Tami Hoag - Dark Paradise

“We were unable to locate any kin,” he said, taking up the threads of their conversation as if they had never been interrupted.

“Lucy didn’t have any family. She grew up in foster homes.”

He looked unhappy about that, but didn’t pursue it. “Well, the case is closed, if that gives you any peace. It was all pretty cut and dried. She went riding up on that mountain, got herself mistaken for an elk, and that was that.”

“Forgive me,” Mari said. “I don’t know a whole lot about it, but I thought most hunting seasons were in the fall. It’s June.”

Quinn nodded, his attention drifting through the windows to the biker, who was bellowing at Deputy Stack about his civil rights. “The guy was a guest of Evan Bryce. Bryce’s spread-most of it, anyway-lies to the north of the Rafferty place, north and east of Miz Mac-Adam’s land. Bryce breeds his own herds-elk, buffalo-so they’re considered livestock. Limited hunting seasons don’t apply. He lets his guests take a few head now and again for sport.”

“And this time they took a human life instead,” Mari said grimly.

He glanced back at her and shrugged a little, bulging shoulder muscles straining the seams of his khaki uniform shirt. “Happens now and again. ’Spect it’ll happen more and more with the increase in tourism and second-home owners coming up here out of big cities. Most of these people don’t know beans about handling firearms. They get all dudded up in their L.L. Bean safari jackets, sling a big ol’ elephant rifle over their shoulders, and off they go.

“The guy that shot your friend? He didn’t have a clue. Didn’t know he’d hit her. He didn’t even see her. Took two days before the body was found.”

“Who was he?” Mari asked numbly, needing a name, a face she could picture and attach guilt to. He hadn’t even known. Lucy had died up there all alone, had lain there for days while the jerk who killed her went on with his vacation, oblivious.

“Dr. J. Grafton Sheffield,” Quinn said, swiveling his chair toward a black file cabinet that took up the entire width of the room behind the desk. “There’s a trust-fund name for you,” he mumbled as his thick fingers flipped through the files. He pulled one out and checked the contents. “Plastic surgeon from Beverly Hills. When word got out what had happened, he came in and confessed he’d been up there hunting. He was sick about it. Really was. Cried the whole time in court. Cooperated fully.”

“The ballistics matched up, I take it?”

Quinn’s brows sketched upward.

“I was a court reporter for six years, Sheriff,” Mari explained. “I know the drill.”

He rubbed one corner of his mouth with a stubby forefinger as he studied her, considering. Finally he nodded, selected a thin sheaf of typed pages from the file, and handed them across the desk. She scanned the initial report, her eyes catching on familiar words and phrases.

“There wasn’t anything left of the bullet that nailed her,” Quinn said. “It passed through her body and hit a rock. We couldn’t test for a match. The shell casings in the area were consistent with the loads Sheffield had been using-7mm Remington. He confessed he’d been in the area, didn’t know he’d wandered off Bryce’s land. He pleaded no contest.”

“You mean it’s over already?” Mari said, stunned. “How can that be?”

Quinn shrugged again. “The wheels of justice move pretty quick out here. Our court dockets don’t see the same load yours do down in California. It didn’t hurt that Sheffield was a buddy of Bryce’s. Bryce swings a lot of weight in these parts.”

“Sheffield is in jail, then?” Mari said, sounding hopeful and knowing better. Plastic surgeons from Beverly Hills didn’t go to jail for accidents they readily owned up to.

“No, ma’am.” Quinn’s attention went to the squad room again. The biker was standing, the chair shackled to his wrists sticking out behind him like an avant garde bustle. Quinn started to rise slowly. “He pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count of negligent endangerment. One year suspended sentence and a one-thousand-dollar fine. Excuse me, ma’am.”

He was out the door and barreling toward the melee before Mari could react. She stared through the window at the surreal scene for a moment, Quinn and his deputies and the woolly mammoth tussling around the room in what looked like a rugby scrum. She dropped her gaze to the file in her lap. Surreal had been the theme of her vacation so far.

She glanced at the notes made by the deputy who had originally been assigned to the case, then at Quinn’s comments. The coroner’s report was appallingly brief. Cause of death: gunshot wound . There were scanty notes about entrance and exit wounds, contusions and abrasions. A broken nose, lacerations on the face, probably caused by the fall from her mount. It seemed pitiful that the cessation of a life could be boiled down to two words. Gunshot wound .

The battle raged on in the squad room, the biker smashing cups, coffeepots, computer screens with the chair attached to his butt. Good thing Quinn had experience wrestling enormous hairy animals to the ground.

Across the desk lay the file folder that held whatever other meager comments on Lucy’s death Quinn had not planned to make privy to her. Mari bit her lip and battled briefly with her conscience. What she held in her hands seemed so scant… Her friend was dead…

A roar that sounded like an enraged moose sounded beyond the door. The men went down in a heap of tangled arms and legs. Mari scooted up out of her chair and slipped around the desk to flip open the manila folder. Her heart stopped, wedged at the base of her throat just ahead of the breakfast she was still digesting.

The only things left in the case file were the crime scene Polaroids. Lucy’s body. Lifeless. Grotesque. She had lain there at the edge of that meadow for two days. Nothing about the corpse bore any resemblance to the vibrant woman Mari had known. The brassy blond hair was a dirty, tangled mat. The fingernails that had been meticulously manicured and lacquered at all times were dirty and broken. Features were unrecognizable, the body bloated out of shape like a Macy’s parade balloon. The bullet had hit her square in the back and exited through her chest, leaving massive destruction.

Hideous. God, she’s hideous. She would have hated to die this way.

Alone.

Ripped apart.

Left for the carrion feeders.

Tears spilled over her lashes. Chills raced down her from head to toe. Trembling, she dropped the reports on top of the pictures and ran out of the office, choking on the need to vomit and the necessity to breathe. The biker was being dragged off to a holding cell. Quinn dusted his pants off with his hands, glancing up from beneath his brows as Mari rushed into the squad room. She swept a fist beneath both eyes, trying in vain to erase the evidence of her tears. She gulped a deep lungful of air that was sour with the scent of male sweat and bad gas. Her stomach rolled over like a beached salmon.

“I-I-thank you for your help, Sheriff Quinn,” she said, her voice hitching. “I-I have to go now.”

The sympathy in his eyes nearly undid her. “Sorry about your friend, Miz Jennings.”

The images from the Polaroids burned into the backs of her eyes. Bile rose up in a tide. She managed to nod. “I-I have to go.”

“Stop by and see Miller Daggrepont,” he called as she hurried toward the door.

The name went in one ear and out the other. The only stop she had on her mind at the moment was the ladies’ room down the hall. Saliva pooled in her mouth. Lucy. Oh, Christ, Lucy . But she pulled up at the squad room door, the one question she had forgotten to ask stopping her short. Bracing one hand on the jamb to keep herself upright, she looked back at Quinn.