by Dana Marton
Joe started taking pictures of the victim again, now that the fatal injury was more fully visible. Mike inspected the seat and the steering wheel, swabbing them for DNA. They had everything well in hand, the processing of the crime scene almost finished.
Bing wanted more, another clue, but it didn’t look like he’d get that here. He shook off the frustration that clenched his muscles. “I’ll go and notify the family. You dig up that bloody dirt before the rain hits.” The inside of the car could be processed later.
He wanted to notify the husband before the media could splash the news all over TV. He’d go talk to Brian Haynes, then drive back to the station and call a news conference. In a small town, nothing stayed a secret. He’d probably have news vans waiting for him by the time he got back to his office.
He glanced at his watch, then back at Joe. “Your shift was over half an hour ago.”
“I’ll see this through.”
Bing nodded. He got lucky with the people he worked with, he thought as he pulled the Flyers ticket from his pocket and held it out. “If the coroner comes from West Chester for the body in time so you can still make the game, go ahead.”
Joe’s eyes lit up, his grin showing every last one of his teeth as he reached for the slip of paper. “Thanks, Captain.”
He left his men to their work, strode back to his car, and drove into town. He didn’t stop when he passed by the cemetery, just glanced at the wilted bouquet of flowers on the passenger seat.
His hands tightened on the steering wheel. Two years, and all he had to bring her were flowers. Not a conviction. Stacy deserved more than a handful of carnations. She deserved justice, dammit.
He’d meant to stop by the grave earlier, but then the call about the body in the woods had come in. He would come back before the day was out. And maybe someday soon he would be bringing answers instead of flowers.
The staircase with the golden door on top. He’d seen that logo on an empty folder among Stacy’s belongings when he’d searched through her desk at home after the murder. There were no words, no initials, and an Internet search turned up absolutely nothing. The folder had gone into his box of possible clues that all had led to dead ends. He hadn’t even been sure if it was important, if it had anything to do with the murder.
Except now he had another dead woman, and here was that damned logo showing up again. But what did it mean?
Maybe the husband would know: Brian Haynes, CPA, forty-two, no criminal record. Bing thought of the man, how in just a few minutes the poor bastard’s life would fall apart.
As captain, he could tell him the department would do whatever they could to bring the killer to justice. But he couldn’t make promises. They couldn’t solve every case. Sometimes there were no answers to be had. He knew that firsthand, lived with it every day.
His gut tightened as images of Stacy filled his brain, as he’d found her when he’d come home from work. She’d lain in a pool of blood at the top of the stairs. Shot to death. He remembered the feeling—as if someone had yanked his spine right out of his body.
Not falling next to her on his knees, not gathering her to him had taken every ounce of strength and willpower. But he’d held it all in, even as the emotions tore him apart. He didn’t contaminate the evidence. And yet, they’d never found her killer. They hadn’t even found the murder weapon.
His jaw tightened until his teeth hurt. He’d do whatever he could to give Haynes resolution, not only because it was his job, but because he knew damn well what it was like to live without it.
The hamster moved around in his jacket pocket. That was good, at least. He was grateful for even the slightest good news he’d be able to give to the Haynes twins. It wouldn’t make up for the loss of their mother, but it would be something.
But when he got to the house, the kids weren’t home—probably better that way—just Haynes.
He was middle-aged, a few inches shorter than Bing and a few inches rounder, balding on top, looking five years older than when he’d initially come in to report his wife’s disappearance. The first words out of his mouth were, “Did you find her?”
“Why don’t we go inside?”
“Of course.” He wrung his hands and moved back through the spacious foyer, into an airy kitchen, high-end but well-used, crayon art everywhere.
“I’m sorry.” Bing filled his lungs. “We found your wife’s body earlier today.” And then he gave some of the details while Haynes stared at him dazed, shaking his head over and over.
“Are you sure it’s her?”
Bing pulled the hamster from his pocket and held it out, but Haynes didn’t reach for it, just blinked rapidly. He didn’t seem to be able to lift his hands. An empty cage stood at the end of the counter behind him. Bing walked over, gently placed the animal inside, noting the food in the tray, then locked the wire door.
“She was identified from the photo you provided. The vehicle was also confirmed as hers,” he said as he moved back to Haynes.
The man’s haunted eyes begged for a different answer as he slumped onto a kitchen chair like a cast-aside puppet, as if whatever had been moving him, been giving him life, had been taken away.
The hamster rattled the cage as it attacked the food, stuffing his mouth full, running around, then going back to his bowl again and again. Takeout boxes cluttered the counter around the cage, the sink piled with dishes—a house where the heart of the home, the mother, had gone missing.
It would look like this for a while before the family’s definition of normal changed, chores got reassigned, and a different, stilted rhythm of life was adopted at last. Moving forward was possible, even if limping.
Bing looked back at the man. “You’ll be asked to come in for formal identification later today. You might want a friend to drive you.”
He hated to push for information now, but he had to. And as much as he sympathized with the man, he would double check his alibi later. Alibis could be faked. “Do you have any idea what she might have been doing in the woods by Broslin Creek?”
Haynes took off his wire-rim glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Kristine wasn’t the nature-lover type. She liked high heels and nice dresses.” His voice broke for a second. “I can’t see her ambling along in the woods. Do you think she could have been lured there?”
“It’s a possibility we’re looking into.” Bing paused. “Any enemies? Arguments with neighbors? Old boyfriends?” The questions had been asked at the time of the victim’s disappearance, but they had to be asked again.
The man shook his head, and a tear broke loose and rolled down his face. “She was driven. When she wanted something, she went for it. But I don’t think people resented her. She just wanted to be successful in every way, the best that she could be.” He squeezed his eyes shut for a minute. “She was the love of my life.”
Which didn’t mean that he was the love of hers, Bing thought.
“She had no trouble with anyone at work?” He wouldn’t bring up the possibility of an affair, not today. It’d kill the guy right now. And they didn’t have any evidence in that direction, anyway, beyond their cop instincts. Better see where a few days of investigating would take things.
The man rubbed his eyes, fighting more tears, then losing the battle. “She never said anything. She liked working there. I think they liked her.”
“What department?”
“Finance.”
Stacy had worked in human resources. “I need dates of employment, immediate supervisor, who her friends were at work, everything you can tell me.” He waited, notebook and pen ready.
Seconds passed before Haynes finally lined up his thoughts. “She started two years ago, around Memorial Day. Her supervisor can tell you the exact dates. Bill Rosci.”
Bing noted down the name, the wheels in his head spinning. Stacy had been killed in April. Kristine was hired a month later. Different departments. And the two women never overlapped, probably never met. Disappointment smacked hope back.
; Of course, the connection was tenuous to begin with. One victim had been found at home, the other one in the woods, different methods of murder. Yet there were links between the two.
Bing pulled his cell phone and clicked over to the image of the pen, the odd logo on it. He held up the screen to Haynes. “Do you know where your wife might have gotten this? Do you know what the logo means?”
The man inspected the photo carefully before shaking his head. “Never seen it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Maybe she got it at the library. She went there all the time. Doctor’s office? Maybe some local store?”
“Hmmm.” Unlikely. Anything like that would have their name, phone number, or website on their promo items—the whole point being to gain new customers. Still, he was going to check around town again.
Haynes clasped his hands in front of him. “You said she was killed. How did sh—”
It’d taken him the better part of an hour to be able to ask the question, and Bing didn’t want to drag out the pain, so he gave it to him straight. “Knife wound.”
The man went as white as the kitchen cabinets behind him and swallowed hard. Then he pushed out another question, just as painfully as the first. “Had she been—”
“You’ll get the final report from the coroner’s office.” Bing headed him off so Haynes wouldn’t have to finish. “But I can tell you that her clothes hadn’t been disturbed. Doesn’t look like she was raped.”
A small mercy, he thought, but it was more than he’d received with Stacy.
Chapter Two
In her nightmares, Sophie Curtis was five years old again, screaming as the neighbor’s dog snapped her off her tricycle and mangled her leg, dragging her down the driveway. The dreams were bloody and explicit, the big, black dog merciless.
She’d snuck out of the house, had wanted to play like a normal, healthy kid. Being bitten had hurt, but it was the stress to her weak heart that had nearly killed her.
She shoved the memory aside as she looked across the street. The Rottweiler mix that watched her from the other side was even bigger and blacker than the dog in her dreams. None of her current neighbors had a dog—something she’d checked before buying the house. She didn’t remember seeing him before on her walks.
He wasn’t mangy, nor did he seem undernourished. He had to belong to someone in the neighborhood, maybe on another block.
Annoyance tightened her mouth as she stood on her front stoop, the late afternoon turning into evening. She held her steaming mug of coffee in her hands, idly running her thumb over the crimson staircase with the golden door on top, tracing the logo’s raised edges as she considered the stray.
“Go home.” She muttered the words to herself. She didn’t dare call out to him, lest he thought it an invitation to come closer.
Whomever the dog belonged to should have watched him better. Kept him on a leash. Then the dog wouldn’t have followed her home, dang darn it.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
He’d been lying under her bench at the park as she passed by on her daily walk—doctor’s orders. She hadn’t stopped to sit and enjoy the kids at play or watch her favorite house on the other side of the road like she did most days, her reward for the exercise. But the dog had seen her, had picked up his head as she passed, then started following her. Nearly scared her into running, actually.
Why on earth was he still here?
As if she didn’t have enough problems to figure out today. She scanned the overwhelming pile of carefully packed trees, bushes, and flowers that had been delivered this morning on her front lawn, then glanced back at the dog.
“What do you want?”
Her new life motto was think positive and live life to the fullest. Okay, one of her mottos. She had at least a dozen. She needed all the help she could get. But all improvement started with the person, so she refused to focus on problems when she could be working on solutions. She pulled her cell phone from her pocket and snapped a picture of the stray, because that was the kind of proactive, fix-her-problems-by-herself type of person she was these days. She was more than just a heart-transplant patient. She was done with letting her illness define her.
New heart, new house, new life.
The thought made her feel better, even as the dog lay down, his head resting on his front paws, big brown eyes looking at her, as if trying to tell her something.
“Wrong person. Sorry. I don’t speak dog.”
She snapped another picture before she went inside to print some posters, grabbed up the stack of them when they were done, then ran back down the stairs.
“Proactive”—check. “Solves own problems”—you bet your ass.
She shrugged into her coat before she walked outside. Lester, her across-the-road neighbor was pulling into his driveway, returning from his weekly trip to the grocery store. The eighty-nine-year-old bachelor rolled his window down and glared at the dog, then at her. “Is he yours?”
He lived like a hermit. This was maybe the third time he’d talked to her in the six months since she’d moved to her new home. The previous two occasions had been to tell her that he didn’t like where the U-Haul truck was parked during her move, and then to tell her that she shouldn’t drag her garbage can out to the curb so early in the morning.
“He’s lost. I’m putting up posters.” She lifted her stack of flyers and pulled the roll of duct tape from her pocket with her other hand.
“It’ll come off. Better use a stapler. I don’t suppose you have one.” He managed to jam a world of disapproval into those three short sentences.
If she’d said stapler, Lester would have insisted on duct tape.
Then her phone rang, and she was spared further chastisement. Although, she thought as she scanned the display, she might be jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
“How are you?” her mother asked on the other end. “Did you see the prayer chain I sent you this morning?”
“I’m fine. What’s up on your end?” Sophie began walking, grateful when the dog didn’t follow her. She checked back after a few more steps to make sure.
Her house looked very different with the new trees and bushes. She might have messed up a little, impulsively ordering up a storm from a gardening catalogue—she hadn’t realized the plants would be so large—but she could deal with it.
“I can’t come see you this weekend. Something came up,” her mother said. “Maybe the weekend after next.”
“Okay.” She could pretty up her place by then. She would find yard help she could afford. Hopefully, this time, her plantings would stay in place.
She had, in the fall when she’d first moved in, lined three yellow mums up neatly by the sidewalk. Kids or dogs had dug them up the next day and scattered them around her lawn in pieces.
“I’m not promising,” her mother warned. “You know how busy I am with church. I want you to know I’m praying for you.”
“Thanks. I’m feeling well, and the new house is really nice.” She loved her new life. Except for the Peeping Tom.
She’d seen a shadow at her window several times now. Her chest tightened at the thought. She could only hope that whoever was snooping would get tired of it. She didn’t want to call the police. Calling the police would mean she had a problem she couldn’t solve on her own. And if her mother found out, she’d restart her campaign to have Sophie move home again. Which was so not going to happen.
“I have a checkup tomorrow morning.”
A long moment passed before her mother responded. “You know how I feel about that. It’s not God’s way.”
Her mother didn’t approve of the heart transplant. When God decided to call you home, you were supposed to make a joyful dash for the pearly gates. People using science and technology to circumvent the will of God were committing a sin.
Sophie filled her lungs with cool, fresh air as she glanced back one last time. Lester was out of his car and yelling something at the dog, shooting dark looks afte
r her.
Her neighbor hated her, and her mother wanted her dead.
She blinked hard. Caught herself. Set the negative aside, focus on the positive. “Is everything okay with you, Mom? Healthwise and with the house? Do you need anything?” She felt guilty for not visiting as often as she could have. Maryland wasn’t that far. “Does Mrs. Sinibaldi still come over to crochet with you?”
“You know it’s been hard since your father passed,” her mother snapped, then switched to a more serene tone. “But with the Lord, I’m never alone. I don’t have time to think about being lonely. Did I tell you I joined the Holy Hunger Committee?” She talked about that for another minute before hanging up because she didn’t want to be late for a prayer meeting.
When William Curtis had died, Claire Curtis filled his place with religion. The church had opened its great arms to the grieving widow with the sick daughter. And all that support had felt so good. After being a housewife all her life, she had found her purpose. More than that, really—she’d found a new identity. She was the woman who lost her husband, took care of a sick daughter, and still found a way to volunteer to help others, doing it all God’s way.
Her mother received both support and approval at church, and Sophie was truly glad for that. But she wasn’t willing to die if help was readily available, no matter what her mother’s pastor said about the subject.
Sophie reached the first telephone pole at the end of the street and put up the first poster, then moved on. She wasn’t even out of breath. She spent a silent moment celebrating.
Last year this time, she could barely walk across the room. The extra walk felt good and helped her keep her mind off the biopsy in the morning. The day before her checkups, she always had this bank-is-about-to-call-the-loan-in feeling that left her unsettled.
She put up another poster and another, stopping in front of the green and tan Georgian-revival-style home across the street from the park, her favorite house in the neighborhood. She walked by it every day, and every time the house drew her. Every once in a while she would catch a glimpse of it as she came around the corner and have the strangest sense of déjà vu. She could swear that she’d known that house in the past, had gone up that stone path.
