ONE

Those Fucking Eyes

Four months later…

She came. I knew she couldn’t stay away. My first kill hadn’t given me results. My beautiful Jennifer hadn’t come. So I adjusted, and now she was here. I knew the pull of the story would bring her. It’s why I’d killed. It’s why I dumped the body off this road she traveled from the mountains. She’d see and then she’d come. She wanted to investigate, write stories that mattered. It was her dream. With her husband dead and her daughter gone, she was rebuilding her life, starting over. My brave, beautiful girl. I’d make that happen for her. I’d kill to make her dream come true. I’ll prove my love, and then she’ll know we belong together.

“Sheriff?”

Looking up at my Deputy as he ducked under the crime tape, I wondered, not for the first time, why in the hell he’d become a cop. He didn’t have the stomach for the job; evidence to this was now on the top of his boots. He’d taken one look at the bloated body of an unknown white female and made it three feet before he lost his breakfast. Dead bodies are part of this job—the ugly part—but after five years on the force, you’d have thought he would have adjusted. Barry looked almost scared to come closer. So out of deference to his granddaddy, the former Sheriff of Gunnison County, I moved towards him.

“Barry, you got something for me?”

“Sheriff, that new reporter from the Gunnison Times is here. She was driving past and saw the squad cars and coroner. She wants to know what’s what. Do you want me to send her away or give a statement?”

Christ, that’s all I need. The second body in two months, and if the press got a hold of this, I’d lose control of the situation fast. Glancing over Barry’s shoulder at the leggy brunette, something told me to talk to her myself.

“I got this, Barry.” Moving towards her, I couldn’t stop my eyes from taking her in: long brown hair with those reddish highlights women liked, coffee-brown eyes that made you think of a baby doe, and full pouty lips that begged to be kissed. Looking at her left hand for indication of marital status, I noted no ring. Too bad she’s a damn reporter; I hadn’t met one I liked yet, no matter what the package.

“Ma’am.”

“Sheriff, I’m Jennifer Stewart with the Gunnison Times. I was driving past and caught sight of the Coroner. I’m assuming you’ve found another body?”

“Ms. Stewart, I’m not at liberty to discuss what’s happening here.”

“I’m aware of that, Sheriff, but since I’ve come across this scene, you must know I’ll be phoning this to my editor, and you can either give me something or I’ll have to draw my own conclusions. This is the second body you’ve found recently, correct?”

“Again, Ma’am, I’m not at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation. But I will say this: if you print that we have a second body, when you have no idea what we have, I’ll be phoning your editor and advising him of staff reporters who don’t substantiate facts before going to print.”

Narrowing her eyes over my shoulder, she smiled and then shrugged her shoulders.

“Guess it’s a good thing your Deputy already told me you have an unknown white female that seems to have been strangled just like the last victim you found two months ago.”

“No comment, and Ms. Stewart…” I paused before lowering my head, getting right in her face. Then I warned, “Don’t try to play hardball with me. I don’t easily fall for the charms of pouty lips and big, brown eyes. Stay away from my crime scene and wait for a press release like the rest of the scavengers.” I heard her draw in a breath as I turned and walked back to the victim.

“Barry,” I barked as I made my way around the Coroner’s van, my Deputy’s eyes on me as I approached. “When I tell you to not talk to the press, I fucking mean it,” I hissed.

“Christ, Jack, she had me talking before I knew what hit me. Those fucking eyes of hers—”

“I don’t want to hear about her eyes, her tits, or her ass. Think with your head, not with your dick.”

“Gotcha, Jack.”

I stormed towards the coroner’s van and tried to shake off my encounter with Gunnison’s newest reporter. I wanted to kick myself for reacting to her. Jesus, those tits in that tight t-shirt and the smell of honeysuckle and sunshine coming from her hair had my balls drawn up tight. The more she talked, the more I wanted to grab her face and kiss those fucking lips until she couldn’t talk.

“Give me something to work with, Drew.” Drew Young, the county’s coroner and an old friend, was bending over the body examining her neck. At forty-two, Drew was still in great shape. His hair had a touch of gray around the temples; his body was fit from years of mountain climbing and kayaking. Divorced with two kids he saw every other weekend, he screwed anything with two legs because he’s still looking for the right one.

I’d stopped looking, resigned to the fact there wasn’t the perfect woman out there for me. I’d never been married, never met a woman who didn’t try to change me. I was a lawman like my father and his father before him. It started with my grandfather, a distant relative to the namesake of our county, a name all my family had been proud to wear. But years turned into twenty, and at the age of forty, I figured my time to settle down and have a family had passed. My Dad passed away five years ago: heart attack struck him just three months after retiring. My mother always said the job would kill him, although I don’t think she meant all the years eating greasy food and sitting behind a desk. Dad had been the sheriff for Ouray County for twenty-two years. Barry’s grandfather, the former sheriff of Gunnison County before he retired, and I took over, had been a friend of my dad’s on the Gunnison force. When Dad was ready to run for Sheriff, he wouldn’t run against the then sitting Sheriff, who was also his friend, so he moved to Ouray County after I graduated high school and ran for Sheriff there instead.

“Cause of death: strangulation, just like the last victim,” Drew answered, pulling me out of my thoughts.

“Jesus, Drew, I could see that for myself. Tell me you got something I didn’t see.”

“Lividity tells me the body was dumped, Jack, so she was killed somewhere else. There are liver marks on her back, in some type of pattern, and my guess is she’s been dead four days; age is hard to tell due to the bloating, but my guess is 35-40.”

“Get her over to the morgue and get to work. Find me something I can pin on this bastard.”

Drew nodded and then went to work covering the victim’s hands with plastic bags to preserve them during the transport. Anything she may have touched or scratched right before she died could be under those nails, and we couldn’t afford to lose a single piece of evidence. Looking down at this stranger with long brown hair, I prayed I could find out where she came from and who killed her. Somewhere out there was a family that’s going to need closure, just like the last female we found.

“Christ, I got a bad feeling about this, Drew.” He never looked up from his work, just nodded in agreement.

“Both have brown hair, brown eyes, and the ages are the same. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Drew added.

“Fuck, yeah. I do not need this in my county, Drew. Folks come here to have a vacation, not to get strangled.”

Drew stood and motioned for his tech to load the body onto the gurney and then turned to me, his eyes drifting behind me, and then they grew bigger.

“Jesus, who’s the sex on a stick?”

I looked over my shoulder and saw Ms. Stewart was still standing behind the yellow tape, talking on her phone while writing in a notebook. For some reason, my hackles went up at Drew’s attention.

“Get your head in the game and out of her pants.”

“Whoa, sorry big guy, didn’t mean to step in your territory.”

“Christ, she’s not my fucking territory, just keep your head in your pants. She’s a fucking vulture from the Gunnison Times.”

I watched as he glanced one more time in Ms. Stewart’s direction; then Drew slapped my back and made his way over to his van. Turning to Barry, who had his back to the crime scene and his eyes on the reporter, I sighed, walked over to my truck and then looked back at Barry.

“Keep this scene secured till the mobile lab can get here and sweep for evidence. And don’t fucking talk to anyone from the press, do you hear me?

Barry gave me a chin lift; then I climbed in my truck. As I pulled out, I looked in the rear-view mirror, and watched as Ms. Stewart approached Barry. He put his hands up and shook his head, indicating no comment. Thank fuck for that.

***

“Come on, Bob, give me a chance.” I was begging on the phone when Sheriff Gunnison headed to his truck. I lost track of my thoughts watching those massive thighs carry his large muscled body; I’d never had a reaction like this to a man... Before he came over to talk with me, I’d watched him interacting with Barry. Barry was a decent-looking man nearly eight years younger than me. He was taller than my 5’ 5”, but not by much; he was built lanky, like a runner, with mousy blond hair and green eyes, and I’d met him when I first moved here four months ago. We’d had coffee once, and I think he wanted more, but the attraction wasn’t there for me.

I didn’t know when I’d be ready to date again, and was thinking celibacy was looking good when that damned man looked up at me, and my breath stilled. Well over six feet tall, with dark brown hair, crystal blue eyes, and a rugged jaw with a two-day growth. And that broad chest and those muscled arms. They made me weak in the knees. As he’d walked to me, I kept telling myself, “Be professional, you can do this.” So when he opened his mouth and said ‘Ma’am,” I launched right into what I thought was a professional sounding introduction. The more he spoke in that rough voice of his, the more determined I was. But the harder I tried, the madder he got. “I don’t easily fall for the charms of pouty lips and big, brown eyes.” Remembering those words as he walked to his truck, I was pulled from my daydreaming as a voice on the phone talked back to me.

“Jennifer, I didn’t hire you to cover crime. Finish up there and get to the paper. We have to go over this month’s event calendar.”

“But, Bob, I’m already here. I promise I won’t let this interfere with my other obligations.”

“Jennifer, I’m not having a female reporter for craft fairs running around after a killer. I’ll put one of the men on this story when it breaks. Now get moving and I’ll see you in thirty minutes.”

“Dammit.” I threw my phone in my bag as the sheriff drove away. I watched him for a second, and then, making a decision, I approached Barry. He put his hands up in a gesture of “don’t come any closer,” and shook his head no, but he spoke the opposite:

“Just keep your distance till the sheriff is out of sight. I don’t want another ass-chewing.”

“I’m so sorry, Barry, I wasn’t thinking when I told him what you’d said.”

“It’s ok, Jennifer, his bark is worse than his bite. But if I tell you anything else and he finds out—”

“I swear I won’t say another thing, and I really appreciate your help. I have to head back down now; I’ll catch you later, ok?”

“Later, Jennifer. Maybe we can grab coffee again sometime.”

“If I can free up some time, Barry. Thanks again.”

I headed to my jeep and tried not to think about why Barry was willing to help me. My intuition said Barry was interested in me, and that made me feel like dirt. I didn’t want to lead him on; he was just a friend. Surely he knew that friends do things for friends, right?

Nibbling on my lip as I headed down the mountains of Crested Butte to the town of Gunnison, my thoughts kept drifting back to those angry, blue eyes and chiseled jaw.

“He thinks I have pouty lips.”

I rolled my eyes and trained my thoughts back on the matter at hand. There’s a killer on the loose, and if this last victim was strangled just like the first one, that could only mean one thing: a serial killer. The thought of being on the ground floor of a story like this got my heart pumping. Four months of covering arts festivals and balloon races were starting to bore me. If I investigated this story on the side, I could prove to my editor I was worth taking a chance on and maybe he’d move me from puff pieces into the meatier stories. This was every journalism student’s dream when they entered college: hardcore, knuckle-cracking pieces.

Looking ahead for my exit into Gunnison, I saw the flashing lights of the sheriff’s truck on the side of the road. As I drove past, he was exiting his vehicle that was pulled behind an abandoned car, and it occurred to me if I did investigate this killer, I might just run into the sheriff again. Damn, that might not be a good thing. Something told me he wouldn’t take kindly to a “scavenger” nosing around in his business. Somehow I’d pissed him off and put a huge bulls-eye on my head. So I decided I’d keep my investigation to myself lest I ruffle the sheriff’s feathers even more. “Well, Jennifer, you wanted to be an investigative reporter. Time to prove you can do it: it’s put up or shut up time.”

I took my exit into Gunnison and headed for the paper, deciding there was no time like the present. Taking the turn onto Main Street, I pulled into the parking lot near the Times building and grabbed my stuff. I jumped out and headed for the door that would take me to my desk so I could start my research on this killer. Forget the sheriff, forget your boss, do this for you. Prove you’ve got what it takes. Pep talk in place, I fired up my computer and got down to the business of serial killers.