Consider the Crows (4 page)

“Who?”

He shrugged. “Who knows. Like I said, she's kinda weird and— I don't know, something about her interests me.”

Oh dear Lord. “You plan to look her up?”

“I already tried. Since you weren't home.” He eyed her with mock reproach. “Thought I'd never find the place. It's way out somewhere. Shacky house. Woods. Hansel and Gretel stuff.”

“You saw her?”

“Nah. A car was there, yellow VW, and a big dog I thought would probably tear my leg off, but she wasn't. At least, she didn't answer the door.” He pushed empty plates aside and leaned back.

“You plan to see her tomorrow?” Today really, it was already Sunday.

“No time. We have to head back for Boulder pretty early. I got a German exam on Monday. Next time I come.”

Oh thank you, God, a little time anyway.

*   *   *

After too few hours of sleep, she was again scrambling eggs and, with a brief thought for cholesterol, feeding her ravenous child. When he finished, he stuck two apples in his jacket pocket and she walked with him out to his car. Only youth would drive over five hundred and fifty miles from Boulder, Colorado, to Hampstead, Kansas, to spend a few hours with a girl. The rain had stopped, the clouds had thinned and it looked as though sunshine might be a possibility.

“Michael—” She was trying to think of some way to tell him he shouldn't necessarily believe everything Lynnelle had said.

He looked at her, waited and grinned. “Again with the advice, Mom?”

She scowled at him. “You're setting off on a journey. This is when mothers are supposed to give advice.”

“You already did that. When I left for school.” He drew himself up and spoke pompously. “‘Study hard, my son. Virtue is its own reward. Beware the dangers of bad companions and loose women, and don't take any wooden nickels.'”

She smiled and patted his cheek rather sharply. “You know, I'd like you a lot better if you weren't such a smartass. Wooden nickels, indeed.”

“You might as well forget it, Mom. Advice isn't really your style.”

Probably not. She hugged him. “Take care of yourself, love.”

Drive carefully, she added to herself as she watched the car pull away. And don't take any wooden nickels.

In the kitchen, she poured herself a fresh cup of coffee and sat down to drink it. Maybe the caffeine would help her figure out what to do when she went out to the Creighton place.

4

S
USAN STOOD ON
tiptoe, struggling to release the bird feeder from a hook on the elm tree while a blue jay hopped from branch to branch and made raucous complaints of impatience. Daniel had put the feeder up long before she knew him; he'd been six-foot three. With her five-eight, the thing was just enough too high that she never bothered with a stepping block, only swore. She opened the bag, poured in seed, and teetered on her toes to catch the wire back over the hook.

Inside, at the kitchen window, she watched the jay dive-bomb at sparrows to chase them away. She lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. February already, the thirteenth. A year, over a year since Daniel's death. She'd had his job longer than she'd been his wife.

She exhaled a stream of smoke. Everybody said she'd be okay after a year. Everybody was wrong. Sparrows fluttered like brown leaves blown in a sky covered with thin gray clouds. I have to do it, I have to go upstairs and open that closet door and box up all those clothes.

Daniel isn't there; nothing's there but pants and shirts and jackets. Right. And ghosts. Ghosts that will rise up as soon as the door is opened.

The doorbell rang and she looked down at her jeans, long past their prime, a disreputable red sweatshirt that had been Daniel's and sneakers with holes in the toes. She stubbed out the cigarette, raked fingers through her shoulder-length dark hair and took her time getting to the door, hoping whoever it was would decide she wasn't home.

The bell sounded again and she thought it might be the kid up the street. Jen had taken to dropping in at odd moments when life got too much for her, which it did a lot lately. The living room didn't look so hot either; newspapers everywhere, books, filled ashtrays and dirty coffee mugs, dust on the oak tables. Maybe she should consider a cleaning woman.

A white box—ordinary shoe box, size six and a half B, tied with string—sat all by itself on the porch. As she eyed it, an ominous awareness surfaced. Oh no. Moving fast, she jumped over it and hit the steps, looked up and down the street—wide tree-lined street with bare branches meeting overhead, neat middle-aged homes, some brick, some woodframe. Halfway down the block an elderly white Chevy tore off with a squeal of tires.

Oh no, Sophie, no you don't. Hands on her hips, she watched the car disappear, then trudged up the steps and picked up the box. Inside, she gingerly placed it on the coffee table. Ha, am I going to feel stupid if there's a bomb in here. She untied the string and lifted the lid. A tiny beige kitten with a chocolate-brown face popped its head up and regarded her with unblinking blue eyes.

“Ahh.” A silly smile spread itself over her face. The little thing was about as substantial as a feather. Only a baby. She and Daniel'd had plans for a baby. Didn't happen. Won't happen now. Nobody for a father and there's all that biological clock stuff.

“Sorry, baby. You have to go right back to Sophie.” Sophie was a nutty old woman devoted to cats, and she was constantly searching out homes among the unwary. Clapping the lid back, Susan tried to hold it down while she fumbled for the string. The kitten spurted out one end, skittered across the coffee table and somersaulted to the floor.

Just as Susan made a dive for it—and missed—the phone rang. She hustled into the kitchen and answered sharply.

“Sorry to spoil your Sunday,” Hazel said, “but a body's been found at the old Creighton place.”

“Whose body?” She had a bad feeling.

“A young woman. Her name is Lynnelle Hames.”

Damn, damn. Leaning an elbow on the countertop, Susan rested her forehead on her fingertips and remembered Lynnelle standing in the doorway of that grim little house. “Has Dr. Fisher been notified?”

“Yes. And Ben's out there with Osey.”

Upstairs in the bedroom, she shed her jeans and sweatshirt, selected a pair of navy-blue wool pants, a bulky blue sweater and pulled on black ankle boots. She ran a brush through her hair; makeup, she didn't bother with—she seldom did unless she was feeling vulnerable—and checked the gun in her shoulder bag. As she slipped on her charcoal trenchcoat with its wool lining, she glanced at the other closet door, the one with Daniel's clothes inside, then trotted down the stairs.

It was just after eleven when she headed the pickup cross-town on Rockridge and cut north. Fifteen minutes later, she turned into the long driveway, all the potholes now filled with rain water, and angled the pickup nose in to the shrubbery at the end of a line of cars, patrol cars and emergency vehicle. The local radio station van was also there, she noted; not surprised, but not pleased either.

Ben Parkhurst, in black pants and gray wool jacket with the collar turned up, crunched down the driveway toward her. He was a compact man about five-ten with dark hair, intense dark eyes, and olive skin. During the year she'd been chief, they'd moved from hostility and distrust to grudging respect and finally, like two suspicious dogs sharing the same territory, had worked out an uneasy truce. In the past few weeks he'd regressed to icy arrogance and she'd wondered what that was all about. “Where is she?”

“This way.” With a jerk of his head, he started back up the driveway.

When they came around the rear of the house she saw, with surprise, David McKinnon standing under an oak tree that spread out overhead like a giant umbrella. David, an attorney, was a friend; she wondered what he was doing here. The woman with him had Lynnelle's dog, who lunged at them, barking wildly, and was brought up short by the leash. Susan hoped it would hold.

Officer White, spruce in his uniform and keeping a discreet eye on them, stiffened when she glanced at him. He was the youngest and most recent of her officers and didn't quite know how to handle himself in her presence, so he opted for military correctness.

“Susan.” David took a step toward them. He looked tired; a handsome man, late thirties, blond curly hair, but fatigue lined his fine-chiseled face and his sharp blue eyes had dark circles. He wore a tan leather jacket, brown turtleneck sweater and brown pants dripping wet, expensive boots soaked.

He turned and touched his companion's arm. “This is Carena Egersund.”

Susan knew the woman by sight; math professor at Emerson. Egersund's pale skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones, green eyes shadowed with shock, rigid stance suggested a hard rein on her emotions. A breeze ruffled her short blond hair and she clutched her tweed jacket together at the throat.

“I'll need to talk with both of you,” Susan said. “I hope you won't mind waiting. It'll be just a few minutes.” If David was irritated by her official manner, he didn't show it.

Irregular stepping stones led across the muddy ground to an open field of winter-dead weeds. Fifty yards further was a thick stand of trees.

“Those two found her,” Parkhurst said when they were out of earshot and headed for the woods.

Moldering leaves squelched and slid underfoot as they tromped through the trees. “The dog led them to her, some kind of Lassie bit.” He grunted. “Your friend McKinnon moved the body.”

At the edge of the creek, the photographer was packing up his gear, the ambulance attendants were waiting patiently with a stretcher, Dr. Fisher was kneeling by the body. Water from sodden jeans and black poncho puddled over the plastic sheet under it.

Parkhurst went off to check with the officers he had searching the area. Susan looked down at Lynnelle, made even smaller by death, her pale skin almost colorless except for the bruised-looking patches of lividity, her matted blond hair pasted to the skull, mouth hanging loose, eyes open and staring. The wind plucked forlornly at a clump of curls.

The creek bank showed marks in the mud where the body had landed and tumbled down. They were crisscrossed with paw prints. To one side, sliding footprints gouged the mud, made by somebody climbing down in a hurry. Probably David. They, obviously, were made after the rain had stopped.

“Owen?” She looked at Dr. Fisher, a large solid man, stocky and slightly overweight, square fleshy face and heavy dark eyebrows that contrasted sharply with an abundance of white hair. Latex gloves covered his long-fingered hands; hands that looked borrowed from a much thinner, more delicate man.

“She probably drowned.”

“Accident?” Susan had a great deal of respect for him, he was thorough and precise and tackled each task with unending patience and enthusiasm. Being a gentleman of the old school, he disapproved of female cops and especially female police chiefs, but he was a gentleman and never let his disapproval show. She also appreciated the fact that he didn't indulge in crude humor like some pathologists she had known.

“She took a nasty blow to the occipital region. It's hard to see how that could happen accidentally and have her end up face down in the water.”

He turned the girl's head to one side and tenderly eased his fingers through the dripping hair. “Rain and creek water washed the blood away. It doesn't feel like more than one hit. I won't know till I get her on the table. Then I'll tell you if that blow could have killed her if she hadn't drowned.” He rose, brushed at the damp spots on his dark blue trousers and peeled off the latex gloves, fussily wiped his hands with a white towel.

As she studied the dead face, a monumental sense of rage coiled up deep inside her and burned in her chest. She clenched her teeth and shoved her hands deep in the pockets of her trenchcoat so he wouldn't see them shaking. “How long has she been dead?”

“I might know after the autopsy.” He replaced instruments in his bag and snapped it shut with a final click.

“Some rough guidelines would be helpful.”

He gave her an irritated look. “That water's cold. It's going to complicate things.”

She waited.

He frowned. “Maybe ten to twelve hours. Rigor still evident. A guess,” he added. “A very rough guess.” He nodded curtly and began to pick his way, fastidious as a cat, across the wet ground.

She struggled with a hideous thought. Did I let this happen by being in too much of a hurry? If I'd gone back yesterday, asked the right questions, found out why she came here, could I have prevented this?

She felt the helplessness that was always her response to a violent death. The awful finality. Lynnelle was so young, she should have a lifetime ahead; career, marriage, children, all of it.

I'll find who did this, Susan promised her silently, for whatever that's worth.

When Parkhurst returned, she left him to examine the surround and see to the removal of the body. As she walked back through the trees, skirting a boarded-over well, she caught glimpses of the men searching for evidence and hoped they would find something. With the size of the area and the various layers of rotting vegetation, any success would be mainly a matter of luck.

Egersund and David sat side by side on the wooden step by the back door, the dog lay on the ground with her head across Egersund's feet. All three rose as Susan approached.

“I'm sorry to keep you waiting. I just need to get a few things clear and then you can go.” Osey Pickett was still inside the house gathering fingerprints and she wanted to get David out of the cold air. From all that standing around in wet clothing, his lips had turned decidedly blue. She shouldn't have kept him waiting.

“Dr. Egersund, perhaps you'd like to wait in a squad car with Officer White. Out of the wind.”

Egersund shook her head. “The dog will be less upset if we just wait here.”