The Circle of Blood Read online

  “I meant for me.”

  The emotion in her father’s voice surprised her. He was the one who had told her they had to detach in order to be death’s detectives. “The chances of dying are one hundred percent,” he’d say. “The only thing to be determined is where and how. If you find yourself getting too emotional, think statistically. We all have an expiration date.”

  “Dad, what is it?” she asked now.

  She heard him hesitate. “Sheriff Jacobs told me— Cammie—this one’s a suicide. Some kid put a bullet in his head. An accident I can understand, but taking your own life when you’re young and you’ve got your whole life ahead of you . . . It’s just hard to think someone would do that to themself.”

  “Oh,” she said. She had just assumed this would be a garden-variety death. Like Benjamin, people died in car wrecks. Sometimes they drowned. Mostly they were old and their bodies just gave out. But a suicide?

  Her father’s voice began to crackle over the line. She knew she was going to lose him soon. The reception from the mountain was spotty at best, especially in a storm. “You know the drill,” he told her. “Jacobs can’t get—ID until—a coroner—the scene. That—you. Do you think— can work it—a while?”

  “Sure,” she answered, sounding more confident than she felt. The thoughts of her mother were shoved aside, quickly and completely. There was no room in her head for Hannah. For the first time she wouldn’t fill the role of assistant to the coroner, she’d be the coroner herself.

  “—hurry. There’s—body— ”

  "I’m on my way,” she said, but it didn’t matter. The line was dead.

  Chapter Five

  THE CRIME SCENE: DO NOT CROSS tape was already stretched taut across the passageway, wrapped tightly around gas meters located at the front corner of each building. From her car Cameryn could see a knot of people pressing against the tape, trying to get a better look at the scene. Two teenage girls held their cell phones high, snapping pictures, the flash barely illuminating the brick wall with weak flickers of light while the rest of the town crowded to take photos. Silverton’s own, homegrown paparazzi.

  Tapping her car horn, Cameryn motioned them away but the people barely moved, reluctant to yield their spots. She hit her horn again, longer this time, then eased the car against the curb and put it in park. Their family’s cream-colored station wagon doubled as Silverton’s only hearse, which meant that many a person took their final journey in the back of the Mahoney automobile, which was still sporting the San Juan County Coroner magnet from earlier that day. Lyric swore the wagon had a negative energy, a claim Cameryn found ridiculous. She’d never noticed anything more than a faint odor that sometimes clung to the car’s interior, which dissipated when the windows were down. Now, grabbing the death kit and camera, Cameryn braced herself for what lay ahead.

  By the time she reached the sidewalk the group had swelled to over thirty, mostly people from the festival. It was hard to push through their stolid bodies; the plastic tape bowed in as the people in the back strained against those in front. The tape would break, Cameryn knew, if they pressed much harder.

  “Hey, folks, stay back!” she heard Justin bark. “This is police business. Step away from the tape.”

  The crowd shifted en masse, moving perhaps a foot toward the street. They looked like cows at a fence, Cameryn thought, their bovine faces placid, their necks straining to see over their yellow tape as though it were a split rail.

  “Excuse me,” Cameryn announced. “Excuse me—I need to get through.”

  “Find your own spot, kid,” a man grunted. “We’re all here to see the same show.”

  “I need to get in there. I’m assistant to the coroner.”

  He turned to look at her. The idea seemed to amuse him. The man’s eyes did a sweep to register her long hair and blue jeans, her five-foot-three frame and her pink ski parka with the Gonzo tag. “Yeah,” he snorted. “Right.”

  Suddenly Deputy Justin Crowley appeared, tall and imposing as he lifted the tape for Cameryn, waving her in.

  “We’ve been waiting for you, Coroner,” Justin said. Instead of speaking to Cameryn he directed his words toward the man, who immediately took a step back.

  “Sorry, I got here as fast as I could,” she said as she ducked beneath the tape, her StreetPro gear bag clutched to her chest like an unopened parachute.

  “I swear,” she heard the man muttered, “they’re looking younger every day.”

  Inside the StreetPro bag were a white sheet, three pairs of latex gloves, a new body bag, a gunshot-residue kit, a dental ruler for scale, paper and plastic bags, shoe covers, medical tape, and a clipboard. Her digital camera hung from a strap around her neck. The plastic tarp she’d spread for Benjamin was still in the bay of their station wagon, beneath the gurney, smooth and shiny. Not a drop of Benjamin had leaked out of the body bag, so there’d been no need to replace it.

  The passageway was an eight-foot-wide sliver that ran between the Carriage House and the Highlander Apartment Building. To the south and parallel to Greene Street, a narrow alleyway opened to the back walls of businesses that stood shoulder to shoulder on Greene Street. In order to keep the alleyway clear, snowplows had piled the snow into a towering wall wedged between the two buildings. In front of that icy barricade lay the body, a patch of blue illuminated by a bank of lights.

  “She’s right up ahead,” Justin told her. “Gun’s still in her hand.”

  Cameryn stopped. “She? It’s a female? Dad said it was a boy.”

  “Well, actually, it’s hard to tell. We won’t know for sure until we turn her over. The hair’s short enough for a boy but the shape looks more like a girl to me. That’s why we need you here.” He put his hand on the small of her back, propelling her forward. “We lawmen can’t touch the decedent until the coroner releases it. You’ve got the power.”

  “All I need is the photographs and then you can roll her,” Cameryn said. “Or him.”

  “That’s the idea.”

  Although narrow, the passageway was more than one hundred feet long, bricked in on either side by walls more than three stories high. A 1,000-watt halogen work light illuminated the snow so that it sparkled as though it had been salted with diamonds. In the distance Cameryn could make out a figure lying, head toward the wall, its feet sprawled apart at an odd angle. She could see the gentle rise of the back, the blue jeans-clad legs, the tread of the sneakers, and a halo of short blonde hair moving in the winter breeze like seaweed beneath water. It was the blue of the parka that caught Cameryn’s eye—the same bright blue Mariah had worn. For a moment she started as the thought Mariah flashed through her mind. But blue parkas were a dime a dozen, she reminded herself, and the hair was short, not long and in a braid. Realizing this, Cameryn’s heart began to beat again.

  Justin stopped her. “What’s up? You just turned as white as the vic.”

  “Nothing. I’m just thinking of the stuff I have to do,” she lied, covering up with a barrage of words. “Did I tell you we’ve switched to using only a digital camera?” Holding her camera away from her chest, she babbled, “The pictures are stamped electronically so you can tell if anything’s been altered, which means a digital shot will stand up in court. So that’s all I’m using now—no more black-and-white. We just put it on a disk and then we’re done. It saves a lot because of the higher cost of regular film.”

  He watched her closely as she spoke. Justin’s eyes were trained on her mouth, as though he were listening not with his ears but with his eyes. “Okay,” he said slowly. “Let’s do it, then.” When she turned, Cameryn’s feet nearly slipped from beneath her. Justin grabbed her arm beneath the elbow. “Careful—there’s ice.” Even through her coat she could feel his warmth.

  Halfway down the alleyway, at a doorway, stood Sheriff Jacobs, one leg propped against a wall. He was interviewing a man who frantically sucked on a cigarette. Although the man’s face was passive, Cameryn could see his fingers tremble as he brought them to
his lips. It took her only a moment to place him: Barry Leithauser, the cook from High Noon Burgers.

  She was about to pass them when Jacobs said, “Cameryn, hold on a tic. Barry, I’ll need just a second. This here is official business. This girl is the coroner.”

  Barry nodded and let his cigarette dangle from his hand, its tip burning red against the brick.

  Sheriff Jacobs wore the same clothing he’d worn to the scene of the car crash, minus the hat. The bank of lights illuminated one side of his face. His thin hair seemed to float above his scalp, and his sharp nose and chin obscured his face so that half of him was lost in shadow.

  “The thing is—Coroner—you’re only seventeen. I’m not so sure you should be working a case like this alone.”

  “I’m not alone,” Cameryn countered. “Justin’s with me.”

  “I meant without your father. I know he thinks you hung the moon, but what you’re about to do is official business. From now on, it all counts.”

  Through tight lips she said, “The coroner told me to start. So I’m going to start.”

  Jacobs peered over his glasses, his eyes tiny, squinting. “Since you’re all hell-fired sure you want to go on, you might want to hear what Barry has to say before you start processing the scene. Give us a recap, Barry,” Jacobs commanded.

  Barry wore a baker’s apron beneath an open parka. His red hair, as coarse as wire, had been pulled into a hairnet that hung at the base of his neck like an old-fashioned snood. There were grease stains on his apron, score-marks. His jeans were dirty.

  “Well,” Barry said, sounding nervous. “Like I said, I was walking home when I ducked in the alley for a smoke. High Noon doesn’t like me to light up—”

  Jacobs cut him off with a wave of his hand. “What did you see in the alley?”

  “Well, I, uh, I looked down and I thought I saw something strange. I was thinking, What the heck is that, way down by the snow wall? So I got curious. I walked closer and there it was. At first I figured it was a mannequin, like maybe it was tossed off from the parade. When I got closer I saw the gun . . .” His voice broke. He stopped for a moment before going on. “I said, ‘Hey, kid, are you okay?’ Then I saw the hole in the head and the blood. That’s when I knew.”

  “What did you do then?” prompted Jacobs.

  “I called 911. The lady told me I had to stay until you guys arrived. She said I wasn’t supposed to touch anything. I didn’t. I gotta tell you, I’m creeped out by this whole thing.” He took a deep drag from the cigarette, and his shaking made the glowing ember dance. “It’s freakin’ weird. I kept walking around the body thinkin’ what a waste it was, killing yourself like that.”

  The sheriff’s eyes were sharp. “So, Cameryn, how does this change the scene?”

  “Well, for one thing the area around the body has been compromised,” Cameryn answered. “I’ll need to get a shot of Barry’s shoes.”

  The sheriff looked at her with grudging respect. “That’s right. But the most important thing is the pictures of the gun. Photograph different angles of the vic holding the revolver—take as many as you can, from every which way. Remember to use the scale.”

  “I’ll make sure it’s done right,” Justin said.

  “I’ll make sure it’s done right,” Cameryn corrected.

  Jacobs made a note on his pad and said, “Start taking your pictures, Cammie. So, Barry,” Jacobs said, turning his attention to the cook, “did you see anyone else in this alleyway?”

  “No,” Barry replied. “Nobody comes in ’cause there’s no way out. It’s blocked off. . . .”

  As Jacobs’s pen scratched against paper, Justin made a motion for Cameryn to follow him. Moments later the two of them approached the body. At thirty feet, the blue looked all too familiar and she felt, once again, a flutter of panic. To distract herself she asked, “What kind of gun did the decedent use?”

  “A .22.”

  “That’s a pretty small caliber.”

  “Powerful enough. She’s dead. You know, not that long ago, girls used to swallow pills while guys shot themselves in the head. Now a female is almost as likely as a male to blow her own brains out. It’s a weird kind of equality.”

  “Either way,” Cameryn said, “dead is dead. But you’re not sure it’s a girl.”

  “I’m pretty sure. The victim is lying facedown and in that parka, it’s kind of hard to tell.” Fifteen feet away from the body they stopped. Holding her camera to her eye, Cameryn began to shoot pictures of the scene, the alley, and the churned footprints covered in a patina of snow. Now that she was close, she could see the color of the hair, a strawberry blonde reminiscent of Mariah’s shade. The lights had thrown her off, lighting it up to the color of gold, but she could now see the strands of red woven in. Her mind jumped to the shiny blue fabric, the same color she’d chased down Greene Street.

  Slumped next to the body’s right side was the backpack. When Cameryn saw that, the wind was knocked out of her as though a giant, invisible fist had hit her hard in the chest. The color of hair, the make of the coat, the white slash of sneakers, all were points on a road map that led this body straight to Hannah. There was no doubt about it; this was Mariah, minus her braid.

  Justin hesitated. “Maybe we should wait for your dad.”

  “No,” she said, shaking herself. “I’ve got it.”

  Snowflakes were stuck to the red-gold hair, unmelted, since Mariah’s exterior had already cooled. With rote movements, Cameryn snapped picture after picture: of the decedent’s feet, her legs, the rip in her blue jeans, and pictures of the backpack, the gun. After Justin had placed the dental scale next to Mariah’s hand, Cameryn took close-ups of the right index finger curled in the revolver’s trigger, the palm gently cupping the wooden handle. Clearly, this was a suicide. What a tragic thing to do. It was then that Cameryn noticed Mariah’s fingernails. They were bitten down to the quick. Just like mine, she thought. I’ve felt overwhelmed, too. But you can’t take it back, because death is forever.

  Edging nearer, Justin said, “Be sure to get a close-up of her wound. Take a lot of those. That’ll be evidentiary.”

  “I know, Justin.”

  “Just trying to help.”

  Cameryn focused on the bullet hole. It was small, a bull’s-eye on Mariah’s right temple, ringed with black. Blood had snaked down the side of her face like a single finger of red. It would have been different, she knew, if Mariah had used a more powerful gun. She’d seen pictures of the damage a .44 left behind. Maintain, she told herself. The backpack hunched to one side as if it, too, were dead.

  “Now do you think it’s a girl?”

  “Yeah,” Cameryn said. Working in, she placed the scale against the side of the girl’s head. Mariah had obviously been agitated in the car before Cameryn had given chase. Is that what had done it? Had Cameryn’s running after this girl pushed her over the edge? Another thought chilled her: Mariah had been carrying a gun. If Cameryn had chased her down this blocked-off alleyway, things might have turned out differently.

  She moved the scale to the other side of the body and took another series of shots.

  “You think she’s a runaway?” Justin asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “I’ll interview everyone in town, see if I can get a lead on this vic. Somebody must have seen this kid.”

  As the camera clicked and flashed, thoughts tumbled through Cameryn, spinning like pinwheels, so quick she couldn’t follow their trajectory. Her mother, she was certain, had no tie to Mariah other than picking her up from a gas station’s bathroom—one of Hannah’s lost girls. And yet in her mind’s eye she could visualize the sheriff interrogating Hannah, could hear her father’s accusations, “Do you see, Cammie? Hannah’s crazy. I don’t want you to have anything to do with her anymore. Death follows that woman.” And Hannah, already fragile, might begin to crack. Cameryn had already sensed fissures running beneath. The accusations, the whispers—what if that kind of questioning sent her mother to her own
desperate act of self-destruction? Why open a Pandora’s box? Wait. Just wait.

  “You ever see this person before?”

  It took a moment for her to register that Sheriff Jacobs was now standing next to her. For a moment Cameryn imagined Mariah’s spirit hovering overhead, watching her tell the lie. “No,” she answered. It was only a partial untruth. She didn’t know Mariah’s last name or where she was from. She really didn’t know this girl at all.

  “I want to roll her,” Jacobs announced.

  “Okay, I think we’ve got enough.” Justin was squatting over the body, his hands dangling between his knees, lost in concentration. “I need to clear the gun.”

  “Do it,” said Jacobs.

  Gingerly, Justin took the .22 from Mariah’s grip. With gloved hands he emptied the bullets from the revolver and dropped them into a paper bag. The gun itself went into a separate paper bag. “Can you initial these?” he asked Cameryn.

  Cameryn wrote C.M. on the yellow tags.

  “Ready to flip the body,” said Jacobs. “I want to get a look at this kid. Deputy, on the count of three.”

  “One, two, three!” The two men gently pushed Mariah over, and Justin pulled the hair away from her eyes. If Cameryn had any doubts before, they disappeared when she saw the face. In death the features were even more doll-like, with her pale, wide-set eyes, the freckles looking not so much like honey now but like rust against the too-white skin. Mariah had already stiffened up, from the cold or rigor or both. Her right hand stayed in position, her fingers still cocked against the side of her head, while her left arm remained rigid at her side. Pale blue eyes had already begun to cloud, as though the irises had been infused with milk.

  “Cammie, do you have any idea how long she’s been dead?” Jacobs asked.

  Both Jacobs and Justin were looking at her, expecting answers. She took a series of short, deep breaths and commanded herself to think clinically. Crouching near Mariah’s head, Cameryn placed one hand on the cheekbones and the other on Mariah’s chin. She tried to pull the jaw apart, but it barely moved. She then moved it side to side, trying not to notice the tiny serrations on the edge of Mariah’s teeth and the blank way she stared at Cameryn.