River Bodies (Northampton County Book 1)

by Karen Katchur

  He kept his back to her. When she’d finished getting dressed, he escorted her downstairs. Bodies littered the couch and floor. Ashtrays and bottles cluttered the coffee table. The whole place smelled like whiskey, sweat, and cigarettes. The two spare bedrooms contained more of the same.

  “Here.” He put a couple hundred bucks in the girl’s hand. She took the money and, without saying a word, shoved it into the pocket of her skirt.

  “Well, uh, thanks,” he said and pointed to the door.

  “Do you expect me to walk home?” she asked.

  Shit.

  The toilet flushed. Chitter emerged from the downstairs bathroom. He looked like John felt. His face, pasty and damp, didn’t look human. His dark curls were matted and stuck to the one side of his head. His left eye drooped.

  “Hey, darlin’,” Chitter said, then turned to John. “You got any coffee?” He sat in the only empty chair in the living room and turned on the TV.

  The girl sat at the kitchen table while John put a pot of coffee on. He swallowed two aspirin and chased it with a large glass of water. He refilled the glass from the faucet and set it along with the bottle of aspirin on the table in front of her.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled.

  He stared at her.

  “What?”

  He pointed to her arm and the black-and-blue marks. “Did I do that?”

  She covered them up with her hand. “No,” she said. “You didn’t. But don’t you be asking me who did. You hear? Mind your own goddamned business.”

  John tossed up a hand, a signal he wouldn’t ask her any more questions, but the notion some punk had struck her enraged him, and a familiar protective instinct flared inside his chest.

  “Hey, John,” Chitter called from the living room. “You might want to get in here.”

  The rest of the guys were rousing, and some of their girls too. Clothes were sorted, and everyone dressed. They surrounded the TV when the local news came back on, the volume on as high as anyone could stand it. Yellow crime scene tape marked off the area behind the reporter. She was talking about a body that had been found next to one of the cement columns under the pedestrian bridge.

  “That didn’t take long,” Chitter said and glanced in John’s direction.

  “Shut up,” John said. Chitter should’ve known better than to say anything in front of the girls, even if it was just some stupid innocuous remark. Business was never discussed in the presence of non–club members.

  The reporter shoved her microphone in the face of an elderly man whom John recognized from town. The man’s name was Paul. He owned the antique store along Route 611 and what was also Delaware Drive. John had gone into the store once or twice with Beth and not since.

  Paul told the reporter he’d been out with his grandson on the river fishing when they had spotted the body. The camera zoomed in on the grandson’s face, but the boy hid behind Paul’s leg. Paul rubbed his grandson’s back, comforting him as the camera lens swung back to the reporter.

  The front door flew open, and Hap stepped inside. “Jesus Christ, it stinks in here.”

  Some of the guys looked over their shoulders at Hap, then turned back to the news.

  Hap looked at the TV, then at John. “Get these girls out of here,” he said to the other members. “Now.”

  Chitter and some of the guys grumbled, but they did what they were told. They collected the girls, including the one John had found in his bed, and escorted them out of the house. Hap was the oldest member of the club and the one most respected. No one questioned Hap’s orders.

  In the next few minutes, their motorcycles fired up, making it impossible to hear the TV. But once the guys had gone, John found the silence was worse.

  “I’ll send over a couple of prospects to clean this place up,” Hap said and poured a cup of coffee. He handed it to John.

  John took it. He felt numb on the inside, void of any emotion as he stared at the TV and the pretty news reporter who was trying to get one of the police officers to answer her questions.

  “No comment,” the officer said.

  The station was about to cut away to another segment when there was a commotion coming from behind the yellow tape.

  An officer yelled, “Hey, Parker. You’re going to want to see this.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Detective Parker Reed squatted next to the body. His stomach turned. He was sure the color had drained from his face. “What exactly are we looking at?”

  “A field dressing,” Nathan said. He moved a flap of skin with his gloved hand. “Gutted like an animal. And see this.” He pointed to an area on the skin in the upper chest. “That’s from a bullet.” He turned toward Parker. “Do we know where this happened?”

  “No.” Parker’s mouth was slick with warm saliva.

  “Well, you might want to start by looking for this guy’s intestines, his heart, liver.”

  “Right.” Parker stood, covering his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Nathan smiled, shaking his head.

  Parker had seen other dead bodies on the job from gunshot wounds, car wrecks, and drownings. And once he’d seen the body of a burn victim. But this was his first case as lead detective, and he’d never seen one carved up like an animal, dumped into the river like a piece of trash.

  He swallowed hard. “How long was this one in the water?” he asked.

  “Not that long. I’m guessing less than twenty-four hours,” Nathan said, looking back at the body, puzzling out the injuries.

  Parker hesitated, collected himself, pulled it together, before he headed up the bank and ducked under the crime scene tape. The local news van was parked near the bridge. A small crowd had gathered. The reporter was interviewing Paul and his grandson live on camera. She caught Parker’s eye.

  “No comment,” he said, deflecting her. He continued walking. The reporter returned her attention to Paul, never missing a beat.

  Parker stopped next to his unmarked cruiser where Bill was standing, scratching his head. Bill had been sent from headquarters to assist Parker until they found him a permanent partner. Parker worked out of the field station. Headquarters was located in Bethlehem, a forty-minute drive away.

  “What do you have for me?” Parker asked Bill.

  “I talked to a few people, but no one knows anything. No one’s come forward about a missing person,” Bill said.

  “Let’s check with the Jersey police too. Maybe someone reported a missing person on their side.” It had been less than twenty-four hours, and the chance of a missing person report having been filed was a long shot, but they had to start somewhere. The sooner they identified the victim, the closer they’d come to finding out who had done this.

  “It’s like that other one,” Bill said, keeping his voice down. “That other body they pulled from the river back when we were just a couple of kids.”

  Parker didn’t say anything, but that was exactly what he was thinking.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Becca called the clinic that morning from her old bedroom, her hair damp from a shower. She explained the sudden family emergency.

  “Take care of Maggie, and call me if anything changes,” she said. “I’m just over the bridge. I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

  “Okay, but don’t worry. Mags will be fine,” Vicky reassured her.

  “And call me with any questions or if there’s a surgery one of the others isn’t comfortable doing.”

  Vicky was silent.

  “Vick?”

  “I will. I promise.”

  “Okay, I know,” she said.

  “I’m really sorry about your dad,” Vicky said. “Why didn’t you ever say anything about it before?”

  “My dad and I aren’t exactly close. We kind of lost touch in the last few years.”

  “A falling out?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Well, you’re there now,” Vicky said. “Maybe you could look at it as an opportunity.”

  “
I don’t know. Maybe some things are better left alone.” It was what her mother might’ve said at one time had she been asked the same question. It used to be her mother’s way, to keep the peace and not upset the balance of things, but was it Becca’s way? She thought it was. Besides, she didn’t want to have the conversation she was too afraid to have with him. She didn’t want to hear the answers to the questions she couldn’t bring herself to ask him.

  Becca hung up the phone. She rubbed her forehead. Last night when she’d blurted out that she was going home, it wasn’t something she’d thought through. And now that she was here, she felt trapped, a sink-or-swim situation.

  Romy nudged her hand with her wet nose. “Do you want to go for a walk?” She scratched behind the dog’s ear.

  Becca opened the bedroom door, and the dog raced out of the room.

  “Becca,” Jackie called. “Is that you?”

  She dropped her head, resigned to answer. She took a moment before replying, “Hey,” and peeked into her father’s bedroom. Jackie was sitting on the bed with him, her arm around his thin shoulders. They were watching the news.

  “Come in,” Jackie said. She was wearing another small shirt, the V-neck pulled tight across her chest. She leaned over to whisper into Becca’s father’s ear. “She decided to stay,” she said and squeezed his shoulder.

  Becca averted her eyes, uncomfortable with their closeness, their touching each other, although it wasn’t the first time she’d seen him cozy with another woman who wasn’t her mother. She suddenly wished she hadn’t come home at all. But she crossed the room to where he lay in bed with his lady friend. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  He cleared his throat as a way of answering. Jackie motioned for her to sit in the chair next to him. His once-large hand was a fist of bulging knuckles and veins. He held his wrist at a bent angle. The stroke had twisted his joints into arthritic formations. He stared at the small television.

  A headline flashed on the screen: Breaking News. A local reporter Becca didn’t recognize was standing next to Paul, the owner of the antique store Becca used to explore with her mother when she’d been a kid. The reporter asked Paul questions. A small boy clung to Paul’s leg.

  Jackie turned the volume up.

  “We saw the body down there.” Paul pointed toward the riverbank where the yellow crime scene tape had blocked off the area. “He was caught against one of the cement columns, facedown. I could tell by the way he was laying there in the water, you know, it wasn’t a rescue we needed to be concerned about. I mean I knew he wasn’t . . .” He looked away from the camera.

  “You’re saying you could tell the man was already dead from where you were standing on the riverbank?”

  “Yes, ma’am. There was no question in my mind.” He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand. “Now I told you everything I know. I’ve got nothing more to say.” He backed away from the camera, looking over his shoulder, taking his grandson with him.

  The dread Becca had felt the night before when she’d crossed the bridge to home swarmed her chest. She remembered seeing something herself in the river yesterday. Her father reached toward the TV, pointing with his crooked finger. He started shaking.

  “Dad, what is it?”

  Jackie was on her feet. “Is it the pain?”

  He clutched the sheet in his fist, the crease between his eyebrows deepening into the angry face Becca remembered from when she’d been a teenager, the same face he’d made on the occasion she’d come home after curfew. But it hadn’t been anger emanating from his coiled muscles that had frightened her. His wrath had never been more than a lot of hollering and the threat of punishment. Her father had done a lot of things, but he’d never hit her.

  So no, it wasn’t seeing her father angry that she found so unnerving. It was the thread of fear she saw behind his eyes.

  “Okay,” Jackie said and held up a needle, the morphine squirting from the syringe and into the air. She stuck his arm, but not before taking a moment to glance at Becca.

  Once they had him calm again, Jackie said, “That came on sudden. It usually doesn’t happen like that so quickly.” She smoothed her frizzy hair away from her face.

  “What’s that smell?” Becca asked.

  “Oh.” Jackie rubbed her forehead. “I think he went to the bathroom.”

  “What do you mean he went to the bathroom?” Becca looked at him. He was staring at the wall, humiliation all over his face.

  “All right,” Jackie said and pulled the covers down. “You can help me change him.”

  “I don’t think I can,” she said, embarrassed for him, for herself.

  Jackie glared at her. “Yes, you can,” she said. “It will go much quicker with two of us.”

  “But I’ve never done this before.”

  “It’s easy.”

  She didn’t want to, but she said, “Okay,” and released a slow breath. “Tell me what you want me to do.”

  Her father kept his eyes cast on the wall. He wouldn’t look at either one of them, and Becca had to admit she couldn’t look at him either. For him to be reduced to this, to this state. She stared at a spot on the bed, forcing herself not to look at the parts of his body a daughter shouldn’t see, but she couldn’t help but see, loathing herself the second she did. She wanted to run out of the room. God, the smell was awful. Oh, Dad.

  Jackie was quick, changing the soiled diaper and replacing it with a clean one while Becca helped raise his bottom. When they’d finished and the blankets had been pulled back up to his chest, Jackie picked up the remote to turn off the television as the news came back on.

  “Wait,” Becca said, touching Jackie’s arm, stopping her from hitting the button.

  Becca recognized the man behind the reporter and standing next to an unmarked cruiser. It was Parker.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Sixteen-year-old Becca sprawled out on a flat rock by the river. She was wearing shorts and a bikini top. The hot sun kissed the exposed areas of her skin. A small pool of sweat collected in her belly button. Every now and again she dipped her toes into the cool water for a little relief from the heat, then kicked her feet in an attempt to get Parker’s attention.

  “Don’t splash,” Parker said. “You’ll scare the fish.” He cast his line upstream, letting the current carry the lure downstream in hopes of hooking a shad. The shad were making their way upriver to spawn, according to Portland’s local fishing association.

  “I’m not splashing,” Becca said. She extended her legs, letting her feet dangle over the side, careful not to spray the water as it dashed by. School would be letting out in another three weeks. Their junior year was almost over, and the long, lazy days of summer stretched before them.

  She dipped her feet farther into the water, the current carrying her legs in its hurry to pass by. Parker hadn’t caught a single shad in the last two hours, and she was getting hot from sitting in the sun waiting.

  “Pick up your pole and help a guy out,” he said.

  “Fine.” She sat up, grabbed her fishing pole. “But if you catch something the second I cast my line, I’m pushing you in.”

  Parker couldn’t seem to catch a fish unless they were competing. He thrived on the thrill of the catch, but he lived to one-up her. Whether it was a race to see who could make it to his pickup truck first or who could eat an entire hot dog in the least amount of bites, he challenged her on everything. Sometimes she wondered what the heck he had to prove. They’d been friends all through high school.

  She tied a lure she borrowed from his tackle box to her line. It was white with a red head, the same lure Parker had on his line. If they were going to see who could catch a fish first, she wanted to make sure the competition was fair and that there wouldn’t be any debate later on about which kind of lure they each had used.

  She glanced at him as he slowly reeled in his line, looking at him in that new way that seemed to have happened overnight. Heat pricked her neck, cheeks, remembering the way he’d c
overed her hand on the gear shift on the drive over. He’d been teaching her how to drive stick. His skin had been warm and dry. And then he’d left his hand on top of hers. He’d never held her hand before. She’d lost focus, taken her foot off the gas. The truck had slowed; the engine had groaned.

  “Easy,” he’d said, explaining how to downshift.

  They’d bucked forward, then stalled.

  He’d removed his hand, and she’d instantly missed the warmth of his touch. She’d turned her face toward him, felt his breath on her lips. She’d closed her eyes, leaned forward, expecting him to kiss her. This was it, the moment she’d been waiting for, when he would see her as more than a friend.

  He’d pulled away suddenly. “Let’s get to the river,” he’d said and grabbed the stick shift.

  She’d kept her eyes on the road after that and couldn’t look at him. She’d been confused, her emotions mixed up and conflicting. Why didn’t he want to kiss her? All she’d thought about the last few weeks was what it would be like to press her lips against his, taste what it was like to be the girl who had finally captured his attention.

  She watched him now. He was shirtless, his skin tan and smooth. The muscles in his back and arms flexed each time he cast and pulled. There was a soft patch of dark hair below his belly button. His abdominals were ridiculously toned.

  “What?” he asked, catching her staring.

  “Nothing,” she said and cast a little way downriver from where he was standing. It was a poor cast. She reeled the line in to try again.

  Parker stepped on a rock farther out in the river where the water crashed and sprayed. She wished he wouldn’t go out so far where the current twisted and churned. He didn’t seem concerned. She couldn’t recall anything that had ever frightened him—not Dead Man’s Curve, the fastest stretch of rapids, where people had been known to get crushed against the rocks and where he kayaked several times a year; nor had he been afraid of sitting on the rail of the pedestrian bridge, the site where jumpers had lost their lives and where he’d dangled his legs over the side of the forty-foot drop.