Max Collins - Girl Most Likely

Mildly rattled herself, Krista — feeling a little foolish doing so — unlocked her Glock 21’s holster as she went slowly up the stairs. Her hunch was that Astrid would have returned to her own bedroom, though the master bedroom might have provided more comfort.

The door to Astrid’s room was open, but Krista didn’t see her friend until entering, because the bed, a single, was off to the left, under the Katy Perry poster. Astrid was on her back, on the still-made bed, and Krista started to call out to her, but taking only two steps in gave her a view on what had become of her friend.

Conflicted, not wanting to contaminate a crime scene and realizing Astrid was surely dead, Krista nonetheless approached carefully and checked both her friend’s wrist and throat for a pulse. Like the unanswered phone calls, indications were that nobody was home.

Astrid’s chest bore half a dozen wounds, one-and-a-half-inch tears on the victim’s black silk robe, a little crusty blood around them. That black silk was splotched and dotted with blood that had dried nearly as black as the robe. The coverlet was spotted some, too. Krista looked toward the ceiling and saw where the blood had geysered and streakily stained like a grotesque modern art mural.

Her Glock 21 in her right hand, she checked the room, under the bed, opening the closet door. Then, back in the hall, she considered her options. With any crime other than homicide or another major felony, she would have called the dispatcher.

But on Sunday the sheriff’s office dispatcher took all calls and deputies were sent to the scene. Normally that would be fine, but with a serious crime she preferred having her own officers answer the call. After all, it was her people who would be following through. Two were on duty right now, and the rest were likely at home. Policy was, if any officer planned to be away for even an overnight trip, she was to be informed.

All of her officers’ cell numbers were on her phone, and she first called Officer Maria Cortez, who was on patrol with Wendell Clemson.

“Need immediate backup at a homicide scene,” Krista said, and gave Cortez the North High Street address. She spoke softly, her back to the wall and the Glock 21 in hand, barrel up.

“You’re working today, Chief?”

“Off duty. Stumbled onto it. Explain at the scene.”

Then she called Officer Rick Reynolds at home. He answered right away. Toddlers were crying in the background, or anyway one was crying and another screaming.

“Yeah!” Reynolds said.

This was a landline and he’d obviously grabbed it without looking at caller ID.

“Larson,” Krista identified herself. “I’m at a homicide with backup on the way but I need two more officers to help secure the scene.”

“I can be one of them,” he said, over the screaming, crying kids. “Judy can have all the family fun to herself for a while.”

“Get yourself in uniform, drive over to the station.”

“Okay.”

“Wait there till somebody else shows. I’ll try Deitch. But it’ll be somebody.”

“You bet, Chief.”

She tried Earl Deitch, got him, and sent him to pick up Reynolds and a police vehicle.

With help on the way, she slowly made her way through the Lund house, making sure every room was clear, including the basement. A little gravel drive led to a freestanding garage; looking in windows on either side of the structure she could see no one, no vehicle either, just the expected yard tools, storage boxes, and so on.

She checked all around the house, front and back yards, her eyes on the ground as much as on the building, not wanting to disturb any potential evidence.

Satisfied that whoever had done this thing was no longer in the house or nearby, she stood on the porch and holstered her weapon, then called the state police number.

After identifying herself, she said, “Crime scene services, please.”

Her twelve-officer department did not have forensics; neither did the sheriff’s department.

Her next call was to the Jo Daviess County coroner’s office in East Dubuque, which was on the Illinois side of the bridge. The officer taking calls could give her no idea when the coroner or an assistant coroner would arrive. It was Sunday, she was told.

With this vital information in hand, she called her investigator, Detective Clarence “Booker” Jackson, at home. Booker would likely be sleeping in — he played blues organ in a small combo who gigged one Saturday a month at the Grape Escape on Main. Last night had been this month’s Saturday.

“Homicide, you say?” Booker said, his voice a mellow baritone, still a little sleep-thickened. “In our Galena?”

Booker got his name not from booking perps, but from Booker T. and the M.G.’s, the classic Memphis soul combo.

“Yeah,” Krista said. “And a very nasty one.” She told him backup was coming and briefly described the crime scene.

“Give me fifteen to get there,” he said.

“Take sixteen if you need it.”

Very shortly, a Ford Explorer pulled in, followed moments later by a Dodge Durango, both vehicles with lights flashing, no siren, each bearing the mostly white, dark-blue-trimmed GALENA POLICE markings. Two officers emerged from each. After filling them all in, Krista directed the first pair — Reynolds, a lanky twenty-five, and Deitch, a baby-faced forty — to secure the scene, posting the former in front of the house, the latter behind.

Krista turned to the second pair — Cortez, twenty-six, stocky, pretty; Clemson, thirty-eight, mustached, a onetime GHS football tackle. She directed them to canvass the neighborhood for anyone who might have seen anything or anyone suspicious throughout the night — unfamiliar vehicles and strangers in particular, but any activity at all after dark.

Frowning just a little, Officer Cortez asked, “From what you say, Chief, it sounds unlikely the victim could have arrived home much earlier than midnight.”

“Right, but someone could have entered the house before and been waiting for her.”

Cortez and her partner headed left and right, respectively, to the houses next door.

A red Dodge Charger pulled up and Booker Jackson climbed out. The African American detective, bald with a close-trimmed beard, was about fifty and had seen everything twice. He was in a light gray suit and pink-and-white-striped tie, no topcoat. Had she caught him on the way to church? Maybe, but he always looked very sharp.

She met him at his vehicle. Booker leaned against the closed rider’s side door, arms folded, and said, “Let’s hear it.”

Krista explained.

His big head tilted to one side. “Somebody killed the most popular girl in your class?”

“She was also unpopular,” Krista said, “among certain classmates. But do you really kill somebody who stole your boyfriend away from you ten years ago?”

“Guy can get himself killed stealin’ a woman some other guy met an hour ago. You have those funky cowboy boots on when you went in?”

“I did.”

“Lot of blood?”

“Yeah. Seems confined to the bedroom where she was killed, ceiling and bed mostly, but the killer had to go downstairs and go out. Could have been dripping blood, though I didn’t spot any on the front stairs. Didn’t check the back ones.”

“You did clear the house?”

She nodded. “Nobody in there. Not anybody alive.”

“I’ll trade you some slippery-ass booties for those crazy cowgirl boots.”

“Deal.”

The blue booties all the cops put on, on TV, were only called for when there was a lot of blood or other bodily fluids at the scene. This was borderline, but she knew Booker had a point.

He got the booties out of his trunk. They took turns using the Charger’s front passenger seat sideways with the door open to get into them.