Julia Spencer-Fleming - All Mortal Flesh

The refrigerator was covered with yellowing newspaper funnies and horoscopes, held in place with the sort of cutesie cat-themed magnets Linda wouldn’t have allowed into the house. He tugged open the door. Bacon and eggs. Tupperware containers and a half-full jar of spaghetti sauce. Beer and milk. He uncapped the milk and sniffed. Still fresh.

He walked quietly into the front room. Most of it he had seen from the side window-a living room suite in serviceable brown corduroy and darkly varnished pine, the sort of stuff people got from rent-to-own places. He supposed even the plasma television in the corner, with its gleaming white satellite service box, might be a rental. A scattering of family photos hung from one wall, sepia-toned wedding pictures next to early-seventies prom portraits. An old lady in a poly pantsuit smiling in front of a Sears backdrop; a good-looking blonde with teased-up hair in a misty Glamour Shots photo. It all fit with the image he was building of Audrey Keane, a single woman earning enough to get by but not much more, living remote in a house she had picked up on the cheap or inherited from her parents.

So what were three computers doing open on a table shoved against the far wall? He crossed the room and ducked down, looking beneath the table. Behind the tangle of power cords, he saw a wireless router plugged into a cable line. Straightening, he dug a tissue from his pocket, folded it over his finger so as not to leave his prints, and turned on each of the three laptops in turn.

They must have been in hibernation mode, because they came on almost instantly. Unfortunately, that was far as he got, because the three screens displayed a password log-on request. Why would a woman living alone keep her computers password protected? Why would she have a three-computer network with instant, always-on access to the Internet? If Audrey Keane was self-employed in some sort of legitimate high-tech job, why did everything about her house and car scream that she was just getting by? Was the money going in her arm or up her nose?

What the hell had she been doing at his house on Sunday?

He had seen the entire first floor. The second would be two rooms and a bath. He mounted the stairs, careful not to confuse the prints by touching the banister. He had to come up with some way to persuade Judge Ryswick to warrant a search of this place. And the computers. Mark Durkee was probably more adept with them than any other officer in his department-that went with being a twenty-eight-year-old male-but if those hard drives held any evidence, he needed someone trained in cybercrime to crack them open.

He paused near the top of the stairs. Three open doors, just as he predicted. He could make out the white gleam of the bathroom tiling. If there were any drug paraphernalia in the house, it ought to be in there. He could-

A man launched himself from one of the bedroom doors.

There was a blur-balding, big, dark mustache, arms braced like a line-backer. Russ clawed for his gun. The man smacked into his chest. Russ went over, crashing against the stairs, flipping ass over teakettle, his shout of “Stop! Police!” converted into an inarticulate yell that became a scream as he smashed his knee into a step and kept rolling, bouncing, thudding downstairs.

His assailant leaped over him, leaped on him, his boot driving whatever breath Russ had left out of his lungs. His glasses went flying, and the edges of his sight darkened as his chest heaved for air. He thudded to a stop at the foot of the stairs. The man wrenched the front door open, smashing it into Russ’s hip, and disappeared as Russ lay there shuddering, gasping for oxygen, every part of his body in pain.

Then he heard the car engine starting up.

“Shit,” he wheezed, staggering to his feet. It felt like someone had taken an ax to his kneecap. The world was a blur. He looked frantically around the living room floor. A glint of gold tipped him off, and he lunged for his glasses. His surroundings snapped into focus again. He limped onto the enclosed porch just in time to see his Volvo station wagon fishtailing out of the drive.

“Shit!” He started to run, but a sharp pain fetched him up. Christ, between landing on his gun and the blow from the door, he probably had nerve damage in his hip. He dug for his cell phone as he limped toward the Honda Civic. Had he seen keys in the ignition? No, he had not.

“Shit!” He spun around. From down the road, below the rise where the Keane house stood, he heard the screech of brakes and the rubber-stripping squeal of tire against asphalt. Then the crash.

“Shit! Shit! Shit!” He gimped down the drive as fast as possible, slipping and sliding on the rock-hard snow, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in his knee and hip. Bainbridge Road’s shoulder was packed with gritty dirt-and salt-crusted snowbanks, so he took to the dry middle of the pavement, praying no one would come bombing along over the ridge.

He heard an engine starting up again. Something-a yell? A car gunned. Accelerated. Back up the ridge. Toward him.

He didn’t waste time swearing at this latest shitstorm. Russ flung himself over the filthy snowbank and scrambled on fingers and toes away from the road. The crumpled front end of the Volvo, Linda’s Volvo, roared past him, broken headlights spattering glass in its wake. Russ swarmed over the hard-shelled snow, back to the road, back toward the angry shouting he could hear drifting up from the base of the hill.

Limping over the ridge crest, he could see the other party to the accident, a tall young man with hair shaved so short all Russ could make out was the pink of his scalp. He was stomping back and forth in front of what must have been a fine-looking Camaro before the rear quarter had been smashed in, cussing in a way that made up in sheer filthiness what it lacked in originality.

“Hey!” Russ shouted, and the young man turned, his fists ready, his teeth bared. Russ held up his hands. “It wasn’t me!” He limped closer.

The young man dropped his hands. “Chief Van Alstyne?”

Russ squinted. “Ethan? Ethan Stoner?” He hadn’t seen the Stoners’ oldest since about a year back, after the boy had finished up community service for a piece of trouble he had been involved in. He sure hadn’t had a buzz cut and a car back then.

“Yes, sir, it’s me.”

Sir? Ethan wasn’t a mean kid-Russ always figured his problems arose from too much leisure and not enough opportunity-but he also wasn’t the sort to sir and ma’am his elders. Russ finally reached the boy and his brutalized car. “What happened?”

“Are you all right, sir?”

Russ raised an eyebrow. It hurt. “Just banged up a bit. Courtesy the same guy who just totaled your car. What happened?”

Ethan pointed toward a driveway entrance down a few yards and across the road. “I was visiting the McAlistairs.” Way back through the field, some half mile from the road, the drive ended in a graceful old farmhouse. “I had just pulled out onto the road-I was going slow, Chief, really I was. I know you have to be extra careful right below the hill.”

Russ nodded. “I believe you.”

“Anyway, this asshole comes sailing over the top of the hill and bam! Before I could get out of the way, he nails the rear of my car.” Ethan looked mournfully at the vehicle. “Man, I still got two years of payments to make on this thing.”

Russ sighed. “Don’t worry. The Volvo he was driving was well insured.”

“If I get my hands on the jerk, he better pray he’s got good medical insurance.”

Russ fished his cell phone from his pocket. At least he wasn’t going to have to worry about getting a warrant now. He dialed the dispatch number.

“Millers Kill Police Department.”