Erica’s face tensed with indecision. I could see that the idea of breaching her husband’s private work space made her uncomfortable. That was probably one of the cardinal rules of their marriage.
Regardless, her worry won out. “Yes, okay, do it.”
I told her to move away, and then I took my baton from my belt and shattered one of the front windows with a quick tap. Punching out the remaining shards, I reached in, unlocked the window, and pushed it up. I squeezed through the frame into the cottage, which was cold and had the ashy smell of a log fire. My boots crunched on broken glass. There was no sound inside, and when I did a quick survey with my flashlight, I saw nothing amiss. I unlocked the front door, and then I turned on the overhead light.
Erica looked nervous about setting foot inside. “Gordon?” she called. “Are you here?”
Her husband didn’t answer.
The living space was filled with dark leather furniture and a massive fireplace that took up most of one wall. The kitchen was small, but I found half a pot of cold coffee on the counter. There were two doors on the back wall, one closed, one open. I checked the open door, with Erica following, and it led me into a sprawling room that served as Gordon Brink’s main office. File cabinets lined the rear wall, and curtains covered up a long spread of windows looking out on the forest. On the walnut desk, I found a half-smoked cigarette crushed in the ashtray and an open bottle of whiskey with an empty lowball glass beside it.
The floor was covered in a thick cream-colored carpet. Not far from the desk, I spotted reddish-brown drops dotting the shag. I bent down, rubbed one of the stains between my fingertips, and smelled a coppery odor. I looked up at Erica.
“I need to check the bedroom.”
The color had drained from her face. “Okay.”
“Maybe you should stay in the outer room.”
“No, I want to come with you.”
We returned to the living room, and I approached the closed door that led into the cottage’s master suite. Weirdly, I knocked, rather than just opening it. In the silence that followed, I pushed the door inward. Barely any light flowed from the other room, but the smell hanging in the cold air told the story.
“Erica,” I murmured, my own nerves raw. “Back up. Don’t look.”
“No, turn on the light.”
I did.
Next to me, Gordon Brink’s wife screamed. She stared at the abattoir inside and then covered her face to block it out.
I had to look. I had no choice.
Blood spattered every surface in the bedroom. The floors. The walls. The furniture. The curtains. The ceiling. In the middle of it all, tied to the king-size bed, was Gordon Brink, naked, dead, his eyes open in horror, his mouth gagged to keep him from crying out in agony. His entire body from skull to feet hung in ribbons, all his skin flayed with deep cuts made in crimson parallel lines.
Like the sweep of an animal’s claws.
Across the pale stretch of white paint above the bed, a message had been scrawled using Gordon’s blood.
Four words.
I am the Ursulina
Chapter Three
“Looks like the beast is back,” Ajax said, whistling with perverse admiration as he studied the kaleidoscope of blood in the bedroom. “This is some messed-up scene, huh? Man, you really don’t want to piss off the Ursulina.”
Ajax was the nickname for Arthur Jackson, a deputy like me, but four years older. He was tall and extremely good-looking, which he would be the first to tell you. He had full black hair sprayed neatly in place, a long sharp nose and chiseled jaw, and bedroom-brown eyes that always felt like X-rays seeing you without your clothes. He also had an impressive ability to do two things at once. While he was analyzing the murder scene, he was also cupping my ass. When I went to shoo his hand away, he gave one of my butt cheeks a hard squeeze that made me stifle a yelp of pain.
“Knock it off with talk about the Ursulina,” my partner, Darrell, snapped from beside the bed, where he was studying Brink’s body. “We don’t need another three-ring TV circus in town. Last time we had hundreds of monster hunters combing the woods. I don’t want to go through that again.”
Ajax joined Darrell at the bed. I stayed where I was, on the far side of the room, with my arms tightly folded across my chest. I felt queasy, but I didn’t dare show it. Gordon Brink lay exactly as Erica and I had found him. His arms were over his head, his wrists tied together with rope. So were his ankles. He had a friar’s ring of reddish hair around a prominent bald spot, and he had the plump look of a well-fed lawyer. He’d been wearing a suit and tie before he was stripped and killed. We’d found his clothes in a pile on the other side of the bed.
“I don’t know,” Ajax commented with a chuckle. “Those sure look like claw marks to me.”
Darrell had no patience for jokes when we had a dead body in the room. “An animal didn’t do this. A human being did. Focus on the crime scene. This wasn’t done with a knife. We’re looking for a weapon that makes sharp, deep, even cuts.”
I cleared my throat and spoke up. “It could be meat shredders.”
“What?”
“Meat shredders. You know, like for pulled pork? My dad used to have a set like that. They were long and sharp, so you could dig them into the flesh. Half a dozen parallel spikes, just like we’ve got here. The wounds look like somebody dug into the body over and over with a ripping motion.”
Ajax shook his head. “Carved up like a Thanksgiving turkey. That does not sound like a fun way to die. This had to be personal, right? Somebody must have really hated this guy to do that to him.”
“Or it was set up to make us think that,” Darrell replied. “Personal or not, this was a premeditated execution. If the murder weapon was something odd, then the killer came prepared. Plus, this was messy. Whoever did this must have been covered in blood, but other than the spatter Rebecca found in the office, they didn’t track any of it outside the bedroom. So they must have brought along a bag to carry away their clothes, and probably a change of clothes, too.”
I was impressed that Darrell had figured that all out so quickly. Then again, for a small-town cop, Darrell kept up to speed on criminal investigations the way they were done in the bigger cities. We didn’t get many murders in Black Wolf County, but I already told you Darrell’s philosophy.
You never know.
“We’ll search the grounds when it’s light for the murder weapon and anything else the killer may have left behind,” Darrell went on, mostly to himself, as if he were making a shopping list in his head. “The snow won’t make it easy. I also want a couple of deputies checking dumpsters behind Main Street.”
“Why?” I asked.
“In case the killer dumped the bloody clothes and the weapon and hoped it would all get hauled away. The ground’s frozen, so they couldn’t bury them. It’s a long shot, but worth a try.”
“Yes, okay.”
“Next thing is time of death,” Darrell said. “When did you say Brink’s wife last talked to him?”
“Sunday afternoon. Erica says she tried to reach her husband later that same night, but he didn’t answer the phone. She called first thing Monday morning before she left Minnesota. Still no answer.”
“All right, we’ll see what the coroner says, but we may be looking at the murder taking place sometime Sunday evening.”
“Half the town was at the 126 that night for Trading Places,” Ajax pointed out. “We’re only about ten minutes from the bar. Somebody could have slipped out without being noticed and snuck back in before the flick was over.”