CHAPTER NINETEEN

In his previous twenty-five years of police work, Miner Jesson had investigated two murders. Since Jack McBride took over as chief of police eight weeks earlier, he’d seen six dead bodies and a human skeleton. Publicly, he didn’t put much stock in the grumblings around town blaming Jack for the increase in crime, but privately he started to wonder if a little corruption wasn’t a small price to pay if it meant he wouldn’t have to ever see another woman with her brains blown out.

He and Jack, gloved and booted, stood outside the door of Matt and Amy Doyle’s bedroom and watched Doctor Sue Poole, the local ob-gyn who shared coroner duties with her husband, take a temperature reading of Amy Doyle’s body. Simon, the crime scene tech—booted, gloved, and gowned—took pictures of every step.

Doctor Poole straightened and stared impassively at the body on the far side of the bed as though she saw this scene every day. Amy Doyle lay on her stomach under the blankets, her face turned toward the wall, one pajama clad leg cocked outside the blankets. From Miner’s angle, there was only a round bullet hole, darkened with blood, in the center of the back of her head. If Miner leaned to the left a little, he could see where Amy’s face used to be. If he looked at the wall, he could see where it was now.

“Time of death sometime between 1:00 a.m. and 4:00 a.m. Gunshot wound to the back of the head would appear to be the cause of death. Of course, we’ll have to confirm it in the autopsy.” Sue shook her head and, as if shaking off her professional distance, her impassivity was replaced with sadness. Sue packed up her gear and moved out of the tech’s way and into the den.

Matt’s body sat upright in a recliner, his hands covered in plastic bags. The mirror image of Amy’s wound, Matt had a bullet hole in his forehead, above a blackened eye, and the back of his head was blown back into the recliner. His vacant eyes stared into the kitchen, his eyebrows in a permanent arch of surprise. He wore a plaid flannel shirt over a t-shirt, jeans, and work boots, and smelled faintly of wood smoke.

“He’s still wearing what he had on at the bonfire,” Jack said.

“Amy went to bed and Matt stayed up,” Miner said.

Jack nodded and watched Simon take pictures of Doctor Poole’s inspection of Matt’s body.

“Same as Amy,” Doctor Poole said, voice flat. She twisted her mouth.

“What is it?” Jack said. “Do you see something else?”

“No.” She replaced her instruments in her bag and faced Jack and Miner. “I hope murders aren’t going to be a commonplace occurrence. I much prefer welcoming people into the world than seeing them out.” She nodded to the two men and walked out the back door.

Miner thought he saw Jack’s face tighten at the mild rebuke, but Jack turned away too quick for him to tell for sure.

“Simon,” he called to the tech. “We’ll be in the kitchen.”

“Sure thing.” The camera clicked and flashed behind them.

Miner marveled at the neatness of Amy and Matt’s house. It looked like something out of a design magazine. Light poured in through the breaks in the curtains. Pillows placed just so. Canisters on the kitchen countertop that might be functional or might be decoration. He picked up a huge, well-burned Pumpkin Spice Yankee Candle from the middle of the kitchen table and sniffed, hoping to combat the smell of death hovering in the air.

His house looked nothing like this. It was small, old, out of date. Junk littered the kitchen counter, dishes were always in the sink. The lights were always low, the television always on. The smell of sickness everywhere. Miner sniffed the candle again.

“Miner?”

Miner looked up. “Hmm?”

Jack’s brow furrowed. “Are you okay?”

“Besides seeing the body of a kid I watched grow up, you mean?” Miner put the candle down with a snap. “Right as rain.”

“Sir, I can’t let you in there.” Officer Nathan Starling’s voice carried through the house.

“Move out of my way, son.”

“Sir, I …”

Jack nodded to Miner, who moved to the front door. Joe Doyle, dressed in his Sunday suit, loomed over Starling. “Joe, you don’t want to come in here.”

“I saw the bodies, or have you forgotten?”

Jack appeared next to Miner. “This is a crime scene. You cannot be here. Let’s step outside.”

“It’s a zoo out there,” Doyle said.

“Then let’s go to the station. Even being in the foyer here is contaminating the crime scene. You don’t want a defense attorney to use it as a way to throw out what we find, do you?”

Doyle considered. “No.”

“Come on, Joe,” Miner said. “I’ll drive you. We’ll meet you there?”

Jack nodded.

Miner ushered Joe out the front door and to his personal truck. He’d come straight from home when Jack called.

They were out of Matt and Amy’s neighborhood and on Old Yourkeville when Joe broke down in tears. Miner squirmed in his seat.

“My son,” Doyle sobbed. “My son.”

“Joe, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Miner.” He sniffed lustily, wiping the snot from beneath his nose. “You have no idea.”

“How’s Mary?”

“Sedated. I wish I could take a pill and know everything would be taken care of.” His voice, so full of grief for his son, held no compassion for his wife.

“I’m sure Michelle’ll handle everything.”

They turned into the square.

“Yes. Michelle will take care of everything. Though if it wasn’t for her …” Joe gazed out the window at the Book Bank, which was filled with people. “Look at them, gossiping, telling a bunch of damn lies. Spreading rumors. Of course, Ellie’s in the middle of it. I can’t wait to crush her on Tuesday.”

“You aren’t dropping out?”

Joe looked at Miner as if he’d lost his mind. “Drop out? Hell no. I’m going to win, and when I do, I’m going to make you chief.”

“Mr. Doyle,” Jack said in a smooth, complacent voice.

Doyle’s eye twitched, his anger in Miner’s truck carrying over into the station. “I want to know what’s being done.”

Jack motioned toward the chair in front of his desk. “As would I. Have a seat. I’ll fill you in.”

Miner stood back and rested his hands on his gun belt. Jack sat after Doyle had taken his seat. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I didn’t know Matt very well, but I liked him a lot. I was looking forward to getting to know him.” Doyle’s rigid posture softened slightly. Jack should have stopped there. “It’s a damn shame, a young man with so much potential dying so suddenly.”

Doyle’s eyes narrowed and his voice rose. “He didn’t just die. He was murdered.”

Jack nodded. “Not the way I would have expected someone like Matt to die.”

“If you’d done a better job catching the drug dealers who’ve been terrorizing our town the last few weeks, this would have never happened.”

Jack’s eyes brightened. “What makes you think it was drug dealers? Was Matt mixed up in drugs? Maybe PEDs?”

Doyle lifted his chin, apparently aware his drug dealer comment had given Jack an idea Doyle would rather him not have. “I don’t know what a PED is. Any two-bit criminal in the country knows they can commit all kinds of crime in this town and not be caught. Probably a robbery gone wrong.”

Jack nodded. Miner knew as well as Jack that two-bit criminals don’t rob occupied houses in the middle of the night. Nor do they kill the homeowners in their sleep.

“Robbery is a possibility,” Jack said. “Obviously, the big stuff is still at the house. Computer, television, phones.”

“Once we’ve finished processing the scene, we’ll need you to look around, tell us if anything of value is missing,” Miner said.

Jack twisted his head to glare at Miner. Miner shrugged and nodded in Doyle’s direction.

“Yes. Of course, Miner. Whatever you need,” Doyle said.

Jack turned back to Doyle. “Can you tell us what happened this morning? How you found the bodies?”

Doyle rubbed his face. “I didn’t find them. My granddaughter, Madison, did. Christ. You aren’t going to have to talk to her, are you?”

“We might, but right now, your version will do.”

Doyle cleared his throat. “Right. I was at home, getting ready for church. Mary, my wife, was making pancakes for Charlie, that’s Matt and Amy’s son. He spent the night with us last night.”

“And Madison? Was she at home?”

“No. She spent the night with friends. Madison forgot her Bible. She saw their cars and told her friends she’d ride with her parents.” Doyle cleared his throat again. “She called Mary, hysterical. I told Mary I’d go right over.”

“When I got there, I called out for Madison but she didn’t answer. The house was eerie quiet. I called out for Matt and Amy, even though I knew they wouldn’t answer.”

“How did you know?”

“I suppose I suspected it when Madison called. She’s not a hysterical girl. Level headed. Top of her class. For her to be like that …” Doyle coughed and covered his mouth with his fist. “The master is closest to the garage. That’s the way I came in.” He cleared his throat, struggling to hold back emotion. “After, I went looking for Madison. Found her in her bedroom closet, back behind her hanging clothes. Arms wrapped around her knees, talking to herself. I heard Starling downstairs.”

“You called 911?”

“Yeah. On my way over.” Doyle sat back in his chair. “Now you know what I know. What do you know?”

“Mr. Doyle, we’ve been at it six hours. I know it sounds like a long time, but we’re still gathering physical evidence. Right now, we know cause and time of death definitively. Everything else is supposition. What we do know, we’re going to keep under wraps for a while longer. Gossip spreads across Stillwater like wildfire. We’ll keep you in the loop as much as possible, but this is a murder investigation. We won’t share everything.”

“I want Miner in charge.”

Jack chuckled. “You don’t have a say in who investigates what, Joe.”

“When I become city councilman—”

“If you become city councilman, you still won’t have a say. This is my department, and I make the decisions about who does what.”

“We’ll see.”

The two men glared at each other. “When was the last time you talked to Matt?” Jack said.

Doyle looked down and away. After a pause he said, “I guess yesterday at the snipe festival.”

“Talk about anything in particular?”

“The election. The bonfire they were having.”

“Okay.” Jack stood and held out his hand. “I’m sure I’ll have more questions for you tomorrow, as well as the rest of your family. It goes without saying y’all need to stay close to town.”

When Doyle stood, he seemed to take up the entire room. “You better solve this case, McBride, or there’ll be hell to pay.”

“Oh, I’ll solve it. You better be ready for some uncomfortable truths to come out in the process.”

Doyle scowled at Jack’s offered hand without taking it, turned, and stalked out of his office.

“Shit,” Jack said, his bravado slipping into weariness.

“You sure love to poke the bear, dontcha?” Miner said.

“Why did you interrupt?”

Miner closed the door to Jack’s office. “Because you don’t want him to suspect you’re on to his drug operation. They’re already gonna go turtle on us, leastwise that’s what I’d do. You waving a red flag in front of Joe’s face ain’t gonna help none, either. Doyle doesn’t trust you. He trusts me. We can foster it. Take advantage of it.”

Jack turned his head and studied Miner so long, he wondered if he’d raised Jack’s suspicions. “You’re right. Good cop, bad cop. Oldest trick in the book.”

“And, easiest to sell.” Especially when you’ve got an ego like yours.

“Go on, good cop. Take your mark back home.”