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

by Kathryn Casey

  Inclined as I was to grumble, it was more important for Doc to do what he could to help the mom and her baby, even though that would slow the investigation down for the day. There were other avenues that might yield some leads. “What about hair and fiber evidence?” I asked. “When can we get that?”

  “I requested a rush, but if we’re lucky it will be a couple of days,” Max explained. “The samples haven’t even gotten to the state crime lab in Cedar City yet. When they arrive, they’ll be logged into the queue, but it won’t be immediate.”

  This wasn’t the first time since returning to Alber that I missed the resources I had available in Dallas, where the PD had its own lab and the county medical examiner jumped on a case like this, one where we had a killer on the loose. “Anything we can do to push ballistics on the gun found at the scene?” I didn’t give Max time to answer before I added, “What about the DNA from the blood on the knife? Fingerprint analysis? How long do you think that will take?”

  A long sigh from the other end of the phone. “Clara, you work for a town of four thousand residents. I’m with a sheriff’s department that oversees a rural county. Neither one of us has a lot of resources available. We rely on the state lab.” Max paused before pointing out, “What we can do today is follow leads, but the forensic stuff takes time in the boondocks.”

  “Damn it, I…” Then I stopped. It wasn’t Max’s fault, and it made no sense to beat him up over the realities of our jobs. It got me nowhere to complain. “You’re right, of course. Anything new I should know about the scene? Did they find anything else that might help?”

  “Just from the photo album,” Max said. “I brought it along and lined up the shots. What we speculated appears true. That photo of Lauren nursing the baby?”

  “I know the one,” I confirmed.

  “It had to have been taken through the window. To do that, Carl had to be high up, off the ground. Our guess is that he climbed one of the trees near the barn.”

  “Do any match the perspective in the photo?” I asked.

  “We think so,” he answered. “I finally chased away those blasted vultures. The oak they perched in has a scar from a branch that’s been cut off. Right now, the whole tree’s bare. But when it’s covered with leaves, it’s probably pretty full. Looks like a good place to hide, and removing the branch opened up a hole in the foliage big enough to aim a telephoto through to get a shot inside the nursery.”

  “Take a photo of the tree, a close-up of the gap,” I said. “Text it to me. It might come in handy.”

  “You’ve got it,” he said.

  The hospital wasn’t much by Dallas standards either, but it was all we had in our area—four stories high, redbrick with a portico out front. I parked my Suburban in the lot closest to the ER. The triage nurse behind the desk gave my muddy clothes a once-over and frowned. I should have made it a point to circle back to my room to shower and change into a uniform, but it had been a busy morning.

  “Police Chief Clara Jefferies from Alber.” I flipped my wallet open to show her my ID. “I’m here to check on a patient brought in by ambulance, Jacob Johansson.”

  The woman skimmed my photo and appeared to read the fine print as if she didn’t quite believe it. “You don’t look like your picture,” she said.

  “Not the best photo, but maybe this will help,” I said, and I smiled.

  “Well, I guess,” she said. “Let me look for his room number.”

  Minutes later, I departed the elevator on the second floor and sought out the surgery department. I thought perhaps that meant that they had Jacob in an operating room repairing his severed trachea. Instead, I followed the signs to his room number, which also led to the ICU. I stopped at the nurses’ station, where I again had to pull out my ID to introduce myself. From there, I passed through double glass doors into the intensive care unit.

  “Mr. Johansson!” I called out when I saw Jacob’s dad, Michael, walking down the hall. He glanced at me, and I thought I saw him mentally debating whether to turn and walk away. Instead, he frowned and waited.

  “How’s Jacob?” I asked.

  He shrugged, as if he wasn’t sure, but said nothing.

  When I was growing up in Alber, Michael Johansson was among our small town’s elite, high up in the church hierarchy as bishop of one of Alber’s three wards. As such, he knew the rules, including the prophet’s decree that those in good standing should shun, should not even talk to those like me, apostates who left the faith. Still, Michael, despite the way I was dressed, also undoubtedly knew that I was Alber PD’s chief and the lead on the investigation into the tragedy his family had suffered.

  The old man’s eyes were bloodshot, the only color in his long face and thin white hair. He grimaced slightly and chewed on his lower lip. Then, I guessed this was a time when it didn’t take him long to decide that secular laws and personal heartbreak overrode religious dictates.

  “Clara, I mean… Chief Jefferies,” he said with an emotional catch in his voice. “It’s good of you to…”

  He stopped, I figured not sure what to say. “Michael, it’s okay. It’s never good to see a cop when this is the situation,” I said. “I’m incredibly sorry for you and your family.”

  At that, the old man’s head drooped and he took a long, shuddering breath. He pulled a white cotton handkerchief out of his pocket and covered his eyes. I spied a bank of four chairs across the hall. I put my hand on his arm and suggested, “Let’s go over there and sit down.” He followed me, and I gave him a few minutes to wrestle back his composure.

  “It’s been… It’s so unreal that…” he started. Then he wept, and I waited. When he finally looked up at me, he pointed at my dirty jeans and changed the subject. “Were you out digging again?”

  ‘How did you know I—”

  Michael smiled, ever so slightly. “Clara Jefferies, you grew up in Alber. Things are different here, sure, but not that different. People still see. They still talk. Everyone knows about your digging. It’s gossiped about among the women. I think they find it strange.”

  All those times, I’d never noticed anyone, but they’d kept tabs on me. “Okay,” I said. “Then this will make it easy. If they’re monitoring me, they watch others as well. What rumors have you heard? What do you know?”

  “You’re talking about…?”

  “Who do you think did this?”

  Michael drew in a ragged breath. “I can’t say that I know who could be responsible for this kind of evil,” he said. “I’ve been asking myself that all day long, ever since the sheriff rang our doorbell and told Reba and me what happened at the ranch. Who would murder my sweet granddaughter, Sybille? And little Benjamin, just learning to ride his tricycle? Laurel and Anna, the kind of women who were always doing for others?”

  “You must have theories?”

  “I…” he started and I thought he might say something helpful, give me a name, but then he gulped down his words. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay, but we all have people who don’t like us. I’m sure Jacob had some enemies,” I suggested. “Who are they?”

  Michael shook his head, the tears rolled again, and he tried to brush them away, but the saturated handkerchief left shiny streaks. “Jacob and Carl were gone from Alber for years, so I don’t know of any troubles they might have had. They’ve only been home a year or so,” he said. “I never heard of any hard feelings in town or any altercations with others, certainly nothing so serious that anyone would do this horri…”

  His voice broke on the last few words.

  “You must have some possibilities in mind,” I pushed. “I need to know what you know about your son, especially who might have any reason to—”

  “Michael, tell her about Myles Thompkins.” Reba, Michael’s first wife and Jacob’s mother, blurted out. She’d walked out of the glassed-in ICU room immediately to our left and stood beside her husband in her long prairie dress.

  “We’ve known that boy his whole life, R
eba. Myles wouldn’t…” Michael objected. “Don’t say such things. Myles has never been anything but kind to us. He’d never do something so evil.”

  “How do you know?” she said, jeering at her husband. “What makes you think he wouldn’t be angry enough to try to kill our son? To slaughter Anna and our grandchildren? To take revenge against Laurel?”

  “Woman, be still,” Michael ordered. “We know his people, and they’re a good, faithful family. Casting aspersions on others, Reba, is beneath you.”

  The Thompkins family was one of Alber’s oldest. Half the town was either related to one of the Thompkins by blood or marriage. I remembered Myles from my years as a teacher at the grade school in town. An unusually shy kid with shiny dark hair and intelligent blue eyes, Myles was razor-sharp. In second grade, he tutored third and fourth graders in math. In junior high, he snuck into the high school’s chemistry lab to try out a liquid nitrogen experiment that ended up shattering a wall of windows.

  “Myles Thompkins?” I inquired. “Why would he hurt—”

  “Because he loved Laurel, and she loved him,” Reba said, casting an angry look at her husband. An angular woman, she had her gray hair anchored in a French twist in the back and it swung in an S-curve in the front, where bobby pins kept it out of her eyes. “The whole town knew those two were smitten with one another. All through high school, they planned to be together, and I wish that had happened. Myles was madder than a castrated bull when Laurel became betrothed to Jacob. I wish that girl had never wed our son.”

  “Reba, don’t say such things,” Michael objected. “Laurel was a good wife to Jacob.”

  “A reluctant wife,” Reba corrected. “Jacob asked the prophet for Laurel’s hand, and what our son got was a wife who loved another.”

  At that, Michael dropped his head and the tears came again. “Laurel was a good woman,” he whispered. “She did what the prophet instructed. She was obedient, kind, and—”

  “And probably got Jacob near killed, Anna and our beautiful grandkids dead!” Reba shouted. A doctor writing in a chart at the nurses’ station looked up as if wondering what the hubbub was about. He put his finger to his lips to hush us.

  “Did Jacob ever tell you that he had trouble with Myles?” I said softly. “Had Myles made any threats?”

  “No,” Michael insisted. “Laurel was a virtuous wife to our son, Clara. She was—”

  “Trouble,” Reba said, finishing her husband’s sentence.

  “How trouble?” I asked.

  “I don’t know how, but she was,” she insisted. “When you have a man who loves a woman like Myles Thompkins loved Laurel, and she marries another, there’s bound to be bad blood.”

  “Reba, please!” her husband begged. “Gossip is the devil’s work.”

  “This isn’t gossip, Michael,” I explained. “If I’m going to solve this case, I need to know everything you and Reba can tell me that might lead me to the killer.”

  “But it’s not true,” Michael pleaded. “Laurel would never have kept up a relationship with another man. Any other man. The murders have nothing to do with that.”

  “How do we know?” his wife pushed, her voice coarse with emotion and her lips curling in anger. “We weren’t there to see what happened, were we?”

  “We know because that wasn’t our daughter-in-law,” Michael said. “Laurel did nothing to bring this terrible event to bear.”

  I wondered what to think, who to believe, and then Reba Johansson said, “If Myles and Laurel weren’t still involved with each other, why were they together just two days ago? On Saturday.”

  “Myles and Laurel were together? On Saturday?” I repeated.

  “We have no first-hand knowledge of this, but, yes, that’s what we heard,” Michael conceded.

  “Heard from whom?” I asked.

  “One of your mothers, Clara. Naomi Jefferies saw them together. She told us,” Reba said. “You just missed her. She was here to check on Jacob. She only left fifteen minutes or so ago to go work at her hives.”

  “Naomi was here?” I asked, wondering why she would come to the hospital when she’d been in such a hurry to return the van to my mother.

  “Yes, she was,” Michael said. “She still had Jacob’s blood on her dress. She didn’t even go home to change, because she was so worried about our son. We were glad to be able to express our gratitude when she explained how she’d saved his life.”

  “And she just left how long ago?” I asked.

  “A short time ago,” Reba confirmed. “You’re lucky to have her as one of your mothers, Clara. Naomi is a righteous woman.”

  I felt uncertain. Why would Naomi have come to the hospital? It seemed like an odd thing to do under the circumstances, and to not have even taken time to change out of her bloody dress.

  At that moment, Carl Shipley angled his head out of the doorway and fixed his eyes on Reba. “Jacob moaned,” Carl said. “I think he’s coming out of it.”

  “Oh!” Reba released a small cry, and we all jumped up and rushed into the room. The doctor saw us and followed us in. I stood off to the side, out of the way but close enough to hear anything Jacob might say. His eyes remained closed. Monitors tracked his oxygen, his heartbeat, his pulse. The slit in his trachea had been cleaned up, the edges bandaged, but it remained open, and he made the same horrible gasping sound with each breath.

  “What did he do that you thought he might be coming out of it?” the doctor asked.

  “A noise kind of like this,” Carl said, imitating a long, drawn-out groan. “I said his name, and, I’m not sure, but I thought that his eyes moved behind the lids. There was kind of a flutter.”

  The doctor took a penlight from the pocket of his blue scrubs, flicked it on, and then pried open Jacob’s eyelids and assessed his pupils. He moved the light from one eye to the other to see if Jacob’s eyes reacted. Whatever the doctor saw, it made his frown grow. He turned off the light and slipped it back into his pocket. “The sound he made was probably just a muscular reaction,” he said. “He’s still unconscious.”

  “Is it a good sign, that he made some kind of a noise?” Reba asked. She’d moved over to stand next to Carl, and they had their arms protectively around one another, like a mother might with a son.

  “It’s too early to tell how much damage your son has suffered,” the doctor said. “Jacob lost a lot of blood.”

  “Oh, dear Lord! Our boy. Our boy,” Michael cried, and rushed from the room.

  “Husband,” Reba called out, letting go of Carl and trailing after him. “Don’t run off. Jacob needs us. Come here.”

  After they left, I took out my ID and showed it to the physician. “Has Jacob been conscious at all? Has he said anything, maybe on the ambulance? Or here in the room, to one of the nurses, to anyone on the staff?”

  “No,” the doctor said. “Although even if he did regain consciousness, speaking would be impossible with the injury to his trachea. We can’t repair it until we’re sure he didn’t suffer damage to his airway. Right now, that opening is keeping him alive.”

  “But has he communicated or tried to communicate in any way?” I asked.

  “Not that I know of,” the doctor said. “My understanding is that he’s been unconscious since shortly after he was found.”

  I thanked him, the doctor left, and I was suddenly alone with Carl, who held his friend’s hand and stared down at him with a forlorn look.

  “Tell me about the tree and the ornaments,” I said. “A bit unusual in these parts, don’t you think?”

  At first Carl gave me a suspicious glance, as if he wasn’t sure how to respond, but then let loose a rousing laugh that seemed out of place with his best friend beside him, hovering somewhere between life and death. “That’s what you want to know?” he jeered. “Really, Chief. You’re worried about my little bit of fun in the woods?”

  “It’s rather an odd thing to run into while executing a search warrant,” I said. “And yes, I’m curious. Why did you do i
t? What does it represent?”

  Carl snickered and stood straighter, ignoring the bursts of foaming blood bubbling from Jacob’s throat each time he took a breath. “So what? I brought a few mementoes from Mexico, and I like having fun, enjoy the idea that someone might see it and wonder, what the heck,” he said. “Jacob and me lived there a long time, and Anna, too. I got into the culture. They aren’t as afraid of death as we are. I admire that.”

  “That’s all?” I asked. He nodded and I added, “Looks fairly fresh, not like it’s been there for a long time. I’d guess that you just put it up in the past few weeks?”

  “A couple of weeks ago,” he said. “Around Día de Muertos. Why?”

  “No reason,” I said. “But it seems like an odd coincidence to cover a tree with skeletons and skulls just before your friend’s family is slaughtered.”

  At that, Carl swallowed, hard, and this time he didn’t laugh. “Listen, you’re making a molehill into a mountain. It’s nothing,” he said. “Just a little fun.”

  I nodded and took out my phone, checked to make sure I had Max’s text. Watching his face, I asked, “Then let’s move on, Carl. Did Jacob know that you were stalking Laurel?”

  Except for squeezing Jacob’s hand tighter, Carl didn’t react. Instead he leaned over, rubbed his other hand over the dark blond stubble on Jacob’s cheek and said, “I didn’t do any such thing. I respected Laurel. She was Jacob’s wife.”

  “Did you take pictures of her?” I asked.

  He glanced over at me, and I saw a flash of anger in his eyes. “Yes,” he said, his voice defiant. “I like to take photos. I take a lot of them. Of a lot of people. And I did take some of her.”

  “You have an entire album of photographs of Laurel, most of which look like she didn’t know you were taking them.” I turned my phone around and showed him the screen with the photo of Laurel nursing Jeremy.

  “It’s a beautiful photo.” If he was shocked that we’d found the album hidden in his trailer, he didn’t show it. “Why wouldn’t I take that?”

  “You climbed a tree, cut down a limb and took this one through the window,” I pointed out, as I flipped to the photo of the tree with the missing branch. “Why would you do that?”