Season of the Wolf

by Summers, Robin

  She’d expected her mother to have a problem with having a dog in the house, but to Jordan’s surprise, she’d been delighted. Jordan was convinced that Henry and her mother had conspired against her, but they never admitted a thing. Sometimes, when Jordan was feeling less suspicious, she thought that maybe her mother just enjoyed having another guest in the house—even the four-legged variety—and that maybe it made her feel less lonely. Her mother hadn’t shared a house with anyone besides Jordan since her father had died. Jordan had been a teenager then.

  Last week, Jordan’s mother had left for Florida to spend the winter with Jordan’s aunt in West Palm Beach. She’d been making the trip every year since retiring from teaching seven years earlier. It helped her fight the loneliness. She hadn’t gone the year before. Jordan wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  “I don’t have to go.”

  “I’ll be fine, Mom.”

  Abigail Salinger looked disapprovingly over her reading glasses as Jordan pulled the suitcase from the high shelf in the closet.

  “Jordan, be careful. Your shoulder—”

  “Is fine. All healed up. See?” Jordan dropped the suitcase on the bed and started swinging her arm up, down, and sideways. “Good as new.”

  “You might fool your doctors, Jordan Denise Salinger, but you can never fool your mother.” Jordan cringed at the use of her middle name, both because she hated it and because, as with most mothers, it meant her mom was actually upset. “I see you grimacing when you’ve overdone it and you think I’m not looking.”

  Jordan swallowed the sarcastic comment that popped into her head. Her mother was worried about her and Jordan was grateful for her concern, even if it drove her a little crazy sometimes. She sat on the bed and took her mother’s hand.

  “Seriously, I’m okay.”

  “I really don’t have to go.”

  “Yes, you do.” Jordan patted her mother’s hand and then let it go. She went to the dresser and began pulling out clothes. “You go every year. And you’ve been looking forward to seeing Aunt Martha for weeks.” She glanced back at her mother. “You’re not the only one with keen observational powers, Mom.”

  Abigail smiled but still looked uncertain. “Are you sure you’ll be all right? This is the first time you’ll have been alone for any length of time since you…got out of the hospital.”

  “You missed last year because of me. There’s no need for you to miss this trip. I’ll be fine, Mom. Promise.”

  She hadn’t missed how her mother’s voice had faded at the end, an echo of just how close she had come to losing her daughter.

  Jordan had moved in with her mother four months after she’d been shot. Her rehab had been lengthy and difficult. The hollow-point bullet had hit her between the left shoulder and breast and had shattered bone, shredded muscle, and sliced a major artery. The initial surgery to fix the artery and save her life had been followed by three more over three months, to repair what the bullet had destroyed.

  When she was released from the hospital, she’d returned to the apartment she shared with Caroline, her partner of six years. But within a month, Caroline was gone. She couldn’t take Jordan pushing her away anymore, she’d said. Jordan didn’t deny the accusation and didn’t blame her for leaving. The truth was, they had been growing apart long before she’d been shot.

  But with her arm needing to be in a sling and the weakness and fatigue that made simple things—like brushing her teeth and cooking meals—infinitely difficult, Abigail and Henry and Ella, Henry’s wife, had insisted Jordan move in with her mother.

  Jordan had only been at her mother’s for a few weeks when Henry brought her Max.

  It took months of arduous physical therapy to rebuild her muscles. Her shoulder still ached from time to time, whenever she pushed too hard and especially when it rained, but for the most part, Jordan was healed. At least physically.

  Jordan secured the box in the back of the SUV and closed the tailgate. Max recognized the action for what it was and stood, his tail swishing back and forth as Jordan approached.

  “You’re ready to go to the cabin, aren’t you, boy?”

  Max chuffed and ran ahead of Jordan into the house, as if he were about to grab her keys and coat so they could get on the road.

  Chapter Four

  Lieutenant Henry Wayne exited his car, annoyed but unsurprised by the chaos before him. The beat cops were doing their best to secure the scene, but the large crowd of gawkers pressed against the crime-scene tape, unconcerned with whatever evidence they might be about to trample.

  “Sergeant! Move that crowd back!”

  The woman nodded at Henry, grabbing the closest two officers and ordering them to push the onlookers back and reset the crime-scene tape ten feet farther away from the diner.

  Henry spotted Detective Martin Lawson and strode toward him.

  “Hey, Lieutenant,” Lawson said as Henry reached him. “Come to check up on me?”

  Lawson had only been with homicide for six months and had shadowed Henry when he first arrived. Normally a new detective would stay with a mentor for at least four months, but not Lawson. Within weeks, Henry had known Lawson had the makings of an outstanding investigator. The rookie had sharp instincts and a nose for bullshit but was also affable and empathetic—essential tools for getting witnesses to open up. Lawson reminded Henry of another fine detective, one whose ability to find the truth was outshone only by her compassion.

  The thought of his partner made Henry sad. He missed her, but more than that, he worried about her. One of these days, he was going to get her to see reason.

  He shook off his melancholy, turning his attention back to the rookie detective. “I don’t know, Lawson. You need checking up on?”

  “Always.”

  “So what have we got?”

  Lawson talked as he led Henry into the diner. “Two Caucasians, one female, one male. The woman has multiple stab wounds. The man had his throat cut.”

  Henry crouched next to the female, his experienced eyes traveling over the body as Lawson continued.

  “Sally Pendleton. Thirty-nine. Owner of the diner along with her husband, Chuck. He’s the one dead in the back.”

  Henry scanned the scene. No footprints. No drag marks. No blood other than that on her clothes and around her. She had died where she’d fallen.

  “According to the regulars, Sally and Chuck usually arrived around four thirty to open the diner at six. There’s nothing to indicate today was any different.”

  “Who found them?” Henry stood, carefully stepping around the body to approach the counter. He noted the mostly empty cash register. He didn’t think they’d find the killer’s prints, but they’d dust it anyway. They’d dust everything, for whatever good it would do. The busy diner was bound to have hundreds of prints, no matter how good they cleaned the place at night.

  “A waitress, Devon James. She was supposed to be here by the time they opened, but she was running late.”

  “Might have saved her life. Why was she late?”

  “Bus.”

  Of course.

  “Forced entry?”

  “No signs of it, front or back. Front door was locked when Ms. James arrived. Only way to lock it is with a key, and there was a set in Sally’s purse and in Chuck’s coat pocket.”

  “Killer might have used them and put them back, gone out the other door.” Henry thought the possibility was unlikely, but a good detective had to explore every alternative, even if only to knock them down. In his more than twenty years as a detective, first with narcotics and then homicide, Henry had learned that even the unlikeliest of possibilities was sometimes true.

  “For a robbery? What thief do you know that locks up and returns the keys before he leaves? Especially after he’s murdered two people?”

  “Hmm.” Henry inspected the cash register. The drawer had been mostly cleaned out. He dug inside his jacket pocket for a pen and used it to sort through what was left in the register. Three one
-dollar bills and a five sitting neatly in their slots, and two rolls of coins, one pennies and one dimes.

  “What about the back door?”

  “Also locked. But that one is a fire door. Locks automatically when it closes. Killer probably went out that way.”

  A small object on the counter caught Henry’s attention. He peered closer. He hadn’t seen a wheat penny in years. Between the Treasury and the collectors, they had mostly fallen out of circulation.

  “Make sure you bag this,” Henry said, not waiting for a response. He headed for the kitchen. Lawson followed.

  “Chuck Pendleton. Thirty-seven. He and Sally were married for eight years. Have owned this diner for the last five.”

  Chuck was propped up against the freezer, his throat a gaping wound. Blood soaked the front of his otherwise pristine white T-shirt and apron. The floor between and in front of Chuck’s legs was sprayed with red, like a macabre, monochromic Jackson Pollock painting. Unlike Sally’s twelve stab wounds, the cook had none. Not that any had been necessary.

  “Theories?” Henry asked.

  “Killer came in through the back door. Locks don’t look tampered with, but there’s a lot of wear. The techs are checking. Maybe he had a spare key, maybe he knew them. Killed Chuck first, likely from behind. Looks like the carotid is cut, so he probably bled out fast. No signs of a struggle either here or in the dining room, so Sally probably wasn’t in here when it happened and didn’t hear anything. Then the killer went for her. No splatter, no smears. He killed her quickly and efficiently. My guess is the ME will find the first thrust killed her, and the rest were done while she was on the ground.”

  Henry thought about it. “Maybe.” He looked over the rest of the kitchen. He noticed a single plate and fork in the drainer and a pie resting on the counter with one slice missing. “We don’t know it was a him,” Henry said, eyeing the plate.

  Lawson chuffed. “What woman you know can take a big guy like Chuck?”

  Henry said nothing. He knew that despite Lawson’s response, his point had been understood. Leaps of logic were fine, even necessary, but assumptions could make you miss things, like a horse wearing blinders. They needed to follow the evidence.

  Henry held his hand out about an inch above the pie. It was still minutely warm, like it had been baked that morning. He supposed either Chuck or Sally could have had a piece for breakfast, but somehow he doubted it. Thirty-two years of his wife’s baking had taught him a thing or two about pies. Assuming Chuck or Sally had started making it as soon as they’d arrived, that pie couldn’t have been done much before five thirty. That would be awfully close to opening time for either of them to sit down and eat a slice.

  He sure did miss Ella’s pies.

  “Bag this plate and fork, too,” Henry said. “So where’s the waitress? Ms. James?”

  “Uniforms have her out front.” They stepped outside beneath a bright blue sky. Pittsburgh weather was often like that. Blustering and overcast one minute, crisp and clear the next. Henry reached for his sunglasses, but then thought better of it. He generally saved the shades for when he wanted to come off like a hard-ass.

  *

  Devon watched Detective Lawson walk toward her, followed by another man. She assumed he was another detective and mentally braced herself for more questions. It wasn’t the first time she had been questioned by the police about a murder. Devon knew the routine. Right now, they were trying to piece together the basic facts and an approximate timeline. The real questions—the hard ones—would come later. She didn’t plan to be around when that time came.

  Devon eyed the new man, sizing him up as he approached. She had gotten pretty good at that over the years, though she knew that first impressions weren’t always the right ones. He was African American, stocky without being fat, like maybe he had been a football player once upon a time. He appeared to be in his midfifties, a touch of gray at his temples. His eyes seemed kind, brown pools devoid of malice or duplicity. You could tell a lot from someone’s eyes, though, like first impressions, they could also be misleading.

  Detective Lawson made the introduction. “Ms. James, this is Lieutenant Henry Wayne. He’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Ms. James,” Lieutenant Wayne said, nodding his head slightly in greeting.

  “I don’t know what else I can tell you, Lieutenant, that I haven’t already told Detective Lawson,” Devon said, careful to keep the urgency from her voice. The sooner they’d finished with her, the sooner she could disappear. But she wouldn’t be going anywhere if they suspected she was anything more than a waitress who’d had the misfortune of discovering two bodies. “But I’m happy to tell you anything I can.”

  “This should only take a few minutes,” the lieutenant said, his voice a rich baritone. “I know it’s been a rough morning.”

  Lieutenant Wayne placed his hand on Devon’s elbow and guided her away from the diner and the crowd, toward a small alcove made by two police cars and what had turned out to be an unnecessary ambulance. Detective Lawson followed silently. Devon thought she detected a deference in Detective Lawson’s actions, not out of duty but out of respect. Clearly this was Lieutenant Wayne’s show now.

  “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “I was running late this morning. My shift started at six but I didn’t get here until about six thirty. When I arrived, there was a group of customers waiting outside. They said the door was locked.”

  “And you unlocked it?”

  Devon nodded. “The main lights were off. For a minute I thought maybe Sally and Chuck had overslept.”

  “Were they often late?”

  “No. Never,” Devon said. An image of Sally’s smiling face filled her mind, and a wave of sadness rose up within her. She pushed it back down.

  “Did you go inside?”

  “Yes. I know I shouldn’t have, but I had to—” Devon caught herself before she slipped completely. I had to see if they were dead. I had to know if it was him. “I didn’t think it might be dangerous.” She couldn’t tell if he had caught her self-censorship.

  “Then what happened?”

  “I saw Sally.”

  “But you didn’t try to help her?”

  The question caught Devon off guard. Of course she hadn’t tried to help. There had been no help to be had, no mistaking the pool of blood or Sally’s lifeless baby-blues glazed over in death. She had known Sally was dead before she opened the door, despite all the plausible explanations that had rolled through her head. But did Lieutenant Wayne know that? How could he? Her mind raced for an explanation, and she searched the investigator’s face for some sign there was more than curiosity behind his question. Her instinct for self-preservation on overdrive, Devon told a half-truth.

  “I was in shock, I guess. She was staring up at the ceiling, and there was so much blood.”

  The lieutenant’s expression never wavered, and he nodded like he believed her. Devon suspected, though, that he didn’t. Her heart started to race, and she tried to quiet it.

  “What else did you see?”

  “I noticed the cash register was open, but that was about it. Then the police arrived.”

  “You didn’t call them?”

  “No. One of the customers must have.”

  Henry nodded again, though Devon didn’t think he was confirming her statement. In fact, Devon thought he probably would have known who called the police before he asked the question. Devon didn’t think he was trying to manipulate her, but she couldn’t be sure. Past experience taught her to assume the worst.

  “Did you go into the kitchen?”

  “No. Once I realized what was happening, I got out of there. I didn’t want to destroy any evidence or anything.”

  Devon regretted the words as soon as she said them. Lieutenant Wayne’s eyebrows rose ever so slightly, in a gesture few would notice if they weren’t really looking. But Devon saw it clear as day.

  The lieutenant closed his notepad and tucked his pen into h
is breast pocket. Detective Lawson stepped forward, awaiting instructions.

  “Is there anything else, Lieutenant? I’d like to go home. It’s been a…horrible morning.” Devon tried to keep her voice neutral.

  “I think we should continue this down at the station,” Lieutenant Wayne said. He smiled, nodding his head toward the crowd on the other side of the police tape. “I’m having a hard time thinking with all this racket.”

  Devon fought the panic welling up inside. “I don’t know what else I can tell you. I wasn’t here when it happened.”

  “I know,” he said reassuringly. “And I’m sorry to delay this any further. I know it’s hard and you want to go home. But I’ve got a few more questions I need to ask. Just to make sure I’ve got everything I need to catch whoever did this.”

  Over the lieutenant’s shoulder, Devon noticed a look of surprise flash across Detective Lawson’s face. As quickly as it appeared it was gone.

  “Detective Lawson will take you to the station. I’ll be right behind you.”

  Knowing objecting any further would only raise Lieutenant Wayne’s suspicions, Devon agreed. She told herself it was simply a matter of routine, that it meant nothing and in a few hours she’d walk out of the police station and leave Pittsburgh far behind. She told herself these things as Detective Lawson led her to his car, but she didn’t believe them. She could feel the walls closing in around her.

  *

  Billy stood at the back of the crowd, watching the police flittering about, throwing their weight around. He knew police, knew their routines and their predilection to act like they had everything under control amidst a sea of chaos. He wondered what they thought of his work, whether they had any idea this was anything but a standard robbery-homicide.

  They don’t have a clue.

  He took it all in from behind the indistinct and faded ball cap pulled low across his forehead. Despite the sun’s glare, he did not wear sunglasses. The combination of the hat and glasses might draw unnecessary attention, whereas the hat by itself was like a dozen others in the crowd.