Page 9 of Locked In

Chief Clark shifted beside her. He stood there in his uniform with a light police windbreaker over it. He appeared to be struggling for patience. Harper had known him a long time and knew his tolerance with the mayor was just about up. She was hogging the spotlight. So far, she’d behaved herself and not thrown any shade at him. But it was only a matter of time…a fact he was well aware of.

Susan held up her hands. “I’ll turn it over to our police chief. I’m sure he has answers for your questions. At least he better.” She looked at him and smiled, which was more like a baring of her teeth.

And there it was. Harper knew there was no way Chief Clark was getting away unscathed. And in a sense, fair enough. Susan had just been raked over the coals for the last ten minutes about how the crime rate had gone up during her tenure as mayor and questioned about why she’d trimmed down the police budget. Did she think there was a correlation between the two things?

As she stepped away from the microphones, Susan addressed Harper. “What do we know?” she demanded. Harper snapped open a large black umbrella and held it aloft over their heads as they started down the path. They ducked under the tape that a couple of the uniformed officers had put up to block off the path along the bluff.

“So far, not much. Jason is over there. He can fill you in on what they have.”

“Is he that cute detective?” Susan asked as she moved quickly along the path.

Harper rolled her eyes which thankfully Susan couldn’t see. The woman was a manizer. Was that a word? She’d dated most of the decent single men in Cedar Bluff who were over thirty-five and a few that were under. “Yes, he’s the cute one.” Before Susan could ask, she continued, “And yes, you look good.”

Susan shot her a look but then smiled. “Can’t blame a girl for wanting to look her best.” She looked at her deputy mayor with narrowed eyes, and Harper braced herself. “You know, it wouldn’t hurt to work on your appearance a bit. Then you might find a man.”

“I don’t want a man.” They’d had the conversation more times than she could count. It came up whenever they had a glass of wine together after a long day at work. Susan just couldn’t understand Harper’s reluctance to start another relationship after the last one ended so spectacularly.

They were approaching the tent and Jason looked up. “Madam Mayor.”

“Detective Merritt,” Susan purred as she stepped under the canvas covering. “Such a difficult situation.” She touched his arm.

“Yes, it is.” He shot the mayor a tight smile and then sent a panicked look over the top of her head toward Harper.

Harper turned away and stood still under the umbrella. She wasn’t getting in the middle of that. Susan was in between men and as a woman in her mid-sixties with a self-described active libido, she was looking for companionship. On the prowl was more like it.Rowrrrrr.She was being catty. It was none of her business.

She walked down to the tent and glanced inside. Mandy was still there working on the body. She glanced up and Harper bit her lip.

Mandy frowned. “Did you know her?”

Harper nodded. “Yes, she was a close family friend.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Do you have any ideas on how she died?”

Mandy stopped what she was doing and stood up, stretching her back. “I can’t determine an actual cause of death until I get her back to the morgue.” She studied Harper for a second. “Off the record, she has a lot of broken bones. I can show you if you want.”

Harper shook her head. She couldn’t bring herself to get that close. It was hard enough to be here let alone get up close to Astrid’s bones.

Mandy frowned. “It appears she was severely beaten. That may or may not be the thing that killed her.”

Harper tried to force air into her lungs. She’d been hoping… She didn’t know what she’d been hoping. A drug overdose, maybe? Something, anything not so traumatic and painful. She wanted to ask if Astrid had been sexually assaulted but she wasn’t sure she wanted the answer. It would come out soon enough anyway.

Mandy seemed to sense her question. “I can’t tell at this point and I’m not sure I will be able to even at the lab, but with a beating like this, I would be surprised if she wasn’t raped too.”

Harper swallowed and closed her eyes. The rain had temporarily lessened, and she let the steady drip on the umbrella center ground her. Maybe it was a blessing that Mandy couldn’t confirm it. Astrid’s father need not know that part.

She opened her eyes and cleared her throat. “Anything interesting or different about…”

Mandy shifted her weight. “See this right here?” She pointed to a part of Astrid’s dress.

“The green bit?”

“Yes,” Mandy agreed. “It’s under her nails as well. Paint flecks. I thought it might have been car paint, like she’d been hit by a car, but that’s not what the injuries look like. It’s an odd shade of green.”

“I see.” Harper stared at the paint chip caught on the dress. Mandy was right it was an odd shade; one she knew very well. She remembered when her father had painted it on the walls in one of the rooms of Everlasting Manor all those years ago.

She backed away from the tent.

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