Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
Franklin
“Not sure you’re gonna get much on this one,” Officer Johns said as I walked closer to the remains. “I’m no ME, but I think whatever happened to this victim, we missed it by a few months, if not years.”
“Not much left?” I asked as I continued forward.
The underbrush was mostly last year’s faded growth.
Weeds and grass were tenacious though, and there was a green underbelly to all the brown that would soon take over.
It was easy to see where the officers on the scene had already stepped, as well as the person who’d found the body—or rather, her dog.
“Not that I can see. Obviously, I haven’t gone digging around but everything I can see appears to be skeletal.
Dr. Stowe might be able to find some fleshy bits when she does the autopsy.
” Johns didn’t sound too chuffed over the statement.
We’d worked too many homicide cases together.
In a lot of ways, skeletal remains made the job emotionally easier.
The lack of odiferous decomp also helped.
Pulling the pen from my suit jacket, I crouched next to where the majority of the body lay.
At least that’s what we thought. We wouldn’t know for certain until the remains were removed from the shallow grave they’d been buried in.
Lifting up a piece of fabric, I found myself staring at what I thought was a femur.
From what I could see, the rest of the leg was missing, and the ground around this area was the most disturbed.
“I think the dog got the lower part,” Johns said. I could hear the wince in his voice. “That’s how our witness found the body.”
Elbows on my thighs, I gazed over the remainder of the ground. When you looked carefully enough, the depression in the disturbed soil was evident. A bark drew my attention to the right and toward our two witnesses.
“The woman’s name is Lily Bates. The excited labrador is Barkley.” Johns chuckled. “Barkley seems pretty damn proud of himself. He was still trotting around with the lower leg in his mouth when I arrived on scene.”
My eyebrows flew heavenward as I stood. Pushing my jacket back, my hands settled on my waist, exposing my firearm. “Christ, that had to be upsetting to the owner.”
Johns shrugged. “You’d think so, and most likely it was.
But I’ll tell you what, Lily Bates is one tough old bird.
So far, she’s taking the whole thing in stride.
I’ll bet you she’s the kind of person you want in your corner during a crisis.
My momma would call her unflappable. Officer Lacey took her statement already, but I asked Ms. Bates to hang around until you got here.
I figured you’d have your own questions. ”
“Thanks, Johns.” I clapped the younger man on the shoulder and made my way over to an awaiting Lily Bates.
While I wasn’t certain of her age, Lily Bates was definitely on the other side of sixty-five.
Already petite, the woman appeared even smaller compared to the one-hundred-plus-pound labrador sitting at her feet, tongue lolling to the side and panting heavily.
While I found the weather pleasantly warm, Barkley evidently didn’t agree.
Then again, I hadn’t been out walking alongside a country road for the past thirty minutes or so.
“Ms. Bates,” I said by way of greeting. “I’m Detective Franklin O’Hare. I’d like to ask you a few questions about what happened earlier.”
Lily Bates didn’t hold out her hand to shake. Instead, she used both of them to grip Barkley’s flex leash tightly. Her dark brown skin blanched slightly along her knuckles, indicating the force with which she held on to the leash.
Lips pinched and eyes narrowed, Ms. Bates stared up at my towering figure. “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“No ma’am. I’m originally from the Chicago area.”
Ms. Bates snorted. “I thought you sounded northern.”
“Are you going to hold that against me?”
My question earned me a critical once-over. “I don’t suppose so. Looks like God gave you the good sense to move south, so that must mean you’ve got some brains.”
I couldn’t have stopped my grin if I’d tried. My nana would love this woman. “I can’t say that I miss the Chicago winters. The summer heat gets under my skin a bit, but I’ll take the trade-off.”
Ms. Bates nodded. “Like I said, looks like God gave you some common sense. Now, what do you want to know?”
Lily Bates and I spoke for a good ten minutes.
Most likely I asked the same questions Officer Lacey had asked, but sometimes when you gave someone time to consider a question, their answer changed.
Most witnesses weren’t intentionally untruthful; they simply forgot things or didn’t consider something important enough to mention.
Ms. Bates’s story was consistent. She’d been out walking Barkley.
The flex leash he was on allowed him greater area to roam.
Nose to the ground, he’d taken off, pulling Ms. Bates behind him.
She hadn’t thought much about it and hadn’t even been concerned when Barkley began pawing, then digging at the ground.
Alarm bells finally sounded when he’d pulled out a long bone, a shoe attached to one end.
That’s when Lily Bates had dialed 911. There really wasn’t anything more to the story than that.
After thanking and releasing Ms. Bates, I headed back to the body. Our ME, Dr. Evelyn Stowe was on scene now, crouched over the remains while her assistant snapped photos.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Stowe,” I said while crouching down beside her. My knees popped, reminding me that my thirty-plus-year old body wasn’t as nimble as it once was.
“Evelyn.”
I grinned, knowing I’d never be able to call Dr. Stowe by her first name alone.
With a heavy sigh, Dr. Stowe leaned back on her heels.
“Cursory exam of the skeletal remains, along with the clothing, indicates this is the body of a young woman. I’d say adult but most likely no older than mid-twenties.
Unless it’s bleached or colored, the blond hair would suggest a white female.
I’ll know more when we get the remains back to morgue and I’ve had time to take a closer look.
” Glancing my way, she asked, “Any ID found?”
I shook my head. “Not yet, although we were waiting on you to get here before we went digging much further.”
Dr. Stowe grimaced. “I’ve got a feeling this is going to be a Jane Doe.”
“I’ll start going through missing persons and see if we get a hit.”
“It’s a start, but you may need to get that fiancé of yours involved in this one. Could be the only way to identify this young lady is by pulling her soul back from beyond the grave. She might be able to give us an idea of what happened too.”
Boone was always on speed dial. Thankfully, not for this reason, but it was handy having a talented necromancer in my back pocket.
That wasn’t the reason I’d asked Erasmus Boone to be my husband, but it was a nice perk.
Most wouldn’t see it that way. Necromancers were considered species non grata.
Most wouldn’t even touch a necromancer. I still couldn’t understand why.
But their loss was my gain. If no one else wanted to touch Boone, then I’d happily take up the slack.
There was absolutely nothing I loved more than laying my hands on him, feeling Boone’s skin twitch beneath my touch, hearing his relieved sighs and breathy moans.
Jesus, I needed to stop thinking about Boone that way. Getting an erection during a homicide investigation wasn’t something I wanted to be known for.
Then again, maybe there was a chance this wasn’t a homicide. “Any idea how she died? Could it be natural causes or a suicide?”
Dr. Stowe pointed a pen in the direction of some fibers sticking out of the ground. “I can’t say she didn’t kill herself, but our lady definitely didn’t bury herself or tie her hands behind her back.”
Oddly enough, being found buried in the ground didn’t automatically mean homicide.
There were cases where people were unlawfully buried but hadn’t died due to nefarious means.
Not everyone thought logically, and sometimes even innocent people panicked, their choices confounding but without malice.
The ropes around the wrists were a different matter.
“Got it.” Standing, I cracked my back while my gaze tracked the desolate area our victim had been found.
The spring sun was warm on my back, and while I appreciated its rays, the shadows they cast churned my growing anxiety.
Was Tenzen Huxley hiding out in one of those shadows?
And if so, was he here himself, or were the shadows his minions?
I’d seen firsthand what those shadows were capable of.
The broken bodies of the man and woman who’d attacked Boone earlier this year were still fresh in my mind.
“O’Hare? Is something wrong?” Dr. Stowe looked up at me from her crouched position, one hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the sun.
“I’m fine,” I easily lied. Physically, that was true enough. Emotionally was a completely different matter. My phone beeped with an incoming message. The sound told me it was from Boone. On my way home. Those four simple words relaxed my muscles and allowed me to breathe again.
Be careful, I quickly typed back.
I’ll try my best, Boone answered, a winking emoji added at the end.
Tension returned. History had more than proven Boone wasn’t always safe while driving. Not that he was a poor driver. No, it wasn’t Boone’s driving skills that frightened me; it was the disgruntled masses that seemed to think Boone’s road time was a good opportunity to make attempts on his life.
“You sure about that?” Dr. Stowe asked while standing.
It took me a moment to figure out what she was talking about. Mentally running through our recent conversation, I sighed while running a hand through my close-cropped ginger hair. “Boone’s on the road.”
“Ahh, I see.” Dr. Stowe laid a hand on my bicep and squeezed.
“It’s always difficult when our loved ones are out of sight and miles away.
Boone’s a sly one though. He’s wily.” Dr. Stowe chuckled, patting my arm and pulling away.
“He’ll be fine. When it comes down to Boone versus anyone else, my money’s on your fiancé. ”
With that comment, Dr. Stowe walked away, carefully making her way around the body so she could speak with her assistant. My chest squeezed. It wasn’t that Dr. Stowe was wrong. I’d bet on Boone too. It was the fact Dr. Stowe found it necessary to make the statement in the first place.
I checked the time before tucking my phone away.
Depending on traffic and how many stops Boone made, it would take three or four hours for him to make the trip from Leander Dunn’s home back to ours in Mississippi.
Hopefully, by that time, I’d be done at our latest homicide scene.
Removing the remains would take time, as would sifting through the area surrounding them.
I’d been a cop long enough to know that you never knew what you were going to find.
This was a dump site, not the place where the murder occurred.
That didn’t mean the absence of clues. It just meant we were going to have to look harder to find them.
I was used to hard work and wasn’t afraid to get my hands dirty.
Discovering the truth was often messy. There were a lot of types of messy.
The best kind could be washed away in the shower.
The worst were the kinds that stuck like tar.
Unfortunately, this mess with the Director of the Magical Usage Council, Tenzen Huxley, was the latter type.
It was the kind of mess that dug deep into your skin.
Sometimes the only way to purge that kind of filth was flaying yourself open.
I just hoped by the time we were finished, there would be enough of us to stitch back together.