Page 86 of Forever Dead

Cold air touched him. The laundry-room window stood open a few inches at the top, and the blind stirred in the draft. Behind him, the door swung back and struck something with the same dull impact he had been hearing from the hallway.

Harold turned.

Nothing stood behind the door.

Then movement above him caught his attention.

He slowly raised his head.

A woman hung from the ceiling rafter in a nurse's uniform. Blood had soaked the front of it across her chest and down one side of her body. Her arms hung loose, her shoes several inches above the floor, while the rope turned slowly against the timber.

The open window kept her body moving.

She swung toward the door and struck it.

Thud.

Then she drifted away before the draft brought her back again.

Harold's grip loosened on the bat. He stood frozen while the body continued its slow arc, finally understanding the sound that had drawn him through the house.

CHAPTER TWELVE

By the time Connor reached the old Tully farmhouse, two patrol cars and an ambulance had already blocked most of the drive.

Morning had come cold and pale across the fields. Gusts sent leaves skittering over the yard. The front door stood open behind a line of crime-scene tape. Matt Price’s van was parked near the porch, and one of the deputies had moved Harold Greer’s pickup away from the entrance.

Connor parked on the grass and got out. Arnold met him halfway to the ambulance.

“Harold Greer found her,” he said.

“How is he?”

“Bad. Paramedics say physically he’s okay. He had some kind of panic attack after he got outside.”

Connor nodded toward the ambulance. Harold sat on the rear step wrapped in a gray blanket, though the morning was not cold enough to explain the way he was shaking. His baseball bat lay on the ground several feet away, already marked for collection.

“Anybody else enter before we secured it?”

“Harold, then Chuck,” Arnold said. “Chuck confirmed the body and backed out. Matt and Blethan are inside now.”

“Front door?”

“Open when Harold arrived. No obvious force, but the doors have old locks, so they aren’t difficult to pick.”

Connor nodded. “Keep everyone else out.”

He crossed to the ambulance, where Harold lifted his head. Connor had known him most of his life, a farmer who could repair fencing in sleet and complain only about the price of wire. He did not look like that man now.

Connor stopped several feet away. “Harold.”

“Sheriff.”

“You all right to talk?”

Harold gave a weak laugh. “I’m sittin’ in the back of an ambulance with a blanket around me. What do you think?”

Connor leaned against the open rear door rather than crowd him. “Tell me what happened.”