Chapter 4 Luke
LUKE
“Cause of death?” I asked.
Mike, the county’s primary medical examiner, stared down at the body on the stainless-steel table. “I haven’t done the full autopsy yet but given where he was found and the obvious signs, gonna say he drowned. Could have been hypothermia too. He was definitely in the water for a while.”
I followed Mike’s gaze, taking in the victim’s hands. The skin was wrinkled and discolored, the same grayish blue as the man’s bloated chest. There were welts and scrapes on the distorted skin, and his face was nearly unrecognizable.
Two purple lines slashed with cuts were once the man’s lips, though the bottom one had nearly come off his face. One eyeball dangled from its socket. And he’d lost an ear completely.
There was a purple circle on the underside of his jaw, a birthmark about the size of a dime. It had taken on the same violet shade as the man’s lips, and beside it, a cut so deep, jawbone peeked out.
“He looks like he was beaten to hell,” I said.
Mike shrugged. “Remember that guy who got drunk and fell into the river about eight years ago? Washed up the next day?”
“Vaguely.”
“He looked like this too.” Mike seemed to remember every single body that had crossed his exam table. How he’d desensitized himself was a mystery. A day inside his mind would be creepy as fuck.
“That guy had cuts everywhere. Couple of holes.” Mike spoke like he was reading a restaurant menu, not discussing a dead man. “He’d had an entire slab of skin torn off his back. His face was mush.”
“Thanks for the visual,” I muttered.
“That’s the river for you. Those currents drag you down and pummel you to death. Then it drowns you. You don’t fuck with nature, man.” Mike accentuated his point with the scalpel in his hand.
“Uh-huh.” The chemical stench in the morgue burned my nostrils even though I breathed from my mouth.
Mike was used to the corpses, but seeing a dead person never got easier for me. This one . . . well, my stomach had been churning since I’d walked into the room. To use Mike’s word—the river had pummeled this man to death.
“Keep me apprised,” I said, already heading for the door.
“Will do, Chief. Shouldn’t take me long to have specifics.”
The clang of metal instruments dimmed as I left the exam room behind me and took the stairs to the exit two at a time.
When I pushed through the door, I filled my lungs with cold winter air, holding it there for a few heartbeats.
I hadn’t taken a full breath since I’d walked into the building.
How Mike worked with the smells, let alone the dead bodies, wasn’t something I’d ever understand.
Maybe it was the reason Mike spent most evenings and weekends at The Betsy, drinking beer and playing pool with whoever walked inside.
The afternoon sun rebounded off the melting snow.
Beside me, the gutter dripped water onto the parking lot’s pavement.
It was a beautiful day, the sky cloudless and bright.
A trip to see Mike hadn’t been on my Saturday agenda, but as the chief of police, there really wasn’t such a thing as a day off.
The only time I really checked out was when I left town for a fishing trip.
I took the sunglasses from the brim of my hat, putting them on as I walked to my truck. Then I drove to the station, my agenda for the day good as gone.
Every morning, I worked out in the small gym that we had available to the officers and staff.
A workout was part of my regular routine, something I never missed, even on the weekends.
Lifting weights and doing some cardio kept more than my body in shape; it was an hour for me to organize my thoughts.
I’d been on an elliptical, sweat dripping from my temples, when dispatch had called.
A woman had taken her dog for a walk this morning along the riverbanks and the pup had sniffed out a corpse. So long, elliptical.
I rolled the windows down as I drove, letting the air blow in my face.
The stink from the exam room wouldn’t go away until I was home and had showered.
My T-shirt was grimy from the dried sweat and I didn’t smell all that fresh either.
But before I could go home, I had to kick off the investigation into the man’s death.
After dispatch had called, I’d pulled on some track pants and a ball cap, then made my way to the scene.
Two other officers had beat me there but both had looked a shade too green after inspecting the body.
So I’d been the one to question the woman whose dog had found it.
The last thing I needed was a patrolman puking on the poor woman’s feet.
This case was going to Chuck. He’d have no trouble working through the process and unlike some of my younger officers, he’d seen enough dead people to keep his breakfast down.
Before I went home, I wanted to enter the woman’s statement into our system and give Chuck an update on my conversation with Mike.
The bullpen was quiet when I arrived and most desks were empty. The clock on the wall showed it was after three. I’d missed lunch, not that I was hungry.
Today’s activities had stolen my appetite.
After questioning the woman, I’d hung around the scene as my team had photographed the body.
Then while it had been transported to Mike’s office, I’d canvased the scene with the other officers, making sure we hadn’t missed anything.
The only thing we’d found were rabbit tracks in the remaining snowbanks and mud.
Lots of mud. My new tennis shoes weren’t so new anymore.
I sat behind my desk and pulled the small notepad from my pocket. Then I logged on to my computer and got to work, transcribing my hurried notes.
The victim’s wallet had been stuffed in the back pocket of his jeans. Somehow it hadn’t fallen out in the river, which made identifying the body a whole lot simpler. The cash and receipts in the billfold had been soggy, but the driver’s license and credit cards were intact.
Ken Raymond. I stared at his name as I typed it in, along with his address. Ken wasn’t from Clifton Forge. According to his ID, he’d lived in Ashton.
On a normal day, I wouldn’t have thought twice about his residence.
But since Scarlett had come into my life, nothing had been normal.
She’d invaded my life, my home and mostly my thoughts.
Ashton wasn’t just a town three hours away anymore.
Ashton was synonymous with the Warriors and the risk they posed to Scarlett’s life.
If there was a risk.
Since Jeremiah’s suicide, there hadn’t been a single sighting of a Warrior in town. And everyone had kept a close watch.
Dash and the guys at the Clifton Forge Garage, most of whom were former Tin Kings, hadn’t noticed their rivals around town.
I’d called Dash yesterday to check in, wondering if maybe the Warriors had been to town but had just been keeping a low profile.
Dash had laughed and assured me that nothing about the Warriors would ever be low profile.
I wasn’t sure if that should make me feel better or worse.
But at the moment, Scarlett didn’t seem miserable.
She’d been at my place for a week. That was what I’d asked of her, to try for seven days to stay put, and that was what she’d done.
If the Warriors avoided Clifton Forge for another week, I’d have a hard time convincing her—and myself—that they were a real threat.
But I wasn’t ready to open the front door and set her free quite yet. So I was going to ask her to stay for another week. Just one more. Then we’d reassess. I could survive Presley’s continued trips to the station to harass me about her sister’s whereabouts.
So far, no one suspected Scarlett was living under my own damn roof. Or if they did, they hadn’t tipped off Presley. If she knew Scarlett was at my house, Presley would be beating down the door.
The only person who might suspect Scarlett was with me was my buddy Emmett.
He worked at the garage as a mechanic and, like Dash, was a former King.
The two of us had met years ago at The Betsy.
We’d gotten into an intense game of pool and I’d schooled three hundred bucks from him that night.
Two weeks later, he’d won it all back. We’d been friends ever since.
But Emmett wasn’t just a mechanic. He had an affinity for hacking, something I pretended not to know. Emmett knew I had that rental house and he’d probably put it together that I’d stashed Scarlett there. Though I doubted he knew I’d moved her. And I doubted he’d ask.
The guys at the garage hadn’t pushed for information on Scarlett. I was taking it as a sign of trust, that they knew I’d do the right thing by her. They knew that to the best of my abilities, I’d keep her safe.
I wanted to believe that Ken Raymond’s death was entirely unrelated to Scarlett and the Warriors. Chances were, it was. But there’d been a knot in my gut from the moment I’d rifled through the man’s wallet while standing beside the river.
Maybe after Chuck ran his investigation, that knot would go away.
How Ken had fallen into the icy Missouri River was a mystery. It could be foul play. It could be suicide. Ken might have been out fishing and slipped on a patch of wet ice.
In the past week, the weather had undergone a swift change. Since the day I’d hauled Scarlett out of the grocery store, we’d had nothing but sunshine. One week of above-freezing temperatures and Clifton Forge was a slush pile. And the river was roaring.
I spun from my monitor, taking in the river through my office’s window.
We’d had a big winter with lots of snow.
It meant lots of runoff. Ice chunks and dirty snowdrifts still spotted the shores, but the water was high and moving fast. The undercurrents were as lethal as the gun holstered at my hip.
If Ken had waded in too deep at the shoreline, he’d have been instantly swept away.