Cut to the Bone(54)

“Are you all right, Detective?” Cross said a moment later.

“Fine, Chief,” she said, poking out her chin. At least she’d go down swinging. “Did you find her husband?”

Cross nodded. “With the subdivision and arrival date you provided, dispatch figured out who she is. I sent officers to make the notification.” He lowered his close-cropped head, examining her like bull to matador.

Here it comes, she thought. She’d get a harsh reprimand, minimum. Removal from the task force. Even fired. She desperately didn’t want that, but would understand. The media frenzy would make the investigation a thousand times harder, and she’d triggered it . . .

“Is your calf OK enough for you to work?” Cross asked.

She nodded, too surprised to speak.

“Then bump us out another fifty yards,” he said, pointing to the fluttering yellow tape that squared the crime scene into a boxing ring. “The lady doesn’t need an audience.”

“Uh, well, right away, Chief.”

The corners of his mouth twitched.

She watched Cross limp toward Branch, who was limping toward Annie, who was limping toward Marty. So much damage from the last serial. How much more could they take?

Then there was Marty. A minute ago she’d watched him thunder down Jackson Avenue, engine redlined, then brake like he’d hit a tree. He leaped from the GTO and charged down the grassy slope, stumbling several times. He pulled up short when he saw her standing around, looking fit and fine. He looked at the dead woman, back at her.

Altered course to Branch, and hadn’t once looked at her.

Bet you wouldn’t treat Alice this way, she thought. Or her son.

Your son.

The son you had with another woman . . .

Angry again, she helped the perimeter uniforms bump the tape another fifty.

“I told her,” Marty said.

“About your kid?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“We had a fight. Big one. She demanded to know what was wrong, then said she knew about Alice. Said she’d leave me if I didn’t tell her then and there. So I did.”

“And she flipped.”

Marty smiled thinly. “You could say that.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“You done for?”

“Don’t want to be. Might not have a choice.” Silence.

“Damned if you do,” Branch said.

“Damned if I don’t,” Marty agreed.

Emily described their short conversation. Cross smiled at the ticket-fixing comment, otherwise just listened. She told him about the throw-down by the park officer, the victim’s hair stuffed in her mouth, and the silhouette at the SUV.

“I wish I knew make and model,” she said. “But it was too dark and too far away.”

“It was a sharp observation anyway. Good work.”

And still no mention of my screwup. Wow. To think two years ago, I hated this man’s guts.

She was a rookie, and he was always correcting, always criticizing, always on her back to “shape up or ship out.” But it eventually dawned that he spat minutiae because he cared so deeply about his people. Which made his carping, if not enjoyable, at least all right. Which made her pay closer attention to her tactics, surroundings, and attitude, which made her a better cop, which turned Cross’s criticisms into comments and, more and more, to compliments.

Proving how smart I wasn’t when I first clipped on this badge.

“You said something about a fanny pack?” Cross said.

“She wore one at the Dandelion Fountain,” Emily said. “Blue with white stripes. No brand name.” She side-stepped for the coroner and his wheelie of gear. “It was gone when I got to the body. The killer must have taken it.”

“Suggesting robbery as the motive.”

“Or it’s the serial, and he tried to kill me,” Emily said, watching Annie open her truck and hand Marty a violin case. Her ears burned. Why was her best friend trading with . . .

No. She couldn’t bring herself to call Marty “the enemy.” Even thinking it made her sick. That meant something, she supposed. She didn’t know what.

“Why do you say that?” Cross asked.

Emily explained the jogger’s comment about their similar hair. “She kind of looks like me, Chief,” she said, shifting her weight to ease the bubbling in her calf. “We’ve got the same height, body structure, hair, and facial shape.”

“Five-six, athletic, chestnut, oval.”

“We’re both wearing Nikes and band shirts, and the sun wasn’t quite up yet. Maybe the killer was targeting me and got her by mistake.”

Cross tugged on his chin, thinking.

“Possibly,” he said. “He did use a knife, and the attack was brutal and efficient. But he didn’t leave matches. Or break her nose.”