A Bone to Pick (Widow's Island Novella Book 2) Read online

  Her blonde hair fell to her shoulders, framing an oval face and intelligent blue eyes. They hadn’t seen each other much over the past decade. He’d been away most of the last ten or so years, and Tessa had been working in Seattle. His trips home had been few and far between, and he’d spent his precious leave time with his grandmother.

  Yet the connection between him and Tessa was as solid as if they’d never been apart.

  The flash of a camera jolted him back to the present. Tessa had a camera in her hand and was photographing the scene. She started with the body, taking pictures from different angles and distances, then began capturing the rest of the area.

  She lowered the camera. “I wanted to ask you a question. When I called you and asked if you’d heard anything around eleven thirty, you said maybe.”

  “Something woke me. I’m not sure what it was.” Logan turned away. He hadn’t talked about what had happened on his last mission with anyone except the army psychiatrist.

  “Mrs. Driver said the screaming went on for a minute or so,” Tessa pressed. “If it woke you, how did you not hear it?”

  “I don’t know.” Irritated, he enunciated each word clearly.

  Tessa raised an eyebrow. “I’ve known you my entire life, and I can see through that excuse.” Her brow fell, and she reached out to lay a hand on his forearm, as if she sensed his pain. “If you don’t want to tell me, and the reason has nothing to do with the case, then say so. I won’t pry.”

  The hard thing about being with people who knew him inside and out was the inability to bullshit them, which was one of the reasons he’d mostly kept to himself since returning to the island.

  Her touch and her compassion broke his determination to banish the memory. A slideshow of images rushed through his head. The explosion had nearly knocked him off his feet. He’d fought his way through the rush of people spilling from the wrecked building, trying to get inside to help evacuate the wounded. He’d scooped up the first victim he’d come across, a little girl covered in blood, and clutched her to his chest. But he hadn’t been able to save her. She’d bled out before he’d reached the triage area. Through the whole event, the only sound that had penetrated the ringing in his ears had been the victims’ screams.

  But Tessa didn’t need to hear the whole gruesome story, and he certainly didn’t need to tell it.

  “When I first came back from my last mission, I had nightmares,” he said simply. “I wasn’t sure if the screams were real or in my head.”

  “I’m sorry.” Tessa squeezed his arm. “If you ever want to talk about it . . .”

  “I don’t.” He didn’t even want to remember it.

  “Well, I’m here if you change your mind,” she said in a quiet voice. “And thank you for telling me.”

  He nodded, his posture so rigid that the motion was almost painful.

  Her phone beeped.

  “Excuse me.” She released his arm and turned away to answer the call.

  At first, he was grateful for the interruption, but he wasn’t prepared to miss her touch. He’d avoided personal contact as much as possible for the past two months. Was he ready to return to the human race?

  Or was Tessa different?

  This is not the time.

  Logan turned his attention to the ground. The sandy soil showed no footprints. He broadened the beam of his flashlight. Cigarette butts littered the ground. Empty water bottles and other random bits of trash were lying around the garbage can.

  Tessa finished her phone call. “Henry is in the parking lot. He’s walking down, and Bruce is on the way as well. He’s bringing portable lights.”

  She returned to photographing the body.

  Ten minutes later, Henry carried a plastic tackle box into the clearing. Logan’s sister, Cate, was with him, which was not a surprise. She and the doctor had been dating for the past few weeks. Tessa lowered her camera and hugged Cate.

  “I thought you could use an extra hand,” Cate said to Tessa. “Since Kurt is on the mainland.”

  “Is that a harpoon?” Henry gaped at the body for a split second before shaking his head. He hadn’t been the coroner for very long, but the doctor’s Los Angeles ER trauma experience seemed to serve him well. “Does anyone know the victim?”

  “Yes.” Tessa walked toward the body with the coroner and told him what she knew. “Can you estimate the time of death? We had a report of screaming called in at eleven thirty.”

  Henry took out a pair of gloves. “Are you finished taking pictures?”

  “Yes,” Tessa said.

  Henry folded his arms across his chest, scratched his chin, and stared at the corpse. “I can’t examine him like this. Let’s get him down.”

  “I’ve been thinking about how best to do that,” Tessa said. “We don’t want to disturb the entry or exit wounds. We’ll take the whole sign down and cut it so that it fits in the body bag.”

  “Sounds like the best option.” Henry snapped the gloves onto his hands.

  “I’d leave the harpoon in the body,” Cate added. “And simply disconnect the shaft.”

  Logan had a disconcerting moment as he realized that his baby sister was experienced in investigating murders. He’d known she was an FBI agent, but he’d never seen her in action.

  The fact that both Cate and Tessa had grown up to enter law enforcement was not an accident. As little girls, they’d had a third best friend, Samantha Bishop, who had gone missing at the age of fourteen. Her jacket had been found at Widow’s Walk, a bluff that overlooked a sheer cliff and a long drop to the rocks and churning sea below. Her body had never been found. At the time, nearly twenty years ago, the sheriff and FBI had presumed she’d fallen and been swept out to sea.

  Neither Tessa nor Cate had ever recovered from their friend’s disappearance. Tessa had joined the Seattle PD, and Cate had become an FBI agent. Both women now dedicated their lives to solving crime.

  “I have tools in my vehicle.” Logan jogged across the sand and up the trail to the parking area. He removed his tool kit and crowbar from the cargo area of his Range Rover and returned to the scene. He and Henry used the crowbar to pry the sign from its post. As they tried to lower it to the ground, the body came free. Logan caught it before it crumpled to the ground.

  “He wasn’t actually staked to the sign,” Henry said as he examined the back of the corpse. “The harpoon doesn’t go all the way through his body. It looks like he was pushed back against the sign, and his jacket got hung up on the post.”

  They laid the body on its back. The harpoon jutted straight up from below the breastbone.

  As he crouched next to the body, Henry took the dead man’s head in his hands and turned it from side to side. He opened the corpse’s mouth and manipulated the jaw. “Rigor mortis hasn’t set in yet.”

  Logan shot Tessa a questioning look. He’d seen plenty of combat violence and trauma, but this was his first homicide scene. “When does rigor typically start?”

  She moved to stand next to him and leaned close. “About two hours after death, though cold temperatures can slow the onset.”

  Henry removed a boot and sock. “Livor mortis is not visible yet either.”

  “Once the heart stops beating,” Tessa explained to Logan in a low voice, “the blood begins to pool in the lowest part of a dead body.”

  “Gravity,” Logan said.

  “Exactly.” Tessa nodded. “The skin takes on a purplish discoloration that should be observable by the human eye about two hours after death. But again, ambient temperature can affect the process.”

  Henry examined the exterior of the wound with a flashlight and gloved hands. “He’ll need an autopsy, but from the position of the harpoon, it likely hit the aorta. There isn’t much blood outside the wound, but I’ll bet his belly is full of it.”

  He picked up his scalpel, cut a slit in the corpse’s side, and inserted a thermometer.

  “He’s taking the liver temperature,” she explained.

  Henry read the
thermometer, then checked his watch. “It’s 1:01 a.m. now. I estimate he’s been dead between ninety minutes and two hours.”

  “Could the screaming at 11:30 p.m. have been him?” Logan asked, the single beer he’d drunk earlier that evening souring in his gut as he remembered the hair-raising sound that had jarred him from his sleep.

  “Yes. It’s possible.” Henry looked up, his face grim. “I doubt the wound killed him instantly. It probably took a few minutes for him to bleed to death.”

  Imagining those few terrible minutes, Logan swallowed a surge of bile in his throat.

  Tessa squatted down next to the body. She patted the man’s pockets and pulled a wallet from his jacket. She shined her light on the open wallet. Logan looked over her shoulder.

  “His full name is Dante Moreno.” Tessa straightened.

  Henry stood. “My office isn’t outfitted to perform an autopsy. It’s barely equipped to be a doctor’s office. We’ll send the body to the regional medical examiner on the mainland.”

  “The ferry wasn’t running this afternoon,” Logan said.

  “Again?” Henry asked. “It was out three days last week.”

  The Widow’s Island ferry to the mainland ran like clockwork, except for the days that it didn’t run at all. Locals were used to being isolated. As the islanders always said, no one complained until the Black Tail Bakery ran out of coffee.

  “Welcome to island living.” Tessa slid the wallet into an evidence bag. She stripped off her gloves and stuffed them into their own bag. Then she pulled out her phone. “Let me make a few calls. Keep an eye out for Dante’s cell phone.”

  After she stepped away, Logan studied the corpse. “Harpooning isn’t the easiest way to kill a man, and no one carries a harpoon around. The killer had to bring the harpoon to the beach. That suggests premeditation. But did the killer know the artist would be here or lure him here? Either way, this feels very personal to me.”

  “Whoever killed him was very angry,” his sister added, her lips pressed into a thin line. “Which could make the motive very personal.”

  Logan might not have been a crime scene expert, but his years as an army ranger had taught him plenty about rage and violence.

  “How hard is it to use a harpoon?” Henry asked.

  Logan considered the question. “The dart on the end of a harpoon is sharp, and the head is weighted for optimal leverage. It’s a tool specifically designed to be thrust or thrown into flesh. I’d say its use is more dependent on momentum and coordination than pure strength.”

  Tessa lowered her phone. “The ferry should be up and running in the morning. The funeral home will transport the body to the mainland.”

  “Do you want to fingerprint the body here or let the medical examiner do it?” Henry asked.

  Tessa frowned, her forehead creasing as she considered the questions. “Let’s not disturb his hands. We know who he is. If he struggled with his killer, there could be DNA or other evidence under his fingernails.”

  Henry nodded. “Then we should protect his hands with paper bags.”

  Tessa agreed. “You’ve been studying.”

  “I don’t like to half ass any job.” Henry had worked his first case as coroner just a few weeks before. He’d made one mistake and seemed determined not to make any more.

  Tessa stared at the corpse. “I don’t see how it could possibly have been a suicide or accident, which leaves manslaughter and murder.”

  “Not many people go for a late-night stroll on the beach with a harpoon in hand,” Cate added.

  “As Logan already pointed out,” Tessa said as she gestured toward the body, “this was premeditated.”

  Henry said, “This was murder.”

  “Let’s get the scene processed.” Tessa blew a stray hair from her forehead. In the light cast by various flashlights, Logan watched tension gather at the corners of her eyes as she sent a text.

  I should make myself useful.

  Logan turned in a circle and scanned the picnic area and the dark forest beyond. As park rangers were responsible for enforcing the law within the park, his training had included classes in basic criminal investigation. “Do you have more evidence collection bags?”

  Tessa paused, looking up. “Yes. There’s a lot of ground to cover. We’ll start with the picnic area tonight. Searching the surrounding woods will have to wait until daybreak.” She shrugged off her backpack and set it on the picnic table farthest from the body. She removed some small paper and plastic bags and handed them to him, along with a pair of vinyl gloves. “We’ll bag everything. Bruce will be here any minute with the lights.”

  Nodding, Logan tugged on the gloves.

  Her phone beeped. She frowned at the display, then said, “Excuse me,” and stepped away, pressing the phone to her ear. She paced, ending one call and making another. When she returned a few minutes later, her eyes were troubled.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Cate.

  “That was my sister.” Tessa had a much younger half sister from her mother’s most recent marriage. “Mom isn’t in the house.”

  “Does she wander away often?” Logan asked.

  “No. This is the first time.” Tessa frowned. “She’s usually a homebody.”

  Logan remembered Bonnie Turner-Black-Flagg as erratic, undependable, and—as a three-time widow—unlucky. He hadn’t been surprised to find out that Bonnie was suffering from dementia—or that Tessa had given up her career in Seattle to return home to care for her mother and raise her teenage half sister after husband number three had suffered a massive fatal heart attack.

  No wonder Tessa looked tired.

  “I’ll round up your mom,” Cate said. “She can’t have gotten far.”

  “Are you sure?” Tessa asked, her eyes relieved.

  “Of course.” Cate pressed a hand to Tessa’s forearm. “You’d do the same for me.”

  Tessa sighed. “Your grandmother would never take off in the middle of the night. She’s too sensible.”

  “That she is.” Cate held out her hand. “Henry, can I take your vehicle?”

  “Yes.” He stripped off a glove to toss her the keys. “I’ll get a ride home.”

  “I can’t thank you enough,” Tessa said to Cate.

  “It’s not a problem. I’m glad to help.” Keys in hand, Cate turned away.

  “I’ll walk you to the parking lot.” Logan fell into step beside his sister.

  “You don’t need to that. I’m armed.” The keys jingled in Cate’s hand. “But thank you.”

  “You might be a badass FBI agent, but you’re still my baby sister.” Gun or no gun, there was no way Logan was letting his sister—or any other woman—walk through the forest in the dark.

  Not with a vicious killer on the loose.

  3

  Tessa trudged up the porch steps of the cottage she’d grown up in. Her mom was inside, safe. Cate had texted that she’d found her within an hour of leaving the crime scene.

  Tessa crossed the raw boards she’d recently replaced but hadn’t had time to paint. The house was a bit worn but comfortable, like an old pair of jeans. A squawk from the backyard stopped her midstride. She might as well feed the chickens before she showered.

  She changed into the knee-high rubber boots she kept on the front porch and walked around the corner of the house. A coop sat in the corner of a wire-and-wood enclosure the size of a volleyball court. Tessa grabbed a bucket of feed and pushed through the wire entrance, then closed the door behind her. A dozen chickens pecked at the ground. Tessa spread the feed and checked the water. A motion to her left caught her attention. She spun as a large golden chicken darted out of the coop and headed straight for her like a velociraptor.

  Tessa jumped. “Shit!”

  She bolted out of the enclosure, then closed and latched the door with her heart still hammering. She pointed at the hen. “Don’t get too cocky. I could cook you for Sunday dinner.”

  The hen strutted past the door, obviously aware that Tessa wo
uld do no such thing.

  Back on the porch, she toed off her rubber boots. Tessa went inside in her socks, stripped off her jacket, and hung it on the coat-tree in the foyer.

  She stepped into the kitchen. Exhaustion muddied her thoughts, and her head felt like it weighed a hundred pounds. She wanted a hot shower, a gallon of coffee, and a dozen donuts.

  Cate sat at the kitchen table, reading a file. She looked up. “What happened?”

  “Killer Hen scared the hell out of me. Again. Chickens are a giant pain in the butt.”

  “I doubt you’d have any trouble selling them. Backyard chickens are the new black.”

  Widow’s Islanders liked their hobby farms. They raised everything from chickens to alpacas.

  “As weird as it sounds, my mother loves those chickens. It would break her heart.” Tessa would not take a single source of joy from her mother, not when she was already losing everything. “It wouldn’t be so bad if that alpha hen didn’t hate me so much.”

  Cate coughed, clearly covering a grin. “I made coffee.”

  “Thank you.” Tessa took her stainless steel travel mug from the cabinet. She wouldn’t be at home for long. “And thanks for staying with my mom.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “Did Patience leave for school on time?” Tessa drank deeply, wishing for a faster way to get caffeine into her system.

  “Almost,” Cate admitted. “This morning was a scramble. In her defense, she was up late, helping me settle your mother.”

  Tessa turned and leaned on the counter. “Where did you find Mom?”

  Cate looked away. “Walking north on Orcas Road.”

  “Did she say where she was going?”

  “No.” Cate shook her head. “She didn’t seem to know.”

  Sadness rolled through Tessa. She glanced at the clock on the oven. “How can it be ten o’clock already?”

  “It was a big scene to process,” Cate said.

  “Yes, it was.”

  Tessa, Logan, and Bruce had labeled and bagged every piece of possible evidence, from empty bottles to cigarette butts, and then had transported everything back to the station. Each item had to be logged in. Bruce had still been working on sorting through the rubble when Tessa had left.