A Deep and Dark December(8)

“I never said it didn’t.”

“You didn’t have to. It’s written all over you.” He looked pointedly at Graham’s beard.

“I’ll do the job.”

For however long he was here. His stay in San Rey was supposed to have been temporary, but between his father’s failing health and his mother’s forgetfulness—for lack of a better word—there was more than enough to tie him up in this town longer than he’d intended. The next thing he knew, he’d been elected sheriff. Elected was stretching it. The mayor had appointed him. His dad had a heavy hand in that. At the time, he didn’t want to let his old man down and agreed to step in temporarily until his brother Adam came home or they found someone else for the job. Someone like Pax.

The need to get the hell out of San Rey pulled at him. Not that there was anything left in L.A. He’d pretty much burned through whatever peace he’d found there. He could start over someplace else. San Diego, maybe. The bigger the city, the easier to blend in. Some place where everyone and their mother didn’t know everything about him. Somewhere it didn’t matter whose son he was. Where generations didn’t stand on his shoulders, expecting him to be someone he wasn’t.

Graham handed his dad a pair of latex gloves. “Here. Put these on if you’re going to stick around. And I know you will.”

Ham snapped the gloves on. “Like it or not, the town is depending on you. I’m depending on you. There are worse places to live, worse things you could do with your life, you know.”

He went into the house, leaving Graham alone on the porch with his resentment and frustration. Guilt was there, too, along with the five-generation deep responsibility his father had instilled in him. He’d do the job, damn it. As long as he was sheriff, he’d do the job.

Graham headed into the house after his father, stopping on the threshold to take in the scene from this view. Deidre lay nearest the door. The old Formica dining set Greg’s parents had back when Graham hung around was one of the few pieces of furniture still in the house. A purse sat on the floor near the chair closest to the door. A stack of papers had been placed at the head of the table. He stepped over Deidre’s legs, careful to avoid the blood pooled around her body.

She’d been shot in the stomach and the bloody marks on the floor made it look as though she’d tried to crawl toward something—the backdoor or her purse?—before the blood loss had probably made her too weak. So why was she laying face up? Had the killer rolled her over? Or Greg? Or less likely, Erin?

Deidre had been pretty. Greg hadn’t mentioned her or their troubles when they’d run into each other last week. But then Graham hadn’t given much time to his old friend. He regretted that now. He should’ve gotten that beer Greg had offered, touched base with him. Graham wondered what they’d been like as a couple. What had happened for them to end up as they were now?

He scanned the document at the top of the stack. Divorce papers. No surprise. Their break up was the talk of the town. San Rey was nothing if not a hot bed of rumor and gossip. Nothing happened in this town that every single citizen didn’t know about. That was one of the reasons he’d left, wanting to go someplace where no one knew him, his family, and his screw ups. But the anonymity he’d found in L.A. didn’t shield him from making new mistakes.

With gloved fingers, he lifted a couple of papers by the edge, quickly reading through the settlement negotiations. Deidre had signed them. Greg hadn’t. Was that why she’d come here, to get his signature? He made note of the name of Deidre’s attorney. He’d follow up with him. Greg’s family might know something about the couple and the terms of their divorce if the lawyer wouldn’t talk.

Graham bent and took a cursory look at the contents of Deidre’s purse. There was the usual female junk—a wallet, some lip stuff, keys, a mirror, brush, a couple of receipts, and a prescription bottle of Na-tabs. Whatever that was.

From his crouched level, Graham studied the layout of the room and the position of the bodies. Near the backdoor he noticed some dirt. No, sawdust.

“Got something?” Pax leaned against the doorframe between the kitchen and living room, a little less green than he’d been before.

“Yeah.” Graham stood. “Sawdust by the backdoor. Make sure the team sees that. And don’t lean against the jam. I want this scene as undisturbed as possible. That includes any DNA or outside material that may be on our clothing. Does anything here strike you as odd?”

Pax straightened away from the door. To his credit, he didn’t seem annoyed at being corrected by someone younger with less years on the force than him. Someone who had essentially stepped over him to take the position as sheriff.

“In what way?” Pax asked.

“Why would Greg wait until Erin came in to shoot himself?”

“He’d been busted? Didn’t want to go to jail?”

“Maybe.” He stepped back over to Pax’s side of the room, examining the scene from this new angle. “But Erin said she had to find a key in the pot to let herself in. Greg could have just taken off through the back door, then come in after Erin found the body.”

“I see what you’re saying,” Pax said. He might not have the same crime scene experience as Graham, but Pax was a sharp guy. He would’ve worked through all this on his own if he’d been the one to talk with Erin. “If he came in after Erin,” Pax continued, “he’d throw suspicion off of himself and onto an anonymous someone else. Sweet Jesus. This means we’ve got our self a real murderer. In San Rey.”