know, being the chief of police and all, Navarro has a lot on his plate. I guess he thought I could handle this call myself.”
“The least he could do was send one of his deputies,” Nona grumbled.
“I am a deputy. See? I have a badge and everything.”
Nona cut her a glance. “Not that you don’t look real cute in your little Barney Fife uniform, honey, but you know what I mean.”
Marly knew what she meant all right. And strangely enough, she wasn’t offended by the woman’s attitude, probably because she’d known Nona forever. They’d gone to high school together, but in the years since graduation, poor Nona had gotten an advanced degree from the school of hard knocks. She’d once been a pretty girl, but now, dressed in faded yellow sweatpants that sagged in all the wrong places, she was a walking advertisement for too much hooch, sun and cheap hair bleach.
“When you called the station, you told Patty Fuentes that Ricky’s been missing for three days,” Marly said. “That right?”
“I wouldn’t say missing exactly. But something’s not right.”
“What do you mean?”
Nona gestured with her cigarette. “His truck’s been sitting in the carport for three solid days. Now you know Ricky. Even back in high school, he was always a real good worker. Never takes a day off unless he’s bad sick.”
“Maybe he is sick,” Marly suggested. “The flu’s going around.”
“Too sick to answer his phone? I even went over and hollered through the window at him. Didn’t hear a peep out of him.”
“Did you try the door?”
“No, but it’s not locked,” Nona said. “He broke the cheap-ass bolt they put on these houses a long time ago and never did get around to fixing it.”
“But you didn’t go in and check on him even though you knew the door was unlocked?”
Nona glanced away. “I didn’t think that’d be such a hot idea.”
“Why not?” Marly asked in surprise. “You and Ricky are still pretty close, aren’t you?”
Nona scowled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Nona. You two have been together off and on since high school.”
“Yeah, well, now we’re just off, okay?” she said bitterly. “You understand how it is, don’t you? Times change. People move on.” She gave Marly a knowing look. “Kind of like you and Joshua Rush, I guess.”
Marly felt her stomach tighten at the mention of her ex-fiancé. They’d been through for months, but he continued to be a sore subject. She’d never told anyone the details of their breakup, even though people in town were openly curious. They were amazed, Marly suspected, that she’d let a catch like Joshua Rush slip through her fingers. “We were talking about you and Ricky,” she reminded Nona.
The woman shrugged. “Not much to tell. We had a falling out not too long ago. A real knock-down drag-out. Ricky warned me not to come around anymore, and considering how he likes to play around with that damn pistol of his, I was afraid the dumb sumbitch might shoot me if I did.” She took a long drag on her cigarette. “So that’s why I called the cops. Even Ricky’d think twice before plugging the law.”
That was some comfort, Marly supposed. She turned back to the door. “I guess I’d better go in and have a look around.”
“By yourself?” Nona asked uneasily. “Maybe you ought to call for backup or something.”
“It’s a little premature for that. Ricky’s probably just feeling under the weather—”
“But what if he isn’t? What if something bad has happened to him? What if he’s—” Nona broke off and glanced away.
Marly narrowed her gaze. “What if he’s what? You don’t know something you’re not telling me, do you?”
“’Course not.” Nona gnawed on her thumbnail. “But after what happened to those kids and old lady Abbott last week, a body can’t help being a little nervous.”
“I’m sure it’s nothing like that.” Marly prayed it was nothing like that. She knocked on the door again and called out Ricky’s name.
When there was still no answer, she tried the door. It swung open, revealing a dark, cavelike interior. The blinds had been drawn, shutting out what natural light might have come from the overcast sky, and there was a smell. A faint, telltale odor that made Marly’s stomach lurch.
She stepped back from the door and tried not to panic.
“Go back over to your house and call Patty,” she said with far more authority than she actually felt. “Tell her I may need some help out here. See if she can round up Boyd or A.J. or even the chief. Whoever is nearby.”
A look of dread flashed across Nona’s features. “Ricky…he’s not dead in there, is he?”
“Just go make the call, Nona. Hurry up now.”
“But—”
“Go on. This is police business. I know what I’m doing.”
Reluctantly Nona turned, hurried down the steps, then splashed her way across the tiny yard, slipping and sliding on her own wet porch before finally disappearing inside the house a minute or two later.
Marly stepped inside Morales’s house, pausing just across the threshold to get her bearings. The front entrance opened directly into the living room, which was separated from the eat-in kitchen on the right by a bar. A windowless door next to the refrigerator led out to the carport, and to the left, a narrow hallway trailed back to the bathroom and bedrooms.
“Ricky? You in here?” she called nervously.
The house was very quiet. Marly couldn’t even hear the usual household noises—the humming of the refrigerator, the ticking of a clock. Even the sound of the rain was muffled.
No music, either, she noticed. That was almost a relief.
But…there was something strange about the silence. Something…unnatural. It was as if everything inside Ricky’s house had suddenly stopped working.
Resting her hand on her weapon, Marly crossed the room to peer down the murky corridor. “Ricky? It’s Deputy Jessop. You in here?”
Still no answer.
Sweat beaded on Marly’s forehead as she started down the hallway. The door at the far end was slightly ajar, and as she approached it, the smell grew stronger, making her gag.
Pulling her shirt over her nose and mouth, Marly tried to work up her courage. She had a job to do. She was an officer of the law, and it didn’t matter that the most dangerous call she’d been on thus far in her short career with the Mission Creek Police Department was chasing down a pair of ten-year-old shoplifters at the Giant K. All that was about to change, and Marly knew she had to somehow rise to the occasion.
But the smell. She could feel it oozing into her sinuses, into her pores, even into her hair shafts. She’d heard about that smell from some of the veterans who taught at the academy. They’d talked about how it was unmistakable from any other scent, how it was almost impossible to get rid of once it got on you. How you were never able to forget it.
Don’t think about that now, a little voice warned her.
She tried to put herself on autopilot as she used the toe of her shoe to push open the door. The room was even darker than the rest of the house. She got out her flashlight and switched it on, then played the beam inside the room.
She couldn’t say she was surprised by what she found. On some level, she’d been expecting it. Dreading it. Preparing herself for it. But that didn’t make the scene any less horrifying.
Ricky