My Town
1. Blood
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
Alex Romero's eyes flew open as the sound of gunfire wrenched him from the clutches of sleep. His hand moved automatically, fingers groping blindly under his pillow before closing around the Glock which had permanent residence beneath his head. As he sat up, he sniffed the air, testing for the acrid scent of gunpowder. When he detected no smell, and when he realised the night air was still, unbroken by any sound other than his own heavy breathing, he relaxed his grip on his pistol and let himself fall backwards to be embraced by the soft mattress.
That damn dream again. For five consecutive nights it had woken him from his sleep, but he didn't know why. It wasn't as if he hadn't shot anybody before. Hell, compared to some of the deaths he'd seen, and caused, the death of Jake Abernathy was as clean-cut as they came. The man had been the lowest sort of scum; a man who trafficked in young women, selling them for sex to the highest bidder. A man who would beat a woman to make her talk. A man who would threaten to kill, and carry out that threat, just to get his own way. In short, a man who did not deserve to be walking around, breathing the same air as Alex Romero.
He felt no guilt. None at all. So why did his unconscious mind keep playing that death scene inside his head, over and over again each night? Why did his mind keep taking him back to that foetid dock where, four nights ago, and witnessed only by the oddly eccentric Norma Bates, he had done humanity a favour by sending Abernathy back to the Hell whence he came?
Brrrrrring brrrrrring. Brrrrrrring brrrrrring.
The sound of the telephone on his bedside table interrupted his thoughts with its insistent demand to be answered. As he reached for the handset, he glanced at his alarm clock. 01:35 it read, in its large red digital numbers. There weren't many reasons why his phone would be ringing at such an unsocial hour, and none of them were good.
"Romero," he said, answering in the same tone that he used on his office phone. These days, he rarely thought of his home as anything more than an extension of his office. A place where he could go to shower, pick up a fresh uniform, and get a few hours sleep. When most cops went home to relax and spend time with their families, Romero remained on-duty. That was the price he paid for being Sheriff of White Pine Bay. In small towns, you couldn't leave your work on the doorstep. It followed you inside like a stray dog, begging and whining for scraps of food, and it wouldn't leave no matter how much you shouted at it to get lost. So he'd taken the stray dog in, and accepted that the price of safety was his own freedom. It was a small price to pay.
"Sir, sorry to disturb you, but we have a situation." The voice belonged to Ronald Moore, a man recently promoted to the newly-vacant position of Deputy.
Romero couldn't help the small sigh that escaped his lips. He'd been a law enforcement officer for over twenty years. He knew what 'a situation' meant.
"Who is it?" he asked, bracing himself inside, pushing away his emotions, because when you had 'a situation,' you couldn't afford to let your feelings get in the way.
"Beverley Watson." Watson, Watson… "One of the high school teachers," Moore said, filling the silence.
Ah yes. Miss Beverley Watson. Romero could picture her now. A pale young woman, a quiet thirty-something with a perpetually hunted look in her eyes. He knew her mostly by sight, had only spoken to her a couple of times. She'd seemed a pleasant enough woman, which probably meant she had more dark secrets hidden in her closet than anyone else in town.
"Address?" he asked his deputy.
"36 Fairweather Avenue."
"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."
He put down the receiver and reached for his uniform. After five days without incident, the stray dog was getting hungry again. It was time to find it something to eat.
o - o - o - o - o
By the time Romero pulled up outside the Watson home, a crowd had already gathered, drawn to the scene by the flashing blue lights on Moore's vehicle, like moths drawn to a flickering flame. The crowd was not unusual. Everybody knew everybody in White Pine Bay, and it always paid to be the first to hear the rumours.
He stepped out of his Hummer and approached the cordon that Moore had established. As he walked, he scanned the faces of the people in the crowd, looking for guilt. They were all guilty of something, every single one of them, but all he saw now was suspicion and curiosity. Most of the bystanders were in their pyjamas and dressing gowns; a few children were standing here and there, bleary-eyed beside their parents, as if they didn't quite know why they'd been dragged out of bed and asked to stand in the middle of the street at stupid o'clock in the morning. Confident that the people gathering outside the cordon had only come to see what new macabre event had befallen their small town, Romero turned towards the house. Towards the crime scene.
A familiar black car was parked in the driveway, which meant the coroner, Dr. Thomas Fitzpatrick, had driven fast to get here. As Romero approached the front door, Deputy Moore approached from within, greeting his superior with a respectful tip of the hat.
"What's happened?" Romero asked without preamble.
Moore paused for a moment, sucking air in through the gap between his front teeth before launching into a recount of the past few hours.
"Yesterday, Miss Watson failed to show up for class. The head teacher tried ringing, but didn't get an answer, so he called her next of kin, a sister, to see if she could check up on Miss Watson. The sister arrived just after midnight and found Miss Watson dead in the bedroom, throat slashed deep. Woman was near hysterical when she called 911. Sondheim and I got here just after one. Ambulance left a few minutes ago; said there was nothing they could do for a dead woman. Fitzy arrived not long before you. He's in there right now, examining the scene. Sondheim's with the sister, in the living room. Figured you'd want to speak to her before we let her go home, but she's a bit shook up."
Romero nodded to himself. Moore was a seasoned veteran, an officer of over thirty years whose leathery, line-worn face had seen more than its fair share of homicides. Both he and Sondheim knew better than to disturb a crime-scene; his examination of it could wait until Fitzpatrick was done bagging and tagging.
"What's the sister's name?" he asked.
"Mrs. Carmella Hawthorn. Lives with her husband and daughter in Fairfax. We've called the husband, he's on his way to pick her up."
"Alright." He nodded at the cordon. "See what you can do about the crowd. We don't need this turned into a circus."
"You got it."
As Romero stepped into the house, Moore's calls of 'Alright, let's move it along. Get back to your homes,' fell away. Dismissing the crowd from his thoughts, he turned his attention to the house. He'd always prided himself on his attention to detail; his ability to spot tiny inconsistencies was one of the reasons he'd made sheriff in the first place. It wasn't a skill that he had honed over time, but rather one that he had always had, even as a child, when he'd figured out long before it became public knowledge that his father was cheating on his mother. Some cops called it instinct, or a gut-feeling, or a sixth sense. Romero preferred to think of it as an ability to notice things which otherwise were unremarkable, and to put them into a logical context. Admittedly, he did take a lot of advice from his gut, too.
The house smelled of perfume, a spicy-sweet scent that tickled his nose and brought back a memory of how his own house had once smelled. He pushed that memory away, concentrating on the present. Other than the smell, the house was unremarkable. Clean, neat, well-kept. A painting on the wall depicted Van Gogh's Sunflowers, the frame perfectly straight, as if it had been aligned using a spirit-level by somebody with OCD. It fit with what he remembered of Miss Watson; she'd been a neat woman, well-presented, her nails and makeup immaculate. He suspected she took the same sort of pride in her appearance as he took in his attention to detail.
Strangled sobs reached his ears from a door that was ajar, and he found himself stepping into the living room. Officer Sondheim, Moore's partner for the evening, was sitting beside a woman on the sofa. Carmella Hawthorn looked so much like her sister that for a moment it took Romero's breath away, and he wondered if this was all some big, stupid joke. Then his attention to detail kicked in, and he noticed the shade of her eyes, which despite the redness from crying were lighter than Miss Watson's, and the laughter-lines around her mouth which told Romero that this woman had lived a happier life than her late sister.
When Sondheim saw his superior, he stood up, a respectful nod of his head showing that he was relinquishing care of the witness.
"Thank you, Sondheim," Romero said. "Moore could use some help dispersing the crowd."
"Yes sir," Sondheim replied, leaving the room.
For a long moment, Romero said nothing. He'd learnt long ago that silence was a cop's best friend. Most people didn't like silence; they rushed to fill it with something. Anything. All Carmella Hawthorn did, however, was sip whatever hot drink Sondheim had made for her, and dab at her puffy, tear-stained eyes with a handkerchief.
"Mrs. Hawthorn," he said, taking a seat on the chair opposite her. "I'm Sheriff Romero. I'm very sorry for your loss." The woman sniffed and nodded, wiping away fresh tear which rolled down her cheek. "I'd like to ask you a few questions about the events leading up to tonight."
"I already told your deputy everything I know," the woman said. She sounded exhausted. That was good. Tired people made poor liars. They tended to forget which lies they'd told you.
"I know. But I'd like you to tell me, too." He was used to this. Everybody liked a deputy; they saw deputies as men who were just trying to do their jobs. They evoked a sort of 'one of us' mentality, aided by a personal touch. A sheriff couldn't afford the personal touch. A sheriff couldn't be 'one of the people.' He had to be above the people. A symbol of strength and protection and authority. It set him apart from the people he protected, but like his freedom, it was a small price to pay. "Start at the beginning, when you heard from the school."
Mrs. Hawthorn closed her eyes, squeezing tears from each corner. It was a wonder she had any left inside her.
"I got a call from the head teacher about five o'clock," she began, "and he told me that Beverley hadn't turned up for work that morning. I tried ringing a few times, her house and her mobile, and when I couldn't get hold of her, I decided to drive up and check up on her myself." The woman's lower lip began to tremble and she brought her handkerchief to her eyes again. "I… I found Bev in the bedroom. There was blood everywhere, so much blood. Her… her eyes were open, she was just staring at the ceiling, and… her throat…" She ended in a choked sob. Romero took the cup of hot liquid from her before her shaking hands could empty it all over her knees.
"It's alright," he said. "Was it unusual for your sister to not show up for work?"
"Unheard of," Mrs. Hawthorn said. "Bev loved her job, and she loved those kids. I've known her to go to work even when she's been unwell, because she hasn't wanted to let the kids down. That's why I was so worried when I heard from the school."
Her words fell into his ears and he ran them through his in-built common-sense filter, picking up on an inconsistency.
"You live in Fairfax, Mrs. Hawthorn?" She nodded. "White Pine Bay is a two hour drive from Fairfax. If you got a call from the school at five o'clock in the evening, how come you didn't get here until after midnight?"
Her eyes widened, fear and then anger ghosting silently across her face.
"Because I have a life of my own, Mr. Romero, and despite what you may think, my sister is a grown woman who does not need a keeper. When I got the call from the school, I was in the middle of feeding my daughter. Do you have children, Sheriff?"
"No," he said, half truth, half lie.
"Then I don't expect you to understand the responsibility that comes with them." She lifted her head, a defiant gesture which temporarily displaced her sadness. "I didn't want to bring my daughter on the journey here with me, but my husband works shifts. He didn't get home until eight o'clock, and by the time we'd talked about what to do, and I'd tried to contact my my sister by phone, it was almost ten o'clock. My husband stayed home to watch over our daughter, and I came straight here."
"Still," he persisted, "your husband finished work at eight, and you didn't set off until ten. That must have been some 'talk' you had before deciding to come here."
The woman's demeanour shifted imperceptibly. Her chin was lowered, and she wrung her damp handkerchief through her hands, idly toying with it. Her down-cast gaze told a tale of its own, and he could almost hear her words before she spoke them.
"My husband doesn't approve of Beverley. He thinks she's a bit of a drama queen. We… argued. He thought she was just acting up for attention, and he didn't want me to come. He thinks that ever since our mother died, six years ago… well, mother was all we had, and Bev was always her favourite."
He said nothing. He believed her story, or enough of it at least. At last she looked up at him, her brown eyes distraught, imploring.
"Who would do this to my sister?"
"Can you think of anybody who might want to harm her?" he countered. Silently, he prayed that there was somebody with a grudge against Beverley Watson. Grudges he could handle. It was anonymous, motiveless killings which were more difficult to deal with, because if there was no motive for this attack, then the killer might strike again at any time. And the last thing White Pine Bay needed, on top of the crap it had already endured, was a serial killer.
"Well…" The hesitation crept into her voice, and her fingers began to wring the handkerchief more forcefully. "I loved my sister, Sheriff. God knows, she wasn't perfect. But then, who is, right?" He nodded, and she filled the silence. "Beverley… well, she liked attention. From men. The wrong sort of men, if you get what I mean."
"Violent men?"
"Well… no." Carmella Hawthorn leaned closer to him and lowered her voice. "Married men. Every now and again she'd phone me up, full of excitement, telling me she'd fallen for someone, and this time she was sure he was the guy, that he was going to leave his family for her. It broke my heart to see her making the same mistakes, over and over again. Why do you think some people are like that, Sheriff?"
Because people are people, he wanted to say. Because they're too small-minded to recognise when they're stuck in the rat-maze, and because sometimes it's easier, more comfortable, to be the victim than to take control of your own life. But he knew it wasn't what Beverley Watson's sister wanted to hear, and this wasn't the time for waxing philosophical.
"I don't know," he said. "Did your sister ever mention names to you?"
"Oh, I can't remember," she said, too quickly. He merely looked at her, the same practised cop-stare that came naturally to anyone who wore the uniform for any length of time, and she shifted in her seat. "I mean, I'm sure she did, in the beginning. But after a while… well, I stopped really listening. It was the same story every time, just with different men. I never thought their names would be important. None lasted more than a few months, a year at most. Do you… do you think one of them might have done this to her?"
"It's one possibility I'll be investigating," he said, in his best neutral tone. It seemed the most likely reason for a murder. If Beverley Watson had threatened to expose one of her paramours, it was a solid motive. "One more thing. When you arrived, was the front door open?"
"Um, no, it was closed, as was the back door. But it wasn't locked."
"Thank you. My Deputy advises me that your husband's coming to pick you up, Mrs. Hawthorn." He reached into his pocket and handed her a card with his office details on. "If you think of anything else, any names that Beverley might have mentioned, any hint that she was afraid of someone or had been threatened in any way, I want you to call me."
She nodded and took the card, grasping it to her chest like a life-line. "I will. Thank you, Sheriff. And please, find the bastard who did this to my sister. Find him, so that he can be brought to justice."
He merely nodded as he stood. Justice. Ha. He'd believed in justice once, when he'd been young and naïve, and the world had been black and white, good and bad, right and wrong. But he'd learnt a lot of lessons since then, and many of them hard. He'd long since stopped believing in the subjective concept embodied by the uniform and the badge fastened to his belt, replacing the code of justice with his own code of morals, letting his own conscience dictate his professional behaviour. So far, that code had served him better than any court of law.
His feet took him through the house and into the bedroom, where Fitzpatrick's head of grey hair was visible beyond the foot of the bed. The next thing Romero saw was the blood, pooled on the floor, soaking into the carpet beneath the pale, still body of Miss Beverley Watson. She was clad in black lingerie, in a state of partial undress; not the most dignified way to have died.
A quick glance around the bedroom showed Romero a blood-spatter pattern across one wall, and judging by the fact that the furniture was intact and nothing broken, he surmised that she hadn't put up a struggle before having her throat slashed. That meant that she either knew her killer, or that he'd caught her by surprise.
"Ah, Alex." Fitzpatrick stood up, straightening the glasses which were perched on the end of his nose. "You're a little late to this party. Then again, I'd say we're all a little late."
Romero gestured at the corpse. "How long has she been like this?"
"Days, I'd wager. Two or three; maybe more. I won't be able to tell for sure until I've done an autopsy."
"You think that's necessary? The cause of death seems pretty obvious."
"Yes, well. I have some first year med students who need the practice. And who knows, we may find something interesting."
Romero shook his head. Coroners were a breed of their own, and Fitzpatrick was no exception. He was never disrespectful to the living, but seemed to consider cadavers to be little more than empty shells which his med students could carve up in the name of furthering their education.
"Before you start slicing and dicing, what else can you tell me?" he asked.
Fitzpatrick gestured him over, and he crouched down beside the dead woman's body. "Well, the underwear is from Lacey's Lingerie on Fifth Street. Same place my wife shops. Probably not the PR the company was looking for, though. As for the cause of death, the jugular and carotid have both been severed with a bladed instrument, probably a kitchen knife, though we have yet to recover the weapon. Judging by the splatter and the way she's fallen, I'd guess she was killed in situ. Looks like a single clean slash, not done with enough force to sever the windpipe. She died from blood loss… wouldn't have taken more than a minute."
"Any evidence of assault?" he asked, indicating the way part of her underwear had been removed.
"Sexual assault?" Fitzpatrick shook his head. "I'd say she was undressing herself. Had this been a sexually motivated killing, I'd expect to see bruising around the arms, wrists or neck. Again, I'll check it out during the autopsy, but it's not looking that way at the moment."
"Small mercy."
"Maybe. This may sound harsh, but a DNA sample would make it easier to identify the killer. Speaking of which," Fitzpatrick said, handing him a sealed evidence bag, "one of your boys found this out in the living room. I'll take it back to the lab and run some tests, then forward you the results so you can put it through the database."
Romero took the bag, turning it over to examine it from all angles. It was a tissue, covered in what looked like blood.
"Can't find any other injuries on her body which would warrant the use of that," the coroner said.
"Perhaps she had a nosebleed."
"Perhaps. But if that blood belongs to her killer, it could go a long way towards helping us catch this guy."
"You'll let me know as soon as you have something?"
"Of course. Now, if you don't mind, could you fetch a body bag from my car? The sooner I get the person formally known as Miss Watson back to the morgue, the sooner I can put my students to work on her, and the faster you'll get your answers."
Romero left the room; he needed to check on the situation with the crowd anyway, and he had to admit, he could use a dose of fresh air. After twenty years on the job, he'd become used to seeing a lot of things, but seeing murdered women always left an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. It simply struck too close to home for comfort. But that was yet another price he had to pay, and right now, regardless of that knot of tension, he had a killer to catch… before he struck again.
