“The roads have street signs even out this far, Rae. It’s not Siberia. What did you have left from dinner in your carryout bag? Food will distract them while I get inside.”
“A couple dinner rolls and some of the chicken. You’ll get maybe ten seconds while they wolf them down.”
“It will be enough.”
She went to get the carryout bag. He pulled the picnic table over near the door to provide him a perch of last resort. The dogs were not in a good mood, and breaking in would just intensify the sense of threat they already felt.
There was no screen door to contend with and the doorframe didn’t look like it had been updated since the house was built sixty or seventy years ago. It would pop with the right kind of impact.
Rae came back with the sack and he pointed. “Stand over there, where the dogs can see you as the door opens. Throw the food toward them as soon as they lock onto seeing you and then swing that gate closed to protect yourself. That should give me enough time to get inside the house and push this back door closed behind me.”
“Okay.”
“On three.”
She nodded.
He judged his footing. He started counting.
“One.”
“Two.”
“Three.”
He slammed his boot into the door just below the doorknob. The wood in the frame splintered back. The locks snapped free. The door crashed inward.
Snarling dogs came through so fast they were one moving body. He flattened against the house siding.
“Here, boys!”
The fence gate slammed closed. Nathan darted inside as the dogs attacked the food and shoved the back door closed behind him.
The linoleum in the utility room area bore the marks of dogs trying to dig their way outside. The smell overpowered now, of decay and of dog urine, the heat oppressive in the still air. Flies buzzed around him. Glad he was wearing boots, he walked through the quiet house. He didn’t bother to call Nella’s name.
He walked down the hall. He pushed open the door. She was still in bed. He forced himself to look, to see what could be seen from the doorway that might suggest cause of death, and then he backed away. The decay had already made her nearly unrecognizable.
Nothing appeared disturbed in the living room, the kitchen. He noted that orderliness as he moved through the rooms. He flipped the lock open on the front door and turned the knob.
Nathan stepped outside, waved off Rae, and moved several feet down the porch. He put his hand against the porch column and looked at the grass poking through the melting snow. He took half a dozen deep breaths and then shook his head. He looked up. Rae was watching him. “She’s dead.”
“I know.”
“It looks like she went to sleep and never woke up. Blankets are still over the body.” He shook his head again trying to dislodge that image of the blankets that had moved because of the crawling maggots on the body but it sat there in his mind like a picture he couldn’t look away from.
Her hand touched his left one. “Open your hand, let go.”
The keys he’d held in his hand as a possible defensive weapon against the dogs had left an impression in his palm. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“The newspapers here on her porch, the mail in the box—she never took Saturday’s mail inside. Time of death is Friday night, early Saturday morning?” Rae asked.
“I’m not an expert on scenes like this, but that fits with the body, I think.”
“This wasn’t a shooting, a knife attack? She lives out in the middle of nowhere.”
“No signs of blood on the walls, on the bed, no signs of struggle. The rooms don’t look disturbed and doors were locked.”
“If it’s another death in her sleep, that puts you at three since I arrived in town.”
“Not to mention a strike about to turn violent. What’s happening to my town, Rae? It used to be such a quiet place.” The town was coming apart around him and he couldn’t figure out how to stop it or even what to fight.
He felt sick, and he stopped looking for his phone to just take a few more breaths and shake it off some more. Some things a man needed to expect to see, and that scene was outside anything he had expected. He had known he would find a body but hadn’t prepared for the blankets moving.
“I saw my first body when I was seventeen, and cleaned up my first murder scene at twenty. The images don’t settle well.”
He thought her quiet words worth a halfhearted smile. “I’ve been walking into hard things since my first year on highway patrol, but the bugs—you never quite get used to the bugs that come with an undiscovered death.”
“It’s the dreams afterwards that I hate. They are always three-dimensional, and the dead people have a habit of getting up and walking around.”
He did smile at that comment. “Thanks a lot for that image; it rivals this one. I’m going to find excuses not to sleep tonight, I think.”
Rae let him have a few more moments with his own thoughts; then she nodded toward the house. “Peggy, Karen, Nella—even if it is not foul play with a person behind it, maybe there is a trigger. Something in the water, something they eat, something.”
Her eyes narrowed as she studied the front door. “As awful as this is, maybe this is a break in this mystery too. The calendar at least suggests it might be. Nella may have been the first death. Then Peggy, then Karen. Maybe the source of all the trouble originates right here.”
Nathan took that thought to its conclusion and nodded, appreciating how it did help. “We need a source, a cause. Nella’s at least a resident, and someone local. Peggy and Karen were both just passing through town.
“If Nella did die on Friday night, and then Peggy came to this house on Saturday night, maybe the contagion traveled with Peggy back to her hotel. That doesn’t explain Karen, but it’s a start. We link someone from Peggy’s hotel room to Karen’s hotel room—maybe a housekeeper who works both hotels—and the chain is built to a common source.”
He thought about it some more and winced. “And if that’s the case, we’ve had law enforcement trampling through both hotel rooms and spreading whatever this is all over town without realizing we were doing so.”
“If it is environmental or a toxin, catching it at three deaths is going to seem like a minor miracle—most of these situations are dozens of deaths before a common source is discovered.”
Nathan picked up the newspapers on the porch and double-checked the dates to give himself a few more moments to think about this situation.
He shook his head. “Time to get a bit back more into reality, I think. This one could be a pure old-fashioned murder—pillow-over-the-face suffocation or hands-around-the neck strangulation—Nella’s body is in no condition at first glance to answer that question.” He looked at the house. “She doesn’t fit the profiles of the others very well. Let’s at least hope this is something squarely in that reality part of the spectrum. I’ve got too many hypothetical questions dancing around.”
He looked at Rae. “I’m glad I came out with you. Getting a call from you saying, ‘She’s not home, and I smell a dead body’ would have been even more of a shock than this already is.”
“She was a friend.”
Nathan nodded. “In the small-town way of knowing everyone who’s been here for years.”
He opened his phone. “This is going to reverberate around the town tonight. Let me start getting the calls made.” He nodded to the keys she still held. “Go start the car and kick the heater on; no sense in you freezing while we wait. It’s going to be a long night.”
23
Nathan held the door to the pharmacy for Rae Thursday night. Gray Sillman had the scene—whatever it was—crime scene, environmental, toxin—Nathan was no longer sure what he was facing. It just felt so very wrong to say natural causes three times in a row.
By morning they had to know a whole lot more than they did now about Nella’s death. He’d changed his mind and decided to keep Rae with him. His officer
s had their hands full, Rae was a decent sounding board, and the one thing he did not want right now was her out investigating on her own. If someone was out there doing this, Rae’s asking questions could end her up in a heap of trouble, and he had had enough victims in this last week. For tonight, he just didn’t want her out on her own.
Walter Jr. was working on restocking the cough-syrup selections. “Your dad around, Walter?” It wasn’t much of a secret in town that Nella and Walter Sr. went back together quite a ways.
“Sure. In back, checking dates on the refrigerated drugs.”
“I’m here. I heard the bell.” Walter Sr. came around the counter to meet them. “What can I do for you, Nathan?”
Nathan looked around the store to see how many interested customers he would have for this conversation and thankfully found them in a lull of traffic for the store at the end of the day. The cashier didn’t work evenings and was already gone for the day.
“I’ve got some bad news, Walter, and I’m sorry to have to break it this way. Nella has passed away.”
“She’s what?” Walter Jr. reacted first, pushing to his feet.
Nathan kept his focus on Walter Sr. There was no mistaking the fact it was a surprise to the man and also a serious shock. He went pale; he started to speak and changed what he wanted to say, then shook his head. “What happened? When?”
“It appears she died in her sleep a few days ago.”
“Oh. Oh, my. She’s been fine. I fill her prescriptions, and she’s been just fine. Oh, I need to sit down.”
Walter Jr. pushed the stool he was using over and Walter Sr. collapsed on it. “Dad?”
He tried to smile at his son and wave away the concern. “Sorry. It’s just a shock. Nella—” He shook his head.
Nathan pointed and Rae understood the silent request. She walked over to the store entrance and flipped the sign over to closed, then turned the key in the door.
“When did you last see Nella, Walter?”
“Ah . . . Friday, we had dinner together. She fixed pot roast and burned the rolls again. We laughed about it and she promised we’d order pizza next time. She’s not much of a cook. Did she have a heart attack or something?”
“The coroner was just arriving at her home and it will be a few days before we know much. We need to talk for a bit. Would it be easier on you to walk over to the house?”
“Yes, sure.” He looked at his son. “Can you close up?”
“I’ll call Scott to come over and help me. I’ve got it covered. Do you need to talk to me as well, Nathan?”
“A few questions. Come over to your dad’s after you lock up.”
“Twenty minutes.”
* * *
Nathan made himself at home in Walter Sr.’s kitchen, pouring himself, Rae, and Walter lemonade from the pitcher in the refrigerator. He’d sat at this kitchen table many times as a young man, playing checkers with Walter Jr. He’d shared coffee and offered condolences with Walter Sr. at the death of his wife. He’d sat here a few years ago to inform the family Scott had been arrested for lighting fireworks outside the high school cafeteria and starting a small fire on the roof of the building. Tonight was going to be another of those conversations to note in their shared family history.
Walter accepted the glass Nathan offered him. “I’ve filled nearly every prescription Nella has ever been given. She has allergies and a tendency toward a hoarse voice when she gets a cold and occasionally when her feet were persistently cold her doctor might put her on water pills for a few days to help with her circulation. But that was it. She’d complain about the aches and pains of growing old, but that was just her way. She was in remarkably good health.”
“Had she filled any prescriptions recently?”
“No. I can’t believe this, Nathan.”
“I’ve got two concerns, Walter. Until the coroner can tell me why she died, I have to treat this as an unknown cause of death. And that means I need to re-create Nella’s movements over the last couple weeks, and I need to know about the people in her life. So anything you can tell, however small, will help me.”
“Where do you want me to start?”
“Talk to me about Friday.”
“We have dinner together almost every Friday night. We ate about six, she talked some about her week at work, and we made plans to go see a movie tomorrow night.
“I’ll be honest, Nathan. We’ve been seeing each other almost six years, and we’ve been sleeping together about three. She didn’t want to get married, and I stopped pushing about it because she might have ended the relationship. Things were good between us.
“Most Friday nights I would have stayed over, but I had a meeting last Saturday morning and she wanted to get some housework done. I left around eight. I stopped over to see my brother and then came on home.”
“Had she complained about not feeling well?”
“No.”
“Did she eat something you didn’t?”
“Maybe some peanuts? She had a dish on the kitchen counter.” Walter shook his head. “It was just a normal night.”
“Did you speak with her again that night?”
“No. I tried to call her on Sunday afternoon but got her answering machine. I assumed she was at Stella’s and I didn’t leave a message. I tried her again last night and left a message on her machine.”
“You weren’t surprised she didn’t call back?”
“I was working late, and she doesn’t like answering machines. I assumed she called and missed me. Who’s handling arrangements? She doesn’t have family in town, Nathan.”
“It will be a few days before those decisions can be made. Besides you, who else would have normally been out to her house? Does she talk about friends? Anyone else from the past week?”
“Her bridge friends come and go.” Walter rubbed the back of his neck then looked over at him. “She could have been seeing someone else, I guess. She liked to go out and I work a lot of evenings at the store. We’d get into semi-arguments about it, but in the last year she hadn’t been making a big deal of it. I admit I’ve wondered. Nella—she’s always restless.”
“Anything concrete? Someone you saw her with in town? A car in her driveway, a name she mentioned more than usual?”
“Nothing like that. And I’m probably wondering things that were never there. I just never figured why she kept going with me. I could understand her going out with the fine-chocolates guy, Keif, if only as a way to satisfy that sweet tooth of hers; she loved the stuff. But me—I’m too old for her. But she’d just laugh about it and ask me over again. We got comfortable together, I guess.”
Nathan saw Rae smile at the summary. Nathan figured it really was those kind of reasons when it came to why Nella did what she did. “Do you know why they broke up, Nella and Keif?”
“That son of Keif’s, I think. You know the trouble Isaac gets into. It wore on her after a while.”
“Has Nella had problems with anyone lately? Did she have a dispute with anyone? Have an unexpected financial problem? Anything out of the ordinary that she’s mentioned?”
“I tune out most of the town-grapevine stuff she hears, about who is seeing who and what so-and-so did now. I’m old enough I don’t care. Nella would talk and I’d nod occasionally.
“Lately—Nella was bored, nothing going on in her life, nothing happening at work; it was so slow, the latest refrains were let’s take a vacation and go see Nashville, or Chicago—anything to change the scenery of her days. I suggested she take a couple days off work and spend the afternoons going through the antique malls; she enjoyed that kind of thing.”
Walter shook his head. “I’m not going to be much help to you, Nathan. Seeing her on Friday nights and occasionally going out on Saturday night if I wasn’t working was such routine that we didn’t really talk about day-to-day plans much anymore.”
There was a tap on the door and Walter Jr. stepped in. “The store is locked up, Dad. I put the cash drawer into the safe and left it f
or you to balance in the morning. Scott dealt with the ice chest.”
“Thanks.”
Nathan closed his notebook and got up from the table. “I’ve got what I need, Walter. I appreciate your help.” He looked over at Walter Jr. “Just one last thing. Do either of you remember Nella buying anything at the store recently? Gum? Candy bars? Anything at all?”
“I don’t think she’s stopped in at the store at all in the last couple weeks. Are you thinking this is something she ate?”
“I have no idea. I’m just trying not to miss anything no matter how remote.”
“I can check the receipts for you; she normally used a credit card, even for the small purchases,” Walter Jr. offered.
“That would help, thanks. Give me a call if something shows up.”
Nathan said his good-byes and ushered Rae out the door.
* * *
“You don’t want to talk with Walter Jr. about where he was Saturday night and when he last saw Nella?” Rae asked him urgently as they headed back to the car.
Nathan shook his head. “I want to better know time of death first. Nella sleeping with his dad—I could see that being enough to make Walter Jr. have a serious problem with his dad, but he’s not the kind of guy to do something rash about it.”
“Ruling out the town’s two pharmacists when this may be a designer drug is a mistake, Nathan.”
“Do you see Walter Sr. making a drug that kills people? Walter Jr.? His son Scott? Their family has been in this town for as many generations as mine. I know them. There are not bad seeds in their family history; there are not financial problems, drinking, drugs, petty theft, getting into fights—they are folks who are what they appear to be. Beyond a bit of mischief with Scott there’s no record there. Walter Sr. seeing Nella as he has been is not something I like to hear, but it happens.”
“Walter Jr. likes to experiment with creams and with special formulas for specific results. Nathan—”
He stopped her words with a finger across her mouth, aware they were in danger of attracting attention, and leaned in closer to quietly answer her. “I know. But just listen. Be as skeptical as you want to be about what they could do or might do or had cause to do—and weigh that against this fact: Walter Sr. and Walter Jr. have lived in this town all their lives.