A Killing Secret

by Robert E. Dunn

  “So we’re talking about…” I tried to do the math in my head.

  “Somewhere between six and seven grand.” Fisher beat me to it.

  I looked over at the piles of cast-off branches. It was hard to wrap my head around such a high price tag for trees. If it was true, then the wood theft could definitely have played a part in murder.

  “Is there a chance Rose Sharon was involved with the tree poachers?”

  The light that was in his eyes when Fisher talked about the trees was gone again. He shook his head and said, “Nah.” Then he turned away to stare out his front window again.

  He was hiding something. I still didn’t think it was murder. I had the feeling it was more about family and shame. “Here,” I said, handing over my card. “Call me if you have anything at all to add. And expect to hear from me even if you don’t.”

  I left him to go back and check on the deputy and my victim.

  Chapter 2

  The new guy had strung tape only halfway around the scene. He was standing back from the girl and putting something away in his pocket when I came out from behind the pile of cast-off limbs. He saw me and looked guilty. I was about to ask him what was going on when I noticed the still-steaming froth of vomit off to the side.

  Because he had had the sense not to puke on my crime scene, I cut the guy some slack and didn’t say anything about the unfinished job.

  “Hey, Hurricane,” he said as I got closer.

  “Don’t call me that,” I reminded him.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry.” He said something more but it was lost in the wind. I assumed it was something I wasn’t meant to hear anyway.

  “You need to finish the job,” I told him. “Get your tape to that tree, then over to there ought to do it, and down the line of tracks.”

  “You know who she is?” he asked, sounding a little awestruck.

  “You recognized her?”

  “Yeah. She’s the biggest thing in town.”

  “All the more reason to get to work.”

  He took the hint and trudged off with his crime scene tape in hand.

  “When you finish that, wait down by your cruiser. When the crime scene tech and coroner’s van show up, keep them there. I’ll let you know when I’m ready for them.”

  The new guy raised his hand in acknowledgment but kept walking his yellow ribbon to the next tree. I thought he might have said something else, but I didn’t hear that, either. My focus was on the dead girl and a circle of ten feet around her. I pulled off my gloves and brought out the pad and pencil I always kept with me.

  Crime scenes are always photographed extensively. There was no evidential value to my drawings. But I’ve always found that photos show all the details of what things are. Sketching helps me see the details between all the whats. My first husband was a very successful artist before he died. He helped me improve my sketches and clarify how I looked at the things I drew.

  I sketched out how she lay. Then I drew the footprints that showed her killer had stepped over to examine the girl’s face. The closest pair of prints were gouged out and irregular. There was an additional divot in the snow a few inches ahead of the left print. The killer had knelt beside the girl. The small forward impression was where the left knee had imprinted the snow. Had the killer just been making sure the job was done or was there an instant of regret?

  The girl had been pretty. Her clothing expressed an expensive, manufactured innocence. Pink country chic wasn’t unusual for southwest Missouri, but it was on corpses. I couldn’t get that in a pencil sketch, but I got the look on her face. It wasn’t soft or pleading. Even in death there was a toughness in her pretty features. There were no tears frozen on her cheeks. It could have been that she didn’t believe death was imminent. I thought it more likely she understood there are some people and situations who will not be swayed to mercy. I thought she stood, pretty in pink, blond hair flying with the snowflakes, and looked her killer in the eyes. I might have been projecting my own hopes for her brave death.

  I understand my own triggers. I’m getting better with therapy. Better isn’t well. Some experiences write themselves into us like a devotion carved into tree bark. It becomes of you as much as about you. Some things that happened to me when I was Lieutenant Katrina Williams in Iraq are literally gouged into my skin. There are times in my life that the scars are the only reality. I spent some time trying to smooth them out with whiskey. Other times I used violence and abused my position of power. Violence and intoxication are illusions of control. So before I surrendered to the triggering of my own fear and rage, I walked away from the body. Rose Sharon deserved to be her own tragedy, not mine.

  Distance made it easier to drop the veil between the victim and myself. So did concentrating on the smaller elements of the scene. I sketched out the run of foorprints. After that I tried to find some understanding by drawing them in detail. Two sets. One was distinct, the other oddly featureless. The smooth pair seemed to be behind and slightly offset to the left of the other. There was a point when the girl’s tracks turned. They stomped down a ragged void in the snow. When they began again it was with a long drag and spraddled steps. I believed she turned to face her killer and was shoved back on track.

  I sketched it all out. At that point it was as much about fighting my thoughts as it was about clarifying them.

  It wasn’t until I heard boots crunching in dry snow behind me that I realized how deeply I had failed at distracting myself. The sound pulled me back from that other place in my mind. I wondered first how long I had stood there with my pencil poised on paper, making no mark. Then how long I had been holding my breath. It never occurred to me to wonder who was coming to my crime scene. I assumed it was the new guy.

  I rubbed a fist over my eyes just in case I had been crying. Then I touched a fingertip to the pale ridge of a scar that ran out of my eyebrow and circled down to ring the outer ridge of my orbital bone. It was something I did to hold back the past that went with the wound. “I said I would call when I was ready.” I didn’t look back as I spoke.

  “I’m not here to get in your way,” the new sheriff answered.

  “Billy?” I still didn’t turn.

  “Who puked over here?” he asked. Billy was giving me the moment and space he always seemed to be able to sense I needed.

  “The new guy.” I still didn’t look. I didn’t need to. I could see in my mind’s eye the nod of his head, amplified by the wide-brimmed Silverbelly felt Stetson I had bought him as a present for winning the election. It was an El Patron. If I’d told him how much it cost he wouldn’t have accepted it, let alone wear it in the snow.

  I continued drawing the scene of violence in front of me. Billy kept out of my field of view. He didn’t speak. That didn’t mean I was unaware he wanted to have a talk.

  We hadn’t been getting along lately. A few months ago, I was sure we were headed for wedded bliss. Everything seemed to be pushing that way. Even my dead first husband was telling me in signs and dreams to marry Billy Blevins. The thing is, when I’m pushed, I push back, usually without thought or plan.

  “What’s under the tarp?” he asked.

  “Tracks. I wanted to keep some clear of snow for the tech.”

  “Anything interesting?”

  I used my pencil to point over at the nearest set. “See for yourself,” I said.

  “The bigger ones,” he responded. Billy was always quick to spot the details. “They’re smooth and round without tread marks.”

  I walked away, following my own path in the snow back to the girl’s body. “Yes.” I started sketching again. It was easier to look at her when I wasn’t alone. His presence provided a buffer between the girl’s experience and my own. One thing I’ve learned about PTSD is the value of anything that keeps me from spending too much time in my own head. And if anyone knew the demons in my head, it was Billy. “What kind
of shoe leaves prints like that? And who would wear it in the snow?”

  “Kids?”

  “Why kids?”

  “From here she looks like a kid herself. And kids these days seem to think house shoes are reasonable footwear. I see them in the Walmart walking around wearing pajama pants with cartoon character hoodies and weird shoes that look like bear claws, dragon or duck feet. Like their entire life is a cosplay event.”

  “What’s cosplay?” I stopped my pencil over the shading strokes I had been adding to the snow that half covered her jacket.

  “Costume play,” Billy answered. “Like when they dress up for comic book conventions.”

  “You sound like you don’t approve.”

  He walked in my trail, moving closer to me and the body. “I don’t understand.” The stresses in his voice said more than the words. “But there’s a lot of things I don’t understand.”

  I started moving my pencil again. This time I was adding the tiny tracks of the crows who had been hopping around and pecking at the dead girl’s face. I ignored the tone behind his words and focused on the victim. “I don’t think it’s a kid. Too deliberate. Someone walked this girl out here. Shot her. They knelt down and checked that the job was done. Then they left.”

  “They didn’t run, either,” he added. “Look at the spacing and clear outlines of the prints leading away from the body.”

  “So not house shoes or kids, I’m betting.”

  “Galoshes.” It wasn’t a question. Billy put it out there as a conclusion. He was sure.

  “Galoshes? You mean the rubber booties you put over shoes?”

  “Sure.”

  “Who has those anymore? Do they even make them?”

  “I have some in my truck.”

  I didn’t have any argument or better ideas. “I’ll keep my eyes open for black rubber boots from 1960.” I closed my sketch pad, then turned to look at him. Before the election Billy’s hair had always been ragged and unruly. After, it was cropped close and all fit under his hat. It made him look older.

  “I can’t move in,” I said. “I’ve thought about it a lot.”

  “I thought it was what you wanted.”

  “Things aren’t always about what we want.”

  “Don’t I know it.” The acknowledgment managed to sound not quite like an accusation. Billy walked around to the other side of the taped-off scene, crossing behind me like we were players on a stage. He ended up once again at my back.

  “Why won’t you look at me?” I asked.

  “Are you sure it’s always about you?”

  I turned around. Billy was crouched at the edge of the perimeter peering into the half-closed eyes of the dead girl. “There’s only you and me. And I’m the one saying no. Who else is it about?”

  He looked up at me with an expression that somehow managed to be sad, disappointed, and angry all at the same time. “Her.” Billy canted his head at the girl as he said it.

  I felt foolish and looked back at the clouding eyes and blowing wisps of hair. “She’s not talking.”

  “Singing, you mean.”

  “Singing?” I let the question die as new ones crept into my mind. “You know her.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well…”

  “Not that well. Well enough.”

  “That’s not what I meant—”

  “I know.” Billy turned back to stare at the girl. For a full minute he said nothing, then, “We sang together a few times.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “She’s only eighteen.” Billy stood, keeping his eyes on the girl. “Was.” He turned to look at me. His face, or rather the grief in it, was a shock. “That’s why Hosea Fisher is down there in the truck? Did he do this?”

  “I don’t think so. I found her. He seemed surprised. At first he was just worried about his trees. He might not be innocent, but I don’t think he did this.”

  “No.” He took a deep breath and blew out a cloud of vapor. “I don’t think it was him, either.”

  “You have someone in mind?”

  Billy didn’t answer. He didn’t even look at me.

  “You knew her more than a little.” It wasn’t a question. It was me prodding him. I could tell when Billy wanted to talk. Not that he was much of one for holding back. Every once in a while, we all need a push.

  He looked at the sky, then he looked back at me, resettled the Stetson on his head, and pushed back. “You stay here. Clear the scene and make sure of every detail. This is going to get ugly.”

  “Once I release the body the deputies can finish up. I need to get over to the girl’s place and start interviewing—”

  “You stay. Do all the paperwork. Watch everyone. No souvenir-takers. No selfies. None of that celebrity bullshit. Then you be the last one to leave. Got it?”

  There was a hard edge in Billy’s voice that I had heard as rarely as I heard him curse. Whatever was going on was more personal than it should have been. “What will you be doing?”

  “I’m going to go ask some questions.” He backed away from the taped circle with his gaze locked to the dead girl inside. When he reached some secret combination of distance and movement he turned without looking back at either of us and stalked through the crisp snow.

  “This isn’t the way you want to do things, Billy.”

  He ignored me.

  “Billy!” I took a bracing breath and called again. “Sheriff Blevins! Whatever you’re thinking, it’s the wrong thing to help the girl.”

  “There’s no helping her.” He stopped and hunched his shoulders. I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or some burden he carried until he said, “But I can keep my promise.” Billy walked on without reacting further to my calls.

  I stood in the snow in front of a dead girl feeling vaguely jealous and guilty for it. What else could I do but put my head down and do the job?

  The process was quick despite, or possibly because of, the cold and snow. The sheriff’s department, EMTs, coroner’s office, fire and rescue—all of us society’s carrion eaters—cleared the scene in another hour. Rather than bones we left behind crime scene tape. Like bones and forgetting, the tape would fade, tatter and blow away. Eventually nothing would be left to mark the passing of young life. At least, so I thought.

  I was in my truck with the engine running and heater blowing on my numb toes, logging everything in my notes, when the first car arrived. It was a small import that looked out of place on the farm road. It passed my truck and stopped without pulling off the road next to where the tape declared TANEY COUNTY SHERIFF – CRIME SCENE – DO NOT CROSS.

  Four kids, boys and girls, piled out. The driver hesitated, looking back at my truck, but soon followed his friends. They all held flowers and stuffed animals. One had a glass-jar saint candle she plunked down in dirty snow and lit.

  As I approached, I could feel them trying to ignore me.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “We’re not going to mess anything up,” the girl with the candle said. “We just want to show our respect.”

  “I can’t believe we’re the first ones.” The driver shifted his convenience-store bouquet of blue-dyed daises from hand to hand.

  “You guys know what happened here?” I asked.

  “Of course,” the driver answered.

  “Rose of Sharon was murdered,” candle girl added. She was still kneeling in the frozen mud.

  “How did you hear about it?”

  “The radio.” Driver boy placed his flowers, then stared out at the footprints that led into the trees. “Is that where it happened?”

  “Where what happened?” I asked.

  “Where she was shot,” he said.

  “Who told you that?”

  He shrugged in a way that suggested to me I was stupid and uninformed for asking. The
other kids were tying teddy bears to the barbed wire with pink ribbons.

  “We’re the first,” the girl said as she fluffed her ribbon.

  “This place is going to be huge,” the boy with her said. He stepped back into the road and held up his phone to take a picture. “A shrine.” The girl grinned at the camera.

  Another car was approaching. I returned to my truck and called out deputies to post at the scene. The first to arrive was the new guy.

  He pulled up beside my truck with his window down and said, “Hurricane.”

  “I told you not to call me that.”

  “Sorry, it’s just…you know.”

  “What?”

  “Cool.”

  I imagined that every woman named Katrina was called Hurricane after 2005. I never imagined that any of us liked it. “It’s not,” I told him. “What’s your name?”

  “Tom.”

  “Tom what?”

  “Dugan. Tom Dugan.”

  “Deputy Dugan, do you have any idea how the identity of our victim got to the radio station before the girl’s body even made its way to the pathologist?”

  “No, Detective.” He answered quickly, but looked away when he did. His fingers flexed on his steering wheel, both hands gripping it at the top. That was where his eyes seemed to settle.

  “Keep people from going over the fence. Control traffic. If reporters show up and ask you questions, the only answer is, ‘Talk to the sheriff.’ Understand?”

  “Got it.”

  I dropped my truck into gear and threaded past the kids in the road and the next car approaching. As I did I called into dispatch. I had already called in for the victim’s address while I was warming my toes. The second call was to log myself as departing the scene and in transit to her home. If I was going to ignore what Billy ordered, I was at least going to do it with the good recordkeeping he wanted.

  “You need to get back to the station, Katrina,” Doreen responded from dispatch. She sounded frazzled.