Incarnate Page 3

  “Who are you?” she demanded, her eyes flashing as she wielded the wicked-sharp blade.

  Kim slowly raised her hands to show Scarlett that she meant no harm. “I’m Dr. Patterson. Kim. We just met, upstairs. Don’t you remember?”

  Scarlett shook her head, clearly confused. Without letting go of the scalpel, she backed away from Kim, toward the final covered corpse, and pulled off the sheet, letting it fall to the floor. Apparently satisfied that Kim wasn’t trying to stop her, she looked down at the body of a middle-aged woman, her eyes open and milky, staring at nothing. Scarlett’s shoulders sagged.

  “Scarlett, what are you doing?” Kim demanded.

  The girl slowly raised her gaze to meet Kim’s, her expression one of defeat. Tears welled in her eyes.

  “I’m seeing if I died.”

  THREE

  Detective Zack Trainor drained the last of his coffee as he pulled in toward the docks along the western edge of town and jammed his lidded commuter mug in the cruiser’s cup holder. Ordinarily he liked to finish his coffee at home, while catching up on the news on his iPad, but he’d received a call from the print shop that the new batch of flyers he’d asked for were ready. Posting them would give him a chance to pop in on his only current suspect in a missing-persons case that was quickly going cold.

  Zack didn’t have much hope that the flyers would lead to new information, but he was running out of ideas. If Isabel Wilcox’s boyfriend was responsible for her disappearance, maybe posting the flyers near his place of work would trigger someone’s memory. And if not, at least it would irritate the bastard.

  Brad Chaplin’s official job was overseeing maintenance of the town docks, which looked like a postcard this morning under the brilliant blue skies. Legend had it that a Scandinavian fisherman named Jarvi Lssila had been the first person to stake his claim in Jarvis, a tiny town in the crook of a bay along the Alaska shore, in short order sending for a bride and siring seven sturdy sons to help him build a cannery, sawmill, and dock—but Zack would bet it was a Chaplin who came along and bilked Lssila out of everything he had. Chaplins had a long history of small-time crime in town, and Brad seemed to be following in his father’s shiftless footsteps.

  Then again, the missing girl in question, Isabel Wilcox, was something of a wild child herself. Zack had arrested her once for selling a fake ID to a minor, but the charges had been dropped when a combination of an expensive attorney and her mother’s tearful promises to get her daughter help had convinced the judge to give her another chance.

  It was nearly eight thirty when Zack pulled the cruiser up to the marina offices and got out of the car, shielding his eyes from the sun. Already, several of the commercial fishing boats were back in, having offloaded their haul of mackerel and cod to the larger tender boats anchored farther out. Their sails had been secured, their decks swabbed until they sparkled in the sun, and their crews had peeled off their blood- and scale- and salt-soaked gear and rinsed out their thermoses. Some were already headed home to the square little timber houses dotting the hill; others took rooms at the boardinghouse during the season and worked their asses off, then passed the winter in warmer climes, spending their savings on other pursuits.

  Zack walked along the docks until he spotted Brad Chaplin talking to the captain of the Sweet Lola while the crew hosed down the decks and packed away the nets.

  The captain must have spotted Zack when he was still a few dozen yards away and alerted Brad, because his posture went rigid and the captain hightailed it down into the bowels of the ship. Being one of the few black guys in a mostly white town, Zack could rarely go anywhere incognito. But he wasn’t here to give the captain trouble, even though he’d bet a year’s salary that this guy had been scoring the heroin that Brad brought in from Anchorage, keeping a tidy middleman’s profit for himself.

  By the time Brad turned around, he’d composed himself. His good-looking face was only slightly scarred from taking a puck in the cheek during a high school match, and he kept himself in shape. He wore his dark hair cut short, and had even, white teeth. He might have had a career as a model if not for the scar—and the tattoo that crept up his neck, which Zack was pretty sure was meant to be a foreboding sea serpent, but in the hands of an unskilled tattoo artist it resembled a cross between a startled Pekingese and the Miami Dolphins logo.

  “Detective Trainor,” Brad said in a faintly mocking voice. “What brings you down to see us working stiffs on such a beautiful morning?”

  Zack raised an eyebrow. “I can tell what they’re doing,” Zack said, pointing at the crew hosing blood and fish guts out of the hold. “But how exactly are you working?”

  “Hey, I’m an account manager,” Brad said evenly. “Dock’s got two hundred and forty mooring contracts in the inner marina and it’s my job to ensure that every one of those represents a satisfied customer.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet,” Zack said. “My guess is that this customer is going to be pretty satisfied about an hour from now when he’s back home dipping into that little plastic bag you just sold him.”

  Brad’s eyes went wide with indignation. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Save it,” Zack snapped. “Let’s talk about your girlfriend instead. You hear from Isabel yet?”

  “No, but I’ve been thinking,” Brad said, settling back onto his heels and adopting his characteristic slouch. Zack knew he’d already lost his advantage. Like every con man, Brad was most comfortable when he was spinning lies. The deepening of the voice, the faintly bored tone, the smirking suggestion of intimacy—Brad was a master of the game. “You asked if I had an alibi, and lucky for me, I remembered that I do. I was with two people who will be happy to tell you that they were with me the night Isabel disappeared.”

  “Well, that’s interesting, considering we don’t know exactly which night it was,” Zack pointed out. “She was last seen two weeks ago Tuesday, and her mother called it in early Thursday morning, so that’s at least two nights we haven’t accounted for.”

  Brad blinked, slowly and lazily, like a lizard. His oily smile didn’t flag. “Good thing I was with them both nights, then. Starlatta LaBonne and Cherise Lassiter. They go to school over at Jarvis Community College.”

  “And I suppose you were, what, tutoring them?”

  Brad was unfazed. “Strictly social, man. We listened to music, had a few laughs—you know how it goes.”

  “Not really.”

  Brad punched Zack playfully on the shoulder. “Tell you what, I’ll text you their deets. Look ’em up—just between us, Starlatta’s always ready to party.”

  Zack narrowed his eyes. “I trust you still have my card?” he said.

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “And you’ll let me know if you hear anything from Isabel.”

  Brad’s face underwent another transformation, his elastic features knitting themselves into a look of concern. “Yeah, anything to help, but I doubt I will, man. Hear from her, I mean. I’ve got to face the fact that she’s dumping me. I just wish she’d had the courage to do it to my face.”

  “If that’s true, then she’s got a lot more sense than I’ve given her credit for,” Zack said.

  Brad nodded curtly, clearly wanting the conversation to end. But Zack wasn’t done with him. “You know, only problem with your theory is that we haven’t had a single sighting of Isabel in over two weeks. You don’t need me to tell you that doesn’t look good.”

  After logging a frantic call from Jen Wilcox, whose daughter, Isabel, hadn’t returned any of her texts for two days, Zack and Chief Holt Plunkett had conducted a thorough search of Jarvis and the surrounding area. They’d talked to the other residents of the apartment complex where Isabel lived, her classmates at the community college, even friends from high school who she no longer kept in touch with. Her family members were little help—Isabel kept her distance, and they couldn’t say how she spent her time, or whom she spent it with.

  Zack had reviewed the passenge
r lists on every commercial vessel leaving the harbor, and every plane, commercial or private, taking off from the tiny municipal airport. There was one highway that came through town, and while there was no way to track all the traffic going in and out, Isabel hadn’t been on any bus that stopped in Jarvis, or rented a car; hers had still been parked in her space at the apartment building.

  “I guess you might as well haul me in, then,” Brad said, shaking his head. “Do what you got to do. Give me a lie detector test.”

  “I’m considering it,” Zack said.

  “Do that.”

  After a long stare-down, Brad smiled. “We should hang out, Zack. Tell you what—next time I’ve got too much pussy to know what to do with, I’m calling you. I bet you know how to party.” Zack just stared. “Hey, speaking of hotties, how’s your sister? Brielle?”

  From Zack’s expression, Brad knew he was on thin ice. But he couldn’t help himself. “She’s your twin, right?”

  Zack nodded, barely perceptible.

  “Can I ask you something? About having a hot twin sister?”

  Brad knew a punch was coming. Soon.

  “Now, I heard about this thing called twin sense, where twins have a psychic connection. One gets burned, the other feels it. You heard about this shit?”

  Zack nodded again, still barely perceptible.

  “Okay, so let me ask you something, if she’s getting rammed, like a once-in-a-lifetime fuck, do you sometimes feel like you’re getting the D, too?”

  Brad saw that Zack’s fists were balled up tight. But he knew the pain was going to be worth the expression on Zack’s face.

  But then . . . Zack’s radio buzzed on his belt, the urgent staccato blasts signaling a call for immediate backup. “Don’t fucking move.”

  He turned away from Brad, pulling the radio from his belt to call the station. “Trainor here.”

  “Chief wants you at the hospital,” Janice Sudermeyer said. “Might want to get there fast. A Burger Barn manager apparently just about got his face burned off, from the sound of it, and he’s saying it was one of his own employees who attacked him.”

  “Copy that. On my way.”

  Disappointed that he wouldn’t be able to lay Brad out on his back right now, he holstered his radio and turned to the ex-jock. “Don’t go anywhere without notifying us. We’ll finish this conversation later.”

  He walked away, a little relieved that he managed to avoid a disciplinary write-up for now. Though it was petty, he was glad he’d had the last word.

  * * *

  JARVIS HAD ITS SHARE of fast-food restaurants, but the Burger Barn was a local favorite, with a menu that offered old-school fare: ground chuck, fries cut from spuds on-site, and not a single item on the menu that could be described as free-range, organic, or gluten-free. Though Zack tried to steer clear of meat on vaguely ethical grounds, he still dropped in to the Barn every couple of months for a double bacon cheeseburger.

  Chief Holt Plunkett had beat him to the ER. When Zack walked in, Holt was talking to a nurse in a pink scrub shirt that featured kittens chasing balls of yarn.

  “Felicity here has been kind enough to give us a little background, but I’ve held off on talking to Mr. Fenstrom until you got here.”

  “The Burger Barn manager?” Zack recognized the name; Fenstrom had been a few years ahead of him at Jarvis High, an obnoxious stoner with truancy issues. Time had not improved him much: the department had received a few complaints from women, from his sending unsolicited dick pics to female customers, to the most recent grievance filed by a former girlfriend who accused him of sleeping with her sister—the outraged woman threw a brick through her own windshield when the officer, taking her report, had explained that wasn’t a crime.

  “That’s the one. Felicity says he’s got third-degree burns on thirty percent of his face.”

  The nurse nodded, gazing respectfully at Holt’s badge. Women always loved Holt Plunkett—he was like a grizzled teddy bear with a gun. He hadn’t dated since being widowed fifteen years ago, which naturally only increased his appeal. “We’ll be keeping him here for a spell.”

  “Mr. Fenstrom wants to press charges against a Ms. Scarlett Hascall, an employee of the restaurant,” Holt continued. “He says Ms. Hascall attacked him with a fry basket.”

  “A fry basket,” Zack repeated. “That’s a new one.”

  Holt turned back to the nurse. “Do you mind bringing us back to see Mr. Fenstrom now, dear?”

  “Righto,” Felicity said brightly, and waved the pair of detectives inside. Holt and Zack followed her through the emergency room doors and into a curtained-off cubicle. Sitting on the paper-lined table was a man in a greasy T-shirt emblazoned with the Burger Barn logo. A filthy apron was still tied around the man’s skinny hips, and his face was largely obscured by a giant bandage that covered half his face.

  Seeing Zack and Holt, Fenstrom lifted up his bandage dramatically.

  “I want to press charges!” he yelled. “Look what she did to me!”

  “Damn.” Zack whistled. “We could play a game of checkers on your cheek.”

  “ ’Fraid there’s not a whole lot we can do without someone to back your story up,” Holt added. “The young lady in question told the nurses she didn’t do it. And she did drive you to the hospital, which hardly seems like something a person who wanted to harm you would do.”

  “What? She attacked me! She almost killed me!”

  “And what did you do to deserve it?” Zack demanded.

  Fenstrom glared at him furiously, spittle collecting at the corners of his mouth as he sputtered. “Just ’cause you put on a badge, Trainor, don’t mean your past gets erased.”

  Zack laughed. “Hey, I’ve paid for all my mistakes. Learned from them, too. I can’t say the same for you.”

  Holt stepped between the two men, holding up a hand with an easy smile. “We’ll just give your boss a call, Mr. Fenstrom, and let him know what’s happened. Maybe we’ll follow up with a couple of your other female coworkers and see if they have any idea what might have precipitated this attack.”

  Fenstrom bobbed his head between the two police officers, trying to come up with a suitable retort. The effort seemed beyond him, however, and he gave up and sagged against the wall, muttering.

  “Tell you what, when the face heals up, and you’re back to your modeling career, why don’t you stop by the station so you can give us a full report. You have a good day now, okay?”

  “You really shouldn’t provoke him, son,” Holt said when they were out of earshot, tucking his notebook back in the pocket of his uniform shirt, which was stretched taut over his sloping gut. “Take a walk with me, okay? I could go for a little something from the vending machines.”

  On the way, Holt filled Zack in on the rest of the details.

  “Wait a minute,” Zack interrupted, when Holt mentioned the girl’s name again. “Scarlett Hascall. Didn’t Evelyn pick her up at the high school a while back?”

  “Yep. She got in a fistfight in a girls’ restroom. Gave some gal a heck of a shiner before a teacher managed to pull her off.”

  “She sounds a little crackers. Maybe she did do what he said, attack him for no reason.”

  “So you feel bad for giving him a hard time now?”

  “Fenstrom?” Zack shook his head. “Guy called my sister a slut in tenth grade. If I knew for sure this girl wouldn’t hurt anyone else, I’d bake her cookies.”

  “Yeah, well, I talked to her psych doc, Berman. Pretty good guy, seems to know his stuff. He says they’re evaluating her and they’ll let us know what they come up with. My take? There’s a good kid inside there somewhere. But these episodes are escalating, and they need to stop.”

  “They don’t have any idea what’s motivating her?”

  “Don’t think so, not yet, anyway,” Holt said. He poked a stubby finger at the vending machine buttons and a package of cupcakes with lurid red frosting slid off the hook.

  A piece of paper post
ed on the message board next to the vending machines caught Zack’s eye, and he moved closer to examine it, pulling off layers of notices and flyers. It was one of his department’s missing-persons posters from when Isabel first disappeared. He studied the image of a pretty, blond young woman beaming at the camera, a view of mountains behind her. Isabel Wilcox, age 22. Thoughtfully, Zack replaced the other papers, pinning them farther away so that the flyer could be seen.

  Holt had peeled off the plastic and managed to devour half a cupcake already. “One more stop here at the hospital,” he said, through a mouthful of cake. “Berman was going to arrange a meet and greet with the resident who’s treating Scarlett. Want to come with me to follow up?”

  “Sure,” Zack said, wondering if he should tell the chief about the smudge of frosting on his cheek, but he decided to let it go.

  That was one of the things about working for the man who raised you—you never really forgot that he was the one who taught you to tie a tie, or took you for haircuts on Saturday afternoons, or made you write an apology to the jerk who owned the convenience store where you shoplifted a bag of Skittles. There were those who made the mistake of thinking Holt’s easygoing charm was a sign of weakness—but Zack knew better. Behind the drawl and the ruddy, freckled skin lay courage, conviction, and an unwavering moral compass.

  They took the stairs up to the top floor—Holt had been trying to lose thirty pounds for as long as Zack had known him—and Zack showed his badge to get past the locked entrance to the psych unit. A receptionist pointed out Dr. Berman, who was talking to a brunette with a messy ponytail and stained, poorly fitting scrubs.

  “This is Dr. Patterson,” Berman said after Holt introduced Zack. “She’s the one who spoke to Scarlett today.”

  “Hello, Detectives,” the woman said coolly. Zack started when she turned around—he hadn’t expected her to be attractive. Her eyes were a flinty, depthless green. A stray lock of wavy chestnut hair curved over one cheek, down past her chin, coming to rest on an expanse of skin near her shoulder that her ill-fitting scrubs left exposed.