by Liliana Hart
Frigid air blasted me in the face as soon as I opened the door and Jack and I maneuvered the body inside and to the elevator. Despite the temperature, sweat broke out on Jack’s brow as soon as the smell of the embalming fluid hit him. I immediately went and turned on the fans to the highest setting.
I tried not to pay any attention to the five boxes that sat unobtrusively in the corner—the same boxes my father had been looking for. This was the only secure place I could keep them, but I wondered if the security on the door would really keep him out. Jack had a large safe in his closet where he kept extra guns, a few heirlooms, and extra cash. I was thinking it might be better to move them there, that way we could go through the boxes in the comfort of our home instead of huddled in the basement with a dead body.
“You okay?” I asked after I got the body settled on the table. “There are bottles of water in the fridge if you want one.”
“I’m good. It’ll pass after a few minutes.”
I grabbed a fresh pair of gloves and then tossed him the box. I worried about the shape the victim would be in even after such a short trip in the car. Victims found in the water after an extended period of time were extremely delicate, and I knew if I was going to get viable prints for Colburn the work was going to be painstakingly tedious.
I unzipped the body bag and we carefully removed the victim, making sure not to brush against his sensitive skin. I cut his shirt down the middle and peeled it away from his chest and shoulders. His flesh was already patchy and raw in places just from the trip down the river. My complete attention was on getting the sleeve from the arm when I felt Jack pause.
I looked up to make sure he was all right and wasn’t going to be sick, but I knew it was something else entirely once I saw the look on his face.
“What’s wrong?”
“Look at the tattoo on his chest.”
Just above the victim’s heart was a tattoo of an eagle. It held an assault rifle in one talon, a lightning bolt in the other, and a large knife pierced the center. The detail was incredible and I could recite everything about it without looking at it. I was intimately familiar with that tattoo. Jack had one just like it, only his was located above his right hip.
“I don’t understand.”
“He was a SWAT brother,” Jack said. “Or maybe a wannabe, but he’s got marks of combat on him—looks like a knife wound on the arm and a bullet hole down low on his side—so I’m thinking he’s probably legit. We all have the tattoo. It’s a rite of passage.”
“One of your squad from DC? Is the tattoo specific to which unit you’re in or are they all the same?”
“They’re all the same, so he could be from anywhere. But since he washed up on our shore, he’s more than likely out of one of the surrounding offices. If he’s a cop his prints will be easy to tag.”
“Then I’ll get started. This is going to take a while if you’ve got something else you want to do.”
“I’ll see it through.”
I finished removing the victim’s clothes and bagged them carefully to send off to Richmond and the lab techs we used there. Just in case there was blood belonging to someone other than the victim.
The tissue on the victim’s fingers wasn’t stable, and if I wasn’t careful I’d tear the skin and wouldn’t get a viable print. The easiest way to do it was to remove the finger entirely and then remove the skin. It was quick—if gruesome—work to remove the finger and the skin, and I laid the epidermis on the table.
I used a superglue solution to spray on the skin to keep it from tearing and then I carefully wrapped it over my glove, on the tip of my index finger. The black powder used at crime scenes was more delicate than the ink normally used when fingerprinted at the station, so Jack dusted the finger and I gently pressed it to the card he’d placed on the table. It was slow work, but when I lifted my hand and saw the perfect print I knew we’d gotten what we needed.
I wiped my brow with the back of my arm, and when I stood up straight my back ached from where I’d been hunched over. I looked at the clock and saw we’d been at it for almost three hours. It was shy of noon and my stomach rumbled, reminding me I’d had nothing more than a cup of coffee all day.
“That’s all I can do for now until I get the go ahead to start on an autopsy.”
“Then let’s get this to Colburn so he can look for matches through the computer. If the victim’s a cop he’ll be much easier to find. And while we’re out we can grab some lunch at Martha’s.”
Martha’s Diner was the only sit down restaurant in Bloody Mary. The hamburgers were good and greasy, the coffee questionable, and the pie out of this world. “Oh, good. It’s been a couple of days since I’ve been stared at and gossiped about. I was starting to miss it.”
“I’m sensing sarcasm in your tone.”
I stuck out my tongue at Jack and pushed the body into the walk-in freezer. “You’re asking for it. You know Martha is going to ask you all sorts of questions about our relationship, and then you’ll tell her we’re engaged. And then she’s going to want to know why I’m not wearing an engagement ring. Then she’s going to assume it’s because you’re still on the market and she’ll try to fix you up with her niece’s granddaughter’s first cousin.”
“I’m pretty sure I followed your entire train of thought,” Jack said wryly. “It must be love.”
I stripped off my gloves, tossing them in the trash, and rolled my eyes.
“Besides,” he said. “I have your engagement ring in the safe. If you’d like we can get it from the house before we go eat lunch so we can avoid Martha’s prying.”
Jack was already halfway up the stairs, while I stood with my mouth open at the thought of a ring. A ring made it real. Not to mention I was terrified of losing it. I’d never worn jewelry before. It had a tendency to end up in whatever body I had cut open on my table.
“What—You already have a ring? How? Why?”
He paused on the stairs and looked back at me. “You’re full of questions today. The ring belonged to my great-grandmother and it’s a family tradition to pass it down to the oldest son’s bride. But if you don’t like it we’ll find something else.”
“No! Of course I’ll like it. I’m just—surprised. I hadn’t actually thought that far ahead.”
The look he gave me wasn’t discernable, and he turned back toward the top of the stairs. I started up after him and had my foot on the first step when the boxes caught my eye. What the hell, I thought. It was a day for changes.
“Jack.” He stopped at the top, his hand on the door, and looked back down at me. “I think I want to move the boxes home.” I realized it was the first time I’d referred to his house as my home. It was still a new experience for me to think of sharing my life with someone. With sharing a house. “I was thinking I should start going through them tonight.”
“You don’t have to do it alone.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” And while we were going through the boxes—examining the secrets my parents kept—I’d tell him my father wasn’t really dead. And then we’d see what happened.
Jack nodded and started back down the stairs to lift the boxes. They weren’t overly heavy—about a foot deep and wide—and we were able to carry two each up the stairs and load them into the back of the Suburban. I got in the passenger seat while Jack retrieved the remaining box.
The drive to the police station didn’t take long. All of the municipal buildings were built in the county square, so law and order was equal in all four of the towns that made up King George County—Bloody Mary and King George proper to the north and Nottingham and Newcastle to the south.
The courthouse sat in the center of the county square—Gothic and intimidating—three full stories of carved stone and hallowed hallways of generations past. The goddesses of justice and mercy loomed at each corner, but unless you knew who they were supposed to be there was no way to recognize them, considering the sculptor must have been drunk and had a fetish for hunchbacked ga
rgoyle-looking women.
The police station sat to the left of the courthouse, much more sedate in appearance—a pale bricked building shaped like a rectangle that hadn’t been updated since 1973. The fire station sat to the right, looking much like every other fire station in the state of Virginia.
Jack parked in his assigned spot in front of the station but left the motor running so I could run the fingerprints inside to Colburn.
“I’m not sure you should be using this space—which is clearly reserved for a servant of the city—while you’re on vacation.” I batted my eyelashes at Jack playfully and opened the car door. “There has to be some kind of ordinance against it.”
“If not, it’s probably your civic duty to propose one at the next city council meeting.” Jack’s gaze was amused.
King George County had a reputation of passing ordinances that made absolutely no sense whatsoever—like not allowing pets to be the sole heir to a fortune or not allowing people inside the city limits to water their lawns after five o’clock on a Thursday.
“You never know. In the next couple of months, this parking spot might belong to someone else.”
“It’s a good thing I’m marrying you for your money then.” I brought my legs back inside the car and closed the door. “Is it bothering you?” I asked. “The possibility of losing the election?”
“No. Not really. I’m more worried about winning the election.”
I watched him carefully for a couple of minutes, but he stared straight ahead, his fingers tapping on the steering wheel. And then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. “You don’t want to be Sheriff.”
He shrugged. “I like being a cop. And being Sheriff here served its purpose after I left the city and came back to recover. But the politics in this town pisses me off and it feels like I’m settling more disputes among the city council and the mayor’s office than doing any real police work. Especially since the investigation started on the Aryan Nation. It’s been a clusterfuck considering half the damn people sitting in seats of some importance have been removed or arrested.”
Only a couple of weeks before we’d uncovered a decades long secret in our small town of hate and prejudice, and it took the death of one of the ministers at the Presbyterian church for it to all be uncovered.
“I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been seriously considering a few of the offers that have come my way.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was speechless. And embarrassed that I hadn’t noticed his dissatisfaction before. “God, Jack. Why didn’t you say something sooner?”
“I don’t really have anything to complain about. And I’m not really dissatisfied. This is familiar and I have good men and women under my command. Sometimes I just miss the thrill. The adrenaline rush. It wasn’t an easy change going from SWAT in a city like DC, where business is booming and you’re living for that adrenaline high that each op brings. There’s nothing like it. But coming here—it was like doing ninety miles an hour and then slamming on the brakes. I guess I needed it at the time—mentally as well as physically—but it’s started to bother me more than usual lately.”
“I’m sorry.” I put my hand on his and squeezed gently. “You know I’m okay with whatever you want to do. If you want to make a change.”
He smiled and squeezed my hand back. “I’m not going to think about it too much for the next six weeks. Maybe I just need a break and I’ll feel differently once I come back. Or maybe I really am worried about the election. I’ve pissed off a lot of people since I’ve been sheriff.”
“Most of them are the single women who are going to be heartbroken you’re no longer available.”
“You mean I have to stop dating now that we’re together?” he asked, the outraged shock clear on his face.
I snorted out a laugh and opened the car door again. “You’d better. Or Colburn will be investigating your murder next. Though it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out how you died with all my embalming equipment hooked up to your twitching body.”
“Harsh, Doctor Graves. And inventive. Your intelligence and creativity continue to turn me on.”
“Jesus. You’re sick.”
“Maybe you can cure me later.”
CHAPTER FOUR
“It’s going to rain again,” Jack said as we parked in front of Martha’s Diner. “At least before dark.”
“It must be your farming skills that make you predict the weather with such accuracy.” Jack came from a long line of tobacco farmers, but for the past two generations the Lawson men hadn’t spent a lot of time out in the fields working the land. They mostly just enjoyed investing their money and pursuing the things that interested them.
Jack grinned and we got out of the Suburban and headed inside. Grilled onions and grease assaulted us as soon as we walked through the doors and conversation came to a stand still. It was right in the middle of the lunch rush, so the silence made quite an impact.
Jack and I made our way to one of the turquoise Formica tables and the voices whooshed into conversation again. The vinyl seats were cracked with age and I let Jack have the side that faced the entryway. He hated sitting with his back to a door.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in.” Martha Smith swung out of the kitchen with half a dozen plates stacked on her arms and managed to make it look graceful as she dropped off food from table to table.
She’d been serving burgers and giving hell to her customers for sixty years. I had no idea how old she was, but her hair was dyed fire engine red and the lines on her face were deep and numerous. Her lipstick matched her hair and her dingy white apron wrapped twice around her tiny frame.
“Long time no see, Sheriff. Doc Graves.” She nodded to us both and whipped out the ragged pad she kept in her apron pocket. “Though can’t say I blame ya. I’ve heard nothing for the past two weeks but how the two of you were shacked up together living in sin. That’s the best way if you ask me.”
She pursed her lips and arched a penciled brow. “I always thought sin was way more fun than marriage. Husbands are a pain in the ass. I should know since I’ve had four of them. And then I managed to birth eight boys who aren’t any better at marriage than their fathers were. Though I’m not sure Jimmy belonged to any of my husbands. He never has been right in the head and he was conceived about the time that traveling revival came through town.”
I kept my head buried in one of the plastic menus that sat behind the miniature jukeboxes on the table.
“You think I’m going to be a pain in the ass, Jaye?” Jack asked. I could hear the smile in his voice.
“More than likely. You’ve been doing a pretty good job of it for the last thirty years. You might as well continue the streak for the next fifty or so.”
Marta cackled and slapped her notepad on her thigh. “Well I’ll be. Does that mean congratulations are in order? I sure as hell hope so. I’ve got fifty bucks riding on the two of you.”
“We’re still in the planning stages,” Jack said tactfully. “But we plan to get married soon.”
“How come I don’t see a ring? It’s not legitimate until there’s a ring on your finger, girl. I thought you knew better than that.”
I looked up long enough to narrow my eyes at Jack and glare, but he just winked back at me. “We’ll take two burgers made how we like them and the fries crispy. Iced tea to drink.”
“Humph,” Martha said. “You can’t keep it a secret for long. Good thing your mama is coming in to pick up an order soon. I’ll get all the details from her.”
Jack and I looked at each other and froze, my eyes widening in panic. Jack didn’t ruffle easy, and if I didn’t know him so well I wouldn’t have been able to see the Oh, shit look on his face beneath the placid façade.
Martha hmphed again and went off to the kitchen.
“I take it you haven’t mentioned marriage to your mother,” I asked stiffly. My feelings were hurt, though I wasn’t completely sure why considering I hadn’t been all that much in favor of it to be
gin with.
“Actually, I have,” he said. “Several months ago, as a matter of fact.”
“I’m sorry? What?” I shook my head hoping it would clear the cobwebs and things would start to make sense. “We weren’t even together months ago.”
“I remember,” he said, lips twitching. “You were hurt and hiding. It didn’t seem like the time to bring it up. But my mother knows me well and knew I was about at the end of my rope as far as waiting for you. She’ll be thrilled. I’d just hoped to tell her without dozens of ears listening in on the conversation.”
Martha brought back our drinks and burgers in no time and we settled in to eat. About that time the front door opened again and Jack’s mother walked inside. Mrs. Lawson was a tiny woman—maybe an inch over five feet—and it never ceased to amaze me that she’d managed to produce a son the size of Jack. Her hair was as dark as her son’s, but her eyes were a blue so pale it was almost startling. Her skin was smooth and the lines around her eyes hinted at good humor and a lot of laughter.
Jack got up from the booth and intercepted her in a big bear hug before she could reach the counter and the bags of food waiting there for her. He plucked her right off the ground and squeezed her tight. I couldn’t hear what he said but whatever it was made her laugh.
“Put me down you fool, and let me say hi to J.J.” Mrs. Lawson swatted him on the shoulder and he sat her gently on her feet. “How’s my girl doing?” she asked, bending down to wrap me in her arms.
The endearment made me smile. I’d been her girl for as long as I could remember. She’d always been the one I’d gone to when my feelings had been hurt or I had scrapes or bruises to get cleaned up—which was often considering I hung out with a pack of boys most of my childhood. It had been her shoulder I cried on after my first broken heart and she’d been the one to walk me through the embarrassment of my first period. My own mother had always been too busy with work, which I knew now consisted of smuggling items hidden in the bodies that moved in and out of the funeral home.
