Death Grip Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Elaine Viets

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Epilogue

  The Insider’s Guide to Chouteau County Pronunciation

  Also by Elaine Viets

  Angela Richman, Death Investigator

  BRAIN STORM

  FIRE AND ASHES

  A STAR IS DEAD *

  Dead-End Job

  FINAL SAIL

  BOARD STIFF

  CATNAPPED!

  CHECKED OUT

  THE ART OF MURDER

  Josie Marcus, Mystery Shopper

  DYING IN STYLE

  HIGH HEELS ARE MURDER

  ACCESSORY TO MURDER

  MURDER WITH ALL THE TRIMMINGS

  THE FASHION HOUND MURDERS

  AN UPLIFTING MURDER

  DEATH ON A PLATTER

  MURDER IS A PIECE OF CAKE

  FIXING TO DIE

  A DOG GONE MURDER

  * available from Severn House

  DEATH GRIP

  Elaine Viets

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  This first world edition published 2020

  in Great Britain and 2021 in the USA by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  Eardley House, 4 Uxbridge Street, London W8 7SY.

  Trade paperback edition first published

  in Great Britain and the USA 2021 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD.

  This eBook edition first published in 2021 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited.

  Copyright © 2020 by Elaine Viets.

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Elaine Viets to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-9018-4 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-755-2 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0493-6 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  For my Don, with love and thanks.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Chouteau County, Missouri, guards its secrets. The local robber barons hang onto their money, their grudges, their sins and scandals. When some of those buried secrets are accidentally unearthed in Death Grip, Angela Richman tries to bring a killer to justice.

  Investigating a murder is difficult and intricate work, and I wanted to show that. Special thanks to Dr Sharon L. Plotkin, certified crime scene investigator and professor at the Miami Dade College School of Justice, who read my crime scenes for accuracy. Detective R.C. White, Fort Lauderdale Police Department (retired) and licensed private eye, provided hours of advice and help. Thank you to death investigator Krysten Addison and Harold R. Messler, retired manager-criminalistics, St. Louis Police Laboratory. Gregg E. Brickman, author of Imperfect Escape, helped me kill off my characters. These experts helped me strive for accuracy, but all mistakes are mine.

  Many other people helped with Death Grip. Most important is my husband, Don Crinklaw, my first reader and best critiquer.

  Thanks also to my agent, Joshua Bilmes, president of JABberwocky Literary Agency, and the entire JABberwocky team. Joshua reads my novels and gives me detailed suggestions to improve them.

  Thanks to the Severn House staff, especially editor Sara Porter, whose deft editing was helpful, as well as copyeditor Loma Halden. Cover designer Piers Tilbury perfectly captured my book.

  Sarah E.C. Byrne made a generous donation to charity to have her name in this novel. She’s a lawyer from Canberra, Australia, and a crime fiction aficionada.

  I’m grateful to Judge Bill Hopkins, Will Graham, Alan Portman, and Joanna Campbell Slan – author of Ruff Justice; Jinny Gender, Alison McMahan, Dana Cameron, author of the Emma Fielding archaeology mysteries; and Marcia Talley, author of Tangled Roots. Special thanks to the many librarians, including those at the Broward County library and St. Louis and St. Louis County, who answered my questions, no matter how ridiculous they sounded. I could not survive without the help and encouragement of librarians. There are more people who helped, but they need to be anonymous.

  Please enjoy Angela Richman’s latest adventure. Email me at [email protected]

  ONE

  If it hadn’t rained for six days that spring, we might never have found the bodies. Chouteau County guarded its secrets. The local robber barons hung onto their money, their grudges, their sins and scandals.

  But outsider Liz Loconto hiked deep into the woods that ran between the mansions, where almost no one went. Maybe she believed our woods would somehow be better.

  When Liz first saw the hand sticking out of the washout in the creek, she thought it was a twig. When she looked closer and saw the arm bones, she figured it was an old Halloween decoration. But then Liz edged closer, lost her balance and slid down the muddy creek bed. That’s when she realized the bony hand was real – and attached to a body. A dead body.

  Liz was still screaming when she called 911 on her cell phone. And that’s how I wound up trudging through the Missouri woods. I’m Angela Richman, Chouteau County, Missouri, death investigator. I work for the medical examiner’s office, and I’m in charge of the bodies at the crime scene. Chouteau County is about thirty miles west of St. Louis, and Chouteau Forest
is its biggest town. We’re an exclusive pocket of white privilege.

  I was lucky that Detective Jace Budewitz caught this case – he’s one of the best on the Chouteau Forest force. I was on call that April afternoon and he gave me the news about six-thirty. Jace is a Chicago transplant, used to the toughest neighborhoods in that city. He’s starting to learn that the Forest isn’t all that different – we simply have better-dressed thugs.

  ‘It’s a bad scene, Angela,’ he said. ‘A hiker has found one body, but we have some indications there may be more. I’ve brought in the cadaver dogs.’

  ‘Are we getting Nitpicker?’ I asked. Sarah ‘Nitpicker’ Byrne was the Forest’s top CSI tech. It would take days to retrieve the body and the evidence.

  ‘She’s on her way,’ he said. ‘Nitpicker’s extra careful, so no evidence will be lost.’

  ‘I’ll get my things,’ I said. ‘Where are you?’

  Jace gave me the closest intersection, then said, ‘It’s way back in the woods. I’m surprised the witness stumbled on the victim. I’ll have a uniform waiting to take you back. Wear your oldest clothes and boots – it’s muddy. And you’ll need to wear protection. The decedent is badly decomposed.’

  I made sure I had a jumpsuit with a hood, as well as gloves, goggles and a face mask. I could get tuberculosis and other diseases from contact with a decomposing body. Then I threw on jeans, boots, and an old chambray shirt, pulled my long, dark hair into a practical ponytail, and slapped on some mosquito repellent. I knew I’d need it. I’d had other cases in the deep woods. Chouteau County was a densely wooded area studded with nineteenth-century mansions. The richest residences were guarded by gates and security, but a network of paths – mostly used by local teenagers – threaded through the woods behind their estates.

  Ten minutes later, I found the intersection Jace gave me, off a remote part of Gravois Road. Police cars and other official vehicles were strewn about like abandoned toys. Mike, the uniform, waved at me. He was about twenty-five, with an open, smiling face and short blond hair. I brushed away his offer of help with my DI kit – a black rolling suitcase – and we followed a deer trail through the muddy woods, with me half-carrying, half-rolling the suitcase.

  It was a glorious spring day. The new leaves were a tender green, and I saw patches of purple – flowering redbud trees – and clouds of white dogwoods. A perfect day for a walk in the woods. Except I knew the grim end to this hike.

  By this time, Mike was puffing a bit as he worked his way up the trail, which made me feel a little better. I was out of breath, too. At forty-one, I was glad I could keep up with him. The trail was narrow, and the slippery mud made dragging my DI case difficult.

  I smelled the site before I saw it. As we topped a hill, the odor of decomposition hit me like a wall. Mike slashed Vicks VapoRub under his nose to block the odor, then offered the jar to me. I waved it away. ‘Thanks, Mike, but my sniffer will short out quickly.’

  ‘Wish mine would,’ he said.

  I didn’t want to embarrass Mike by saying that Vicks was rarely used, especially by veteran homicide staff. He’d catch on soon enough.

  We kept walking on the deer path. The scene started along a branch of Chouteau Forest Creek, about twenty-five feet from where the body was found. ‘Is this the same path the killer took?’ I asked, as I unzipped my DI case for my iPad.

  ‘Don’t know yet,’ Mike said.

  I saw three canopy tents set up in a little clearing for shade – and to block the view of any TV helicopters. Rick, a solemn-faced uniform at the entrance to the scene, was in charge of the crime scene log.

  ‘Hi, Rick. Angela Richman, Death Investigator. Looks like my time in is 6:58 a.m.’

  Rick noted my arrival in the log.

  As I started to write the time on my iPad, I said, ‘What’s our case number?’ He gave it to me.

  Now we were in the thick of the investigation, I could see a small landslide at a bend in Chouteau Forest Creek, exposing the red clay soil. Under one canopy was a partially decomposed body, lying on a rock-strewn bier of red-brown clay.

  Jace – Detective Budewitz – was directing the search of the area, plus the cadaver dog handlers and their animals. He waved at me.

  ‘How’s it going?’ I asked. Jace is six-two, with a perpetual boyish face. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, which was rapidly getting higher.

  ‘One body so far,’ he said. ‘I suspect there are at least two more buried here.’ He pointed at a thick clump of weeds and saplings about ten feet away. ‘I’ll bet my next paycheck that’s a body dump. The body fed that thick overgrowth. Same for the spot over there, to the west of it.

  ‘I’ve got uniforms searching the creek bed in case any bones or evidence washed downstream. We may have gotten lucky there. I think the creek wall collapsed after last night’s heavy rain. The arm looks intact, but we’re missing some finger bones. The searchers have come up with nothing so far.’

  ‘Any idea who the victim is?’ I asked.

  A dog handler shouted, ‘Detective! Over here! I think we may have another one.’

  ‘Damn!’ Jace looked sick. He wiped his sweating forehead with his hands and smeared mud across it. ‘Sorry, Angela, can’t talk now.’

  By that time, Nitpicker had arrived, suited up in a white disposable coverall. She was a short, muscular woman in her thirties, who loved changing her hair color. Today it was the same lime green as the spring leaves. She kneeled down to survey the exposed parts of the body.

  ‘Time to suit up, Angela,’ she said.

  I opened my suitcase and pulled on my hooded suit, then added the goggles and face mask.

  I knew we were all looking at long days. Bodies located in the woods would be worked through the night until the scene was cleared. We could not leave the decedents in the ground and come back. We would have to stay there, suited up, sweating, swatting mosquitoes, barely sleeping, working slowly and meticulously to document every step.

  When we got closer to the body, we could see the creek cave-in had exposed part of the face, along with the arm. ‘What can you tell me about this decedent?’ I asked.

  Nitpicker brushed her already sweaty green hair out of her eyes. ‘This one appears to be a female, possibly in her early twenties. I’ll know more as we go on.’

  Four hours later, I was finally able to do the formal body inspection. Nitpicker still thought the decedent was female, probably blonde, possibly in her early twenties.

  ‘This was no drifter,’ she said. ‘She has good teeth.’

  Once I got past the ‘Oh, my God!’ reflex I always have when I see a badly decomposed decedent, I could see that the dead woman’s skin was too decomposed to tell her race. She was supine, lying on her back. Mud blocked her eyes, and her lips were pulled back in a horrible rictus. I could see those straight teeth, now clogged with mud. She’d had good dental work, and that would help identify her.

  ‘Let me show you what I found around the victim’s neck,’ Nitpicker said. She crawled toward the body’s head and pointed at the neck with her trowel. I leaned in closer, and wished I hadn’t. The odor was overwhelming, even through the face mask, and I fought not to gag. So much for my nose shorting out.

  ‘See?’ she said.

  I mastered my rebellious stomach and peered closer. ‘It looks like muddy string. Green string.’

  ‘I think it’s jute garden string,’ Nitpicker said. ‘My mom uses it to tie back her tomatoes.’

  ‘Do you think the victim was garroted with it?’

  ‘That would be my guess, but the ME will have to say for sure.’

  The string would stay on the victim’s neck until the medical examiner removed it. I would photograph it – especially the knot. Knots could tell us a lot about her killer.

  I took out my point-and-shoot camera and photographed the body – wide shots and close-ups, then more close-ups of those teeth. Then I put on multiple pairs of gloves. I placed the dead woman’s hands in paper bags secured with evide
nce tape in case there was any evidence under her nails.

  I didn’t see any visible open wounds, but the decomposition could be hiding them.

  Nitpicker pointed to the decedent’s running shoes. ‘Looks like the victim tied her shoes herself. I hope the bastard didn’t make her walk here. We’ll have her shoe soles analyzed for traces of earth materials besides this sticky clay.’ The victim’s running shoes also got the paper bag and evidence tape treatment.

  ‘She’s wearing a green T-shirt,’ I said, ‘with the Chouteau Forest High logo.’

  Nitpicker lowered her voice and said, ‘I hope this doesn’t leak to the press, but I think the decedent may be Terri Gibbons, the Forest High track star.’

  ‘What? That can’t be,’ I said. ‘Terri went missing eight months ago. This body hasn’t been in the ground that long.’ Terri Gibbons was the pride of Chouteau Forest High, the local answer to East St. Louis’s track and field star, Jackie Joyner-Kersee.

  At the time of her disappearance, Terri had two track and field scholarships, including one to UCLA. Last August, Terri went out for a run, telling her mother she’d be back by dinnertime. When she didn’t turn up by nine o’clock, her frantic mother called the police. Terri’s disappearance made the national news.

  I felt a crushing weight in my chest. So much promise lost. The police said Terri was universally liked, did not have a steady boyfriend, drink or use drugs.

  ‘I knew she probably wasn’t alive,’ I said. ‘But I’d hoped she’d cracked under the pressure and taken a bus to Florida.’

  ‘I think we all hoped that,’ Nitpicker said. ‘At least her poor mother will know what happened to her daughter and have someone to bury.’

  ‘Closed casket,’ I said, looking at the young woman’s nightmare face.

  ‘I hope her mother doesn’t insist on seeing her body,’ Nitpicker said.

  ‘Jace and I will try to talk her out of it,’ I said. ‘Terri disappeared in August. There’s no way this body has been in the ground eight months.’