Rear-View Murder: A Gemma Stone Cozy Mystery (4 page)

“Do you think they’ll be able to find out who she is?” Gemma asked.

“I don’t know. There wasn’t much left of the...of her,” Nick replied, pulling her into his arms. “Seeing you nervous makes me nervous, even though I hide it well behind my brave, manly appearance. So, if you’ll allow me, I want to stay here tonight.”

“Nick, we’ve been through this...” Gemma began. Her emotions were a jumbled mess before. Finding a body in the trunk of her car had only added more stress to the situation.

“On the sofa,” he said, kissing her forehead. “I’ll be sleeping on the sofa.”

G
emma was running as fast as she could through cold, dark woods, stumbling on rocks and roots, her feet slipping and sliding on wet leaves. The low hanging limbs slapped her face, stinging her skin and bringing tears to her eyes. Her lungs were on fire. An intense, dank, rotting smell filled her nose. When she looked back over her shoulder, she could see nothing but trees and fog. Somehow she knew that something was back there, coming. Something was after her and she had no idea who or what it was.

In some part of her mind, Gemma knew she was having a nightmare, and she kept telling herself that as she continued to run. But that didn’t keep her from stumbling on or being terrified of what might catch her.

Suddenly, a car appeared in front of her and she skidded to a stop. The car was blue and the trunk was open. Gemma crept forward slowly, as silently as she could, reached out and lifted the trunk lid. It was slippery wet and her finger slipped on the cold metal. She eventually had to use both hands to get it open. Even in her dream, Gemma braced herself for what she knew was in there.

It was empty.

She let out her breath, closed the trunk, and rested her head against the trunk lid. And then a piercing scream filled the dark woods and Gemma looked up to see a skeleton’s face, the mouth open in a scream, pressed up against the back window of the car. Fingers that looked like twigs, spread against the glass, appearing to reach for her. Gasping and biting back her own scream, Gemma backed up from the car, tripped over a log and sat down hard.

Then she woke in her familiar bedroom with sunlight streaming through the big windows. Shaking and drenched in sweat, she sat up and looked around, blinking her eyes to make sure she really was safe at home. The heavenly scent of brewing coffee wafted up the stairs to her room. Just for a split second, she thought the heartbreak and horror of the last six months was a dream. She would run downstairs to find her father in the sunny kitchen fixing breakfast and her mother at the big wooden table, reading the paper.

“Wake up, sleepy head,” Nick said from her bedroom door.

Gemma was back to reality.

“You okay?” he asked, coming into the room to stand at the foot of her bed.

“Yeah,” Gemma said, running her hands through her red-gold curls. “Just had a bad dream and for a minute I thought...” She stopped and shook her head. “Never mind.”

“I’m not surprised you had a bad dream,” Nick said, grinning down at her. “I’ve got coffee made and I thought I’d make us some toast. Maybe eggs if you want.”

“Thanks. Toast would be great,” Gemma said forcing a smile.

Nick patted her foot, his hand lingering on the quilt a little longer than necessary before he left.

She listened to him humming softly as he trotted back down the stairs and smiled to herself. Good friends are hard to find, Gemma thought as she hopped out of bed and stretched, trying to shake off the remnants of the dream. Then she hurried barefoot to the bathroom, washed her face and tried again to tame her wild hair, this time with a brush. That wasn’t as successful as she liked so she gathered her thick hair up into a loose pony tail, pulled on a robe and padded down the stairs.

Nick was in the kitchen buttering two slices of bread.

“Toast?” he asked, offering one to Gemma.

“Thanks,” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee and joining him at the big, wooden kitchen table where she’d eaten too many meals to count.

“You ready for today?” he asked.

Gemma nodded. “A little nervous. I don’t know what else Detective Temple might ask me.”

“You don’t know much more than what you’ve already told him, and I doubt Buddy knows much more than that,” Nick said, munching on his toast.

A sudden thought struck Gemma. “You don’t think Buddy...?”

Nick laughed aloud before she could finish. “No way. First of all, they’ll be able to prove when the car was purchased at the auction and I’m betting it wasn’t much more than a week or so ago.”

“And she was in there a long time,” Gemma said, remembering the skeletal hand that seemed to be reaching out to her from the darkness of that trunk.

“Yes, she was,” Nick said quietly.

“But Buddy really didn’t want me to buy that car,” Gemma reminded him.

“He just hadn’t checked it out yet. He knew you needed something you could depend on,” Nick said.

“You’re probably right.”

“Now, I’m going to go home, shower and change clothes and I’ll be back here to pick you up about nine-thirty,” Nick said, standing up. He kissed her forehead before snatching up his keys from the corner of the table.

“Shave,” Gemma said, rubbing the skin where his bristly beard had scratched her.

“Yes, ma’am.” Nick was laughing when he went out the door.

Her cell chimed and Gemma reached for it.

“How are you this morning?” Holly asked.

Gemma smiled. Her no-nonsense friend always got straight to the point. “Exhausted. I dreamed all night.”

“I’m not surprised,” Holly said. “Nick is going with you to the police station, right?”

“Yes. He just went home to change and...”

“He spent the night?” Holly asked quickly, cutting her off.

“Yes, he did,” Gemma said.

“Well, that’s a good sign.”

“On the sofa,” Gemma added.

Holly sighed heavily. “Gemma, honey, he’s not going to wait forever.”

“I know that,” Gemma said. Nervous energy had her on her feet, pacing around the kitchen. The last thing she wanted to talk about with Holly was her relationship with Nick. “Let’s not talk about it right now, please.”

“Okay, okay,” Holly said and Gemma could practically see her holding up both hands in surrender.

Gemma glanced down at her wrist, at the beautiful watch Holly had designed just for her as a prototype for HealthGems. It counted her daily steps, her calorie intake and her heartrate. She guessed if she checked the heartrate function at that moment, it would be through the roof.

“I’ve got to get ready,” she said to Holly, her tone sharper than she meant.

“Call me when it’s over,” Holly said before they ended the call.

Still anxious, Gemma raced upstairs to the shower. What did one wear to a give a statement to the police? She tried to remember what she’d seen on TV. Most of those people looked like they just rolled out of bed and came down to the police station. Yet, she wouldn’t wear something formal either. Opting for middle of the road, she dressed in a pair of light blue slacks and a white blouse. Make-up consisted of a dusting of rose blush on her cheeks, mascara and some lip gloss. She was still struggling with her hair when Nick called to her from the bottom of the stairs.

“Give me just a minute,” Gemma yelled back as she stood looking in her closet trying to decide which shoes to wear.

“I talked to Buddy,” Nick said, after they were in his car and headed downtown.

“Yeah?”

Nick nodded. “Detective Temple talked to him yesterday right after...”

“What did Buddy tell them?”

“They bought the car at an auction in Richmond about a week ago. It was a repo picked up out of the long term parking lot at Richmond International Airport. Hard to tell how long it had been there, and then it sat in the parking lot at the bank for a while,” Nick said as he drove. “You found it on the lot and bought it before they’d had a chance to go over it carefully.”

“Obviously. No one looked in the trunk,” Gemma said.

“Buddy has a kid who details the cars to get them ready to sell. He talked to him and the kid confessed that he tried but hadn’t been able to get the trunk open.”

“So he just left it alone?” Gemma asked.

Nick nodded.

“Maybe that’s where the scratches and dents came from around the lock,” Gemma said to herself.

“Probably.”

The police station in the small town of Gypsy Hill, Virginia was housed in one of the old, hand cut stone historic buildings right behind the courthouse. Gemma had only been there once before, when her sixth grade class toured the building. She was curious to see if it had changed since then.

Nick seemed right at home there. Several of the officers both in uniform and out spoke to him.

“They seem to know you pretty well around here,” Gemma teased.

“Reporters always need to make friends with the cops,” Nick told her. “Besides, I like it here. There’s kind of an energy.”

“Let’s just find Detective Temple and get this over with,” she said, feeling an energy but it wasn’t one she liked.

Nick led them to the front desk where a pretty young woman sat. He spoke with her and Gemma heard Detective Temple’s name. The woman picked up the phone and Nick turned back to Gemma, catching her hand in his.

“He’ll be right down,” the receptionist told them.

Nick led Gemma to some wooden chairs lined up by the wall, but she was too nervous to sit. Instead, she stood, shifting from one foot to the other, clinging to her purse for dear life.

“Right on time,” Detective Temple said as he entered the small space.

“Yes, sir,” Nick said as the two men shook hands.

Gemma noted that the detective looked like he had slept very little. His clothes were a bit wrinkled, as if maybe he had slept in them, and he carried a folder in his left hand that looked awfully thin.

He led them down a narrow hall to a small room on the right which contained a metal table and four chairs, all bolted to the floor. “Please have a seat.”

Nick and Gemma sat and Detective Temple took a seat across from them. Gemma noted that there was a huge mirror behind his head and she wondered if anyone else was watching them. The detective opened the file in front of him. It held maybe three sheets of paper.

“Miss Stone, could you tell me again what happened?” he asked quietly.

Gemma went through her story again, hardly taking her eyes off of the papers in the folder. She picked up the car yesterday morning. She drove around, visited Holly and then went to Harrisonburg. She went to the grocery store and when she came out, discovered that she couldn’t get the trunk open.

“So you kicked it?” the detective asked.

Gemma nodded. “Yes, sir. I just kicked it right over the lock and it popped open.”

“Then what happened?”

“It was fully of nasty smelling coats and blankets, so I drove around behind the store to put them in the dumpster,” Gemma told him.

“Why didn’t you go back to Buddy’s and make him do it?” he asked, sounding more curious than anything else.

Gemma shrugged. “I guess I just never thought of it.”

Detective Temple seemed satisfied with that answer and motioned for her to continue.

“And that’s when I uncovered the...saw the...hand,” Gemma finally finished. “Please tell me you found out who she was?”

Detective Temple smiled in a kindly, almost fatherly way. He touched the piece of paper on top. “The coroner did a brief autopsy on what was left of the body early this morning. The deceased was a female of short stature, probably in her mid-twenties. There really wasn’t much left to go on. She’s been in that car a while, at least six months.”

“But you don’t know who she was?”

He shook his head. “That takes a little time. It’s not like on TV.”

Gemma nodded. “What happened to her?”

“The only real damage he could see was to the back of her skull. It looked like she had taken a blow from a blunt instrument. But it wasn’t enough to kill her.”

Gemma scooted forward in her seat and nodded. “Do you think she was murdered?”

“I’m guessing she didn’t put herself in the trunk of that car and then cover up with coats and blankets,” Detective Temple said.

“Unless she was hiding,” Gemma said.

The detective continued as if he hadn’t heard her. “We’ve talked to Buddy. They had to hurry to get the car ready for you and when the kid couldn’t get the trunk open, he just left it. They figured it was empty anyway, that the repo company had cleaned out any valuables.”

“So when will we find out more?” Gemma asked.

Detective Temple shook his head slowly and picked up another sheet of paper. “Miss Stone, let me explain something to you. The Car-Fax report which was in the glove box tells us that at the time this girl was put in the trunk, this car was in Richmond.”

“So that means someone in Richmond might be able to help us.”

“What that means is this is really their baby. We’ve already shipped the car and the body to Richmond.”

“But...”

“We’re a small department without enough technology or man power to work on a case like this.”

A strange silence hung in the air between them.

“I’m sorry. I can see you’re disappointed, but I didn’t make that judgment call. The chief did. However, I have to agree.”

“So, is there someone I can call in Richmond to find out what they discovered?” Gemma asked, feeling as if she was grabbing at straws.

“It’s a big department. I wouldn’t know where to start,” Detective Temple said.

“Homicide?”

Detective Temple shrugged. “Missing persons?”

Gemma continued to sit there, stunned at the news. She just assumed that they would use DNA or fingerprints or dental records, enter that information into some nationwide database of people and the young woman’s name would pop up. Now she was being told that both the body and her car were being shipped to some huge police department in a city two hours away.

“Surely, someone is looking for her,” Gemma said.

“I’m sure someone is and if that’s the case, Richmond will figure it out. They’ve got smart men down there with lots of experience in this kind of thing,” Detective Temple added with a chuckle. “I’m a dinosaur, due to retire in November. Me and the missus are moving to Florida.”