Wrong Turn Read online

  To the left of Lucinda, and about four feet from where she stood, the toes of a pair of shoes broke through the ground. The pest control employee had brushed away the dirt over the legs to make sure that what he thought he saw was really what was there.

  Further back in the crawl space, a figure in a Tyvek suit, booties, gloves, head covering and a face mask with a breathing filter, raised a head and shouted out a muffled, ‘Lieutenant!’

  ‘Marguerite, is that you?’

  ‘Yes, lieutenant. Let’s talk outside.’ Forensic specialist Marguerite Spellman duck-walked across the dirt until she reached a spot where she could stand, albeit it in a crouched-over posture. ‘I’ve now found a fourth body. It’s nothing more than a skeleton. I think I should get out of there and let a forensic anthropology team take over.’

  ‘You sure we can’t manage without calling in the state guys?’

  ‘Hate to say it, lieutenant, but we might need the Feebs – and not just our local buddy Special Agent in Charge Lovett, but the experts on forensic excavation from headquarters in DC.’

  Lucinda’s face twisted into an expression of extreme distaste. She sighed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Marguerite said, ‘but we really need an anthropologist here. These remains need to be meticulously extracted if we’re going to have any hope of preserving evidence in a manner that the defense can’t rip to shreds. They already have a little ammunition because the pest control guy touched the first body and some of us have entered the space – that probably was not wise.’

  ‘Let’s go topside and get away from this stench for a while and then I’ll make the calls. You’ll need to be here, though, while they work. You need to observe every little thing they do.’

  ‘I’d planned on that, lieutenant.’

  Lucinda nodded, gave her a tight smile and led the way up the stairs. They removed their protective gear and stepped out into the front yard. The first inhalation of fresh, outdoor air was intoxicating. Any of the city pollutants churning through the atmosphere now smelled as clean and pure as snow compared to the cloying, sweet, sickening smell from the crawl space.

  Marguerite leaned her head to one side and sniffed the sleeve of her shirt. ‘Eeew. I probably will never get the smell out of these clothes. I’ll have to toss them out when we’re through. Somebody needs to invent a body suit that blocks odors.’

  ‘Why don’t you handle that in all your spare time, Spellman?’ Lucinda asked with a chuckle.

  ‘Spare time? Could you define that alien phrase for me?’ she responded with a grin.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Lucinda said and pulled out her iPhone and called the state lab. They delivered the bad news that Marguerite had warned her they would. A request would have to go to FBI headquarters but they assured her that the agency would scramble to get someone on the ground as quickly as possible.

  ‘I’m sure they will,’ Lucinda said. ‘They just love this sensational, banner headline producing stuff.’

  ‘Watch the attitude, lieutenant. You’re going to have to work with these guys.’

  Lucinda disconnected the call without comment. Everyone knew how difficult and vainglorious the federal guys could be, but they all got so sensitive about it when anyone said it out loud.

  She decided to tackle what was probably the easier of the two interviews first. With a toss of her head, the officer rose from the side of the pest control man and Lucinda slipped into his place. She put a hand on his lower arm. ‘How are you holding up?’

  He shrugged but kept his head down, eyes focused on the ground. His shaggy brown hair blocked any view of his features. She noticed his company overalls were embroidered with ‘Russ’ over a pocket on the upper left side. ‘Your name’s Russ?’

  He shifted his weight to one side and pulled the wallet out of a rear pocket. Without a word, he handed her a business card.

  She read, ‘Russell Englewood, Pest Control Specialist. We Knock ’Em Dead.’ She turned to the man beside her, ‘Mr Englewood?’

  He nodded and muttered, ‘Russ is fine.’

  ‘I really need you to talk to me about what you saw and what you did. Can you do that?’

  Russ shrugged again.

  ‘I know this is difficult, Russ, but I need your help to catch this guy.’

  Russ didn’t move or say a word.

  Lucinda sighed. ‘I know you’ve had a traumatic experience, Mr Englewood, but I’d going to need you to man up here. After all, you’re an exterminator; you need to get a grip.’

  For the first time, he lifted his head. A pair of bright blue eyes glared at her.

  ‘You can be angry with me for the rest of your life, Mr Englewood. You can hate my guts for eternity. But you are going to have to give me information – detailed information. I don’t want to start looking at you as a suspect but if you don’t open up, I won’t have any choice.’

  ‘Damn you,’ he shouted, rising to his feet. ‘Yes, I’ve seen a lot of dead bodies in my line of work – mice, rats, snakes, possums, cockroaches – but I ain’t never seen no dead woman before – no dead person of any sex. This ain’t right. It just ain’t right.’

  Lucinda remained seated, placing a calming hand on his lower arm. ‘No. It isn’t right, Mr Englewood. Why don’t you sit back down and tell me about it.’

  He squeezed his eyes shut. ‘Russ is fine, ma’am. Please, Russ is fine,’ he said, sinking back down on the bench. ‘Where you want me to start?’

  ‘How about when you pulled up in the driveway?’

  ‘Miss Plum met me outside here. She pointed to the skiff over yonder,’ he said indicating the scarred, blue, tractor/trailer-sized container in the front yard. ‘She say, “I done moved all that furniture out thinking it was causing the stink but it just won’t go away. I think I gotta dead critter in the wall.” And I say that I’ll go see what I can find.’

  Lucinda was certain that retired English teacher Veronica Plum didn’t put it quite that way, but she didn’t interrupt.

  ‘So I followed my nose down into that there basement. Sure enough, there was somethin’ dead down there. Didn’t take me much time to narrow it down to that crawl space. I figured I’d find me a dead possum or coon or maybe even somebody’s cat got trapped in there – that happens more times than I like to remember. I hate that. My old lady’s got a cat and it’s a pretty nice little thing.’

  ‘And then, Russ?’

  ‘Well, I ask Miss Plum for a key to the padlock and she told me she ain’t never put a padlock on that door. And if I needed to pry it open to go for it. So, I reckon I did. I used a tire iron from my truck, I started levering it. It didn’t wanna budge. So I found a sledgehammer in the corner and beat on the lock till it broke off. But then, I still couldn’t pull back that hasp so I went to levering it again. Finally, it popped.’

  ‘What did you see when you opened the door, Russ?’

  ‘Damn, that smell almost blinded me at first. Never smelt nothing like it. I figured I was fixin’ to find more than one dead critter down there. I shone my flashlight round the place and spotted somethin’ stickin’ up through the dirt. I brushed that off and it looked like a shoe. I’m thinking, I’m hoping, that someone just left a pair of old shoes down there. So I kept brushing away dirt until I touched skin. I didn’t want to believe it. So I brushed a little more. And I rushed out of there to upchuck in the sink.’ Russ gave a big smile.

  The smile was more than unsettling. ‘You got some pleasure from that discovery, Russ?’

  ‘Pleasure? You crazy? Made me sick. I thought you might be right pleased with me. I watch some of them shows on the tee-vee. I know about contaminatin’ a crime scene. In nothing but a split second, I done realized what a dead body meant. I got out of there without puking out my guts all over the evidence.’

  Lucinda repressed the bubble of laughter that rose in her throat and forced a serious expression on her face. ‘Yes, Russ. That was quick thinking. I am impressed that you reacted the way you did. Not everyone would thin
k twice about contaminating the scene. I appreciate that very much.’ As she very well did: vomit near the body would have been another bone of contention in the courtroom – if they ever found the perpetrator.

  ‘What happened then, Russ?’

  ‘I got up those steps as quick as I could and called 9-1-1. Miss Plum was circlin’ me, askin’ one question after another. But I just talked to the dispatcher. When I told that 9-1-1 guy that I found a dead body in the crawl space, Miss Plum started squawkin’, throwin’ her hands up in the air and pacin’ round the room. She must’ve said, “Dear, sweet Jesus” a hundred time or more ’fore those officers got here.’

  ‘Is there anything else I need to know, Russ?’

  ‘Not from me, ma’am, I don’t rightly think. That’s ’bout all I know. Didn’t know nobody who lived here. Don’t know who them bodies belong to. Don’t know nobody’d do a thing like that – leastways, I sure hope I don’t.’

  ‘Thank you, Russ. You just sit right here. I’ll get the officer to come back over and make arrangements for your written statement, OK? You did very well. Thank you very much.’ Lucinda patted his forearm, rose, spoke to the officers and headed toward the landlady Veronica Plum on the front porch. Odds were whoever had lived in this house had given her a false name, but hopefully she’d have enough additional information to narrow down the field.

  THREE

  With the support of a spiritual advisor on one side and a mental health professional on the other, Lucinda was pleased to see that Veronica Plum was far more composed than she’d been when the detective arrived on the scene. Nonetheless, Veronica did look a bit worse for wear. Lucinda suspected that the up-do at the back of the woman’s head was usually prim and proper with every hair in place. At the moment, strands – even clumps – of brown and gray hair stuck out in every direction as if someone had grabbed her by the bun and spun her around in circles.

  ‘Ms Plum, gentlemen, I’m Lieutenant Lucinda Pierce, and I am the lead investigator in this case. Ms Plum, I know this will be difficult for you, but I need to ask you a few questions about your tenant, your home and your actions that led up to the discovery in your basement.’

  The minister raised up his hands palms out. ‘Lieutenant, I am sorry but—’

  ‘And you are?’ Lucinda interrupted. Coulter had already provided this information but he didn’t know that and she sure didn’t want the pastor to get on enough of a roll to run her over.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ he said, rising to his feet and stretching out his hand. With his tiny wireframe glasses, his boyish facial features and his hair slicked from one side to the other, in a futile attempt to conceal his bald spot, he looked more like a teenaged nerd gone to seed than a stalwart defender of the faith. ‘I’m the Reverend Paul McManus, leader of the flock at the James River Methodist Church.’

  Lucinda was surprised by the warmth and firmness of his handshake. She’d expected something colder, limper – the kind that always made her feel the need to wipe off her hand. ‘I’m sure your presence here is a comfort for Ms Plum.’

  ‘Thank you. I must insist that your questioning wait for another time. Miss Veronica is quite distraught.’

  ‘I’m very sorry, Reverend, but it simply cannot wait. And I’d prefer to speak with Ms Plum alone.’

  ‘That is not possible. Not at this time.’

  Lucinda glanced over at Steve Carroll, the department shrink. He took her cue instantly, reaching for the minister’s elbow. ‘Paul, come along with me. The sooner the lieutenant gets started, the sooner the ordeal will be over.’

  Reverend McManus began to bluster but Steve spoke to him in soothing tones, firmly guiding him across and off the porch. The minister looked back over his shoulder at Veronica Plum as he walked away. The expression on her face gave the impression she thought he was being marched off to an unwinnable war against the forces of evil.

  Veronica turned and looked up at Lucinda, her eyes growing wide. ‘That stuff on your face, whatever happened to you?’

  Lucinda grimaced. That stuff on her face was the remaining scars of her injury, the ones that Dr Burns had not yet repaired. Sometimes now she almost forgot about it; the appearance of that side of her face had been drastically improved by earlier surgeries. Then, another insensitive clod would point it out to her again. ‘We need to talk about what we found in your house today, Ms Plum.’

  ‘I might own this house, but I have not lived in it since I went off to college. It used to be my parents’ home before they passed – and that was quite a while ago. I know they didn’t do this. I know it.’

  ‘Relax, Ms Plum, we realize that it’s been a dozen years since you assumed the title for this home. I imagine that’s when you lost your last parent. We are interested in your renters. Who has lived here since you acquired the property?’

  ‘My momma died twelve years ago. She lived only five years after Daddy was gone. And I swear, she cried every single day. But she kept this house immaculate – at all times – she would have never tolerated that smell.’

  ‘Ma’am. Once again. I do not suspect your parents had anything to do with what we found in the house.’

  ‘I should hope not. They were a fine Christian couple. Went to church every Sunday – and any other day the doors were open for Bible study or prayer. They never harmed a soul in their whole lives.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am. I have no doubt about that but I need to know who has lived in the home since they’ve been gone. Can you please give me that information?’

  Veronica gave Lucinda a wary look as if she feared it was all a trap. ‘I can’t say I remember all the names. I’d have to look in my papers. In the beginning, I had a lot of turnover. Most stayed a year; a couple of them broke their leases, just leaving without letting me know. That is so rude and inconsiderate. I try to be a good landlady. I try not to get into their business. And instead of gratitude, they sneak out in the night without letting me know. I thought about selling this house and getting away from all the aggravation. And now . . . and now . . .’ Veronica put her face in her hands and her shoulders heaved as if she were sobbing.

  Lucinda wasn’t sure how much of Veronica’s evasiveness and emotions were real and how much were merely the phoney, helpless, Southern woman façade; but she knew bullying would get her nowhere. She sat down next to Veronica and put an arm around her shoulders.

  Veronica shuddered and lifted her head, dabbing at the corner of dry eyes with a tissue. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what I can. My first tenants – I can’t remember their last name or the husband’s name and certainly none of the children – there were six of them, or maybe seven. Not one over eight years old. Can you imagine raising that many in this little house?’

  Lucinda shook her head and hoped her silence would spur Veronica to continue.

  ‘Well, now I remember her, Betty Ann was her name and she was the most mealy-mouthed woman I ever met. She came to tell me they wouldn’t be renewing their lease. Her husband lost his job and they didn’t have any money for the next month’s rent – last one on the lease. I know it wasn’t good business, but I felt sorry for the woman and I told her they could stay until her husband found another job. But she said that he wouldn’t accept any charity. They were moving back to Alabama to live with his parents until they got back on their feet. Now, I thought that was charity in a way, too. But I knew she could never stand up to that man so I let it go. She promised me that they would pay that last month’s rent as soon as they could. I told her not to worry but she insisted that they would just as soon as they had it. She said her husband didn’t want “to be beholden to anyone”. And they paid the rent – it was nearly a year later but I got a money order for the full amount. Quite frankly, I wished they’d just kept it and bought some shoes for those kids – they were barefoot half the time. But, you can’t force—’

  ‘Ms Plum. Ms Plum,’ Lucinda interrupted. ‘Who moved in after Betty Ann and her family left?’

  ‘Worthless couple. I almost g
ot in trouble on their account, too. They were cooking methamphetamine in the back tool shed. When the police came to arrest them, they were gone. Two months behind on the rent and gone. The shed’s not back there any longer. Too contaminated with the fumes. I had it torn down and hauled away. After that, it was some college boys. They signed a full year’s lease late August but just moved out when school was over in May without a word. I don’t know what’s become of young people these days. You know they were raised right and yet—’

  ‘Who was after that, Ms Plum?’

  ‘That sweet, little Minnie Culver. She was eighty-four years old and still as bright as a cardinal in the tree. I was coming by to get her to sign a new lease for another year and I found her, sleeping in her bed. But she wasn’t asleep, she was gone. Broke my heart. I can still see her gray hair spread out on that pillow . . .’

  ‘And then, Ms Plum?’

  ‘Then was my biggest mistake. He seemed like such a nice young man. It was nine months before I realized what was really going on in my house. His room-mate was really his boyfriend. Now, I knew there were laws against kicking them out because of their sexual preferences but I sure wasn’t going to renew their lease. I was still teaching then – what would happen if the PTA president found out I was renting to homosexuals? I simply shudder to think . . .’

  Lucinda sighed. ‘Who was your next tenant, ma’am?’

  Veronica smiled. ‘That’s when I got lucky. Brad Loving was the next one to sign the lease. He renewed year after year.’ Veronica’s face darkened and creases formed around her mouth as she frowned. ‘Well, I thought I got lucky until today. He always paid his rent on time – early more often than not. If anything went wrong in the house, he didn’t call me, he just fixed it. He’d tell me about it when the work was done. I told him to deduct the costs of the repairs out of his rent. He’d send me all the receipts and deducted the cost of supplies from his payment, but never once charged for the work itself. I thought he was the perfect tenant and now . . .’