“Life goes on,” Flannagan said, flashing his razor-sharp grin. “Don’t get me wrong, I hope the boy survives. I hope Sheriff O’Donnell tracks down the killer and all. But I got stock to feed, barns to keep clean, kids to teach. I can’t worry about a little spilled blood. Seen enough in my lifetime, let me tell you. Nothing we can do to change what happened; we can only hope to make sure it never happens again.”
Finally, they agreed on something, Trent thought, as Flannagan returned the pitchfork to its hook on the wall, then walked out of the stable on his way to the barn.
Once the door shut behind Flannagan, Trent scowled at the faded bloodstain and climbed up the ladder to the hayloft. A familiar spidery feeling slipped up his back, an eerie sensation that had hit him in the gut the night Nona Vickers died. He stared up at the rafters, remembered her swinging, nude corpse. If only these walls could talk …
He climbed up to the spot where there had once been sleeping bags and a pile of clothes. The wall of bales had been dismantled, and there was a small stack of bales and loose hay in disarray from the investigation. It was cold up here, the small round window still open a few inches. He thought about closing it, then remembered the owl who nested in the rafters and left well enough alone.
Standing there, in the place where terror had reigned in the deep cold, he took out his cell and called the detectives he’d met yesterday. The line clicked through to Ned Jalinsky’s voice mail, so he tried Tori Baines.
“This is Baines.” Her voice was low and had a bite to it, as if she were too busy to talk.
“Cooper Trent, at Blue Rock. We met at the crime scene yesterday, and I spoke to O’Donnell this morning. He deputized me.”
“Yeah, I heard.” She didn’t sound happy about it. “You’ve been a deputy for all of ten minutes, right? Not wasting any time, are you?”
“I want to get this guy before he gets someone else. Sheriff O’Donnell told me to refer questions to you. Is this a bad time?”
She sighed. “Fair enough. I guess this is as good a time as any, since I’m sitting at a roadblock. You wouldn’t believe how many drivers think they’ve got the skill to beat snow and ice just because they have four-wheel drive.”
“I believe it. I used to do police work.” Trent looked up at the rafters and caught another memory flash of Nona swinging there. “I’m wondering if you’ve gotten any forensics back on Nona Vickers. Did they do an autopsy yet?”
“The coroner fit the autopsy in before end of day yesterday,” she said. “I’ve got the report on my BlackBerry here, and no matter how it was staged, this was not a suicide.”
“That would confirm what Drew Prescott said.” Cell phone in one hand, Trent turned away from the loft and climbed back down to the stables.
“But you suspected as much, right? You pointed out the signs of petechial hemorrhaging. Looks like the hanging was just for show. The victim died from asphyxiation.”
“Someone strangled her,” Trent said.
“Bruises on the neck consistent wit
h fingertips,” she said. “Also, a few broken ribs. You put it all together, and it looks like a strangling. Someone got on top of her and squeezed her neck until she died.”
“Son of a bitch,” Trent said, wanting a cigarette now more than ever. “Son of a goddamned bitch.”
CHAPTER 25
Jules stood at her window drying her hair with a thick towel while she watched opaque clouds roll over the mountains. Though the night had been as quiet as death, this morning the storm was back with a vengeance. Those mountains would be impassable. For today, at least, they would be trapped here without the support from law enforcement.
Trapped with a killer on the loose.
The howl of the wind, as forbidding as Satan’s laugh, shrieked through the canyon before licking the icy edges of Lake Superstition and roiling the center of the lake, which was too deep to freeze through. Steely clouds collided overhead, and snow fell in tiny, hard flakes of ice that clicked frantically as they hit the window.
After the nightmare, Jules had slept poorly, her mind filled with images of death. The dream with her father lying in a pool of blood had been followed by a nightmare in which the naked body of a young woman swung from a noose in a dark stable. Poor Nona.
As for her fears that someone had been in her room or lingered in the hallway, she saw no evidence of anything out of place. Apparently her vivid, macabre imagination had been working overtime again. “Paranoid,” she whispered under her breath as she walked into the bathroom. “That’s what you are.” She plugged in the dryer and finished with her hair, then added lipstick to her pale face. She made herself a cup of orange pekoe and dialed Mrs. Dixon, an early riser who answered on the first ring, saying, “You’ll never get him back.”
“What?”
“I saw it was you on the caller ID, and I’m just warning you, I’m in love with this cat. You’ll have to pry him out of my arms!”
“You’ve had him what, two days? Let’s see how much you love him in a week or so, after he’s brought you headless mice as trophies, then clawed your drapes and hissed at any friends you have over.”
“Sweet little Diablo?” the older woman said with a laugh.
“He has that name for a reason, you know. He earned it.”
Mrs. Dixon chuckled, and they chatted for a few minutes while Jules sipped her tea and Agnes Dixon regaled her with cute stories of the cat. When she hung up, Jules felt a little more grounded. The hot tea had warmed her from the inside out, and any concerns she had about her pet had been quieted by her neighbor in Seattle. Diablo, that little traitor, appeared to be doing just fine without her.