Page 42 of Wild Frost

We left and strolled the walkway back to the Porsche. JD and I planned on talking to Rachel Van Cleef and Casey Monroe next, but my phone buzzed with a call that would send us on a detour.

22

Red and blue lights filled the parking lot of the Park Plaza professional building. It was an upscale office complex, home to doctors, dentists, and other medical types.

Dietrich snapped photos of the gruesome sight. First responders swarmed. An ambulance was on the scene, along with the medical examiner's van. Brenda snapped on a pair of pink nitrile gloves and went to work.

A crowd of curious onlookers had gathered.

A woman lay on her back at the base of the steps that led to the main entrance, her blank eyes fixed on the azure sky. Blood pooled around the body on the asphalt. Two wounds in her chest had done the dirty business. She had been shot as she approached the building. Blood soaked her cream blouse.

Two spent shell casings littered the ground nearby. With any luck, the forensic team would pull a print.

Not far, a fast-food bag littered the ground. The spilled drink inside seeped through the bag.

The sheriff looked on with a grim face.

"Anybody see what happened?" I asked.

The sheriff pointed to a brunette woman in her mid-30s wearing a gray pantsuit, sobbing nearby. She looked terrified. "Said the assailant was waiting by the entrance, smoking a cigarette, wearing a hoodie, dark sunglasses, and a surgical mask. The victim approached, and he put two bullets into her chest. Then he grabbed her purse and took off running that way." The sheriff pointed to a gap in the hedges that separated this parking lot from the next.

I glanced around for security cameras that may have captured the scene.

"Who’s the deceased?"

"Dr. Miriam Renick. At least, that's what the witness says.”

JD and I approached the witness, and I flashed my badge. "I'm Deputy Wild. This is Jack Donovan, Special Crimes."

She nodded, wiped her eyes, and sized us up.

"Can you tell me exactly what you saw?"

She repeated what the sheriff had told us.

"What’s your name, ma'am?”

"Elizabeth Halford. Dr. Elizabeth Halford. But you can call me Liz."

"Do you think you could describe the assailant?”

"It's really hard to say. I was so traumatized by the whole thing. I knew Miriam. Her office is just down the hall frommine. We would grab coffee occasionally and discuss cases, in a professional sense, of course."

"Anything you can offer might be helpful," I said.

Elizabeth nodded. "He was maybe 6 feet tall. Caucasian. He wore a hoodie, dark sunglasses, and a surgical mask." Her face wrinkled. "Which I thought was weird because he was also holding a cigarette in his hand. But to tell you the truth, I never saw him take a drag. Granted, I was just passing by. In hindsight, it seemed like he was waiting for Miriam, and the cigarette was just an excuse."

"You’d make a good detective," I said.

"I'm just observant. It's part of my job to notice people, their behaviors, their nonverbal cues." She paused. "People will lie, but their body language almost always tells the truth."

"You’re a psychiatrist?”

She nodded.

"Like I said, you'd make a good detective."

Liz forced a smile, "Thank you. But I don't think I could do what you do. Too much violence. I suppose it’s hard not to be affected by that over time. How do you manage?"