BRIAR CREEK
PUBLIC LIBRARY
“Carrie, what’s wrong? What’s happened?” Lindsey asked as she knelt beside her.
She glanced around the room. A sporting event was on the big-screen TV, and in one of the two recliners facing them was the limp form of Markus Rushton.
At least, Lindsey assumed it was him. Given that she’d only met him once and he’d been bundled from head to toe, it was hard to say for sure, but the circumstances made it likely.
“What happened?” Sully asked as he crossed the room to help Lindsey get Carrie to her feet.
Carrie started to sob; her voice was choked with emotion as she said, “He’s dead. Markus…he’s been shot.”
Carrie trembled and Lindsey put an arm around her shoulders, bracing her as Sully turned to examine Markus. He checked his wrist for a pulse and then moved his hand to the spot beneath his jaw. He dropped his hand and Lindsey knew he’d found no sign of a pulse.
“It’s a ballistic trauma,” Carrie said in nurse speak. “One entry point right through his heart. I thought I could stop the blood loss but I…it…was too late.”
Her knees gave out and Lindsey caught her before she slid to the floor.
“Sully!” she cried, and he rushed forward to scoop Carrie up. She hadn’t fainted but she looked on the verge.
“Let’s get her upstairs,” Lindsey said.
Sully lifted Carrie up and led the way. Lindsey followed, pausing by the recliner. Whatever crazy hope she harbored that both Sully and Carrie had somehow misread the situation and that Markus was not dead quickly dissipated in light of the grim scene before her.
It took her only a second to assess the situation. Markus Rushton had been shot in the heart. A large, dark stain saturated his flannel shirtfront, which covered the chest that no longer rose or fell with breath.
Feeling queasy, Lindsey stumbled after Sully as he went up the stairs to the living room above.
“Sit with her,” he said as he set Carrie down on the sofa in the front room. “I’ll call the police.”
Lindsey went to hold Carrie’s hand, but it was icy cold and sticky with blood. She didn’t know if there was a protocol that said a person couldn’t clean up when they found a dead body, but she wasn’t going to let Carrie just sit there with her husband’s blood drying on her hands.
She went into the kitchen and dampened a paper towel with warm water. Carrie paid her no mind as she gently wiped the blood off her hands. When she was finished, she left the paper towel on the counter by the sink. If anyone asked, she had no problem saying what she had done.
Silent tears were running down Carrie’s face, and Lindsey suspected the shock was just beginning to wear off. She wrapped an arm around her shoulders and rocked her, trying to soothe her.
She heard Sully’s footsteps on the stairs before he appeared. He looked grim. “The police should be here in a few minutes.”
“I just-I don’t…” Carrie’s voice trailed off.
“There’s a hole in the sliding glass door down there,” Sully said. “Was that there before?”
Carrie’s eyebrows lowered in confusion. “No, why?”
“Well, from what I know of bullets and their trajectory, I’m thinking the shot that got Markus in the chest came through the window.”
Carrie turned a sickly shade of green and hunched forward as if she might be sick.
Lindsey rubbed her back. Sully had been in the navy for fifteen years. Lindsey was sure his assessment of the situation was probably right.
But who would have shot Markus Rushton in his own home? And why?
“Do you get any hunters out here in Briar Creek?” she asked, hoping it might all be just a tragic mistake.
“No.” Sully shook his head. “It’s too residential.”
A flashing strobe light sliced through the room in staccato bursts of blue, and Sully rose to let the police in. Lindsey wondered who was on duty tonight. She and Chief Daniels had gotten off to a rocky start the first time they’d met, and they’d never really put it behind them.
Lindsey’s first night on the job locking up the library, Ms. Cole had neglected to tell her that the alarm would sound within fifteen seconds, bringing in the local police. Lindsey had stepped out the back door and found herselfnose to gun barrel, with the chief on the other end of the gun; it was hard to recover from an introduction like that.
“Hi, Emma, come on in,” Sully said at the door.
Lindsey breathed a sigh of relief. It was Officer Emma Plewicki who had answered the call. Lindsey felt certain she would have a better manner with Carrie than Chief Daniels, and she was grateful, given that Carrie was still trembling, the tears still damp on her face.
The attractive brunette followed Sully upstairs into the room. She wore a fleece-lined, navy blue police-issued jacket over her uniform, which was the standard pale blue shirt over navy pants. She took in the sight of Lindsey and Carrie and raised her eyebrows.
“Lindsey and I gave Carrie a ride home from the library because her car wouldn’t start,” Sully explained. “When we got here, we found Markus.”
“Are you all right, Carrie, Mrs. Rushton?” Emma asked.
Carrie nodded and then shook her head and then shrugged. Her distress was palpable.
“Listen, I’m going to go check on your husband and I’ll be right back. Can you hang on until then?” Emma asked. Carrie nodded again and Emma turned to Sully and said, “Show me.”
Lindsey watched as Emma pulled on a pair of blue latex gloves and disappeared down the stairwell behind Sully.
“They’re going to think I did it,” Carrie said. Her voice sounded odd and Lindsey realized her teeth were chattering. She wondered if Carrie was going into shock.
“No, they won’t think that,” Lindsey said and she pulled a fluffy ecru afghan, crocheted in a pineapple pattern, off the back of the couch and wrapped it around Carrie’s shoulders. “You were in a meeting all evening. It couldn’t possibly have been you.”
Carrie said nothing, but Lindsey noticed her shaking got worse.
Emma must have called for backup, because before she came back upstairs with Sully, Chief Daniels arrived. An abrupt knock announced his presence, but before Lindsey could answer the door, he let himself in.
He huffed and puffed his way up the stairs, hitching up his waistband as he climbed as if afraid his pants were going to make a break for his ankles. Lindsey wondered why he just didn’t give in and buy a pair of suspenders, maybe he wasn’t ready to admit that his gut now protruded past the point of no return.
“Carrie,” he said as he stopped beside her. “Emma called me and told me about Markus. I’m so sorry.”
Carrie reached out and he took her hand in his. They stood like that for just a moment, giving each other some unspoken support. Lindsey had never seen this side of the chief before, and she realized that he and Carrie must know one another very well.
“Ms. Norris.” Chief Daniels acknowledged her presence with a curt nod. Nope, no warm fuzzies for her. Lindsey got the impression he wasn’t happy to find her here.
“Chief, you’re going to want to come and take a look at this,” Emma said as she entered the room.
Sully had followed her up the stairs, and Lindsey noticed he was frowning.
“I’ll be right back,” Chief Daniels said to Carrie. “Emma, have you called the medical examiner’s office?”
“Yes, they’re on their way,” she said.
As he lumbered down the stairs after her, Lindsey heard him say, “We get any more dead bodies in this town and they’re going to have to open a branch office out here.”
Emma said something in return, but Lindsey couldn’t make it out.
“What’s going to happen now?” Carrie asked.
“At a guess, a whole lot of waiting,” Sully said. “It’ll be a while before the crime scene personnel get here and then it’ll take them several hours to investigate the scene.”
“I need to call my kids,” Carrie said. Her face crumpled and she sobbed into the corner of the afghan wrapped around her shoulders. “What am I going to say?”
