A Death in Lionel's Woods Read online

  A DEATH IN LIONEL’S WOODS

  Fifth in the Winnebago County Mystery Series

  Christine Husom

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright © 2013 by Christine Husom

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locale is coincidental.

  All rights to this book are reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in printed or electronic form without permission. Please purchase only authorized editions and do not participate in, or encourage, piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Also by Christine Husom

  Winnebago County Mystery Series:

  Murder in Winnebago County, 2008

  Buried in Wolf Lake, 2009

  An Altar by the River, 2010

  The Noding Field Mystery, 2012

  Secret in Whitetail Lake, 2015

  Firesetter in Blackwood Township, 2017

  Snow Globe Shop Mystery Series:

  Snow Way Out, 2015

  The Iced Princess, 2015

  Frosty the Dead Man, 2016

  This book is dedicated to the Wright County Sheriff’s Department and the St. Paul Police Department where I trained, worked, and received my education and experience. And to those who spend their days and nights investigating crimes against humanity, specifically smuggling and trafficking. It takes people with special skills and dedication and I humbly commend you for your work. It is also imperative to recognize all who have fallen victim to those who do not value others’ lives and prey upon them in unspeakable ways. God’s blessings for rescue and healing to each one of you.

  Acknowledgements

  Thank you to my fellow brothers and sisters in both the Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America for your friendship and unselfish support. To my husband Dan, who made meals and held down the fort without complaint when I was holed up writing. And to the invaluable team who helped with proofing, editing, and cover design: Judy Bergquist, Allen Eskens, Elizabeth Husom, Tia Larson, Judy Lewis, Chad Mead, Morynn Marx, Timya Owens, Mickie Turk, and Adrienne Wojciak. Thank you all for you expertise and advice. I am very grateful.

  1

  “You killed my friend.” I hit the 2 button on the phone to replay the message left on my work voicemail. “You killed my friend.” I’m sorry. So very sorry, I mouthed. It was the fourth time that morning I had been drawn back to the muffled voice that accused me, held me guilty with four short words. You. Killed. My. Friend. The caller—I couldn’t tell if it was a male or a female—didn’t name me specifically, or say who he or she was. But the message was sent to me, Sergeant Corinne Aleckson, at the sheriff’s office, and was personal nonetheless. I felt compelled to keep it to myself for a while. More correctly, between the caller and me. You killed my friend. Did he, or she, somehow share in the same grief I couldn’t shake?

  My sadness was persistent, and at times I was afraid it would consume me, swallow me whole. It had been months since I had blindly led the man I was dating to his death, but that tragic moment in time was never far from my conscious, subconscious, or unconscious thoughts. I didn’t want to die; I just didn’t know how to live with the burden.

  Many people had assured me, some over and over, that time was the great healer. And I had to believe the weight of guilt would lessen, but I knew my life would never be the same. The other thing people tried to drum into my brain was that it wasn’t my fault. I almost believed that on one level. But on another level, which caused continued gnawing at my heart and gut, I was convinced my police training and innate skills should have alerted me of the danger ahead. By the time I’d sensed something was hinky that fateful evening, it was too late to stop the rapid chain of events that resulted in the death of two men. Eric Stueman’s was at the hands of an evil man. The evil man died by mine.

  It was like watching the videos of the Twin Towers going down on 9-11. I knew it would be exactly the same no matter how many times I viewed it. Yet the part of me that didn’t want to believe it had really happened hoped if I watched it once more, the ending would somehow be different. That’s the way it was each time my mind’s eye saw Langley Parker shoot Eric. As much as I willed for a different ending, it never varied one iota. The images in my brain had become my nearly-constant companion, along with the smells of fresh, salty blood, intermixed with sweet apple-tree blossoms in the warm, late spring evening air.

  After the incident, Winnebago County Sheriff Dennis Twardy had pulled me off the road as a supervising sergeant and assigned me the special duties of helping in the evidence room, checking outstanding warrants on offenders, and any number of other details the department was backlogged on. When I was at work, I forced myself to be focused. When I was with family and friends, I was coaxed from my grief for short periods of time. When I was alone, I fell apart as often as not.

  I had added Dr. Kearns, my psychologist and new best friend, as number 8 on my speed dial. The only professional—or his voicemail, at least—I had access to by hitting two buttons. Since I hadn’t slept through the night for months, he’d talked me into getting a prescription for a sleeping aid. I’d done as he’d suggested, and had the unopened bottle sitting in my bathroom cabinet. Just in case. I chose to self-medicate with wine in the evenings instead.

  A glass, or two, or three, dulled the pain, but didn’t allow me to slip into a dreamless, guilt-free night that I didn’t feel I deserved anyway. I had no idea what I had to do, or how long it would take to pay the penance that would get me out of my personal prison. I hoped one day Dr. Kearns would pull a rabbit out of a hat, and he’d say something that would magically help me forgive myself.

  My cell phone rang a half hour into my shift. It was Detective Elton “Smoke” Dawes, my mentor and dear friend. I willed myself to sound mildly cheerful so he wouldn’t pry into what was wrong. “Hey, Smoke.”

  “Got a lot going on in warrants?”

  I glanced at the tall stack. “You know it never ends around here.”

  “Tell me about it. You heard Weber call me out to his suspicious circumstances call?”

  “I did. How suspicious are the circumstances?”

  “I’d go with quite suspicious at this point. We don’t really know the extent of what we got, and I’d be obliged if you’d come out here. We’re up to our eyeballs and it seems that half the guys I usually count on are off deer hunting.”

  A wave of panic rolled through me. “Smoke, I . . .”

  “Sheriff says you’d be putting your talents to better use working this case than doing paperwork in the office. If you’re ready to get back out, that is.”

  Smoke wouldn’t have called if he didn’t really need help. “What have you got?”

  “A woman. Looks like she’s been dead a couple of days. Just skin and bones. We’re waiting on Melberg and Major Crimes, which is only Zubinski, with Mason out today. The chief deputy hasn’t found anyone to reassign yet, but he’s still working on it. Weber will fill in as long as he can.”

  I sucked in a long breath, and blew it out, mentally ordering the feelings of fear and anxiety to leave with the expelled air. “All right.”

  “The closest address is Twenty-two nineteen Quinton Avenue, in Swedesburg Township. We’re in a private woods next to the Jeremiah Madison County Park, a quarter mile in. A guy found her here after the morning deer hunt.”

  “Man. Okay. I’ll be out there in about twenty. As soon as I can arrange a squad car.” I disconnected and glanced at the clock on the office wall, hoping that reading the time would give me a sense of urgency that would
propel me into action. Eight thirty-four, Tuesday morning. The start of a long, sad week for the victim’s family. That thought spurred me and got me moving.

  What I was dealing with personally was because of something that had happened almost six months earlier. But the woman’s body in the woods was in the here and now, and she needed me to be mentally strong and emotionally fit, to help find out what had happened to her.

  I put the arrest warrant I was working on back in the file, glanced at the office phone that held the troubling message in my mailbox, and then phoned the chief deputy to see which squad car I should take. There was usually one or two available in the lot due to deputies being on vacation, or sick leave. After a brief explanation of what I needed and why, Chief Deputy Kenner told me to take number 1410. I grabbed my warm jacket and headed to the vehicle.

  When I climbed inside, I sat for a moment to let the knowledge that I was heading to a crime scene for the first time in forever sink in. I turned the ignition key and the sheriff’s radio and computer came to life with officers’ voices and blinking lights.

  I depressed the button on my radio. “Six oh eight, Winnebago County.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I’m ten-eight with unit fourteen ten and en route to Detective Dawes’ location.”

  “Oh?” Communications Officer Robin was apparently caught off-guard. “Um, copy. You’re ten-eight at eight forty-one.”

  A message from Robin appeared on my car’s laptop screen almost immediately. You should have warned us. We’re all in shock, but glad too.

  I typed back, Sorry, thanks. The sheriff’s department was like one big family where almost everyone had a stake in everyone else’s wellbeing.

  I dialed my grandmother’s number then backed out of my parking spot. She answered on the second ring, “My Heart, so good of you to call.”

  “I just needed to hear your voice, Grandma. To tell me I’ll be okay.”

  “What happened?” She didn’t cover the sense of alarm in her voice.

  “I’m on my way to meet Smoke at the scene of a deceased woman they found in a woods.”

  “Oh dear. Poor thing. Yes, you will be fine, My Heart. You have always been brave, full of resolve. Sit up straight, stand tall. Concentrate on doing the best job you can in whatever you and Elton face with this case. All right?”

  “All right. Thanks, Grandma. I love you. ’Bye.”

  “I love you more, My Heart.”

  I shut my phone and high-tailed it to the private woods adjoining Jeremiah Madison County Park. My heart pounded in anticipation of how I would react, how I would conduct myself. I heard Amanda Zubinski announce she was “ten-six” a few seconds after I caught sight of the mobile crime lab van she was driving turn east on a farm access road that ran part of the way to the woods. I spotted two “No Trespassing” signs on the property, and shook my head at the irony. It seemed someone had indeed trespassed, and was now dead. When the created path ended, the crime van continued across a pasture. I turned my car right and followed her to our awaiting team and the body they were protecting from further harm.

  Deputy Vince Weber was stretching bright yellow “Do Not Cross” tape, marking a perimeter about eight feet out from the body, while Detective Smoke Dawes held the other end of the tape. Zubinski got out of the crime lab van and pulled on a jumpsuit that would protect the scene as much as possible while she searched for evidence. She zipped it in a flash, and bent over to pull on shoe protectors.

  I told Communications I had arrived, and when I climbed out of the car, all three officers looked at me seconds too long. I was a virtual stranger to crime scenes after being confined to paper shuffling for six months. I could only imagine what they were thinking. Is she going to freak out on us? Break down and sob, leaving a puddle that will compromise the scene?

  “Thanks for making it out here so fast,” Smoke said, and his lips curled up in a half-smile.

  “Yeah, thanks,” Weber said.

  Zubinski nodded. “Thanks.”

  I lifted my palms chest high. “Okay. I appreciate all the politeness and everything, but we’ve worked together long enough so you know you don’t have to walk on eggshells with me.”

  The expressions on their faces disputed my words. “Anymore,” I added. “I’m here to do my job, same as you are.”

  All of us had been through professional and personal traumatic incidents, but I was the one who seemed to be the slowest to heal after my last major one. I was also the only one in the group who had shot and killed a suspect in the line of duty.

  Zubinski and I joined Weber and Dawes some feet back from the body. We all studied it silently for a minute or two. My heart went out to her, wondering how in the world she had ended up in a woods lying on the ground among fallen leaves and small maple saplings, curled up in a fetal position where she died.

  “Nothing much for them to eat,” Weber said.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The maggots.”

  We all nodded, and a knot tied and untied, then tied again in my stomach. The cool weather and frost covering the ground at night had prevented much fly infestation. Perhaps some had crawled in and laid eggs in her mouth or nose or ears, but from what I observed, no maggots had yet appeared. Thankfully.

  “She could be twenty or sixty,” Zubinski said.

  “Yeah, hard to tell. Decomp is slowed with the cold, but she’s as emaciated as I’ve ever seen a person to be. That makes it harder to guess an age,” Smoke said.

  Tears formed in my lower lids and I blinked them away then swiped the bit of moisture residue from under my lashes. What the heck? “Think she got dropped off, abandoned here? There’s nothing to her. She had to have been very ill.”

  “And really weak besides,” Zubinski added.

  “Coulda died of hypothermia, the way the overnight temps have been,” Weber said.

  Smoke’s phone rang. “Dawes here. . . . Right.” He gave directions to our location. “See you when you get here.” He closed his phone. “Melberg got detained, so he asked a medical examiner, Bridey Patrick, to respond.”

  “Huh. Really? Never met Doc Patrick. I thought Melberg worked twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year—except leap year, that is, when there are three hundred and sixty-six days—no matter what,” Weber said.

  “She’s a fairly new hire at the ME’s office, a couple of months, I’d guess. Came to us from Hennepin County. I met her at their office a while back.” Smoke slowly turned in a circle, scanning the woods and farm field west of where we stood. “Weber took the initial photos of the scene before you two got here,” he said to Mandy and me. “Zubinski, Weber, take a walk around, see if you spot anything that might tell us how she got here, where she came from,” Smoke said.

  Zubinski and Weber looked around, and then at each other. Weber pointed, Zubinski nodded, and without a word they put about six feet between themselves and headed north in the woods, studying the ground as they slowly crept along.

  I crouched down and studied the victim’s body. She was lying on her left side with her knees drawn into her chest. Her right foot rested on her left ankle. Her bent arms covered her breasts, and her hands were folded. Her chin was tucked in and touched the knuckles. Some of her long, wavy brown hair lay across her jaw line and partially covered the right side of her neck. The rest of it had fallen to the ground above and behind her head.

  “The guy who found her didn’t recognize her?” I asked.

  “No. We’ll talk to him again. He was pretty shell-shocked. Understandably. Especially since he thought she was a little girl at first, given she’s so skinny. He said he got as good a look as he could, but didn’t think he had ever seen her before.”

  “There haven’t been any reports of a missing woman in the last week that I’m aware of,” I said.

  “No, just that elderly man who wandered off over by Allandale, but he was found later the same day.” Smoke was close behind me.

  “That’s r
ight.” My eyes fixed on Jane Doe. “It looks like she was praying before she died.”

  “Or was trying to keep warm.”

  “Both, maybe. If she died of hypothermia, at least she wouldn’t have felt cold at the end. She would’ve just laid down on a little bed of leaves to rest, and then fell into her forever sleep.”

  The clothing the victim wore appeared to be handmade: a simple gray button-up dress of a tweedy material, a knitted wool, buttonless brown sweater, knitted ankle socks. And wool clogs. I recognized the brand and had a pair of my own in a closet at home. Haflingers, handmade in Germany.

  “Those aren’t exactly walking, or running, shoes,” Smoke said.

  “No, they’re really more of a house shoe, but people wear them all over the place because they’re so comfortable. I walk in them just fine, but I wouldn’t be able to run very far.”

  “And her dress is a different style, like something my mother might have worn when she was working at home in the old days, when women wore house dresses,” Smoke said.

  “Not very modern looking, that’s for sure. But there are people who live pretty modestly and don’t care about fashion. Or it could be because of their religion. We may not have any known Amish or Mennonites in the county, but there are some Switzers.”

  “Switzers?”

  “That’s what people dub them. That Swiss Apostolic Church, off County Road Five, south of Kadoka.”

  “Oh, sure. Women wear their hair in buns, wear bonnet-like head coverings, no makeup. I see them around once in a while.”