Sanctuary Lost WITSEC Town Series Book 1 (9 page)

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The street behind the Meeting House on the
south side of Main looked much like the street behind the sheriff’s
office. The rear of the buildings faced a row of residential
houses. John half-expected the dead woman to be the same woman he’d
seen in the barn. He checked his watch as they jogged to where the
second of the pair he’d seen stood. The boy’s hands shook and he
made gagging sounds.

10:05 p.m.

“Okay, here’s close enough.” John held out
his arm to stop the group who’d run with him from the Meeting House
a ways back from the body.

None of them should be here with him. But did
they listen? His repeated attempts to get them to remain at the
meeting house were ignored. He hardly needed an audience for
this.

John motioned to the kid. “Step this way,
please.”

The guy stumbled to them.

“Did you check to make sure she’s dead?” John
could see her, sprawled at the bottom of a wall. He could also see
the blood. When the guy turned greener, John looked at the crowd
who’d followed. “No one goes closer than this.”

The major general shoved to the front. “I’ll
take care of her. This woman needs to be treated with respect.”

“And with all due respect to you, this is my
job.”

“You only just arrived. That hardly makes you
one of us.”

“Perhaps that’s a good thing. Since it makes
me impartial.” He waited but the Major General didn’t say more.
John turned to Bolton. “No one goes closer than this.” He motioned
to the two guys who discovered the body. “They don’t leave and they
don’t talk to anyone either. Not even each other.”

For a second Bolton looked like he was going
to refuse, but he nodded. John looked around, scanning the area as
his brain worked through everything that needed to be done.

“I need someone to find Deputy Palmer.”
Matthias’ brother, Diego, broke away from the crowd and sprinted
down the street. John turned to Bolton, who stood at the front of
the crowd staring at the body. “I’ll need the doctor, unless
there’s a medical examiner in town. I also need to know if there
are any retired cops, a judge, a district attorney. Anyone like
that.” He took a breath. “I’m going to need all the resources
available.”

Bolton nodded and turned to one of his guys.
“March, go get Simmons. Bring him to the sheriff’s office. Oh, and
start a pot of coffee.” Bolton sighed. “It’s going to be a long
night.”

“Simmons?”

“Former superior court judge.”

“Justice Anthony Simmons?”

“That’d be him.”

Great. That guy was pushing ninety years ago
when an angry protestor bombed his office, killing five people and
declaring war on the Supreme Court and Simmons in particular. John
scratched the side of his head and the scab from Alphonz’s guy’s
gun-butt.

He’d figured witness protection when Simmons
disappeared, only showing up again to testify against the
eco-terrorist. The rest of the group had tried to kill him. But no
one had ever been killed while under the protection of WITSEC. At
least not if they followed the rules.

John strode to the body. Her blonde hair was
matted with dirt. Face down on the ground, she was tucked against
the side of the building as though someone tried to make her as
inconspicuous as possible. Her white pants and red blouse were
smeared with dirt. She could be any number of the blonde women he’d
met the past two days.

He made his way back to the group. “If I’m
going to process this scene, I’ll need to run by the sheriff’s
office.” For supplies
and
coffee.

Bolton’s eyes flicked to settle on John. “Get
what you need. I’ll maintain the scene.”

He should just ask the man if he’d been a
cop. No one else talked like that other than people in the
business, wannabes and true crime fans. So which was Bolton
Farrera?

John crossed the street to the back of the
sheriff’s office, trailed by another set of footsteps. He glanced
back and saw Matthias behind him. “Need something?”

“Not me, but if you’re going to be up all
night working do you want me to hang out in case Pat wakes up?”

John stopped at the back door. “Actually that
would be great.” Too bad nice people always weirded him out. No one
was that selfless. Because John had never met anyone who started
out nice and stayed that way, instead of revealing an ulterior
motive. Could he trust this guy with his son? Everything so far
said yes. But was it enough to go on?

“I can take him to my mom’s for breakfast, if
you’re still busy, or sleeping or whatever. He can meet my nephews
and then Pat’ll know kids his own age he can play with.”

“Okay.” John unlocked the door and they went
in. He should have thought of that. But for some reason John
assumed Pat being here with him would be enough. He must have had
friends at school and in his neighborhood and he’d need that here,
too. “There’s a couch and TV upstairs and someone stocked the
fridge.”

“That’d be my mom. She likes to make everyone
feel welcome when they get here.”

And yet she wasn’t on the “welcoming
committee” as Betty Collins had called it. The unassuming way
Olympia had made their first days better meant a whole lot
more.

“Tell her I said thanks.”

Matthias grinned. “Sure thing.”

“Make yourself at home. If I’m not here,
leave a note when you go to breakfast.”

John pulled open cabinets in the office,
searching for anything that looked like stuff he’d need to process
a murder scene—tweezers, police tape, gloves, evidence bags. A body
bag. He pulled a duffel bag from the shelf above a rail where
someone had hung vests and winter coats and unzipped it.
“Bingo.”

Still, he needed his camera.

Matthias was still standing at the bottom of
the apartment stairs.

“You need something else?”

“Well…” He ran a hand through his scruffy
black hair. “I don’t know where you’re at with all this, but if it
comes time tomorrow is it okay if Pat comes to church with my
family?”

That was all? The young man looked nervous.
John turned back to his bag. “That’s fine. Just call me on the
radio if you guys need anything.”

“Okay, cool. I’m going to head up.”

John followed him up and dug out the camera
he’d packed just because he always used the thing to take pictures
of Pat. That was years ago now, but it wasn’t like he could’ve
upgraded his ancient phone to one with a camera. It wouldn’t even
work here.

Pat was still sleeping soundly, so John wrote
him a note about Matthias but not the dead body and left it on the
other pillow.

Matthias barely glanced up from his
shoot-em-up movie when John slung the bag over his shoulder and
headed out again. If he was done with the scene by morning, he’d
probably need a break. There wasn’t much of a better way to
contrast death than with church. He understood the fundamentals of
religion. Although why God needed to die and come back to life
didn’t make much sense. Couldn’t He just could poof whatever and do
what He needed?

John blew out a breath as he walked. The
night air wasn’t too cool and when he got back to the scene, Bolton
was holding the crowd back. John dumped the bag and cordoned off
the area with police tape and the help of two street lamps and a
rusted ladder on the corner of the building. The area was huge but
he didn’t have anything else to use to hold up the tape. And since
this was his first murder investigation, he didn’t want to make the
area too small and miss something.

He looked at Bolton. “Is the doctor here
yet?”

“On his way.”

“Anyone else? Palmer?”

Bolton turned so his back was to the group
all straining to see the body. “Not yet.”

John moved closer and lowered his voice. “Any
idea who it is?”

Bolton shook his head. “Can’t tell from here.
Not from the back of the head.”

“I’ll call you over when the doctor gets here
and we flip her.” John dug in the bag for his camera.

“What happened to her?” It was the woman from
the command center who’d looked like she belonged at the Pentagon.
“Who would cause an accident like this and then leave?”

“I want to know why she was out on Battle
Night. She’s wearing bright colors, so she wasn’t part of it.” Hal
frowned in the direction of the woman. “Maybe she bumped into
someone coming around a corner and hit her head.”

The major general planted his feet, hip width
apart. “Clearly she was up to something. Check for paint. If there
isn’t any on her then it’ll be clear no one involved with Battle
Night was the cause of this. She probably just had a heart attack
or something. Terribly tragic, but nothing to get all fussed
about.”

“We’ll have to wait to draw any conclusions.”
John gripped the camera in his hands. “There isn’t much you all can
do, unless you have some prior training processing a crime
scene.”

At least two of them gasped.

“You think its murder?” The woman covered her
mouth.

“This was just a horrible tragedy. Like I
said.” The major general shook his head. “There’s no need to get
all riled up now. We’ve still got a team C to rustle up.”

“Speaking of which, why don’t you do that?”
John didn’t care what the reason was. He didn’t need an audience
for his first real case as a sheriff. Dan looked about as happy
about all this as Bolton. John headed over to him. “Any way I can
get some floodlights or such to light this place? It’s pretty dark
to work.”

The farmer tore his eyes from the body. “I’ll
rouse Shelby and Aaron. See if the theater company has stage lights
we can use.”

“Thanks.” He turned to Bolton and handed him
a notebook and pen. “I want a list of their names and then a record
of everyone who comes and goes. Then get them to go home.” John
motioned to the two who’d found the dead woman. “They don’t
leave.”

“Right you are, boss.” There was humor in
Bolton’s eyes.

John didn’t think this was a man anyone had
ever ordered to do anything, but now wasn’t the time to mince
words. Not when he was likely looking at a murder investigation in
a close community of people fiercely protective of their
privacy.

“You think its murder?”

“Not for sure until we get her turned and
figure out what happened.” John nodded. “But it could—”

A golf cart turned the corner travelling
fast, followed by another immediately behind it. The doctor and his
wife hopped off the first, the mayor from the second. The ranch
hand who fetched the doctor jumped from his perch on the back of
the mayor’s cart and jogged over behind them. He opened his mouth,
but the mayor started yelling.

“Betty!”

He started to run to the body but John
grabbed him. The older man fell to his knees.

“Betty!”

Harriet Fenton hung back with the mayor,
looking shell-shocked at the death of her friend. Was it really
Betty Collins lying there? John and the doctor went to the body.
“So you’re the medical examiner as well as the town’s doctor.”

The doctor nodded; his face somber. “I have
authorization to perform the duties of coroner, medical examiner
and town doctor. Complicated surgery has to be done at the air
force hospital. I can stabilize trauma and they’ll be airlifted
out. We have a trained midwife, but I perform C-sections and I sign
death certificates for everyone in town.”

“Well, I appreciate you doing this.
Especially given Mrs. Collins is a friend of yours.” He gave the
man a second and then said, “Are you going to be okay?”

The doctor stopped and faced him. “There’s no
one else in this town who even comes close to having the skills or
the grace to deal with this.”

“Very well.”

They kept walking.

Dan had shown up with stage lights just after
the mayor’s outburst and set them up to illuminate the body and the
surrounding area. John watched the ground as he walked, looking for
anything that might be helpful. Either of them stepping on
something in their paper booties wasn’t going to be helpful. Never
mind John had absolutely no clue how he was supposed to run the
tests that should be run on whatever evidence he collected.

It was as good as being a wild west sheriff
before there was any technology to test blood or collected
materials, or even finger print analysis done with more than the
human eye and a magnifying glass. How many of the old marshals from
years ago wound up getting a wrong idea and sentencing an innocent
man to death? John was going to have to be very careful, even given
the fact he was impartial compared with the rest of the residents
of this town. It would be easy to be swayed by the force of their
opinion.

He glanced over at the huddled crowd growing
larger by the minute. Who knew what secrets they protected? They
didn’t even seem to comprehend Betty could just as easily have been
murdered, assuming instead it had been an accident.

John drew his sketch. He took pictures from
all angles and then they turned her. The dead body was Betty
Collins. He took more pictures, concentrating on the blood stained
front of her shirt, while the doctor closed her eyes with the
fingers of his gloves. John took more pictures of the area. There
didn’t appear to be anything here—just dirty concrete and the body.
No murder weapon, despite the blood on her torso. It was just the
rear of a building; street, walls and a collection of trash cans
that would have to be sorted through. His nose couldn’t tell if the
raw smell was the scene or the garbage.

John glanced back at the mayor. Harriet
Fenton clutched his arm as though trying to hold him up lest he
dissolve into grief. Her face was perfectly set in a painful
grimace so pronounced he could see it even from this distance.

John stepped back from the body and let the
doctor get to work. Killing always turned his stomach, more than
natural passing. It was like all the emotion spent at the time of
death—from both the killer and the victim—was imprinted on what was
left. What lay there was a shell which used to be a person, one who
had been loved and full of life.