The Devil of Light

by Gae-Lynn Woods

  She leaned forward to look at a third photograph, a knot forming in her stomach. A lithe torso stretched away from the camera, ending in a burlap sack covering a head. A single lock of blonde hair had slipped from beneath the sack and rested near a protruding collar bone, circling a small birthmark. Hands with long fingers gripped the thin upper arms, holding the shoulders in place against a pair of jean-clad thighs. Smallish breasts were visible on the bony chest, and the woman’s back was arched as if she were attempting to twist free. Another set of hands, tanned with well-bitten nails, dug into the slender hips, pulling them toward a manly thrust.

  She swallowed thickly and looked up. “Did you touch anything?”

  Edith shook her head, biting her lip as the fluttering hand danced toward the phone next to the outside door. “I stopped when I realized what those were pictures of, and used that phone to call 911.” Tears tumbled down her face. “It was an accident. She didn’t do that on purpose. Not with the kids.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Angie.” Edith raised watery eyes, and for the first time Cass realized how old the other woman was, probably in her seventies. “Lenny’s stuck on the hay dolly.”

  ____________

  CASS RELISHED THE SILENCE as she circled the corral and checked the sparkling dew for signs of footsteps. The clover was darker and flattened along a narrow path that trailed from the corral to the feed troughs, presumably left by the fat cows grazing in a nearby pasture. She’d spoken to Mitch, telling him to get out to the Scarborough’s place with Munk as fast as he could. The paramedics had called Grey and he was on his way, bringing Bernie with him. There was nothing to do but wait and document the scene. Cass entered the corral, passing paramedics who murmured quietly while tending to a small, dark-headed woman leaning against the rear wheel of a rusty pickup truck. The heavy dew had been knocked from the grass in a patch roughly the size of a human body, and along a wavering trail that led from the back of the truck to the driver’s door. Cass stepped forward to examine Lenny Scarborough.

  She guessed that he was in his late thirties or early forties and looked pretty fit. What she could see for certain was that Lenny was dead. He’d been run through with the hay dolly, one of its long spikes entering his body at mid-chest, pinning him against the loading chute’s wooden slats. The force of the impact had lifted him off the ground and he hung from the metal spike, work-booted toes dangling like a ghastly ballet dancer caught mid-flight. The taste of death in the air was strong; the coppery tang of blood blending with the waste released from Lenny’s bowels and bladder. A dark pool soaked the earth beneath him. Syringes and small glass vials were scattered near his feet, and a toolbox lay on its side, contents spilled and spattered. Cass shivered in the barn’s shade as she bent to take pictures. Miraculously, the dolly’s spikes angled up between the top two planks and several cows stood quietly in the loading chute, one placidly chewing her cud while she rested in the headlock, waiting to be released. Cass walked to the front of the barn and through the enclosure to snap a few pictures while speaking quietly to the cows. She returned to the corral to take a wider shot of the truck and hay dolly.

  One of the paramedics ambled over to stand beside her. The wintergreen smell of his chewing tobacco followed, and she knew it was Randall Mahaffey. “I didn’t know people still used these things,” Cass said, gesturing at the hay dolly.

  “They’re not easy to find any more, but farmers keep them to move a single round roll at a time. Cheap and easy.”

  “Has she said anything?”

  Randall shook his head. “She’s in shock. Found her propped up against the truck’s rear wheel. Looked like she fell there, maybe trying to get to him. Truck was still running.”

  “Is she all right?”

  “The left side of her face is pretty banged up. Nasty cut near her eye.”

  “Lenny took a swing at her?”

  “More than one, given the state of his right hand.”

  Cass cocked her head to study the body as a cow lowed from the barn enclosure. Lenny wore a comic expression of surprise. “Pretty gruesome way to go.”

  “She had to be moving fast to catch him like that. Or maybe he was looking the other way, turned around right before she hit him. She managed to stop before she busted into the loading chute and the cows. Good shot.”

  “You sure it was Angie?” Cass asked, thinking of the pictures scattered on the kitchen floor.

  Randall took a step backwards and spat into a Dr. Pepper can. “Don’t see sign of anybody else, but I reckon that’s up to you to figure out.”

  “That’s a lot of blood,” Cass commented, taking in the stain that spread across and down Lenny’s faded overalls. It was darkened and looked stiff, turning a deep rust color as it dried. “It had to hurt.”

  “Amen.” Randall turned to look toward the house. “Where did the old lady go?”

  “She’s in her car. Edith Lovil. Do you know her?”

  “Name’s familiar, but no. You know Lenny and Angie?”

  “Not really. Lenny’s about the same age as my oldest brother, maybe a little older. They might’ve known each other.”

  Randall cut his eyes at Cass. “That’d be Jack?”

  “Yeah, it would.”

  “How’s he doin’?”

  “’Bout like you’d expect,” Cass answered, trying to keep the edge out of her voice.

  “When does he get out?”

  “I’m not sure. It’s been twenty-one years, but they gave him life. I’d imagine they meant it for what he was accused of.”

  “For what it’s worth, I always liked Jack. He was a jock, but cool.” Cass turned and looked more fully at Randall, taking in his hair, parted down the middle and slicked over his ears, and the heavy frames of his glasses. He was a few years younger than Jack, and she realized that in high school he would’ve been one of the nerdy kids, those with brains but few social skills. “What happened to him didn’t make sense to me. I never thought he did it.”

  Relief brought a flush to her cheeks. Jack went to prison when Cass was four years old, and she’d never been able to reconcile the older brother that she’d adored to the crimes he was accused of. She studied Lenny’s body where it hung. “Who do you think did?”

  He turned to check on his fellow paramedic, monitoring Angie as she lay unmoving on the stretcher. Randall shrugged and the polyester of his uniform sighed with the motion. “There were lots of people who were more likely candidates than Jack. He just didn’t seem the type. And if you look at it logically, Jack never went without.”

  Cass glanced at him to find color creeping up his neck. “What do you mean?”

  Randall looked down at his shoes and tapped one toe against a tuft of grass. She thought it an odd reaction from a grown man. “Jack never had any trouble gettin’ laid, that’s all,” he finally blurted.

  She smiled grimly. “I’ve never wondered whether Jack had a sex life before all that happened.”

  “He had plenty of girls chasing him. There was no reason for him to do what they said he did. Other people had more motive, if you know what I mean.”

  “People who couldn’t get laid?”

  “Not just that. Guys who resented the fact that men like Jack had it easy with girls. And this girl, she was kind of simple. Sweet and gentle, an easy target for anybody who was nice to her. If they’d had DNA testing back then, I don’t think Jack would’ve been arrested.”

  “Randall, what are you saying?”

  He searched her face before continuing. “If you’re into conspiracy theories, you’d say that Jack was a fall guy. I mean, I don’t think your average bubba is sophisticated enough to set someone up like that, but the way it all happened, it just made me wonder.”

  Cass fought a surge of warmth at the thought that someone else questioned her brother’s culpability for his crimes and again wished desperately that old Comfrey hadn’t lost Jack’s case file. An engine growled and she turned to see the medical examiner’s coun
ty issue van picking its way between vehicles as it edged toward the barn. “Who’s the uniform?” she asked, lifting her chin toward the figure hovering near a tree, Lenny’s body safely out of his line of sight.

  “Chad Garrett. He’s got no stomach for the wet stuff. I’d better go check on the old lady, see if she’s all right. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  “Randall,” Cass called as he trotted away, “stay out of the house.”

  ____________

  “HE’S BEEN DEAD ABOUT an hour, maybe an hour and a half. Are you done taking pictures?” Grey asked, glancing up at Cass. She nodded. He unwound his long frame from its squat, carefully maintaining his balance as he inched toward his full six foot eight inches. “Mitch, we’re going to need some help with this.” Grey scratched his head with his forearm, keeping his gloved hands away from his scalp.

  Mitch cocked his head to look at the corpse. “How do we get him off that thing?”

  “We cut the spike off and transport him with it still in him, or we pull it out. From a forensics perspective, I don’t think the spike is too important. Do you?”

  “We know that’s what killed him. No way to drive that thing through a man’s body but by putting your foot on the gas. Truck had to be in reverse. Can’t see any point in dusting the spike for fingerprints.” Mitch stepped to the side to look at the loading chute where the spike had run through Lenny’s body, and he stopped to rub the silky ears of the cow in the headlock. “Only Lenny’s gore and cow hair on this side of the spike. And before it slid through him, it would’ve been covered in hay and manure. You gonna lose anything from the body if we pull it out here?”

  “Just blood. Call Kado and make sure he’s comfortable that we pull the spike out and he does forensics on it later.” Grey glanced at Bernie, who stood beside the pickup’s front fender where Munk was labeling fingerprints from the truck’s interior. “What do you think?”

  “Brutal.”

  Grey looked at him in astonishment. “You think it was intentional?”

  “That’s quite a mistake to make. Lining the spike up, putting the truck in reverse, accelerating aggressively and failing to stop when you realize that you’re headed toward your husband with a lethal weapon? This was an angry woman.”

  “I agree,” said Cass as Mitch closed the phone on his call to Kado and rejoined them. The ambulance had left shortly after Grey arrived, taking Angie to the hospital. Cass had sent Edith Lovil on her shaky way home, instructing her to be available for further questioning and not to repeat what she’d seen. Officer Chad Garrett had kept his distance, weaving crime scene tape through the fences around the barn. “When I got here, Edith took me to the house. There are photos, several of them, of men having sex with other men and raping a woman.”

  The four men stared at her.

  “Photos where?” Munk asked.

  “On the kitchen floor. Looks like Angie saw them and came out after Lenny. Randall said she was pretty banged up, like Lenny had hit her. Maybe she lost it and decided to kill him.”

  “Whoa,” Mitch breathed, stepping back to look at the parallel ruts dug by the truck as it had been driven backwards. “Running somebody through with a hay dolly. And doing it in reverse, that’s a special skill.”

  “She’s a farmer’s wife. Like they said about Ginger Rogers,” Cass replied grimly, “she did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels.”

  Grey snorted a laugh and Bernie nodded appreciatively.

  “There are some fingerprints in the car, but I imagine they’re Angie and Lenny’s. I’ll take a look at the house and process the kitchen,” Munk said. “I’ve known Lenny for a long time. Hard to believe he’d be involved in anything like that.”

  “I haven’t seen sign that anybody else has been out here,” Cass said. “We can check with the neighbors to see if they saw or heard anything.”

  “We’ll put a couple of patrol officers on it, but there aren’t many people out this way,” Mitch said. “It won’t take them long. We need to talk to Angie. If she did this, there’s no point wasting too much time looking for another suspect.”

  “I wouldn’t expect to talk to her too soon,” Grey said. “I called Dr. Ramasubramanian and he’s meeting her at the hospital. She’ll be sedated for a while.”

  “How did you know Rambo was her doctor?” Mitch asked.

  “Small community.”

  Mitch scratched his head. “But you’re the dead doctor. Rambo’s a live doctor.”

  “We transcend life and death.”

  “I believe it,” Mitch replied, turning to Cass. “How far did you go into the house?”

  “I stepped into the kitchen. Edith said she didn’t go any farther, either. Just used the phone on the wall by the outside door.”

  “All right,” Mitch said, glancing at his phone. “Kado’s fine if we pull the spike out of Lenny as long as we protect the hay dolly. Only way to get it out is to drive the truck forward. Bernie and I can hold Lenny against the chute so he slides off. Grey, you maneuver the gurney to catch him. Munk, you take photos and Cass, you drive. Everybody ready?”

  CHAPTER 12

  DR. RAMASUBRAMANIAN STOOD BESIDE his patient’s bed and listened to the steady rhythm of her heart through a stethoscope. Angie Scarborough was resting quietly, her breathing deep and slow thanks to the wonders of Valium and Demerol. The paramedics had described her as being in a state of deep shock when they arrived at the scene, finding her slouched against the tire of a pickup truck and unresponsive. Wisely, they secured her tightly to the gurney for the short ride to the county hospital. She’d woken during the trip and begun flailing and screaming, a mournful keening that could be heard before the doors to the ambulance were opened at the hospital. Dr. Ramasubramanian had joined the paramedic in the back of the heavy vehicle, speaking quietly to her while preparing the sedative.

  “Dr. Rambo,” she’d moaned, suddenly aware. “Don’t let them take my babies. Oh my God, what has he done?”

  He’d soothed her with his oddly inflected voice until the drugs had her in their grip, her swollen eyelids growing heavy, the jerking of her head stilled, her mouth sagging in a silent plea. She was in a private room now with a police officer posted outside. Dr. Ramasubramanian motioned to the nurse and she followed him from the room, pulling the door shut behind them.

  “You are waiting for her to awaken?” the doctor asked as the officer strained to understand the gently percolating cadence of Ramasubramanian’s speech.

  He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up on his nose. “Detective Stone said to call when she wakes up.”

  “What is your name?”

  “Officer Greg Newton, sir.”

  “I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Officer Newton. I am Vijay Ramasubramanian. You can call me Dr. Rambo if you wish,” he said, smiling shyly.

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” Newton replied, shaking the doctor’s thin hand.

  “It will be some time before Mrs. Scarborough is alert.”

  “How long?”

  The doctor shrugged, his pristine lab coat rising with the motion. “I cannot be precise. Perhaps no more than three hours. I will stop to check on her periodically.”

  Dr. Ramasubramanian walked down the hall, his movements sleek as he selected a chart from its holder on the door, examining the contents before knocking gently and entering the hospital room.

  “He’s a weird one,” Newton said to the nurse. “Muslim?”

  “Hindu. He’s from India,” she replied, checking her pockets and wrapping a stethoscope around her neck. “Dr. Rambo’s all right. He’s a lot smarter than some of the quacks wearing doctor’s badges around here. Coffee?” she asked, peering at him over her half-moon spectacles.

  Newton adjusted his chair and sat, squirming until he found a comfortable spot. “I guess so. Looks like it’s gonna be a long day.” He watched the nurse stride down the hall and turn toward the cafeteria before digging his cell phone from a pocket and pushing a speed dia
l button. Voice mail answered and he left a brief update on Angie’s condition, snapping the phone shut and sliding it in his pocket as the nurse rounded the corner with his coffee.

  He accepted it with a smile and pulled a second phone from his pocket. “Detective Stone? This is Officer Newton. I’m at the hospital waiting for Mrs. Scarborough to wake up… Dr. Rambo said it would probably be a few hours. I’ll keep you posted… Yes, sir.”

  He snapped his phone shut and settled back in the chair, pushing his glasses up on his nose, satisfied that his work was done for the time being.

  CHAPTER 13

  MUNK AND CASS SLIPPED on gloves and booties and stepped through the door. Munk scanned the kitchen and beyond before finally focusing on the photos littering the floor. “God almighty,” he said, lifting the camera with a shaking hand. “I don’t think that’s a woman, Cass. Looks more like a girl to me.”