A Faint Cold Fear

“Instead of charging her with murder, you should be looking for someone to charge with rape.”

  Jeffrey held his hands up in a shrug. “Didn’t you hear?” he asked, so glib that she wanted to smack him. “She wasn’t raped. She fell.”

  Sara threw open the door, knowing she could not talk to him anymore. As she walked into the morgue, she could feel Jeffrey staring at her, but she did not care. No matter what the autopsy revealed, she would never be able to forgive Jeffrey for handcuffing Lena to the bed. The way she was feeling now, Sara could not care less if she never talked to him again.

  She walked over to the X rays, not really seeing the films. Sara concentrated on her breathing, trying to make her mind focus on the task at hand. She closed her eyes, pushing Tessa and Lena from her mind, banishing Ethan White from her memory. When she thought that she had recovered, she opened her eyes and walked back to the table.

  Chuck Gaines was a large man with broad shoulders and a smattering of hair on his chest. There were no defensive wounds on his arms that Sara could see, so he must have been taken by surprise. His neck was splayed open, bright red, with arteries and tendons hanging out like twigs on a vine. She could see clear through to his cervical spine, a piece of which had become dislodged from its normal place.

  “I black-lighted him earlier,” Sara said. A black light could pick up body fluids and show if there had been recent sexual activity. “He’s clean.”

  Jeffrey countered, “He could’ve worn a condom.”

  “Did you find one at the scene?”

  “Lena would know to take that away.”

  Sara jerked down the overhead light, making her irritation apparent. She concentrated the light so she could better see the area around the wound. “There’s one hesitation mark,” she said, indicating the cut that had not gone all the way through. Whoever had stabbed Chuck had needed at least one try before he or she broke skin.

  “So,” Jeffrey surmised, “it wasn’t a strong person.”

  “It took a lot of strength to cut through the cartilage and bone,” Sara countered, wishing he would not editorialize but not wanting to call him on it in front of Frank. Jeffrey had probably brought Frank along for just this reason.

  She asked, “Do you have the weapon?”

  Jeffrey held up a plastic evidence bag that contained a bloody six-inch-long hunting knife. He said, “The empty sheath was in her bedroom. The knife fits perfectly.”

  “You didn’t look for anything else?”

  Jeffrey took the dig in stride. “We tossed her room and White’s. This was the only weapon.” He added, “Of any kind.”

  Sara studied the knife. The blade was serrated on one side and sharp on the other. There was black fingerprint powder on the handle, and she could see the faint outline of the bloody print they had removed with tape. Other than that, there was not much blood on the weapon. Either the murderer had cleaned it off or Jeffrey had the wrong knife. Sara could make an educated guess at to which was the case, but she wanted to be sure before she said anything definitive.

  Sara put on two pairs of gloves. The only other mark on the body was a penetrating stab wound high on the left chest. The opening was big enough for the blade Jeffrey had shown her, but the edges did not account for the serration. Chuck’s attacker had probably slashed him across the neck, then stabbed him in the chest. The chest wound was at an angle, indicating that the person doing the stabbing was standing over the body when it had been delivered.

  Jeffrey asked, “Wasn’t that where Tess was stabbed?”

  Sara ignored the question. “Can you help me roll him to his side?”

  Jeffrey went to get a pair of gloves off the wall dispenser.

  Frank offered, “You need me to help, too?”

  “No,” Sara told him. “Thanks.”

  Frank patted his chest, looking visibly relieved. Sara could see that the skin on the back of his knuckles was cut and bruised. He saw her notice and tucked his hand into his pocket with an apologetic smile.

  Jeffrey said, “Ready?”

  Sara nodded, waiting for him to get into place.

  As Chuck’s head had been nearly separated from his neck, moving him was an awkward job. Compounding the problem, the body was still stiff. The legs slid toward the edge of the table, and Sara had to move quickly to keep the body from rolling onto the floor.

  Jeffrey said, “Sorry.”

  “It’s okay,” she told him, feeling some of her earlier anger slipping away. She pointed to the tray. “Can you hand me that scalpel?”

  Jeffrey knew that this was not routine. He asked, “What are you looking for?”

  Sara estimated the trajectory of the blade before making a small incision in Chuck’s back just below the left shoulder.

  “The knife was the only weapon you found?” Sara asked him to clarify, pointing to another instrument on the tray.

  “Yes,” Jeffrey said, handing her a pair of stainless-steel tweezers.

  Sara reached into the wound with the tweezers, digging around with the point until she found what she was looking for.

  Jeffrey said, “What’s going on?”

  She pulled out a piece of metal as her answer.

  Frank said, “What’s that?”

  Jeffrey looked sick. “The tip of the knife.”

  Sara added, “It broke off against his shoulder blade.”

  Frank’s confusion was obvious. “Lena’s blade wasn’t broken.” He picked up the plastic bag. “The tip’s not even bent.”

  Jeffrey’s face had turned completely white, and the distress in his expression made Sara regret everything she had said to him before.

  Frank said, “What the hell is going on here?”

  “It wasn’t her knife,” Jeffrey said, his voice thick with emotion. “It wasn’t Lena.”

  14

  Lena woke with a start, pushing herself up on her hands. Her ribs ached with every breath, and her wrist was pounding even though it was finally in a fiberglass cast. She sat up, looking around the small cell, trying to remember how she had gotten here.

  “It’s okay,” Jeffrey said.

  He was sitting on the cot across from her, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him. She was in holding, not general lockup behind the station. The cell was dark, the only light coming from the monitoring booth up the hallway. The cell door was open, but Lena did not know how to interpret that.

  “It’s time for your other pill,” he told her. There was a metal food tray on the bed beside him, with a plastic cup and two pills. He picked it up, offering it to her like a waiter. “The smaller one is so you won’t feel sick.”

  Lena put the pills in her mouth, then washed them down with a swig of cold water. She tried to put the cup back in the hole on the tray, but her coordination was off, and Jeffrey had to do it for her. Water spilled on his pants, but he took no notice.

  She cleared her throat several times before she could ask, “What time is it?”

  “About a quarter to midnight,” Jeffrey told her.

  Fifteen hours, Lena thought. She had been in custody for nearly fifteen hours.

  “Can I get you anything?” Jeffrey asked. The light caught his face when he leaned down to put the tray on the floor, and she could see that his jaw was set. “Are you feeling okay?”

  She tried to shrug, but her shoulder was too tender. The parts of her body that weren’t numb were stiff and sore. Even her eyelids hurt when she blinked.

  “How’s the cut on your hand?”

  Lena looked down at her index finger jutting from the cast. She wondered how much time had passed since she’d cut herself trying to screw the air-conditioning grate back in. An eternity had passed. She wasn’t even that person anymore.

  “Is that how the blood got on your knife?” Jeffrey asked, leaning forward into the light again. “When you cut your hand?”

  She cleared her throat again, but the pain only increased. Her voice was raspy, just above a whisper. “Can I have more water?”


  “Do you want something stronger?” he asked. She studied him, trying to understand what he was doing. Jeffrey was playing good cop now, and she needed someone to be nice to her so badly that she would probably fall for it. She ached to tell someone what had happened, but her mind could not bring itself to think the words that her mouth would need to form.

  Holding out the cup, Jeffrey said, “Let’s start with water, okay?”

  Lena drank, glad the water was cold. He must have gotten it from the cooler in the main lobby instead of the faucet.

  Lena handed him the cup, then sat against the wall. Her back was sore, but the cement block was solid and reassuring. She looked down at the cast, which started just below her fingers and stopped halfway down her arm. Moving her fingers, she felt a quiver through her arm.

  “The pain medication is probably wearing off,” Jeffrey told her. “Do you want more? I can get Sara to prescribe something.”

  Lena shook her head, though she wanted nothing more than to be oblivious.

  “Chuck’s B-negative,” he said. “You’re type A.”

  She nodded. The DNA tests would take about a week, but they could type blood themselves at the hospital.

  Jeffrey said, “Type A was on the knife and the desk and the tail of your shirt.”

  Lena waited for the rest.

  “We didn’t find any B-negative anywhere.” He added, “Anywhere except the office.”

  She had been holding her breath in her chest, and she kept it there, wondering how long she could hold it.

  “Lena . . . ,” he began. To her surprise, his voice cracked, and before he looked down at his hands, she could see how upset he was.

  He said, “I should never have cuffed you.”

  Lena wondered what he meant. She could not remember much of anything past what had happened with Ethan the night before.

  “I would’ve handled it completely differently, if only . . .” He looked up at her, his eyes glistening in the light from the hall. “I didn’t know.”

  Lena suppressed a cough, wishing she could have more water.

  He said, “Lena, tell me what happened. Tell me who did this to you so I can punish him.”

  Lena could only stare. She had done it to herself. What more could he do to punish her?

  “I should have never cuffed you,” he repeated. “I’m so sorry.”

  Lena exhaled slowly, feeling a pain in her rib.

  She asked, “Where’s Ethan?”

  Jeffrey’s body tensed. “He’s still locked up.”

  “What charge?”

  “Parole violation,” he told her, but did not explain further.

  “Is he really dead?” she asked, thinking about the last time she had seen Chuck.

  “Yeah,” Jeffrey said. “He’s dead.” He looked at his hands again. “Did he do this to you, Lena? Did Chuck hurt you?”

  She cleared her throat again, her neck hurting from the strain. “Can I go home?”

  He seemed to think about it, but she knew from what he had told her that there was not much to hold her on.

  She told him, “I just want to go home,” but the home she was thinking about was not the shithole she lived in at the college. She was thinking of the house she used to own and the life she had when she lived in it. She was thinking about the Lena who did not attack people or force them into doing things they did not want to do. The good Lena. The Lena she was before Sibyl died.

  Jeffrey said, “Nan Thomas is here. I called her to pick you up.”

  “I don’t want to see her.”

  “I’m sorry, Lena. She’s outside waiting for you, and I can’t—I won’t—let you go home alone.”

  Nan was silent on the drive back to her house. There was no telling how much or how little she knew. None of that really mattered to Lena right now. She had stopped caring about anything after the storm hit last night.

  Lena stared out the window, thinking that she hadn’t taken an evening car ride in a long while. Usually she was in bed by now, sometimes sleeping, sometimes looking out the window and waiting for day to come, but never outside. Never somewhere she didn’t feel safe.

  Nan pulled into the driveway and cut the engine. She tucked the ignition key over the visor, giving Lena a goofy grin. Nan trusted people too much. Sibyl had been the same way, right up until some maniac killed her.

  The house Sibyl and Nan bought a few years ago was a small bungalow of the kind that was all over Heartsdale. Two bedrooms were on one side, with a bath off the hallway and a kitchen, dining room, and living room on the other side. The second bedroom had been converted into an office for Sibyl, but Lena did not know what Nan used the room for now.

  Lena stood on the front stoop, bracing her hand against the side of the house so she would not fall over as Nan took her time unlocking the door. Exhaustion was becoming a way of life for her; another thing that had changed.

  Three short beeps from an alarm panel greeted them when Nan opened the door. Considering Nan’s lack of concern about safety, Lena was surprised to see that she had bothered to get an alarm.

  Nan must have read her mind. “I know,” she said, punching Sibyl’s birth date into the pad. “I thought it would make me feel safe after Sibyl . . . and then you . . .”

  “A dog would be better,” Lena suggested, then felt guilty when she saw the concerned look on Nan’s face. “The noise from the alarm can scare off people, too.”

  “I kept setting it off when I first got it. Mrs. Moushey across the street nearly had a heart attack.”

  “I’m sure it’s fine,” Lena told her.

  “Why don’t I believe you?”

  Lena leaned her hand on the back of the couch, thinking she did not have the strength for such an inane conversation.

  Nan seemed to pick up on this. “Are you hungry?” she asked, turning the lights on as she walked through the dining room to the kitchen.

  Lena shook her head, but Nan didn’t see her.

  “Lena?”

  “No,” Lena said. She traced her fingers along the couch as she walked toward the bathroom. She was cramping from the medication, and she felt a burning like maybe she had a bladder infection.

  The bathroom was narrow, with black and white tiles on the floor. Beaded wood ran around the top part of the walls, with white tile below it. A medicine cabinet with a warped mirror had a picture of Sibyl tucked into its frame. Lena looked into the mirror, then back at Sibyl, comparing the two images. Lena looked ten years older, even though the photograph had been taken a month or so before Sibyl was killed. Lena’s left eye was swollen, the cut underneath bright red and sensitive to the touch. Her lip was split in the center, and there were scratches and what looked like one giant bruise wrapped around her neck. No wonder she was having trouble talking. Her throat was probably as raw as a piece of meat.

  “Lena?” Nan said, knocking on the door.

  Lena opened the door, not wanting Nan to get worried.

  “Do you want some tea?” Nan asked.

  Lena was going to say no but then decided the tea might help her throat. She nodded.

  “Tummy Mint or Sleepy Bear?”

  Lena wanted to laugh, because it seemed ludicrous that, after what had happened, Nan was standing at the bathroom door asking Lena if she wanted Tummy Mint or Sleepy Bear.

  Nan smiled. “I’ll decide for you,” she said. “Do you want to change?”

  Lena was still wearing the prison uniform they had given her at the jail, because her clothes had been bagged as evidence.

  Nan said, “I’ve still got some of Sibyl’s things if you want . . .” They both seemed to realize at the same time that neither of them would feel comfortable with Lena in Sibyl’s clothes.

  “I’ve got some pajamas that will fit you,” Nan said. She went into her room, and Lena followed her. There were more pictures of Sibyl by the bed, and Sibyl’s Pooh bear from when she was little.

  Nan stood in the room, watching her.

  “What?” Lena as
ked, holding her mouth tight, trying to keep her lip from splitting back open.

  Nan went to the closet, standing on the tips of her toes to root around the top shelf. She pulled out a small wooden box.

  “This was from my father,” she said, opening the box. A mini Glock rested in the molded velvet interior. A full magazine was beside it.

  “What are you doing with that?” Lena asked, wanting to take the gun out of the box just to feel its weight. She had not held a gun since she resigned from the force.

  “My father gave it to me after Sibyl died,” Nan said, and Lena realized that she hadn’t even known that Nan’s father was still alive.

  Nan said, “He’s a cop. Like your dad was.”

  Lena touched the cold metal, liking the way it felt under her fingers.

  “I don’t know how to use it,” Nan said. “I can’t stand guns.”

  “Sibyl hated them, too,” Lena said, though surely Nan knew that Calvin Adams, their father, had been shot on a traffic stop.

  Nan closed the box and handed it to Lena. “You keep this if it makes you feel safer.”

  Lena took the box, holding it to her chest.

  Nan walked to her dresser and pulled out a pair of pastel blue pajamas. “I know they’re not your style, but they’re clean.”

  “Thank you,” Lena said, appreciating the effort.

  Nan left, pulling the door closed. Lena wanted to lock it but thought Nan might hear the sound and take it personally. She sat on the bed, opening the wooden box on her lap. She traced her finger along the barrel of the gun the same way she had traced her fingers along Ethan’s cock. Lena scooped the gun into her hand, fumbling to load the magazine. The cast on her left arm made it difficult, and when she tried to pull the slide to load a bullet into the chamber, the gun nearly slipped from her hand.

  “Dammit,” she said, squeezing the trigger several times just to feel the click.

  Out of habit Lena ejected the magazine before putting the gun back into the box. With some difficulty she changed into the blue pajamas. Her legs were so sore she did not want to move them, but she knew that movement was the only way to fight the stiffness and pain.

  When she got to the kitchen, Nan was pouring tea. She smiled at Lena, trying not to laugh, and Lena looked down at the dark blue cartoon dog on the pocket of the pajama top.