Color Me Dead (Henry Park Book 1)

by Trent, Teresa

  Gigi typed, and once again I picked up a hint of sarcasm in the computer-generated voice. “Yeah. Yeah.”

  When I arrived home, Mitch was sitting on the couch in pajamas, his cell phone on the cushion beside him.

  “Hey, have you heard anything from Amelia? It seems she didn’t show up at Tim and Darla’s for cleaning. She hasn’t shown up for much of anything.”

  Mitch, who still hadn’t shaved or even brushed his hair, sat up. “Okay. I thought maybe she was just avoiding me, but now I have to wonder if it’s something more.”

  “They called in the sheriff.”

  His eyes widened. “Seriously?”

  “Do you know where she lives?” I asked, plopping on the couch next to him.

  He answered sheepishly. “Yeah. I spent a little time there.”

  “You move that fast?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Maybe you should drive over to her place,” I suggested.

  Mitch leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. I knew this stance from growing up with my little brother. He was thinking about doing something. I’d see him sitting like that right before he hatched a plan that usually led us into trouble.

  I was almost afraid to ask. “What are you thinking?”

  “Nothing.” He rose from the couch with a sense of purpose. He had something going on inside that junk-food addled brain of his.

  As he left the room, I called after him. “Hope you find her.”

  I grabbed my sketchbook and headed for the back deck. Mitch was more upset than he was letting on, and the idea of getting just a little more information couldn’t hurt. Maybe I could try to zero in on Amelia. I gazed out at the trees. The wind stirred them, causing their colors to blend like chromium green to oxide green on a paint palette. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t return to the night. I enjoyed the peace that seemed to radiate from the fresh air and smell of pine. Now that I had the chance to live in Henry Park, I wanted this house. I loved the views and the light that came in through the trees. With the market for these houses being so weak, I might have the opportunity to pick it up for much less than I would have otherwise. Even though I had never owned a home, I wanted this one. Then there was the little issue of women floating in the water. With so many people telling me I was wrong, even I was starting to doubt my story.

  I sat out on the deck for almost an hour until I heard a light tapping sound on my front door. I checked my watch. I needed to be over at Clarence’s in the next hour.

  “Hi, Gabby,” Elise Bradford said when I opened the door.

  “Come on in,” I said. “This is a surprise.”

  Elise came in wearing a pink suit with matching shoes. On any other woman it would have looked like she was selling cosmetics, but on her, somehow the outfit worked.

  “I just wanted to warn you, there seems to be something going on around our house,” she said.

  “Like what?” Mitch came into the room in his robe, drying his hair with a towel.

  “We aren’t entirely sure about it yet, but it might have something to do with what you saw the other night, Gabby. We’re afraid some poor woman did meet with misfortune out in the woods.”

  “Did Sheriff Bennett find something when they searched the woods the day after I thought I saw a body?”

  “They never came out the next day,” Elise said.

  “They didn’t?” Mitch asked.

  “No. We never saw them.”

  I frowned. “I’m so happy to know the police took me seriously.”

  “Well, they’re serious about it now. They’ve started working on dragging the lake. I’m not totally sure, but it might be that cleaning woman who’s turned up missing. No boats are allowed right now. The divers are working a pattern on the lake and don’t want anyone else in the way.”

  “How long have they been at it?”

  “They just started. I’m not sure how long it will take.”

  I thought of the woman in the water. It would have taken some time for the killer to throw her deeper into the lake.

  “I believe they’ll find something right away,” I said.

  Elise rose to go. “Well, we certainly hope not. We just wanted to give you a heads up about the situation. If it makes you at all uncomfortable, especially after what happened, we understand.” As Elise was pulling out of the driveway, Mitch bounded up the stairs to his room.

  “Do you think it might be Amelia?” I said after him.

  “It’s not Amelia.” His tone was so short that I knew he was hurting. His life was already in a low place, and now a woman he felt so much for even after their first meeting might be dead. My poor little brother. He couldn’t get a break.

  Chapter 19

  “It didn’t take them long,” Clarence said as he opened the screen for me.

  “They’ve pulled something up from the weeds already.”

  “Is it a woman?”

  “I believe so.” We walked to Clarence’s study, where we had a full view of the crime scene. My brother, who had driven off in a rage of disbelief, now stood at the edge of the woods also watching the grim proceedings.

  There were several people scattered about where I had been standing that night, including a guy in a red dive suit and scuba gear. He was pulling a thick yellow bag from the water. On the shore stood a woman, hands on her hips, waiting with a rolling gurney. The scene appeared peaceful, almost serene, but whatever had happened there was far from being serene. The dark green of the trees and bushes served as a backdrop for the bright-yellow body bag they were now lifting onto the gurney.

  Clarence rubbed at his temples. “Hard to imagine this has happened right here in our quiet community. I guess we should have believed you that night.”

  “Well, when there’s no body for you to look at, it’s kind of hard to have confidence in a person.”

  “So, do you think the woman you saw in the water just slipped out into the lake?” he asked, now leaning against the window.

  “Wouldn’t she still have been floating if she just drifted off when I went to the police? No, I think someone went back and weighed her down with something. They had to do it fast too because Sheriff Bennett was here within ten minutes.”

  “If you have something heavy enough and a way to attach it to a body, it won’t take long,” Clarence said.

  I just had to know if this was the woman I had seen in my visions, the one I found that night. “I’m going down there.”

  “Gabby, that’s not a good idea.”

  “I just have to. I have to see if she’s the person I saw that night.” I stepped out the door and headed for the woman with the gurney. Mitch, who had been standing some distance away, followed me.

  “Can I help you?” the paramedic asked.

  “I need to see her face.”

  “And you are?”

  “I’m the person who reported a body in the water a few nights ago. The person the police ignored. I need to see her face.”

  Giving me a sour look, the woman unzipped the bag. I heard Mitch gasp behind me. It was Amelia. There was an angry dark line across her throat.

  “Thank you,” I whispered and then backed up to take Mitch’s arm. “Let’s go up to the house. We’ve seen enough.”

  Later, as we sat looking numbly out the window, Clarence commented, “You know, I’ve spent my whole life writing adventure books for children. I can’t imagine our beautiful lake being the centerpiece of murder.” Mitch still sat on the back steps of the deck, needing some time alone.

  Clarence was right. After reading this man’s writing, I loved the way he showed the wonder of nature. I saw a flower, but he saw the hands of God. It was almost criminal having him see his lake any other way. He turned back to me.

  “Did you see anyone else in the woods that night?”

  I wasn’t sure if I should tell him the only person I ran into was his son. Why had Ryan been wandering around in the woods at night? He just seemed to pop up at the wrong time, and then he left me ag
ain. That would have given him time to weigh down the body. Not much time, but he could have done it.

  “You have such an incredible eye for detail. It would have been great if you got a look at the killer. I bet you could create an amazing likeness.” He was right. If I could get a better look in my vision and have it end up on my sketchpad, it would solve everything. So far all of my concentration had been on the victim. What if I could control what I was seeing and pulled my eyes up from the hand in the water? I wasn’t sure if I could even achieve that because my visions had always been like watching a movie somebody else made for me. Clarence stared at me, waiting.

  “Unfortunately, all I saw was a person in a black hooded sweatshirt, and then … Ryan.”

  “Ryan? Well, we certainly know it wasn’t him.”

  Did we? He might be sure, but I wasn’t.

  Clarence chuckled to himself, and I thought how absurd to be laughing while the medical professionals below us attempted to load a body into the coroner’s van. Sheriff Bennett was starting to climb the hill to the back deck, carrying his bulk with each trudging step. As he neared the top of the steps, he waved at us.

  Clarence and I stepped out on the deck as Bennett fell into an Adirondack chair. He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow, still breathing hard. “Well, we don’t have official identification yet, but it looks like Amelia.”

  Mitch mounted the back steps. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Oh, that’s a shame. She was such a sweet girl,” Clarence said, shaking his head.

  “It was a sad thing to see. Whoever killed Amelia did a whizzbang of a job. She had an ice chest filled with bricks attached to her. If we hadn’t dragged the lake, we never would have found her.” The sheriff stopped for a moment as we all took in the violence that had happened to Amelia. Then he straightened up, resuming his duties. “Just a couple of things I need to ask you. The victim had a black mark on her wrist. It looked like some of those Chinese letters or something.”

  Mitch sucked in a breath. After spending the night with Amelia, he would have known if she had a tattoo.

  “Also, there’s this. Our second clue.” Sheriff Bennett reached into a pocket and pulled out an evidence bag and held it up to the light. “Either of you recognize this?” Inside the bag, there was a blue button.

  “Maybe it popped off her shirt in a struggle?”

  “She isn’t wearing anything with a button like this. She has defensive wounds on her hands and the mark of a thin wire on her neck. There are bruises on her neck. All I can figure is her killer had on something with this button. This was in her pocket, so it stayed put pretty nicely.”

  “Can I see the button?” I asked.

  Sheriff Bennett handed me the bag with a warning, “Don’t take it out of the evidence bag for right now.”

  I held the button in my hand through the plastic. I glanced up at Mitch, who was turning pale. It matched his shirt with the missing button.

  Clarence touched my wrist and broke into my concentration. “Gabby? Are you finished holding the button? The sheriff wants to put it with the rest of the evidence now.”

  I cleared my throat and held up the bag. “Pretty standard, don’t you think? I’ll bet there are hundreds of shirts with buttons like these out there.”

  “That’s true,” said the sheriff. “But I just need the one with the button missing.”

  After the sheriff left, we sat on Clarence’s couch, trying to digest everything that had just happened.

  “I have to know, Gabby. Since you’ve entered our lives, I’ve seen it in you. You see things. What have you seen? And what does that button have to do with anything?”

  “What button?” Another voice said from the doorway. Ryan stood there, his tall frame filling the door. He leaned an arm against the surrounding wood.

  “Nothing. I didn’t see anything,” I said, not wanting to discuss this, especially with Ryan.

  Clarence said, “That’s not true, and you know it.”

  “Did you see something out in the woods you didn’t tell the sheriff about?” Ryan left the doorway and drew closer to me. I felt the back of my neck heating up. I wished he would step back.

  “The sheriff brought in a button he found in Amelia’s hand. That’s all.”

  “So don’t worry about it,” Mitch inserted.

  Ryan shook his head in disbelief and then drew even closer to me. “Why do you think we need to talk about the night you thought you found a body? Is there something you wanted to say? Haven’t we heard enough on the subject?”

  “Ryan, that’s enough, son.”

  I felt the anger rising in me. “Thank you, Clarence, but I’m not afraid of your son. Why were you out in the woods that night? I find a body, and you just show up out of the blue. You have to admit it’s pretty suspicious.”

  “What?” He shook his head in disbelief. “It’s none of your business why I was out in the woods. I was coming back from an appointment.”

  “What business could you have been doing for your father that late at night?”

  Ryan’s eyes grew cold. “I could ask the same of you.”

  “My answer is easy. I didn’t want to smoke in your father’s house. I heard someone out in the woods, and now I’m beginning to wonder if it was you.”

  Mitch, who had been watching Ryan, now jerked his head toward me. “I knew it! You are still smoking!”

  I glared at him as if to express that it was not the right time for this. He turned back to Ryan. “Do the police know you were out there? I’m sure they have a few questions they’d like to ask you. You’d better come up with something, because I’m about to call the sheriff back.”

  “Why would it be me? I barely knew Amelia. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  I crossed my arms and stood shoulder to shoulder with Mitch. He might be a failure-to-launch guy, but he did have an incredible sense of right and wrong. “Save it for the sheriff. What’s up with this lake anyway? First a series of burglaries, and now a murder?”

  Clarence stood and faced Ryan. “If you were out in the woods, then Sheriff Bennett needs to know why, no matter how innocent you might be.”

  Ryan paced the room and threw his hands up in the air. “Unbelievable. You would trust a stranger over your son?”

  He was really bothered that we were questioning him. All of his excuses about business didn’t work. He was hiding something, and I had to know what it was. “Ryan, all you have to do is tell us why you were out there. If not us, then the sheriff. It’s that simple.”

  “Ditto for me, dude. Next stop, Sheriff Bennett,” Mitch added.

  Sheriff Bennett stroked his chin and thought for a moment. “I just assumed you ran to the house and found Ryan, and that was when he called. I had no idea you first met him in the woods.”

  Mitch, who sat across from the sheriff, seemed to be absorbing his environment. His eyes roamed over the certificates on the wall and the many things having to do with law enforcement.

  “So, what will you do now?”

  The sheriff blew out a sigh. “I guess I’ll be calling Mr. Bradford. Frankly, I’m surprised the son of my old friend wouldn’t offer up this information himself.”

  “He knows we’re here,” Mitch said.

  “Did Mr. Bradford give you any reason why he might have been out in the woods that night?”

  “No,” I answered.

  “Well, thanks for the information. Right now we don’t have much to go on. Now, that’s not saying I think Mr. Bradford is our killer, but it gives us a direction to go in.”

  Mitch sat forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. “So that’s how you start investigating a case? You find one little thread and pull on it?”

  The old lawman smiled. “That’s quite a unique way to put it. I suppose that’s how we work. It’s kind of difficult to make something out of nothing, but it’s what we’re required to do.”

  Mitch beamed at Bennett’s approval of his analysis. T
he sheriff stood, signaling the end of our interview. “Thank you so much for coming in. If we get more information on the case, I’ll keep you posted.”

  As we drove home, Mitch seemed to be deep in thought. “Gabby, can you tell me some more about your visions? How do they come to you?”

  “I don’t know. They just do.”

  “Do you have a choice as to when this happens?”

  “Not really. I guess I’ve been having this kind of thing going on my entire life, but most of the time the things I see are inconsequential.”

  He reached over and turned on the radio. I expected him to turn on some head-banging music that would drive me to insanity. Instead, he chose a station I liked. We rode along in companionable silence. After a few minutes, Mitch said, “I’ve never been around something like this. The police have to piece together a puzzle.”

  “Well, I hope they don’t lose the pieces because whoever it was who killed Amelia is still out there.”

  His face clouded over. I could see he had instantly lost his objectivity. We weren’t talking about some strange woman in the water. I wondered if thinking of Amelia and how she died would shut him down. He stared out the window as we pulled into the driveway. I turned the motor off. Without the sound of the radio, we sat in silence. Then he drew out a breath, tapped a little beat on his knees, and opened the door to get out. It was as if, at that moment, he switched from mourning her loss to resolving to find her killer.

  Chapter 20

  Even though I hadn’t felt much of a friendly vibe from Darla, I decided to look her up. She was one of Amelia’s cleaning customers. Maybe she knew something. I wanted to speak to her without Tim around, and to do that I needed either her business or cell phone number. She made her living painting the lake and putting her work in the local tourist attractions. Finding a restaurant down the road, I took a gamble that Darla had paintings hanging on the walls there. The restaurant specialized in hamburgers, and the paintings on display classed the place up. Looking at a picture with a hidden green inlet set off from the main lake, I loved her use of the light. For such a difficult person, she had talent. In the corner was a business card with her name on it. I added her number to my cell phone. Getting back in my car, I grabbed a cigarette from the pack I now kept in my purse. With the windows down and a freshly lit menthol to fortify me, I tapped in the number on the card.