No One Will Miss Her(3)

Ian Bird was not from around here. He took two wrong turns down those roads, cursing when they dead-ended, before he found the turnoff to the shore drive. He pulled off the road at the mailbox that marked number thirteen, nosing in behind a van belonging to the forensic team. Like him, the techs had been summoned by the state police—as soon as possible, even though they privately griped that it would surely be too late to keep the local cops from trampling all over the place, marring the scene, sticking their ungloved hands into places they didn’t belong.

Like the garbage disposal: Jesus Christ. Bird groaned out loud thinking about it. It was the worst kind of mistake, but you had to feel bad for the poor bastard who’d done it. Barehanded, no less.

That little gem, severed nose in the sink, had gone out over the radio while Bird was still on his way, which meant that some busybody with a scanner had probably spread it clear to the county line by now. Not that it really mattered. In a place like this, with a case like this, the details always leaked. Bird had never been to Copper Falls, but he’d spent time in enough towns like it, and he knew how it worked. City cops had to battle a hungry press to keep information close; out here, you were up against something much more primal. The people who lived in places like this seemed to be tapped into each other’s business on a cellular level, sharing secrets through some kind of collective consciousness, firing it straight from synapse to synapse like drones all plugged into a single hive. And the juicier the news, the faster it traveled. This story would have blown down the shore drive and end to end through town before Bird made his first wrong turn.

Maybe that was all right, though. The more widespread the horrifying details about the murder of Lizzie Ouellette, the harder it would be for the husband to hide. Even friends and family would think twice about sheltering a guy who’d cut off his wife’s nose . . . if he’d done it, of course. It was early yet, and all possibilities had to be explored—but this had all the hallmarks of a domestic dispute, something deeply, horribly personal. It was as much about the missing pieces of the puzzle: no signs of forced entry, no valuables taken. And of course, there was the matter of the woman’s mutilated face. Bird had seen savagery like that just once before, only that time, there were two bodies: a murder suicide, husband and wife side by side. The man had taken an axe to her, saving the bullet for himself. It was a cleaner end than he deserved, and an infuriating mess for the investigative team. They had spent weeks interviewing friends, family, neighbors, trying to pin down the why of the thing. All anyone would say was that they had seemed happy, or happy enough.

Bird wondered if Lizzie Ouellette and Dwayne Cleaves seemed happy enough.

If they were lucky, they’d catch Cleaves in time to ask him.

Bird drained the dregs of his coffee, setting his cup back on the console, and stepped out. The wind had shifted, pushing the smoke from the burning junkyard north across the lake, but a faint acrid odor still hung in the air. He took his time making his way up the driveway, taking in the scene—the house nestled among the pines, coming into view as he rounded the final curve. Beyond it, the lake glittered, its waters stirred by the wind. Over the rustling of the trees, the faint ka-thunk ka-thunk of waves hitting the underside of a dock could be heard. Sound carried out here. On a quiet night, a scream might be heard all the way across the lake, if there was anyone around to listen. But every place in shouting distance had been vacant last night. No witnesses. Which made the killer either very lucky, or very local.

Bird knew which one he’d put his money on.

Myles Johnson was outside the door, looking faintly green. He stepped aside at the sight of Bird’s ID and pointed down the hallway, where a half dozen people were crowded outside the bedroom door. Bird recognized the local cops from their uneasy looks—in over their heads, but still not pleased to see an outsider in their midst.

The remains of Lizzie Ouellette were stretched on the floor beside the bed. One of the techs shifted his body as Bird peered through the doorway, offering a brief glimpse of the corpse. The rise of a hip with a pair of red bikini bottoms stretched taut over the bone, a bare shoulder where her shirt had pulled to the side, hair matted with blood. A lot of blood—he could see flecks of it on her naked skin, and a spreading stain on the carpet beneath. Flies were buzzing, but no worms. Not yet. She hadn’t been here long.

Bird scanned the area around the bed, noting the crumpled quilt on the floor. More blood. The quilt was stained, but not soaked.

“She was underneath it,” said a voice, and Bird turned to see the young deputy who’d admitted him into the house standing behind him, his broad shoulders nearly brushing either wall of the narrow space. He was twisting a dishcloth in both hands, gripping it hard enough to turn his knuckles white.

The nose guy.

“You’re the one who found the body, then?”

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t know when I moved the blanket; I thought she might be, you know, alive, or . . .”

“Alive,” Bird said. “That would be after you found her nose in the sink? Is it still there?”

Johnson shook his head as one of the techs emerged from the bedroom, pointing ahead down the hall as she passed.

“He dropped it,” she said. “We bagged it. It doesn’t look like much.”

Bird turned back to Johnson.

“All right, Officer. It’s all right. Tell me what you saw.”