Chapter Twelve

Sighing, she opened the door, and Woodstone entered so aggressively he almost pushed her back inside. She greeted him in an even voice. “Good morning, Hal. I’m just on my way to the police station.”

“What for?” he asked, as if he had every right to know.

“To see Palm, find out what this is all about.”

“I’ll tell you what it’s about. That kid is nothing but trouble.”

“Hal! You can’t mean that.”

“Like hell. And it’s your fault.”

“My fault? What—?”

“You always encouraged him to go against me.”

“What do you mean?” Royce crossed her arms and stood her ground.

“That dog”—Hal pointed to the corner where Devon usually lay, paused when he saw the dog was not there, then continued his tirade—“is a perfect example. I told Palmer to take him to the shelter and what does he do? He brings him over here and sweet-talks you into taking him. You always said you didn’t want an animal around.”

Royce took a deep breath, trying to stay calm. The dog wasn’t the issue. Don’t take the bait. “Hal. Sit down. I know you’re worried about Palm, just as I am. We—”

“I didn’t want him to go to work for Bert Morrell. But again, did he listen to me? No. You took his side then, too. You’re responsible, Royce Thorne.”

“Palm is over twenty-one, Hal. Don’t you think you should start treating him like an adult?” Now was not the time. But in spite of her resolve, she was being drawn into his argument.

“An adult? Oh, yes, he’ll be treated like an adult, all right. They’re going to send him to prison for grand larceny,” Hal bellowed as he slapped the table. “Maybe for murder, too.”

Involuntarily, Royce moved back a step. “Hal. Palm is transparently honest. You have to know he would never have robbed Bert. Let alone kill him.”

“Honest? He led me to believe he was coming home to help me in the business. And what does he do? Goes and gets a job with that scum. See what it’s got him into?”

“And you bear no responsibility for any of the shortcomings you see in your son? Is that it?”

“Me? I’ve provided for him from the day he was born. I took care of him when his bitch of a mother took off. How dare you say I’ve not been a good father?” Face flushed, he pounded the table again.

Royce’s voice rose before she could stop it. “You provided food and shelter. But never very much love, Hal Woodstone. That’s why Palm was over here so often. Eddy and I loved him and listened to him when he needed to talk.” She knew she should put an end to this. Palm needed them to work together. He needed their help. Standing here shouting at each other was useless.

“You and Eddy loved him? Listened to him? I was working my tail off to support that boy, even if…” Woodstone bit off the words that seemed about to burst from his lips. He stood with clenched fists, visibly fighting for control. “I don’t know if he would commit robbery. Or murder. I don’t know where he went after work Saturday. I told the police that.” After he spoke the incredible words, Woodstone wheeled and left Royce’s kitchen. He stormed through the door and crossed the deck with heavy, angry strides.

Moving over to Devon’s corner, Royce knelt and picked up his quilted pad, holding it to her chest. She wished he had been with her but knew it was probably better he wasn’t. Hal’s shouts and hitting the table might have caused the dog to believe Hal threatened Royce and Devon might have attacked him. Devon usually paid little attention to Hal, perhaps sensing his animosity. After a couple of minutes, she felt calmer.

She rose and again gathered her purse and keys to leave. The drive to the police station took her past the outdoor cafe where she had seen and heard Clupper and Thelma Morrell. She replayed their words, trying to understand exactly what they meant.

Thelma said she had left the door open after “he,” presumably Palm, had gone. The man, Clupper, said the door was locked when he got “there,” presumably the dealership. Thelma accused Clupper of “holding out” on some woman, then killing her. Clupper accused Thelma of killing the woman herself. Who was the woman they were talking about? Thelma asked Clupper if he had been caught by “him” and “killed him.” Palm? Or Bert? Palm was alive, so not him. Thank God. But why would Thelma Morrell have met the man if she thought he might have killed her husband?

Royce realized she was headed directly for the Transit Company kiosk at the corner of Pinon and Ash Streets. She wrenched the steering wheel, and her right front fender just kissed the newspaper box beside the kiosk. The resulting almost human-sounding wail of metal scraping metal was fitting accompaniment to the awful possibility that had assailed her.

The woman Thelma Morrell and Clupper spoke of must be the same woman who was beaten to death at the Fall Creek Inn—Fern Rock. But why would Thelma use Clupper as delivery man to send money to the woman? If she had, what was her reason for doing so?

Royce drove the rest of the way to the police station on autopilot, trying to get a mental handle on the possibility that had occurred to her. What could Clupper and Thelma Morrell have to do with the woman found almost, and now actually, dead at the motel? If she was the woman they had talked about. Possibly there had been one or several, whatever the statistical probability, women who died in Fall Creek from natural causes on Saturday night. But Morrell and Clupper had accused each other of killing the woman they were talking about. And Clupper had even seemed to connect Thelma with Bert’s death.

She continued to sit in her car after pulling into a space in the station parking lot. Was it only yesterday she had followed Clupper from this very lot? And heard him talking to Thelma about, maybe, the woman whose body lay in the morgue?

Should she tell Jared about the conversation she’d overheard? She shrank from it. None of it exonerated Palm. In fact, it could be taken as incriminating him. No, she couldn’t risk it. She’d consider it when she had more information. Surely the police would come up with information on this poor dead soul soon.

It wouldn’t be anyone she or Palm knew, of course. Some unfortunate woman who came to Fall Creek to meet a person who meant her harm. She dialed Royce’s number by mistake. Was she just delaying this repugnant and fruitless task because it was unpleasant? So get it over with.

She got out of the car and marched across the street. She pushed through the double glass doors etched with the logo of a meadow with a sparkling stream flowing toward a waterfall. “Royce. Back again?” Sergeant Brand greeted her with a warm smile.

“Not by choice, Chuck. The chief wanted me to see if I might know the woman who was found at the inn.”

Brand’s friendly smile changed to a quizzical look. His console buzzed, and he put a call through to the squad room. “Why would he think you’d know her?”

“She’s supposed to have called my house from the hospital. If it was her, I thought she said my name. But hers rings no bells for me, so I probably misunderstood.”

“Yeah. ‘Fern Rock.’ So far no record of anyone by that name has turned up. Sounds like a fake.” The sergeant turned to punch in a number on his communication console. “I’ll give the chief a buzz. He’s with the city attorney. Probably deciding whether to let Palm make bail.”

Royce nodded her thanks and walked to a bench and sat down. Being here at the station conjured up bittersweet memories for her. She could almost think she would see Eddy’s wide grin as he came around the counter. Hi, babe. Just give me a minute to hassle Brand, here.

Instead, it was Jared Granite who strode out to meet her a moment later. “Royce. Thanks for coming. I know this won’t be pleasant. Let’s get it over with.” He led the way out a side door and over to the morgue entrance. The morgue was housed in a newer brick addition to the mellow red bricks of the one-story police station. They walked up the two shallow steps to the door.

The smell of formaldehyde and disinfectant clogged Royce’s nostrils as they entered the building. She clenched her right hand in a pocket and tried to take shallow breaths.

They passed through a bare tiled foyer. To the right of the door Jared held open was a sliding glass window above a narrow shelf. Did a morgue need a receptionist? Her mind grabbed at irrelevant thoughts to avoid thinking for as long as possible about what was ahead of her. Jared followed her into the concrete-floored, brightly lit morgue proper. Two stainless steel tables, with adjustable lights above and instrument tables next to them, comprised the furnishings. A half-dozen rows of flat steel squares, two to a row, centered with hand holds, about twenty-four inches on a side, formed the left-hand wall. They looked like over-sized file cabinets.

“Charlie, where are you?”

When the short, balding man wearing a dark green scrub suit and wraparound rubber apron came through a rear door, Royce nodded in greeting.

“Yo, Chief. Royce. Lucianne okay?”

“She will be. Thanks for asking.”

“You wanted to see the battering victim’s body?”

“Are you finished with her?”

“Just. Was writing my report up.” The pathologist untied his rubber apron and hung it on a wall hook at the head of one of the steel tables. He sighed and sat on a high stool at the foot of the table. “Do you want to wait and read it, or shall I give you the highlights?”

“Give me the highlights now,” Chief Granite said, glancing at Royce, who nodded, surprised he was allowing her to hear.

“Whoever bashed her meant to kill her. I’d stake my reputation on that. Just beating somebody up for the hell of it wouldn’t do the damage I saw. Really don’t see how she lived as long as she did or actually regained consciousness. Strong-willed woman.”

Cold fingers traveled down Royce’s spine again. Who was she, this woman who had inspired such hate in someone they would beat her to death with their bare hands? Or did they? “Charlie, could you tell if the assailant wore gloves?”

The bald pathologist, whose strongly built, rotund body had been as lean as Jared Granite’s frame when Royce first met him years ago, rubbed his pink scalp. “Didn’t find any fibers, Royce. But no different blood type or skin cells either. Could have worn latex gloves, of course. No evidence a weapon was used. My best guess is she was knocked down with a smooth blunt instrument, then kicked with heavily shod feet.”

“Feet?” Chief Granite’s olive complexion darkened at the information, the single word ground out between clenched teeth.

“Yes. The worst injuries, the fatal ones, were inflicted by someone wearing heavy shoes or boots kicking her when she was down.”

“Which ones?” the chief asked.

“Skull fracture, left side of the head, broken jaw. Moving down the body, ruptured spleen and colon. Left arm broken, also from kicks, though that wouldn’t have been fatal, normally. Crushed left foot and ankle.”

“Such rage,” Royce murmured. “What could have unleashed it?”

“You were a cop’s wife, Royce. You know something of what people are capable of. Not just men, either.”

She shook her head, that day over twenty years ago rising up in her mind. Jared couldn’t know that she had first-hand knowledge of that driving rage. Only the grace of God and physical weakness had prevented her from following through with her intent.

“You okay, Royce?”

The chief’s voice sounded far away. The hated image from the past dimmed. She slammed and locked the door on it and forced her awareness back to the present unpleasant task. “I’m okay.”

“Let’s get this show on the road, folks.” Charlie slapped his upper thighs and rose from his stool. “I’ve got work to do.” He walked over to the row of oversized filing cabinet drawers and reached for the handle on one. He hesitated a moment and said, “However she may have looked before, she ain’t pretty now, Royce.”

“I said I’m okay, Charlie.”

He shrugged and pulled the drawer open.

Royce steeled herself for what she would see, but all that was visible when the drawer slid open was a heavy white sheet. The sheet had an elongated low mound in its center.

With a final glance in her direction, the coroner pulled the sheet off the body in one smooth motion. Royce checked an impulse to step back. The nude female body looked so defenseless. The arms lay at the sides, one a little crooked with dark purple bruises visible, small well-shaped hands open. Slender legs, proportionate to the body. One delicate ankle and its foot were flattened and looked almost boneless, several tattooed flowers barely visible through bruises and lacerations. In contrast to the ankles, the feet seemed too large. A plastic tag was tied around the right big toe.

Swallowing the bile that rose in her throat, Royce forced herself to look at the face. Dark purple bruises covered most of it, two deep lacerations across the right cheek, a visible indentation on the left side, both lips painfully swollen. Charlie’s neatly stitched Y incision bisected the huge area of bruising on the body, all shades of purple and red, some parts so dark they looked black, which spread from the chest to the pelvic region.

“With so much bruising and discoloration, I wonder if even someone who knew her well could—” the chief observed, echoing Royce’s thought from last night.

Charlie crossed his arms and rocked back and forth beside the open drawer. “There’s one other thing, Chief.”

Chief Granite looked up. “What’s that?”

“The killer could have waited. She would have died very soon anyway.”

“What? Why?”

“Cancer. Advanced breast cancer, apparently untreated. Metastasized to liver and kidneys, liver almost completely destroyed.”

The chief was visibly shaken. “How long?”

“Best guess. A month, probably less.”

Royce must have made a sound. The chief’s keen gaze, not without sympathy, searched her face. “Anything?”

“No, I don’t know her.”

He continued to look at her. “You’re certain? She must have had some reason to call you.”

“I don’t know why the woman called my house. Maybe in her condition, she dialed the wrong number. Maybe I misunderstood and she didn’t say my name. Whatever it was, I do not recognize her.” Wrenching her eyes from the sight of the pathetic body, Royce wheeled and began to walk toward the steel doors. Behind her, she heard the drawer slide back into its wall niche and Chief Granite’s steps as he followed her. He touched her arm, turning her to face him.

“Charlie,” he called to the coroner, “send that report ‘Restricted, Chief Only.’ ” He stared hard at Royce. “You never heard this.”

She stared back. “You know very well I would never reveal restricted information.”

Somewhat to her surprise, he had the grace to look a little disconcerted. “Of course, Royce. Sorry.”

Taking a deep breath as she pushed open the doors and gained the comparatively fresher air of the foyer, she continued toward the outer door. “What about her clothing? Did anything have labels?”

“She was wearing a sort of housedress, loose. Just a couple of other outfits in the room. Off-the-rack discount store labels, mostly. Looked like she, or somebody, had made the blouse and skirt hanging in the closet.” He hesitated. “Peasant style, I think I’ve heard it called.”

Why the hesitation, Royce wondered. Then she remembered that Lucianne had dressed in that casual style when she and Jared first married. Before she took off for Capitol City. Now her look was sleek and sophisticated, as befitted a big city features reporter.

“Any luggage?”

“Cloth tote bag. A couple sets of underwear in it.”

“You said you’ve sent fingerprints to the FBI?”

“Yes. But unless she’s been arrested at some time, or has a carry permit, or has been in the military, it’s not likely to help identify her.”

“I want to see Palm. Now, Jared.”

The chief managed to reach the door ahead of her and held it open. “Sure you can, Royce, if he wants to see you.”

Royce stopped in midstride. “What do you mean, ‘if he wants to see me’? Of course, he’ll see me.”

Royce followed Jared Granite through the station parking area, trying to brush past the familiar black and white cars without thinking about them. Eddy had loved the powerful engines and would have kept his cruiser at home if it had been allowed in those days. Her thoughts touched on the day he’d taken Palm and herself for a not exactly regulation ride in his cruiser.

How had Palm felt, being driven to jail in the back seat of one, handcuffed, a prisoner? She could only imagine.