FIVE
WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 8
Sheriff Jackson Archer studied what appeared to be the scene of a suicide, holding on to professional detachment as best he could. He was a good cop and a popular sheriff. And though he had spent a few years with the Charlotte police in order to acquire the sort of experience a small, ordinarily peaceful mountain town rarely offered and even more rarely needed, the truth was that Prosperity had been exceptionally peaceful since he’d taken office, and he suspected he’d gotten used to that.
So professional detachment was difficult.
Not that any cop could with complete detachment view a scene in which a man had blown most of his head off.
“Why a shotgun?” his chief deputy Katie Cole asked, her own detachment having long since departed; her voice shook more than a little, and her face was paper-white. That shock looked odd on her, unfamiliar, at least to Archer, because he’d really never seen her anything but calm, professional, and both courteous and pleasant enough to hide the steel inside her from all but those who knew her well.
He had taken some flak for hiring an “outsider” to be his chief deputy rather than promoting from within, but Katie had a background in law enforcement, and both her friendly, easy manner and her solid training—sharpshooter proficiency on the shooting range and skilled physical workouts in the gym that had pushed other, larger deputies to their limits—had mostly quieted the early rumblings in his department. Plus, experience in working with her day to day had convinced even the most jealous of her hiring and rank that she was indeed the best qualified for the job of chief deputy.
Though those same people might have been forgiven for revising their impressions now.
Because right now, her pale face caused her dark blond hair, worn in a casual ponytail that made her look far younger than thirty-two, appear even darker, and her normally sharp hazel eyes were dark and disturbed. She looked a little shocked, a little frightened, and more than a little unsure of what to do next.
He didn’t blame her for that. Any of that.
“Why a shotgun?” she repeated when the silence had lengthened.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Archer responded grimly.
From her position several feet farther from the body than the sheriff’s, Katie said with a stab at professionalism if not detachment, “I can see with those long arms of his he could easily reach the trigger even with the end of the barrel up under his chin like that, and it’s obvious he did from his position, but why use a shotgun when he owns several other guns?”
“Guess he wanted to make sure he got the job done.”
Katie eyed her superior, in part because it was a far less stomach-churning view than that of the victim. He was thirty-eight, tall, rugged in a way that made him look more like the sheriff of an Old West town than a twenty-first-century small mountain town. (She had caught herself more than once expecting to hear the metallic jingling of spurs.) He had dark brown hair with a bit of silver mixed in, level gray eyes, and an almost-always calm voice that could turn persuasive—or hard as nails—depending on what the situation called for. He had one broken marriage behind him, a not uncommon curse of law enforcement work, but he didn’t talk about that and Katie hadn’t asked.
He was a good cop, a good boss, and a man the people of Prosperity and the sprinkling of other, smaller towns in Foxx County respected a great deal. The sort of man people would turn to in a crisis.
Katie just hoped that would be the case now. That the citizens of Prosperity would see in him a steadying hand even when things got bad, very bad, as she knew they would during what she could feel was coming. What had already started. And she very much hoped Jackson Archer could at least accept the existence of something he would quite probably never understand.
Otherwise, what was going to destroy so much would destroy him as well.
Dragging her thoughts back to the here and now, she said, “He chose to blow most of his head off on an otherwise normal Wednesday morning with his wife upstairs fixing breakfast and the kids still getting ready for school?” She shook her head. “I know he keeps all his guns down here in that gun safe, but would a father of three blow his brains out in the basement with his kids in the house?”
Archer drew a breath and let it out in a rough sigh, not impatient with his deputy, but clearly baffled himself. “It seems clear he did; since he kept his other arm across the gun it barely moved when he let go with both barrels. His finger’s still stuck in the trigger guard, and it’s the right finger on the right hand—that is to say the correct hand, his left. He is—was—a southpaw.”
The victim of what appeared to be suicide, Sam Bowers, thirty-three, was seated on an old couch in the basement that was the only real piece of furniture in a space filled with plastic storage bins on homemade wooden shelving and one fairly large obviously homemade table beside the washer and dryer, presumably used for folding clothing when it came out of the dryer. The couch had been pushed up against one of the cinder-block walls, and the area behind what had been Bowers’s head was now splashed with blood and bits of skull and brain matter.
A lot of blood and a lot of brain matter.
It was a gruesome sight. It was the sight Stacey Bowers had found when she had come halfway down the basement steps to see what she’d expected to be a repentant husband one of whose guns had unaccountably gone off at seven in the morning.
One of those people who handled emergencies with calm and then fell apart afterward, she had managed not to scream, hurried back up the stairs and closed and locked the basement door, called a neighbor to take the kids so they’d be out of the house, and then after hustling them on their way, called 911. She had still been calm enough when the sheriff and his deputies arrived to tell them where the body of her husband was and why he’d gone downstairs. Or, at least, why she’d believed he’d gone downstairs. White as a sheet and with a steady voice that had finally begun to break by the time she finished telling them what she had to.
After that she had fallen apart, literally dropping to the floor with an agonized moan, and was now upstairs in the living room still sobbing, her shock and grief deep and genuine, with a sympathetic but otherwise helpless female deputy with her and the family doctor on his way.
Her thoughts clearly running along the same lines, Katie said, “Stacey won’t be able to tell us anything, assuming she even can, for a while. I’m betting her family doctor will want to sedate her.”
“Yeah, probably. Did you call her sister?”
Katie nodded. “Should be here in about half an hour. She was already at work, so coming from downtown out here. She said she’d take Stacey and the kids to her house, that they’d stay with her as long as they needed to.”
“How did she react to Sam’s death?” Archer knew Heather Davidson, who worked at the courthouse, and he knew she was neither easily shaken nor a fool. And the sisters were close.
“Shocked. Genuinely shocked. Said there was no way it was suicide and sounded absolutely positive about it.”
Archer’s frown deepened. “No note. Not down here, not in their bedroom, not in his briefcase. He’s dressed for work at the bank as usual. According to his wife, he just came down here while she was busy with breakfast to get a few things out of that chest freezer over there and carry them upstairs for tonight’s supper. Just . . . a routine morning, a common chore.”
Until it had turned into something horrible.
JIM LONNAGAN EXAMINED the shotgun carefully, then the revolver, handling both with expert hands. Then the rifle, which looked a lot like the two his father had left him. All his attention was focused on what he was doing, but he became vaguely aware that the gun store’s owner, John Robbins, was speaking briskly.
“No problem with the background check, of course. But there wouldn’t be, you being a cop and all. But I thought you didn’t approve of guns in the house, Jim? I mean, I know your service weapon has to be there, but in a gun safe when you’re off duty, so any kids in the house can’t get to it.”
Calmly, Lonnagan said, “Don’t worry, these’ll be under lock and key as well. I’ve ordered a nice display case for the . . . man cave half of the basement.” He laughed a little.
Robbins laughed as well. “She let you have half, then? Well, at least you aren’t out in the garage. That’s the only man cave my wife lets me have.”
Lonnagan smiled at him. “I’ve fixed it up nice. Big couch, TV, pool table. I’ll store my golf clubs down there. And these guns. The cabinet has a good lock, I made sure of that.”
“I imagine you did.” Robbins finished ringing up the sale, adding in the boxes of ammo Lonnagan had requested—and a thick pack of paper targets that could be pinned up on hay bales or stuffed dummies, or just at the firing range in the basement of the sheriff’s department. Robbins assumed one or more of those places would suit Jim Lonnagan.
“There you go.” He handed over change and watched Lonnagan stuff it into the front pocket of his jeans carelessly before zipping the shotgun and rifle into a single carrying case and the revolver into its holster. The ammo was bagged up for him, and he picked up everything before reaching over to shake Robbins’s hand.
“Thanks, John. See you around.”
“You too, Jim.” He watched the other man leave, and it wasn’t until then that he realized he was wiping his hand down his jean-clad thigh over and over unconsciously.
He frowned, then shrugged. Everybody has cold, clammy hands sometimes. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.
“A CONSIDERATE HUSBAND,” Katie said rather mournfully about the late Sam Bowers. “He brought that basket of dirty clothes down for her too.” The basket heaped with clothing sat on top of the dryer some feet from the couch and victim.
Archer grunted. “We’ll know more when we talk to his coworkers at the bank and check into the family’s finances, but I never heard they were having any troubles financially.”
“No, me either. Never heard there were any marital problems.”
“We’ll have to talk to friends and family,” Archer said. “Outsiders usually don’t know what goes on inside a marriage, not all of it at least, but they may have noticed something.”
“Something worth Sam killing himself over?” Katie shook her head. “I don’t see that.”
“Neither do I, but neither one of us was him. Some people handle problems easily, and some don’t. It could have gotten to be too much for him. Something could have.” The sheriff paused, adding, “But I’d expect a note. Most people who commit suicide feel the need to explain why, especially when they have family bound to be shocked and when everything looks good from the outside so there’s no obvious reason for suicide.”
“Yeah. When I went next door to talk to the neighbor who’s keeping the kids, she was completely stunned. Doing her best to keep the kids busy and distracted from what’s happened and happening over here, of course. Two of them are too young to understand or have any idea what’s happened, and the oldest is only eight, so he’s just mostly scared and worried— Where was I going with this?”
“The neighbor was stunned. It’s Hannah Seaton, right?”
“Yeah. First time I’d met her. Anyway, she was completely stunned. Said Sam Bowers would never in a million years commit suicide. Said he was devoted to Stacey, adored his kids, and never missed a chance to have family time. Both families often barbecued, she said, their kids playing together, and she’s absolutely certain there was nothing wrong with that marriage or their life. Said they were two of the happiest people she’d ever known.”
Archer looked at her, baffled. “Well, family and neighbors don’t always see, but . . . Unless we find something sticking out in their financial records or phone records, or something bad happening with his job, I’m having a hard time seeing this as a suicide myself, in spite of how it looks. Also having a hard time seeing it as anything else. I’ll hand over my pension if his wife had anything to do with it.”
Katie wasn’t as startled as she wished she could be. “I know if there’s any question about a death we have to look at the spouse, always, but . . . this looks like a suicide right enough. And if it wasn’t one, all my questions still stand, plus quite a few more. Why here in the basement with the kids upstairs? On an otherwise normal Wednesday morning? Why no note? And if it wasn’t suicide, if somebody killed him, who could have managed that here?
“I don’t believe Stacey could have done it any more than you do. For one thing, she didn’t have a drop of blood on her minutes after this happened, according to Hannah Seaton, and I’m willing to bet the doc will say if anybody but Sam Bowers pulled that trigger, they’d have had plenty of blowback all over them.” She tried not to sound as queasy as she was when she added, “You can see some of the spray on his pants and even on the floor close to the couch.”
“Yeah, I know. But if it wasn’t suicide, if it was somebody else killed him, somebody who didn’t belong in the house today, then how’d they get in? This isn’t a walkout basement and there’s no egress at all, so anybody coming into the house would have had to come from upstairs—actually through the kitchen—to get to the basement door.”
Katie nodded. “They have a decent security system, which Stacey said was always on at night, turned off only when she and Sam came downstairs in the morning. No signs any of the doors or windows have been forced. According to Stacey, she was in the kitchen from the time they came downstairs.”
It was Archer’s turn to nod slowly. “And even supposing a killer managed to get in at some point when the system was off, might have lain in wait down here for God knows how long, with God knows what motive driving him, how was he able to get Sam to just peacefully sit down and let his head get blown off with his own shotgun?”
“No signs of a struggle,” Katie offered. “I suppose he could have been hit on the head before he had any sense of a threat; the shotgun blast would have removed all signs of a blitz attack.”
Archer nodded again, but said, “Say that’s what happened. Say somebody hid down here as long as it took, knew the combination of the gun safe—which also requires the fingerprint of Sam Bowers to gain access, though if he was knocked out that wouldn’t have been more than a slightly awkward problem— Where was I going?”
It was a characteristic both the sheriff and the chief deputy shared, though Katie wasn’t at all sure whether one of them had caught it from the other.
“Say somebody did hide down here,” she prompted.
“Yeah. Say somebody did, and then managed to surprise Sam, and knocked him out without making enough noise to alert Stacey. Then he positioned Sam with his own shotgun, stage-managed it to look like suicide, and pulled the trigger himself.
“Setting aside the question of blowback, since for all we know he could have been wearing a fucking hazmat suit, how the hell did he get out? Stacey not only closed the basement door until we got here, she locked it. She was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for us, staring at the locked door. And I’ve had a deputy stationed at the door upstairs since we got here.”
“It doesn’t seem possible, much less likely. Even if Sam Bowers had done anything to make an enemy that bad, and from everything we’ve heard so far everybody liked him.”
“I’ve never heard a bad word spoken of him,” Archer agreed, then frowned at her. “Why’re you rubbing the back of your neck?”
Katie realized only then what she’d been doing, and forced her hand to drop. The nape of her neck was still tingling, and it felt to her like a warning. A less definite warning than the first one had been, but a warning all the same.
She wanted to reach out with her mind, to probe, but that first warning had been all too definite.
She had to protect her mind with every shield, every barrier she had learned to build around it. She was vulnerable in ways most others weren’t. Vulnerable the way those she expected to come help would be vulnerable.
Awful to be so sure this is bad in ways we don’t understand yet and worse is coming. And I still don’t know how to tell him. Hell, what to tell him. How can I?
All she said in response to the sheriff’s question was, “I’m feeling tense, I guess. I’ve never . . . seen anything like this before, Jack.”
He appeared to accept that. “No, me either. Not even in Charlotte.” He paused. “Where the hell is Doc Forest?” He was not the Bowers family doctor, but the one Archer had chosen to call out for this because he had worked in an ME’s office in another state and knew his way around bodies in ways the average doctor in Prosperity didn’t.
Prosperity didn’t have an official medical examiner or coroner, because they’d never needed one and because Archer could always draw on the state network of specially trained doctors qualified to serve as medical examiners.
“He’s on his way,” Katie reported. “Said from the way I’d described it we’d probably have to call in a proper ME, but he couldn’t be sure until he sees what’s here.”
“You told him we’re having doubts about it being a suicide,” the sheriff said, not accusingly.
“Well, he asked. And I said it looked like it but didn’t really make sense to us. But didn’t make sense as an accident or a murder, either. He said if it isn’t suicide, and he can’t find anything to satisfy us that it was, or even that it wasn’t, that it could have been an accident or even murder, we’d need to call in an ME because as good as he is, as good as the equipment in the hospital is, we may need somebody more used to looking at crime scenes than he is. Said in his work at that medical examiner’s office, he was the one who stayed behind and assisted in autopsies and lab work, not the one who went out in the field.”
“He might have told me that sooner,” Archer said with a sigh.
“Yeah, that’s what I told him. He said there hadn’t been any reason to until today.”
Archer shifted restlessly, his gaze still fixed on the body. “I don’t want to call in an ME from the state network unless I have to. But if I have to, I will. I just sure as hell don’t want to declare this a crime scene without anything but my own gut to back me up.”
Katie nodded in agreement, but said, “One good thing, if I can call it that, is that if this is a crime scene, it’s pretty contained. I believe Stacey didn’t come more than halfway down the stairs, and since then it’s just been you and me here. I mean, we can lock the basement door and seal it, post a deputy, and nobody we don’t okay is coming down here.”
“Yeah. Look, I don’t know if the doc will bring a camera with him, but we need pictures of this whole space, and before anybody disturbs anything. Use your cell phone, and I’ll use mine. Just to be on the safe side.”
His department didn’t have an official photographer either, something Archer made a mental note to change. ASAP.
“Copy.” Katie was just glad to have something to do, especially when the sheriff began taking pictures of the body and that area of the basement and she could turn to look elsewhere in the very ordinary basement where something not ordinary had happened.
She did her best to ignore the crawly tingle on the nape of her neck.
The sheriff would have to know, of course. Sooner or later. But right now Katie still wasn’t at all willing to try to explain something she couldn’t prove—and couldn’t even really define. Especially to a man as practical and rational as Jackson Archer. They had never discussed the paranormal, but she was fairly certain his first reaction wouldn’t be one of acceptance.
Not, at least, until he was faced with something even his practical and rational mind could accept as much further beyond normal than even an inexplicable suicide.
Katie was just afraid of what that might be.