by Pamela Crane
Tempest, her polar opposite, was coolly impassive, much like her mother. A bookworm, but she also had a temper like her mom’s. So much so, in fact, that sometimes he could barely tolerate her when she got mouthy.
The ring of his desk phone startled him. It was Jackson Jones, a longtime colleague and friend, the one who actually found him the job here at the Department of Social Services.
“Hey, man. Computer crashed again. Can you take a look?”
“Sure, I’ll be right there.”
Another computer frozen, another unsuccessful reboot. God only knows what Jackson had done to his computer this time with all his online gaming and internet browsing that they were “prohibited” from doing.
Five minutes later Cody sent Jackson to the break room so he could tinker with the computer. Five more minutes later and he’d figured out why Jackson’s computer kept crashing. The idiot had forgotten to wipe his browsing history ... and evidence of all the viruses he’d pretty much invited from downloading porn.
As Cody went about emptying the cache, one of the links looked odd to him. He clicked on it and was confronted with a horrifying picture of a nude little girl. Maybe five or six. Kat’s age when she was taken. Tempest’s age now. His stomach lurched. His vision swam.
His finger reflexively closed the browser as he felt his head fog, the earth shift and slip. This had to be a mistake. Jackson certainly couldn’t ... wouldn’t ... Not children. Not his friend. A man he golfed with, played poker with, for crying out loud.
When Jackson returned, a shallow pool of anger within Cody rose, his body shaking with white-hot anger. Jackson’s face registered shame in his beady, wide eyes and creased forehead.
“What is this crap on your computer, Jackson? Are you looking at kiddie porn?” His finger jabbed Jackson’s chest mercilessly. “And don’t lie, because I saw what I saw.”
Jackson’s lips moved but his words were stuck somewhere in his throat. It was all the affirmation Cody needed.
“I can’t believe this. I should turn you in to the cops, man. You’re sick!” Several heads popped up from their cubicles around the room.
“Shhh!” Jackson begged. “Please don’t tell anyone. Melanie will kill me.”
“Oh, you think Melanie will kill you? Wait until your fellow inmates get a hold of you.”
“It’s not what you think. I was only just looking once.”
“Once—like that’s any better? The fact that you’re looking at it at all is messed up! I don’t even know what to say.” Clenching his fists, he inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled. It was a meditative trick his psychiatrist had taught him to get through the panic attacks shortly after Kat went missing. Back when the anxiety first started. It was the same psychiatrist Jackson had recommended.
“We’ve been friends forever, Cody. I’m already getting help. Please give me a chance. As a friend.”
“Friend? I don’t even know you anymore.” Clench, release. Clench, release.
“I swear, it’s not as bad as it looks. I’m getting better—seeing a professional.”
The thought struck Cody that Jackson had been seeing his therapist for this exact problem ... for years. This wasn’t a one-time deal, was it?
“You make me sick, Jackson. I can’t even look at you.” Cody turned away, closing his eyes against the roiling in his stomach.
“Please, man, don’t tell anyone.”
“I can’t promise that. And Helen needs to know, because I don’t want you anywhere near Tempest. She needs to know not to bring Tempest to your place when she’s visiting Melanie. Who she tells, well, that’s up to her.”
They both knew Helen Brannigan wasn’t exactly famous for keeping her mouth shut.
Chapter 31 Ari
Helen and Cody looked perfectly miserable across the table from me. Tristan had suggested I join them in the conference room, creating as casual an environment as possible to get Cody’s guard down. If ever there was a time for him to slip up, now would be it, while emotions were running high and defenses dropped. Only hours ago we’d found Kat’s badly decomposed body. Only hours ago the truth—well, part of it, anyway—came out. The uncertainty was over. As far as the state was concerned, Kathryn Juliet Brannigan was officially deceased.
Tristan’s hunch was that Cody killed Scott to retaliate for Kat’s death. The most logical conclusion was usually the right one. It made the most sense, except that it still left Jackson Jones out of the equation. Our objective: pin Cody into a corner. Find out what he was hiding. The only problem with corners was that the only way out was with a fight. And based on his assault record, Cody looked like he’d had a lot of practice fighting.
“I—I don’t even know what to say,” I began. “I know this isn’t the outcome you had hoped for.” I studiously avoided the old cop standby “I’m sorry for your loss,” which had been robbed of its sincerity by overuse. A cheap condolence couldn’t encompass the real heartbreak I felt for both of them.
The box of tissues at Helen’s elbow was nearly half empty now, with the other half balled up in a fluffy white mountain on the table, spilling onto the stained berber carpet.
“I just don’t know who would have done this to Kat and why. I really don’t understand it.” Helen shook her head, dabbing at the tears staining her cheeks.
“Things like this ... the horrors that happen ... I don’t think we can ever understand them, Helen.” I rested my hand gently on hers. “We think it might have been Scott Guffrey, your ex-fiancé.”
“But why? There has to be a why,” Helen persisted. “Scott adored her. Why would he kill her in cold blood?”
“Helen ... did you ever notice any ... inappropriate touching?”
“Are you kidding me? Do you really think I’d let him stick around if I did?” Her faced burned a livid red; her cheeks puffed. “If I ever saw anyone act inappropriate with one of my girls, I promise you his death would be far worse than what Scott experienced.”
“I’m sorry, but I had to ask.”
Hollywood made it look easy, but interrogation was a helluva lot harder than it looked. Outsmarting someone, catching them in a lie, exposing inconsistencies—it wasn’t easy. I could now understand why cops had forty-eight hours to detain someone ... because at this rate, it’d take that long to drag anything of use from this couple.
A squeeze on my knee gave me the encouragement I needed. I glanced over at Tristan, who nodded almost unperceptively to urge me to keep going. Don’t give up. Practice makes perfect. All those useless mantras you shrug off until you realize just how much you need one.
I needed another angle. An angle that tied them to the Southern Slicer, a sensational nickname coined by the media for the killer shortly after my father’s attack. Still in a coma, there had been no progress and his diagnosis remained grim. How our “sleepy little town”—aren’t all towns called sleepy until something wicked comes this way?—had become the home of such evil was frightening. Sex trafficking. Child murder. Three stabbings in as many months. This notoriety drew a lot of attention in idyllic Bible-belt towns like Durham.
The police captain had kept as many details as possible out of the hands of reporters, like the exact location where Kat was found. You never wanted to show your hand when trying to smoke out a killer.
Once the media got wind of Scott’s ties to Kat’s murder, the Southern Slicer moniker popped up all over the news and couldn’t be squashed, no matter how much the police department pushed back. When word of a serial killer on the loose spread like a California wildfire, citywide panic was always a “breaking news” report away. Our only hope of curbing the flames was to find him ... and soon. The only way to do that was to learn as much about Cody Brannigan as I could.
“I’m assuming you’ll be taking bereavement leave from work?” I intimated. “Where did you say you work again?”
“Department of Social Services,” Cody answered. “And yeah, it’s best I spend some time with Helen and Tempest for a while. Get my head
together.”
And yet his head seemed perfectly clear to me. Too clear.
“Social Services, huh?” Tristan piped up. “The offices on North Duke Street?”
“Yep, that’s the one.”
“Do you know a man by the name of Jackson Jones? He worked there too—same building, I think.”
“Why? Do you think he had something to do with Kat’s death?” Helen interjected.
“We’re exploring that possibility. Do you know him?”
“Yeah, we’ve been friends for years. Well, I’m friends with his wife, Melanie. Jackson died last month—killed in his car right outside his house. They think it was the Southern Slicer. But I guess you know all about the case.”
Tristan nodded.
“Well, the bastard got what he deserved, if you ask me.”
“Jackson, you mean. How so?” Tristan asked.
“I found out he was looking at child porn. As a mother, well, I think child predators should be strung up by their balls.” Helen glanced over at Cody. “Tell them. The man was a pervert. Cody worked with Jackson, found porn on his computer. Cody told me, I told Melanie.”
I had noticed that Cody was unusually quiet during our chat. But this little tidbit of information was enlightening. Case-altering. Two victims, both connected to Cody, both targeting children.
“Cody, care to elaborate?”
Tristan’s jaw clenched and his eyes sparked. We were both thinking the same thing.
“That’s really all there is to it. I was fixing his computer, found a child porn site, told him to stop or I’d turn him in.”
“You realize what he was doing is highly illegal, right? Why didn’t you turn him in to the police? You have daughters, Cody. How could you overlook that?” Tristan pushed.
“Look, we’d been friends forever. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Plus he told me it was a one-time thing and he was getting help.”
“Is this why his wife filed for divorce?”
Helen hurled herself back into the conversation, gesticulating excitedly. “Yeah, though I’m surprised she didn’t do worse to him. I think she just didn’t know what to do. Then he ends up dead shortly after the divorce paperwork is started. I guess justice comes in many forms.”
“Did Scott and Jackson know each other?” I asked.
“Not that I’m aware of. After Cody and I split up, I didn’t associate with Jackson, just Melanie. So there was no reason for Scott and Jackson’s paths to cross, right, Cody?”
“Yup, that’s right.”
And yet everything felt so wrong.
“Well, I just wanted to again tell you how sorry I am about Kat. Along with the autopsy report, the crime scene investigators found evidence that will help us determine the exact circumstances of your daughter’s death.”
“Do you think they’ll be able to figure out what happened ... in her final moments?” Helen broke into a sob mid-sentence. “Was she raped? Was she tortured? I don’t want to know, but I feel like I need to.”
Wrapping an arm around Helen, Cody pulled her against him.
“Honey, she wasn’t tortured or raped. Don’t think like that.”
“But how do you know? You can’t possibly know what she went through. If she had to suffer, I should suffer with her! I should feel the horrors she felt. I feel like such a fool. Why didn’t I recognize that the man I almost married—the man who killed my little girl—was a monster? The only reason anyone would have to kill a child was if she fought back when he was trying to—oh, God help me!”
Helen gave vent to an animalistic cry of pain. Her body shuddered in inconsolable grief for her little girl, violated and murdered.
“Helen, she’s at peace now. Everything that happened in that cabin is in the past. Let it go, let our daughter rest in peace.”
“What cabin?”
“Scott’s hunting cabin.”
“Scott didn’t have a hunting cabin.”
“Cody, we never mentioned the cabin.” Cody’s eyes grew wide as he looked up at me. “How do you know about that?”
I could feel Tristan watching me with a glow of pride.
Cody’s face lost all color. “Scott had a hunting cabin, I think. At least that’s what he told me. I don’t know for sure.” He lifted both palms up in a gesture of surrender.
“Can you tell me what he’s talking about?” Helen directed the question to me.
“Cody’s referring to the cabin where Kat was murdered, which belonged to Scott’s ex-girlfriend’s uncle,” I explained. “How he knows this confidential information, that’s a good question.” Then I turned to Cody.
“I ... I ... must of heard it somewhere,” he stammered.
“If you have something to admit, now’s the time. Our CSIs managed to pull some prints and DNA from the cabin. We’re pretty sure it’s the killer’s DNA, which we expect will confirm it was Scott.” A little cocktail of exaggerations never hurt anyone, since I had no idea if the CSIs found anything at all. “So Scott never mentioned this place to you, Helen? You two were engaged, after all.”
“No, I never even knew he had a relationship with Candace’s family. He’d never told me about that.”
“Are you both sure you know nothing?” Tristan jumped in, his sharp gaze passing from one face to the other. “Now’s the time to come clean. Otherwise, if we discover you withheld vital information, well, it won’t look good for you.”
Helen shook her head. “No, this is news to me.”
“And yet you knew about the cabin, Cody?” I stared at him, maintaining my poker face as best I could, though we both knew I had a royal flush.
“Why am I just hearing about this now?” Helen shrieked. “What—you and Scott were all palsy-walsy, and you never told me about it? What else don’t I know?”
“What’s the big deal? We made small talk, got along—for your sake and for the girls.”
“Were you ever there, Cody?” Tristan said. “Because if we find your DNA there, now’s the time to tell us before it looks suspicious.”
“Okay, okay, I went hunting there with Scott once or twice.”
“Which was it—once or twice?” Helen pounced.
Cody’s neck flushed as he tripped over his words. I wondered if Helen wanted a new career, because she was a damn good interrogator. A bloodhound with a nose for lies.
“Once, it was only once. Geez, Helen, calm down. You’re making something out of nothing.”
“Do you remember when you were there?” It didn’t take a body language expert to figure out he was lying. The trembling hands, the blinking, the quiver in his voice said it all.
“I dunno, it was a long time ago. Right before Kat went missing, I think.”
I didn’t know if we’d find evidence that put Cody there the night of Kat’s death, but he slipped up, and that was enough to justify a much deeper look. He confessed to being in that cabin, which meant he was at the scene of Kat’s murder. His demons were running loose, and I was determined to catch them.
Chapter 32
Two months ago ...
Cody Brannigan burst through the front door of his ex-wife’s trailer in a whirlwind of frantic footsteps. In the middle of the living room Scott Guffrey’s oldest son, Kevin, stood with a Wii remote in his hands playing Ping-Pong against Tempest, who jumped up and down next to him.
“Tempest, where’s your mother?” he demanded in the brusque tone he reserved exclusively for his other daughter—the one who wasn’t Kat. Both video combatants were oblivious to him.
“Ha! Beat you again!” Tempest cheered while Kevin groaned at another loss to a six-year-old.
“No fair. You’re hustling me, Tempest! We only get fighter pilot video games in the Air Force, so I can’t practice Ping-Pong like you do.”
“Too bad, so sad.” Tempest rolled her fists beneath her eyes in a mock baby cry, sticking her tongue out in teasing petulance. “Hey, what’s hustling mean anyway?”
“Go ask your mom.”
&nbs
p; “Yeah, where the hell is Helen?” Cody demanded hotly. Kevin nodded his head almost imperceptibly in the direction of the bedroom. Cody found her there, folding laundry.
“What’s that kid doing here?” he sneered.
“You mean Kevin? He has a name, Cody.”
“Fine, what’s Kevin doing here? His father is gone. He has no reason to be here.”
Helen sighed extravagantly. “No, his father is dead. Kevin got bereavement leave to come to Scott’s funeral—which you should have done too—and stopped by to say hi to Tempest. Just because he lost his father doesn’t mean he lost us as his family. The poor kid is stuck in Florida away from his family while everything back home falls apart. So how about you cut him some slack?”
“Sorry, it just caught me off guard seeing him here.”
“Well, keep your voice down. I don’t want him hearing you. You know how paper thin these walls are.”
“Sorry.”
As Helen emptied the last of the laundry basket, she bustled out of the bedroom and into the living room, grabbing rumpled clothing from the sofa, floor, and entryway.
“Tempest!” But Tempest was too busy lording another win over Kevin to hear her mother. “Clean up after yourself. There’s no reason you should be undressing yourself all over the house. My goodness ...”
With a distracted “mmkay,” Tempest resumed her Ping-Pong mastery while Helen continued collecting dirty clothes.
“So what brings you storming into my home uninvited?” Helen asked while Cody trailed puppyishly behind her as she weaved in and out each room.
“Jackson. I found child porn on his computer today.”
Helen stopped in her tracks, wide-eyed and mouth gaping in a silent gasp. “What? Are you serious?”
