Chasing The Dead (An Alex Stone Thriller) (2 page)

“What makes you think she was murdered?”

“There was marks all around her neck, like she was strangled.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, sir, she wasn’t wearing any clothes.”

“I’d say those are pretty good reasons. Thanks for calling it in. Can you show us where you found her?”

Jared nodded. “That’s why I called you. Nobody should be left like that.”

Chapter Three

THEY PARKED ON THE NORTH END of Liberty Park, police and paramedics leaving their emergency flashers on to warn approaching cars—red, white, and blue streamers splitting the darkness as they formed a circle around Rossi, waiting for instructions.

“I want to get a look at the body, but we have to be careful with the people in those tents,” Rossi said. “If they fit the homeless profile, some of them may be crazy, some of them may be armed, some of them may be wanted, and some of them may be all three. So be careful. Their first instinct may be to shoot or run, and their second will be to keep their mouths shut. We can’t make them talk, but we can hold on to them long enough to give them a chance to tell us if they heard or saw something.”

“No way to know how many people are down there or where they are. The woods are kind of thick in parts. How do you want to handle it?” Schmitt asked.

“You and the EMTs come with me. Everyone else, gather whoever is camping out. Keep them calm, don’t let them talk to each other, and don’t let them back in their tents until we figure out if we need to search them.”

He shined a flashlight toward the park.

“Okay, Jared, show us how you found her, starting from your tent.”

“My tent?”

“Yeah, I want to see things the way you saw them. You started out from your tent, so that’s what we’ll do.”

Jared nodded, swallowing, jutting his chin out and in like a turtle poking its head in and out of its shell. “You got it, sir.”

Rossi knew that Jared wouldn’t be the first or last to kill someone and report the crime, enjoying the spotlight much as the arsonist who helps put out the fire. Letting Jared lead the way would give him the chance to show off and make a mistake that might expose him as the killer. Rossi and Schmitt flanked him as they entered the park, stopping at a dome-shaped tent.

“This is it, my tent,” Jared said.

Rossi nodded at Schmitt, who took up station at the entrance, arms crossed.

“What’s he doing?” Jared asked Rossi, pointing at Schmitt.

Rossi smiled, putting his arm across Jared’s shoulders. “Making sure no one bothers your stuff while we’re busy with this dead body of yours.”

Jared wriggled away from Rossi, staring at Schmitt, mouth agape, eyes wild.

“Everything I got’s in that tent. I don’t want him or nobody else messin’ with my stuff.”

Rossi figured that by now Jared was sorry he’d called 911. People like him always were. Thinking they were doing the right thing or not thinking at all, and before they knew what hit them, they were caught in a trap they’d set for themselves without realizing it.

“Hey, don’t worry,” Rossi said. “Just do your duty, soldier.”

Jared took a deep breath and pointed downstream.

“She’s over there.”

“Take the point,” Rossi told him, motioning to the paramedics to fall in behind him. “We’ll be right behind you.”

Jared walked straight from his tent to the edge of the creek, turning north and taking a few steps downstream before Rossi stopped him.

“Is this the route you took? Right along the creek here?”

He didn’t turn around. “Yes, sir.”

“That’s real helpful, Jared. How about we keep a little farther from the edge. You know this area but I don’t, and it’s dark. I don’t want to take a chance I might slip and fall in the creek and you’d have to pull me out.”

Rossi was a little unsure of his footing after drinking his way through his late dinner, but he had other reasons for cautioning Jared. He wanted Jared to believe that he was depending on him, giving Jared another reason to trust him. It was like telling a woman he’d just met in a bar that she was the best thing that had happened to him all day. And he wanted to make sure they didn’t contaminate the scene by trampling the exact route Jared had taken.

Jared moved inland about ten feet. Rossi followed him, sweeping his flashlight along the edge of the creek. The grass was upright, dew glistening on each blade, none of it matted with Jared’s footprints, as it would have been if he’d taken that route. He grunted, satisfied he’d caught Jared in his first lie. Rossi counted their steps, measuring each pace at three feet, until Jared stopped, close to seven hundred feet north of his tent.

“She’s over there,” Jared said, cocking his head toward the creek, keeping his distance.

Rossi scanned the landscape behind him, checking sight lines for possible witnesses. It was empty. The tents on the east side were behind them to the south. He shined his light across the water. Wherever the nearest tent on the west side was, it was beyond the reach of his flashlight.

“Stay here,” Rossi said.

Chapter Four

ROSSI WALKED TO THE CREEK BANK and turned off his flashlight, wanting to see the body the same way Jared claimed to have seen it. It was an hour and a half since Jared had called 911, longer since he had found her. The moon was lower in the sky but still shining.

The body was five feet below him, faceup and eyes open, head resting near the bank, arms and legs splayed. He focused his light on her neck. The ligature marks Jared had described were easy to see, a purpled narrow band with a pattern he’d seen in other cases where the killer used an electrical extension cord to strangle the victim. There was a cross-shaped abrasion above her left breast as if something had been compressed into the skin, maybe a crucifix.

Scanning the rest of her body, he didn’t see any obvious defensive wounds, though the water and his distance from the body made it impossible to rule out whether she had struggled against her killer.

From his vantage point above the body, it appeared that she hadn’t been in the water very long. There was no evidence of decomposition, though he couldn’t tell whether any rigor was present without getting a closer look. He aimed the flashlight at her legs, not finding any signs of lividity in the dependent areas of the body, knowing that the bluish discoloration took six to eight hours to become severe. The coroner was on the way and would give him a better approximation of time of death.

He took his time examining the bank directly above and to either side of the body, noting the partial footprints pressed into the mud, the rounded edges of shoes climbing the bank easy to pick out. He couldn’t find tracks leading down the bank and into the creek, but the crime scene investigators would find them if they were there.

“Jared,” Rossi said, “come over here.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is there where you climbed down to the water?”

“Yes, sir. Right here.”

Rossi let his flashlight play across Jared’s muddy shoes.

“Those the shoes you were wearing?”

“Yes, sir.”

Rossi examined the bank with his flashlight, not finding any evidence of descending footprints. He pointed his flashlight at the body, watching Jared’s reaction.

“Look at her. Is that the way you found her?”

“Yes, sir. Just like that,” he said.

“And then you got down in the water with her?”

“Just long enough to make sure she was dead.”

“Did you touch her?”

He shook his head. “No, sir. No need. I could tell she was dead.”

“You were right about that. Who is she?”

Jared pushed away from the creek, stood, and turned, his back to Rossi.

“I don’t know her name.”

Rossi fronted him. “But you do know her?”

“Seen her around.”

“Here? At Liberty Park?”

“Some. In town too.”

“Where?”

“Over in Northeast. I seen on her on Independence Avenue once or twice, on the street.”

Independence Avenue was a favorite hangout for prostitutes.

“You saying she was a hooker?”

Jared wrapped his arms tight around his middle, tossing his head from side to side. “I’m not saying that. I’m only saying that’s where I seen her.”

Rossi was feeling the bottle of wine he’d put away before he went to bed, his mouth cottony and his gut swimming in acid. All he wanted was to clear this case, put it on Jared if he was the killer, and go home.

Jared’s facial muscles were quivering. He looked past Rossi, then at the ground, and then at the stars, repeating the rotation over and over. Rossi doubted Jared’s story about how he’d found the woman, and his body language screamed
Crazy—Guilty—Crazy—Guilty,
like a flashing neon sign. But none of that was proof.

He sighed. “What did you do after you found the body?”

“Went back to my tent and got out of my wet clothes. Then I walked to the pay phone and called 911.”

“The water isn’t more than a foot deep. How’d you get wet?”

“Slipped and fell, I guess.”

Rossi told the paramedics to remain with the body until the crime scene investigators showed up, then motioned to Jared.

“Let’s go back to your tent, same way we came.”

Officer Schmitt was still standing outside Jared’s tent.

“We’ve corralled the campers on both sides of the creek. You can question them soon as you’re ready,” Schmitt said.

“Is that it? Can I go now?” Jared asked, shifting his feet and glancing in all directions.

“Take it easy, Jared. I’m talking to Officer Schmitt,” Rossi said.

“Well, I’m not waitin’ out here. I don’t like all this commotion.”

He ducked into his tent. Rossi and Schmitt followed him, Schmitt banging his head on a lantern hanging from a hook in the center of the tent ceiling, spraying shadows against the walls.

There was a sleeping bag on the floor and a coffee can resting on a soiled pillow. Thirty-gallon black trash bags filled to capacity with cans and bottles and tied off at the top lined one side of the tent. A damp pair of shorts and a T-shirt hung from another hook dangling on a sidewall.

“Why you rushing off?” Rossi asked.

Jared whirled around. “I showed you the body. Nothing else for me to do. And I don’t like people barging in on me.”

“Just a couple more questions,” Rossi said, “and we’ll be on our way. You don’t mind, do you?”

Jared didn’t answer, his Adam’s apple bobbing up down.

“What’s in those bags? Cans or bottles?”

Jared swallowed. “Some of both.”

“You get much for them?”

He shrugged. “Enough.”

Rossi pulled the wet shorts off the hook. “This what you were wearing when you found the body?”

Jared nodded and stepped back, knocking the coffee can over, watches, rings, bracelets, and other jewelry spilling onto the floor. He dropped to his knees, scrambling to shove them back into the can.

“You have receipts for that stuff?” Rossi asked, taking a step closer, still holding on to the wet shorts.

Jared sat on his haunches, clutching the can to his chest. “This is my stuff. I found it.”

Rossi slipped on a pair of latex gloves and crouched on the floor of the tent, eye level with Jared. He felt the outside of the wet shorts he’d removed from the hook, stopping when his fingers pressed against something hard in one of the pockets. When he turned the pocket inside out, a gold cross fell into his palm. Rossi held it up by the corners, seeing at once the similarity with the wound on the victim’s chest.

“Hey, Jared, where did you find this?”

Chapter Five

“ANYTHING ELSE, MS. STONE?” Judge William West asked from the bench.

Alex Stone thumbed through several pages of notes she’d scribbled on her legal pad.

“As I said, Your Honor, the police did not have probable cause for entering my client’s home without a search warrant, and therefore any evidence they obtained from that illegal search must be suppressed.”

Judge West stared at her, his hooded eyes half-hidden, his hands clasped across his broad belly.

“And as I said, Counsel, do you have anything else that I haven’t heard you repeat three times over the last hour?”

Alex pursed her lips, fighting the urge to shout,
“What difference would it make? We both know that you made up your mind before I said it the first time.”
But she couldn’t say a word, not after agreeing to serve her clients up to him for maximum sentences, a deal she’d made in the aftermath of a tragedy for which she took the blame. Now she longed for a way out of a bargain that had come back to haunt her. She turned her head toward her counsel table, where her client, John Atwell, was sitting, wondering if this would be the moment when she found the courage she’d been lacking. When he shook his head, Alex looked back at Judge West.

“No, Your Honor.”

“If I may,” Kalena Greene said.

“You may not,” Judge West answered. “I understand the state’s position. I’ll take the defendant’s motion to suppress under advisement. We’re adjourned.”

After the judge and his court reporter left, Atwell rose, briefly leaning in close, whispering to Alex before a sheriff’s deputy took him back to his cell, leaving Alex and Kalena alone.

“Your client should take the deal we offered him last week,” she told Alex.

“Why?”

“Because Atwell is guilty and this is the best deal he’s going to get.”

“Fifteen years? For a jewelry-store stickup? That’s not much of a deal.”

“It’s a Class A felony. He could get thirty years or life. And we’ll drop the armed criminal action count. We both know Judge West loves using that to double the sentence. So fifteen years is a bargain.”

“Fifty percent off,” Alex said. “You must be worried about my motion.”

“I’m not. We want your guy off the street before he sticks up another jewelry store or assaults another old woman who pisses him off.”

“The assault happened a year before the jewelry store, but you didn’t charge him. If you had, he wouldn’t have done the robbery.”

“Except the victim recanted because Atwell was twice her size and she believed him when he said he’d come back and finish the job if she testified against him, but you and I both know he beat the shit out of her and he would have still done the jewelry store, so who are we kidding here?”