Hope's Peak (Harper and Lane #1)
Tony Healey
1
The tall corn rustles like paper. The young woman lies flat on the dry earth, arms by her sides, feet together, chin resting on her chest; her head is propped up against the thick green stalks. Her eyes are closed—at first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking she’s asleep.
Detective Jane Harper squats next to the body. “How old?” she asks, looking up at the medical examiner. “Late teens?”
Mike McNeil, the medical examiner, rubs at the gray stubble on his jaw. “I won’t know for sure till I get her back to the office, but I’d say so, yeah.”
There are purple handprints around her neck—the killer left his mark when he crushed her windpipe. A troubled frown is forever etched into the girl’s brow, a lasting impression of terror.
Wondering what’s happening . . . and why it’s happening to her.
Mike shifts from one foot to the other, the keys on his belt jingling. It’s off-putting.
Harper points to the red spread of blood on the girl’s white cotton dress, over her groin. “Raped. Like the last one.”
“Could be,” Mike says. He sighs, and Harper can’t tell if it’s from the oppressive nature of the crime scene itself or the fact that she’s holding him up from doing his job—could be either or both.
The young woman has a crown of twisted vine on her head. It has been hand fashioned, each woody twig intertwined with the next. Here and there leaves poke out. When the first victim was found, Harper had the crown on the girl’s head tested. It was identified as supplejack vine, native to the Carolinas. She has no doubt this one is the same—it appears to be.
She rubs the earth between her fingertips before getting up. “Ground’s dry. Sorta dusty. Forensics might be able to get something from it.”
“Hopefully,” Mike says, though his tone suggests otherwise.
The sun’s already turning the air to a hot, cloying soup, and Harper’s eager to get out of the corn. “Alright, Mike. Do what you do best.”
She walks back through the corn, snapping off her rubber gloves. Where the corn ends, the road is closed; the boys in blue deal with the few locals who’ve stopped by to see what’s up. The locals stand right up against the yellow tape stretched across the road, asking questions the officers on duty refuse to answer with anything more than grunts.
Harper adjusts her shades and ignores the spectators gathered at the cordoning tape. Detective Stu Raley waits for her, tie already loosened around his neck, leaning back against the side of his car. He is six feet, has blond hair, a strong chin, and has maintained the muscular build he developed in the army.
“You look flustered, Jane,” Stu says.
She nods grimly. “I could say the same about you. Got my message?”
“An hour ago. I came straight out.”
“You want to see the body before it’s moved?” an officer asks him.
“In a minute,” Stu says, turning to Harper. “I thought I’d catch you first, see if you needed anything.”
“Figures,” Harper says, managing a smile. “I know you’re never in a hurry for gore this time of the morning . . .”
“Ain’t that the truth?” Stu makes a face, his hand on his sternum. “Anyway, I’m building myself up to it.”
“Don’t worry, I got it covered,” Harper says. “Crime Scene Unit’s on the way. Mike’s going to get the body out of here once they turn up and do their thing.”
“Think they’ll pull something new?”
“Perhaps. She is in better condition than the last one,” Harper says, feeling dirty for referring to a dead person as a thing, an inanimate object. When you’re dealing with dead teenage girls, the only way to cope with what you see, with what you know, is to detach yourself. It helps to have a disconnect.
Think of that dead young woman as an object and maybe you won’t end up in a loony bin.
“Here.” Stu hands her a cup of coffee. “Drank mine on the way over.”
“Thanks.” Harper stands next to him, her back to the car, looking into the swaying corn. The gray road, the green field, the pale-pink sky turning to faded blue, the black girl . . . the killer’s handprints on her throat, the red blossom on her white dress.
Harper lifts the lid off the coffee and sips it.
“Second body in three months,” Stu says. “Same MO, too?”
“Yeah, looks like it.”
Stu faces her. “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Either it’s a coincidence the killer’s murdered a second black girl, or . . .”
Harper sets the coffee cup on the roof of the car and runs her fingers through her hair. “Or he’s purposely setting out to kill black girls of a certain age and type, and we’re dealing with a fledgling serial killer.”
“There’s a big possibility,” Stu says.
“You know what really gets me about this guy?” Harper asks. “The way he closes their eyes.”
Stu shakes his head, eyes narrowed. “Maybe he’s ashamed and can’t stand ’em looking back at him.”
Harper doesn’t tell him she’s already considered the prospect. “Any word on our witness?”
In the early hours, a delivery driver saw a man walk out of the corn, completely naked except for a white mask. A truck was parked twenty yards farther down the road. The driver called it in right away, using his GPS to give them the location—it’s the first break they’ve had with the case so far, if you don’t figure the killer’s DNA into the equation, taken from the previous victim. But even that proved a dead end. The Combined DNA Index System contains only known offenders—if the perpetrator has never been caught and booked, he’s not in CODIS—and that’s about as useful as having fingerprints for someone who’s never had their prints catalogued.
“The driver’s at the station. I asked him to wait.”
“Thanks, I appreciate that,” Harper says. “I’ll bet Dudley was chomping at the bit to get in there.”
“He can go kiss my ass.” Stu smiles. “If Dudley thinks he’s making lieutenant on the back of our work, he’s wrong. I asked Albie to hold the fort till you get there.”
“Oh, you’re not coming along?”
“The captain’s got me interviewing the farmer who works these fields, see if he knows anything. Owen Willard owns all this. I don’t think I’ll be long.”
Harper turns to face Stu and straightens his tie. He looks at her the way he does when they lie in bed after a few beers, listening to her talk, one arm under his pillow, the other around her waist. It’s all she can do to look away, thinking of the broken girl in that sea of corn.
The Crime Scene Unit arrives in a white van. Harper pats the side of Stu’s face and goes to greet them. “I guess this is me. Thanks for the coffee, stud.”
“Anytime, kiddo.”
She glances back to see him walk across the road and into the corn. The shifting green stems part and swallow her partner whole.