by Debra Webb
There were no photos in the file except the crime scene photos. “We should try the newspaper,” Deacon suggested.
“The woman who runs the newspaper, Audrey Anderson, came to see me at the prison last month. She wanted to do an interview.” Cece shrugged. “But I said no.”
“Maybe you should call her. See what she has. Tell her you’re reconsidering her interview.”
A smile tugged at her lips. “I was just thinking the same thing.”
She used her grandmother’s old telephone book to look up the number for the newspaper office and then she made the call. Deacon listened as she played her part, offered to reconsider the interview and then asked for any photos.
“I would really appreciate that.” She smiled at Deacon. “When could I pick them up?” She listened for a moment. “Perfect.”
When she hung up the phone she said, “She needs an hour to pull the file. The reporter who covered the case has an entire file of interviews he did and a ton of pictures. She said I could see everything.”
“We should put these files away before we go.”
She surveyed the scattered pages, then looked at him, startled, as if she had only just realized that someone could break in and steal the files or, worse, burn the house down. After what happened with the electrical box, she certainly should have thought of that.
“We could take them to my place, if you’d like.”
“Good idea.”
They packed the pages back into the folders and the folders into the boxes. By the time they delivered them to his house, it was time to head to the newspaper office. The Winchester Gazette building was one of the oldest in town. It sat just off the courthouse square. As soon as they walked through the door, the receptionist directed them to the conference room on the second floor.
The second floor circled the interior space of the building and opened in the center to the first floor. Glass and steel allowed for near complete transparency of the second floor offices.
Audrey Anderson met them on the landing. Deacon didn’t know her but he had seen her face and name on the news and in the paper frequently since his move to Winchester. Audrey Anderson was a mover and a shaker in Franklin County. She knew everyone and made no bones about what she wanted when she went after something.
“Miss Winters.” She extended her hand and Cece accepted the gesture and gave her hand a shake.
“This is my friend and neighbor, Deacon Ross.”
“Mr. Ross.” Anderson gave his hand a firm shake, as well. “It’s very nice to see you both. Let’s move on to the conference room.”
“I appreciate you going to all this trouble,” Cece said. “It’s very kind of you.”
Anderson led the way into the spacious room and gestured to the table in the center. “Thank you for saying so, Cece. May I call you Cece?”
“Of course. Wow.” Cece stalled at the table and stared at the mounds of papers and photos.
“I wish I could claim that I was doing this out of the kindness of my heart, but I have a very good but selfish reason for helping you. I want your story.”
Cece nodded. “I understand. So you know, I have questions I’d like to find the answers to before I give anyone my story.”
“You want the truth.”
Cece looked from the other woman to Deacon and back. “Yes.”
“Whatever I or my staff can do to help you find it—we are at your disposal.” She gestured to the table. “Take your time. Any questions, my office is just down the hall.”
Anderson closed the door as she left the room.
“You think she’s serious about helping me?” Cece asked.
Deacon glanced toward the office where the woman had disappeared. “I think she recognizes there’s a big story here and she wants it. She’s a very smart newspaper publisher and she’s interested in helping you so she can get an exclusive.”
Cece’s green eyes filled with emotion. “When I came back, I was certain I wouldn’t find anyone who wanted to help me.”
More of that guilt heaped onto his shoulders. “Let’s get to it.”
The photos taken were extensive. There were numerous glossy eight by tens of the courtroom and those present to view the proceedings.
“Take your time,” Deacon reminded her. “Point him out if you see him.”
He had already spotted a man that matched the description she had given. But there was more than one in overalls and with a beard.
“That’s him.” She tapped the one he had pegged.
“You’re certain?”
She nodded. “One hundred percent.”
“Maybe Ms. Anderson can track down his name for us.”
“I’ll ask her.” Cece took the photo and headed to Anderson’s office.
Deacon picked up another of the photos. As he surveyed the faces, he stalled on one, his heart stumbling.
Jack.
His partner sat two rows back from the prosecutor’s table. In front of Jack and slightly to his right was Sierra Winters. The photo had captured Jack staring at the young woman.
Deacon grabbed more of the photos and shuffled through them, his heart pounding now.
Two more photos showed Jack in the crowd outside the courthouse, always near Sierra...near enough to reach out and touch her.
Jack was either watching Sierra or the two knew each other.
Chapter Eleven
The man in the photo was Rayford Prentiss but he no longer lived in the house at the end of Pleasant Ridge Road near Huntland. Audrey Anderson had tracked him down to that address. According to the man who lived there now, Prentiss had not lived there in around seven or eight years.
Convenient.
And frustrating.
Cece wanted to scream. Every time she thought she had found someone or something that might help, it or they turned out to be a dead end.
She glanced at the man behind the wheel. Deacon had been oddly quiet since they left the newspaper. Asking him if something was wrong seemed like the right thing to do but she was nearly afraid to open that door. The way her luck ran, whatever was wrong would likely be a travesty that involved her. For now, she decided to be content in the not knowing.
When he headed across the road from what used to be the Prentiss place, she asked, “Where are we going?”
“To check in with the man’s former neighbors. Maybe some of them knew him and know where he is now.”
“Assuming he’s still alive,” she offered forlornly. The way her luck was running, the man had disappeared without a trace.
“Assuming he’s still alive,” Deacon agreed.
The laneway to the house on the opposite side of the road was a long one, more than a mile. At the end of that lengthy drive, a farmhouse sadly in need of a fresh coat of paint sat nestled against the side of the mountain, trees crowding in around it. Beyond the thick woods were pastures. They had driven past those on the way here. The yard around the house had been left wooded, adding a layer of privacy most of the farmhouses along this road did not have.
“People who live off the beaten path sometimes answer the door with a shotgun.” She’d decided to mention it because Deacon was still fairly new around here. Since he’d spent most of his time in the Nashville area, he might not run into that sort of thing too often. She didn’t want him getting shot by some nervous homeowner.
“Do I look like a bad guy?”
Cece couldn’t tell if he was kidding or not so she gave him a thorough once-over—the beard-shadowed jaw, the cowboy hat pulled down low on his forehead, well-worn jeans and scuffed cowboy boots.
“I should probably go with you.” She reached for the door. “I look a lot more harmless.”
He grinned. “All right then.”
They climbed out of the truck, met at the hood. He asked, “You remember any of the f
olks who live nearby?”
“Maybe if I heard the names I might. But I don’t remember any of the houses so far.”
She’d never had any reason to be in this neck of the woods. Huntland had its own high school so she hadn’t gone to school with any of the people from this area. Not that she recalled, anyway.
“Let’s give a knock and see what we find.”
As she had predicted, the woman of the house showed up at the door with her shotgun. “You lost? You don’t look like those door-to-door Bible thumpers.”
“Afternoon, ma’am,” Deacon said, his voice and that smile charming as hell.
Cece shivered. Until that moment she hadn’t noticed just how deep his voice was. Well, maybe she had noticed, but there was something about the way he said ma’am that made her shiver. The smile, well, that was the usual generous one that flowed so easily across his lips.
“My name is Deacon Ross and this is my friend Cece. We’re trying to locate my momma’s cousin, Rayford Prentiss. We lost contact with him years ago and I wanted to let him know she was real sick and might not be long for this world.”
There was something else Cece noticed for the first time. The man could weave a tale way too smoothly. Another shiver went through her, this one for an entirely different reason.
“I think he moved away or died or something. Come on in and I’ll ask Daddy. He’ll know. He knows everything about everyone around here.”
“I would sure appreciate that, ma’am.”
“Geneva Harvey.” She lowered the barrel of her weapon, tucked it under her left arm and thrust out her right hand.
Deacon shook her hand and then she offered it to Cece who did the same. Cece was immensely thankful the lady didn’t recognize her.
“This way.”
Ms. Harvey headed deeper into the house. Deacon closed the door behind them and followed behind Cece. They moved through the living room and then the kitchen. The house smelled of cigarettes and the leftover fried okra sitting in the cast-iron skillet on the stove. Cece could not remember the last time she’d had fried okra. Her grandmother had loved it. Beyond the kitchen was a back hall lined with doors. The bedrooms, she imagined. One of the open doors they passed led to a bathroom, complete with claw-foot tub and vintage pedestal sink, both a little stained.
The woman knocked on one of the closed doors. “Daddy, you decent?”
“Why wouldn’t I be? Come on in.”
The voice on the other side of the door was rusty and gravelly. When the lady opened the door, cigarette smoked greeted them like a fog rolling in off the lake.
“Daddy, this is Deacon Ross and his friend Cece. They want to know what happened to Mr. Prentiss. You remember him?”
All this she said in a really loud voice. Apparently her daddy was about half deaf.
The man sat in a wheelchair. His bed was the type used in hospitals. His skin was more yellow than white. Even his fingernails were yellow, Cece noted, as he lifted his cigarette to his lips and took a draw.
Beyond the wheelchair and hospital bed, the room looked like most any other. A dresser and a door to what was likely a closet. The windows were raised, and a box fan sat in one, trying its best to draw in the air from outside. Overhead a ceiling fan twirled, dust hanging from its blades like fur lining the collar of a coat.
Next to his chair was a table with a glass and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Now that Cece looked more closely, the man’s eyes were bloodshot and rimmed in red.
“Cancer.”
Cece started when she realized he was speaking to her. He stared directly at her. Evidently he had noticed her sizing up him and his room.
“I got maybe two months left. The painkillers caused other problems so I decided to handle the discomfort on my own terms.”
“I’m sorry.” Cancer was not a pleasant way to go.
He laughed, the sound a hoarse throaty sound. “Don’t be sorry, little girl. I brought it on myself. Smoked two packs a day my whole life. Drank like a crazy man and basically had a hell of a good time. Dying sucks but it was fun while it lasted.”
“Mr. Prentiss, Daddy,” his daughter scolded. “They want to know about the old man who used to live across the road.”
“Rayford was more hermit than anything else,” he said. “Those last few years he lived across the road he was busy building him one of them bugout places. God only knows where. He was into all that prepping stuff. A little over-the-top, if you ask me.”
His daughter made a harrumphing sound. “Like you ain’t.”
He pointed a glare at her. “I’m not like them crazy ones,” he snapped. “Rayford’s one of them doomsday preppers. The ones that claim they’ll rise up after the rest of us are blown to bits by a nuclear bomb or some such shit.”
Cece caught Deacon’s gaze. Resurrection.
“Do you know how we might find him or his friends?” Deacon asked.
Harvey shook his head. “You don’t want no part of that bunch,” he warned. “They don’t like nobody in their business.”
“I just want to see that he gets the news,” Deacon assured the man.
Harvey’s gaze narrowed. “They don’t cotton to outsiders, Mr. Ross. You might as well tell your momma he’s a lost cause. ’Course they’ll probably be the only ones to survive when we all get poisoned by one of them pharmaceutical companies.”
“Some of them still live openly,” Cece countered. “They just don’t tell anyone about what they do out in the woods.”
Harvey nodded. “That’s right. But then you have those who decide to make it a way of life. They sort of vanish. Nobody ever sees them again. They don’t want to be seen. They refer to them as the others. No one talks about them.”
“Thank you, Mr. Harvey,” Deacon said. “If you happen to see Mr. Prentiss, let him know I’m looking for him. I bought the old Wilburn place.”
Another nod and then Harvey looked directly at Cece. “You’re Mason Winters’s daughter. The one who killed him.”
Cece froze. Not sure what to say. Finally she managed an affirming nod. “I’m his daughter, yes.” No use arguing the other with him.
“No offense, but you did the world a favor killing that mean old bastard.”
“Daddy,” his daughter warned.
“It’s okay.” Cece managed a half-hearted smile for the other woman. “He’s right. My father was a mean old bastard.”
Harvey laughed until he lost his breath and started to cough. When he stopped coughing, he looked to Deacon. “I’ll send your message, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Deacon thanked him again and Ms. Harvey guided them back to the front door. When they were in the truck and back out on Pleasant Ridge Road headed toward Highway 64, Cece turned to Deacon. “My sister had a boyfriend back then.” Cece laughed. “She’s actually had a few, according to Levi. But back when the murder happened, there was this one. Her first love, sort of. I think we should talk to him. He was at the house a lot with Sierra. He might be able to tell us anything he heard or saw around the house during that those final few weeks.”
“Do you mean the guy who gave your sister an alibi?”
She nodded. “That’s the one.”
“What’s his address?”
“I know where his parents live—where he lived back then.”
“Close enough.”
* * *
SLADE FAIRBANKS HAD BEEN married and divorced twice over the past eight years. He had three kids, none of whom lived with him. He rented a small place in a mobile home park just outside town. His younger sister was only too happy to tell all about her relationship-damaged brother. According to her, Sierra ruined him. He was no good after she was finished with him.
As they drove away, Cece confirmed that she didn’t doubt the woman’s claims for a minute.
As they neared the address the sis
ter had provided, Deacon asked, “Is that him?”
Cece leaned forward and peered at the man in question. “I think so.”
As they pulled into the small driveway she nodded. “Yeah, that’s him.”
He was attending to something on a small charcoal grill while sucking down a beer. The twenty-something man was shirtless and his jeans hung well below his waist.
Fairbanks stared at them as they climbed out of the truck. Recognition flared on his face when he realized who Cece was.
“Cece Winters! Well, I’ll be damned.”
He tossed the spatula he had been using into the chair behind him, threw his apparently empty beer can on the ground and started her way. He hugged her tight, for a good while longer than necessary.
“I heard you were out.” He held her at arm’s length and looked her up and down. “Damn, girl, you look good for a recently released ex-con.”
“Thanks, Slade.”
He glanced at Deacon.
“This is my friend, Deacon Ross. We wanted to talk to you for a few minutes if you have the time.”
A frown tugged his thick eyebrows together. “What’s this about?”
“Sierra.”
“Oh, hell.” He looked around, wiped his hands on his jeans. “Okay.” He grabbed the spatula and shifted two burger patties from the grill to a plate. Then he hitched his head toward the trailer. “Come on in.”
As he showed them inside, he talked about how his child support kept him from the lifestyle he had hoped for. “As my daddy says, you make your bed, you gotta lay in it.”
Cece asked him about his children. He showed her photos on his phone. Deacon kept quiet and let them do the catching up thing. The man was more likely to talk if he was comfortable and felt as if he were in charge.
“You really do look good, Cece.” Fairbanks shook his head. “I’m glad you got through that time with all that happened. I know it was hard.”
“It was. Tough. Especially since I didn’t kill anyone, much less my own father.”
He looked away then. Stared at the floor.
