Latham's Landing by Tara Fox Hall Page A

privacy,” Drake
said.
    “ Watch that past tense,” Bowman said
darkly, walking toward the door. “We get the facts, remember? No
one’s officially dead until we see an ID’d dead body.”
    They’d gotten here before the ambulance. But
Drake was right, at least one person inside wouldn’t need one, most
likely. Homicide wasn’t usually called just for an injury.
    “ Creepy place,” Drake said.
    Bowman surveyed the rebuilt farmhouse, the
light white and blue structure. He felt it, too. There was
something sinister about the place, its isolation instilling a
feeling of dread, as if he was inches away from being prey to some
looming predator. But he’d be damned if he gave into fear at his
age. “Just pick your guts up out of the car, and follow me in, you
pansy.”
    The officers walked up the stairs, each step
creaking with their weighty advance. Jim rang the doorbell.
    A large burly officer opened the door. “Jim,
Drake.”
    Hawk Lease was a good friend, even if he was
still a uniform and not a detective after ten years. “Lease. Fill
us in.”
    “ A murder,” Lease replied. “But we know
who and why they did it. Follow me.”
    He led them though the hallway into a
tastefully decorated living room. On the couch sat a
seventeen-year-old girl, her long brown hair covering her face.
    “ This is Carolyn Stone,” Lease said.
“She called the station tonight and reported the
murder.”
    At the use of her name, the girl looked up,
her hazel eyes shining wetly in her tear-streaked face. She moved
back her long hair, revealing in her hands a small kitten. “You can
sit if you want to, officers.”
    Both Jim and Drake sat down. “Miss Stone,”
Jim began. “Please start at the beginning—”
    Lease turned to leave. “Goodnight, boys.”
    “ Where are you going?” Drake
demanded.
    “ Cedar Central Hospital,” Lease said
pointedly, turning. “My partner got stabbed apprehending the
suspect. He went in the first ambulance that responded. Now that
you finally got here, I need to go check on him.”
    That kind of insolence was why Lease had
never made detective. “Go ahead,” Jim said.
    “ Why are you here, anyway?” Drake said
snidely. “I thought Locke was on duty tonight—”
    Lease visibly bristled. “We answered the call
because we were the closest unit. This is a homicide case now, and
you’ll be happy to know that your work is all done. The murderer is
in a cell. The coroner just pulled up outside with the ambulance.
There’s nothing left but for me to go home, and for you to do the
same, once you do the routine.”
    Drake glanced to Jim, irked. “We didn’t hear
any ambulance.”
    Drake and Lease had never gotten along,
especially when Drake had made plainclothes and Lease hadn’t. This
poor kid didn’t need their angst tonight, on top of everything else
she was going through . “Lease, go ahead to the hospital,”
Bowman directed. “We’ll finish up here.”
    “ You didn’t hear anything, Drake,
because they didn’t use the sirens,” Lease said darkly, then
left.
    “ His notes are here,” Carolyn offered,
hesitantly handing a few sheets of paper to Bowman. “I went over
the facts with him while we waited for you guys.”
    “ Thank you,” Jim, reading the first of
Hawk’s three paragraphs of scribbling.
    Lease was right. It was a simple case. Just
after midnight, Sheila Stone had been attacked in her bedroom, the
outside windows forced in with a crowbar. She’d been stabbed while
sleeping and left for dead. Because of the severity of the wounds,
death had been almost immediate.
    “ Is your father not at home?” Bowman
asked, looking up at Carolyn.
    Carolyn shook her head. “He’s on a business
trip until Sunday. I called him but no one answered.”
    Bowman looked over the latter paragraphs. A
man named Dewey had been arrested lurking outside the house, blood
on his clothes and some of Sheila Stone’s jewelry in his pockets.
Known about town for his quick temper, heavy