Chapter 36 #2
“Are you serious? I don’t know! Jesus, aren’t you listening?”
The pulsing wail of distant sirens filled the night.
“Oh, yeah, Granger,” she assured him. “I’m serious, all right.
Serious as hell. And you’d better start telling me everything you know, because the cops are coming.
You hear them, right? They’re going to have a lot more questions, so you better start talking and fast because you’re in big trouble, here. Really big.”
Pierce didn’t know whether to hug his wife or strangle her as he jogged into the clearing with Sol beside him, two other deputies on their heels.
What the hell was Nikki doing running around in the swamp after nightfall? And alone, to boot.
Even if, as she’d explained when she’d finally called him back, she was with the dog.
So what?
She was still putting her life at risk. But now she didn’t have just herself to think about, or even him … now there was Chloe.
He reached the clearing where Nikki stood, shotgun and some kind of axe beside her, Arlo standing at attention while she was talking with—or interviewing?—Granger LaRoux. Possibly interfering with his investigation?
She needed to back off.
As angry as he’d been, as scared to death after her frantic call, all Pierce now felt was a major sense of relief that she was alive.
This time.
But if she were a cat, she’d be quickly running out of her nine lives. In fact, was probably at eleven or twelve already. Maybe more.
As if she’d read his thoughts, she held up a hand.
Though her face showed how relieved and glad she was to see him, she still held Pierce at bay.
“I don’t want to hear it, okay? I know you’re mad at me, but Granger here was just explaining to me why he thinks it’s okay to threaten a reporter with a shotgun. ”
“I was going to say, ‘Thank God, you’re alive.’”
“Well, okay then.” But she flicked him a look, as if she knew the mental frustration he was wrestling with.
“And what the hell were you thinking?” he admitted.
Granger interrupted them by explaining, “I had the gun because you’re trespassing, and I didn’t know you were a fu—an effin’ reporter!
” His gaze moved to Pierce and Sol and the two deputies, weapons drawn, accompanying them.
“I own this place now, you know,” he said, struggling to his feet while holding his arm.
“Mom left the house and acreage to me, so I have the right to protect my property. And by the way, I need an ambulance. Did she tell you that, huh? That I was attacked by that friggin’ dog. ” He motioned to Arlo.
Pierce ignored him. “Is it true?” he asked Nikki. “Is Naomi here?”
Nikki squeezed her eyes shut for a second, as if blocking out an image too horrible to contemplate.
Her grim expression told him all he needed to know: There was no mistake.
He’d phoned her on the way out here, and when she’d finally called him back, he had gotten a quick rundown of all the details, but it was still hard to believe.
“In the shed out in the swamp,” she said, glancing to the dark water and the shack beyond.
“I don’t know nothin’ about that,” Granger insisted. He was holding his arm with one hand, blood staining his fingers. “First I heard of it was when she told me. I mean … Hell, I don’t even know if it’s true.”
“Put him in cuffs.” Pierce motioned to Deputy Rounds, and she stepped forward.
“What?” Granger threw out. “Hey. No! I just told you I own this property!” He started to back up. “I have the right to be here and to protect it!”
“It’s your property with a dead woman on it,” Pierce countered. Then to Deputy Rounds, “Take him to the station. I’ll be there soon.”
“But she’s trespassing!” Granger repeated, “I didn’t do nothin’ wrong.” But he didn’t fight being handcuffed, and his big shoulders fell. “I could use a smoke.”
“Later,” the deputy told him, glancing at the hands now restrained behind his back. “When you can do it.”
“Have a medic look at him,” Pierce ordered.
Granger glared at Nikki. “You’ll hear from my lawyer!”
“Can’t wait,” she replied.
“Move it.” Tina Rounds escorted Granger toward the waiting police cruiser, giving him a soft nudge when he hesitated.
“Let’s go,” Pierce said to Sol, and when Nikki stepped forward, he shook his head. “Wait.”
“But—”
“You’ve already seen enough. Take the dog and go home. I’ll talk to you there, but then you’ll have to go down to the station and make a formal statement.” He didn’t wait for her to argue. Using his high-beam flashlight as his guide, he started toward the hut with its altar.
Again.
To deal with another body.
Sol walked a step behind him along the narrow approach, their footsteps ringing through a night where insects hummed, fish jumped, and a still unidentified evil lurked.
Sol was silent, as usual, but he knew she was taking in everything, her senses attuned to the crime scene and surroundings.
He’d seen her in action, watched how she kept to herself, quietly observing, asking for and providing only the important information.
As he reached the hut, he steeled himself. Though he’d often witnessed death and had studied many grisly crime scenes, this one would be more difficult.
Because he knew the victim.
Because she was married to his friend.
His stomach lurched a little as he slipped into the decaying hut to shine the beam of his flashlight upward toward the rafters.
Bile rose up his throat, and he had to forcibly steady himself.
Hung by her heels, positioned over the fire pit, stretched Naomi Kittle’s body.
She appeared to be reaching out to him. Beckoning.
She was wearing tight, hip-hugging leggings and a shirt that fell downward over her shoulders.
Her bare abdomen was exposed, as was a lacy bra barely containing her full breasts.
Her skin had grayed, her blond hair tumbling toward the floor and partially covering her face.
Blood had run from an ugly gash in her neck and downward over her chin to drop into the fire pit, where several of the blackened stones were stained.
In her right hand, she seemed to clutch a polished stone.
The work of the Savannah Slasher. Again. In this same place.
Pierce felt the urge to cut her down.
As if in so doing, he could relieve her pain.
An emotional, irrational response.
And yet he wanted to somehow change the horrible spectacle.
But he had to wait.
For the forensics team.
For the medical examiner.
For science to help him locate her killer and bring the prick to justice.
As he stared at the dangling body, he hoped beyond hope that Jamison wouldn’t want to see her this way, displayed like a prized buck, ready to be drained of the last of its blood before being butchered.
Beside him, Sol moved closer, training her flashlight on Naomi’s bare abdomen. “Did you say—?”
Thunderous footsteps, rushing over the planks of the boardwalk, echoed through the night, cutting off whatever it was she was going to ask Pierce. He turned just as Jamison Kittle nearly skidded into the tight quarters.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Pierce said, but his friend was already staring upward at the crossbeam, at his dangling wife. “No!” he screamed, his knees buckling. “No, no, no!” He pounded the floor with his fist. “Not Naomi. Not my Naomi!”
Deputy Tina Rounds stuck her head inside.
“I tried to stop him,” she said, “but—”
“No, oh, God, no!” Jamison wailed, his face twisted as if in pain.
“Jamison, let’s get you out of here,” Pierce said, leaning down, offering his hand. “You don’t want to see her like this.”
“Why?” he asked, his face twisted in revulsion. “Why would he do this?”
“Who?” Pierce demanded, helping his friend to his feet.
“The killer!” Jamison snapped. “The Savannah Slasher. What did Naomi do to him?”
Pierce said, “We don’t know yet whether—”
“Isn’t it obvious?” he cut in. “I mean, look at her! Oh, Jesus, just look at her hand. She’s got a damned rock in it, doesn’t she? Isn’t that the freak’s calling card?”
“Jamison, you know you need to leave.”
But he wasn’t listening. “Cut her down! Damn it, cut her down!” He was still pointing at his wife’s dangling body. “For the love of God!”
Another deputy arrived and crowded into the small space, probably contaminating the scene. Hell, they all were.
“I’m sorry, sir,” the deputy apologized. “We couldn’t stop him.”
“I know.” To his friend, he said more sternly. “Jamison, you have to go. This is a crime scene.”
“But, Naomi!”
“You don’t want to mess this up,” Pierce insisted. “Just go. Now.”
Finally, it appeared he was getting through. Jamison’s gaze moved from the body of his wife to Pierce, then back again to Naomi’s suspended corpse. He swallowed hard, but gave a faint nod. “Okay, okay.” He cleared his throat and visibly straightened. “Right.”
Pierce motioned to the deputies, who helped Jamison out of the sanctuary and listened as the footsteps retreated. “I think I’ve seen enough,” he said to Sol. “You?”
Her lips tightened, and she continued to stare at Naomi. “This isn’t right.”
“None of it is,” he agreed, though he suspected she didn’t just mean the obvious.
“It isn’t the same.”
“What isn’t?” he asked, and she moved her gaze to his.
“Everything.” She motioned to the interior of the hut, then to the doorway, her eyes narrowing. “Trust me, Pierce; this one’s not like the rest.”