Dead Woman Crossing

by J. R. Adler

  “Did you know about the moonshine?” Kimberley pried.

  Nicole stopped what she was doing and looked at Kimberley. “No, of course not.”

  “Did David?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Kimberley took a sip of coffee. “Did you ask him?”

  “No. Why would I do that?” Nicole put a hand on her hip.

  “Because it’s illegal. Wouldn’t you want to know if he was involved?”

  “I’m not the bad guy here, Kimberley.”

  “I didn’t say you were, but neither am I. Yet people seem to forget that.” Kimberley drained the rest of her mug.

  “No one thinks you’re the bad guy.”

  “Okay, Mom,” she said sarcastically, smoothing out her shirt. “I’ve got to get to work.”

  Nicole nodded. “Can I drop Jessica off for you?”

  There was a pleading in her voice and eyes, so Kimberley agreed with a nod. She knew her mother wanted as much time with Jessica as she could get, so she decided to throw a bone to sweeten the deal. “Mind picking her up too? I’m sure I’ll be working late.”

  Nicole’s eyes lit up. “Of course. I’d love to.”

  Kimberley walked over to Jessica and leaned down, planting a kiss on her rosy cheek. “Bye, sweetie. Mommy loves you.”

  Jessica giggled. “Love you, Ma-meee,” she sounded out.

  “We’ve been working on that,” Nicole said with a wink.

  “Good morning, Barb,” Kimberley greeted as she walked into the front area of Custer County Sheriff’s Office. “Can you get me the number for Houston Police Department?”

  “Of course. Right away!” Barb said eagerly. Her fingers tapped away on the keyboard.

  Kimberley stood there, watching Barb. She couldn’t help but let on a small smile. She had been thoroughly impressed by her.

  “Got it!”

  “Perfect. Walk with me.”

  Barb quickly scribbled down the number and came out from behind her desk, following Kimberley through the set of doors, out onto the deputies’ floor.

  Hill, Burns, and Bearfield sat at their desks, each of them working on some aspect of the Hannah Brown case. All eyes were on Kimberley as soon as she entered, as if they thought she had news to deliver. When she didn’t make eye contact with any of them and kept walking, there was an almost audible groan as they got back to work. Everyone wanted to solve this case.

  Kimberley entered her office, setting her tote bag on the floor beside her desk. Barbara followed behind.

  Kimberley handed Barb her cell phone. “Go ahead and patch me through.”

  She quickly punched in the numbers and handed it back to Kimberley with a smile. Kimberley held the phone to her ear as it rang over and over again.

  “Houston Police Department, this is Officer Cariello speaking.”

  “Hi, Officer Cariello. This is Chief Deputy Kimberley King of Custer County Sheriff’s Office over in Oklahoma. I’m conducting a murder investigation, and I’m trying to get ahold of one of your residents. I’d like some Houston PD assistance locating and making contact with a Tyler Louis, born on May sixteenth, 1991.”

  “Is he a suspect?”

  “He’s a person of interest.”

  “Alright, you said Tyler Louis, May sixteenth, 1991?”

  “That’s correct.”

  “I’ll have an officer locate Mr. Louis and give you a call back as soon as we know something.”

  “Thanks. I appreciate it,” Kimberley said, ending the call.

  Barb smiled. “Well, let me get you some coffee and a snack. You’ll need all the energy and brain power for this case.”

  “That’d be great. But why don’t you go ahead and join Sheriff Walker and I in the conference room in say fifteen minutes. Have Burns cover the front desk,” Kimberley said, gathering a stack of files, binders, and notebooks into a box.

  Barb’s eyes lit up. “Of course.” She smiled and nearly skipped out of the room.

  Kimberley carried the box next door to Sam’s office. He was sitting at his computer, sipping coffee.

  “I think it’s time we set up the burn room,” Kimberley said.

  She immediately walked away toward the lone conference room that rarely seemed to be in use. It had a long table with chairs all around it, fit for fourteen, six on each side and one on each end. There was a massive dry-erase board on the left wall and a bulletin board on the right wall. Kimberley dropped the box on the table.

  “Burn room?” Sam stood in the door frame behind her, holding his cup of coffee.

  “If you don’t want a case to run cold, you set up a burn room. It’s a dumb homicide joke, but essentially it’s a place where everyone working the case gathers and where we can lay out what we know and what we don’t know.”

  Sam looked out at the deputy floor. Bearfield and Hill were sitting at their desks. “Bear and Hill. Get in here. We’re setting up a burn room,” Sam said.

  Bearfield and Hill gave each other a quizzical look, but started packing up their things to join Sam and Kimberley.

  Kimberley started pulling everything out of her box, hanging up photos of the crime scene on the bulletin board, writing on the whiteboard.

  Kimberley wrote “Hannah” on the board and started writing all the names of people connected to her around it, alongside how those people were connected, forming a type of spiderweb by linking the names with lines.

  “What’s that?”

  “Her web… that we know of. Who she’s connected to and how those people are connected to one another,” Kimberley explained while she wrote her own name on the board, drawing a single line to Hannah’s name. It was a small connection as they had only met a few times, but it was still a connection.

  Sam took a sip of his coffee and set the mug down on the table. He reached inside the box and pulled out the stack of notebooks that ghost tour Kent had given them.

  “Have you gone through these?” he asked.

  Kimberley turned her head and looked over at Sam. She nodded. “Skimmed.”

  “I think we need to start here.” He set the notebooks on the table.

  Kimberley capped her dry-erase marker and set it on the metal lip of the whiteboard.

  “Why?”

  “Just a hunch.”

  “Does this hunch have anything to do with the fact that you don’t think one of your own could have committed murder?” Kimberley raised an eyebrow.

  “Not at all.”

  “You know the stats on homicide, right?”

  “Yeah, Kimberley, I do. Eleven percent committed by strangers. You may think I’m some hillbilly sheriff, but regardless, I am the sheriff.” He raised his chin in a challenging way. “You can either fall in line or you can step out of it. Your choice.”

  Kimberley crossed her arms in front of her chest. She had no idea where this was coming from. Sam had been so agreeable with her, respectful of her, but now he was challenging her as if they weren’t on the same team. She studied his face. He didn’t have the same sternness mixed with a jovial look. His eyes were strained, bloodshot like he hadn’t slept. Her eyes dropped to his shoulders, which were slightly raised, tense. His chest puffed out. Kimberley tapped her foot on the ground steadily, like it was the heartbeat of her burn room. She considered arguing with him, but he seemed like he was already in a battle with himself.

  Bearfield and Hill entered the room, taking seats around the conference table. They dropped their laptops and files on the table, looking at Sam and then Kimberley who were in a tense stare-down with one another.

  “I’ve got snacks and coffee,” Barb said, walking in with a tray full of donuts, napkins, a carafe of coffee and five mugs. She smiled at Kimberley, then at Sam and then Bear and Hill.

  “I’ve asked Barb to sit in with us.” Kimberley slightly raised her chin.

  Sam chewed on her words for a moment.

  “Alright.” He nodded, letting Kimberley win this one, but he wasn’t backing down just yet when it came t
o suspects.

  Barb set the tray down and passed out donuts and cups of coffee. Sam took a seat at the head of the table while Kimberley and Barb sat on either side.

  “Who’s watching the front desk?” Sam raised an eyebrow.

  “Oh, Deputy Burns. He’s been a pain in my ass,” Barb said.

  Sam gave a small grin.

  “Let’s start with the notebooks,” Kimberley said, entertaining Sam. She handed one to each person.

  “What are we looking for?” Sam asked.

  “You tell me. This was your idea. Your hunch.” Kimberley smirked.

  Sam leaned back in his chair and rubbed his chin. “Well, I’d say we look at the last six months. See if any of the people in here have criminal records, something that’d look suspicious.” He patted his hand on the spiral notebook. “Maybe a history of violence, something like that. But first, Hill, you got the information compiled on motels and Airbnbs?”

  Hill nodded, pulling a file folder from the stack in front of him. He slid it down the table to Sam. “It’s all in there. Anyone that’s stayed in the area for the last six months.”

  “Anything suspicious?” Sam opened the folder.

  “Nothing that stuck out.”

  “We’ll cross-reference the information in Kent’s ghost tour spirals with this then.” Sam flipped through the pages.

  Kimberley nodded. “Alright, then.” She pulled her laptop out of the box and opened it up. “Kent said these notebooks account for the last twelve months, so you just want to look at the last six?” she confirmed.

  “Yeah, we’ll start there. I’m especially curious about the last six to twelve weeks.” Sam took a sip of his coffee.

  Kimberley reached for the other notebooks and began flipping through them, looking at the dates starting six months prior and quickly making her way to recent weeks and months. She noticed the pages were full six months ago, but at four months there were half-pages of names. At three months, only a quarter of the page was filled on average. At two months, only a few names. And in the last month, the pages were all blank.

  “Look at this, the month leading up to Hannah Brown’s murder, there’s nothing. Not a single person took the tour.” Kimberley flipped the blank pages quickly, showing Sam.

  “Did he just stop having people signing in?” Bearfield asked, flipping through his own spiral.

  “I’m not sure, but I suggest we find out. Because if that’s the case, this is pretty pointless.”

  Sam pulled out his phone from his utility belt and scrolled through it. He clicked a couple of buttons and put it on speaker as it began to ring.

  “Hey, Kent. Sam here. We’re going through those notebooks you provided, and we seem to be missing some information,” he said.

  Sam was silent for a moment.

  “What’s that? I gave y’all everything,” Kent said.

  “The last four weeks, you’ve got no names. Not a single person.”

  “Yeah, it’s been rough. Business slowed way down. Has been slowing down for months.”

  “You’re telling me you didn’t give a tour to a single person the four weeks leading up to the murder?”

  “I reckon that’s correct. It’s been brutal.”

  “And why didn’t you mention this when we were there?”

  Kent let out a sigh. “I don’t know. It’s embarrassing and I didn’t think it was important. Plus, that’s my business.”

  “Alright. Thanks for taking my call, Kent.”

  Sam set the phone down and took a deep breath.

  “So, business had been slow,” Kimberley said. She had picked up enough from the call on Sam’s end to put two and two together.

  “No, it had been nonexistent.” Sam rubbed his face as if he were trying to rub life back into it.

  “You still want to go through these notebooks?” Kimberley tossed hers on the table.

  “Yeah, may as well. We don’t have anything else to go on.”

  “Bearfield and Hill, will you take the first six months of notebooks and run all the names through our criminal database? Anything that pulls, I want to see it right away.”

  The deputies nodded, opening up their laptops and flipping through the spirals.

  Kimberley didn’t see the point in any of this. This was supposed to be the burn room, but with Sam’s shortness and abrasiveness, it was becoming like a walk-in freezer to Kimberley.

  She opened up a notebook, logged into the criminal database on her laptop, and started running the names through it too. The sooner she got Sam’s wild-goose chase done, the sooner she could focus on actually solving Hannah Brown’s murder.

  Sam stood up and left the room without a word. Kimberley was unsure if he’d return and with the way he’d been acting, she hoped he wouldn’t. But less than five minutes later, he reentered the room with his laptop. He got to work running the names through the criminal database on his computer as well, not saying a word.

  “How do we know these people wrote down their real names?” Kimberley asked.

  “We don’t.” He didn’t look up at her. His response was curt.

  “What can I help with?” Barb asked.

  “Coffee,” Sam said, pushing his cup toward her.

  Barb pursed her lips but picked up the carafe and filled his cup anyway.

  Kimberley looked over at Barb and then at Sam. Something was wrong, because he wasn’t just being rude and short with Kimberley. He was doing it to Barb too.

  An hour or so in, all the notebooks combined had produced a decent quantity of hits, but none so far that would suggest murder. Almost everything had related to speeding, drunk driving, late child-support payments, and petty theft. The most severe cases of battery and domestic abuse cases were often spurred on by fits of drunken stupor and were messy and loud ordeals, nothing like the calculated cleanliness of the scene at hand. Bearfield and Hill had packed up to go and patrol as there wasn’t much else for them to do here.

  Sam leaned back in his chair. Kimberley matched his stance, leaning back in hers. Barbara was still combing through the notebooks. She wanted to double-check everything, although Kimberley didn’t know exactly what she was double-checking, but she appreciated the effort.

  “Alright, I’m going to head out. I’ll pick this back up tomorrow,” Sam said, standing up from his chair.

  Kimberley looked at her watch. It was a little after three in the afternoon, quite early for Sam to be leaving work, especially since there was an unsolved murder in his town. Kimberley shook her head, trying to shake Sam and the day off of her. He had been rude all afternoon, so she was glad to see him go. Maybe he’d be better tomorrow.

  “I’m surprised he came in at all,” Barb said, looking up from the notebook.

  “What do you mean? Is he sick?” Kimberley leaned forward in her chair, tilting her head.

  He hadn’t seemed sick, but maybe Sam was one of those tough guys that didn’t look sick, injured, or hurt, even when they were.

  “It’s just a tough day for him,” Barb said, flipping a page.

  Kimberley furrowed her brow.

  “Why? What’s today?” she pried.

  “It’s not my story to tell. I’ll pass out the cookies, but not the tea. Isn’t that what them younglings call it these days?” she said with a laugh.

  Kimberley pursed her lips together.

  “Oh, I’ve gotta go pick up my grandson. I’ll come in early tomorrow to go over these again.” Barbara said, rising from her chair.

  Kimberley was too wrapped up in thinking about Sam and her case to say anything other than, “Sure.”

  Barb told Kimberley to have a good night before collecting her things and leaving.

  She turned her chair around, facing the whiteboard. Hannah’s name was in the center and her web of people around her—co-workers, Kimberley, Isobel, Tyler, daycare center staff, her mom Lisa. She could see the problem right in front of her. They knew nothing about Hannah Brown.

  Her cell phone rang and she q
uickly answered it.

  “Chief Deputy King.”

  “Hey, this is Officer Cariello from Houston Police Department. Apologies for the delay. Took a while to track down Mr. Tyler Louis. We spoke to one of his neighbors. Tyler’s out on an offshore oil platform, thirty miles off the coast. He’s completely unreachable.”

  “Shit. When will he be reachable?”

  “He’s due back on land tomorrow afternoon.”

  Kimberley breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Good. Can you make sure he calls me?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “I appreciate it, Officer Cariello. You have a good night,” Kimberley said, ending the call.

  She looked down at her watch. Somehow, she had gotten so caught up in the case and Sam that it was now after five. There was nothing more she was going to accomplish tonight. She was just going around and around in circles, like she was on a merry-go-round that never stopped. Everything was a blur and just out of reach. She packed up her stuff and headed out of the office to her Ford.

  26

  At the four-way stop, Kimberley glanced over at The Trophy Room. It had reopened, which she figured it would, since Ryan had made bail earlier in the day. There were a few men standing outside—the same men that were there every night, their faces engulfed in puffs of smoke. Kimberley glanced at the parking lot, spotting Sam’s vehicle. What in the hell was he doing at The Trophy Room? She put her foot on the gas, but at the last minute, jerked her car left, pulling into the lot. Kimberley parked her car right beside Sam’s vehicle. She wasn’t sure what it was he was doing here, but she was going to find out.

  Kimberley stared down the men as she walked past them into the bar. Two of them averted their eyes, the others stood their ground, puffing out their chests, raising their chins, and narrowing their eyes. They knew who she was, and Kimberley was sure they held her responsible for having their precious watering hole closed for one night.

  Entering the bar was the same as the past couple of times. These places never changed. The same townies frequented them. They sat in their same spots. Country music played on the jukebox, the same musicians from Alan Jackson to Garth Brooks. The same poker machine was still broken. The same men played a game of pool. The same women lingered nearby. The same dipshit Ryan tended bar. There was only one thing different, out of place, and that was Sam, who was bellied up to the bar with a glass of whiskey that was half full.