Girl Most Likely

by Max Allan Collins

Not today. She had gradually gotten out of the habit of attending regularly. She tried to make it once a month, out of respect to her late mom and, frankly, because her position in the community meant at least a little of that was expected from her. Since moving in, her father had said he’d go to church, “now and then,” which meant maybe Easter and Christmas. Maybe.

  Since you’re going over to Astrid’s, do you need to make a fuss? Select something special?

  No. Already she’d decided not to do anything fancy with her hair. Why try to compete with the star of Chicago TV news? She would either fail. . . or succeed only by way of embarrassing herself.

  She got into new jeans and a black pullover sweater. Also tugged on the snazzy red-and-black cowboy boots, not to impress but because they were comfortable. She snugged her pant legs over them. As was her off-duty habit, she snapped the holstered Glock 21 on her hip, smiling to herself, knowing Astrid couldn’t compete with that kind of accessorizing.

  Her father was still sleeping. That had been a late night for him. Usually she made breakfast, but she’d told him she was going to Astrid’s this morning, and he’d have to fend for himself. She set out a couple of yesterday’s muffins anyway, then got into her bomber jacket and headed out.

  When she drew her Toyota up behind the silver Jag, Krista smiled and shook her head at the conspicuous success her friend and onetime rival had achieved. But that was momentary, because the sight of the ordinary brown-frame house—with its narrow sidewalk cutting through a modest rock garden to a one-step-up porch under an overhang—took her back in time.

  How often had she been here? As a grade-school kid? As a junior high girl? As a high school classmate coming over for a slumber party or an all-nighter before a final? Those memories made a warm blur and she felt such a wave of nostalgia for so many fun times, good times, that Astrid stealing Jerry away from her almost faded into nothing. Or almost nothing.

  She knocked at the front door and got no response. She knocked again and still no response. She checked her watch: 8:00 a.m. Right on time. Thinking maybe Astrid’s night had gone on longer than hers, she tried her friend’s cell number. From inside the house, muffled but distinct, came a ring. And three more rings.

  When the ringing stopped and Astrid didn’t pick up, Krista figured her call had gone to voice mail. She knocked again, still nothing. The Lunds might have a landline, lots of older people did, so she punched in “Information,” and Astrid’s parents did have a number.

  She tried that.

  Again, she heard a ring, more distinct, somewhere on the first floor beyond the closed door. It rang ten times, an eternity, and then, faintly, came Astrid’s mother’s voice informing people (apparently very uninformed people) that they should wait for the tone before leaving a message.

  A dozen dire things coursed through her mind, but she shook them away. It’s hard for a cop to take things in stride. Probably Astrid had just slept through those cell phone rings, even if her phone had been on a nightstand table; and those landline calls were on the first floor. Krista knew the bedrooms were upstairs. Maybe her friend had slept through those, too, or hadn’t heard them.

  For about one second, she considered just leaving and trying later. Maybe there had been a misunderstanding about the time, or something had come up, or. . .

  She started looking for a key.

  Nothing under the mat. Nothing under the flowerpot on the porch. No magnetized tiny tin under the mailbox.

  Where?

  Her eyes looked at the rock garden near the porch to the left and right of the sidewalk. Usually a fake rock made a lousy place to hide a house key, but a rock garden did improve on things. It took Krista at least ten seconds to spot it.

  She unlocked the door, opened it halfway, and called out, “Astrid! It’s me! Krista!”

  No response.

  When she got inside, closing the door behind her, she repeated: “Astrid! It’s me! Krista!”

  Again no response, and she tried again, at the bottom of the front stairs, really yelling this time, and it echoed a bit. Rattled some things.

  Mildly rattled herself, Krista—feeling a little foolish doing so—unlocked her Glock 21’s holster as she went slowly up the stairs. Her hunch was that Astrid would have returned to her own bedroom, though the master bedroom might have provided more comfort.

  The door to Astrid’s room was open, but Krista didn’t see her friend until entering, because the bed, a single, was off to the left, under the Katy Perry poster. Astrid was on her back, on the still-made bed, and Krista started to call out to her, but taking only two steps in gave her a view on what had become of her friend.

  Conflicted, not wanting to contaminate a crime scene and realizing Astrid was surely dead, Krista nonetheless approached carefully and checked both her friend’s wrist and throat for a pulse. Like the unanswered phone calls, indications were that nobody was home.

  Astrid’s chest bore half a dozen wounds, one-and-a-half-inch tears on the victim’s black silk robe, a little crusty blood around them. That black silk was splotched and dotted with blood that had dried nearly as black as the robe. The coverlet was spotted some, too. Krista looked toward the ceiling and saw where the blood had geysered and streakily stained like a grotesque modern art mural.

  Her Glock 21 in her right hand, she checked the room, under the bed, opening the closet door. Then, back in the hall, she considered her options. With any crime other than homicide or another major felony, she would have called the dispatcher.

  But on Sunday the sheriff’s office dispatcher took all calls and deputies were sent to the scene. Normally that would be fine, but with a serious crime she preferred having her own officers answer the call. After all, it was her people who would be following through. Two were on duty right now, and the rest were likely at home. Policy was, if any officer planned to be away for even an overnight trip, she was to be informed.

  All of her officers’ cell numbers were on her phone, and she first called Officer Maria Cortez, who was on patrol with Wendell Clemson.

  “Need immediate backup at a homicide scene,” Krista said, and gave Cortez the North High Street address. She spoke softly, her back to the wall and the Glock 21 in hand, barrel up.

  “You’re working today, Chief?”

  “Off duty. Stumbled onto it. Explain at the scene.”

  Then she called Officer Rick Reynolds at home. He answered right away. Toddlers were crying in the background, or anyway one was crying and another screaming.

  “Yeah!” Reynolds said.

  This was a landline and he’d obviously grabbed it without looking at caller ID.

  “Larson,” Krista identified herself. “I’m at a homicide with backup on the way but I need two more officers to help secure the scene.”

  “I can be one of them,” he said, over the screaming, crying kids. “Judy can have all the family fun to herself for a while.”

  “Get yourself in uniform, drive over to the station.”

  “Okay.”

  “Wait there till somebody else shows. I’ll try Deitch. But it’ll be somebody.”

  “You bet, Chief.”

  She tried Earl Deitch, got him, and sent him to pick up Reynolds and a police vehicle.

  With help on the way, she slowly made her way through the Lund house, making sure every room was clear, including the basement. A little gravel drive led to a freestanding garage; looking in windows on either side of the structure she could see no one, no vehicle either, just the expected yard tools, storage boxes, and so on.

  She checked all around the house, front and back yards, her eyes on the ground as much as on the building, not wanting to disturb any potential evidence.

  Satisfied that whoever had done this thing was no longer in the house or nearby, she stood on the porch and holstered her weapon, then called the state police number.

  After identifying herself, she said, “Crime scene services, please.”

  Her twelve-officer department did not have fore
nsics; neither did the sheriff’s department.

  Her next call was to the Jo Daviess County coroner’s office in East Dubuque, which was on the Illinois side of the bridge. The officer taking calls could give her no idea when the coroner or an assistant coroner would arrive. It was Sunday, she was told.

  With this vital information in hand, she called her investigator, Detective Clarence “Booker” Jackson, at home. Booker would likely be sleeping in—he played blues organ in a small combo who gigged one Saturday a month at the Grape Escape on Main. Last night had been this month’s Saturday.

  “Homicide, you say?” Booker said, his voice a mellow baritone, still a little sleep-thickened. “In our Galena?”

  Booker got his name not from booking perps, but from Booker T. and the M.G.’s, the classic Memphis soul combo.

  “Yeah,” Krista said. “And a very nasty one.” She told him backup was coming and briefly described the crime scene.

  “Give me fifteen to get there,” he said.

  “Take sixteen if you need it.”

  Very shortly, a Ford Explorer pulled in, followed moments later by a Dodge Durango, both vehicles with lights flashing, no siren, each bearing the mostly white, dark-blue-trimmed GALENA POLICE markings. Two officers emerged from each. After filling them all in, Krista directed the first pair—Reynolds, a lanky twenty-five, and Deitch, a baby-faced forty—to secure the scene, posting the former in front of the house, the latter behind.

  Krista turned to the second pair—Cortez, twenty-six, stocky, pretty; Clemson, thirty-eight, mustached, a onetime GHS football tackle. She directed them to canvass the neighborhood for anyone who might have seen anything or anyone suspicious throughout the night—unfamiliar vehicles and strangers in particular, but any activity at all after dark.

  Frowning just a little, Officer Cortez asked, “From what you say, Chief, it sounds unlikely the victim could have arrived home much earlier than midnight.”

  “Right, but someone could have entered the house before and been waiting for her.”

  Cortez and her partner headed left and right, respectively, to the houses next door.

  A red Dodge Charger pulled up and Booker Jackson climbed out. The African American detective, bald with a close-trimmed beard, was about fifty and had seen everything twice. He was in a light gray suit and pink-and-white-striped tie, no topcoat. Had she caught him on the way to church? Maybe, but he always looked very sharp.

  She met him at his vehicle. Booker leaned against the closed rider’s side door, arms folded, and said, “Let’s hear it.”

  Krista explained.

  His big head tilted to one side. “Somebody killed the most popular girl in your class?”

  “She was also unpopular,” Krista said, “among certain classmates. But do you really kill somebody who stole your boyfriend away from you ten years ago?”

  “Guy can get himself killed stealin’ a woman some other guy met an hour ago. You have those funky cowboy boots on when you went in?”

  “I did.”

  “Lot of blood?”

  “Yeah. Seems confined to the bedroom where she was killed, ceiling and bed mostly, but the killer had to go downstairs and go out. Could have been dripping blood, though I didn’t spot any on the front stairs. Didn’t check the back ones.”

  “You did clear the house?”

  She nodded. “Nobody in there. Not anybody alive.”

  “I’ll trade you some slippery-ass booties for those crazy cowgirl boots.”

  “Deal.”

  The blue booties all the cops put on, on TV, were only called for when there was a lot of blood or other bodily fluids at the scene. This was borderline, but she knew Booker had a point.

  He got the booties out of his trunk. They took turns using the Charger’s front passenger seat sideways with the door open to get into them.

  She showed the detective into the house, led him upstairs, and she waited in the hall while the big man went in for a look.

  He came out, frowning, shaking his head. “Somebody crazy did that.”

  “I needed my investigator to tell me that?”

  He folded his arms, leaning against the wall just outside Astrid’s bedroom. He looked like a surly bouncer at a club that could use help like Booker. “No, but I can tell you where we oughta go from here.”

  “Listening.”

  One eyebrow raised. “Call in the state police boys right now.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve already called them for forensics.”

  “That’s a good start. But you need, in my opinion, to get them in here right the hell now. Let them have this thing. Also you got other options.”

  Northwest Illinois Critical Incident Response—Major Case Assistance, her mind told her. Various other major case assistance teams.

  “You don’t think. . .” She almost said “you,” but instead finished, “. . . we can handle it?”

  “We could handle it. But, first, you knew the victim.”

  Krista shook her head. “She wasn’t a close friend. And in Galena, if they aren’t tourists, Booker, I’m going to know any victim.”

  He grunted. “Hasn’t been a murder in Galena in twenty years.”

  “I worked a homicide not that long ago. Murder was across the river, but we wrapped it up here. Remember?”

  “That hasn’t slipped my mind, no. But, Chief—I’m tied up with those three child abuse cases, any one of which could stand my full-on attention. And tomorrow, I got a court date on that domestic. We need help on this one.”

  “You’re out?”

  The massive shoulders shrugged. “Well, that’s your call. You want me to sideline those child abuse cases?”

  She drew in a breath. Let it out.

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  “I know where you’re comin’ from,” Booker said.

  “You do?”

  “You’re a female.”

  “You noticed.”

  “You’re younger than shit.”

  “You noticed that, too.”

  “You don’t want to look like somethin’ bad happens, somethin’ big happens, you can’t handle it. I understand that. But you’re a damn good chief. Which I also noticed. You got nothin’ to prove, young lady.”

  And yet he called her “young lady.”

  Firmly, she said, “If I can’t handle it, Sergeant. . . if Galena PD can’t handle it. . . then I’ll call in help. But not till I feel we can’t manage.”

  He nodded slowly.

  “All I ask,” he said. Then his eyes bored into her. “If you insist on taking this on yourself, we both know somebody you could call.”

  She nodded. “We do. Might be tricky.”

  “Might be worth it. Would be worth it. It’s well within your authority to bring in a consultant, paid or otherwise.”

  She’d been thinking about making that particular phone call since the moment she saw Astrid’s corpse. Now, standing in the hallway of the Lund home’s second floor, the coppery smell of blood still twitching her nostrils, her dead classmate a few yards away, she thought about it some more.

  Then she and her investigator went down the stairs and outside, where a silver state police crime scene vehicle was pulling up. With Booker at her side, she briefed the forensics team, showed them to the crime scene, and when they didn’t need her anymore, she returned to the porch of the murder house, from which she made that phone call.

  TWELVE

  When Keith got Krista’s call, he was already up and bathed and shaved, and in a blue Chicago CUBS sweatshirt and jeans and navy running shoes, which already gave him a vague if unintentional police-ish look.

  In the middle of eating a slightly stale muffin she’d left him, he told his daughter on the phone, “Honey, I will be glad to head over there. But is it appropriate?”

  She had already told him the basic, disturbing circumstances.

  “My job description,” she said calmly, “allows me to call in experienced consulting any time I feel li
ke it.”

  She sounded very professional. He liked that, of course, but wasn’t sure he wanted to put her on the spot. Fathers outranked daughters, after all, or at least thought they did. And with his decades on the Dubuque department, he might create an uncomfortable work environment for his little girl. For example, he might treat her like his little girl. . .

  “Are you okay?” he asked her.

  “We’re on top of it here, but I can use you.”

  “Just to take a look at the crime scene and give you my thoughts.”

  “Pop, get over here, will you?”

  She hung up on him!

  He smiled at the phone. He liked that.

  Parked in front of the brown two-story frame house on North High Street were two Galena police vehicles—a Ford Explorer and a Dodge Durango—and between them a silver Ford Expedition with ILLINOIS CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATORS over a state seal on the rear side windows. Down the street a ways was a red Dodge Charger.

  His daughter stood on the porch talking with her investigator, Sgt. Booker Jackson. Krista wore her bomber jacket and jeans, Jackson his usual natty self in suit and tie (took a real man to pull off a pink-and-white four-in-hand). Both looked a little ridiculous in the blue crime scene booties.

  Keith headed their way, exchanging greetings with the officer out on the front sidewalk, a tall kid whose name he couldn’t remember, though they’d been introduced. Then before Keith got to the porch, a crime scene investigator in a blue jumpsuit came out of the house, apparently on his way back to the Expedition for something.

  But the average-size guy—whose name was Eli Wallace, an African American CSI who used to work on the Dubuque side—grinned when he saw Keith. The two men met on the sidewalk at about the halfway point, and Eli—teeth very white under a thick black mustache—stuck out a blue-rubber-gloved hand. Keith shook it.

  “Is that your kid?” Eli asked, good-naturedly gruff, wagging his head back toward Krista on the porch. She was watching them with a wary smile.

  “Yeah,” Keith said.

  Eli exchanged the grin for a smirk. “She call Daddy in to help?”

  “Just having a looky-loo. They don’t have homicides in Galena every day.”