Eventually the urgent cawing of a flock of crows wheeling overhead broke our stricken silence. Their black wings flapped noisily against the early April blue sky. I’m a crossword puzzle kind of guy. That gives me access to a good deal of generally useless information. In this instance, I knew that a flock of crows is called a murder, and this noisy bunch, attracted by what they must have expected to be a sumptuous feast, seemed particularly aptly named.
Mac was the first to stir. “I guess it’s not a joke,” he muttered as he started down the hill toward the body. “I’ll keep the damn birds away. You call it in.”
Mac was a few years my senior in both regular years and in years on the force. He often issued what sounded like orders. Most of the time I simply went along with the program. In this instance, I was more than happy to comply.
I went back over to the car and leaned inside. Donnie and Frankie were watching, wide eyed, from the backseat. “Did you see her?” Donnie asked. At least I think it was Donnie.
“Yes,” I said grimly. “We saw her. While I call this in, I want the two of you to stay right where you are. Got it?”
They both nodded numbly. It wasn’t as though they had a choice. There was a web of metal screen between the cruiser’s front seat and the backseat. The doors locked from the outside, and there were no interior door handles. Frankie and Donnie Dodd weren’t under arrest, but they weren’t going anywhere without our permission. They sat there in utter silence while I made the call, letting Dispatch know that they needed to summon the M.E. and detectives from Homicide. When I finished, I hopped out of the car and skidded down the steep incline. Mac was already on his way back up.
“I gave up on the damn birds,” he muttered. “She’s already dead. How much worse can it be?
“That’s all right,” I said. “I think I’ll go have a look anyway.”
“Suit yourself,” Mac said with a shrug. “Some people are dogs for punishment.”
We had worked together long enough that he knew I wanted a cigarette, but we were both kind enough not to mention it. I waited until I was far enough down the hill to be out of sight before I lit up. I figured out of sight is out of mind and damn the smoke smell later.
Still, smoking was what I was doing when my eyes were inevitably drawn to the body. People passing car wrecks on the highway aren’t the only people guilty of rubbernecking. Cops do it, too, and at that time in my career I was enough of a newbie that seeing dead bodies was anything but routine.
I found myself staring at the dead woman—what I could see of her, at least. She lay sprawled facedown on the weedy hillside, half in and half out of the barrel. A tangle of what looked like shoulder-length blond hair spilled out over the ground. A moment later, something red caught my eye, sticking out through the layer of greasy slurry. At first I thought what I was seeing was blood spatter, but that wasn’t possible. Clearly the woman had been dead for some time. Once blood is exposed to the air, it oxidizes and goes from red to muddy brown. This was definitely red. Bright red. Scarlet. Inhaling a lungful of smoke, I moved a step or two closer to get a better look.
What I was seeing, of course, was nothing but tiny little patches of bright red nail polish glowing in the sunlight. And that was the single detail that stayed with me from that crime scene—the nail polish. Wanting to look pretty for someone, the victim had gone to the trouble of having a manicure, or else she had given herself one. Had she been going to a dance or a party, maybe? Had she been out on the town for a night of fun?
Whatever it was, when she’d done her nails, she hadn’t expected to be dead soon, or that the vivid red nail polish would be the only thing she’d be wearing when someone found her body.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
J. A. JANCE is the New York Times bestselling author of the J. P. Beaumont series, the Joanna Brady series, the Ali Reynolds series, and four interrelated thrillers about the Walker Family. Born in South Dakota and brought up in Bisbee, Arizona, Jance lives with her husband in Seattle, Washington, and Tucson, Arizona.