Kill and Run (A Thorny Rose Mystery Book 1)

by Lauren Carr

  Murphy squatted down next to the body. On the floor under the table, he saw a forty-five caliber semi-automatic with an evidence catalog number next to it. “Have your people processed this gun yet?”

  “Yes,” Wu said. “We haven’t run the registration number yet, though. It’s been photographed.”

  “Then can I examine it?”

  “You’re asking?”

  “Yes,” Murphy said. “Until I say otherwise, this is your scene. You’re in charge.”

  He heard a “humph” before Lieutenant Wu replied, “An officer and a gentleman. Go ahead.”

  Murphy crawled under the table to retrieve the gun and check the magazine.

  “The victim’s name is Donna Crenshaw,” the detective reported while Murphy examined the weapon under the table. “Petty officer at the Navy Yard. She has a concealed carry permit and a forty-five caliber semi-automatic Smith and Wesson registered in her name.”

  “It’s a Smith and Wesson. Could be hers. Three rounds missing from the mag.” He sniffed the gun. “Recently fired.” Crawling back out from under the table, Murphy noticed three bullet holes in the wall under the staircase leading up to the next level. “Assuming those bullet holes were made by this gun, she got off three shots before the killer took her out.” He carefully placed the gun back where he had found it.

  Next to one of the overturned chairs, Murphy saw a smart phone. It also had a catalogue number next to it. “I assume your people processed this cell phone, too?”

  “It belongs to your victim.”

  Murphy turned on the phone to see a series of texts and missed calls listed. A number of the missed calls came from someone named “Izzy.” The picture showed a young girl with curly ash blonde hair and big light brown eyes. One of the texts read, “Mom, where R U? I’m worried.”

  Murphy cursed under his breath before continuing to the next text conversation listed. She’s someone’s mother.

  Someone from an unidentified cell phone number had texted:

  Mtg set 4 7pm tomorrow. Pls come. Important. We need U if we R 2 stop him.

  Donna’s response, sent at 7:12 the night before:

  Running late. Accident has Route 7 @ standstill. B there ASAP. Count me in.

  The reply back, sent at 7:27 pm:

  No problem. We’re waiting for you. Front door is open. Just let yourself in.

  Murphy made a note of the responding text’s phone number on his tablet. “Do you have all of the victim’s cell phones and numbers?”

  “Still cataloging them,” Wu asked. “Why?”

  “Our petty officer was running late last night,” Murphy said. “Accident on the beltway held her up.”

  “Who wasn’t held up last night?” Wu replied.

  A fuel truck had overturned on the Capital Beltway in Northern Virginia in the midst of rush hour, closing the freeway down in both directions. With commuters taking alternate routes, traffic in and around Washington had screeched to a crawl.

  Murphy told the detective, “Someone had texted Crenshaw at 7:27 that they were waiting for her.”

  Lieutenant Wu took the phone and checked the numbers in his notes.

  Murphy glanced at the background report that the human services department of the navy had forwarded to his tablet. Donna Crenshaw was in the navy for thirteen years, after transferring from the United States Army where she had been a corporal.

  She was lying face up on the blood soaked carpet. Murphy counted two gunshot wounds in her face, one in her shoulder, another in her stomach, and one in the chest.

  “Someone really wanted her dead.” Cocking his head, Murphy studied her face through the blood. She did not appear to wear much makeup, if any. Her cinnamon colored hair was streaked with gray and trimmed short. Checking her background on his tablet, Murphy read that she was thirty-four years old. While her small build would make her appear younger, he could see by the picture in her personnel file that her face looked worn. “Only thirty-four.” He scrolled through the record on his tablet for the listing of her family members. “Why would someone want you dead, Donna? Who were you trying to stop and why?” He saw that she had never been married, but had a daughter.

  Where RU? I’m worried.

  Reading the age of the daughter, Murphy cringed. Thirteen years old. “Oh, God,” he breathed before swallowing hard. “Poor girl.” Glancing again at her face on the cell phone, he swallowed again. He remembered all too well his own mother’s sudden death when he was only sixteen years old. He knew intimately the pain this young girl was going to experience.

  “Has anyone contacted Crenshaw’s daughter?” Murphy stood up to ask the police lieutenant.

  “We sent a patrol unit to the school to pick her up and take her to the police department,” Wu replied from the living room.

  “Has she been told about her mother yet?”

  “Our counselor will tell her once I get back to the station,” Wu said.

  Shaking his head, Murphy stared down at the bullet-riddled body of the woman at his feet.

  “Preliminary from the ME says she died between eight and nine last night,” Lieutenant WU said, “after the other party guests. They died between seven and eight last night.”

  Murphy turned to look over the railing that ran the width of the room to mark off the dining room from the drop down living room. Three women were sprawled in different positions around the small living room. One, who appeared to be in her late thirties to early forties, was in front of the sofa. Another woman, who could have been in her early to mid-thirties, was next to the chair. A petite-built young woman, who could not have been thirty, looked like she was crawling to the door leading out to the deck when she breathed her last breath. A cloth bag rested next to the sofa, the image of a big, white chef’s hat emblazoned on the side, with the name “Cozy Cook” written in red letters across the hat.

  Unlike Donna, none of them had been shot.

  “Were they poisoned?” Murphy asked.

  “Looks like it,” Wu said. “We won’t know for certain until after the tox screens.”

  “Whoever it was waited for my petty officer after they were dead,” Murphy said.

  “Your petty officer?” Wu arched one of his eyebrows. One side of his thin lips curled upwards.

  “My petty officer,” Murphy replied. “Tell me about the homeowner.”

  “According to the phone number listed for that last text, it was sent from her phone. Francine Baxter.” Lieutenant Wu pointed to the floor above them. “She’s up in the master bedroom with two GSWs. One in the chest, the other to the head. She died between five-thirty and six-thirty.”

  “She died about an hour before these three women,” Murphy gestured at the women in the living room, “and two hours before Crenshaw?”

  Wu nodded. “There’s no way she sent that text to Crenshaw.”

  “That means the killer spent at least two hours in this house,” Murphy said, “waiting for Donna Crenshaw. When she texted that she was running late, the killer replied, telling her to let herself in so that he or she could kill her.”

  Wu shrugged his shoulders. “If you do the math.”

  Murphy referred to Donna’s Crenshaw’s cell phone that he found he still held in his hand. “The meeting was at seven.”

  “Party,” Lieutenant Wu corrected him. “Two of our victims told their husbands that they were going to a Cozy Cook party.” He pointed at the bag with the chef’s hat displayed on the front.

  “Do you see any food put out?” Murphy asked.

  Lieutenant Wu’s narrow eyes grew wide.

  “Have you ever been to a Cozy Cook party?” Murphy asked with a smile.

  “Have you?”

  “No, but my mother used to host them,” Murphy said. “The sales lady comes to the house and cooks up all this food and lays out a whole bunch of stuf
f to sell to the guests.” With a sweep of his arm, he pointed out, “There’s no food or cooking stuff laid out. Your victims lied to their husbands. These women came here for a meeting.”

  He held up Donna Crenshaw’s cell phone. “The day before the meeting, someone texted Donna saying that they needed her to put a stop to someone. She was important to the purpose of the meeting and that’s why the killer hung out here for two hours and killed all of these woman—in order to kill my petty officer.”

  “Are you telling me that the navy is taking the lead in this case?” Lieutenant Wu asked with a sigh heavy with resignation.

  “All evidence indicates my navy petty officer was not collateral damage,” Murphy said. “She was targeted. Since the motive may have to do with national security or be classified, I have no—”

  With an impatient shake of his head, Wu raised his hand and interrupted, “I don’t have all day. Do you really want this case?”

  “Yes, I really want this case.” Murphy opened the camera application on his tablet and snapped a picture of Donna Crenshaw’s body. “You need to show me everything you’ve got.”

  Lieutenant Wu chuckled. “I like you, Lieutenant Thornton. You’ve got guts. That’s why I’m going to give you some advice.”

  “What type of advice?”

  “They give you a ballistics vest with that bright, white uniform of yours?”

  “Not with the uniform,” Murphy said, “but I have one.”

  “Wear it when you tell Koch.”

  Murphy was cruising down Route 7 toward the concrete metropolis of Tyson’s Corners when the barrage of signage leading up to the mall reminded him that he had not eaten lunch. His breakfast had consisted of a power smoothie. With the time approaching two o’clock, his stomach growled.

  The early afternoon traffic was still congested with workers who filled the surrounding office buildings returning from their midday meals. Bracing himself, Murphy flipped on his left turn signal and checked over his shoulder before easing in to the upcoming left turn lane to get onto the access road to the galleria’s parking lot. The hybrid behind him slowed down to allow Murphy’s black SUV to cross over.

  Murphy was halfway into the lane when a horn blasted behind him. With a jump, he checked his rearview mirror to see if he had accidentally cut someone off. Behind him, he saw a man with a bad toupee in a white Corvette convertible flip off a woman with maroon-colored hair in a green Volkswagen turbo. She had jumped across two lanes to cut off the Corvette.

  Glad not to be her.

  Murphy turned his SUV into the parking lot. Without bothering to circle the lanes near the entrance in search of an empty spot, he instead traveled to the empty lanes furthest away. It was his habit to grab whatever exercise he could and enjoy the trot in the mild, spring weather.

  As a Phantom, he was still honing his observational skills. Always look around. Be aware of your surroundings. Who is nearby?

  Kicking himself, he remembered how easily he had let his guard down during the exercise to allow Tawkeel Said to shoot him. The burka made him assume the hostage was a woman, therefore, she was worthless according to the ISIS culture—therefore, she was not a threat to him … or so Murphy had assumed. What happens when you assume? You make an ass of you and me.

  Like Tawkeel and Major Monroe had said, that’s the point of training exercises. If I had been in the field, I’d be dead now, my body mutilated and dumped somewhere, and Jessie would be a widow. You need to keep aware, Thornton. Never let your guard down.

  Instead of looking down at his feet, Murphy made a point of making a sweep of the parking lot to take in every person rushing in and out of the galleria entrance. He noticed the maroon-haired woman leaning against her Volkswagen while texting on her phone. Among the horde of customers hurrying to get back to their desks in time, the woman’s relaxed demeanor was out of place. Between her stance, and her hair color that bordered on reddish purple, she was hard for Murphy to not notice.

  Must not have a job to run back to.

  Taking note that her casual texting in such a place and time was “suspicious,” he made an exercise of noting the license plate of the green Volkswagen. It was personalized, easy to remember: ANTIWAR

  In the diverse region of the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, Murphy never had difficulty finding an eating spot that met his dietary requirements.

  On the first level of the galleria, near Macy’s, Murphy found that Sweetgreen satisfied him with an Umami grain bowl, which was vegetarian, organic, and fast.

  Grabbing his bottled water, he turned around to almost body slam the woman staring at the menu from behind him. “Excuse me,” Murphy blurted out before recognizing her as the young maroon-haired woman texting next to the green Volkwagen with the ANTIWAR license plate. The same one who had cut off the Corvette while changing lanes to fall in behind him. Now, here she was in the same restaurant as he was.

  Her fair face turned pale. Her mouth dropped open. “Ex-excuse me!” she said with a gasp.

  “I can help the next customer in line,” the cashier behind the counter announced.

  Instead of stepping forward to place her order, she continued to stare at Murphy with wide green eyes. An impatient young man in khaki slacks brushed past her to step up to the counter to place his order.

  “Can I help you?” Murphy finally asked her.

  Spinning on her heels, she turned and fled from the restaurant. Unsure if he should follow her or not, Murphy watched her disappear among the throng of mall customers.

  Maybe she was hoping that I was single and just followed me to get up the nerve to hit on me, Murphy thought with a coy grin until he became aware of a hand lightly touching his arm. A young woman in a business suit and pumps smiled broadly at him. “You are certainly welcome to help me … anytime … day or night.”

  Chapter Six

  “How are you doing?” Joshua took his hand off the steering wheel and reached across to rub Cameron’s leg.

  Ever since they had left Ashtabula, she had been staring straight ahead. Her brown eyes, specked with green, were directed unblinking and unseeing through the windshield. She was in deep thought—lost in the past—once again grieving the loss of her first husband.

  This is what it feels like to reopen an old wound—make it bleed all over again.

  After a silence—long enough to make Joshua think she hadn’t heard him, she responded in a soft voice. “I can’t believe I forgot all about Jane Doe. That death really got to Nick. I remember it … vaguely … but I can’t remember anything specific about the case. . . only him telling me that she kept saying, ‘She’s safe.’ He held her while she died—grateful that she, whoever she was, was safe. That’d get to anyone.”

  Joshua said, “When we get back home, call your chief and ask for a copy of the report on the case. I’m sure once you see it, everything Nick told you will come back. We don’t know for certain that her death is connected to Nick’s murder.”

  “Maybe she was a mob boss’s mistress who knew too much.” Her forehead creased with frustration, Cameron turned to him. “It’s not like me to forget things. Why didn’t I jump on that when Nick was murdered? I let him down. All these years—”

  “Everyone assumed it was a hit and run accident by a drunk driver,” Joshua said.

  “Nick was upset about her,” she said. “How she died. That no one claimed her body. She had bruises around her wrists, proving that she had been tied up and, obviously, she was so desperate that she jumped out of a moving vehicle on the turnpike. She had to know that was going to kill her. Nick didn’t want her buried alone without her family knowing what had happened to her. It was important to him. How could I have not followed up on that? How could I have forgotten?”

  Attempting to comfort her as best he could while keeping the SUV on the road, Joshua squeezed her hand. “When Valerie died, our pastor’s wife to
ld me that it would take a full year, if not two, to start healing from the loss,” he said. “Both she and her husband advised me not to make the decision to leave the navy and uproot my kids from their home in Oakland, California, to come back to Chester. She told me to wait a full six months before making any major decisions. I didn’t listen. I knew I was hurting, but I thought I was strong enough and smart enough and had it together enough to know what I was doing.”

  “Are you saying you made a mistake?”

  “Looking back …” Keeping his eyes on the road, Joshua shrugged his shoulders. “One of the things I needed to do in preparation for moving was to get a law office to set up my private practice. This was before I decided to run for prosecuting attorney. Well, my grandfather had owned an office building in East Liverpool, Ohio. He had left the property to my grandmother, and I assumed it was left to me when she passed about five years before Valerie died. My great-uncle, Tad’s father, had been the executor of my grandmother’s estate and, in the midst of my hurting over losing Valerie, I called my cousin Tad, since his father had passed away since settling the estate. I wanted to know about renovating space in that building for my office.”

  Confused, Cameron studied his profile. “What does this—”

  “The building was gone.” Joshua plunged on. “Tad claimed that I had instructed his father to sell it and set up a college fund for my kids with the money from the sale. I swore I hadn’t. Not being the executor, Tad could only go by what his dad had told him. He insisted that his dad didn’t lie. I said his father had robbed me. Of course, Tad didn’t take that lying down. We got into a big fight and didn’t speak to each other for two months.” He held up two fingers to show her.