Despite her reluctance, curiosity about Jeff blossomed in Lindsey. “Like what?”
Aunt Suke leaned back in his chair. “Well, you know his daddy died in the first Gulf War, when Jeff was just a kid.”
Lindsey shook her head. “I didn’t know.”
“Turner. Mickey Turner. If you listen to your customers talk, you may hear something come up about the Turners now and then. They still live down in Ridgetop. Nice folks. Not rich, not poor. Mickey was a carpenter and met Jeff’s mother when she had him build some bookshelves for her. She used to work as a nurse up at NorthCrest. Anyway, Mickey didn’t come home from the war, so Jeff’s mom went back to work, even had to take Jeff with her sometimes. They struggled for a long time, ’til she met Alan Gage during one of her E.R. shifts. They married and he adopted Jeff. Jeff went out to L.A. to be a cop, but then Alan got sick, real sick, with cancer. Then his mother came down with it. Jeff came home, took care of them ’til Alan got back on his feet. They’re both still looking out for his mom. Alan beat it, but Elizabeth has had a rougher time. Alan and Jeff—they love to build stuff. Alan organized a barn raising last summer for one of the tobacco farmers who’d lost two firing barns during the floods.”
Lindsey curled her fingers around her cup to keep them warm. “What was he like as a kid?”
Aunt Suke smiled broadly. “He was a high school star. Not in the athletic way. That was Daniel. Jeff used his brains. He was...what is it the kids call the brainy ones now?”
Lindsey couldn’t quite believe it. “A geek?”
Aunt Suke chuckled. “That’s it. Everyone around here thought he’d become a teacher or a professor. Then he ups and joins the LAPD. When he came back, some of the girls around here didn’t even recognize him, he’d filled out so nicely. Some who hadn’t said a word to him in high school started paying a lot of attention to him.”
Lindsey leaned forward. “So he’s had a lot of girlfriends?”
“A few, but he really—”
Polly stood up, stiff at attention, looking down the hall toward the front door. She let out a low woof, barely more than a cough.
Aunt Suke stood. “Looks like your ride is here.”
Lindsey felt confused as she stood up and took her teacup to the sink. “I don’t understand. April is supposed to take me in.”
“Oh, I doubt he’ll let that happen. Not as long as they think you could be in danger.”
As if on cue, the sound of a distinctive knock came from the front door. Polly trotted off in that direction, as Lindsey gasped. “I’m not dressed for work!”
Aunt Suke motioned down the hall. “Scoot. I’ll keep him busy. But I’d better answer the door or he’s liable to think something’s wrong and break it down.”
Lindsey half ran, half limped up the stairs, annoyed at herself for getting distracted. Again. This was becoming a habit. In her room, she glanced at the clock as she flung off her robe. “Now we’re going to be late,” she muttered. “I can’t afford to be any more distracted. Especially about Jeff. Focus, Lindsey!”
* * *
Jeff stared down at Aunt Suke, who stood in the door frame, Polly by her side. “Um, I’m here to take Lindsey to work.”
Aunt Suke opened the door wider. “Come in, Jeff. Lindsey will be right down. I’m afraid I sidetracked her over a cup of tea this morning. We were talking about you.”
Jeff stopped short in the broad foyer, his heels clipping sharply on the hardwood floor. “Me?”
Aunt Suke took his elbow and steered him toward the front parlor. Polly escorted them, her nails clicking, then going silent as they passed from the wood of the foyer to the deep rugs of the parlor. “Of course. Surely, at your age, you realize that when two or more women get together, one of their favorite topics is men. Plus, you’re a much more pleasant topic of conversation than the fact that someone wants to kill her. Especially over tea in the morning. Don’t you think?”
Jeff smiled, realizing the method in Aunt Suke’s gossip. “Indeed I do. So did you come to any conclusions about me?”
Aunt Suke motioned for him to sit, and he perched on the edge of a chair. The front parlor, formal and elegantly decorated with sumptuous Oriental carpets, Queen Anne furnishings and heavy drapes, made Jeff just a tad nervous. He felt too tall, underdressed in his uniform and klutzy.
“Not yet. We’d really just gotten started. I told her about your family, some of your history.” Aunt Suke leaned forward, whisperingly conspiratorially. “Enough to know she blushes nicely when your name comes up, especially where other women are concerned.”
Jeff’s eyes widened. “Other women? But I haven’t—”
Aunt Suke put a finger to her lips. “Shh. Never hurts for a lady to wonder. You can clarify things later.”
“Aunt Suke—”
The sound of Lindsey coming down the stairs interrupted them both, and Jeff stood and headed toward her. Without her crutch, Lindsey came down the stairs one at a time, but at a pace that made Jeff increasingly nervous.
“Careful,” he muttered.
At the bottom and slightly breathless, she looked up at him with a wry smile. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you. I’m still a bit shaky on stairs, but I don’t fall.”
Aunt Suke cleared her throat. “The front steps here, however, are worn stone. Very uneven. After all, they’re more than one hundred years old.” She straightened, a determined look on her face. “So I think Jeff should carry you to his car.”
Jeff and Lindsey stared at her a moment, then looked at each other. Lindsey looked puzzled and a little disturbed, and Jeff grinned at Aunt Suke. “You’re incorrigible.”
She smiled brightly. “An advantage of age.”
Before Jeff could respond, a rapid thumping sounded over their heads, and April appeared at the top of the stairs, her strawberry-blond curls flouncing. She finished buttoning her blouse as she trotted down the stairs. “Sorry! Sorry! Rough start this morning.”
Jeff watched her descend, once again struck by how different the three sisters were. Although Lindsey and June were both petite in frame, June had dark hair and dark eyes, while Lindsey was naturally fair. April, on the other hand, stood almost six feet tall and had an athletic build. Lindsey and June’s hair lay soft and silky against their heads, while April’s wild mane of strawberry curls flared around her head like fire. Yet all three had facial features so similar that their faces seemed carved from the same mold. The wonderful variety of God, he thought affectionately.
April pulled a ponytail holder from around her wrist and quickly bound her hair at the nape of her neck. “I’m not used to these hours.”
Jeff realized that April’s face held a strange pallor, even as her nose and lips were bright red. “Are you sick, April?”
She waved off his concern. “Supper didn’t agree with me. It’s nothing.” April turned, looking admiringly at her sister. “Lindsey, I don’t know how you do this every day. You’d have to love it.”
Lindsey grinned. “I do. But I’ve always been an early riser, too. So it’s not so tough.”
Aunt Suke made a shooing motion at them. “Then y’all be off doing what you love. I’ve got work to do myself.”
April gave the older woman a quick hug and a peck on the cheek, then they headed out the door. At the stone steps, Jeff paused and offered Lindsey his arm. “To humor Aunt Suke, mademoiselle?”
She grinned up at him and slipped her hand around his arm. He escorted her to the front seat of his car, then held the back door for April. As they settled in, Lindsey looked at her sister in the mirror. “I thought you said Aunt Suke was sick.”
April nodded. “She is, although you’d never know it from talking to her. Her diabetes got out of control last month, and she’s still wrestling with it. She had a couple of blackouts, so the doc doesn’t want her to live alone righ
t now. They’ve also run some tests on her heart, and we’re waiting for the results.”
“When will those come in?”
“Tomorrow.”
As Jeff listened to the women chat a few moments, his thoughts went back to RuthAnn’s car. After they had sent Lindsey and her sisters back to the restaurant, he and Ray had gone over the wreck with a fine-tooth comb. They’d found nothing. No bullet holes or signs of violence that couldn’t be explained by the car going in the quarry. Any human evidence, if there had been any, had been washed away by the algae-laden water. The clothes they’d found looked as if they could be RuthAnn’s—petite women’s clothes of a style an older woman might wear—but they had no way of knowing for sure. The gun’s serial number had been filed off, so they sent it to the TBI lab, along with the knife to see if the forensics folks there could raise the number. Jeff had met one of the lab guys at the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. He knew they had the talent as well as the technology to raise a number that had been acid-burned, much less one that had been merely filed.
Now the car sat next to the GTO in Troy’s garage. He couldn’t think of anything else to do to it forensically that could help them with the investigation. So he was left with Lindsey’s memory and the GTO. June had sent an email last night about the parts dealers she knew, since—as she’d predicted—the title trace had ended with a fake name and an address that was now under Old Hickory Lake north of Nashville. If he could trace one of the parts to a dealer who would give him a shipping address, then he might be able to use that to jar a memory from—
Lindsey nudged his elbow.
Jeff jerked his arm, caught off guard by her touch. He looked toward her, blinking. “What?”
Both women burst out laughing, and Jeff fought a sudden sense of confusion.
“Where were you?” Lindsey asked.
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“I’ve been talking to you for a couple of minutes.”
Jeff’s cheeks grew hot. “Sorry. I was thinking about the case.”
Lindsey perked up. “Anything new?”
“Did June email you last night?” April asked.
Jeff nodded. “She did. After I drop y’all off, I’m going to talk to Troy, see if he has any insight into those replacement parts in the car. It might be better if he contacted June’s dealers. More believable coming from another car guy.”
April scowled. “You’re not staying with us?”
Lindsey’s shoulders hunched, and she seemed even smaller as she drew away from him. “You’re not leaving us alone at the café, are you?”
Jeff shook his head. “No. Absolutely not. But Ray is convinced this guy will never come around with cops hanging out next to you. He’s hired a couple of security guards he knows. They’ll be in plain clothes.”
April’s voice deepened, her words almost a growl. “Doesn’t that make Lindsey bait?”
Jeff took a deep breath, but Lindsey spoke first. “No. I like it.” She looked at April. “I think Ray’s right. This guy will never come around with the police nearby. And I don’t think he’ll try anything in the daytime, in front of people. He may want me dead, but he doesn’t want to be caught. He ran out of RuthAnn’s house when he could have killed me then. But he thinks no one knows who he is. If there are no officers around, he might just show up to check things out.”
“That’s pretty much Ray’s thinking.”
“Well, I don’t like it. And I don’t think June will, either.”
Lindsey smiled gently. “You’re my sisters. You’re not supposed to like it.”
April leaned back against the seat and crossed her arms.
As Jeff turned the cruiser into the restaurant drive, however, April’s words stuck in his mind. Doesn’t that make Lindsey bait? He hadn’t thought about it from that angle. Ray had made it sound so logical...
Beside him, Lindsey stiffened, staring at the restaurant.
Jeff parked the car. “What’s wrong?”
“April,” she whispered. “Did we leave the dining- room light on?”
Her sister came alert. “No. I double-checked it myself, right after we set the alarm.”
“Look.”
They all stared. The light of the restaurant’s main dining area glared out into the early-morning darkness. Over the carefully painted name of the Coffee-Time Café, a broad X had been drawn on the window in a smeared, garish red.
NINE
“Stay here.” Jeff motioned for Lindsey and April to remain in the car.
“Aren’t you going to wait?” Lindsey whispered, her voice choked with fear. He had called for backup as soon as he’d parked the cruiser.
“I’m just going to check the back, in case someone tries to leave.”
“Jeff, please—”
“Lock the doors.”
Lindsey watched him crouch beside the front wheel, observing the area. He then sprinted for the corner of the diner, which would give him cover from all the windows.
“Blind spot,” muttered April. “You need a camera on that spot.”
“I need more cameras all over the place,” Lindsey replied softly, doing everything she could to fight the fear that made all her muscles tense up. She gripped the dash, her eyes never leaving Jeff as he carefully approached the back corner of the building. From a distance, sirens screeched through the air.
He glanced around the corner, then back. Pausing, he looked again, more slowly, then disappeared around the building.
“I can’t just sit here.” Lindsey gulped a breath of air and reached for the door handle.
“Lindsey, no!” From the backseat, April began to pound on the protective shield between the front and back seats. “You don’t know who’s out there.”
“I know Jeff’s out there.” Lindsey opened the door.
The sirens screamed closer as three patrol cars roared into the parking lot, the officers inside piling out in a rush.
“Look, he’s there!”
Lindsey turned back, staring at the restaurant. Jeff had returned, gun still drawn, but he looked behind them, and motioned for the other officers to approach. When he saw that Lindsey’s door stood open, he scowled, motioning for her to stay put. She closed it reluctantly, and crossed her arms, fear mixing with anger deep inside. “I hate this.”
“We all do,” muttered April.
They sat, watching officers move about in a formation that seemed random and organized at the same time. Lindsey tried to watch the operation as a whole, but found her gaze constantly seeking out Jeff. Why not? she asked herself. He’s a friend.
But just a friend? She could hear Aunt Suke’s words encouraging her, and hear her own reply.
Yes, I don’t have time for...
Jeff’s face appeared in the restaurant window, over the ugly blotched paint. When he gave an all-clear signal, Lindsey let out the breath she’d been holding. He opened the front door, and Lindsey and April scrambled out and headed up the steps.
Jeff holstered his pistol. “I don’t think anything was touched but the window. The back door was standing open, but it doesn’t look forced. Someone either picked it or he has a key.”
Lindsey stiffened. “Picked. It had to be picked.” Just like yesterday.
Jeff hesitated, and Lindsey got the message. “I know. We can’t be sure. I’ll call a locksmith and have all the locks changed.” She started to press by Jeff. “Now we need to get started—”
Jeff blocked her path. “Wait. You can’t go in there.”
Lindsey stared up at him. “But you said nothing had been disturbed.”
“It’s still a crime scene. We’ll need to process it.”
“I open in less than thirty minutes!”
Jeff gaped at her. “Lindsey, you can’t o
pen. It’s a crime scene.”
Lindsey braced her fists on her waist, anger coursing through her. “He’s not going to win by putting me out of business! If he didn’t disturb anything, then this is exactly what he wanted. To put me out of my place, keep me from doing business. No!”
Jeff stood his ground. “Lindsey, there’s no option here.”
She opened her mouth to protest, when April’s firm but gentle grip tightened on her shoulder. “I have an idea. A compromise.” As they both looked at her, she smiled. “How long would it take you to clear the coffee equipment?”
* * *
More than two hours later, Jeff paused in his work to peer out the front window at a steady stream of cars flowing through a carefully orchestrated arc in the parking lot. At the top of the arc, April, June and Lindsey greeted customers, explained the situation, and offered them free coffee or tea and a pastry as an apology for the inconvenience. They smoothed over the seriousness of the event, and not a single customer left with a frown or a scowl.
“She’s turning a problem into an opportunity,” Ray said, standing behind Jeff.
“That’s the entrepreneur in her.” Jeff felt an unexpected pride, watching Lindsey move about easily, even though she still favored her ankle and bruises dotted her face. “She’s remarkable.”
“Mmm. Find anything remarkable in here?”
Jeff started, turning quickly to face his boss. “Oh, uh...” He cleared his throat as he scanned the dining room of the restaurant. “Not so much in here. Just the paint on the window and a few drops underneath. Looks pretty generic. There’s a circle where he set something down on the floor, about the size of a small can of paint.”
He gestured for Ray to follow him into the kitchen. “More so in here.” The kitchen, normally warm and smelling like biscuits and bacon this time of morning, felt icy and sterile to Jeff. Their footsteps echoed hollowly on the dark wooden floors. He pointed down the short hallway that led to Lindsey’s office and the back door. The door stood open, and a groggy locksmith yawned as he worked on installing a new doorknob and dead-bolt lock.
Memory of Murder Page 10
