He said, “It’s garbage pick-up day. Make sure we talk to the crew. I want to know if they saw anything suspicious.”
Lena looked back toward the street, then at the forest. “The victim tripped, Chief. Her head hit a giant rock. There’s blood all over it. Why do we need witnesses?”
“Were you there when it happened? Is that exactly what you saw?”
Lena had no immediate answer. Jeffrey started walking across the field. Lena had to jog to keep up with him. She had been on the force for three and a half years, but she was smart and most of the time, she listened, so he went out of his way to teach her.
He said, “I want you to remember this, because it’s important. This young woman has a family. She’s got parents, siblings, friends. We are going to have to tell them that she’s dead. They need to know we did a thorough job investigating the cause of her death. You treat every case as a homicide until you know it’s not.”
Lena’s pen was finally moving. She was transcribing every word. He saw her underline homicide twice. “I’ll check the incident reports and follow up on the garbage truck.”
“What’s the victim’s name?”
“She didn’t have ID, but Matt’s at the college asking around.”
“Good.” Of the detectives on the force, Matt Hogan was the most compassionate. There were some solid men on patrol, too. Jeffrey had gotten lucky with most of the legacy hires. Only a few were dead weight, and they would be gone by the end of the year. After four years of proving he could do this job, Jeffrey felt he had earned the benefit of tossing the bad apples.
“Chief.” Frank stood in the middle of the field. He was twenty years Jeffrey’s senior with the physical presence of an asthmatic walrus. Frank had passed on the job of chief when the position had opened. He wasn’t one for politics, and he knew his limitations. Jeffrey was certain the detective had his back so long as it related to the job. He wasn’t so sure about the other areas of his life.
“Brock—” Frank coughed around the cigarette in his mouth. “Brock just got here. He’s on his way to the body. She’s that-a-way, about two hundred feet over the hill.”
Dan Brock was the county coroner. His full-time job was at the funeral home. Jeffrey had found him to be competent, but Brock’s father had dropped dead of a heart attack two days ago. The senior Brock had been found at the bottom of the stairs, which hadn’t surprised Jeffrey. The man was a closet drinker. He’d reeked of alcohol.
Jeffrey asked, “Do you think Brock’s up to this?”
“He’s still torn up, poor fella. He was real close to his daddy.” For unknown reasons, Frank started grinning. “I think we’ll be okay.”
Jeffrey turned to see the reason behind Frank’s glee.
Sara Linton was walking through the vacant lot. She was wearing dark sunglasses. Her auburn hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She was dressed in a white long-sleeved shirt and matching short skirt.
“Oh great,” Lena mumbled. “Tennis Barbie to the rescue.”
Jeffrey gave Lena a look of warning. Around the time of his divorce, he’d made the mistake of complaining about Sara in front of Lena. She had taken carte blanche on the insults since then.
He told her, “Make sure Brock isn’t lost in the woods. Tell him Sara is here.”
Lena reluctantly trotted off.
Frank stubbed his cigarette out on his shoe as Sara walked across the field.
Jeffrey allowed himself the pleasure of watching her. Objectively, she was beautiful. Her legs were long and lean. She had a certain grace to her movements. She was the smartest woman he had ever met in a long line of incredibly intelligent women. After their divorce, he had persuaded himself that she hated him. Only recently had he realized that what Sara felt for him was worse than hate. She was deeply disappointed.
On a good day, Jeffrey could admit that he was disappointed, too.
Frank said, “I could punch you in the nuts for the rest of my life and it still wouldn’t be punishment enough for what you did.”
“Thanks, buddy.” Jeffrey patted Frank’s shoulder in a non-appreciative way. Sara’s family was as entrenched in the community as the university. Frank played cards with her father. His wife volunteered with Sara’s mother. Jeffrey could’ve decapitated the high school mascot and gotten less grief.
“Good to see ya, sweetpea.” Frank let Sara kiss his cheek. “Did you just get back from Atlanta?”
“I decided to stay the night. Hi.” Sara spun the last word like a volley into Jeffrey’s face. “Mama told me about the body. She thought Brock might need help.”
Jeffrey was mindful that Frank was not giving them any privacy. He was also mindful that it was Tuesday morning. Sara would normally be getting ready for work right now. “It’s a little early for tennis.”
“I played yesterday. This way?” She didn’t wait for an answer. She followed the trail into the forest.
Frank walked shoulder-to-shoulder with Jeffrey. “Sara just drove down from Atlanta, but she’s wearing the same clothes she was wearing yesterday. I wonder what that means?”
Jeffrey tasted metal from the fillings in his teeth.
Frank called to Sara, “How’s Parker doing? Did you go up in his plane again?”
The metal turned to blood.
Sara hadn’t answered, so Frank told Jeffrey, “Parker used to be a Navy fighter pilot. Real Top Gun type. He’s a lawyer now. Drives a Maserati. Eddie told me all about him.”
Jeffrey could imagine Sara’s father merrily relaying the information over a hand of cards, secure in the knowledge that Frank would do his part to poke Jeffrey with the details.
Frank laughed again. Then he coughed because his lungs were full of tar.
Jeffrey tried to put them all back on a serious footing. They were walking toward a dead young woman. He looked at his watch. He talked to Sara’s back. “The victim was found half an hour ago. Lena took the call.”
Sara didn’t turn around, but her ponytail bobbed as she nodded her head. Jeffrey told himself that it was good to have her here. She’d held the job of coroner before Brock, and unlike the funeral director, she was a medical doctor. An expert’s opinion on the victim was exactly what this case called for. There was no one Jeffrey trusted more than Sara. That the feeling was not mutual was a fact that had lately started to wear on him.
At least a year had passed since she’d filed for divorce. Jeffrey had thought Sara’s anger would eventually burn itself out, but it had taken on the aspects of an eternal flame. Intellectually, he understood why she couldn’t let it go. It was bad enough that he was a cheating asshole, but he had humiliated her in the process. Sara had literally caught him with his pants down, in their bed, in their house, with another woman. Any normal wife would’ve been pissed off. It’s what Sara had done next that was terrifying.
Jeffrey had screamed for her to wait, but Sara didn’t wait. He had wrapped a blanket around his waist as he’d chased her through the house. On her way out, she’d grabbed the baseball bat that he kept by the front door. Jeffrey was stumbling down the front porch when she swung back the Louisville Slugger. She was standing over his 1968 Ford Mustang. The sound that came out of his mouth was like a howl.
But Sara hadn’t destroyed his car. She had tossed the bat to the ground. She had walked over to her Honda Accord. Instead of driving away, she reached through the open window, released the hand brake, pushed the gear into neutral, then let the car roll into the lake.
Jeffrey was so shocked that he’d dropped the blanket.
The very next day, Sara had hired a divorce lawyer, bought a convertible BMW Z4, and tendered her resignation as county coroner. Clem Waters, the mayor, had called Jeffrey and read him the letter. One sentence long, no further explanation, but the entire town knew about the affair by then, and Clem had given Jeffrey an earful.
Then Jeffrey had gotten another earful from Marla Simms, the police station secretary.
Then Pete Wayne had given him a third earful when Jeffrey had dropped by the diner for lunch.
Not to be outdone, Jeb McGuire, the town pharmacist, had barely spoken to him when he’d filled Jeffrey’s blood pressure medication.
Cathy Linton, Sara’s churchgoing, God-fearing, self-righteous saint of a mother, had flipped him off with both hands in the parking lot.
By the time Jeffrey had settled into his dank room at the Kudzu Arms outside of Avondale, he was happy for the silence. Then he’d drunk a lot of Scotch, watched a lot of mindless television, and slowly come to the realization that all of this was his own fault. The way he saw it, his failure wasn’t so much the screwing around as the getting caught. Jeffrey had grown up in a small town. He should’ve realized that, by cheating on Sara, he was also blowing up his relationship with the entire county.