Nancy Bartholomew - Sophie's Last Stand

Gray Evans moved across the room, took the cooler lid from my hand and set it down on the counter. Then he took the dripping water bottle that I handed him and put that down, too. He was inches away from me, so close I could feel the heat that radiated from his body, and smell the scent of musk.

“You know, it’s all right,” he said. The words brushed against me like a quiet breeze. “It’s all right to be scared and upset. Just try to relax a little bit, okay?”

I nodded and swallowed hard.

“Nothing like this has ever happened to me before,” I said.

That brought a smile. “Me, either.”

“You never found a dead body?”

He shook his head. “Nope. I get called in after the body’s been found. I know what to expect. It’s not a shock when I show up—not like it was for you.”

I looked away and turned my attention to fitting the lid onto the cooler.

“I…it was so…she was… When that blade hit her and I looked down and saw her arm, I thought, my God, she was sleeping here and I killed her.”

Gray was watching me, the water bottle unopened in his hand. “She was probably dead maybe six hours before you found her,” he said. He twisted the cap off the bottle and took a long drink.

“How did she die?”

Gray shook his head. “We won’t be certain until the medical examiner finishes, and it might take the autopsy to tell for sure. I’m pretty certain she’s got a head trauma, though.”

“Was it accidental or do you think she was murdered?”

“Almost certainly foul play,” he answered.

Right outside my window, just behind my house, a woman had been killed and then dumped. I hadn’t heard a thing. I’d slept through someone’s violent death and never even imagined it. I’d stood in my kitchen, drinking my morning coffee and looking out at the backyard, without any awareness at all.

“Do you know who she is yet?” I asked.

He shook his head. “Probably a crack whore, at least from the way she’s dressed, but with that hair, I don’t know.”

“Hey, maybe she worked a particular kind of clientele,” I said. “You know, the whips and chains, ‘I’ve been a bad, bad boy’ set.”

That made him smile. “You’re Joe’s sister, all right.”

“What makes you say that?”

“He’s quick, always got a comeback or the last word on a situation. And you look like him.” He hesitated, and then added, “Not the hair part. It’s your eyes. You’ve got eyes like his.”

“So, if Joe had hair, we’d be twins? Because I think what you’re really trying to say is I’ve got a mouth.”

He was looking at me, at first laughing a little, and then studying me. “Not really, not the twins part. But yeah,” he said, his voice thickening, “that’s some mouth you got there.” The way he said it, he could’ve been kissing me and I wouldn’t have felt the connection any stronger.

I backed up and changed the subject. Gray Evans scared me. He didn’t seem to know about women needing men like fish needed bicycles. I had the feeling that if I’d told him, he wouldn’t have cared, either. The guy was a player and spreading chemistry like fertilizer. Oh, this was one to stay away from, all right. But that wouldn’t be my problem for long. Right now he still didn’t know about me, about Nick. Later, his attitude would change and it would be a whole new ball game. He wasn’t going to ever be my problem.

“Okay,” he said, as if reading me. “Here’s what will happen next. The forensics people will finish processing the scene, and we’ll get the body out of here. When it’s all done, the yard will be yours again and you won’t have to worry about having any restrictions on working back there.”

“What if there’s another body?”

“We checked. There’s not. What probably happened is that she was killed nearby and your yard was convenient because of the overgrowth and the low fence. It was easy, that’s all.”

“I’ll finish clearing it out tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t like the idea of this happening again. I don’t like this at all.”

“Hey, the chances of it happening again are incredibly small. We don’t have that many homicides here, maybe four a year. This was a fluke. Relax.” He looked out the window into the backyard, inspecting it carefully. “Are you doing all that by yourself? Nobody’s helping you? What’s with that sorry brother of yours?”

I smiled despite my stomach flipping over and my heart racing, despite the warmth that seemed to be spreading throughout my body in a long-ago remembered way. Oh man, this guy was trouble.

“Joe helps when he can,” I said, “but he’s got a family and work….”

“And you don’t?” Gray asked. His eyes were fastened on my face as if everything hung on my answer.

“No. I’m a teacher,” I said, and ignored the other part of his question. “I don’t have a job yet and besides, it’s summer. Teachers have the summer off.” I looked around the kitchen, away from his face, letting him follow my gaze. “So, I’m doing what I can. I’ve got most of the major work contracted out, but I need to keep the costs down.”

I looked up and caught him watching me.

“I’m not afraid of hard work. That’s why I was out there cutting back the undergrowth….” But as I remembered how the morning ended, I felt myself slow to a stop. We all knew how the morning’s work had ended.

“So you wouldn’t mind a little free labor?” he said, slipped it right in on me without me seeing it coming.

“Free labor?”

“Yeah, I can cut down bushes with the best of them, and I have something else I bet you don’t have.”

Now he had me. “What?”

He smiled mysteriously, his eyes sparkled and one thick eyebrow arched. “A chainsaw.” He gestured toward the backyard and grinned. “You ain’t seen nothing until you see what short work a chainsaw will make of your jungle. Hide and watch.”

For the first time since we’d met, I heard the faint twang of a Southern accent. Gray Evans was a country boy at heart.

“You better with a chainsaw than you are at pouring lemonade?” I asked. “Or should I tell EMS to stand by?”

He laughed and was about to answer me, but of course, Darlene with her Extrasensory Perception picked this moment to escape Joe and reclaim the kitchen. She sailed in through the dining room, a froth of pink chiffon and ladylike smiles, and focused one hundred percent of her attention on Mr. Wonderful.

“So,” she said, apropos of nothing at all, “were they her real breasts or not?”

T he next morning my car exploded. I use the term “morning” loosely. It was 4:23 a.m., according to the clock on my makeshift nightstand, but the room lit up like a Roman candle as my Honda went up in flames.

I reached for the phone, hit 9-1-1 as my feet touched the smooth wood floor of my makeshift bedroom, and ran toward the kitchen.

“It’s Sophie Mazaratti, 618 West Lyndon Street. My car just exploded and it’s on fire.”

“Hold on,” the female voice said. In the background, I heard her say, “Start trucks one and two to 618 West Lyndon. Unit 2314, go ahead. Unit 2316, why don’t you start as well.” Then she was back with me. “We’ll be there in a few minutes,” she said. “Stay away from the vehicle.”

That’s what I like about police communicators. You could tell them you’d murdered your sister, then hacked off her head so you could fit her in a trunk, and they’d stay just as cool as a cucumber.

I hung up, grabbed my slippers and a sweater, and ran out onto the front porch. The neighborhood was on full alert. All the lights were on in the surrounding cottages, as one by one the residents came out into the street and stood staring at the burning car in my driveway. The wail of sirens woke anyone who might’ve slept through the explosion.