by Jean Rabe
Oren stared at the tree before returning his gaze to the corpse. Where Conrad’s body had appeared nearly perfect, Abigail hardly looked human. The hands were almost black, the eyes sunk into the skull, and her head and neck were tinged blue-green. There were large blisters on the exposed skin, and all over she looked swollen like a balloon ready to pop. Fluids had seeped from her mouth and ears, staining the red flannel nightgown that came down past her knees. Thin white curling ribbon held an overlarge red Merry Christmas mug tight in her hands and resting on her lap, accentuating the darkness of her fingers. It had liquid in it, tea judging by the teabag tag that dangled over the edge. More ribbons tied her ankles to the rocker’s legs, and another length wrapped around and around her neck kept her head up against the back of the chair.
The mug matched the one found with Conrad.
Oren likened it to an image from a horror film. He went to a window, moved the drape, and levered it open, letting in a cold blast of air that he pulled to the bottom of his lungs. The direction the wind was blowing, he thankfully could smell the river and the smoke from a nearby chimney.
“Same guy,” Randy said. “Same guy killed her as killed Conrad Delaney. Mug’s a signature. Bloody hell.”
“You think? I’m not the detective, but I could’ve told you it was the same guy.”
“Was she first? Or was Conrad?”
“Gornisht helfn. You’re the detective. Detect.” Oren took another deep breath and eased back to the room. The pug dog picked up its head, snorted softly, and looked at him.
“And why kill either of them?” Randy continued recording. “Lived alone, Delaney did. Dispatcher said Thornbridge did, too, said according to the pastor she’d always lived alone.” He headed toward the kitchen.
“Easier to kill that way,” Oren said. “No one else in the house to contend with.”
“Money? Robbery?”
Oren knew Randy wasn’t really expecting an answer, that he often talked to himself on a scene. “Conrad, he was comfortable, nice house, had money from selling the gas station. But this woman, place rundown around the edges, furniture old. Unless she had a fortune in a mattress, it wasn’t money the killer was after.”
“Whoever did it thought kindly about the dog, didn’t want it to die. Oren, come check this out.”
Oren padded into the kitchen. A big casserole dish partially filled with water was on the floor near the sink. Next to it, a ten-pound bag of dog food was on its side, sliced open. That was in addition to small, but empty, plastic bowls on the floor on a blue velvet placemat embroidered with the word “Wrinkles.”
“Didn’t want the dog to starve,” Randy said. “Had it in for the old lady, though. The guy really really really didn’t like the old lady.”
“Didn’t like Conrad, either, but had put food and water out for the cats.” Oren opened a window in the kitchen, noticed a few big flakes drifting down, and figured the busybody across the street might get something to sweep. “I’m going to get the kit—”
“—and my camera, please. When I’m done shooting video I’ll need the camera for close in, the details.”
Grisly details. “Yeah, I’ll get your camera, and I’ll radio Buck and Marsh and get them out here—”
“Shouldn’t we wait to see what Sheriff Blackwell wants to—”
“Need more people, don’t we? But not too many people, to process the scene, talk to the neighbors, don’t we?”
Randy nodded.
“We don’t need to wait on Sheriff Blackwell for that. And I’ve been doing this stuff for a lot more years than our sheriff has been alive.” Oren stuck his head out the kitchen window and breathed deep. In the passing of a few moments the snowfall had increased. Besides, she might only be sheriff until spring. She couldn’t keep the office if she didn’t pass the state tests come April. Dear God, don’t let her pass the tests. “I’ll get the kit and make the radio call.”
The kochleffl was still making a show of sweeping the same spot of driveway. In the yards to either side of her, children and their mothers had come out and were playing in the snow, school not resuming until next week. One of the women pulled a cell phone out of her pocket and held it to the side of her face. He smiled sadly as he retrieved the evidence kit from the back of his Explorer. He radioed dispatch and was put through to Buck Hannoh, and then Marsh Eberfield.
Randy was right. Protocol would have been to wait for the sheriff and let her give the orders—since Piper had said she was on her way. But she’d never handled a murder investigation, didn’t know which deputies to call in for interviewing the neighbors, and beyond all of that she shouldn’t be sheriff.
You should never wait on gathering the clues, he rationalized. Trace materials, fingerprints, fibers…there would be a wealth of them, sift through everything they’d collected, see if anything belonged to someone other than the victim.
Couldn’t wait on the sheriff because every hour, every minute that passed, could degrade the value of evidence, more people traipsing through the scene touching things, examining things, possibly disturbing or ruining some crucial piece that would point a finger at—
“—a sick bastard,” Oren said as he went back inside the house and caught another look at Sweet Abby T.
Hadn’t seen any blood; that was always a good source for evidence. The killer stepping in it, touching it. No spent shell casings, either. Oren had worked a murder about fifteen years ago where a fingerprint on a shell casing led to a disgruntled farmhand who would be eligible for parole in another twenty.
Strangled, like Conrad, the old woman was. Oren wasn’t going to look too closely into her sunken eyes to check for signs of petechial hemorrhage. And there was the Merry Christmas mug, a mirror image of the one tied to Conrad’s frosty fingers. He placed the kit just inside the door, opened it, and motioned for Randy, who came down a stumpy hallway, closing the screen on the video camera.
“Snowing out, eh?”
Oren leaned out the front door and brushed the snow off his hat and shoulders, then came back in. “Yeah, it’s snowing out. Again. Let’s get to work.”
“See how much we can process before Piper gets here?” Randy pulled out a dusting kit. “You don’t like her much do you?”
“Do you?” Oren returned.
“I don’t really know her.” A handful of minutes later, he announced: “I hear a car.”
Oren looked out the door. “Buck and Marsh. That was fast. I’ll get them started.”
Oren was grateful for the opportunity to go outside again. He stood on the stoop, under the hood, so he wouldn’t gather more snow. He pointed to the woman with the broom, then the people in the adjacent yards. “And then get to everyone else in this block. Hit the gawkers first.” He gave Buck and Marsh a quick briefing on the scene inside. Several minutes later he was back in the living room with Randy, stomaching the stench and concentrating first on the area around the corpse and the tree. The dog detachedly watched them, but stayed between Abigail’s feet.
“The shelter’s overcrowded,” Randy said, catching Oren stare at the pug. “I rent, can’t have pets.”
“I have cats. Maybe Sweet Abby T has a church friend who’ll take the dog. Maybe the sweeper across the street.” Oren heard another car and figured it was either the new sheriff or Dr. Neufeld. He was an old friend of the coroner and hoped it was her. He’d like to talk to Annie before Piper showed up, maybe talk about Piper. At least the new sheriff hadn’t taken his Explorer. She’d opted for a Taurus.
He growled softly as he looked out the front door. It was Piper, picking her way up the long drive and avoiding the thickest ice patches. “Dr. Neufeld coming?”
“In a little while.”
“You might want to stay outside, Sheriff Blackwell. This one’s a tummy-twister. Smells like rotten meat in here.” Despite his warning, he figured she wouldn’t stay out, especially because he’d suggested it. “If you’re coming in, Sheriff Blackwell, ditch the snow.”
Oren d
rew back into the house. He heard her brushing on the stoop and then watched as she came in the front door, wanting to catch her reaction to the body. It was rough on him…Dear God let it be hell on her; maybe she’d rethink the whole sheriff thing.
“Posed. Premeditated. Evil and sick.” Piper’s voice was flat. “Same guy that killed Mr. Delaney.”
“We’d already figured that out, Sheriff Blackwell.” Oren noticed that she breathed shallowly, and he waited for her to turn white, but that didn’t happen. He also noticed she’d put on little booties; he had some in the Explorer, but hadn’t thought about using them. Randy hadn’t either.
“I see you have deputies going door to door.”
“That’d be Marsh and Buck.”
“Good.”
“Randy and I started here, and—”
Randy interrupted. “I recorded the whole house first, Boss, did a walk-through, the inside. I’ll get the outside when we’re done with—”
“What can you tell me about her?”
Randy finished lifting fingerprints off a coffee table. “Abigail Marie Thornbridge, eighty-two, never married, worked as an elementary school teacher in Rockport, later a principal, retired at sixty-four and moved here. Apparently was looking to move again.” He nodded at the coffee table, where a few retirement home brochures were fanned out. “Parents dead, of course, a sister in California older than her, a pair of nieces in Nevada. That’s all we got so far from dispatch. She—”
“Was she a friend of Mr. Delaney’s?” Piper edged past them and squatted in front of the rocking chair. The pug swiveled its head up and made a wuffling sound.
“Don’t know that yet,” Oren said. He was surprised she got that close to the corpse, had expected her to toss her cookies. “Need to process the scene first, and—”
“How good’s your vet?” She stood and headed to the kitchen.
“Excuse me?” Oren watched her stop at the sliced open dog food bag.
“Definitely check that for fingerprints,” she said, “and the water dish.”
“My vet—” he prompted.
“Wrinkles,” she pointed at the velvet placemat. “Wrinkles has some blood on his chin. Might be his blood. Maybe bit his tongue or something. Might be Miss Thornbridge’s. Might be the killer’s; maybe Wrinkles got a piece of him. The vet can check the dog’s teeth, nails. Give him some evidence bags and stay until it’s collected.”
Oren hadn’t noticed the blood on the dog, but he looked now and spotted it. “An old dog,” he said. “Shelter’s full, and ain’t nobody going to adopt an old dog like this.”
“Maybe one of the neighbors will take him.” She returned to the living room with a leash she’d found on a hook by the back door. “There’s dog poop in the kitchen corner.”
“Three day’s worth of poop, I’d guess. Maybe four.” This from Randy. “A body in this condition…I’d say it’s been sitting here that long.”
“You’re probably right,” Piper admitted. She stepped to a low small curio cabinet. On top of it was a stack of Christmas cards tied with a length of white curling ribbon. Softer, “I wonder if I’m right.”
Instantly curious, Oren watched Piper gently pull the ribbon off the stack and look through the cards.
“Our victims knew each other,” she told him, holding up a picture card of Conrad in the sleigh, just like the one Dr. Neufeld had given her. “Oren sent these out in December.” She read the note on the back. “Abby T: I hope this winter finds you well and pleasantly busy. I really should drive over to your church and hear you play. Haven’t been to church in quite a while. Your congregation would think the Nile had flowed backwards if I walked in. Maybe I could sit in the back and no one would notice. Hey! Thanks for recommending that roofer. He did a great job on my house, I even had him use the same color of shingles. A real jack-of-all trades, and great prices, he also put in a new kitchen floor for me. Small world, he used to go to high school with my boy Anthony. I thought he’d looked familiar. I kept his business card. Might have him upgrade the master bathroom this spring if he gives me a good quote. I’ll do the painting, though. I like to paint. I’ll try to be better about staying in touch. I should do more than this one-letter-a-year. Oh, and speaking of paint, I painted my sleigh black this Thanksgiving, just not in time for my Christmas card shot. It looks super sharp. But you’ll see the black paint job on next year’s card—already had the photo taken. Have a Merry Merry Merry Merry Christmas. Hugs, Conrad.”
Oren stared at the picture, Conrad in the sleigh, a near mirror image of the Delaney murder scene. “What the hell?” And why did Piper get to play connect the dots with a Christmas card? She didn’t need to be poking into the investigation; he would have found the connection with the card. Why the hell didn’t she spend her time writing traffic tickets? This was his investigation—his and Randy’s.
“Randy, did you bag up the cards at Conrad’s?”
His voice came from the kitchen. “No, Boss, hadn’t seen a reason to. But I can.”
“I’m going out to the Delaney house, so I’ll get them.” She looked at Oren. “After I stop and get some gas. When you’re done here, and done at the vet’s, meet me at the office. I had a whiteboard delivered, figured we needed one for our C.C.K.”
“What the hell’s a C.C.K.?”
“Ask your friend Annie Neufeld when she shows up,” Piper returned as she headed for the front door. Oren watched her remove the booties, square her shoulders, and step outside. “Dr. Neufeld coined the term C.C.K. for the twisted soul playing some deadly game in my county.”
Piper left and closed the door harder than necessary.
Oren hadn’t liked the my county part.
“What’d the sheriff say?” Randy poked his head up.
“She said one very sick bastard has moved into sleepy Spencer County.”
Seven
She’d picked the navy blue Taurus; it was too large for her liking, but it was smaller than the Explorers and the Crown Vics. She’d nearly taken Oren’s Explorer though; she knew he coveted it and that it was a status symbol because it was the newest vehicle in the fleet. And it would spite him, might be that proverbial last straw that caused him to hand in his resignation. Would that be a bad thing? Better than her firing him. She didn’t like working with him because of his verbal jabs and condescending glares, didn’t like him period, but she needed him—at least until she was more familiar with the department and the county. And at least until this murder—murders—were solved.
So she’d picked the Taurus.
Piper didn’t like big cars because the gas mileage was sad, they didn’t maneuver as well, and it felt like too much metal, bringing to mind her days in Iraq of riding in Hummers and LAVs, Light Armored Vehicles. Before leaving Fort Campbell, she bought an apple red Smart Fortwo, a “suggestion of a car” her dad called it. It was a three-cylinder turbo-charged five-speed manual with an oatmeal hued interior, and it registered every dip and rocky patch in the road. Piper didn’t mind that it wasn’t the smoothest of rides; it averaged thirty-five miles a gallon and was effortless to parallel park. The Taurus? She’d find out in a handful of minutes what kind of mileage she was getting. The car’d had a full tank when she headed to Evansville this morning, and though she didn’t have to fill it up just yet, there was a gas station she needed to visit.
Piper pulled into Phan’s Quick Stop in Fulda. There were four pumps under an aluminum canopy that provided limited shelter from the snow but did nothing to cut the wind. Two pumps offered regular and premium, the other two were diesel with nozzles set higher up, probably to accommodate farm vehicles. She flipped the pump for regular and held her breath while the gas flowed.
The snowfall had increased since she’d left Miss Thornbridge’s house, and the dispatcher told her five inches were expected. Why did this winter have to break with Southern Indiana tradition? Why did it have to dump so much snow and threaten to rewrite the record books? Why did Oren have to be such an ass? Fort Cam
pbell would be warmer, less snow probably, certainly, her life more comfortable there, and no Oren. Her life more comfortable even if she’d be spending it on another tour in the Middle East. Military life suited Piper, the routine of it, the rigorousness, and the friends she’d gained there. She’d seriously thought about making a career of it, knew she could climb the ranks. There was a routine to the Spencer Counter Sheriff’s Department, too, and so far all of it involved tragedy.
“What the hell am I doing?” she said as she replaced the nozzle in the pump and screwed the gas cap tight. “What the holy hell am I doing here?” Piper didn’t mean the gas station. She parked and went inside.
It was near to immaculate and pleasantly warm, and it was reminiscent of her favorite 7-Eleven right off the base. She walked up and down the four tight aisles offering snacks, bread, cereal, coffee, canned fruits and vegetables, and assorted home supplies. A display at the front was filled with ice scrapers, snow shovels, caps, gloves, and bagged salt; another held a scattering of holiday items marked After Christmas Sale. One wall consisted of a series of glass refrigerator doors, and behind them an assortment of soft drinks, juices, milk cartons, lunch meats, eggs, butter, and cheese. A smaller section was a freezer stocked with pizza, egg rolls, breakfast sausage, ice cream, and boxed chicken breasts. Piper considered it a good stock, reasonable prices from what she could see, and offering Fulda residents an alternative to driving to Rockport for groceries. But the choices were limited. Cheerios, but no corn flakes.
An area roughly a dozen feet square beyond the two restroom doors had three round tables, each with four chairs. A large, bright menu hung on the wall behind the small counter, and through a doorway behind the counter she spied a tiny kitchen. So a gas station/grocery/restaurant, all in roughly three thousand square feet. Piper stepped up and nodded to the man at the cash register. He was Asian, Vietnamese according to her dad.
