A Thorn Among the Lilies (5 page)

C
HAPTER
6

W
ithin four hours after Luanne Cooper found the body, word of the story had swept through the city, putting everyone into a state of high alert. That's one thing about living in a small town, it didn't take much to unbalance the nature of things. Leah started taking phone calls back to back from concerned citizens all wanting to know that their safety wasn't in jeopardy.

She didn't blame them. She'd tried to keep the gawkers as far away from the victim as she could, but when they turned that body over, people got a look at those eyes—and those eyes would give anyone nightmares.

The police even ran an official photograph in the
Alvin Examiner
(formerly called the
Alvin Alerter
) and on the eight o'clock news that showed the eyes. Leah figured they had to. If she was going to find this woman's killer, she was going to have to canvass with a photo, and she only had the one. There would be no way of doing it without showing the sewn-up eyes.

What the police didn't release was the writing across the woman's chest or the whittled cross Leah had found in her pocket. Police often leave things out of press releases. It's a way to differentiate the fake weirdos wanting to take credit for something they didn't do from the real weirdos who actually committed the crime.

The story hit the front page of the
Examiner,
which ran a special afternoon edition, and, of course, it was the top story in the news. Both complemented each other with the information they gave.

Both stories (the one on the television and the one in the paper) covered the same basic information. They said a body was found washed up on Willet Lake in Willet Park and that foul play was suspected. (What gave them
that
idea? You'd think that part would be pretty obvious. The woman didn't sew her
own
eyes closed.)

Leah and Chris both knew the article would likely be syndicated but prayed it wouldn't get much farther than the outskirts of Alvin. This was ridiculous. They knew the reaction to the image of the dead girl lying there with her eyes all stitched up was going to echo through the population, but neither was prepared for just how much panic it would stir up.

Ethan Montgomery called Leah into his office.

“Tell me somethin',” Ethan said, after closing the door and taking his seat.

“What's that?”

“What in the name of everythin' holy made you decide to run that picture?”

“The press wanted a photo.”

“Then you say we don't have one.”

“Ethan, I'm going to have to show it around if I want to find anythin' out 'bout the woman. We would just be delayin' the inevitable.”

“But you'd also be avoidin' a landslide. It wouldn't all come at once like this. I've fielded at least seventy calls today, mainly just calmin' folk down.”

Leah looked at the floor. “I know. Me too.”

“From now on, do me a favor?” Chief Montgomery said. “Bounce any great ideas like this off of me before runnin' with 'em? Don't just confer with Chris?”

Leah met his gaze. “I can do that.”

“Okay. Now go put your phone back on the hook and keep calmin' people down. We don't need a town full of hysteria.”

“Okay.”

Leah exited his office, flopped into her chair, and, with a slow count to three, put the receiver back on its cradle. She jumped when the phone rang a second later.

It was going to be a long day.

 

It didn't take long for Leah to establish a name for the victim. Curiously, it didn't come from any of the news reports but an unrelated missing person's report a few hours later the same day the body was discovered. It came from the victim's sister, Mary Lynn Carpenter, who hadn't heard from her sister Mercy Jo in a week and was worried something had happened to her. She hadn't even seen her sister's picture on the TV or anything. Once she started talking, Leah pretty quickly put two and two together.

Mary Lynn told the police the woman they had found was named Mercy Jo and that she used to live in Auburn, Alabama, with her before leaving and moving to Alvin.

“I think you need to drive down to Satsuma,” Leah said.

 

Once they got a name for the victim, the police did their own background checks and, indeed, they concurred with what Mercy Jo's sister had told them. Mercy Jo had been a longtime resident of Alvin, moving down to the small town four years ago from where she used to live in Auburn with her sister. The police released this information and went on to say that they had nobody in custody and were actively looking for anyone who might have any evidence about the crime to come forward with details.

This is how they were able to supply the newspaper with a name to go along with the picture Ethan Montgomery said they should never have run. They soon had a picture without the eye stitches from Mary Lynn Carpenter, but it didn't reflect how Mercy Jo looked today. It was over four years old, and her body had changed dramatically. Alcohol and drugs will do that to you. And through all this, Leah's phone never stopped ringing.

I'm the one you're lookin' for. I killed her and stitched up her eyes. And I'll do it again.
(This was a case where the held-back information was vital. All Leah had to ask was, “What was in her pocket?” and the man on the other end hung up. The world was full of crackpots.)

Leah was getting so fed up with calls, she left the receiver off the phone for an hour, just for a brief respite.

 

“She usually calls me every Thursday,” Mary Lynn said once she met Leah at the medical examiner's office in Satsuma. Mary Lynn was a slender brunette with high cheekbones and looked like she'd be more at home in high heels and a designer handbag than in the old jeans and sneakers she was wearing. “But when I didn't hear from her, I just figured she was, you know, busy. But then, when I still hadn't heard from her after the weekend, I started to get worried.” Mary Lynn attended a university in Auburn, studying business. When she started describing her sister, Leah's heart sunk. Leah knew why Mary Lynn hadn't gotten the call.

Mary Lynn had come down to ID the body. Luckily, Norman hadn't started the autopsy yet. But still, Leah had no idea how to prepare Mary Lynn for the shock of seeing her sister's eyes sewn shut.

“There's somethin' I need to tell you before we walk into the refrigerator room,” Leah said.

“Let me guess,” Mary Lynn said. “Lots of track marks? I've just been waiting for her to kill herself. She's been heavy into drugs. From what I've heard, despite what she claimed, she was gettin' worse, not better.”

“Actually, I don't think we found
any
track marks. I'll have to ask Norm to be certain. But no . . . it's worse. It's somethin' the killer did. With her eyes—”

“What? What could—”

“He sewed them up.”

Mary Ann's hand came to her mouth. “Who would—I . . .”

“It's okay. We can do this another time.”

“I just can't imagine. Was she . . . was Mercy
alive
when he did it?”

Leah shook her head, even though it was a lie. Norman Crabtree had already told her he was quite sure the sutures were in place days before the victim was killed. But Mary Lynn didn't need to know this about her sister's last days. “No, she wouldn't have felt a thing. Are you sure you're up to this? We can wait until tomorrow?”

Actually, by tomorrow, Mercy Jo's body would be split down the center and cracked wide open. They couldn't
really
wait until tomorrow.

Leah saw Mary Lynn swallow. “N-no, no, I'm okay,” she said, almost to herself. “I'm okay. Really. I'm ready for this.”

They walked into the refrigerator room, where Norm was busy washing up. Mercy Jo was lying on a table, ready to be cut open.

“Oh my God,” Mary Lynn said, the words catching in her throat. Leah saw tears standing in her eyes. “She's . . . she's really gone. And the eyes. They're . . .” She didn't have to finish the sentence. Leah could do it for her.
Hideous
. Nobody deserved to die this way.

“Okay, come on, let's go,” Leah said, putting her arm around her.

“No,” Mary Jane said, holding back Leah's lead, “let me look just a minute longer at my Mercy.” She glanced up to Norman. “You found
no
track marks on her arms?”

He shook his head. “None.”

“She told me she was goin' to try and get clean. I didn't . . . I didn't believe her.” She was sobbing now. Leah pulled her into a hug. “She had nobody down here,” Mary Lynn continued. “I could've . . .”

“There's nothin' you could've done,” Leah said.

“Yes, I could've been here, I could've . . .”

“Come on, let's go.”

Leah led her outside, hating this part of her job.

“Can I ask you a few questions 'bout your sister before you go, Miss Carpenter?”

“Sure,” she said, her voice still shaky.

“Did she have any enemies you know of? Any boyfriends who might feel slighted by her? Anyone who might want—”

“No,” Mary Lynn said, cutting her off. “Nobody like that. She was even a good drunk. She liked to make people happy.” She started crying. “Why would someone do this to her?”

Leah gave her a hug. “I don't know, hon, but I plan to find out.” They broke their embrace. And Leah lifted her chin until their eyes met. “Can I just ask you a few more questions? You up for it?”

Mary Jane nodded.

Leah wasn't able to get much more useful information out of the woman. Maybe it would take some time.

“Now, if you think of anythin',
anythin'
that might be even slightly applicable to this, please give me a call, okay?” Leah pulled one of her cards from her pocket and handed it to the woman.

Mary Lynn took the card, nodding. Her cheeks were tearstained. Leah had a pretty good idea that the woman's ride home was going to be a cry-fest. With a very heavy heart, Leah walked Mary Lynn to her car and watched her get on her way, heading back to Auburn and her studies, one sister less than she had yesterday.

Mercy Jo Carpenter had lived in an illegal basement suite in Cloverdale—one of the low-cost housing districts in Alvin. Mary Lynn was able to provide an address. Later, Leah went and interviewed the people Mercy Jo rented from, Roger and Sarah Quinn. They lived above her, and after convincing them she wasn't about to fine them for anything, the only real information they could provide was that Mercy Jo had a fairly healthy drinking problem. Seems like everyone knew that.

“She was also often a week late with her rent payment,” the husband, Roger, had told Leah.

“That was on account of her spending all her money on booze,” the wife chimed in.

So maybe she had cleaned up the drugs. Or maybe she had just changed to a different crutch. Whichever it was didn't really matter now.

Sarah Quinn let Leah into Mercy Jo's apartment. Mercy Jo was anything but neat and tidy. The place looked like a hurricane had run through it. There were empty cartons of beer everywhere. Empty vodka bottles were lined up against one wall. Leah wondered why she hadn't returned all her empty bottles. She'd have been rich.

Where there weren't bottles, there were the remnants of take-out food. Chinese cartons, pizza boxes, you name it. “Do you guys have a cockroach problem or anythin' like that?”

“No, thank the Lord,” Sarah said. “This is actually the first time I've been in here for 'bout six months. I can't believe how much worse it is. I'm surprised we don't have no bug infestation or, even worse, rats.”

“Once our investigation is complete, I'd get this cleaned up as soon as you can,” Leah said.

 

That all happened yesterday, and today, Chris and Leah drove into Satsuma once again to visit the medical examiner, Norman Crabtree, this time to get his full report on Mercy Jo.

They met with Norman in the refrigerated section of the autopsy room. Leah was thankful there was no stiff on the table. The room had a strong disinfectant smell and was very cold (forty degrees, to be exact, Norman had told her on a previous visit). The floor was tiled and the room just reminded her of death. She saw the selection of tools and saws he used, and shivered. She could never be a medical examiner.

Norman told them the body couldn't have been dead more than thirty-six hours before they found it. Forty-eight at most. There was very little decomposition, and floating in that lake, the body would decompose fairly quickly.

Postmortem blood alcohol levels are fairly unreliable, but the victim's measured .40, which is near fatal, especially in someone weighing in at 135 pounds. Some research indicates that death can raise the blood alcohol level. Norman also found traces of Rohypnol, a drug better known on the street as “roofies.”

“Rohypnol was developed in 1963 by a team led by Leo Sternbach at Hoffmann-La Roche,” Norman explained. “Its use was initially intended to be a short-term treatment for chronic or severe insomniacs who were not responsive to other hypnotics. It is considered to be one of the most effective benzodiazepine hypnotics on a per-dose basis.”

Leah thought this over. Norman practically read her mind.

“Someone wanted this woman knocked out or possibly killed by drugs and alcohol,” he said. “He must've kept her on a continual diet of alcohol and roofies.”