Sacrificial Ground

  “Got a number?”

  “Not yet. The lab work wasn’t in when I left headquarters.”

  “How about a description?”

  “Young.”

  Jesse looked at Frank questioningly.

  “Pretty,” Frank added.

  “Oh, yeah,” Jesse said. “She’s just come down to us.” He looked at a large open accountant’s book. “Laura Angelica Devereaux,” he repeated, “Number Fifteen.” He looked quickly toward Karen. “You with him?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh,” Jesse said softly and with a hint of surprise.

  “Miss Devereaux’s sister,” Frank explained.

  Jesse smiled quietly. “Sorry, ma’am. She looked like a nice young girl.”

  Angelica was the sort who didn’t fit the morgue’s usual cast of characters, and Frank could see Jesse’s curiosity as clearly as if questions were written on his forehead. How had she been caught up in the general web? How did her body end up drenched in a light which usually swept down upon the poor, the deranged, the ones for whom the last wound was very much like the first?

  Jesse shifted slightly in his chair. “Anyway, she’s in Number Fifteen. I guess you’ll be going with her, Frank?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fine, then,” Jesse said quietly. “You know where it is. Last door on your right.”

  “Thanks, Jesse,” Frank said. He stepped around the desk and glanced back toward Karen. “This way.”

  She followed him immediately, keeping to his pace.

  Frank opened the door and walked to the wall of refrigerated units which stood at the rear of the room. They were made of stainless steel, and he could see Karen’s face reflected in the door of Number Fifteen as he placed his hand on the latch.

  “Sometimes, they look a little different,” he warned.

  “Open it,” Karen said.

  The latch clicked sharply as Frank drew open the door, and he noticed that Karen’s body stiffened at the sound, then held that stiffness as he pulled out the long, metal carriage which held Angelica’s body.

  “I am sorry,” Frank whispered as he drew down the zipper and exposed Angelica’s upturned face. It was bloodlessly white, except for the purplish lips.

  Karen drew her eyes slowly down to her sister’s face. She held them there for a long time, as if trying to explain some facet of it, the long, graceful arch of her eyebrows, the smooth line of her nose, the large, slightly oval eyes.

  “She was so beautiful,” Karen said softly. She continued to gaze at Angelica’s face. “So beautiful.”

  “Yes.”

  “At every moment beautiful. A beautiful baby. A beautiful child.”

  Frank nodded.

  “A beautiful woman,” Karen said. She looked at Frank. “There’s nothing more powerful than that.”

  Frank closed the black plastic bag over Angelica’s face. “I have to ask you. It’s a technical thing. Is this your sister?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can go now,” Frank said. He pushed the carriage back into the wall and closed the door.

  Karen did not move. She continued to look at the closed door, as if studying her own marred reflection.

  “Miss Devereaux,” Frank repeated. “We can go now.”

  She shook her head. “Not yet,” she whispered. Her eyes remained on the stainless steel door, but it was as if they were passing through it, were still in the dark cold vault gazing at Angelica’s face. “Sparks flew from her,” she said. “My father used to pick her up in his arms and laugh. ‘Sparks fly from you,’ he’d say.” Her eyes remained on the closed door, but Frank could tell that her mind was somewhere else, and that everything in her life was passing through the dark funnel of this moment. Her body grew even more rigid, and slowly her hand lifted toward the latch.

  Frank took it quickly. “No,” he said, then released it. It fell limply to her side.

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because it won’t help anything.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’ve been here before.”

  “All right,” Karen said. She turned slowly and walked straight down the corridor.

  “Just go on out to the car,” Frank told her, once they were back at the entrance. “I want to talk to Jesse for a minute.”

  She was standing beside the car smoking a cigarette when he joined her a few minutes later.

  “I’m sorry to keep you waiting,” he told her.

  “What did you talk to him about?” she asked.

  “A few things. Technical.”

  “What? I want to know, exactly.”

  Frank took out his notebook and flipped to his last entries. “Well, the body came down about a half-hour ago. The lab report should be on my desk by now.” He turned the page. “No outside inquiries about her.”

  “Do you keep everything in that book?” Karen asked.

  “It helps my memory,” Frank said. He closed the book. “You took it well, Miss Devereaux.”

  A slender black eyebrow crawled upward. “Did I?”

  “Better than most.”

  “With less feeling, you mean?”

  “With less show of feeling.”

  “Is there a difference?”

  “I think so,” Frank said. He opened the car door. “Come, I’ll take you home.”

  It was late afternoon, and the traffic had begun to build steadily toward its rush-hour snarl. Frank knew that it would be a long tangled line from downtown to West Paces Ferry, and given what Karen had just been through, it seemed unnecessarily brutal to add at least an hour of stop-and-go traffic to the day’s ordeal.

  “We could stop somewhere if you like,” he said.

  She looked at him curiously. “Stop somewhere?”

  “And let the traffic die down a little,” Frank explained.

  “All right.”

  A few minutes later, Frank pulled into a small tavern on Peachtree Street. He felt the need for a drink, but he felt even more that he needed a dark, quiet room, a place away from the heat and traffic.

  “We can talk about anything you want,” he said, after they’d ordered their drinks. “I mean, you don’t have to …”

  “Was she murdered?” Karen asked immediately.

  “Probably. We don’t know.”

  “But wouldn’t it be easy to tell?”

  “If she were shot or strangled, yes, it would be easier to tell. As it is, any number of things could have happened to her—some sort of accident maybe, hell, even a heart attack, I don’t know. If someone was with her at the time, and that someone panicked, didn’t know what to do, finally just brought her to that lot and left her there—well, it wouldn’t be murder. It’s not likely, but it’s possible.”

  “Her body then, it wasn’t …?”

  “There were no signs of a struggle,” Frank said, putting it as mildly as he knew how. “And she was fully clothed when we found her.” He shrugged. “Except for a shoe.”

  “A shoe?”

  “We found it a few feet away,” Frank said.

  The drinks came and Frank looked at his, but did not taste it. “Look,” he said, “we don’t know exactly how Angelica died. We only know that certain common things didn’t happen to her.”

  Karen watched him from over the rim of her glass. “Common things?”

  “For me, common.”

  The waitress bounced over and took the orders of two men in business suits who sat at a table a few feet away. Frank’s eyes involuntarily followed her. She was young, and she had a light, exuberant step, the sort he noticed in people who still thought their luck might change.

  Karen glanced around the room. “I’ve never been here,” she said.

  “Neither have I.”

  “You just picked it at random?”

  “The first one on the right,” Frank said. “It looked nice. Better than the traffic.” He looked at his watch. “Things’ll clear up in about an hour. We’ll leave then.”

  Karen pulle
d a pack of cigarettes from her purse and offered one to Frank.

  “No, thanks.”

  Karen lit her own. “You look like a smoker.”

  “I do? How do smokers look?”

  “Like certain things don’t really matter to them.”

  “Health, you mean?”

  “Too long a life,” Karen said.

  “Then give me one.”

  Karen held the pack up to him. “Angelica and I didn’t get along very well,” she said.

  “I gathered that,” Frank said. He lit the cigarette. “Of course, that’s nothing new.”

  “But I have no idea what happened to her,” Karen said, “and if she was murdered, I don’t know who killed her.”

  “It’s her life I’m looking for right now,” Frank said.

  “Why?”

  “So I can trace it.”

  “To its end?”

  “That’s the way it works when you do it by the book,” Frank told her. He took a sip of Scotch, and the warmth hit him suddenly like a sweet promise of relief. He realized he’d want another after this, and then another. He placed the glass firmly down on the table.

  Karen looked at him oddly. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” Frank said quickly. He leaned back in his seat, drawing himself away from the beckoning glass. “Did you really not know anything about how Angelica lived?” he asked.

  “I tried to watch out for her. I was her sister, after all. But she resented the intrusion.”

  “Well, the only things I know right now are that she was rich and beautiful.”

  Karen leaned forward. “Does that make it more likely that she was murdered, money and beauty?”

  “Less likely, I’d say,” Frank told her. He took a draw on the cigarette. “There’s a saying in a homicide investigation: Follow blood or money.”

  “Which means?”

  “Well, in most cases people kill each other over money or some family matter.”

  Karen shook her head gently. “I didn’t kill my sister, Mr. Clemons.”

  “I was thinking more of money,” Frank said. “Did Angelica have much of her own?”

  “Yes. She had a trust fund.”

  Frank took out his notebook. “She had access to it?”

  “Not until recently,” Karen said. “Arthur Cummings administered it. He was my father’s lawyer. And he was, you might say, Angelica’s guardian. At least, he was the guardian of her money.”

  “Did he keep tabs on her?”

  “I don’t think so,” Karen said. “I don’t think she would have let anyone do that.”

  Frank wrote Cummings’ name in his notebook. “Where can I find Arthur Cummings?”

  “Cummings, Wainwright and Houstan,” Karen said. “Have you heard of it?”

  “No. Should I have?”

  “Well, not really. It’s a major law firm, that’s all.”

  The sort of high-powered legal muscle that people in Karen’s circle knew about, Frank realized immediately, and people in his circle didn’t.

  “I know mostly bailbondsmen and ambulance chasers,” he said.

  “You think Cummings is any different?” Karen asked.

  “Better suits,” Frank said. He allowed himself to smile with her for the first time. “With the guys I deal with, it’s mostly Mart.”

  Karen snuffed out her cigarette, but said nothing.

  “Was Cummings your guardian, too?” Frank asked.

  “For a few years,” Karen said. “I was almost of age when my parents died. He was my guardian until then.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “Not very well,” Karen said. “I recognize his signature. It was always on my checks.”

  “And nothing else?”

  “He was my father’s best friend. That’s all I know.”

  “And as far as you know, Angelica was no closer to him than you?”

  “As far as I know,” Karen said. She took a sip of wine. “Besides, if Angelica was murdered, it could have been anybody.”

  “Why?”

  “Because she was beautiful,” Karen said firmly, “and anyone could have desired her: Arthur, the taxi driver, the kid with the groceries, the stranger in an elevator.” She paused. “Even you, Mr. Clemons.” She picked up the now-empty glass of wine and twirled it in her hands. “Anyone could have desired her, and because of that, anyone could have killed her.” She placed the glass back down on the table and leaned slowly toward him. “Was my sister raped?”

  “I don’t know,” Frank said.

  For what seemed a very long time, she simply continued to look at him. Then, slowly, a line of moisture gathered in her eyes.

  5

  When Frank got back to headquarters, he found Caleb already waiting for him, his huge frame slumped in a padded metal chair beside his desk.

  “Two things for you,” Caleb said.

  “What?”

  “Message from your wife.”

  “Ex-wife.”

  “In my opinion there’s no such thing,” Caleb said. He shrugged. “Anyway, from Sheila.”

  “What’s the message?”

  “She just wants you to drop by after work.”

  “Okay, what else?”

  “This,” Caleb said. He took a thin manila folder from his lap and dropped it on Frank’s desk. “Lab work on Angelica Devereaux.”

  “Have you read it?”

  “Just finished.”

  “Any surprises?”

  “Well, she wasn’t raped, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Does that surprise you?”

  Caleb shook his head. “Not much. In my experience, you don’t have to be a looker to get raped. Fat or thin, old or young, it don’t matter.” He smiled sadly. “Like the saying goes, Frank, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” He slid the folder across the desk. “Take a look.”

  Frank picked it up. “I met her sister,” he said. He looked at Caleb. “The two of them had lived together since the plane crash.” He shook his head. “Now she has nobody, as far as I can tell.”

  Caleb stared at him, unmoved. “When you get down to the wire on it, not many people do. That’s a true fact, unrecorded.” He nodded toward the still-unopened manila folder. “Anyway, we’ve got a cause of death now.” His eyes seemed to withdraw into their large round sockets. “Drano.”

  “What?”

  “Drano, or something like it,” Caleb repeated. “A lye-based poison. That’s what the lab boys call it.” He took the report from Frank’s hand and opened it. “Here it is,” he said. Then he read directly from the report. “A lye-based poison administered by multiple injection within the pubic region.” He closed the folder. “What do you think?”

  Frank eased the report from Caleb’s hands and began to read it. Very little was out of the ordinary. There was no rape, just as Caleb had said, and neither were there any drugs present in her bloodstream.

  “Didn’t have so much as a drink for the road,” Caleb said.

  Frank continued to read while Caleb stood over him, staring down.

  “I can save you some time, Frank,” he said at last.

  “What do you mean?”

  “She was pregnant,” Caleb said bluntly.

  Frank lowered the folder to his desk.

  “Meaning it could be something simple,” Caleb added.

  “Like what?”

  “The law calls it ‘wrongful death.’”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Maybe she was trying to give herself an abortion.”

  “With lye?” Frank asked unbelievingly.

  “Anything,” Caleb added. “Some friend at school could have said something, just a line about how lye’ll get rid of a baby.”

  Frank continued to watch him doubtfully.

  “Remember that Johnson kid, remember him?”

  “The kid who hanged himself.”

  “That’s right. Everybody but his parents thought it was a suicide.”

  “Well,
that’s what you think, Caleb, when you’ve got a kid swinging from the rafters with a knocked-over stool right under him.”

  “But it wasn’t suicide, Frank,” Caleb said. “His mother kept telling me that, and I believed her.”

  “I thought it was the fact that he was naked that bothered you.”

  “That, too,” Caleb said. “So, anyway, I checked around and found out that a few kids on the basketball team had told him how great it was to jerk off while you’re just at the edge of consciousness. That’s what he was trying to do.”

  “And so now you figure the Devereaux girl for a botched abortion?”

  “Maybe,” Caleb said. “She could have done it herself, given herself those injections.”

  Frank looked at him pointedly. Caleb smiled. “Yeah, I know. She couldn’t have dragged her own dead body across that field, could she?”

  “No.”

  “I bet I know who did.”

  Frank waited.

  “The daddy,” Caleb said. He nodded sagely. “Mark my words, you find the daddy of that baby, and you’ll find the poor lost soul who killed that girl. Or helped her kill herself. Whatever. You get the daddy, you get the story.”

  “Maybe,” Frank said. But even as he said it, he found that he did not feel certain of it. He had seen too many cases where the general rules did not apply, where nothing ever reduced to its most common elements. For an instant, as he glanced back down at the folder, he thought he heard a voice rise from it. He knew it was only a trick of the mind, but he could not refuse to hear it. It was wordless, almost inaudible, and yet he could hear it, a low, withdrawing moan.

  Caleb placed his hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Find the father, you’ll find everything.”

  Frank nodded and opened the folder once again.

  “You doubt it?” Caleb asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Caleb looked at him scoldingly. “You make things too complex, Frank.” He laughed slightly. “You don’t ever see the simple things.”

  “Maybe I just don’t like them,” Frank said, as his eyes once again scanned the first page of the report.

  Caleb released his shoulder. “Well, I got to go home. Big Hilda’s waiting.” He leaned forward and tapped on the report. “Raise a joyful noise, Frank. The fact that the girl was pregnant is the best thing that could have happened on this case.” He stood up straight. “And while I’m full of advice, stay away from the Bottom Rail.”