by Debra Webb
There were no indications of forced entry or a struggle in the kitchen or the living room. Nothing appeared out of place. That same quiet she’d noticed outside permeated the inside of the home. Jess couldn’t help wondering if the silence was why Maddie didn’t like to talk or to be with other children. She was accustomed to quiet.
Lori caught up with Jess in the hall. “The woman in the photo is Amanda, Maddie’s mother. She’s thirty-eight. Never been married, but according to the sheriff, her list of boyfriends would make the top ten list of Jackson County’s repeat offenders. Drugs and assault mostly.”
“One mystery solved.” Jess could imagine the sort of life Maddie had endured.
The first bedroom on the right was the little girl’s. A small bed and dresser along with a few toys and the pink walls made the room a little brighter than the rest of the house. Plain white curtains adorned the single window that looked out over the front yard. Jess picked up the doll lying on the bed. It was the kind with a soft body and painted hair. Its dress was home made.
Jess placed the doll back on the bed and moved on to the next bedroom on the right. This one smelled like incense and was littered with empty beer cans. A narrow bed and dresser were the only furnishings. Lori pushed the curtains to the side of the single window to let in more light. Apparently, the sheriff had taken a quick look in here and decided there wasn’t anything to see.
Three of the four walls were the same yellow as the living room and hall, but the wall behind the bed was draped with striped sheets. At the foot of the bed, Jess lifted the sheet from the wall and had a look underneath. Startled, she drew back, let the sheet fall back against the wall.
Lori looked from Jess to the sheet. “What’s back there?”
Jess took a deep breath and ordered her pulse to slow. “Let’s get those sheets down.”
Lori climbed onto the bed and tugged the ends of the sheets loose from the nails holding them. Jess piled them onto the end of the bed.
“Holy shit,” Lori muttered.
Taped onto the wall were dozens of photos and newspaper articles about Jess. The photos and articles had been precisely placed in chronological order.
“This one is three years old,” Lori said, pointing to one of the articles.
Jess moved closer, her heart picking up its pace. There was one article that went back five years. She wasn’t named in the article, but it was about the investigation she had been working on as a profiler for the Bureau. Around that same time the Bureau had labeled a new serial killer—the Player. She had been assigned the case. If only she had known how that one case was going to change her life.
“Wait.” Lori looked from the article to Jess. “How could she have known this was about you?”
Jess shook her head. “Maybe she was following news about the Player, and the natural progression was for her to follow me when the story about my screw up hit the news early last month.”
Lori moved farther down the wall. She tapped a photo. “When was this taken?”
Jess looked at the photo in question. She was at dinner… with Wesley, her ex-husband. A year ago? “How did she get…?” No need to finish the question. Jess knew exactly where she’d gotten it. That meant just one thing. Spears.
“Spears,” Lori said, the disbelief in her voice matching that on her face, “he’s been watching you for a long time, Jess. He must have given Amanda these photos.”
Ice hardened in Jess’s veins as the reality spread through her body. She braced against it. The concept that Spears may have latched onto her far longer ago than she realized thundered in her ears. Don’t think about it. A woman had been murdered in this house. That was where her focus had to be. “Let’s have a look at the body now.”
Unlike the rest of the house, Margaret Brownfield’s bedroom was chockfull of photos and other mementoes. Her walls were covered with pictures of Amanda from birth to present. She’d created the same visual timeline for Maddie. There were no photos of men. If the grandmother had had a husband, she hadn’t kept a single photo of him. At least there was none on display.
Margaret Brownfield had been a small woman. She had died in her bed. Her mint green flannel nightgown showed no signs of blood. The covers were drawn around her as if she’d gone to sleep and just never woke up. Her long gray hair was draped across the pillow. She would have looked completely peaceful if not for the fact that her eyes were wide open. The petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes and on the face suggested asphyxiation. The extra pillow, lying next to the one where the victim’s head rested, was likely what the killer used since there were no ligature marks on the throat. There were no other visible signs of trauma. On the left side of the victim’s forehead was an imprint as if someone had kissed her there—someone wearing deep red lipstick.
“You think Amanda killed her mom, and then dropped off her daughter because she was about to do something we haven’t heard about yet?”
“Possibly.” Jess pointed to the lipstick imprint. The woman in the surveillance video with Maddie had worn deep red lip color. “At the very least, she kissed her goodbye.” She looked around the room again. “We need the make and license plate information on the vehicle she’s driving. We also need a photo of the boyfriend and what he drives, along with a list of friends for both. Whatever Amanda Brownfield is up to, we need to find her.”
Whether Amanda killed her mother or not, she no doubt knew who did.
Lori quickly compiled Jess’s requests into her electronic notepad. Jess would take her pencil and pad any day over putting everything into a place where it could just disappear if you hit the wrong key. She’d had that happen before.
“Let’s see if there’s a basement or cellar.” Jess hadn’t discovered an access inside the house but there could be one outside. She headed for the kitchen. A lot of old houses had basements or cellars. Either one made a good place for hiding things… or other bodies. At least one member of this family definitely had things to hide.
The screen door on the rear of house groaned when it opened and then closed with a thwack. There was no back porch, just a few steps that led down to the yard. Jess sat down on the top step and removed her shoes covers. Lori did the same. A large vegetable garden had wilted in the heat.
Jess walked around the house looking for a basement access but found nothing. Maybe there wasn’t a basement after all. There was definitely a crawlspace. No one was going to like her when she requested a search of that area.
“Chief.”
Jess turned to Lori who was checking her cell. “Harper says we need to come down to the barn.”
The barn was next on Jess’s agenda. “Maybe they found the boyfriend.”
The walk to the barn was a bit less treacherous than the one along the driveway. Jess only had a shoe heel sink into the soft dirt once. With fewer of those huge trees in the back, the sun had a chance to remind her that her antiperspirant was failing miserably. Two deputies waited outside the barn. Hayes met them at the open door.
“We have another body?” If the boyfriend was still alive, he could be working with Amanda. If he was dead, he wasn’t going to be any help to the investigation.
Hayes shook his head. “Don’t know if this means anything, but you need to see for yourself.”
Inside the barn, a few bales of hay sat abandoned near the gardening and yard implements. There was no tractor or plows or anything mechanized. The barn wasn’t that large. Off to the left, where Harper and Foster waited, there was a second door, this one as wide and tall as the first. A gray tarp covered something large parked just inside that door.
Jess spotted a tire peeking from under the tarp. A vehicle of some sort. “Do you recognize the vehicle?” she asked the sheriff.
He shrugged. “I’m running the license plate through the system. It expired a hell of a long time ago so I can’t guarantee any results.”
Harper and the lieutenant removed the tarp, revealing an old blue car.
“Cadillac,” Foster said.
“I’m guessing thirty-five or so years old. License plate expired thirty-two years ago. Looks in mint condition except for this one thing.”
As if Mother Nature wanted to warn Jess that something evil was coming, thunder boomed and the light tap, tap, tap of rain sounded on the metal roof. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d watched a weather forecast. Obviously, she should have this morning but she’d had other things on her mind.
Jess moved toward where Harper and the others waited, and then she froze. Someone had taken a can of spray paint to the side of the Cadillac. Jess’s heart stumbled, seemed to stop beating at all as she read the words.
It should have been you, Jessie Lee.
11
9911 Conroy Road, 8:18 p.m.
Jess piled her wet hair up and fastened it with a clip. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and shook her head. She had ruined her favorite Mary Janes. By five o’clock, the rain had started to come down in sheets. Her red suit was soaking wet and splattered with mud but her shoes were beyond repair. Jess shuffled out of the bathroom and went to the window that looked out over the driveway. Still no Dan. He’d called to say he had a late meeting. The BPD cruiser assigned to watch over her sat right next to the Audi she was no longer allowed to drive. There would be another cruiser on the street but she couldn’t see it from here.
Rubbing her eyes with her fists, she tried to block the images from that damned wall at the farmhouse. Whoever Amanda Brownfield was, she was connected to Spears. No question. Gant was coming tomorrow. He wanted to have a look personally. She doubted it would do any good. Unless the forensic team found something Jess and her team hadn’t, it was a waste of time and money.
All she had was speculation. There was the lipstick imprint, but that alone didn’t prove anything other than the fact that Amanda had likely seen her mother just before or after her murder. Maybe she kissed the woman goodbye and left before the killer showed up. Or maybe she discovered the body and freaked out. Amanda Brownfield could be a serial killer groupie for all Jess knew. The articles she’d cut from newspapers and printed from the Internet might have nothing to do with Jess. The woman may have been obsessed with the Player long before she saw the name Jess Harris in print. The photos she’d discovered on the Internet may have been tracked down after the big media explosion in July. There was no way to be certain since any dates that might have printed with the material had been trimmed away before the articles were posted on the woman’s bedroom wall.
None of which explained how she’d gotten her hands on that photo of Jess and Wesley. Since neither of them had a Facebook or a Twitter account, they didn’t go around posting selfies.
What Jess needed was to find Amanda Brownfield or maybe her boyfriend, Brock Clements. There was a BOLO out for both. Jess and her team had just started interviewing neighbors when the deluge kicked into full force. The houses along that road were spaced acres apart. Not surprisingly, no one appeared to know anything other than what they saw passing on the road, which was how they’d known Clements was involved with Amanda.
Sheriff Foster had promised to have the list of friends and acquaintances of both suspects to Jess by tomorrow afternoon. He had given her carte blanche in his county. Frankly, he’d made his feelings on the issue abundantly clear. He was more than happy for her to have this case. Who could blame him?
The news had been relayed to Wettermark at Child Services. Maddie Brownfield needed to be in protective custody. With her grandmother murdered and her mother unaccounted for, the child could be in danger. Although Jess hated to see Maddie moved from the Graham home, the situation was too unpredictable to put that family and all those other children in danger. If Amanda Brownfield suddenly decided she wanted her child back, there was no telling what she might do. Jess didn’t have enough information about her to assess what she might be capable of.
Wettermark had waited until after dark to move Maddie. Jess wrestled with whether or not to stop in and check on the little girl, but she wasn’t sure doing so was a good idea. No matter how careful she was or the evasive maneuvers taken, she couldn’t be sure those who Spears had tailing her wouldn’t end up finding the location. It wasn’t worth the risk.
Per doctor’s orders, she was supposed to be putting work aside once she was home for the night but that wasn’t happening tonight. Not after what she’d seen in Jackson County today. She moved to the makeshift case board she’d created on the wall—her homework board. Like the one at the office, Maddie’s photo was there as well as the timeline from the moment she had been dropped off on Sixth Avenue until the present. A photo of her mother and grandmother, as well as a DMV shot of the boyfriend, had been added. Lori had taken numerous photos of the wall in Amanda Brownfield’s bedroom. Jess had printed those and posted them beneath Amanda’s photo. A photo of the car, now at Jefferson County’s forensic lab, had been posted as well. Jess wondered if the Cadillac had belonged to Margaret’s husband. The license plate had last been registered to Lawrence Howard. So far, that was the only record of Lawrence they’d found. He was listed as the father on Amanda’s birth record, but there was no marriage license between him and Margaret recorded in Jackson County. Margaret had still used her maiden name. Maybe the two were never married.
If Lawrence was Amanda’s father, why hadn’t there been any photos? Maybe he’d abandoned the family, leaving the kind of bitterness that made Margaret destroy all reminders. He could be buried on the farm somewhere. Stranger things happened. Margaret may have discovered he was cheating on her or molesting their daughter—which might explain, to some degree, Amanda’s life style and penchant for criminal activities.
How had Amanda become involved with Spears? It seemed so farfetched. They’d found no indication she’d ever lived in the Richmond, Virginia, area. SpearNet, Spears’s corporation, was headquartered in Richmond. Then again, Spears had a wide and varied following. Amanda may have run into him on the Internet. There were no computers in the home so she would have had to go to a library or a friend’s. Or she could very well be nothing more than a wannabe following the Spears storyline. The media had gone to great lengths to keep the world informed about Spears and his twisted following as well as the Birmingham cop who, unfortunately, was the focus of his current demented scheme.
“Yay me.” Jess hugged her arms around her waist and headed to the fridge. She was starving. She couldn’t wait for Dan any longer.
Her cell clanged and Jess rushed back to sofa where she’d left it. Hopefully, Dan was calling to say he was headed home with something scrumptious for dinner. Not Dan. Jess frowned. The caller ID showed the number for the cop outside watching her apartment.
“Harris.” She wandered back to the window. Another vehicle was in the driveway but she couldn’t determine the make.
“Chief, there’s two ladies out here who say you’re expecting them. I’ve checked their ID’s. Sylvia Baron and—”
“Doctor Sylvia Baron,” a voice in the background corrected.
“Dr. Sylvia Baron,” the officer amended, “and that reporter Gina Coleman.”
Great. “Send them up.” Jess sighed. She wasn’t dressed for company and she was starving, but she couldn’t turn them away. Not if she wanted Sylvia to agree to drive over to Jackson County and have a look at Margaret Brownfield’s body. The Jackson County coroner bucked at releasing the body to Jefferson County, but he did agree to allow a look from an outsider. Not that he could have stopped the request but it was better to play nice than to get into a legal battle. You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar.
Jess hadn’t been gone from the south so long that she’d forgotten everything she had learned growing up here.
She tossed her phone aside and tugged at her t-shirt. She looked a mess. Her lounge pants were practically old enough to be considered vintage and the tee was her favorite, which meant both were well on their way to being worn out. Wouldn’t be the first time Sylvia or Gina had seen her in a completely natural state. N
o makeup, hair undone and looking thrift store chic. For that matter, every piece of furniture she owned except that comfy mattress had come from a thrift store.
After disarming the security system and unlocking the deadbolts, she opened the door to a beaming Sylvia Baron who, as usual, looked exactly like a cover model half her age. Those new red highlights she was sporting didn’t hurt either. Jess had meant to ask her about the subtle change in hair color last week, but she and Sylvia hadn’t been on the best of terms. Still, if Jess didn’t like her so much she would hate her for looking so good all the time.
Sylvia held up a pizza box and a bottle of wine. “Dan said he was going to be late tonight. We thought we’d bring you dinner.”
Gina Coleman, dressed in workout clothes, elbowed her way around Sylvia and pushed right past Jess. “Drop the ruse, Sylvia. Tell her why we’re really here.”
Jess looked from one to the other. “Tell me later, I’m starving.”
Sylvia marched to the table with the food. Jess locked up and tried to come up with an explanation to give these two for why she wouldn’t be partaking of the wine—no matter how tempting. Before she could summon a clever excuse, her attention settled on Gina. She sat on the sofa, slumped over her smart phone. This was totally out of character for Birmingham’s award winning celebrity journalist—and one of Dan’s ex-lovers. Jess hadn’t seen her looking this depressed since she found out her younger sister was involved with murder.
“Okay, I change my mind. What’s going on?” As hungry as Jess was, something was up with these two and, for once, she suspected it wasn’t trouble related to her.
“Dinner is served,” Sylvia announced, ignoring Jess. “Where’s your corkscrew, Harris?”
Jess walked over to the kitchen side of her apartment. Like her office, it was just one big room. She opened a drawer. “Really,” she said, “what’s happened?” Gina Coleman was intelligent, hardworking, gorgeous, and had a nose for a story. Tonight, for some reason, she looked very much the way Jess did when she woke up in the morning—like hell.
