“No it wouldn’t. Your spatial recognition is off.” Jeff removed his coat and handed it to Emory to hold.
“What are you doing?”
“Showing you I can fit through there.”
“No!” Emory pushed the coat back into Jeff’s arms. “This is a crime scene. There could be fingerprints on it. Don’t touch anything!”
“You’re right. Sorry.”
Waving his hand in front of his face, Wayne shuffled into the kitchen. “Good god! That smell.” He stopped waving and pulled the flap of his coat up to his nose.
Sheriff Rome entered with two deputies following behind. His eyes dropped to Rick’s body. “Oh dear lord. That poor soul. First Britt, and now her coach is dead too.”
“Both burned,” added Wayne.
The sheriff nodded. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of this being a coincidence.”
“I don’t think so, Dad.”
Jeff told Emory, “It looks like you have everything under control here. I’ll be off.”
“I’m glad you were here. I don’t think anyone would’ve believed me if I had been alone with him when this happened.” After Jeff left, Emory told the deputies, “We need samples of everything edible in the house. Also, there’s a dead dog in the backyard that we’ll need to examine. He was shot, so find that bullet. And let’s dust everything for fingerprints, including the doggy door.”
Sheriff Rome said, “I’ll call Judge Harper to get a search warrant.” After making a phone call, the sheriff asked a deputy to pick up the warrant. “Emory, what happened here?”
Emory recounted every detail from the moment he walked into Rick’s house to the last wisp of smoke curling up from his dead body. Afterwards, they all theorized about Rick’s death until the deputy returned with the warrant, at which point, the evidence-gathering began. The sheriff and deputies took care of the bodies, while Emory and Wayne walked around the house for any clues about Rick’s life that might explain his death.
Emory knew that key clues often hide like a walking stick in a cedar tree. You couldn’t always see them at first glance, so he had gotten into the habit of photographing everything related to a crime scene, even cursory items. At the moment, Emory was snapping pictures on his phone of everything in the bedroom, whether they seemed important or not. Inside the walk-in closet, he found a shelf cluttered with trophies and medals – all won by Rick when he was a young ice skater – and he wondered why he didn’t have them on display. When he came out of the closet, he saw Wayne poking around the bedroom. “I meant to ask, did you find anything in Dan Claymon’s records?”
Wayne shrugged as he began opening drawers in the dresser. “Nothing major. Some vandalism.”
Sheriff Rome popped his head in the door. “We found the bullet.”
Emory peered up from his phone. “That’s excellent.”
“Everything is being loaded into my deputy’s SUV, and then he’ll head to Knoxville. Are you guys finished?”
Wayne approached the door. “I think that’s it.”
“All right then.” The sheriff jerked his head to the left in a signal for them to leave. “I posted some crime tape on the back door, and I need to do the same with the front.”
“Emory, aren’t you coming?” Wayne asked.
Noticing several framed pictures on the dust-covered dresser top, Emory snapped some quick photos. “Coming.”
The three exited the house, and as the sheriff taped the door, Wayne looked to the sky. “It’s getting late. We should call it a day.”
“You’re coming over tonight, right?” asked Sheriff Rome.
Emory sighed and shook his head. “I can’t tonight.”
The sheriff frowned at his son. “You said you would.”
“I wasn’t definite. Besides, I didn’t bring a change of clothes.”
“You got a bunch of clothes in your room. We haven’t thrown anything out.”
Wayne took his partner aside. “Emory, give me your keys. I’ll drive home tonight and see you in the morning.”
“I need to go home.”
“No, you don’t.” Wayne put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay with your dad. You should hear him talk about you. He misses you.”
“Fine.” Emory handed him the keys.
CHAPTER 12
AS EMORY EXITED Sheriff Rome’s truck, he could see the sun starting to set over the peak that locals called Crown-of-Thorns Mountain. Although not as evident under its current shroud of snow, the ring of trees just below the bare mountaintop were all dead. Some blamed acid rain, while others had more superstitious explanations. Whatever the cause, the twisted remains of the naked trunks and their large branches gave the mountain its tortured name.
Emory scanned his father’s two-acre property, bordered by a wooden split-rail fence and abutting deep woods on two sides. It looked the same as it did the last time he had come home – right after he graduated college. A sudden movement caught his eye. A white French bulldog bolted from the side of the yellow-brick house, hopping over the snow-covered ground and straight into his arms. “Sophie!” he exclaimed as the excited dog licked his face. He looked at his dad. “She remembers me.”
“Of course, she does.” The sheriff placed a hand on Emory’s shoulder. “Now let’s see if Lula Mae does.”
Emory released Sophie, who led them to the front door and barked at it. A short woman with grey shoulder-length hair answered it. “Well, come in,” she said to the dog before noticing her husband and son. “You’re here!”
Emory greeted her with a big smile. “Hi Mom.”
With a jaw-splitting smile, Lula Mae wrapped her arms around the middle of his torso. “You’ve grown.”
Emory laughed. “No, I haven’t.”
Sheriff Rome walked past her through the door. “Lula Mae, I told you you’re shrinking.”
She gave him a playful slap on the back. “Nick, I am not.” She clutched Emory’s arm to escort him inside. “Dinner’s almost ready.”
Inside the house, Emory could smell the country-fried chicken and sweet potato cakes without even looking at the crackling cast-iron skillets on the stove. The aroma of Southern cooking, coupled with the warmth of a two-log fire on the living room hearth, created a gentle coziness. Almost two years had passed since Emory last stepped on the creaking hardwood floor, but every picture on the wood-paneled walls, every trinket on the cedar shelves and every piece of overstuffed furniture remained in place where he remembered it – as if the house itself were a fixed point in time and protected from its influence.
Once Lula Mae saw Emory in the kitchen’s bright light, she grimaced at his appearance. “Ooh, you need to change those clothes. What is that?”
Emory looked down to see stains on everything he was wearing – some black and some crimson. “Oh my god.” He realized the stains came from Rick Roberts’ remains.
The sheriff told him, “Oh yeah, you need to get out of those. I didn’t want to say anything, but you stink to High Heaven.”
“You should’ve said something.”
Lula Mae helped him out of his jacket. “I can wash them for you.”
“No, they need to be dry-cleaned. Do you have a garbage bag I could put them in for now?”
“Of course.” She handed him one from the pantry.
Emory excused himself and went to his former bedroom. He hung his shoulder holster on the bedpost and removed his clothes, placing them in the bag before tying it. He sniffed his shoulder and realized his skin stunk. After a hot shower, he returned to the room and put on tattered jeans and a high school T-shirt he found in his old chest-of-drawers before joining his parents in the kitchen.
The dinner of artery-clogging courses ended with the best banana pudding in all of East Tennessee. Afterwards, he offered to help clean, but Lula Mae shooed him out of the kitchen. His father retreated to the bathroom and wouldn’t be seen again for half an hour, so Emory decided he’d take the opportunity for some fresh mountain air. He returned to his be
droom to throw on some old hiking boots and grab a denim jacket with faux-fur lining – and after a moment’s hesitation, put his shoulder holster back on.
Exiting the back door, Emory walked through the snow to a section of the fence near the woods. He leaned his forearms against the top plank and soaked in the surrounding quietness. Listening to his gentle breaths, he looked for the darkness between the trees, where he had often found comfort when he was younger. Tonight, however, the thick Smoky Mountain mist grated through the trees, obstructing his view as it dispersed the moonlight.
Emory removed his phone from his pocket and began scrolling through the pictures he had taken since the beginning of the case. He checked the photos from Britt’s murder scene, zooming in on some and giving others a passing glance. He flipped through those taken at Rick Roberts’ house and stopped on one that was taken in the bedroom. Something about it bothered him, but he still didn’t know why.
Emory heard a scrunching sound coming from the woods, like boots plodding through snow. He drew the pistol from his holster and crouched behind a fence post. He aimed it at the woods and scanned for any movement.
“Don’t shoot,” a voice said from behind him. He turned to see his dad walking toward him from the house. “I’m only armed with a pipe.” He held up his half-bent billiard pipe for Emory to see and flashed him a grin.
Emory turned off the lights and reholstered his weapon. “I’m sorry, Dad. I thought I heard something in the woods.”
“Just me.” The sheriff took a box of matches from his pocket and lit the tobacco in the pipe as he walked. Once he reached Emory, he rested his forearms on top of the fence and pointed with the lip of the pipe. “The woods and the mist play tricks with sounds.”
Emory mimicked his father’s stance. “I guess you’re right.”
“I got a lantern in the house, if you want. You can go check and make sure nothing’s there.”
“You know I don’t like the woods.”
“I’m just kidding you. You about ready for bed?”
“I’m not much of a sleeper.”
“Oh yeah.” The sheriff sucked on the smoldering tobacco. “You were always the last one to bed and the first to rise. So what are you doing out here?”
“Just going over the case in my head.”
The sheriff laughed. “You can’t turn that head of yours off, can you? Even as a teenager, you were always carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.”
Emory tilted his head. “I definitely hear something. You don’t hear that?”
A faint scream canoed its way over the mist. “I do now.” The sheriff listened a few seconds more and nodded. “Yeah, that’s the Pentecostal church. In the woods over there.” He pointed with his pipe.
“It sounds like someone dying.”
The sheriff exhaled a breath of smoke that swirled into the mist and drowned in its tiny droplets. “They’re speaking in tongues. Sparked quite a stir about a year ago when the church popped up. People here didn’t want snake handlers in their backyard. I imagine that’s why they chose a property in the woods, away from prying eyes.”
“Church on a Thursday?”
“I heard they go just about every night.” The sheriff laughed. “Aren’t you glad we’re Church of Christ?”
Emory smiled and looked down, seeking to avoid a discussion on his religious evolution.
Sheriff Rome didn’t seem to notice. “Speaking of that, your ma was wondering if you were planning to stick around over the weekend and maybe go to church with us on Sunday.”
Emory’s mind flashed back to the Church of Christ congregation they attended when he was a teenager. It had always seemed like a place of punishment and not a place one attends free of choice. He shook his head.
“I know. You have work to do, even on Sunday.”
Taking a deep whiff of the smoke, Emory smiled. “I always liked the smell of your pipe.”
The sheriff glared at his son. “Don’t you even think about starting.”
“I’m not.”
“Well good. By the way, I wanted to thank you for this. Having you here tonight makes us realize even more how much we miss seeing you.”
“It’s not like we don’t Skype.”
“Once a month, maybe. If that. It’s no substitute for seeing you in the flesh.”
Emory fell silent as he looked to the ground. He listened to his father puff the pipe a couple of times before speaking again. “This town holds such bad memories for me.”
The sheriff put a hand on his shoulder. “I know.”
“When I’m here…All I can think about is everything that happened. Granny. The woods. My father. Eight years ago, you saved my life. Then you brought me into your home.”
Sheriff Rome dropped his hand. “You know we’ve always thought of you as ours – blood or not.”
Emory nodded. “I know.”
“What?” Once several silent seconds had passed, the sheriff asked with more force, “What is it?”
Emory couldn’t look at him. “I would never want you to regret that decision.”
“What would ever give you a thought like that? I know God wanted me to find you, and now you’re doing what he meant for you to do. You’re helping good people and bringing bad ones to justice. How could we not be proud of you?”
Emory wanted to say more, but fear tightened his lips.
CHAPTER 13
JEFF STOOD IN front of the microwave in his apartment above the detective agency, waiting for the bowl of split-pea soup to finish heating. He felt his bobcat rubbing against his calves. “Be patient. Yours is coming.” He stepped back to listen for the sound of running water in the bathroom. “It’s probably full enough.”
Jeff retrieved a plastic pitcher and a large net from a shelf beside an eighty-gallon aquarium with several five-pound catfish swimming inside. Dunking the net into the water, he caught one, transferred it into the pitcher and rushed to the bathroom with the cat hot on his heels. Once inside, he turned off the faucet and dumped the fish into the half-filled bathtub.
Bobbie leapt into the tub and swatted the water to catch her dinner. Within thirty seconds, she had the wriggling fish in her mouth. The bobcat jumped from the tub, and after a quick shake to eject water from her fur, she settled onto the bathroom floor to eat.
The microwave alarm chimed, but as Jeff walked by the kitchen window, something else caught his attention. He looked down at the street, which was lit with antique street lamps and muted light from the closed shops that lined the block. Parked across the street was a blue sedan, and leaning against it was a man with crossed arms who appeared to be staring at him. The man was wearing a white ski mask with a horrible red smile stitched into it. “Weird.”
Jeff found his camera in his messenger bag, but when he returned to the window, the man also had a camera with a large zoom lens aimed right at him. Jeff dropped it onto the counter and ran to the door.
When the man saw him exit the agency’s front door, he jumped into his car and sped away.
Jeff locked the office and ran to his car. The tires spun on the pavement as he slammed his sports car into gear. He could see the blue car’s tail lights turning left up ahead. He raced to the corner and banked it with the tires skidding. One hundred yards in front of him, the blue car was now stopped on the road.
“What the hell is he doing? Is he waiting for me to catch up to him?”
Jeff was about to slow down when the blue car took off again. He again floored the accelerator to try getting close enough to at least read the license plate.
POP! POP! POP! POP! he heard in rapid succession, followed by scraping metal. The terrible screeching noise made his left shoulder shrug up to his ear.
The front of his car locked, and the back end swung forward, sending the car into a shrill spin. When it came to rest, Jeff was facing the direction from which he had come.
He jumped out of the car to examine the shredded remains of his tires and the contorted metal whe
els that held them. Walking back to where he encountered the problem, he found tatters of the tires with a couple of amateur spike strips made of long nails driven through pipes.
“Bastard!”
CHAPTER 14
THE NEXT MORNING, Emory awoke to the staccato purr of Sophie’s snoring. He peered over his chest to see that the French bulldog had curled up under his left arm sometime during his four-hour sleep. He petted her gently, and her eyes popped open, although her body refused to move. “You ready to get up?” The dog looked up at him as if trying to understand. “Come on, let’s get up.” He rolled out of bed, leaving Sophie to stretch before jumping to the floor.
Sophie ran ahead as he emerged from the bedroom, and he followed her to the back door. Letting the dog out to take care of her business, Emory shivered as the morning air hit his warm face. It was still dark outside, but at any moment the sun’s rays would start piercing the darkness from over the mountains.
Decked out in her park ranger uniform, Lula Mae walked up behind him. “Good morning.”
“Good morning.”
“Did you sleep okay?”
Emory lied. “Great.”
“There’s cereal in the pantry. Will I see you when I get back?”
Emory shook his head. “My partner’s picking me up soon, and we’ll be heading back to Knoxville tonight.”
His words swept the sweet smile from Lula Mae’s face. “Aren’t you still working on your case?”
“Yes, but the investigation involves some office work too.”
“Well, if you don’t feel like driving back one night or just need a place to get away.”
“I know.” Emory gave her a hug.
She kissed his cheek. “Take care of yourself.” She opened the door, allowing Sophie to scurry back inside, and left for her post in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Heading back to the bedroom, Emory passed his father, who was dressed in his uniform. “Son, I’m heading to work. You about ready to go?”
Murder on the Lake of Fire Page 7
