“Has anybody been through that door besides you, Miz Gunderson?”
“No. And I didn’t come out that door; I came out through the front.”
He asked me a bunch of questions. My response was nonsensical at best, curt at worst. By the time he’d finished, the second patrol car and ambulance arrived. As had Jake. At least he’d retained a clear head. Not only had he immediately tied up Shoonga behind the barn, he called Sophie to delay her coming to work. My brain was scrambled.
Photos were snapped. Distances measured. I would’ve stayed frozen in shock in that same spot until they loaded her body, but Jake forced me to the picnic table by the gazebo. He stayed with me, lending me his unspoken support until Dawson loped over.
Dawson crouched down and poked my ankle. “Looks better. How’s your head?”
“Fine.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Yeah. Apparently I slept through someone dropping a dead girl on my doorstep.” I flinched. Dammit. I hadn’t meant to sound so callous.
He straightened and rubbed the back of his neck.
I recognized it as a sign of his agitation. “What?”
“I don’t know how to tell you this.”
“Tell me what?”
No answer.
It hit me. “Jesus. Am I a suspect?”
“No.”
“Then what?” When he peered at me, I realized he wasn’t wearing his mirrored shades.
“Sue Anne wasn’t dead when she was dropped there. I would guess she was unconscious. But whoever killed her slit her throat right on your porch.”
I gaped at him. No wonder there’d been so much blood. “You’re serious? She bled to death here?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
I could scarcely find my voice. “How long had she been there?”
Dawson’s steely eyes seemed to soften. “You couldn’t have saved her, Mercy. The damage was too severe.”
“But, maybe-”
“No maybes. She was nearly decapitated. There was nothing you could’ve done.”
This had to be another nightmare. Please. Let this be another bad goddamn dream. I squeezed my eyes shut. Maybe when I opened them, I’d see the lace doilies decorating my dresser. At this point I’d take olive green canvas tent walls.
“Look, I feel guilty as hell, too. If I had stayed to keep an eye on you last night, maybe I would’ve heard something…”
My eyes flew open. “Did you see anything on your way home?”
“No.”
“Did you tell Jazinski you were here?”
“Yeah.”
“Great. So he thinks you and I are knocking boots.” Which meant within the hour everyone else in the county would hear the story. Dawson and me screwing like rabbits, while some psycho murderer took a hacksaw to an innocent teenage girl on my front porch.
“Wrong. If you and I were knocking boots, Mercy, I would’ve been here all night, not just until ten o’clock.”
The shout from the front of the house didn’t make a dent in the unwieldy silence between us.
He sighed. “Besides, Jazinski needed to know someone tried to make you a hood ornament last night. The paperwork is in my car. You feel up to answering some more questions?”
“No. Not now.”
“I understand.”
I wish he would’ve been a jerk and demanded I take the time now. It’d be easier to handle my anger than my sorrow. “Look, I don’t want to seem… cold and self-centered, but is there a chance I can get back into my house?”
“Sure. Soon as they’re done cataloguing the scene.”
I felt the need to explain. “I have to take a shower. Everything happened so fast this morning. I feel…” Guilty. Grimy. Worn out. I cleared my throat. “I still have dirt and grass stains all over from last night. I need to clean up.”
Even if I remained under the hot spray for hours, and scrubbed with lye soap until my skin bled, my soul would still feel dirty. How would I ever get clean?
Clean. I thought of Sue Anne’s bloodstains on the porch. Had those ugly black spots seeped into the wood? I couldn’t expect Sophie to scrub them off, and I sure as hell couldn’t do it.
“Hey.” Dawson hunkered down until he was right in my face. “After we’ve released the scene, why don’t you let Kiki’s sister Vivi take care of cleaning up? She does this sort of thing. I can call her.”
Spooky, how he’d known what I was thinking. “Okay.”
He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. For a moment his sweet touch lingered on my cheek and I let myself be comforted by the fact he wanted to offer me solace.
“Sheriff?” Jazinski shouted. “Can I see you for a sec?”
“Be right there.” His hand dropped. He stood and slipped on his sunglasses before he jogged around the corner.
A few minutes later Kiki came by. “Sheriff said you can go inside now. I called Vivi. She’s on her way.”
“Thanks, Kiki. I don’t mind telling you I’m pretty sick of seeing you.”
She smiled sadly. “I hear that a lot. You need help getting upstairs?”
“I’ll manage.” Once I was inside, rather than use the cane, I crawled upstairs on my hands and knees straight into the bathroom and dry heaved. Repeatedly. No wonder. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten anything.
The shower helped my aches and pains, but not the images in my brain. Naked, I studied my limited wardrobe choices. Since I hadn’t done laundry for a week, I pulled on a denim skirt and buttoned a white sleeveless blouse over a navy blue camisole.
Sophie was sitting at the table snapping green beans when I hobbled downstairs. She looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her. Her wrinkled face looked troubled and sad. “You okay, takoja?”
Her calling me grandchild almost made me lose my hard-won emotional control again. “No. Not really.”
She nodded. “Didn’t think so. Maybe this is the last of it. Bad things always come in threes.”
“But counting my father’s death, finding Sue Anne would make this number four, not three.”
Her gnarled hands stilled.
“You think there’s more to come, don’t you?”
“I know you don’t believe in the woo-woo stuff, but-”
“You’re wrong. I’ve seen and heard too much to chalk it up to coincidence.” I paused. “John-John had a vision about me.”
“I know.”
“You do? Did he tell you about it?”
“No. The important thing is he told you.”
Rarely did Sophie act like the wise old Lakota woman, so when she did, I paid attention.
Snap snap snap. The beans were tossed in the ceramic bowl.
She also had a flair for the dramatic.
Finally she asked, “How many of what he seen has come to pass?”
I thought back to John-John’s words. Red sky, red ground, red water. My mind flashed to the day I’d found Levi and how his blood stained the ground. “As far as I can decipher? Just one.”
She shook her head. Evidently she didn’t have any additional wise words to add.
I snatched a can of Coke from the fridge and drained it in three long swallows. I held back a burp and realized Sophie had been staring at me. “What?”
“You look nice. I like to see you dressing like a girl, hey.”
I scowled. “Don’t get used to it. I’m out of clean clothes.”
Snap snap snap. “You know, you are paying me to do stuff like that. No shame in needing help now and again, Mercy. You want me to run a coupla loads today when you’re at the doctor’s office?”
“Sure, thanks. What time is Hope’s appointment?”
“Hope ain’t going to the doctor. You are.”
My eyes narrowed. “Did Dawson put you up to this? I’m fine. It’s just a mild sprain.”
“Don’t have nothing to do with your ankle. Your appointment is at the VA at two o’clock.”
“What?”
“That nurse kept calling, so I just had her make an appointment.” She frowned. “I know I told you about it last week.”