“Nelson?” I asked the shape. It wasn’t as crazy as it sounds. There was a time, not so long ago, my dead husband visited me and sent messages. He told me things would be fine and he even encouraged my affection for Billy Blevins. I have accepted that the visitations are from my mind and not from the grave. It had to be a dream.
The shade straightened to stand beside the boat painting. For an instant I thought he would pick up a brush and go back to work. There was a knocking, then without seeming to move, the shadow stood at my door. It knocked at the glass.
I pulled the afghan around my shoulders.
The black form beat the glass door again and called, “Katrina.”
I stood and tugged the cover tighter over my body. “Billy?”
“Katrina, open the door,” Billy said, knocking again.
I clutched my afghan and opened the door without saying anything. Everything still felt like a dream. The fire was high and hot and I suddenly realized I was sweating.
“Are you okay?” Billy asked my back.
“No,” I answered. Dreams make for honesty.
I dropped the cover and stood close to the fire. It was intense and I got dizzy standing so close.
“Why is it so hot in here?”
“I like it,” I said. “It feels good. Maybe I can sweat the whiskey out of me for good.”
“Have you been drinking tonight?”
I thought about that and again resorted to honesty. “I don’t know.”
Billy put his hands on my shoulders. His touch was careful, like he was approaching a dangerous animal. He urged me away from the fire. “Your skin is hot,” he said. “You’re bruised all over.”
“Scars and bruises are the map of my life.” More honesty.
“I don’t believe that.”
“Why?”
“Because I’ve seen the best of you and the worst. I’ve kissed your scars and never wished them away.”
“Never?”
Billy wrapped his arms around me. He shook his head and his voice got low and soft. “Your scars aren’t the map. They are just bits of bad road on a long drive.”
“Do you always know what to say to everyone or just me?”
I woke up lying on the couch wrapped up in the afghan. The sun was throwing high angel beams through the windows. In the fireplace the fire had burned lower, but it had been fed. On the mantel were my badge and gun.
I didn’t remember the pain until I tried to move off the couch. Everything, even my hair, hurt. Standing was agony. I might have stayed where I was, but there was a piece of paper under my service weapon. There was no believing my memory or the other things Billy left behind. I had to read his words.
It took at least a couple of minutes to limber up and shuffle the five feet to the mantel. It took another minute to calm my breath and focus my eyes.
The note read:
Katrina,
Once you read this note go back to bed, a real bed, and sleep the whole day. There were two witnesses who saw Sissy Fisher kick you and your reaction. That doesn’t make it good or right. Sometimes we get away with what we shouldn’t and pay hard for what was never our choice. I’m sorry that I never told you I was the medic who tended you in Afghanistan. Sorry can tear down walls or build them up. I’m not sure what this one will do. I have learned one thing, though: you are right about the difficulties of us working together and loving each other. Or me loving you, at least. I’ve never really known or understood your feelings. You do a better job keeping them buried than you do holding back the anger. I’ll always be there to help with it as your friend and sheriff.
Bill
The most devastating thing to me was the name at the end. My Billy had stepped away and left me with only Bill. All the pain in my body echoed in my head. It was even worse when I realized the foul smell I was breathing in was coming from me.
* * * *
When Nelson built the house, he had an extra-large water heater installed. The shower always seemed to run hot forever. That day I used all the hot water and still lingered as it ran from tolerably warm to uncomfortably tepid.
In the shower I made a lot of decisions, but none of the important ones. The one thought that was clear to me was the lack of genuine police work I had been doing. Things happened, and I reacted rather than investigated. Everything had become personal. I was determined to change that.
When I stepped out, I didn’t even bother toweling off before picking up my phone. It was time I backed up a bit and tried to pick up a trail I’d missed—make that ignored—earlier. I called a friend in the Greene County Sheriff’s Department. Cops have a whole barter system of favor-trading. I would owe on this one, but my friend was willing to go to the hospital and check out Lawson’s story about his father dying. I also asked him to check all the Springfield area hospitals and clinics for tongue injuries. Calls had been made, but sometimes a deputy showing up at the door gets more honesty. After that, I called into HQ and caught Calvin Walker working a desk.
“Why are you inside?” I asked.
“Tractor trailer ran off the road last night. I worked alone and got some frostbite.”
“It was a busy night for everyone,” I said.
“So I hear.”
I wasn’t sure exactly what I was hearing in his voice so I ignored it. “I need some paper files pulled.”
“Whatever.”
“Always a pleasure, Calvin. Do you have a pencil ready?”
“Just give me the list.”
I told him what I needed.
“When do you need them?” he asked.
“ASAP. What, you have other plans?”
“I mean, when will you be in to look at them?”
“An hour or so, why?”
“I’ll be here,” he said, then disconnected.
I noticed he said he would be there, not the files.
The water still on my skin was making me cold, but I made another call. This one was to Uncle Orson asking him to trade trucks with me.
“Why?” he asked, sounding suspicious.
“I need another favor,” I said.
“What else is new?”
“Would you get the back glass replaced in mine while you have it?”
“Let me get this straight.” He went silent, but it was a grumpy kind of silence. “You want me to trade trucks with you on a cold, snowy day. Not only does your truck have no glass, you want me to get it repaired.”
“It’s pretty low on gas, too,” I said. It was a tired joke, though I wasn’t fully kidding.
Uncle Orson didn’t laugh. He didn’t say anything.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“My truck is kind of a mess.”
“A mess?”
“A mess. Dirty.”
“How can it be dirty enough to be a problem?”
He was quiet again.
“Orson?”
“I’ll be right over.”
Uncle Orson disconnected. It was my morning for being hung up on. I went for a towel and made one more call.
There was a time I fought therapy every mental inch, but seeking help is one of the things it taught me. I was planning a drive into Springfield anyway, so I wanted to see if Dr. Regina Kurtz might have an opening. She did. Once the receptionist told me to come in, I allowed myself to acknowledge how important it was to me.
I was dressed and swallowing a handful of aspirin with coffee on an empty stomach when Uncle Orson came in the door without knocking.
“You look awful,” he said, stamping snow off his boots.
“You couldn’t do that outside?”
“That would just get more snow on the boots.”
“Could you at least stay on the rug?”
He moved onto the rag rug and stomped again.
“Let me see your boots,” I said.
He pulled up his pants legs.
“No.” I pointed at his feet and shook my finger in a circle. “Your soles. Put them up.”
He crossed one leg over the other with the bottom of his boot on display. There was mud clinging to the edges and packed under the heel rise. “Where’d the mud come from?”
“Your floors are so fancy they can’t stand a little snow and dirt?”
“I was looking for something.”
“What?” He put his foot down.
“They’re smooth,” I said. “Soaked through, too. You shouldn’t wear leather soles in the snow.”
“Why all the interest in my boots?”
“There were some prints at a crime scene I’ve been trying to understand.”
“I wasn’t there.”
I put my coffee down and poured my uncle a cup without ever taking my eyes off him. “Where?”
“How long are you going to make me wait on that coffee?”
I waited a few more moments then handed the cup over. “Is your truck warm?”
“Warm but dirty.”
* * * *
“Warm but dirty” was an understatement. Around the wheel wells were crusts of frozen mud. The sides were strewn with muck that had been cast by all four wheels spinning and digging hard. Uncle Orson had been doing some work he didn’t want to talk about. I didn’t want to talk about it either. I was too sore and tired and determined not to let another thing distract me from finding out who killed Rose Sharon.
Snow was falling again. It was a mix of dry, dusty flakes and crystalline pebbles that bounced off the windshield. What stuck melted in the heat of the defroster and froze at the window edges. By the time I reached the sheriff’s office, my view of the world had become framed by a rim of ice. When I parked I lifted the wipers so they wouldn’t stick.
The cold of the day was matched by the atmosphere inside the building. Everyone available was out. There was just Doreen at dispatch, with Calvin and another deputy on light duty. No one said anything when I entered.
We are a medium-sized department in a small-government leaning county. It shows in our budget. Resources tend to go to personnel and the vehicles we need to reach the citizens. Consequently, we have the computerization to do the job, but no files older than five years are digital. There was a stack of paper waiting on my desk.
There were the arrest jackets on E. Lawson and Levi Sharon. I had also asked for the investigator’s report on the hit-and-run that killed the parents of Rose and Levi Sharon. That was where I started.
It was a thorough file. The descriptions were clear, with measured distances and speed estimates. There were photos of the crushed car showing the damage, its orientation and relation to the road. Some of the photos showed debris from the vehicles, including an amber signal light. The indicator was the old-fashioned kind that mounted on top of a fender rather than in the bodywork. The conclusion was a hit-and-run accident between the passenger car and an unknown truck.
After the accident material was the coroner’s reports on Matthew and Cheryl Sharon. Motor vehicle trauma was listed as the cause of death. Both were wearing their seatbelts. Both had alcohol in their blood. His blood alcohol content was .03. Her BAC was .04. Those marks were well below the level of legal intoxication and seemed to suggest they each had a drink or two. The difference in BAC was probably due to body mass. They weren’t drunk.
There was a matching set of notes from MHP. The highway patrol was listed as the active investigative agency and the case marked as ongoing.
If I had closed the file there, I would have missed the really important part. Buried behind everything were the handwritten notes from the deputy on scene—Calvin Walker. There were two things noted in neat, precise writing that were not in the form report. First, Calvin noted the color of the unknown vehicle as green, describing the paint as old and oxidized. Second, he made a guess at the kind of truck to look for. On a single line he had written the words Log Truck and underlined them twice.
I picked up the file and went over to where Calvin was splitting his time between paperwork and the phone. I noticed he was holding the handset as far as he could from his face. His ears and cheeks were bright red and slick with a salve. He frowned when he saw me, but when the call was ended he said, “What can I do for you, Detective?”
I held up the file. “You worked this accident.”
He nodded. “I remember. T-bone hit-and-run in Merriam Woods. June of ’07.”
“It’s a good file.”
Calvin cocked his head like a dog hearing a strange sound.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re not known for compliments.”
“Is that your way of saying I’m a jerk?”
“I only use the soda pop language with ladies.” He kept his gaze fixed on mine.
For once in my life I didn’t take the bait and give someone the fight they wanted. “Yeah, I’ve never been very good at the lady thing.”
Calvin looked away and seemed a little ashamed.
“It’s never been your issue. Just my failing.”
“What do you need?” The edge was gone from his voice.
“You have notes in the file that say you believed the unknown vehicle was oxidized green. And you underlined the words ‘logging truck.’”
Calvin waved his hand downward, pointing at his desk. I noticed for the first time the tips were bandaged.
“Frostbite?” I asked as I set the file down facing him.
“It feels like a burn. Like I touched a hot stove.” He used the flat of his hand to spread out the loose photos. “This one.” He tapped the picture with a bandaged fingertip.
“What about it?”
“Look close.”
I held up the photo and scanned it. Then I saw that in the crushed black metal of the car were streaks of pale color. “I see it,” I said. “Green.” I dropped the print back on the pile. “Why did you think it was a log truck?”
“For one thing, it hit hard. I imagine it had a lot of weight behind it. For another—” He pushed through the pictures again until he found one showing the gate the car had broken through in the crash. “That dirt road leads to land that was being selectively logged. Dirt driveway on the other side goes to an abandoned house with woods all around it. I went up the drive and found cut-off limbs and a bunch of fresh stumps. A log truck seemed like a good bet.”
“I think so too.”
I spent another hour reading the jackets and making calls. I added ten minutes to look at the other cases on my desk. Investigative cops usually have more cases than they can reasonably handle. In a department like ours we don’t have the luxury of crime sections. I had files on my desk dealing with petty theft, vandalism, a liquor store holdup. I thought I could be forgiven for concentrating on murder.
“Can I ask you something?”
It was Calvin. I hadn’t heard him walk up.
“You know, now that we’re pals and all,” he added.
“Always glad to help a pal,” I said.
“There’s a problem.”
“Only one?” I laughed.
Calvin didn’t join in. “I don’t know what to do or how to fix it without making things worse.”
“Tell me. I’ll do what I can and I won’t hold it against you.”
Calvin looked away.
I thought he was checking the sheriff’s office door. It was closed and the lights were off. “It’s just us,” I said. “Is it about him or me?”
Calvin shook his head. It looked heavy on his shoulders. “Neither,” he said. He sat in the chair across from my desk. “Or maybe it is. That’s part of the problem. Hooks have barbs.”
“You’re saying you’re afraid of how things are connected.”
“He’s the sheriff’s boy
.”
“Wait.” I sat forward. “Who are we talking about?”
Calvin held up his hands showing the bandaged fingers, then pointed one at his face. “None of this had to happen.”
“Calvin, I can’t help but think you’re taking a longer road than you need to. And I’m not keeping up.”
“I feel like a snitch. If it wasn’t for Bob…”
“Bob?” I was surprised. And I was a little concerned the conversation had become something I was not at all prepared for. “Deputy Rantz?” I couldn’t help the narrowing of my eyes or the suspicion in my voice. “Is there something going on?”
“Going on?” He looked confused, then his face shifted to shock. “Hell no. She could be my daughter. I mean—that’s—that kind of question is part of the problem.”
“What part?”
“She’s a good officer. She’s smart, and she’s the kind of young blood we need.”
“I still don’t get what you’re saying.”
“Bobbi Rantz deserves the chance to be a better deputy. Without having to put up with certain kinds of shit. The kind I think you know about.”
“You’re trying to protect her?”
“She shouldn’t need protection. But she does.”
I began to understand. I leaned back and settled into my chair without relaxing. Deputy Calvin Walker had a whole new shade of respect in my estimation. “Tom Dugan,” I said.
“He was supposed to be there helping me last night. After that Branson show we were both put on patrol. I was on 65, he was assigned 160. The tractor trailer went off 65 close to the intersection. I called him in and he acknowledged. But he never showed.”
“Did he say why not?”
“He doesn’t have to. I know where he was. Same place he keeps disappearing to.” Calvin looked at me like he expected understanding.
“You’re going to have to fill in that blank for me.”
“The place where the Rose girl was found.”
Understanding burned through my chest like a swallow of kerosene. “The roadside shrine.”
“He’s obsessed. Always there. He shows off for the kids hanging around.”
A Killing Secret Page 13
