by A. E. Howe
“Maybe,” Darlene said. “Jane and Clive gave me the same information you got about the inheritance, while Andrew claimed to know nothing about it. And they all had alibis that will need to be checked. No smoking guns here.”
“I’m not surprised. That backhoe is the fly in the ointment,” I said as we got in the car. “If the murder was premeditated, that would explain the backhoe.”
“But that’s pretty lame. Everyone knew where Hank Senior was going to be working this morning. If he’d disappeared, there would have been a massive search and the freshly turned earth would have been discovered. We’d have brought in search dogs too, and they wouldn’t have been fooled by a few feet of dirt, or even ten feet of dirt.”
“On the bright side, the backhoe gives us a whole bunch of opportunities to recover trace evidence,” I said. “And an alternative line of inquiry.”
When we got back to the scene, there were only half a dozen tired-looking deputies still there, along with Marcus and Shantel.
“You two follow me,” Shantel said without preamble. The sun was getting low in the sky. I looked at my watch to see that it was already six o’clock.
Shantel led us to a spot about ten feet inside the tree line. I could look through the trees and see where the holes had been dug and, when I turned around, I could see the spot twenty yards away where Parrish’s body had been found in the field.
Shantel pulled out her phone and showed us a picture of a small feather lying in the dirt. “Don’t worry, we took better pictures with the big camera. We found this right here.” She pointed to a small yellow flag stuck in the ground.
“Part of the fletching from the bolt that killed Parrish?” I asked. I’d been fascinated with crossbows in high school.
“You got it on the first guess,” Shantel said.
“So this is where our killer took his shot,” Darlene said, looking around at the ground and bushes.
“We’ve picked this place apart for possible trace evidence. We won’t know if we got anything for a while. We weren’t lucky enough to find a branch with blood on it or anything that obvious.”
“These days, even bad guys are smart enough not to toss around cigarette butts,” I bemoaned.
A tow truck arrived to take the trailer and backhoe to our impound lot, where Shantel and Marcus could take a more in-depth look at it. Darlene and I helped wrap things up at the scene, then headed back to the office. We came up with a schedule for the next day that involved running down alibis and digging into the backgrounds of the family and employees, as well as talking to other people around the county about Parrish and any possible enemies he may have had.
I texted my girlfriend, Cara Laursen, before I left the station and told her I’d be over in about an hour. I wanted to talk with her as soon as possible about Marcy. I’d hoped my ex would leave town, or at least stay away from me, so I could avoid explaining all the messy details of my past to Cara, but apparently I wasn’t going to be that lucky.
Chapter Four
My gate was open when I pulled into my driveway, which wasn’t right. I tried to think back to that morning. Had I closed and locked it as I usually did? Probably. Maybe. Nothing is harder than trying to remember whether you did something that you always do. Routines are routines so you don’t have to think about what you’re doing.
I lived in an older doublewide on twenty acres about five miles outside of town. My house sat close to the center of the mostly wooded property, in a clearing that boasted half a dozen enormous old live oak trees. I parked in my usual spot and sat in the car for ten minutes while my eyes adjusted to the dark. Nothing moved or looked out of the ordinary. I pulled out my flashlight, but didn’t turn it on. Reaching up, I clicked off the dome light so I wouldn’t lose my night vision or illuminate myself as I stepped out of my car. Once outside, I took my Glock from its holster and began to approach the house with the flashlight still off. The sky was clear and the half moon provided a fair bit of light.
Everything appeared normal. I moved around the side of the house, only occasionally tripping over deadfall. When I got to the back of the house I saw a broken window in my office. Sighing, I headed for the back door. I pressed my ear to the door and waited. Next, I tapped on the door and listened again. Enough of this, I thought and opened the door, gun at the ready across the wrist of my left hand that held the flashlight. I thumbed a light switch and peered through the doorway, checking both sides of the doorjamb. Nothing.
I entered the house and went room to room, concentrating on clearing it before I worried about what might have been stolen. Once I was sure no one was hiding, I turned on all the lights, closed the back door and looked for Ivy, the tabby cat I’d rescued from the streets last year. I found her curled up on top of the refrigerator. She looked down at me accusingly, as though I’d failed in my mission to provide her with a safe and secure home.
“This wouldn’t have happened if you could bark,” I told her.
I noticed a half-empty beer bottle sitting on the kitchen counter. Okay, we probably have some DNA evidence. That’s good, I thought.
I went back through all the rooms again. The house had been thoroughly searched, but nothing much seemed to have been taken. The only thing missing was about a hundred dollars I kept in my nightstand.
A prickly feeling ran across my skin. Marcy. I went back into the kitchen and looked more closely at the beer bottle. Red lipstick covered the top. I sniffed the bottle. It even smelled like her.
I could feel the blood pound in my temples. Of all the luck. Why did she have to come back to town now? And why was she picking on me? The answer was easy. She loved to get under my skin. The real question was: what was I going to do about it?
I needed to tell Cara. After feeding Ivy and reassuring her that I’d do a better job in the future, I boarded up the office window as best I could and locked up the house. Next I went to the small shed where I kept my lawn and power tools and found a heavier chain and a hardcore padlock for the front gate. The horse might be gone, but I was going to make sure the barn door was well secured.
As I drove, I thought about calling Cara to warn her about Marcy, but I didn’t want to get into a big discussion about it over the phone. Did Marcy even know about Cara? How crazy was she these days? Obviously crazy enough to break into my house.
When I pulled into Cara’s driveway, everything seemed normal. She lived in the east half of a duplex that she rented from a nice older couple. But as I got out of the car, I noticed that it was very quiet. It’s just your overactive imagination, I told my inner voice. You just got burgled, dumbass, the inner voice reminded me.
When I got to the door, I didn’t hear a TV, but Cara usually preferred to read after work. I raised my hand to knock, but then I heard something loud thump against the inside of the door. I froze. Was someone lurking on the other side? Was Marcy already spreading her chaos to Cara’s doorstep?
I leaned in and put my ear to the door. The house had a typical modern construction and, while the door was made of steel, it was hollow so sounds were easily transferred from inside. Sure enough, I could hear movement and breathing. Deep, heavy breathing. Certainly not Cara’s.
I couldn’t think of any reason why Cara would be leaning against the inside of the door. If she used the peephole, she’d have seen it was me. Maybe she was playing some practical joke on me? Not really her style, I thought.
I considered my options. I had a key, so even if the door was locked I could still get in through the front door. But if someone was just inside the door, I could have been walking into a fight where I didn’t have all the facts. Important facts, like where Cara was, how many people were inside and how well armed they were. I rejected going in the front door.
I could call her. That wasn’t a bad option. I snuck away from the front door and pulled out my phone, but there was no answer. I moved up next to the door and called again. I couldn’t hear the phone ringing, but again I heard movement inside. I could almost sense a
person leaning against the inside of the door.
I was starting to feel frustrated and anxious. Checking all the doors and windows was my next choice. I started around Cara’s side of the building, but unfortunately she had most of her blinds down. This was also normal, but not helpful. I crept up to the back door that opened out onto a small patio with a utility closet. I knew the door led into her kitchen. It was a cottage door, with the top half made up of a series of small windows. From a security standpoint, this was awful, but at least the deadbolt required a key on both sides so someone couldn’t break a single small pane and reach in and unlock the door.
I slipped my key into the lock and slowly turned it. I knew I was going to make some noise, but you’d have to have a really good set of ears to hear it. Once the door was unlocked, I turned the knob slowly and pushed gently until the door was slightly ajar.
I stopped and took a deep breath. Was I overreacting? Probably, but with anything that might involve Marcy, I’d rather err on the side of caution. I pulled my gun out and reminded myself to keep my finger well clear of the trigger guard. I didn’t want to make any mistakes that I’d regret later. Set, I pushed the door open and entered the kitchen.
I hadn’t gone two feet from the door when a large black figure raced into the kitchen straight at me. I started to raise my gun, but time had run out. I was thrown hard against the cabinets and went sprawling on the floor. I heard a shout from the other room.
I still had my gun in my hand, but I was pinned to the floor. Only then did I realize that the hot breath of my attacker smelled oddly of Pepto-Bismol. The lights came on, exposing the identity of my assailant. It was Mauser, my father’s overgrown, two-year-old monster of a Great Dane.
“What are you doing?!” yelled Cara.
Mauser and I both looked at her.
“I’m trying to keep him from getting worked up,” she said, sounding a bit peeved as I managed to re-holster my gun. Meanwhile, Mauser danced up and down on top of me and, looking straight into my face, gave me one of his signature seismic barks.
“Now you bark. If you’d done that fifteen minutes ago all of this could have been avoided,” I explained to Mauser.
“Why the hell were you sneaking in the back door with your gun out?” Cara asked.
“I… came over to… It’s complicated.” I looked at Mauser as he tried to lick my face. “What are you doing here?” I asked him. “Move, get off,” I told him as I got up off the floor. I could see Alvin, Cara’s Pug, peering in from the living room at the circus. I closed the outer door and tried to regain some of my dignity.
We went into the living room with Mauser prancing beside me, my arm held gently in his mouth as though I was his trophy burglar. We settled on the couch and managed to convince Mauser to lay on the floor with Alvin, who was still looking very puzzled by all of the commotion.
“Okay, you first, why is Mauser here?” I asked quickly.
“That’s pretty simple. Your dad brought Mauser into the vet with an upset tummy and was wondering what he was going to do with him tonight while he went to some campaign event. Apparently his regular sitter had class, so I offered to keep him here for the night. Your turn. What was with all the sneaking around?”
“Okay, long story. First, I have to tell you something I’ve been avoiding.” I took a deep breath. “I have a slightly demented ex. She lives down in south Florida now, but her dad’s been sick. Actually, he’s in hospice care, so she’s here visiting.”
“I figured you had ex-girlfriends.” She squinted. “How crazy?”
“That’s why I was sneaking in your back door. She broke into my house this afternoon. I heard old big-hooves here,” I indicated the sacked-out Great Dane at our feet, “and thought someone was in your house.”
“That sounds like a stretch.”
“Okay, I admit it, some of her crazy tends to rub off on me. She… Her name is Marcy. She came by the Donut Hole today while Darlene and I were having lunch. Marcy wanted some stuff she thought she’d left with me when she moved out.” Right after I said those words the atmosphere felt awkward. Cara and I had gotten to the point where we’d exchanged keys and had frequent sleepovers, but we hadn’t yet seriously discussed moving in with each other.
“And you really thought she might have broken in here?” Cara sounded genuinely surprised by the idea.
“Did I mention she could be a little… extreme?”
“How long ago did you all break up?”
“Long before I went to the law enforcement academy. About nine years ago.” We were on to the what-did-you-do-with-her-and-how-long-did-you-do-it? stage of the conversation, exactly what I’d hoped to avoid since I’d found out Marcy was in town.
“How long were you…?” Cara caught herself. “I guess that isn’t really any of my business,” she said, but everything in her tone suggested that she desperately wanted to know.
“I don’t mind talking about my ups and many downs with Marcy. I had a crush on her during high school, but I wasn’t cool enough for her so nothing happened until later. I told you how I left college in Georgia to be with Dad after Mom died and I never went back. But when Dad decided to run for sheriff, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least finish up my AA, so I enrolled at Tallahassee Community College. I ran into Marcy there… Actually, I think she purposely ran into me. I think she needed a regular ride to school, since both of us were still living over here.
“Naively, I was all excited about the chance to spend time with my old crush. To be fair, she’d had a couple of hard bumps in her life at that point. She’d gone from being the hot fish in the small pond to being one of the many fish swimming around in the real world. Also, her life at home wasn’t going so great. Her mom and dad had issues. Long and short of it, we ended up living together for two good months and nine progressively worse ones.”
“And now she came back and broke into your house?” Cara asked, sounding understandably skeptical.
“Crazy is as crazy does,” I threw out, then realized I was being too flippant. “Honestly, I don’t know what she wants. I told her I didn’t have anything of hers. I moved out of the apartment shortly after she did, plus another time or two since then.”
“You’re sure that it was Marcy that broke into your house?” Cara asked.
“Positive. One of her habits that bugged me the most was leaving glasses and bottles all over the place. She left a beer bottle on the counter, and there was lipstick on it. Besides, nothing was taken except some cash.”
“Are you going to talk to her?”
That was a loaded question, but I was determined to be honest with Cara now that it was out in the open. Of course I didn’t want to talk with Marcy again, but she wasn’t one to stop digging once she got something into her head. “I need to. Though I don’t know how I’m going to prove a negative.”
“Is there any chance that you do have something of hers?” Cara asked reasonably.
“I appreciate you taking this so… unemotionally,” I said.
“We haven’t gotten to the emotional part yet,” she said in a tone that let me know that somewhere along the way I’d stepped in it. Then she enlightened me. “I’m a bit ticked off that you waited this long to tell me that your rogue ex-girlfriend was roaming the countryside.” There was a slight edge to her voice.
“I’m sorry. My relationship with her was so long ago I just figured she’d moved past it. She’s here because her father is dying, so I didn’t think there’d be any reason I’d have to talk to her. Trust me, I’ve been trying to avoid running into her for weeks.”
Cara punched me on the shoulder. “Talk to me, and I’ll try not to overreact.” She hesitated and then added, with a smile in her voice, “I did say ‘try’, so no guarantees.”
“To answer your earlier question, I’m pretty sure that I don’t have any of her stuff. Though I do remember leaving a few boxes over at Dad’s house. I might go check them out. I put them there when I moved out of the apartment I
shared with Marcy, and I haven’t looked at them since.”
“Are you going to confront Marcy?”
“Not right away,” I said, which seemed to satisfy Cara and end the awkward former girlfriend conversation.
We settled down on the couch with Alvin, which led to a jealous Mauser trying to edge his big butt up on the furniture as well. Cara asked about the rest of my day and I gave her the broad outlines of the Parrish murder without any details that wouldn’t be in the papers tomorrow. I also took a few minutes to whine about Darlene.
Before I eventually said goodbye, we spent the better part of an hour watching Tyrannosaurus Dog try to cope with the more playful Pug. When Mauser was particularly annoyed, he’d take one of his enormous paws and pin the small dog to the ground until Alvin managed to squirm out from underneath and come charging back to lick Mauser’s face some more. You had to admire the little guy’s guts.
Chapter Five
Even though I got to the office half an hour early, Darlene was already at her desk when I came in. “Good morning, Sunshine. I’m making a list of the people we need to interview,” she told me without looking up.
I ignored her and texted Pete, catching him before he left his house. We agreed to meet for lunch. I planned on ditching Darlene sometime before that.
“I’m going out to collect surveillance footage from the route that our backhoe thief would have taken,” I told her.
“There are only five cameras that had a chance of catching his car on the road and I picked up the footage from them last night,” she said, still working on her list.
My first plan ruined, I asked, “So who’s on your list?” My new plan was to suggest that we split up the interviews.
“I’ve got about a dozen people who knew Parrish. Those will probably be quick ones. Ask them if he had any enemies, had he been acting differently, what about his family. The hope is that we can get a line on someone with a motive.”
She told me this as if I didn’t know what kind of questions we needed to ask. Don’t let her get under your skin, I told myself as I let her do just that.
