Deadly Politics

by LynDee Walker

FEAR NO TRUTH: Chapter 2

  The dead girl’s face was flat-out perfection.

  Ignoring the burgundy-black blood seeping into the debris-littered, boot-sucking lake bottom revealed by the drought, I studied the rest of her: arms folded across her ribs, clothing neatly arranged, legs slightly cockeyed, glittery peep-toe heels stretched toward the retreating water.

  Blue light skated across a three-hundred-foot wall of concrete behind me, the flashers atop two marked Travis County Sheriff’s Office cruisers slingshotting color through the chilly gray shade lining the midmorning waterfront.

  “How did you get here?” I murmured, eyes locked on her unnaturally pale face. My habit of talking to dead folks had earned me plenty of funny looks and whispers, but I’d swear on a stack of Bibles it was the reason I’d never missed a collar. I never forgot that the case numbers we assigned victims didn’t replace their humanity—someone’s child, someone’s husband, someone’s sister. Caring who they had been, what had stolen their lives, pushed me to keep digging when others wanted to give up. I tiptoed closer, scanning the ground for anything I might disturb before each half step.

  “We swept around her first.” My favorite coroner’s voice came from behind my right shoulder, tipping my lips up into a smile as I turned.

  “Good to see you, Jim.”

  “Back at you.” He patted my shoulder. “That star suits you, McClellan. I knew you wouldn’t stay with the troopers long when you left the SO. I bet the Rangers are thrilled to have you.”

  My eyes rolled up so far, I caught a glimpse of my hairline. “So thrilled they’ve got me fetching coffee and guarding folders,” I muttered, letting my boots settle into the mud as I gestured to the lithe body sprawled across it. “How long has she been here?”

  My eyes trailed the nearly waist-length blood-tinged blonde hair, my heart rate kicking up too many notches for Archie’s peppermints to calm. I dug in my pocket and came up with a crumpled pack of Marlboros.

  “Hasn’t anyone told you those things will kill you?” Jim shook his head, stringy hair blowing straight up off his comb-over as he turned to look up the face of the dam. “Less than eight hours. Almost no scavenger activity, minimal rigor.”

  I plopped the smoke onto my lower lip and patted my pockets in search of a lighter. Which I didn’t have because that straggly pack was supposed to be there to remind me of why I didn’t need them.

  Jim pulled a Zippo from his jacket and handed it over without a word. I inhaled, handed it back. Held my breath for a ten count and let my eyes fall shut.

  Blonde. Beautiful. Laid bloody at the edge of the water.

  Like Charity.

  So much for quitting this week. But there was always next week.

  “Somebody’s going to miss her,” I said through a stream of smoke, my nerves jangling a tad less as my eyes roamed the rest of the scene. An espresso-colored Louis Vuitton tote rested at the foot of the dam, a half dozen brightly wrapped packages peeking out the top.

  “Where’d that come from?” I jerked my chin toward the bag.

  “Uniform found it up at the top of the dam about an hour ago. Brought it down to check for prints.”

  “Hers?”

  “Can’t say for sure yet. But probably.”

  I nodded, turning back to the young woman: toned limbs, eyes the color of a latte. Probably warm when there was life behind them. Now they just stared at nothing.

  One last drag and I pinched the butt out and tucked it into my pocket before asking Jim for gloves. Pulling them on, I knelt next to the girl. The answer to everything always lies with the victim. Whatever happened here—murder, suicide, accident—this young woman held the key.

  Finding it was the tricky part.

  Using two fingers, I closed the girl’s eyes, my own moving down a long torso to longer legs. Week-old scabs decorated both knees, but there was no visible blood anywhere except under her head. No bruising on her throat or arms.

  Faint pink-red splatters on her gauzy cream blouse caught my eye—not blood, or at least probably not fresh blood, but worth having the lab check the fabric. Sitting back, I ran a gloved finger along a ragged spot: her blouse was ripped, a long strip gone from one of the sheer layers.

  Before I could get my mouth open to ask Jim if they’d found the missing scrap, the sun peeked from behind a cloud, angled rays glinting off something in the sand. Something nearly under the dead girl.

  I reached for it, my fingers closing around cold metal.

  It stuck. Like she didn’t want to give it up. Which was stupid—I’d devoted my life to death and disaster and truth, and this beautiful young woman didn’t want anything. Not anymore.

  Tugging a little harder, I rocked back on my ass in the sand when the metal thing popped free.

  It glittered against the blue-gray glove in the shadow-filtered sunshine. A locket. With a broken chain, though whether it was that way before I pulled on it was impossible to guess.

  I pressed the clasp hidden in the outside edge, the weight in my palm and a practiced eye telling me this wasn’t a cheap piece of jewelry.

  Yep—her eyes were warm. They stared from a bitty heart-shaped photo, her laugh lighting a face even prettier than her long, shiny curls. A boy stood behind her, both arms folded around her shoulders, his smile as easy as hers. I glanced back at the girl on the sand. The boy in the photo had to be a foot taller, and she wasn’t short.

  Raising the locket, I poked my nose a fraction of an inch from their teeny little faces, trying for a better look at his minuscule features.

  Oh, sweet Jesus.

  I knew that boy.

  And the whole goddamn city knew his father.

  This wasn’t just going to be a jurisdictional nightmare—the clock was already ticking on a full-blown media circus.

  Scrambling to my feet, I started for the forensics truck parked near the boathouse like I still wore deputy gray. Halfway there, I spun back to the girl, my gloved fingers tightening around the smooth, cool gold.

  As soon as Captain Jameson saw that picture, this girl would be all over the news. Prints would come before five, sure, but maybe my ridiculously cluttered memory could spare this family finding out their princess was dead via the TV. Given any shot at scoring a few political points, Jameson wouldn’t even try to find her parents before he leapt in front of the nearest camera.

  Except I didn’t have to let him. Because I didn’t answer to him anymore.

  Squeezing the locket tighter, I pulled my glove off around it and slid the little makeshift baggie into my pocket. It wasn’t compromised. It’d be a cinch to slip it into evidence later.

  Sprinting to my truck, I waved a See you later to Jim. He was too busy photographing the contents of the designer tote bag to notice. Probably just as well, with the stolen evidence burning a hole in my Levi’s.

  I ran every red light between the lake and the South Congress DoubleTree, and whispered a prayer as I loped up three flights of stairs two at a time: Please let me get to them first. I’d never make this right, but I could soften the blow.

  I flipped my laptop open and clicked to the university’s homepage.

  Fingers steady, I shook the locket from the glove onto a plastic bag I’d swiped from the ice bucket. It landed facedown, revealing one last secret: TA etched into the back.

  I dug a pair of rubber-ended tweezers and a magnifying glass from my overnight bag and picked the locket open with the tweezers.

  Google.

  News.

  Sports.

  Images.

  Yep: Darren Richardson, the most decorated men’s basketball coach in NCAA history, accepting a lifetime achievement award in a banquet hall filled with stars, politicians, and professional athletes. And the kid from the locket—Nicholas Richardson, recently crowned state 5A wrestling champ—smiling as he lifted his dad’s trophy high.

  A four-second search produced the name of Nicholas’s school. Of course. Marshall High, educating the next generation of Westlake Hill
s’s country club set since 1896. Charity and I would’ve gone there, if private school hadn’t been deemed superior for “security” (read: image) reasons.

  Student directory.

  A.

  There she was.

  My breath stopped. Tenley Andre. Track phenom. List of activities longer than her gorgeous golden hair.

  Damn, damn, damn.

  Talk about clickbait. A beautiful, accomplished dead girl with ties to a prominent family would get Skye Morrow hotter than George Clooney headlining the next Magic Mike movie.

  I folded the plastic around the locket and tucked the bundle into a small drawer in the desk, one eye on the clock. Forty-one minutes until the noon newscasts. Marshall High was twenty-five minutes away in normal traffic. Fifteen with the siren.

  I slapped the computer shut and ran for the door.

  FEAR NO TRUTH: Chapter 3

  It took the vice principal four rounds with a secretary to get Tenley’s mother on the phone. I stood at the woman’s elbow, shaking my head at the tension in her voice.

  “The last thing we need is for her to cause an accident trying to get here. Lighter,” I whispered in her free ear. She nodded.

  “Don’t speed. Just come straight in when you get here,” she said. Still tight, but better. She crumpled into her worn leather office chair as she replaced the receiver, turning wide eyes on me. “You’re sure it was Tenley?”

  I nodded. Like I’d be there asking them to call her mother if I wasn’t.

  She folded her arms across her desk blotter and dropped her forehead to rest on them, deep breaths moving her suit-jacket-padded shoulders in a slow, steady in-and-out rhythm.

  I paced the short stretch of worn carpet to the side of her desk, one eye staying on her tiny frame in case she started to hyperventilate or needed to vomit. I nudged the trash bin closer to her chair with my boot on the next pass—people often get sick after hearing tragic news, and I was wearing the only clean pair of jeans I’d brought.

  “What are we going to do with this?” The words were directed at the desk, muffled by her arms. Before I could formulate an answer, she sat up. “Things like this don’t happen here at Marshall. Tenley Andre can’t possibly be dead—she’s president of the senior class, an accomplished athlete, the reigning queen of an impressive group of students. What will people say? How will this make us look?”

  I blinked, sucking my cheeks in to keep my mouth shut and continuing back over my last run of steps. No two people take this sort of news the same way, but I’d only ever seen one other human treat death like a PR problem. If I didn’t know my mother wouldn’t be caught dead in a Donna Karan knockoff, I’d swear she was the one speaking.

  The doorknob rattled before the I’m so sorry this young woman’s death is inconvenient for you, Mrs. Bauer, snuck between my lips, and I turned, leaning one hip on the edge of the desk.

  A tall, elegant woman with Tenley’s spun-gold hair, hers swept back into a perfect chignon, stepped into the room. Her smile faltered when her eyes landed on me.

  “Mrs. Andre?” I glanced between the newcomer and the vice principal. Got a nod from both. “Come on in. I’m Faith McClellan, Texas Rangers.”

  “Call me Erica. Nice to meet you, Officer. Hello, Sarah.” Her voice trembled as she put a hand out for the vice principal to shake.

  The older woman took it. Tried to smile. Didn’t quite pull it off.

  Erica’s pale, dewy skin flushed yellowish green.

  I waved one hand at a chair, putting the other out to help her if she needed and wishing I hadn’t kicked the trash bin toward Vice Principal Image Is Everything.

  Tenley’s mother ignored the offer of help, holding herself steel-beam rigid as she stood next to the chair.

  “Thank you for coming down, ma’am.” I let my arms drop to my sides, keeping my posture easy and open. “I have a few questions for you, if you don’t mind.” Leading with bad news often makes it difficult to collect crucial details, and unraveling Tenley’s death would require examining every little thing, no matter how inconsequential it seemed out of context.

  She nodded, making a jerky move for the chair. Her face kept the sallow green hue but was otherwise unreadable. Did she know something already? I made a mental note to check police reports for a call.

  “When was the last time you saw your daughter?” I asked as the back of Erica’s linen skirt hit the black plastic seat.

  “This—” Erica stopped before she got the “morning” out.

  I raised an eyebrow when her eyes went to the matte beige wall behind Sarah Bauer, her hands twisting in her lap.

  “I guess I didn’t see her this morning,” she whispered. “I heard her in her bathroom right around sunrise, but I shut my alarm off and caught an extra twenty minutes. She was gone when I got up.”

  I drummed my fingers on my thigh as Erica recounted that, her words directed at the flat-gray industrial carpet, strands of burnished gold falling around her heart-shaped face.

  She paused, her gaze drifting to the vice principal. Not that I needed to worry about her letting anything slip—Sarah Bauer’s blank mask had been hardened by years of disciplining wayward teenagers, and she was more concerned with discerning a way to preserve her school’s sunshine-and-state-champion reputation than she was with Tenley, anyway. She met Erica Andre’s pleading eyes for a half second before she dropped hers to her hands.

  Tick. Tick. Tick. The second hand on the wall clock was louder than a hundred church bells in the tiny, silent room.

  “So yesterday, then?” I prodded gently.

  Erica nodded. “I cooked her breakfast, fueled her up for her meet.” Her words came quicker as her eyes darted from the clock, to the wilted school official, to me, and around again. “She took first in everything. She always does. ‘Nobody catches Tenley Andre’ is practically their team slogan, right, Sarah?”

  Sarah Bauer nodded, not raising her gaze.

  Erica’s flicked to the flat-white door. “Where is my daughter?” It came out clipped, but steady. Controlled.

  A strangled half sob escaped Sarah.

  Erica’s shoulders heaved, and I dived for the trash bin, whipping it across the room and landing it at Erica’s feet.

  She locked her jaw, her nostrils flaring as she pulled in a slow, deep breath.

  Swallowing hard, she tilted her face up to look me dead in the eye. “Please. Has there been an accident?”

  My lips tilting down automatically into a sort of pitiful upside-down smile that rookie deputy Faith had once practiced in the mirror for hours, I knelt next to the trash bin in front of her, puke zone be damned.

  “I’m afraid I have some bad news, ma’am.” I pulled my breath in for a five count. A well-executed pause lets folks steel themselves for having their world turned on its head.

  Erica’s hands set to trembling, her lips rolling between her flawlessly whitened teeth. She shook her head—slowly at first, then fast enough to dislodge her perfect updo. Hairpins flew.

  Her eyes tried to widen, her hands going to her throat as she fought for air, and I laid a reassuring touch on her knee.

  Every time I sat on this side of a tragedy, this part put me right back in my father’s office, bare feet cold under my rose nightgown, his monotone words stripping my world away one layer at a time. The air flat vanished from the room. I knew exactly why Erica Andre couldn’t breathe.

  I reached for her hand and squeezed, and the pressure let her pull oxygen back into her chest.

  “Tenley has died, Mrs. Andre.” Best to be blunt here, rip that Band-Aid right off. It’s everyone’s least favorite part of this job—except me. Because it’s not about me and my comfort level, it’s about how I can help this person who’s drowning under waves of fresh grief. “A jogger found her at the foot of the Mansfield Dam this morning. I’m so sorry for your loss.”

  I kept my grip on her hands, her fingers going cold under mine, wishing I could read something—anything—through the emotionless ma
sk that betrayed her Botox devotion. Her eyes fixed on a bitty silver nailhead in the school office wall and stayed there, filling so slowly I watched the tears well, and my heart suddenly felt too big for my chest.

  “How?” Erica whispered.

  I swallowed hard, shaking my head. There was no room for tears here—not from me. Not once in more than a hundred cases had I broken that rule. I always talked to the families. I was damned good at it. And yet here I was trying to cough an answer around a softball that had found its way into my throat. Maybe it was the date—this random Tuesday in late April would now be the same fault line for her it was for me. A break in her timeline, a shift to a new, dimmer reality she’d never wanted to imagine.

  I moved onto my knees, raising my head to catch her gaze. “I don’t know. But I will find out. You have my word.” I was a peon with no clout, a boss who barely trusted me to get his coffee order right, and no jurisdiction here, but I meant every syllable. I could figure out how to deliver on it later.

  “Thank you.” Her fingers closed tight around mine as the first tear escaped her lashes—and three sharp raps rattled the door.

  FEAR NO TRUTH: Chapter 4

  I jerked Sarah Bauer’s office door inward with a stern Not now ready on my lips. The words died when Graham Hardin’s mouth dropped open and hung there like he’d forgotten how to close it.

  Scuttling through the door, I pulled it shut before he could get a look behind me, keeping my voice low and hoping he’d follow suit. “Hey, Graham.”

  “Faith?” It came out an octave too high and at least twice too loud when he figured out how to make his jaw work. The gray-green eyes that so perfectly matched his Travis County Sheriff’s Office uniform shot from my face to the name on the door to my badge a half dozen times in as many seconds.

  I didn’t even need my six-plus years as his partner to see his temper spiking with each pass. His pinched lips and drawn brow screamed “not amused” to the three secretaries and four teachers clustered around the desk outside Mrs. Bauer’s door. I grabbed his sleeve, hauled him into the copy room next to the principal’s office, and shut the door. No lock to be found. I leaned against it just in case anyone was brave enough to try following.