most of us who thrive in this field are drawn to it because of some dark and unresolved experience in our past.
The process is known as repetition compulsion. We keep going back into the same sad story, hoping to rewrite the ending.
CHAPTER 1
Jack Swailes looked down at the woman he loved. She was lying on the steps to the greenhouse. One of her moccasins had come off and her white shirt was torn at the shoulder. She wasn’t breathing.
What he did next would make all the difference. Make a call, or climb in his truck and haul ass out of there? No one would come for hours. He’d be history; his life would be his own again. The way it was before he followed Stacey into the cafe where she hijacked his heart and changed everything.
Her wild, golden hair reminded him of Dante’s painting of Helen of Troy. He knew nothing about art; a hooker who worked for his uncle had taped the picture over her bed.
He knelt and kissed the marks on her neck and smoothed the bloody curls. A crazy urge rose up and he snapped a last picture. Her phone blinked where it had fallen near her right hand, outside the circle of blood. Remembering the last thing she’d asked of him, he reached over, picked up the phone, turned it off, and slipped it into the pocket of his vest.
A rolling stone, she’d called him—a guy who wouldn’t stick around to put a ring on her finger. But what the hell, she’d belonged to Connor, planned to marry him.
And now this.
What is done cannot be undone, he told himself.
Outside on the wide porch, the air held the night’s chill and a clean smell rose from the wet grass. He shivered and rubbed his arms. As much as he wanted to resist, he pulled out his cigarettes and lit up. With the first breath, a slicing pain seized his chest, a heartache he’d never outrun.
He smoked and thought about everything that had happened since he’d first stepped into the house and the way he’d changed it with his hands. After a while, his thoughts came clear: he owed her something.
The phone in his hand was heavy with the weight of his destiny. He dialed the number to summon the sheriff.
CHAPTER 2
Beau Antelope was born to be a detective, a job that kept him tied to the pain of the world.
The Wind River Reservation where he’d grown up had the highest rate of violent crime in the country. He’d figured out early there were two kinds of trouble: the kind that found you no matter how hard you tried to hide and the kind you went looking for. His job was a mixture of both.
When the call came in about a possible homicide on Cedar Street, he drove the three blocks to the scene. A county ambulance and a panel truck with the logo VERY CLASSIC DESIGNS took up the curb space in front of the yellow bungalow. He pulled into the gravel driveway behind a white Prius.
On the porch, a workman dropped a cigarette and stood at attention as Antelope exited the unmarked car.
“Wait here. I’ll come back for a statement,” he told the man and entered the residence.
In the kitchen at the rear of the house, the paramedics were working on a blond woman with a strong, athletic body that would never move again. A quick scan of the crime scene showed nothing disturbed, except for the woman herself.
Her clothing—in disarray—indicated that she’d struggled and lost the fight. The coroner would determine if it was death by strangulation or blunt force trauma.
Antelope shot the crime scene from every angle with his phone. After the coroner took the body and the forensics team completed their work, he would come back to spend time alone here. If he got lucky, her spirit would offer something to guide his way to the killer.
He watched the workman smoke outside the front window, lost in thought. At the sound of the door opening, he dropped the cigarette, crushed it with the toe of his boot. His right eye twitched as he scanned Antelope’s face; a tremble shook the hands resting on the porch railing.
“I never saw someone dead before,” he said. “My mind’s all kinds of twisted around.”
“Let’s start with some basic information,” Antelope said, pulling out his notebook. “Give me your name and address.”
“Jack Swailes. I stay at the Court Motel.”
“At Val Campion’s place? Is this your rig?”
“It’s Val’s. He’s my uncle. I hired on with him a while back.”
“Whose place is this?”
“The woman inside—her name’s Stacey Hart. Her man owns the place, Connor Collins. They hired me to get the work done before the wedding in July.”
Collins was the Assistant County Prosecutor. The Sheriff’s Department would lose control of the investigation the minute word got out that a prosecutor’s girlfriend had been murdered.
“Tell me what happened this morning.”
“I showed up to work same as always—early, before six. She liked to meet early, before her own job started. But she gave me a key so I could keep my own hours, work late if I want. Her car was here this morning, so I rang the bell. When she didn’t come, I went in.”
“The door wasn’t locked?”
“She doesn’t lock it when she’s here, only when she leaves.”
“I take it those are your tools in there?”
“They are. Can I grab them when we’re done here?”
“They’ll be marked as evidence. I can’t say how long before you get them back. It looks like the tile cutter could be our murder weapon.”
Jack shook his head.
“Man, how could something like this happen?”
“It’s my job to find the answers.”
“I don’t envy you, ma
n. It’s a sick world we live in.”
“You’re in the house. What happens next?”
“I called out to her and headed back to the kitchen. I planned to paint in there today.”
Swailes took a deep breath and rested his head against the porch railing, eyes closed. “Give me a second.”
Dead bodies tend to mess with the mind of the average citizen, Antelope thought.
Swailes lit another cigarette, took a few quick drags, and tossed it away also. “The whole thing rolled out in my mind like the worst movie ever.”
“I need you to tell me what you found in there.”
“First thing I saw was Stacey on the floor where the stairs go down to the greenhouse. I thought maybe she tripped, so I went over to her. Up close I saw the blood and those marks on her throat.”
“Did you touch the body?”
“No, no. just looked.”
“When we’re done here, head over to the station on D Street and tell the desk clerk I sent you for fingerprints.”
“Am I in some kind of trouble?”
“It’s standard procedure in a homicide investigation. You found the body, you went to help her, you’re sure you didn’t touch her?”
“I got down beside her. I could see someone hurt her.”
“Any idea who that might be, Jack?”
“You want the truth?”
“Let me set you straight. This is officially a homicide investigation. Anything but the truth, you could be charged with obstruction of justice.” Antelope studied the other man’s face. “You can proceed with answering my question now.”
“Her boyfriend’s a jealous guy.”
“What do you mean?”
“He gave her a hard time about talking to other guys, the usual shit. Funny thing, though, he didn’t give her much attention himself.”
“What about you? Was Connor jealous of you?”
“I sometimes got that impression. He had no reason. She had his ring on and I respected that. But some guys don’t need a reason.”
“So you and the victim were friends, nothing more going on?”
“I worked for her. I know my place. Forget I said anything.”
Tires squealed and a black BMW screeched to a halt. Connor Collins ran across the street in sweatpants and flip-flops, remnants of shaving cream on his face, wet hair slicked back.
“A neighbor called. What happened? Where’s Stacey?”
He looked back and forth between Antelope and Swailes.
The contractor held both hands up in a don’t-blame-me pose then fled the porch, heading to his truck.
Connor moved toward the front door but Antelope got in front of him and blocked his entrance.
“Hold on. I can’t let you go in there. It’s a crime scene.”
“What the hell? It’s my house; I’m going in. Is Stacey in there?”
“I need you to step back. The paramedics are with her.”
“What did he do to her? Swailes, you son of a bitch, what did you do to her?” Connor took off toward the truck.
Antelope ran after him, grabbed his shoulders, and spun him around as Swailes sped off down Cedar Street.
The two men struggled and Connor lost his footing. Antelope got him face down on the wet grass, his hands pinned at the small of his back.
The prosecutor turned his unshaved face back and forth. “He’s getting away.”
“Are you going to calm down or do I have to cuff you?”
Collins twisted and groaned, stopped, and went slack under him.
“Get off me.”
“Are you done? I need your word. There’s a street full of witnesses, Mr. Prosecutor.”
“I’m all right. Let me up.”
Antelope released him, and the two men stood up as a black sedan arrived at the scene and the medical examiner came up the driveway toward them.
Connor’s eyes widened. “I knew it. I knew she was dead. Why’d you let the son of a bitch get away?”
It took Antelope a few minutes to convince Connor to leave the scene. When the local news van rounded the corner, it made a bigger impression than anything he’d said. Connor beat a hasty retreat to his car.
This was his cue to exit, too. It was too soon to make any statements to the media. Before he left the scene he instructed a technician to retrieve the contractor’s cigarette from the lawn and submit it for DNA processing.
CHAPTER 3
The victim’s mother lived in Green River, twelve miles west of Rock Springs off Interstate 80. Eighteen-wheelers dominated the four-lane highway. A thrill ride on a sunny June morning, in winter, with its skin of black ice, the same road became a death trap.
Antelope switched on the lights of his unmarked vehicle and accelerated ahead of the line of traffic. For long-haul truckers, speed meant money, but they got out of the way for police business. Pumped by adrenaline, determined to get the nasty job done, he sped toward the Green River exit ten minutes away.
He took the opportunity to call the sheriff.
“What have we got over there?” Scruggs asked.
“Homicide, female, late twenties. The ME promised end of day tomorrow on cause of death.”
“Canvass the neighborhood, talk to anyone who saw anything suspicious last night or early this morning.”
“The murder house is the former convent behind the Astro Lounge. We’ll need some luck finding anyone awake, sober, or credible. I assigned the best, Garcia and Connors.”
Hungry to get out of uniform, the two deputies worked witnesses like dogs on a bone. In a homicide investigation with a family at your neck, persistence was a critical factor. A dead body motivated Antelope, and he only wanted to work with others who saw it the same way. In each murder case he worked, the spirits of the dead haunted his dreams until he caught the killer.
“Who’s the victim?”
“We’ll have some eyes on us for sure. Her name’s Stacey Hart, she was engaged to Connor Collins in the DA’s office.”
“Damn it to hell and back. Can my luck get any worse? I know her. Pretty girl. She moved in with my Toni a while back. Jesus, Toni’s going be hot mess over this.”
Antelope understood the sheriff’s reaction. The year before, Scruggs’ wife had been shot and killed.
After his wife’s death, he’d at first sworn off women and thrown himself into his work, determined to reestablish his credibility. But it hadn’t taken long for him to get back in the saddle. A few months later he’d met Toni Atwell, a former nun, and it had been love at first sight for both of them.
“How can I get in touch with Toni?” Antelope asked.
Scruggs sighed. “Just what I need. Another dead woman.”
“We need Toni’s perspective on the victim. Are you going to give me her number, or do I have to track her down?”
Up ahead, the morning sun lit the steep rock cliffs a dazzling copper red. As he entered the Green River Twin Tunnels, Antelope lost the call. Exit 91 put him on W. Flaming Gorge Way. The GPS showed the Harts’ place on the left, a mile past the Sweetwater District Court.
He hated this part of the job—handing people the worst news of their lives. He felt deceitful and predatory in the presence of a family’s grief when all he wanted was something he could use to solve the case.
Sympathy was a luxury he couldn’t afford. In murder cases, as in trucking, time ruled; you either moved fast or you lost your edge. The killer didn’t want to be caught.
Sometimes families wanted to kill the messenger, and he couldn’t blame them. But most of them understood that he was their best hope of getting closure or revenge, whatever they were after.
The Hart family home, a brown shingled raised ranch, sat behind a white picket fence. A rusted Ford pickup sat at the curb. At the end of the driveway, a renovated garage with a yellow door advertised, ‘Daycare with Heart.’ A small playground with a set of wooden swings and climbing equipment secured behind a chain link fence sat empty.
A wildflower garden, iden
tical to the one at the Cedar Street house, bordered a brick path to the front door. Day lilies and sunflowers swayed in a gathering wind, signaling a storm on its way. From inside the house, Metallica blared at a decibel level too high for the suburban area.
As Antelope opened the gate, a young man with a shaved head came to the screen door. Tattooed arms crossed over a bare chest, black sweats low on his hips. Had Antelope just interrupted his private play time? Did this guy have a woman inside? Whatever the scenario, the fun was over. Nothing, not even sex, would ever be the same again for him.
“This is a restricted area.” With a middle finger, the man pointed to a metal sign face down on the grass.
“Kind of hard to see,” Antelope said.
“The wind must have got it.” He jogged across the small yard, righted the sign, and pounded it into the lawn with his fist. Antelope noticed that he didn’t flinch at the impact, although the contact with the metal post must have hurt.
After years in law enforcement, he had to agree: daycare centers needed security. Stranger kidnappings, the nightmare of parents, occurred less frequently than kidnapping by ignorant, angry parents willing to snatch their own kid, destroy their world, for the pleasure of sticking it to their ex. It made him sick, this wanton disregard for children’s experience.
“Are you Max Hart?”
“Depends who’s asking.”
“Detective Antelope, Sweetwater County Sheriff.” Antelope held out his ID with his right hand.
Max studied it like a bouncer screening for underage drinkers. “What’s your business here?”
Antelope associated this kind of cagey attitude with small-change drug dealers. Time to take the dive off the high board.
“Can we go inside? I have some news about your sister.”
“Stacey?” Max’s eyes widened. “What about Stacey? I was with her last night.”
“It’s bad news. Your sister is dead. I’m sorry to have to tell you this.”
Max put his hands on his head and walked in circles. An inhuman sound came from him, a low growl from somewhere deep inside. He raised a fist and swung it hard into the sign, which toppled under the force of his anger. Then he lifted his gaze to Antelope. “What happened? How did she die?”
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