A Tap on the Window

Twenty-four

A short black woman in her fifties, wearing a shiny blue down-filled jacket zipped up to her neck, approached. It struck me that she was dressed for much colder weather than we were currently having.

“Chief,” she said, blowing her nose and stuffing a tissue into one of her jacket pockets. I could see the ends of some surgical gloves sticking out of both of them.

“You okay, Sue?” Augie asked.

“Freezin’ to death. It’s this goddamn cold. Been trying to shake it for two weeks.”

“Sorry you had to get dragged out when you’re sick,” he said.

Sue shrugged. “Still a hell of a lot better off than that girl down there, I gather.”

“Cal, you know Dr. Kessler. She’s what passes for a coroner around here.”

Sue Kessler sniffed, looked at me. “We’ve met before, I think.” She was right. We’d crossed paths once or twice since I’d moved to Griffon. “I won’t shake your hand.”

I was okay with that.

“Sue, Cal found the body.”

“You touch anything?” Kessler asked.

“No,” I said. “But I got pretty close to her.”

“Point me,” Kessler said.

Augie raised an arm, extended a finger. “Down by the creek. Just under the bridge.”

“Terrific,” she said, pulling the gloves on. “Give me a couple of minutes.”

She was gone more like ten. Augie talked briefly to some of his officers, then returned to my side, the two of us hugging the railing, leaning over, catching glimpses of Kessler doing her job. We walked to the end of the bridge to meet her as she worked her way back up the hill.

“I’d say strangled,” she said. “There’s impression marks on her neck, aside from the bite marks from some animals, dogs most likely. Dead at least a day, I’d guess, but I’ll know more later.”

“Sexually assaulted?” Augie asked.

Kessler shrugged. “You could presume, given that her pants and underwear are missing. But I won’t know until I’ve had a chance to examine her.”

“Missing?” I said.

“If they’re down there,” she said, “I didn’t see them. They’re certainly not close to the body. Your people find any of the vic’s clothes?”

Augie said he would have to talk to his people.

Kessler sneezed and said, “I’m gonna go home, drink a gallon of NyQuil, try to get some sleep. I’ll tackle her first thing in the morning.”

As Kessler walked away, Augustus Perry said to me, “You might as well go home, too, Cal. We’ll take things from here.”

I wasn’t ready to leave. “It’s bugging you, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Someone’s not keeping you informed. That has to worry you.”

“Cal,” Augie said, bristling, “it may surprise you to know that the chief is not informed of every single thing that goes on within the department. If you get pulled over for speeding, I don’t get a call. If someone smashes a window at Griffon High, I don’t get a call. A cat gets stuck up in a tree, I don’t get a call.”

“Fire department gets that one, don’t they?”

“There are any number of reasons why someone in my department might be asking around about Claire Sanders that would not warrant my being brought into the loop, as you put it.”

I shook my head. I was suddenly very tired, but I knew I wasn’t heading home to bed anytime soon.

“See you around, Augie,” I said.

“You going home?”

“Once I’ve found Claire.”

I started to walk away, and then something struck me. I stopped and turned. “Of course, the other possibility is, you do know what’s going on. You know everything. Maybe you know something about Claire that Mayor Sanders would prefer didn’t come out. Maybe she’s into something she shouldn’t be. Maybe if you find out what it is, you’ll have some leverage against Sanders, get him to get the hell off your back.”

“Good thing there are a lot of people around right now,” Augie said. “Otherwise, I’d knock you flat on your ass.”

I looked around. “Just about all of them are cops,” I said. “I think they’d back up whatever story you wanted to tell. Isn’t that how it works around here? You may have thought you were fooling some of the people at that meeting, Augie, but you didn’t fool me.”

“You got a lot of nerve,” Augie said. “You think if this had happened anywhere else, where your brother-in-law wasn’t the fucking chief, you wouldn’t be getting your ass hauled in for questioning? You’re the last person who saw this girl alive, Cal. You don’t see me making an issue out of that.”

“Not yet,” I said.

Augie smiled.