by Debra Webb
“Someone tampered with your personal vehicle that morning, and you and Chief Burnett believe it was Captain Allen, is that correct?”
“I believe it was him, yes.” She smiled at his blatant attempt to trap her into saying what he wanted to hear. “I can’t speak for anyone else.”
“You and Captain Allen had disagreements on several occasions, Chief Harris. At any time, did he make any threats to you? Did you report any threats to Chief Burnett?”
“On July 29, I entered a house Captain Allen’s Task Force had under surveillance to question Salvadore Lopez. Captain Allen was unhappy with my decision to do so. He informed Burnett about the incident, not me.”
“There were other incidents.”
Oh, yes. Several. “On August fifth, we were investigating a scene where two low level drug dealers were murdered with a similar MO to the Grayson murder, which I was investigating at the time. Captain Allen didn’t care for my line of questioning relative to Detectives Grayson and Riley. Allen made that quite clear.” She opted to leave out the part he’d insinuated about her relationship with Burnett being the reason she had her position as well as his warning that she didn’t have any friends in the department.
“Did you report this incident to Chief Burnett?”
“I did not. I’m a big girl, Chief Black. I don’t go running to the boss every time someone disagrees with me or with my methods. Allen is entitled to his opinions and conclusions.”
“So you were well aware of his dislike for how you handle your investigations, is that correct?”
Jess shrugged. “He planted a bomb in the department car I was supposed to use. I was very well aware, yes.”
“You had no contact with Captain Allen at any time other than the incidents we have discussed?”
“I did not. Typically, Sergeant Harper contacted him if we were on a case that involved the Gang Task Force. Allen and I didn’t interact often.”
Black closed the folder in front of him. “Thank you, Chief Harris. If we need anything else, we will contact you. As you know, we’re still searching for leads on the case.”
Jess picked up her bag and left the room without saying more. There was nothing to say. Captain Ted Allen had been dirty. Whether the investigation ever proved it or not, there was no other explanation for him tampering with her car or for planting a bomb in the department vehicle assigned to her. The only question was why had he decided Jess was his enemy? Yes, she had encroached into his territory, but she hadn’t disrupted his surveillance or anything else. Well, not unless you counted telling Leonardo Lopez, the top West Coast drug lord, what his errant children were up to down here in Birmingham.
The one conclusion that made sense was the idea that Allen had been in bed with Salvadore Lopez, Leonardo’s son who’d been handling the drug shipments in Birmingham for years. On that score, Jess had waltzed in and crashed the party for Salvadore. Her actions should have been considered a good thing. Apparently, Allen had seen it differently.
“Chief Harris!”
Jess had almost reached the bank of elevators when Detective Hendrix caught up with her. Ignoring him, she pressed the button and watched the numbers light up over the doors.
“All I need is a moment of your time, Chief.”
“I’m in a hurry, Detective. What can I do for you?”
“You really shouldn’t go into a meeting like that without union representation,” he chastised. “That’s what I’m here for, Chief. I can protect your rights.”
“I appreciate your concern, Detective Hendrix, but I’m not worried. I told the truth. There’s nothing in Chief Black’s investigation to protect me from.”
Hendrix glanced around before leaning closer. “I wish you’d talk to Chief Burnett.” He shook his head. “Whether he wants to admit it or not, he’s in real trouble. He needs the union behind him.”
Jess smiled though she doubted it appeared anymore sincere than it felt. “I’m afraid you’ll need to speak with Chief Burnett about those concerns.” The chime sounded signaling the elevator had arrived. “Good day, Detective.”
She supposed she should have allowed Hendrix to escort her back to the office since she wasn’t supposed to go anywhere—not even from office to office—alone. Just this once wouldn’t hurt.
Before she could board the elevator, her cell rang. She didn’t recognize the number. “Harris.”
“Chief, we finally located the owner of the Impala.”
Sheriff Foster. At this rate, she was going to have to add him to her contact list. “Have you questioned him?” She changed her mind about the elevator, not wanting to risk the call dropping, and headed for the stairwell.
“He’s dead. So is his girlfriend. We’re at the scene now. I thought you might want to head this way. It looks like there might be a connection to you beyond that note after all.”
“I’ll be there as quickly as possible, Sheriff. Thank you for calling.”
Two hours. There was no way to get to Scottsboro more quickly without a helicopter. The department had one but Black would accuse her of wasting department resources.
Jess hurried down to the SPU office. Cook and Hayes should already be in Scottsboro by now at the Brownfield farm. Harper was tracking down what Henshaw had been up to the past couple of months and Lori was checking into McPherson’s background. There was something more going on with McPherson. Whatever Buddy knew or thought he knew he obviously wasn’t ready to share it yet.
SPU resources were spread thin. While Black and Roark were overseeing the coordination of resources and information related to the Spears investigation with the Bureau, Jess and her team were scrambling to put together the pieces that connected Spears to the homicides related to her past. Sadly, all those resources were coming up with zero. Based on previous experience, they could have an army of investigators and Spears wouldn’t be caught unless he wanted to be. He would continue his game until he had accomplished what he wanted, and then he would disappear.
Not this time, Spears.
Jess ran into Hayes outside her office door.
“You’re back.” He acted surprised to see her.
“I thought you and Cook would be in Jackson County by now.” Had something else happened that she hadn’t heard about?
“Detective Wells wanted to go with Cook.” Hayes lifted one shoulder in a blasé shrug. “She said something about needing to have a second look inside the farmhouse. Is that a problem?”
“No.” Jess frowned, hating that the reaction would only add more lines to her face. “I’m just surprised she didn’t check in with me first.” Jess appreciated having a team she could trust to follow through and make the necessary decisions. Lori had earned her trust and respect. Harper and Cook had as well. Hayes was a work in progress. He had pulled a stunt or two that had her wondering if he wanted to make it through his six-month probationary period in SPU. He was a good detective and a very intelligent man. She had high hopes he would curb that slightly arrogant attitude and toe the line. Until then, she wouldn’t be giving him the same leeway she gave the others who had earned that privilege.
“Cook needed to get on the road and we weren’t sure how long you’d be,” Hayes offered by way of explanation for the change in plans.
“No problem. I’ll check with Lori later.” Her stomach warned she should have had more than yogurt this morning. A handful of the M&Ms she carried in her bag would have to do. “We’re headed that way as well, Lieutenant. Sheriff Foster found the owner of the Impala.”
“Has the owner given up anything yet?” Hayes grabbed his suit jacket and started toward the door where Jess waited.
“The owner’s dead. We’ll have to find our answers without his help.”
Hayes hesitated at the door, probably because she kept standing there staring at the case board and all those photos of dead people—murder victims. Then there was her father and Amanda... and Maddie.
“Was there something else before we go?”
Je
ss blinked, then shook her head. “I’m ready, Lieutenant.”
Before this day was done, she intended to visit Maddie. Jess knew exactly how it felt to suddenly be taken from all you knew. That little girl needed to see a familiar face.
In the parking garage, she settled into the passenger seat of Hayes’ Audi and fastened her seatbelt. Her hands lingered at her waist. She’d had a heck of a time fastening her skirt this morning. Before long, she was going to have to retire her few and favorite suits, like this brown one, until post pregnancy.
Shopping couldn’t be ignored forever.
As soon as she got caught up, she had to make that happen.
By then she might be naked.
South Houston Street, Scottsboro, 12:35 p.m.
Eli Mooney, Caucasian, sixty-seven, and his girlfriend, Marla Skelton, Caucasian, sixty-two, had been dead at least twenty-four hours. Their home was a small cottage style house with generous porches on the front and back. The yard was a little overgrown and, at the moment, cluttered with official vehicles.
Inside there was lots of wood paneling and vinyl flooring throughout. Gun racks and mounted deer heads hung on the walls of the living room. A survey of the kitchen revealed a generous supply of beer in the fridge and a freezer packed with venison. A good hunter was proud of his kill and never wasted the animal. According to one of the deputies, Mooney was an experienced hunter as well as a skilled taxidermist.
The tables had turned at some point yesterday, and Mooney and his girlfriend had become the prey.
Fully clothed in jeans and a tank top, his girlfriend, Skelton, had a single gunshot wound to the back of the head, execution style, up close with a small caliber weapon. Probably a .22. She lay face down on the kitchen floor.
The smell of blood and feces was intense. Dressed in cut-off shorts and a T-shirt, Mooney was seated at the table. His right arm was braced on the tabletop with a beer in his hand. Blood had sprayed across the table and pooled on the floor around his chair.
The killer had painstakingly sutured Mooney’s lips, and then with a single deep stroke of a blade, opened his throat from one carotid artery to the other.
Foster had kept the evidence techs out until Jess arrived. Hayes was videoing the scene with his cell phone while Jess studied the killer’s work.
“Looks like the murder weapon in the sink.”
Jess had a look at the bloody hunting knife lying against the stained white porcelain. “I’ll bet he didn’t leave us any prints.”
Hayes chuckled. “I’d say that’s a given.”
Jess returned to the table and checked the victim’s hand clutching the can of beer. “His fingers were glued to ensure they stayed in place.” The same method used on the reverend’s hands.
Since retiring as the high school janitor, Mooney supplemented his income as a taxidermist with most of his business from local hunters. Lately, people had started bringing their deceased pets to him as well, opening up a new market and source of revenue.
Jess needed to see if there was anything in his mouth. For that, she needed the coroner. “Sheriff, can you call the coroner? I’d like him to remove these sutures so we can see if there’s anything inside Mr. Mooney’s mouth.”
“Adams just rolled up, Chief. I’ll have one of my deputies get him on in here for you.”
“Thank you, Sheriff.”
While Foster gave the order via his radio, Jess studied the victim. Like Henshaw, Mooney’s mouth had been sewn shut while he was still alive. The blood trail down his chin and throat left no question. The can of beer, a Bud Light likely from the twelve pack in the fridge, was unopened.
“Where did Mr. Mooney do his taxidermy work?” Jess asked when Foster had tucked his radio away. If he had a shop at a different location, Jess wanted to have a look there as well.
“There’s a workshop out back. My deputies are checking it out now.” Foster shook his head. “Other than a few barroom brawls and the occasional traffic violation, Mooney was never in any kind of trouble. I can’t figure out how he got mixed up in whatever the hell this is.”
Jess wished she knew the answer to that one as well.
Foster’s radio crackled. He pulled it free of his utility belt. “Did you find something, Woods?”
“You better come on out here and see this for yourself, Sheriff,” came the deputy’s response. “Bring those Birmingham cops, too. This is crazy, Sheriff.”
“On our way.” Foster winced. “Sounds like he’s a little excited.”
“I’m certain they don’t see crime scenes like this every day.” Jess remembered her first big crime scene. Three men had robbed a bank, and then couldn’t agree on how to split the proceeds. They’d ended up killing each other.
On the far side of the kitchen was a door that led to the back porch. Jess paused long enough to remove her shoe covers but kept the gloves on. She hurried across the porch and backyard to keep up with Hayes and Foster’s long strides. The workshop sat about thirty yards behind the house. At the door, she and Hayes donned more shoe covers though no one else bothered. It was too late to do anything about that now.
The building appeared to be one large room. Shelves filled with the various tanning chemicals and preservatives Mooney used in his work lined one wall. Examples of his taxidermy work: a bobcat, a couple of squirrels, a rattlesnake, and a deer head were mounted on the opposite wall. A long metal worktable occupied the center of the room. On the far end of the workshop were large metal sinks, the kind used in restaurants. Next to the sink was another door. The two deputies who’d been exploring the building waited there.
“You’re not gonna believe this.” A deputy—Woods, Jess recognized his voice—motioned to the door. A pair of bolt cutters lay on the floor alongside a lock that had been cut free. “We didn’t go inside,” Woods, said. “We just looked and... well, see for yourself.”
Hayes led the way through the door with Jess close behind him. There was another table in the center of this room, but this one looked more like the ones found in an embalming room. On closer inspection, Jess decided it was an embalming table. More shelves lined the wall beyond the table. Glass jars of varying sizes stood on the shelves. As her brain registered what floated in those many, many jars, Jess reminded herself to breathe. Organs... body parts. Human. She moved toward the shelves, needing a better look to make sure what she saw was the real thing.
Human hands, feet, hearts, ears, eyeballs... definitely real.
“Chief.”
Slowly, hardly able to take her eyes from the rows and rows of human parts, she turned to face Hayes. He was staring at the wall that separated this room from the rest of the building. She’d been so focused on the embalming table and then the jars, she hadn’t looked back to see what was on that wall as she entered the room.
For one second, she stood there staring. Mounted on the wall in different poses were bodies—human bodies. There were three young women, one middle-aged man, and one elderly woman. All were nude and perfectly preserved.
“Holy hell,” Foster muttered as he and his deputies came through the door to see what had captured Jess’s attention.
“That right there,” Deputy Woods said, pointing at the older woman, “is his momma. She died last year.”
“Do you recognize the others?” Jess asked, her voice sounding a little hollow. It had been a while since she’d run into a Norman Bates wannabe.
“Not right off,” Foster admitted. He turned to his deputy. “We’re going to need some of those forensic fellas from Huntsville, too.”
“Sheriff!”
The guy who rushed into the room was a forensic tech, Jess decided. His T-shirt was emblazoned with CSI Guys Do it Best.
“Did Adams find something?”
The tech held up an evidence bag. “He pulled this note from Mooney’s mouth.”
Jess moved toward Foster as he took the bag. He shook his head and passed it to her. She read the words handwritten by Spears. Quite a nasty fellow, this one. He�
�s been keeping a little something for you, Jess.
Jess passed the note to Hayes for documentation before walking back to the other side of the room to inventory the jars. If Mooney was keeping something for her, she had a bad feeling it was in one of these jars.
Something similar to a label appeared to be attached to the back of each jar. She reached for one, lifted it from the shelf, and turned it around. The label was actually a Polaroid photo. Her pulse started racing as she checked more of the jars. Some of the people in the photos wore clothes from decades gone by. One or two Jess was sure she recognized from the photos found in the lockbox at the Brownfield farm. Had Mooney been a friend of Amanda’s grandfather?
Hayes joined her.
“Lieutenant, call Agent Gant and let him know what we’ve found here.”
“Making the call now.”
“I don’t understand this.” The sheriff’s face looked as somber as his voice sounded. “How could all this have been going on for so long in my county without me hearing something?”
“We rarely recognize the face of evil,” Jess assured him, “unless we catch it in the act or find some evidence that leads us to it.”
While Hayes updated Gant, Jess continued to inventory the jars, snapping photos of the contents as well as the Polaroids with her cell phone. When she reached the next row, she hesitated. “Sheriff, do you know if Mooney was related to the Brownfield family?” If not, maybe the family business extended to friends. There had to be a connection.
“Hell if I know,” Foster confessed. “It’s a small town. Everyone knows everyone else. At least that’s what I’ve always thought. I guess I didn’t know some as well as I thought.”
“Chief.” Hayes had concluded his call and had stalled at the other end of the row of shelves Jess was currently working her way down.
Though he and Jess hadn’t worked together for that long, she instinctively recognized the combination of dread and disbelief on his face.
She closed the distance between them, her nerves fraying a little more with each step. A sticky note was fixed to the wide-mouth quart jar that had caught his attention. The note, again handwritten by Spears, was for her.
