Not if you were as sick of the whole thing as I am, Jaine thought. She managed a smile anyway.
At eight-thirty Luna called. "Have you heard from Marci?" she asked. "She hasn't come to work yet, but when I called her at home, there wasn't an answer."
"No, I haven't talked to her since Friday."
"It isn't like her to miss work." Luna sounded worried. She and Marci were pretty tight, surprisingly so considering the gap between their ages. "And she didn't call in late or sick or anything."
That really wasn't like Marci. She hadn't reached her position as head of accounting by being unreliable. Jaine frowned; now she was worried. "Have you tried her cell phone?"
"It isn't on."
The first thought that sprang to Jaine's mind was that there had been a traffic accident. The Detroit traffic was horrendous during rush hour. "I'll call around and see if I can find her," she said, not voicing her sudden concern to Luna.
"Okay. Let me know."
As she hung up, Jaine tried to think of who to call to find out if there had been a traffic accident somewhere on the freeway between Sterling Heights and Hammerstead. And did Marci come down Van Dyke to hit I-696 or avoid Van Dyke and take one of the Mile roads over to Troy where she could pick up I-75?
Sam would know whom to call.
Quickly she looked up the number of the Warren Police Department, dialed it, and asked for Detective Donovan. Then she was put on hold. She waited impatiently, tapping a pen against the desktop, for several minutes. Finally the voice came back to say that Detective Donovan wasn't available, would she like to leave a message? Jaine hesitated. She hated to bother him for something that could easily turn out to be nothing, but she didn't think anyone else at the department would take her concern seriously. So a friend was half an hour late to work; that wasn't generally cause enough to call out the troops. Sam might not take her seriously either, but he would at least make an effort to find out something. "Do you have his pager number?" she finally asked. "It's important." It was important to her, though it might not be to them. "What does this concern?"
Irritated, she wondered if women regularly called Sam at work. "I'm one of his snitches," she said, crossing her fingers at the lie. "Then you should have his pager number."
"Oh, for God's sake! Someone could be hurt or dead "
She caught herself. "Okay, so I'm pregnant, and I thought he'd like to know."
The voice laughed. "Is this Jaine?"
Oh, my God, he'd been talking about her! Her face flamed. "Um yes," she mumbled. "Sorry."
"Not a problem. He said if you ever called to make sure you got in touch with him."
Yeah, but how had he described her? She refrained from asking and jotted down his pager number. "Thanks," she said. "You're welcome. Uh about this pregnancy thing..."
"I lied," she said, and tried to work up a smidgen of shame in her tone. She didn't think she succeeded, because the woman laughed.
"You go, girl," said the woman, and hung up, leaving Jaine to wonder exactly what she meant.
She pressed the disconnect button on her desk phone, then dialed Sam's pager. It was one of the numerical pagers, so she left her number. Since it wasn't a number he would recognize, she wondered how long it would take him to return her call. In the meantime she called accounting. "Has Marci arrived yet?"
"No," was the worried reply. "We haven't heard from her."
"This is Jaine, extension three-six-two-one. If she comes in, tell her to call me immediately."
"Will do."
It was nine-thirty before her phone rang again. She snatched up the receiver, hoping Marci had finally shown up. "Jaine Bright."
"I hear we're going to be parents." Sam's deep voice purred over the telephone line.
Damn blabbermouth! she thought. "I had to say something. She didn't believe I was a snitch."
"Lucky I warned everyone about you," he said, then asked, "What's up?"
"Nothing, I hope. My friend Marci "
"Marci Dean, one of the infamous List Ladies?" She might have known he'd have the details on all of them. "She hasn't come in to work, hasn't called, isn't answering her home phone or cell phone. I'm afraid she might have been in an accident on the way to work, but I don't know who to contact to find out. Can you steer me in the right direction?"
"No problem. I'll get in touch with our traffic division and get them to check reports. Let's see, she lives in Sterling Heights, doesn't she?"
"Yes." Quickly Jaine gave him the address, then paused as another awful thought struck her. "Sam... her boyfriend was really upset about the List. He left Thursday night, but he might have come back."
There was a slight pause; then his tone turned brisk and businesslike. "I'll contact both the sheriff's department and the Sterling Heights P.D. have her place checked out. It's probably nothing, but it won't hurt to be certain."
"Thanks," she whispered.
Sam didn't like what he was thinking, but he'd been a cop too long to write off Jaine's concern as overreacting. An irate boyfriend one with a wounded ego, at that, over that damn List and a missing woman were ingredients in far too many incidents of violence. Maybe Ms. Dean's car had broken down, but maybe not. Jaine wasn't the type to panic over nothing, and she had definitely been afraid. Maybe she had some feminine intuition going there, but he didn't discount that, either. Hell, his mom had eyes in the back of her head and had always, without fail, been waiting up for him and his brothers whenever they had been up to mischief. To this day he didn't know how she had known, but he accepted it nevertheless. He placed two calls, the first to the Sterling Heights P.D. the next to a pal in traffic who could check for victims in any morning traffic accident. The Sterling Heights sergeant he spoke to said they would immediately send a car to check out Ms. Dean's residence, so he held off on calling the sheriff's department. He left his cell phone number with both contacts.
His pal in traffic checked in first. "No major accidents this morning," he said. "A few fender benders is all, and a guy dumped his motorcycle in the middle of Gratiot Avenue, but that's it."
"Thanks for checking," Sam said.
"Any time."
At ten-fifteen, his cell phone rang again. It was the Sterling Heights sergeant. "You called it, Detective," he said, sounding weary.
"She's dead?"
"Yeah. It's pretty brutal. You got a name for that boyfriend? None of the neighbors are at home for us to ask, and I think we need to have a little talk with him."
"I can get it. My lady friend is was Ms. Dean's best friend."
"Appreciate the help."
Sam knew he was treading on someone else's territory, but he figured since he had tipped them to the scene, the sergeant would cut him some slack. "Can you give me any details?"
The sergeant paused. "What land of cell phone are you using?"
"Digital."
"Secure?"
"Until the hackers figure out a way to get the signal."
"Okay. He used a hammer on her. Left it at the scene. We might get some prints off it, might not."
Sam winced. A hammer did a god-awful amount of damage.
"Not much of her face is left, plus she was stabbed multiple times. And she was sexually attacked." If the boyfriend had left his semen behind, he was nailed. "Any semen?"
"Don't know yet. The M.E. will have to do tests. He ah did her with the hammer."
Jesus. Sam took a deep breath. "Okay. Thanks, Sergeant."
"Appreciate the help. Your lady friend is she who you intend to ask about the boyfriend?"
"Yeah. She called me because she was worried when Ms. Dean didn't show up for work this morning."
"Can you just ask her about the boyfriend, and stall her on the rest?"
Sam snorted. "I'd have a better chance of stalling sundown."
"One of those, huh? Can she keep it quiet? We're pretty sure this is Ms. Dean, but we haven't made a positive I.D. yet, and the family hasn't been contacted."
"I'll get her to leave work. She's going to be pretty upset." He wanted to be with her when he told her, anyway. "Okay. And, Detective if we can't locate any family locally, we may need your friend to identify the body."
"You have my number," Sam said quietly. He sat for a minute after they hung up. He didn't have to imagine the gory details; he had seen too many murder scenes in all their bloody reality. He knew what a hammer or a baseball bat could do to the human head. He knew what multiple stab wounds looked like. And, like the sergeant, he knew that this murder had been perpetrated by someone who knew the victim because the attack had been personal; the face had been attacked. The multiple stab wounds were indicative of rage. And since most female murder victims were killed by someone they knew, usually the husband or boyfriend, or the ex-whatever, the odds were overwhelming that Ms. Dean's boyfriend was the killer. He took a deep breath and dialed Jaine's number again. When she answered, he said, "Do you know Marci's boyfriend's name?"
She audibly inhaled. "Is she all right?"
"I don't know anything yet," he lied. "Her boyfriend ?"
"Oh. His name is Brick Geurin." She spelled the last name for him.
"Is 'Brick' his real name or a nickname?"
"I don't know. 'Brick' is all I ever heard her call him."
"Okay, that's enough. I'll get back with you when I hear something. Oh want to meet me for lunch?"
"Sure. Where?"
She still sounded scared, but she was holding together the way he had known she would. "I'll pick you up, if you can get me through the gate."
"No problem. Twelve?"
He checked his watch. Ten-thirty-five. "Can you make it earlier, say eleven-fifteen or so?" That would just give him time to get to Hammerstead.
Maybe she knew, maybe she caught on then. "I'll meet you downstairs."
She was waiting for him at the front of the building when the guard let him through the gate. She was wearing another of those long, lean skirts that looked like a million bucks on her, which meant there was no way she could climb into his truck without help. He got out and walked around to open the door for her. Her eyes were anxious as she studied his expression. He knew he was wearing his cop face, as emotionless as a mask, but she went white. He put his hands around her slender waist and lifted her into the truck, then walked back around to get behind the wheel.
A tear slid down Jaine's cheek. "Tell me," she said, her voice choked.
He sighed, then reached out and drew her into his arms. "I'm so sorry," he said against her hair.
She clutched his shirt. He could feel her shaking, and held her even tighter. "She's dead, isn't she," she said in a trembling whisper, and it wasn't a question. She knew.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
Jaine had cried so much her eyes were swollen almost shut. Sam had simply held her through the initial storm of weeping, parked in front of Hammerstead; then when she regained a bit of control, he asked, "Can you eat anything?"
She shook her head. "No." Her voice was thick. "I need to tell Luna... and T.J. "
"Not yet, honey. Once you tell them, it'll be all over the building; then someone will call the newspaper or a radio or television station, and it'll be all over the news. Her family hasn't been notified yet, and they don't need to hear it that way."
"She doesn't have much family." Jaine fished a tissue out of her purse, then wiped her eyes and blew her nose. "She has a sister in Saginaw, and I think an elderly aunt and uncle in Florida. That's all I ever heard her mention."
"Do you know her sister's name?"
"Cheryl. I don't know her last name."
"It's probably in an address book at her house. I'll tell them to look for a Cheryl in Saginaw." He dialed a number on his cell phone, and spoke quietly to whoever answered on the other end, imparting the information about Marci's sister.
"I need to go home," Jaine said, staring through the windshield. She reached for the door handle, but Sam stopped her, holding her in place with a firm hand on her arm.
"No way are you driving right now," he said. "If you want to go home, I'll take you."
"But my car "
"Isn't going anywhere. It's in a secure place. If you need to go anywhere, I'll drive you."
"But you might have to leave."
"I'll handle it," he said. "You aren't driving." If she hadn't been so shattered, she would have argued with him, but tears welled again and she knew she couldn't see to drive. Neither could she could go back inside; she couldn't handle facing anyone right now, couldn't handle the inevitable questions without breaking down. "I have to let the office know I'm going home," she said.
"Can you handle it, or do you want me to do it?" "I can," she said, her voice trembling. "Just... not right now."
"Okay. Fasten your seat belt."
Obediently she buckled the belt around her and sat deathly still as Sam put the truck in gear and negotiated the freeway traffic. He drove silently, not intruding on her grief while she tried to accept that Marci was gone. "You you think Brick did it, don't you?"
"He'll be questioned," Sam said neutrally. At this point, Geurin would be the number one suspect, but the evidence would have to support it. Even while you played the odds, you had to always be aware that the truth could go against the percentages. Who knows? They might find out Ms. Dean had been seeing someone else, too. Jaine began crying again. She put her hands over her face and sat hunched over, her shoulders shaking. "I can't believe this is happening," she managed to say, then wondered dully how many millions of other people said exactly the same thing during a crisis.
"I know, honey."
He did know, she realized. In his job, he probably saw way too many scenes of this sort.
"H-how did ? I mean, what happened?"
Sam hesitated, reluctant to tell her Marci had been both bludgeoned and stabbed. He didn't know the exact cause of death, hadn't seen the crime scene, so he didn't know if she had died from head trauma or if she had died from the stab wounds.