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

by Jean Rabe

  Piper got out and checked her gun, a Sig Saur P229. She went to the back of the Explorer, and reached over the evidence bags of Christmas cards from Zach’s room and the unused Merry Christmas mugs, and grabbed a Smith & Wesson rifle then closed the hatch. The rifle was light, she guessed about five and a half pounds, with a strap that let her sling it across her back.

  Oren started down the ditch ahead of her. Beyond it and past a sprawling pond, perched on a rise, were six trailers in various states of decay. It could have passed for the set of an apocalyptic movie, Piper thought. As much rust as paint, held together by dicey welds, all of them looked uneven and probably had been damaged repeatedly by strong winds. She doubted anyone had lived in any of them for a few years. The weeds were brown and knee high, and a small tree had grown into the side of the nearest trailer. She grabbed Oren’s arm.

  “Wait a minute.”

  “They look like bones,” he said. “Skeletons of homes. It’d work for a Walking Dead episode.”

  Oren watched that show? She thought it a reasonable description and could picture zombies lurking.

  “I think my wild goose chase isn’t going to get us anything except muddy boots, Sheriff Blackwell. Looks abandoned. Not a vehicle in sight. Maybe we should go back to—”

  “Shhh!” she cautioned him. Piper edged ahead of Oren, staying in the ditch, crouched and peeked above the other side. Hard to see from this vantage point because of the high weeds, but she thought a light shone in one of the busted trailers. Couldn’t see it now, might have been the sun poking through a gap in the clouds. She looked up. No gap, just the solid gray dome. “I think someone’s here. And they might have spotted the Ford.”

  “What about his Ford? The blue one. I don’t see any cars. ‘Spose something might be parked behind a trailer, though.”

  Not likely, Piper thought, as she turned off her cell phone. The drive leading into the abandoned trailer park that they’d passed was heavily overgrown, and as much mud as there was from melted snow she would have noticed tire tracks.

  However, a section of the ditch near Piper had tire tracks in it, and they looked recent, as if someone had driven off the road and into and up a shallow part of the channel. She pointed them out to Oren.

  “Interesting,” he whispered. “Don’t know why the hell someone would drive through a ditch.”

  “If it’s him, he’s armed.”

  “Yeah, I know. If it’s him, he’s got a department-issued Sig Sauer, and a rifle.”

  Randy’s weapons had been missing out of his Crown Vic.

  Piper crawled up onto the other side, laying flat. “Stay here, until I motion for you.” A pause. “I need you here and your eyes on the third trailer from the right. I’m not going to be able to see much of it for a while. And if there’s trouble, I need you near the radio to call the Henderson Sheriff.” On the drive here, she’d called the sheriff. There was a mutual aid agreement between that department and hers, and she’d secured an okay to pursue her suspect here.

  She started a low crawl through the weeds, the ground cold and damp, and bits of mud oozing up through her gloved fingers. After a moment, she tugged the gloves off as they’d become too encased. Basic stealth training, two tours in Iraq, downrange assignments, this crawl was easy for her—though unpleasant and slower going than she wanted. It added aches to her aches. The smell of wet earth from the melted snow was strong and seemed to settle on her tongue.

  She crept along, noting that the breeze was significant enough to rustle the weeds and high dead grass. Milkweed stalks stuck up in artful patterns and bent in the wind, the pods long ago burst open. Perfect. The ground cover moving with the wind meaning her passage might not be noticed. Finding the tire tracks, she followed them and saw that they went right into the big pond.

  “What the hell?” she whispered. Rising up on her elbows she looked at the tracks again to be certain, saw boot prints next to them, the prints smeared like someone had slid. Slid while pushing the car into the pond. “What the hell?”

  Flattening again, doing a low crawl to the edge of the water, the bank a mix of mud and sand, the surface reflected the gray of the clouds overhead. She kept staring and the details came a little clearer; the hood of the car appeared to be a foot below the surface of the water, and next to it was a pickup—maybe the one that had run her off the road.

  “Jesus,” she whispered, continuing to stare. There was another vehicle down there, a little farther out. She risked it and pulled the small flashlight from her belt, turned it on and aimed it at an angle. Three vehicles all told in the water, two cars and a truck. The car farthest out was murky, weeds grown up all around it, but she saw the large stylized outline of a bat on the hood. The Batmobile, Oren had referenced. The car closest both to the edge and to the surface had a little flag on the hood. She couldn’t read it, but she knew in her gut it was from the funeral home, the Ford they’d been looking for. Putting them in a pond was apparently a good way to hide them.

  Piper flicked off the flashlight, low crawled back to Oren, and told him what she saw. “Call the sheriff for backup,” she said, keeping her voice softer than it probably needed to be. The weeds were making a shushing noise in the breeze. “I’m going to take a closer look at the trailers. I swore I saw a light in the third one from the right. And if he’s in there I don’t want him running before the Henderson deputies get here. And tell them no lights, no sirens.”

  “Yes, Sheriff Blackwell,” Oren said.

  That hadn’t sounded quite so patronizing as usual. She noticed he’d unsnapped the catch on his holster and had retrieved the other rifle from the back of the Explorer. He turned and climbed up the other side of the ditch, back to car. Where Oren had parked, trees between it and the trailers, she agreed that there was a good chance it was not visible from the trailers.

  She might be able to surprise him. Zachary Delaney had to be there.

  “Catch the bastard,” her dad had told her. She hoped to do just that, but she wasn’t going to be stupid about it, had no intention of ending up like Randy. She’d not come alone, and backup would be here in minutes.

  Piper was soaked by the time she reached the closest trailer; the moisture from the ground had seeped into her slacks and chilled her skin. Her fingers had cramped from the cold and were black with mud. She’d crawled a lot on downrange assignments in Iraq, but it had been over sand and dirt, and the heat had been a bother, not the cold. One set of conditions was no better than another. Her heart thrummed in anticipation. Odd, she thought, feeling so alive when everything about this skirted death—the victims, the threat Zachary posed, losing her detective. It had been the same sensation when she and her men had searched for Taliban members, the peril of death making life sweeter somehow.

  There was trash scattered amid the weeds, the coil from a bong, crumpled cigarette packets, smashed aluminum cans—a mix of beers and A&W. Crawling closer, she felt broken glass slice at her legs. She maneuvered and looked to see that she’d pulled herself across the remnants of beer bottles.

  Piper’s muscles felt like fire, though her teeth chattered from the cold. She cursed herself for not seeing a doctor after the accident. Her aches had doubled, and now her head pounded to add to her misery. Still, she felt the excitement. She crawled into a thicker clump, no longer able to see the trailers, but she knew where they were. Piper had visually memorized their positions. On some of her downrange assignments, when they slithered into compounds and neighborhoods at night, she’d had to rely on her memory of what she’d seen in daylight hours. She was a good judge of distance.

  In a handful of minutes she was at the base of the nearest trailer. The unit she wanted was roughly in the center of the apocalyptic scene…at least that’s where she swore she’d seen a light. Crawling to the busted steps, she saw no tracks—save for the prints of small animals that were likely living underneath the trailer. The air was foul here with rust, rotted vegetation, a trace of old oil and gasoline, evidence people had live
d here quite some time ago.

  As she made her way to the next trailer, and then the next, she wondered how soon the local sheriff deputies would arrive, and whether Oren had called JJ. Teegan should be on shift now. Closer, and she heard thunder. A heartbeat later she heard rain falling against the patchy skin of the trailers.

  She felt it tat-a-tat-tatting against her back.

  This trailer she hunkered against was precariously tipped, the skirt gone to reveal supports rusted through and twisted. It was smaller than the target trailer, but it provided enough cover that she could crouch next to it and peer above the weeds. Getting up from being prone was arduous.

  Someone’s in there, she knew for certain when she saw a light coming from a side window, which hadn’t been visible from the road. It flickered, a lantern or candle, clearly no electricity was running to these things anymore. From her vantage she saw slabs of concrete arranged like domino patterns between the weeds, hints that there had been well more than a dozen trailers here at one time. The planning had been poor, she thought, putting the neighborhood on a rise. Southern Indiana and into this part of Kentucky was called Tornado Alley. Scattering trailers and mobile homes on a hill was like asking God to “come and get me.”

  The target trailer had curtains, and a flimsy panel near a large front window moved. The person inside would have a clear view down to the drive, and maybe to the road, but likely couldn’t see the Explorer or Oren. She sucked in a breath and dropped to a low crawl again, worked her way to her target and lay flat beneath the front windows. She reached to her side for the Sig and shrugged the rifle off her back and left it. She shimmied to the front door and saw boot tracks in the mud leading to concrete blocks that served as a front stoop, muddy prints on them. It was evidence someone had walked through the mud and into the trailer. Didn’t look like the prints had gone back out. Had Zachary thought to hide here for a few days, then venture out and pick up a new vehicle somewhere? If Oren hadn’t recalled Zach’s comment about visiting his old trailer to check on his ex-girlfriend, Piper would have had no clue to come here. Zachary might have slipped their grasp.

  Wait for backup. Wait. Wait.

  Piper heard a click and the sound a window makes sliding open. She looked up and saw the barrel of a rifle point out above her. He wasn’t aiming at her, couldn’t see her, but he saw something, the nearby weeds keeping whatever he was interested in hidden from her view. He let off two shots in rapid succession, and she nearly jumped. Piper didn’t know if he hit anything or anyone, didn’t know if Oren had decided to come closer or if the backup had arrived and drawn Zachary’s attention. She could see only a sea of brown weeds twitching in the breeze.

  Two more shots and she heard a “Damn!” coming from the trees. She rose up and saw Oren grab his chest and drop to his knees. Another shot hit him in the shoulder and he fell back.

  Shit! Piper nearly ran to Oren, a part of her wanted to.

  But the wiser part was a trained soldier who acted swiftly. She dropped and rolled away from the trailer for a better angle, shooting up into the window and through the siding right beneath it. Piper saw Zach’s rifle barrel wag and with a clunk it dropped inside the trailer. A muffled groan and a “goddammit” told her she’d at least wounded him.

  Piper had to make sure, though. Eliminate the threat, then go to Oren. She rolled back up against the trailer and skittered to the concrete block porch, all the while listening, hearing her heart and the sound of the rifle being reloaded, the sirens she’d not wanted them to use. Saw the barrel stick out of a window in the center. He was away from the door. Wounded, but no idea how bad. Not bad enough, she thought. He was able to hold a gun, was still a threat.

  Piper leaped onto Zach’s porch, vaulted across the threshold and landed in a crouch, aiming the Sig up and firing when she saw her mark. The light was dim, coming from a lantern behind Zachary, but it was enough to see by and to hit what she was aiming for. Piper’d shot him in the shoulder. She shot again now, striking the fleshy part of his arm, again and she struck his hand as he was turning the rifle on her. She could have killed him, a shot to the head or the chest. Piper would have done that on a downrange assignment—wholly eliminate the target.

  But she wouldn’t be able to talk to a dead man. She fired once more, striking his leg. The gun fell from his fingers and he hollered while she tried to look around him to see if they were alone. Oren had mentioned a girlfriend.

  Zachary’s yell turned to a scream of rage and pain, and despite his wounds, he lunged.

  “I don’t want to kill you, you sonofabitch!” She stood and brought her leg up, and slammed her heel into his stomach. She kicked again and he fell back, striking his head and bloody shoulder on the edge of an old wooden table. His screams grew wilder, a wounded animal.

  Piper followed, ramming a foot down on his stomach. Randy’s Sig was stuffed in Zach’s belt, and with his good hand he tried to reach for it.

  “Don’t, you bastard!” she warned. “Don’t even breathe.”

  He reached for the Sig anyway and she planted her other foot on his good arm, preventing him. He struggled, nearly setting her off balance, but she kept him down. Piper wanted him alive.

  “Kill me,” Zachary pleaded. “Do it. Kill me. Kill me. I’ll find Duke. I’ll be with Duke. Send me to Duke, you bitch!”

  Piper didn’t know who the hell Duke was, but she wasn’t going to kill him. Dead, he couldn’t fill in the gaps.

  He continued to ramble, his struggles a little less, the pool of blood spreading. There was a disturbing madness in his eyes caught by the lantern light. The sirens stopped.

  “You sick bastard,” Piper cursed. “You sick—”

  She heard the pounding of feet, someone shouting, a voice she didn’t recognize.

  “Sheriff Blackwell!”

  “In here,” she called, keeping the Sig trained on Zachary’s face. “My chief deputy’s been shot. He’s—”

  “Alive. We got him. Ambulance is coming.”

  She felt the floor quiver, people coming in. “Careful,” she cautioned. “This place could fall in.”

  “Suspect down,” someone said behind her, probably into a shoulder mic. One more thing Piper wanted to get for the department. “Send a second ambulance.”

  A man squeezed next to Piper; he wore a Henderson County sheriff’s uniform. There wasn’t much room inside the trailer, broken furniture, crates, an aisle running down the middle of the mess, and her and Zachary Delaney in the center of that. Just past them, in a chair next to the lantern, were the desiccated remains of a woman.

  “That’d be the ex-girlfriend, I’m thinking,” Piper said. She shivered. The corpse was wearing Piper’s gold necklace.

  Apparently Zachary Delaney had come here from time to time to check on his dead girlfriend.

  How the hell did he get my necklace?

  “Impressive, Sheriff Blackwell,” one of the deputies said. “Front page stuff.”

  Thirty-Four

  Saturday, January 6th

  Piper sat at the end of her father’s bed and breathed deep. Flowers everywhere, the air smelled good, like she was inside a florist’s shop. She ached, every inch of her, and her fingers and toes felt a little numb. Still not recovered from her car crash, she’d sliced her legs crawling through the abandoned trailer park, and strained muscles she hadn’t tested since leaving Fort Campbell. They’d patched her up in the ER in Henderson, and JJ had dropped her back at her apartment shortly before midnight—after they both checked on Oren. The chief deputy was going to be in the Henderson hospital for several days.

  Eight hours later, she’d woke, tended to a few things at the office, and come to see her father.

  Her New Year’s resolution: find the closest YMCA and buy a membership so she could stay in military shape…after she allowed herself this weekend off to rest.

  Paul Blackwell was propped up in bed, his lunch tray in front of him. He’d eaten most of it. He beamed at her.

  “God,
but I’m proud of you,” he said for the fourth time.

  “It was money,” she said. “At the heart of it, just money.” Piper and the Henderson County Sheriff had ridden with Zachary in the ambulance, and after he was read his rights, Zachary said he had an attorney but wasn’t going to call him just yet. He spilled to her. “Zachary was fired, Dad, from Plank Manor at Thanksgiving; they cited shoddy work. He’d asked his father for some money so he could pay rent until he found something else, maybe unemployment hadn’t kicked in or wasn’t enough. Conrad turned him down, and Zachary decided to kill him for spite and so he could inherit everything. Apparently it wasn’t the first time Conrad had refused to give Zachary money. But it was the last.”

  Paul made a face. “Then why kill all the others? Did Zach try to get money from them, too?”

  “We’re still sorting that out. He had some mental issues, hadn’t taken his prescriptions for a while. That might have played into it. I think he killed all the others as a sick smokescreen, picked his victims because they didn’t bother to write him a sentence on the Christmas cards they sent. In the ambulance Zachary said, and I quote, ‘those people were lazy and deserved a Christmas death.’ He said anyone who’d buy cards and pay postage and couldn’t even add a sentence deserved to die. He thought he made a statement by posing them to look like the cards they’d sent. And he tried to swipe their address books so his name wouldn’t pop up. Like I said, we’re sorting it out.”

  “Wow.”

  “Oh, and he might have killed his former girlfriend from a few years back. He wouldn’t comment on that, though we’ll know more when the Henderson coroner uh—”