by Liliana Hart
“I’ve never seen him before.”
George walked back into the bay area toward Wormy, and I flexed my hand, trying to get the circulation going again from where George had cut it off. I huddled into one of the orange plastic chairs against the wall and took comfort from the weight of the gun in my pocket.
I don’t know how much time passed, but I watched Wormy make the spray-paint on the Suburban disappear like magic, and I watched George get into his pickup truck and head south towards Newcastle. He gave me one last, long stare as he drove by, and I knew then that death hadn’t forsaken me when I’d lived this past winter. It was still out to get me, and I’d just looked it in the face.
Chapter Eleven
It was eleven-thirty by the time Wormy finished with the Suburban and handed me the keys. I’d decided to keep my mouth shut about questioning the other mechanics about the man in the white Cadillac and let Jack deal with it. George had scared me, and I didn’t want word getting back to him.
I still hadn’t heard from Jack by the time I backed out of the auto shop on $1200 worth of new tires, so I assumed something in Westmoreland caught his attention. I drove aimlessly around town, wondering how a place could never change or why the people who lived there never seemed to want it to. The businesses and houses were the same. So were the people for that matter. The family names written on the gravestones in the cemetery were the same names as those who occupied most of the town now.
Mr. Hardesty stopped sweeping his front walkway long enough to wave to me as I drove by his pharmacy, but Mrs. Conroy next door gave me a stony stare and crossed herself before she hurried back inside her quilting store.
I don’t know why I turned onto Queen Mary instead of heading back to the funeral home, but I found myself headed in that direction almost as if I didn’t have control over my actions. I saw Reverend Thomas’s old car at the church and knew he and Lorna must be back from seeing Mr. Oglesby, but I didn’t want to have anything to do with either of them in my present state of mind.
I let the Suburban idle at the crossroads of Queen Mary and Heresy. I wanted to see the house. Wanted to remember it for what it was. A miserable pile of rotting wood with blood stained walls, and the ghosts of parents who I’d once thought loved me. They’d never been overly affectionate, and they’d believed in letting me live my life and learn my lesson if I made a wrong choice, but I’d always thought that initial kernel of love that every parent should have for a child was in there somewhere. But the kind of people who were capable of doing the things my parents had couldn’t have possibly loved me. Not really.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and found my courage, and I was just about to turn left onto Heresy when my cell phone rang. I saw Jack’s name in the display and answered, more than a little relieved that I didn’t have to make that turn after all.
“How was the Sheriff in Westmoreland County?” I asked.
“Dead,” Jack answered. “Head to my office, and I’ll fill you in.”
“10-4. I can be there in ten.”
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Thanks for staying inside the funeral home like I asked. It was nice not to have to worry about your safety while I was gone.”
“Technically, you didn’t ask,” I said, looking in my rearview mirror to see Jack’s cruiser behind me. His sunglasses covered his eyes, but his mouth was set in an angry line. “You ordered. You know I don’t do well with orders.”
“I’ve noticed.” He hung up and then did a three-point turn in the middle of the road to head back to the police station.
I sighed and followed him. I’d been back in Bloody Mary for a little over twenty-four hours, but it was starting to feel like I’d never left.
I followed Jack all the way back through town and parked in front of the block of municipal buildings that sat dead center in the county square. The courthouse was in the middle—a gothic stone structure carved with what was supposed to be the goddesses of justice and mercy at each cornerstone, but they looked more like the gargoyle versions of Ren and Stimpy due to a rather untalented sculptor and a shortfall in the budget.
The police station flanked the left side of the courthouse and the fire station flanked the right. Jack pulled into the parking spot reserved for the sheriff and I took the spot next to him that was reserved for the county commissioner. I wasn’t really sure what the county commissioner did, but I was almost a hundred percent sure he didn’t work on weekends.
We didn’t speak as we entered the station. There was a buzz of activity—the ringing of phones and the hum of voices. All noise stopped, and a dozen faces started in curiosity as soon as we walked in.
“I need Colburn, Lewis and Martinez in my office,” Jack said, walking straight back to his square box of an office.
It was glassed on three sides, but he had the blinds closed so no one could see in. It hadn’t changed much since the last time I’d seen it. Same threadbare carpet, and a dented desk with a computer that had seen better days. It was piled high with files and an empty coffee mug. There was a door behind his desk that led to a little room he used if he needed a bed to crash in for the night. Jack’s office gave Spartan a whole new meaning.
Jack had a couple of boards set up in the corner and I took the chair that looked the least rickety and sat down. I was starting to get antsy with the silent treatment.
“Look, I’m sorry,” I said. “But I needed to go in with George so I could get the Suburban back for a pickup this afternoon. Mrs. Perry’s daughter called, and I need the business.” Jack stayed stonily silent and I rolled my eyes. “You should be glad I did go. I wouldn’t have seen that tattoo otherwise. Or the white Cadillac. Though it would’ve been better if I could’ve gotten the license plate,” I murmured. “And I was in public. They’re not going to do anything in the middle of town in broad daylight. I’m assuming you got all my texts?”
No answer.
“Haven’t you grown out of the silent treatment yet? It’s very juvenile. And it doesn’t work on me.”
I kicked my legs against the bottom of his desk, making an obnoxious racket, until he finally turned to look at me with murder in his eye. That’s the thing about two people who knew each other so well. We knew the exact thing to do that would drive each other crazy.
“I saw Reverend Thomas and Lorna were back from their trip. You have time to talk to them yet?” I stopped kicking my legs against the desk and saw the anger drain inch by inch from his shoulders.
“That’s where I was when I saw you drive by,” he finally said. “I talked to Lorna again. Turns out she did know about Oglesby and Vaughn. I got an earful about how if I was a good friend I’d try to make Vaughn un-gay, but other than that, she didn’t have much to add to the investigation. She did, however, tell me the list of things that made her good wife material. I appreciate organization in a woman.”
I saw the devil gleam in Jack’s eyes before he turned back to his board, and I sat back and tapped my fingers impatiently on the arm of the chair. He was still irritated with me, and now I was irritated because I didn’t like the thought of anyone as Jack’s wife.
There was a quick knock at the door, and Jack called out a quick, “Enter.” Colburn, Lewis and Martinez walked in. “Close the door and take a seat,” Jack said, taking command. He glanced at each of us, and it was then I could tell that the anger ran deeper than whatever I’d done. Something had happened in Westmoreland County and it wasn’t good.
“I’ve chosen each of you to form this task force,” Jack said. “The main reason, with the exception of Doctor Graves, is that you’re not home grown. I can’t trust anyone whose family is local. Not even from the damned state. I know each of your backgrounds, and I promise I know you better than you do by this point. I can’t trust the cops outside this room or the people in this county. This case is going to get messy, and it’s going to be dangerous. We’re going to be looking at other cops. Everyone’s a suspect. I need to know now if anyone has a problem with that.”
“What we’ve got is six similar crimes over the course of the last thirty years. I’ve still got feelers out, but I’m expecting I might have a few more to add here when it’s all said and done. None of these took place in the same county, and only our vic and one other was branded with the Aryan symbol, which is the most likely reason the deaths were never linked before. There are variations to the torture, but when you look at them as a whole, they’re the same.”
“I did the background like you asked,” Colburn said. “Virginia has one of the largest chapters of the Aryan Nation in the whole United States. They’ve been cited for a few riots and protests, but nothing else blips on the radar. They’ve got a fucking website with propaganda and how to join, but the general membership list is private. We need a warrant to access, and I’ve already contacted Judge Wilbourn. But it’s just weird that they’d come out like this and make a statement so boldly. Something’s off here.”
“Agreed,” Jack said.
Colburn slouched back in the chair and crossed his boots. “Doctor Gregory Vance came in voluntarily for questioning. He’s waiting for you in interview once we’re done here.”
“Who’s Doctor Vance?” I asked.
“The current president for the Aryan Nations, Virginia Chapter.”
“He’s a doctor? A medical doctor?” I asked Colburn.
“Yep. Got a private practice down in Gloucester. General practitioner.”
“That’s certainly convenient,” I said, looking at Jack with my brows raised.
“I thought so too,” Jack said. “Everything is falling into place nice and tidy. Vance is fifth generation Virginian. His parents and grandparents are dead, but there’s some history there. He’s also got two sons. Ages thirty-six and thirty-eight. One followed in dad’s footsteps and is a cardiologist over at Augusta General. The other owns a couple of car dealerships. One in Richmond and one in Fairfax. They’re both worth taking a closer look at.”
Jack sat on the corner of his desk and crossed his arms as he studied the board. “I spent the morning with the asshole sheriff over in Westmoreland. We’ve got a like crime from his county,” Jack said, pointing to the first crime scene photo. “Almost a year ago. Julie Lawrence was an African American attorney who was taken from the courthouse parking lot. Surveillance cameras were conveniently broken during the kidnapping. Twenty-nine years old with a husband and two-year old daughter. Husband reported her missing when she didn’t show for dinner that evening. They found her body three days later when it was dropped in the same parking lot they’d taken her from. She’d been raped and tortured extensively, many of the methods matching our current victim, including the lashes with a sharp piece of metal attached to the implement.”
“There were no suspects?” I asked. Jack tossed me the copy of the file and there were exactly two sheets of paper inside.
“Not much of any police work done at all. A Sheriff Cole was in charge of the investigation. Questioned the husband extensively and the family of the man she’d been in the middle of prosecuting. And then all of a sudden two weeks after the murder Cole gets a wild hair up his ass and decides he and his entire family need to move to Utah. So he resigns and away they go.”
“That’s handy,” Colburn said.
“You want me to track down the Sheriff?” Martinez asked.
“Already made a pass at it and did a run on Sheriff Cole,” Jack said. “Looks like he and his wife were killed in a house fire a couple of months after the move. It was ruled homicide. Whole damned house was covered in gasoline. Went up like a match. No suspects. No witnesses.”
“Jesus,” Lewis said. “What did the new sheriff have to say? I assume he took over the investigation.”
“Yes,” Jack said between gritted teeth. “Good old Sheriff Anderson, who was the deputy sheriff under Cole. It’s in his cold case files. He said there wasn’t a trail by the time he took office, and there hasn’t been anything since, so he’s chalked it up to being a random act of violence. Incompetent asshole.”
“I want to follow up on the case Julie Lawrence was working. The accused was a small-time meth dealer named Ronnie Campbell. The DA was trying to get him to roll on bigger fish, but Julie Lawrence goes missing and then all of a sudden there are enough holes in the case you can pour water through it. Campbell goes free and was killed when his meth trailer was blown all to hell during the cooking process.”
“It’s unstable,” Colburn said. “And with all the wooded areas in these parts, I know there are more labs popping up than the DEA can keep track of.”
“Yeah,” Jack agreed. “But they found parts of Ronnie Campbell for fifteen blocks. Police shut the case down pretty quick, saying it was an act of stupidity instead of a homicide, but from everything I read out of Julie Lawrence’s files, she said Campbell wasn’t smart enough to be anything but a deliveryman. And a low level one at that. He wouldn’t have been cooking anything in that trailer. So we need to look closer. See if we can find a connection between Julie Lawrence and Daniel Oglesby. I put out a few feelers to some other counties and got these other hits. I’ve got all the notes, all the suspects. It’s a shitload of paperwork to follow up on. It’s your lucky day, Lewis.”
Jack dumped a stack of papers as thick as two phone books into Lewis’s lap. Parker Lewis wasn’t my idea of a normal cop. He was originally from Chicago and still slick with the city image. He was thin and bony, a couple of inches taller than me, and his hair was dark blond and gelled within an inch of its life. He had bright green eyes and compensated for his weak chin with a goatee. He and Martinez had been partnered up for a couple of years and worked the streets, such as they were, but Jack wouldn’t have put him out there if Lewis couldn’t handle himself.
Lewis sighed and looked at the thick stack of paperwork. “Thanks, boss. I guess I didn’t need that date tonight.”
“Not like you’d score there anyway,” Martinez piped in. “She’s way out of your league, bro. Never would’ve made it past second base with that one.”
“It’s a first date, you moron,” Lewis said, cuffing Martinez on the side of the head good-naturedly.
Martinez was in his mid-twenties and still had enough shine on him to tell me he hadn’t been on the job too long. He was a couple of inches shy of six feet and stocky with it. His skin was the color of a caramel latte, his hair and eyes were black, and his smile was cocky. “My point exactly. You’ve got to give ‘em something to come back for. Right, boss?”
Jack looked at Lewis and reached out to take the stack of papers back. “On second thought, I think you’re a lot more suited to the follow-ups,” he said, dropping the stack in Martinez’s lap.
Lewis and Colburn burst into laughter, and I felt my lips twitch as well. “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful,” Martinez said.
“It’s a struggle every damned day,” Jack said with a straight face. “Now, if we can get back to the murder that’s interrupting our playtime maybe we can all go home sometime today.” He turned to Lewis. “Information has come to me that George Murphy might be able to shed some light on this investigation. Track him down and bring him in for questioning. Let’s make it informal for now. Doctor Graves saw him headed towards Newcastle in the tow truck, so he’ll be back to the garage before the end of the work day more than likely.”
Lewis winced. “I’m not sure if I’d rather have the grunt work you stuck Martinez with or convince George he needs to cooperate with the police. I heard he caught a wild boar once, punched his hand through its chest, and pulled the beating heart right out of that sucker. Maybe I should wear the Kevlar.” He and Martinez both stood and headed toward the door.
“I’ll make sure to visit you in the hospital,” Martinez said. “It’s never a chore to talk with the pretty nurses.”
>
“Remember this is Code Red,” Jack said before they could open the door. “I don’t want any leaks. Keep those files locked up and give any new information directly to me or Colburn.”
“You got it, boss,” Martinez said and shut the door behind them.
“They make me feel old,” Colburn said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t have a lot of new information for you, Jack. The tire tracks disappeared about half a mile from where the body was left, heading southeast, so they could’ve gone to King George or Nottingham, or another county entirely. It’s a large tread tire, so we’re looking for a truck or oversized SUV.”
“Not a Cadillac?” Jack and I both asked at the same time.
“Definitely not. I’ve got the measurements. Now all I’ve got to do is narrow it down to brand. I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.”
“You’re not the only one,” Jack said.
“I’ve been doing door-to-doors near the drop site and also around Reverend Oglesby’s neighborhood. Word spreads when a body is found that way. Especially here. There are some that are clueless when I start questioning them, but there are others who’ve heard the rumors. And they’re scared. You can see it in their eyes, even as they deny that they know anything.”
“Then those are the ones I want you to talk to again.” Jack looked at his watch. “We’ve got nothing after this long, and it’s not going to get any easier to keep dragging it out. I’m going into interview. Let me know if someone clicks for you.”
Colburn unfolded his long body from the chair and gave us both a salute before he headed out.
“How do you feel about sitting in on the interview with me?”
“It makes me feel a little sick to my stomach, actually. Is there one of those two-way mirrors like on TV? And will we be recorded? I’ve never liked the sound of my voice on a recording. Though maybe it’s better now that I’ve got the husky thing going.”
