The Dead of Winter (A Piper Blackwell Mystery Book 1)

by Jean Rabe

  “Putting on booties, Boss. The body’s got to be close,” Randy said. “I’ll start recording here.” He stepped around her, the video camera to his face. He was pale; she suspected she was, too. “In all my years, I’ve never smelled anything so awful.”

  I’ve smelled worse.

  “Maybe in the kitchen—”

  “No. The body’s in the fireplace,” she said.

  “How do you—”

  “The boots hanging…dangling above the hearth? They’re not part of the decorations.”

  “Oh God.”

  Piper recalled that among the Christmas cards Conrad Delaney and Abigail Thornbridge received that were identical, there was an illustration of Santa’s boots dangling down in the well of a fireplace, a plate of cookies and a glass of milk sitting on the floor nearby. The plate was there, empty, and the glass that was tipped over had milk residue in it. Probably Merry had devoured Santa’s treats.

  “Oh God,” Randy repeated.

  “God had nothing to do with this,” Piper said. “Did you call Rockport police?”

  “Yeah, someone should be here in a few. I told them to bring booties and gloves and that it was our crime scene. The dispatcher said the chief might argue with that. But I’m thinking he won’t. I’m thinking he might stay on the front stoop.” A pause. “Think that’s Jacob Wallem stuffed in there?”

  “Yeah. We can take him off the suspect list.”

  She padded close to the fireplace, still holding the beagle, squatted, held her breath, and looked up the chimney. “I can’t be sure, but I think he was stuffed up past the damper so he could sit on the smoke shelf.” She rose and looked in the Merry Christmas mug on the mantel—filled with eggnog that she was certain had spoiled, but she couldn’t smell it. Piper could only smell the decomposing body.

  She backed to the center of the room, her legs bumping against the coffee table and rattling some of the figurines. “Can’t tell who it is,” she said. “What I can see of it, hands at the sides, is black and bloated, Santa pants stained, fluids have darkened everything. But it has to be the roofer. The only thing that makes sense. And it’s not going to be pleasant or easy getting him out of there.”

  “We’ll need to wait for the coroner. She’s going to wish she hadn’t run for reelection.”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have run either. Piper’s fingers registered the feel of the beagle’s coat, smooth and soft. Again she felt the protruding ribs. “Dead at least a week, maybe as much as two, the way he’s so swollen in there. Fluids have drained onto these fake logs.” She tipped her head back. “Who the hell would do something so…so…awful?”

  “Mailbox supports that time frame. It’s stuffed. I’ll take the mail before we go, check the dates. Phone records will show the last outgoing calls. Poked around in the snow, found another newspaper under it. I’d say dead at least two weeks. S’pose all his friends thought he was somewhere south to beat the cold.”

  “We’ll take the phone records from all the victims, lay them out side by side, see if any incoming calls were from the same person. Maybe the killer, eh? Christmas cards from here and Reynolds. Something connects all of them.” She shuddered. “This is nasty, Randy. We need to get the son of a bitch.”

  “We should call in our people with days off, on vacation. Put everybody on this, Boss.”

  “We should call the State,” she admitted. “I don’t want to. But, it’s time. Past time. Probably contact the F.B.I., too. Maybe our guy didn’t limit himself to our county.”

  “Boss, we can—”

  “It’s a serial killer, Randy. A fucking serial killer. And as much as I want to solve this on my own.” She wished she could have swallowed those last three words, hadn’t wanted to confess that to anyone. But she kept going. “As much as I don’t want to holler for help on my first case, I know we have to. You’re a great detective, everyone says that. This…this is beyond us. We’ve no lab, limited equipment, we’re no experts, and we don’t have the resources for something like this. You know that. We’re Mayberry RFD. This is a fucking serial killer and this has to stop now.” She turned to face him. He took the video camera away from his eye. “Did you know the sicko bought eleven of those Merry Christmas mugs? Eleven. We’ve got four bodies now, all related. And we might have seven more. Eleven mugs.”

  “Okay, Boss. We need some outside help. I agree.”

  “I hear a car outside, probably Rockport police. Go get some clean air, see if the cops’ll stay out for a little while. I’ll open some windows. Can you call the coroner while you’re out there? Have her come here first; Samuel Reynolds is second on her list now. Snowy Samuel Reynolds is a piece of cake next to this. Then come back and video the rest, bring the camera for the close-ins.”

  “Sure thing, Boss.”

  Piper, clutching the beagle a little tighter, moved through the doorway and into the kitchen, which was just as decked out. Flocked tablecloth, similar to Conrad Delaney’s, Santa chair back covers, poinsettia centerpiece dead from lack of water, candles with holly bases on the island. She opened the first window she came to and sucked in the cold air. On the floor was a large casserole dish, empty, but from the mark near the rim looked like it had been filled with water; and a sliced open bag of dog food, also empty—and no telling how much had been in it when the killer left. The beagle’s food and water bowls, on a holiday mat, were empty, so no telling how many days the dog had been starving.

  “No wonder you’re so thin.” Piper picked up the dry water bowl, keeping hold of the dog with one arm. She sat the bowl in the sink and filled it with water, put it back on the floor and placed the dog in front of it. The beagle practically inhaled it, and then barfed it up, only to drink again. “We’ll worry about getting you some food in a little while, eh?” When the dog was done, Piper picked it up again and started looking for a leash, passed by another window, which she opened, the back door, which she opened, and went through a doorway to the utility room. She opened the window there, too.

  The floor was dotted with feces, mostly clustered on a spread of newspaper, as if the dog, despite being blind, was trying to be good about it. Nothing looked fresh; the dog hadn’t eaten for some days. Next to the washer and dryer was a small plastic kennel. Piper put the dog inside and closed the door. It started to whimper.

  “Just for a little while,” she told it again. “Somebody will get you out of here, I promise.” And to the animal shelter, where you’ll probably get the needle because who wants a blind, three-legged dog. Not her father; the pug was more than enough, Piper decided. “Maybe Jacob has a friend who’ll take you.” But apparently he hadn’t had a close enough friend to notice him missing for a couple of weeks, or a nearby relative. Otherwise he would have been found before now, she thought.

  She heard voices in the other room, returned to find the Rockport police chief standing in front of the fireplace. No gloves on, but at least he’d put on booties.

  “Sheriff.” He gave her a nod.

  Randy was recording the living room. The cord from the digital camera dangled out of his pocket. “I called the coroner,” he said. “She’s on her way. She’s not happy, said something about bodies dropping since you took office. Said she’d be about a half hour.”

  Randy moved past her and into the kitchen.

  “Heard about the Merry Christmas deaths in the county,” the chief said. “Lots of chatter on the scanner.” He pointed to the mug on the mantel. “This related?”

  “Yeah. No question.”

  “Fine, this one is yours. I got people on vacation, though I can spare one if you need him. Just keep me in the loop on everything. I want copies.” He turned and walked to the door, bent and removed the booties. “You’re calling the State, right? This is what…the third body?”

  “Fourth,” she said. “We have one out in New Boston. Call came in for that about two hours ago.”

  “Lovely. Why the hell did a serial killer decide to decorate for the holidays in our county?” He mad
e a move to shut the door behind him.

  “Leave that open, please.”

  “Good idea.”

  She heard him talking to someone outside, heard the crunch of feet over snow, then a few moments later the sound of a car pulling away. Piper heard more voices and looked out the door—a dozen lookie loos had gathered on the sidewalk across the street. The sidewalk in front of Jacob’s house was snow covered. She wondered if the city had some sort of ordinance that required residents to shovel…and whether it was enforced. It was probably something she should look up. Her dad had always shoveled his sidewalk, though she’d been taking care of that since she’d been back—it was good exercise.

  Piper walked through a doorway near the tree, following a short hall that opened to a bathroom and a bedroom. What probably was designed as a second bedroom served as an office. There were a plethora of Christmas decorations in each room. The bedroom dresser was littered with snow globes, and in the center one of those ceramic trees people made in craft classes.

  “I’m thinking Jacob Wallem was gay.” Randy had appeared in the hall behind her. “Can’t imagine a straight man going to all this work.”

  Piper knew her father used to go “all out,” though not quite to this extreme. He used to put something Christmassy in every room, red and green towels in the bathrooms. One year he bought candy cane toilet paper…but that was a good while back.

  “And everything is like you’d see it in a magazine, Boss. No straight guy would do that.”

  “I think you’re wrong. But it doesn’t matter.” She looked him in the eyes. “Whether Jacob Wallem was straight or gay or came from another planet had nothing to do with why he was put into a Santa suit and stuffed into his chimney. It’s not who or what he was. It was who he knew.”

  “It’s just like in one of the cards Conrad received,” Randy returned. “Boots hanging down a chimney, miniature Christmas village on the mantel. Milk and cookies, though I’m thinking the blind dog got to the milk and cookies.”

  Pretty astute, Piper thought, that he remembered that particular card on Conrad’s and Abby’s tables in the sheriff’s department office.

  “I wonder if Samuel Reynolds got one of those boots cards.”

  She shrugged. “Oren’s going to bag those cards.” And anything else that might yield clues. “We’ll bag the ones from here; they’re stacked on his desk.” Despite not liking the chief deputy, she trusted him with evidence and a crime scene, figured he would do his best to show her up…and that wasn’t a bad thing if it got this solved faster.

  She opened the window in the bathroom, stuck her head out, and breathed deep. “He has lights on the pines in his backyard. And there are birdseed wreaths—well picked over—hanging on a clothesline.”

  “Definitely gay.”

  It doesn’t matter.

  The stink had abated just a little. Piper’s eyes had stopped watering, and she resisted the urge to rub them. Randy’s eyes were red and watery, too.

  “I’ll record the rest of the house,” Randy said. “Then start lifting fingerprints, and—”

  Piper’s cell phone chirped, and she glanced at the caller ID. Didn’t recognize it at first, only a number, not a name. Then it clicked, Anthony Delaney on the disposable phone she’d bought him. “Just a sec,” she told Randy. She took the call, welcome for the brief distraction from the crime scene. “Hello Anthony, I’m kinda busy, but what do—”

  Piper felt the remaining color drain from her face. “Okay. Okay.” She listened as her chest tightened and she leaned against the bathroom wall, fearing her knees might buckle. “Okay. Yeah, I know where it is.” After a few more moments she hung up and stuck the phone in her pocket. “My dad’s in an ambulance, on the way to a hospital. They think it’s a heart attack.”

  “I’ve got this,” Randy said. “Go.”

  Twenty-Four

  Her apartment wasn’t far, and she briefly considered going there to change out cars, take her private vehicle rather than the loaner rented by the sheriff’s department. Going to see her father was not department business. But she didn’t want to spare the minutes. Besides, her suggestion-of-a-car didn’t have flashing lights and a siren. She opted to use the former as she sped out of Rockport, the scanner chattering away in the background.

  It was all about Paul Blackwell, the talk, no mention of the two bodies and the crime scenes.

  Cars pulled to the side of the road as she raced by.

  Shouldn’t be using the lights, she admonished. If someone else’s father was heading to the hospital, they wouldn’t have lights. Still, she didn’t turn them off.

  Traffic was scant anyway, it being mid-afternoon, people still at work.

  Teegan came on her scanner’s direct channel. “Sheriff Blackwood, any word on how he is?”

  “Nothing yet, I’ll let you know after I get there.”

  Dear God, don’t let him die. She still wore the white gloves she’d put on at the roofer’s. They weren’t good enough to keep her fingers warm, but she didn’t want to waste the time it would take to swap them for the good gloves riding in her pocket.

  He couldn’t die. Not to a heart attack, not to cancer. She’d quit the Army to come back here and be with him, the only family that mattered to her…now that her Army family was out of reach. Wrong of him to even think about dying after she walked away from Fort Campbell and what a commanding officer had assured her would be a promising military career. He was only fifty-five.

  He’d been fine yesterday, more than fine really. In that silly Santa Claus store he’d been grinning like a kid, looking at the ornaments and decorations, shopping, having Mr. Wrinkles personalized on the pug ornament he’d picked out. You don’t go from more than fine to a heart attack in one day. You just don’t.

  St. Mary’s Warrick Hospital was in Booneville, a county over. Spencer County’s lack of a hospital was rarely a concern given the close proximity of hospitals in the neighboring counties. St. Mary’s was only fourteen miles from Rockport. But it seemed like a very long fourteen miles. And why take him there? Why not a little farther to a larger hospital with no doubt better equipment and more staff. Her dad should have the best. Had she been at home, she might have insisted they take him to one of the big hospitals in Evansville.

  Was his condition so bad that they couldn’t risk the extra miles?

  Sure, the little hospital in Booneville had an ER, but probably only three or four dozen beds for overnight care. Small. Was it good enough? Was anything good enough?

  She parked in the ER lot and dashed through the doors, seeing Anthony, bald head gleaming in the fluorescent lights. He stood at the nurse’s station. His call to her at the roofer’s house had been brief: “Sheriff Blackwell, your father was making coffee, and then he grabbed his left arm. I knew what it was. I called 9-1-1, though he argued with me, and I found aspirin in the cupboard. I gave him two. The ambulance came, said I could ride with him. I think they assumed I was family. The driver said we were going to St. Mary’s. You know where it is, right?”

  Thank God the Buddhist monk had been with her dad. Thank God Anthony could not stay at the Delaney house; that she’d imposed on her father to take him in. If she hadn’t drove to the airport to pick up the monk… Her dad believed everything “happened for a reason.” In the past handful of days everything had been happening for very bad reasons.

  Anthony turned to face her, reached out, and touched her cheek. “The doctors are with him, Sheriff Blackwell—”

  “Piper.” She leaned around him and saw a nurse. “Paul Blackwell, he was just brought in and—”

  “He’s in the ER—”

  “I know. I know. I need to see him.”

  “We’ll let you know when you can.” The nurse gestured toward a collection of chairs around a low table littered with magazines.

  “Is he going to be all right? When—”

  “Please.” The nurse pointed to the chairs again. “Honest, as soon as I know something, I’ll tell y
ou.”

  Piper let Anthony lead her. He sat next to her and took her hands, tugged the white gloves off and dropped them on the table. Then he cupped her hands in his. She was shaking.

  “Visualize,” he said. “Your fingers, hands, visualize them as a bowl.”

  She nearly pulled away, but didn’t want to argue with the man who’d helped her father.

  “We make bowls, from clay, metal, even our hands. The material doesn’t matter. It is what we put in them that matters.” His voice was even and soothing, and she imagined he’d be good at hypnotizing people. “In this bowl you have made place good thoughts, Piper. Place a prayer for your father. Buddha said, ‘All life is temporary. Why worry about anything that is temporary.’ So do not fill your bowl with worries. A worry will take you nowhere, will accomplish nothing. Fill it with prayer and good thoughts. Let peace enter. The bowl does not leak that way.”

  She closed her eyes and tried to do that, to picture her father standing in front of his “Deck the Halls” kind of tree, tried to pray to a God she was angry with for letting Paul Blackwell get cancer—again, for allowing her fellow soldiers to die in horrible ways in Iraq, for permitting a sicko serial killer to carve a path through no-longer sleepy Spencer County. Her shoulders hunched like she was a turtle and she cried, her tears spilling into the bowl she’d made with her hands.

  They sat like that a long while, Piper thinking about her dad, prayers tumbling through her head followed by questions of “does God exist…’cause if so, how could this happen?” She was angry—at God for all manner of things, at her father’s heart, at herself for not being there when it happened. The Army had taught her to be strong and to compartmentalize things, like shoving a problem or bad attitude in a drawer and locking it away so you could focus on something more important. One of the men in her downrange squad was Jewish, but was fond of quoting Buddha. “Holding onto anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.” He quoted that one a lot…because in war anger seemed ever-present. She shoved her anger in a drawer and took a deep breath.