Dirty Devil Page 17

  I massaged the fingers and feet to make sure the embalming fluid went everywhere it was supposed to, and then I sutured the incisions I’d made. I didn’t even bother to check the time. I knew it was well past lunch by the rumbles in my stomach. But I went ahead and mixed putty and paint and filled in the areas around her neck that needed it. And then I did her makeup, matching the skin tone from her picture and making sure it was smooth all the way down her neck. And then I did her hands as well.

  While I had everything out, I did the same thing to Mr. Lassiter, and then I dressed them both in the clothes their loved ones had painstakingly picked out.

  When I was finished, I gazed longingly up the stairs. I wanted nothing more than to go outside and breathe in fresh air. But then I looked at the remaining body in the cooler and knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

  12

  I was asleep on my feet.

  I wasn’t sure how long I’d been staring at my computer screen, trying to finish up the paperwork from the day, when I felt Jack’s hands on my shoulders.

  “Hey,” he said, and kissed me on the back of the neck.

  “Sorry I didn’t call,” I said. “I didn’t mean to make you wait so long. I could’ve just stayed the night here.”

  “You didn’t make me wait,” he said. “And I’m not letting you sleep here alone. Besides, Emmy Lu told me how busy you were. Let’s go home and get you in bed.”

  I think I whimpered. The thought of sliding between the covers was the best suggestion I’d ever heard. “Only if you go to bed with me,” I said, my speech slurred from exhaustion.

  “You got it,” he said. “Did you eat today?”

  “Are you trying to coddle me?” I asked, letting him lead me from my office through the kitchen and mudroom. He grabbed my leather jacket from the hook, but kept pushing me through the door, locking it behind him.

  “Of course I am,” he said. “It’s in the marriage vows.”

  “I think you keep adding stuff to it,” I said. “Every time I turn around there’s some other marriage rule I don’t know anything about.”

  “Maybe you need to go back and read them again,” he suggested. “Love, honor, and cherish covers a whole lot of ground.”

  “Hmm,” I said. “Do you think I’m a good wife?” I asked as he tucked me into the passenger side of his Tahoe. The window had been fixed and the inside cleaned up. “I want to be.”

  “You’re the best wife,” he said, fastening my seat belt for me. “Remember how you cooked for me and made sure I ate the other day? It’s give and take. It’s all part of the package. When one of us is down it’s up to the other of us to take more care and pull a little more weight. Not because we owe each other or have a system of checks and balances, but because that’s what love is.”

  “You’re pretty smart,” I said, and then I leaned my head against the new window and promptly fell asleep.

  I had a vague recollection of being carried from the car and into the house, and the murmur of voices as Jack carried me upstairs to our bedroom. I remember him undressing me and laying me on cool sheets, and then crawling in beside me to hold me until I drifted off again.

  But sometime during the night, my hunger woke me from a sound sleep, and my hand automatically went to the opposite side of the bed. But Jack was gone. He’d left the shades up so the moon shone brightly through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the tips of the trees swayed with the night breeze.

  It was my favorite view in the house, even at night. Being on the third floor made it seem like we were sleeping in the treetops.

  I glanced at the clock on the nightstand and saw it was almost three in the morning. I was strangely wide awake, and then my stomach growled again, so I rolled out of bed and found the cashmere robe Jack had gotten me for my birthday draped over the back of the chair by the windows. I sighed as I wrapped it around my naked body and tied the belt. If I could’ve gotten away with wearing it out of the house I would have. I’d never felt anything more luxurious against my skin.

  I crept down the stairs, careful not to wake Doug as I passed the second floor, and I saw the light was already on in the kitchen. And then I burst into tears as I saw the sandwich sitting on a plate and a bottle of water next to it. Jack really was the best husband.

  I grabbed the plate and the water and wandered through the house until I came to the office. There was nothing but silence on the other side of the door, but I knew he was in there. I slid open the pocket door, and he looked up at me from behind his desk, his dark eyes piercingly direct.

  “Thanks for the sandwich,” I said, coming over to sit across from him. “And thanks for taking care of me. It was a brutal day.”

  “I can only imagine,” he said. “It’s going to be a brutal week. Five funerals is a lot.”

  “Four,” I said. “Father and daughter are being buried together.”

  “Ah,” he said, understanding in his eyes. “It’s good they’re together.”

  I bit into my sandwich to keep the tears from coming again. “What’d you find out today with the case? Anything useful?”

  “My conversation with Dr. Park was interesting.”

  “How so?”

  “He knew Donnelly was in bad health, and he performed procedures on him anyway,” Jack said. “He said once when Donnelly was in the office getting Botox injections he had a little heart episode. Donnelly popped an aspirin and refused any kind of medical treatment or a ride to the hospital. Said it was nothing. Park said he told him that anesthesia and surgery weren’t a good idea until he went and had his heart checked out, but he said John Donnelly was someone you didn’t say no to. At least if you wanted your career and business to survive.”

  “But we know Donnelly did eventually go to the doctor,” I said. “So he must have listened to reason.”

  “We can only assume. Dr. Park had no knowledge of who Donnelly might have used for a physician, and we haven’t been able to find anything in his records.”

  “That’s weird,” I said. “Stuff like that usually comes up when Carver runs a search.”

  “Exactly,” Jack said.

  “What about Martha Callum?” I asked.

  “I like her,” Jack said. “She knew exactly the kind of man John Donnelly was, and she’s nobody’s pushover. But she said Donnelly gave her a job when no one else would, and she had three kids to feed on her own. She said the hours were lousy, his temperament was worse, but with what he was paying her she could tolerate it. She hadn’t been kidding about the threats. She had a drawer full of letters and other odds and ends of things he’d been sent over the last twenty years.”

  “Anything stand out to you?” I asked.

  “I haven’t been through everything yet, but there was a letter sent from a Richmond post office dated about six years ago. It basically accuses Donnelly and several others of payoffs and false testimony, and then he tells him there’s innocent blood on his hands and that the betrayal won’t go unpunished. But the real clincher is that he signs the letter with a Bible verse. Acts 1:18–19.”

  “That’s one I haven’t memorized,” I said dryly, making Jack grin. It was then I noticed he had his Bible out on the desk.

  * * *

  “With the reward he got for his wickedness, Judas bought a field; there he fell headlong, his body burst open and all his intestines spilled out. Everyone in Jerusalem heard about this, so they called that field in their language Akeldama, that is, Field of Blood”

  * * *

  “Okay,” I said. “I see where you might connect the dots there. Any idea who it could have come from?”

  “Martha had no idea, but I’ve got case files from around that time flagged for us to go through first. We might have better luck narrowing our search on the other victim—Dana Martin. It might be easier to connect her to Donnelly than the other way around. I’ve scanned all of the letters into the computer, and Magnolia is going to analyze the handwriting and see if there are any commonalities. I’ve also got a call
in to Dana Martin’s husband. There was mention in the police report that Dana had been concerned about a stalker. She felt like someone was watching her, but nothing ever came of it. I wanted to ask her husband if he remembers her getting any letters in the mail. Any tangible threats.”

  “There’s nothing in the police report?” I asked.

  “No, but not all police reports are as detailed as I like. The detective on the Martin case did a pretty decent job, but the file for Carson Pritchett leaves a lot to be desired. I did talk to the detective working the case for Steven Carlisle, and he remembers they found a letter in Carlisle’s safe. It got taken into evidence, but when I called to see if they still had it, no one can seem to find it. The detective couldn’t remember exactly what the letter said, but he did remember it had a Bible verse as the signature.

  “I’ve also got the list Cole sent me of any major purchases of the high-gauge fencing wire and natural-fiber rope in Virginia and all the surrounding states, but it’s got a couple thousand hits. All we can get from that is a time and date stamp and what store, and then we can match it with credit card purchases to find a name.”

  “I can go through Donnelly’s case files from around the time of Carson Pritchett’s murder to when the letter was sent to Donnelly with the Bible verse on it.”

  “Magnolia is already working on it, and she should have some useful information for us before too long. But in the meantime…” he said, coming to his feet, “…we need to get some sleep.”

  “I’ve been asleep,” I said. “And now I’m wide awake.” I looked down at my empty plate. “Hey, where’d the rest of my sandwich go?”

  “You ate it,” he said, coming around the desk and pulling me to my feet. He took the plate from my hand and set it in the chair.

  “What are you up to, Lawson?” I asked as his hands crept inside my robe. I’d stopped thinking about food and work, and my breath caught as his thumb skimmed the underside of my breast. The pulse in my neck thrummed and my head fell back on its own accord as his hand trailed lower.

  “I’m just trying to help you sleep,” he said, kissing my neck.

  “I hate to break it to you,” I said, panting. “But you’re not doing a very good job of it.”

  “Mmm,” he said, lifting me slightly so I sat on the edge of the desk. My robe had disappeared somewhere along the way, and stars glittered behind my eyes as he stepped between my thighs.

  “My bad,” he whispered.

  My eyes popped open a couple of hours later before the sun had a chance to rise, and I realized I had the rare treat of being awake before Jack. He slept on his back with nothing but the sheet barely covering his waist, and his arm was splayed above his head.

  I got out of bed and felt around for my robe, and then remembered it had gotten left downstairs, so I pulled on a pair of sweats and made my way downstairs for coffee. I figured it was time to leave a cup for Jack to wake up to instead of the other way around.

  I was feeling pretty proud of myself, and I wondered if the euphoria I felt this morning was how all morning people felt all the time, when Doug ruined it for me.

  “Happy Halloween,” he said, jumping out from behind the kitchen door wearing a Frankenstein mask.

  I shrieked and threw the closest thing I could find, which happened to be my favorite coffee mug, and it bounced off Doug’s forehead and then hit the floor, shattering into a thousand pieces.

  “Told you,” Carver said, rolling in behind him. “Bad idea.”

  “Ouch,” Doug said, removing the mask and rubbing his forehead.

  “You’re lucky it wasn’t a bullet,” I said, going to the pantry to get the broom and dustpan. “Probably not the best idea to jump out at people in our line of work.” I handed Doug the broom and dustpan and pointed to the floor.

  “I told him that too,” Carver said. “But sometimes you have to learn lessons the hard way. Where’s Jack?”

  “Still sleeping,” I said. “He was up late. I don’t want to disturb him. “

  “Speaking of Halloween,” Carver said.

  “Were we?” I asked, making Carver smile.

  “I hear there’s a party tonight. I need to find a costume. What are you wearing?”

  “A taser,” I said. “In case anyone wants to make small talk.” I poured two cups of coffee and doctored mine and left Jack’s black the way he liked it.

  “Looks like you two got a lot of work done last night,” Carver said. “Magnolia is still compiling information, but it shouldn’t be too long.”

  I felt the heat in my cheeks when he mentioned the work we’d been doing the night before. “I’m going to take this to Jack, and then I’ve got to get to the funeral home. We’ve got a full day ahead of us.”

  “Sure, sure,” Carver said, and then he pulled something from his back to hand to me. “I thought you might want to take this back upstairs with you.”

  I grabbed my robe and ignored his laughter, only sloshing a little hot coffee on my hand as I fled the room.

  Jack was awake when I got back upstairs, and I was a little bummed I missed out on seeing him wake up.

  “You’re up,” I said, bringing him his coffee. He was sitting up against the headboard with the sheet over his waist, looking very, very good, and I looked at the clock to see how much time I had.

  “Not enough,” Jack said, reading my mind.

  “I was hoping you’d be able to sleep longer,” I said.

  “I would have if World War III hadn’t been going on downstairs.”

  “Doug jumped out at me with a mask on. It’s Halloween.”

  “Hmmph,” Jack said, and took a sip. “I guess he’s lucky you didn’t shoot him.”

  “That was pretty much my thought too. About the block party tonight—”

  “Let me guess,” he said. “You don’t know if you’ll be able to make it because things might be too busy at the funeral home.”

  “Well, it’s true,” I said defensively. “Things are busy.”

  “The entire town is shutting down at four o’clock today,” he said. “You don’t have any viewings scheduled. I even managed to find a costume for you to wear.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “When did you have time to find me a costume?”

  “When I sent Officer Chen out yesterday during her lunch break to find you one.”

  I shook my head in disbelief. “As a taxpayer, I find your misuse of Officer Chen’s time questionable.”

  Jack grinned. “She was on her lunch break, and she volunteered to do it because she knows how much you hate parties. So your taxpayer dollars are safe.”

  “I knew I never liked her,” I said. “Just for that, when I take donuts by the station this morning, I’m going to make sure Chen doesn’t get one.”

  “Does it help to know that Chen doesn’t eat donuts?” Jack asked.

  “A cop that doesn’t eat donuts? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “Why are you trying to make my cops fat?”

  “Because I promised Tom Daly I’d stop by his donut shop this week, and I’m going to buy enough donuts to make sure he doesn’t go out of business this month.”

  “You’ll make them fat and get diabetes,” he said, pulling off the sheet and getting out of bed.

  I must have made a sound because Jack turned and looked at me, and then he smiled. “I really like being married to you.”

  “Maybe we could multitask in the shower again to save time. My back has mostly stopped hurting from the last time.”

  “There’s only one problem,” he said on the way to the shower.

  “What’s that?”

  “You’ve got too many clothes on.”

  13

  I was an excellent multitasker.

  It was still early by the time I turned onto the square and headed toward the Donut Palace. It would’ve been smarter to park at the funeral home and walk there. The square was bedlam with everyone decorating and preparing for the block party. I ended up parking in front of th
e sheriff’s office in a reserved spot, and walked the two blocks.

  There was no line out the door at Tom’s, but I was glad to see there were other customers inside.

  “Hey, Doc,” Tom said, his face lighting up when he saw me. “You made it.”

  “I told you I’d be in,” I said.

  “Heard y’all caught the John Donnelly murder,” he said, and the other people who were sitting at the little two-tops enjoying their donuts quieted down so they could hear.

  “We did,” I told him. “Things have been busy. I’m going to need enough donuts for the entire sheriff’s office.”

  “Oh, wow,” he said, excitement gleaming in his eyes. “I’ve got a fresh batch just about ready to come out.”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  “I’ve always thought about doing an account service for the businesses in town, especially places like the fire department and the sheriff’s office. I figure it wouldn’t be too hard to set up a standing order a couple of times a week and have them delivered.”

  “I think that’s a brilliant idea,” I said. “You can count the funeral home as your first delivery client.” And then I had another thought and tried to tell myself to stay out of it, but before I knew it my mouth was opening and words were coming out. “You know who would be great at helping you set things up is Emmy Lu,” I told him. “She’s a wonder with organization and filling orders.” And she was single. Of course, Emmy Lu was older than Tom, but things like that didn’t seem to matter nowadays.

  “Really? That’d be great. Just tell her to stop by anytime. I haven’t been this excited about the business in a long time. I thought for sure when Lady Jane’s moved in that was it for us.”

  “No,” I said, tamping down the guilt. “There’s room in this town for the both of you.”

  I paid for the donuts and thanked him before I could tell any more lies or make any more matchmaking attempts. I hadn’t really thought too far ahead what it was going to be like to carry six large bags of donuts two blocks to the sheriff’s office. I still had a block to go when Martinez came up behind me.