Shifting Dreams (14 page)

“I saw some things, too.”

“Figured you might have, but we’ll talk about it later. Right now, I’m gonna make that call, okay?”

She nodded. There was no delaying it. She wanted to see Caleb again, but she didn’t want him to question her. For once, she wanted to be held by someone who felt stronger. Someone she could depend on. She wanted to cry and rail and know that
someone
was aching because she was hurt. Something told her Caleb Gilbert might just be strong enough, but that wasn’t why he was coming. Jena took a deep breath, pulling the raw grief inside. She only hoped the man was as good at his job as Jeremy seemed to think, because there was a hell of a lot they weren’t going to tell him.

Chapter Ten

Why had he thought it would be easier?
 

As Caleb drove out to Alma’s house, following the cryptic directions Jeremy had given him, he steeled himself to deal with seeing the body of the lively old woman who had served him pie and teased him about her granddaughter. The same granddaughter who had found her dead body a matter of hours ago.

“Why were you out there, Jena? Why did it have to be you?”
 

Unlike the city, here there was no one to call. No backup or disinterested detective.
 

‘I know the victim. Put someone else on it.’
 

‘I’m involved with her granddaughter. Find someone else.’

There was no “someone else” anymore.

Caleb realized something as he pulled into the gravel in front of Alma’s house. While the city may have been impersonal at times, it had sheltered him with anonymity. In Cambio Springs, there was no shelter. He would know every victim along with their families and friends. He’d deal with the aftermath of violence long after the case had closed. He hadn’t thought about that part. He’d looked forward to the expectation of easy days and no midnight calls.
 

Now, as he looked at Jena’s slumped shoulders on the porch—her devastated eyes, her shaking body—he didn’t want to question her. He wanted to hold her. In some ways, this was going to be the hardest case he’d ever solve. But he would solve it. Caleb may have had a bad track record of taking care of the living, but the dead were a different matter.
 

He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and focused. Then he opened them and looked at the house with new eyes.

Jena had found her grandmother before dawn on a Wednesday morning. Why was she here? Had Alma called expecting trouble or was this related to the cryptic conversation he’d overheard her having with Jeremy?

“—I just know she’s new in town. I don’t want to impose.”

“It’s fine, Jena. Call her. I can almost guarantee it won’t be a—”

“I wouldn’t even ask, but… well, you know.”

“It’s fine. She gets it. Really, she does. And she really likes the boys. Just call her.”

He would bet Brenda McCann was at Jena’s house that very moment. And Jeremy was already here, which meant Jena had called him first. Not all that unexpected. Despite their growing friendship, he was still the unfamiliar element in this town. Well, that and murder. Caleb had looked at the sheriff’s records. The last homicide in Cambio Springs had been fifteen years before, when a man had shot his wife in a domestic dispute. It had been tragic, but a clear crime of passion. The husband had been sitting on the porch when the deputies had come, weeping and near suicide over his actions.

From what little Jeremy had told him when he called, this was something altogether different.

“Not sure, Chief. Looks like an animal attack. It may be that, but it’s inside. It’s possible something wandered into the house, since she does live out in the middle of nowhere. It’s a weird one.”

Alma Crowe was no dummy. She wasn’t likely to let an animal in her house in the middle of the night. What was really going on here?

Caleb opened the door and stepped out. Jena, wearing an odd dress, was sitting on the porch steps with Jeremy. Not her dress. He could see that immediately. Had she gotten blood on her clothes and wanted to change? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d encountered it with witnesses. Blood was a primal reminder that something had gone terribly wrong. Most people avoided it. The sight of it. The smell. Caleb tucked the information into the back of his mind and looked around the house.

The scene. Not the house, the
scene
.

Jeremy’s pickup was pulled up front. Jena’s car around the side. A kitchen door? Family and close friends would use the kitchen door. He couldn’t see Alma’s car, but it might have been in the detached garage he could see behind the house. Were they going somewhere? Was Jena supposed to drive? He approached the two cautiously. Jeremy was speaking in a low voice, and Jena kept nodding mechanically. Her eyes were red from tears, but her skin was pale and drawn. She was a hundred victims he’d seen before. She was the only victim ever.

Caleb wanted to hold her.

He pushed the urge back and nodded as Jeremy looked at him.

“Chief.”

“Deputy. Jena.” He kneeled down on the lowest porch step so he was even with her. Jena lifted swollen eyes to his and he couldn’t help himself. He reached out and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, brushing a finger over her cheek. It was hot, like she’d been crying for a long time. He saw her eyes start to well again, so he pulled back. “I’m sorry,” he said in a soft voice. “I’m so sorry, Jena. I’ll help her now. Do you understand?” She nodded and closed her eyes. Then she took a deep breath and started to speak.

“I was coming out here—”

“Let me…” He interrupted gently. “Let me go look first. It’ll just take a few minutes. I’ll be back. Jeremy, you picked up Ted, right? Is she in there?”

It hadn’t surprised him to learn that Teodora Vasquez, only doctor in Cambio Springs, was the coroner as well. But unlike some coroners in small towns, he had a feeling Ted would take this job just as seriously as setting bones or giving exams. That said, it was a quiet town and this was probably her first violent death.

“Yeah, she’s in there.”

“I’ll go back. Wait with Jena?”

Jeremy nodded while Caleb rose and walked up the steps. He paused a moment before he entered the house, wishing he’d had time to visit before its owner became a murder victim. He quickly shoved the thought to the back of his mind and opened the door.

It was the same everywhere. The metallic scent that sometimes hit him at scenes. Death had many scents, but this time, it was the overwhelming smell of blood that drifted to him. He followed the quiet sound of Ted’s voice that led him to the kitchen. She was taking notes into a small voice recorder. All the expected stats as she measured and sampled. The myriad familiar tasks that a forensic examiner performed as she cared for the remains and collected evidence. It wasn’t quite as exciting as the television shows made it out to be, but the evidence was important, nonetheless.
 

Ted glanced at him once, but kept speaking her notes into the recorder as she crouched next to the body. Caleb could tell from her actions that she’d done this before. She paused and switched her recorder off before she stood up and met his professional stare. She was devastated, but hiding it well. She also anticipated his question.

“I worked for a few years in L.A., but no, it’s not the same.”

“It never is when it’s someone you know.”

“You ever had a victim you’ve known?”

“That I investigated? No. Not like this.” Created? That was a different story.

“We could call Dev.”

He tried to not be insulted. “He knew Alma better than I do. It’d be harder for him to be objective.”

“Yeah, but he’s not trying to get into her granddaughter’s… Never mind. You’ll be fine.”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed at the dig. He’d once been Albuquerque’s top detective, but he didn’t feel like justifying himself to her.

“First impressions, Dr. Vasquez?”

Ted straightened and turned on her professional face, despite the exhaustion and grief in her eyes.

“Body temperature suggests death around two in the morning. Cause? Well… as you can see, that’s both obvious and odd.”

For the first time, Caleb truly turned his eyes on the body.

Not Alma. Just a body.

A body that had succumbed to massive blood loss from the gashes ripped across her chest and abdomen. It was as if a giant claw had swiped from shoulder to hip, tearing into everything it met. Deep. There were three… Or four? One claw mark was shallower. It was an injury that looked like it had come from a giant paw.

“That looks like an animal attack.”

“I know.”

What had a paw that big? Caleb squinted and moved closer. He looked around the room, immaculate save for the blood spray. What could have made that kind of wound?
 

“You get bears around here?”

She stuttered. “Bears?”

“Yeah.”

“Um… some. But none that Alma was going to risk around her china cabinet.”

“You’re right. She’d never let a bear in.” He glanced at the kitchen door. He’d examine it later, but there were no obvious signs of break-in.

“She knew him. Let him in.”

“Him?” Ted’s voice sounded weird. “This looks like an animal to me.”

“Would she have let an animal into the house?”

Animal? Human? The wound looked animal; the scene looked human. There were a few signs of struggle, but nothing extensive enough to have been put there by an animal big enough to make those wounds. There was blood splatter on the walls and over the floor, but not as much as he would have expected considering the size of the slash marks.

 
“She was moving when she was killed,” he murmured. “Trying to get away.”

 
“It looks like it.”

There was that itching at the back of his mind again. Something about this scene…
 

It was wrong. Just wrong. His instincts screamed it. There was an element missing. A blind spot he couldn’t angle his eyes into. A lens out of focus. He blinked as he looked at the body again.

“She’s naked.”

Ted looked nervous and glanced away. Embarrassed by the sight of her friend’s grandmother or something else?

He muttered, “Why was she naked?”

Ted cleared her throat. “Maybe she sleeps in the buff. Been known to do it myself on occasion.”

“No evidence of clothes?” Had the killer undressed her?

“Not that I’ve seen. And no cloth in the wounds that I can see. You might ask Jeremy.”

“No… her body doesn’t look like he undressed her after death.” If he had, there would have been smears on the skin, evidence that someone had forced limp arms through cloth. The angles of her body would have been unnatural and bent. The victim had fallen on her side, but it looked like she’d been left alone to bleed out without being further molested.

Caleb walked around the body, measuring, taking it all in, and locking it in his memory. “She wasn’t sleeping. Jena was coming over and she was expected.” He glanced around. Where was the laundry room? There, over by the kitchen door. It was possible that the old woman had been on her way to get clothes from the dryer. When he’d lived in the big empty house in New Mexico, he’d done the same, wandered to the laundry room after a shower to get a favorite shirt or pair of jeans.

“Tell me about the cause of death.”

She sighed. “Here’s where we get obvious and odd at the same time. The wounds, obviously, are what killed her. They’re deep, almost three inches, and clean. Something strong. Cut over her ribs starting at the shoulder and then into her gut. She bled out. I’d say animal, but the wounds are… too clean. That’s the odd part.”

“Not like an animal attack.”

She shook her head. “Not like any I’ve seen. I stitched up Steve Quinn last August when he got into a scuffle with a mountain lion. The wounds were similar, but not like this. These are… Well, you can see.”

Ted crouched down, careful not to disturb anything. He squatted next to her and his eyes immediately went wide when he saw the slashes. “What the hell…”

The slices were raw and bloody, but just as Ted said, clean. Like an animal, but too smooth. The flesh looked like it had curved into the valley the weapon had left, distorting the edges of the skin. Even—impossible to think—healing partially.

“There’s no way,” he said under his breath. “No way.” Alma Crowe would have been dead in minutes. There was no way her body would have been able to heal, even a little bit. It was impossible. There had to be another explanation.

“Not an animal, unless it’s something we haven’t seen before.”

He turned his head to her. “And you’re sure you’ve never seen anything like this before?”

The flinch was so minute that even he barely caught it. “Nope. New to me, too.”

She was lying. Why was she lying? He tucked the information away to examine later.

“Right. You going to send the body to San Bernardino?”

She nodded quickly. “I don’t have the facilities to handle this here.”