A Luring Murder (2 page)

“The BCA doesn’t have anything on him?” I asked.

Louise shook her head. “His prints and DNA don’t match any records currently in the system.”

“And he just decided to break out and go on a rampage. That doesn’t make sense,” I said. “Rapists usually escalate. Did they run a national search or just local? Maybe he just moved here.”

“I don’t have a clue if they ran a national search. It’s not my case. Anyway, we all know how many rapes go unreported each year.”

Louise sat on the bumper of the cube van and shoved her crutches toward Digs. Digs held the crutches like her personal valet all the while gazing at her with the bleary-eyed stare of a lovesick fool. Louise rubbed the edges of her armpits, unaware that her every move was being visually cataloged by Digs for future playback.

“He could have started out with an unreported peeping or groping, then moved on to date rape before starting his recent spree.”

Depressing, as it seems Louise was right. If he had raped before, and the victim had reported the rape, the police could have nailed him before he’d had a chance to escalate.

“So I get the second stringers.” A halfhearted jab at Digs’ ego.

Halfhearted only because the thing keeping Digs from moving to the BCA, or the FBI, or some other three-letter organization with better facilities and more interesting cases, was he’d be too far away from Louise. I’d seen a letter from the BCA wadded up in the trash beside his desk. My curious nature (I prefer curious to nosey) prompted me to take a peek; he’d been offered a supervisory role with more money. From the way the letter had been carelessly tossed aside, Digs hadn’t given the offer much thought. I’d never spoken with him about it, but I was grateful that he was still on my team.

Digs chewed on what I’d said for a few short moments, and then shot back. “Thanks, O’Brien.”

“Since I’m off work for awhile,” Louise interrupted before I had a chance to continue sparing with Digs. “I thought I’d come out and make sure you didn’t get into any trouble.”

“Gee thanks, Mom.”

Gavin, who I’d forgotten about in the excitement, put his arm around my waist and made me jump inside my skin.

“It’s so great that you two are here, isn’t it honey? With Louise and Randy here to help Sheriff Anderson, you’ll be able to go fishing with me.” He kissed my cheek. “I assume you need to brief them. I’m going to go out with Bill for a while, then I’ll come back for you.”

He sauntered off toward the water, a man in love with nature and me. Too bad the two mixed like gasoline and sugar. The only thing you got when you put them together was a gummy mess.

“He said that like it was a good thing.”

Louise held one hand out to Digs. He helped her to her feet. Louise balanced on her crutches and rocked her way over to me.

She turned toward me. “What is wrong with your hair?”

I sighed. I didn’t have to see my hair to know what she was talking about. From the moment I stepped outside this morning I had felt the kinks of my naturally curly hair work their way out of the rubber band I’d unceremoniously lashed them into this morning.

“It’s the humidity,” I said. “Live with it.”

“Okay.” Louise pointed toward the ground. “Is this a friend of yours?”

The mop dog had come back and stood a few feet away. He stared at me with a vicious look in his eyes. I turned away from the little spit so he wouldn’t think I was challenging him or something.

“We’ve met, but I wouldn’t call us friends.”

Hot damp permeated my pant leg. I looked down. The mop dog had left me something to remember him by; the little bastard. He kicked grass at me with his back legs, and then trotted off to sit next to a tree. Wasn’t being here punishment enough? Now I had to be peed on?

“I don’t know,” Digs said. “Looks like he knows you pretty well to me.”

“Hell hath no fury like furry fury. Is that it Fido?” I asked.

He lay down and rested his head on his paws ignoring me.

Louise covered her smile behind one perfectly manicured hand. In contrast Digs whinnied into an ear-splitting, feminine, giggle fit. I’d never heard the sound of a teenage girl come out of a man, and from the gape on her face neither had Louise.

I glared at the dog and pointed to my sodden pant leg. “This is assaulting a police officer. I should call the pound and have you locked up, you menace.”

He stood, turned in place, gave on final, “woof,” and lay down in a shady spot of grass to sleep.

I shook my leg in a vain attempt to dislodge the jean material, which had plastered itself to my skin.

“Do you want to change your clothes?” Louise asked. “We can wait.”

I considered the offer for about half a second. My discomfort could wait, but evidence could deteriorate with every second we waited to process the scene.

“I’ll change later. Let’s see if there’s any room at the inn.” I gestured toward the big white house at the top of the road where the resort office’s neon sign glowed open. “Then we’ll process the scene. When we’re done, I’ll worry about the poochy perfume.”

“You know,” Digs said as we walked to the main house of the resort. “They say that animals are excellent judges of character. So what does that say about you, O’Brien?”

“Bite me, Digs.”

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CHAPTER TWO

The old couple who owned the resort, the Petermans, were kind enough to offer their last available cabin to Digs and Louise, a one-bedroom at the end of the row known as lover’s lane because of the secluded location.

Sweat drops shimmered on Digs’ brow as he signed his name in the register next to Louise’s.

I chose not to think about the logistics of who would sleep where when the lights went out tonight. I could tell from Digs’ worried expression he was thinking about bedtime enough for the both of us.

“Digs,” Louise said. “Why don’t you go ask the Sheriff where the best place is to hook up the van or whatever you need to do to get all the equipment fired up and working properly.”

“Okay.” He hitched up his pants, which drooped back low on his rail thin hips despite the effort, then wandered off toward the Peterman house, where we’d left the Sheriff explaining to Mrs. Peterman that her fish house would be off limits for a while longer.

“By the way, Catherine, how did you happen to get involved in with this murder? You’re supposed to be on vacation. Are you really so much of a workaholic?”

“I have no idea how I got roped into this mess.” I scrubbed my hand through my hair. “I was sleeping. Guy was killed. They woke me. That’s pretty much the gist of it.”

Louise kicked her crutches out, planted them on the dirt road, and then rocked her good leg into alignment with her metal legs. She repeated the move, rapidly pulling away from me, down the path toward the beach.

“Where are you going?”

“The crime scene,” she said. “I want to see what we’re dealing with.”

The high-heeled boots that I’d tugged on this morning skidded on the gravel twice almost spilling me on my ass, as I double-timed my steps to catch up with Louise and her extra-long crutches stride. By the time I reached Louise’s side, I gasped for air like I’d just finished a marathon.

“I saw the body briefly this morning.”

She gave me a sharp accusatory look.

I held up my hands in surrender. “Hands in pockets. No touching. Just a quick survey of the situation.”

She seemed satisfied that I hadn’t inadvertently left a little of myself behind just to really screw things up.

“It’s not a pretty scene, Louise.”

“Cluck, cluck, mother hen.” From the smile on her face, she thought I was joking. “I’m sure I’ll manage. I’m not a delicate flower, and you know this isn’t my first time at this dance.”

Maybe so but the tune of this dance was different. This crime scene was more like a mosh pit than a ballet. Louise sounded so confident, but she hadn’t seen what I’d seen before I’d even had a cup of coffee to open my eyes.

The two of us remained mute for the rest of the journey, but the world was anything but quiet. Families, whose vacations had ended, packed their cars, and families, whose vacation had just begun, packed their picnic baskets for a day at the beach.

Children yelled and screamed, unaware of what had happened in the night. Ducks, with a train of babies, quacked and paddled their way along the shore. And leaves whooshed as a strong breeze blew across the water. The scene was so eerily normal for such a dark day in this town’s history. If the Sheriff was to be believed, this town had never had a murder. A piece of me mourned for the lost innocence.

The fish house looked like a small tool shed perched at the edge of where the grass met the sand. Brisk breezes pounding across the lake had taken their toll on the shed’s white paint. Large patches had flaked off and Mr. and Mrs. Peterman hadn’t gotten around to scraping and repainting.

I hesitated in front of the padlocked door.

“Are you sure you shouldn’t be resting your leg?”

“Cluck, cluck, cluck. I’m fine mother hen.” Louise leaned heavy on her crutches and drummed her fingers on the grips. “Do you have a key for this wimpy little padlock?”

I reached into the pocket of my jeans to fish out the keys. “It was all we could find on short notice. If the killer had given us an advanced warning, then I’m sure could have come up with a substantial, medieval looking, cast-iron padlock. Anyway my wimpy little padlock seems to have done the trick.”

My finger touched the jagged edge of the padlock key firmly entrenched between the jean material and the lining. I fished the little brass key out and felt sore spot on my hip where the key had been. I touched the spot and felt the raised impression ridges of the key’s outline. That would leave a bruise.

“Brace yourself.” I slid the key into the lock. “It smells pretty bad in there.”

“Catherine, I’ve been doing this job longer than you have. I’ve seen some pretty awful crime scenes.”

Even if she’d been at the Spencer crime scene (which she hadn’t been, I know because I was her partner at the time), where the department found a family of cannibals cutting up vagrants for Sunday dinner she wouldn’t be prepared for what was inside the fish house. Even if she had been the first to open the freezer and find the neatly packed severed hands and feet nestled next to the frozen corn, there was no way she could be prepared for what lay beyond this door.

The latch squeaked open. Cool rank air rush through the jam, like a whispered warning that something bad happened here. The Sheriff had been right about the temp inside the fish house. With three-quarters of the back wall buried in the side of a large dirt mound, it stayed as cool as a cave. Gooseflesh rippled up on my arms and the back of my neck.

Foul air breezed up from inside. Louise recoiled and put her hand over her nose.

“Augh! My God. I thought you said he was found today,” Louise said. “It smells like he’s been dead a lot longer.”

“I told you.” Smug satisfaction rolled over me. I wanted to shout, “I was right, I was right,” but I refrained.

She took a small flashlight from her pocket and stuffed it into my hand. I pushed the door open the rest of the way. The door creaked like a bad horror movie.

I clicked on the mini Mag Light and cast the yellow beam inside.

I snaked the light over the walls then down to a waist-high metal table that filled the center of the fish house.

Warren Pease’s body lay on top of the table, filleted and laid open like a corpse on an autopsy table – except coroners performed autopsies with respect for the dead. Whoever had left Warren on the table had no respect.

One of Pease’s arms hung over the edge. Blood tricked down his arm and dripped from his fingertips onto the ground. His other arm was twisted and bent behind his back. His legs straddled the table, in an extreme split any man would find painful, and his shocked eyes stared in horror at the ceiling.

“That’s not just dead guy,” Louise said. “What is that smell?”

“Fish guts. I’m sure mixed with some of our victims DNA.”

I located a string hanging from the ceiling and flicked on the florescent overhead light. The blue-green light turned the congealed blood eggplant purple and Warren’s bloodless skin a ghost white-blue.

“Oh, my God.” Louise turned away from the body, squeezed her eyes tight, and let out a breath. She took a moment then turned back. “You could have warned me.”

“I tried Louise. You didn’t listen.”

“This crime scene is beyond awful.” She stepped inside.

“Yeah, someone was really pissed to split this guy from balls to brains.”

She grimaced.

“Sorry.”

Her gaze swept over the walls and floor taking in the scene. “Why here?”

“Secluded. Away from cabins.” I shrugged. “Seems like as good a place as any to me.”

“But the fish house is a public place next to the boat launch and the public docks. Anyone could have walked in on him in the act. Why take the chance of an early morning fisherman stumbling in?”

“Well we don’t have the time of death yet. Maybe he was murdered late at night.”

Louise fished a pair of rubber gloves from her pocket and tugged them over her hands. She touched the victim’s arm. “Full rigor.”

I stepped toward the body. An overwhelming putrid stench, like the body had been basted in rot, hit me full on in the face. My stomach flip-flopped.

“Late and dark. The killer probably wasn’t taking that big of a risk. I don’t think there’s a lot of midnight boating going on around here. This resort looks like more of a family resort to me.”

“Catherine.” Louise stared wide-eyed at something over my shoulder.

I whirled around expecting the killer to be standing behind me with a knife held over his head.

“What!”

“Look.” She clicked on her own flashlight and swept it across the walls and into the corners.

“What?” I used my flashlight and followed her light train. “What do you see that I’m not, Louise?”

“You really aren’t on your game without coffee are you?”

“Shut up, and just tell me.”

“This man was cut seven ways from next Tuesday –”

“But there’s no blood on the walls,” I finished.

“Welcome to the game, Catherine.”

I closed my eyes and hung my head. “This isn’t our primary crimes scene.”

“Bingo. If he’d been killed and cut in this room, there’d be blood spatter.”

Louise hobbled toward me, one of her crutches caught on the uneven concrete of the floor. Her crutch dropped to the ground. She lost her balance and put her weight on her wounded leg.

I lunged forward and reached for Louise to catch her before she tumbled onto the floor. My hip hit the edge of the table, and I ricocheted back a few steps.

Louise teetered and fell to her side. She grabbed the edge of the table and righted herself.

I released the breath I was holding and put my hand over my heart. The last thing we needed was for Louise to tear open the wound on her leg. Plus hitting this floor would probably add some nasty bacterial infection to Louise’s recovery time.

“Damn, are you okay?” I skirted around the table to help her to her feet.

She nodded. “I think my trip was fortunate.”

Louise swept her hand under the table. Her reach stopped, and she gave one hard tug. When Louise brought her hand up she held a large, thin bladed, knife.

“I think this might be our murder weapon.”

“Damn, that is one nasty looking knife.” I leaned closer to get a better look.

She turned the blade over in her hand. “Nice and sharp. Just the thing you’d need to cut someone open like this.”

I folded my hands in mock prayer. As a good catholic, I knew a lot about faking a prayer or two in my time.

“Oh, please, oh, please let there be prints on some incriminating evidence, so our job can be easy this time.”

Louise rolled her eyes. “Dream on. My guess is the killer wiped the hilt clean. Anyone brazen enough to gut someone in a public place where there’s a good chance of being caught probably took the time to clean the knife. Anyway, you’re not technically on the clock, remember?”

She had a point. Prints would be making someone else’s job easier. The blade was still red with blood, and too much to be from gutting a fish, so the killer hadn’t taken a whole lot of time to clean. There could still be a partial, and Digs was just the guy to find it.

“How did the killer stick the knife to the bottom of the table?” I asked. “Tape?”

Louise bent and looked under the table. “It looks like a wad of some kind of gum. We should get a sample to be analyzed.”

She stood and looked at me.

I looked back.

“What?”

She smiled her perfect smile. Like an evil Barbie Doll.

“No.”

She nodded.

“You expect me to get down on the floor, crawl under this nasty blood and gut covered table, and get a sample of some unknown gunk.” I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”

“I’d gladly get the sample, but with my leg, I can’t bend down.”

Sure. And that sounded as authentic as a politician making a commitment to lower taxes if elected to office.

I glanced at the nasty pavement. Blood and other bits of God only knew what covered every inch.

“But the floor is dark and icky.”

“God said let there be light.” Louise took the flashlight from my hand and waved the beam around nearly blinding me in the process. “Now get scraping.”

“See if I ever keep someone from shooting you again,” I said.

“Good job.” She patted her leg.

“You’re going to milk that wound for the rest of your life, aren’t you?”

“Yep.”

“The shot went wild. Not my fault.”

“If you say so.” She waved the flashlight in a here-take-it gesture.

“Okay, fine.” I snatched the flashlight. “But when your leg is mended you have to do the next three nasty jobs in a row, because what I’m about to do is beyond nasty.”

She produced a baggy and small folding knife from her pocket and held them out to me.

“It’s a deal.”

The combination of dirt and blood had made a brick-brown colored paste that would create a permanent stains my jeans. Maybe I’d make Louise buy me a new pair when we returned to civilization.