by Tim Downs
“Sorry, that’s not good enough. I think I deserve to know—”
They were interrupted by the trill of a cell phone; they both listened as it rang several times.
“You might want to take that,” Yanuzzi said. “Who knows, it might be your long-lost fiancé.”
“Is that my phone? I never heard it ring before.” Alena hurriedly searched through her shoulder bag and found the phone; she checked the incoming number, but it wasn’t Nick’s. “Hello? Oh, Noah, it’s you—I didn’t recognize your number. What? Then the pictures worked—there was enough resolution? Well, what did you see? Can you tell me anything?”
For the next few minutes Alena stood silently and listened. She finally said, “Okay—I got it. Yeah, you’re right, it’s complicated—but I get the gist. I agree, we have to make sure—I’ll head back over there now. Thanks, Noah—I really appreciate this.”
She dropped the phone back into her purse and turned for the door.
“Where are you going?” Yanuzzi asked.
“Back to that lake house,” she said. “By the way, that cold case—the one you called ‘ancient history’? Well, it’s not history anymore.”
30
The town of Honesdale was only a few miles north of Pine Summit and it took Nick less than ten minutes to get there on Highway 6. He had a couple of hours to kill before Donovan would arrive from DC, and if Donovan was right about Yanuzzi’s capacity for violence, then Pine Summit wasn’t the place to hang out right now. But Nick hadn’t driven to Honesdale just to hide out or to pass the time; Honesdale was the last known address for Curtis Medlin, the home-care nurse who had contributed to the death of George Hotchkiss— and Nick had a long list of questions for him.
He planned to begin by asking Medlin the same basic questions the police had undoubtedly asked him three years ago: What was your schedule of care for the old man? What services were you obligated to provide? When did you last visit him in his home? What condition was the old man in when you last saw him? Then, after Medlin finished lying, Nick planned to tell him about the puparia he discovered and to explain exactly what they meant. Next, he would summarize the charges that would be filed against Medlin and the probable prison sentence that would result from a verdict of negligent homicide. Finally, for the coup de grâce, Nick planned to ask Medlin whether there was anyone else who might share responsibility for what happened at the lake house. That’s when Medlin’s survival instincts would kick in, and that’s when Nick might finally discover what this case was all about. With luck, he might even uncover the link to Marty Keller and to his old friend Pete Boudreau.
Donovan’s revelation about Yanuzzi’s true identity had come as a complete surprise to Nick, but it was welcome news. Yanuzzi was obviously withholding information about the death of his deputy, not to mention Yanuzzi’s possible connection to the lake house case Keller had been working on when he died. Yanuzzi had no motivation to volunteer that information to Nick, and unfortunately Nick had no leverage over him—but once Yanuzzi was in custody, things would be different. Then he’d be needing to cut a deal, and there was no telling what kind of information he might be willing to trade in the process.
Honesdale looked a lot like Hawley or Pine Summit—just a couple of main streets lined with old brick buildings and vinylsided houses that now housed retail shops and antique stores catering to tourists. He followed Park Street west of town until the houses became fewer and farther between—and in much greater need of repair. He finally found the address—just a tiny cracker box of a house set back from the road along a small creek. The siding looked newer than the roof, which was streaked with dark mildew; there was a tangle of utility lines dangling like spaghetti from the left side of the house, and on the opposite side a little gray satellite dish pointed up at the sky. Those were the only signs of modernization or improvement Nick saw; the house as a whole looked run-down to the point of abandonment. There was one sign of modest affluence, however: a car parked on the grass in front of the house—it looked almost new. Nick made a mental note—that was another question for Medlin: “Nice car—when did you buy it?”
The car at least told him that someone was home. Whether or not Medlin would be willing to talk to him was another matter, but he had nothing to lose by trying. The single-lane gravel drive came to an abrupt end fifty feet from the house, so Nick followed the lead of the other car and pulled off onto the grass to park.
He got out of his car and looked at the house; he saw ground-floor windows half open—another hopeful indication of occupancy. “Hello!” he called out—it seemed like a friendly gesture, and it might set a good tone for a conversation that could turn bad quickly. “Anybody home? I’m not a salesman, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
There was no answer from the house.
He walked to the front door; there was a small concrete pad that functioned as a landing. He searched for a doorbell but found none, so he knocked and waited . . .
Still no response.
He decided that his only recourse was to circle the house and discreetly look in the windows, hoping to find Medlin napping on a sofa somewhere. The window to his right that faced the front of the house opened into a small room that probably once served as a living room or parlor; now it looked like a garage in desperate need of a sale. He rounded the corner and skipped the next window—it would open into the same room. The next window he came to was smaller and higher and the panes were made of privacy glass—obviously a bathroom. Nick put his ear to the wall and listened for the sound of a vent fan; he heard nothing. He stepped back from the window and looked; he could see daylight from the interior of the house. The bathroom door was apparently open—that meant the room was most likely unoccupied.
The next window opened into the kitchen. Nick cupped his hands against the glass and began to scan the room from left to right—but when his eyes came to the center of the room he stopped. He saw the body of a man slumped over a small dining table with his head lying in a pool of blood.
Nick had never seen Curtis Medlin before, but he had no doubt as to the victim’s identity. It wasn’t simply that the house belonged to Medlin or that Medlin lived alone—it was the fact that Nick had questions for him, and that could be reason enough for someone to want him dead.
Well, someone got his wish.
Nick returned to the front of the house with the half-open parlor window and checked the street for passing cars before using his keys to pry the screen from the window frame. He slipped through the window and made his way down a short hallway and into the kitchen.
He looked at the disposition of the victim’s body: slumped directly forward in his chair, his head turned neatly to the right, exposing a gaping bullet wound on the right side of the skull. His arms dangled straight down on either side, with his right hand almost pointing to a 9-mm slide-action handgun on the linoleum floor.
Nick almost laughed—it had to be the clumsiest attempt to fake a suicide he had ever seen. The guy was dead all right, but nothing else about the scenario rang true. It was too neat—too orderly—too predictable. Whoever set this up was a complete amateur; people just didn’t understand the physics of a bullet penetrating bone or the sometimes bizarre behavior of muscle and tissue and blood. Bodies don’t gently slump forward, heads don’t turn sideways in comfortable resting positions, and guns don’t fall neatly by your side—those things only happen on TV because the director has to keep the action in the frame. In real life, skulls recoil, muscles convulse in cadaveric response, bodies are discovered in grotesque and gawking postures, and blood turns up in the strangest of places.
This setup was so obvious that for a moment Nick wondered if it might have been intended that way; maybe it was supposed to look like a setup to keep him from considering something else. But Nick had no idea what that “something else” might be, and he had learned a long time ago that when it came to murder, the simplest explanation was usually the best. Human beings just didn’t seem to think cle
arly when they started killing each other, which Nick found surprising since they seemed to do it so often.
He bent down over the body and adjusted his glasses to get a closer look. He found blowfly eggs oviposited around the wound like finely grated cheese; he looked at the face and saw more eggs around the nostrils and in the moist corners of the eyes and mouth. No surprise there; the weather was warm and the windows had been left open—and no screen will stop a blowfly for long. What Nick found significant was that none of the eggs had hatched yet. At this time of year and in these temperatures the eggs would hatch in approximately a day, indicating that the body hadn’t been here much longer than that.
There were variables, of course: Blowfly activity all but ceases at night, so if the murder had occurred at night, the blowflies might not have found the body until the next morning. And if the window screens were all intact, they might have slowed the blowflies’ access to the body. It was impossible to tell exactly without further study, but Nick’s best guess was that Medlin had been dead no more than two days.
He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. Part of him felt disappointed—he had such a fine list of questions and now he would never get a chance to ask them. Worse than that, he was going to miss the chance to see the look on Medlin’s face when he was caught in a flat-out lie—and he wouldn’t get to see that look of frantic desperation when Medlin started naming names. Nick hated to miss those things—they were part of his ongoing study of the irrational nature of the human species. That was the part of an investigation that Nick enjoyed most— the equivalent of studying a living insect under a microscope. He looked at Medlin and sadly shook his head; unfortunately, the problem with living specimens was that they had a habit of wriggling off the slide.
But overall, Nick was still satisfied with his visit. He didn’t need to ask his list of questions; Medlin was answering them right now, just by the way he was lying there.
The back door showed no sign of forced entry; neither did the front. That meant someone Medlin knew had walked right into his house and put a gun to his head—and the unknown assailant had been motivated to commit this act within the last two days.
Bingo.
31
It was evening by the time Alena reached the lake house; the sun had already set behind the pines to the west and the sky was darkening fast. She knocked hard on the door and waited; a moment later a light went on in the foyer and the door swung open.
Duncan Malone looked at her. “You said you’d call first next time.”
“Yeah, sorry. I wrapped up a job over in Pine Summit faster than I expected and I thought I’d squeeze yours in. You seemed to be in a hurry last time.”
“How long is this gonna take?”
“Not long, I promise.”
Malone looked at the dogs. “Uh-uh—no dogs this time.”
“I explained about that.”
“You also said you’d keep them in line, but I saw one of them up on the bed last time—remember? Leave them in the truck this time.”
“But—”
“Lady—either leave them in the truck or come back without them.”
Alena reluctantly locked the dogs in the truck and returned to the house. “Okay, no dogs—are you happy now? Let’s do this thing.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“What?”
“Tools? Or were you just planning to take more measurements?”
“Oh, right. Well, I thought I’d—”
“You want to tell me what you’re really doing here?”
Alena blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You’re no carpenter, lady—you don’t even dress like one. You don’t have any tools in that truck of yours, do you? And what’s with the canine corps?”
“Okay,” she mumbled. “I’m not really a carpenter.”
“Yeah, I figured—you’re a lousy liar.”
“I’m really a pretty good liar,” she said. “I’m just in a hurry right now.”
“What’s this all about?”
“You know that ‘idiot’ who was here before—the one who tore up your carpet and wall? Well . . . that idiot is my fiancé.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Believe me, right now I wish I was. We’re getting married tomorrow in Virginia and I can’t find him.”
“He was just here a couple days ago.”
“I know—but I don’t know where he went next. I knew he came to this house; I thought if I could figure out what he was doing here I might know where he went. See, your house is part of a mystery. An old man died here—you told me about him yourself, remember? The previous owner, you said. Well, the old man was sick before he died and there was a nurse who was supposed to take care of him—only he didn’t.”
“He didn’t?”
“No—and my fiancé can prove it.”
“He can? How?”
“Look—if you’ll just let me back in that bedroom for five minutes, I promise I’ll explain everything. No kidding, five minutes—that’s all I need.”
Malone paused. “Okay,” he said, “but no dogs.”
“They’re already locked up.”
When they reached the bedroom Alena immediately pulled back the carpet and exposed the base of the wall. She walked around to the nightstand and opened the top drawer.
“Hey,” Malone said.
“Sorry—I need some Q-tips and some kind of container.”
She went back to the wall and began to search along the crack while Malone watched her.
“What are you doing down there?” he asked.
“The old man died right here,” she said. “And he lay on the carpet for a long time before anybody found him.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because certain kinds of flies are attracted to dead bodies. The females lay their eggs on the body, then the eggs hatch and turn into maggots, then the maggots grow up and turn into more flies—and that all takes time.” She pried out one of the little puparia, placed it in her cupped hand, and held it out to him. “See this? That’s called a puparium. It’s sort of like a cocoon—it’s what the maggots leave behind when they turn into grown-up flies. See, when the maggots are ready to turn into adults, they crawl away from the body and look for someplace private where they can hide. Nick knew that—he knew this crack along the wall is where they’d have to go. That’s why he ripped up your carpet—to look for these.”
“So what do they prove?”
“Like I said, it all takes time. Nick knows exactly how long it takes for a fly to grow from an egg to a maggot and then crawl away from the body. He found these puparia in the wall, so he knows the body had to be here at least that long.”
“I get that,” Malone said. “But you said there was a nurse who was supposed to take care of the old man, only he didn’t— and you could prove it.”
“That’s right, and this is the really cool part. See, different kinds of flies are attracted to different sorts of things—you just have to know what kind of fly it is, and an expert can tell just by looking at these cocoons they leave behind. The last time I was here I collected a few and I took pictures of them with my cell phone—I sent them to a guy down at NC State who knows all about this stuff, just like Nick does. And you know what? It turns out these are special flies—I can’t pronounce the name— but they’re not attracted to dead bodies at all.”
“Then what are they doing here?”
“They’re attracted to feces and urine—and that’s all. Get it?
That means the nurse wasn’t taking care of the old man—not for a long time. That’s why the flies were attracted to him.”
“But—if that’s true, wouldn’t the police have found the body that way?”
“Not if somebody cleaned him up after he was dead—and somebody did.”
“How do you know?”
“My dog told me.”
Malone just looked at her.
“My three-legged dog—the one you
saw up on that bed last time—she’s a cadaver dog. She’s trained to detect the scent of human remains, and whenever she does, she lies down. That’s called her ‘alert’—that’s how she tells me she’s found something.
Well, she found something all right—and it was up on that bed.”
“I’m not following you,” Malone said.
Alena pointed to the bed. “The old man was lying there; he was in really bad shape because nobody was taking care of him—nobody was even bathing him. Maybe he was suffering; maybe he figured nobody was ever going to come—so he dragged himself out of bed and collapsed right there, and that’s where he died. His body lay here for days—long enough for those maggots to drop away from his body and crawl to the wall. Then somebody came along and found him—somebody who didn’t want the cops to find him in that condition—so he hoisted him up onto the bed and cleaned him up before he called the police. Guess who that ‘somebody’ was.”
“The nurse,” Malone said.
“That’s right—he was the only one with motive. Get it now? My dog found the scent of death in two places, but a man can die only in one—so somebody must have moved him after he died.”
“That was three years ago,” Malone said. “Your dog can still tell?”
“Yep. When a body starts to break down it releases fluids— ‘exudate,’ Nick calls it, but in my business we just call it ‘stinker juice.’ The stuff gets into carpets, mattresses, soil, whatever the body happens to be lying on—and once it’s there a dog can find it. Trygg’s amazing—she can find anything.”
“And you can prove all this—in court, I mean?”
“If I can collect enough specimens. See, the guy down at NC State—the fly expert—I sent him only a couple of photos. He says they’ll want more than photos in court—they’ll want the real thing. He says the more specimens I collect, the more positive the ID and the stronger the case. Don’t worry—it’ll only take a few minutes.” She bent down again and resumed the task of prying the fragile little capsules from their hiding place and dropping them one by one into the pill container.
