A Waffle Death, page 6
It was familiar from the satellite pictures but a little larger than Erin had thought. Some walking paths where people could go to enjoy nature, much like the paths through Erin’s own woods.
She looked around. There was no one waiting there for her. She had known there would not be. But she’d needed to reassure herself. Nothing but trees, with the songs of birds that seemed far away and cheerful, as if it were a perfectly normal day. She walked around the small clearing. There was a large sandstone rock with the words Canyon Park chiseled into it. There was a single bench for someone who wanted to take a break to sit down.
She sat. She looked around at the trees and the blue sky and the brilliant green grass. It was all so beautiful. So peaceful. So quiet. Like nothing bad could ever happen there.
She heard a rustling in the trees. She turned her head watched a deer walk into the clearing.
It looked at her with liquid brown eyes for a long moment, then it turned and disappeared in a flash, back into the shadows of the trees. Erin let out her breath.
She knew she couldn’t stay there forever. It was only a matter of time before someone would be looking for her. Terry would call her, or someone from the bakery, or someone who hadn’t been able to make it to the bakery and still wanted to ask her about the body in the basement of the bookstore.
Erin stood with a sigh.
Approaching the rock from the other side, she could see a shoe lying beside it. Who would leave a shoe in the park? It wasn’t a hiking or walking shoe. Maybe someone had changed before they went for a walk.
And had just left it lying there?
Then she realized it looked familiar. She’d seen that shoe before. A shiny black shoe like she had seen in the basement of The Book Nook.
Her stomach knotted tightly, Erin got closer and pushed back the bushes that obscured the rest of the shape behind the big rock.
A startled noise escaped her mouth. Not quite a scream, but a little yelp that she couldn’t stifle.
The face was obscured by the bushes, but she knew who it was.
She reached for her phone with nerveless fingers and pulled it out, searching for the buttons she knew so well. The phone felt hard and cold in her hands instead of responsive, every tap taking several tries before she managed to get it to do what she wanted. She was afraid that it would be just like before—that she wouldn’t be able to get a signal, wouldn’t be able to reach out for help and would have to go somewhere else to place the call.
And then what would happen? Would it still be there when the police arrived? She knew it was irrational, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of the form lying in the shadows of the brush and the rock. If she looked away, it could disappear. Just like before.
She finally managed to tap Terry’s name enough times that the call started to go through. Then was canceled because she’d also managed to hit the hang-up icon. Erin swore under her breath, tried to hold the phone steady, and tried again.
“Erin?” Terry’s voice finally sounded in her ear. “Everything okay?”
Erin stifled a sob. She took a deep breath, let it out, and tried to sound as calm and collected as possible. “Well… I’m okay.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m at Canyon Park. Do you know where that is?”
“What are you doing at Canyon Park?”
“I… went for a walk.”
He didn’t answer, probably considering the fact that he’d never known her to go walking to random parks before. She usually stayed in the woods behind her property when she went for a walk. Or walked between Auntie Clem’s and the house.
“Terry, I found him.”
“You found who?”
“The… man who was in the basement. At The Book Nook.”
“You found him. Does that mean he is alive?” Terry’s voice was cautious, not accusatory, but he must have thought she was crazy. Either she thought that a live man had been dead, or that a dead man was wandering around the neighborhood.
“No… he was dead. I mean, he was dead when I found him in the bookstore, and he’s dead now, but he’s here. In Canyon Park.”
“How did you—” he started to interrogate her, then broke off. “No, never mind. I’m going to hang up and call the dispatcher. You’ll stay there?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll be five minutes. Don’t…”
“Don’t take my eyes off of the body?”
“Well…” In her mind’s eye she could see his helpless shrug. “Yeah. One of us will be there in a few minutes. I don’t know who is closest.”
“Okay.” Erin hung up so he wouldn’t feel guilty about disconnecting her when she might be distressed.
She stood there, staring down at the body, not taking her eyes off of it despite her instinct to look away. She didn’t want this moment impressed on her memory. But like Terry, she also couldn’t dismiss the fear that it would be gone by the time he arrived.
A siren sounded in the distance. She hoped that Terry would be the first to arrive, but, of course, it didn’t matter. All of the Bald Eagle Falls police department would be on their way, whether they were on shift or not. They would all be there within a few minutes.
As the siren drew closer, she could also hear a truck engine. The truck that sped into sight was Terry’s. She sighed in relief and looked back down at the body, realizing in an instant that she had looked away from it. But it was still there.
Terry jumped out of the car and hurried over to her, K9 running at his side. He got in close where he could see the body and seemed to relax. He put a warm hand on Erin’s back, which felt incredibly comforting.
“Are you sure it is the same body?” he asked, studying it closely from top to toe. The hilt of the knife still stuck out of the chest and looked like Erin had described it. The shoes she had recognized from The Book Nook were on his feet. Or at least, one of them was. She didn’t see the other nearby, but she wasn’t about to start poking around the bushes or under the body to find it. Some things she didn’t mind leaving with the police.
“Yes. It’s the same one.”
“Good. Always nice to find what you have misplaced.”
Erin knew he was trying to be lighthearted and distract her from the gravity of the situation, but it didn’t seem funny to her.
“You don’t have to keep looking at him,” Terry said. “If you want to sit down for a while until one of us can interview you…”
Erin sighed and walked back over to the park bench and sat down. Her sweat-damp clothes stuck to her. She didn’t want to sit and wait to be interrogated again. She wanted to go home and pretend that nothing had happened.
Why had she insisted on coming to the park? She had known that she shouldn’t, and she had anyway.
CHAPTER 11
Erin felt Terry’s gaze on her, and she glanced at him. However, he didn’t say anything to her. He, the sheriff, and Stayner cordoned off the area and started the initial processing of the scene. When someone came to sit on the bench and talk to her, it wasn’t Terry, but Sheriff Wilmot.
“Miss Price. How are you doing?”
“I’m hot and sticky and want to go home.”
He took the opportunity to remove his hat, wipe his sweaty brow, and put the hat back on again. “It is a warm one,” he admitted.
“When can I go? You can come to the house to talk to me.”
“Soon. We’ll cover the preliminaries here before we let you go anywhere so that everything is still fresh in your mind and you haven’t had a chance to be influenced by anything else.”
“There isn’t really anything to tell. I just came here, out for a walk, and I saw the shoe…” She pointed to the shoe of the corpse, which extended just beyond the big rock. “I went over for a closer look and saw him there.”
“Did you touch the body?”
“Why would I?” Erin shuddered. “No.”
“Maybe to turn it to get a better look at his face. Or to make sure that he was dead.”
“I already saw his face when he was in the basement of the bookstore, and I already checked to make sure he was dead then. I didn’t need to check again today.”
“You were sure it was the same man.”
“Yes. I was sure. I could see him. Same clothes, same knife. Same body.”
“You didn’t need to see his face.”
“No.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to take a look so that you can confirm one hundred percent that this is the same man as you found in The Book Nook? There isn’t anyone else who can confirm it is the same body. You were the only one who saw him.”
“And whoever took him away.”
“Well, I suppose so, but whoever that is, they aren’t going to tell us anything. They didn’t want anything to do with the police in the first place, so why would they now? If they were inclined to go to the police, they would have done it in the first place, like you did, not take the body away.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what they intended to hide, moving him from there to here. Exactly what does moving him accomplish?”
Erin shook her head. Nothing that she could see. Other than to make everyone think she was going crazy. If they were going to leave him somewhere that he would be discovered anyway, why do such a thing? If it had been Erin, she would have dumped him down a mine shaft or left him somewhere deep in the woods where no one would ever find him. It was ridiculous to remove him from the bookstore just to dump him in a public, easily accessible park where anyone could see him and he would be found within hours or days, depending on how much foot traffic went through the park.
Wilmot grunted. “I don’t know either. But not all killers are very bright. It isn’t like on TV, where they are all criminal masterminds. Actual criminals tend to be pretty stupid. They have poor impulse control and never think they will get caught. But of course they do.”
“You’ll figure out who killed… whoever this is.”
Wilmot looked at Erin sidelong. “Do you know who he is?”
“Not anyone I’ve ever seen in Bald Eagle Falls before.”
He grunted again. “Me either. Out-of-towner. Someone looking for trouble.”
“Didn’t he… have a wallet? Identification?”
“No. No wallet, no phone, nothing to identify him. We’ll have to check missing person reports to see if we can figure out who he is. Maybe he’ll have a criminal record and his fingerprints will pop something.”
Erin stared off into the trees. “Maybe.”
And when they did manage to identify him… what then? “Do you think that who he is has something to do with why he was killed?”
“What do you mean?” Deep wrinkles formed between Wilmot’s eyes.
“I mean… do you think it was just random, like any victim would do? Or do you think that he was targeted because of what he did or who he was?”
“Oh… well, that’s a good question. I’m not sure I can answer it.” Wilmot considered the question for a minute. “He has no wallet, so it could have just been theft, a mugging. Except for the fact that he was found in the basement of the bookstore. Not out on the street or in an alley, where it might conceivably be a mugging. He was in the basement, and no one knows why; what he was doing down there, who let him in, or why his body was removed. That says something about it being personal. Someone knew he was going to be there and intentionally followed or met him. It couldn’t just be some random person who happened to wander by.”
Erin nodded slowly. Who could have known the out-of-towner? Had he come to case out The Book Nook, thinking they had something valuable on-site? Who had known that he was coming or why he had shown up?
It was disturbing. There were too many questions.
“Then whoever killed him had some kind of connection with him.”
“Yes, that’s what I’m thinking. And as soon as we can identify him, hopefully we will be able to identify who the connection was. Through phone or text records, an email trail, something from his past. When we find out the connection, we’ll know the why and the who. It will just be a matter of getting enough evidence to prove it.”
Erin rubbed her forehead. She swallowed, but her mouth and throat were so dry. “Do you have any water? I sweated so much on the way over. I think I’m getting dehydrated.”
“I surely do.” Wilmot smiled at her. “Be back in a tick.”
Erin watched him walk over to his car. She took a quick look at Terry, but he was occupied with whatever evidence he was cataloging. He didn’t give her another of those looks.
Wilmot opened his trunk and pulled out a bottle of water. He brought it back to Erin, cracking the top open on his way.
“It ain’t cold,” he warned, “but it’s wet.”
The water was lukewarm and tasted flat and stale from sitting in the warm trunk of Wilmot’s car, but Erin didn’t complain. It felt good going down. She swished a mouthful around and swallowed again. She poured a small amount into the hollow of her hand and then wiped it over her face and neck to cool down a bit. She should have known to bring a water bottle when going for a walk in the Tennessee summer heat.
“What possessed you to venture out for a walk in the middle of the afternoon in this heat?” Wilmot asked, his mind obviously following the same track.
Erin took a deep breath. “I just… needed to get out and clear my head. I was thinking a lot about finding the body in the bookstore, you know… I needed some exercise and fresh air.”
He looked around, thinking. “Do you come here often? It’s sort of off the beaten path.”
“No. Someone mentioned it the other day and I thought I would check it out. Give myself something to do.”
“Uh-huh. Who was it that mentioned it?”
“Umm… I don’t know. Someone at the bakery, I guess. I don’t remember what we were talking about. But I hadn’t been here before, so today, when I was looking for something to do to keep my mind occupied, I thought why not check it out?”
He nodded slowly. Erin shifted. “Is that everything? Can I head back home now?”
“I suppose so. You should probably get a ride, if you’re already dehydrated. No point in trying for heatstroke.”
“I guess.” She looked at Terry’s truck. Was Wilmot suggesting that Terry could take her home, or was he expecting her to call someone to be picked up?
“Maybe Miss Victoria could pick you up?” Wilmot suggested.
“Well… I could try Willie.” Erin knew Vic did not have a driver’s license, although she sometimes borrowed a vehicle to get where she needed to go. It was probably best not to let Terry see her driving. Just because he had overlooked it once before, that didn’t mean he’d give her a break again. And even though the sheriff had been the one to suggest it, he might remember later on that Vic didn’t have a driver’s license and decide to give her a ticket.
Wilmot nodded. “See if you can get someone. I know it isn’t far, but I’d feel better knowing you weren’t trying to make the hike back when you’re already feeling poorly.”
“Okay.”
Wilmot stood up and went back to the other law enforcement officers to help with the investigation. Erin toyed with her phone for a moment and then tried Vic’s number. It rang a number of times, which told Erin that she was probably serving a customer. She had tried to train her employees not to answer phone calls when they were on shift, but particularly not when actually in the middle of serving a customer.
“Hello, boss,” Vic answered eventually, sounding slightly breathless. “What do you need?”
“I just wondered what Willie is doing today. I need a short ride, and if he’s in town…?”
“You need a ride?” Vic sounded confused. “Did your car break down?”
“No. I went out for a walk, but I went too far and I’m tired and overheated. I was hoping I could get a ride back home from somebody.”
“Well… you’d better take Willie off your list. I think he’s out of town today. Sorry.”
“It’s okay. He’s the first one I tried. I’m sure someone else will be able to help out.”
“Do you want me to leave Charley to mind the store and I’ll come and get you?”
“No, you’d better stay there,” Erin said immediately. Charley, her long-lost biological sister, was older than Vic, but Vic was more dependable. Erin wasn’t comfortable leaving Charley without some kind of supervision. Vic might only be nineteen, but she was more responsible than many thirty-year-olds. “I’ll call around to see if anyone else is available. Or I’ll walk. It’s not really that bad; I‘ve had a rest and a drink.”
“Don’t do anything stupid. You didn’t grow up around here, and heatstroke is a real thing. You don’t want to end up dead in the middle of the woods.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Call me back if you can’t find anyone else. Where are you?”
“Canyon Park.”
“Where is that?”
“Just a little park a couple of miles from home.” Erin was going to describe it as peaceful or undisturbed or something else to indicate that it was isolated and not a busy place but, looking around at the busy cops, she decided that peaceful was not the word.
“Okay. I’ll look it up. Just promise me you won’t walk home alone.”
“I won’t.”
“Good. Text me when you get back home, because I’m going to be worrying about you now.”
That had not been Erin’s intention. She looked through the other names on her favorites list. Most people worked or had other commitments during the day. She didn’t like disturbing anyone.
Beaver? Adele? Adele might be asleep. Rohilda Beaven worked, but she wasn’t on a nine-to-five schedule like an office worker. She was an agent for a federal agency, and Erin thought she had a lot of control over the hours she worked. Depending on what she was investigating at the time, of course.
Beaver might be a good choice. She was a down-to-earth, savvy woman who wouldn’t mince words and could give Erin advice on what she should do, stuck in the middle of this investigation.
