Shattered by Death (A Jo Oliver Thriller Book 2)

by Catherine Finger

  Two huge pine trees perched like sentinels on an embankment overlooking the water. One was solid green, its companion littered with brown patches. Something must’ve been eating it alive. Killing it. River birch swayed in wide arcs, delicate leaves and branches tossing and turning next to thick swaths of sumac. Dead leaves swirled up high enough to pass through branches weighted down with new buds.

  I wrapped both hands around my mug of tea for warmth. A fire would be nice. But I’d have to get up and make it happen. Not yet. Remnants of zebra grass blew back and forth next to blackened coneflowers I hadn’t gotten around to cutting back last fall. What kind of woman would let her beds go untended? The kind of woman men left for other women who didn’t? My rose bushes stood out in defiance against a backdrop of soft green lilacs that would be blooming in less than a month. Where would I be by the time my roses were in full bloom?

  After a hot shower and pouring myself another cup of tea, I stood in my bathrobe at the kitchen window, drowsy and lost. I rummaged through three cabinets and the freezer, but the cotton in my head only thickened. I trudged upstairs and dropped onto my bed.

  The buzzing in my bathrobe pocket grew louder as I shook the sleep from my eyes. I stretched my arms over my head, pulled myself out of bed, and grabbed the phone.

  “Oliver.”

  “Thank God! I’ve been calling and texting you for hours. Why is your car in the driveway and why aren’t you at work?” Donna’s soothing tones coaxed me back to life.

  “You need to sit down, Donna.”

  She remained silent until I made it through my gruesome morning discovery. “Oh, Josie I’m coming over!”

  “No. You’re not. Please. I need a few minutes alone. Just let me get dressed, sort myself out, and I’ll text you to come by.”

  “Promise?” The warmth in her voice buoyed me.

  “Promise.” I ended the call, dressed, and headed downstairs.

  Time to put on a pot of some serious coffee. I’d need it to help me think and feel through everything I’d just experienced. From home, in front of a soon-to-be roaring fire. Safe. Had my husband and his girlfriend really just been murdered? What kind of God would allow this? How could this be happening? And what would happen next? Shivers danced up and down my arms.

  I stared at the wood piled in a basket next to the fireplace. I rummaged around in the basket, finding long matches, kindling, and waxy pinecones that would add color to the flames. Now all I needed to do was open the flue.

  I bent down, leaned over the grate, and felt along the rough brick interior, searching with my fingertips for the cold metal handle. Finding it, I pulled hard. Nothing. I bent deeper at the knees, bracing my left hand against the brick to give me more leverage, and pushed, opening the flue wide. My knuckles hit something hard and cold, but my fingers were still wrapped around the steel handle.

  What the…?

  I pulled my hand out and ran to the kitchen junk drawer for a flashlight. Four long steps, and I was back on my knees on the brick hearth, pointing the flashlight up into the inky darkness.

  A sledgehammer was jammed between the flue handle and the chimney wall.

  I gasped and jumped, bumping my head against the brick and dropping the flashlight. It went out. I felt around for it in the dark. Gotcha! My hands wrapped around the plastic, and I took a deep breath and looked up again. The handle of the sledgehammer was mottled with dark stains. I inched the light up the handle to the iron hammer. Blood.

  I pulled myself out of the hearth and sat back on my heels. White noise filled my head. My bones were heavy and cold. Thoughts jumbled about like bits of fruit swimming through an ocean of Jell-O, dancing and jiggling but never quite connecting. How long had that thing been in my fireplace? Was that the weapon that killed my husband? When had the killer placed it there? How did he know where I lived, and how did he get in and out without me noticing? And most of all, why? Why was he framing me?

  My thighs were burning. I set the flashlight down and heaved myself to my feet. I found my phone in my purse and searched for Nick’s face again.

  “Babe?” His voice was quiet and solid.

  “The fireplace, my fireplace… there’s a murder weapon in it. Maybe.” The woman in me warred with the cop in me. I needed the cop to surface. Fast.

  “I’m heading over. Did you touch it?” He was always in cop mode. His tone gave nothing away.

  “I… I’m not sure. Part of me did. Just my knuckles though, I think.” Did I touch it beyond that first brush?

  “Whoever planted it there would’ve been smart enough not to leave prints. Let’s keep it as pristine as possible. Ever seen it before?”

  “I don’t know.” Del had had a sledgehammer, hadn’t he?

  “We’ll sort it out later. Why don’t you call this in and get a forensics team on the way?”

  “Yeah. Good. That’s good.” It was good, wasn’t it?

  My practically-ex-husband and his girlfriend had been found murdered on our lake property just a few hours ago. And then what must have been the murder weapon had turned up in my fireplace. Anyone with half a brain would know that I had plenty to gain by the untimely death of my husband in the middle of our divorce proceedings.

  Whoever was behind this was in possession of a devilish yet brilliant mind. No one was going to look better as the prime suspect than me.

  A bloody sledgehammer planted in my fireplace. Maybe this time I was up against something too big for me to solve on my own. Thank God for Nick. What would I do without him? Hummingbird wings fluttered in my chest.

  For the second time in the same day, I was trembling, waiting for Nick. To do what, save me? More bird wings beating in my heart. Did I need saving?

  Del and, and his other woman, murdered.

  Maybe I did. The beautiful creature blurred to a stop, wings merging into one large, veined leaf, with its own rhythmic swaying.

  Why couldn’t I manage my life on my own? Was my new life going to include being managed by other people? I don’t think so.

  Steel walls slammed down between my heart and my head. What kind of woman was I turning out to be? The veined leaf bent under the growing weight of the hummingbird. I didn’t need Del, and I don’t need Nick. I can’t live my life clinging from man to man, like Jane of the jungle in search of her next Tarzan. Stormy winds ripped the leaf apart, replacing its warmth with a steel ball inside my chest.

  Three short raps on the front door windowpane interrupted my ruminations. I shook my head once and rose to let Nick in. I’d grapple with the feeling of my life being in his hands later. I was no one’s damsel in distress. Not even Nick’s.

  He walked in, his crime scene go-bag clenched in his right hand, half-hugging me with his other arm. “Show me, beautiful.”

  I pointed to the hearth. He’d built more fires in it than I had during the past few months. He could have easily planted the sledgehammer.

  He walked past me to the great room, stopping to set his case down on the coffee table. Hesitating, he looked up at me. “Okay if I spread out here?”

  “Of course. Let me help you clear it.” I swooped in, moving cooking magazines and my mug of cold peppermint tea. Isolation cascaded down around me as he walked right by without reaching out to touch me. Was I invisible to him now?

  He pulled out his tools, put on his gloves, knelt down, and started snapping pictures with his phone. “So aren’t you going to ask me why I’m here?”

  I cocked my head at him. A travel-sized can of luminol sat on the floor next to him. “Uh, ‘cause I called you?”

  His jagged smile almost reached his eyes. “And because I’ve officially taken this one over for the good guys.”

  He still didn’t seem very happy to see me. Avoiding me out of guilt?

  “That good news or bad news?” That he could get permission this quick to have the Feds take over this case didn’t surprise me. That he found it necessary to do so, did.

  “Good news. Always and only good news when i
t involves you and me, beautiful.” He set up a small light in the hearth, switched his phone to video. A faint blue glow emerged.

  He spoke into his voice recorder. “Having arrived and entered the house, I am now in the suspect’s chimney, with a visual on a potential murder weapon.”

  His voice was matter of fact, Joe Friday.

  Suspect? Heat flashed over me. Is he taking over the case so he can bury any evidence that could clear me?

  “There is a large, wood-handled sledgehammer stuck between the steel flue and the brick sides of the chimney. The iron head is mottled, possibly with dried blood, as is the handle. The crime scene techs will be dusting for prints next.” He switched off the light and reached for his phone to push the video off and pocket it. He squirmed out of the chimney, sat up, and looked at me.

  “I know it’s upsetting, hearing me making it official like this. But it’s the best way—keep every procedure clean to protect the connection between us.” His phone buzzed. He paused, read the text, and looked up at me, frowning.

  “What is it?” What else could go wrong in my life right now?

  He was pensive, lips pursed. “That was Mitch. One very angry Corey Richardson, husband of Tamra, was just brought in for questioning.”

  Blood drained from my face, my pulse slowed down. “The husband?”

  Nick nodded. “Routine.”

  “Do you need to get to the station?”

  He shook his head. “I want to position myself in the best possible way to make sure I can stay close to you and monitor this nightmare investigation up close and personally.” His eyes softened, moistened.

  He was trying to protect me. At least, I hoped he was. Assuming he wasn’t trying to frame me. I should’ve been grateful. He needed me to respond, needed to know I was okay, but I had needed him not to get right to it. Not to go for the evidence first, not to turn right into Johnny-on-the-spot Super Cop. Why the rush? I could think of nothing to say. I stared back at him.

  “So we’re going to preempt all suspicions by following procedure every step of the way, getting the crime scene boys here to do what they do best. And yes, maybe I’m going overboard, treating you as I would any other suspect…” His eyes were glistening now.

  “But I’m not any other suspect.” My voice was cold.

  “I can already tell you that’s blood on the head and the handle.” He cocked an eyebrow to the coffee table, to the now-darkened black light.

  “Yeah. I was here when it glowed, remember?” Anger and exhaustion were at war in my tone. “What’s next?”

  “We’re going to wait for the locals to arrive. Make sure the crime scene techs get started, expedite it. And then you’re going to continue to cooperate 100%. It’s the only way.”

  Silence filled the space between us.

  A thousand pithy comebacks floated through my mind. I willed any one of them to come to my aid, to break the silence. “What is that even going to look like?”

  Not very snappy.

  Nick sighed, stepping nearer. “It’ll look like me at your side. Us going to the station together. Sharing the evidence and giving your deputies the decision-making power over you and trusting whatever it is they come up with.”

  “They’ll arrest me. This kind of evidence? They’ll arrest me for sure.” I threw my hands up in the air, gave my head an angry shake, and stepped back to increase the distance between us. “It’s what I would do. Somebody walks into my office with this kind of irrefutable evidence, no matter who they are, I’m gonna cuff their butt and toss ‘em in jail—at least for a night. Give them some time to think about it while their attorney starts the clock.”

  “That’s what you would do. That might not be what Mitch decides to do.” His tone carried an air of confidence. Almost as if he were suggesting he knew my people better than I did. He was wrong about that.

  But, as for how Mitch would to respond to my sorry plight? He was right. Commander Lauren Mitchell had been with me for all five years I’d been Chief of Police in Haversport, Illinois. I promoted her twice, as much for her expertise as for her wisdom and compassion. I had at least a fifty-fifty chance of not spending the night in jail with Mitch sitting in my judgment seat. Pretty good odds, considering.

  A crime scene technician knocked on my front door.

  “Okay.” I picked my purse up off the counter.

  “Okay, what exactly?” He finished packing up his gear and snapped his briefcase shut.

  “Shut up and take me to your leader. Before I change my mind.” I grabbed a black trench coat from the hall closet and walked to the front door, Nick’s hurried footsteps echoing behind me.

  After Nick got the tech team pointed in the right direction, we drove to the station in silence. My right hand was gripping the handle above the passenger door so hard I could’ve popped a bicep muscle. Inhaling deeply, I relaxed my hand, one finger at a time. “Are we there yet?”

  Nick snorted. “Welcome back. I thought I’d lost you for good. And just in time, too.”

  He eased into my station’s parking lot and pulled into a visitor’s slot near the entrance.

  “You do get that this is a lot harder on me than it is on you, right?” Was I joking with him or flirting? How many hours after finding my husband’s mutilated body? Sometimes I defied even my own low expectations of myself.

  “Great. Looks like we’ve got company. At this hour? What is it, after eleven? Coming up on midnight?” Nick stared at the foyer, tsking in disgust. Several dark shapes clustered near the door, faces all but pressed up against the glass. Someone pulled out a cell phone and pointed it right at our car.

  “Think the camera still adds ten pounds?” I got out of the car and headed to the bottom of the steps to wait for Nick.

  “Doesn’t matter, beautiful. It all looks great on you.” He put a hand on my shoulder.

  Was he trying to comfort or control me as we ascended the steps in front of the gathering crowd?

  I looked up into the foyer. Liz and Mitch stood in front of a small horde of cops and assorted people of the night. The tallest one grunted something at the others, jabbing his head in my direction, wolfish grin widening as he looked at me. Schlichting, my least favorite cop, already reveling in my distress. Figures. A balding guy sporting what looked like media credentials pointed a distressingly large camera at me. Old school.

  “Breathe, beautiful. Just breathe. And follow me.” Nick took the stairs ahead of me. I followed behind, mustering as much dignity as I could.

  “Un-frickin-believable.” I muttered at my salivating colleagues. News of my pending arrest must’ve spread like blood in the waters. Creeps. I scanned the crowd. Which of my thirty-seven colleagues would be counted for me, which against me?

  Mitch pushed the door open, nodding grimly at me. “Chief.”

  “Mitch.” Ribbons of molten lava hardened in my throat.

  Indistinct sounds bounced off the walls as we passed through the parted group of uniforms. Flashes illuminated me. Would the lighting show off my cheekbones or the dark puffs of color pooling underneath each eye? Nick took hold of my arm. I floated beside him, watching the surrealistic march from a corner of the room, near the ceiling-mounted security camera.

  Mitch appeared from behind us and pushed open the door that led away from our office suites. To the interrogation rooms. Great.

  She stopped at the largest room and ushered us in, then closed the door and walked away, her heels echoing down the hall. The three hundred square foot room was cleaner than usual, faint smells of bleach and antiseptic lingering in the dense air. The requisite wooden, rectangular table sat in the center, two chairs set up on one side, one chair with a notebook, pen, and tape recorder in front of it on the other. And three unopened bottles of water.

  We sat in silence for about thirty minutes before the door opened and Mitch stepped inside.

  Mitch looked at me, doubt swimming with sorrow in her green eyes. She nodded at us. She couldn’t believe I killed Del and his
girlfriend, could she?

  A thousand things to say flitted through my mind. None of them seemed right. I opted for silence. Her show. Her opening move.

  “Chief, we need to go through some of the basics. You understand.” Her bravado melted away. More sorrow than disbelief floated in her eyes now.

  “You should have everything you need. Did you read the transcript from the boat house?” Nick had come alive, inserted himself.

  “Yes.” Mitch was back to her professional self.

  “And by now you’ll have dusted the weapon for prints?” Nick’s narration was getting on my nerves.

  “Yes.” Mitch turned her gaze to the one-way mirror.

  Guarded good news. Come to think of it, the fact that I was sitting in an interrogation room, and not a jail cell, was also relatively positive. Why hadn’t I been arrested? They must not have found enough hard evidence. Corey Richardson had also been brought in for questioning. Classic. Take a close look at the spouses. I shook my head, and turned my attention back to what was going on outside of my head for a change.

  “So, there’s no real reason for you to be questioning the Chief, is there?”

  Nick had something up his sleeve. We both knew I wasn’t guilty, but what else did he know?

  “Other than the fact that her husband and his girlfriend were brutally murdered on the eve of her costly divorce, and what is very likely the murder weapon happens to show up in her fireplace, you mean?” Mitch was going for sarcasm, but fell short, ending up with a bit of a whine.

  “Your guys narrow down the window of death?”

  If Nick was asking, it was because he already knew this answer too. The decomp of the bodies in my own rudimentary examination would’ve put the time of death somewhere in the past day and a half to two days—not much more than that. Was he trying to establish an alibi for me?

  He wouldn’t be able to come up with one. There wasn’t one—at least not one I’d ever share. My whereabouts during that time would remain off limits. Other than my sacred few hours of play time with Sam, I was screwed in the alibi department.