Shaded Light: The Case of the Tactless Trophy Wife: A Paul Manziuk and Jacquie Ryan Mystery (The Manziuk and Ryan Mysteries Book 1) (34 page)

“Okay, that’s fine.” Manziuk went over to them, stepping carefully. “You both saw the body?”

Win appeared to be the spokesman. “Yes, sir. Trent saw her while I was up in the tree. He said there was a dead person. I figured he was trying to get back at me—you know, make me waste energy coming down—because I beat him to the tree. But this was sure no joke, huh, officer?”

“No, this is no joke.”

Trent spoke up. “At first I thought she was asleep, and I was just going to leave her alone.”

“Did you touch her?” Manziuk said.

“Not a chance,” Win said derisively. “We know you aren’t supposed to touch anything.”

“I knew she had to be dead when I saw the knife sticking up,” Trent explained. “And that dark stuff. That was blood. It turns dark like that after a while, doesn’t it?”

“We saw the knife stuck right in her,” Win said reverently. He clutched his chest. “Right here.”

“So what did you do?”

“We ran home to tell Mom, and we made her call the cops.”

“Yeah,” Win agreed. “We were scared the killer was still around.”

“Good thinking,” Manziuk said. “It pays to be safe.”

Win’s mother spoke again. “I’m afraid I didn’t want to call. I couldn’t believe it was true. But then I saw the headline in today’s papers. And I remembered hearing police sirens yesterday. There was someone murdered here, wasn’t there?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“So I called, and then came out here. I only hope this doesn’t damage them. Seeing a dead body like that. It’s horrible!”

“I’ll have to send an officer over to take a statement from each of the boys. But you can go now. Sorry, guys,” he said as two faces fell. “But this is no place for you right now. We have to do a complete search of the area and as soon as the coroner gets here, the body will be moved.” He reached a large hand toward them. “Thanks, guys. We sure appreciate your help. Mrs. Fong, was it? May I see you for a moment?”

The two walked a few steps apart.

“Mrs. Fong, right now these two think this is a swell adventure. They’re going to get to tell all their friends they found a real body, and they’re going to remember every drop of blood they saw, and they’ll likely remember quite a few things they didn’t see. But later, tonight or in a few days or a week or even a month, they could start having nightmares or being scared to go to school, or anything. It’s normal. A reaction to shock. And we have people they can talk with to work it out. Okay?”

“Yes, officer. Thank you very much. I’ll remember, and I’ll tell Trent’s mother.”

They returned to the boys, and Mrs. Fong firmly took charge of them. One on either side of her, her arms around their shoulders, they moved away.

As they went, Manziuk heard the boy whose name was Win say to his friend, “We could have solved it if he’d just let us stay and help!”

“Yeah. Too bad.”

“Manziuk!” a voice called from the gate. “Might have known you’d have me out twice on a holiday weekend.

“Hello, Dr. Munsen. Not my idea of a holiday, either.”

“This is what we get instead of fireworks,” Ford said. “Too bad they didn’t use a gun. More fitting.”

Manziuk led Munsen and Ryan toward the body. He knew he had to look at it. Examine it. Talk about it as though it was an inanimate object that had no significance except as the main piece of a puzzle to be solved. But, oh, how he hated his job right now. Most of the bodies he had to look at were of people he had never met before. This was a young girl he had spoken with, even joked with a little, the day before. Eighteen. With eyes that sparkled. Getting ready to spread her wings.

He looked down. It was Crystal all right. With her strange-looking hair that had somehow looked good on her. And her earrings. But she had changed her clothing. She had on stretchy black pants and a black long-sleeved T-shirt. To blend into the blackness of the night?

“What have we got?” Munsen asked from behind Manziuk. Ryan was a few feet further back.

“A knife sticking out of her chest,” Ford answered. “Like in the movies.”

“Yeah? Did they use ketchup?”

“Nope. Nice dried blood, not quite red and not quite black.”

“Burgundy,” Munsen said. “Used to be a color I liked, too.”

“Nice and neat,” Ford said as he stood up.

“Not strangled this time, eh?” Munsen said as moved into the spot Ford had vacated.

“Different MO or different perp?” Ford asked.

Manziuk shrugged. “That’s what you’re supposed to tell me.” He’d been kneeling beside the body. Now he stood up and walked a short distance away. He felt sick.

He glanced toward Ryan, who was standing about five feet back, hands clutching her notebook, eyes averted. Apparently she was more interested in the ornamental crab-apple tree to one side than in the body.

“This isn’t a sight-seeing trip,” he barked. “You should be making notes.”

She glared at him, but opened her notebook and got out an ergonomic ballpoint pen.

Munsen began looking at the body without touching it. After five minutes, he spoke to Ford. “Got your pictures?”

“Yep.”

“Okay, let’s look a little closer.” Munsen’s gloved hands began examining different parts of the body, starting with the head and neck. He carefully pulled the knife from the wound and Ford placed it into a plastic bag and labeled it.

“Ordinary paring knife,” Ford said to Manziuk. “Like you’d find in any kitchen.”

“Small wound,” Munsen said absently. “Two wounds. The first to the lower stomach. Looks like a slanted entry. Could have done internal damage. Lots of blood. From the location, there’s a possible liver puncture. Tell you later. Second into the lung. Can’t tell for sure, but looks like a puncture. Bit of a sucking wound, but with the knife still in it didn’t bleed as much as it might have. Don’t see anything else. Need to get it to the morgue.” He stood up. “I suppose you want a time?”

“As close as possible.”

“Well, let’s turn her over. You want any more pictures?”

For answer, Ford held up his camera and took several shots of the wounds. Manziuk came closer, stepping in the path Munsen and Ford before him had taken. He looked at the body, making comments into his tape recorder. Then he took out his notebook and made a few sketches and some notes.

He looked up to see Ryan standing watching him. “Won’t be long,” he said. He nodded to Munsen when he was through.

Munsen and Ford lifted the body enough to see that there were no exit wounds visible, nor anything else unusual. Munsen made a brief check. “Okay, she died right here. No reason to think otherwise. Lividity seems to be pretty well fixed. I’d say seven to twelve hours ago. Be a tad more definite after I’ve checked her thoroughly.”

“When?” Manziuk’s voice was urgent.

Munsen sat on his haunches thinking. “I’ve still got your other one to do this afternoon.”

“I’d say two murders at one location moves the priority up,” Manziuk said. “We need to catch this guy before there are three.”

Munsen nodded. “All right. Got a drunk from an alley to do, and a lady who died after an operation that should have been routine, but I guess I’ll bump them and do yours first. Try to do them both right now. Provided nothing else turns up in the next few hours.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Manziuk stated firmly.

“Yeah. Can’t have all these young women getting it.” He paused. “I don’t suppose these have anything to do with your other ones.”

“I don’t see any reason to think so,” Manziuk replied. He turned to Ford. “Have you done a preliminary search?”

“Done it all. There’s a spray of blood close to the path over there.” Ford pointed with one gloved hand. “You can see where she was dragged here. Heel marks, no resistance. She was either dead or unconscious when he set her down.”

“Can we work out what happened?”

“We’ll give it a good try.”

“All right.” Manziuk pulled out his sketch book. “I won’t be long. Tell them no one’s leaving until I’ve had a chance to talk with them.” He searched in his other pocket for a measuring tape. “Ryan, you may as well make yourself useful.” He held the tape out to her.

She moved forward and took it.

Half an hour later, Manziuk, followed by Ryan, walked back toward the house. Before he reached it, he could see a small group gathered on the patio. One person separated himself from the group and strode toward Manziuk.

“You’re back, are you?” Manziuk barely smiled. “And you want me to solve this before evening, no doubt.”

Special Constable Benson grimaced. “It’s not me, Paul. You know it’s not me. But we’ve got the public very upset already. With this girl—well, you know what it’s like. Are you sure there’s no connection between these murders and the other ones? They’re all young women.”

Shaking his head, Manziuk said, “The other victims all had red hair and they were all strangled, but there’s no obvious connection. A variety of locations. No connections in their relationships. Nothing in common except their hair color. Here, we’ve got a blond and a brunette, one strangled, which is similar to the others, but one stabbed, which is not. The first one pretty well had to be someone on the grounds. And I think this one was likely done to cover up the first. If you can find a connection, go ahead. But I’d need more to go on before I decided to pursue that avenue.”

“The public is outraged that a serial killer is out there and we aren’t catching him.”

Manziuk scowled. “The public is no more outraged than I am. Does the public know how many hours we’ve spent sifting the small amount of evidence we have? Or how many times we’ve gone over what happened? Does the public know how many people we’ve pulled in? How many hours we’ve spent asking questions and not getting the right answers? Does the public care that we’re doing everything we can?”

Benson crossed his arms in front of his chest. “The public wants results. Mostly, the public wants to know its daughters and wives are safe out of their homes. And in their homes,” he added as an afterthought.

“This case is solvable,” Manziuk said. “Just keep everybody off my back so I can do my job. As for the serial killer, he’ll make a mistake eventually and we’ll catch him. I just hope it’s soon.”

“The papers are full of both cases. It’s going to be a shooting gallery out there.”

“I need time, Benson. I’m a cop, not a miracle worker.”

Benson nodded, apparently satisfied. “I’ll tell them you’re optimistic this will be solved quickly.”

As Benson walked quickly toward the front of the house, Manziuk muttered, “I’m always optimistic.”

“He looks like someone who really enjoys his job,” commented Ryan.

“Huh.” He headed toward the small cluster of men on the patio, and Ryan followed.

One of the men was a police officer he didn’t recognize. Another was Waite, one of the two who’d made the initial response yesterday. The others were Bart, George and Kendall Brodie, Douglass Fischer, and Nick Donovan. A gathering of the menfolk, he thought idly.

“Inspector Manziuk.” Officer Waite stepped forward as Manziuk and Ryan joined the group. “Have you heard Pratt’s report?”

“I don’t think so. Who’s Pratt?”

“The officer who came to replace Fellowes, sir. Fellowes was on duty here last night, sir,” said Waite nervously.

“Let’s sit down. It’s too hot for wasting any energy.” Manziuk placed a chair in what he deemed a good spot with the sun at his back and sat. Waite and the others sat down. Kendall pulled a chair over for Ryan.

“Now,” Manziuk said, “who are Pratt and Fellowes and what’s this about?”

“We thought you might have already heard,” Waite said. “Officer Fellowes was left here to guard the house last night. This morning, Mrs. Winston, the housekeeper, found him asleep.”

“And where exactly,” Manziuk said, “is Officer Fellowes? Isn’t he able to talk for himself?”

“Yes, sir,” Waite replied. “I mean, no, sir. He isn’t here.”

“I sent him to hospital, sir,” said the officer who was sitting beside Waite.

“Are you Pratt?”

“Yes, sir. I was to replace Fellowes at eight-thirty this morning. When I got here, I found the place in an uproar. A neighbor had just phoned to say there was a body outside the gate. I checked and saw that the young woman was indeed dead. Then I was told that Fellowes thought he had been drugged. When I spoke with him, he was very groggy. I looked at his eyes and decided he very well could have been drugged, so I called an ambulance.”