Sleight of Hand

CHAPTER Eighteen

Stephanie Robb’s divorce attorney had phoned her while she was eating breakfast to tell her that her a*shole husband was threatening to fight for custody of their daughter. The idea of Vince-as-full-time-parent was laughable, and Stephanie was furious at his transparent ploy to get her to reduce her demand for child support.

The homicide detective had vented to Frank Santoro during the drive from police headquarters. Robb’s partner was a stocky Italian with curly black hair who was usually calm and did not act without first thinking through the problem at hand. He was a good counterweight to his smart but excitable partner, who was prone to making snap decisions. Santoro had developed an ability to tune out Robb’s tirades, which he’d been forced to endure ever since she had caught her “scumbag husband” and his “skank” girlfriend making the beast with two backs on her living room floor three months ago.

Stephanie was still fuming when Frank parked the car at the barrier the forensic team had erected to keep sightseers from the field where the body had been found.

“We’re here,” Frank said.

Robb looked at the path that led into the field as she traded her shoes for boots. They’d been warned that the field where the corpse had been dumped had been turned into a bog by yesterday’s heavy rain.

“I hate f*cking nature,” she swore.

“I’ll send a memo to our perps asking them to take your feelings into account when they’re disposing of a body.”

“F*ck you, Frank.”

“Hey, Steph, lighten up. I’m not trying to get custody of Lily. I don’t even like kids.”

Robb glared at Frank, but her partner didn’t notice since he was already walking across the field toward the milling crowd of forensic experts and uniformed officers who had beaten them to the scene.

Stephanie surveyed the area. On one side of the road was a fence that delineated the boundaries of the McHenry farm. The low grassland where the body had been dumped ran between the other side of the road and a narrow, winding river. Woods surrounded the tract. Under other circumstances, the tranquil beauty would have been perfect for a nature hike, but the weather was cold, damp, and blustery, and the idea of dealing with a rotting corpse spoiled the mood. Robb stuffed her hands in her pockets and trudged after Santoro, who was talking to the medical examiner when Stephanie caught up to him.

“The deceased has been out here a few days,” Nick Winters was saying. “It looks like he was stabbed in the heart. One wound, and I’m guessing the killer knew what he was doing because it’s the only entry wound I could see with the vic clothed. I’ll know more after I get him on the table.”

“Who found him?” Frank asked.

Winters threw a thumb over his shoulder. “That’s the McHenry place. Their kid was taking the dog for a run and the dog sniffed him out.”

“How come he didn’t find the body before today?” Robb asked.

“He doesn’t walk the dog in this field every day. The last few days, he ran him in the woods on the other side of the farm.”

“Where’s the kid?” Frank asked.

“Home. He was pretty shook up. There’s a policeman with him.”

“Okay,” Frank said. “We’ll talk to him when we’re through here.”

“Do we have an ID?” Robb asked.

“Not so far. There’s no wallet. I’ll take his prints.”

Stephanie edged past two uniformed cops who were sipping hot coffee from a thermos and got her first look at the corpse. She figured the man for five eight or nine. He had been dumped on his back, and his legs and his left arm shot out at odd angles. The right hand was trapped under his body. Parts of the face had been eaten by animals but the patches of hair that were still attached to the scalp were mostly gray. She figured he was probably in his late sixties.

Robb walked around the corpse, working angles in hopes that something she saw would inspire her. The man was wearing tan chinos and a blue work shirt. His brown shoes were scuffed and stained with mud and the rain had leached out some of the color from the red stain that had spread across the fabric that covered his heart.

Robb squatted next to the corpse. The left arm was lying on the grass and the hand was palm up. It looked calloused. A working man, not an office guy; blue collar. She stood up.

“Poor bastard,” Robb murmured. She wondered what he’d done to deserve an end like this. Probably nothing, though you could never tell. Maybe drugs were involved or some other criminal activity. Maybe John Doe wasn’t blameless. With luck, they’d eventually know his story, and the identity of the person who had ended it so abruptly.