The Night Is Watching (10 page)

“Or going back to?” Valerie asked, shivering.

Jane frowned and studied the painting. There was a sharp similarity between it and the sketch she’d drawn.

She frowned, looking at Henri.

“That’s Sage McCormick?” she asked, but she already knew the answer.

“Our beautiful ghost!” he said reverently. “Yes, indeed, that is Sage McCormick!”

Jane studied the old painting. It portrayed the woman she’d seen on the landing. Sage McCormick had rich dark curls that surrounded her face. Her eyes were large and gray, framed by rich lashes. Her lips were generous and curled into a secretive smile. She did, indeed, have the look of a queen—a sweeping, emoting drama queen. And yet...there was something about her eyes. She would have done well in their modern world, Jane thought. She was a bit of a wild child, a rebel. A woman before her time.

“Ah, Sage! Bless this place!” Henri said, overemoting himself. “May you help us prosper, indeed, because we cannot let this theater fail, can we?”

* * *

“At least it’s a slow week,” Dr. Arthur Cuthbert, one of the county medical examiners, told Sloan. “I have a died-at-home-alone octogenarian on my schedule and that’s it. I can keep the old fellow on ice awhile longer. My diener—assistant—is just cleaning up our tourist, Mr.—” he paused, checking his notes “—Mr. Jay Berman. However, I’m willing to bet he died from a .45 caliber to the back of the head.”

“Looks likely,” Sloan said. He hadn’t worked with Cuthbert before, and he wasn’t sure of a medical examiner who made quick suppositions. What seemed obvious... Well, things weren’t always what they seemed. He might be judging too hastily, though, he told himself.

Whoa, there, Sloan. Getting testy these days.

However, Detective Liam Newsome with the county joined him at the autopsy. He’d arrived at the crime scene when the forensic units were finishing up. Newsome was a decent cop, an oddly thin little man with sharp eyes and a sharper mind. They’d worked a hit-and-run on the town line when Sloan had first returned to Lily.

When the three of them headed into the autopsy, Sloan’s opinion of Cuthbert began to change. Cuthbert was precise, speaking to him and Detective Newsome and into a recorder all the while. Their dead man, Berman, had been approximately five-eleven and two hundred pounds. He had suffered no defensive wounds, which seemed consistent with the fact that he’d probably been kneeling. His attacker had likely walked behind him and pulled the trigger almost point-blank, judging by the powder burns. When he was done with the initial work, Cuthbert told Sloan he’d have the stomach contents analyzed, which would help narrow down the time of death. His informed guess was between two and four in the morning. When the lab reports came back, he’d send all the information to both Sloan and Liam at their respective departments.

“So, our tourist came to Lily and was shot execution-style,” Newsome said as they exited the morgue together. “You ever seen anything like that before?”

“Not in Lily.” Sloan had seen the style of killing, but that had been when he was dealing with known drug lords and their minions and in a big city rather than a little town where it seemed everyone knew everyone. Even the tourists. He pulled out his phone, looking at the information Betty had sent. “My deputies traced his identity—he’d given the management his credit card at the Old Jail and at the stables—and they’ve been checking his movements since he got to town. He’s from New York. Flew out to Tucson and drove to Lily late last week after picking up a rental car at the airport. He said he was on his own and just loved all the stories he’d heard about the Old West. He went to the show one night and took a couple tours with the stables. That’s all I’ve got at the moment. Appears he was friendly with everyone he met and seemed like a regular guy on vacation. I’ll start making further inquiries, try to find out if anyone got anything more from him.”

Newsome nodded. “I’ll work on the home angle. Maybe he was running from New York. Maybe his killer was never in Lily. Any word on the rental car?”

“No. Betty called the rental agency. No tracking device on his car. It was a new Nissan XTerra. Silver-gray.” Sloan looked down at the page and gave Newsome the license number.

“I’ll get a trace on it,” Newsome said.

Sloan nodded. “I’ll start with our locals.”

“We’ll see if he had family or friends—
acquaintances
—in New York who might’ve known if he had a different reason for coming out here. You had any trouble with drugs lately?”

“No more than the usual. Kids, mostly,” Sloan told him.

The two parted ways at the morgue. Sloan headed back to his office, stopping at Old Town first.

Mike Addison was at the desk in the Old Jail. He already knew about everything that had happened in the desert.

The fact that news traveled like wildfire in a small town had its good points; he didn’t have to explain what he needed to know.

“Sloan, don’t it just beat all?” Mike asked him. “I’m so sorry to hear about this. That Jay seemed like an all-right guy.”

“Tell me about him, Mike. Tell me everything he said and did while he was here.”

“Hell, I don’t room with my guests!” Mike said. “He checked in, and he talked to me about things to do in town. I told him to see the show and take tours from the stables. If he didn’t ride, he could do the haunted hayride at night. He was really a nice guy.”

“Why was he out here on his own?”

“Said he was a history buff, that he’d read all about Arizona and Lily.”

“Where did he stay?” Sloan asked. “Which room?”

“Well, you can imagine. A guy like that.”

Sloan prayed for patience. “Mike, I don’t want to imagine. Just tell me which room he stayed in.”

“The Trey Hardy cell. He was the guest in that cell right before the young couple who lost their wallets.”

“And he checked out?”

Mike nodded. “Let’s see. It’s Tuesday now.... He came in last Tuesday night, checked out Thursday morning. Our young couple got here Friday afternoon—and, well, you know about Saturday. Their wallets disappeared, they freaked out and left that day after you found the wallets. No one stayed there on Saturday night. They were supposed to be there another few days. I have it booked again starting Thursday night. Everything in and near town is booked as of Thursday. The Silverfest activities start on Friday, so folks will be coming in big numbers.”

“Let me have the key, Mike. I want to take another look in there.”

“Here you go!” Mike handed him the key.

Sloan went to the Trey Hardy cell. Nothing looked any different than it had when he’d been in there a few days ago to search for the wallets that had “disappeared.”

He sat on the bed. Mike’s housekeeping staff was good; the cell was immaculate. He wasn’t sure what he thought he’d find in the cell but he began to go through the drawers. They were empty—except for a King James version of the Bible.

He sat back down on the bed, wondering what Jay Berman could have been up to that had gotten him executed out in the desert.

It was while he was sitting there that the door to the tiny bathroom suddenly flew open. “So, Hardy, there
is
something I’m missing, huh?” he asked.

He figured that one day the ghost would actually make an appearance. He never knew if he imagined the vague image he sometimes saw or if it was real. Longman always appeared as a solid entity to him. He’d never been sure if he was crazy or not; he’d decided he’d consider himself functional, if crazy, and learn to live with what he either did or didn’t see.

But now, it seemed that whether a ghost or his mind was suggesting it, he needed to investigate the small bathroom that had been built into the cell.

Shower, sink and toilet were almost on top of one another. The tile floor was clean and the wastebasket under the sink had been emptied. A mirror hung over the sink and a small cabinet, which had been nailed over the toilet, held the usual tiny containers of lotion, shampoo, conditioner and soap.

And a tissue box.

Sloan picked up the box. There were remnants of a piece of paper beneath it. Apparently, someone had set a note there to keep it from falling into the sink. Somehow, it had gotten damp and ripped, leaving behind the little corner of paper.

All that remained were a few blurred words. He frowned as he studied them.

DES DIA

It could only mean one place. Desert Diamonds. And it might not mean anything at all; Mike might have told Jay Berman that Desert Diamonds was where he could go to have pizza, coffee or buy souvenirs.

He looked into the mirror and froze. To his astonishment, he saw more than his own reflection there. For a moment, it was as if someone stood behind him, looking into the mirror, as well, meeting his eyes.

It was Trey Hardy, his plumed hat set jauntily on his head. He looked at Sloan grimly and nodded.

He didn’t speak.

He disappeared, fading away until he was nothing but a memory.

Or a sure sign of insanity.

* * *

It was late in the day when Jane finally returned Kanga to Sloan’s stable and took the patrol car back to the station. Betty was just about to leave.

“Jane!” she said, pausing to greet her before walking out. “How’s the work going?”

“The work—oh, it’s going very well.”

“I wish I knew more about what you do!” Betty said enthusiastically. “It’s science
and
it’s art!”

Jane smiled. “I’m lucky. I love my job. The form of the human skull shapes the face, but it’s the soft tissue that really creates the unique appearance of each human being.”

“How accurate can you be? When did people learn how to do this?” Betty asked.

“Pretty accurate. A lot is in the hands of the artist, especially where coloring comes into play, though nationality or ethnic background can often be determined by the skull. There was a French anatomist named Paul Broca who was the first to use scientific methods to create images of the living from the dead, showing the relationship between the bone and the soft parts. That was in the late 1800s,” Jane told Betty. “This is probably more than you wanted to know, so stop me if I’m boring you.”

“No, I’m fascinated. I didn’t know any of this.”

“Okay, you asked for it! Anyway, Broca defined the differences between different ethnic groups. Then there was a German anatomist, Hermann Welcker, who went on to measure the soft tissue in male cadavers and found nine ‘median points’ from which to work. All this was then enhanced by a Swiss anatomist, Wilhelm His, who worked with cadavers and used the nine median points and six lateral points to further the ability to re-create the appearance of life when nothing’s left but bone. As you can tell, I love it. And thanks to technology, what we can do grows all the time. Scientists and artists have worked together through the years to identify remains when all other hope of identification is gone.”

“That’s really important,” Betty said. She cocked her head to one side. “So, you’re an artist. Are you an agent, too?”

“Yes, I’m an agent. Anyone in a Krewe—part of the FBI’s behavioral sciences group—has to go through the academy.”

“Good!” Betty said. “I love to see other women in law enforcement. Can you shoot?”

“Fairly decently, yes,” Jane said.

That made Betty smile. “Well, you’re a wonderful asset to have here. I’m sorry. We’re usually a great place. And you got here for one of our very rare episodes of violence. Murder,” she added softly.

“Bad things can happen anywhere. But that doesn’t make the town bad.”

Betty smiled again, obviously pleased at the compliment. “Yeah, you’re right. Bad things—that’s just life, huh? I’m so glad that you’re enjoying your time here.” She gave an easy shrug. “Well, I’m off. The night crew is on.” She winked. “Not as good as the day crew, but they’re okay.”

Jane laughed, waving as Betty went to her car.

Jane put Sloan’s keys in his desk, got the keys to the little Kia that had been rented for her use and then spent a few hours working with the soft-tissue markers on the skull. After about two hours, however, she felt she’d have to pick up again the next day. She was just too tired to concentrate and she didn’t want to read a measurement wrong. True, the measurements were averages that had been determined through the years by many different anatomists and scientists. But every face was unique, something artists needed to remember as they worked, always letting the skull itself be the guide.

The problem now, of course, was that she was pretty sure she was looking at the earthly remains of Sage McCormick. Or part of them, at any rate. She’d seen the painting, and she’d seen her sketch. That was definitely going to influence her. But did that really matter? She’d done the two-dimensional drawing before she’d seen the painting above the bar and learned it was Sage McCormick.

She surveyed her work so far. Not much. The skull and markers by themselves did very little to form a human face.

Before leaving, she paused to look at the sketch she’d created the day before. The woman she’d depicted based on the skull had been beautiful. Of course, she’d given her the sparkle in her eyes and the look of friendly mischief that seemed to radiate from her smile.

Sage McCormick. It was the same expression she had in the painting. Maybe, Jane told herself, she’d been subconsciously aware of the painting when she’d checked in. But she didn’t think so; she hadn’t really seen it until she was sitting there today with Valerie and Henri.

Sloan Trent had seemed startled by the image—disturbed by it, even. But then, he’d seemed disturbed by Jane herself at the time, so she hadn’t gotten an explanation from him.

She covered her work with a muslin cloth. She was almost done with it and would start the buildup with clay to produce muscle structure the following day. She left the interrogation room and walked to the front. Now that the sheriff’s office had a murder to deal with, she doubted there’d be much interest in what she was doing.

Tired, Jane glanced at her watch and saw that it was past nine. When she reached the front office, she was pleasantly greeted by Scotty Carter, who was at the desk. He was the youngest of the crew here, she thought; he appeared to be about twenty-five, with a facial structure that suggested a Native American background.