A Killing at the Creek Read online

  Harris turned to gaze down through the bushes at the trickle of the dry creek. “What do you make of the dead guy?”

  “There’s no dead guy down there.”

  “Say what?”

  “Nope. Victim is female.”

  “No shit!”

  Elsie’s brow wrinkled as she tried to recall whether the news had reported an abduction in the area. “Do you think she’s a local, Ash? Because I don’t remember anything about a woman going missing lately.”

  Ashlock shook his head. “Identity won’t be a mystery in this case; she’s got a license, a chauffeur’s ID in her pocket. Michigan license says her name is Glenda Fielder. I’m going to call the information in to Patsy at the department, so she can cross-­check it on the database.”

  “Did the ID have a picture?” Elsie asked.

  Ashlock nodded.

  “Well, does it look like her?”

  He squinted at the sun, as if trying to blot out an image. “Not anymore.”

  Chuck followed Ashlock as he turned and walked to his car, peppering him with conversation as Ashlock leaned against the car door and pulled out his cell phone to dial the police station.

  Elsie wandered past the shoulder of the road, to the area roped off with crime scene tape. Drawn by a morbid curiosity, she paused at the tape, which bore the familiar order, DO NOT CROSS. With a sense of bravado, she thought, I’m part of the investigation. I’ll go wherever I want.

  Elsie ducked under the tape and walked briskly down the rocky grade to the creek, where several officers were milling around. A sign identified the spot as Muddy Creek, though currently, with rain scarce at this time of year, it had dried up to a feeble trickle of water.

  The smell struck Elsie as a warning, but it was too late; she stumbled so close to the creek bed, where the dead woman lay, that she could reach out and touch her, if she dared. She flinched from the grotesque sight: the woman’s body was swollen, her face bloated beyond recognition. Elsie focused involuntarily on the corpse’s sightless eyes and the gaping slash under her chin, extending from ear to ear.

  She tried not to scream, but a shriek burst out before she could stifle it. Blindly, Elsie backpedaled until she fell on her backside; she turned over and scrambled on her hands and knees to bring herself to a standing position and run for the road, away from the creek and the horrible sight.

  Bile rose in her throat and she was afraid she would vomit, horrifying as that would be: she’d spent the past four years demonstrating to this very group of cops that she was tough as nails. As she ran up the shoulder of the road, she could see Ashlock and Chuck Harris in her peripheral vision, but she didn’t stop; she headed for a tree and braced herself against it, trying desperately not to be sick.

  A calm voice came up behind her. “You all right, sweetheart?”

  Elsie shook her head, unable to speak, because she was crying, and talking would make it worse.

  Ashlock put a supporting arm around her and walked her a short way into a wooded stretch, away from the road.

  “You’ve never seen a dead body like that, have you?”

  She shook her head again.

  He talked on, in a soothing tone, “If you need to, just let it come on up. No one can see.”

  Elsie tried, bending over a knee-­high patch of Queen Anne’s lace, but nothing happened. She wiped tears from her cheeks with both hands. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  He pulled her into his arms and rubbed her back. “Now, that’s silly. First time anyone sees a sight like that, it makes them sick. It’s a shock, a terrible thing to witness. Every cop I ever knew lost their lunch at their first murder scene.”

  Elsie felt better, if only marginally. She sniffled; she needed a Kleenex in the worst way.

  “But I feel so unprofessional.”

  “Baby, this isn’t your profession. You’re a lawyer, not a cop. I’m supposed to be out here in the weeds with the dead body. You’re supposed to be in the courtroom, putting the defendant away.”

  He stroked loose tendrils of blond hair away from her face. “Am I right?”

  She reflected a moment. Actually, he was right. She nodded.

  “You ready?”

  She sighed. “Yeah, we better go back,” she said with regret. She wished she could linger, leaning against Bob Ashlock in the shade of the old hedge apple tree. But they both had work to do.

  They walked side by side through the high weeds and up to the spot where the police cars were parked on the shoulder of the road. Chuck Harris hopped off the hood of his car.

  “Where’d everybody go? Did I miss something?”

  Ashlock looked to Elsie, but she just shrugged nonchalantly, unwilling to confess her skittishness to Chuck Harris.

  Harris looked from one to the other, suspicious. “What?”

  “I needed to use the restroom. Ashlock was showing me where they are,” she said casually.

  Skeptical, Chuck said, “There’s no bathrooms out there.”

  Elsie smiled at Ashlock. “City boy,” she scoffed.

  “Well,” Chuck said, digging for his keys, “I’ve got to get out of this heat. Bob, can we meet somewhere? We should go over the information, so I can fill Madeleine in this afternoon.”

  “Okay. It’s about time for a lunch break.”

  Lunch, Elsie thought, a cold sweat breaking out on her upper lip. Her stomach twisted.

  “Where should we go?”

  Ashlock considered for a moment. “The Wagon Wheel isn’t too far. And we’ll be hitting it before noon, so we should be able to get right in.”

  “Okay. Come on, Elsie,” Chuck said, double-­clicking the unlock button on his key chain. “You can give me directions.”

  Elsie looked longingly at Ashlock, wishing she could hop into his City of Barton sedan, and tell Chuck Harris to find the Wagon Wheel himself with his damned GPS.

  But Ashlock shrugged and said, “I could stand to change into a fresh shirt. I’ll see you there.”

  Elsie slid carefully into the passenger seat of Harris’s car. It had been sitting in full sun on her side, and the hot vinyl nearly took the hide off her. Fiercely, she wished herself out of that hot seat, and into the company of Bob Ashlock.

  “Detective Ashlock seems okay,” Harris observed. “Not a dumbshit like most of these hicks from around here.”

  “I’m one of these ‘hicks from around here,’ by the way.”

  “Yeah, I figured. No offense, Elsie. But you’ve got to understand that this is a big change for me, coming down here to southwest Missouri. I’m from the Jackson County office; I was raised in Kansas City.”

  “Kansas City. Kansas City’s a cow town, right?”

  He shot her a look. “Do you ever get up to the Plaza?”

  “Not lately,” Elsie replied. Grudgingly, she’d be forced to admit that the Kansas City Plaza was pretty doggone fabulous. “You need to take a turn here.”

  “So you think Ashlock is a good man to work this murder up for us?”

  “No question. The best.”

  “You know him pretty well?”

  “Uh-­hmm.” Elsie nodded, thinking, Every inch of him.

  Chapter 4

  ELSIE AND CHUCK pulled into the graveled parking lot of the Wagon Wheel Café at eleven o’clock sharp. Chuck put his car into park and moved to cut the engine, but Elsie stopped him.

  “Let’s listen to the news on the radio,” she said. “I want to hear if they picked up anything about the dead woman from the police band.”

  “Okay.” He turned the volume up a notch.

  They didn’t have to wait long. The announcer’s voice crackled with excitement as he said, “Breaking news on KZTO. Prosecutor Madeleine Thompson announced at the courthouse today that a body was discovered in rural McCown County just this morning.”

  Elsie s
hook her head. “She can’t keep her mouth shut. She’d tell a kid there’s no Santa Claus.”

  Chuck eyed her reproachfully. “How about a little respect here?” Elsie shushed him as Madeleine’s voice came through the speaker.

  “ ‘This horrific crime is a blot on our community. We’ll leave no stone unturned to find the person who committed this vile act. And I promise you: we will seek the maximum penalty under law. You have my personal guarantee that we will see justice done.’ ”

  “You have my personal guarantee that she will get her hair done,” Elsie said. “Anything more heavy-­duty, not so sure.”

  “What’s your problem?” Harris asked.

  Elsie snorted, a genuine response, if not a dainty one. “You haven’t worked for her as long as I have. You’re still on your honeymoon.”

  As Chuck turned off the engine, Elsie spied Ashlock’s car across the lot. “Look, Ashlock beat us here. Damn! How’d he do that?”

  “Hope he got us a table,” Chuck said as they walked to the doorway together. “I’m starving.”

  They entered the restaurant, a ranch-­style house converted to a diner in the 1960s and by appearances, not thoroughly scrubbed since then. Elsie slid into a booth beside Ashlock, her hand swiping through a sticky syrup spot on the side of the table.

  “I love this place,” she said. “My mom never let us eat at the Wagon Wheel when we were kids, because the bathrooms were so nasty. Coming to the Wagon Wheel is still like forbidden fruit to me.”

  “Best breakfast in town,” Ashlock said.

  “And the atmosphere is delightful,” Harris said dryly, taking care to set his jacket where it wouldn’t brush the greasy curtain adorning the window.

  “If you’re particular about that sort of thing,” Ashlock said.

  Elsie surveyed the two men. Ashlock, powerfully built, wearing a short-­sleeved poly/cotton shirt and military buzz cut, made a stark contrast to Chuck Harris in his crisp pastel cotton shirt and silk tie, with an auburn hairdo that might have required more attention than Elsie’s. She remembered her mother’s admonition, Steer clear of a peacock!

  A waitress walked up, pulling a pad out of her white nylon apron pocket. “You’uns want coffee?”

  “Lord, no. Too hot,” said Elsie.

  Chuck shook his head. Bob Ashlock turned over the crockery cup in front of him and nodded. The waitress put her pad away and walked off to find a pot. “Diet Coke, please?” Elsie begged as the waitress walked away.

  “You command respect, Ashlock,” Chuck said.

  Ashlock stared at a nick in the Formica and chrome table, circling it with his index finger. Elsie knew that look: the wheels were turning.

  He looked up, addressing Elsie. “I got word just before you came in. The deceased had a chauffeur’s license on her because she was transporting a school bus from Detroit to northwest Arkansas. The bus was supposed to arrive a week ago. There’s been a bulletin out, to be on the lookout for either the driver or the vehicle.”

  “We’ve got the driver. So where’s the bus?” Elsie asked, as the waitress returned to pour Ashlock a steaming cup of coffee.

  “How come your cops can’t find a big yellow bus in the Ozarks?” asked Chuck.

  Elsie took the Diet Coke gratefully, tearing the paper off the straw and taking a long pull on the cold drink. When the waitress clicked her pen, Elsie said, “You guys go ahead. I’m not so hungry this morning.”

  “What’s up? I’ve seen you eat like a field hand,” Chuck said.

  “I’m a girl with a healthy appetite,” Elsie said. Ashlock caught her eye and smiled.

  “I’ll have the Pioneer Special with patty sausage and hash browns. Eggs over easy,” Ashlock said to the waitress.

  “Biscuits and gravy or toast?”

  “The biscuits, ma’am.” He handed her the plastic menu.

  Chuck ordered a club sandwich on whole wheat, hold the mayo. As the waitress walked off, he said, “Seriously, how the hell do you hide a school bus? It’s not like it’s hard to spot on the highway. What kind of fools do you have on the highway patrol down here who can’t spot a runaway bus? Sounds like they couldn’t find their fucking ass with both hands.”

  Ashlock’s jaw twitched. “Watch how you talk in front of a lady.”

  Elsie quit sucking her straw as Harris jerked his thumb at her. “You mean Elsie? Christ, Ashlock, you obviously don’t know who you’re talking about. Elsie couldn’t kiss her mother with that mouth.”

  “Shut up, Harris,” Elsie said, “and watch what you say about our local police.” Turning to Ashlock, she said, “Honey, I love your old-­fashioned he-­man side, I really do, but you can’t threaten everyone who drops an f-­bomb in front of me. Especially since I’ve been known to drop a few myself.” More than a few, she amended silently. She reached onto the table and took Ashlock’s hand, rubbing the sensitive spot between his thumb and forefinger. “You are kind of like Prince Valiant. Like old Vernon Wantuck told us at the jail last winter.”

  Chuck Harris eyed them. “So. You two have a thing going on.”

  A smile played on the corner of Ashlock’s mouth. He squeezed Elsie’s hand, and she leaned in close to him.

  Ashlock’s phone rang, breaking the spell. He checked the ID, and answered, “What you got, Patsy?”

  Elsie and Harris watched as Ashlock took Elsie’s crumpled napkin and made notes on it with a pen. Ashlock nodded as he held the cell phone, saying, “Yep. Got it. Got it. Call me back when you hear.”

  He disconnected. Elsie said, “So, Ash? What is it?”

  “They located the bus. It’s in Oklahoma.”

  “For sure?” Elsie asked.

  “Oh yeah.”

  “It’s definitely the one the dead woman was transporting?” Harris echoed.

  “Public Schools of Rogers, Arkansas,” Ashlock quoted soberly. “They’ve impounded it.”

  “Anything to tie it to the offense?” Harris asked.

  “It’s covered in blood.”

  They fell silent as the waitress walked up with plates balanced skillfully up her left arm. She set down the sandwich and the breakfast platter, topped off Ashlock’s coffee, and walked away.

  “Whose case is it, then,” mused Harris. “Missouri or Oklahoma?”

  Elsie cocked an eye at him, surprised that he didn’t know the answer. “Crim Law I, dude. We’ve got the body. We don’t know where the offense occurred, so since the body was dumped in McCown County, it’s definitely our case.”

  Harris picked the toast off the top of his sandwich. “No mayonnaise, thank God. Who’s testing the bus, then? Us or Oklahoma?”

  “It’s our case,” Ashlock said. “Our ­people will do it.”

  “I want Missouri Highway Patrol,” Harris countered.

  “Our crime lab is perfectly capable of doing blood, hair, and print analysis. They do it all the time.”

  “I don’t want some local Barney Fife screwing my case up. This is a murder investigation, not a speeding ticket.”

  A cloud went over Ashlock’s face. Harris saw it and backed off.

  The men ate in silence for a few moments while Elsie rattled the ice cubes in her empty soda glass. Ashlock squirted ketchup onto his hash browns and cut his sausage with his fork, dipping it into the egg yolk. When the tone of his cell sounded again, Ashlock answered, his fork in midair. After listening intently, he hit End. He looked at the lawyers and said, “We have a suspect in custody. Oklahoma Highway Patrol is transporting him here this afternoon.”

  Elsie said, “That’s fast. Do you think they’ll deliver him to the county jail or the city police department?”

  “Neither. He’s going to juvenile.”

  Both Elsie and Harris froze, stunned.

  “He’s fifteen.”

  “Oh shit,” Elsie said.

  Chapter 5<
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  AS ELSIE UNLOCKED her office door, Madeleine’s voice stopped her cold.

  “Where’s Chuck? I want a report.”

  Elsie wheeled around to face her boss. “Madeleine, he went straight to court after we got back. He’s got to do the appearance on the vehicular homicide case. The preliminary hearing waiver.” When she saw the blank look on Madeleine’s face, she added, “My case. Remember?”

  “Why aren’t you doing it?”

  Elsie was glad she wasn’t holding a gun, because if she had one, her boss would be dead.

  “You wanted Chuck to do it. Remember? This morning? The meeting?”

  Madeleine’s face twitched with irritation. “Fine. Come along.” Turning on her heel, she stalked down the hallway in her expensive shoes.

  Elsie followed reluctantly. One-­on-­one conferences between Elsie and Madeleine had a history of going sour.

  Once inside Madeleine’s office, Elsie lingered in the open doorway. The better to beat a hasty retreat, if necessary.

  “What did you and Chuck find out there?” Madeleine picked up a pen, poised it to write.

  “There’s a corpse under a bridge about five miles outside the city limits. It’s a woman. A farmer found it—­her—­and he called the Sheriff’s Department.”

  “Can we identify the deceased?”

  “She had an ID on her. Ashlock says she was transporting a bus from Detroit to northwest Arkansas. Somebody killed her and dumped her.”

  “Cause of death?”

  “Cut her throat. She bled to death, medical examiner says.”

  Madeleine shuddered. “Did they do a good job at the scene, you think? Forensic samples? Photos?”

  A vision of the bloated corpse with the gaping slash flashed into Elsie’s mind; she shook her head with a jerk to dismiss the image. “As thorough as possible, considering she was out in the woods. It’s not as tidy as finding a body in bed with white sheets and latex paint on the walls. But Ashlock was there, and he took charge.”

  “Good. I don’t want it mishandled, for heaven’s sake. I made a promise to the voters.”