Idyll Threats (2 page)

Gravel crunched below as I rolled into the parking lot of Suds. I walked through the bar's entrance, though it wasn't open for business. Sunshine followed me inside, where the shades were drawn on all but one window. The door swung shut and the room succumbed to darkness. My shoes clomped on the worn flooring. To my left was the entrance to the Laundromat. Ahead was the bar, a twenty-foot expanse of Kentucky wood. Bought from some gone-bust establishment that had seen Prohibition come and go but hadn't survived the 1990s.

I sat on a stool and rested my hands on the cool wood. A small metal fan blew detergent and beer-scented air at me. Nate was absent. He'd inherited the Laundromat twelve years ago and bought out the bar two years later. Changed its name to that of the laundry, Suds. He'd said it worked for both.

Nate emerged through the swinging doors in back, where the kitchen was located. He carried two slim-necked bottles in each hand. His long hair was tied back with a red leather strip. An arrowhead rested in the hollow of his throat. He was the only Nipmuc in Idyll, or so folks claimed. He said he had cousins in town who were just as native, but they didn't look it.

“Hiya, Chief.” He enjoyed the irony of addressing me by title. “Regular?” He walked behind the bar. Set the bottles down. Grabbed a mug and filled it from the sputtering coffeemaker.

“Thanks,” I said. I got smirks at the station for drinking coffee here.
“You adding something?” Detective Wright had asked. “Maybe making it Irish?” He'd mimed tilting a bottle, in case I hadn't got the joke.

The liquor bottles behind the bar looked dull. I'd had too much to drink when I got home last night. It hadn't worked, hadn't kept my mind from returning to the cabin with its rotted timbers and sex-stained floor. My guilt wasn't drownable. But worse was how last night had returned Rick's death to me. I'd moved hundreds of miles to escape my dead partner. One stupid, impulsive action had brought him back.

I felt Nate's dark eyes on me. His gaze made me itch.

“Mind if I look at your paper?” I asked.

Nate pushed the
Idyll Register
to me. Sixteen pages of local news, town events, obituaries, and classified ads. Page 2 featured Mrs. Ida Lewisweather, who'd turned one hundred years old last Friday. Her tips for a long life? “A positive attitude and a nip of whiskey each night.” The police blotter was on page 6. It included reports of smashed mailboxes on Green Street and a burgled house on Whitman Road. They hadn't mentioned the rabid raccoon my men brought down. I was surprised. It had been quite the event.

I drank my coffee and tried to forget last night. Seven months on the job and I'd no idea that the abandoned cabin was a rendezvous spot. You could fit what I knew about this town into a shell casing.

“Refill?” Nate asked. He wiped the bar in slow, easy circles.

“Sure.” I gazed up at the tin ceiling tiles. They reminded me of home, New York. The only thing in this town that did.

He topped my cup. “You've got a bag ready.” He jerked his thumb toward the Laundromat. I owned a washer and dryer. Came with my house. But I was used to city habits: dropping off laundry to be washed and folded. It amused the locals, that I used the Laundromat this way. “I'll get it before I go,” I said.

My right hand hurt. I flexed my fingers. The knuckles were skinned. I'd punched something last night. What? Not a person. I'd sped home after the cabin. Anxious to hide from others. To be alone with my thoughts. And to drink. I'd been full of bright ideas last night.

Nate filled the fridge with beers. He didn't talk much. I liked that.
He wore layered flannel shirts in winter instead of a coat. His age was impossible to guess. When things were very slow, he read slim books of poems. I'd overheard him say it was the Red Sox's year for the World Series. But everyone believes at least one crazy thing.

My radio crackled. I'd received complaints about dispatch responses. Last week, the mayor informed me that his roadside-assistance call had gone unanswered for twenty minutes. Instead of telling him to call triple fucking A, I said I'd look into it. And here I was, doing that. What a wonderful pet I made.

“10-78 for Nipmuc Golf Course.” Why did they need a detective?

Nate set a bottle down. “The golf course?” he said. “Something happened out there?”

Another crackle. “10-38 at the Nipmuc Golf Course.” Murder? No way. These yokels didn't know their codes. Time to school them.

Outside, the glare made me wince. I made a visor by lifting my hand to my brow. I swore under my breath. The idiot who'd botched the dispatch and robbed me of my second cup of coffee would pay.

Two patrol cars were parked on the street near the golf course. I pulled behind the second and hauled myself out of my seat, the movement unwelcome. I kept still and waited out the nausea surge. The air was cool, but it would turn inside out by noon, become sticky like taffy. August in Idyll required two shirts: one for work and one for post-work.

“Excuse me, sir. Stop!” A flush-faced cop hurried toward me. Yankowitz. My first day on the job, he'd parked across two spots, including mine. I wrote him a ticket. Ever since, he's real nervous around me. “Oh, Chief Lynch. Sorry. I didn't see your car.” The one I was standing beside? Jesus, how had he passed his exams?

“They found a body,” he said.

“Who did?” The ten code was correct? No fucking way.

“The groundskeeper found her. It's a dead woman.” He hop-stepped side to side, like he had to pee.

“Who's here?”

He pointed toward the golf course. “Hopkins and Thompson. I was nearby. It's street-sweeping day.”

“You got here first?” I popped the trunk and grabbed my case, the movements more habit than thought. Did I have extra gloves? Yes, by the spare tire. Good.

He gulped and nodded. “Dispatch called. They didn't say it was a dead body.” They had. He hadn't known the code.

I slipped surgical booties over my shoes. “Stay here. Let no one through.” I walked through the woods surrounding the golf course. The air smelled of sap and the pines blocked most of the sunlight. I was grateful; the sunshine hurt my eyes. Birds chattered, their songs needles to my brain. The trees thinned, and a lush circle of grass expanded before me. The ninth hole. Its flag was missing. Nearby, an officer squatted, his back to me.

I walked toward him, careful where I set my feet. The sun haloed his bright hair. Officer William Thompson. Only ten months on the job. Nicknames included “Slim,” “Rookie,” and “Hoops.” (He'd played basketball and was, by all accounts, terrible.) But I called him Billy, as in the Kid. He couldn't grow more than blond fuzz on his face.

“Billy.” He spun, his thin body quick in the pivot. The dead woman lay belly down on the grass. I stepped closer. She was white, thin, and young. Her face, turned toward me, was covered by long brown hair. Her T-shirt punctured by bullet holes. Multiple. The last gunshot victim I'd seen was Rick. I swallowed, my mouth cottony. This was different. Just the job.

Impressions surrounded her. Too many. “How did you get here?” I said. The air smelled of blood. Its metallic taste coated my mouth. I swallowed, and the dark flavor slid down my throat.

“Drove over from the station.” He stood and wiped his cheeks. His eyes were red. Shit. He'd been crying.

I counted to five. “How did you get to the body?”

“Walked, like you did, through the trees.” He pointed. “Jim led me to her.”

“Yankowitz?” He nodded. “So whose shoe prints are these?”

He rubbed his nose. “Mine, probably. He didn't get near her.”

“We'll need your shoes for exclusion. His too. Please tell me Hopkins wasn't here.” He said nothing. “Fuck!” He flinched. “You know anything about securing a crime scene?” I pointed to my covered shoes.

“I've never worked a murder.” Of course not. He was a rookie cop in a small town.

“Know her?” I asked.

“Yes.” He inhaled deeply through his nose. Mucus rattled. “Cecilia North. She hung out with my sister, Jenny.”

That explained the crying. “She live nearby?”

“Spring Street.” He pointed. “Couple of streets that way. She just finished college. Been living with her parents since then.” Pretty college grad. Whole life ahead of her. The headlines wrote themselves.

“You okay?” Maybe I should swap Yankowitz in. Then I thought about his parking job. I couldn't let him near the corpse. He'd probably move it.

He sniffled. “Sorry. I just didn't expect to find her like this.” He set his shoulders back. “What can I do?” His voice was hoarse, but he was trying.

“I need the ME, a crime team, and one of our detectives. Radio for those.” I'd let him stay, for now.

I noted the time, date, and location. Then I examined the corpse. She wore jeans and a black T-shirt. It had holes made by bullets. How many? One in the middle of her back, one up and to the right, and a third below that one by ten inches. Wait. There, above her left kidney, was shot number four. Behind her, a short path of flattened grass and a snail's trail of dark blood. She'd fallen, probably after the first shot, and crawled. Not far. Her hands, flung in front of her, were empty. She wore a silver ring on her left pinkie. Pink sparkles on her right hand. Glitter? A part in her hair allowed me a glimpse of her right eye. It was brown-green. There was something about her. What? I checked her tan arms for track marks. None I could see.

Billy stopped talking into his radio. “Better call the staties, huh? This isn't the sort of thing we get in Idyll.” No kidding. When I'd interviewed, I'd assumed their stats were fudged. Two rapes in six years and no homicides in five? But it had all been true.

Sirens sounded, far away, the sound as familiar as my father's voice.

“What was she like?” I asked. Not every day I got a cop as a character witness.

He looked at her, and then away. “She was funny. Loved animals. Sassy, but not mean. You know how girls can be mean?” I didn't. I'd never had much time for girls.

The sirens got louder, shriller.

“Don't suppose you know who did this?” I asked.

“She was nice. No one…” He trailed off because someone obviously hadn't liked her.

The sirens stopped. “If that's the crime guys, let 'em in. But no more of our men come near unless it's a detective. Where's Hopkins?” Where had my other scene-mucker gone? What damage was he wreaking? Best check on him.

“At the clubhouse. Want me to call the staties?”

“I want the ME.” Until he came, I'd visit with Hopkins. I kept to the edge of the course, my eyes to the ground. The grass was brilliant, as if each blade had been hand-painted emerald.

A brisk four-minute walk brought me to the clubhouse parking lot. A pickup truck and police cruiser were the only vehicles there. Officer Hopkins stood with his thumbs tucked into his utility belt. The belt needed another hole punched in it. Hopkins was a twenty-year veteran of the force, and he looked it. He stood opposite a man with skin as leathered as a baseball glove and iron-gray hair. The man raked his hand through his hair, over and over.

Hopkins introduced me to Cal Jackson, the groundskeeper.

“I'm Police Chief Lynch,” I said. “You found the body?” I kept my voice low and gentle.

“This morning. I couldn't believe it.” His Adam's apple bobbed, prominent in his thin neck.

“Did you touch her?” I asked.

He lowered his eyes. “I wanted to be sure, so I poked her arm with my finger.” He shook his head as if he could dislodge the memory from his skull.

Hopkins said, “He found her around seven thirty a.m. Says she couldn't have been here before ten p.m. last night.” Near his foot was a latex glove.

“Why not?”

Mr. Jackson tapped his watch. “Charlie sweeps through at ten p.m. He's our watchman.”

“Would he have checked the whole course?” Not hard to picture a tired man shining his flashlight over the grounds and going back inside.

“Charlie's reliable,” he said.