Paskagankee (14 page)

The sound of the shower stopped in the master bathroom and a few minutes later Sharon walked out, water dripping off the ends of her short black hair, bath towel wrapped around her otherwise naked body. Mike wolf-whistled and Sharon curtsied. “Take it all off!” he said, but she blew him a raspberry and disappeared back into the bathroom after pulling a clean uniform out of her closet.

Mike would have to dress in yesterday's uniform since there was not enough time to stop at his apartment before going to the scene of Harvey Crosker's grisly murder to start the eight a.m. search for evidence, but he didn't care. It seemed a small price to pay in exchange for the evening he had spent with this beautiful, sexy woman.

As Sharon opened the bathroom door and stepped out, dressed in her blue and grey Paskagankee Police uniform, Mike admired the way the fit of the trousers and button-down blouse accentuated her figure and decided that if her picture were ever placed on a poster for recruiting, the ranks of law enforcement everywhere would skyrocket. “You planning on lazing around in my bed all day?” she teased.

“That all depends,” he shot back. “Will you join me if I do?”

“Some of us have work to do.”

“Man, your boss must be a real bastard,” he said.

Sharon laughed. “You have no idea.”

Mike grunted in mock indignation and finally arose, padding to the bathroom. The air was heavy and moist from Sharon's shower and smelled vaguely of cinnamon. Mike was reminded of the taste of her kiss and smiled. “Black, no sugar,” he shouted through the door.

“You'll take it the way I give it to you,” she shouted back.

“Now you're talking my language,” Mike retorted. He pictured Sharon simultaneously grinning and blushing.

He shaved quickly using Sharon's razor and hoped it hadn't been too long since she had replaced the blade. He pictured himself trying to explain to the rest of the department why his face was cut to ribbons but was relieved to discover the blade was nice and sharp.

After completing his shower, Mike walked into Sharon's bedroom wrapped in a towel and found his uniform, his underwear and even his socks lying on her bed freshly laundered and wrinkle-free. He smiled in appreciation and pulled on his clothes as Sharon wandered into the room carrying two large mugs of coffee. She handed him one and he asked, “When the hell did you get around to washing my stuff?”

“I got up last night and threw it all in the machine while you were sleeping and then again an hour later to transfer it to the dryer. It's no big deal,” she said, shrugging.

“I can't believe I didn't wake up while you were running around working so hard.”

“I can,” she said, laughing. “Did your ex-wife ever tell you that you snore like a freight train?”

“She never mentioned it. And how does a freight train snore, exactly?”

“You know what I mean. It sounds like a logging train is passing by every time you breathe. I could bring a heavy metal band in here and you wouldn't wake up.”

“Hmph,” he grumbled. “As long as you're only bringing them in to play music.”

They moved to Sharon's kitchen and bantered back and forth easily as they drank their coffee and prepared to start the day. Mike felt more normal than he had in a very long time, and if Sharon felt any guilt or regrets about last night, she didn't show it.

The storm appeared to have abated, at least for the time being. They stepped outside under clouds roiling black and low and menacing. The wind-whipped freezing rain threatened to resume at any moment, but for now nothing fell from the sky, a welcome change from nasty weather of the past few days. Ice glittered on every outdoor surface—on tree branches, on the ground, and on power lines sagging dangerously from the poles out by the road. Mike was amazed Sharon hadn't lost power yet, and as far as he knew nobody in Paskagankee had, which seemed a minor miracle.

The road conditions had improved little over the past eight hours even though the freezing rain stopped falling sometime overnight. The four-wheel drive Explorer slipped and slid along Route 24, eventually arriving at the turnoff where the officers were gathering to hike through the thick forest to the crime scene. Although thankful the weather finally showed signs of breaking, Mike was concerned the people of Paskagankee would interpret the improvement as a sign they could safely take to the roads again, resulting in auto accidents, damage and injury.

So far the roads were mostly empty, but it was still early, and as the morning went on, Mike knew things could get extremely busy for his department. Auto accidents would force him to sacrifice valuable manpower that could otherwise be utilized to search for evidence in the Crosker murder if the temperature didn't begin to rise at least enough to melt a significant portion of the ice coating the roads.

The last officers were just arriving from the direction of the tiny downtown area as the Explorer rolled to a stop and Mike and Sharon stepped out. He saw looks pass between several of his officers, even a smirk crossing the face of one or two, and elected to say nothing for the time being. There were more important matters to consider at the moment than who was sleeping with whom.

Mike gathered the group of officers in a semicircle around him on the edge of the massive forest. “Okay, here's what we're going to do,” he said. “We'll start at the site where Mr. Crosker's remains were found and fan out in each direction, moving north initially and repeating the procedure as many times as necessary to cover three hundred sixty degrees. Everyone will stay in sight of at least one other officer at all times.

“We're looking for footprints or possibly a piece of clothing that might have caught on a branch and torn; anything, really, but especially be on the lookout for blood evidence. This man's head was torn completely off his body. It strains the limits of credulity to think there is nothing for us to find. I don't care how much rain fell or how windy it was or how much ice is on the ground, there has to be evidence out there and we're going to find it.

“But remember, and I can't stress this enough, until we know who or what the hell we're dealing with here, I want every single officer to remain in sight of at least one other member of this force at all times. Is everyone clear on that?”

Heads nodded and feet shuffled; the smell of coffee filled the air as practically everyone clutched a Styrofoam cup. “Okay,” Mike said after a moment. “Any questions?”

Someone to Mike's right said something under his breath and a few men snickered, the laughter dying out quickly as they got a look at Mike's face, red with fury. “A man was decapitated in these woods yesterday less than two miles from here. If anyone finds that funny, you can step to the front of the line and hand me your badge and gun right now. Who wants to be first?”

More feet shuffled and this time eyes drilled holes in the ground as everyone found cause to examine their footwear. “I didn't think so,” Mike said. “Now let's get moving and find something that will help us determine what the hell happened out there yesterday.”

The group trudged single file into the forest along the narrow trail. The department owned several ATV's for use in this type of situation, but Mike had decided the terrain in this part of Paskagankee was so treacherous, so littered with downed trees and branches, so slippery with ice, that it was simply impossible to reach the area where Harvey Crosker's remains had been discovered by any means other than on foot.

Each officer had come dressed for the conditions, and the skies, though dark and threatening, had yet to resume pelting the area with freezing rain, so the trip to the crime scene went much faster than it had yesterday. They reached the clearing with yellow police crime scene tape strung around the tree that had held Harvey Crosker's disembodied head and immediately formed a line, with each officer placed approximately eight feet from the next.

The group moved slowly and deliberately into the deep forest, everyone doing his or her best to maintain the eight foot distance from the person on either side while concentrating on sweeping the terrain with their eyes. It was exhausting work, with scrub brush, dead trees and branches, stumps and other forest debris to climb over, through and around. Adding to the complexity, given the circumstances surrounding the placement of the victim's head, the searchers were forced to search high up into the surrounding trees as well as along the ground.

They worked slowly and for the most part silently, concentrating on the job at hand. Occasionally someone would mumble something to a neighbor, but the search was largely a solitary undertaking despite the fact that a dozen people were taking part. They moved farther and farther into the thick woods, finally suspending the search after two hours without a single positive result. They returned to the oak tree at the center of the investigation and took a short break, preparing to resume the search in a different direction.

“How are you doing?” Mike asked Sharon as they leaned against a tree to catch their breath.

“I'd be doing a lot better if we actually made some progress,” she answered, smiling wanly up at him.

“Well, if you think about it, we're looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack,” he replied. “Although this forest is so vast, it's more like searching for a needle in a hay
field.
We'll find something eventually, though, I'm sure of it. There's got to be blood evidence if nothing else. If we're lucky, whoever did this trailed some of that blood behind when they took off after tossing that poor guy's head into a tree. If we can determine which way he went, it will at least give us something to work with.”

Sharon scuffed her hiking boot on the glazed and dirty ground. “I'm sorry about this morning,” she said, looking off into the trees.

“Really,” Mike answered. “Which part are you sorry for, the part with the mind-blowingly great sex or the part where we totally enjoyed each other's company? Or was I imagining things, and that enjoyment was only on my side of the equation?”

“No, no, it was on my side too. I'm pretty sure you could tell. I'm talking about after we got here, when those idiots played their stupid little junior high school games. You know they were talking about us, don't you?”

“Yeah, I know,” Mike said with a shrug. “So what? I don't live my life to please everyone else, do you?”

“Of course not,” answered Sharon with a flip of her head. “But some of these yokels could cause a lot of grief for you if they decide to. Dating a subordinate is a no-no, remember?”

Mike grinned. “So we're officially dating then? Awesome.”

Sharon shook her head in frustration but couldn't help smiling too. “You're hopeless. They haven't decided what they think of you yet so they're giving you the benefit of the doubt, but that could change at any moment. Trust me, I know what I'm talking about; I've known most of these dopes my whole life. Some of them aren't a whole lot brighter than the people we have to arrest, you know.”

“Well then,” Mike told her. “I'll just have to do a damned fine job of running this department so I don't give anybody any ammunition.” He paused a beat. “No pun intended.”

“I'm just saying you need to be careful, that's all.”

“Thank you, I appreciate the thought,” Mike said, winking at her. “I'm pretty sure I can handle these guys. Now, I think break time is over. Let's go catch a killer.”

19

FOUR LONG HOURS LATER, the search had turned up nothing but a badly rusted beer can. How the can had gotten so far out in the woods and how long it had been there was open to question, but it was definitely not anything the police could use as evidence, and Mike had discarded it in disgust after a careful examination. Everyone was frustrated and tired, and the small group of officers was in the middle of a late lunch break when dispatcher Gordie Rheaume's voice crackled out on Mike's radio.

Mike had stayed in touch with the station all day and was relieved to hear that most of Paskagankee's citizenry still had not taken to the roads yet, probably due to the dark clouds hanging low and ominous in the sky. The freezing rain still had not resumed, but the temperature hovered just under thirty-two degrees, and it looked as though the skies might open up again at any moment.

Mike keyed the transmit button. “Go ahead, Gordie.”

The dispatcher responded immediately, his voice tight with tension. “Harley is on the outskirts of town on Route 17, not far from the Ridge Runner. He says you need to get out there right now.”

“Dammit, Gordie, now what's going on?” Mike asked. “He knows we're kind of busy here, right?” Harley Tanguay was the only member of the force that Mike had left in town on routine patrol, and Mike had already reached the conclusion Harley was not a particularly sharp specimen. Mike suspected Harley might be one of the people Sharon had told him to watch out for a few hours ago.

“Yes, he knows,” the dispatcher said, his voice on the radio's little speaker distorted by static. “But he says there's been another murder.”

20

MIKE AND SHARON NAVIGATED the icy roads as rapidly as possible, the blue light bar atop the Explorer flashing an urgent warning to other motorists, not that there were many around. Mike had expected the road conditions to have improved somewhat, but with the temperatures hovering around freezing and the fact that the sun hadn't even made a token appearance, little melting had occurred.