“I’m still waiting for results, so it’ll be a while longer before I know what was in her system.”
He nods. “Was she pregnant?”
“No. There were also no signs of sexual assault or any recent sexual activity.”
“That’s something, I guess.” He sighs. “So you’d conclude this was a suicide?”
“That’s what her body tells me so far. But Alex might disagree, depending on the forensics.”
So why is the knife missing? “Have the parents been in to see her yet?”
She nods. “Mrs. Jackson stopped by yesterday and gave a positive ID. She had to be comforted by my assistant.”
He’s not surprised Nikki’s father didn’t come with her. He still needs to figure out how to obtain a warrant for their place.
“Thanks, Lena. Keep me updated.”
“Sure thing.”
He heads to his car and drives over to the station, where Douglas is leading a man through to one of the holding cells. Mike follows them and looks in at the guy he’s brought in. White, tall and heavy-set. He’s seen him before. The guy gives him a deadly stare. “What are you looking at?”
“Shut up,” says Douglas. “I’ll be back to interview you later.”
The man laughs. “There’s no point. I’m saying nothing. Get me my lawyer.”
“Why do you need a lawyer if you’re saying nothing?”
He looks at Douglas like something he’s stepped in. “Fuck off.”
Mike follows Douglas back to his desk. “What’s going on?”
“Looks like this guy killed Stephanie Garcia.”
“Who is he?”
“Paul Harris. Lives near Prospect Springs with his brother. Doesn’t have a credible alibi for that night.” Douglas is typing into his computer, searching for priors. “Bingo. The asshole has already served time for rape and aggravated assault.”
Mike has a bad feeling about this. He pulls his tie away from his neck and undoes the top button of his shirt. He wishes the weather would break; this humidity is killing him. “Did you get some kind of tip-off?”
Douglas stands up straight and nods. “Anonymous caller. I’m going to get him processed, then obtain a warrant to search his house. Didn’t you say Harper told you the victim complained about being hassled by two guys leading up to her death?”
He nods. “Yeah. She said one was overweight.”
“And what did the other one look like?”
“I can’t remember. But I still haven’t caught up with her properly yet. That’s my plan for this afternoon.”
“I’ll go with you.”
Mike shakes his head and laughs. “There’s no way you’re coming. She won’t talk to you. I’m not even going to entertain the idea, so you can forget it.”
Douglas glares at him but he doesn’t push it. “Good luck telling her Ms. Garcia was cremated yesterday.”
He walks away with a smirk leaving Mike fuming.
26
Madison feels like she’s hung-over, but it’s not alcohol-induced. Last night she was frantic with worry. Since Nate shot out of the house, there’s been no word from him, though she’s tried calling him countless times. He doesn’t know the town, and if he ends up in the wrong place, he could find himself in trouble.
She has to assume he’s high on cocaine somewhere and will return when he’s ready, but she can’t shake the feeling that she might not see him again. Especially if he spirals into a depressive episode.
As she eats breakfast, her thoughts turn to Steph’s murder. If she could just see the crime-scene photos, she would have a place to start investigating. It suddenly dawns on her that she’s living in the crime scene. Okay, it’s been cleaned up now, thanks to Nate, and the police would have taken any obvious evidence away with them, but she could find something here that they might have missed.
She starts in the living room by trying to identify anything that might be out of place, or that doesn’t belong to Steph. But it’s been so long since she lived here and everything has changed. She goes to check the front door to see if it shows any signs of a break-in. There are no scratches or damage to the locks on either side. She tries the back door, but that’s in good condition too. The downstairs windows don’t open wide enough for someone to crawl through, and they’re not damaged either. So Steph must have either left a door unlocked or she knew her killer. Did she voluntarily let him in? Or did she open the door before she realized who was there and he pushed past her?
If it was the heavies she had told Madison about, she wouldn’t have voluntarily let them in. But they could have taken her by surprise.
She walks around the downstairs, but nothing seems out of place. Upstairs is as tidy as it ever was. She spots the trains on the wallpaper in Owen’s old room and her heart skips a beat. He used to count them to help him fall asleep. She tries to focus.
By lunchtime she’s none the wiser, so she goes outside into the hot sun. Brody’s busy investigating the outbuildings. She notices there are no chickens or goats here anymore and wonders when Stephanie stopped keeping them. She takes a second to listen to the collection of wind chimes in the tall fir tree.
Stepping into the hay barn that Steph used to store mowers, tools and animal feed, she notices some boxes stacked up in the far corner. Her stomach flips as she approaches them and sees her name scrawled across a couple. She’d wondered if Steph had kept hold of her belongings after she cleared her house for her, but as so much time had passed, she’d assumed it had all been dumped by now.
Touching a box with her name on, she notices there are six with Owen’s name. These have been here since her conviction and they contain belongings from her past life. An overwhelming sadness envelops her and she can’t bring herself to open any of them. The boxes will have to wait until she finds her son. She wants to be able to open them with him by her side. She has to push away the thought that it might never happen.
It’s humid inside the barn, so she moves on to the vegetable patch. It’s overflowing with ripe tomatoes, peas, salad leaves and berries. Spending a pleasant ten minutes picking them makes her feel normal. Like there’s no cloud hanging over her. It makes her wonder if she could stay here now the property is hers. It always was a great place to live.
She spots a wicker basket stacked full of fruit and vegetables going moldy in the sun. They must have been here a few days. There’s an envelope on top. She gasps when she reads who it’s addressed to: Nikki.
Could it be for Nikki Jackson?
She opens it and finds fifty dollars inside along with a note.
Thanks so much for mowing the lawns and harvesting the veg yesterday. Take these with you but watch out for the chilies—these ones are extra hot! S.
Madison tries to think. Could Nikki Jackson have been helping Stephanie out with garden chores? That could be the link between their deaths. Adrenaline kicks in as she realizes the implication. Could Nikki have seen who killed Steph? She feels a level of satisfaction that she might be one step ahead of the police and decides to keep it to herself for now.
She needs to visit Nikki Jackson’s parents to see if they can confirm the note was meant for their daughter. The local news showed the trailer park they live at, so they shouldn’t be difficult to find if she starts knocking on doors.
Brody walks up to her and she remembers that Nate is probably wasted in a ditch somewhere. But she can’t wait here any longer for him to show up. What was at first concern turns to frustration. He should have blown off enough steam to be back by now. She heads inside to fetch Steph’s car keys. She finds the navy Honda in the garage and quickly searches it to see if there are any more clues inside. There aren’t. It’s almost spotless, like the house.
She calls Brody to her, but before she can leave the house, there’s a knock at the door.
“Oh, thank God.” Nate must have left the spare key here. “He’s back, Brody!”
Brody beats her to the door.
Experience makes her check w
ho’s standing outside before she opens it. She spots the police cruiser first and her heart skips a beat, but then she’s pleasantly surprised to see Shelley smiling at her. And she’s holding what looks like a case file.
“Hey, Madison. Mind if I come in?”
She opens the door wide. “Of course not.”
They hug, and Madison has to drag Brody away from Shelley. He really does have a thing for cops.
“I can’t stay long; I shouldn’t be doing this.” Shelley hovers inside the door and looks at what’s in her hands. “These are copies of Stephanie’s crime-scene photos and autopsy report. If anyone at the station finds out I gave them to you, I could be fired.”
Madison can’t wait to read the file, but she also feels a tinge of guilt for putting Shelley in this position. “I promise I’ll burn them as soon as I’ve finished with them. I’ll never tell anyone who gave these to me. I know how it works.”
Shelley searches her eyes for reassurance and then finally hands the file over.
Madison leans in for a hug. “Thank you so much. Maybe it will come to nothing, but she was part of my family so I need to know what happened.” She steps back. “There’s just one other thing. Do you know anything about Nikki Jackson’s death?”
Shelley looks confused. “Yeah, why?”
Madison doesn’t want to tell her the cases might be linked. She needs time to check it out for herself. “I just keep seeing it on the news and they’re saying it could have been murder rather than suicide.”
“Yeah, well, the medical examiner says it looks like suicide, but we still haven’t found the knife, so Alex is convinced it’s murder.”
“Who’s Alex?”
Shelley smiles. “Our new forensics guy. I forgot he wasn’t here when you worked in the department.”
“Wow, Chief Sullivan has finally invested money in something useful. Sounds like things are improving.”
Shelley scoffs. “If only.”
Madison isn’t sure what she means, but there’s something more important she needs to ask. “I don’t suppose you know what happened to Owen after my conviction, do you?”
“I thought he was adopted by someone out of state. That’s what Mike said at the time. He thought it might have been Montana.” Shelley frowns. “Or was it Utah?”
So why didn’t Mike tell her that? Madison’s heart sinks. She’s never going to find her son unless someone from child services tells her what happened.
Shelley’s radio crackles into life with a call-out over at Ruby’s Diner. “I have to go. Here’s my number. Call me if you need anything else. Don’t send a message, as I don’t want anything being traced back to me.”
“Of course.”
Madison watches her drive away and then looks down at the file in her hands. It’s time to see for herself what happened to Stephanie.
27
Madison sits outside in the sunshine. After taking a deep breath, she opens the file Shelley gave her.
Immediately she’s confronted with Stephanie’s dead body. At first she gasps and looks away, letting the tears fall. Eventually she steels herself and looks back at the top photo. It’s a full-body shot of Stephanie lying face down, with her shirt pulled up covering her head and her jeans and underwear roughly tugged down to her ankles.
Madison looks up at the sky, letting the sun dry her tears while she tries to deal with the horror of what she’s seeing. Could she have prevented this? Should she have raced back to Lost Creek after that first phone call from Steph? She’ll never know, but she’ll always feel guilty for not doing so.
She leans in and tries to view the rest of the photos with the detachment of a homicide detective. There’s one showing Stephanie on her back, presumably turned over by the forensics guy. It reveals a deep gash to her throat. Her face is covered in blood and her eyes stare through the camera’s lens.
“I’m so sorry,” Madison whispers.
She continues to the close-up photos of the neck wound, then looks around Steph’s body at the rest of the room. She can see no murder weapon or clue as to who did this.
Wiping her nose, she stands up and lights a cigarette with shaky hands. She gets through it in less than a minute and finds herself wishing it was weed, or something even stronger. But the nicotine helps her relax slightly. Her thoughts turn to the type of funeral she wants to give Stephanie. She’ll need to find out which funeral home has her body and start organizing it as soon as possible.
The autopsy report is next, but it just confirms what the photos show. Madison skims the graphic details about the intimate wounds caused by the vicious rape. She checks the toxicology report: no alcohol or drugs were found in Stephanie’s system. That doesn’t surprise her. Steph was never much of a drinker, and used natural remedies for things like headaches or anxiety.
One detail makes her smile faintly.
The deceased has green grass stains around her fingernails and compost beneath.
She looks up at the vegetable patch and remembers the note left for Nikki. That’s the only lead she has.
She uses her cigarette lighter to burn the documents, then walks through the house to Steph’s car, with Brody following her excitedly. As she starts pulling out of the driveway, Mike appears. If he had arrived any sooner, he might have caught her with the photos.
He swings his car in next to hers and walks around to her open window. Spotting Brody in the passenger seat, he says, “Nice dog.”
“What do you want?” she asks. Last time she saw him was in Chief Sullivan’s office. He didn’t even follow her out to apologize for what happened.
“Can we go inside? I want to catch up properly, away from the station.”
“I’m on my way out; you’ll have to speak to me here.”
He leans against the car, pulling his sunglasses off, and she notices sweat patches under his arms. Is that down to the rising temperature or because he’s nervous around her? He rolls his shirtsleeves up.
“So how long did it take before you got my job?” she asks, deliberately trying to provoke him.
He looks surprised. “Come on, Madison. Give me a break. It wasn’t like that. And to be honest, I wish I hadn’t bothered. I preferred being a sergeant.”
The look on his face does suggest he’s had it with being a detective. He seems harassed, with heavy bags under his eyes and messy hair. It makes her feel better about the situation.
“What’s it like being back here after all this time?” he asks.
It’s the kind of question a friend would ask, and she remembers that he was her friend once. “It was horrible at first. I don’t know if I’ll get used to it, but needs must.”
He nods as if he knows exactly how she feels, but how can he?
“This is probably the wrong way of wording it, but I hope prison wasn’t as bad as you were expecting.”
She breaks eye contact and looks out through the windshield. He thinks he wants to know what it was like for her, but he doesn’t. Not really. If she tells him she was raped by one of the guards, or that she found cellmates hanging from their bunks, or that she was targeted for being a former cop, he’ll just shake his head in sympathy and then forget all about it the minute he leaves. She told Nate all those things, but he understands. She suddenly finds herself missing him. She needs to find him before he does anything stupid. He became suicidal on their last investigation, and she’s worried it could happen again after she broke his fragile trust.
She looks back at Mike. “It was worse than I expected. I shouldn’t have been put in that situation, Mike. Someone has to pay for that.”
He looks wary. She doesn’t blame him. She’s clearly here to upset the status quo, and that will affect him too.
He glances at his cell phone, then back at her. “I have some news for you, and then I have some questions. That okay with you?”
“News first.”
“We have a suspect for Stephanie’s murder. Douglas brought him in for questioning this morning. He’s not
under arrest yet, so it’s early days.”
Goosebumps cover her arms. “Who?”
“I can’t tell you that as we’re not releasing his name just yet. As far as I know, he was mentioned in a tip-off, so I’m not sure how credible it is. Don’t get your hopes up, but he fits the description of one of the heavies you told me she was complaining about.”
Madison lets go of the tension in her shoulders. That’s the best news she’s had in a long time. “I’m guessing you can’t keep me updated?”
“No.”
“Has he denied it or tried to blame anyone else?”
A pause. “He’s not exactly in the mood for cooperating.”
She rolls her eyes. “Does he have an alibi for the night Nikki Jackson died?”
He frowns. “Why would we ask him that? You can’t think these two cases are linked?”
She doesn’t reply. He obviously doesn’t think they are. And just because they might have found the guy who actually slit Stephanie’s throat doesn’t mean they have the person behind it. “Anything else, or are we done here?” she asks.
He shifts position and focuses on the ground. It makes her nervous.
“Just tell me. I’m used to getting bad news.”
He clears his throat and looks up at her with regret on his face. “I know you came back to bury Stephanie, but her mom has already had her cremated.”
Madison is so angry she gets out of the car. “What? How dare she? How fucking dare she?” Her voice rises and Brody barks. “Mike, that woman hadn’t spoken to her daughter in twenty years! She kicked her out of the house at eighteen!”
Stephanie was disowned by her family for coming out. Neither her parents nor her brother ever contacted her once she left home. It was a sore point for her and it knocked her confidence, making it difficult for her to get close to people. Madison always felt like Steph was waiting to be dumped, whether by friends, lovers or employers. It wasn’t surprising. If your own parents can disown you, it must feel like anyone could.
“She never heard from her family in the five years we were together. Not even a goddam Christmas card! She tried several times to reach out to her brother on social media, but he never responded. Instead, he made his accounts private. Can you imagine how that felt? To be rejected by your family for no logical reason? To feel like you’re invisible to them? So how do they get to decide what happens to her remains?”
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