Still Life: The Randi Lassiter Series, Book 1 (9 page)

Chapter Eighteen

Blue Lake, WI

Henry hustled toward the double doors at the south entrance to the Creek County Financial Bank. His rubber-soled shoes squeaked along the polished surface of a broad marble floor.

Creek County Financial Bank was a century-old brick building that had been renovated years ago in a failed attempt to bring the massive structure into the present. Too much focus had been placed on the aesthetics instead of operational aspects of the building, which was like placing a small bandage on a severed artery. Time and again the bank’s board of directors had voted down the functional renovations needed to bring the building into a healthy state, leaving it decrepit, albeit beautiful.

Henry McAllister knew the real state of the property. When he was hired to maintain CCFB back in ’68, he wondered why they hadn’t just ripped down the structure and started over from scratch. A true “fixer-upper” by nature, Henry had been raised on a dirt-poor farm and grew up learning to repair the old stuff because buying new was simply out of the question. His impressed employers didn’t care how Henry kept the place running, only that he did. This morning had been no exception.

Henry glanced down at the ancient Timex on his wrist and squinted through the scratched crystal. Ten past six. A full five minutes behind schedule. His pace belied his age. Gray-haired and limping because of bursitis in his hip, he refused to slow down just because he got older.

“Crap,” he swore. “Damned, confounded thing.” He continued his grumblings as his calloused fingers rummaged through the oversized key ring on his belt. Now just because he’d spent time getting the blasted heat running he was late unlocking the doors for early arriving bank staff.

Henry hated that old bitch of a furnace. Not that in the big picture Henry actually gave a shit; he just wanted to do his job, put in his remaining four years until retirement and get the hell out of Dodge. He planned to live out the last of his years fishing for bass on the lake property his Uncle Cotton left him in east Texas. He could handle a few more Wisconsin winters if it meant spending his golden years in the balmy south.

Frustrated, Henry shook his head. It was raining, and the bank manager would not be patient in a downpour. After forty-seven years of service, Henry ran things on a tight schedule. Once each set of big double doors was unlocked, he’d make a quick check around the gallery to make sure everything was clean and tidy for the public.

At night bored teenagers made a habit of hanging out on the building’s large covered veranda. It was a place for the wannabe delinquents to smoke and pretend to be cool. Just local kids with nothing better to do. But sometimes they’d leave garbage behind as they were given the bum’s rush by the cops.

Henry gripped the long thin key, and slid it into the lock. The heavy glass door screeched loudly as he shouldered it part way open. Outside, the misty air was thick with the sweet scent of lilac and bridal veil bushes. The heady aroma drifted in through the doorway the second he opened it. Henry waved the scent away with a wrinkled hand. “Stinks out here.”

Holding onto the doorjamb, he leaned out the door to see if there was anything to pick up and was struck dumb by a figure lying on the concrete floor. Where he might have expected to find trash there was a woman sleeping.

“What in the hell?” He mumbled. “I don’t have time for this kind of shit!” The sun wasn’t up, and the corner was still shadowed and dark. Henry blinked several times as things slowly came into focus. He opened his mouth to yell at her and stopped short.

The woman was on her back, twisted into an unnatural position. The skin of her face was blue-gray, and her hazy dead eyes were wide open. Her left arm was cocked at an angle with her hand extended above her head. Her index finger pointed accusingly at him. Henry emitted a small noise as his throat constricted.

A dark, wet puddle had spread wide across the aggregate surface beneath her body and seeped into the pebbled concrete, the gelatinous liquid forming a skin.

Henry stumbled backward over his own feet. His leg got caught in the door, sending him to the ground. He kicked the door open with his free foot and crab-crawled backward on the floor, sprawling on the slick surface.

“Oh God, oh God, oh God!”

Even at a whisper Henry’s words echoed in the vast chamber of the empty bank. The woman had been eviscerated, her torso had been sliced with her insides spilling out onto bank property. As the scent of blood mingled with spring blossoms, a gag reflex choked off the scream that entered Henry’s throat. And yet somehow he managed to hold down his breakfast until he reached the men’s room.

Chapter Nineteen

“It’ll take them forever to remove that bloodstain.” Becca Howell muttered to herself. The ancient rough surface was cracked and pockmarked; the perfect substrate for a congealed liquid to have seeped into, the pores of the concrete soaking it up like a sponge. Maybe muriatic acid, a wire brush and a butt load of elbow grease would work. Failing that, a lot of paint. She squatted next to the dark, sticky pool and contemplated the amount of time it would have taken her to bleed out. One minute, tops.

Preliminary examination showed multiple stab wounds to the abdomen and pelvic area. Becca hooked a dark strand of hair that had come loose from her ponytail and tucked it behind her ear. She thumbed her iPad screen and scrolled through the info collated so far. Most of the slicing and dicing took place post mortem. The vic could have died as a result of punctured organs, it just would have been a slower more agonizing death, Becca theorized. But the deep gash that ran from the woman’s rib cage to her groin in a giant S shape had severed the exterior iliac artery and killed her. The arterial spray told the story. “At least she didn’t suffer long,” she murmured as she stood up.

“What’s that?” Tommy asked. The last forensic tech on scene after an extended day of evidentiary processing, Tommy was too busy taking photos of the crime scene to look up. He was kneeling down, his bald head reflecting back up at her, getting the final shots of the area before the ME guys collected the body.

“Nothing. Just talking to myself.” Becca touched the record icon and spoke into it as she went over the forensic tech’s findings.

“Rigor, liver temp, and last night’s chilly air puts approximate TOD between nine p.m. and midnight.” She slowly walked around the area, following in the steps of the forensic photographer as she moved, out of habit more than a necessity at this point in the investigation.

“No weapon at the scene. No apparent evidence. And so far no witnesses. Maintenance man found the body.” She hit the icon to stop recording and glanced around the wide front entrance to the bank, taking in its ATM machine on the wall a few feet from where the body was.

“Hey guys.” She turned to the small band of local cops standing at the bottom of the bank steps. They were waiting to be involved, just standing around whispering behind her back as she analyzed the scene, grumbling about their case going to the Feebs.

As Special Agent for the DCI, a twig on the justice branch of the FBI, Becca was technically a Feeb. Feeb, feebie, g-man, whatever local law called her group whenever they assisted, they might as well have called them scum because that was how they were made to feel half the time. Like gum stuck to the bottom of a shoe, they wanted her gone as soon as possible.

“Anybody request the ATM video?” She pointed at the tiny camera above the ATM screen.

The three uniformed officers went red in the face and exchanged nervous looks. The lone detective among the uniforms immediately responded. “The bank president says it hasn’t worked in months. He’s been waiting for a budget allocation to come through.”

Becca rolled her eyes.

“Anything from the maintenance guy, uh…” She glanced at her notes. “Henry McAllister?” She mentally crossed her fingers.

“Nope. He just found her when he unlocked the doors.” He shrugged a shoulder apologetically, had the decency to look embarrassed and went back to his conversation.

Blair Rea jogged up the steps past the gaggle of men. “At least they don’t look like they’re going to pull out their weapons and start shooting like the last jurisdiction did.”

“Don’t be so hasty…I was hoping they’d put me out of my misery,” Becca said, shaking her head. “I’m so tired of these small-town cops calling us for help, then giving us their backs once we’re here.” She glanced over her shoulder in time to see one of the uniforms, painfully out of shape and close to retirement, point to Blair, waggle his eyebrows and make a suggestive thrust with his pelvis. One of the younger men turned red in the face and nudged him with an elbow.

“Disgusting.” Becca cringed. “It’s like they don’t even appreciate our assistance.”

“They’re just worried we’re going to take over their case.”

“Right. As if my one desire in life is to work with a bunch of morons and solve small-town crimes. If that were the case, I’d live in freaking Podunk, USA, and never have to worry about what I ate or what I wore.” Becca said, glancing at the men burning through time left on their shift. “Hey guys, feel free to walk the grid again.” They ignored the suggestion.

“They’re just acting the typical male role of any species. A couple of women enter their space and they start lifting legs to mark their part of the world. God forbid we have anything to contribute. We’re upsetting the natural order of things in their microscopic world.” Blair explained.

“Hmm, I can tell them what they can do with their tiny world.”

Blair was the criminal psychologist on the team. All of the CAs had some training in that area, but Blair could get inside the mind of a killer quicker than anyone.

Today they had been called to the tiny unincorporated town of Blue Lake, where the combined law enforcement of it and three other townships were currently taking up space on the sidewalk. The Auburn County Sheriff—the jurisdictional headquarters—had made the call. He wanted the DCI’s help on this murder.

“No way, no how, can my guys handle an investigation like this,” he’d said to Becca on the initial phone call. “Don’t get me wrong. They’re all good cops, but this has all the earmarks of something other than local.” He had been adamant.

After Becca listened a good half hour to his description of the scene, she agreed. Blue Lake and the surrounding area were rural—a small, tight-knit community. He knew most of his constituents by name, where they lived and worked. And given the violence of the murder he was smart enough to know that he and his staff would be in over their heads.

Becca had driven up from the Madison field office and arrived on the scene by ten. She was glad to see that the locals hadn’t screwed anything up. They’d followed basic investigative and evidentiary procedures and had done so without contaminating the scene.

Blair had arrived around three o’clock to assist, and they were just about finished with processing.

“Done.” Tommy exclaimed. He was already placing his camera, lenses, and filters back carefully in the protective equipment case. He collected the small numbered easels used to mark specific areas of the scene for point of reference, stacked them and placed them into a plastic bag for later clean up.

“Any thoughts on this one, Tommy?” Becca asked.

He shrugged. “I think that stain is going to be a bitch to clean up.”

Becca crossed her arms and waited.

“I think it’s the same as the others. It’s consistent. Female vic, knife wound, arterial bleed out, and then there’s the missing ear.” He ticked off.

Becca and Blair exchanged knowing glances. That was the kicker. The ear.

“Thanks, Tommy,” Becca said. “You be careful driving home.” She checked her watch, and an instant later her stomach growled loud enough even for Blair to notice.

“Are we done here?” Blair asked.

“Yeah, we’re done.”

“Good. Let’s turn the area back over to the locals.” She glanced down at Becca’s grumbling stomach. “Then I think we should feed that thing.”

Chapter Twenty

The pungent odor of manure drifted in front of Becca’s face as she forked a bite of Denver omelet into her mouth. She shot the passing farmer a repulsed look as he found a seat at the counter.

“Geez, the men in these parts don’t even clean up before they go out for supper. Gross.” She stared at his knee-high rubber barn boots in disgust. They were caked with semi-dry green cow crap and only slightly dirtier than the rest of him. He noticed her attentions and winked.

“Oooh, look who’s got a boyfriend. Careful, in these parts that means you’re engaged now.” Blair wiped her mouth with a napkin and continued jibing Becca. “Must you have a man in every port, or should I say a bull in every pasture?” She caught the attention of the waitress and motioned for the check.

“Like I’d ever be that desperate…or drunk.” She looked down at her unfinished food and scowled. “And why can’t these small towns manage to have a decent restaurant? Something other than a bar with pizza and burgers or this home-cooked crud?” She poked her rubbery omelet with her fork until it was dead and then pushed her plate away.

“I hear ya. I could go for some good Chinese or Italian. But I think you’re also a bit too picky. It’s not like you didn’t know you’d be traveling and eating out when you took the job.” Blair handed the waitress her credit card as she cleared the plates.

“Something wrong with the food, ma’am?”

“No. I’m just not hungry,” lied Becca.

As soon as the waitress left she continued. “I seriously didn’t think the options would be this meager.”

“Are you talking the food now, or the company?” Blair nodded toward the man at the counter.

“Ha, ha. Never will I be that desperate.”

“Speaking of desperate…our killer is accelerating.” Blair was all business now.

“Mmm. I know. This is number five in thirteen months. Two in the last month. The guy is good; he’s covering his ass well.”

“Yeah, but he’s going to screw up sometime, if he hasn’t already. We just need to be on our A game, make sure we see it when he does.”

“Any psych insights?”

“The killings have become more visceral. He’s gaining confidence, enjoying it more. The more he enjoys it, the more he wants, but the less he’s getting out of it—that’s why he’s accelerating, why he’s becoming more violent. His needs are greater every time.”

“I’m going to go back over the cases, make sure nothing got missed going into the system. Expand the parameters to include surrounding states. See what pops up.”

Blair nodded.

“Speaking of boyfriends…” Becca wanted to ease into the topic, but Blair wasn’t one for subtlety and jumped right in.

“What? You’ve met someone new?”

“No. But I ran into an old friend.”

“No! Jon?”

Becca nodded. “He was up in Madison. Ran into him on his way to the crime lab. Must have something going on at the new job.”

“Where’s that again?”

“Mt. Vernon, Mt. Horeb, Mt. Something-or-other.”

“So…did he look good?”

“Mmm-hmm. Great in fact.” There was a wistfulness in her voice.

“Hey, you threw him back in the pond. I for one thought you were crazy for cutting him loose.”

Becca liked picturing him floundering in a small town.

“Girl, you need to move on.”

Yeah, but he didn’t seem happy to see me.”

“You gave the guy back his ring. What did you expect?”

She shrugged one shoulder. “Friendly would have been nice.”

“Friendly is more than you deserve. That’s not the problem.” Blair studied her for a long moment, reading her body language. “The real problem is you want more than friendly.”

Becca looked out the window so that her friend wouldn’t see the tears that were pooling in her eyes. “Yeah, I screwed up, didn’t I?”