One Was a Soldier (26 page)

“I got the medical examiner’s report this morning.” The chief picked his mug off the scarred wooden table he preferred to sit on and took a long drink of coffee. “
Earlier
this morning,” he amended. “His finding is death consistent with suicide, but he won’t go further than that. Her injuries were caused by a Taurus .38 ACP, the weapon at the bottom of the pool”—he pointed toward one of several color pictures pinned to the corkboard—“which has her prints all over it.”

“Nitrate patterns on her firing hand?” Lyle MacAuley asked.

“If she had ’em, they were washed away by the chlorinated water.”

The dep straightened from his slouch and jotted the facts on the whiteboard.

“There’s no way she was killed anywhere else on the property,” Eric McCrea said. “We sprayed with luminol. The place was clean.”

The chief nodded. “Dr. Dvorak felt the”—he glanced down at the file—“the residual biological matter in the pool was consistent with her dying at that spot.”

Hadley tried not to think about what “residual biological matter” meant.

“The neighbors heard one shot at approximately 2:00
P.M.
and discovered her shortly thereafter,” the chief went on. “Dr. Dvorak places TOD between noon and two o’clock. Nobody was seen coming or going from the place, although that’s not definitive since it was during the workday and most folks weren’t even home.”

“It reads like suicide to me,” MacAuley said.

“But we’re still missing the husband,” Eric pointed out.

“Wyler McNabb.” The chief took another drink of coffee. “The victim described him as ‘away gambling’ on Monday night, but at this point, we haven’t gotten any hits from the casinos Kevin sent his picture to. The Albany airport doesn’t have a record of him transiting this past week. His Escalade and her Navigator are still parked in the driveway of their house.”

“He could have driven home Tuesday or Wednesday, done her, and then fled the scene,” Eric said.

The chief tilted his head in agreement. “Besides his boat and his ATV, he has no other vehicles registered in his name. Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t have access to something.”

“Hadley and I checked out the backyard yesterday afternoon,” Flynn said. “There’s kind of a tangle behind the utility shed, and then a beat-down fence, and then you’re onto the neighbor’s property. Someone could’ve gone straight through to the next street over.”

“Did you include them in the canvass yesterday?”

Flynn looked at Hadley. “I did,” she said. “There was no one at home at the Saber Drive address behind McNabb’s house, or at the ones on either side. There was a retired couple across the street, but they didn’t see anything.”

“Where’s that street come out?”

Noble answered the chief. “Musket, Drum, and Saber all dead-end at the western side. Easterly, they all join up with Meersham Street. No other way out.”

“Eric’s right.” The chief rubbed a finger over his lips. “If McNabb had a car waiting for him, he could have done her, walked to Saber Drive, and been five miles down the road before the FR arrived.”

Hadley, who had been the first responder, nodded. “I got there eleven minutes after logging the call.”

“Of course, now you’re talking conspiracy to murder, with at least one accessory.” Lyle tapped the tip of his marker against the board. “That’s awfully complicated, for something that looks like suicide to begin with.”

“I agree. Eric. What did you get from the electronic trail?”

Eric set his coffee on the floor and flipped his notepad back several pages. “No travel arrangements. No e-mails that seemed significant.” He looked over the edge of his pad. “She shared the account with McNabb, though, so if she was still swapping love notes with the MP boyfriend, she might have had some Web-based mail service. She had a Facebook page that hadn’t been updated in five months.”

“That’s it?”

“I’m not any sort of computer whiz, Chief. If you want the guts vacuumed out, you’ll have to get the state cybercrime unit to do it.”

The chief shook his head. “That’ll be a last-resort item. Lyle?”

“She was a bookkeeper for BWI Opperman. Hired this past August, a few months after she got back. Wyler McNabb works there as well; he may have gotten her an in with the job. The company has a construction contract in Iraq. He’s worked over there, and she’s had”—he looked at his notebook—“two tours of duty, so it was a good fit. Our girl was scheduled to return to Iraq as part of the team’s administrative support.” He looked at McCrea. “Maybe she didn’t like that idea.”

McCrea picked up his tall cardboard cup. “Are you asking me my opinion? It’s no tropical vacation paradise, but I wouldn’t eat my gun to avoid going back.”

Hadley glanced at Flynn, but he was busy writing notes. MacAuley continued. “The HR director described her as reliable, skilled, no problems with anyone she worked with.” He shot the chief a meaningful glance. “At home, she kept their financial records real neat, like you’d expect. There might have been money stress—most of those fancy SUVs and stuff were less’n a year old, and they didn’t have very much in checking or savings, according to her most recent statement, which is the only one I could find. There were some receipts for winnings and expenses from several casinos in an accordion file marked
TAXES
, so the gambling was not a one-off. There’s a single mortgage on the house, payments current. The only thing that I flagged was his life insurance policy. It was underwritten by his employer to the tune of a cool half mil.”

Hadley couldn’t help it; she whistled.

“That’s a helluva lot for a construction worker with no dependents,” the chief said.

“Judging by the tax returns I saw, he was the big earner, not her. Which means if he was about to pull the plug on the relationship, she’d be pretty much left out in the cold, as far as money went.” He made a gesture toward the chief. “You know, your first thought mighta been the right one.”

“Murder-suicide?”

“Could be the reason McNabb hasn’t turned up yet is that she did him somewhere else and hid the body.”

“Then came back home to top herself? Maybe.”

“I disagree. I think we’re going to find the husband.” Eric crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his chair back. “I think he did her.”

The chief raised his eyebrows. “Based on…?”

“I can’t see her killing herself. She’s got relationship problems, and job problems, but let’s face it, there was obviously a lot of marital property to go around even if they did split up. And how hard can it be for a good bookkeeper to find employment?” Eric let his chair drop to the floor again. “I’m betting they had a roaring fight, he did her, and then dropped her in the pool.”

The chief dropped the folder back onto the table. “We can all agree that finding Wyler McNabb is the top priority. Once we’ve got him, we’ll be able to pin this thing down.” He glanced around the squad room. “Any other questions? No? Okay, then. Lyle, Eric, with me.”

Hadley glanced at Flynn, and then toward McCrea, who was following the chief and MacAuley out the door.

Flynn paused in the act of tucking his notebook away. “What?”

“She was a veteran.”

“Yeah?”

She dropped her voice. “Eric was awfully insistent on her death being a homicide. Do you think it’s a warning sign? Like he couldn’t stand the idea that another veteran might have killed herself?”

“She might not have.” Flynn collected his hat and handed Hadley hers. “Sure, it looks a lot like suicide, but she’s got a missing husband who likes to throw money around like rice at a wedding. An Escalade. A plasma-screen TV. An
in-ground swimming pool,
for chrissakes.”

She couldn’t stop her grin. He sounded so outraged. “Flynn,
I
had an in-ground pool in California.”

He stood to one side and let her precede him out the squad room door. “It makes sense out there. Here, where you can only use it a few months out of the year?” He shook his head. “It’s just a big concrete sign that reads
Money means nothing to me.
They could have stapled twenties on the front of the house and sent the same message. At least that way, they wouldn’t have had to keep the thing clean and chlorinated.”

They walked down the hall side by side.
Money means nothing to me.
She bit her lip.

“What?” He opened the station house door.

Hadley zipped her jacket against the cool breeze. “What do you mean, what?”

“You thought of something. You always bite your lip like that when you’re thinking.” Flynn clattered down the steps toward the parking lot, a small smile on his face.

She forced herself not to bite her lip again as she followed him. “Of all the stuff they have at the McNabbs’ house, what do you think cost the most?”

“The pool.”

“Really? More than the cars?”

“Yeah. You have to dig them out crazy deep and wide, and surround them with layers and layers of crushed gravel and stuff to keep them from cracking when everything freezes. It’s a huge job.”

She paused by her cruiser. “I wonder … Eric and MacAuley didn’t turn up a note.”

He looked at her intently. “No.”

“Maybe where she did it was her note. She kills herself in the most expensive, wasteful thing they own.”

“What’s her message? F-you?”

“No.” Hadley opened the car door and tossed her lid and notebook in. “‘Money means nothing to me.’”

*   *   *

Hadley had been on patrol for three hours when she got the call to respond to army personnel trying to get into the McNabb house.

“Are you sure?” she asked Harlene.

The dispatcher’s voice was tart. “That’s what the neighbor said. If you go over there in your unit, you can find out for yourself.”

Hadley was extra polite when she signed off. She was pretty sure Harlene liked her, but Hadley’s position as low man on the totem pole meant she got the least amount of slack.

Quentan Nichols,
she thought. Back for another shot at love. Boy, was he in for an unpleasant surprise. The surprise, however, was on Hadley, when she pulled in behind an anonymous government-issued car and found a tall white woman standing in the front yard, talking on a cell phone.

The woman hung up as Hadley opened the driver’s side door. She was dressed in a green suit instead of those blurry camouflage outfits soldiers wore, with a lot of ribbons and stuff pinned to a jacket that must have been tailored but still didn’t fit quite right. Hadley, whose uniforms came in any size as long as it was men’s, recognized the look.

“Ma’am? Can I help you?”

A flicker at the corner of the garage. Hadley twitched toward the movement, then relaxed when she saw another army guy coming toward them. This one was in urban camo, like Nichols had been, but was younger and lighter-skinned. He was also carrying a sidearm.

“I’m Lieutenant Colonel Arlene Seelye.” The woman stepped toward her. She was older than Hadley had thought at first, midforties at least. “I’m looking for Mary McNabb, also known as Tally McNabb.”

“You’re military police?”

Colonel Seelye nodded. “Specialist McNabb is absent without leave. We’re here to return her to her battalion.”

Hadley tried not to let that little piece of info rock her back. AWOL? They had all been working on the assumption that McNabb was quit of the army. The chief needed to be in on this. “Can you wait here a moment, ma’am? I’ve got to report back to my dispatcher and tell her what’s going on.”

Colonel Seelye cut her eyes toward the small houses flanking the McNabb place. “Observant neighbors.”

“It’s a small town, ma’am. We try to look out for each other.” Hadley walked back to her unit with the cop strut she had picked up from watching Deputy Chief MacAuley—not too fast, not too slow. Owning the situation. Inside, she raised Harlene and let her know what was going on.

“Hold on a sec,” Harlene said. “The chief’s just calling in.” Hadley’s line went dead. She looked through the windshield at the two MPs. They had turned toward the house, so their backs were toward her. She wondered what they were saying to each other.

“Hadley?”

“Yeah. I mean, here.”

“The chief is on his way. He wants to talk to ’em, so don’t let ’em leave before he gets there.”

Hadley almost asked how she was supposed to accomplish that, but she knew what Harlene would say.
Think of something!
“Will do,” she said. “Knox out.”

As she crunched across the leaf-strewn lawn, the colonel and her backup turned again to face her.
Detective and beat cop,
Hadley thought.
Plainclothes and uniform.
The look was familiar, even if the outfits were different.

“So…” Colonel Seelye squinted at Hadley’s name badge, causing fine lines to radiate from the corners of her eyes. “Officer Knox. Can you tell us where we can find Mary McNabb?”

Harlene hadn’t said anything about concealing the truth from them. “I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am, but Tally McNabb is dead. She was found floating in her backyard pool yesterday.”

The younger guy’s head jerked toward Seelye, but the officer only blinked slowly. “That would explain the crime scene tape around the fence.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“And your department is investigating this as…?”

“Death by gunshot, probable suicide, ma’am.”

The colonel held herself very still. Finally she said, “Who is the lead investigator on the case?”

“I guess that would be the chief. Although the dep—the deputy chief and Sergeant McCrea are working it, too.”

“The chief of police.” Seelye raised one eyebrow. “How many sworn officers does the Millers Kill Police Department have, Officer Knox?”

There was something in her voice that kind of went up Hadley’s spine and made the answers to her questions pop out. “Eight, if you include the chief, ma’am. Plus two part-time auxiliaries.”

“That’s … small. Your department can’t have had much experience with homicide or violent crime.”

“You’d be surprised, ma’am.”

Whatever the colonel was going to say was cut off by the grind of tires on asphalt. Hadley kept her eyes on the MPs. Behind her, a car door thunked. The young guy darted glances to Seelye, but Seelye simply watched, not asking anything, not registering any surprise. Hadley thought she’d never seen such a self-contained woman before.