Sawmill Springs

by Gerri Hill

  “Do you close for lunch?” Murphy asked.

  “No, no. I always bring my lunch and eat it in the back room.”

  “Were you the only one here? Did you have help?” she asked.

  “Janice only works two days a week,” Bernice said, pointing to the lady who had greeted them earlier. “Oh, I can handle the place by myself now. I’m not exactly run over with customers, you know, but it’s nice to have the company.”

  “I understand,” she said with a smile. “Well, I guess we’ve taken up enough of your time.”

  “So what about my roof? Should I be concerned?”

  “No, ma’am, nothing to worry about,” Murphy said. Then, “Do you keep the door to the attic locked?”

  “No. There’s no need to. But I rarely go up there.” Bernice turned to Tim. “You think someone was hiding in there? He got out this morning after I opened up?”

  “Just speculation, Bernice,” Kayla said quickly. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  “Well…okay, if you say so. Still…”

  Despite that, Kayla knew that she’d be on the phone as soon as they left, telling whoever would listen that Tim thought the shooter had been on her rooftop. When the three of them got outside, Murphy turned to him, her dark eyes glaring.

  “What the hell were you thinking?”

  Tim seemed surprised by her question. “What are you talking about? You said to question her.”

  “Yeah…question her. Not give her information. Jesus Christ, Tim. You ask her point-blank questions, that’s all. Did you see anyone in the store? Was there a stranger? Was there a man you didn’t recognize?” Murphy ran a hand through her hair. “You don’t tell her that we think someone might have come into her store and gained roof access to shoot Guy Woodard. You ask questions, Tim. That’s all,” she said forcefully.

  “Well, excuse me for not knowing all the damn steps to follow,” he said. “I’ve known Miss Bernice my whole life. I’m not going to question her like she’s a suspect or something.”

  Kayla stepped between them. “What’s done is done.” She looked at Tim. “Unfortunately, whatever you insinuated to her will be all over town by morning.”

  But Tim was looking at Murphy. He tapped his chest. “I’ve got seniority here. You said so yourself.”

  “Yeah…and we’ve got lead on this,” Murphy said. “Don’t complicate things. We’re not in the news business, Tim. We don’t have to broadcast every bit of information that we have or that we may think we have. We’re gathering information now, that’s all we’re doing. We’re not feeding the gossip pipeline. You ask direct questions, that’s all.”

  She didn’t know if Tim’s feelings were hurt or if his ego was bruised…or perhaps both. Regardless, he finally nodded, backing down a bit.

  “Okay. You’re right. I was too eager to share what we knew.”

  Murphy touched his arm. “The problem is, Tim, we don’t really know anything yet. Whatever we were discussing up there on the roof was just that…discussing, tossing out ideas. That’s what you do when you don’t have any leads.”

  He nodded. “I understand. Sorry.” He motioned to his patrol car. “I guess I should get back on the street.”

  “Yeah, we’ll probably head back to the station and go over our notes and see if we can come up with anything.”

  Tim fiddled with his mustache nervously, as if he wanted to say more, but he turned around without another word.

  “Unbelievable,” Murphy murmured as she headed to their car.

  “Well, in fairness to him, questioning people in a case like this is a learned trait. As we know, he’s had zero experience with a homicide investigation.”

  Murphy got behind the wheel and slammed the door. “Some things should be common sense.” She pulled out onto the street, then glanced over at her. “Don’t get me wrong. I like Tim. He’s a nice guy, but I guess I should have known. He’s a chatterbox and loves to talk. I rode with him for six weeks and I don’t think there’s much about this town that he doesn’t know.”

  “Maybe the chief found out something at the bank,” Kayla offered.

  Murphy raised an eyebrow and smiled. “The chief?”

  She had a really pretty smile, Kayla noted as she returned it. “Calling him Dad while on the job doesn’t seem like the proper thing to do.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Kayla plopped down on her sofa, cradling a bowl of ice cream on her stomach. She couldn’t decide if she liked the sofa against the wall or if she wanted to move it into the middle of the room and make a more intimate TV area. She wasn’t really a big TV watcher, but that was mostly due to her job and her lack of time. Now that she was back home in sleepy little Sawmill Springs, she figured to have more down time. That is, as soon as they wrapped up Guy Woodard’s murder, which was going nowhere fast. Her father had gotten exactly nothing from the bank. The snot-nosed VP—his words—was acting like it was an inconvenience to even talk to him and had told him to get Judge Peters involved if he wanted information. Kayla shook her head. If she and Murphy would have been questioning him, they’d have probably hauled his ass to the station. Then he’d really know what inconvenience was.

  Her thoughts drifted to Murphy. She grinned as she remembered her assertion that Mandi Murphy sounded like a porn star. Yes, she had to agree that Mandi did not fit her in the least, regardless if she was a cop or not. The woman didn’t talk a whole lot, though, which was fine. Idle chitchat normally bored her to tears. Murphy’s silence, though, seemed a little forced. She hoped Murphy wasn’t being guarded because of Kayla’s FBI connection. She’d said there was bad blood but hopefully Kayla wouldn’t be lumped in with whoever had pissed her off. Or maybe Murphy simply didn’t like her. She stared off into space for a moment. No, she really didn’t get that impression from her. Maybe she was naturally a quiet person.

  She hoped that was the case because it would be nice if they could become friends. The guys were the guys and Lori was Lori—a married woman seven years her senior. She and Lori were on friendly terms, and yes, they’d had lunch on occasion when Kayla had come to town, but they didn’t have enough in common to constitute a close friendship.

  Murphy? Lori had already checked her personnel file. She was two years older than Kayla, but Lori didn’t know anything about her personal life. Maybe there was someone in Houston. She wouldn’t be surprised if there was. Murphy was attractive with a very nice body that appeared—at least as far as she could tell with clothes on—to be very fit. Murphy was a little taller than her own five foot six inches and her dark hair was cut shorter than Kayla wore hers.

  Kayla ran a hand over her hair now, the ends pulled back in a ponytail. She’d been letting it grow for the last year, and it finally was long enough to pull back. Her mother said it made her look like a teenager, which, at thirty-two, she took to be a compliment.

  She finished off the last of the chocolate chip ice cream and dropped the spoon into the bowl with a clank. She really needed to slow down on the ice cream. Unless she joined the local fitness club, she would get nowhere near the workout she was used to getting. Her father’s version of a fitness room for the staff was a used treadmill he’d gotten off the Swap Shop on the radio and an assorted collection of dumbbells of various weights. She’d stuck her head into the converted closet and found a layer of dust on both the treadmill and the weights.

  She rubbed her full stomach, thinking back to the fried chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy she’d stuffed it with earlier at her parents’ house. It was delicious, but as she’d told her mother, she could not afford—calorie-wise—to eat with them every night. Oh, but it was so much easier than cooking for herself.

  Especially here. It was a nice duplex and she’d been lucky to find it. There wasn’t a whole lot of rental property to be found in Sawmill Springs. Still, the kitchen was painfully small. There would be no elaborate meals created there.

  “Right…like you’re a gourmet chef,” she murmured.

 
; With a sigh, she picked up her empty bowl and walked barefoot into the tiny kitchen. She put the bowl in the sink and filled it with water. There was no dishwasher, which would take some getting used to. Not that she’d had a lot of dirty dishes. So far, she’d had dinner with her parents every night and despite her protests to her mother, she imagined she would eat there again tomorrow. Her mother had casually mentioned that she would be making her homemade enchiladas for dinner. And Kayla loved her enchiladas.

  The ringing of her phone pushed images of her getting as fat as a house out of her mind. It was her dad’s ringtone and she wondered what he’d forgotten to tell her. They’d already talked the case to death over dinner.

  “Hey, Dad…what’s up?”

  “Kayla…you’re not going to believe this.”

  “What? Did someone confess to the murder?”

  “If it were only that easy,” he said. “But it’s much worse. Found Lance Foster dead.”

  She gasped as she pictured the man she’d been chatting with for the last month when she was trying to find rental property. “Lance Foster Real Estate?”

  “Yeah, he didn’t make it home for dinner. His wife got worried.”

  “Please say it was natural causes.”

  “Wish I could.”

  She sat down heavily on the sofa. “What the hell is happening here?”

  “Ferguson took the call. He found him at his office. I’m on my way over there.”

  She stood up quickly. “You want me to come?”

  “Wouldn’t mind a professional eye taking a look.”

  “I’ll be right there,” she said, already heading to her bedroom. “I don’t remember where his office is.”

  “Over on the other side of town—before you get to the interstate. Built him a fancy office suite there. Shares it with Bobby Lott.”

  She stripped off her shorts and found a pair of jeans. “And Bobby Lott is?”

  “He’s a goddamn lawyer, that’s who he is.”

  The call ended before she could reply, her father’s disdain for attorneys still evident. She was in her car and heading out when she remembered Murphy. She should really call her too. She fumbled with her phone, finding the number she’d put in that morning. It was answered after only two rings.

  “Yeah…Murphy here.”

  “It’s me. Kayla,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “Sitting in my recliner, drinking a beer.”

  “Well, put the beer down. Meet me at Foster’s Real Estate.”

  “We buying a house or what?”

  Kayla smiled. “I wish. The house I’m renting has no kitchen to speak of.”

  “I have a huge kitchen,” Murphy said. “I don’t cook.”

  “Figures,” she murmured. “Do you know where the office is?”

  “Yeah, he’s the one who found me this place. What’s going on?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Jesus. Dead, as in ‘dead’? Or dead…like—”

  “Don’t know details.” She slowed as she saw the flashing lights of the patrol cars. “I’m here now.”

  “Okay. On my way.”

  Kayla parked beside her father’s car. The newer brick building appeared to be designed to look more like a house than an office. There was even a small, well-manicured lawn between the parking lot and the covered porch in front. Several men were standing out in the parking lot, probably curious about the police lights. She recognized Ray Beckman, Tim’s uncle. Ray knew everything that went on in town. His hardware store was the main gathering place for the retired or idle men in town. She wondered how many pots of coffee they went through each morning as they sat around and told tales while playing dominoes or checkers. Or what was discussed in the afternoons at closing time when they passed around beer before all heading home to their wives and dinner. Of course, gossip he learned at the store wasn’t his sole source of information. Like a lot of the locals, he had a police scanner.

  “Kayla, can you believe it?” Tim Beckman said as he left the circle of men with his uncle and walked over to her. “First Guy Woodard, now Lance Foster. The town hasn’t had this much excitement in…well, ever.”

  She counted three patrol cars, not including her father’s. That meant that no one was actually out on patrol. Well, she couldn’t blame them, really. Never in their careers had they had this much activity in one week.

  “What happened?” she asked Tim.

  “Jeff found him slumped over his desk. Shot in the chest, looks like.”

  “How many people are in there contaminating the crime scene?” she asked as she brushed by him.

  There were four people in the outer office, two of them on their phones. Inside Mr. Foster’s office, there were six more, including Wade and Kimbro. She walked over to where her father was talking to Jeff Ferguson.

  “Shouldn’t we be clearing everyone out of here?” she asked quietly.

  Her father glanced around, as if just now noticing the number of people inside. He motioned to Jeff.

  “You know Jeff Ferguson, Kayla. He found Lance.”

  “Hello, Kayla. Good to see you again.”

  “Jeff,” she said with a nod. “And not to get all technical on everyone here, but this is a crime scene. Please tell me that no one’s touched anything.”

  “Oh, hell, everyone’s just curious,” her father said. “But yeah, Jeff, you should probably clear everyone out.”

  Kayla rubbed her forehead. “Any evidence we might find is going to be pretty worthless,” she said. “Not a single person in this room has gloves on. One of the guys was sitting on the edge of the desk, for God’s sake!”

  “Calm down, Kayla. They know enough not to touch anything.”

  She turned to the body. Lance Foster was covered with a black suit jacket, probably his own. “Is this how he was found?”

  “No. Ferguson found him slumped over. He moved him back in the chair like that.”

  “And the jacket?” she asked tersely.

  “Hell, I covered him up. As much as Lance Foster was a jackass, didn’t seem right for everyone to see him like this.”

  She shook her head. “That’s why you don’t let anyone in here until it’s been processed. Please tell me you took pictures of everything before his body was moved and covered?”

  “Listen here, young lady. You may have FBI experience, but this is still my gig and this is my town. This isn’t some stranger you come upon in a crime scene. Like Guy, I’ve known Lance my whole damn life. And while I didn’t necessarily like his ways, the man deserves some goddamn respect.”

  “What the man deserves is for us to catch his goddamn killer!”

  They stood staring at each other, neither wanting to back down.

  “I swear, does anything happen in this town without the masses knowing about it? It’s like Grand Central Station out there.”

  Kayla turned, glancing at Murphy. “Yeah, well it was Grand Central Station in here a second ago.”

  “What the hell are you doing here, Murphy?”

  “I called her,” Kayla told her father. “Thought you were looking for a professional eye.”

  “That’s what I got you for, although your mouth’s gotten a little too smart for your britches,” he said.

  Murphy removed the jacket that covered Lance Foster’s face and torso. Kayla walked over to her, staring at the bright red stain on his once pristine white shirt.

  “Close. Point blank,” Murphy said quietly. She pointed at the shirt. “Powder burns.”

  Kayla nodded, then turned to her father. “Any evidence of a forced entry?” By the look on her father’s face, they hadn’t even checked.

  “Let me get with Jeff.”

  She sighed. “I love the man to death, but I swear, he and his team are not equipped for a murder investigation. I don’t know how much we’re helping though. We have absolutely zero evidence so far. Unless someone confesses to Mr. Woodard’s killing, we’re pretty much screwed on that one.”

  Her
father came back in with Jeff and Tim in tow. “Jeff says the front door was ajar when he got here.”

  “And Mr. Foster’s office door was closed,” Jeff added with a quick glance at Murphy.

  “So he probably knew his killer,” Kayla said.

  “Or it was a customer,” Murphy said. “We need to check his appointment schedule. Maybe he had a late appointment.”

  Her father held up his hands. “What are you two doing?”

  “Discussing, bouncing ideas, speculating,” Kayla said.

  He shook his head. “No. You have your hands full with Guy’s investigation. I’ll assign someone else for this one. Maybe Jeff and Tim here.”

  “Excuse me, Chief Dixon, but two murders in two days? I think it’s pretty obvious that they’re linked,” Murphy said.

  “There’s nothing obvious about it,” he said. “Two completely different killings.”

  “No offense, but…while I don’t even pretend to know the pulse of this town, there’s no way that these two murders aren’t related. It’s not a coincidence.”

  He stared at her, a stare that Kayla had seen plenty of times in her life, but Murphy never blinked. Kayla stepped forward before her father could speak. “I agree with Murphy. These aren’t two random murders.”

  Tim fidgeted with his mustache, a habit Kayla was beginning to recognize. “Well, it’s been a few years since I did my initial training and all but I’m pretty sure serial killers use the same M.O., don’t they? Here, we got one using a rifle, long distance, then another shot with a handgun, up close and personal. Can’t be the same killer.”

  “This isn’t a serial killer,” Murphy said.

  Tim laughed. “Well, what? Doesn’t two make a serial? Or do we need three?”

  “Murphy’s right,” Kayla said. “Serial killers pick their victims randomly. The only thing they might have in common is a physical description or their age, things like that. They don’t normally know their victims.”

  “Unless it’s their very first one,” Murphy added.