Jude Devine Mystery Series (97 page)

As he turned his pallid face toward her, she waved the salts under his nose. “I don’t think so,” he said.

Fritz took a phone call and interrupted the proceedings. “Sir, the combine harvester casualty arrived. Shall I tell Freddie to weigh the pieces and check if he’s all there?”

Carver glanced at the second autopsy table in the room. “No, stick him in the cadaver keep. We’ll do him this afternoon. Speaking of harvest.” He finished cutting cartilage and lifted the heart-lung tree aloft for inspection. “Premium quality if he was a donor and if this wasn’t a homicide. Damn waste.”

“The knife didn’t penetrate that deep?” Jude asked.

“Remarkably, it did not.” He set the organs down and carefully examined the heart. “Very clean. Your man was not an endurance athlete like myself, but he worked out and he ate lean.”

“He appreciated living,” Jude noted.

“Who wouldn’t with his advantages?”

“And yet he didn’t call 911,” she said softly. Blood loss clouded the mind pretty quickly. Perhaps shock could account for Maulle’s behavior after his killer left the house. “After he was stabbed, for how long would he have been lucid?”

“Mr. Maulle was in peak fitness for a man of his age. He could have moved, spoken, and thought clearly enough to act until very close to the end.”

Jude walked Koertig to the wall farthest from the autopsy table. As Carver continued his dissection, she said, “Something was going on at the scene that we don’t know about. The killer kept him alive for a reason.”

“Sadism?” Koertig suggested.

Jude shook her head. “We know the guy was looking for something. Maybe he thought Maulle would tell him where it was. Maybe he was playing chicken. ‘If you tell me, I’ll call 911, otherwise you’ll just die slowly while I sit here.’”

“I checked the plans,” Koertig said. “No safe.”

“We need to take the place apart. There has to be somewhere a man like Maulle would have kept his most important items.”

“His sister’s got to know something about him.”

“They weren’t exactly close. Not according to Pippa, anyway.” Jude watched Carver pick up the Stryker saw and go to work on Maulle’s skull. When he lifted the top section away, the sucking sound made her wince.

Koertig dry retched and stuck his hand out for the salts.

“I’m ravenous,” Carver announced as he cut the spinal cord and removed the brain. Suspending it tenderly in a jar of formalin, he asked, “Anyone want to join me for a steak after this?”

*

“You did great.” Jude gulped some lukewarm coffee. She was due at the MCSO for show and tell in a half hour, then Pratt wanted her to take Aidan Hill to dinner again afterward, since it went so well last time. “So, are you meeting her?”

“Yes.” Debbie sounded pleased with herself. “At her place. I didn’t think she was going to phone after last night, but she must have realized I meant what I said.”

Sandy had caved. Elated and relieved that her gamble had paid off, Jude set her coffee aside. “How far away is she?”

“In Rico.”

“That’s quite a drive from Paradox Valley.” Almost two hours, in fact. No wonder Sandy stayed overnight whenever she visited.

“I didn’t realize she was coming so far to see me.” Debbie sounded contrite.

“It’s beautiful there,” Jude said. “You’ll love it.”

“That’s if I can find it. She gave me instructions but it sounds pretty convoluted.”

“I know the area,” Jude said. “What’s the address?”

“There isn’t one exactly. You know that old mining road north of the town? The one that’s closed?”

“Daisy Creek?” Jude had never hiked in the dense forest up that way. She’d heard there was nothing to see, just a few abandoned miners’ shacks. What was left of the steep, treacherous dirt road had washed out a few years ago.

“She says you go as far as the Beware sign, then there’s an arrow to Pariah. That was a ghost town. It doesn’t even exist anymore. She says I can leave my car in a turnoff and walk on up. She’ll meet me on the trail at four this afternoon.”

Pariah? Jude had never heard of it. She wondered where Sandy got her mail sent. Did she have a false identity and a mailbox somewhere? These days it wasn’t easy to live completely under the radar. She was working pretty hard not to be found.

Jude checked her wristwatch. 12:15 p.m. “I’ll send Tulley to pick you up.”

“Don’t worry,” Debbie said. “I’ve got it all under control. Bobby Lee’s bringing my car over, and Tulley’s following. He has to go down to Cortez for dog training.”

“Okay, so you’ll all drive to Rico from my place, then they’ll continue on to Cortez?”

“That’s the plan.”

“How do you feel about seeing her?”

“A bit nervous. I hope she won’t be angry at me.”

“Well, this is a pretty big step for her,” Jude said.

“For both of us.”

“Just on that.” Jude kept her tone even. “It’s probably better if Sandy doesn’t know I’ve played a role in this. She’s reaching out to you now, so she’ll need to feel she can trust you completely.”

“I see what you mean.”

“I want things to work out for the two of you, Debbie. She’ll need to feel safe about opening up to you.”

“I’ll be careful,” Debbie said. “And maybe you shouldn’t say anything about knowing where she lives.”

“That’s probably wise.”

“Thanks for the advice. Oh, I nearly forgot. Mercy Westmoreland stopped by your place last night. She said to tell you she’s sorry she missed you.”

“Yeah, me, too. Debbie, will you hold a second?”

Jude couldn’t think about Mercy now. She rapidly worked up a course of action. Her first priority was a black bag job, searching and bugging Sandy’s home. Under the Patriot Act, the FBI could search a residence without the owner’s knowledge. They also had the right to obtain personal and financial records without appearing before a judge. All it took was a national security letter, and they had already issued a few NSLs on Sandy Lane. She was up for grabs.

Jude could take her into custody now if she wanted, just on suspicion of being involved in terrorist activity. Sandy could then be held indefinitely while the Bureau figured out if there were any charges to bring. They didn’t even have to disclose her name. Basically, she would disappear. No one who knew her needed to be informed that she was under arrest, and she would have no right to legal counsel.

If Jude didn’t act soon, someone else would. She couldn’t delay telling Arbiter much longer. She’d rolled the dice, hoping to hell that Sandy’s love for Debbie would outweigh her paranoia, even briefly, and not inflame it. She had to get into her hideout as soon as possible. Given her workload, she would be stuck in Cortez all of tomorrow.

“I have an idea. Let’s all have a potluck at your place on Wednesday night. Watch a silly movie or something. I’ll get Tulley to pick up some burgers for the grill.”

“That sounds great.”

“I was thinking about what you told me. After everything she’s gone through, Lone needs support. She has you, but other people care about her, too. Maybe she needs to see that right now.”

Sandy wasn’t going to drive back to Rico in the dead of night after a few beers and a barbecue. And she and Debbie would be making up. She would probably spend all of Wednesday in Paradox Valley. Jude could nap at the stationhouse for a few hours, then drive down to Sandy’s place. By early morning, she could start her search.

“She has such a hard time relating to people.” Debbie sighed. “I hope she wants to come.”

“We’ll keep it casual. I’ll try to find out what she’s been up to on her trips away. It’s probably something she’s embarrassed to tell you about and that’s why she’s keeping it to herself. There’s usually a silly explanation for things like that between partners.”

“You think maybe she’d be more comfortable talking with a friend about it?”

“That’s possible. So far she hasn’t been willing to tell you, has she? Maybe that’ll change after you visit. We’ll see.”

“I’d really like if you’d talk to her,” Debbie said. “Jude, I appreciate everything you’re doing for us. It feels really good to know I can count on you.”

Feeling like a jerk, Jude said, “People can make it through rough patches. Good luck this afternoon. Let me know how it goes.”

*

“She wants you.” Bobby Lee tousled his bangs in the passenger mirror.

Tulley slowed down with the traffic flow as they reached a line of cars stuck behind a semi. The drive down to Cortez was always like this on the mountain route, which was why he normally went the boring way through La Sal Junction. He didn’t know how Jude put up with it on the days she had to drive to the MCSO instead of across to Paradox. She lived in the wrong location, too far from everywhere. She said she was trying to be an equal distance away from both the substation and headquarters, and she couldn’t stand to live in Dove Creek, so Montrose seemed liked a reasonable compromise. Lately she’d been looking at places in Norwood. Tulley wished he could afford to rent there.

He slowed down to a 27 mph crawl and thought about hitting his overheads and siren, but people noticed cops rushing to an emergency situation and expected to see all the details in the
Cortez Journal
or the
Durango Herald
the next day. Some troublemaker would remember the K-9 unit and call in and report his misuse of authority.

“She’s a married woman,” Tulley repeated.

“A hot MILF,” Bobby Lee corrected. “I’ll take a piece of that action anytime.”

“No wonder Jude won’t get engaged. She’s waiting for you to change your horndog ways.”

Bobby Lee looked at him sideways. “She knows who I am.”

No clarification was needed. Tulley had heard Bobby Lee’s theories about the natural order of things and how as mankind was not genetically designed to be faithful to one woman. How hormones drove the male to fulfill the destiny of the species by spreading his seed, and Bobby Lee was fighting the power of Mother Nature herself if he denied his urges. It was testosterone that prevented inbreeding and made the human race gods of the universe.

Tulley said, “If she walks in on me one more time, I swear I’m gonna tell Gavin what’s going on.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Why the heck not?”

“Because he’ll fucking kill you.”

“Me?”

Tulley put his hand on the horn. The guy in the pickup in front of him kept braking and slowing down, half crossing the yellow lines, positioning to overtake the car in front of him. Like that would gain something. Tulley knew if he was driving an unmarked vehicle, the guy would have flipped him the bird.

“The husband is going to blame the OM first,” Bobby Lee said with the certainty of firsthand experience. “In his eyes
you’re
the problem.”

Tulley concentrated on the road as yet another retard with a death wish tried to pass the semi. “What’s the OM?”

“The other man. That’s you, buddy.”

“Shit! I never even
look
at her.”

Bobby Lee cradled his head in his hand. “You worry me.”

“He thinks she’s so perfect. And behind his back she’s flirting and all. It ain’t right. I can’t respect a woman like that.”