Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Thunder rumbled again, this time closer than it had been before, and I hitched my bag over my shoulder and walked with Martinez toward the police perimeter.

The park was a perfect square, and there were four houses on each side of the square that faced the park. We moved toward the four houses that were in a direct line of sight from our victim and I noticed the crowd of onlookers had gotten larger, despite the upcoming threat of rain.

It wasn't hard to pick out Plank in the crowd since he was a good head taller than most of the onlookers. We caught his attention and he disentangled himself from the group of people he'd been interviewing to intercept us.

"How does he keep his uniform so straight and clean?" I asked as he walked toward us. "Even dodging bullets and wrestling suspects to the ground he always looks fresh."

"He could be a model for the uniform company," Martinez said. "A couple of guys at the station call him Baby Fresh. I've got twenty bucks in the office pool that says Plank is eventually going to snap and punch someone in the face for calling him that."

"No way," I said, shaking my head. "That kid is stone cold. I've never seen anything get under his skin. Last time a prisoner spit on him Plank offered to stop and pray with the guy."

Martinez whispered out of the corner of his mouth, "Yeah, but I'm still holding out hope for the face punch." Then he turned his attention to Plank and said, "Find out anything interesting from the crowd?"

"They all live in the neighborhood," Plank said, his cheeks redder than normal because of the wind. "I got names and addresses for all of them. The only house that's not represented is that little blue one on the corner."

We all turned as one and looked at the neat blue house with white trim and barren front steps.

"No woman lives there," I said.

"How'd you know?" Plank asked.

"Looks at all the other houses on the street," I said. "The way these houses are built don't lend themselves to a lot of curb appeal, so people set out their flowerpots and hanging baskets and put wreaths on the door because there are no porches. The blue house is nothing but concrete steps. So I figure a single guy has to live there."

"Good call, Doc," Plank said. "The neighbors said his name is Kent O'Leary. Quiet. Stays to himself. No one knows what he does for a living, but they said he must work weird hours because he's in and out at odd times. He never comes to quarterly picnics the neighborhood puts on here in the park."

"Let's see if you can track him down," Martinez said.

"Yes, sir," Plank said. "I'll run him as soon as I get back to the station."

"What about the rest of the neighbors?" I asked. "Anything helpful?"

Plank sighed and relaxed his guard as he pulled out his phone so he could read his notes. "The least helpful group of old people I've ever met."

"Yeah, that makes sense," I said. "I recognize Mrs. Dowdy. She was my third-grade teacher. Horrible woman. She used to chew snuff and then spit it in a jar she kept in her desk."

"I heard about her," Martinez said. "But I didn't move here until my freshman year of high school so I didn't have the pleasure of having her as a teacher. But Bobby Jenkins told me she made a kid drink that spit jar as punishment one time."

I had to swallow to keep from gagging out of reflex. "I heard about that. I wouldn't be surprised at all."

Plank cleared his throat and, if possible, looked even more embarrassed. "Yeah, she mentioned that she knew you, Doc. Said to tell you your posture is still as bad as it always was."

"Horrid woman," I said under my breath. I could still feel her ruler on the back of my knuckles. "She's hunched over like an old crone and she's going to criticize my posture?"

Plank looked down at his notes and continued, but I saw his lips quirk in a smile. "According to the ringleader—that would be Edith Norton over there in the pink robe and knitted cap—they all came outside about the same time to see what was going on when the sirens came through. Edith and her husband James live in the white house directly across from line of sight of the victim. She was pretty upset how fast the responding officers got the privacy screens up."

I shook my head in disbelief. "People have no human decency anymore. Everything is a show for entertainment."

"It's why our jobs just get harder and why the crime rates are spiking," Martinez said. "Someone gets hurt and the first thing people do is pull out the phone to record instead of offering to help."

Plank nodded, but continued his report. "Edith said they moved here from Allentown a few years ago when they retired, but they're considering moving somewhere else because King George County is becoming just like the city with high crime rates and price gouging."

"I'll make sure to offer my assistance on moving day," Martinez said, rolling his eyes. "What else you got?"

"The others corroborated the story," Plank said. "They all heard the sirens about the same time and came out to see what was going on. But the frail-looking woman with the giant coat and crooked hair was late to the party. Her name is Joanne Crowley. She saw the live feed on the five thirty news and recognized her house. She's mostly deaf so she didn't hear the sirens. Said she had to wait until her biscuits were out of the oven before she came outside."

"I thought I saw a crumb on your uniform," I said, flicking an invisible speck from Plank's shoulder.

He looked down at his spotless uniform, and then looked back up at us, a guilty expression on his face. "She wouldn't take no for an answer. She makes biscuits just like my great-grandma."

"She looks like she'd be a hard one to fight off," Martinez said. "A good breeze would probably blow her away. What about the tall guy who was standing at the back? Was that Kent O'Leary? He seemed quite a bit younger than the others. Looked like a loner."

"Not O'Leary," Plank said. "I asked the others and no one had ever seen him before. He slipped through the crowd and disappeared as soon as I started walking toward him. I had Winslow and Grainger see if they could circle around and spot him, but he was like a ghost."

"We'll add him to our list," Martinez said. "We should be able to go back and check the media footage. If Joanne saw her house on the news then they've probably got a shot of our mystery guy too. We can put out a BOLO."

I knew what Martinez was thinking. This had been a very public murder in a very public place. The psychology behind the need for publicity more than likely meant that the killer wanted her discovery to be public as well. Why wouldn't the killer want a front-row seat to all the action to make sure things happened as he'd planned?

"What about last night?" Martinez asked. "Anyone hear or see anything suspicious?"

"According to Edith," Plank said, "she and James are early to bed and early to rise. They were both asleep by nine o'clock. The others had a similar story. One lady said her grown son is living with her while he's going through a divorce and he came home late last night, but she wasn't sure what time. She said the only reason she heard him come in is because the mudroom door is right next to her bedroom and it squeaks. He left for work this morning around four."

"Interesting timing," Martinez said. "So this guy comes in some time after nine and leaves the house at four, which is right in the middle of our window for the murder, and he just casually leaves for work without seeing our victim laid out on the same street he lives on? We can put him at the top of the list of persons of interest."

"His name is Jackson Sparrow," Plank said, straight faced. "His mother's name is Myrtle."

"Jack Sparrow?" Martinez asked, clearly not amused. "Are you kidding me right now, Plank?"

"I don't kid, sir," Plank said. "At least not when there's murder on the line."

I looked down so Plank wouldn't see my smile. He really was so sweet.

"Sparrow works at Richmond International as a baggage loader," Plank said. "He gets off at three o'clock."

"It's an hour fifteen drive from the airport with no traffic," I said. "That'd put him back in Bloody Mary around four thirty in the afternoon, give or take. So where was he between then and whenever he came home last night? Most of the bars and restaurants are closed on Mondays in this area."

"It'll be the first question I ask," Martinez said. "But I'm not driving to the airport and wading through that circus to question him. We can wait until he gets off work and we'll swing back by."

The crowd of older people, minus the lone guy who'd disappeared, were still standing huddled together at the edge of the park. Most of them wearing a mixture of their nightclothes and winter coats. A woman with steel-gray hair was holding a carafe and pouring out hot coffee into Styrofoam cups, and a couple of the men were setting out lawn chairs. It looked like they were in it for the long haul.

Martinez looked at me. "Looks like we need to change course since Plank got us a bead on line-of-sight neighbors. We can follow up with Jackson Sparrow this afternoon. For now, the most important thing is to get a positive identity on our victim so we can start interviewing her family."

I nodded and said, "I'll head back to the lab now. I should be able to have something to you soon."

"What do you think the chances are that Sheldon and Lily will keep the news to themselves that the victim could be Councilman Lidle's daughter?"

"Honestly, I think Sheldon has already called his mother and Lily has already texted Cole."

Detective Cole and Lily had been dating for about a year, and they'd recently taken the step of moving in together. About a week ago Cole had proposed to Lily and she'd turned him down. It had been touch or go for a couple of days because Cole had never asked a woman to marry him, and he wasn't used to being turned down for anything. But Lily had told him to ask her again in a few weeks once he had a chance to decide if he hated seeing her makeup on his counter or the way she chewed her food in the mornings. Lily had a lot of wisdom for someone her age. Cole had agreed with her, so as of now, the relationship was still going strong.

Cole wasn't known for his long-term relationships. Not to mention the fact that he was seventeen years older than Lily. But they were managing to make it work. And no one had been able to claim the pool at the sheriff's office that Cole would move on to the next twenty-something model and leave Lily in the dust. I loved Cole like a brother and he was one of Jack's closest friends, but he was hell on women. Apparently, that was a quality certain types of women looked for in a man. Go figure.

Martinez sighed and said, "Yeah, I figured as much. But I was holding out hope."

"I'll get you an identity fast," I promised him. "I should be able to finish the autopsy before lunch."

"Good," he said. "You're buying."