14

by J. T. Ellison

  The likeness of the pretty young woman to the murdered girls instantly killed all the hours of relaxation she’d just experienced. Snow White was haunting her.

  Despite Sam’s wishes, she had to swing by the office, wrap up one or two little things, make sure the paperwork was up-to-date for all of her other cases. Maybe get one last glimpse into the Snow White war room before she left. Everything was being handled. The FBI were involved, and that Charlotte Douglas bitch. The case would be well covered by her team. Once she was satisfied all the appropriate wheels were in motion, she could put thoughts of everything else out of her head. Focus on Baldwin, on their life together. The idea of leaving the case open and active made her stomach hurt.

  The CJC looked forlorn in the winter landscape. The cold stone appeared colder, the windows seemed to have empty rooms behind them. Since there was more snow predicted, she assumed people had taken off early. Taylor stared at the entrance, the back door she’d come through hundreds of times, realizing that this would be the last time she’d see it from this perspective. Swallowing the misgivings, she bounded up the stairs, swiped her card and took the hallway to her office. She didn’t run into a soul, confirming her earlier feeling. The building was practically empty. Except for the homicide offices.

  She turned the corner and was greeted with a hail of shouts and cheers.

  “Taylor, what the hell are you doing here?” Marcus scrambled out of a chair, making a place by the space heater for his boss to sit. Taylor took the chair gratefully, slipping off her gloves and rubbing her hands together in front of the heater, luxuriating in the billowing heat it dispensed. She noticed Marcus sidling across the room casually. He reached behind him, pulled the door to her office closed. Fitz tried to distract her.

  “Yeah, LT, aren’t you supposed to be getting all beautified for the wedding?” Fitz was informal today, his hair an exceptional steely-gray, hunter’s plaid shirt untucked, his increasingly smaller paunch spilling over the tops of his jeans. He was unapologetic about his garb, just leaned further back in his chair, crossing his arms behind his head. “And what time’s the rehearsal again?”

  He winked at Lincoln Ross, who had glanced up from his industrious work digging a rock out of the tread of his Timberland boots. Lincoln gave Taylor a smile, the small gap between his two front teeth the only mar on his otherwise handsome face. She smiled back at him, comforted by his tranquility.

  “You guys are a regular riot. Why are you all dressed like you’re going camping?”

  “Because you weren’t supposed to be in today and we were all planning on cutting out and going camping,” Fitz grinned at her.

  “Really? Camping? In a snowstorm?”

  “Is it snowing again?” Lincoln went to the window, frowning at the street below.

  “It was starting up when I came in.” Taylor started to go into her office, but all three men moved toward her, saying no simultaneously. Fitz guided her to his desk and held out the chair for her.

  “Any reason in particular I’m not allowed to go into my own office, boys?”

  “Nope, no reason. As a matter of fact, you really should bundle up and head on home.” Marcus smiled at her, Lincoln nodded his agreement.

  “But I need to wrap a few things up.”

  Fitz shook his head. “No, you don’t. Just stop thinking about it, LT. You’re going to be gone for three weeks. The Fibbies are all over this like a fried june bug. You get married, go to Italy and have a wonderful start to your new life. We’ll get it covered. I promise.”

  “Has anyone heard from the esteemed Charlotte Douglas since she returned to Quantico? And is there any word on Jane Macias? There’s a serial killer out there, in case y’all have forgotten. I want to help. I think I should postpone—”

  Lincoln cut her off. “Oh, hell no, sister. Not a chance. You’re getting married tomorrow whether you like it or not. End of story. How d’you like my head?”

  Taylor looked him over. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed it immediately, chastised herself for being so self-absorbed. Lincoln had shaved his head bare, removing the curly dreadlocks he’d been sporting for the past few months. His skin was a shiny café au lait, glistening with conditioner. She got out of the warm chair, circled him a few times, contemplating. He’d looked like a sexy Rasta singer à la Lenny Kravitz with the dreads, but Taylor couldn’t place who he reminded her of shaved.

  “Very slick, my friend. That tux is going to be stunning on you. You’ll be the most handsome bridesmaid in the whole world.” She bumped his shoulder lightly with her hip, opened her mouth to speak. He cut her off.

  “Naw, don’t you go making any speeches now. We’re all good with the setup. Fitz walks you down the aisle, Marcus and I have equal standing as bridesmen, even though we’ll be on Baldwin’s side, and Sam’s the maid of honor.”

  “Matron of honor,” Marcus chimed in. “A maid of honor is for someone who isn’t married yet.” He grinned, happy to have a chance to poke fun at his friend.

  “Whatever, butthead. All that matters is our favorite lieutenant’s getting married.” Lincoln jumped out of the chair. He and Marcus started a chorus. The baritone and tenor filled the room.

  “Here comes the bride, short, fat and wide….” They dissolved into giggles before they reached the third line.

  Fitz and Taylor watched the two goof off, shaking their heads and laughing at their antics. Despite the specter of a serial killer in their midst, the homicide team was in understandably high spirits.

  Taylor looked at Fitz. “Is there really a reason why I’m not allowed in my office?”

  “There really is. Wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise. Just a little something for your wedding night.”

  She gave him a dirty look.

  “Oh, stop it. We’re just wrapping presents. So why don’t you go home?”

  She looked at him, deep in the eyes, and he sighed. “Okay. Okay. You can stay. But you still can’t go in your office.”

  Moments like this, she wondered who was really in charge of the unit.

  Lincoln’s phone rang, and he and Marcus stopped horsing around so he could answer it. He rolled his eyes and nodded, hanging up without a word.

  “Body. Who wants to go?”

  “Me,” Taylor stood. When they all started in griping at her, she shot them a look. “Lincoln’s primary. I’m just going along for the ride. It will be like I’m not even there. Let’s go.”

  As they packed it up and left, Taylor’s emotions were mixed. Every time they got called out now, she expected to find the mutilated body of Jane Macias. Damn, she wanted to catch this guy before they blew the country.

  Twenty-Five

  Nashville, Tennessee

  Friday, December 19

  3:00 p.m.

  To Taylor’s frustration, Lincoln talked about everything but the Snow White murders as they drove to West Nashville, looking for the address they’d been given. He refused to be engaged in speculation, insisted that she stop worrying about the case. Taylor sensed Fitz’s influence in Lincoln’s adamant state.

  A follow-up call with more details had them on their way to an apartment complex on West End, to a shooting that looked like a possible suicide. It did not sound like a Snow White case, which meant Jane was still out there, somewhere. Dead or alive, Taylor didn’t know.

  The address wasn’t matching up with the streets they were seeing. Taylor called in, got confirmation that the call had been off the mark. Instead, they took West End to West Meade, continued on Highway 70 over Nine Mile Hill and pulled into the parking lot of the Iroquois Apartments. They were well past West End and into Bellevue. Whoever made the dispatch call must have been new and from the east side of town—people often confused the areas west of Interstate 65. Nashvillians called it Old Hickory disease. The road appeared on all four quadrants of town. Though logic dictated you could get from one side of town to the other on the street, that was a fallacy. A confusing fallacy.

  They were met
by the somber white van belonging to the medical examiner’s office, a crime-scene tech and Bob Parks, who escorted them into a dingy apartment that smelled of latent fire damage, bacon grease and Clorox, an altogether terrible olfactory combination.

  A bespectacled young man was standing over the body, a puddle of blood at his feet. He looked up, gave them a blank smile.

  “Hi. Glad you’re here.”

  “Hey, Dr. Fox.” Taylor nodded at the M.E., then stood back quietly and let Lincoln talk.

  “Heard this was a possible suicide?” Lincoln walked around the pool of blood, taking it in from every angle.

  The young M.E. shook his head. “No suicide on this one. Execution style. He was on his knees. Shooter put the gun to his head, pulled the trigger. See the stippling? It was right up against his temple, flat on the surface. The bullet tore through his brain, went into the wall over there. Crime Scene recovered it. It’s flattened, but there’s enough to make a match if the gun is in the system. One shot to the temple, he falls face-first and to the right, landing here.”

  “A temple through and through. Need a big gun for that.”

  “Yeah, it’ll narrow it down.”

  Fox wasn’t much known for his chatty attitude. That was more than Taylor had heard him speak in one sitting since she’d met him, three years prior. He pointed to the body, an older gentleman by the looks of his gray hair.

  “Can we move him now?”

  Taylor focused on the back of the man’s head. The slight edge of comb track was still visible in the steely hair. “Was there no—” A throat cleared, and she looked up just in time to receive a ferocious stare from Lincoln, and stopped. He smiled politely.

  “There’s no identification on the body?” he asked, knowing full well that’s exactly what his boss was about to say.

  “No. Nothing. Pockets were emptied. It’s probably just a robbery gone wrong.”

  Lincoln was looking around the room. “This place looks deserted. Who belongs to the apartment?”

  Parks handed him a paper, the classified ad circled in red felt-tip pen. “It’s vacant. A furnished rental. Checked with the landlord, he gave me the paper.”

  “It’s just a robbery,” Fox interjected. “Shooter probably lives in another building, came down to score some crack.”

  “Brilliantly deduced, Fox. How many robbers do you know who execute their victims like this?” Taylor was tired of this rubbish. “Roll him.”

  “As you wish, Lieutenant.” He wasn’t endearing himself to Taylor this afternoon, there was no question of that. Lincoln shot her another warning look that said, Hey, you aren’t supposed to be here, go run off and get married. She glared back at him.

  The body was rolled, and Fox moved out of the way. Taylor looked down. Her breath caught in her throat. She turned and screamed at the wall. “Son of a bitch. Son of a bitch!”

  Lincoln stood over the body for a long moment.

  “That’s Frank Richardson, isn’t it?”

  Taylor’s head was pounding. The dry air of Captain Price’s office coupled with the stress of finding Frank Richardson executed was going to drive her mad. She dug into her pocket, dry swallowed three Advil covered in lint. Being debriefed by her boss was not the way she’d planned to spend the afternoon before her wedding. She was sick to her stomach, the desiccated pills stuck in her throat.

  “Give me the rundown, Lieutenant.” Shit. Price didn’t use her title as a proper name unless he was pissed off.

  “Richardson and I met for breakfast yesterday morning. Well, before that, he called me at home on Tuesday night. He’d just gotten back from France, was in New York. We talked for a while—he had pretty sound judgment when it came to Snow White. He pointed out there was plenty of information that didn’t make it into his actual print pieces. We agreed to meet for breakfast and planned to go back through all of his old stories, see if something jumped out.

  “After we ate we went to the paper. I got called away with the Jane Macias MP report. Frank was going to stick around, go through the files, make some notes. He came to the office last night, trying to get something to me. Lincoln and Marcus saw him, said he didn’t leave a message or a note, just said he had some information for me and would drop it by later.”

  “Do you know specifically what he was looking for?” Price fondled his mustache and twisted the handlebars. Taylor knew they kept their shape because of liberal coatings in wax, but she was still positive that the daily, ruminative stroking was more to blame.

  “Not exactly. When I left him at the paper yesterday, he’d just started pulling all the stories he’d run on the first ten Snow White cases. This is on me, Cap. I lost track of him. I was with Daphne, Jane Macias’s roommate, then we had the Spanish girl’s shooting, the two murders at the massage parlor, all that paperwork, then we went to the strip club. It was a full day. I never followed up with him.”

  Taylor rested her forehead in the palm of her hand.

  “This is all my fault,” she muttered.

  “It’s not. There’s someone out there with an agenda. You’re not to blame.”

  “Of course I am. If I hadn’t pulled him into the case, he wouldn’t be dead. There’s just no two ways about that.”

  “You don’t know that. This may be a completely unrelated incident. He may have been a target all along. What’s your gut say?”

  Taylor stood and paced her boss’s office. It was much roomier than her little box downstairs. The box that had belonged to Price before he was moved up the ranks.

  Price was a good man. He’d always been an ally for Taylor, as well as a friend. A lesser man may have thrown her to the wolves on any number of occasions. Instead, he always had her back. She had nothing to lose by telling him what was on her mind.

  “My gut says he bought it because of something he found yesterday. He came to me, to the office, said he had information for me. We find what that was, we find out who killed him.”

  “Start with the time of death. Figure out when he was killed, and you’ll be able to nail his movements after he left this office.”

  “Actually, I checked. The M.E. on the scene said he’d been dead at least ten hours. So he would have to have been killed sometime between five last night, when he came to the office, and three in the morning. The call came in at two-thirty today, so it’s entirely possible that he’s been dead this whole time. We need to see if he ever made it home last night, go trace his phone calls. God, I am sick about this one.”

  “Okay then. Pass along everything you have to Lincoln. This is his case, let him run the show.”

  “But—”

  “Taylor, there’s no but about it. You’re getting married tomorrow, in case you’ve forgotten. You need to go do the things you need to do to be ready for that. Because trust me, I won’t let you screw that up. Get out of here. Go home. Get ready for the rehearsal dinner. Let us handle this.”

  Taylor allowed herself to be shooed out of his office. She talked to Lincoln, asked him to track Frank Richardson’s timeline, told him what she was doing. She wasn’t going home, not just yet. She needed to make a stop first.

  The Tennessean offices were still ablaze. Taylor knew they didn’t usually put the paper to bed until well after midnight. There would be people around for her to ask for help.

  She showed her badge at the front desk and asked for the managing editor. The receptionist pointed to her left, the open stairwell. Taylor climbed up one floor. Greenleaf met her at the door to the newsroom.

  “I have bad news,” she opened with as they shook hands. Greenleaf had been around the block before, didn’t need it sugarcoated.

  “Let’s go in here.” He ushered her into a small conference room off the newsroom, where they could have a little privacy.

  “Did you find Jane?”

  “No. Not yet. Frank Richardson is dead. He was murdered sometime late last night or early this morning in an empty apartment in Bellevue. I’m sorry to have to drop it on you like this, St
eve, but I need to know. Did Frank tell you anything about what he was working on yesterday?”

  Greenleaf was dumbstruck. He stood at the door to the conference room, mouth agape. His administrative assistant came with a paper for him to sign. He told her the news and Taylor only cringed a little when his assistant burst into tears. Taylor felt the knot take hold in her neck. She didn’t have time to assuage grief right now. She needed to find out what, why and who had killed Frank Richardson.

  “Steve,” she tried again gently. “I’m sorry. I know you were friends. And I hate to be callous, but I need your help. I need to get on the computer Frank was using yesterday. Please, Steve. This is important. Did Frank tell you what he’d found?”

  Greenleaf finally found his voice. He held tightly to his assistant’s arm. “No, Lieutenant, he didn’t. Oh, my. Oh, poor Frank. He didn’t deserve to go like that, in violence. He always wanted to die in his sleep when he was one hundred and eight. That was the age he’d picked. Felt like he’d have lived a full life if he could make it. Oh, no. His wife?”

  “The chaplain is over there, I’m sure. Steve, I’m sorry. I need to get on that computer.”

  She could tell they were terribly upset by her insensitivity, but they rolled with her, getting her into the room Frank had been using. Greenleaf finally excused himself, face still white with shock. He said he needed to go prepare an obituary worthy of Frank’s contribution to the paper, and society in general.

  She sat down at the computer, wishing she had Lincoln with her. He was the brilliant computer mind; she’d always relied on him. But she wasn’t a slouch herself.

  She’d been working for an hour and coming up dry when a small noise made her look up. Daphne Beauchamp stood in the doorway.

  “I heard what happened. You look frustrated.”

  Taylor glanced at her watch. Rehearsal was in less than two hours. Still, it was awfully late for the young archivist to be at work. She greeted her, gestured to a chair.