“And how did you cope?” asked Decker.
She smiled sadly. “I buried myself in work, too.”
“Your mother died in a blizzard, I understand,” said Decker.
Dawson nodded and rubbed at a ring on her pinky. “From carbon monoxide poisoning in her car,” she said in a low, halting voice.
“What was she doing out in a blizzard in the first place?” asked Decker.
“Alice Pritchard, an elderly neighbor, had called. Her power was out and she was in trouble. She had health problems.”
“Why didn’t she just call 911?” asked Decker.
“My mom would have gotten there faster than the 911 folks. And we had a backup generator, so Alice would have been fine at our house. It had happened before, and each time Alice would call us.”
“But your mother never made it to Alice’s?” said Decker.
“No, and Alice died, too.”
“My God,” said Jamison.
Decker said, “If the neighbor died, how’d you know she had called your mom and that was the reason she was out in the blizzard?”
“My mom had texted me when Alice called. But with the time difference I didn’t see the text until the following morning. The first I knew about it was when they found her in the car after the blizzard had passed.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Jamison as Baker tenderly patted Dawson’s shoulder.
There was a moment of silence until Decker said awkwardly, “Um, your dad said you’ll be running the world before long.”
Jamison eyed Decker nervously, but before she could say anything, Baker chimed in. “Daddy’s perfect little girl.”
Decker noted that Dawson did not seem happy about this remark. “And we understand you had a brother?” he asked, drawing another stern look from Jamison.
She said, “I’m sure Caroline would rather talk about something else.”
Dawson coughed and took a drink of her water. “No, it’s okay. Yes, my brother, Hugh. We called him Junior. He . . . died.”
Decker said, “Joe Kelly told us he and your father didn’t see eye to eye on things. But he wouldn’t elaborate.”
Dawson gazed at Decker with an intensity that made him feel uncomfortable. “Good old Joe. He does like to keep things close to the vest.”
“Was that wrong of him?” asked Jamison.
“No, I suppose he was just trying to shield the family from undue attention. Joe’s always been loyal that way. The fact is, my brother was gay and my father had a big problem with that. He cut him out of the will, out of the business, out of his life. In the end, Junior couldn’t live with it, I guess. So he decided to end his life. He took a bunch of pills. I was the one who found him.” She dabbed at her eyes with her napkin.
“Damn, Caroline, I had no idea,” said Baker.
“No reason you should have known. I cared deeply for my brother. We were very close.”
“That . . . that must’ve made things difficult between you and your father,” said Decker.
“We didn’t speak for about a year after Junior died. But then we lost Mom, and . . . and we decided as the only family left we needed to seek a truce. So we did.”
“Do you think the truce will hold?” asked Decker.
She tapped her ring against the wood, as though for luck. “I don’t think I have a choice,” she replied.
Decker said, “Well, like Stan said, I think your father does see you as his perfect little girl.”
Dawson said firmly, “I don’t think there’s any such thing.”
WHEN DECKER AND JAMISON returned to the hotel, they found someone waiting for them.
Shane McClellan rose from a seat in the lobby and came over to them. He was dressed in jeans and an untucked gray shirt. His hair was slicked back and he had a few days’ worth of stubble on his face.
He gazed anxiously from one to the other. “Hal Parker?” he began.
“What about him?” said Decker.
“Heard somebody took him and left a gal dead in his shed.”
“What’s it to you?” asked Decker.
“Hal was one of my best buddies. We would go hunting all the time.”
“We actually saw a picture of you with him at his house on one of those hunting trips,” said Jamison.
“Do you know what happened to him?”
Decker said, “We’re working on it. Mind if we ask you some questions now that we know you two were friends?”
“Sure, whatever I can do to help.”
Decker led them over to a seating area next to the lobby. When they were settled in he said, “When was the last time you saw him?”
“Two days after he found that woman’s body. I went out to his place to pick up some stuff and he told me about it. It shook him up bad.”
“Did he tell you about the wolf he was tracking?”
“Yeah. He was hunting it when he found the lady.”
“Did Parker know a woman named Pamela Ames?”
Shane’s brow furrowed. “No, not that I know of. Is she the gal they found dead there?”
“She was. Now, what we found might point to Ames having been there for paid sex. Knowing Parker, do you think that’s plausible?”
“Hal? A hooker? No way. Why the hell would you even think that?”
“We found some evidence that suggests it might have been the case,” said Decker vaguely.
Shane folded his arms over his chest and looked at them stubbornly. “Well, I’ll never believe that. Hal liked to hunt and fish and drink his beer. And that was about it.”
“When you saw Hal, was he worried about anything?”
“Not that he mentioned. He was upset about the lady and all, but that was it. We were planning on doing some hunting soon. He was excited about that.”
“I’m surprised you have time considering all the things you’re doing with your father,” interjected Jamison. “He seems to keep you pretty busy.”
“He’d keep me busy every minute of the day if I let him, but I got a secret weapon.”
“What’s that?” asked Jamison.
“I don’t give a shit about what he really cares about, which is making money from pulling oil out of the dirt.”
“You have a farm?” said Decker. “Near the Air Force station?”
“That’s right.”
“You know the Brothers?”
“Yeah, good folks.”
“You go out there at all?”
“Sure. They do metal fabrication. We use some of what they make in our fracking operations. Plus they have a lot of trucks, and we pay them to haul stuff for us.”
“Did you know Irene Cramer?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Jamison said, “Are you and Caroline friends?”
“We grew up together, me, her, and Joe Kelly. Went to high school together. We were sort of inseparable back then.”
“Right, Kelly told us some of that.”
“Joe and I were on the football team. He was the starting QB and I was his best receiver.” A grin slowly spread over Shane’s features. “I caught forty-five touchdown passes from him over two seasons and we won the state title both years. And not to sound boastful or anything, but we were really popular in high school. Best times of my life. Got up every day with a smile.”
“And now?” said Jamison.
“Now we don’t see each other much. Caroline’s busy with running all her dad’s stuff. And Joe being a cop, he doesn’t keep regular hours.” He added wistfully, “Sort of miss those days. Long gone now.”
“But you like Caroline?” said Jamison.
He looked down. “Hell, everybody likes Caroline. Used to have these fantasies that we got hitched and had a bunch of kids.” He paused. “She and Joe even dated in high school. Thought for a while that they were going to get married.” He grinned weakly. “Only thing I ever hated about the guy. Caroline seemed to like him more than me.” He paused. “Me and Joe used to be best friends, together all the time.”
&nb
sp; “What happened?” asked Jamison.
“Life . . . life happened,” said Shane sadly. “We’re still buds. Just not like before. Nothing’s like it was before,” he added wistfully.
“That tends to be the case with everybody,” opined Decker.
“We just came from dinner with Caroline,” said Jamison.
“Is that right? At her newfangled place?”
“Yes, Maddie’s, named after her mom.”
“Damn shame what happened to her.”
“Yes, it was a real tragedy,” noted Jamison.
“So Joe became a cop, Caroline went to college, and you joined the Army,” said Decker.
“That’s right.”
“How long were you in?”
“Long enough to do and see things I’ll remember till the day I die,” Shane said sharply. “Don’t get me wrong. I was proud to do my duty, but I was glad to put it behind me. I had buddies who died or lost limbs. After that, I came back here.”
“You ever see any strange activity over at the Air Force complex?”
“Strange?”
“Just anything out of the ordinary.”
“Not really. They got a lot of security over there. Locals call the radar over there the eye in the sky. Used to look for nukes, so I heard. Thing’s been there since before my dad was born.”
“You ever been over there?”
“Nope. Why all the questions about them?”
“Just routine.”
“So what can I do to help find Hal?”
“You’ve helped us by telling us what you did.”
“So that’s it? Nothing more I can do?”
“Not unless you have any information about who might have killed Irene Cramer and Pamela Ames.”
Shane shook his head. “I guess I can see why not a damn thing gets done in DC.”
Jamison said, “We’re working hard on this, Shane. But it’s not easy.”
“Yeah, okay, I guess,” he said offhandedly. “Well, see you around.”
He walked off.
Decker said. “He was pretty certain that Hal Parker would never hire a prostitute. But I think that—”
Decker had stopped so abruptly and looked so out of sorts that Jamison snapped, “Decker, what is it?”
“We’ve got to go.” He turned and started hustling to the door.
“Go? Go where?”
He called over his shoulder, “To see a body.”
THE DOORS TO THE FUNERAL HOME were locked, and Decker had to pound on the wood for a full thirty seconds until they saw someone cautiously approach the front entrance. It was a thin, young man dressed as a custodian and holding a mop.
“Yes?” he said from behind the door glass, his features anxious.
Jamison laid her federal badge against the glass and said, “FBI, open this door. Now!”
The man dropped his mop and nearly fell over. He fumbled with the door lock and then jumped back as Decker bulled past him.
“What’s this all about?” cried out the man. “This . . . this is a funeral home, for Pete’s sake. Show some respect. Hey, where are you going?”
Neither of them answered him.
Decker quickly led Jamison to the morgue room and opened the door. He looked at the wall of drawers where the bodies were kept until he saw the name “Ames” on a notecard taped to one of them. He opened the door and slid out the gurney. Decker lifted off the sheet, revealing the naked body of Pamela Ames.
“What are we looking for, Decker?” said Jamison anxiously.
“Where do you think her clothes are?” he said distractedly.
“I would imagine back at the police station in the evidence locker. I know that Kelly collected them for analysis.”
“Call Kelly up and tell him to bring all that over here.”
“Okay, but I’d like to tell him a reason.”
“Tell him that Ames and not Parker may have been the real target.”
Jamison had worked with Decker long enough not to question a statement like that. She went off to a corner to make the call.
Decker looked over the body and then glanced around and spotted a file folder on another table. He picked it up and leafed through it, quickly finding that it contained Walt Southern’s preliminary notes on the postmortem he’d performed on Ames.
He read through all the notes and then walked back to the body, carrying the folder with him.
Jamison joined him. “He’s getting the clothes and heading over. He was at the station, so it won’t be long.”
Decker nodded absently as Jamison looked down at the body.
“So what did you mean by Ames being the target?”
“Look at the body, Alex. Lividity sets as quickly as thirty minutes after death, and then permanently after about two hours. Southern gave us that speech before with respect to Cramer’s postmortem, not that we didn’t already know that.”
“Right, he did.”
Decker pointed to the body’s waist, chest, and thigh areas. “Once livor mortis is completed, and the blood settles, if the body comes into contact with a mechanical pressure of any kind, blood can’t collect there and the skin remains pale. Now, we found Ames facing forward in a prone position over the handlebars of the ATV. After she died gravity would have forced the blood in that direction once her heart stopped. But even before lividity was fixed, the tight clothes she was wearing would act as multiple pressure cuffs. But do you see any paleness in those areas because the blood couldn’t get there?”
“No, they’re purplish and red.” She glanced sharply up at him. “Which means she was killed and then, sometime later, she was dressed in the clothes she was found in. Did Southern note any of that in his report?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Then Ames wasn’t a hooker?”
“They tried to fool us by clothing her like that.”
“How does that connect to Cramer?” asked Jamison.
“She certainly would have known Cramer from the Colony. What if when she left the Colony she went to Cramer for help? A place to stay, to get some money? And what if Cramer confided in her, something that disturbed Ames? Then Cramer ends up dead and is found by Parker. What would Ames have likely done in that situation?”
Understanding broke over Jamison’s features. “You mean Ames might have gone out there to ask Parker about his finding the body? Maybe hoping he could tell her something that would help her figure out what had happened? Especially if, like you said, Cramer had already told Ames something disturbing.”
“Only someone got wind of it and went there to stop it. And as we saw, they obviously succeeded.” He glanced at the report again. “And you remember the bottle of wine and two glasses?”
“What about them?”
“Ames’s stomach contents show no signs of any wine. So how could that be if she had been drinking wine with Parker?”
“So that was staged.”
“It was all staged.”
“But why kill her and take Parker?”
“To make us think exactly what we did. That he was the target and she wasn’t. That she was wrong place, wrong time only. And they couldn’t let Parker go after that. Not if he saw what they did to Ames.”
Jamison let out a breath. “Damn. So where’s Parker then?”
“I really wouldn’t count on us ever finding him alive.”
“God, Decker, this is really spiraling out of control.”
“They’re trying to tie up loose ends, Alex. But that cuts both ways. Every time they do stuff like this, they risk leaving something behind that will allow us to catch them.”
“But how many more people have to die before we do catch them?”
Decker stared down at Ames’s body and didn’t answer, because he had no answer to give.
KELLY SHOWED UP with the clothes and lots of questions.
While Jamison filled him in on Decker’s deductions, Decker took the clothes and laid them over Ames’s body in the exact same manner in which she ha
d worn them.
When Jamison was finished giving Kelly the rundown, Decker said, “Look at where the clothes drop on her.”
They clustered around the body as Decker methodically pointed out the different strike points. “Here, here, and here. Lividity’s fixed. There’s no way the skin and blood pool presents like what we’re seeing right now if she were wearing those clothes when she was killed. They were so tight they actually cut into her skin, there and there.”
Kelly nodded enthusiastically. “She was dressed in something else, then they changed her into these clothes to make it look like the encounter was paid sex.”
“Then they took her real clothes and deposited her in the shed on the ATV.”
“And took Parker. You think he’s dead?” asked Kelly.
Decker shrugged. “I wouldn’t bet against it. Did Walt Southern have access to these clothes?”
“Of course. He had to examine them for trace and then for purposes of the postmortem. You know that.”
“Yeah, I know that. I just wonder if he does.”
Decker picked up the skirt and one of the shoes. He eyed the sizes on both and then eyeballed Ames’s body. “Alex, help me out here. Would these sizes be right for someone like Ames?”
Jamison looked at the skirt and shoe sizes and then tried to put one of the shoes on Ames’s foot. “This is two sizes too big. No way she’s walking around in these. And I’d say the skirt and top are at least two sizes too small. I get that she might have wanted it tight, but not that tight.”
“I thought that when I noted how deeply they had cut into her body,” said Decker. “That would not have been too comfortable.”
“They might have killed her before they even got to Parker’s,” suggested Jamison. “Then drove her out there and then dressed her.”
“Which would explain the lividity being fixed and also the absence of blood on the ATV and in the shed. Whoever was behind this knew something about forensics—look at Cramer’s postmortem—but not the finer points, like livor mortis.”
“Are you folks going to make a habit of barging in here at all hours?”
Walk the Wire Page 18
