Her Final Prayer: A totally gripping and heart-stopping crime thriller (Detective Clara Jefferies Book 2)

by Kathryn Casey

  “Anna Johansson,” I interjected. Mueller looked at me. “I like to use names. It reminds me that these were real people. Helps keep it human.”

  “Sure, Chief, good idea,” Mueller said. “Out here, surrounded by all this death, it’s hard to think of them as…”

  “Alive?” I suggested.

  For a moment, Mueller didn’t talk, and then he nodded and swallowed hard. He pointed at a shirt hanging half on, half off the clothesline. “I think Anna may not have realized what was about to happen. It looks like she had her back turned to the shooter, hanging that shirt up. She still has a clothespin in one hand. There’s blood spatter on the shirt. When the first bullet hit, Anna probably turned slightly, away from the clothesline. He kept firing, and she staggered and fell face down. The kids were hanging out, maybe running around playing with each other and watching her, is my guess, because they were right behind her, not far away.”

  I pictured it. A calm, sunny morning, winter right around the corner. Everyone just up from bed, getting a start on the day. Maybe Anna gave Sybille and Benjamin breakfast, but maybe not. No dishes in the kitchen waiting to be washed, and Laurel, if she was still alive, was upstairs in bed, maybe after a late night with the baby. She hadn’t made her way down yet. If there’d been a lot of kitchen noise, it might have awakened her. Someone walks up and stands behind Anna, pointing a 9mm handgun at her back. I could almost hear the bang of the first shot when I envisioned a finger pulling the trigger.

  “You know the killer stood here when he killed Anna because of those cartridges,” I said, pointing at the three on the ground.

  “Yeah,” Mueller said. He turned to Stef, indicated a spot on the ground and continued, “Based on the position of Anna’s body and the point where we found the cartridges, the gunman had to be standing approximately here when he shot her. With each shot, the gun ejected an empty cartridge to the right. Anna was shot three times and we have three cartridges.”

  Bang. Bang. Bang. The reports went off in my head. Anna tottered and then fell. Internal organs burst open, ruptured. I wondered if on some level she questioned what was happening to her, or did she know? Did she try to turn to look for her son and daughter? Maybe not. In seconds, it was possible that she was dead.

  “Then the gunman turned on the children. You can see that he moved to get behind them. Maybe they were trying to run away.” Mueller pointed at two more evidence markers. “Both of those mark where we found cartridges. They were ejected when the kids were killed. He shot one, then the other, one shot each, back of their heads, and he was done.”

  We stood there for a moment, allowing all we’d learned to imprint on our memories. I looked down at the small bodies lying on the ground and wondered who could be so cold. Who shot you? I wondered. Who committed this unspeakable evil?

  “What did he do next?” I asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Mueller said. “Either he then turned, went in the house, accosted Jacob in the kitchen and went upstairs to murder Laurel, or they were attacked first, before the killer shot Anna and the children. What happened first, these three killings or the knifings inside the house, that I don’t know.”

  Max sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly, I figured trying to calm the anger he felt looking at the scene. As a cop, you can’t become emotionally involved, you have to step back, but that was hard in this case. I understood. Looking at the children made my heart ache.

  Stef, on the other hand, appeared simply intrigued. Her eyes glistened with interest, and I knew she absorbed Mueller’s words as if her textbooks had come alive.

  “Okay, so our gunman either turns and walks into the kitchen, or he flees?” I said.

  “Yeah,” Max agreed. “But at some point, he must have stood here for a few moments, looked at the children and the mother and became uncomfortable enough to take the sheet and cover the bodies.”

  I thought about that. “Where’s the gun?” I asked.

  “Over there,” Mueller said. We followed behind him and walked maybe thirty feet off into a grove of pine trees, not far from the barn. There it lay, with evidence marker number eleven beside it, a black 9mm handgun with an extended magazine.

  “Bullets in it?” I asked, wondering if maybe the killer cut the throats of the victims inside the house because the gun ran out of ammo.

  “Not sure,” Mueller said. “We haven’t touched it yet to check. After the state lab finishes processing the gun for prints, DNA and such, they’ll take a look and let us know.”

  “I’m sure they do this routinely, but the lab will check for a serial number, try to ID the owner, of course,” I said, mostly to Stef, and Mueller nodded.

  “Any thoughts on what happened with the two victims inside the house?” Max asked.

  “Not yet. All we’ve done so far is mark that bloody shoe print on the floor and take photos of Jacob. We backed off while the EMTs worked on him.” Mueller again went into more detail than he normally would have, to explain the procedures for our new officer. “We didn’t want to get in their way. Now that they’re gone, I’ll send a couple of techs inside and we’ll start with a video, follow with placing evidence markers, looking for fingerprints, fibers, hairs and such, and taking photos.”

  “Is it okay if Officer Jonas shadows you for the rest of this?” I asked Mueller, pointing at Stef. “She could use the real-world experience.”

  “Sure,” he said. “I’m grabbing a couple of the techs and moving them inside next. I’ll assign one of them to watch over the newbie.”

  Stef laughed, and I thought again about how her mood would change when she learned that the woman upstairs was Mullins’ daughter. This would suddenly become all too real. I hesitated to tell her until Mullins knew, and I thought again about trying to reach him.

  “I’m going to check in with the office,” I said, pulling out my phone.

  “Are you still trying to get in touch with Mullins?” Stef asked.

  “Yes, do you know where he—” Max started.

  “I forgot. Kellie called me on my way over here and mentioned that Mullins is following a lead in this case. He heard about the murders and had some kind of a theory,” she said, looking sheepish. “Sorry, Chief, but I was just so wound up about seeing the scene, I forgot.”

  That Mullins worked a lead without checking in with me seemed odd. I didn’t even know that he’d been told about the killings. Perhaps when he heard the location and the homicide references, he immediately realized that one of the victims was Laurel. “A theory on the case?”

  “Yeah,” Stef said. “I didn’t talk to him, but Kellie said he had someone he wanted to check whereabouts on.”

  “I’m going to call Mullins,” I said, shooting Max a worried glance. I walked off a short distance.

  The phone rang six times before voicemail picked up: “This is Alber PD Detective Jeff Mullins, please leave a message.”

  “Mullins, it’s Chief Jefferies,” I started. “I need to—”

  Before I finished, another call beeped in, this time from the station. “Hey, Chief,” Kellie said. The girl had kind of a singsong voice. I’m not always the most cheerful person, and it was one of the reasons I hired her. Alber PD’s new dispatcher seemed to be in a perpetually good mood.

  “Where’s Mullins?” I asked.

  “That’s why I’m getting in touch,” she said. “Mullins called in a little while ago and asked where you were. As soon as I told him you’d gone to the Johansson bison ranch, that there were casualties, two women and some children, he got super-agitated. Said he had a lead to follow up on. He didn’t tell me what kind of lead.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Well, now I’ve got Carl Shipley on the nine-one-one line. Says he’s got a problem. Chief, he needs someone out there at his place ASAP.”

  One thing I still had to teach Kellie was how to zero in on the most important information. “What’s he asking for?” I prompted.

  “Police assistance,” she said. “He cla
ims that Detective Mullins has him pinned down inside his trailer out near Old Sawyer Creek, a few miles from the ranch.”

  “Wait. Mullins has him pinned down?” I repeated.

  “Yeah,” Kellie confirmed. “The guy says that Mullins is threatening to break down the door and kill him.”

  Seven

  Max saw Clara storming toward him. “You know a Carl Shipley? Mullins is at his place with a gun, has him trapped in his trailer. Any idea what’s going on?” she asked.

  “Not a clue,” Max said. “I don’t know much about Carl, just that he and Jacob both lived in Mexico for a while and came back together. I hear that they’re inseparable. Carl moved into a trailer down the road about the same time Jacob took over the ranch. I can get us there. It’s close. Follow me.”

  “I’m right behind you.” As they sprinted to their vehicles, Clara shouted at one deputy to get Mother Naomi out of the Suburban and watch over her until she returned. Then Clara ordered Stef: “Stay with the lieutenant. We’ll be back.”

  Max took the lead and Clara followed. He felt unsettled, anxious, and he couldn’t really decide why. He’d seen grisly murder scenes before. But the flashbacks had started as soon as he’d reached the house and saw Anna and the children. All three were so young, and he couldn’t wipe away the images. But it was Laurel he felt drawn to. Miriam was ten years older when she died, but Laurel looked remarkably like her. They had the same light hair, patrician features. Vital-looking women—left with blank, dead eyes.

  Miriam had been gone for nearly two years, but the vision of her caught in the car, bleeding from a gash in her forehead, the steering wheel pushed into her rib cage? Max had been fighting it for a very long time, he realized, willing himself not to see it.

  I never should have let Miriam drive, he thought for the thousandth time. It was my fault. All of it my fault.

  He tried to wipe the memory from his mind, and instead thought of the sound of Jacob struggling to suck in a breath of air through his damaged trachea, of the blood foaming and seeping out from the cut. Max decided he’d seen more than his share of blood in his lifetime. At times, being a cop seemed overwhelming. Imagine all the folks who went to work every day and didn’t have to worry about ending up on a murder scene.

  Why did the killer murder the children? Max decided it had to be that the kids saw whoever did it kill their mother, and allowing them to live would have meant leaving behind witnesses. When they caught the SOB, Max vowed he’d make sure that the killer understood just how wrong that had been. I’ll make him regret it. Every day of his sorry life.

  Now it appeared Mullins had gone rogue. Max wondered what they were walking into at Carl Shipley’s trailer. How dangerous was it? Had Carl pulled a gun on Mullins? Threatened him? Why would Mullins go after Carl? But then, Max had heard rumors about Carl, that he was something of a bad seed, in trouble from his earliest years. Whatever was unfolding at Carl’s place, Max figured Mullins must have a reason.

  At a bend in the road, Max glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Clara’s SUV directly behind him. He wondered if she remembered that they had a dinner date that evening at his house. He hoped so. Brooke had been planning it for days. She’d gotten up early that morning to set the table with her mother’s good china. Clara had agreed; certainly, she’d come.

  Still, Max recognized this wasn’t something Clara felt comfortable with. Her reaction wasn’t unusual. In fact, each time they made plans, Clara agreed and then he suspected she had to fight her instincts, which told her to call it off. She struggled, he sensed, with trusting anyone, even him.

  Despite his mounting impatience with her, Max couldn’t give up.

  Somewhere hidden inside Clara, he felt certain, waited the girl she’d once been. He remembered those early years, when they became schoolfriends. He thought of how she’d looked back then; a strong girl, a bookworm who was also a bit of a tomboy, who ran faster than most of the boys. When did he first realize that she was becoming special to him? He couldn’t remember. “Maybe she was always special,” he whispered, thinking of the sparkle in her eyes when he whispered in her ear, how she wrinkled up her nose when she laughed, how serious she became poring over a math assignment.

  It was her courage that turned the friendship to love.

  In junior high, the school bully shoved another girl on the playground and broke her glasses. The girl cried, and Clara jumped the boy, pushed him to the ground and held him down, plastering his face against the asphalt until he apologized. Max stood among a throng of kids watching, impressed by her bravery. Afterward the rowdy kids kept a watch for Clara, not wanting to start trouble while she was around.

  We found each other while so young, Max thought. But our road hasn’t been a smooth one.

  The world hadn’t treated her well. She’d been hurt. He didn’t know what, but something terrible had happened to her, and she was wary. He understood. He’d been hurt, too. But if he just didn’t give up, eventually…

  Anything seemed possible.

  On the final stretch, Max took a rickety wooden bridge over a bone-dry ditch. In heavy rains and during the spring thaw, water off the mountainside turned the gully into a stream. Beside it a crooked sign dangling from a frame read: Old Sawyer Creek. Up ahead, Max saw a beat-up pickup and an Alber PD squad parked crossways near a travel trailer that looked worse for wear. Max sped up. Behind him, Clara did the same.

  Eight

  Off a bumpy asphalt road onto a dirt driveway, we drove until I saw a clearing ahead strewn with piles of broken bricks. Stacks of unused roofing shingles that had been discarded for so long that weeds grew up high between them and much of their cardboard casings had weathered away. A decomposing brown leather recliner sat at one end of the travel trailer with an open, stained beige patio umbrella over it, apparently Carl Shipley’s only outdoor furniture.

  I parked directly behind Mullins’ squad, and Max pulled up just a short distance away. We kept low and had our guns drawn as we slunk over to join Mullins, who had taken shelter behind his car. He had an AR-15 pointed at the trailer, and his attention was focused on the door and windows.

  “What’s going on here, Detective Mullins?” The long scar on his cheek had turned purple, a sign, I’d come to recognize during my brief months back in Alber, that the detective’s blood pressure was at its upper limits. Squat with faded blue eyes, his salt-and-pepper hair receding at the crown, Mullins looked like the neighbor nobody approached on the street because he always wore a sour expression.

  “Chief, I’ve got that POS where I want him. I’m gonna show him what happens when he kills someone. Anyone.” Mullins looked over at me. His eyes were red and watery, and I could tell he’d been crying. “That waste of oxygen murdered my daughter. My Laurel.”

  “Okay, slow down here, Mullins,” I said. “Fill in the blanks for us.”

  Mullins pinched his mouth shut, as if debating whether or not he’d talk to me. The two of us had a rather strained relationship. It hadn’t started out well during our first case together. I’d sometimes wondered if he was working with me or against me. Things only got worse when I took the chief’s job, one he’d assumed his seniority at Alber PD meant he’d claim. At weekly department meetings, Mullins habitually sat at the back, usually one foot up on the chair in front of him, and stared at me as if daring me to say something he could jump on. I tended to ignore him.

  Despite all that, I didn’t want to lose him. While we weren’t the best of friends, Mullins was a pretty good cop. He did what he was told, if not with a smile. Our police force was small, and he had more experience than any of the other officers on my staff. Perhaps more importantly, Mullins had access. People talked to him because he was part of the old guard, a member in good standing with Elijah’s People, our reclusive town’s fundamentalist Mormon settlers. While I’d fled and disavowed its teachings, including the practice of polygamy, Jeff Mullins was a member in good standing. In Alber, that meant everything.

  “Listen,
Mullins,” I said. “Max and I need to know what’s happened here. Did Carl Shipley threaten you? Did he pull a gun on you?”

  Mullins turned his head side to side while keeping his eyes trained on the travel trailer. “Carl refused to come out when I told him to, and that was enough,” Mullins finally said. “I know he killed my little girl. No doubt about it, but this proves it. If he didn’t kill her, he’d be out here jabbering away, answering all my questions.”

  “Did you knock on the door and ask him to come out?” Max inquired.

  At that, Mullins’ flush turned a raging red. “Nah, but I stood out here and shouted, told him to get his sorry ass out here and tell me why he killed my daughter.”

  “Why are you so sure he killed Laurel and the others?” I asked. Mullins glared at me for a few moments and didn’t answer, so I pressed the issue. “Detective, you need to explain what the hell is going on here. And you need to do it now.”

  At that, Mullins pulled his lips tight, furious. He looked at me, looked at the trailer, looked at me again. “Dammit, Chief,” he seethed. “There’s not an ounce of doubt in my mind that the piece of shit in that trailer murdered Laurel because she wouldn’t have him. Didn’t want anything to do with him. Even though he followed her around like a sick puppy dog.”

  “And you know this because—”

  “Laurel told me, the last time I talked to her, just a few days ago, that she was scared of Carl, that he was paying too much attention to her, always trying to get close to her,” Mullins said. “Now she’s dead. They’re all dead. My little baby, first grandson, dead. Jacob hurt bad, I heard.” Mullins pointed at the trailer, his finger trembling with rage. “And that man in there, he’s gonna pay for it. I promise you that.”

  “Jeremy’s alive,” I said. Mullins stared at me like he didn’t believe me, so I went on. “One of my mothers, Naomi, was bringing something to the ranch for Laurel this morning. She found the bodies and called in the killings. Naomi has Jeremy at the ranch. She’s taking care of him while we sort this out.”