Devine lowered his optics as the sun fell rapidly into the pocket of the western sky. Darkening clouds scudded overhead as the northeasterly breeze stiffened. As he continued to watch, a light came on in a second-floor window. Devine once more lifted his optics to his eyes. The range and clarity on this piece of surveillance equipment was impressive. For what it had cost the government he knew it should be.
Twenty minutes later, as the darkness deepened, someone appeared at the lighted window, and Devine was quick to focus his device on the person.
Alexandra “Alex” Silkwell had blond hair piled on top of her head, with a few tendrils slipping down to bookend her elegantly chiseled features. Her eyes were full of intensity, or at least it seemed to him that they were.
Devine noted all of these things secondarily. Chiefly, he was riveted by the fact that she wore no clothes.
Embarrassed, he lowered his optics but kept his unaided gaze on her, though he couldn’t make out the finer details now.
Does she know she’s being watched?
His was the only car out here. And she could obviously see it and its lights. Was she being defiant, giving the curious a show? Or did she not think anyone would be watching the house with the optics Devine was using?
Yeah, that might be it, thought a shamed Devine. I’m a peeping Tom with next-gen hardware.
He waited until the room went dark once more before driving off.
As he headed along the whipsawing coast road he wondered what Alex and Dak thought about the violent end of their older sibling’s life.
He also wondered whether one of them had killed her. Or knew who had.
Dak had been in the Army, where he had obviously received extensive weapons instruction. Devine would have to find out why the Army and Dak Silkwell had parted company. The Army didn’t give up its recruits easily. They didn’t have nearly enough volunteers to fill the ranks, which had caused them to overlook things that in the not-too-distant past would have resulted in outright dismissal.
He stopped and sent off a text to Campbell asking for these details.
As he drove north to his prearranged meeting with the local cops, Devine thought back to the woman at the window of an ancient house that had long outlived its useful life and was aging with little grace; and yet two young people still resided there.
This case might turn out to be even more complicated than he had thought.
He checked his watch, hit the gas, and sped up. Time to go look at the body of a woman who should not be dead.
Chapter 7
Devine had seen violent death in multiple countries and had caused some of them in his role as a soldier. In certain respects he had grown desensitized to it. Once you’d seen a human being shot up, blown up, or hacked to pieces, what was one more? They all bled and died pretty much the same.
He pulled into the parking lot of a funeral home named Bing and Sons. A police cruiser was parked near the front door. PUTNAM POLICE DEPARTMENT was emblazoned on the cruiser’s side door, along with a picture of an eagle. The majestic bird’s claws clenched an arrow shaft, its expression one of fierce determination.
The building looked to be originally 1950s construction. It had obviously been remodeled and expanded, Devine noted, with two relatively new wings and what looked to be a crematorium with a long chimney stack housed in a separate building in the rear.
He trudged across the asphalt, feeling the biting wind every step of the way as it pushed against him.
Before he could tug on the door, it opened, revealing a woman in a police officer’s uniform and cap, who was standing just inside. No doubt she had been waiting for Devine.
She was in her thirties, shortish and thickly built, and, to Devine’s eye, looked like she pumped some serious gym iron. She had on a long-sleeved shirt but no coat or jacket. The brown hair was clipped back. A Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum revolver rested in her holster. He didn’t know the police still carried revolvers. But whatever she shot with that bazooka would not be getting back up, ever.
“You Travis Devine with Homeland Security?” she said shortly.
“I am.”
“Let me see your ID,” she demanded.
He showed her. “And you?” he said.
“Sergeant Wendy Fuss. Chief’s with Françoise and the body. This way.”
They began walking down the hall.
“Françoise?”
“Dr. Françoise Guillaume. She’s the medical examiner for this area. Her grandfather and his brother started this funeral home. Passed it down to their sons. Now her brother, Fred Bing, runs it. But Françoise works here, too, in addition to being the local doctor.”
“Busy lady. So did Dr. Guillaume perform the autopsy?”
She stopped and turned to him. “You shitting me?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“The fact is there was a pissing contest between your folks and ours. They brought someone up from DC to do the postmortem over in Augusta at the OCME, the Office of Chief Medical Examiner. Dr. Guillaume assisted because the chief medical examiner for Maine insisted. Jenny was killed here, making it our jurisdiction, not federal.”
“Are the people from DC still here?”
“No, they flew in on a government jet, did the postmortem, and flew right back out. Showed me how my tax dollars are being spent.” She looked Devine up and down in a disgusted manner. “And now you’re here to do the job we’re already doing.”
“I was hoping we could collaborate.”
“Sure you do. Feds are all the same. Think you’re better’n the locals.”
“Have you had much experience with the federal government?”
“The IRS. That was enough to last me the rest of my days.”
She picked up her pace and Devine followed. He noticed that she was pigeon-toed and her left shoulder hung a bit lower than her right. Her gun belt squeaked as she walked, as did her rubber-soled shoes over the soft linoleum. That could give away your position and get you killed, but Devine did not think Fuss would be receptive to such federal criticism right now.
She reached a door down a short hall, pushed it open, and motioned Devine inside.
Fuss put out a blocking hand as he started to cross the threshold. “You seen a dead body before?” she asked in a brusque tone. “Don’t want you puking on my shoes or passing out.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you,” said Devine tightly.
Two people were waiting in an interior room off the one they had entered. They were standing next to a metal gurney with a sheet over the body. The room held the potent smells of death and chemicals.
Devine was introduced to Chief of Police Richard Wayne Harper, who was quick to tell Devine that he went by Richard, not Rich or Dick.
“Or ‘Chief’ will do just fine,” he quipped, though the look he gave Devine held no humor.
He was in his late forties, paunchy, and around five ten. But he seemed light on his feet and moved with the nimbleness of a far younger man. His hair was thick, and the original brown was mixed liberally with gray. He wore no gun, but he did have a metal baton in a holder on his belt. His thick fingers hovered near it at all times. He seemed to exude electrical pulses of confidence with every breath.
Françoise Guillaume was also in her forties, an inch taller than Harper, and athletically lean, with auburn hair pulled back at her nape and secured with a band. Her eyes, active and intelligent, scanned Devine from behind tortoiseshell glasses strung on a synthetic cord. Her white lab coat only partially obscured her dark blue jacket and slacks.