by Rose Beecham
“This sick ticket thinks he’s a funny guy,” Pratt wheezed.
“Sir, I can walk the scene,” Jude offered. “Why don’t you go back home and get warm. I’m sure Mrs. Pratt must be worried sick knowing you’re out here.”
Pratt seemed genuinely torn. “You’re right, but the way this is shaping up, I should be at the scene.”
Jude knew what he was saying. With elections looming in less than nine months and the political climate being what it was for Republican incumbents, the race for sheriff was heating up. It hardly seemed possible that a Democrat former deputy was looking like a real contender, but Pratt was as neurotic as Jude had ever seen him. He wanted his face plastered all over the TV screen at every possible opportunity, and he saw every open case in the county as a personal slight. Arrests, even dubious ones, were the order of the day.
“The broken windows,” she asked, “these happen last night?”
“So we’re told. One of them belongs to the kid’s room.” Pratt singled out a narrow casement-type window about four feet from ground level. They ducked under the yellow tape and padded carefully around the perimeter of the yard to inspect it.
“No one got in or out of that hole,” Jude said.
The entry point smashed in the window wasn’t big enough for a child, let alone an adult kidnapper in winter clothing. There was no sign of fiber or blood on the deep jagged shards and no way anyone could have squeezed past them without leaving part of their anatomy at the scene. The pane had been smashed from the outside, and some kind of dust coated the tips of the shards.
“Brick through the window.” Pratt gave voice to Jude’s immediate conclusion.
She pulled on a pair of latex gloves. The sensation was like sliding her hands into a second skin of frigid Jello. She allowed her eyes to roam slowly around the scene and realized she wasn’t the only intent observer. A solitary raven, wings held low and close against the cold, was perched on the guttering of the house next door, wearing its sleek black feathers like a mourner’s cloak. It angled its head quizzically, as if in response to Jude’s gaze, and took several slow sideways steps in her direction. Staring pointedly down at the goat’s head, it released a soft, guttural “quork” that sounded like a question.
“I guess you’re hungry,” Jude said. Winter in the Four Corners was usually harsh, and most Colorado birds flew south. They started returning to their nesting territories in March. The raven had probably made the flight from Mexico some time in the past few days, reaching its destination just in time for the worst blizzard of the year.
Jude examined the torpid sky. There was no sign of sunlight through the snow squall. Drifts of big feathery snowflakes had replaced the wind-driven deluges of the past twenty-four hours. Falling snow had long since covered any footprints or tire tracks on the Perkins property, and the white hush of morning was broken only by the sounds of voices, car engines, and horses snorting.
A few yards down the road, the sheriff’s posse had assembled, ten riders in black felt cowboy hats, black bandannas, and heavy snow vests. Surrounding them, members of the SAR team coordinated a steady stream of volunteers. News spread quickly in a small town like Cortez. By noon half the town’s able-bodied adults would be involved in the search-and-rescue operation.
Uncomfortable with the foot traffic milling about, Jude said, “We need to relocate everyone. They’re already compromising the scene.”
“It’s in hand. As soon as we’ve combed the neighborhood again, we’re shifting the command center to the posse hall,” Pratt said. “Maybe the town hall if we get a big turnout.”
Jude began photographing the surroundings. “We’ll want pictures of the crowd, too,” she said.
As Pratt relayed these instructions over his radio, several members of the Crime Scene Unit emerged from the house. One of them waved Jude and Pratt in, saying, “You gotta see this.”
They traipsed indoors to the entrance of a cheaply furnished living room. A green Formica dining table was jammed into the corner behind the door, and a dated sofa was parked about six feet from a television that was too big for the room. Between the two, a plain mint-toned rug lay across the floor. Standing to one side was a CSU technician Jude had worked with a few times, Belle Simmons, one of several Montezuma County deputies trained in crime scene processing.
“Must have been a heck of a drive for you this morning, Detective,” Simmons said. Her drawl was pure Louisiana. She’d married a Mancos man who ran an online shoe sales business. He seemed to do okay and was held up as a big success story in the Four Corners, where not too many people lived the American Dream.
“Made me think fondly of the D.C. commute,” Jude remarked.
She liked what she’d seen of Belle Simmons. The deputy was mature, intelligent, and methodical, and she had a warm way about her. This morning, her manic red curls were restrained in a ponytail, and she wore her customary makeup—foundation, coral lipstick, carefully applied eyeliner and mascara, subtle bronze blusher across the cheekbones. Jude had her pegged for the kind of woman whose husband had never seen her without the works. However, Simmons’s job mattered to her. Everyone knew she’d sacrificed her acrylic nails for it. That was the kind of commitment that made the front page of the Durango Herald. A celebratory puff-piece was pinned to the staff bulletin board at the sheriff’s office in Cortez.
Jude took a few careful steps into the room. “What have we got?”
“Blood splatter.”
Radiating out from the rug was a low-velocity pattern. The trajectories indicated a source of origin roughly at the rug’s center, but there was no sign of anything on the pale green pile. It looked brand-new.
Jude snapped a few mid-range images, then asked, “Have you lifted the rug yet?”
Simmons shook her head. “Thought you’d want to take a look first.”
“I appreciate that.”
Jude was pleasantly surprised that the scene had been so well preserved. In a situation like this, where the initial investigation was macroscopic and its focus still uncertain, it was not unusual to find a scene virtually ransacked by the first responders. This was especially true in small town environments where the local police and sheriff’s departments didn’t have a wealth of experience dealing with serious crimes.
However, Jude had discovered that law enforcement personnel in Colorado were sensitive about any shortcomings in this regard. Crime scene mishandling had been a significant factor in the still-unsolved Jon Benet Ramsey murder, and no one wanted their officers accused of incompetence if a big-deal slaying like that one ever happened in their bailiwick. From the faces Jude could see, a missing two-year-old and a boyfriend with a history of violence had set off serious alarms bells in the MCSO.
She crouched on her heels and shone a flashlight across the underside of the rug and the heavily scratched wood floor. Even with some smudging and fiber transfer, a wipe pattern and a couple of shoe prints were evident on the boards. Transfer marked the underside of the rug.
“We need a blood-pattern analyst in here,” Jude said. “Seal the room.”
“I’ll call Grand Junction.” Simmons took out her cell phone. “It’ll take a while.”
Jude almost offered to do it herself, but stifled the impulse. “No problem,” she told Simmons and wondered if the strain in her voice was audible.
Yes, she could phone Grand Junction; it would give her an excuse to talk to Mercy for the first time in a month. Was that what she wanted as a major case was unfolding—to exchange pointless civilities with a girlfriend whose idea of commitment was that she was faithful to both her lovers? Jude couldn’t think about that sordid reality without wanting to kick something across the room.
She should phone Mercy some time soon, she thought, if only to prove she wasn’t sulking because Elspeth Harwood was in town. Mercy only slept with one of them at a time, and because Elspeth had to travel from England, Jude was expected to be considerate during her visits. Every time these happened she would t
ell herself not to tolerate this crazy situation for another day. Then, a prisoner of her hormones, she would slink back to kiss the hand that maimed her. Already, she was counting the days until Elspeth was due to leave and she could yet again nourish her self-abasing passion.
Not this time, Jude promised herself beneath her breath. This time she was going to tell Dr. Mercy Westmoreland to find herself another lonely, weak-willed stud.
“Ready to bag this?” Simmons asked, indicating the bloodstained rug.
“Go ahead,” Jude said, hoping her lapse in concentration wasn’t obvious. “And once the analyst has been in here, lift the boards whole. I want those footprints intact.”
“Size nine. Male,” Simmons noted with impressive accuracy. Jude guessed the same, and she’d had years of practice. “I’ll confirm that once we have exact measurements.”
“Do you have a Hexagon OBTI kit nearby?” Jude asked, taking notes. “There’s one in my truck if you don’t.”
“As a matter of fact, that was one thing I did remember to pack.” Simmons slipped out of the room and returned with the test cassette and reagent bottle, which she passed to Jude.
“Can’t beat instant gratification,” Jude remarked heartily. She lifted some blood with the collection stick, then returned it to the bottle.
Simmons administered the test, slowly shaking the contents before depositing a couple of drops into the small cassette. A few minutes later a single blue bar showed in the result window.
“It’s not human.” Simmons sounded both relieved and puzzled.
They would have to wait for a full lab analysis to determine the origins of the sample, but Jude had a species in mind. “Capra hircus,” she murmured.
Both Simmons and Pratt stared at her blankly.
“Goat.” Jude swung her attention to the shattered windows. “That head was in here before it was ever out there.”
Chapter Three
Seven hours had elapsed since Corban was reported missing by the primary suspects in his disappearance. That was a problem. Three-quarters of the children murdered in stranger abductions were killed in the first three hours.
Tonya Perkins, sober at last and a credit to the TV makeup people, was all set to plead for her son’s life. Fluffy booms hovered like so many drunken moths around her big hair. For the occasion she wore tight low-rise jeans and a white knit crop top she kept pulling down over her navel. That was the good news. The bad news was sitting in the chair next to her, combing a jet black mullet that was teased over the balding center of his head. The rest of his hair was growing out mouse brown at the roots. Wade Miller. The boyfriend.
Miller had a gift for crying on cue when the reporters asked him how he felt about little Corban. At least that’s how every law officer in the room saw it, if their hard eyes and locked jaws were anything to go by. Jude was no exception. She’d interviewed Miller for two hours, so far. The guy couldn’t give a straight answer. And his feet were size nine.
On first impression, he seemed dim as a ten-watt bulb, but after a while, when he got impatient waiting to be taken to the bathroom, he’d dropped the ingenuous routine and revealed flashes of a more aggressive, cunning personality. He seemed conscious of these lapses and would immediately take cover behind a whiny, apologetic outburst. During such melodramatic interludes, he would invariably proclaim his love of little kids, Corban especially. Jude wasn’t the only interviewing detective who thought an innocent man would not need to make the point so emphatically.
Miller’s story had already changed. He’d signed an initial statement saying he was looking after the baby while his girlfriend was at her sister’s party. Around ten that night he’d phoned Tonya to tell her Corban had accidentally burned himself but was okay. Later, Corban was in his bed asleep when Wade went out to pick up Tonya. That was the last time he saw him.
The trip there and back to Amberlee Foley’s house took thirty minutes. Wade’s theory was that whoever abducted Corban must have been watching the place and they struck while he was out. When he returned, he was so busy getting the drunk Tonya into the house that he didn’t notice the broken windows or the goat’s head in the front yard. After he’d got her settled, he had a quick look in Corban’s door and saw he wasn’t in his bed. But Corban often went into the living room in the middle of the night and fell asleep in front of the fireplace, so Wade was not concerned.
That was version one.
In version two, after Jude read aloud Tonya’s statement about Wade taking Corban to the hospital, Wade acted like the stress of the moment had made him forget all about that journey to Southwest Memorial through heavy snow in the dead of night not long before he made the call to Tonya. He amended his statement, saying the doctor just took a quick look at Corban and said there was nothing to worry about. The burn was minor. Wade stuck a Band-Aid on it when they got back home and gave Corban a few teaspoons of Jim Beam to help him get to sleep.
What he didn’t mention in any of his statements was that he had left the house some time after his phone call to Tonya. His truck had been spotted by the state patrol slightly after 11:00 p.m. about fifteen miles north of Cortez on the Devil’s Highway near Cahone. Things were so quiet, they’d run the registration for something to do. So far, Jude hadn’t confronted Miller with this information.
“What do you think?” Pratt murmured in her ear as Tonya outpoured to the cameras.
“He’s got to be the worst liar I’ve ever interviewed.”
“Look at him. All that weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Pratt sounded disgusted. “Who does he think he’s kidding? He’s only known the kid for a couple of months.”
“Most people are going to buy it,” Jude said. “The media’s eating it up. Just watch—this is going to be a big story.”
They’d agonized over the TV plea, but even with Miller’s suspicious behavior, they could not afford to make assumptions. He could simply be feeling guilty because his girlfriend’s child had vanished while in his care. If a stranger had, in fact, taken Corban, there was no time to be lost.
Tonya swept a cluster of brassy blond ringlets back from her face and leaned forward just enough so that the viewer’s eye would be riveted to her fulsome cleavage.
“So please,” she begged with every sign of genuine distress. “My baby needs his mom. It’s real cold out there and I’m afraid for him. Please, if you know anything at all or if you have Corban. Please. Phone the number on the screen.”
As she broke down, Wade took her in his arms and they sobbed on each other’s shoulders. Reporters immediately started shouting questions, and Pratt moved away from Jude’s side to take the microphone. A deputy walked them backstage and Jude followed, wanting to resume her interviews before the two of them got a chance to compare their stories. Wade was mumbling into Tonya’s ear while they were embracing. Jude took his arm and propelled him a few steps away toward a stern-faced deputy.
“I need to speak to Ms. Perkins,” she said firmly. “The deputy will take you back to the interview room and bring you some lunch, Mr. Miller.”
Tonya pointlessly wiped mascara from around her eyes and protested over shaky sobs. “I’ve told you all I can tell you. I want to go and look for him like everyone else. He’s my baby.”
“I understand,” Jude said gently. “I know you’re worried sick. But I need to go over your statement again to be sure we didn’t miss any important details. You were intoxicated during the first interview, so some things might have been kind of fuzzy.”
Tonya flushed and lifted both hands to her face. “Why is this happening to me? I haven’t been out in weeks, and the first time I have some fun…”
Jude walked her back to an interview room. “Would you like something to eat? Coffee?”
“Just a Diet Pepsi. Oh, God. Where is he?”
Jude asked a deputy to bring the soda and showed Tonya into the room. “I’m going to read you your rights again,” she said as a second detective set up the interview to record. The woman had b
een virtually catatonic the first time they spoke and didn’t seem to understand her son was really missing until she saw the first television reports.
“I don’t know why you’re wasting time talking to me.” Tonya sniffled. “I wasn’t even there. You should be out looking for Corban. It’s freezing. What chance does he have—he’s so little.”
Before she could work herself into another emotional free fall, Jude touched her arm and said, “Ms. Perkins. The best way you can help Corban is to answer my questions as fully as you can.”
Tonya blinked at her. “I don’t understand how he got hurt anyway.” Her puzzled frown suggested she was starting to fret over Miller’s account of events. “He can’t even reach the burners. How’d it happen?”
Good question. Jude Mirandized her and reminded her the interview was being filmed on video, then asked, “What was Wade talking about with you back there?”
“He said he loves me and he didn’t mean for anything like this to happen. He thinks I blame him.”
“What does he think you blame him for?”
“Not being there when they took Corban.” She sobbed anew. “It wasn’t his fault he had to pick me up from Amberlee’s.”
“What time was that again?”
Jude gestured for Detective Pete Koertig to join her at the table as he had during her first interview with Tonya. Koertig had recently been promoted to detective and was very much one of the boys. He seemed mystified that Sheriff Pratt had chosen Jude to lead the interviews. When he sat down, he shuffled in his seat and ran a hand over his sandy buzz cut, making it clear he thought it was time for a real investigator to take over.
