“I saw you at the grocery store just last week, Harlan.”
“And it’s been too long. You have to have dinner with me. Saturday is prime rib night, you know. Join me.”
“I’d love to, but I’ll have to take a rain check.”
“Until after you’ve dumped that firefighter and admitted your undying love for me?”
Val chuckled, not sure what to say to that. “Lund sends you his best.”
“I’ll bet he does.” Harlan raised his glass. “Buy you one of these?”
“I’m afraid I’m working.”
“The sheriff’s department now has its consultants pulling weekend overtime?”
“Not officially.”
“But?”
“I was working on a case of Bobby Vaughan’s.”
Harlan rocked back a little on his stool. “How is Vaughan?”
“Stable but still unconscious.”
“Poor bastard. Damn crazy shame to have something like that happen on his wedding day. I told him he should get married up here in Lake Loyal. Nothing like that happens up here.”
Val wasn’t so sure about that. She’d lived through some pretty insane stuff in Lake Loyal. And seeing that Harlan had been coroner of the county long before Val had moved to Wisconsin, she was sure he’d seen even more. In fact, one of those past times was the reason she needed a word with him now. “Listen, I know he was planning to go over something with you and—”
“You want my help finding out who attacked him?”
“I think the Madison police are handling that.”
“Oh, yeah. Of course, they are. So what can I do ya for?”
“I was wondering if you could compare a couple of autopsies for me.”
“Autopsies I performed?”
“Yes. Maybe I could stop by tomorrow or Monday morning, if—”
“Nonsense. I’ll do it now.”
“I hate to take you away from your dinner.”
Harlan’s bushy gray eyebrows pulled low. “Why would I need to leave my dinner?”
Val had seen him eat full meals in the morgue before, and it was an experience she’d rather not live through again. “Tomorrow or Monday would be fine. You can access your notes and—”
“Notes? I don’t need notes. I can do it from memory.”
“You don’t even know what cases.”
“I can guess. Try me.”
“Uh, okay.”
“The body that was found in the nature preserve five days ago and one Farrentina Hamilton, victim of Ed Dryden.” He paused, as if letting the accuracy of his guess sink in.
Val nodded. “Those are the cases.”
“Of course they are. And I’d love to talk to you about them all night, honey lips. So since you don’t want to take me away from my prime rib, I guess you’ll have to have dinner with me after all.”
“Not in the morgue…”
“Of course not. Here.”
Val gave in and let the hostess show them to a table. As a civilian, she couldn’t do much in terms of actual law enforcement, not like the old days. She didn’t have arrest powers and didn’t carry a service weapon. Her official title was investigative consultant, but in fact her job wasn’t a traditional job at all but a spot created specifically by a sheriff who was fond of her and said he didn’t want the county to lose her expertise.
Expertise that was compromised by a body she could no longer trust.
Val pushed thoughts of her multiple sclerosis to the back of her mind. As long as her medication and health regimen kept her symptoms at a manageable level, she preferred to never think of the disease at all and focus on what work she was still able to do. So far, that philosophy had served her well. At least, when she stuck to it. The not dwelling on what she’d lost was the most difficult part.
After they’d ordered their prime rib specials, wolfed down a small appetizer of deep fried cheese curds, and returned from a trip to the salad bar, Harlan looked up from his “salad” of banana suspended in red Jell-O and asked, “So about those autopsies, what do you want to know?”
“You already answered that, in part,” Val answered, picking at the beet pickles on her plate.
“I answered? How so?”
“You think the two bodies are related. Our new victim and a woman Ed Dryden killed twenty years ago.”
Harlan’s face broke into a wide grin. “Well, that was even easier than I expected. Case closed. You sure you don’t want a cocktail? Maybe an old fashioned?”
Val held up a hand. Alcohol was one of those former pleasures she largely avoided now, along with hot showers and being a cop. “What I need to know is how.”
“It’s sort of a Wisconsin thing. Brandy old fashioned, sweet. You know, Wisconsin drinks more brandy than—”
“The bodies, Harlan. How did you know those were the two I would ask about?”
“Well, your current victim is the first homicide we’ve had in the county in a little while, so it only makes sense you would ask about her.”
“But why Farrentina Hamilton? It’s been twenty years, and her killer is in prison.”
Harlan considered for a moment. “I think it would be easier to show you.”
That was what Val had assumed from the beginning. “I can be at the morgue tomorrow morning.”
“Oh, that’s not necessary. I can show you tonight.”
“After dinner?”
“Don’t be silly.” He smiled up at the waitress who was walking toward them with a full tray hoisted above her shoulder. “I can show you right now.”
She set the steaming plates in front of them: rare prime rib swimming in au jus and topped with a dollop of horseradish, a baked potato ready to be split open, butter and sour cream on the side, and spears of tender asparagus kissed with, of course, more butter.
It smelled divine.
Val picked up her fork, ready to dig in.
Harlan held up a hand. “I’m that bastard Ed Dryden. I like thinking of women as animals. I also like thinking of myself as a hot-shot hunter. So I kidnap college girls, strip off their clothes, and let them loose in the forest. Then I take my hunting rifle and go after them.”
Val glanced around the restaurant to make sure no one was picking up Harlan’s rather odd and disturbing monologue. So far, so good. “Go on.”
“Sometimes I shoot them, not to kill them, just hobble them. Sometimes I can catch them without wasting bullets. Sometimes I torture them just because it gets me off, sometimes I don’t.”
The couple at the closest table lowered their voices to whispers. Val could feel their fervent looks.
Harlan didn’t seem to notice. “Either way, they all have ligature marks. And they all have scrapes and cuts on their bodies, since they’re naked while they’re running through the woods. And forest debris is sticking to the blood, particularly on their feet, knees, and palms.”
“And both bodies shared all those characteristics.”
Harlan beamed at her like she was his star student. “I’m waiting on analysis of the debris from that recent body, but from the look of it, it’s from around here, just like it was with the Hamilton woman. Sand, pine needles, and the like.”
“That doesn’t seem like enough—”
“That’s because we haven’t gotten to the meat of it yet.” Harlan picked up a steak knife. “The hunt is only part of what a hunter’s gotta do. The next step is field dressing the carcass.”
He brought the tip of the knife to the top of his slab of prime rib. “Ever see a hunter who really knows his stuff?”
Val shook her head.
“He, or she, is really fast with the knife. Decisive. They know just where to cut. First, they cut around the anus and free it, like coring an apple.” Harlan slashed at the bottom of the roasted beef, slicing off a chunk of fat.