Holding Out For A Hero

Lucas let out a low whistle and bemoaned, “We still haven’t gotten over the excitement of Larry Wagner and making the national news. Now this. Chief Riley’s not going to be happy.”

Oscar didn’t care.

Candace murdered?

She represented what was good and right in the world.

He had to pause a moment, get his bearings and ask the right questions. “Who reported this?”

“We got a call from Crime Stoppers.”

Anger, white-hot and immediate, sent Oscar to the door.

“Bailey and Riley are already on site.”

Officer Leann Bailey was all the help Oscar needed. Right now Chief Riley thought Oscar was wet behind the ears, good only for traffic stops and petty crimes...but this was different. Personal. Riley might take lead investigator, but Oscar would be alongside him for this, never mind the hours. He’d known Candace most of his life, and she was all of twenty-three and had been married just over a year. Who would take her life? She and her husband, Cody, didn’t seem to own anything of real value. True, her dad was a millionaire a few times over, but Candace and Cody preferred to make it on their own. Before taking the assignment here, he’d even driven up and joined her and her husband for a couple of barbecues in their backyard. Twice she’d tried to fix him up with a coworker. He should have gone, just once, to make her happy. Now...

Oscar paused as he opened the door. “They know time of death?”

“Just that it was yesterday morning,” Stillwater said.

“What was the cause of death?”

“Head trauma. Some sign of a struggle. Husband probably did it. Supposedly he’s out of town. They haven’t been able to—”

It took Oscar ten minutes to drive to his neighborhood. Already police tape cordoned off the house. He parked his motorcycle the next house down from Candace’s and swung one leg over the seat. He couldn’t proceed, though, because suddenly cotton billowed in his throat.

This was little Candace. He’d taken her to her first dance because the boy who’d invited her had backed out at the last minute, and Oscar’s little sister, Anna, had come crying to Oscar. Oh, his brothers had teased, but in the end, Oscar’d had a great time. He and his brothers had waylaid the date-breaker a few days later and made him aware that Candace and Anna were not in his little black book unless he wanted a big black eye.

The memories made it hard to move.

It occurred to Oscar that, except for fellow soldiers, this was the first death he’d be working of someone he loved. And now he was glad his case had sent him to the Sarasota Falls Police Department.

But to make a difference here, he’d have to convince himself to walk past the cordon tape, into Candace’s house, and ask Riley for the facts.

Oscar could see the facts displayed over the front yard. This was a house, cared for by two individuals building a home.

He took off his dark glasses, momentarily blinking at the sudden brightness. When his eyes adjusted, he noted a tiny lizard crawling on top of the gray block fence next to the carport. It was probably hoping for a scent of oranges, maybe the hint of an early spring breeze. No such luck. As if realizing the futility, the lizard scurried off and disappeared into a hole in the dirt.

What had it seen? Heard?

Nothing it was willing to share with law enforcement.

The neighborhood was quiet, as if nature knew there’d been a disturbance and was now withdrawing—like the lizard—leaving them to investigate the disruption.

Next to the front door, two chairs boasted bright blue cushions. They appeared new but had been used. Candace’s tennis shoes were under one of them. She’d obviously been playing in the mud again, pretending to garden. She’d complained last week about “everything dying.”

And now she was dead.

A tiny table was situated between the two chairs. On it, a pair of gardening shears sat with the same black, lumpy mud on its blades as on the bottom of the shoes. Maybe she’d been digging with the shears instead of using a trowel. There was also a pair of flowered gloves that surely were too big for Candace’s small hands. He’d watched her one day, on her knees in the sodden yard. She’d wanted perfection, every rock moved, every weed eliminated. Her fingers had gone through the loose dirt, pushing tiny holes into sections, reinventing space and filling it back in with something that would grow: new life.

A garden hose lay in the front yard. Dripping water spread onto a small section of struggling grass. If Candace died yesterday morning, it had dripped all night. Judging by the amount of sogginess, it had.

Ornamental chimes hung overhead.

No wind today.

No sign of life, literally or figuratively.

Chief Riley exited the front door, carefully closing it behind him. He joined Oscar and gestured to the yard. “You see anything out of place?”

The cotton in Oscar’s throat doubled in size, and tears threatened to spill as he shook his head. He didn’t mind. He’d watched Lieutenant Colonel Townley, who Oscar considered the biggest hero America had, break down and sob over situations he had no control over.

Men he’d lost.

Riley seemed to understand and waited while the sun beat down on them and minutes ticked by.

“You call the medical examiner?” Oscar choked out.

“You think I don’t know my job?” Riley queried.

It was the kind of sarcastic response Oscar needed to snap out of his stupor. “I’ve known the victim all my life. She’s from my hometown of Runyan, New Mexico.”

“I didn’t know that. And the state police who are already on their way will be interested, too.”

“You know who else has a home in Runyan?”

“Who?”

“Jack Little, who owns the chain of Little’s Supermarkets.”

“And that concerns us because...”

“Candace is his daughter.”

Riley said a bunch of words Oscar knew he would not want put in the report, ending with “No kidding. Why didn’t I know that?”

“She didn’t want people to know. She wanted to make friends, get established, before everyone started seeing her for her family’s name and power instead of who she was.”

“It’s time to make some phone calls,” Riley said. “Give me a few minutes.”

Oscar figured it would take more than a few minutes before he was ready to go inside. Carefully he stepped over the cordon tape and stood at the front of the driveway, looking at a pair of sandals by the side gate. They, too, were Candace’s. She always preferred going barefoot.

Riley returned, but he didn’t share who he’d called. “See anything?” he asked.

“Nothing out of place in the yard that I can see, except the hose has dripped all night. Candace never would have left it on.”

Riley nodded, waiting.