A Faint Cold Fear

  Jeffrey whistled for the dogs again, wondering what was taking them so long. They finally sauntered into the kitchen, their nails tip-tapping against the black and white tiles on the floor. He let them outside into the fenced-in yard, leaving the door open for when they had finished their business.

  Before he forgot, Jeffrey took two tomatoes out of his coat pocket and put them in Sara’s refrigerator beside a funny-looking green ball that might have been food at some point in its sad, short life. Marla Simms, his secretary at the office, was an amateur gardener, and she was always giving Jeffrey more food than he could possibly eat on his own. Knowing Marla and her penchant for sticking her nose into places where it did not belong, she probably did this on purpose, hoping Jeffrey would share some with Sara.

  Jeffrey scooped some kibble for Bubba, Sara’s cat, even though Bubba would not come out until after Jeffrey had left. The cat would only drink from a bowl left by the utility closet, and when Jeffrey had lived here, he was constantly kicking it over by accident. The cat took this and many other things personally. Jeffrey and Sara had a love-hate relationship with the animal. Sara loved the thing, and Jeffrey hated it.

  The dogs came trotting back into the kitchen just as Jeffrey was opening up a can of food. Bob leaned against Jeffrey’s leg for petting while Billy lay down on the floor, heaving a sigh as if he had just climbed Mount Everest. Jeffrey had never understood how such large animals could be house dogs, but the two greyhounds seemed perfectly content to stay indoors all day. If they were left in the yard for too long, they would get lonely and jump the fence to go looking for Sara.

  Bob nuzzled him again, pushing him toward the counter.

  “Hold on a minute,” Jeffrey told him, picking up their bowls. He tossed in a couple of scoops of dry food, then mixed in the canned using a soup spoon. Jeffrey knew for a fact that the dogs would eat whatever was put in the bowls—Billy saw the cat box as his own personal snack tray—but Sara liked to mix their food for them, so that’s what he did.

  “Here you go,” Jeffrey said, putting down the food.

  They walked to the bowls, showing him their slim behinds as they ate. Jeffrey watched them for a moment before deciding to make himself useful and clean the kitchen. Sara was not the neatest person even on a good day, and the stack of dishes from their dinner Friday night was still piled in the sink. He draped his jacket over the back of a kitchen chair and rolled up his sleeves.

  A large window over the sink offered a tranquil view of the lake, and Jeffrey stared absently at the water as he scrubbed the dishes. Jeffrey liked being here in Sara’s house, liked the homey feeling of her kitchen and the deep, comfortable chairs she had in the den. He liked making love to her with the windows open, hearing the birds on the lake, smelling the shampoo in her hair, watching her eyes close as she held on to him. He liked all of this so much that Sara must have sensed it; they spent the majority of their time together at his house.

  The phone rang as he was washing the last plate, and Jeffrey was so absorbed in his own thoughts that he almost dropped it.

  He picked up the phone on the third ring.

  “Hey,” Sara said, her voice soft and tired.

  He grabbed a towel to dry his hands. “How is she?”

  “Better.”

  “Has she remembered anything?”

  “No.” She was silent, and he couldn’t tell if she was crying or too tired to talk.

  Jeffrey’s vision blurred, and in his mind he was in the forest again, his hand pressed into Tessa’s belly, his shirt soaked through with her blood. Billy looked over his shoulder at Jeffrey as if he sensed something wrong, then turned back to his breakfast, the metal tag on his collar clinking against the bowl.

  Jeffrey asked, “Are you holding up okay?”

  She made a noncommittal noise. “I talked to Brock and told him what needs to be done. We should be able to get the lab results back tomorrow. Carlos knows to put a rush on it.”

  Jeffrey did not let her sidetrack him. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “Not really.”

  Neither had Jeffrey. Around three that morning, he had gotten out of bed and gone for a six-mile run, thinking it would tire him out enough to sleep. He’d been wrong.

  Sara told him, “Mama and Daddy are in with her now.”

  “How are they doing?”

  “They’re so mad.”

  “At me?”

  She did not answer.

  “At you?”

  He could hear her blowing her nose. Then, “I shouldn’t have taken her with me.”

  “Sara, you had no way of knowing.” He was angry that he couldn’t think of anything more comforting than that. “We’ve been to a hundred scenes before and nothing bad has ever happened. Ever.”

  “It was still a crime scene.”

  “Right, a place where a crime already happened. There’s no way we could’ve anticipated—”

  “I’ll drive Mama’s car back later tonight,” she said. “They’re going to move Tessa sometime after lunch. I want to make sure she’s settled in.” She paused. “I’ll do the autopsy as soon as I get in.”

  “Let me come get you.”

  “No,” she told him. “That’s too long a drive, and—”

  “I don’t care,” he interrupted. He’d made the mistake before of not being there when Sara needed him, and he was not going to do it again. “I’ll meet you in the lobby at four.”

  “That’s too close to rush hour. It’ll take you forever.”

  “I’ll be going the opposite way,” Jeffrey said, though that hardly mattered in Atlanta, where everyone over the age of fifteen owned a car. “I don’t want you driving back by yourself. You’re too tired.”

  She was silent.

  “I’m not asking you, Sara. I’m telling you,” he said, keeping his voice firm. “I’ll be there around four, all right?”

  She finally gave in. “All right.”

  “Four o’clock in the front lobby.”

  “Okay.”

  Jeffrey told her good-bye and hung up before she could change her mind. He started to roll down his sleeves but reconsidered when he saw his watch. He was supposed to pick up Dan Brock and drive him to the morgue in an hour so Brock could take blood samples from Andy Rosen. After that, Jeffrey was scheduled to talk to the Rosens about their son and see if they had thought of anything useful during the night.

  There was nothing Jeffrey could do at the office until the crime techs finished processing Andy’s one-room apartment over his parents’ garage. Any fingerprints would be checked through the computer, but that was always hit-and-miss, because the computer could make comparisons only against known prints on file. Frank would call Jeffrey on his cell phone when the reports were in, but for now there wasn’t really anything Jeffrey could do. Unless they came up with some earth-shattering revelation, Jeffrey would drop by Ellen Schaffer’s dorm room and see if she recognized the picture of Andy Rosen’s face. The young woman had seen the body only from the back, but, considering how gossip traveled around the campus, Schaffer probably already knew more about Andy Rosen than anyone on the police force did.

  Again Jeffrey decided to make himself useful. He headed for the bedroom, picking up Sara’s socks and shoes, then a skirt and underwear, as he walked down the hallway. Obviously she had discarded her clothes as she walked through the house. Jeffrey smiled, thinking about how this used to irritate him when they were living together.

  Billy and Bob were settled back on the bed when he tossed Sara’s clothes over the chair by the window. Jeffrey sat beside them, petting them both in equal turns. There were a couple of framed pictures by Sara’s bed, and he paused to look at them. Tessa and Sara were in the first photo, both of them standing in front of the lake with fishing poles in their hands. Tessa wore a ratty fishing hat that Jeffrey recognized as Eddie’s. The second picture was from Tessa’s graduation. Eddie, Cathy, Tessa, and Sara stood with their arms around one another, big smiles on their faces.
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  Sara, with her dark red hair and pale skin, standing a few inches taller than her father, always looked like a neighbor child who had wandered into the family photos, but there was no mistaking that the smile on her face was the same as her father’s. Tessa had her mother’s blond hair, blue eyes, and petite build, but all three women shared the same almond shape to their eyes. There was something more womanly about Sara, though, and Jeffrey had always been attracted to the fact that she curved just enough in all the right places.

  He put down the photo and noticed a streak of dust on the table where another frame had been. Jeffrey looked on the floor, then opened the drawer and pushed around a couple of magazines before he found the silver-edged frame buried at the bottom. He knew this picture well; a passing stranger on the beach had taken it for them on Sara and Jeffrey’s honeymoon.

  He used the corner of the bedsheet to dust off the frame before putting it back in the drawer.

  Brock’s Funeral Home operated out of a large Victorian house that was the kind of place Jeffrey had dreamed about living in when he was a kid. Back in Sylacauga, Alabama, Jeffrey and his mother—and less often his father—lived in a two-bedroom, one-bath house that even on a good day could not be called a home. His mother had never been a happy person, and for as long as Jeffrey could remember, there were no pictures on the walls or carpets on the floors or anything that might add a personal touch to the house. It was as if May Tolliver did everything she could to avoid setting down roots. Not that she had a lot to work with even if she wanted to.

  Poorly insulated windows rattled when you closed the front door, and the kitchen floor sloped so severely toward the back that dropped food collected under the baseboards. On particularly cold winter nights, Jeffrey had slept in his sleeping bag on the floor of the hall closet, the warmest room in the house.

  Jeffrey had been a cop for too long to think that a crappy childhood was a good excuse for anything, but he understood why some people used it as a justification. Jimmy Tolliver was a nasty drunk, and he had knocked Jeffrey around plenty of times when Jeffrey had made the mistake of getting in his father’s way. Most of the time, Jeffrey got hit when he inserted himself between his mother and Jimmy’s fists. That was in the past, though, and Jeffrey had moved on long ago. Everybody had something horrible happen to them at one time or another in their life; it was part of the human condition. How they struggled through adversity proved what kind of people they were. Maybe that was why Jeffrey was having such a hard time with Lena. He wanted her to be a different person than who she really was.

  Dan Brock came tumbling out of the front door, then stopped as his mother called to him. She handed him two Styrofoam cups, and Jeffrey hoped to God one of them was meant for him. Penny Brock made a mean cup of coffee.

  Jeffrey tried not to smile as he watched mother and son say good-bye. Brock leaned down for his mama to kiss his cheek, and she took the opportunity to brush something off the shoulder of his black suit. There was a reason Dan Brock was nearly forty and had never married.

  Brock gave a toothy smile as he walked toward the car. He was a lanky man who had the great misfortune of looking like what he was: a third-generation mortician. He had long, bony fingers and a blank face that lent itself to comforting the bereaved. Brock didn’t get to talk much to people who weren’t crying their hearts out, so he tended to be incredibly chatty around anyone who was not in mourning. He had a very dry wit and a sometimes alarming sense of humor. When he laughed, he put his whole face into it, his mouth cracking open like a Muppet’s.

  Jeffrey leaned over to open the door, but Brock had already managed, switching the two cups to one large hand.

  “Hey, Chief,” he said, climbing into the car. He handed Jeffrey a cup. “From my mama.”

  “Tell her I said thanks,” Jeffrey said, taking the cup. He peeled off the top and inhaled the steam, thinking it would wake him up. Straightening up Sara’s house was not exactly a debilitating task, but he was in a funk after seeing she had put that picture of them in the drawer, like she did not want to be reminded of the fact that they had been married. He couldn’t help but laugh at himself; he was acting like a lovesick girl.

  “What’s that?” Brock asked, having a mortician’s sense for someone who was letting his emotions get the better of him.

  Jeffrey put the car in gear. “Nothing.”

  Brock settled in happily, his long legs stretched out in front of him like two bent toothpicks. “Thanks for picking me up. I don’t know when the hearse is gonna be ready, and Mama has her Jazzercise on Mondays.”

  “That’s not a problem,” Jeffrey told him, trying not to snort at the thought of Penny Brock in leotards. The image of a lumpy sack of potatoes came to mind.

  Brock asked, “Any word on Tessa?”

  “I talked to Sara this morning,” Jeffrey told him. “She’s doing a little better, it sounds like.”

  “Well, praise the Lord,” Brock said, putting his hand up in the air. “I’ve been praying for her.” He dropped his hand, slapping it against his thigh. “And that sweet little baby. Jesus has a special place for children.”

  Jeffrey did not respond, but he hoped Jesus had an even better place for whoever stabbed them to death.

  Brock asked, “How’s the family holding up?”

  “They seem okay,” Jeffrey told him before changing the subject. “You haven’t worked for the county in a while, have you?”

  “Oh, no,” Brock balked, even though he had been the county coroner for years. “I have to say I was really glad when Sara took over. Not that the money wasn’t nice, but Grant was just getting a little too big for me back then. Lots of people coming in from the city, bringing their city ways. I didn’t want to miss something. It’s an awesome responsibility. My hat’s off to her.”

  Jeffrey knew that by “city” Brock meant Atlanta. Like most small towns in the early nineties, Grant had seen an influx of urbanites seeking a slower way of life. They moved out of the larger cities, thinking they would find a peaceful Mayberry at the end of the interstate. For the most part, they would have—if they’d left their children at home. Part of the reason Jeffrey had been hired as chief of police was his experience with working on a gang task force in Birmingham, Alabama. By the time Jeffrey had signed his contract, the powers-that-be in Grant would have taken up goat sacrifices if they thought it would solve their youth-gang problem.

  Brock said, “This one’s pretty straightforward, Sara said. You just need blood and urine, right?”

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey told him.

  “I hear Hare’s helping out with her practice,” Brock said.

  “Yeah.” Jeffrey said around a sip of coffee. Sara’s cousin Hareton Earnshaw was also a doctor, though not a pediatrician. He was filling in at the clinic while Sara was in Atlanta.

  “My daddy, rest his soul, used to play cards with Eddie and them,” Brock said. “I remember sometimes he’d take me over to play with Sara and Tessie.” He guffawed loud enough for it to echo in the car. “They were the only two girls in school who would talk to me!” He had real regret in his voice when he explained, “The rest of them thought I had cootie hands.”

  Jeffrey looked at him.

  Brock held out a hand to illustrate. “From touching dead people. Not that I did that when I was young. That didn’t come until later.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jeffrey said, wondering how they’d gotten onto this subject.

  “Now, my brother Roger, he was the one who touched them. Roger was a real scamp.”

  Jeffrey braced himself, hoping this was leading to a sick joke.

  “He’d charge a quarter a person to take some of the kids down to the embalming room at night after Daddy’d gone to bed. He’d get ’em all in there with the lights off and nothing but a flashlight to show the way, then he’d press right here on the departed’s chest, like this.” Despite his better judgment, Jeffrey looked to see where. “And the body’d let out this low moan.”

  Brock opened his mou
th and gave out a low, soulless moan. The sound was horrific—terrifying—something Jeffrey hoped to God he would forget when he tried to go to bed that night.

  “Jesus, that’s creepy,” Jeffrey said, feeling a shudder well up, like someone had walked over his grave. “Don’t do that again, Brock. Jesus.”

  Brock seemed contrite, but he handled it well, drinking his coffee and remaining silent the rest of the way to the morgue.

  When Jeffrey pulled up to the Rosen house, the first thing he noticed was a shiny red Ford Mustang parked in the driveway. Instead of going to the front door, Jeffrey went over to the car, admiring its sleek lines. When he was Andy Rosen’s age, Jeffrey had dreamed about driving a red Mustang, and seeing one here gave him an unreasonable pang of jealousy. He ran his fingers along the hood, tracing the black racing stripes, thinking that Andy had a hell of a lot more to live for than he had at that age.

  Someone else loved this car, too. Despite the early hour, there was no dew on the paint. A bucket was upended near the back fender, a sponge on top. The garden hose was still reeled out to the car. Jeffrey looked at his watch, thinking it was an odd time to be out washing a car, especially considering that the owner had died the day before.

  As he approached the front porch, Jeffrey could hear the Rosens having what sounded like a nasty argument. He had been a cop long enough to know that people were more likely to tell the truth when they were angry. He waited by the door, eavesdropping but trying not to look obvious in case any early-morning joggers wondered what he was up to.

  “Why the hell do you care about this now, Brian?” Jill Rosen demanded. “You never cared about him before.”

  “That’s fucking bullshit, and you know it.”

  “Don’t use that language with me.”

  “Fuck you! I’ll talk to you however I fucking please.”

  A moment passed. Jill Rosen’s voice was softer, and Jeffrey could not make out what the woman was saying. When the man responded, his voice was equally low.

  Jeffrey gave them a full minute to rile up again before knocking on the door. He could hear them moving around inside and guessed that one or both of them were crying.