A Hard Death (12 page)

J
enner dropped the paperwork in the office, then sat at his desk and logged the four men into his casebook.

He was totally wired now—he loved cases like this. Not the sensational side—all deaths are sensational at some level or another—but a group of four hanged men? He'd never seen a hanging homicide before. And this wasn't just one homicide but four. And it wasn't just four hanged men but four men hung in two separate pairs weeks or months apart—an absolute first.

This was murder planned calmly and executed rigorously and repeatedly. There had to have been more than two killers—two grown men wouldn't have stayed still for a single assailant when it became clear what was happening, even if they were held at gunpoint. The noose would've had to be on one neck first, then up over the branch to be tied to the other man's neck. And then they would have had to get them up on the chairs. So several men, then.

And Christ—killing two men, hanging each by the other's weight? Jenner was already imagining the presentation he'd give at the National Association of Medical Examiners annual conference. Where was it next year, somewhere good, he thought—Chicago?

Through his open office door, Jenner heard a quiet, wet, shivering sound.

Someone was crying in the lobby.

Jenner stepped out into the hall. The lights were off—the facility had been closed for hours. How had they got in? He walked down the corridor toward the sound of sobbing. He stepped through the door into reception, emerging behind the counter to see her there, sitting in the dark.

She was a small, undistinguished-looking young woman, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three. She wore jeans and an ill-fitting black top, her glasses dangling from a strap around her neck; she dabbed at her nose with a balled-up Kleenex. There was something familiar about her face.

She jumped when he turned on the light.

Jenner leaned toward her. “Excuse me. Can I help you?”

She stood slowly and walked over to him.

“Dr. Jenner? You won't remember, but we've met. I'm Sheree Roburn.”

T
heir conversation was brief—there wasn't much to say, and she didn't have to say anything at all to make Jenner feel the knife twist.

No, the police had no new leads. Yes, there were only five detectives in the county, but they'd all known her mom and dad, and they were really working the case hard.

Yes, it was true that the hanged men were putting extreme pressures on the squad, but that didn't mean the investigation into her parents' murders had stopped or been put on a back burner.

She just nodded mutely at everything Jenner said.

What did she want him to say? She'd seen the media feeding frenzy over the hanged men, watched her parents' deaths get shoved aside. Her dad had been an ME—she knew the score.

Sheree closed her eyes; Jenner could see her fading. He said gently, “You're tired. You should get some rest.”

She nodded, then dragged herself sadly to her feet, lifted her bulky black handbag off the seat, and asked him if he'd say something at the memorial service in three days' time.

He promised he'd call as soon as there were any new developments. Again, the silent nod.

He showed her to the door, her steps slow and heavy, her head bowed with grief.

Jenner turned off the lights in reception, but waited by the glass door in the dark, watching Sheree Roburn make her way across the parking lot to her car. He didn't move until the taillights had disappeared into the dark on the far side of the cordon of camera trucks.

He couldn't go home now.

J
enner flicked on the lights in the garage. Marty's car, covered with a weathered green tarp, had been moved to the far side, away from the loading dock. He cut the plastic ties on the tarp and dragged it off.

The car was dry now, blotched with fingerprint powder; as expected, Crime Scene had found no usable prints.

He opened the front door to pop the trunk; the passenger compartment reeked of mold, the soaked carpeting now furred with splotches of black and gray down.

The trunk was just as moldy. Jenner peered into it, shone his flashlight around, unsure what he was looking for. He lifted the rotting floor mat; under the carpet there was no wheel well, just a film of settled black mud. He examined the undersurface of the trunk hood, and found nothing.

He opened the side doors to let the passenger compartment air out.

Crime Scene had removed the debris from the floor well and dried them; nothing interesting, just utility bills, some paperwork from an old office budget. There had been several coffee cups, two mugs, a sodden, crumbling cardboard box containing a fishing reel, and a handful of new waterlogged thriller novels in a Barnes & Noble bag.

Jenner opened the glove compartment—already emptied by Crime Scene. He lifted the carpeting, jammed his hands down the backs of the seats, felt underneath. Thirty cents worth of coins, an old brochure from a fishing store.

Nothing. That's what he had found: nothing.

He turned off the flashlight and sat on the old couch the techs used for cigarette breaks. For a few minutes, Jenner stared blankly at the car, all its doors open, its trunk gaping wide.

And then he finally let himself go down the path he'd avoided for so long. The logic was simple and compelling:

People get murdered for money, love, or ego, mostly. Random bad luck, occasionally. Insanity, rarely.

He knew the Roburns well enough to doubt that love, madness, or even ego had got them killed. They hadn't been killed because they'd showed up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Most likely this was about money.

And it wasn't a standard home invasion, or a robbery—Marty had been tortured and murdered, just like the men in the swamp. Killed by the same men. Bobbie—not tortured, just bound, thrown into the trunk, and allowed to drown when they dumped her husband's body—was probably an afterthought: this was all about Marty.

So why kill Marty?

Jenner sat staring at the car. Five men murdered, tortured, two of them with clear signs of drug abuse. He tried to figure out how to connect the deaths, but everything he thought up was absurd and fanciful.

Every possible connection except one.

Drugs.

Jenner had seen the bodies of a thousand dead dealers, a thousand dead junkies. Seen men pimp their girlfriends for drug money, seen crack addicts let their children starve to death—most of the genuine depravity Jenner had ever seen could be traced directly back to drugs. Because drugs let the monster out of the man.

Drugs…But Marty? Jenner couldn't imagine it, wouldn't accept it.

He looked down, and saw his hands twisting at the fishing catalog.

And then he thought of one place he hadn't looked.

He knelt by the driver's-side door, and reached deep under the dashboard. His fingers stroked down the steering wheel column until they felt the soft rubber box of a concealed spare-key safe. He pulled at the rubber, slipped a finger into the opening, then touched thinner plastic. He tugged and it slipped out into his hand.

It was a packet about the size of a matchbox, tightly rolled in plastic wrap. Jenner put the packet on the stainless steel table and carefully
unfurled it to find a smaller plastic wrap package inside, still dry. A length of coarse waxed twine—the type used in the autopsy room to sew up the bodies—looped several times around the inner packet.

Jenner fiddled with the twine and the little packet opened like a flower, several grams of fine white powder sitting in the center of the wrinkled film.

T
he Palmetto Court again. Jenner left his muddy waders in the trunk of the car—God willing, he'd never use them again—and carried the jug of water and flashlight back to his cabin. The dog lay sprawled across his porch; seeing Jenner, it rolled onto its side to show its belly as it wagged its tail. The dog was unquestionably male.

“Still here, eh?” he muttered. “I thought you'd be off seeing the world, or getting laid or something.”

From behind him, he heard, “Mr. Jenner?”

He turned to see Mrs. Foley, the blowsy woman who ran—possibly owned—the Palmetto Court. During daylight hours, she had the beery cheer of a Dickensian charwoman, but come dark, her scrappy side emerged. On his second night at the motel, Jenner had found her passed out by the pool at four a.m. He'd helped her to her cottage; when he'd seen her in the parking lot the next day, it was obvious she had no memory of their encounter.

He was a little wary of her.

“You're back late!”

Jenner nodded.

“A busy day, right?”

He nodded again. She was clutching a FedEx mailing box tightly to her bosom with both hands.

“I
know
! I saw you on TV!” Her face was flushed and bright. “I saw y'all with the bodies! And they had your office, too.”

Jenner nodded once more, and asked, “Is that for me? The box, I mean…”

She read the address label again, and said, “Yeah, sure, sure…I brought it right over when I seen you come in.” She handed it to him
and, as he looked at it, said, “So, I bet they were in pretty bad shape, huh? Those bodies…?”

The box was from Jun; too thick for just a check. He looked at her.

“Yes, they were. Very badly decomposed.” Jenner paused, then, for reasons he couldn't have explained, he decided to make her night: “They were…like…soup.”

“Like
soup
? Oh my gosh!” She shook her head in thrilled revulsion, her eyes huge, her mouth slack.

“Yes. Like soup.” Jenner nodded solemnly and then added cheerfully, “Good night, Mrs. Foley.”

She was bursting with excitement; he'd told her nothing she hadn't seen on television, but this came from the doctor himself, and the “soup” detail would be a huge hit in the laundry room the next morning. She smiled sweetly and said, “Good night, doctor. I hope you get some good rest—you deserve it! I was saying to Ralph just this afternoon, I just don't know how you do the work you do!” She waddled happily off toward the main buildings.

With some difficulty, Jenner squeezed past the dog into the cabin, quickly closing the screen and cabin doors behind him. He dumped his stuff on the kitchenette table and took off his windbreaker. God, how he hated the orange curtains.

There was a creak as the cabin door swung open; the dog was standing outside the screen door, looking up at Jenner expectantly, his tail wagging briskly behind him. Jenner shut the door.

He tore open the FedEx box. Two DVDs, carefully wrapped in pale brown craft paper, spilled onto the table, along with a ball of bubble wrap taped tight. Peering into the box, Jenner found a cashier's check for one thousand dollars. One of the DVD packets had a yellow Post-it note that read
CALL US
!!! in purple Magic Marker, along with a heart with a smiley face.

Ignoring the tinny scratching at the screen door, Jenner smoothed the check against the table, then folded it and put it in his wallet. He unpacked the bubble wrap to find eight small brown glass bottles; Jun's girlfriend Kimi had gone through Jenner's collection of essential oils and
selected a handful. He sat in a chair, opened and breathed in the jasmine sambac; he felt the sweet scent soak into his blood, then closed the vial.

He picked up the phone and dialed Jun Saito; Kimi answered.

“Jenner! Good to hear you! How is Florida?” He liked that Kimi never followed the news.

“Busy. I got your present—thanks for the oils. Very sweet of you. What are the DVDs?”

She giggled. “Don't blame me—Jun chose them! I just wrapped them!”

“Uh-oh…” He smiled. “Okay, well, is Jun there? I need to talk with him.”

A couple of seconds later, Jun's voice.

“Hey, Jenner. So, looks like the joint is jumping…”

“Yeah, right. Not such a vacation after all.”

“At least they're paying you.”

“They're not paying me quickly, though. Thanks, I appreciate the check—I'm good for it.”

“Please—it makes me sad you feel you have to say that.”

Jenner apologized, and Jun said, “No worries, man. It's all right.” There was a pause, then Jun said, “So…? How did ya like them?”

“What?”

“The DVDs. Kimi picked them out…” Jenner heard a squeal of protest, and then the coarse rub of fabric against the receiver as Kimi struggled with Jun for the phone. She was yelling that it was all Jun's idea, she'd had nothing to do with it.

Jenner tore off the wrappings, half-knowing what he'd find. No surprises: two Japanese porno DVDs. On the cover of one, an older, voluptuous woman was having sex with various men on an old fishing boat; the other featured enthusiastic student nurses.

“Jenner, I know you're really gonna like
Do You Know the Old Woman by the Fishing Port
—super-hot!”

“Yeah, sounds it.” He grinned. “Thanks, Jun.”

Jun said, “No worries, mate. Ain't no thang. Let me know if you need more money, okay?”

Behind him, Kimi said something in Japanese, then Jun said, “Okay, Jenner. Kimi says she needs my sweet lovin', so…” There was another squeal and the phone was abruptly hung up.

Jenner spun the DVD case on the table, trying to remember how Jun's tradition of giving him porn had begun.

He climbed into bed just before midnight. When he turned out the light, the scratching at the door began again, this time furiously. Jenner wrapped the thin pillow around his head, but couldn't block out the sound. The scratching died down, only to be replaced by a moaning growl.

Then the scratches came back.

Finally Jenner could take it no more. He got out of bed and opened the door to find the dog sitting there, peering up at him; the dog looked happy.

“Jesus!”

He opened the door a crack, and the dog trotted past him into the kitchen and flopped down on the weathered linoleum.

It turned to look at him placidly; it wanted food, no doubt. Jenner found a can of stew and sloshed its contents into his only plate, an old plastic cereal bowl that had probably been in the cabin since the motel opened in 1952. For a second, he wondered whether he should microwave it, then just stuck it in front of the dog; the dog didn't seem to mind that the stew was cold.

Jenner watched the dog eat, then climbed into bed, the dog following quickly to curl up on the coverlet.

Jenner slept through the night.