Chapter 1
BOOK ONE: THE CODE ENFORCER
Investigator Markie Pearson covered her nose and mouth with the tissue balled in her hand as she squeezed between the piled newspapers, magazines, and plastic food containers stacked floor to ceiling in the enclosed porch. Sister Ann was a hoarder all right.
Markie kept her limbs tucked in in an effort to not touch any of the germ-infested filth, or more importantly, risk contaminating the crime scene.
Just ahead, stood a rusty, old upright freezer. Judging from the atrocious odor bringing tears to her eyes, she guessed the old lady had been locked in there for a while. Would have been better - smelled less vile - had the freezer been plugged in.
She blinked rapidly and then patted her eyes with her sleeve as she leaned over some garbage to get a better look at the body partially hanging out of the freezer. According to Officer Blart, the woman had been fully tucked into the appliance until Bryce Hawk, the City Planner and Zoning/Property Maintenance Administrator, bumped into it when a few rotting deck boards gave way beneath his feet.
Needing a closer look, she stepped gingerly over the broken planks holding hope the remaining boards would support her weight.
Involuntarily, her nose scrunched up. Yep, the body had definitely been there for a few days or so. The deceased's fingertips and toes were near black in color.
If Bryce hadn't done the court ordered thirty-day check on Sister Ann's property, it would be hard to tell when her body would have been discovered. Markie thought for a moment, did it matter? Two days or twenty days, dead was dead.
Now, for the bigger questions, who in the hell would stuff an eighty-year-old lady into an upright, unplugged freezer on an enclosed back porch? Was the woman already dead when she got locked in there, or did she die in the freezer?
The rundown home indicated Sister Ann didn't have two nickels to rub together, and there was likely nothing of value in the house - so a robbery motive was probably out. Plus, from what Bryce had previously told her, the place was loaded with garbage. When he and the firefighters inspected the home in the past, they had limited access by narrow pathways lined with newspapers, cardboard boxes, and plastic butter and whip cream containers. In some instances, they actually had to climb over debris to get to a room. If not for the fact the nun fell one day, and Father Dennis happened to find her and called 9-1-1, the first responders would have never seen the overabundance of debris in her home. They reported it as a health hazard, the city investigated, and eventually a court order was issued to Sister Ann to clean up the house. Yep, robbery was out - too much work in this case to find anything of value.
The fact this woman was a nun, and retired Catholic school principal, led Markie to believe she probably hadn't screwed anyone over in her life to warrant a revenge murder. Then again, maybe she rapped on some kid's knuckles one too many times with a wooden ruler.
She shook her head. The city had dealt with hoarders in the past, but this one took the cake. As she understood it, Sister had been issued a court order to clear out the debris. At first, she flat-out refused, but then warmed up a bit to the idea with some coaxing by Fire Chief Bosley. Perhaps the rumors about the flirtatious fire chief were true - he could even charm the panties off a nun.
Markie stifled her giggle and regained her composure. Sister's death was no laughing matter.
The next breath she pulled in sent the contents of her stomach swirling, forcing her to spin around and head for the door, leaving the evidence technician alone to do his thing.
Once outside, she gulped in a fresh breath of oxygen. The hot, humid air almost melted her lungs, but anything was better than the flavor of rotting flesh that clung to her taste buds. A few more long, slow intakes of air cleared her burning nostrils. The horrid smell of a days old dead body was bad enough, but to add a ninety-degree, humid day increased it tenfold.
"That's some awful smelling shit in there, huh?" Kent Urban yelled to her from where he stood over by the leaning, detached, one stall garage.
He wasn't kidding, but was he talking about all the crap in the house or Sister Ann's body?
Markie swung her gaze from Kent to the man next to him - Bryce Hawk. She eyed his six- pack abs. Why on earth wasn't he wearing a shirt? Scanning over him she noted he wore his other usual work attire - dress pants and shoes, but no shirt. Her gaze bounced back up to the man's broad chest. Nice. Too nice.
Being a firefighter and first responder for at least ten years or so already, Kent was probably used to this kind of stuff by now, but the tall, muscular man standing next to him, the one whose skin tone held a blue hue obviously wasn't. The city planner wore blue well. In fact, he wore everything well. Problem was he knew it, and every woman between the age of eighteen and eighty knew it. The man reminded her so much of her cheating ex-fiancé she could hardly stand to look at him. It wasn't necessarily his looks that resembled Conner, but his actions. He was a smooth talker. Yet, he was so damn handsome she couldn't help gawking.
Even in consideration of the unusual Wisconsin ninety-degree temperature, Markie's body heat rose a few degrees when Bryce's dark gaze scanned over her as she walked toward him. Dammit. She hated being affected by a womanizer this way, but something about him got to her, and she had a tough time ignoring it.
She shifted her focus to Kent. "I see the fire department's volunteer efforts to help declutter Sister's house didn't go very far."
He shook his head. "We took a dumpster load out of the house last month, and all she did was refill the house fuller than it was prior to that. How on earth does she get all this garbage?"
"Good question. I don't know. But she won't be any longer."
Markie slid her gaze to the dark-eyed man next to her. His irises were almost as black as his thick, wavy hair. She was dying to ask him why he wasn't wearing a shirt, but then, the rotten, bodily juices stench from his direction hit her like a punch to the gut, and she burst out laughing.
"Don't tell me the corpse fell onto you?"
Bryce shook his head. "It's not funny. That putrid smell will forever be embedded in my nostrils, and I need to get the hell out of here to shower. When can I go?"
So, the old lady had fallen on top of him when she fell out of the freezer. That had to be why he wasn't wearing a shirt. Priceless. This was good stuff.
"This could take some time," Markie replied, working hard to keep her lips from curling into a smile. She planned to keep the arrogant, womanizing guy for a while for questioning, just for fun. Let him wallow in the torture of that awful smell on himself.
Bryce crossed his arms over that appealing broad chest of his cutting off her view, then he shifted from his right foot to the left. He dipped awkwardly like his knee buckled or something. She'd noticed that before; he seemed to favor his left leg. Did the man's perfect body hold an imperfection? Maybe so, judging from the slight limp he displayed on occasion.
A fault. How deserving for a womanizer.
The medical examiner pulled into the driveway, parked, and slipped out of his vehicle. The short, thin man walked up the cracked sidewalk and stepped into the enclosed porch.
"Don't go away. I'll be right back. I need to talk to the ME," Markie said to Bryce.
He blew out an exasperated sigh.
Taking her chances, she placed a foot on the spongy step of the porch. With caution, she took another step and then another until she was standing next to the scrawny man inspecting the nun's body.
With all the junk in the porch, it was amazing someone was able to stuff the woman into the freezer.
"How long do you think she's been there?" Markie asked.
The medical examiner looked over his shoulder and shrugged. "Almost a week, give or take."
"It'll be interesting to know how she died, whether she suffocated in there, or was she dead when someone put her inside? There's no claw marks to indicate she tried to get out. And since the door is only hanging onto its hinges by a thread, and there's no lock, she should have been easily able to push it open."
He nodded. "Time will tell."
Once the funeral home staff arrived, the ME bagged Sister Ann, and he and Officer Blart carried her out. They set her on the gurney, then they slipped her into the hearse.
Markie stared after them as they pulled out of sight. Who on earth would do this to a little old lady - a nun? Who had something to gain from her death?
The answer to the questions hit her like a ton of bricks - Bryce.
She glanced over her shoulder to the shirtless man by the garage. He definitely had something to gain. Sister Ann was nothing but a big headache to the guy. Her property maintenance issue caused him nothing but grief by having to file a ton of paperwork, and follow up every month to see if there were any improvements. Then there was the outcry from the general public he had to deal with. He was the mean old city employee who harassed a poor, little old nun. Of course, the public didn't understand the guy was just doing his job, and the actions he took were really only for the general well-being of the sister and her neighbors.
The death of Sister Ann would make the city planner's life a lot easier.
Yep, the infamous Bryce Hawk was suspect number one.