Jude Devine Mystery Series (66 page)

“Not in Canada yet?” Jude remarked. She had no idea why she said it. Mercy had told her she wasn’t going right away.

“I said I’d wait for that body.” As usual, Mercy could make scrubs and rubber gloves look sexy. “Besides, we’re not in any rush.”

“You seemed to be the last time we spoke.” Jude wanted the remark to sound flippant and good-humored. Instead her voice shook just enough for Mercy to direct a long, hard look at her.

“I wanted to tell you before you heard it from anyone else, that’s all,” she said. “I think I owed you that.”

Jude didn’t answer. All she could see of Mercy’s expression was an untroubled brow and a pair of arresting blue eyes gazing at her without a trace of languid sensuality. In the worst way, she wanted to drag Mercy out of the room and shake her. Kisses. She wanted those, and Mercy’s sounds and smells and reckless full-tilt surrender. Where had she gone?

The woman a few feet from her was not her lover; she was a stranger. It was as if they’d never touched, as if they knew little more than each other’s names. Was this how it would be? Jude suppressed the urge to yell
Look at me! Remember how it was.

Didn’t Mercy miss her at all? She hunted for a sign, a softening of that cool gaze, a hint of the throaty tone that spoke desire, the subtle unnecessary brush of her body. Nothing.

Mercy glanced past her toward the
diener
, a lanky African-American man who worked in expressionless silence. He wheeled the gurney closer, drew the sheet back, and removed the bags from Corban’s hands. Mercy gave Jude a look of resignation and slowly paced around the body taking photographs.

Corban wore a pair of pajamas. His killer had put him into a black trash bag and dumped it in the reservoir weighed down with a sledgehammer.

Mercy glanced up at Jude and said, “Someone dressed him in the pajamas postmortem.”

She removed the garments, taking close-ups as she went. The
diener
bagged and tagged these and placed them on a nearby table. He then assisted Mercy as she took hair and nail samples, and they continued the painstaking collection of external evidence under an ultraviolet light. All the while Mercy spoke crisply into her voice recorder.

As they hovered like birds intent over their young, Jude stared up at the Latin inscription on the plaque above the door.
Taceant colloquia. Effugiat risus. Hic locus est ubi mors gaudet succurrere vitae
. Let idle talk cease. Let laughter depart. This is the place where death delights to help the living. The same maxim, or part of it, was to be found in almost every autopsy room she’d ever seen.

Eventually Corban’s body was x-rayed, weighed, measured, washed, and transferred to the autopsy table. Only then did Jude see that his right arm was splinted and bandaged from wrist to elbow and his body was covered with bruises. Corban Foley’s life had ended painfully and violently.

“It wasn’t a knife,” she noted flatly.

“No.” Mercy lifted his head a little and turned it away from Jude. The base of his skull seemed to have a hole in it. “It’s too soon to determine cause of death conclusively, but this is a fatal head injury. Fracture of the right occipital bone, extending medially into the foramen magnum.”

“That’s where the spinal cord goes?”

“Yes.” Mercy repositioned the body. “From the X-rays, it looks like he was beaten severely. The right arm is fractured in a couple of places, likewise several ribs. No callus formation. There’s extensive bruising to the trunk. In a child that age, there would have been internal bleeding. The skull fracture would have been associated with significant brain injury.”

Mercy’s attempt to put into laymen’s terms the nature of Corban’s injuries somehow failed to capture their true horror. Wanting to confirm her initial observations, Jude asked, “How would he have sustained injuries like these? An adult couldn’t do this with his bare hands, could he?”

“No. The nature and site of the head injury could only be caused by a direct blow. Probably a blunt instrument. I’ll be able to make some suggestions once we’re done here.”

“He suffered, then?”

Mercy stiffened as if the question jarred her from her clinical detachment. After a short pause, her brow was smooth once more and her voice even. “The bones of his forearm would have moved against each other and caused extreme pain. The splinting was the work of an amateur. Completely pointless for such a fracture.”

“A doctor didn’t do it?”

“Certainly not.”

Jude met her eyes. “I have to nail this monster. Do you understand?”

“You’ll have my report on your desk tonight. Allow a few days for toxicology, fiber, and DNA, as usual.”

Mercy picked up her scalpel, and the
diener
placed a small rubber body block beneath Corban’s back. His fragile chest lifted and his arms and head fell limply away from his body, as if an invisible thread had just tightened high above him, connected directly to his heart. In a moment he would be opened out like a book, for the story of his death to be read in his flesh.

Jude left the room before the Y-cut was made. She wanted to remember him exactly like that, like an angel had just plucked his soul from his body and would not let go until they reached the sweet hereafter.

*

People
magazine paid for Corban’s funeral. In exchange for a premium burial package and impressive stone-angel monument, they had received exclusive print-media rights and a reserved area at the front of the church and next to the graveside so they could capture every compelling moment.

They’d also paid for the new outfits Tonya and her sister wore, and both women had received a makeover so they would look their best in the close shots. This had transformed the color of Tonya’s hair to albino white, and she was wearing it shorter and dead straight. Amberlee had gone with a radiant strawberry blond, in the same straight, layered style.

“CNN is in on the deal, too,” Dan Foley told Jude. He was out on bail and seeing a psychiatrist as a condition of his release. “They’ve got something going with
People
.”

“You’re not planning to do anything unwise, are you?”

“So long as I’m there when you guys put the handcuffs on that scum-sucker, I can behave myself. Just promise me you’re gonna wipe that shit-eating grin right off his face if you can’t shoot his balls off. While you’re at it, see if you can break every bone in his body.”

Jude said mildly, “I’m the law, not the Terminator.”

They both looked toward the doors of the Montezuma Valley Presbyterian Church where Wade Miller, in a rented suit, was accepting condolences like a grieving parent. Next to him, Tonya stood with her head down and a gold-embossed white prayer book clutched in her hands. The dress wasn’t what Jude would have chosen for a funeral. Close fitting, it was midthigh length and had a plunging V-neckline. Her sister had gone with a scoop necked, long-sleeved Gothic style velvet gown. She had tiny white rosebuds in her hair.

These were a theme.

For the viewing, Corban’s casket had lain several inches deep in them. As funeral service attendees filed in to the church, each was handed one to pin on a lapel. Corban’s face was printed on the ribbon that was used to fasten them. Tonya had her rosebuds artfully arranged around the wide-brimmed hat she was wearing. A filmy black veil hung from this, which seemed to annoy her. She couldn’t stop lifting it and glancing at herself in the huge polished brass urn on a pedestal by the door.

“Amberlee says they’re going to be in a TV movie about the case,” Dan said. “Can you believe it?”

“What else is she saying?”

Jude had sent Dan in to check out the lay of the land with Tonya’s sister, who seemed less than happy that she was not the center of attention in this media circus. Rekindling the tender feelings he and Amberlee had once shared, he’d proven very useful. Hearsay wouldn’t be much help in a trial, but it was good to know exactly what was going on in Tonya’s private life, and Jude needed to keep track of Wade Miller’s ever-changing versions of events.

“They hired the same lawyer Gums Thompson’s using.”

“Who’s paying for that?” Jude asked.

“Old man McAllister from the building depot. Heather Roache got him to hire the guy to clear Matt’s name.”

“Seems like there’s a conflict of interest.”

“Not any more. After Matt and Gums went on TV he got them another lawyer. He’s not charging Tonya and Wade a dime.”

Jude wasn’t surprised. Griffin Mahanes was a big-time criminal defense attorney from Denver. He would have arranged the
People
magazine deal and taken a piece of the action. No doubt he was content to wait and see what happened, poised to claim center stage if Miller ended up in a media-event trial.

“The funeral home did a good job fixing up Corban’s face,” Dan said.

He’d identified the body to spare Tonya. The first time she saw her dead son was at the viewing where he looked like a sleeping cherub, thanks to the embalmer’s art. Pratt hadn’t been happy about that decision, but he’d accepted that it was bad public relations to haul a weeping mother into the morgue to see firsthand how her child had died.

“You better get in there,” Jude said.

She was thankful Dan wasn’t going to be sharing a pew with Miller. He’d arranged to sit with Amberlee in the front row on the opposite side of the aisle, along with
People
and CNN.

Jude followed him into the small church to the strains of that infant-funeral standard, “Tears in Heaven.” She sat down in the back pew next to Pete Koertig and the sheriff.

Koertig leaned over and said, “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.”

“It means a lot.”

“You earned it.” Jude said.

Koertig wasn’t done. He got poetic. “You bust your chops and someone else always gets the glory. I don’t resent it. But when it’s a big-deal situation like this, you gotta know there’s some pride involved.”

“Damn straight,” Jude agreed.

“Guess what I’m saying is it was big of you.” He got choked up. “My wife and I want to invite you to our home for dinner.”

Jude kept the wince off her face. “That’s really thoughtful.”

“How’s next Sunday? She’s got a half-marathon on Saturday.”

“Sunday is good for me.” Jude wondered what she was going to talk about over a meal with two of the squarest people she’d ever met.

“Your fiancé is also welcome,” Koertig said awkwardly.

“We’re not engaged,” Jude said. “But I’ll certainly see if he can make it. Thanks, Pete.”

He nodded. “Fiancé—that was out of politeness. I know you haven’t said yes. Hell, the whole town knows.”

Because he obviously thought he’d been cute, Jude produced a small chuckle and tried for a coy shrug. “It’s a big decision,” she confided, knowing every word would be reported verbatim to the entire MCSO staff. She could tell from Pratt’s body language that he was listening in, too. She gave them something to think about. “Strictly between the two of us, I have a fertility issue. As you can imagine, that’s a concern.”

To her shock, Koertig shuffled his burly body around in the cramped space of the pew to face her earnestly, then seized hold of her hand. “I hope you don’t think I’m being forward.” His head went scarlet through the sparse blond of his buzz cut, and he lowered his voice to a fraught whisper. “But you can’t let that stand in the way of your happiness. My wife and I…” The whisper got even lower. “We’re similarly afflicted.”

Nothing if not resourceful in a crisis of deep-cover credibility, Jude said, “Then you understand my position. Bobby Lee wants children.”

“You haven’t told him?” Koertig let go of her hand so he could bite his nails, a habit he tried to temper with Control-It! Jude had noticed bottles of the nasty-tasting formula on his desk and in his truck.

“No,” she confessed. “Somehow, there never seems to be a good time.”

“Well, that’s getting off on the wrong foot.” Sheriff Pratt pushed Koertig back so that he could render his opinion. “Give the guy a chance. You don’t know how he’s going to react.”

“You’re right, sir.” Jude offered him the words he seldom got to hear from her. “I guess I’ve been putting it off.”

“If you want to talk to an understanding woman about this, my wife is a school counselor. Just part-time. She makes sure to be home for the girls.”

“That’s a very nice offer. I appreciate it.”

“Funny…” He shook his head in wonderment. “You can get it all wrong about people. I had you picked for one of those women who’d never have kids by choice.”

“It’s my height.” Jude said seriously.

“And the physique,” Pratt observed. “You’re not built like a…motherly type.”

This man was in politics.

Even Koertig looked embarrassed. “My wife is not voluptuous either, but she loves kids. She’s heartbroken thanks to our problem.”

Pratt gnawed on his mustache. “And then you see bozos like that, breeding by accident. Makes you sick. Is it my imagination or do those two women have different hair every time we see them?”

“It’s for the cameras.” Jude tried to shine a less judgmental light on the young women. They were two twenty-somethings swept up in a maelstrom they had lost control over. She couldn’t blame them for trying to look more sophisticated than they were. “I’m sure they must feel exposed having so much attention on them during this difficult time.”