Nancy Bush's Nowhere Bundle: Nowhere to Run, Nowhere to Hide & Nowhere Safe. Nancy Bush

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      “Hmmm,” Auggie said aloud.

      What was that about?

      September stared down at the cold, white corpse of the woman and felt ill. The woman’s body had been stripped to the waist and her abdomen was carved with the scrawled words:

      DO UNTO OTHERS AS SHE DID TO ME

      “Jesus, somebody went to a lot of trouble.” Gretchen’s nasal tones were normally cool, curling around the edges with disdain, but staring down at the female corpse she sounded shaken. “‘Do unto others as she did to me.’ What the hell does that mean?”

      “Who is the ‘she’ he means?” September asked.

      “Or the ‘she’ she means,” one of the techs corrected her. Bronson, September remembered.

      “This wasn’t done by a woman,” Gretchen said with a cold look at Bronson.

      “I’m just saying it’s possible,” he argued, although lamely. “She’s been strangled, too. There are ligature marks.”

      “Anyone taking bets on whether she’s been sexually abused?” Gretchen asked.

      There were no takers.

      “You have all the charm of a boa constrictor,” Bronson said. He had a nerdy, prim look and a way of rolling his eyes that was epic theater.

      “Shut up,” Gretchen said, though it was almost an afterthought. She was gazing around the clearing where the body had been found while they stood on the edge of a small, wooded area filled with Douglas firs, oaks and scrub pines.

      “This is a lot like Sheila Dempsey,” September observed. She hoped to stall the pissing contest between Bronson and Gretchen, though they seemed to like to go at each other. She’d learned that much on her few weeks on the job.

      Bronson rocked back on his heels. “Mebbe,” he allowed.

      Gretchen’s lips grew even tighter, as if she were forcibly holding back another argument.

      They were on the north side of the clearing where the shallow grave had been discovered by a couple of day hikers on a jaunt carrying a picnic basket and a bottle of wine. Now the basket was upended, the wine spilled in a red river on the ground and both hikers were sitting in bug-eyed silence on a moss-covered log, their arms entwined in a hug of support. The man’s mouth was twitching as if he couldn’t control it; the woman looked ready to keel over.

      Sheila Dempsey’s body had been discovered in an overgrown field behind an abandoned building. Unlike this one, she’d been stripped bare, where this victim still had on her jeans, socks and a pair of running shoes. Her chest was bare; no sign of a blouse or bra.

      “Dempsey’s the picture on Weasel’s desk,” Gretchen said, as if they’d asked.

      September nodded. For a moment they all stood in silence in the shadow of the firs while Bronson slowly rose, brushing his palms together as if to rid himself of the taint, all of them sheltered from the noonday heat which was blistering nonetheless.

      An hour earlier, D’Annibal had received the call. Neither George nor Wes had been available while Gretchen and September had shown up by mutual agreement to go over the Zuma case. Gretchen wanted to interview Camille Dirkus and September had offered to go along.

      But then the call came in and they were sent out after the hikers called 911.

      Now it was September’s turn to gaze past the body and over the dry, yellow field grass that ranged north from their large copse of mixed oak, fir and pine trees. This too, could be the county’s problem; this crime was right on the city line, but the dispatcher had called Laurelton PD.

      D’Annibal had apparently claimed rights to this case, or maybe county was simply bowing out. Somewhere along the line, a guy from county named Jernstadt, since retired, had royally pissed off the lieutenant according to remarks she’d heard around the squad room. The result was nobody wanted to go head-to-head with D’Annibal, involving whatever he decreed, and therefore there was no strict protocol on jurisdiction. If the lieutenant wanted a case that could be considered county, the prevailing thought was to let him have it. So, though September and Gretchen were already working hard on the Zuma Software case, Laurelton PD was on this one, too. County might complain about it, but they would acquiesce. D’Annibal did things his own way and his attitude was, if county didn’t like it, they could just go screw themselves.

      Said attitude didn’t exactly foster warm and fuzzy relations, but such was the way of things.

      Gretchen dragged her gaze away from the body and shook her head. “Learn anything from those phone records, Nine?”

      September shot a look at her partner who’d apparently detached from the scene around them. “Yes,” she said. She’d been scouring Kurt Upjohn’s phone records and had discovered several numbers that had yet to be identified from the myriads that he’d placed to friends, family and business associates. “I was hoping maybe Camille Dirkus could shed some light.”

      “Yeah, whenever that interview takes place,” Gretchen grumbled.

      “I was thinking about giving the list to George.”

      Gretchen snorted. “Good idea. He’s bound to be back in the squad room now. He just always misses the calls to the field. Weasel’s on something else, drugs and gangs, like your brother was.”

      Was being the operative word, September thought.

      “I’m not stopping on Zuma. This has gotta be somebody else’s, or we need some serious help.”

      “Yeah.” September gazed down at the body again for another moment, unsettled. “I wonder who she is.”

      “We’ll check missing persons.” Gretchen made a face. “I wonder who he is,” she added, meaning the killer.

      Bronson shot her a look as a hot breeze caused the oak leaves and fir and pine needles to dance lithely, as if waving at the victim and the group of bystanders. Victims left in fields . . . something tickled the back of her brain.

      “Get her covered and outta here before the fucking newspeople show up,” Gretchen ordered the techs.

      “You do your job, we’ll do ours,” Bronson said. “The ME’s on his way.”

      “Don’t get all testy on me, Bron.” Gretchen offered a humorless smile. To September, she added, “Maybe this second body will make our letter carver easier to find and we can get back to Zuma.”

      September had her doubts, but she kept them to herself.

      Waiting proved more difficult than Liv had anticipated. They went to a small café and Liv ordered an omelet that she moved around her plate as the morning dragged slowly by. For all the talking they’d done, all of a sudden it felt like she and Auggie had run out of things to say to each other. As they got up to leave he really struggled with the fact that she was picking up the tab, but what could he do? She wanted to suggest they go back to Bean There, Done That and see if someone had turned in his wallet, but she couldn’t.

      “I can’t afford for us to get pulled over,” she said, to СКАЧАТЬ