Ray Elkins mystery - 02 - Color Tour

by Aaron Stander

  “It was fast. They were dead before they felt much pain,” he explained with great certainty.

  “What’s your scenario?” asked Ray.

  “Don’t think there was any struggle. They were occupied.”

  He looked at Ray and Sue and then slowly moved his gaze toward the bodies. “Given the way they’re lying, the killer probably came up from the beach, took a few moments to plan his attack, and then moved in. The killer was fast, first the man and then the woman, before she could begin to defend herself. The male victim’s head was pulled back, probably by his ponytail, and his throat was cut. He was dead before he knew what happened. The woman would have seen something, perhaps even reached up to defend herself, but she was pierced in the heart. Look at those chest wounds, any one of them would have been fatal. But the killer kept on stabbing her. Bag her hands. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find something under her nails. Have you found the weapon?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, it shouldn’t be hard to spot. You’re looking for a big, sharp knife with a wide blade. The neck wound is very clean, almost surgical; there’s no tearing.” Dyskin stopped and lit the stub end of his cigar with a Zippo lighter, curling his hand around the flame to protect it from the wind.

  “Time of death?” asked Ray.

  “What’s the temperature?”

  “Now it’s about forty degrees; it’s been dropping all night.”

  “Ten, twelve hours, more or less,” Dyskin said, as he gathered up his instruments and tossed them back into the leather bag. “Couldn’t have been completely dark yet. The assailant had enough light to see what he was doing. Those wounds in the woman’s chest—right on target. He wasn’t doing it by Braille.”

  “Same weapon?” asked Ray.

  “Same weapon.” Dyskin moved back to her body and pointed to one of the punctures. “Look how clean the entry is here. One sharp edge, with tearing on the opposite side, probably serrated. Maybe a big hunting knife, one of those commando things. And the perp was plenty strong. Someone was very angry.” Dyskin peered at them over the top of his glasses. “He wanted them more than dead. There was a lot of rage here. I wonder,” he stopped short.

  “Wonder what?” asked Ray, peering into Dyskin’s protruding eyes.

  “Just a passing thought, we’ll know a lot more after the autopsy.”

  Twenty minutes after the phone call from Sheriff Ray Elkins, a dark green Jeep Cherokee with sheriff department banners on the doors came up the drive and stopped at Leiston School’s elegant main building. At least he didn’t have his flashers on, thought Ian Warrington, the school’s headmaster, as he pushed through the double doors and ran to the car through the heavy rain. He didn’t like being seen getting into a police car, a fact that would undoubtedly be observed by a few and reported to many. But given the circumstances, there was no other way to handle the situation.

  Ian Warrington climbed into the passenger seat and gave the young officer at the wheel a curt hello as they headed toward the gated entrance. Once on the highway Ian looked across at the driver again. Warrington was surprised by how young the deputy looked, just about the age of Leiston’s seniors. “Have you been doing this long?” he asked, trying to make conversation.

  “No sir, I graduated from Wayne State in May. Started working for the department in July.”

  “Are you from the area?”

  “No sir, grew up in Novi. My grandparents have a cottage up here. I’ve always wanted to live here.”

  Ian fell silent. He wondered what effect the death of a faculty member would have on the school, what effect it might have on him and his future? It was like waking up to a nightmare. The sheriff hadn’t told him much on the phone, just that he was needed to identify the body of Ashleigh Allen. And when Ian asked about where the accident took place, the sheriff responded that it was not an accident. And before Ian could pursue, he was told that a deputy would be coming to pick him up.

  “Where are we going, the medical center?” Ian asked the deputy.

  “No. We’re going to the scene. The bodies will be transported to Grand Rapids.”

  “Why all the way down there?”

  “Forensic pathologists,” the young deputy offered, but he didn’t bother to explain. Given his demeanor, Ian felt it would be futile to ask. “We’re going to meet the sheriff at Burnt Mill Park,” the deputy continued. “They have tentative identifications based on items found with the victims, they just want you to confirm.”

  Ian was silent for the rest of the short trip. The deputy parked at the end of a line of emergency vehicles, their flashing lights pulsating silently in the heavy rain and fog.

  “It doesn’t appear they’re off the beach yet. I’ll get you when they’re ready,” the deputy said as he stepped out of the car.

  Ian sat for a few minutes and then followed the deputy’s path out to the beach. He could see another cluster of flashing lights several hundred yards north on the shore. He put a cigarette in his mouth and realized how much he was trembling as he attempted to light it. Ian was consumed with a sorrow that was tinged with fear.

  Eventually two vehicles headed down the beach, two Jeeps. He saw them approach at what seemed a mournful pace, watched them leave the beach and crawl across the expanse of sand into the park.

  “Sir, come with me please,” said the young deputy. They walked together toward an ambulance. Ian saw two body bags transferred from the back of the second Jeep into the ambulance. The sheriff was waiting near the rear doors, his yellow raincoat glistening in the beam of a small spotlight mounted above the doors.

  “Thank you for coming, Dr. Warrington,” Ray said. “I hope this won’t be too difficult for you.”

  Ray opened the ambulance doors, and he and Ian Warrington climbed into the back of the unit and crouched next to the stretchers. Ray slowly unzipped the first black body bag, opening it just enough to reveal the face.

  Warrington flinched, a convulsive movement ran through his frame. “Yes,” he replied softly. “Ashleigh, yes.”

  Ray closed the first bag and unzipped the second. “Do you know this person?” he asked.

  “Yes, that’s Dowd, David Dowd. He’s a friend of Ashleigh’s; they graduated from Leiston the same year.” Ian looked at the sheriff for a long moment and then bolted clumsily out of the ambulance. Ray watched him run across the beach toward the lake. Ray gave Warrington several minutes and then walked to him.

  4

  It was still raining heavily two hours later when Sheriff Elkins turned off the county road into the entrance of Leiston School. He slowed at the security booth that divided the entrance drive; the attendant on duty waved him through the open gate. A hundred yards farther up the road he pulled off the blacktop and followed the narrow drive that circled the front of Leiston School’s main building, his headlights reflected off the rough surface of the wet granite pavers.

  The mansion, built in the Georgian style, had been constructed soon after World War I by a Chicago tycoon, Norton Howard, who had made his fortune in lumber and railroads. The estate, originally known as Forest Glen, was a gift to his English-born wife who had longed for a country house. Ray could remember that when he was young his grandfather and the other old-timers would reminisce about the crew of English masons imported to build the house. How the men cut the ashlars for the exterior walls from large blocks of stone that had been quarried in Wisconsin and carried across Lake Michigan by steamship. A narrow-gauge railroad had been built to haul the stone blocks and other building materials from the Lake Michigan shore to the construction site, and some of the locals had been hired to erect the scaffolding that circled the house when the stone walls were laid.

  Ray parked on a small turnout across from the entrance, each of the four spaces marked “Visitors Only.” As he approached the double doors at the center of the building, the one on his right opened. A small, attractive woman clad in a black sweater and skirt greeted him.

  “Sheriff Elkins?” Ray clasped h
er extended hand and held it for a long moment as she identified herself. “I’m Sarah James.”

  He looked at her closely; her facial features were delicate. Redness at the edges of her dark green eyes showed that she had been weeping. Her dark black hair, cut short and carefully styled, was streaked with an occasional gray hair, but her skin was unlined and youthful; he judged her to be in her late thirties or early forties.

  “And your position here, Ms. James?” he asked.

  “I’m director of administrative services,” she offered without further comment. She escorted him down a long hallway to the right and then to a second corridor on the left, leading him into the building’s south wing. Halfway down the long hall she stopped, opened the door marked Headmasters Office, and waited for Ray to enter. Once inside she said, “Mr. Warrington has shared with me… I’m so shocked… I can’t imagine,” she wiped tears away with her left hand. “He’ll be with you in a few minutes.” She moved away, stopped and looked back at Ray—as if to confirm that this was all real—and then left, closing the heavy oak door quietly behind her.

  Ray wandered around the office as he waited. The room had obviously once been the mansion’s library. A large black marble fireplace was centered on the west wall. Bookcases ran from each side of the fireplace and also covered most of the east and north walls. The south wall had three sets of French doors that opened onto a brick terrace and overlooked a small lake.

  The books were shelved behind doors framed in oak with tarnished brass-screened center panels. Sets of dusty, leatherbound books, gold on the spines, filled the cases. Ray opened one of the doors and withdrew a volume from a set titled Famous Women of the French Court. He paged past the marbleized endpapers searching for a copyright date. Ray decoded the Roman numerals to 1921. As he started to leaf through the book, he noted that the signatures—the large multi-page sheets that were printed and folded to make sections of the book—were uncut. The book had never been read. So much for the women of the French court, he thought as he replaced the book.

  He moved toward the floor-to-ceiling doors on the south wall. Velour curtains in a faded rose, decades past their prime, framed the spans. A large oriental rug, threadbare on the traffic patterns, covered much of the oak parquet floor. The harsh light from two banks of fluorescent lights suspended from the ceiling violated the tone of the architecture.

  “Too bad about those,” said Ian Warrington, noting Ray’s gaze as he entered the room. “My predecessor had some strange ideas about how to modernize things. I’ve been trying to rectify and restore things as money allows.” He paused; his tone became grave. “But that’s a small problem now. I’ve told Sarah James and my wife, Helen, about Ashleigh.” He slid his thin athletic frame into a worn leather chair near one of the windows and gestured for Ray to use the adjoining one. “We are beginning to plan how to present this to the students,” he said, a troubled expression on his face. “I’ve never faced a situation like this.” There was a long pause, Warrington lost in thought, his last comment seemed more to himself than to Ray.

  “We need to notify Ms. Allen’s and David Dowd’s next of kin as quickly as possible,” said Ray. “Could you help us identify the people who should be contacted?”

  “I had anticipated that you would require that. Sarah is working on it, but I’m not sure what she is going to find. Ashleigh didn’t have much of a family. Her mother died when Ashleigh was a young teen, breast cancer, I think. She was a student here at Leiston at the time. Ashleigh was the grandniece of Mrs. Howard, the school’s founder. And Mrs. Howard was her legal guardian after her mother’s death.” His tone changed, “You grew up around here, didn’t you, sheriff?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you know Mrs. Howard?”

  “I knew her by sight. I would see her shopping in the village,” Ray responded. “She was very hard to miss, an imposing looking woman, drove a large, old, blue sedan, a Jaguar I think. But this place,” Ray made a sweeping gesture with his hand, “was always a mysterious enclave: gated, walled, posted. The Howards made it clear they didn’t want their privacy intruded upon. They seldom hired locals, brought their own staff from Chicago. Even their year-round caretaker was an outsider.” Ray paused briefly. “And it didn’t seem to change very much after she started the school.”

  “Yes, I know,” Warrington said as he ran his right hand through his light brown hair. “Another thing I hope to address.”

  “And her father? Ashleigh’s?”

  “I don’t know the whole history, there are people here at the school, some of the old-timers, who probably know more. The version I’ve heard is that she was conceived when her mother was a graduate student at Berkeley. The man, perhaps one of her professors, was married. He drifted out of her mother’s life before Ashleigh was born. I don’t know if Ashleigh ever had contact with him, I’m not sure she even knows his identity,” he paused and corrected himself, “even knew his identity.”

  “Did her mother ever spend time in this area?” Ray asked.

  “I really don’t know. The fact that Mrs. Howard ended up as Ashleigh’s guardian suggests that she was close with the mother, so there’s the possibility that she did.”

  “Other relatives?”

  “She had no siblings. Her grandmother, Mrs. Howard’s sister, has been dead for years. I don’t think there’s anyone else. But Sarah is working on it; we’ll see what she finds out.” Warrington exhaled heavily and sagged into his chair.

  “David Dowd, can you give us some help… ?”

  “Sarah has pulled his records. She has names and addresses for his parents and is checking to see if they are current. They were divorced by the time David was at school here. What else do you need?”

  “We need to trace Ashleigh’s movements during the last few days. Did she live here at the school?”

  “Yes, she resided,” Warrington paused for a moment––Ray heard the pain in his voice, “in one of the older faculty lodges, duplexes, actually. They were built as guest cottages in the early years of the estate. Mrs. Howard had some additional ones built in the ’60s in the same style as the original ones when she started the school, but the early ones are much nicer. They’re built like this place,” he gestured to his surroundings, “stone and timber, very solid. They look like something you’d find in the Cotswolds. That’s in England,” he added.

  Ray nodded. “We need to know who saw her yesterday, who she was with, at what time. We also need access to her quarters.”

  Warrington shook his head back and forth, “You don’t suspect that anyone here could have… ”

  “This is the beginning of a homicide investigation. We will be looking at all possibilities. We have to learn as much as we can about the victims and the people with whom they associated. Have you arranged a meeting with the staff?”

  “Ms. James is trying to contact everyone. Being the weekend, she’s having some difficulty. The staff meeting is tentatively scheduled for five o’clock. Then we have a meeting of the whole school scheduled for six.” Warrington paused, pushed his glasses up his long, thin nose and continued. “Our consulting psychologist will be here and two crisis counselors from Detroit are flying in this afternoon. When is the media going to… ”

  “They already know that there has been a double homicide. We’ve been able to withhold the names and keep them away from the crime scene. I’ve promised them a press conference after we’ve notified next of kin.”

  “How do I keep them off campus?” asked Warrington.

  “You won’t have much trouble if it’s just the local media. If you meet with the reporters and give them some time, I think they will respect the fact that this is a school and they will keep their distance. But if one of the networks jumps on the story, well… ” He paused and watched the gloom settle on Warrington.

  “Anyway, I would like to be at your staff meeting. I’ll have Deputy Lawrence with me. And I’ll have her available for your community meeting if there are any questions she mi
ght be able to help with.”

  “Is there any way we can keep the students out of this?” Warrington asked.

  “I understand your desire to shield them from this horrible crime, but it’s possible that one of them might have seen or heard something that will aid our investigation.” Ray paused, then looked directly at Warrington, his tone hardened. “Do you know of anyone who might have a motive to do this? Have there been any threats against Ms. Allen?”

  “Everyone loved Ashleigh. She was a bright, beautiful young woman. Students adored her, and she was popular with the staff.”

  “Someone didn’t love her,” Ray said, his tone flat. “This is one of the most brutal homicides I’ve ever seen.” He waited. Warrington didn’t respond. “How long has she been here?”

  “As a teacher, three years. This was her fourth. We were fortunate to recruit her back.” Warrington brightened for a moment as he remembered that time, then he became solemn again. “I’m in the process of revitalizing the school. It was almost moribund when I arrived. One of my first objectives was to hire young, energetic faculty members as our senior people retired. Ashleigh was the first new hire in more than twenty years. She was going to be an important part of this rebuilding process.”

  “Three years,” Elkins repeated. “Did she have any enemies? Do you know of any threats?”

  Warrington peered at the ceiling and rubbed the back of his neck, he looked back at Ray and said, “No,” as he shook his head back and forth.

  “What do you know about the second victim, David Dowd.?”

  “Not much. He was one of the people she dated. She’d occasionally bring him to school functions when he was visiting. Seemed like a nice enough young man.”