What had happened to Joelle’s mother?
Sonora closed her eyes. Opened them. Two hours ago she had come in dog tired from Bisky Farms. She had drunk half a beer, but it had upset her stomach, and the alcohol had not put her to sleep.
She’d been turning the ceiling fan off and on, off and on, hoping that being cold and bundling in blankets would help her sleep. But she kept getting too cold, even with the socks, and Clampett, unable to sleep with her constant activity, had jumped off the bed and burrowed underneath with his secret cache of stolen socks and mangled stuffed animals.
He was snoring. Maybe she should eat dog food; it certainly worked for Clampett.
Her mind went back to her horse, Poppin, and she could not quell that feeling in the pit of her stomach. What the hell was she going to do with a horse? Talk about your big animals.
And where was Joelle’s horse? Was the animal alive? Sold to slaughter? Hidden away? Gone west with the night?
The panic was coming, a tightness in the chest, and she’d gone from cold to hot, sweat filming the back of her neck at the hairline. She sat up, swung her legs over the side of the bed, hung her head. Took a couple of deep breaths.
She went to the closet, rummaged in the pile of clothes at the bottom till she found her favorite sweatpants, pulled them on over the silk boxers she’d charged to her account at Victoria’s Secret. Put on a jog bra and a loose black sweatshirt. She could not stand to wear anything tight when she had this panicky feeling.
Sonora tied her hair in a high ponytail, breathing with relief as it left her neck bare. She splashed water on her face. Looked in the mirror. Dark shadows beneath her eyes and a look of wide-eyed panic.
Definitely going crazy.
She padded downstairs, heard Clampett groan. She walked softly, careful not to wake Heather and Tim. Which became a moot point when she rounded the corner and saw the flickering light in the living room.
They were playing a video game, Heather in her oversized football jersey – Go Bengals – and Tim, barefooted and shirtless with goose bumps on his arms, jeans riding low under his green plaid boxers.
Sonora sat on the couch and curled up in a blanket before they saw her. ‘Turn it off.’ Her voice was quiet but with the underlying steel of a very offended parent.
Tim and Heather exchanged panicked looks – Sonora was not sure whether their desperation came from being caught, or being forced to abandon the game just when they’d defeated something called Gendermaye, thus acquiring a ticket to the City of Golden Tents.
The game went off without protest from the children, and Sonora was assured of her authority, a good feeling. The television screen went a vibrant shade of blue that mean it was in between – movies, cable, video games.
‘What’s going on?’ she asked. Wondering how many nights this happened while she was working late.
‘I couldn’t sleep,’ Heather said.
‘She was crying about her hair again, and I was trying to distract her.’ Tim smiled, disingenuous. ‘We didn’t want to wake you up, man, we know how hard you’ve been working.’
Sonora studied him. He would be a charming man when he grew up. He would excel as a salesman, politician or attorney.
And Heather had been crying – her cheeks showed tear tracks, dry but unmistakable, and her eyelids were puffy. She had insisted on cutting her waist-length hair short two weeks ago, and was mourning its loss, even though the new chin-length style was perfect for her small, delicate face. Sonora’s opinion, which was that the cut was adorable, carried absolutely no weight.
‘I have a surprise,’ Sonora said, matter-of-fact. They looked at her, kind of a sideways thing. ‘A good surprise. I bought us a horse.’
Sonora was blaming the night on the full moon. It was almost full, more of an oval than a circle, but good enough. And she hadn’t had a family outing with the kids for way too long.
Nobody was sleeping anyway.
She sat on a hay bale and watched Tim and Heather petting the latest addition to their family. Clampett was pressed against her leg, watching the horse like it might explode.
The lights in the barn were achingly bright, here at two o’clock in the morning. It was chilly and breezy, and Sonora wore a knit jacket over her sweatshirt, two pair of socks and her oldest Reeboks. Heather’s cheeks were pink, whether from the cold or excitement Sonora could not tell.
The barn had that Christmas morning aura of magic and breathless expectations.
Poppin was, if nothing else, a friendly and curious horse. He had been standing in his stall, head down, hind leg cocked, eyes sleepy, but seemed quite willing to stick his head out the stall door and accept pats in the middle of the night.
‘I can’t believe this, Mommy, it’s like a dream come true.’
‘Yeah, Heather, but that dream will bite, so step back a little and don’t let him put his mouth on you like that.’
Tim grinned. ‘Can I ride him to school tomorrow?’
‘All in due time.’ Sonora listened to herself, thinking that she sounded sensible, just like a grown-up, just like her mother. Except it was 2 a.m. and she’d not only bought a horse but was bringing the kids in for a visit in the middle of the night.
Sonora held up a plain white paper bag. ‘Hamburgers, anybody? There’s eight left.’
No one answered except Clampett.
They had stopped at White Castle along the way, which was how Sonora had celebrated all important events in her childhood. She was aware that more sophisticated people drank champagne.
Looking back with the eyes of an adult, she thought her mother might have preferred the champagne, or at least food that did not come in square cardboard boxes, but she could not get over the childhood conditioning that White Castle was exciting.
She closed her eyes, conjuring late summer nights, heated pavement, the smell of gasoline fumes. She could see the car headlights haloed by moths and mosquitoes, feel the up-past-bedtime excitement, and she was once again in the back seat of the ’56 Buick with her brother Stuart, their legs brown with sun, hands glazed with grime, soles of their feet black from going barefoot on hot, tar-sticky pavement.
Sonora had a sudden and strong sense of her brother, as if he were there in the barn, and not long gone into that not-so-good night. Clampett nudged her knee, and she fed him a hamburger. In the efficient way of large dogs, he ate the box it came in as well.
Chapter Forty-Two
Sonora leaned against the wall of the hallway in the morgue, holding a Styrofoam cup of coffee that Sam had just handed her. She took a small sip. A mistake.
Was the ulcer coming back? She hadn’t had a twinge in over a year.
Maybe not. Her stomach was often upset this early in the morning if she’d had a pretty sleepless night, like she had last night.
Sam picked a piece of hay out of her hair. ‘What’s this?’
‘I had to get up at five a.m. to feed that horse.’
‘Wouldn’t McCarty feed it?’
‘Yeah, but I wanted to check on him myself. See if he was okay. Put some more shavings in his stall.’ McCarty was going to kill her when he saw how many shavings she’d used, Bisky-inspired, to bed out Poppin’s stall. She wondered how much they cost. Figured she’d be finding out soon enough.
‘Was he?’
‘Was who?’
‘The horse, Sonora. Was he okay?’
‘He was nervous. He’s like that a lot.’
Sam patted her shoulder. ‘He’ll settle in.’
‘I can’t drink this, Sam. You want it?’
‘I was raised up not to let anything go to waste.’ He took the cup, went through the motions, but his mind was elsewhere. Like hers.
‘I haven’t felt like this since my first autopsy.’
Sam put his hands on her shoulders, massaged the muscles. She touched the top of his hands. Strong fingers, masculine, vibrant with tensile strength.
She was getting that feeling again, like she couldn’t breathe.
>
Eversley nodded at them as he passed in the hallway. He stopped by the metal cart which sat outside the steel swing doors that led into the lab where the autopsy would be performed.
‘Sam, why do they say performed?’
He stopped rubbing her shoulders. ‘What?’
‘When they talk about autopsies. Why do they say performed? Why not … executed?’
‘Because the victim is already dead.’
Stella Bellair passed them next, heading down the hall with her entourage of indentured servants otherwise known as medical students.
Stella inclined her head. Then the hallway was quiet, save for the soft echo of rubber-shod feet and the swing of the steel door as everyone went into the autopsy room.
Sonora looked at Sam. Time.
Chapter Forty-Three
Sonora could hear the faint rise and fall of Sam’s breath, realized they were breathing together in rhythm.
She sat next to Sam in Interview One. Their knees touched.
The door was open. They could hear Crick’s hand slide up and down the wall as he fumbled for the switch. The light was harsh and sudden, but neither Sam nor Sonora flinched.
If Crick was surprised to see them sitting side by side in the dark, he did not comment, merely looked at his watch, muttered ‘Two out of three’ and left.
Sonora watched her co-workers walk past the open doorway, down the hall to the bullpen. She felt out of sync, as if they inhabited another universe. They walked back to their desks, did their paperwork, worked their shift. Drank coffee or Coke or Highbridge Springs Mountain Water. Mango Snapple. They answered the phone, listened to their messages and filled out the endless cycle of forms that violent crime always engendered.
And she knew that some days, sometimes, all of them felt just like she did just then. She experienced a quick touch of nostalgic sympathy for all of them, as if they were long-lost relatives she would never see again.
Crick came back through the door with his own personal coffee pot, chipped enamel, harvest yellow, in which he made his own very bad coffee.
He had brought Sonora her mug, the half-moon of lipstick like a brand on the side. She felt embarrassed. The guys kept their mugs cleaner than she did. Crick set a cup in front of Sam. Laid out spoons and the jar of dust-encrusted Cremora that had been sitting on his file cabinet since Sonora had come to work for him in Homicide seven and a half years earlier.
Sonora gave the jar everything she had to get it open. Inside, the white powder looked gummy and gray, as if someone had left it out in the rain. She dug out a chunk with a plastic spoon, put it in her cup. The coffee went from oily black to oily brown. Just needed to find a victim to feed it to.
‘Want some?’ She held the cup out to Sam. Who looked in the cup, then at Crick.
‘How long has that creamer been sitting around?’
Crick looked at the ceiling. Frowned, making his eyebrows bunch thickly. ‘Have to be 1962.’
Sonora wondered why it would have to be 1962. Knew it would be useless to ask; Crick would never explain. She believed he made statements like that one just to make people crazy.
Sam screwed the lid back on the jar. It made a grinding noise, like someone gritting their teeth. ‘None for me, y’all, but thanks just the same.’
‘Real cops drink it black.’ This from Mickey, who stood in the doorway, a brown accordion file under one arm, a legal pad dangling from his fingers and a bottle of Jolt cola in his right hand.
The bottle was one-third full. Mickey paused in the doorway to take a healthy swig, belched in polite understatement into the top of his fist, as if he were speaking into a microphone.
‘Come in, Mickey.’ Crick did not bother to turn around.
Mickey raised the bottle over his head, so he could scratch behind his ear with his little finger.
‘He recognizes your voice,’ Sonora said.
‘More like your belch.’ This from Sam.
‘You can’t say I’m not entertaining.’ Mickey joined them at the table, set his accordion folder down. Straddled a chair and pulled himself all the way to the edge of the table.
Crick scooted his chair closer in, the signal to begin. ‘Let’s start with the autopsy. What you got?’
Sonora rubbed her finger on the edge of the table. She had only just realized that women who had really beautiful nails were likely wearing acrylics. It did not annoy her. It made her want to go out and get a pair of her own.
Joelle Chauncey had tiny little nails, bitten down to the quick, bluish white where once they had been pink-tinged and healthy.
Sonora cleared her throat. ‘No foreign matter under the nails that would indicate she put up a struggle or fought an attacker. No defense wounds on the fingers or hands or arms.’
‘Cause of death?’ Crick asked. He was making notes.
‘Suffocation. Foreign matter in the nasal cavities including fibers, which will be sent to Mickey for a match with the blanket she was wrapped in, indicating that she was buried alive.’ Sonora paused, looked up at Crick, who held up a finger.
‘The blow to the head was not the cause of death?’
Sam rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Dr Bellair said the head trauma would have eventually been fatal, but that Joelle was alive when she was buried in the manure pile.’
‘Not conscious?’ Crick asked.
‘No. And no sign she woke up and struggled – her hands were clean.’ Sam looked at Mickey.
‘Yeah, crossed over her chest. Like this.’ Mickey crossed his arms, a palm on each shoulder in classic undertaker pose.
‘Placement,’ Crick said, opening a file and laying out black-and-whites from the secondary crime scene.
Sonora looked up and nodded. ‘Very much so.’
Mickey opened the accordion folder, began adding pictures to Crick’s pile.
‘Stella thinks the killer washed Joelle’s face.’
Crick met Sonora’s eyes. ‘That so?’ He pulled a photo across the desk. Sonora leaned forward, recognized Joelle Chauncey wrapped in hunter green.
‘She found traces of the kind of residue you’d find on commercial wet wipes,’ she told him.
‘What about the blanket?’
‘Horse cooler,’ Sam said. ‘A lot of hairs on it, some horse, some human.’
Crick pulled up another picture. Put it down. ‘Time of death?’
Sonora pulled the hair off the back of her neck, which was filmed with sweat. It had been hot in the autopsy room. Stella kept it overheated, as if her patients could feel the cold as they lay flaccid and unprotected on the wet steel table, their bodily fluids running like a river down the troughs along the side.
Sonora frowned. ‘Time of death is complicated.’
‘When is it not?’ Mickey, drinking from his cola bottle.
‘Stomach contents were chicken nuggets, French fries and pineapple chunks, all about three and a half to four hours digested. Canned ravioli was eaten just before death, almost no digestion. We checked with the school cafeteria, and the chicken nuggets, et cetera, pan out. Rigor was further along than you’d expect, looking at the stomach contents. If you go by rigor and body temperature, she died around ten a.m.
‘If you go by the stomach contents, say three-thirty to five p.m., which is more in line with everything we’ve gotten from witnesses. Stella thinks that Joelle was knocked unconscious, and the trauma stopped the digestive process. And that the heat of the manure pile accelerated the rigor. Her estimate for time of death is between three-thirty and seven-thirty p.m.’
Crick looked at Mickey. Waiting.
‘We’re not ready to close the casebook here’ – Mickey opened his arms – ‘but preliminaries tell me the pickup truck at the secondary crime scene is a match for the one that went through the fence at the primary scene. So, in my opinion, what we got is the vehicle used in the commission of the crime.’
Crick folded his arms and nodded. He looked at Sam and Sonora. ‘What’s your take on the people who own
the truck? Alridge, isn’t that the name?’
‘Kidgwick,’ Sonora said.
Sam scratched his cheek. ‘My take is that they’re about the unluckiest couple who ever walked the face of the earth, or that property they got is bad luck. Really bad.’
‘You superstitious?’ Crick asked.
‘Wasn’t. Am now.’
‘You know the place,’ Sonora said. ‘Where the Randolph boy was murdered.’
Crick was nodding. It was always annoying to tell him things, Sonora thought, since he already knew everything. A sort of teenager for life.
‘They had a daughter who was involved, didn’t they?’ Crick said.
‘She died,’ Sam said. ‘Car wreck, single car, suspected vehicular suicide.’
‘How’d they hold up?’
‘They play New Age music,’ Sonora explained.
For some reason, this description satisfied Crick. ‘And while they were listening to those harps, bells and whistles, did they happen to notice that their truck was missing? Did they manage to see a guy burying a little girl in the manure pile behind their house?’
‘The barn kind of hides it from view,’ Sonora said.
Crick rolled his eyes.
‘They work,’ Sam explained. ‘They probably weren’t home.’
Crick shrugged. ‘Get their schedule down. I’m guessing our killer did his bad deeds while the Kidgwicks were doing their nine-to-fives. Which means he’s pretty comfortable, pretty familiar with the area. And that the killing was planned.’
Sonora frowned. ‘That doesn’t fit the Bisky Farms theory.’
‘Blair, be radical. Get the facts before the theory.’
She sighed. Crick found a way to use that line in every single investigation. He was like a parent, mouthing the same irritating strictures, over and over and over.
Crick leaned into the table, supporting his weight on both elbows, Mickey the object of his intensity. ‘Was Joelle Chauncey transported in that truck?’
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