Joe Citizen had no clue how many people disappeared each year and were never seen again.
“You know why there might be ash residue at Ruthie’s?”
I kept my face carefully blank. “She didn’t even have a fireplace.”
“Right. Looked like someone tried to clean up in a hurry, but they didn’t do a decent job.”
I knew exactly where the ashes had come from. The bizarre shape-shifting monsters I’d seen in my coma. But who had killed them?
I had a pretty good idea.
Chapter 6
“Thanks for your time, Detectives.” I rose. “Could you let me know when you get the autopsy report?”
“Anything special you’re interested in?” Hammond asked.
“Cause of death would be nice.”
“Considering the state of the body and the presence of the knife, we’re going with knife wound.”
I nodded, but I didn’t believe it. Not anymore.
“This is an ongoing homicide investigation, Phoenix. We aren’t going to give you any autopsy results, and you know it.”
I had, but it never hurt to try. I had my own sources anyway.
As I headed out of the police station I caught sight of the Yankees cap, encased in plastic as all evidence should be and perched on a filing cabinet.
I knocked it to the ground, then knelt to tie my shoe. Shielding my movements with my shoulders, I slipped a finger into the bag and brushed the bill. Then I rose and continued on my way, leaving the cap on the floor. Better for someone to find it there later and think the evidence had fallen than for them to see me picking it up, wonder if I’d touched the thing, decide I had and start to follow me.
Where I was going, I didn’t need an audience. Just in case I gave in to temptation and kicked the living hell out of Sanducci.
I should have known where he’d run. If I hadn’t been off my game—between the coma and the cops, the visions and the berserker, being off was kind of understandable—I’d have figured it out on my own. Jimmy had gone to his safe place.
I jumped in my car and took the grand tour of the town to make certain I hadn’t picked up a tail. Sliding slowly past City High, I noted several unmarked cars. Even if Jimmy was dumb enough to show up, he’d never be blind enough to miss the stakeout.
I waved at the detectives, earning a scowl, and in one case a rude hand gesture, before I headed west.
While at Ruthie’s, each of us had spent a month every summer between the ages of thirteen and eighteen working for someone or learning something. Ruthie believed in that almost as much as she believed in reading the Bible before bedtime.
I’d been sent to New Mexico, to the edge of the Navajo Reservation, to learn more about what I was and how to use it.
Jimmy had been sent only an hour away, to a dairy farm between Milwaukee and Madison. He had loved it.
Not so much the milking, the plowing, the planting, but the place, the people and the animals. The photos he’d taken at that farm had been some of his best, and had led to his receiving a scholarship in photojournalism from Western Kentucky.
Not that he’d ever used it. When he’d left, I don’t know where he’d gone, but it hadn’t been to college. The lack of a degree didn’t seem to have hurt him any.
He’d always had an unbelievable way of looking at things, and when he’d looked at me, I’d wanted to give him everything I had. Back then all I’d had was me.
Shaking off those memories, I accelerated around a semi and set my cruise control at seventy. I wanted to get there fast, but I wanted to get there in one piece, without a ticket that would broadcast to every last cop in the land where I was.
Though I hated to, I called Megan and left a message. “I won’t be able to come back to work right away.” I paused, unwilling to ask for a favor, but I had to. “Would you get me a copy of Ruthie’s autopsy report?”
If anyone could do it, Megan could. Max had been a highly decorated officer, a stunning loss to the community and the force. I didn’t think there was a cop in the city who’d deny Megan anything that she asked.
I reached the farm just after noon. No one was there. I hadn’t realized the Muellers had packed up their cows and sold the place.
I got out of the car. “Hello?” I shouted, though I really didn’t expect anyone to answer.
The house was locked, the windows unbroken. Such would never have been the case any closer to town.
Everything was gone. Not a stick of furniture or even a stray newspaper had been left behind.
The barn wasn’t much different. No hay. No straw. No manure. These people were freakishly clean.
Until I reached what had once been the tack room but had morphed into a hired hand’s apartment. The hired hand appeared to be in residence, if the bedding and the duffel bag were any indication.
“Hello?” I tried again. Still nothing, so I checked in the bag. I didn’t need my sixth sense to know whose it was. The scent of cinnamon and soap wafted up as soon as I tugged on the zipper.