The Cold Room. J.T. Ellison
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She’d been a regular on the hill for a summer; with Sam Owens—now Dr. Sam Loughley, Nashville’s lead medical examiner—at her side. They’d gotten into the genteel trouble that was expected from well-bred teenagers: smoking stolen Gauloises, sipping nasty-tasting cheap whiskey, hanging out with boys who shaved their hair into Mohawks and talked big about anarchy and guitar riffs. It didn’t last. Their constant posturing quickly bored her.
It made Taylor sad to think back to her youth; the things they called “trouble” back then were increasingly tame by today’s standards. Here she was, newly turned thirty-six, and already feeling old when faced with teenagers.
She’d abandoned the Circle when she was fifteen, didn’t return until her eighteenth birthday. A nostalgic drive with her first real lover, the professor. He’d driven her up there in his Jeep and parked, hands roaming across her body. They’d nearly driven over the edge when her knee knocked the gearshift into Second. He’d taken her to his place that night for the very first time, deflowered her with skill and care.
She smiled, as she normally did when a memory of James Morley first crossed her mind. The thought led to her father, a close friend of Morley’s, and the smile fled.
She needed to mail the letter. Win Jackson was only eight hours away, and he’d be out in a matter of months, having cut several deals to assure him an early release. His missives came with alarming regularity, each begging for forgiveness. His dealings with a shadowy crime boss in New York were behind him. He was going to be on the straight and narrow path from here on out.
She wondered how many times she’d heard that before. Money laundering wasn’t the worst he could have been charged with, but it was the charge that stuck. Well, there was time before she’d have to deal with Win in person. Not as much as she’d like, but enough.
She passed the apex of the hill and the crime scene beckoned to her. Blue-and-white lights flashed, guiding her in. Four patrol cars stood at attention next to a chain-link fence. The K-9 unit was parked at an angle. Taylor recognized Officer Paula Simari’s German shepherd, Max, straining against the cracked window, searching for his master. Ah, so this was the crime scene that had kept her from dinner. It must be a doozy if they were calling in off-duty officers and detectives.
Taylor put her window down, cooed softly at the dog. “You’re okay, baby. She’ll be back in a minute.” Max stopped fretting and sat, tongue lolling out the side of his mouth.
She drove another twenty yards, down the back edge of the hill. All of the attention was focused on a two-story house set back fifty feet from the street. The house was an original Craftsman, built sometime in the 1930s, if she had to guess. The thick, pyramid-shaped columns and slanting roof were well-kept. The exterior was awash in false light; the shake shingles looked to be painted a soft, mossy green, the details slightly darker. The whole house blended perfectly into the surrounding woods. Four joint dormer windows across the second story were square and forward, watching.
She was surprised to see the lawn and porch littered with milling people—a level of disorganization rarely in evidence at a Nashville crime scene. The crime-scene techs were setting up to take photos, video, collect evidence; two patrol officers were standing to one side, conversing in low tones. The command table had been set up on the porch. Uniforms and plainclothes techs were walking around the outside of the house. Neighbors had gathered, silently scrutinizing.
She parked next to a crime-scene van. The side door was open, the contents spilling out as if the tech was in a hurry to get moving on the scene. Paula Simari was twenty feet away. She caught Taylor’s eye, angled her head with a jerk. Meet me inside, the look said. Taylor got out of the car, intrigued.
“Detective!”
A young man signaled her to join him on the lawn of the house. It was deep emerald in the false light, freshly mown; the tang of green onion and cut grass felt so familiar, so right. Normal and unthreatening, just another suburban evening.
But it wasn’t. She shut the door to her car, trying to assimilate the scene. The man continued waving, gesticulating wildly as if she hadn’t seen him already.
Her new partner. Renn McKenzie. Nice enough guy, but she wasn’t willing to get to know him. It was too damn soon. She was still in mourning, recovering from the demise of her team, her career. Her future.
He galloped up to her, breathless. She nodded at him, willing some zen calm into him. “McKenzie.”
“Just call me Renn, Taylor.”
“Jackson is fine, McKenzie.”
“I wish you’d just call me Renn.”
Just Renn. “I’m not on today. I assume you had me called for a reason. Could you fill me in?”
She saw the blush rise on his cheeks. Just Renn had been transferred in from the South sector. He and Marcus Wade, one of her former teammates, had essentially traded places. Captain Delores Norris, head of the Office of Professional Accountability, was the architect of the restructuring.
She would kill to have Marcus by her side right now. Or her former sergeant, Pete Fitzgerald, or Lincoln Ross. But her entire team had been disassembled, and she felt the loss sorely. She was sure Just Renn was a fine detective, but he had his own rhythms, his own demeanor, an eagerness that belied the streaks of gray at his blond temples that was hard to get used to. He was gangly, all sharp edges, no real refinement to his walk or manners. Brown eyes, thin lips, three days of fuzzy golden razor stubble. A decent-looking man, if you liked the enthusiastic type. But he’d only been in plainclothes for about a month, which frightened her. Inexperience could blow an investigation; she was used to working with seasoned pros. Pros she had trained to work her way.
To be truthful, a small part of her liked keeping him off balance. It gave her the sense that maybe this wasn’t forever.
“Sure, yeah. Jackson. Such a harsh name. I assume you’re related?” He looked at her, his face turning blue, then white, then blue.
“Related to …?”
“Andrew Jackson, of course.”
This boy obviously didn’t know his Southern history. There were no direct descendants of Old Hickory—though he’d raised eleven children, none were his own. There was a family connection though, through Jackson’s wife Rachel’s son…. She bit her lip, resisted the urge to scream. None of this had any bearing on her job.
“McKenzie?”
“Yeah?”
“Who’s dead?”
“Yeah. Sorry. We don’t know.” He didn’t make a move toward the house, just stood there.
“Could we possibly go see the body?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. Let’s go. She’s in the living room, or the great room, or whatever you call that big open space in the middle of the house. You can’t see her from the front door, the best view is from the kitchen. СКАЧАТЬ