Authors: Tim Waggoner
“What are you doing up?” Marshall asked, his whisper coming out more harshly than he intended.
The dim silhouette of the woman who had once been Marshall’s little girl stopped three feet away from him. Not completely out of reach, but far enough away to grant her a good head start if she needed to turn and run. Marshall felt parental pride that he’d taught his little girl well, but he also felt a wave of sadness. Lenora was more distant around him than strictly necessary, even by Cross standards. Things between them had been strained at best since her mother had … left.
Lenora wore a silk robe over her nightgown, and if she thought it odd that her father was standing in the hall in the middle of the night, wearing a suit and smelling of freshly applied aftershave, she gave no sign. “Not that it matters, but I’m hungry. I’m going down to the kitchen. You — ” She yawned, and when she resumed speaking, she sounded a bit more awake. “You want me to bring you back something?”
Twenty-three years old, and she’s still getting up in the middle of the night for a snack, just like when she was a toddler
. At least, Marshall amended, that’s what it looked like. He wondered if the real reason his daughter had awakened was because she’d sensed something bad had happened tonight. He wondered if she also sensed his own ambivalence about how to handle it.
“Thanks, but I’m all right. You go ahead.”
He couldn’t make out her facial expression in the dark, but he saw her cock her head to the side, and he heard the mocking smile in her voice. “You may not be hungry, Daddy, but if you were all right, you wouldn’t be standing outside Grandma’s door, wearing a suit this time of night.”
He felt Lenora press him, testing his mental defenses to see if she could get a rise out of him. She was his daughter, and therefore strong, but she was no match for him. He pushed back, and she winced, letting out a tiny mew of pain.
Though it was too dark for him to make out her features, he felt Lenora’s anger, tempered by fear. Marshall kept his own emotions in check as he waited for Lenora to make another move — if she was foolish enough.
Lenora turned away, breaking eye contact, and she moved past Marshall down the hall, continuing on her way downstairs to the kitchen in search of her snack. Though Marshall’s impassive expression didn’t change, inwardly he was proud of his daughter. She might have lost her battle of wills with him, but she wasn’t going to slink back to her room and hide in shame. Even in defeat she was going to hold her head up high.
But after several steps Lenora stopped and looked back over her shoulder.
“Go on in. You know she’d want you to. She
always
wants you to.” Then Lenora faced forward once more and resumed walking.
Marshall didn’t know what infuriated him more: that Lenora had seen him hesitating in front of her grandmother’s door, or that she was right about what he should do. For an instant he was tempted to reach out with his mind and strike back at her, but he knew that was what she was hoping for. To make him lose control. So he drew in a deep breath and held it as he waited for his daughter to reach the end of the hallway and begin descending the spiral staircase. He then let the breath out slowly, allowing it to bear his anger away with it. He then gently rapped a knuckle on Althea’s door. A few moments later, a commanding and quite wide-awake voice called out.
“Come in, Marshall.”
He felt his mother’s words as a command, an inward pull that he was powerless to resist. If Lenora were still here, he knew she’d be loving every second of this.
Fighting back a wave of resentment that bordered on fury, Marshall opened the door and stepped into his mother’s room.
By 6:45 Joanne had showered, dressed in a clean uniform, and was pouring a second cup of coffee into a travel mug when her cell phone rang. She hoped it was Terry, expected it to be Dale, but it turned out to be neither. It was Ronnie Doyle, her second in command.
“Hey, Ronnie. I was just about to head in.”
“You might want to take a detour over to the Caffeine Café first, Sheriff.” No matter how many times Joanne had told him to call her by her first name, Ronnie never did. He said he didn’t think it was respectful. His voice sounded muffled, and she knew he was wearing his mask. No surprise there. He’d probably just gotten in and hadn’t had time to finish the morning sterilization of his work station. He always wore a surgical mask when using cleaning chemicals.
Joanne sighed. “I don’t suppose it’s because you want me to pick up a sack of donuts.” Like he’d ever touch any of Debbie’s baked goods. Ronnie only ate food that he prepared himself.
“ ’Fraid not. Mrs. Coulter called a minute ago and said she had a visitor last night.”
Even before Ronnie began providing details, Joanne felt a tingling at the base of her skull, a cold fluttering in the pit of her stomach, and she knew that what had already been shaping up to be a bad day had just gotten worse.
• • •
Joanne pulled into the parking lot of the Caffeine Café at 6:56 a.m., only to discover that someone had beaten her there. She recognized the Hummer parked next to Debbie Coulter’s maroon Ford. Not that it took much effort to do so, considering the CROSS 2 vanity plates the Hummer sported. Debbie was already there, standing next to her car and speaking with Marshall Cross. Debbie looked up and waved as Joanne parked, but Marshall didn’t. He was too busy examining the Ford, scowling as if he hoped to intimidate the vandalized vehicle into revealing its secrets to him.
Joanne tried to keep her expression professionally neutral as she got out of her car, but inwardly she was seething. She wasn’t surprised to see Marshall here. The Crosses always knew what was going on in the county that bore their name. What pissed her off was that normally Marshall held back while the sheriff’s office did its job.
“Morning, Debbie … Marshall.”
Debbie turned to nod at Joanne as she approached, but Marshall continued staring at the Ford, arms crossed, brow furrowed in an unhappy scowl. Joanne didn’t make much of that, though. Marshall normally wore what she thought of as the “Cross glower.” She used to think he used the expression to intimidate people. But after her first couple years as sheriff, she realized he didn’t need to do anything special to make people uncomfortable around him. His presence alone sufficed.
Marshall was a tall broad-shouldered man in his mid-fifties, though he looked ten years younger, at least. He was clean-shaven — immaculately so. Joanne had never seen so much as a hint of a whisker on him, regardless of the time of day. His hair was coal-black and untouched by gray. Most of the women in town figured he colored his hair, but Joanne wasn’t so sure. When people colored their hair, the new shade always looked a bit off to Joanne, and it never seemed to pick up the light the same way natural hair color did. Marshall’s hair caught and reflected the light just fine, thank you. He was fit, without so much as an ounce of extra weight on him, and he possessed large, thick-fingered hands that seemed more suited for a manual laborer than a member of the local gentry. Dale had once referred to them as “strangler’s hands,” but though he’d meant it as a joke, Joanne hadn’t laughed. She never would have admitted it to anyone, but she found Marshall handsome, in a cold, remote “I’d spit on you as soon as look at you” kind of way.
“Nice suit,” she said. “Is it new?”
“Good morning, Joanne.” Marshall rarely responded to her digs, and he never addressed her by her title. Crosses might show respect to those they thought had earned it, but they never showed deference. “Looks like we have a new artist in town.”
Joanne examined the Ford more closely. Ronnie had filled her in over the phone on the details of Debbie’s complaint, so she’d had a good idea what to expect. But she still felt a chill at seeing the same design that had been carved in the dead boy’s belly spray-painted dozens of times on Debbie’s car. She didn’t need any special Feelings to know this couldn’t be coincidence.
“Did either of you touch anything?” Joanne asked.
“When I got here this morning, I went inside to see if anything had been stolen,” Debbie said. “I didn’t touch too much, and I haven’t gone any nearer to the car than this.”
Joanne had investigated numerous complaints of vandalism from Debbie over the years, all related in one way or another to her infamous son. Debbie had invariably been seething with anger on those occasions, but now she was subdued, drained. Scared.
“Was
anything stolen?” Joanne asked.
Debbie shook her head. Like Marshall, she kept her gaze fixed on the Ford, but she wasn’t examining it. She looked as if she half-expected the engine to turn over, the transmission to slip into drive, and the vehicle to rush toward her in an attempt to run her down.
She’s not just scared
, Joanne realized.
She’s terrified
.
Joanne turned to Marshall. “How about you? Did you touch anything?”
Marshall looked at her, his scowl deepening. “I’m not an idiot.”
Joanne felt her anger rising, and she fought to keep it from getting the better of her. She’d grown up in Cross County, and she resented the Crosses as much as anyone. More so these days, because they had no compunctions about interfering in sheriff’s business. But being diplomatic was part of the job, especially in these parts, so she kept her mouth shut, though it sure as hell wasn’t easy.
Downtown Rhine was hardly a bustling metropolis at its busiest, but Joanne was still grateful that it was early. The shops — Holloway’s Cards and Notions across the street, the Winter Mill Art Gallery and Second Time’s the Charm, the pre-owned clothing and furniture consignment store, next door to the café on either side — hadn’t opened yet. That meant no nosey neighbors, at least for a couple more hours. Traffic on Wilkerson was light so far, but the few vehicles that did pass slowed as they went by, drivers taking a good long look at whatever had brought both the sheriff
and
Marshall Cross out bright and early on a Monday morning. Joanne knew that more than a few of those drivers would pull out their cell phones and start spreading the news. By noon, the whole county would be gossiping about it and rumors would be flying — all of which would make her job harder than it already was.
Especially
when word of last night’s murder got out.
She heard the sound of a car approaching, and she turned to see another cruiser pull into the lot and park next to her vehicle. Ronnie popped the trunk, got out, removed his camera and evidence collection kit, closed the trunk, and started toward them. The stereotype of the local yokel law officer was a good ole boy wider than he was tall, but Ronnie was the opposite. He was six five and rail thin, with slack features that made him resemble a half-starved hound dog. He was in his mid-fifties, his short hair a bright white, and he moved with the deliberate stride of someone who never hurried but always managed to get where he was going. He was completely unremarkable — except for the way he dressed. He wore a surgical mask and a pair of white rubber gloves. Not because he wished to take extra precautions while gathering evidence. He always dressed this way when he went out.
Joanne assumed Ronnie had severe allergies, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or both, but she’d never come out and asked him. He’d been an assistant sheriff before she’d taken over, and he’d been content to retain the position under her command. Despite his quirks, he was an excellent second in command, and she didn’t wish to make him uncomfortable by prying into his … condition, whatever it might be. As far as she was concerned, as long as he did his job, what did it matter if he had a few eccentricities?
“Morning Mrs. Coulter, Mr. Cross.” Ronnie gave each a friendly nod, but he didn’t make eye contact with Marshall. He then turned to Joanne. “Where would you like me to get started, Sheriff? Inside or out?”
Normally Joanne might’ve collected the evidence herself, or at least helped Ronnie do it, but she had a homicide to investigate. Besides, Ronnie was meticulous in everything he did. He was just as good at evidence collection as she was, probably better. She was about to tell him to start on the car when Marshall spoke.
“Do the Ford first. As soon as you’re finished, I’ll have it towed away and repainted. It won’t be long before news crews get wind of what happened last night and start crawling all over town, looking for sensational images to take video of. I don’t intend to let them see
this.”
He nodded toward the vehicle.
Joanne bristled. “Ronnie works for me, Marshall. Remember?”
Still, she saw his point. The media couldn’t get pictures of the symbol etched in the dead boy’s flesh, so they’d go nuts over the car. They’d insinuate all manner of sinister connections between the murder and last night’s vandalism of the car belonging to the mother of Carl the Cutter. The TV stations would ransack their archives for footage of Carl, would dredge up every sordid detail of the killings, his trial and execution …
As sheriff, Joanne dreaded the chaos the media vultures would bring in their wake, for it would only make her job all the harder. But more than that, she felt sorry for Debbie. The poor woman had been at the center of media feeding frenzies too many times in her life. Joanne could only imagine the fresh hell a new one would put her through.
“Start with the car, Ronnie,” she said, though she wasn’t able to keep the irritation she felt at Marshall out of her voice.
Ronnie glanced sideways at Marshall before giving Joanne a nod. “Sure thing, Sheriff.” He set the evidence kit on the ground then started taking photos of the Ford.
Debbie looked worried. “I haven’t called my insurance company yet, Mar — Mr. Cross. I don’t know if they’ll pay to have the car repainted.” She frowned at the vehicle. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I want to keep it anymore. Not after this.”
Debbie’s slip of the tongue wasn’t lost on Joanne. She’d almost called Marshall by his first name. Joanne had been around both Debbie and Marshall numerous times — Debbie especially, whether as a customer or as sheriff looking into her latest vandalism or harassment complaint. But this was the first time Joanne had seen Debbie and Marshall together. She wasn’t surprised that Marshall was acquainted with her. If he didn’t know everyone who lived in Cross County, he was at least aware of their existence. And though he didn’t strike Joanne as a coffee-and-donut kind of guy, it was possible that he was an occasional patron of the Caffeine Café. Although Joanne had never seen him here before this morning.