Nocturne In Ashes

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

“I’M NOT A groupie, I’m his wife.”

Detective Nate Quentin eyed the woman who claimed she was married to Coby Waters, bygone rock star and notorious bachelor. He pressed his palm against the air as if activating a giant pause button.

“Phoebe?” He tossed his voice to the fingerprint tech but his gaze never left the witness. “What do you know, Feebs?”

“Married, huh?” The small black woman looked up from where she crouched, rolled her eyes, and considered. “No. I didn’t hear anything about a wedding.”

Nate folded his hands on the table in front of him, waiting for a response. The woman seated across the scarred board that doubled as eating surface and spare bed in the spacious RV sent a searing look in Phoebe’s direction. The bones in her shoulders rose like hackles under the spaghetti-string tank top and a flush spread from her breast up and over her cheekbones. She seemed to be gearing up for an explosion but then the huff went out of her. She shrugged.

“Three and a half weeks ago, in Vegas. We kept it quiet.” She paused, the pink-tinted cheeks turning sepia. “We didn’t even make it to one month.”

Nate leaned back against the bench seat, glancing at his partner, Rick Jimenez, who hovered over the kitchen sink with a notepad, taking down the details.

“I’m sorry,” Nate said, holding her gaze. “I am. Will you tell us what happened?”

“I already told. Twice. It’s not a moment I want to live over again.”

Nate leaned forward. “Mrs. Waters, those other times you told it, that’s for the record, well and good. But we,” he gestured at Rick and back to himself, “we are the ones who are going to find the guy who did this. You need to be real clear on that and tell us everything.”

“Okay, yeah. I get it.” She fumbled through a shoulder-bag on the bench beside her, pulled out a pack of menthols and lit up. Nate watched her eyes turn inward as she accessed the part of her brain that housed the terrible memory. She took a long drag.

“We got drunk, you know. We were sleeping it off.” Puff and pause. “I woke up feeling like—” She shuddered and blew out a cloud, waving it away. “I brushed my teeth, got in the shower. Pretty soon, Coby comes hammerin’ on the door.”

“What time was this?” Rick interrupted.

She stared at him. “How do I know? It was the middle of the night. I got no reason to look at a clock that time of day. I had the door locked, you know, and I tell him to find a bush.” She hugged herself, blowing out another mouthful of smoke. “I sent him to his death.”

Nate shook his head. “Don’t shoulder that weight, Mrs. Waters. It’s not your fault.”

She gave him a bleak look and crushed out the cigarette, wrapping her arms tighter. “I put my wet hair up in a towel and went back to bed. Never saw Coby again until—” Her hands clenched down on her own flesh, talon-like. “I woke up in broad daylight and came out here to the kitchen to put on the coffee. I looked at the clock,” she threw Rick a glare, “and it was eleven forty-seven a.m.”

Rick’s gaze was impassive. “When did you go looking for your husband?”

“After two cups of coffee and three slices of toast. With jam. Let’s make it a quarter past noon. I began to wonder what he was up to, so I went looking. Started off in the wrong direction, walked down caravan way.” She flung her arm eastward to indicate the sprawl of buses, trucks, and vans that hosted the remainder of the band’s entourage.

“I asked around. No one’d seen Coby. I got to talking with some of the girls, never dreaming anything was wrong, and then that chihuahua started sounding off. We thought he might have got himself hurt. You know, stuck in a trap, sprayed by a raccoon, something like that. But he’d found Coby and raised the alarm.”

She fell silent. Her eyes raked the tabletop as if searching for something to cover the awful scene inside her mind.

“He was cut bad, right across the neck, and it seemed every last drop of blood in him must have found its way out. The ground was soaked with it. Damn dog was standing in it, yapping his head off. Danny led me away, then, and I didn’t see no more.”

Nate let a respectful silence pass and then asked, “Why is your trailer separated from the others?”

Her washed-out blue eyes met his with reproach. “It’s not a trailer. It’s a motorhome. Coby’d kick your butt.” She caught her breath and swallowed hard. “He liked to be apart from the crowd. It’s a status thing, you know. Heaven knows he got precious little respect any more from the band, but he took what he could get.”

“Downed Illusion used to be a pretty big deal and I understand this tour was meant as a comeback. Can you think of any reason someone might have for harming your husband? Were there any disputes among band members, for instance?”

She stared. “You think someone here could have done this?” Her mouth fell open a little as she considered, then snapped shut with her emphatic head shake. “No way. Their arguments were small-time stuff. A punch in the face, maybe. Never this.”

Nate’s cell phone buzzed with his ex-wife’s ringtone. “Thank you, Mrs. Waters. That’s all for now.” He walked down the rickety metal steps and pressed TALK.

“What’s up, Marilyn? I’m at a crime scene so make it quick.”

“Quick as I can, but it does involve our daughter’s welfare. Forgive me if I take up too much of your time.”

“Come on, that’s not what I meant.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my plate, too. Can you take Sammi next weekend? I want to head out of town for a few days. I need a break.”

“Oh? Who’s going with you? You don’t like traveling alone.”

There was a pause. “Brad is taking me to Vancouver.”

“Geez, Marilyn. That guy? He gives me a bad vibe and I don’t want him around Sammi.”

“Sammi will be with you, I’m hoping.”

“For the weekend, sure, but what then?”

“You’re being ridiculous. Brad is a nice guy. The first guy I’ve really liked since I liked you. And does this mean you’ll take Sammi?”

Nate sighed. “I would love to have Sammi spend next weekend with me.”

“Wonderful! I’ll let you go. Bye.”

Rick joined him and they sat at a picnic table in the twilight. Lunch and dinner time had come and gone, hours ago and unheeded, and they fell like wolves upon the coffee and sandwiches being passed around.

“Are you thinking it’s the same guy they’re after in Seattle? We got a serial case?”

Nate chased down a bite with a swig of coffee, wiped his mouth with a paper napkin, and nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. We need to get up to speed on those files. Looks like we’ve joined the team. Congratulations. First case out and you drew the short straw.”

“Hey, I’m happy with it. Go big or go home, right?”

“Sure, but if you foul this up, you’ll never be able to wash the stink out of your career. It doesn’t even have to be you that falls short. We don’t put this guy down, and fast, we’re all gonna catch hell, but first case makes or breaks.”

“Okay, pressure’s on. Let me tell you what I got from the Specials. Hansen found a place in the trees where the guy must have waited. Except, get this, there are two spots. So, did he switch from one to the other, or were there two guys? Hansen’s still working it out.”

“We’ll check the other cases, but I don’t remember hearing anything about a second suspect.”

“Also, there was a scattering of sticks and stones which might have been arranged like the cairn-type structures found at the other sites. It may have been knocked apart in the struggle, disturbed by animals, who knows? The makings were there, but unorganized.”

Nate drummed his fingers on the table to accompany his thought process. “Okay,” he said. “Continue.”

Rick checked his notes. “Stevens went into the lake, turned up a plastic raincoat weighted with rocks. Shows traces of blood, no fingerprints. Guy wore gloves and probably galoshes. Heck, he’d have to be completely encased to escape that bloodbath. If he likes the water, there’s plenty of holes around here where he could’ve dumped the gear and weapon, but nothing else has turned up.”

Nate watched a couple of grid-searchers sign their findings into the evidence log. Karen Boggs glanced up, caught his eye, and walked over. She carried something carefully in her gloved hands. Nate hoped it was something good.

“Hi, boss,” she said. “This was outside the perimeter, about a mile from camp, but I snagged it anyway. Figured it wouldn’t hurt. Wanna take a look?”

Nate cleared a spot on the table and she opened the large paper bag and used it like a tablecloth, placing the item in question gently on top. It was a dark blue zip-front jacket, sized for a man. One hundred percent polyester, with a tiny red figure playing polo stitched to the left breast. Nate lifted the cuff of the right sleeve, angled it so Rick could see the smears of blood. In the pocket, he found a wrinkled score card with Mountain Vista Golf Course printed at the top and an eighteen-hole score of 93 penciled in at the bottom.

“Not bad.” Nate liked to golf but hadn’t had time for a round in over three years.

“If you say so.” Rick was not a golfer.

“Relevant to our crime?”

“Hmm. Found a mile away, in a direction traveled only by foot. The blood on the sleeve seems too small an amount and in the wrong place if our guy was wearing gloves and a raincoat.” Rick tilted his head back and forth. “Ehhh…I’m leaning toward no.”

Nate ran a gloved finger down the length of the jacket. “On the other hand, it looks recently dumped and blood is blood. My experience, and my gut, tell me it’s important.”

“Yeah? Okay,” Rick said doubtfully. “Where’s Mountain Vista?”

“Hell if I know, but be ready to head out there tomorrow morning.”