Wicked Tempest: A Kate Waters Mystery (Kate Waters Mysteries Book 2) (3 page)

Thea walked over to the door passing so close to Wells that she brushed up against him. His eyes followed her.

“About like this,” Thea said, holding her hands an inch apart.

Kate agreed. She noticed Thea’s mannerisms were different around Wells and wondered if he made her nervous.

The two other police officers joined them on the porch.

“We’re ready to search the house,” the taller of the two said.

“Okay. Martinez, why don’t you keep watch in the backyard until forensics gets here.”

“Sure thing, Detective,” he said, and left the porch, still keeping to a militant stride.

“Good.” Wells reached for his gun. “Wait here. I’ll be right back.”

After he went inside, Kate turned to Thea. “What’s up?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re acting weird.”

“Dead bodies tend to do that to me.”

Kate glanced into Brooke’s kitchen window again. She caught Wells looking down at Brooke and around the kitchen. Before his eyes could land on her, she scooted away from the window and closer to Thea. “Bullshit,” she whispered. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”

“I already told you…I’m anxious about the curse and the statue.”

“Christ,” Kate said, slapping her hand to her hip.

“No, goddess,” Thea replied.

Two kids walking a dog passed by the house, their eyes keen on the presence of police in the neighborhood. They looked at her and Thea on the porch. Thea waved, but the kids failed to reciprocate and pushed their gawking pace into a brisk march away from the house.

“Is that the story you’re going to tell Wells?” Kate asked her. “That Brooke died from a curse?”

Thea shook her head. “Not unless he starts accusing me like you are.”

“I’m not accusing you.”

“You’re not flat-out saying it, but you’re thinking it, and in my opinion, the latter is worse.”

At the sound of footsteps at Brooke’s front door, Kate and Thea quickly dropped their bantering. Wells must have caught the last of it, because although he didn’t say anything, he studied them for a moment before he spoke.

“The house is clear. I’m going to ask you two to step inside for questioning, but don’t enter the kitchen, not until the lead investigator arrives. He might want to confirm scene details with you.”

Kate and Thea followed Wells inside. They walked cautiously into the living room, as if afraid to touch anything.

“Go ahead, sit down,” Wells said, gesturing to the couch. Kate and Thea sat at opposite ends, like feuding lovers. “I was hoping the next time we crossed paths, it would be at the store,” he said to them.

“I know,” Kate said. “Believe me, this is the last place or thing I want to be involved with.”

Officer Martinez’s partner approached Wells and handed him a card. Wells studied it for a moment. “Thanks, Newman.” He sat down on the couch adjacent to Kate and Thea and showed them the picture on the card. “Is that Brooke Jennings in the kitchen?”

“Yes, it is,” Thea said.

“And she was already dead when you arrived?”

“Yes,” Kate and Thea said in unison.

“Did you check her pulse?”

“No,” Kate said. “Her eyes were open.”

Wells nodded. His attention shifted around the room, at pictures of Brooke with friends and family, books on her shelf, and then back to Kate and Thea. “Was she a friend to both of you?”

“She was a coven sister,” Thea replied. There was an inflection in her voice, and for a moment, and only that, Kate thought she sensed regret. “We were in the area,” Thea continued, “and thought we’d stop by and…just say hello.” She ignored the sideways glance Kate passed her.

Wells opened the front of his blazer and retrieved a little brown notebook and pen from the inside pocket, and then wrote something down. His dark features were even darker today, Kate thought. It was something in the way he held his shoulders, as if sheltering his spirit from the harsh realities and pressures in life… And death.

“To confirm once more, you did not move or touch the body?”

“No, we did not,” Kate said.

Another officer or specialist entered through the front wearing gloves and carrying a black box. He and Wells made eye contact, and Wells stood from the sofa. “This is Senior Specialist Hennigan. He’ll be overseeing the forensics part of the investigation. If you’ll excuse us for a moment.”

Wells and Hennigan stepped from the living room and went into the kitchen.

Thea motioned to Kate to follow them. Kate shook her head and silently mouthed the word ‘no’.

“I want to know what they’re saying,” Thea whispered.

Kate glanced back to the kitchen where she could see Wells and Hennigan standing next to the island. Thea eased into the kitchen behind them. Reluctantly, Kate followed her. Hennigan swept a keen eye across the room, over the counter, the floor, and the window that gave a view of the porch where the other two officers stood. Then he went over to the corner by the refrigerator and bent down to pick something up. It was a piece of glass.

“What do you gather by the position of the deceased?” Wells asked.

“It looks as though she fell,” Hennigan replied. He pulled latex gloves from his pocket and put them on. “You can see it in the way her ankle is twisted in the same direction as her opposing shoulder, as though a force pulled her this way.” He re-enacted the described motion, and then went back to studying her face, neck, and arms. “There’s no blood or noticeable physical trauma.” He stepped carefully around what looked like water on the floor. He dipped his finger in it and brought it to his nose. “Water.”

Thea had been inching closer and stopped behind Detective Wells. “Look,” she said, pointing to Brooke’s pants. Kate moved next to her and saw what she pointed at, a dime stuck to the button of Brooke’s jeans.

“Good eye,” Wells said. He leaned over Brooke’s body to inspect it more closely.

“Why is that there?” Thea asked.

Wells raised an eyebrow. “Electricity?” He looked over to Hennigan.

Hennigan nodded in agreement. “Quite possible. With a high enough voltage, silver will become magnetically charged and can stick to other like materials.”

“Are you talking about a lightning bolt?” Thea asked. Tiny lines on her forehead deepened.

“You think she might have been electrocuted?” Kate asked. “But how?”

Wells examined the other appliances on the counter. “Power can travel through wires. She might have been touching something.”

Hennigan searched the counter, picked up the toaster and turned it around. “I don’t see anything that would have acted as a nearby conductor though.” He checked the ceiling and the windows. “No damage to the building.”

Wells laid his hand on Thea’s shoulder and walked her and Kate to the front door. “Look, I’ll let you know as soon as the evidence is processed. I may need you to come in for some more questioning. You have my number. Call if you think of something. I’ll be staying in touch. In the meantime, stay out of trouble.” He winked at them with a short-lived smile.

“Thanks,” Thea said. Kate waved good-bye as she stepped down the stairs.

As they headed back to Thea’s car, silence filled the damp air around them. Thea was in her own world, perhaps sorting out her guilty conscience. Kate didn’t struggle with guilt. Renewed grief was her woe.

***

Wells wiped sweat from his brow and began a thorough search of Brooke’s house, starting with her bedroom. His thoughts kept returning to Julie. What if this had been her? He could be looking through Julie’s things now. She wasn’t much older, and besides the brown hair, they shared the same straight nose and heart-shaped lips. The thought brought a coldness to the back of his neck, a chill that threatened to climb inside him. Whatever had happened to her, he vowed to find out and punish the responsible party.

He drew a stick of gum, a new habit since he’d quit smoking last year, and searched through Brooke’s drawers, notebooks, and the contacts list on the Blackberry phone he’d found in her bedroom. She lived alone, worked at the art center, was clean and organized, and seemed to have a fair number of friends gauging from all the pictures on the walls. He scanned for Thea in them, but didn’t see her in any. At one time, Thea had been a suspect in Jev’s murder. His gut told him then that she didn’t have anything to do with the accident, the same as it did now, but he also had a scar the size of a golf ball on his middle from a time when his gut had been wrong. Gut instincts served a good purpose in homicide, but running solely on the basis of them was a dangerous game. It only took one wrong hunch, and everything could change for the worse.

An official stepped into the living room, wearing a blue jumpsuit and carrying a small silver suitcase. His name was Anthony Cain, and he was the lead forensic specialist, gifted with the rare combo of a sharp eye and an easy-going spirit, exactly what he needed at the moment.

“Detective Wells.” Cain stuck out his hand, but when Wells took it, he grabbed him and pulled him close for a chummy hug.

“Am I glad to see you,” Wells said. “How are things on your end?”

“Not bad. Be better if I wasn’t here.” Cain glanced into the kitchen. “I heard she’s a young gal.”

An image of Julie in her hospital gown surfaced quick as gunfire in Wells’ mind, but he pushed the ache back down. Despite what had happened, Julie was still alive, Brooke wasn’t. He had to keep his focus. “Thirty-one in two months,” he replied.

Cain shook his head and walked into the kitchen where Hennigan was taking photos. He set his kit on the counter. Foldout trays opened up to swabs, test tubes, scrapers, gloves, plastic bags, and various solutions for sampling. “I don’t see any blood. Are there any physical lacerations or lesions to the skin?”

“Not that I can see,” Hennigan said. “We think she may have been electrocuted.” He pointed to the dime stuck on the button of Brooke’s pants. “Check it out.”

“Well, look at that. Definitely a sign of electrical voltage,” Cain said. He pulled on a pair of white latex gloves.

Another photographer walked in with a shoulder strap bag. He set it down on the counter, introduced himself as Lee Phillips, and began snapping photos of the body. He zoomed the lens in and snapped a couple shots of the dime on Brooke’s pants. He asked Cain to move her head to the side. Cain stepped around her, knelt down, and shifted her face gently over.

“Is that what I think it is?” Phillips asked.

Cain pulled the back of her shirt down at the neckline. A red mark resembling a snowflake fanned out across the back of her neck.

Wells leaned in closer. “Lichtenberg’s Flowers?”

Cain frowned, as if impressed. “How did you know that?”

“Actually, I just saw one at the hospital. Almost covered the man’s entire back.”

“He was lucky to be alive then.” Cain inspected the front of her neck and then her arms. “With a mark like that, she must have been hit with a pretty high voltage.” He stood and went to the window.

“No signs of foul play, at least,” Hennigan added.

“It appears that way, doesn’t it?” Wells replied, but his thoughts cautioned him otherwise. Those cases were the ones you had to be careful of closing. That had been his mistake in Jevanna Waters’ investigation. What appeared to be driver’s error was instead vehicular manslaughter. Nothing could be ruled out until every angle was inspected thoroughly, which was exactly what Wells planned to do.

***

Kate parked in the dimly lit driveway and walked through the dark house toward the garage where the sound of tools droned from behind a closed door. Light spilled from beneath it. Kate presumed David had been in there since she had been trying to get hold of him, not hearing his phone over the whirr of his tools. The garage served as his get-away place, and lately, he had been spending more time there. Something was on his mind, something beyond the obvious troubles that had weighed on them the last nine months of their relationship, with the murder of her sister and nearly losing their lives in the process after Jev’s killer shot David and tried to kill her too. Kate had thought they could get through anything, but anymore, there was only a heavy burden shadowing their time together, and too often, it split them into silent corners.

Kate pushed her worries behind her, turned the door handle, and gently nudged it open. David sat bent over on a stool, whittling at the legs of a hutch. He had been working on the piece for seven months now and hoped to finish it for a recent buyer in Connecticut who specialized in handcrafted furniture. Sawdust clouds of birch scented the room with subtle hints of winter.

“Hey,” David said to her, as she entered. He dusted off a layer of shaved birch covering his pant legs and shoes.

“I tried calling you earlier,” Kate said.

“Sorry. I haven’t checked my messages. I’m really crunching this deadline.” He paused and looked up at her. His eyes reached into her and drew out something delicate in her, a piece of herself she didn’t want anyone to see. “Everything all right?” he asked.

“Not exactly.” She sat down in a chair next to him, apprehensive about what to tell him. Or even anything at all. Their relationship needed a big dose of normalcy.