Mariah Stewart - Last Words

He waited until the body was removed from the Jeep under Viv’s direction, then leaned in to examine the backseat more closely. The fabric was such that he could not tell if it was wet without touching it, so he removed a glove and did just that. In the heat overnight, much of the wetness had evaporated, but the seat was still damp.

“You must sleep like the dead, Chief, for someone to come into your yard, turn on your hose, open up your vehicle, put a body inside, then sneak away.” Viv looked over her shoulder as she followed the gurney to her van.

“No dogs in the neighborhood barking last night, Chief?” Lisa asked. “Didn’t hear the doors slamming?”

“I sleep on the opposite side of the house and had the air conditioner on in my room last night. I wouldn’t have heard anything.”

He pointed to the house next door, on the other side of a row of ancient pines.

“You can ask the Dawkins if they heard or saw anything, but it’s unlikely. They’re both in their late eighties and can’t see through the hedge anyway. But maybe someone else on the block heard something during the night, so you and Duncan start going door to door.”

After Lisa and Duncan had gone to check in with the neighbors, and the ME’s van had pulled out of the driveway, Hal turned to Beck and asked, “Did you leave the Jeep unlocked?”

“I must have.” He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “We haven’t had any break-ins in so long-cars or homes-I just never really worried about it.”

He tried to remember what was on his mind when he parked the vehicle the day before. He’d gone to the press conference in Ballard, then drove home. He’d parked in the driveway, then saw a neighbor who’d waved and crossed the street to tell him she’d been a friend of the Preston family for over thirty years and how devastated she was to hear about Colleen. Beck had tried to be sympathetic while at the same time avoiding adding any fuel to the fire of panic that he sensed would soon be spreading throughout St. Dennis if it wasn’t checked. He’d received a call from Garland reminding him about his five o’clock appointment, and decided to walk to the station. It had not occurred to him to check to see if he’d locked the Jeep.

“Why do you suppose he did that, left her in your Jeep?” Hal asked.

“His way of giving me the finger, I guess.” Beck stood with his hands in his pockets, watching his Jeep being hooked up to a tow truck. As evidence, it had to be taken down to the station where it would be impounded in the small garage behind the municipal building. “Which makes me think he’s close enough to have watched the local news last night.”

“That’s a start.” Hal nodded. “More than you knew yesterday.”

“And it tells me he’s damned clever. Clever enough to not leave a trace of himself, to wash away anything that might have clung to the plastic.”

“Wonder what he’d have done if the Jeep had been locked?”

Beck pointed to his house. “There’s a porch out front as well as out back. He could have left it at either. If he was determined to leave that package for me, there were plenty of other ways he could have done it.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Hal asked.

“First, I’m going to stop in and see Mayor Pratt. Then, I’m going to do exactly what I told Warren Daley to do. I’m calling the FBI.”

“You sure you want to do that? I’ve worked with some pretty damned annoying agents over the years. And you know, once you open that door and invite them in, they take over, and there’s no getting rid of them. I got stuck one time for two months with the most obnoxious SOB I’d ever met. Wouldn’t go away until the case was closed.” Hal shook his head, remembering. “Alphonse Edmonds. He was not only obnoxious, he was mean-spirited. And ugly, now that I think about it.”

“All I care about is cleaning up this mess as quickly as possible. This guy has taken me on, and I will use any weapon I can get my hands on to fight him. If the best weapon is the FBI, then fine. Bring it on. I don’t care how obnoxious, mean, or ugly their agents are. I just want this bastard and I want him before he finds another victim.”

Beck paused, then looked at Hal.

“Unless he already has…”

The sun was dipping low in the sky as FBI Special Agent Mia Shields crossed over the Potomac River via the Governor Nice Memorial Bridge, leaving Virginia behind her. Once on the Maryland side, she headed toward Calvert’s Ford, one of the small communities on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay that, sadly, lacked a true beach.

The tobacco fields were just hitting their growth stride on either side of the two-lane road. The tobacco barns were landmarks she’d come to depend on for finding her turn off the main road. She’d been living in Maryland for almost three months, but had been working a job just over the Potomac for the past four weeks, and was still finding her way around. Once she hit the tobacco farm, though, she knew she was on the right road, and knew there were only two more turns before she’d be home.

Not her home, not exactly, she reminded herself. The small house that sat all by itself in the woods belonged to her cousin, Connor, who was once again out of the country somewhere. No one really knew where, except for his boss at the FBI and the director, and word was that sometimes even Connor’s boss wasn’t sure where or how to find him. Because he’d been gone for so much of the past year, and planned on being back in the States only now and then, Connor had suggested that Mia rent from him instead of renewing the lease on her Arlington apartment.

The complex she’d been living in was crowded and loud. Parties often ran late into the night, even on weekdays, and the parking lot was usually full by the time Mia arrived home from work. While she enjoyed a good party as much as the next person, she also liked a good night’s sleep now and then, so when Connor offered the house, she jumped at the chance.

Connor’s house in the woods had come as a surprise to Mia. From the outside, it looked like any other bungalow built in the 1920s or ’30s. One and a half stories of ugly yellow stone in stucco, it had a wide front porch and a bow window on either side of the front door, windows in the eaves on each side of the second floor. The high ceilings and open spaces inside were atypical, however, and Connor had opened up the interior even more by removing a wall between the dining and living rooms to make one large space. He’d remodeled the kitchen-who knew her cousin was a gourmet cook?-enlarging it to include a builtin banquette in one corner and adding a work island in the center of the room. Off the kitchen was a screened porch. There were two bedrooms and a bath on the first floor, which Connor used, and a large bedroom, bath, and sitting room on the second floor which served as guest quarters. In this case, Mia was the guest.

The biggest surprise awaited outside, where a year ago Connor had an Olympic-sized pool installed. He’d told Mia he’d had it built so that when he was home, he could swim laps to stay in shape any time of the day or night, though she could count on one hand the number of days he’d spent at home since she moved in. Mia suspected she’d gotten more use of the pool than Connor had.

She pulled into the driveway, pleased that there was enough daylight left to enjoy a quick swim and still have time for a leisurely dinner before she had to turn her attention to the file she’d brought home from the office. She’d just completed work on a case and wanted to take one last look at her reports before turning them over to John Mancini, her boss, in the morning.

She parked her car, then emptied the mailbox of that day’s offerings-a magazine and two bills amid the junk mail-and followed the flagstone path to the front door. Once inside, she went straight to the kitchen, where she dumped the mail on the counter and poured herself a glass of chilled wine. She leaned on the top of the island and flipped through the magazine idly, barely noting the contents. She turned on the air conditioning to cool off the first floor, then went upstairs to change.