by BJ Bourg
“That’s not necessary.” I said it like I was sure, but my heart started to pound in my chest as I realized I might be hearing the very last recording of Chloe’s voice.
Mallory turned toward the computer and began working the mouse. “Now, I did hear enough to know they were talking about the Lance Duggart case.”
Susan began chewing on her lower lip. “Isn’t he the guy who killed Bill Hedd’s wife?”
“Yep,” Mallory said.
My mind began to race. Chloe’s intern had been going through old newspaper film from twenty years ago to see if she could dig up some dirt on Bill that might explain his animosity toward Susan’s dad. Last I heard, the intern hadn’t found anything significant, but what if she’d stumbled upon something?
I voiced my concern and asked Mallory how she knew the recording pertained to that case.
“One of her first questions had to do with Lance Duggart.” Mallory clicked the mouse and leaned back in her chair. “Here it is…”
I crossed my arms as the recording began to play. I heard a door slam and shoes echo against a wooden floor. Finally, Chloe’s voice came through the speakers.
——
Chloe: Mrs. Sanders? Mrs. Megyn Sanders?
Megyn: Yeah, that’s me.
Chloe: Hi, I’m with the paper. [Pause] It’s pretty quiet in here today. [Pause] So, I wanted to ask some questions about your former boss, Lance Duggart.
Megyn: Lance? What for? He’s been in prison for about twenty years. I haven’t seen him since he got arrested and I don’t visit him in prison.
Chloe: I wanted to ask you about the day he got arrested. [Paper rustling] I’ve obtained a copy of this police report from back then. You’re listed as a witness in the murder case. Do you remember giving a statement?
Megyn: Some detective came talk to me. Yeah, I remember that.
Chloe: The evidence custodian couldn’t find the cassette tape containing your statement. [Paper rustling] I also obtained this witness list from the trial, but your name isn’t on it. Were you called to testify at the trial?
Megyn: The detective had come by the bar a few weeks before the trial and asked if I’d been subpoenaed by the defense, but I told him no. He said I didn’t have to talk to them if they came around. He told me they had all the evidence they needed and Lance had confessed after they matched his DNA to the lady, so I wasn’t needed in trial. To be honest, I was relieved, because I was scared to death about going to court. The detective said I helped him break the case, because I confirmed the connection between Lance and the lady. I felt bad about that, you know? Lance was my boss and my friend. I mean, I was honest with the detective, but I certainly didn’t want to testify in court. I didn’t want to help them send him to prison.
Chloe: Do you remember what you told the detective?
Megyn: I remember it like it was yesterday. You don’t forget things like that, you know what I mean?
Chloe: Absolutely. So, what’d you tell him?
Megyn: Well, first he came in with a picture of the lady who had gotten raped and murdered. Asked me if I ever saw her in the bar before.
Chloe: Did you?
Megyn: A few times. She’d come in and go to the corner of the bar—right over there—and wait. When Lance would finish doing whatever he was doing at the time, he’d go talk to her and then the lady would leave. It never failed, Lance would come over to me and make up some excuse about why he had to leave, and then he would disappear for an hour, or so. In fact, I even saw her on the night she was murdered.
Chloe: She came here the night she died?
Megyn: Oh, yeah, I told that to the detective. He got real interested when I told him about their relationship. I didn’t know why, but then I saw on the news that she was the district attorney’s wife. I swear, I had no clue she was married. If I would’ve known, I would’ve told Lance to stay away from her.
Chloe: Wait a minute…are you saying Lance was having an affair with the DA’s wife?
Megyn: Oh, yeah, they were carrying on like high school kids sneaking around on the parents.
Chloe: And you told this to the detective?
Megyn: Yes, ma’am.
[Long pause]
Chloe: Did you tell the detective anything else?
Megyn: Well, I did tell him Lance came back to the bar that night after meeting the woman. He asked a bunch of questions about how he looked, what he was wearing, and stuff like that.
Chloe: What did you say to that?
Megyn: Lance looked normal. He was clean, you know? No blood or anything. The detective said he probably cleaned up and changed his clothes. I told him I didn’t think Lance was capable of murder or rape. I told him they must have had volunteer sex and there was an accident or something, but he laughed at me. Can you believe that? He just stood there laughing at me.
Chloe: [Short pause] Did Lance say anything to you when he came back to the bar that night?
Megyn: [Short pause] He mentioned something about being tired. When I asked him what he meant, he said he was tired of being used. That’s it—that’s all he said.
Chloe: What time did you say Lance got back from seeing his girlfriend that night?
Megyn: I didn’t say, but it was a quarter after ten.
[Paper rustling]
Chloe: How sure are you?
Megyn: I’m positive. I looked at the clock when he came in. It was actually ten-fourteen, to be exact. I remember it, because I told it to the detective and he told me I had to be wrong. We went back and forth about it and I told him I was positive, but he insisted it couldn’t be possible.
Chloe: Did Lance leave again that night?
Megyn: Yeah, he left when we closed up at two.
Chloe: He was arrested about a week after the crime, right?
Megyn: Something like that.
Chloe: Did he act any different during that week?
Megyn: Oh, yeah. He wasn’t himself. He would come in late and leave early—on the days he actually showed up. I think he missed three days during that week, which is unusual for him.
Chloe: What if I told you the woman was alive at eleven o’clock that night, which means there’s no way Lance killed that woman?
[Long pause]
Megyn: I…I mean, how could you know that? I read that they had his DNA and they found the knife at his house.
Chloe: According to the police report, a burglar alarm went off at her house exactly seven minutes after eleven. If you’re positive he was here at ten-fourteen and he stayed here until two, then there’s no way he committed the crime.
[Long pause]
Chloe: It’s okay, don’t cry. Look, you told me on the phone that Jolene once mentioned to Lance that her husband was having an affair. When I confronted Mr. Hedd about that he got really angry, so I think there’s some truth to it. I need a name.
[Door slams]
Chloe: Hey, what are you doing here? Wait—what’s going on? What are you doing? No!!!
——
I jerked in my skin as gunfire and screams blasted through the speakers.
CHAPTER 38
I leaned forward and dropped my head to my hands, listening to Chloe and Megyn scream for their lives as gunshot after gunshot was fired—at least five of them. There was a crashing sound and, due to the muffled amplification, I knew the device had recorded Chloe hitting the floor. I squeezed my eyes shut and fought back the tears as I listened to Chloe gasping for air in a struggle for her life.
Susan leapt from her seat and shut off the recording. “Jesus Christ, Mallory! Couldn’t you have vetted this recording before playing it for him?”
I heard Mallory stammering for words and felt Susan’s hand on my shoulder, but it all seemed like a dream. After a long moment, I lifted my head and tried to collect my thoughts.
“Do you need a minute?” Susan asked.
I thought about walking out, but I knew the best thing for me to do was get busy on the case. As long as I was being productive
and working toward finding her killer, I knew I’d be okay. “No, there’s too much work to be done.”
“I’m so sorry, Clint,” Mallory said. “I just thought you should be the first to hear it. I had no idea—”
“It’s okay. We need to hear it—all of it.” I nodded. “You can put it back on.”
Frowning, Mallory clicked the play button and we all sat there listening as Chloe put up a gallant fight for her life. It was difficult to listen to, but I needed to know every detail of what happened to her. I had failed to be there to save her, so the least I could do was bring her killer to justice.
Just as Chloe took her last breath, footsteps pounded the floor and faded away from the recording device. I heard a woman’s voice pleading with someone to help her, and then I jumped again as another gunshot sounded.
Footsteps moved toward Chloe and then faded away again, seemingly moving in a different direction. A door slammed shut and everything grew quiet. We all looked at each other. “Is that it?” I asked.
Mallory shrugged and pointed at the time indicator. “There’s still ninety minutes on the recording.”
We continued listening and finally heard the door slam again. The footsteps echoed across the wooden floor and grew loud as they walked past Chloe’s body. The killer walked around for a while, but we weren’t sure what he was doing. We heard a dinging sound at one point and I knew he was removing the money from the register. A few minutes later it sounded like he grabbed Chloe and began dragging her across the floor. Her body plopped to the wooden floor and we heard the door slam again. A car started somewhere in the distance and then drove nearer. It stopped and a car door slammed. The sounds we heard next indicated he had dragged Chloe across the porch and hoisted her body into the trunk of her car. The trunk then slammed shut and the only other sound we heard was rumbling from a short car ride. After the engine was killed and the door slammed shut, there was no other sound for abut thirty minutes.
Finally, someone entered the car again and cranked the engine, taking Chloe’s body for a ride. Somewhere along the way, the memory card on the recording device filled up and the audio file shut off.
Things were starting to come together inside my head, and I didn’t like the picture that was forming. “I received a text message from Chloe Wednesday evening at about six o’clock saying she was in an interview. It had to be the interview with Megyn, but Megyn had been dead between eight and twelve hours when we found her, and that old man we talked to Thursday said the bar was closed at five.”
“What are you getting at?” Susan asked.
“The killer must’ve had Chloe’s cell phone and was using it to keep me at bay.” I turned to Mallory. “Do we know what time she made the recording?”
“The date and time stamp showed Wednesday at quarter to five in the evening.”
Every text message I’d received after that point was from the killer. I grew nauseous at the thought of communicating with the person who murdered Chloe. But who could it be? And why were both women killed?
I rubbed my chin. “The killer took Chloe’s body away from the bar and cleaned up the scene.”
Susan nodded her agreement. “Those two bullet holes in the wall weren’t misses at all—those were the two bullet holes that went right through Chloe’s body.”
“The coroner recovered one bullet from Chloe,” Mallory said. “If you give me the bullets y’all cut from the wall and the ones y’all recovered from Megyn’s body, I’ll have the lab compare them to the bullet from Chloe. If they match, we can prove they were killed by the same person.”
“That won’t happen,” I said. “The evidence from Megyn’s murder was secured in our evidence lockers at the police department.”
“And it all went up in flames!” Mallory cursed. “Did y’all recover any other evidence from the scene?”
“We got some fingerprints—most of which were smudges—and we swabbed for DNA,” Susan said. “But everything’s gone.”
“Any spent shell casings?”
“Nope—the killer picked them up.”
“Megyn was shot three times,” I said. “Twice from some distance and once point-blank in the head. Chloe was shot three times and from some distance. Six shots total from at least three different shooting positions, but not a single shell casing was recovered.” I shook my head. “I understand why the killer would take the shell casings, but why move Chloe’s body from the scene and clean up the blood? That doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe Chloe is like one of those shell casings,” Susan offered. “Her body might offer a clue as to who the killer is.”
“Or,” Mallory said softly, “they didn’t want you finding Chloe because then you wouldn’t be on a case—you’d be on a mission.”
I considered both of their points. “This new revelation could be a coincidence, and the Parker brothers could still be responsible for her death.”
“Think about it, Clint,” Susan said. “Right before the shooting started, Chloe said, what are you doing here? That means she knew her killer.”
My mind began to race. If she knew her killer, that might mean I knew her killer. “We need to run a search warrant on her phone,” I said. “We need to trace her steps in the hours leading up to the shooting—find out who she spoke to and where she went.”
“Already done,” Mallory said. “Follow me.”
CHAPTER 39
Mallory led us to a large conference room in the detective bureau and slammed the door shut. She ran her fingers through her long brown hair and pointed to a large map on the wall. “The red push-pins represent pings from Chloe’s phone on Wednesday,” she explained. “The time she was at each location is written on the little pink tabs.”
I studied the map and recognized most of the locations, but not all of them. When I asked about them, Mallory handed me a document she had prepared. “This details the times and corresponding locations for you,” she explained. “As you know, we can’t pinpoint her exact location from the phone records, but we’re pretty sure we’ll be able to verify all of it when we start doing interviews. We know she did stop at the sheriff’s office that morning, so that location has already been verified.”
“She stopped here?” I read through the list, running my finger across each time and location:
——
7:30 a.m. – The Rushing residence
7:45 a.m. – At news station
8:13 a.m. – Still at news station
9:46 a.m. – Sheriff’s Office
10:31 a.m. – Between Sheriff’s Office and news station
10:40 a.m. – At news station
4:37 p.m. – Bayou View Pub
6:00 p.m. – At news station
10:26 p.m. – At news station
——
“Why’d she stop here?” I asked.
“She stopped in our records division to pick up a copy of the Lance Duggart investigative report and then she stopped in CID to speak with Doug.”
“Why Doug?” I asked.
Mallory shrugged. “I guess she saw that he was the lead detective on the case initially.”
“Did he speak with her?” I wanted to know.
“He did. He said she asked about some missing witness—we now know it was Megyn Sanders—but he had no clue what she was talking about.” Mallory looked over her shoulder to make sure the door was still closed. “I wasn’t here back then, but they say there was some bad blood between Reginald and Doug over the case. Doug wasn’t making enough headway, so the sheriff brought Reginald in to take over.”
“Apparently a good move,” Susan said, “because Reginald solved it.”
The stitches above my left eye were starting to itch, so I rubbed the cut as I thought things over. I needed to know everything I could about the case. If I could find out what Chloe found out, maybe that would point me in the right direction. I finally asked Mallory if I could see the file. With a nod of her head, she disappeared out the door and returned about ten minutes late
r with a large binder that was labeled, Jolene Hedd Murder Book.
I pushed the binder aside and continued running down the list of times. I stopped when I reached the six o’clock hour and stabbed the paper with my finger. “Chloe texted me at six to say she was in an interview.”
“That’s impossible,” Mallory said. “She was already dead.”
“Precisely.” I pointed to the location on the document. “Someone from the news station used her phone to text me.”
Susan sucked in her breath. “You’re right. And they were still using it at ten twenty-six that night.”
“That was a text from her phone to tell me she had just arrived at her dad’s house and she would call me in the morning.” I turned to the binder. “There’s something in here that made someone at the news station want to kill her, and I need to find out what that reason could be.”
“Find the motive, find the killer,” Susan said, echoing my words from long ago.
“While you get acquainted with the murder file,” Mallory offered, “Susan and I can head out to interview Chloe’s intern. We need to verify the times on the phone records and find out if she had any appointments scheduled—either on this case or on something else.” She handed me a list of telephone numbers. “These are the numbers that communicated with Chloe on that day. We haven’t identified any of them yet—other than yours—but we’ll get on it right away. Do you recognize any of them?”
“Once I put a number in my phone, I never look at it again.” I frowned. “I don’t even know Chloe’s number. I just press her name every time I want to call or text her.”
Before they walked out, Susan handed me her phone in case something came up. She told me to call Mallory’s phone if I needed her. She grinned. “It’s under her name, so you won’t have to remember the number.”
I nodded and dropped to the chair in front of the murder book. When I was alone in the room, I ran my hands across the top of the binder, aware that Chloe had touched this same object just three days earlier. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine her sitting there…tried to imagine what would be going through her head. When nothing came to me, I sighed and opened the binder.
