Dust Up with the Detective

by Danica Winters

  “I can’t, Jeremy.” She tried to control her breathing, but now it was coming in rapid, panicked heaves.

  He took her hand, running his thumb over her skin. “Okay. It’s okay,” he soothed.

  His heartbeat was so strong that she could feel it through his grip. Did he hate this as much as she did?

  Jeremy led her back down the tunnel from where they’d come, until he reached a spot wide enough for them both to stand. “Let me take the lead.”

  She nodded, but his voice sounded like it was coming through a can. The world spun around her slightly, forcing her to lean back against the wall and close her eyes. “Just a minute,” she whispered.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she lied as her head started to throb and a faint wave of light-headedness washed over her. She pulled her hand from his, afraid that it wasn’t just the claustrophobia or the bump to the head that was making her feel adrift.

  She braced herself against the walls of the cave. The earth was cool and damp under her touch, and the dirt had given way to hard rock. The jagged edges scraped her hands, but the pain made her come back to herself. Lifting her hand, she wiped a speckle of blood from her palm.

  Jeremy took her face in his hands. “You’re fine. Everything will be okay. You’re safe with me.”

  In their little cocoon of warm yellow light, and wrapped in his hands, she believed him. She looked up into his face. She focused on the green depths of his eyes, blocking out everything else around her. After a while her breathing slowed as he caressed her face, moving a stray hair back from her neck.

  “We won’t have to be in here much longer,” he whispered. “He has to be close.”

  Jeremy’s warm fingertips brushed the skin right under her bottom lip, his touch making the cold rock beneath her feel that much cooler. Leaning in, he stole her lips, kissing her with a tenderness far deeper than the mine.

  Everything around her disappeared. There was only him. His mouth on hers. The luscious texture of his tongue as it brushed over the curve of her lip, lightly caressing hers. He flicked his tongue, making her thighs tense, warmth rise from her core and her thoughts rush to the other places his mouth could explore.

  His hands roamed down her neck, over her curves and down her hips. He pulled her against him, pressing her against his responding body. She didn’t know what it was. The fever with which he touched her, her long drought from masculine contact. Whatever it was, she kissed him back with a ravenous hunger. It felt—

  From somewhere deep behind them, near the entrance of the cave, came the sound of a crackling radio. The high-pitch static cut through the air and brought Blake back to reality.

  Jeremy jerked with the sound. “I... I...shouldn’t have done that,” he stammered, wiping his lips with the back of his hand. “I just meant to make you feel better. I’m sorry.”

  “You’re right. You shouldn’t have.” She stepped away from him and out of the light in an attempt to cover the hurt that must have shown on her face. He wasn’t the only one who had made a mistake. She shouldn’t have let him kiss her. Now everything was going to get confusing.

  “Let’s go back. I think this way is blocked—it’s getting too narrow.” Entirely too narrow, as far as she was concerned. She couldn’t be this close to him.

  He started to say something but stopped. “Okay.”

  She led the way back, and, as they neared the Y, a warm breeze blew in from the entrance, making her aware of how cold it was in the cave. Between their moving and the kiss, she hadn’t noticed the icy chill. If Robert was hurt somewhere in there, was it possible that he could have become hypothermic? If he couldn’t move, in the damp cold of the mountain’s underbelly it wouldn’t have taken long.

  She walked a little faster down the right branch of the tunnel, moving ahead of Jeremy just enough that she was outside the range of his light. Her foot struck something, and it sent her tumbling. Her shoulder connected with the floor, mud kicking up into her face and splattering over her light, dimming its brilliance as her helmet rolled away.

  “Dang it.” Her wrist throbbed where she’d tried to catch herself as she fell. She sat up and tried to wipe the dirt off her face, but the slick mud only smeared over her skin.

  She should have been more careful. She should have paid more attention, but all she could think about was Jeremy...his lips...the way his body felt as it pressed against hers.

  Blake grabbed her hard hat and wiped the dirt from its lamp. As the light brightened, it caught on something metal, sending a reflection against the far wall of the cave. She turned to find the object. There, at her feet, were the legs of a man.

  The body was slumped forward and slightly to the side, propped against a rock. All of his clothes were in place, and if his skin wasn’t gray and mottled, it was almost as if he could have simply fallen asleep. His feet were crossed loosely at the ankles, indicating that at the time of death he had been standing—she’d once heard it was because the left side of the brain shut down first and it caused the person’s legs to cross as they fell, but whether it was that or simply inertia, she couldn’t be sure. Yet, only those who were standing at the time of death fell as Robert had.

  “Jeremy, stop,” she called down the tunnel, but it was too late. Jeremy stepped into the light.

  “Oh, my God,” he whispered, looking down at the body. He moved his light, shining it on the man’s face.

  His skin was pale, mottled to the point of gray—the color of death. His eyes were open, but they were opaque and unseeing.

  “Robert...” Jeremy illuminated the side of his brother’s head.

  There was a streak of dried, congealed blood down the side of his face and neck. His jacket was stained red and brown, and a pool of blood had settled and dried in his lap.

  A gun was on the ground by his left hand. Next to the gun was a single spent casing.

  One shot, one kill.

  Jeremy dropped down to his knees as he stared at the man.

  “Jeremy, you should go,” she said. “I can take it from here.”

  “My brother...” Jeremy started, stunned. “This is my brother.”

  “I know. And he’s always going to be your brother, but right now this is a crime scene.”

  Chapter Five

  Jeremy wouldn’t let her leave him outside the mine; instead he watched as she and her team documented the crime scene, taking measurements, pictures of the body and close-ups of Robert’s face and the wound at his temple. They were doing their jobs, but it made his stomach churn every time he looked up and saw his brother’s face.

  Robert had had his fair share of issues, but Jeremy had never expected them to land them here—his brother dead and him watching as Robert’s body was poked and prodded.

  Blake looked to him as one of the investigators took a close-up of the bullet wound. “You okay? Are you sure you want to stay down here? It’s been a long day.”

  “I’m fine.”

  She frowned, like she didn’t believe him, but she didn’t say anything. She turned to the other officer and handed him her camera. “Did they get a video?” Blake asked.

  “Yep,” the investigator answered.

  “Great. Make sure to get some more pictures. Especially of the spatter.”

  The officer nodded, taking the camera. The strobing flash made Jeremy flinch, as if each picture was the crack of a bullet that had come too close.

  He had to pull his crap together. For the next hour or so, he couldn’t see the body as his brother if he wanted to get through this. This couldn’t be Robert—it had to be just another face, or he’d never be able to be right again. And for dang sure, he didn’t need Blake worrying about him. She needed to focus on her investigation.

  He took a deep breath.

  Blake took a swab of the bo
dy’s hands. She tried to move his arm, but he was at full rigor. Leaning down, she sniffed his hands and then wrapped them in paper bags.

  “You smell anything?” he asked, glancing down to the place where the handgun rested.

  “Hard to say,” she said with a slight shrug. “His hands smell heavily of dirt. That can cover the scent of powder.”

  He nodded.

  “You want to take a sniff?” she asked, motioning to the bagged hands.

  If this was his scene, he would have done it, but he still couldn’t let go of the fact it was Robert. No matter how badly he wanted to, he couldn’t feel his brother’s cold, lifeless flesh.

  “I’m good, but make sure you’re getting everything.” He pointed at Robert’s underarms. “Did you get a picture of his coat? How it’s bunched up where someone would have put their hands if they were dragging him.”

  Blake frowned like she didn’t agree, but she motioned to the officer taking pictures. “Make sure we get a picture of that.”

  The man nodded, his camera flashing.

  “After the coroner’s done, I want you to bag that gun and send it off to the crime lab. I want prints pulled and a ballistics test. Got it?”

  “No problem,” the officer said between pictures.

  She turned to Jeremy. “You know I’m sorry about your brother and everything that’s going on in your life right now, but that doesn’t mean you can come in and tell me how to run a crime scene.”

  That’s not what he had implied, but apparently he had hit a sore spot. “Right.”

  She pulled off her blue gloves with a snap and turned to the other investigator. “You done?”

  The officer nodded, handing her camera to her. “I think we’ve got everything you’ll need.” He started down the tunnel, leaving Blake standing alone with Jeremy.

  She stood up and brushed off her knees. “Don’t worry, Jeremy. Even though it’s just little ol’ me in charge, we can figure out what happened.”

  * * *

  OUTSIDE THE TUNNEL, Blake set the camera on the table at the makeshift command post and she tried to control her breathing. The vic may have been Jeremy’s family, but that didn’t mean that he could come in and try to tell her how to do her job. She never should have let him trail along. She should have trusted her gut and kept her distance.

  The industrial lights made the night as bright as midday. Jeremy sat outside the mine’s entrance as a few other officers milled through the grass and brush looking for any other evidence. The coroner walked down the trail from Robert’s driveway, and she gave him an acknowledging wave.

  She flipped through her camera, looking at the different photos of Robert’s body, the gun and the walls in and around the scene. The last picture was of the blood spatters on the wall behind the body. The spray had moved far in the chasm, but the heaviest was just to the right of where Robert had slumped.

  She made a note in her investigation report as the coroner stopped beside her.

  “Have a dead one, eh? Lucky for you, the state’s hotel is always open,” he said, trying to make a joke. She didn’t find it funny.

  Blake nodded in Jeremy’s direction. “That’s the vic’s brother, so be careful what you say.”

  The older man’s flabby, jovial face turned placid. Most coroners were former police officers and more of the quiet type, but this one had come out of Wyoming and seemed to live for his job.

  “Got it. So what do you think? Suicide?” He looked over her shoulder at the camera. “Oh, that’s some nice spatter.”

  She put the camera down and out of sight of the death-happy coroner. “Right now I’m unsure. It’s presenting like a suicide, no drag marks.”

  “Hmm...” The coroner made a note. “Anything else?”

  “The vic had a bullet wound to the left side of his head.”

  “Was the vic left-handed?”

  She hadn’t thought to ask Jeremy. “I don’t know.”

  The coroner nodded. “Well, I’ll see what I can make of it.”

  “Sounds great, thanks. My investigator will take you to the body.” She pointed to the other officer, who motioned for the coroner to follow him.

  The coroner talked constantly as he and the other man made their way into the mine.

  She opened her computer and pulled up her investigation report. Based on the rate of algor mortis, rigor mortis and livor mortis, the man had been dead approximately twelve hours. She looked at her watch. That put time of death at a little before noon, but the family hadn’t been able to contact him for several days. Was it possible that Robert had been trapped in the mine and, instead of waiting to asphyxiate, had chosen to take his own life? Or had there been others involved? Had someone collapsed the entrance of the mine in hopes of covering up a murder?

  Robert was a recluse. If someone had wanted to murder him, hiding him in the mine was a hell of a way to take care of his body. If things had gone another way and his family hadn’t reported him missing, he may never have been found.

  She looked over at Jeremy. His head was in his hands and his shoulders were slumped; he looked broken. Guilt flooded her. She should have been more patient with him and his interference in her investigation—he’d only been trying to help. She walked over to him and put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

  He nodded but didn’t look up.

  “We’re going to get to the bottom of this. Don’t worry.”

  “I just don’t understand it. Robert had problems, but...I never thought...”

  She sat down next to him, their legs brushing. Though they barely touched, she hoped that her nearness brought him a small measure of comfort. “You and I both know that no one ever thinks this is going to happen. The only thing we can do for Robert now is to piece together how he ended up where he is.”

  Jeremy shifted slightly, like he was recoiling from the words...words he had no doubt said himself many times over.

  “Do you know—was Robert left-handed?”

  Jeremy nodded. “He could have done this to himself. But you know Robert...knew Robert,” he said, correcting himself. “He wasn’t the kind who’d do this. He was too angry. Too cynical. He lived to prove the world wrong.”

  They sat in silence as she watched the firemen pack up their gear and head out. Once in a while Jeremy would move like he was going to stand up, but he would quickly stop and sit back down.

  Finally the coroner appeared at the mine’s entrance and, spotting her, made his way over.

  “What did you find?” she asked as they both stood up to greet him.

  The coroner looked back as two men carried a black bag containing Robert’s body out of the mine and toward the coroner’s van. “You were right about the jacket, but I don’t think he was moved. The lividity didn’t point in that direction.”

  “You think it was a suicide?” Jeremy asked.

  The coroner shook his head. “The stippling around the bullet’s entrance wound was a little wider than what I normally see in cases of suicide, but it doesn’t rule it out.”

  Blake moved to speak but Jeremy interrupted. “What about the spatter?”

  “It’s consistent with the body’s presentation, but again, I think the gun was a little farther back at the time it was fired.”

  “So it’s possible that he was murdered?” Jeremy asked, his voice filled with anger.

  “Right now we know the cause of death is the gunshot wound, but until we get the medical examiner’s findings, I’m ruling the manner of death as undetermined.”

  * * *

  THERE WAS NOTHING worse than notifying the next of kin...especially when it was your own family. Jeremy had put it off as long as he could, waiting until the next afternoon, but his parents needed to find out before they heard the news from someone else in the small town. />
  He took a deep breath as he entered the pizza joint. It was full of families, and the roar of Skee-Ball from the game room in the back filled the air.

  His family had been coming to this place since he was a kid. Everything from the red-and-white-checkered tablecloths to the hanging stained glass lights was the same. It even smelled the same—yeasty with a hint of garlic and overcooked dough. The place was nostalgic in all the wrong ways.

  His parents were sitting at their regular booth, and he made his way over.

  “Hiya, Jeremy,” his mom said in an overly chipper voice.

  He nodded and sat down next to her.

  “Did you talk to Robert?” his father asked.

  Maybe it had been an error to meet them in a public place to tell them about Robert’s death, but at least this way they couldn’t start fighting.

  He picked up the napkin in front of him and started rolling the paper into little balls. “I saw him.”

  “Did you tell him that he needs to call his mother?” she asked, taking a dainty sip of her pop.

  “Actually, I couldn’t tell him anything.” He laid the napkin to rest on the table. “Mom, Dad, I have some bad news.”

  “Is Robert in trouble again?” his father started. “I tell you, I’m going to have to sell our house to pay for his bail this time. He’s got me about tapped out.”

  “He’s not in jail.” Jeremy ran his hands over his face and looked up, across the table at his father. “Robert’s dead.”

  His father’s mouth hung open, and his mother turned to stone next to him. He instantly wished he had taken Blake’s offer of coming along to tell his family. Maybe she could have softened the blow. Maybe the news would have been better coming from a woman. Yet, after their kiss, it felt like the only thing she wanted to do was get away from him. No, there was only him to impart the news of his brother’s death.

  “We found Robert’s body. It’s on its way to the Missoula Crime Lab for an autopsy. Right now the cause of death is unclear, but we should know soon.”

  “You don’t know how he died?” his mother asked in a stunned whisper.