by Terri Thayer
“Mitch!” April yelled, and he finally saw what she was pointing at. Mitch took a step back, his face screwed up as though he didn’t believe what he was seeing.
April realized the buzzard noticed what she hadn’t. Not the smell of rotting corn, but a rotting body.
CHAPTER 6
The body of a woman, flat on her back, lay on the ground in front of them. Her eyes were open and bright red, her fingers frozen in a clawlike position.
A shadow made April look up. The vultures were right overhead. A violent shiver ran down her back. She looked down again. The black hair was familiar. Oh God, no.
“Mitch, it looks like Xenia,” April whispered.
“Xenia?” he said. “Xenia Villarreal?” Mitch stared at the body, but his eyes were unfocused and he seemed not to be seeing anything. April dropped to her knees.
It was darker down here, the light not able to permeate the stalks. She fought back the urge to scream as her fingers brushed Xenia’s elbow. There was no reaction.
“Is she okay?” Mitch said.
She thought she heard Xenia breathing. She held her own breath and listened, but quickly realized that was all she’d been hearing.
She put a finger on Xenia’s carotid and felt nothing. No pulse. She didn’t know if that meant anything. She was no expert. Xenia’s body was warm, but the air was still balmy and the day’s heat was retained in the cornstalks.
She stood. “I think she’s dead, but I don’t know. We’ve got to get help.”
“Have you got your phone on you?” Mitch asked.
April shook her head. “It’s in my car.”
“Mine, too. What was Xenia doing here?”
“I don’t know.” She had to keep Mitch focused. “We’ve got to mark the spot,” she said. April took off Mitch’s Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees cap and threaded it through the cornstalks. The effect was of a makeshift scare-crow. It wouldn’t stay there forever, but it would do the trick for now.
“Did you check her in to the Pumpkin Express?” Mitch said.
“I didn’t, but I wasn’t at the entrance the whole time.” April looked to see if she could see a stamp on Xenia’s hand. She had to look away. Her hands were too sad.
“Why would she go through the maze without her family? Where are the kids? Why is she over here?”
Mitch looked around as though he expected the rest of the family to materialize out of the stalks. April felt another violent shudder move through her body.
“We need to get out of here,” April told Mitch. He didn’t answer right away, and she shook him by the arm. It was getting late. They needed to get moving. What if the kids were here somewhere? Were there more dead bodies hidden in the maze? She didn’t want to be the one to find them.
“Mitch!” she yelled.
He blinked and looked at her. “Sorry, sorry. I was just thinking about Pedro. He’s going to be devastated. He loved her so much. She was his life.”
“Get us out of here,” April said.
He looked around again and then led her two steps back. He pushed through the stalks, clearing a path with his body. She held onto his belt, unwilling to let go of him. After several minutes of keeping the silo on their left, they came out of the maze into the parking lot.
Mitch ran to his Jeep. He grabbed his phone and called the police. April paced as he called.
What was Xenia doing here? April tried to remember if she’d seen Xenia enter the maze earlier in the day. Rocky might have stamped her hand. Or maybe she came in when April was taking her break with Mary Lou. That had been about three o’clock.
The thought that Xenia had been just feet away from the maze dead—or dying—for hours sent a chill up April’s back.
“The paramedics are coming,” Mitch said as he finished his call. “And lucky us, Officer Yost is on duty.”
April’s heart sank. The local cop hated her family and wasn’t much kinder to Mitch’s. They’d both been present when a skull tumbled out of the fireplace of an abandoned guesthouse several months ago, and Yost had alternated between blaming Mitch’s father and April’s father for the murder. He’d never apologized when his theories were proven wrong.
Though the air was still warm, April shivered. Mitch noticed and fetched a flannel shirt from his trunk. He laid it on her shoulders, and she breathed in the heady smell of wood, motor oil and Mitch, trying to dislodge the odor of decay that had surrounded them in the maze.
Facing her, Mitch rubbed her upper arms over and over.
Vince Campbell, her father’s partner in life and business and a volunteer EMT, was the first on the scene. He slowed his truck across the gravel, parked and jumped out. She ran to him. As a volunteer, he drove his own vehicle.
“April, what are you doing here?” He gathered her in his arms. She hugged him tight, feeling her tension unspool as he rubbed her back. Vince was a bonus, the extra dad she’d come to love as much as her own father, Ed. Right now, she was thrilled to have a guy so different from her father in her life. Ed would fall apart at a time like this.
“There’s a body in the maze,” she managed to get out.
Vince’s forehead furrowed. “Dead?” He looked at Mitch, who nodded solemnly.
“I’ll show you,” Mitch said, turning to head back down the drive and toward the maze.
Vince held up his hand. “No, we have to wait for my chief. We never go in alone. Besides, he’s got the portable defib.”
Two other EMTs arrived driving the ambulance. One was a young woman with long braids. Vince quickly introduced Mitch and April to her, Cobie, and then to Gray, the chief. He was a kind looking man with white bushy eyebrows and fleshy jowls. He carried a black-strapped box over his shoulder.
Gray quickly took the lead. “Which one of you is going to take us in there? I’d like someone to stay back and wait for the deputy coroner to get here,” he said. “And the Aldenville police.”
April exchanged a glance with Mitch. “I don’t think I can go back in there.”
“I can do it,” he said.
April knew that he could, but it would be hard on him. Not finding the way, but finding Xenia again.
“Let’s go get her,” the chief said to the others.
Mitch set off at a jog with the EMTs. April paced the parking lot, regretting her choice of costume now. Even the added layer of Mitch’s flannel shirt wasn’t enough to keep her warm in the cooling night air. She wished she’d gone with them.
Maybe she was wrong. Xenia might have been breathing or maybe the defibrillator could bring her back if she hadn’t been gone long. The device had saved a lot of lives. Debate over whether the town should purchase a defibrillator had filled the local paper’s editorial pages and letters to the editor for months. The town’s budget had no room in it for such a pricey piece of equipment, but the efficacy of the defib was undeniable. An unknown benefactor had finally donated the machine to the EMT unit after a young orthodontist dropped dead on the country club’s tenth hole.
Yost pulled in just a few minutes after the paramedics had disappeared into the maze. Be careful what you wish for, April thought. She’d rather be alone.
He couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. “You?” Yost said. “What’s this about? Up to your old tricks?”
“There’s a dead woman in the maze, Officer Yost.” April was determined to keep this from getting personal. “Mitch Winchester is leading the paramedics there now.”
“You two found a body? How sweet, you and Winchester, together again. Good times, huh?” Yost’s smirk was more suited to a teenager than a law enforcement officer. Apparently in this town, having a badge meant never having to say you’re sorry.
April frowned at him. “You can probably catch up to them if you hurry.”
Yost looked toward the maze. The voices of the men carried on the wind, but he made no move toward them. Instead he took out his pad and a pencil, licked the tip and looked at April expectantly.
“Did either of you recogniz
e the person?” he said.
“I think it’s Xenia Villarreal,” April answered.
Yost stuck his tongue in his cheek as he mulled over this fact. “Should I know that name?”
April explained, “She was the wife and mother of the family that’s moving into the Winchester Homes for Hope house.”
Yost’s eyes widened. “Whoa. I knew that project of Winchester’s would come to no good end. Figures. You can take people like that out of the barrio, but you can’t keep them from killing each other.”
April’s eyes flashed. The fact that this buffoon had a badge was so wrong. “Pedro and Xenia did not live in the barrio. They’ve rented the same house in Butler Township for the past fifteen years. Pedro has worked as a cook at the country club for at least that long. They’re good people.”
“Well, it sounds like her husband got sick of her essential goodness.” He sneered.
April tucked her hands into the sleeves of Mitch’s shirt so that she was effectively unable to use them. She grasped her elbows, held on and said, “You have no idea if she’s dead or how she died. That’s a ridiculous supposition to make.”
“Statistics, Miss Buchert, it’s all about statistics. Husbands kill their spouses all the time. Do you know where I can find this Pedro character?”
She closed her mouth firmly and shook her head. She didn’t have to make his job easier.
“Well, I must notify the next of kin, right?” he said. “Want to play ‘Where’s Pedro?’”
He laughed at his cute pun. He was so easily amused.
April had to catch her breath. His ignorance was so deep. “I do not know where he is.”
“No idea where this rental house you mentioned is?” He made “rental” sound like a dirty word.
A car pulled into the lot, and for a minute April couldn’t process why Deana’s familiar black SUV was here. Deana got out of the truck, carrying a small bag. She’d changed into black jeans and a white button shirt that glowed blue in the light cast from the parking lot. She nodded to Yost and April and pulled on rubber gloves.
“Coroner Hudock,” Yost said, his tone mocking, as though he couldn’t believe Deana was the one in charge here.
Deana had been appointed deputy coroner last month. April knew that this was her first call. Unexplained deaths were not the norm in this little town. No doubt Deana had not expected to come back to the nursery this evening.
“Chief Gray called, said there was a dead woman in the maze,” Deana said. Yost nodded.
So there was no doubt. Xenia was dead. April felt her hands go clammy. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized how much she’d been hoping that this woman who’d been in her barn yesterday, her biggest problem being whether the stamp for the boys’ room should be trucks or surfers, wasn’t as dead as she’d looked.
Deana crossed the strap of her bag over her chest, leaving her gloved hands free. April put a hand on her. Deana hadn’t met Xenia.
“It’s Xenia Villarreal. Mitch’s pick for the Homes for Hope house.”
Deana stopped moving forward. She looked at her friend, her eyes soft with grief. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice low and comforting. April hung on to her words, letting them soothe a hurting place inside her.
“Can you lead the way?” Deana said, her business persona returning.
April nodded. She would get Deana to Xenia. Deana would know what to do.
April led them to the path Mitch had made through the cornstalks and they followed it into the maze. Yost produced a powerful flashlight, and he shone the beam in front of her, which made the shadows dance in eerie ways. Only the sound of Deana’s steady breathing kept her feet moving.
When they reached the others, there wasn’t much room in the cornstalk cul-de-sac where Xenia lay. The paramedics backed out as Deana took over. Her movements were methodical and businesslike.
April drew back. She’d never seen her old friend at work at her new job before. She and Mitch retreated, being careful to step on the path he’d created. She didn’t want to look at what Deana was doing, but she couldn’t leave.
Yost shined the flashlight so Deana could see. “It looks like she was dumped here,” Yost said.
Mitch said, “Are you suggesting she was murdered?”
Chief Gray said, “I’m not sure she didn’t die of a heart attack. If that’s true, she could have died here. There are broken stalks consistent with a fall.”
“I will determine the cause and manner of death. In my morgue,” Deana chided both men. They quieted.
Deana stood. “The state police will be here soon. I need their equipment to continue. For now, I’d like everyone to leave the scene. Except for Chief Gray. He can stay with the flashlight.”
Yost protested. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Officer Yost,” Deana said with quiet authority, “you need to guard the entrance. There is only one way in and out. Make sure no one gains access.”
Yost hesitated, then thought the better of responding. “Move along, folks,” he said to April and Mitch, pointing to them as though they were looky-loos at a traffic accident. As they left, April heard Deana and Gray talking softly, and caught the words “petechia” and “ligature.”
Vince and the other paramedic followed Mitch and April out of the maze. The dry stalks rustled slightly as though animals raced ahead of them. Stars twinkled overhead. The night should have been a beautiful one, the air warm, the sky full of stars April rarely saw in California. Instead it had turned ugly.
Once they were out of the maze, the paramedics headed back to their trucks.
“Do you want a ride home?” Vince said to April.
“I’ve got my car. Did she die a natural death?” April asked.
Vince shrugged. “I hate to say. Things might look different in the daylight.”
Cobie, the young paramedic, said, “That didn’t look like natural to me.”
“And how many deaths have you seen?” Vince responded dryly, a hint of warning in his tone.
The light caught the stud in her nose. She took his ad monishment in stride. “This is my third,” she said defiantly.
Vince wasn’t taken in by her bravado. “You’ll do well to keep quiet about what you see.”
Cobie ignored him, climbing into her pickup and roaring away.
Vince shook his head. “Kids today,” he said. “She’ll be at the Brass Buckle Inn later bragging about what she saw. That’s the kind of lousy help I’m stuck with. No one wants to be a paramedic anymore.”
April had heard this complaint over the dinner table. Vince was worried that the quality of the volunteer fire department was heading downhill fast. But was Cobie right? Had Xenia been murdered?
As the questions whirled through April’s mind, Suzi came out of the farmhouse, walking quickly to where they were parked. She’d changed out of her costume into sweats and a faded Dowling Nursery T-shirt, and her short hair was wet. “What’s going on? I didn’t hear anything until just now.”
As April told her, Suzi’s hand flew to her mouth, and she collapsed on a hay bale. April sat beside her, gathering her close, while the Halloween decorations mocked them, the fake horrors having given way to real ones. Mitch pulled down a dangling skeleton and crushed it in his fist.
“I’m going to find Pedro,” Mitch said.
CHAPTER 7
April and Vince looked at him as if he’d just grown another head.
“And do what, tell him his wife is dead?” April asked.
Vince shook his head. “Mitch, it’s not up to you to notify him. The police will contact the family.”
“There’s no way I’m letting Yost tell him. I’ll go get him, and bring him here.”
“Yost is ready to arrest him,” April warned.
“Pedro should be here, with her.”
The agony in his voice was a knife in April’s side, and she felt tears spring to her eyes.
Vince laid a steadying hand on Mitch’s arm. “He won’t be able to
be with her for a while. Not until they autopsy the body,” Vince said softly. “You two already ID’d her so they don’t need him for that. It might be harder on him to be here and not be able to go to her.”
“He’d want to be close to her,” Mitch said, his voice strained. His fists were balled. “I’m telling you, he loved that woman more than anything.”
“Let’s go get him,” April said, making up her mind. “Your little Jeep isn’t big enough for three. I’ll drive instead.”
April followed Mitch’s directions, turning left onto Aldenville-Butler Road out of the driveway. They drove for a few minutes in silence, and then suddenly Mitch exploded with rage, punching the dashboard so hard April nearly ran off the road. The tires skidded on the gritty shoulder, and she straightened the car, veering off the roadway. Her heart pounded in her chest.
She stopped the car and turned to look at him. His face was ravaged, his eyes so sad it hurt to look at them.
“Why did this have to happen?” Mitch said. “This is a lovely family.”
She had no answer for him. She couldn’t blame him for being angry.
Mitch rubbed his eyes. “I can’t let this stop me, April. Pedro is going to need a new house more than ever. The kids.” His voice cracked.
April put out her hand. Mitch took it. She squeezed but he didn’t return her reassurance. She let go and stroked his face.
“Pedro is lucky to have you on his side,” April said. “Let’s go.”
April put the car in drive and got back on the road. A few minutes later, they pulled up to a modest house. There was a trampoline in the front yard, and a worn plastic kid-size picnic table. Assorted bikes and a Big Wheel were scattered about. A jack-o’-lantern sat grinning on the concrete porch. But there was no sign of activity.
Mitch went up to the door while April sat with the car idling. The house was in need of a paint job and didn’t look big enough to house seven people. The Villarreals were in dire need of their new home.
A moment later Mitch came back and drummed his fingers on the roof of the car, not looking at April.
“No answer?” she asked finally.
