Cold Truth

1

The early-morning fog had yet to be burned off by a sun still snoozing behind low-lying clouds, but the gulls were already circling over the bay and the shorebirds had begun to forage along the waterline. Although almost summer, the air still bore a bit of a chill, and the remnants of a cool spring night hung in the damp air. Waves rolled gently onto the beach, tiny swells outlined with white foam that left damp impressions on the pale yellow sand. Overhead, a gull screamed at the intruder who crested the top of the dune.

“Oh, shut up.” The woman barely glanced at the ornery bird that swooped over her head and continued to rain gull curses down upon her.

Detective Cassandra Burke stood with her hands on her hips, and through the fog sought the outline of the Barnegat Lighthouse across the bay. She’d just ended her fourth night of surveillance of a motel where suspected drug sales were being conducted, and she was both exhausted from lack of sleep and stiff from inactivity. She toed off her shoes and left them in the sand, then set off for the marina a mile down the beach. She’d walk the kinks out, then run back. Two miles wasn’t really long enough, but it was the best she could do this morning. Maybe she’d feel better. Maybe not. But she had a meeting at eight, and needed to sandwich in a little exercise, then a little breakfast, before she headed to the police station.

The sand on the bay beach was coarser than that on the ocean side, and allowed a more solid footing. She walked briskly, sidestepping the spiny helmets of the dead and dying horseshoe crabs that had washed up onshore overnight and had been unable to crawl back before the tide went out. When she reached the inlet, she paused long enough to watch a few large power boats-charters, mostly-as they set out to sea with their passengers, sport fishermen who had paid for the privilege of casting their lines into the Atlantic with hopes of snagging a few feisty blues before the sun set later that day.

She waved to the captain of the Normandy Maid as it passed, a half-dozen or so eager fishermen on deck, their baseball caps shielding their faces from the sun that would soon enough grace them with its presence, their arms and noses slick with SPF 35. It wasn’t much of a living, running a charter, but for those who’d never done much else, it was a way of life, a life she knew well. Her father had captained his own boat, the Jenny B, named after her mother. He’d never made much money, but he loved to go to work every day. In the off-season, he ran the only boat storage facility in Bowers Inlet, but his life was out on the water. Few days passed that didn’t find Cass here, at the point where the bay eased into the ocean, watching the boats head out, and remembering. As a very little child, she’d watched from her mother’s arms as her father’s boat chugged by.

“Wave to Daddy, Cassie,” her mother would say. “See him there, on the deck? Wave to Daddy, honey…”

And Cass would wave wildly. Most days, her father would salute as he passed, touching just his right index finger to the brim of his hat.

A few years later, Cass stood on the rocks nearest the water, holding tightly to her little sister’s hand.

“Wave to Daddy, Trish,” she’d say. “Wave to Daddy…”

The alarm on her watch buzzed, bringing her back to the present. She turned away from the inlet and started back down the beach, running so fast her muscles barely had time to burn before she reached the spot where she’d left her shoes. If she was going to grab something to eat before her meeting, she’d have to leave now.

She wanted real food. Through the wee hours of the night, she’d had enough coffee to keep her wired for several days, while Jeff Spencer, the only other detective on the town’s small police force, had packed away enough cream donuts to make her sick just to watch. Eggs and sausage and toast should do it, she was thinking as she slipped into her shoes. And orange juice. Her stomach rumbling, she headed back to her car. If she drove fast enough, she might even have time for a short stack of pancakes.

“Detective Burke?”

“Yes?” Cassie paused midway across the lobby of the new police station.

“The lady at the desk there…”

“Sergeant Carter.” Emphasis on sergeant.

“Right. Sergeant Carter. She said you were working on my son’s case…”

“Your son is…?”

“Derrick Mills.” He spoke the name softly.

“Yes. Derrick. Yes, I’m working on that case.” Cassie swallowed back a sigh. Derrick Mills was one of five kids arrested for selling drugs at the regional high school three weeks ago. She wasn’t blind to the father’s pain and embarrassment and wished she could ease it somehow, even as she knew she could not.

“I was wondering what we had to do, you know, to get the charges dropped. He’s a good kid, Detective. Top athlete, good student. He’s got a scholarship to play baseball in college next year.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Mills. I really am. But Derrick should have thought about that scholarship before he offered to sell cocaine to Officer Connors.”

“Detective Burke-”

“Please, Mr. Mills. Save your breath. I’ve made my report and my recommendations, and they stand. There’s nothing I can do. Now, if you want to talk to the county DA ’s office, you go right ahead and make that call. But right now, I’m late for a meeting. So if you’ll excuse me…”

“You know, I expected more from Bob Burke’s girl.” His voice had dropped to a low growl.

“Don’t even go there.” She shook her head and walked past him.

Cass made an effort to not glance back at the angry father while she fought down her own anger. It wasn’t the first time someone had invoked her father’s name, as if somehow having known him entitled them to special favors from her. It certainly wouldn’t be the last. It just flat-out pissed her off every time.

The meeting had been changed from the large conference room to a small room adjacent to the chief’s office.

“ Denver must have whittled down the guest list,” Cass said as she took a seat across the table from Jeff Spencer.

“So far, it’s you and me, Burke.” Jeff rattled a bag in her direction. “Hey, there’s one last strawberry cream here. I believe it’s got your name on it.”

“Jesus, how can you eat that crap all the time?” Grimacing, she turned her head away from the bag with the donut rolling around in it.

“I don’t understand that sugar phobia of yours.” Spencer shook his head.

“I don’t understand why you’re not so wired from all that sugar that you’re buzzing around the room like a popped balloon.”

“Ah, you’re both here. Good. Good.” Chief of Police Craig Denver stuck his head through the door that led from his office. “Let me grab my coffee…”

Denver disappeared momentarily, then was back in a flash with his oversized mug and a manila file. He took a seat at the head of the table and busied himself with a napkin and a coaster and his glasses, as if postponing whatever it was he had brought them here to discuss.

“I hate this part of the job,” he sighed. “You both know that the administrative details of this job drive me crazy. Paperwork, reports, statistics… waste of my time. But you don’t get to pick and choose, not in this job, not in any.”

Cass bit back a grin. She’d heard this same spiel right about this time last year. And the year before, and the year before. She suspected that the intro was for Spencer’s sake. He’d only been with the department for a few months.

“Let me guess. The insurance company asked for an updated training manual again,” she deadpanned.

Denver nodded.

“Updated and expanded.”

“And you want one of us to volunteer to sit down with Phyl and proofread the pages before she sends them in.” Cass toyed with a fingernail.

“That about sums it up.” Denver smiled.

“It’s Spencer’s turn.” Cass twirled her pen. “I did all the proofing last year. And the year before.”

“Then you have the experience, don’t you?” Spencer’s eyes narrowed. His wife had already issued an ultimatum about him spending too many of his off-duty hours on department business and he’d sworn he’d make an effort to spend more time with her and their new baby, and less time working.

“Fair is fair, Spencer, and I-”

Phyllis Lannick, the chief’s secretary, poked her head in the doorway.

“Sorry to interrupt, Chief, but Officer Helms is on the phone and he says it’s an emergency. He sounds rattled.” She pointed to the phone on the small table behind him. “Line two.”

Denver raised an eyebrow as he reached for the phone.

“Emergency, Helms? Hey, hey. Slow down. Take a deep breath and start over…”

The chief went silent then, listening. The color drained from his face.

“I have Burke and Spencer right here. They’re on their way. Goes without saying that no one touches anything until the scene has been processed. Keep everyone out of the area until I can get the county CSI out there.” He hung up and turned to his two detectives.

Before either could ask, he said, “The manual will have to wait. They just found a body out near Wilson ’s Creek.”

“A body?” Cassie asked as if she’d not heard correctly. “Where along the creek?”

“Right outside of town, near Marsh Road. Just look for the cars. Apparently all three of our patrol cars and a couple of emergency vehicles are already there, parked along the roadside before the bridge. You won’t be able to miss them. Try to keep everyone in line until the county people arrive. I’ll meet you there.” He shoved his chair out from the table, muttering, “Just what we need, a homicide right as the season opens.”

“Homicide?” Cass paused on her way to the door and turned.

“That’s Helms’s take on it. See if he’s right…”

The body lay on its side on a rock worn smooth by the fast-moving stream known locally as Wilson ’s Creek. The woman had been young-late twenties, early thirties, Cass was thinking. She knelt carefully to visually inspect the victim, whose unseeing eyes were open and whose silent mouth still held its last scream. Bare arms, lightly sunburned to right above the elbow, were flung over her head, one hand trailing in the water. Her very long dark hair spilled over her face and into the creek, where the swift current wrapped some strands around her fingers. One leg was curled over the other, almost demurely.

“You didn’t touch her, did you?” a voice from behind asked tentatively.

“No. Of course I didn’t touch her.” Cass looked up to find the county’s lead crime scene investigator, Tasha Welsh, surveying the scene.

“Good. Hope you all watched where you walked.” Tasha’s eyes scanned the entire scene, the two detectives, the body, the uniformed officers milling about the black-and-white cruisers parked up a slight rise on the side of the road.

“Actually, we came in along the stream.” Cass motioned behind her, indicating the direction.

“That explains your wet jeans.” Tasha approached the body slowly, then turned and looked at Cass, who held a camera in her right hand. “Start from here, this angle, and work your way around that way…”

Tasha pointed to Spencer and said, “Either smile for the camera or move.”

Spencer moved.

“Blood on the inside of her thighs,” Cass noted as she snapped another shot.

“She’s probably been raped. And grass stains on the backs of her heels, Burke.” Tasha pointed to the victim.

“Which means she most likely was dragged for at least part of the way,” Cass said as she aimed the lens again. “Should be easy enough to find a drag trail if he came in from the road. Go take a look, Spencer, while I finish up here.”

“You want to start on the road up there?” Spencer pointed to the area where the shoulder was widest.

“I want to start all along this area. Go tell Helms and the others to space themselves out and begin looking for depressions in the weeds. Remind them to tread lightly, though. We don’t want to lose any evidence by stomping on it.”

“They should know that,” Spencer said over his shoulder.

“Yeah, they should. Remind them anyway. If there’s anything here, I’d like to find it before it’s obliterated by someone else’s footprints or by the rain they’re calling for this afternoon.”

Cass continued to photograph the body for another ten minutes before turning her attention to the growth of cattails off to the right of the body. They stood as tall as cornstalks and as thick as blades of grass. Anyone coming through there would have left an obvious trail. She stood quietly and surveyed the terrain. Up there, off the shoulder of the road, was a stand of bamboo that could have provided some cover. She’d start there.

There were tire marks from a dozen cars-possibly even from the cruisers-on the soft sandy shoulder, but she stepped carefully around them anyway. The bamboo ran for about twelve feet along the roadside, then dropped off into marshland where only rushes grew. They had yet to reach their full height, and to Cass’s mind, the logical place to walk if one was carrying or dragging a body would be right there at the point where the bamboo and the marsh met.

Predictably, about ten feet in from the road at the point where the bamboo ended, the grasses were slightly tamped down into a narrow path, which continued for another twenty-five feet into the marsh and ended in a larger, more haphazard depression. Cass looked over her shoulder, up to the point where the path actually began, and could almost envision the scene as it had happened.

He carried her from the car through the bamboo, Cass thought, then she must have become heavy, and he let her down back there, right where the weeds begin to bend. He dragged her down this far; the dragging of her body made the path, such as it is. Then he dropped her here.

Why had he dropped her here?

She stood for several long moments, listening to the light breeze set the rushes in motion. The body was fresh, the young woman hadn’t been there for long. Late last night, Cass surmised. She squatted down near the depression and studied it, looking for something that would help her to see what had happened here. It took her almost ten minutes, but she found it: two sections of reeds, bunched and broken, spaced almost two feet apart, at either side of the top of the depression.

Cass could see the woman now, facedown in the marsh, her arms outstretched, hands grabbing on to the only things she could reach…

She stood and walked back up the path to the road, snapping shots of everything she felt relevant, then she caught Spencer’s eye.

“Got something, Burke?” Spencer called, and she responded by waving him over to where she stood.

“I think I found the path the killer took into the marsh,” she said when Spencer joined her.

“This is his way in, and out, I suspect,” she told him. “And down here-please watch where you walk-look here…”

She led him down the path and to the depression in the reeds.

“I think she may have been unconscious when he took her out of the car and began to carry her down here. Then, when he got about here, she either became too heavy or woke up and began to fight, and he dumped her on the ground over there.”

“What makes you think she was still alive?” Spencer asked, and Cass pointed to the bunched and broken reeds.

“I think she grabbed on to the reeds and tried to crawl away. I think this is where she was attacked. I think he hurt her here.”

Cass knelt on one knee to obtain close-up shots of the broken stalks.

Spencer stepped off the path and looked around.

“He could have taken her down this way,” he pointed toward the left, “right to the stream. He might have waded through it, just like we did, to avoid leaving footprints.”

“Let’s check it out.”

They picked their way through the marsh to the bank of the stream. From there they followed the current back to where the body lay.

“Find anything?” Tasha asked without looking up from her task, scraping under the victim’s fingernails into small plastic bags, one for each finger.

“We found evidence that she may have been alive when she was brought down here.” Cass stepped from the water onto a nearby rock and described the scene they had discovered in the marsh.

“I agree, she died here.” Tasha turned to drop the bags into a container. “Fixed lividity here on the right hip and along the thigh and upper arm. Just the way we found her. Rigor’s set in, we got the flies but no maggots yet, so we know right off the bat that we’re within twelve hours. Body temp right now is 85.1 degrees Fahrenheit, so, since we know that the body loses about one and a half degrees every hour after death, that means…”

“She’s been dead about nine hours.” Cass looked at her watch. It was just a few minutes after nine. “Which takes us to around midnight last night.”

“That’s my best estimate, though it could have been a little less. It was cool last night, could have lowered her body temp a little faster.” Tasha stood up and motioned for the county medical examiner. “Dr. Storm, she’s all yours.”

“Thanks.” The ME, a stocky woman in her early sixties, stepped forward, her expression solemn.

Tasha stripped off her gloves and dropped them into her open bag, telling Cass, “I should have something for you by tomorrow. At least by then I’ll know if he left any DNA. I’m hoping there are some skin cells under her nails, if nothing else. Then we’ll see what Dr. Storm has for us. In any event, I’ll be in touch as soon as I know something.”

Cass nodded. “I’d appreciate it.”

“By the way, cause of death appears to be manual strangulation,” the tech told Cass. “Looks like she was sexually assaulted, but we’ll have to wait for the ME’s findings to know for sure. We’ll also want to know which came first, the assault or the strangulation.”

Tasha closed the black bag into which she’d tucked the samples she’d painstakingly collected. “I’ll head on back to the lab now, and try to sort this all out.”

She smiled at Cass, then added, “Then you get to figure out what it all means.”

“With luck.”

“Anyone know who she is?” Tasha hoisted the bag over her shoulder.

“Not that I’m aware. Helms found her clothes in the marsh, they’ve been bagged for the lab. Jeans, T-shirt, bra, panties, one brown leather sandal, canvas purse,” Cass told her.

“Guess you weren’t lucky enough to find a wallet with ID in the purse?”

“No wallet.”

“Well, I guess that’s your job, right?” Tasha started toward the county van, which was parked up near the road. “To figure out who she was and why this happened to her?”

“We’ll do our best.” Cass fell in step alongside Tasha.

“When was the last time you guys in Bowers had a homicide?”

“Aside from the hit-and-run we had last month, this is it. We’ve had a few domestics over the years, but for the most part, this has been a pretty quiet town. I guess if you had to depend on us to keep you busy, you’d be pretty bored,” Cass said when they reached the van.

“Please, we have plenty to do without your homicides.” Tasha opened the back of the van and set the bag in. “We cover the entire county. There’s always something going on somewhere. And there’s no shortage of rapes, assaults, burglaries, you name it. Plus, things will start to pick up now, especially when the kids start coming for senior week.”

Tasha grimaced. “I hate senior week. Then, of course, straight through till Labor Day the entire county is hopping. All these little shore towns with their rentals-families and college kids-and then there’s the daytrippers. Over the past few years, we’ve had a bunch of homicides. I hope this is the only one you’ll have to deal with.”

Tasha opened the driver’s-side door and hopped in.

“I’ll get back to you as soon as I can,” she told Cass.

“Thanks. I appreciate it. I’ll make a set of photos for you and send them over.” Cass stepped back and watched the van pull onto the highway, then scanned the small crowd that gathered around the officer who had found the body, and who was now retelling the story for the newly arrived chief of police.

Denver stood quietly, occasionally nodding, until the officer concluded his verbal report. Then, without so much as a comment, the chief followed the path to the body, and stood over it, wordlessly watching the ME’s ministrations. Finally he turned and looked up to the crowd at the edge of the roadway. When he met Cass’s eyes, he held them for a very long minute before turning away abruptly and walking back to his car.

Cass watched Denver ’s Crown Vic pull away from the side of the road before motioning to Spencer, who was in deep conversation with one of the EMTs.

“I’m going to go back to the station and check for missing persons,” she called to him.

“I think I’ll stick around here for a while longer, grab a ride back with Helms,” Spencer replied.

“Okay. I’ll see you there.”

Cass walked back down toward the stream, pausing about ten feet from where the body lay sadly exposed. The limbs, where rigor mortis was beginning to set in, were covered with eager flies seeking an opening. The medical examiner was still conducting her inspection of the body, and Cass found she could not bear to watch this latest invasion of the unnamed woman. She crossed the stream and followed the trail along the other side to the two-lane road where she’d left her car. She got in and turned on the ignition, her movements becoming more and more robotic with each passing moment. She turned the car around and drove, not to the station, but to a lonely stretch of road.

Six miles down, she took a right on a narrow lane that led toward the bay. Minutes later she reached a run-down house that sat off the side of the road, the sole structure for another quarter mile in either direction. In the overgrown yard sat the shell of an old Boston Whaler, its hull dry-rotted. Cass parked the car behind the boat and walked around to the back of the house, where three rickety steps led to an even more unstable back porch, which once upon a time had been painted white.

Time and neglect had stripped the wood and weathered it gray. The screen on the back door had long since eroded, and the windows no longer closed tightly. Cass sat on the top step and looked off into the tall cattails that grew from the marsh straight on up to the back of the dilapidated garage. Off to the left was a pond, and from where she sat, she could see a small blue heron wading through the water, head down, cautiously stalking its prey.

She balled her hands and covered her eyes, but all she could see was the body of that dark-haired young woman sprawled out upon the rock.

Oblivious to the sweat that covered her face and dampened her light blue T-shirt down to her waist, she sat immobile and tried to control the emotions that churned within her. Of course, she’d seen dead bodies before, but she’d never reacted like this.

Well, hadn’t her therapist warned her that this might happen someday? That if she persisted in a career in law enforcement, sooner or later she might have to deal with something that might take her back to a place she’d rather not go?

The ringing of her cell phone jarred her, and she answered it on the second ring.

“Burke.”

“Are you on your way in?” Spencer asked, his voice tense.

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll meet you there. I just heard from Denver.” He paused. “Apparently we have a situation.”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.” She hung up and slid the phone back into her jacket pocket.

She sat for another few moments and watched the heron grab something from the water, throw its head back, and swallow its meal in one quick motion. The wind hissed through the cattails, the hushed sound soothing her as few things could. She remembered countless nights when she lay awake in the room under the eaves, right up there on the second floor, listening to that very same sound as she fell asleep. It had comforted her then and it comforted her now.

A moment later she was walking toward her car, her hands steady, her pulse almost normal, wondering what, on this day marked by murder, constituted a “situation.”

Craig Denver sat in the chair the town council had surprised him with as a gift for his twenty-fifth year on the job and simply stared out the window next to his desk. For years, he’d wondered what he’d do if this day ever came, and now it was here, and he was still wondering.

He spread the piece of paper that had arrived earlier that day in a plain white envelope that bore no address. Phyl had found it on the floor of the lobby, near the front door, when she was on her way into the building after having picked up lunch for herself and the chief. She would have tossed it, except for the fact that it was sealed. Her curiosity piqued, she’d opened it, and having glanced at the message once, took it immediately to the chief’s office.

The paper itself was undistinguished, everyday computer stock, the kind that could be purchased at any one of a number of chain office-supply stores. It was the message that had caught Phyl’s attention, a message comprised of glued letters cut from newspapers and magazines, much as a child might do for a homework assignment.

Hey, Denver! Have you found her yet?

She’d carried it down the hall, holding it between two fingers to avoid getting her prints on it, walked into the chief’s office without knocking-something she rarely did-and dropped it on his desk. He had unfolded it, then stared at it for the longest time.

Finally, he asked quietly, “Where did this come from?”

“I found it on the floor in the lobby.”

“You didn’t see anyone…?”

“No one. I’d just picked up lunch from Stillman’s, I wasn’t gone ten minutes. I didn’t see anyone on my way out, or on my way back in.”

“Okay.” He’d nodded slowly. “Thank you.”

Most of the force was still out at Wilson ’s Creek, so he dusted the envelope and the white sheet of paper for prints. There were none except for the smudged partials that he suspected would prove to be Phyl’s. He’d reached for the phone, and called in Spencer and Burke.

Denver sat back in his chair and sighed deeply, wanting nothing more than to start this day over and have it turn out differently.

Coincidence, or copycat?

Either way, it wasn’t good.

Either way, shit was going to be stirred up, sure enough, and he wasn’t the only one who was going to have to deal with it.

He rubbed his eyes wearily and waited for his detectives to arrive.