Page 25 of The Morning After (Savannah 2)

Morrisette wheeled into the parking lot at the station. “I’ll start calling around, checking with everyone who knew Barbara Jean.” She stood on the brakes and the cruiser slid into its spot. McFee was staying on another couple of days, sending his reports by fax and E-mail to the Lumpkin County Sheriff’s Department and, in Reed’s opinion, generally getting in the way. He wanted to take the bull by the proverbial horns and run the investigation, but he couldn’t. Morrisette was right. He had to watch his step.

Outside, the night was cold and damp, the air thick with the feel of rain about to fall.

“Christ, it’s cold,” Morrisette muttered as she jabbed the rest of her cigarette into a canister of sand near the door.

“It’s winter,” McFee said.

“Yeah, but doesn’t Mother Nature know this is the South?”

Reed shouldered opened the door, held it for her and McFee, then walked with them up the stairs, their boots ringing on the steps as they made their way to the second floor. McFee peeled off at the temporary desk he’d been assigned while Morrisette followed Reed into his office. “I’ve got to get home,” she said, almost apologizing. “I haven’t seen much of the kids lately.”

Reed glanced at his watch. “Aren’t they in bed?”

“I forgot, you don’t have children. Lucky you…or maybe, lucky them.”

“Very funny,” he countered, taking off his jacket. The inside of the station was warm, over seventy, even though it was night and the offices were relatively deserted. Only a few diehards like himself, mostly those without families, were at their desks. He felt a sense of melancholy about his solitary state, but it was fleeting. He wasn’t the kind to settle down. All his relationships had failed, including the one that had mattered in San Francisco. Helen had been a schoolteacher and professed to love him, but it hadn’t been enough to keep him in the city after the tragedy. Nothing could have. So he’d returned to Savannah and the few relationships, if you could call them that, had been fleeting, including his short-lived affair with Bobbi Marx. “Go home to your kids.”

“I will,” she said, and walked out the door just as her pager went off. “See. The sitter’s tracking me down as we speak. I’ll see ya tomorrow.”

“Right,” he replied, but she’d already disappeared beyond the desks and down the stairs. He was left alone in his office. He skimmed his E-mail, didn’t see anything of interest and figured he could read through the messages in the morning. He was bone tired and the thought of his recliner, a hot shower and a cold beer was inviting.

Maybe he should just go home. Get a fresh start on everything in the morning. He reached for his jacket as his phone rang. He snagged the receiver before it could jingle again. “Detective Reed,” he said automatically.

“You’re still there. Thought I’d probably get your voice mail this late.”

Reed recognized the voice as belonging to Gerard St. Claire, the ME. “Look, I’ve got a preliminary report on the case up north. I’ve been on the horn with the examiner in Atlanta.”

“Already?” Reed’s exhaustion dissipated.

“As I said, preliminary. Very preliminary, but we were told to put a rush on it. We already called Lumpkin County. But I thought you’d like to hear what we’ve got.”

“What is it?”

“We don’t know too much. Yet. The unidentified woman looks like she had a heart attack. We haven’t come up with anything that suggests homicide, although if she was originally stuffed in that box and buried alive, she could have had a coronary. We’re still checking but decomposition has set in and from the state of it, we’re thinking she’s been dead close to ten weeks.”

Reed was taking notes. Listening.

“The other woman is easier.”

Reed’s gut tightened.

“Cause of death for the more recent victim, the one identified as Barbara Jean Marx, was probably asphyxiation, but we’re still checking her blood and body for other wounds. Nothing’s come up as yet. She probably just suffocated in that box. Rigor indicates she was dead less than twenty-four hours. The body wasn’t moved, which is consistent with her dying in the coffin. No visible wounds, no blood aside from scrapes on her fingers from trying to claw her way out. One tattoo of a rose climbing up her spine.”

Reed remembered. Had traced the body art with his fingers. Jesus.

“She has a few bruises as well—we’re checking those out. It’s still too early to tell if there was a struggle. We’re looking at what she had under her fingernails, but as I said, no visible wounds.” The ME hesitated, but Reed sensed there was something more.

“Anything else?”

“Yeah. There’s something I thought you should know about the Marx woman.”

“I’m listening.” Reed sensed bad news was coming. Real bad. His skin tightened over his muscles and his fingers clenched around the receiver.

“She was pregnant.”

Reed sucked in a breath. “Pregnant?” No!

“Eleven, maybe twelve weeks along.”

---