by E. R. FALLON
“We should put the siren on and give him a hard time,” Carlow said.
She actually laughed at his joke.
Harry took Carlow’s advice about the GPS being useless for the trip to Emily Will’s house seriously and relied on his directions. No matter how incapable the guy seemed to sometimes be, he had been born and raised in the area, so she figured even someone like him had to get the directions right.
They didn’t speak much on the way to Emily Will’s place and that’s just how Harry liked it. Carlow mentioned he rode horses on the weekends. Like a cowboy, Harry thought with sarcasm.
“You weren’t kidding when you said it’s in the middle of nowhere,” Harry commented as she drove down a long dirt road Carlow had instructed her to turn onto.
From that road they drove down a dirt driveway and then reached the house.
Emily Will lived in a sprawling compound with snow-dusted, rolling fields that Harry imagined in the summertime became lush and green and overgrown with wildflowers. She could see the snowy mountains in the distance. Emily had a cottage-like house with a small porch, surrounded by thick trees. Harry’s first thought was, how could Emily Will afford such a large piece of property?
Carlow put his coat on and got out of the car before her. “I bet I know what you’re thinking. Land is cheap around here.”
“I was thinking that, Carlow, but I was also thinking, what a lonely place to live.”
“She was a recluse because of her problems,” Carlow said.
“You know her?”
He shook his head.
Perhaps Officer Carlow wasn’t as shallow as Harry had thought.
Harry’s phone rang. She took it out and looked at the screen. Another unknown number. As usual, she answered it. This had been happening and off for days, since the day before Maria’s murder. She was pretty sure she knew who the caller was, and she wasn’t going to let him get away with intimidating her, so every time he called her, she answered it. She never gave him what she knew he wanted, to hear her say his name.
“Hello?”
Nothing but loud breathing on the other end, breathing that belonged to a man.
“Hello?”
The caller hung up.
“Who was it?” Carlow asked as she put her phone away.
“No one.” She didn’t feel like talking about it, especially not with Carlow. “You asked me this before. Who calls me isn’t your business.”
Carlow gave her a sheepish look.
Harry spotted what looked like a fresh grave under a tall, thin tree with wispy leaves by the cottage. She went up to it thinking it might be human but as soon as she saw the small headstone engraved with the image of a Labrador Retriever dog she knew it must have been a beloved pet. The headstone read: ‘In Loving Memory of Sally.’
Carlow looked at the grave over her shoulder. “I hope she didn’t kill her dog.”
“I doubt it. She wouldn’t have bought such a nice headstone if she’d done that.”
“I guess. Unless she felt guilty.”
The sight of the dog’s grave got to Harry more than she realized because it reminded her of losing River. She could relate to Emily Will in that respect and it made everything about the house call harder for her.
She whipped around to face Carlow. “We don’t know that.”
Carlow put his hands up. “Easy, tiger.”
Harry shook her head and went into the opened garage.
“Should we be going in there?” Carlow asked.
Harry shrugged. “The door was open.” She didn’t see a car. “According to Nolan, Emily Will has a vehicle registered in her name at this address.”
“Maybe she went out for a while?” Carlow said.
“Maybe, but see how there are no fresh tire tracks or footprints? It rained, what, a day or so ago? The tracks and footprints were washed away and no new ones were created.”
“So she hasn’t been home for days.”
Harry went up the front porch with Carlow at her side. There was a doorbell but she knocked because it somehow felt less invasive given Emily Will’s condition. She knocked quietly at first, then loudly when no one answered. She peeked through the front door’s glass pane and saw mail accumulated behind the door. She pointed it out to Carlow. And there was a smell. A very bad smell.
Carlow held his nose. “What the heck is that? How could the postman not have smelled that and called us?”
Harry shrugged. “Maybe a day ago it wasn’t as bad as it is now. Besides, it’s Monday, and they don’t deliver mail on Sundays. So maybe on Saturday it wasn’t stinking.”
“Do you think it’s a body?”
“Oh, yeah.”
Harry couldn’t see anything from where she stood, but she’d recognize the smell of death anywhere. It was a smell she’d smelled many times over her years as a detective in a big city with lots of crime and hot weather. And it was a smell she’d never ever forget.
Harry turned the knob and then pushed the door in but it didn’t open. She’d have to break it down, and she’d need a warrant or cause to do so in order for anything they found afterwards to hold up in court.
“Ah, screw it,” she said. “Someone could be in danger.”
That would be enough cause. She pressed her shoulder against the door to see if it would budge, but when it didn’t she kicked at it. The door swung open with two kicks. She looked behind her, and Carlow looked like he might puke his guts out on the front porch. The smell was even worse with the door open. But she still couldn’t see a body inside. She stepped over the mail and went inside the house. Officer Carlow followed behind her holding his hat over his nose. Harry assumed this was in case he got sick. So used to the smell of death, Harry didn’t need to use anything to minimize it.
There were makeshift curtains nailed to the windows. The stench from all the way outside led Harry to behind the sofa in the living room where a body was covered by a blanket. Next to her Carlow looked away as she pulled off the blanket, revealing the badly decaying corpse of who she assumed had been Emily’s doctor.
“Is that Dr. Tompkins?” she asked Carlow.
“I don’t know. I’ve never even seen a photo of him.”
With the heat on, the corpse had melted despite the cool outside weather, and it was hard to tell the gender. Harry thought the hair and the outline of the face looked distinctly male and so it must have been Dr. Tompkins. The body hadn’t been there long enough for the flies to get to it.
From his purple-colored face, and the way his tongue stuck out of his mouth and how his eyes bulged from his face, it looked like the doctor had been strangled. Not shot. No doubt about that.
Was Emily Will the kind of woman capable of strangling someone, a man in particular? Most women weren’t.
Harry had only seen one case where a woman had strangled someone. Harry had studied serial killers with the FBI one summer as part of her old department’s training, something she’d never tell Maple, and she knew about almost every way there was to kill someone. Strangulation was a very personal crime and often a sign of extreme rage or fetishism from the perpetrator. But Emily had military training and might have been strong enough and capable.
Harry put on a pair of plastic gloves from her pocket and looked more closely at the finger impressions on the doctor’s bloated neck. They seemed large, masculine. Did Emily Will have a male accomplice? And had the man killed the doctor and then fled with Emily? Or had a man killed the doctor and then kidnapped Emily?
“Wow, do you think she did it?” Carlow spoke like he was thinking aloud.
“I’m not sure. Just because she’s … has a mental problem … doesn’t mean she’s capable of murder.”
“Right, sure.” Carlow didn’t sound convinced.
“Really, Carlow. Just because … you shouldn’t think that way.”
“All right. Sorry.”
“From what I remember from my FBI course, strangulation is often very personal.”
“
She did know him.”
“Yeah, but he was just her doctor.”
“Maybe they were more than that.”
Harry looked at the unhandsome, unfortunate corpse of Dr. Tompkins and doubted that very much. “Nah. He’s too old for her, and no disrespect to the dead, but his looks, they were probably not great.”
“Some women like older men,” Carlow countered. “Just because you don’t doesn’t mean—”
“Quit it, Carlow. We’re not talking about my sex life.”
“Okay.” After a while he said, “Does Maple know you trained with his Feds?”
“No, and I plan to keep it that way.” Harry shot him a cutting look.
“I won’t tell him. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Harry almost laughed, because although she hadn’t known Carlow for more than a week, if there was one thing she did know about him it was that he was a bit of a gossip.
“I still think Ms. Will could be a killer because almost anyone can be under the right circumstances,” Carlow said. “Hey, maybe she’s hiding out in the cave.”
“What cave?” Harry give him a look. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s well known that there’s a cavern on this property.”
“A big one?”
“Pretty big for where it is.”
A cavern, a large, empty dark space on this property out in the middle of nowhere. Once again, Harry thought of both Emily’s home and life as lonely.
Harry thought of the difficult time she had after River’s death and the dreadful headaches she’d experienced on and off ever since, what the doctor said were migraines, but she thought of them as the devil pressing her head in his hands like a vise. She couldn’t help feel a little more simpatico with Emily Will, who had, according to the recent date of death on the headstone, probably just lost her dog in addition to her war PTSD. Not that Harry could really compare her loss to Emily Will’s PTSD, because Emily’s must have been worse. Harry couldn’t imagine going through all of that alone, because, again, she got the sense that Emily Will was very much alone out here on this huge property and in the world, except for her doctor whose body was now in her house. And how had that happened?
And there was some sort of cave on the property? The case and the day kept getting more unique.
Carlow tiptoed around the living room.
Harry glanced at his very pale face. “You look terrible, officer. Have you ever dealt with a body before? Have you even seen a dead body?”
Carlow’s skin flushed and he mumbled no.
“Don’t touch anything until we get a warrant.” She wanted to be extra careful so that anything they did would hold up in court.
Harry used her cell phone to call a forensics unit from a town miles away since the town didn’t have its own. Nolan had already briefed her on the station norms, which included that one. She made a second call to the medical examiner because they didn’t have one either.
Harry looked at the large collection of history books on the shelf near the couch and assumed Emily Will was a voracious reader. Harry also liked history books.
Harry found a half-drunk pot of coffee still on the kitchen counter. She touched it and it was cold. The trash, what looked like bread crusts and other old food, was starting to smell. And judging from the state of the corpse behind the couch no one had been at the house in a while.
With their guns drawn Harry and Carlow checked out the other rooms on that floor but saw no sign of Emily Will or anyone else. Then Harry told Carlow to stay downstairs with the body while she went upstairs to look in case somebody showed up.
What Harry saw upstairs surprised her. If the downstairs of Emily Will’s house was tidy, the upstairs was the opposite. Harry went from messy room to messy room. The blanket that had covered the body downstairs appeared to have been taken from Emily’s bed.
Harry became increasingly curious, and despite the fact that she didn’t have a search warrant yet, she slid open Emily’s dresser draws in the bedroom and carefully looked through the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. Then she stopped herself because it wasn’t right. She’d found nothing out of the ordinary, and was almost relieved about that because she wouldn’t have obtained it legally. There were no obvious signs that would lead her to believe Emily Will had committed the murder downstairs; no pictures of her doctor on the wall with a dart through his head. By all signs, Emily seemed like an ordinary woman, much like Harry herself.
The front door opened downstairs and Carlow talked to someone. Harry called the captain so that he could get a search warrant from the DA so they could really examine the house. Then she tiptoed down the stairs to join Carlow. The property was large and she wanted to do a walkthrough of it with Carlow in case they’d missed something when arriving. They still would need a warrant for that as well but it was still worth checking out in the meantime.
Carlow and Harry had put away their guns. Carlow had already briefed the forensics team, a woman and a man, when they arrived, much to Harry’s surprise. Carlow was actually proving himself to be more useful than she’d imagined. She wondered if he’d somehow overheard her when she talked with Nolan, or if the captain had had a word with him, but Harry didn’t think he had. The forensics team unpacked their kit on the coffee table by the couch where the body was behind. They wore masks, something necessary when standing that close to the decaying body. Harry spoke with them briefly.
When Harry finished she tugged Carlow’s sleeve. “Come on, let’s go check outside. They have this. They’ll brief us when they’re done. They told me the ME knows they’ve arrived and will meet them here soon. I want to check out that cavern you mentioned.”
“I thought we were going back to the station to get the warrant?”
“I already called it in when I was upstairs. It’ll be ready for us by the time we return to the station. I’m not leaving here until you show me that cave. We have time since the warrant has to be issued from the DA’s office two towns over. We’re so small here we don’t even have our own DA.”
“I know that. I grew up here. Not everywhere can be like the big city, and that’s not a bad thing.”
“Is that what’s going on here? You have a bug up your ass because you’re a country boy, Carlow? Or is it just the fact that I’m a woman who’s in charge of you? Your dad retired. Get over it.”
The last comment seemed to have wounded the young officer and Harry regretted saying it. She continued to hide the fact that her father had also been a detective. But it wasn’t in her nature to apologize for a small mis-step so she said, “Come on, let’s get this cave search over with.” She gestured for him to go ahead.
After a pause, Carlow nodded and led the way outside.
One thing she’d noticed about him was that even if something appeared to bother him he didn’t seem to hold a grudge for long.
“Hold on a second,” he said when they started to walk past the car. Carlow paused and opened the door then reached inside. “We’re going to need this to see where we’re going.” He held up a flashlight.
Harry grabbed it from him. “Thanks.”
“Hey, I thought I was leading. It’s my light, and you don’t know anything about the property.”
“You know about as much as I do. Am I right?”
“I knew about the cave,” Carlow mumbled.
“I’m walking in first, you can lead from behind me and shout instructions to me.”
Harry didn’t know what they’d find in there, and if it was a crazed Emily Will, then Harry wanted to lead because Carlow seemed like the kind of officer who would panic and do something rash.
On the walk to the cave, halfway through the frosty fields with dead grass, Harry looked down at her mud-caked shoes and wished she’d worn real boots. She glanced over her shoulder at Carlow’s boots and thought there were benefits to being a country boy, one of them being you knew to wear the right attire. She looked like such a city person in her leather jacket and now-ruined leather
shoes. She didn’t feel like she fit in, and the truth was that if Maria hadn’t been killed, she might have been applying to be transferred back to her old job. But now she couldn’t leave, not without finding the Fishers. And Emily Will had her intrigued as well.
Once they reached the entrance to the cavern, Harry put her hand on the stone rim and shouted inside. “Emily? Emily Will, are you in there? It’s the police.” Her voice echoed back at her.
Was Emily inside, not wanting to be found, hiding from them because she’d killed her doctor? But those fingerprints on Tompkins’s throat had seemed too large to be Emily’s. Harry would have to see Will’s height and body type to decide that. Or was Emily Will dead inside the cave, killed by whoever had murdered the doctor? Or was she down there alive, hiding out from the killer of Dr. Tompkins?
Harry ducked and started walking down into the cavern. Tall for a woman, she couldn’t stand upright and had to rest her hands on her thighs and crouch-walk into the remainder of the cave. Carlow, who was shorter and stocky, followed her.
Harry held her gun in one hand and in the other hand she had the flashlight, which made bright zig-zags across the rocky, dark walls. She shone the light down at the ground and it looked like the stones there had been disturbed. Someone had been down there recently. She kicked something across the floor of the cave and it made a loud noise. With the light guiding her, she went over to the corner where it had landed and shone the light on it. She came within a fraction of hitting her head on a low-hanging rock. Using her light, she could see that the cavern appeared to drop at one point ahead so she had to be careful. She shouted to Carlow.
What she’d kicked was a gun. The gun Nolan had mentioned belonged to Emily Will? Not wanting to actually touch it without a warrant, she used her foot to turn it over so she could read the serial number. She took out her phone.
Behind her Carlow asked what was happening and Harry pointed at the gun. Carlow moved to pick it up and Harry blocked him with her hand. “Don’t touch it until we get a warrant.”
“We could say we found it outside the property.” Carlow shrugged at Harry’s astonishment.
“It’s my case and I do it by the book.”
