Murder in the Smokies

by Paula Graves

  It was a photo of people walking along the gravel-paved pathways between graves, none of them doing anything noteworthy. Unless you counted the buxom brunette near the center of the shot, she realized with a sudden flash of understanding. The dress she wore was thin and formfitting. It was also mostly see-through in the sunlight, and the photo had captured the full sheerness of the dress, revealing a low-cut demi-bra and tiny bikini panties beneath the flimsy fabric.

  “Pigs,” she muttered and started to move the photo aside. But something about the image snagged her attention. There were men in coveralls at work near the edge of the photo, planting what looked like pansies in small, round bucket planters that dotted the gravel walking paths at strategic intervals.

  She backtracked through the previous images and found a few more shots of the landscapers at work. In one shot, the back of the coveralls was distinct enough that she could read the name of the company embroidered into the khaki fabric. Bramlett Nurseries.

  Straightening, she grabbed the list of names she’d gotten from Davenport Trucking, running her finger down the column of renters until she found it. Bramlett Nurseries. Located right there in Bitterwood.

  So Bramlett was the landscaper the cemetery used to maintain the grounds. And Bramlett rented a box truck from Davenport Trucking.

  That had to mean something, didn’t it?

  She dug through the case file until she found a photo of the belladonna plant she’d snapped at the cemetery after Marjorie Kenner’s funeral. The plant was healthy and well-groomed, as if someone maintained it with care.

  Someone like a horticulturist with his own nursery and landscaping company?

  If workers from Bramlett Nurseries were tending to the plants at the grave sites, as they seemed to do in some of the surveillance pictures she’d quickly flipped through, would they recognize deadly nightshade for what it was?

  * * *

  IT WAS TOO EARLY TO GO to Bramlett Nurseries so she finished eating and dressed for work, heading in an hour and a half early to get a head start on the day. She had the detective’s office to herself for only a few minutes, however, before Antoine Parsons wandered in with a doughnut, a cup of iced coffee and the morning paper. He looked surprised to see her there.

  “Did you break the case?” he asked hopefully.

  “Remains to be seen,” she answered with a half smile. She waved him over and he pulled up a chair by her desk, listening with interest as she caught him up on what had happened since she’d left the office the day before. “It may mean nothing,” she said after showing him the photos of the Bramlett Nurseries employees at work. “But it’s at least an interesting coincidence that the nursery is a long-term renter from Davenport Trucking.”

  “That assumes you’re right that the killer is using rented trucks as his killing field.”

  “Granted. But I think I am.”

  Antoine was quiet for a moment, his silent scrutiny making her feel like a germ under a microscope. Finally, he nodded. “I think you are, too.”

  “I’ve done a little preliminary checking this morning, made a few calls. Bramlett’s been in business for years, although they were mostly a feed and seed shop until old Mr. Bramlett died last year. He didn’t have any children, so the company went to his nephew Mark.” She checked her notes. “I haven’t been able to do much of a check on him, but the source who told me about old man Bramlett says the nephew lived in the Nashville area and moved here to take over the company.”

  “And changed up the way they did things, I take it?”

  “Looks like. Modernized, added more decorative and landscaping plants for consumers, that sort of thing. The folks at Padgett Memorial said he’s the one who pitched the groundskeeping job to them. They seem to think he’s a nice guy.”

  “Nice guys can be killers,” Antoine murmured.

  Her cell phone rang. She checked the display. Sutton’s name and number filled the small window. “Hawkins,” she answered.

  “Sorry I left you in a lurch. How’d you get home?”

  “Rachel drove me,” she answered casually, aware of Antoine’s interest in the conversation. “How’s your father?”

  “Ornery, but the doctors seem sure he’ll heal up quickly enough. It just can’t be much fun to be in the hospital when you can’t move around easily on your own.” Sutton sounded nearly as frustrated as Ivy imagined his father must be feeling. “I slept in the waiting room. The sofas aren’t as bad as they look.”

  “Really.”

  He made a soft huffing noise. “No, not really. They’re as uncomfortable as sleeping on a pile of rocks. Is it okay if I go to your place and crash for a few hours?”

  “Of course,” she said. “I showed you where the key is.”

  “Thanks. You’re a lifesaver. Any luck on the truck list yet?”

  “Maybe.” She didn’t want to catch him up on all the details, not with Antoine listening in. She was already walking a razor-thin edge where Sutton and her investigation were concerned. “I’m going to spend the morning following up on a few things.”

  “You’ll let me know what you learn?” There was a sexy undertone to his request, a reminder that his father had always been damned good at coaxing gullible women to fall in with his ideas and schemes—including her own mother once upon a time.

  “I’ll see you soon and we’ll catch up.” That was as much as she was willing to commit to. For all she knew, her visit to Bramlett Nurseries would prove to be a complete bust, and she’d have nothing to tell him at all.

  Antoine was game when she suggested they head to Bramlett Nurseries first thing in order to be there when the place opened. “Catch them without any warning, and maybe we’ll learn something useful.”

  Antoine drove while Ivy used her cell phone to look up Bramlett Nurseries on the internet. The company had a small, low-rent website, little more than a placeholder page with its address, phone number and hours of business. The nursery opened at eight, which meant they’d arrive right around the start of business.

  The nursery was nestled in a pretty, tree-lined valley about five miles outside the Bitterwood city limits but still within the police department’s jurisdiction. Behind the building, the Smoky Mountains slumbered like blue velvet giants, their softly rounded peaks shrouded by the pale morning mists that gave the mountain range its name.

  The main building was boxy and rectangular, its utilitarian shape tempered by the quirky choice of colorful river stones as the primary building material. Behind the main building, three large greenhouses reflected the blue mountains and pearl-gray sky above them.

  Inside the main building, Ivy and Antoine found a lone man behind the counter, his head down as he organized what looked like seed packets on the polished glass countertop. He didn’t look up until he’d finished the task, his gray eyes calm and his expression neutral as he offered them a polite smile.

  “Sorry for making you wait. But if I’d lost count, I’d have had to start over again.” He swept the packets of seeds into a display box marked Bramlett Savoy Spinach and set them on the counter. “Can I help you?”

  “I’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge of your truck fleet.”

  The man at the counter smiled. “Fleet? We have a single truck for deliveries and landscaping jobs.”

  Ivy showed the man her shield. “I’m Detective Hawkins of the Bitterwood Police Department. This is Detective Parsons. Are you the manager?”

  “Owner-operator,” the man answered with a smile. “Mark Bramlett. Nice to meet you, Detectives. How can I help you?”

  He did look like a nice guy, Ivy had to admit. Mid-thirties, sandy brown hair, tall and slim with friendly gray eyes. She’d probably buy a potted plant from him, she conceded, even though she had a notoriously brown thumb.

  “Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Bramlett. We’d like t
o ask you some questions about the truck you rent from Davenport Trucking in Maryville.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Did you get through to your pretty little cop?”

  Sutton opened his eyes to find Seth Hammond sitting in the waiting room chair directly across from him. He looked tired and disheveled, but his green eyes were as sharp as ever. “I thought you were going home.”

  “I stopped in to check on Cleve and ended up staying until his pain pill kicked in and let him get back to sleep.”

  Once again, Sutton felt a twinge of guilt that it was Seth who was able to give his father comfort in his time of distress. All Sutton seemed to do when he visited his father was stress him out. “Is he any better at all?”

  “He’s resting a little easier.” Seth shrugged. “Not sure if it’s because he’s actually in less pain or if he’s just getting acclimated to it.”

  “He hates me, doesn’t he?”

  “I always figured it was the other way around.”

  “I don’t hate him.” At Seth’s dubious look, Sutton added, “I just don’t want to follow in his footsteps.”

  “He doesn’t expect that. Hell, he doesn’t even expect me to anymore.”

  “You’ve turned over a new leaf?” It was Sutton’s turn to be skeptical.

  Seth shrugged. “Call it what you want.”

  “Why?”

  “Why’d I get out of the con game?” Seth rubbed his jaw, his palm making a swishing noise against his beard stubble. “I didn’t like how people looked at me when they realized they’d been had. See, your daddy always treated it like a game. He’s not actively trying to hurt people. He just wants to see what he can convince them to do to his benefit. He tried to teach me how to see it that way, but in the end, I couldn’t. People got hurt, some real bad. Some might have deserved it for being greedy and stupid themselves, but a lot of them didn’t. I just couldn’t live with it.”

  “But you still watch out for Cleve.”

  “Somebody’s got to.”

  “Are you trying to watch out for me, too?”

  Seth’s brow furrowed. “No idea what you’re talking about.”

  “You left that marble on Ivy’s porch for me to find. You knew I’d know who’d left it there. You knew I’d come looking for you.”

  “You ascribe a whole lot of knowledge to me—”

  “You wanted to point me in the direction of Davenport Trucking, which suggests maybe you know more about these murders than you’re letting on.”

  “First I’m the second coming of Ponzi and now I’m Ted Bundy?”

  “I didn’t say you committed them. But you know that Davenport Trucking is somehow involved. Did you know before you started working there or did you pick it up from being there day in and day out?”

  “Rachel Davenport was close to all four of the murder victims. You’ve figured that out by now, haven’t you?”

  Sutton nodded.

  “Ever wonder if that means something?”

  He had, of course. He and Ivy had speculated about Rachel’s connection to the cases just the night before. “What do you think it means?”

  “I think George Davenport is dying, and there’s a lucrative trucking company that’s about to be looking for a new president. Right now, I’d reckon on Rachel Davenport being the obvious choice for the job. Which makes me wonder, why might someone be picking off Rachel Davenport’s support system, one at a time?”

  Sutton stared at Seth, a lot of loose puzzle pieces starting to click into place. “You think these really are murders for hire, don’t you?”

  Seth met his gaze with the intensity of a man who was sure he was right. “Don’t you?”

  He couldn’t say no. The more he learned about the victims and the circumstances of the murders, the less they seemed to fit the pattern of a serial killer. The trappings were there, and Sutton had a feeling that the killer got some enjoyment out of the murders. But the only connection between the victims that made any sense at all was their connection to Rachel Davenport.

  If she was the killer’s focus, it would seem likely that she’d be a murder victim rather than a serial mourner. So whatever the motivation behind the murders, it wasn’t about killing Rachel physically. It was about destroying her emotionally.

  “Why would anyone want to hurt her that way?” he asked Seth. “Do you know anything about her?”

  Seth was slow to answer. “A few things.”

  “Anything that would motivate someone to wreck her that way?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Sutton had the sense that Seth knew more than he was saying, but he didn’t bother trying to press him directly. Seth could dig in his heels with the best of them. Instead, he changed topics. “Did you hang around here long after I left?”

  “Yeah. I was in and out, but mostly in. Why?”

  “I just get this sense—” He stopped, realizing whom he was talking to. When they’d been boys together up on Smoky Ridge, they’d shared everything, from tree forts to secret hiding caves. But then Seth Hammond had disappeared, sucked into the secrets and lies of Cleve’s world. He wasn’t Sutton’s buddy. He wasn’t his confidant. He sure as hell wasn’t going to be Sutton’s sounding board about Ivy Hawkins.

  “You get what sense?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You want to know what life was like for your daddy when you left?”

  “No.” He supposed he should feel guilty about that, but he just wasn’t. Cleve had made the life he wanted, and he’d made it impossible for Sutton to stick around and be part of it without selling his soul.

  “Ivy, then?” Seth’s sharp green-eyed gaze met his directly. “You want to know what it was like for her when you hightailed it out of here?”

  Sutton didn’t answer. He supposed his silence was all the response Seth needed.

  “For a little while, she just kept on going like always. I reckon part of her figured you’d come to your senses and come back here where you belonged. Then, when it became clear you weren’t coming back, she started sticking around home with her mama a little more than usual. Turned out to be a big mistake, that.”

  The dark tone of Seth’s voice made Sutton look up at his old friend. Seth looked angry.

  Sutton’s heart dropped. “What happened?”

  “Billy Turlow happened.” Seth’s hands twisted around each other as he spoke, the motions quick and almost violent. “Took up with her mama the summer after you left. Only it was clear to everybody but Arlene that the girl he really wanted was Ivy. I don’t know all the details. The cops kept it pretty hushed up for a little town like this, but the basics got out. Seems one night, Ivy decided to take a kitchen knife to bed with her. Billy went into her bedroom, tried to force himself on her and took a knife in the side for his trouble.”

  “She killed him?”

  “No, last I heard he was still alive. Nobody pressed any charges on anybody, but Billy Turlow left town as soon as he got out of the hospital, and Ivy went off to Chattanooga for a couple of years on a college scholarship. She didn’t last there long. I guess her mama needed her too much.”

  Sutton felt sick. One of Ivy’s deepest fears, he remembered, was that her mama was going to get raped or killed by one of the men she took home with her. Somehow, she’d never seemed to worry that she herself might be in danger.

  But he’d worried. Not deeply, not daily, but from time to time, he’d noticed the way some of Arlene’s fellows looked at her blossoming daughter and worried that they’d start wanting the young version more than her mother.

  He’d figured it would cause more trouble between mother and daughter than create any sort of danger for Ivy herself. But he should have known better. He should have seen the signs of danger.

  He’d just been too busy
thinking about himself and planning his escape from Bitterwood and his father.

  * * *

  MARK BRAMLETT TURNED out to be friendly and accommodating, making Ivy wonder if the link between Bramlett Nurseries, Davenport Trucking and the nightshade found at the cemetery was nothing but a coincidence.

  “We clean the truck out after every delivery or job,” he told her as he let her take a look around inside the back of the rented panel truck while Antoine watched from a few feet away. “But we do the washing here at the nursery. I don’t deal in products with special sanitation needs, so there’s not much point in jumping through hoops to make sure the inside is sterile the way food processors do.”

  The interior of the truck looked freshly cleaned, she noted. “When was the last time you used it?”

  “I had a crew out delivering seedlings to a retail outlet up in Knoxville just yesterday,” he answered. “The crew washed it down when they got back.”

  “Would it be possible to speak to the employees who drive the truck?”

  Bramlett shrugged. “Most of them are trained to handle trucks this size, so any one of them might be called on to drive it, depending on the job and the work crew on any given day. I do have a handful of workers who drive it more than others. I’ll write up the list of names for you.”

  “Thank you,” Ivy said with a grateful smile. “You’ve been very helpful.”

  “Glad to do it.” Bramlett cocked his head, looking curious. “Is this anything to do with the murders in Bitterwood?”

  “We’re just following up on the possibility that one of these rental trucks could have been used in the commission of a crime.”

  “You think one of my employees used the truck to go out and kill those women?” Bramlett shook his head. “I know they say you can’t always tell who’s going to turn out to be a monster, but the guys we hire just don’t seem the type.”

  “Most likely, your truck had nothing to do with any crime we might be investigating.” Ivy kept her tone noncommittal. “We’ll mark you off our list once we’re done and that will be that.”