Shattered Figurine: Det. Jo Naylor Adventures, #1

By Allan Hudson

Detective Josephine Naylor receives an email telling her to find the last body. The messenger tells her "only you can stop this madness". Discovering a shattered figurine on the corpse, she's overwhelmed by the possibility it might be the one she sold in a yard sale. If so, she knows who the killer could be. She prays that she's wrong.

• Language: English
• Publisher: South Branch Scribbler
• Release date: Oct 3, 2019
• ISBN: 9781988291062

Allan Hudson

Allan Hudson was born in Saint John, New Brunswick now living in Dieppe, NB. Growing up in South Branch he was encouraged to read from an early age by his mother who was a school teacher.His short story, The Ship Breakers, received Honourable Mention in the New Brunswick Writer’s Federation short story competition. Recently, his short story, The Abyss, recieved the same award. Other short stories have been published on commuterlit.com, The Golden Ratio and his blog, South Branch Scribbler.

Book preview

Chapter 1

Josephine Naylor, shoulders slumped, stares down at the frozen corpse. Even though rime disguises the otherwise naked body, the Detective knows it is the missing teenager. The remains are female, about five feet, maybe a hundred pounds without the frost. And the body has been left in the same position as the two previous victims: face up, ankles and hands neatly tucked together, bound with duct tape. The same parts are missing.

This regrettable murder left no doubt in Jo’s mind that the killer is the same person, based on the method of execution. Forensics had confirmed as much with the second body. That murder had brought forth the criminal psychologists to create a profile that would tell them what type of individual might commit such a crime. The scene before her is, therefore, extremely important, so she stands well away. She is still able to discern an unusual shape upon the victim’s forehead, which, once uncovered from its icy envelope, will likely prove to be a piece of broken crystal similar to those found in the same spot on the pale dead skin of the two other bodies.

Jo is standing at the edge of a wide field shadowed by alders and tall spruces that front the extended forest behind her. The rising sun is just cresting the pointed tops. The body is lying parallel to the tree line at the rim of the pasture. It’s early December. The night fog turned solid as the temperature dropped below freezing, cloaking everything in stark white. Jo is startled from her contemplation of the scene by the sensation that someone is watching her. She turns toward the open field, scanning the perimeter of the woods. Nothing moves; not even a breeze disturbs the black-and-white scene. A rise in the field blocks her view to the road and her car, but she would have heard a vehicle approach. The silence is intense, nature seeming to mourn the young girl’s death. Jo would definitely hear the crunching of frost under someone’s boots.

Satisfied she is alone, she calms her nerves with deep breaths that turn smoky in the cold air. She decides to wait until the sun melts away the victim’s icy mask before calling her partner. She has to see what is on the forehead first. Folding her mittened hands across her slight chest, she tucks them under the armpits of her down jacket. Keeping the body to her left and her back to the woods, she thinks about the e-mail that led her here, alone. She has a hunch about who the killer is – a dreadful hunch she desperately hopes is wrong. The other bodies had been left where they would easily be found, but in the email she was told where this one would be. She remembers the message word for word.

Detective Naylor,

Route 114-A, east of the Black Farmer’s Road 11.4 miles. Over the hill on your right.

Only you can stop this madness. I can’t. Unicorn

She had been torn, thinking she would find another victim, but it was the word Unicorn that had bothered her the most. She and her peers had recognized the pieces of crystal left behind on the previous victims - their only clues - as legs from a miniature figurine. The consensus was it could possibly be a horse, but she was the one who had suggested it could be a unicorn. She’d had one as a child. Her grandmother had given it to her when she turned ten. Her little brother had dropped it and broken off the delicate twisted horn when she was fifteen. She sold it at a yard sale four years ago, when she was thirty-seven, and she remembers who bought it. She hadn’t given it a thought since then. In her mind, there had been no reason to. The message this morning changed that. She can’t ignore the possibility, no matter how horrific it seems. She prays silently that she be proven wrong.

By 8:30 the sun begins to melt the ice from the cadaver, turning the white, twinkling coating into clear drops of water that pool in the body’s cavities or run like tears. The crystal perched upon the head flashes rainbow-colored rays when Jo moves. She walks a wide arc around the body, knowing she should stay away. But she can’t, so she creeps closer. The frost groans with each step she takes. She crouches down near the head, thinking the girl might have been pretty once. She peers closely at the crystal. The figurine has only one leg and it props up the glass animal’s nose. Focusing on the tiny head, Jo gasps when she sees the horn is broken off, only a short stub to suggest there had ever been one. The image strikes her like a fist. She shrinks back from the discovery, losing her balance and falling abruptly on her ass. The shock is too great. She panics, arms flailing and feet scrambling, wanting to flee the awful truth.

Holding a hand to her mouth to stifle her sobs, she runs aimlessly along the edge of the forest. Her moans break the eerie silence to echo through the trees. Tears stream across her temple and are absorbed by short dark curls that stick out below her toque. When she stops, she bends to put hands on knees, panting from the exertion of crossing the field to the opposite corner. Deep breaths once more ease the tension she’s feeling. She needs to think clearly. Staring at the stubble by her feet, she loses focus. Indecision and disbelief rage in her mind. Foremost in her thoughts is that it’s impossible for the person who had bought the unicorn to have committed such heinous crimes. It can’t be, she tells herself. She’s known the man all her life.

Almost twenty minutes later, she walks back toward the corpse knowing what she must do. Regardless of the outcome, she is going to be in very deep shit with the department for coming out here alone. She doesn’t believe he will hurt her, but she’ll find out soon enough. Approaching the body, she ignores the wounds, the taped limbs, the lifeless form, concentrating on the crystal unicorn. Lifting it gently off the dead girl’s forehead, she grips it tightly in her hand and heads to her car. It’s a twenty-minute drive to his house. She’s sure he’ll be home; he retired five years ago from the penitentiary where he’d been warden for twenty-seven years. The irony: he’ll likely spend the rest of his life there.

Jo’s transportation is an unremarkable dark-gray Crown Victoria, so conspicuous in its plainness that it screams police. She parks several houses away, not wanting to alert him. She walks slowly toward the last house on the right on the quiet cul-de-sac. The elms that line the sidewalk are thick, evenly spaced and bare of foliage. Most people are already at work or school; the street is quiet but for two cats meowing at a neighbor’s door, wanting to be let in. Shading her body behind the trunk of the third to last tree on his side of the street, she can see the curtains are drawn. There is no movement. Standing behind the tree, resting her back against the weathered bark, she tries to decide how she will approach the house where she grew up.

Chapter 2          A year later.

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The wire slowly tightens around her slim neck. With both hands Detective Josephine Naylor desperately claws at the thin cord as it digs deeper into the soft skin of her throat. Her breaths come and go rapidly in short wheezing gasps. In a few seconds she knows she won’t be able to breathe at all.  Fear clutches her every sense as she feels the taut wire cut her skin. Her hands reach back to claw at her assailant’s brawny forearms as thick as a block of wood. She rakes her nails along the leathery skin to no avail. The twisting of the