Page 10 of The Murder Between Us
Buzzing broke through his daydreams, a clattering across the cheap laminate top of the hotel room’s dresser. His cell phone was going crazy, finally charged up enough to turn on and start delivering messages and notifications. Jesus, there had to be fifteen, twenty, or more. It wasn’t even six thirty in the morning. Was James up, texting him from across the hall? Teasing him about last night?
He swiped his phone on and picked it up. Eight missed calls. Thirteen text messages.
All from Des Moines.
Oh no.His heart sank, dropping to the hollow pit of his stomach as he opened the first text. Then his legs buckled, and he sank to the edge of the mattress, toothbrush and toothpaste forgotten as he read one text, and then the next, and the next.
Five minutes later, Noah had his suitcase packed and was calling down to the front desk to arrange a taxi to the airport.I’ll be on the next flight back, he texted.I’m on my way now.
4
Warm wind sweptacross Iowa’s green and golden grasses, bending the delicate stalks into rippling waves along the split-rail fence surrounding the property. The farmhouse stood out from the rolling flatlands, the crops stretching in all directions. Copses of gnarled oak and a few cedars and cottonwoods dotted the landscape, breaking up the cornfields and the grasses and, in the distance, grain silos and an old water tower.
The farmhouse had been the pride of the Olson family. Noah remembered listening to Bart detail all the home-improvement projects he was tackling, how he was turning the older property into his dream home.What I always wanted, Bart had said.Peace and quiet.
Noah’s stomach twisted as he ducked beneath the yellow crime scene tape roping off the wraparound porch. The front door was wide open, and a dozen crime scene technicians were crowded inside Bart’s house, taking photos and measurements and dusting for fingerprints.
He forced himself to take in the scene in pieces, starting on the outside and sweeping his gaze across the devastation. Broken furniture. Shattered glass from broken picture frames. Drag marks. Smeared bloody handprints in the hallway leading to the back of the house and the bedrooms. Blood on the carpets. The walls. A thick, wide pool of blood cooling in the center of the living room, surrounding the broken, badly beaten body of Bart Olson, Boone County Sheriff.
Deputy Sheriff Andy Garrett, Bart’s third in command, was like a tornado hovering in place, a storm cell whirling inside his stone-hard body. Minute tremors tore through him as he stood at the edge of the crime scene, staring at the body of his former boss. His uniform was pristine, starched and crisp and ironed into exact creases, every button of his long-sleeved shirt fastened. He still wore his uniform hat, a broad, flat-brimmed Stetson, angled down over his eyes as if he could shield his sight. But he hadn’t looked away, not once, since Noah had arrived on scene.
“Andy.” Noah joined him, glancing down at the notepad Garrett held in his hands. His pen hovered over the page. He’d written down nothing. The paper was blank. “I’m sorry.”
Garrett’s jaw clenched hard, the muscles in his neck bulging over his high collar. He didn’t look at Noah. “It looks like the sheriff surprised the intruder,” Garrett spat. “We think he arrived home while the… attack was in progress.”
Noah nodded. Bart was almost unrecognizable. His face was caved in, bruised and broken and bloody, and if it weren’t for Bart’s uniform and his shockingly red hair sticking up from the mess that had been his face, Noah wouldn’t have believed the corpse before him was the sheriff.
“There are defensive wounds on his hands and arms,” Andy grunted. “He fought.”
“There might be DNA under his fingernails. Might be something we can use to identify the killer.”
Andy nodded, his lips going thin. He swallowed. His pen tapped on his blank notepad.
Deputy Venneslund appeared at Andy’s shoulder. He looked at Bart and then away, swallowing. He was a sick shade of green, and his eyes were red. No one wanted to find their own like this, beaten so savagely, so brutally. He kept his gaze off of Bart as he joined Noah. “Are you going to catch him this time?”
His words were a punch to Noah’s gut. “We’ve never stopped trying.”
“The task force was shut down.”
“We ran into dead end after dead end. And there hadn’t been an attack since…” He inhaled.
Venneslund turned, a single, lightning-fast movement. One moment he was looking at Andy. The next, he was staring at Noah, his dark eyes unblinking.
“I never stopped looking,” Noah breathed.
Andy’s lip curled up. It was an ugly, hateful look. He snorted. Venneslund closed his eyes. He exhaled, his hands fisting at his sides.
“I need to see the rest of the scene,” Noah said softly. “I need to know if it’s him.”
“It’s him,” Venneslund spat.
“I need to see.”
Andy’s nostrils flared as Venneslund sighed. A moment passed, and then another, Venneslund and Andy sharing a long look. Andy nodded, and Venneslund spun on his heel, gave the sheriff’s body a wide berth as he crossed the living room, and led Noah to the hallway that went to the bedrooms at the back of the farmhouse.
Signs of a struggle surrounded them: dents in the drywall, those smeared handprints, blood splatter. Someone had fought for their life in this hallway.
Someone had lost.
