Girl With The Origami Butterfly

by Linda Berry

  Granger pulled his flashlight from his duty belt and took a quick jog along the border of trees to the back of the property, the beam casting a wobbly tunnel through the night. When he reached the area where he thought he saw the silhouette, he searched for footprints. Branches swayed and creaked in the wind. Rain slanted toward the earth, pattering his jacket, running through his hair and down his face. He discovered a spot where the grass looked matted, and he shoved his way through the tangle of wet pine branches, emerging onto Miko’s property. He cast his light back and forth over the furrows. No sign of anyone.

  Soaked through and chilled, he was about to turn back when his beam found a trail of footprints in the mud leading toward the lake. He followed. Somewhere up ahead along the lakeshore, an engine revved. Granger sprinted toward the sound and sidled through a copse of aspens. He reached the dirt road that ran parallel to the shoreline as the taillights of a truck disappeared around a thicket of trees, leaving a cloud of exhaust in the air. Shit. Just missed him. His beam scoured the deep grooves left in the mud but the earth was too wet to hold the tire pattern. No way to identify the truck. Probably Noah.

  Granger pulled out his phone, searched for a number, and dialed.

  After three rings, a sleepy voice answered. “Miko here.”

  “This is Officer Granger Wyatt. I need to talk to Noah.”

  “Not here.”

  “Know where he is?”

  “He’s at Barney’s most nights.”

  “Sorry to wake you.”

  Miko clicked off.

  Granger slogged back to his truck, rain dripping from his nose and chin. Christ. Was that even Noah? Or was someone else watching Ann’s farm? The thought chilled him.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  SIDNEY CLIMBED into the Yukon and followed her GPS to Matt Howard’s home on the north end of town. Five minutes later, she turned right on Blue Spruce road, drove a few hundred feet, made a hard left, and bounced into his gravel driveway. Through the rain, the headlights revealed a tidy gray house with white trim, surrounded on every side by forest. If someone wanted total privacy, this was the place. His white landscaping truck and trailer were parked on the side of the house, while an array of outdoor toys took up space in the carport: snowmobile, kayak, dirt bike, motorcycle. It appeared Matt Howard played as hard as he worked.

  The lights were out, but nonetheless, she climbed the porch and rang the doorbell. Raindrops pattered her cap and jacket and pinged on the metal roof. The forest smelled of cedar. She rang again, waited. A light appeared in the front window and she heard footsteps approaching. The curtain was yanked back, the door swung open, and Matt stood behind the screen door knotting the belt to his flannel bathrobe. His hair was sticking straight out, and his eyelids looked puffy.

  “Hello, Chief. Sorry, I got home too late to return your call.”

  “It’s raining out here, Matt.”

  He jerked open the screen door. “Sorry. Come in.”

  She shook the rain off her hat, stepped inside, and surveyed the living room, always interested in the domestic lifestyle of bachelors. From all the homey touches, she would have guessed a woman lived here. Nice furniture, framed art on the walls, big plasma TV, clean carpeting, smelled of home cooking. It didn’t look like the house of a killer. But then, it never did.

  “Have a seat.” He gestured to a chair and sat across from her on the couch, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees.

  “Sorry to wake you.” She wasn’t. “I’ve just got a few questions, and I’ll be on my way.” She pulled out her phone and brought up a photo of Samantha. “You know this woman?”

  His eyebrows arched in surprise. “Yeah, I know Sammy.”

  “How well?”

  “We’ve dated on and off. Why? What’s going on?”

  “Samantha was found dead last night, Matt.”

  Matt recoiled as though kicked in the gut by a mule, face frozen in shock. It took a moment for him to find his voice. “The woman in the woods?”

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  Matt sat perfectly still, then he leapt to his feet and paced over the carpet like a restless cat, the news apparently too difficult to process by inaction. “Oh my God!” His face contorted into a mask of agony. “Oh my God!”

  If Matt was acting, it was one of the best performances she’d ever witnessed. She gave him a minute to work off the agitation and settle back down on the couch.

  His eyes welled with tears, and there was a quiver to his voice. “How did she die?”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you that.”

  “Please tell me she didn’t suffer.”

  “All the facts will be revealed after we close the investigation.”

  “Do you know who did it?”

  “I was hoping you could help me figure that out. Okay if I tape this?”

  He nodded.

  Sidney took out her iPhone and put on the recorder, laid it on the table between them. “Let’s start by you telling me about your relationship with Samantha.”

  Matt put his head in his hands and didn’t look up for several seconds. He swiped tears from his eyes and said in a hoarse voice, “I met Sammy at Barney’s back in April. I stopped in for a beer after work. I sat at the bar. She was there with a bunch of people I didn’t know. They were all laughing, having a good time. Sammy caught my eye a couple times and smiled. She was really pretty. I smiled back. She came over. We hung out for a couple hours, had a few drinks. We both got a little wild and crazy, I guess, and ended up back here.” He looked down at his hands and heaved out a ragged breath. “I can’t believe she’s dead.”

  “Matt, please continue.”

  “I don’t bring girls home like that. Honest, I don’t. But there was something about Sammy. She was smart and funny as hell. I’ve never laughed as much as I did when I was with her. I guess I fell for her pretty hard right from the start. She liked me too, at first.” He sniffed, and she saw new tears glisten in his eyes. He wiped them with his sleeve.

  “It didn’t last?”

  He shook his head.

  “What happened?"

  He shrugged and looked at Sidney with a hollow expression, as though a light had left his body. “I guess I wasn’t wild enough for her—or rich enough. Her folks have a lot of money. Gave her a BMW, paid for her apartment. They probably didn’t think I was good catch.”

  “Why weren’t you wild enough?”

  “The crowd she hung out with did drugs. I didn’t. I have a business to run. I don’t stay up late. She wanted me to do coke, party all night. We were from different worlds. I wanted her to straighten out her life. She wanted me to loosen up.”

  “Her mother said you wouldn’t leave her alone after she broke it off with you.”

  “I did call her a lot.” He sniffed. “I showed up at Hogan’s a few times after work. I just wanted to talk to her. She told me she was going to call the cops if I didn’t leave her alone. I finally got the message. I didn’t see her for months, then out of the blue, she showed up here the night before last. Clean and sober. Fresh out of rehab. She said she just wanted to talk. Part of her recovery was apologizing for her past bad behavior. I said she didn’t need to apologize. We ended up talking all night.”

  “I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but did you have sex?”

  “We made love.”

  Silence.

  “So yesterday, the morning of her death, she was in your bed.”

  He nodded, looked away. She saw his chin quiver.

  “Take your time.”

  He met her eyes again, a bit more composed. “I took the morning off, and we went out to eat.”

  “Katie’s. She paid.”

  “She wanted to pay.” He looked puzzled. “How’d you know that?”

  “Then what did you do?”

  “I had to go to work. She dropped me off back here.”

  “What time?”

  “Around noon.”

  “Can anyone confirm you were working th
e whole day?”

  “I had to check up on my three crews, so I was in transit most of the day, going from one job to the other.”

  “Matt, listen to me very carefully. You need to account for your movements the entire day, every minute.” Sidney spoke firmly. “I want names and numbers, in writing, tomorrow at the station. Can you do that for me?”

  “Yeah, I can do that.”

  “Something else. I need a DNA sample. That okay?”

  “You already know it’ll come back to me.”

  “You didn’t use a condom?”

  “No. She’s on… was on the pill.”

  “It’s procedure.” She took a plastic tube from her duty belt, pushed up the foam tipped stem and swabbed the inside of Matt’s cheek, then secured the sample back in the plastic tube. “Thank you.”

  Sidney pulled up the picture of the butterfly and held her phone out to him. “Does this mean anything to you?”

  “It’s an origami butterfly. I’ve seen similar ones in town at the Art Studio. I think one of the local artists makes them. He’s a paper sculptor.”

  “Know his name?”

  “No, sorry.”

  She brought up the photo of Mimi. “Know this woman?”

  “No.”

  Sidney turned off her recorder. “You’ve been very helpful, Matt.”

  Sidney yanked on her hat, let Matt walk her to the door, stepped out into the rain, and heard it lock behind her. She darted through the downpour, scrambled into the Yukon, put on the wipers, and drove back to the highway, her mind systematically fitting pieces of information together. It wasn’t looking good for Matt.

  He was the last known person to see Samantha alive. He had time and opportunity to inject her with a neurotoxin when they returned to his house after breakfast. It’s possible she could have laid in his bed all day, paralyzed, a prisoner in her own body, while he made appearances at his job sites. And he was in the vicinity of the crime scene last night. He easily could have transported her to the woods, killed her, and showed up at his mother’s house in record time. Tomorrow, Matt’s alibi had to be one hundred percent bullet proof, or she would arrest him.

  Only she didn’t believe he did it. No question, Matt loved Samantha. Sidney had uncovered no motive for him to kill her. In fact, he had every reason to want her alive. Looked like their relationship might have developed further. Matt said he didn’t use protection when they had sex, but a trace of condom lubricant was found inside her. Did Samantha have consensual sex with someone else before she showed up at Matt’s house? Or did the condom lubricant come from her killer? Who did the single pubic hair belong to?

  Sidney’s impatience welled up like a wave. While waiting for lab results, which might identify the killer, she and her team were putting in long hours, chasing an array of leads, possibly spinning their wheels. Her job was to follow the evidence wherever it might lead, and there were still several pathways tunneling away from the epicenter of the crime. She intended to burrow down each one, until there were no more doors left to open. Hopefully, something would materialize before she had to arrest Matt.

  〜 〜

  The door was unlocked again. Sidney needed to impress upon Selena that she was putting their security at risk. A murderer was out there somewhere, and the house was hidden behind the yoga studio, veiled by trees. Easy pickings for a burglar. She locked and bolted the door. Instead of placing her holstered Glock in the gun safe as usual, Sidney decided to keep it close at hand. Her homicide investigation was stirring up the old feeling of anxiety that haunted her in Oakland—a cold, relentless companion.

  With her sister absent, the house was quiet and dark. Sidney’s attitude softened when she thought of the gut-wrenching conversation she would have to have with Selena tomorrow—Randy’s infidelity, a pregnant teenager, the reality of divorce. Poor Selena. Sucked into a sleazy, real-life soap opera by a man who had no moral decency.

  Sidney flicked on the light and watched four cats waddle toward her from various parts of the house. Chili and Smokey paused halfway through the room to stretch extravagantly, while Basil and Curry wasted no time twining between her legs. She smiled when she heard their motors running.

  “Miao,” Smokey mewed, big gold eyes pinned on hers.

  “Meow to you, too.”

  They padded after her, necks craned upwards, watching like starving wild beasts for any sign of a treat. Sidney ignored them. They were too fat as it was.

  Selena normally left her a healthy dinner under foil in the fridge, ready to nuke. What she found tonight was a plate of the rosemary cheddar scones her sister had baked that morning. She grabbed one in a napkin and ate it in big bites while climbing the stairs to the second floor, the caravan of cats bounding up behind her.

  Sidney switched on a lamp and light spilled across her childhood bedroom. Basil, Chili, and Curry leapt upon the single bed that was covered with a faded handmade quilt from the eighties. The furniture was mismatched: a knotty pine headboard, a walnut chest of drawers, an oak desk shoved under the window that held her computer and printer. Mystery novels, her weakness, were crammed like Chinese puzzle pieces into the shelves of a sagging bookcase, painted cranberry red. All these furnishings had been pulled from the parade of furniture flowing through the house from her mother’s thrift store.

  Smokey jumped up on the desk and stretched lazily across her keyboard, his furry gray image reflected in the computer screen, big gold eyes unblinking. Sidney scratched him behind the ears and he promptly rolled over on his back, displaying his stomach for her to stroke. She surveyed the room with an objective eye while running her fingers through his fur.

  When she’d returned home two years ago, she had stripped the walls of high school pennants and rock star posters, leaving them completely bare. After a hard day’s work, to clear her mind, she needed to rest her eyes on empty space. A thirty-five-year-old woman should not be living this way, holed up in her childhood bedroom with her sister as a roommate, her social life scoring a big zero.

  Sidney performed her nightly beauty routine, slipped into a cotton nightgown, and burrowed under the covers in the darkened room. Chili, Curry, and Basil filled in the niches of her body while Smokey draped himself around the crown of her head like a wooly hat.

  The muffled patter of rain on the roof made her feel insulated and isolated. She remembered lying in Detective Gable Ryan’s arms on nights like this in Oakland, pleasantly exhausted and sweaty from making love. Feeling her aloneness like an ache, she pressed her face into her pillow and punished herself with futile thoughts. Maybe she should have been more patient. Maybe she shouldn’t have pressed him so hard for marriage. Eventually, he might have come around.

  Who was she kidding? Gable told her repeatedly he’d never marry or bring kids into the brutal world they witnessed every day in homicide. He moved out after four years, citing glaring differences in their future objectives. He told her he could no longer deal with the guilt of holding her back from the life she truly wanted. In hindsight, she saw that she should have been the one to leave, instead of putting that terrible burden on him.

  After taking the job as police chief in Garnerville, Sidney made another miscalculation. She thought working the night shift would fill her lonely evenings and distract her from thoughts of Gable. But the grueling schedule prevented her from meeting anyone else, and trapped memories of the handsome detective inside her head. Sidney needed to let him go. Move on. Accept that some things break and just stay broken.

  Lying in the dark, the wasted years she invested in Gable haunted her. Aware that female fertility declined with advancing age, and the likelihood of losing a pregnancy increased, her fear of missing out on having children loomed large. Her biological clock bleeped like a smoke alarm on a low battery. Like Selena, she craved the soft, silky feel of a baby in her arms. The empty nursery down the hall mocked her. While Selena’s uterus swelled with her second baby, Sidney had shared her sister’s excited anticipation. They spent many h
appy hours together painting the walls lilac, placing little stuffed animals and velvety blankets in the crib, layering the drawers with tiny clothes and knitted booties. Selena carried Alissa for six months before losing her. The loss hit Sidney as hard as it did her sister. A dark depression settled over the household, so dense they could feel it like a coating on their skin.

  〜 〜

  The buzz of Sidney’s phone stirred her into consciousness. She swam through a murky dream inhabited by bloodless corpses with wide-eyed stares. Her hand shot out from under the covers and located her phone on the nightstand. Bracing for bad news, she pulled herself into a sitting position. A call at seven in the morning had to be an emergency. “Chief Becker.”

  “Morning, Chief.” The chipper tone of her dispatcher flooded her ear. “Just got a call from the mayor’s office. He wants to meet with you at eight.”

  “Thanks, Jesse.” No emergency. Just politics.

  Stifling a yawn, she threw the covers aside and headed for the shower. While the hot water soothed her muscles, she speculated on what Mayor Burke had to say. Acting as mayor of a small town wasn’t a full-time job. The pay was abysmal, but Fletcher Burke didn’t need the money. A partner in one of the best law firms in the county, Burke & Snyder, he took on the duty six years ago mostly as a social responsibility. From the start, the well-connected lawyer attracted a flurry of business investments, helped local businesses get low-interest loans, and formed committees that substantially increased tourism. On a small-town scale, the trickle-down-theory worked astonishingly well. All of Garnerville benefitted. Sidney marveled at how one individual could make a difference in the lives of so many. She and Fletcher shared a good working relationship, one of mutual respect, and they were careful to stay out of each other’s way.

  Sidney stepped out of the shower, toweled dry, wrapped her body in her terry cloth robe, and opened the door to clear out the steam. While pulling her hair into a ponytail, she heard a soft thumping noise coming from down the hall. She peeked into the hallway and saw the closed door to Selena’s room. Odd. She could have sworn it was open last night when she turned in. Did her sister come home while she was in the shower?