Girl With The Origami Butterfly

by Linda Berry

  “Not much sleep.”

  “Not even close.”

  “Sit. Let me get you breakfast.” Selena set down the knife and pulled a bowl from the cabinet.

  Happy to let someone take care of her, Sidney sat at the heavy oak table and watched Selena move around the sun-drenched kitchen. Copper pots hung over the stove, potted herbs crowded the windowsill, and Selena’s state-of-the-art appliances—food processor, blender, espresso machine—reflected her passion for cooking.

  “Here, this will revitalize you.” Selena placed a bowl of chunky granola in front of Sidney and added cashew milk. She went back into the kitchen, and the blender sounded like a boat motor for half a minute, then Selena returned with the dreaded green smoothie. “Voilà.”

  Sidney ignored the smoothie and poked dubiously through the granola. “What’s in here besides oats and nuts?”

  “Acai berries, ground hemp, flax, and chia seeds.”

  “Sure that’s food?”

  “It’s energy food. Has a high vibrational level.”

  “Energy. Right. Good vibrations.” Sidney flashed her a peace sign, chewed, and found the cereal surprisingly tasty. Everything Selena made was fresh, usually straight from her garden, with emphasis on health, if not always on flavor. Unlike her sister, Sidney never cultivated domestic skills. In school, she concentrated on sports, while Selena migrated to cooking and gardening with their mother. Eventually, her sister evolved into a natural foods guru, packaging organic products with Ann Howard in Ann’s big barn. Her website, Selena’s Kitchen, boasted myriad recipes, colorful photos and videos, and had thousands of subscribers.

  “Try to eat healthy today,” Selena said, leaning against the island. “You’re stressed. You need live food.”

  “Will do.” Sidney knew the drill. No additives, preservatives, or sugar. Nothing deep-fried. Groan. She kept up the façade at home, but unlike her sister, she excluded nothing from her diet, and she had a soft spot for pizza and greasy cheeseburgers. So what if she died a few years early? In the meantime, she would make full use of her taste buds.

  Selena stood hugging herself, hands clutching elbows, muscles tightening around her jaw. “I talked to Ann this morning.”

  That got Sidney’s attention. She gazed at her sister’s troubled face.

  “She told me everything. Some psycho dragging a woman through the woods. Chasing Ann into the marsh. She’s a wreck.” Selena swallowed. “Was a woman really murdered?”

  Sidney expelled a breath. “Yes.”

  “Someone we know?”

  “A Jane Doe.” Sidney didn’t have to tell Selena the information was confidential. With a police chief as father, discretion was imbedded in their DNA, along with an unquenchable passion for mystery solving. They grew up theorizing around the dinner table about crimes their dad was investigating, coming up with hair-brained conclusions, which made their parents laugh uproariously. Comparing notes with Dad after the fact made for some colorful conversations. Sidney fished her phone from a pocket and sorted through the crime scene photos until she found a head shot of the victim. “Recognize her?”

  Grimacing, Selena studied the photo. “Don’t think so.”

  “She’s close to your age.”

  Selena shrugged. “What’s with the bug eyes?”

  “Glued open.”

  “Yech.”

  “He injected her with a neurotoxin that paralyzed her but didn’t knock her out. She had no muscle control, couldn’t even twitch an eyelid.”

  Selena shuddered. “He wanted her to see what he was doing. That’s sick, and very, very creepy.”

  “Between you and me, Ann’s lucky to be alive. This perp is sadistic and ruthless. It appears he also killed Mimi Matsui.”

  Selena’s skin paled. “Yippie. A serial killer’s moved to town.”

  “Or he’s been here all along and knows how to blend in.”

  “All the better. Now I have to suspect every guy in town. The barista at Crazy Beans? The mailman?”

  “Please be extra careful,” Sidney added soberly. “Don’t go anywhere alone, especially after dark. Lock the doors.”

  “You’re scaring me.”

  “Good. My job is done.” She drained her coffee.

  Visibly shaken, Selena brought over the pot and poured Sidney another cup.

  “Ann is going to need a lot of support, Selena. Matt’s staying with her, but I think you should spend time with her, too.”

  “Already planned. This afternoon.”

  “Did her dog come home?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.” Sidney felt a pang of sadness.

  “We’ve called the shelters. Hopefully, if anyone finds him they’ll call the number on the collar.”

  “No doubt.”

  “Do you think Ann’s in danger? The psycho surely thinks she can recognize him.”

  “She believes she blinded him with her flashlight, and he didn’t see her face. So he’ll only know who she is if her name gets printed in the paper. That info won’t be released.”

  Her sister’s shoulders relaxed.

  Sidney pushed her chair back from the table. “I better get going. My team’s waiting.”

  “And I have to teach my yoga class.”

  “Hell of a commute.”

  “Yeah, I’ll try not to trip over the sprinklers.”

  The timer went off.

  “What’s baking, anyway?”

  “Rosemary cheddar cheese scones.” Selena donned mitts, opened the oven, and pulled out a cookie sheet laden with scones browned to perfection. “I’m taking them to Ann. I’ll save you a couple.”

  “You better.” Sidney snuck behind her and emptied the smoothie down the kitchen drain. Experience told her it would taste like pulverized lawn clippings.

  In the laundry room, Sidney clipped on her duty belt and removed her sidearm from the safe. Her sister stood framed in the doorway, cradling the tabby in her arms like an infant. Sidney reflected on the closed door to the nursery, all the furnishings inside collecting dust. Selena’s last miscarriage had crucified her. Being abandoned by her loser husband didn’t help, either.

  “Sidney…”

  “Yeah?” She met her sister’s light green eyes.

  “I have something for you.” Selena put down the cat, pulled a small pink crystal hanging from a silver chain over her head, and held it out on the flat of her palm. “Wear this. It will keep you safe.”

  Sidney believed her pistol and bulletproof vest would keep her safe. “That’s your special necklace. You never take it off.”

  “You need it more than I do right now. Rose quartz has high energy, but its vibe is also calming and soothing.”

  Sidney humored her sister and pulled it over her neck, tucked it between her uniform collar, felt the warm stone against her skin. “Thanks.”

  “Be careful out there.”

  Sidney shot her what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “That’s my motto.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  IN THE WARM MORNING LIGHT, the town looked awake and lively. Antique stores and gift shops displayed their wares on the sidewalks, the new art gallery had rainbow banners waving out front, and people sat enjoying coffee and pastries under the umbrellas of trendy coffee shops. It still surprised Sidney to see out-of-towners in brightly colored shorts and T-shirts strolling down the streets, but she was thankful tourist dollars were revitalizing the economy. The town was coming out of a decade-long downward spiral. Sidney applauded Mayor Burke for being a visionary and reinventing the town as a vacation destination. Garnerville offered an opportunity to experience living history in a perfectly preserved turn-of-the-century mill town. At least, that’s what the brochure said. She wondered how the headline of murder would impact the jovial spirit of Garnerville when it appeared in the paper tomorrow.

  Sidney drove six blocks down Main Street to the old Garnerville Bank building. Circa 1910, it featured the original red brick exterior and elegant Doric columns on each side
of the brass-plated front door. The interior had been gutted and renovated in 1960 into a functional police department—three cells and four small offices, offshoots from the central lobby. She parked behind the station, grabbed her laptop, and stopped at the front desk to get her messages from Winnie Cheatum, administrator extraordinaire.

  Buxom and middle-aged, Winnie was an exotic beauty and had a memory like a steel trap. She once confided to Sidney that when she was younger, she didn’t know which box to check on applications under race. “My grandpa’s black. My grandma’s Japanese. They had my dad, who married my Mexican mom, and…” Her hand gestured down her curvaceous body. “This is what they got.”

  “You won the genetic lottery,” Sidney had replied with a smile. “Women would kill to have your cheekbones and that figure.”

  Now Winnie smiled up at her from behind the computer screen. “Morning, Chief. Everyone’s in the conference room. Fresh doughnuts and coffee. Your messages have been forwarded to your email. I have all your appointments on hold.”

  Sidney grinned. “If you were a man, Winnie, I’d marry you.”

  “You couldn’t afford me.” Winnie winked. Her face sobered and she cast Sidney a sympathetic glance. “Heard you had a rough night.”

  “Understatement. And it’s just getting started.”

  “FYI. Jeff Norcross from the Daily Buzz has been over here hazing everyone. We’ve all been tight as clams.”

  “Jeff can smell blood a mile away.”

  “Yep. Part shark.”

  “Stay mum.”

  “You got it, Chief.”

  Sidney entered the conference room; barely large enough to accommodate an oak table with a seating capacity of eight if you didn’t mind rubbing elbows. This morning, Granger, Darnell, and Amanda sat on one side with coffee and half eaten doughnuts, laptops open in front of them. Linthrope’s forensic specialist, Stewart Wong, as solemn-faced as he was last night, sat at one end of the table with bottled water. He wore a white button-down shirt and black bowtie, hands neatly folded on a single manila folder.

  Historical photos and portraits of past police chiefs lined the walls, and it was Sidney’s habit to lock eyes with her father before seating herself at the head of the table. Chief Becker gazed down with an enigmatic smile, and she heard his voice in her head, sharing one of his many philosophical musings. “Life’s an infinite cycle of creation and destruction, Sidney. Bad guys replace bad guys, but a force of good will always stand up to evil.”

  “And that’s you,” she replied.

  He grinned, ruffling her hair.

  “Morning,” she said. “How’s everyone holding up?”

  Stewart sat mum, but her three officers greeted her pleasantly. Darnell looked like he’d slept in his uniform. Granger’s face was red in spots from razor burn, and his hair looked like he’d hurriedly combed it with his fingers. Amanda’s dark hair was pulled into an unruly ponytail. She usually wore light makeup but had skipped it entirely this morning. Though operating on minimal sleep, their alert eyes told her they were eager to get to work on the case.

  “Let’s get started,” Sidney said. “Last night you all got a taste of homicide. Crime scenes aren’t easy to look at, or process, and this one was especially gruesome. We put in long hours. Be prepared to put in a lot more.” She turned to Stewart. “Do we have an ID on our Jane Doe?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Eyes bloodshot behind his thick glasses, Stewart opened his file and passed out copies of his report.

  Sidney followed along as he read.

  “Fingerprints identified the deceased as Samantha Ferguson. Five-foot-five, twenty-three years old. Moved to Garnerville seven years ago with her parents. She had several drug-related priors. Opioid and heroin addiction. Her last job was waitressing at Hogan’s. Quit to go to rehab. Got out two weeks ago. She rented a small apartment downtown.” He looked up at Sidney and cleared his throat. “Her phone hasn’t been located. No cell pings. It must be dead. Her car still hasn’t been found. Don’t know if she was abducted and transported to the crime scene, or if she knew her killer, met him somewhere, and voluntarily got into his car. County Sheriff put out a BOLO and his deputies are scanning the countryside for her white BMW 320i, year 2015.”

  “Nice wheels,” Amanda said.

  “Her family has money,” Sidney said, reading the report. “Parents live in Maple Grove. Father’s a retired surgeon.” She turned back to Stewart. “I don’t see anything on the suspect.”

  “Didn’t get much. The plaster casts I made from his footprints identified his boots as Standard Timberland, size twelve. From the depth of the prints, we guess he’s about one hundred-ninety pounds. Officer Cruz found a small piece of cloth torn from his hoodie. It’s being analyzed. For now, that’s it.”

  “Let’s hope we get something from the autopsy,” Sidney said.

  “I enclosed a few Facebook photos of the victim with friends and one of her parents.” Stewart closed his file and passed it down a row of hands to Sidney. “I need to go. Dr. Linthrope wants to start the autopsy.”

  “Thanks, Stewart. Get any sleep?”

  He shook his head. “Nada. Part of the job.” Without a smile, he slouched out of the room.

  Sidney pulled Samantha’s photos from the file. A few selfies depicted an exceptionally pretty woman with a contagious smile, laughing gray eyes, and an athletic figure. There were a few shots of her posing with friends, and one of her parents sitting in a golf cart in front of a posh country club. Sidney passed the photos around the table.

  “Now I recognize her,” Amanda said sadly. “She waited on me a bunch of times at Hogan’s.”

  “I recognize her from Hogan’s, too,” Darnell said. “She went by the name Sammy. She always joked around with my kids.”

  “Of course. Sammy. She was very outgoing,” Granger said. “It’s nice to remember her with a normal face.”

  “Got that right,” Darnell said. “I’ve been haunted by her death mask.”

  “I’d never guess she was strung out on drugs,” Amanda said. “She was always so upbeat. Joking around.”

  Sidney didn’t have the benefit of memories. She never ate at the family-style restaurant. Too many screaming kids. But this beautiful young woman was known to her deputies. Their impressions added dimension to the victim’s life and brought the woman out of the shadows of anonymity. “Samantha Ferguson. Twenty-three. Privileged background. Upbeat. Funny. Addicted. Trying to get clean,” Sidney summarized, then turned to Granger. “Anything from the K9 unit?” Granger had still been out in the woods with the county deputies and their dogs when she’d left for home.

  “Not much. The killer’s scent led to tire tracks on a dirt road a quarter mile from the crime scene. We also trailed him to the marsh where he chased Ann, and where he circled back to Samantha to finish… what he started. The sheriff’s investigator ran the tire tracks through their system but found no unique features. They’re a brand commonly used by many vehicles in the county.”

  “Dead end.” Sidney poured a cup of coffee from the carafe on the sideboard, grabbed a glazed doughnut, and reseated herself. “Darnell, do you have the file on Mimi Matsui?”

  “I do. I’ve been here all morning. Put a slide show together.”

  That surprised her. “You came straight here from the crime scene?”

  “Yeah. Had to.” His dark brown eyes shadowed with emotion. “This case is eating at me.”

  She shot him a sympathetic smile. The shock of murder close to home and the sudden, compulsive drive to get a killer off the street was something she understood well.

  “No worries,” he said. “I caught a little shut-eye in one of the cells.”

  No wonder Darnell looked like he slept in his uniform. He had. Two years on the force, the young rookie was a hardworking cop, absorbing everything, going the extra mile, and even working in the community coaching kids on his days off. “Let’s see what you got.”

  Darnell dimmed the lights and pressed an arrow
on his keyboard. All heads tuned to the screen on the opposite wall. “A warning, these photos are graphic.”

  The first image to fill the screen was Mimi’s three-year-old crime scene, shot from a distance of about thirty feet. The next few images, shot from different angles, showed Mimi propped against the base of a massive tree in a heavily wooded area. The similarities to Samantha’s crime scene chilled Sidney. Mimi’s arms were at her side, slit wrists facing up, legs out-stretched, one ankle crossed over the other, barefoot. Wisps of fog hovered over the ground, and a recent storm left the trees dark and slick with rain. The victim’s wet dress clung to her body like a second skin.

  “As you can see, Mimi’s head is drooped over her chest, and it’s covered from view with a beanie.”

  The next shot showed Mimi’s head held upright by Dr. Linthrope’s gloved hands. Drops of rain beaded the fabric of the beanie.

  “We see here that the killer pulled the beanie down over her face to her jaw line. In his report, Dr. Linthrope said he believed the suspect wanted Mimi’s head protected, knowing it might be days before she was discovered.”

  Darnell clicked through the next few shots, and there were audible gasps from Amanda and Granger. The hat had been removed. Mimi’s face looked gray and bloated, and she gazed back at them with a surprised, wide-eyed stare. Wisps of hair clung to her forehead and cheeks. Darnell went on to show slides of Mimi’s lacerated wrists and some of the damage done by foraging animals.

  “Christ,” Granger said, the color draining from his face.

  Even Sidney felt sickened. She had gone through the photos when she studied the case two years ago and knew what to expect, but seeing the gruesome details enlarged on the screen in vivid detail had a sharper impact. “We’ve seen enough, Darnell.”

  “Sure thing,” Darnell said with a relieved sigh. “Just a couple more photos of Mimi as a real person.”

  A picture of a dark-haired woman with a fresh, natural beauty filled the screen. Mimi had expressive, intelligent brown eyes, a full mouth, a flawless complexion and an unfussy haircut. In the next shot, she was posed in the woods wearing hiking clothes. She had a slender, athletic figure.