by Brant, Kylie
“More of a honky-tonk than a restaurant,” Powell muttered, turning back from the photos he was studying. “Music’s too loud, and the customers are more interested in beer and pool than eatin’. But the food’s not bad.”
Even his half-hearted endorsement was enough to tempt Ramsey. The bag of chips she’d had on the way to the airport this morning was a distant memory. “That’s good enough for me. I need to do a quick change first. I’ll have to ride with you. My rental isn’t due to be delivered until tomorrow.” She made it as far as the door before pausing to look back. “I’d like to study the full autopsy report. I assume you have a copy.”
Powell nodded. “I prefer nothin’ leave this area. I’ll get you an extra key.”
Satisfied, Ramsey headed back to her room. She knew it would help to have a full stomach before she spent hours poring over the details of how their Jane Doe died.
Powell’s description of the Half Moon was on the mark. Ramsey followed the two agents through the tavern-slash-grill, eyes immediately stinging from the smoky haze no ordinance would ever successfully ban. There was a he-done-me-wrong song blaring from a large jukebox wedged in the corner next to a small dance floor that was currently empty.
But there were an equal amount of diners and drinkers, and it was easy to see that the locals shared Matthews’s opinion of the food.
The waitress, a sharp-featured thirtysomething with big bangs and tight jeans, seated them at a cramped table and slapped an extra table setting and menu down in front of Ramsey. “What’ll ya have, handsome? The usual?” It didn’t take brilliant deductive skills for Ramsey to guess the woman wasn’t addressing her or Powell.
“Steak and a beer.” Matthews gave her an easy smile. “You’ve already got my number.”
She gave him a slow wink from a blue encrusted eyelid. The woman obviously applied her makeup with a trowel. “I know you like your beer cold and your steak hot, but how do you like your women?”
“Spicy.”
While the two laughed, Ramsey followed Powell’s lead and opened the menu, ignoring their exchange. The entrees ran to meat and potatoes, which at the moment suited Ramsey fine. When the waitress finally tore her attention away from Matthews, she said, “Rib eye, medium well, potato baked, and just water to drink.”
Powell snapped his menu closed. “Grilled chicken breast, rice, and a glass of low-fat milk.”
As the waitress walked away, an exaggerated sway to her hips, Matthews told Ramsey confidingly, “Ward’s got ulcers. Can’t eat anything that isn’t bland.”
“Got them from keepin’ young turks like you out of trouble,” the other man said sourly. He rubbed at his gut as if in pain. “The diet they have me on is enough to ruin anyone’s appetite.”
“I’ll bet.” Ramsey was distracted from the conversation by a familiar blond head seated a few tables away. Her own appetite ebbed at seeing Stryker for the second time in one day.
Her reaction to him wasn’t totally objective. Realizing that didn’t make it any less real. Nor did it make her tone welcoming when he got up and headed their way.
“Evenin’.” Although his greeting was directed at the table at large, his gaze was on Ramsey. “Nice surprise to see you again, Ms. Clark.”
She could feel the two agents’ eyes on her, but she didn’t bother with an introduction. “Stryker. Funny place to look for ghosts.”
“Never know.” His mouth quirked up in a smile. He was, she decided, entirely too easygoing. “They’ve got ol’ Gil cookin’ back there. That could be a direct line to the afterlife.” He circled their table to stand behind her and pulled out her chair. “Mind if I borrow her for a few minutes, fellas? Promise to bring her back in one piece.”
Rather than engage in the explanation necessary to erase the men’s quizzical expressions, Ramsey gritted her teeth and rose. “Excuse me, would you please?” But when Stryker took her elbow to guide her back toward his table, she shook off his touch.
“I don’t appreciate being commandeered.” She saw then, for the first time, the woman seated at the table he’d vacated. The one he was steering her toward. “Who’s that?”
“Leanne Layton. She’s a real nice gal, so don’t go bein’ mean to her. She wants to meet you.”
She shot him a look filled with dislike. “I’m not mean.”
His smile widened. “You purely are. Surly even. ’Course some guys might find that edge attractive.”
She snorted. “Like I care whether . . . Hello.” She was forced to swallow the rest of her retort as the woman smiled at her.
“Dev, you rude ol’ thing. I didn’t mean for you to go steal her away from her friends.” Leanne Layton smiled sunnily up at Ramsey. “My fault. I was wonderin’ about you, and Dev here said he’d met you. I told him I’d like to talk to you some time, and off he goes and whisks you over here.”
“I thought Ramsey would be interested to hear you tell her about the local legend.” He pulled out an empty chair and sat Ramsey down in it with one hand to her shoulder.
She sent him a killer look, which seemed to slide off him. “Actually . . .”
He bent down to murmur in her ear. “Open your mind a little, Ms. Clark. I promise your brains won’t fall out.” Straightening, he said in a louder tone, “How ’bout I go up and get you both one of Gil’s special lemonades?”
“Doesn’t do any good to get mad at him.”
Ramsey shifted her gaze, which had been drilling into the man’s back, to the woman next to her, who was smiling ruefully.
“I mean you can try, but seems like a good mad just doesn’t stick when you’re dealin’ with Devlin Stryker.”
“You know him well?”
“Known him since we were both in strollers. Even after his family moved away, he came back regular to visit his granddaddy.”
Interest sparked among her ire. He was as good as a local then, but with an outsider’s objectivity. As such he might be of use filling in details about the people in town if they started profiling suspects.
Temper easing, Ramsey took another look at the woman next to her. With her cap of sleek brown hair, red sundress, and manicured nails, she’d look at home on a magazine cover featuring Southern belles.
“Stryker . . . Devlin tells me you’re an authority on the legend of the red mist.”
Her fire-engine-red nail polish flashed as Leanne gave a dismissive gesture with her hand. “Not me. But I can repeat what my mama has told me since I was little. Donnelle Layton,” she said in an aside. “She’s sort of a volunteer historian for the local historical museum. I’m not sayin’ she puts a lot of stock in the story, but she’s very exactin’ about writin’ down the history of people and places around here. It’s all part of the color, you understand, of who and what formed our town.”
Ramsey always forgot the roundabout path conversations took in the south. She took a deep breath, squelched her impatience, and tried to summon a polite smile.
“You’ve probably noticed it has been a little nuts ’round here since the murder. Well, maybe you haven’t noticed, since Dev said you just arrived, but it is. And I don’t mean just the news crews either. A murder always gets people in these parts spooked, because of the legend. On account of the murders happenin’ in threes.” Leanne paused to dig around in a purse too small to be of much use, and extracted a package of cigarettes.
“There have been other homicides here?” Rollins had mentioned deaths occurring around the same time as the appearance of the red mist. But he’d neglected to mention they’d been homicides. Ramsey’s interest in the legend kicked up several notches.
After lighting a cigarette and inhaling deeply, Leanne continued. “There are different versions of the legend, you understand. But the facts that remain the same are that every generation, give or take a few years, we’ll have a sightin’ of the red mist followed by a death. And shortly after the first one, two others will occur. Of course they aren’t always violent deaths. Maybe someone will have a heart att
ack or die in their sleep.” Leanne seemed fuzzy on the exact details. “But the red mist is always sighted before the first body is found.”
“You mean by whoever discovers the victim?” Ramsey asked. She was intrigued in spite of herself.
“Oh no.” Leanne shook her head emphatically. “There’ll be several reports of people claimin’ to have seen it. Gets some of the folks worked up, you understand, when they hear ’bout it. Children aren’t allowed out after dark. The streets just roll up at dusk. Some people even leave town for a while.”
“Sheriff Rollins said there’s a scientific explanation for the color, and that it’s just low-lying fog.”
Leanne lifted one smooth shoulder left bare by the sundress. “He’d know, I ’spect. Come to think of it, our chemistry teacher tried to explain it to us back in high school. Can’t say I ever paid it much mind back then.” She gave Ramsey a mischievous smile. “When we were kids, it was more fun scarin’ ourselves with the legend, you know?”
“I can imagine.” Ramsey thought for a moment. “What about those details you talked about? The different retellings?”
“You should really talk to my mama. I’ll just mess it up. Never could keep them all straight. But they are interestin’.”
Making a mental note to do just that, Ramsey asked, “How far back does this pattern go? The red mist and murders, I mean?”
Leanne sat back as Dev arrived at the table and carefully set two glasses of frothy lemonade in front of them. “Thank you, honey.” To Ramsey she said, “How long? I’m not sure. About a hundred years or so.” Her inflection made it more a question than a statement. “The one thing that can’t be denied is that there is a pattern. It’s just one of those things.”
A helluva pattern, Ramsey agreed silent. And one of those things that Rollins had glossed over in their earlier discussion on the topic.
“Where can I find your mother if I want to hear more about the legend?”
Leanne set her cigarette in the ashtray and reached for her glass, sipping daintily from the straw. “She works part-time at the mill in Clayton. That’s about fifteen miles from here. But most Wednesdays she’s at the Historical Museum on Main Street.”
“You can’t miss it.” Stryker spoke for the first time since returning to the table. “The storefront has been restored to reflect the architecture of the 1800s. Narrow gray buildin’ on the north side of the street.”
“I’ll remember that.” She shot him a meaningful look. “That is, if my brains don’t fall out before then.”
“Stop in and see me sometime, too.” Leanne reached over to rake a hand through Ramsey’s hair, causing her to jump. “Sorry.” She smiled ruefully. “Habit of mine. I own Sharp Cuts on the corner of Fifth and Maple. And you have a decent enough cut; you just need a trim.” Her gaze turned assessing. “Do you highlight it?”
“Uh, no.” How did they go from discussing century-old legends and deaths to hair?
Leanne lifted one smoothly arched brow. “Lucky you. Like I say, stop in. I talked too much and didn’t get to hear a thing about you. We do manis and pedis, too.”
Ramsey must have looked as blank as she felt because the other woman went on. “Manicures and pedicures. We’re full service.”
Curling her fingers with their ragged nails into her palms, Ramsey decided it was time to take her leave. “I should get back to my . . . friends. It was nice meeting you, Leanne. I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again.” Although not, if she could help it, by making an appointment with the woman.
Rising, she glanced at Stryker, who was watching her with an amused glint in his eye. “Later,” she said shortly, her voice full of promise.
“Countin’ on it.” He picked up her glass, offered it to her. “Don’t forget your lemonade.”
Ramsey hesitated for a minute, then took it from him and walked back to her table, where the food had arrived.
“Sorry,” she said, slipping into her chair and unfolding a napkin across her lap. “That took longer than I expected.”
The two men were already eating. “How’d you meet Stryker already?” Powell cut off a piece of chicken and put it in his mouth, chewing with a resigned air of a man eating purely for fuel rather than enjoyment.
“He was at Ashton’s Pond when I got there with Rollins.” As she cut her steak, she gave them an abbreviated account of their first meeting.
“Don’t know what Rollins was thinking,” Matthews said when she was finished. “He knows better than to let a civilian tromp around in a crime scene.”
“We’re not going to find anythin’ else there,” Powell said flatly. “We’ve eliminated the area around the pond as the primary scene. Our best chance of solvin’ this thing is to discover where the victim was killed.”
“And to ID her,” Ramsey put in. Matthews had been right. The steak was better than average. She slathered her potato with butter until she caught Powell watching her and decided not to rub it in. “That woman Stryker introduced me to told me a little about the legend of the red mist. Have you heard about it?”
“Hard not to.” Powell speared rice into his mouth and then took a long drink of milk. “Every wit we interview goes on ’bout it. Just a bunch of superstitious nonsense.”
She didn’t disagree. “But what if someone is playing on that superstition with this homicide?” She was thinking out loud. “Get people this agitated, and it can cloud an investigation. Make it difficult for investigators to separate fact from fiction.”
“Right now we’ve got damn few facts,” Powell said grimly. He’d finished his meal and was eyeing her steak avariciously. “First thing in the mornin’ we’ll bring you up to date with what we do have and consider our next steps. Assign duties.”
And he was in charge of doing so. His message was clear. Ramsey didn’t mind. Eventually, though, she’d have a few ideas of her own for tracking down the identity of their Jane Doe.
She’d barely finished eating when Powell was shoving his chair back, reaching for his wallet. Ramsey got her purse and placed some bills on the table.
“I’m going to stay for a while,” Matthews surprised her by saying. “I’ll catch a ride later.”
Powell lifted a shoulder. “As long as you realize no matter what time you come draggin’ in, I’m getting you up at seven.”
The younger agent was already turned away, scanning the crowd. “I think I can handle it.”
Ramsey caught Stryker’s gaze on her before she turned away to follow the agent out of the tavern. The man was a bona fide pain in the ass. But tonight, at least, he’d at least been a somewhat useful one.
Chapter 3
They might not know the victim’s name, but it was evident that she’d died unhappily.
Ramsey held the autopsy report, with the crime scene photos arrayed on the table before her. Their Jane Doe hadn’t spent enough time in the water to bloat up the way a floater would have. Less than two hours, according to the medical examiner.
Flipping a page of the report, Ramsey continued reading. She still couldn’t believe their bad luck. They’d had teenage kids running all over those woods, and none so far admitted to having seen a car or stranger there that night. Given the timeline of when the kids were seen in town and how long the body had been in the water, they may have missed the killer by as little as forty-five minutes.
Assuming, of course, that the same person who killed the woman was the one who got rid of her body.
Ramsey lingered over the description of the Jane Doe. Five-six, one hundred thirty pounds. Between eighteen and twenty-five. Brown hair and eyes.
Settling back in her chair, she put her feet up on the supporting bar beneath the table and used the descriptors to work up a mental picture of the victim. Not as she was when her body was found, broken and violated. But of whom she may have been before she’d met her killer.
Ramsey would need that in her brain, a visual of the woman as she had been alive. Young. Vibrant. With a future that had been snatched from
her. Already that familiar burn had lodged in her chest. The one that wouldn’t go away until justice had been delivered for the unknown victim.
The next page revealed the woman had had her appendix removed no more than three years ago. Two small tattoos adorned the body. The TBI agents had run the vic through the state and national crime databases. Neither her fingerprints nor the tattoo identifiers had hit, so the woman didn’t have a record.
Ramsey reached forward for a handful of pictures. The body had been found facedown in the pond. The small amount of water in the lungs indicated the organs had just begun to passively fill. She’d been dead before she’d been dumped there.
She lingered over the photos showing the bruises to the woman’s throat. Death by manual strangulation. A very personal way to kill someone. The report indicated violent vaginal and anal sexual intercourse prior to death. Bruising to the vulva and upper thighs. Anal fissures and perineal lacerations. The extent of the trauma suggested possible multiple partners. If any trace evidence had transferred from one of her attackers to the body, the time in the water had destroyed it.
