by Brant, Kylie
A dart of jealousy stabbed her. “Get out.” She gave Abbie a light shove. “You two are working the Lexington child-snatching case?”
Her friend nodded, satisfied. “That’s right.”
“How about you?” Ryne’s faint Boston accent sounded foreign to Ramsey’s ears after only a day of the rural dialect of Buffalo Springs. “How’s the case shaping up?”
She gave them a rundown in a few succinct sentences, welcoming the chance to bounce even a few of the details off her colleagues. Both looked pensive for a moment. “Jeffries is making your job IDing the victim a bit difficult with the media blackout.”
“I’ve got an idea I’ll be following up tomorrow, or as soon as Bledsoe faxes back a likeness to distribute. We’ll keep it out of the press unless we have no choice.”
The other two nodded. They worked with her at Raiker Forensics, Ryne most recently when he quit his job as a Savannah police detective to move closer to Abbie. Both were familiar with the dynamics politics could play on a case.
“Maybe the killer’s a ghost and the red mist is its disappearing act,” Ryne suggested, sober-faced.
“You’re a funny guy. I’m surprised Abbie hasn’t beaten that sense of humor out of you yet.” The other woman was lethal with Muy Thai.
“She’s tried,” Ryne’s grin was wicked. “But I’m a fast runner.”
Abbie checked her watch. “Uh-oh. We need to get moving to make it to Lexington for our case briefing.” She and Ryne moved in tandem to the car.
“Good luck,” Ramsey called as she headed toward the sleek black RV. The pair waved and got in the vehicle.
It still gave her sort of a jolt to see Abbie with Ryne, relaxed and . . . happy was probably the word she was looking for. A few months ago Ramsey would have guessed the woman was destined to remain as solitary as she was herself.
But Abbie’s new relationship, as unexpected as it was, wouldn’t be affecting Ramsey’s lifestyle. She’d long ago learned that a no-strings private life worked out the best for her in the long run.
She climbed the two steps to the lab and pulled the door over. “Jonesy. Ready to go to work?”
“You’re joking, right? Tell me you’re joking.” The most brilliant scientist on the Raiker team—and that was saying something—pulled his head out of a lower cupboard for a minute to glare at her. With his smooth baby face, he looked like a twelve-year-old on the verge of a tantrum. “It’s going to take hours to get organized. And I still have to get hooked up to a water and electrical source. The supply I have on board isn’t going to last long.”
Ramsey returned his stare and wondered what the TBI agents would make of the man. Jonesy—she’d never heard his complete name—was dressed all in black, as was his norm. His hair this week was shaved on the sides, the center worn in a Mohawk, also dyed black. With all the piercings on his face, she’d always half expected him to spring a dozen leaks when he took a drink. He had two sleeves of tattoos, which ran from shoulder to wrist. She’d once heard that Raiker plucked him away from the FBI’s crime lab to come work for him. Since the feds were notoriously uptight, she had a hard time believing Jonesy could have lasted a day with them.
“Talk to Mary Sue Talbot in the office,” she instructed. “Apparently this place is equipped with a couple campsites, and she’ll direct you to one of them.”
Jonesy had returned to his task in the cupboard, so Ramsey was talking to his back. And a wedge of blindingly white skin as his shirt rode up.
It was too early in the day for her to deal with seeing any amount of the man bare. She closed her eyes for a moment to erase the image. “Give me your cell phone.”
After digging around in his pocket, he handed it to her, and Ramsey programmed her number into it. Then she repeated the action, inputting his number on hers.
“So far we only have results on the latents. There were no hits on the Automated Fingerprint Identification System. I’m on my way to the sheriff’s office to get the evidence transferred back here that wasn’t taken to the TBI lab.” And she knew which test she was most anxious to get his take on. “I’d like you to identify something found in the stomach contents. Something the ME defined only as a plant derivative.”
“I’ll run that test. I’ll run any test. As a matter of fact, I will run around the RV naked if you just get out and let me set up here.”
“God knows no one wants that,” she muttered. The scientist could be a bit dictatorial about the order in his lab, but his work would be worth it.
Shutting the door of the RV, a thought brought a smile to her face. It was going to be worth the price of a ticket to see how the people of Buffalo Springs reacted when they got a load of Jonesy.
It was another couple hours before Ramsey finished at the sheriff’s office. Rollins wasn’t there, but she spoke to him by cell about sending a deputy to the mobile lab with the rest of the evidence. She convinced him to do it right away without, she thought, being overly pushy. Then she inputted the necessary information for the ViCAP form and submitted it on the office’s designated machine and called Powell. He gave her directions to the property owners he wanted her to speak to. But it took her another quarter hour to speak with the dispatcher, Letty Carter, who provided her with maps of the area before Ramsey set out.
The roads twisted and climbed without any visible rhyme or reason. She consulted the maps she’d gotten from the dispatcher—with the warning of dire bodily harm if she didn’t return them—and made note of the properties that butted up against the forest engulfing Ashton’s Pond. With Powell working from the northernmost end, she decided to start with the southernmost property owner, a—Ramsey squinted at the small print—Duane Tibbitts.
Obligingly, a mailbox with that faded last name on it signaled the place, so Ramsey turned off on the narrow rutted drive. It was nearly overgrown with underbrush in places, and if it had once seen gravel, that time was in the far distant past. A few inches of rain would turn the drive into a quarter-mile-long mud slick.
The trees grew denser, as if crowding close to swallow up anyone stupid enough to approach. Grimly, Ramsey kept her eye on the road and her mind firmly rooted in the present.
Swinging the vehicle around a sharp curve, she came to a jolting stop before a ramshackle dwelling. Chickens scratched listlessly at the dirt on either side of her.
The house slouched like a sullen teenager, its once white paint chipped and peeling. The porch sagged beneath a drooping roof propped up by a trio of tired two-by-fours. The screen door was only a frame, and the window in the front door had what looked like a bullet hole in it.
But there were curtains at the windows and geraniums in pots on the steps. A gray tiger cat sunned itself where a slant of sunlight pierced the trees and painted the porch with its glow.
It opened its eyes in a slit as Ramsey got out of the vehicle. But when she approached the porch, it jumped to its feet, arched its back, and hissed a warning.
A warning Ramsey should have heeded. Because a moment later the doors swung open and a woman stepped out on the porch. At any other time, Ramsey would have been wondering at the black eye she sported. But right now, she was too busy regarding the shotgun the woman carried, aimed right at her.
“Good afternoon.” With effort she kept her voice pleasant. “Is this Tibbitts’ place?”
“Won’t matter none to you with a hole through ya.” The woman jerked her head toward the drive. “Get on outta here. A person’s got a right to privacy on their own property.”
A trickle of perspiration snaked down Ramsey’s spine beneath her black suit jacket. It was too warm to wear it, but it hid her shoulder harness. She dearly hoped she wasn’t going to have to pull her weapon.
“I’m not here to invade your privacy. I suppose you’ve had plenty of visitors already, with the media types that swarmed the area after that murder.”
There was no response. Nor did the woman lower the shotgun.
With a nonchalance she was far from feeling, Ram
sey leaned against the open door of the vehicle. She could dive inside if it looked like the woman was about to follow through on her threat.
A bleached blond about five-six, the stranger could have passed for fifty with her facial wrinkles and lack of teeth. But the hands gripping the shotgun were smooth, and the figure beneath the tight tank and jeans was youthful. Ramsey was betting she was at least twenty years younger. A meth head, from the looks of her. Ramsey’s gaze went beyond the woman to the front door she’d left ajar.
“My name is Ramsey Clark, and I’m working with the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation on the homicide that occurred in the woods behind you a few days ago.”
“Don’t care who y’re,” the woman said in her heavy drawl. “I got nuthin’ to say, and you need to git on outta here afore I start shootin’.” She hefted the shotgun meaningfully. “I got a shell loaded and ready.”
A man’s voice sounded from the confines of the house. “Hurry up and get rid of ’em and get yer ass back in here, Mary.”
Making a sudden decision, Ramsey gave her an easy smile and made to get back into the SUV. “No problem. I’ll just go on back into town and get a warrant.” She took her time sliding into the car.
The woman—Mary—looked torn. With a glance behind her, she lowered the shotgun to rest it across one arm and came off the steps to approach the vehicle.
Ramsey tensed. She left the car door open, but one hand crept inside her jacket and unsnapped the guard on her holster. Her fingers settled on the grip of the weapon, ready to draw it if necessary. In times like these she blessed Raiker’s insistence that his operatives be issued concealed and carry permits in whichever state they worked for the duration of the case.
“Hold on, now.” Mary tried a smile that showed gaping holes where her missing teeth should have been. “No need to make two trips out here, is there? No need to make one, truth be told. We can’t tell ya nuthin’ ’bout that night. Din’t hear or see a thing.”
Convenient. “I’m talking about June fifth, around ten P.M.?” The woman shook her head. An accompanying bolt of frustration twisted through Ramsey. “Wait, I guess it was the sixth.”
Mary froze mid head shake, recognizing the trap, but then recommenced it even more violently. “We mind our bizness ’n’ ’spect everyone else to. We got nuthin’ but trees ’tween here and Ashton’s Pond. What you think we’re gonna be able to see clear over there?”
Ramsey’s hand relaxed a bit over her weapon. Mary had the shotgun cradled in her arms now, not seeming worried that it was loaded—according to her earlier claim. As long as it was no longer pointed at her, Ramsey wasn’t worried either.
“That’s what I’m asking.”
“We din’t hear nuthin’.” She spit the words out, her earlier show of pleasantness evaporating. “Din’t see nuthin’ neither. We’re isolated out here, and that’s the way we like it.”
“What about Duane?” Ramsey let her gaze drift to the house. “Maybe he saw something.”
“He didn’t. He works third shift over ta the mill in Clayton. He wasn’t even here.”
But Ramsey’s attention had been diverted. There was a flash of something in the trees beyond the house. “Is someone out in those woods?” She pointed a finger. “I saw something move.”
The woman gave a quick glance over her shoulder. “I don’t see nuthin’,” she said, her words an ironic echo of her earlier declaration. “Pro’bly a deer.”
“This deer was wearing overalls and a flannel shirt,” Ramsey said drily. “Is Duane out there?”
“He’s in the house. Y’heard ’em earlier, din’t ya?”
Ramsey’s attention returned to the woman. “Anyone else living here with you?”
“We don’ got no kids, Duane ’n’ me. Maybe someday.”
Ramsey took the moment to fervently hope not. Digging into her pocket for a card, she held it out to the woman. “If you think of anything that you’ve forgotten, please call me at the number listed there.”
“Ramsey.” The woman studied her name as if she hadn’t heard it earlier. “Odd sorta name for a woman.”
With a tight smile, Ramsey started the vehicle. “I’m an odd sort of woman.” And that was probably one of the few truths spoken here in the last few minutes.
Mary retreated toward the house, and Ramsey attempted to turn the car toward the drive without backing over one of the chickens.
In her rearview mirror, she saw the man again, this time taking cover in the trees lining the rutted drive. Maybe there was a meth lab somewhere in the woods surrounding the house. Certainly there was some reason Mary had grown more accommodating when Ramsey had bluffed about a warrant.
She’d mention it to Rollins and let him worry about it. It would be easy enough to check out whether Duane Tibbitts worked third shift at the mill, too. But as she bumped along the road watching for the lane to the next property, she had a feeling that the rest of the afternoon was going to be just as fruitless.
Dusk had settled, painting the normally sunny kitchen with shadows. “Please,” Beau Simpson croaked. He tried to rise from the round-backed kitchen chair. A tap of the rifle barrel to his shoulder had him sinking again, fear congealing in a tangled knot in his stomach.
He swallowed, throat dry as dust despite the beer he’d just finished. “It don’t gotta be this way.”
“It has to be just this way, Beau.” The other man’s voice was calm. “You were trusted to do one job. And you fucked it up. They’re goin’ to identify the woman eventually. Do you get what that means? They’ll identify her, and it’s all your fault, because she never shoulda been found to begin with!”
Beau tried to think of something, anything to say. Could come up with nothing. If only Marvella would come home early for once from her Wednesday night pinochle game. Just once if she’d cut short the gossip and dessert, pick up Pammy Jo from her mother’s, and come home and interrupt this scene. Give him time to think of another way.
“I thought someone was comin’,” he defended himself. He’d seen lights in the woods. He had. “I figured dump her quick before I get discovered. Better that she be found than I be caught haulin’ a dead body on my back.”
“Better that you did your job and we wouldn’t be in this mess. What was your job, Beau?”
He wasn’t a man given to tears, but he started to cry then. Sobs racked his big frame. “I did what I could.”
“What. Was. Your. Job?” The rifle barrel punctuated each word with a jab to the shoulder.
He didn’t want to say it. Saying it would make it sound like he’d failed, and he’d done the best he could! And there’d been no harm done. Not really. Even discovering the woman’s name wasn’t going to lead anyone to them.
But in the end, the look on the other man’s face had him swiping at his eyes with the back of his hand and obeying. Because that was what Beau always did when this man told him something.
“Wrap the chain around the body and dump it off the north side.” The north side of the pond had the sharpest incline, reaching eighteen feet deep barely a foot from the edge.
“That’s right. Instead you dumped her in a coupla feet of water and didn’t weight her down at all.” The voice had gone calm. Deadly calm.
Beau knew how dangerous this man was. Knew it didn’t pay to cross him. But still he gaped in stunned disbelief when the shotgun, taken from his own gun rack, was shoved into his hands.
“You’re gonna do the right thing now.” The tone was low, persuasive. Beau stared at the gun barrel disbelievingly. Raised his gaze to see the man pull a handgun from his waistband at the small of his back. His gloved hands aiming it toward Beau.
“You’re gonna wrap your lips ’round that barrel.” The words were so cool and easy. As if describing how to take apart a carburetor. “Far enough inside that the bullet goes into your skull and not through the roof of your mouth. That’s how you’ll make this right.”
“I ain’t killin’ myself . . . You’re crazy!” Beau
shoved to his feet, only to be stopped by the pistol pressed close to his temple. Slowly. Slowly he inched back down into his seat again.
“Yes, you are, and I’ll tell you why. Because if you don’t, I’m comin’ for Marvella next time. You remember everythin’ we did to the last one? What you did?” He waited for Beau to nod. “Well, it’ll go worse with your wife. I’ll make sure of that. Or maybe I’ll just wait a few years and snatch Pammy Jo. Do her the same way.”
The tears scalded his eyes now. Fear shredded his heart. “She’s just a little girl!”
“You’re the one needs remindin’ of that, not me. You fucked up bad, but you can do the right thing here. You can save your family.” The man reached over and guided the barrel to Beau’s lips. “Otherwise . . . they’re damned, Beau. All because of you.”
