There was only one thing to do. Matt had to go in.
He’d known Justin since they were kids. His friend had been on a downward spiral, set off by a car accident, chronic back pain, and a subsequent addiction to OxyContin. Justin had fallen apart, but he seemed determined to get his life together. Matt would do everything he could to help, including driving him to NA meetings and breaking into his house if there was even a slight chance that his friend could be in trouble.
Possible scenarios ran through Matt’s head. Addiction relapse and suicide were among them.
“Come on,” he said to the dog as he turned away from the house, but Brody didn’t immediately follow. The dog focused on the door and whined again. The sound he made was plaintive, high-pitched, and barely audible. “We’ll try another door.”
Obedient but clearly reluctant, Brody followed him around the side of the house. Their footsteps crunched in the ice-crusted snow. The patio door was a glass slider, and it was open. Matt stuck his head inside. The den and kitchen were at the back of the house. The kitchen was empty but brightly lit. Two open cans of Coke sat on the counter next to a pizza box. In the den, a couch and coffee table faced the TV. Light flickered from the TV mounted on the wall. A local news station played on the screen.
Where is Justin?
Worry snowballed in Matt’s gut. As if channeling his master’s anxiety, Brody dug into the snow that had drifted against the base of the slider.
“Yeah, no worries, buddy. We’re going in.” Matt pulled a leash from his pocket and snapped it onto the dog’s collar. Then he stepped into the kitchen. A few clumps of snow fell from his boots. He wiped his feet on the mat and led Brody inside, leaving the door open behind them.
The shepherd panted and paced at the end of his leash. Matt brought him to heel with a single German command. “Fuss.”
“Justin?” he called. Nothing moved. The tiny house felt eerily still. Brody pulled toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms. Matt held him back as he strained at the end of his leash.
The dog whined again. Matt flipped a light switch in the hall. The laundry room and bathroom were empty. Matt peered into the spare bedroom, which contained only a stack of boxes Justin refused to unpack, claiming the move was temporary.
Brody pulled harder.
“Fuss.” Matt repeated the command.
Brody obeyed but his body posture remained tense. He was acting as if he were back on active duty in a high-stress situation.
The master bedroom lay ahead. Matt debated taking the dog back to his vehicle, but he wasn’t armed. On the remote chance there was an intruder in the house, Brody would know, and the dog would have his back. Matt listened for a few seconds, but the only sounds were the low voices of the news anchors on the TV in the den. Brody wasn’t acting as if there was a threat, but the dog was agitated, whining and shifting his weight from side to side in lieu of pacing. His head bobbed and weaved like a professional boxer.
“Justin?” Matt called out, hesitant to invade the privacy of his friend’s bedroom. But Justin’s depression made him walk down the hall. The room was lit only by a small bedside lamp, but it was bright enough that he could see what lay in the middle of the room.
A dead body and a lake of blood.
Matt flinched.
He didn’t need to feel for a pulse. From the size of the deep-red stain on the carpet, he knew the person was dead. No one could survive that much blood loss.
The body was too small to be Justin. Matt used the flashlight app on his phone to better illuminate the body. Shock washed over him. It was a woman. She wore boots, jeans, and a sweater. Long, dark hair streamed out from under a knit cap.
He moved a few steps to the side and shone the light on her face. Matt inhaled sharply.
Justin’s wife, Erin, stared back at him with empty hazel eyes.
What is she doing here?
Brody whined, a thin, plaintive sound. Matt put a reassuring hand on the top of the dog’s head as he called 911 on his cell phone.
In rural areas, deputies wore multiple professional hats. Several deputies, including the current chief, also served on the county search-and-rescue team. Others were on the dive team. Several were volunteer firefighters. Matt had been an investigator and, later, a K-9 officer. As he gave the dispatcher the address, he put aside his emotions and viewed the scene like the detective he’d been.
Erin was on her side, her body curled around itself. From the size of the wound, Matt suspected she’d been shot. Blood covered her hands, which were near the wound in her chest. She hadn’t died immediately. She’d known she was bleeding out. She’d clutched the wound, maybe even tried to stem the bleeding. The heart stops beating at death, and it had taken a minute or so to pump a fatal volume out of her body. It must have seemed both a long and short minute to her. Matt took in the size of the bloodstain. It had been a futile effort. He hoped she’d lost consciousness quickly.
An image from their wedding flashed into his mind. Justin and Erin posing for a photo with her two kids. He closed his eyes for a second. Justin had mentioned that the kids hadn’t seen their father in years. No one even knew where he was or if he was alive. They could be orphans.
The 911 operator gave a response time of four minutes. Matt took two minutes to snap pictures of the rest of the room with his cell phone camera. He was no longer a deputy. Since the former sheriff’s death and the airing of the corruption in the department, many other deputies had left. There were a number of new hires, and of the longtime deputies, Matt didn’t know who he could trust. How many had known of the former sheriff’s crimes?
He was certain of only one thing. This would be his only chance to record the crime scene.
Justin hadn’t planned to live here long and hadn’t invested in much furniture. The bedroom held a bed, a chair, and a nightstand with a lamp. A purple puffy coat lay across the chair. It looked too small and feminine to be Justin’s. Erin’s? He snapped a picture, then took photos of a dark red smear on the doorframe and another on the wall.
On the floor in front of the bathroom door lay a towel. Matt stooped and touched the corner. Damp.
Matt ducked into the bathroom. Another damp towel hung over a rod mounted on the wall. He used the sleeve of his jacket to open the medicine chest, noting the extra toothpaste, a tube of mascara, and a lipstick on the glass shelf. In the cabinet beneath the sink, he found a hairdryer, a round hairbrush, and a box of feminine hygiene products. As he photographed everything, he wondered if the female items belonged to Erin or another woman.
A siren approached.
“Time to go.” He led Brody back out the way they had come into the house, taking more pictures on his way out. He followed his own tracks back to the sidewalk and waited, noting and filing details in his head. The front door had been locked. The back slider had been open, as if someone had rushed out of the house.
Who killed Erin? And where is Justin?
Two hours later, emergency vehicles clogged the street. Swirling red-and-blue lights reflected on the snow. A county CSI van was parked behind the sheriff’s department vehicles. The medical examiner had been the last to arrive. Uniformed men hustled back and forth from the house to their vehicles. Each doing his job, focused on a specific task. At the base of the driveway, a rookie manned the crime scene log, recording every person who set foot on the scene.