Circle of Influence (A Zoe Chambers Mystery) Read online

  In the two and a half hours that Pete had been inside, the snow showers had turned into a blizzard. He grabbed a broom and swept almost four inches of white stuff from the black and white SUV the township had recently purchased, secondhand, for him. At least it started when he finally dug his way inside. That was never a given with the old Crown Victoria he’d been driving since he left his job as a homicide detective in Pittsburgh eight years ago, and moved here.

  Either the snow plows hadn’t been out yet or the snow was keeping ahead of them, because the roads were covered. Tire tracks indicated a few brave souls were out and about. But Pete didn’t see another vehicle as he drove through town and out into the dark country night.

  At least the need to focus on his driving kept his mind from wandering to Sylvia. Or McBirney. Or Ted. Or Marcy. If Route 15 was this treacherous, he knew better than to tackle the back roads. So he took the longer way around to the new highway. The one with the confusing signage. He understood why so many people, unfamiliar with the newly completed expanse of road, mistakenly took the wrong exit. It was clearly marked “Phillipsburg.” And while it was true that one could eventually arrive there by taking that road, it required traveling some rather rugged dirt roads through the state game lands.

  Pete doubted anything shy of the most serious four-wheel-drive vehicles could manage that trip that night. And he really hoped whoever had made the wrong turn was not wandering around in the dark, snowy woods.

  It occurred to Pete that the call had come from Joe Mendez and not from the stranded motorist’s own cell phone. Maybe their phone’s battery was dead.

  The exit loomed ahead. Pete eased off the gas and coasted around the loop of the ramp, steering gingerly to keep his vehicle on the road. Had there been tire tracks here earlier, the snow had since filled them in. He was only about three hundred feet off the ramp when his headlights flashed off a car sitting next to the dirt road, tipping precariously toward the passenger side. Stuck in a ditch. And covered in snow.

  Pete parked several car-lengths behind the stranded vehicle and hit it with his spotting light, illuminating the license plate.

  Something wasn’t right. This was not the car of someone who didn’t know the area. The vanity plate read BIGJMC.

  What the hell was Jerry McBirney doing out here on a night like this?

  Pete grabbed his flashlight and climbed out of the SUV. Ankle deep in snow, he approached the car, shining the flashlight into the interior with his left hand while his right hand rested on his sidearm. The beam revealed an empty backseat. The passenger seat likewise appeared vacant. But a dark figure sat behind the wheel. Keeping his breath slow and even, Pete stepped up to the driver’s side window, swiped it clear, and shined his light through it.

  After all these years as a cop, dead bodies still made his stomach knot.

  “Damn it, Ted,” he muttered.

  THREE

  The wind had picked up. The cold penetrated Zoe’s bomber jacket, bit at her cheeks and fingers, and numbed her toes. Adrenalin kept a person warm for only so long under these conditions.

  “I don’t need an ambulance.” Their patient hiccupped between sobs and held a gob of 2x2 gauze squares to her bloody nose. “My husband is gonna kill me.” Her car faced eastbound on southbound Babcock Road. The vehicle’s front end was mashed from an encounter with a tree. And from the extent of damage, Zoe guessed the driver had gone way over any sensible speed on the snow-coated roads.

  “Miss, I have to recommend that you see a doctor,” Earl said. “Your nose is likely broken.”

  The woman drew the gauze away from her face. She blanched at the sight of blood and dissolved into another round of hysterical weeping.

  A contingent of volunteer firefighters attempted to clean up the debris scattered across the snowy road. Zoe noticed Ted wasn’t with them.

  Officer Seth Metzger approached, fumbling to slip his cell phone into his pocket with fingers buried in bulky gloves. “Mrs. Lyle? I just spoke to your husband. He’s on his way to pick you up. That is if you’re sure you don’t want the paramedics to take you to the hospital.”

  “I’m sure.”

  “You can sit in the back of the squad car if you want. To keep warm.”

  Mrs. Lyle shivered. “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  “Suit yourself.” Seth shrugged and trudged away.

  “We’ll need you to sign this.” Zoe held out the aluminum clipboard and a pen to the woman.

  She shook her head. “I’m not signing anything. My husband’s always pointing out those commercials where the lawyers say—”

  “Miss, it only states you’re refusing treatment,” Earl said. “You either sign it, or you get in the ambulance and let us take you to the hospital.”

  Mrs. Lyle looked around, as if searching for legal advice in the blizzard. Sniffling, she accepted the clipboard and scrawled an illegible signature with a trembling hand before returning it to Zoe.

  “You must be freezing. Maybe you ought to take Officer Metzger up on his offer.”

  The woman’s cheeks glowed pink in the emergency lighting. She gave her head another shake, pressed the gauze to her face, and picked her way through the snow and the ice, toward the wreckage of her car.

  Zoe handed the blood-smudged report to Earl. “Do you get the feeling there’s a story there?”

  “Yeah, but I don’t want to hear it. Let’s get out of here. My feet are frozen.”

  Mine, too, Zoe thought. “I’ll go tell Seth we’re leaving.”

  “Meet you in the unit.”

  Zoe patted her gloved hands together as if that might help. She scuffed through the snow toward the police officer, who was lighting another flare to replace one that had burnt down.

  “Hey, Zoe.” Seth gave her a grin. “Can’t you and Earl charm that poor girl into taking a ride in your nice warm ambulance?”

  “She seems more concerned about how her husband’s going to react. There’s nothing else we can do here, so we’re pulling out.”

  “I’ll stick around until this mess is cleaned up.” Seth’s cell phone rang. “With the looks of the weather, I’ll probably see you again before the night’s over.”

  “Wouldn’t doubt it.” Zoe left him digging for his phone.

  When she climbed into the passenger seat, Earl was scribbling notes on the call report. Zoe unclipped the mic from the dashboard. “Control, this is Medic Three. Show us back in service.”

  “Copy that, Medic Three. Your time is twenty-three forty-one,” responded the voice from the Emergency Operations Center.

  Earl heaved a growling sigh. “Damn it. It’s almost midnight already. I was hoping to get some sleep.”

  Zoe clipped the mic back in place. “Well, if our local residents are smart and stay home, we might have a quiet night from here on.”

  Someone thumped on the driver’s side window. Earl flinched. “Shit. Now what?” He rolled it down.

  Seth stood there, a grim look on his face. “Chief just called. He wants us all to meet him at the game lands exit on new Route 33 for a DOA. He said not to put it over the air, so you might want to phone it in to the EOC.”

  “Gotcha. See you there.” Earl rolled the window up and glared at Zoe. “You just had to jinx it, didn’t you?”

  “Me? You were the one wishing for sleep.” She dug her phone from one of the pockets in her cargo pants and called the dispatcher to report their status.

  “I wonder why the chief doesn’t want this going over the air,” Earl said.

  She wondered the same thing.

  The ambulance’s headlights glared off the wall of white snow blowing sideways across the road in front of them. High beams only made it worse. Zoe clutched at the armrest, knowing that Earl was making an educated guess as to where the edge of the road was. Thank goodness for tir
e chains.

  “At least the victim’s already dead,” he said. “We don’t have to worry about being in a rush.”

  “That’s the exit everyone’s been complaining about.”

  “Yeah. If someone got lost out in the game lands and died of exposure in this weather, there could be a lawsuit in the making. Might be what it takes to get those signs changed.”

  Zoe thought of old Joe Mendez at the next supervisors’ meeting. He would be wagging his finger at everyone now, saying, “I told you so.”

  But mostly she was thinking of the call ahead. She had taken on the duties of deputy coroner three years ago. What she’d imagined would be an intriguing job involving sleuthing and mystery-solving instead mostly involved calling the official time of death for elderly or drunk corpses discovered days after the fact. Monongahela County Coroner Franklin Marshall always made it a point to show up in person for all the interesting cases. This time she figured she’d have to pronounce a lost stranger dead. Cause of death: hypothermia. Manner of death: accidental.

  A trip that should have taken ten minutes took over half an hour. As Earl wheeled the unit around the exit ramp, Zoe spotted the amber lights of a PennDOT salt truck beside the red and blue flashing lights of Pete’s vehicle. The headlamps of both vehicles were aimed in the same direction, away from the ambulance’s approach. Strategically placed flares provided additional illumination.

  Earl parked alongside the idling yellow dump truck, adding yet another set of headlights to the scene. “At least we won’t get stuck trying to get out.”

  Zoe phoned the EOC dispatcher before climbing out of the ambulance and following her partner toward the scene.

  He pointed to the snow-covered vehicle in front of the police cruiser. “I don’t see the chief.”

  The driver’s side door was open on the victim’s car, and Zoe could make out the glow of the dome light through the iced windows. As she and Earl approached, a strobe briefly lit the night.

  Something wasn’t right. Pete was photographing the car. So the victim hadn’t gotten out and frozen to death trying to find help as she’d assumed.

  Then, Zoe spotted the license plate.

  “Hey,” Earl said. “Isn’t that Jerry McBirney’s car?”

  Oh, God, no. Jerry knew this area better than anyone. He would never have attempted the game lands road on a night like this. It would have been suicidal. And Jerry wasn’t the suicidal type.

  Ted’s words rang in her ears. Someone ought to just kill that guy and put him out of my misery.

  Ted, what the hell did you do?

  She broke into a jog toward the car, her heart pounding in her ears. Before she got to the open driver’s door, someone grabbed her. She looked up into Pete’s grave face.

  “Ted did not do this.” Her voice created a veil of mist between them. “He couldn’t kill anyone.”

  “He didn’t.” Pete slipped a supportive arm around her waist and walked the last few steps with her. “Are you going to be able to do this?”

  She barely heard him. The white mist of her breath enveloped her. Her eyes were playing tricks on her. She blinked to clear the fog. But the body behind the wheel remained the same.

  The body in the front seat of the Buick wasn’t Jerry McBirney.

  It was Ted.

  Pete feared Zoe might do something uncharacteristic, like faint, when she saw the victim. Instead, she renewed his admiration for her by taking a deep breath of cold air and shaking it off. Literally. Through layers of parkas and winter gear, he felt her tremor, but then she drew herself up even taller than usual.

  “I’m fine.” Her teeth chattered as she pushed away from him.

  “Good. Marshall’s at a fatality in Buffalo Township. The county detectives are delayed because of road conditions. It looks like it’s up to us on this one.”

  Behind them, Seth’s car, emergency lights flashing, eased around the ramp from the highway.

  “I’m ready.” Zoe exchanged her winter gloves for Latex ones.

  Pete wasn’t sure he believed her. “I’ve taken photographs and processed the scene as much as I can here. The snow has pretty much obliterated any evidence we might have found outside the car. I called for a tow—get this car out of the weather—but I suspect it may take a while.”

  Earl stood behind the car, hugging himself against the bitter wind and bouncing from one foot to the other. “Is there anything I can do?”

  Seth had parked his cruiser and was doing his best attempt to jog toward them in the deep snow. Pete motioned to him and said to Earl, “You two get the tarps out of the back of my vehicle. I want as much of the area around McBirney’s car covered as possible. The county crime scene guys will want to go over it once they get here.”

  The pair headed off, and Pete turned to Zoe. “Let’s do it.”

  He held the flashlight while she leaned into the driver’s side of the Buick. She slid her fingers into the crease at Ted’s throat. After several moments, she pulled her stethoscope from one of her jacket pockets and listened to his chest. Pete knew as well as she did that she wasn’t going to hear anything.

  She slid a penlight from her shirt pocket, only to have it slip from her fingers and drop into Ted’s lap.

  Pete couldn’t make out the words she muttered, but had a good idea they weren’t suitable for polite company. He caught her hand, giving it a squeeze. “It’s okay. I’ve got it.” He retrieved the penlight from between Ted’s dead legs and passed it to her.

  What a night for the coroner to be stuck elsewhere.

  Zoe reached for Ted’s eyeglasses, but paused. “Did you already photograph his face?”

  “Of course.”

  She pointed at Ted’s eyes. “Did you notice that?”

  Pete moved in closer. Ted’s eyeglass frames were bent. Yeah, he’d noticed. But he’d missed what Zoe was pointing at. One of the lenses was missing. He turned his flashlight downward and leaned further into the car, searching Ted’s lap, the car seat, and the floor. Nothing.

  “He might be sitting on it,” Zoe offered.

  “We’ll find out.” Pete dug his digital camera from inside his coat and snapped several additional close-ups.

  Zoe gingerly removed the glasses and deposited them into an evidence bag. She scrawled her initials and the date on it before handing it to Pete.

  Then she went back to work, flicking the penlight in both of Ted’s eyes. “Fixed and dilated.” She checked her watch then dug a notepad from her hip pocket and a pen from inside her coat. Pete shone the light on the paper as she scribbled her findings.

  She handed the pad and pen to him. “You write. I’ll examine.”

  He tugged off his gloves and tucked the flashlight under one arm. “Got it.”

  One at a time, she picked up Ted’s hands and examined them. Then she secured each in two more paper bags. She took several minutes to study his face. Pete knew why.

  “Multiple contusions and abrasions on his face.” She scowled. “Note possible broken nose, too.”

  He wrote it all down.

  She worked her way through Ted’s hair and her frown deepened. “I can’t tell for sure, but it feels like there may be a compressed skull fracture. Help me lean him forward.”

  Zoe supported Ted’s head and neck while Pete grasped the shoulders and tipped the body toward the steering wheel. He considered reminding her that Ted’s cervical spine was in no danger of injury at this point, but decided to keep quiet instead.

  She finished her exam with a quick once-over of the body, back and then front. Marshall and his forensic pathologist would do a more thorough external examination and x-rays once Ted was in the morgue.

  Easing out of the car, Zoe turned to Pete. “Rigor mortis is already setting into his extremities and his face.”

 
“Can you guestimate his time of death?” Pete was fairly certain of what her answer would be.

  “I wouldn’t want to venture a guess based on anything here. But we know he died sometime after seven-thirty p.m. That’s when we saw him—” Her voice cracked.

  That’s when they saw him outside the supervisors’ meeting, threatening Jerry McBirney.

  Pete pulled her into his arms. She clung to him, shivering and sniffing back sobs. Zoe liked to play tough, but he knew she cared deeply about those close to her. And she and Ted had been friends since before he’d married Rose. Pete suspected they’d possibly been more than just friends way back when, but he’d never asked, and she’d never told.

  “What the hell happened to him, Pete?” she said with a shuddering breath.

  “I don’t know yet. But I will find out.”

  She pushed free from him. “We,” she said. “We will find out.” Zoe blew her warm breath onto her fingers and then reclaimed her notepad and pen. “Did you notice the ice crystals in his hair?”

  “I did.”

  “His clothes are frozen, too. It’s as though he went swimming fully dressed.”

  Pete touched the coating of snow melting in her blonde hair. “Or he was out in a snow storm.”

  Zoe met his gaze. “I think it’s more than that. Look at his face. And there’s a tear in the front of his jacket, but the back is fine. I think he was dragged face down.”

  Pete pondered her theory. “Dragged? Maybe. But I’d think his clothes would be a little more ripped than they are.”

  Chewing her lip, she studied Ted’s body.

  Flashing amber lights swept over the expanse of snow. A large flatbed truck advanced toward them from the exit ramp.

  “Are you done here?” Pete asked.

  “I guess so.”