Blindsighted

  “Sibyl?” she repeated, using her thumb to press open Sibyl’s eyelid. The woman’s skin was hot to the touch, as if she had been out in the sun too long. A large bruise covered the right side of her face. Sara could see the impression of a fist under the eye. Bone moved under Sara’s hand when she touched the bruise, clicking like two marbles rubbing together.

  Sara’s hand shook as she pressed her fingers against Sibyl’s carotid artery. A fluttering rose against her fingertips, but Sara wasn’t sure if it was the tremor in her own hands or life that she was feeling. Sara closed her eyes, concentrating, trying to separate the two sensations.

  Without warning, the body jerked violently, pitching forward and slamming Sara onto the floor. Blood spread out around both of them, and Sara instinctively clawed to get out from under the convulsing woman. With her feet and hands she groped for some kind of purchase on the slick bathroom floor. Finally, Sara managed to slide out from underneath her. She turned Sibyl over, cradling her head, trying to help her through the convulsions. Suddenly, the jerking stopped. Sara put her ear to Sibyl’s mouth, trying to make out breathing sounds. There were none.

  Sitting up on her knees, Sara started compressions, trying to push life back into Sibyl’s heart. Sara pinched the younger woman’s nose, breathing air into her mouth. Sibyl’s chest rose briefly, but nothing more. Sara tried again, gagging as blood coughed up into her mouth. She spit several times to clear her mouth, prepared to continue, but she could tell it was too late. Sibyl’s eyes rolled back into her head and her breath hissed out with a low shudder. A trickle of urine came from between her legs.

  She was dead.

  2

  Grant County was named for the good Grant, not Ulysses, but Lemuel Pratt Grant, a railroad builder who in the mid-1800s extended the Atlanta line deep into South Georgia and to the sea. It was on Grant’s rails that trains carted cotton and other commodities all across Georgia. This rail line had put cities like Heartsdale, Madison, and Avondale on the map, and there were more than a few Georgia towns named after the man. At the start of the Civil War, Colonel Grant also developed a defense plan should Atlanta ever come under siege; unfortunately, he was better with railroad lines than front lines.

  During the Depression, the citizens of Avondale, Heartsdale, and Madison decided to combine their police and fire departments as well as their schools. This helped economize on much needed services and helped persuade the railroads to keep the Grant line open; the county was much larger as a whole than as individual cities. In 1928, an army base was built in Madison, bringing families from all over the nation to tiny Grant County. A few years later, Avondale became a stopping point for railroad maintenance on the Atlanta-Savannah line. A few more years passed, and Grant College sprang up in Heartsdale. For nearly sixty years, the county prospered, until base closings, consolidations, and Reaganomics trickled down, crushing the economies of Madison and Avondale within three years of each other. But for the college, which in 1946 became a technological university specializing in agri-business, Heartsdale would have followed the same downward trend as its sister cities.

  As it was, the college was the lifeblood of the city, and Police Chief jeffrey Tolliver’s first directive from Heartsdale’s mayor was to keep the college happy if he wanted to keep his job. Jeffrey was doing just that, meeting with the campus police, discussing a plan of action for a recent outbreak of bicycle thefts, when his cell phone rang. At first, he did not recognize Sara’s voice and thought the call was some kind of prank. In the eight years he had known her, Sara had never sounded so desperate. Her voice trembled as she said three words he had never expected to come from her mouth: I need you.

  Jeffrey took a left outside the college gates and drove his Lincoln Town Car up Main Street toward the diner. Spring was very early this year, and already the dogwood trees lining the street were blooming, weaving a white curtain over the road. The women from the garden club had planted tulips in little planters lining the sidewalks, and a couple of kids from the high school were out sweeping the street instead of spending a week in afterschool detention. The owner of the dress shop had put a rack of clothes on the sidewalk, and the hardware store had set up an outdoor gazebo display complete with porch swing. Jeffrey knew the scene would be a sharp contrast to the one waiting for him at the diner.

  He rolled down the window, letting fresh air into the stuffy car. His tie felt tight against his throat, and he found himself taking it off without thinking. In his mind, he kept playing Sara’s phone call over and over in his head, trying to get more from it than the obvious facts. Sibyl Adams had been stabbed and killed at the diner.

  Twenty years as a cop had not prepared Jeffrey for this kind of news. Half of his career had been spent in Birmingham, Alabama, where murder seldom surprised. Not a week went by when he wasn’t called out to investigate at least one homicide, usually a product of Birmingham’s extreme poverty: drug transactions gone wrong, domestic disputes where guns were too readily available. If Sara’s call had come from Madison or even Avondale, Jeffrey would not have been surprised. Drugs and gang violence were fast becoming a problem in the outlying towns. Heartsdale was the jewel of the three cities. In ten years, the only suspicious fatality in Heartsdale involved an old woman who had a heart attack when she caught her grandson stealing her television.

  “Chief?”

  Jeffrey reached down, picking up his radio. “Yeah?”

  Marla Simms, the receptionist at the station house, said, “I’ve taken care of that thing you wanted.”

  “Good,” he answered, then, “Radio silence until further notice.”

  Marla was quiet, not asking the obvious question. Grant was still a small town, and even in the station house there were people who would talk. Jeffrey wanted to keep a lid on this as long as possible.

  “Copy?” Jeffrey asked.

  Finally, she answered, “Yes, sir.”

  Jeffrey tucked his cell phone into his coat pocket as he got out of the car. Frank Wallace, his senior detective on the squad, was already standing sentry outside the diner.

  “Anyone in or out?” Jeffrey asked.

  He shook his head. “Brad’s on the back door,” he said. “The alarm’s disconnected. I gotta think the perp used it for his in and out.”

  Jeffrey looked back at the street. Betty Reynolds, the owner of the five-and-dime, was out sweeping the sidewalk, casting suspicious glances at the diner. People would start walking over soon, if not out of curiosity, then for supper.

  Jeffrey turned back to Frank. “Nobody saw anything?”

  “Not a thing,” Frank confirmed. “She walked here from her house. Pete says she comes here every Monday after the lunch rush.”

  Jeffrey managed a tight nod, walking into the diner. The Grant Filling Station was central to Main Street. With its big red booths and speckled white countertops, chrome rails and straw dispensers, it looked much as it probably had the day Pete’s dad opened for business. Even the solid white linoleum tiles on the floor, so worn in spots the black adhesive showed through, were original to the restaurant. Jeffrey had eaten lunch here almost every day for the last ten years. The diner had been a source of comfort, something familiar after working with the dregs of humanity. He looked around the open room, knowing it would never be the same for him again.

  Tessa Linton sat at the counter, her head in her hands. Pete Wayne sat opposite her, staring blindly out the window. Except for the day the space shuttle Challenger had exploded, this was the first time Jeffrey had ever seen him not wearing his paper hat inside the diner. Still, Pete’s hair was bunched up into a point at the top, making his face look longer than it already was.

  “Tess?” Jeffrey asked, putting his hand on her shoulder. She leaned into him, crying. Jeffrey smoothed her hair, giving Pete a nod.

  Pete Wayne was normally a cheerful man, but his expression today was one of absolute shock. He barely acknowledged Jeffrey, continuing to stare out the windows lining the front of the restaurant, his li
ps moving slightly, no sound coming out.

  A few moments of silence passed, then Tessa sat up. She fumbled with the napkin dispenser until Jeffrey offered his handkerchief. He waited until she had blown her nose to ask, “Where’s Sara?”

  Tessa folded the handkerchief. “She’s still in the bathroom. I don’t know—” Tessa’s voice caught. “There was so much blood. She wouldn’t let me go in.”

  He nodded, stroking her hair back off her face. Sara was very protective of her little sister, and this instinct had transferred to Jeffrey during their marriage. Even after the divorce, Jeffrey still felt in some way that Tessa and the Lintons were his family.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Go ahead. She needs you.”

  Jeffrey tried not to react to this. If not for the fact that Sara was the county coroner, he would never see her. It said a lot about their relationship that somebody had to die in order for her to be in the same room with him.

  Walking to the back of the diner, Jeffrey felt a sense of dread overcome him. He knew that something violent had happened. He knew that Sibyl Adams had been killed. Other than that, he had no idea what to expect when he tugged opened the door to the women’s bathroom. What he saw literally took his breath away.

  Sara sat in the middle of the room, Sibyl Adams’s head in her lap. Blood was everywhere, covering the body, covering Sara, whose shirt and pants were soaked down the front, as if someone had taken a hose and sprayed her. Bloody shoe and hand prints marked the floor as if a great struggle had occurred.

  Jeffrey stood in the doorway, taking all this in, trying to catch his breath.

  “Shut the door,” Sara whispered, her hand resting on Sibyl’s forehead.

  He did as he was told, walking around the periphery of the room. His mouth opened, but nothing would come out. There were the obvious questions to ask, but part of Jeffrey did not want to know the answers. Part of him wanted to take Sara out of this room, put her in his car, and drive until neither one of them could remember the way this tiny bathroom looked and smelled. There was the taste of violence in the air, morbid and sticky in the back of his throat. He felt dirty just standing there.

  “She looks like Lena,” he finally said, referring to Sibyl Adams’s twin sister, a detective on his force. “For just a second I thought…” He shook his head, unable to continue.

  “Lena’s hair is longer.”

  “Yeah,” he said, unable to take his eyes off the victim. Jeffrey had seen a lot of horrible things in his time, but he had never personally known a victim of violent crime. Not that he knew Sibyl Adams well, but in a town as small as Heartsdale, everyone was your neighbor.

  Sara cleared her throat. “Did you tell Lena yet?”

  Her question fell on him like an anvil. Two weeks into his job as police chief, he had hired Lena Adams out of the academy in Macon. Those early years, she was like Jeffrey, an outsider. Eight years later he had promoted her to detective. At thirty-three, she was the youngest detective and only woman on the senior squad. And now her sister had been murdered in their own backyard, little more than two hundred yards from the police station. He felt a sense of personal responsibility that was almost suffocating.

  “Jeffrey?”

  Jeffrey took a deep breath, letting it go slowly. “She’s taking some evidence to Macon,” he finally answered. “I called the highway patrol and asked them to bring her back here.”

  Sara was looking at him. Her eyes were rimmed with red, but she hadn’t been crying. Jeffrey was glad of this one thing, because he had never seen Sara cry. He thought if he saw her crying that something in him would give.

  “Did you know she was blind?” she asked.

  Jeffrey leaned against the wall. He had somehow forgotten that detail.

  “She didn’t even see it coming,” Sara whispered. She bent her head down, looking at Sibyl. As usual, Jeffrey couldn’t imagine what Sara was thinking. He decided to wait for her to talk. Obviously, she needed a few moments to collect her thoughts.

  He tucked his hands into his pockets, taking in the space. There were two stalls with wooden doors across from a sink that was so old the fixtures for hot and cold were on opposite sides of the basin. Over this was a gold speckled mirror that was worn through at the edges. All told, the room was not more than twenty feet square, but the tiny black and white tiles on the floor made it seem even smaller. The dark blood pooling around the body didn’t help matters. Claustrophobia had never been a problem for Jeffrey, but Sara’s silence was like a fourth presence in the room. He looked up at the white ceiling, trying to get some distance.

  Finally Sara spoke. Her voice was stronger, more confident. “She was on the toilet when I found her.”

  For lack of anything better to do, Jeffrey took out a small spiral-bound notebook. He grabbed a pen from his breast pocket and started to write as Sara narrated the events that had led up to this moment. Her voice became monotone as she described Sibyl’s death in clinical detail.

  “Then I asked Tess to bring my cell phone.” Sara stopped speaking, and Jeffrey answered her question before she could get it out.

  “She’s okay,” he provided. “I called Eddie on the way here.”

  “Did you tell him what happened?”

  Jeffrey tried to smile. Sara’s father was not one of his biggest fans. “I was lucky he didn’t hang up on me.”

  Sara did not so much as smile, but her eyes finally met Jeffrey’s. There was a softness there that he had not seen in ages. “I need to do the prelim, then we can take her to the morgue.”

  Jeffrey tucked the pad into his coat pocket as Sara gently slid Sibyl’s head to the floor. She sat back on her heels, wiping her hands on the back of her pants.

  She said, “I want to have her cleaned up before Lena sees her.”

  Jeffrey nodded. “She’s at least two hours away. That should give us time to process the scene.” He indicated the stall door. The lock was busted off. “Was the lock that way when you found her?”

  “The lock’s been that way since I was seven,” Sara said, pointing to her briefcase beside the door. “Hand me a pair of gloves.”

  Jeffrey opened the case, trying not to touch the blood on the handles. He pulled out a pair of latex gloves from an inside pocket. When he turned around, Sara was standing at the foot of the body. Her expression had changed, and despite the blood staining the front of her clothes, she seemed to be back in control.

  Still, he had to ask, “Are you sure you want to do this? We can call somebody from Atlanta.”

  Sara shook her head as she slipped on the gloves with practiced efficiency. “I don’t want a stranger touching her.”

  Jeffrey understood what she meant. This was a county matter. County people would take care of her.

  Sara tucked her hands into her hips as she walked around the body. He knew she was trying to get some perspective on the scene, to take herself out of the equation. Jeffrey found himself studying his ex-wife as she did this. Sara was a tall woman, an inch shy of six feet, with deep green eyes and dark red hair. He was letting his mind wander, remembering how good it felt to be with her, when the sharp tone of her voice brought him back to reality.

  “Jeffrey?” Sara snapped, giving him a hard look.

  He stared back at her, aware that his mind had wandered off to what seemed like a safer place.

  She held his gaze a second longer, then turned toward the stall. Jeffrey took another pair of gloves out of her briefcase and slipped them on as she talked.

  “Like I said,” Sara began, “she was on the toilet when I found her. We struggled to the floor, I rolled her on her back.”

  Sara lifted Sibyl’s hands, checking under her fingernails. “There’s nothing here. I imagine she was taken by surprise, didn’t know what was going on until it was too late.”

  “You think it was quick?”

  “Not too quick. Whatever he did, it looks planned to me. The scene was very clean until I came along. She would’ve bled
out on the toilet if I hadn’t had to use the rest room.” Sara looked away. “Or maybe not, if I hadn’t been late getting here.”

  Jeffrey tried to comfort her. “You can’t know that.”

  She shrugged this off. “There’s some bruising on her wrists where her arms hit the handicap bars. Also”—she opened Sibyl’s legs slightly—“see here on her legs?”

  Jeffrey followed her directions. The skin on the inside of both knees was scratched away. “What’s that?” he asked.

  “The toilet seat,” she said. “The bottom edge is pretty sharp. I imagine she squeezed her legs together as she struggled. You can see some of the skin caught on the seat.”

  Jeffrey glanced at the toilet, then looked back at Sara. “Think he pushed her back on the toilet, then stabbed her?”

  Sara didn’t answer him. Instead, she pointed to Sibyl’s bare torso. “The incision isn’t deep until the middle of the cross,” she explained, pressing into the abdomen, opening up the wound so that he could see. “I’d guess it was a double-edged blade. You can see the v shape on either side of the puncture.” Sara easily slipped her index finger inside the wound. The skin made a sucking noise as she did this, and Jeffrey gritted his teeth, looking away. When he turned back, Sara was giving him a questioning look.

  She asked, “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, afraid to open his mouth.

  She moved her finger around inside the hole in Sibyl Adams’s chest. Blood seeped out from the wound. “I’d say it’s at least a four-inch blade,” she concluded, keeping her eyes on him. “Is this bothering you?”

  He shook his head, even though the sound was making his stomach turn.

  Sara slipped her finger out, continuing, “It was a very sharp blade. There’s no hesitation around the incision, so like I said, he knew what he was doing when he started.”

  “What was he doing?”

  Her tone was very matter-of-fact. “He was carving her stomach. His strokes were very assured, one down, one across, then a thrust into the upper torso. That was the death blow, I would imagine. Cause will probably be exsanguination.”