by Julie Hyzy
Chapter 5
BOOTSIE DISAPPEARED WHILE I WAS PREPARING for bed. She’d proven adept at using the makeshift litter box, a fact I pointed out to my roommates. “See? Somebody trained her.”
“Nope. Just instinct,” Scott said.
I already had my sleepwear on, so after taking care of the basics I quickly drifted off, knowing it was the weekend and I didn’t need to set an alarm. At about two in the morning, I awoke to a sudden weight shift on my bed and I jumped up, belatedly realizing it was the kitten coming to visit. “You scared me,” I chastised her. My door was slightly ajar—I must have not closed it all the way. Either that or little Bootsie here would make a phenomenal cat burglar.
She didn’t seem to mind my complaint. I turned away from her to resettle myself and get comfortable. The moment I quieted, she climbed over my back and curled up under my chin, purring like a little engine against my chest. I thought briefly about fleas, but was too tired to worry about it. My last waking thought was that she belonged to somebody and was probably perfectly clean.
My cell phone rang just after five A.M. Bootsie was still curled up next to me—neither of us had moved. “Sorry, kiddo,” I said, reaching over her to grab the instrument and glance at the number on the display, certain it was going to be a wrong number. It wasn’t.
I sat up to answer, dislodging the cat. She yawned, but otherwise didn’t seem to mind.
“Grace Wheaton,” I said, donning my professional persona despite the fact that I was wearing wrinkled pajamas and my hair was matted and smashed against the side of my face. I pinched my nose hoping to clear it. My head felt heavy and full. Congested.
“Grace, this is Terrence.” There was a lot of noise behind him as though he was out in the middle of a crowd. People talking. Someone shouting.
Terrence Carr calling me at five in the morning? I tried to blink away the blur that seized my brain. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “What happened?”
“You better get down here. I need help holding off the press.” To someone else he said, “You’ll have to wait.”
“Talk to me, Terrence.”
“Not now. Too many ears at this end. Just get here ASAP.”
“Do I have time to shower?”
I heard him grumble. “Make it fast.”
I did.
Bruce and Scott usually left for their shop early on the weekends, so they were already awake. “What’s going on?” Bruce asked as I raced into the kitchen to grab a handful of almonds, which would serve as breakfast. “Want coffee?”
I sneezed. “No time,” I said. “Marshfield needs me.”
“This early?”
I sniffled, then sneezed again. Instead of answering, I nodded.
“Told you you were going to catch cold, didn’t I?”
“You were right,” I said, my rs sounding like ws. My nose started to run and I dashed to the nearby washroom to grab a tissue. I blew my nose, then blew it again. Returning to the kitchen, I said in a clogged-nose voice, “I gotta go. Sou-ded like some kide of emergency.”
“You got it bad,” Scott said. “I hate head colds.”
“Me too.” I started out the door, then stopped. “Whad aboud da cat?”
Scott raised a hand. “I’ll get her settled in here while Bruce holds down the store. I’ll make sure she has food, water, and a proper litter pan.”
“Thakes guys,” I said, needing to blow my nose again—desperately. I stomped back to the washroom and came out with the entire box of tissues. “I’b takig this wid me.”
“I think you’d better.”
The interminable ride to Marshfield gave me time to wonder what could have happened that required my presence so early, much less on a Saturday. The tension in Terrence’s voice had been unmistakable. With a rush, I remembered Kincade’s vicious attack on Davey. I hoped there hadn’t been another incident. I hoped Davey was okay. Swallowing around a lump in my throat, I realized I was more worried about Jack. When Davey had refused to press charges against Kincade, Jack had been livid.
I pressed the accelerator, pushing the limit and hoping there were no police lying in wait for speeders. They were notoriously active on this particular stretch but I got lucky and didn’t get caught. The roads were quiet and I made excellent time. Just before I pulled up to the gate, however, I realized why there hadn’t been any cop cars on the road. Most of them were right here.
My first thought was for Bennett. Though healthy and active, he was over seventy years old. Could he have fallen ill? Hurt himself? My heart thrummed a crazed beat in worry.
A tall, uniformed cop of about fifty ambled over, his arm extended, palm out. I threw my car into park and rolled down my window.
“Sorry, ma’am, no one is allowed in just yet,” he said before I could open my mouth.
“I work here.” When he didn’t seem impressed, I added, “I’m in charge of the place. Terrence called me.”
A quick, appraising glance. “Your name?”
I told him. Evidently Terrence had left word to allow me in, because he waved to one of the other uniformed officers to move the squad blocking the entrance. “What happened?” I asked.
He grasped his belt and hoisted it upward, eagerness blossoming across his fleshy face. “Y’all haven’t heard?” He lifted his chin to the south. “Some sort of Civil War games going on, you know about that?”
“Yes, yes . . .”
“Well seems that somebody down there got themselves killed.”
I gasped so hard my throat hurt. “Who?”
“Can’t say for sure, ma’am. Just that somebody sliced the victim up good.”
“Do you mean someone has been murdered?”
“That’s what they’re saying, ma’am.”
I shifted my car into drive, tapping my left foot impatiently as I waited for the slow-moving squad to get out of my way. The almonds in my stomach tumbled all over each other, first in relief that it wasn’t Bennett and then again in worry, thinking about Jack. I’d been here less than a year, and this was our second murder on the premises. This couldn’t be happening. Not again. “Please, no,” I whispered aloud.
“Sorry to have to be the one to tell you, ma’am,” the cop said, his expression belying his words. “Maybe you’d best stay up here with us for a while.” He raised his hand again, to signal the other officer to move the squad back.
I wasn’t about to wait one more minute. “Can’t, sorry,” I shouted out the window as I hit the accelerator. I didn’t even wave thank-you.
A little more than two miles later nearing the encampment site, I eased along the winding road, making a wide arc to allow for any cars coming the other way. The road here was narrow with low-slung trees forming a lush overhead canopy. The early morning sky was still gloomy, and passing beneath the dusky green branches darkened my way as much as it darkened my mood. I tried ignoring the anxiety twisting my stomach into knots. Didn’t work.
Just around the next bend I caught sight of a white-and-blue fender. Another squad car. That made four already. Emberstowne was not a major city, which meant we had a limited police force. Just beyond that squad, another—from a different municipality—sat perpendicular to its neighbor. My gut gave another hard twist.
I rolled to a quiet stop, parking so that two tires rested in the marshy grass and two remained on the road. I alighted and was greeted by the woodsy fragrance of a campfire whose smoke twisted skyward just beyond a copse of trees. As my feet shushed through the damp grass, I shivered against the morning’s chill and zipped up my open sweatshirt. Soft noises in the distance grew louder and eventually voices became more distinct.
At first I thought I was approaching a party rather than a crime scene—so many people. But even though there was much conversation, the mood was somber. Uniformed officers were attempting to corral a group of men, women, and children, encouraging them to “calm down.” Most of these folks were dressed in Civil War–era garb. Some of them appeared oddly calm as they shuffled past, clad in woolen sleepw
ear with blankets and shawls tight around their shoulders. I scanned faces looking for Pierpont, but received only curious stares in return. The campfire that had lured me crackled in the nearby clearing, its bright flames dancing quietly, desperately, as though trying to coax cheer from the gloom of the damp morning and the overwhelming gray of the day.
There were more people gathered in this part of the estate than we’d ever had here before. And not just people—animals, too. Chickens scurried between moving feet. Nearby roosters crowed. Horses were tethered in groups along the camp’s perimeter. The stately animals shifted and shook their heads, looking as though they’d much rather be galloping through fields instead of tied to makeshift posts. A police officer to my right rested a hand on a soldier’s musket. “I’m sorry, sir, but you’ll have to hand that over.”
About fifty feet away from me another officer shouted into the crowd, his words dissolving into the open air, his hands upraised as though to quell the group’s rising indignation. “I know the weapons aren’t loaded with real bullets, but you know as well as I do that blanks aren’t 100 percent safe. Please place all weapons on the ground and step away from them. Please do so very slowly.”
I hurried toward a cop who looked like he might be in charge but just before I reached him, he got into a shouting match with a man dressed in Union blue.
Were they sure this had been murder? Could it have just been an accident? I hoped so. Maybe the cop out front had gotten the story wrong. I glanced around, hoping for clues that the victim was still alive. I kept telling myself there had just been a terrible mistake, until I caught sight of a nondescript van, pulled very high up on the far southeastern rise. The coroner’s van. Its tracks sliced straight and deep through the middle of the encampment.
Tents, in neat rows, stretched out on either side of the central campfire. These were not the cheerful blue, green, and tan sporting goods–store tents that stretched across plastic and relied on nylon to stay upright and dry. These were old-style, drab tents that might have been white a long time ago, but were now dingy with use and splattered with mud. Most sagged. Some bore bright patches of white that spoke of careful repair. Canvas doors flapped in the lonely wind. There were hundreds of tents, large and small, but all of them were nearly identical in style. I thought about how uncomfortable I’d been last night outdoors rescuing Bootsie. The people out here in these cloth tents had surely fared far worse in the terrific overnight storm.
A few re-enactors had clearly given up the idea of costuming and donned heavy, zippered jackets. Too many conversations were going on at once and I couldn’t make out what any single person was saying. Children—some of them babies—were whining and crying. I had no idea so many kids would be involved. Dozens of them clawed at their mothers’ voluminous skirts, complaining about being cold and wanting to go home.
It made the most sense to head toward the coroner’s van. On the way, I hailed another officer. “Where can I find Terrence Carr?” I asked him.
He gave me a quick once-over. “Are you Miss Wheaton?”
I nodded.
Like his brother in blue at the front gate, this cop looked like he’d been on the job for at least twenty years. He settled into lecture mode, tilting his head southward. “You heard what happened back there?”
I didn’t want another slow explanation. I had the basic facts: Someone had been murdered but the most important question had yet to be answered. “Who was it? Do you know who died? Have you caught the person who did it?”
“I don’t know the victim’s name, miss. They didn’t provide none of that information yet. And from what I been hearing, we don’t have no idea of who did the killin’. Not yet. But nobody’s been questioned neither. We’re just waiting on orders here.”
People streamed in and out of one of the giant central tents, hands clasped around steaming tin cups. That had to be the mess, I assumed. There wasn’t enough wind to keep flags snapping, but when the breeze fluttered past, the flags’ corners lifted long enough to identify the Union flag to my left and a Confederate flag to my right.
The officer pointed to a rise just past the last row of Union tents, not far from the coroner’s van. “Mr. Carr is back there with the detectives right now, miss. Would you like to wait here with us until he returns?” He pointed to a man emerging from the mess. “You could get yourself some coffee while you wait. I’m thinking about getting some. The folks here told us to help ourselves.”
“I think I’d better go find Terrence,” I said. “He’s expecting me.”
“I’ll take you.”
I waved to encompass the crowd. “You have your hands full. But thank you.”
The hems of my blue jeans were soon soaked from the damp grass and my gym shoes streaked with green as I made my way toward the low hill in the distance. Not another single soul stopped me nor questioned my reason for being there and for that I was grateful.
The rise was much farther south past the last line of tents than I’d originally guessed. The combination of my quick pace, the wet ground, and the incline made my thighs burn with exertion. My shoes made squishy noises as I climbed. Perspiration gathered at my hairline and when a sharp wind sliced past, I shivered again.
This time, however, it wasn’t just the morning’s chill.
As I cleared the top of the rise, a flock of birds rushed skyward in a flurry of rustling wings and panicked cries. From my perch at the apex, I looked down into the ravine below. Up until that point, I’d been holding my body tense but the view below caused my limbs to weaken. I had been telling myself that another murder hadn’t occurred under my watch. But the small group huddled around a motionless blanketed form dispelled any hope.
There were seven people—not counting the deceased— gathered just inside a wide swath of trees. Terrence was the only black man in the group, and I raised my hand in greeting as I made my way down. He didn’t see me. Pierpont had his attention, talking and gesticulating wildly while the others looked on. Two of them were our local detectives Rodriguez and Flynn. I’d worked with them when Abe had died and I desperately hoped they had a better handle on this situation than they’d had on the last one. They weren’t bad at their jobs, they just weren’t experienced in murder investigations. About ten feet inside the tree line, two other men worked around the body, taking measurements and photos. They picked up small items with tweezers and gingerly placed them into plastic containers.
The final man in the group was actually a woman. Roughly forty years old and solidly built, the clothes she wore rendered her shapeless. With a wide, round face, and close-cropped black hair, it was no wonder I mistook her for a man at first. By her stance and positioning, I gathered she had accompanied Rodriguez and Flynn.
There weren’t many murders in Emberstowne. At least not until I got here, I thought. And even though Rodriguez was far more seasoned than his young counterpart Flynn, neither had dealt with enough major crime to become crack detectives. They simply hadn’t had the opportunity. I supposed we should be grateful for that.
I half-walked, half-slid the last few yards. When I reached bottom, still about thirty feet from the group, I looked back up the way I’d come. For a person intent on murder, this was a perfect location to do the deed. Unless someone happened by at just the right moment and stared directly into the trees searching for movement, the crime would have been committed completely out of sight.
Terrence spotted me and waved me forward to join the small group. “The press hasn’t gotten wind of this yet,” he said without preamble. “But they will soon. Too many people already know what’s happened.” He flicked a glance up the hill. “Couple of my guys are waiting for me to tell them what to do. Glad you’re here, Grace. I’ll let the detectives fill you in and I’ll catch up with you later.”
“This is just terrible, terrible,” Pierpont said as Terrence left. I swore the little man actually wrung his hands. His gaze kept drifting toward the covered body in the wet grass. “I can’t imagine who cou
ld have done this.”
I had to know. “Who was killed?”
Rodriguez answered me. “Zachary Kincade. Mr. Pierpont here has made a positive identification.” The well-fed detective raised tired eyes. “I understand you met the deceased yesterday as well.”
I had a thousand questions running through my mind but I was prevented asking any of them by Flynn’s interjection. “We want to talk to you about the attack yesterday.”
“You mean those two women and the Taser?”
Flynn looked at me like I’d grown a plant out of the top of my head. “No,” he said with poorly concealed impatience. “I mean the fight between the victim and your gardeners. I understand threats were made.”
“Davey didn’t press charges.”
Flynn made a noise that sounded like a snort. “ ’Course not. Not if he planned to take Zachary out later.”
“Wait, wait,” I said. “This is all moving too fast. You suspect Davey?”
“You got it. His brother, too. From what I hear, murder runs in the family.”
“What?”
Rodriguez placed a restraining hand in front of his partner. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, amigo.” To me, he said, “We need you to handle the press. Tell them that someone has died, but don’t use the word murder. Don’t lie, okay? Just don’t say much. If they ask too many questions, just tell them, ‘No comment.’ Got it?”
“Hey . . . guys?” a woman interrupted, clearly peeved to be left out of the conversation. Her lips tight, she waved Rodriguez and Flynn back and extended her hand for me to shake. “Name’s Ginger, but everybody calls me Tank.”
“Tank?” I repeated. That was a horrible nickname.
“I guess I have a tendency to roll right over people,” she said with a wink. “That right, guys?”
Rodriguez didn’t answer. Instead, he said, “Your boss, Marshfield, donated a nice chunk of change to the PD to help improve the department after Mr. Vargas’s murder.” He tilted his head toward Tank. “She’s from up north.”
“Michigan,” Tank added. “I’m here for the next few months to work with these guys and whip the department into shape.” She clapped her hands together gleefully. “This is exactly the kind of situation we need for training.”
