No Good Deed (6 page)

‘Blair? Sergeant Crick.' He paused. ‘Is that Janis Joplin?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Turn it down.'

Sonora reached out and killed the music. She shivered, sank back down in the water.

‘It's five-thirty a.m., sir.'

‘If I want to know the time, Blair, there's a number I can call. You sound like you're down in a well.'

‘I'm taking a bubble bath, sir.'

‘Spare me the details of your personal life, Detective, and dry off the rubber ducky.'

Sonora sat up. ‘They found the kid.'

‘No. But there's—'

‘Guy with the chopper still out?'

‘They've called him in twice, man won't go home. Says he's got a stepson the same age.'

Everyone was a parent, under the skin.

‘Sonora, pay attention. There's been an … incident.'

Another one of the Chauncey children? Why was she so worried about them?

‘An assault.'

Sonora stood up, reached for a towel. Water sluiced down her skin. Her thick bath towel, navy blue and oversized, was missing. She grabbed the thin beach towel with the mermaid on it. She should have more towels. If she ever got rich, she would fill two closets with thick cotton towels, and washrags to match, more washrags than the kids could use in a month.

With her kids, that would be a lot of washrags.

‘Blair? You with me here?'

‘Yes, sir, I'm with you. What kind of incident? Who's the vic?'

‘Donna Delaney.'

He'd said assault. ‘How bad?'

‘Bad. Call just came through from Dispatch. Emergency Med Techs have her
en route
to Jewish.'

‘What happened?'

‘Nobody's sure. If I've got it straight … way I understand it, she was in her living room all night, doing paperwork, fell asleep on the couch. Woke up this morning to find her left hand bandaged and her right index finger gone.'

Sonora tucked the towel under her right arm. ‘What do you mean, gone?'

‘I mean somebody amputated the finger.'

‘Cut it off?'

‘That's what
amputated
means, Blair.'

‘While she was asleep? How is that possible?'

‘That's what we pay you for. EMT said it was a clean job, but she's in shock. You can hit the hospital later, see what the doctor says. Right now I want you to get over to her house and see what the hell's going on. This can't be a coincidence, coming on top of that missing kid.'

‘No kidding. Sir.'

‘Put some clothes on.' He hung up before she did.

Sonora clicked the phone off and grabbed her robe, hanging from a brass hook on the back of the door. Her teeth chattered. She felt cold from the inside out. She belted the robe, shoulders hunched together.

She patted Clampett, the world's best dog, sound asleep outside the bathroom door. He opened and closed his eyes, snorting sleepily. He looked exhausted. Sonora peeped in at the kids, arms folded, her feet making wet prints on the carpet.

The hell with white shirts and ties. She was freezing. She was going to layer herself in two sweaters, at least.

She wondered what they had done with the finger.

Chapter Thirteen

Sonora wore jeans – they'd been black once, were now charcoal, more formal than plain blue denim. Crick wouldn't like it, but she wasn't going to risk the khakis out on the farm looking for Joelle Chauncey. She found her favorite oversized white shirt – Abercrombie & Fitch, after-Christmas sale, she told everyone, though she'd actually paid full price. She had a thing about white cotton shirts, but only if they were perfect.

She paused in front of the mirror, glanced over her shoulder at the bed, debated whether or not to curl up, just for a minute. She had pulled the new bedspread down, fluffed the pillows and laid her favorite quilt out so that she could go straight from the bubble bath to a warm bed.

Clampett padded past her, jumped to the bed and curled up in the center, resting his nose on the quilt.

‘What are you doing, dog?'

His snuggled deeper into the quilt, tail wagging.

Sonora wondered why people made jokes about a dog's life.

She went through her ties and found one that had fallen down behind the lingerie bag, God knew when. She'd forgotten she had it. Hunter-green print with just a touch of red. It was still knotted from way back when some boyfriend or another had done it for her. Some day she'd have to learn to do it for herself. She tried to learn one good skill from every man she dated.

Sonora tweaked the bottom flap of the tie, left the knot loose and comfortable. Pulled the sides of her hair back with a velvet clip and smeared the eye pencil under her eyes a little so Crick would see how tired she was and not complain about the jeans.

She grabbed a black sweatshirt and a zip cotton jacket that she'd stolen from the last guy who had asked her to marry him. He'd died soon after, caught in the crossfire of a case Sonora tried not to dream about. Bad timing all around. The relationship was coming to an angry end – a month later and he would not have been a target.

She had been so furious with him.

She could look back now with a certain regret – his hats, his wardrobe, his assumption that he was the center of the universe. But he had not been particularly nice to her children, the cardinal sin, for a single mother. He had not realized what a privilege it was to be accepted into the fold. She wouldn't waste time feeling bad.

She wondered what happened to his clothes. He'd had some kick-ass jackets.

She headed for the kitchen. Food had not magically appeared. There was plenty of dog food for Clampett, but next to nothing for the kids. Leftover macaroni and cheese for breakfast? No milk, no cereal, the bread was moldy so it wouldn't work out, even toasted with blackberry jelly, which for some reason she had in spades – three unopened jars.

She tapped her finger on the counter top. She needed to get to Delaney's place, and she needed to meet Helen at the farm to look for Joelle. Two places at once.

But the kids had to be fed. And you couldn't send out for breakfast in the morning like it was pizza, and besides, she didn't have any cash.

Motherhood first.

She wound up at a Dairy Mart that had an automatic teller machine inside, got cash and picked out Dunkin Donuts and a glass bottle of Tropicana orange juice to take back to the house. And some milk and Sugar Frosted Flakes. Broke a twenty –
the
twenty – so she could leave the kids lunch money.

No matter how late she worked tonight she was going to have to hit the grocery store. She wondered, just for a moment, what other homicide cops did, then remembered that most of them had wives.

Sonora had hit upon a sure-fire method of staying awake when she was driving and dead tired – budget review and a plan for paying her bills, including short-term projections involving Visa, MasterCard, and the water company, plus a long-term question as to how much it was going to cost to send Tim to college, if he changed his mind about his career direction from his current ‘do you want fries with that?'.

It had rained again and the pavement was drying black to gray. The reflection of headlights on wet asphalt created a hardass glare. Her eyes were going. Menopause would be next.

She leaned over the steering wheel and squinted. Reached for the caramel-iced donut that sat on a piece of tissue on top of her purse. Slammed on the brakes when the car in front of her changed into her lane and inexplicably slowed. The donut slid off the seat and landed next to the accelerator.

She grimaced. Kentucky tags. These people should either stay home or take a course in maniacal driving, like everyone else in Ohio.

Maybe you had to be born with the talent.

Someone honked. Sonora shrugged, leaned down to grab the donut. She waved it in the air, pretending that any dirt and dog hairs would magically fall off.

Sometimes you just had to have faith.

Donna Delaney lived in a four-plex off Elsted – not what Sonora expected. She'd pictured a farm of some kind, not the faded yellow brick that had looked snazzy in the seventies but was tired now. Not exactly suburbia either, more like aspirations to.

An asphalt drive ran up one side, to a backyard parking lot with covered carports and a sidewalk to a back door. Sonora left the Pathfinder next to a patrol car and a green Ford Escort. The crime scene van was at the foot of the driveway, blocking everyone in.

Sonora locked her car, glanced over her shoulder. The sun was coming up, the sky going dirty mocha brown. The pavement was still soaked. It had rained more here.

The screen door was propped open. Sonora went into the hallway, spotted muddy tread marks from the wheel of an ambulance gurney. Must have still been raining when the ambulance arrived. Sonora checked her watch. If Delaney had gone out on a stretcher, she'd gone out in shock. She wondered if the woman had been sedated. If she'd be too whacked to talk.

It would take some time, getting used to the idea of waking up with a bandage instead of a finger.

Sonora shook her head, but she was glad she had caught this case. Not the usual drug-burn bullshit, marital squabbles, sweeps picking up glassy-eyed hookers on loads. This was one perp she wanted to meet.

If Crick was right and there was no such thing as coincidence, how did the assault on Donna Delaney connect to Joelle and the disappearing horse? There had to be a reason for the timing, a reason Donna Delaney has been attacked today, not yesterday or the day before.

Cause and effect. They were going to have some fun on this one.

A uniform stood outside the doorway – female, brown hairnet and a bun. Crisp and professional at 6.27 a.m. Sonora wiped caramel icing off her mouth, flashed the ID.

The woman looked at the donut and grinned. Sonora felt old and traditional. What did the new cops eat? Bagels?

‘You here when the call came in?' Sonora peered at the woman's name tag. Yolanda Sikes. ‘Officer Sikes? Were you here?'

The woman put her hands behind her back and took up the at-ease position you see in the military when soldiers aren't actually at ease.

‘No, ma'am.'

‘All that for no ma'am?'

‘No, sir?'

‘Let up, Officer Sikes. I've got teenagers of my very own if I want bullshit this time of morning.'

Sonora headed through the door, which opened on to a square slate foyer, four by four, tiny, tracked with mud. The living room branched from the left. Old carpet that topsoil shade of beige favored by apartment complexes because it does not show dirt. Only this one was showing dirt – footprints. Sonora looked around the room. Three uniforms and two crime scene guys – Mickey and some guy she didn't know too well. Donald Finch, maybe? Couldn't remember names – a bad trait for a cop.

The living room was messy, layered with dust that had taken months to accumulate. The couch was khaki and faded, but it looked deep and comfortable for all that. A navy blue and yellow quilt was tangled at the bottom, and pillows were propped at the opposite end as if someone had slept there. The coffee table was stacked with magazines –
Equus, Arabian International, Michael Plumb Journal
. There were catalogs from State Line and Wiese. A leather buckle and strap sat next to two cans of Budweiser that Mickey was putting into a plastic Baggie.

Sonora peered at the couch, noticed droplets of blood freshly drying on the carpet and on the arm of the couch.

‘Not too messy, considering.'

‘Considering what?' Mickey asked.

She hadn't realized she'd spoken out loud. ‘Considering they cut off the finger.'

‘I saw it,' one of the uniforms said. He was a short guy, hair gelled in place, a square sort of head and neck arrangement that reminded her of football players.

‘You saw the finger?' Sonora asked.

Mickey's head swiveled. ‘Why didn't you speak up, kid? We been going nuts, trying to find that thing.'

‘No, no, sir, I mean I saw her after. Saw her hand. It was all bandaged up, looked like a professional job. There wasn't like a pool of blood or nothing.'

‘Droplets down the side of the couch.' Mickey inclined his head, and Sonora went to look.

The blood had already dried, but it looked fresh, just hours old. Not much, just speckles, on the khaki curtain that draped from the bottom of the couch to the floor.

‘Not enough blood,' Sonora said.

‘Yeah, see, the guy taped it up,' said the uniform.

Mickey exchanged looks with Sonora, looked back at the uniform. ‘What guy?'

The uniform frowned, hunched his shoulders together. ‘You know, the one that, umm, the one that done it. The perp.'

‘The perp bandaged it up?' Sonora looked back down at the tiny spray of blood, thinking you wouldn't even know it was there unless you looked for it.

The uniform was nodding. ‘Sick, ain't it?'

Sonora folded her arms. ‘Let me get this straight. Guy breaks in, cuts off Delaney's finger, bandages it up, and she sleeps through the whole thing?'

Mickey opened his arms. ‘Hey, Detective, we don't write the script, we just read the scene.'

‘Well, reread it, this isn't possible.'

Mickey pointed to the coffee table. ‘Lookit, Blair. Two beers, one half full, the other almost three-quarters.'

‘So there was another person.'

‘Yeah, plus she was drugged, don't you think?'

‘What I think is the whole thing is weirder than shit.'

‘Sherlock Holmes used to say the same thing all the time.' Mickey looked at the uniform. ‘Put that in your report, kid, weirder than shit. Maybe if you drink your milk every day you can grow up to be one of the greats like Blair here.'

Sonora shook her head. ‘There's not enough blood, Mickey.'

‘Don't look so disappointed, they were neat.'

‘My kids should be so neat.'

‘Rules out teenagers.'