by Mary Burton
Martin’s dark eyes danced with amusement. “I heard they weren’t in a real rush.”
“Safety first. Didn’t want anyone twisting an ankle.”
The humor faded from his gaze as he shifted his attention back to the body. “Well, then he couldn’t have killed this girl.”
Riley agreed. “But he has a girlfriend named Darla Johnson. I pulled up her arrest record. She looks strong enough to have done it.”
“How many girls does he have?”
“It’s a guess, but I’d say two or three at a time. I stopped by the hospital to talk to the kid Jax beat up, but she’s still out of it. Broken ribs and heroin withdrawal. It’ll be a few days before she can talk.”
Martin scowled. “That kid has a long road ahead of her.”
“Police got a look at her cell phone,” Riley said. “There’re quite a few texts between Jax and the girl.”
“Not a big surprise.”
“No, it’s not,” Riley said. “I’d have waited, but the media arrived outside the hospital.”
“I know you. You’ll see her soon and get some answers.”
“I will.” Riley studied the victim’s sightless gaze. A ring of purple bruises wrapped around her neck like a morbid piece of jewelry. Reaching for her phone, she snapped a picture of the girl’s face.
“Who’s investigating the murder?” Martin asked.
“I don’t know if it’s been assigned yet, but I bet the investigation gets tossed to state police. This case reaches beyond the county’s jurisdiction, and no one is going to want an unsolved homicide before a big concert brings in lots of people and money.”
Martin raised the camera as he snapped more pictures of the victim. High cheekbones tapered into parted full lips. Her peasant top rode up, exposing a narrow waist and the underside of full breasts. The jeans were a standard variety, not designer, but they looked new and clean. She wore no shoes, but her toenails were freshly painted a bright red, like her fingernails.
As Riley knelt next to the girl’s face, a bone-deep sadness settled. “So damn young,” she said, more to herself. A few more minutes and maybe she could have saved her.
Martin clicked through the last few camera images, studying them. “At her age I was more worried about passing my final chemistry exam or making sure I had a date on Saturday night.”
Riley had worried over her share of tests, but dates had been a low priority after her mother died and her stepfather’s ogling turned hungry.
In the days after the funeral, she’d hear him pacing in front of her door as if mustering his courage. When he finally burst into the room and moved toward her, she curled her fingers into a fist and punched him. He swore, cupping his bloodied nose as he retreated. Terrified, she slammed her door and pushed her dresser in front of it. And when he tried the knob and couldn’t get in, he pounded on her door, demanding she let him inside. “You’re like your mother. Selfish, cold. Never good enough.”
When her stepfather left for work the next day, she shoved clothes and whatever cash she could find into a backpack and left. Her plan was to get a job in one of the New Orleans diners or restaurants and find a new place to live. She was convinced any life was better than hers. However, like most kids who took to the streets, she underestimated the monsters lurking by the abyss.
Riley had sugarcoated her teen years when she’d met with Hanna’s social worker. She had never lied but a lot went unsaid.
Squad car lights flashed on the trees, drawing her gaze over her shoulder. Sheriff Bobby Barrett’s black SUV parked behind Deputy DuPont’s vehicle, carving a spot out of the mud and gravel.
Sheriff Barrett stood close to six feet. Twenty-five years separated him from his training days, and though time had swapped muscle for bulk, he retained his determined jock gait that telegraphed to the world to stand clear.
“The party has started,” Martin said.
“What, I don’t count?” Riley asked.
“You’re a baby in the eyes of the area sheriffs’ offices. Ol’ Bobby is the king of it all. Tell me you’ve had your shots. I hear he bites.”
Rising, Riley dusted the dirt from her hands. “I bite back.”
Martin shook his head. “Now that, I’d like to see.”
Sheriff Barrett paused to talk to DuPont, and the two exchanged a hearty handshake along with a couple of easy smiles. However, Sheriff Barrett’s smile vanished when he glanced past DuPont and saw her.
Refusing to look away, she pulled a brand-new small spiral notebook from her back pocket. She filled dozens of notebooks like this one each year.
She watched as DuPont raised the tape for Sheriff Barrett and smiled, easy and relaxed. The sheriff’s long strides cut through the weeds, which she imagined magically parted for the guy who had been the sheriff for two decades.
“To what do we owe the honor of the state police?” the sheriff asked.
“Received a call from Russell Hudson. He found a body,” Riley said.
“Where’s Russ?” the sheriff asked.
“In his car. He’s not happy about staying.”
“Ah hell, there’s no need to hold him.” He turned and ordered DuPont to send Russ home. “We can find him anytime we need. And I know he sure didn’t kill this girl.”
Riley watched as DuPont hustled over to Russ’s truck and gave him the good news. The man nodded, tossed her a glare, and drove off.
“So do we know the victim’s identity?” Sheriff Barrett asked.
“No ID,” Riley said. “But I crossed paths with her about four weeks ago. I didn’t get a name, but she was hanging out with Jax Carter. My dog also found a backpack about fifty yards north.”
“She’s not from this area, or if she is, she’s new,” Barrett said.
She showed the sheriff the girl’s tattoo and gave him the update on Jax.
“So she’s a hooker,” Sheriff Barrett concluded.
“She’s a kid.”
Hearing the anger humming under her tone, he planted thick fingers on his gun belt. “Don’t you got bigger fish to fry?”
Contempt scraped the underside of her skin. If this victim’s daddy were rich or gave a damn, this place would be covered with cops. “Not right now.”
“My money says she’s a hooker working the I-95 truck stops. With a concert that’s supposed to bring in several thousand people, it makes sense that the traffickers like Carter would be moving girls into the area.” The case was hours old and Barrett already sounded tired.
“We might learn more when we run her prints through AFIS,” Riley said. The Automated Fingerprint Information System maintained fingerprints from a variety of sources, including arrests, employment, and background checks.
“Makes sense,” he said.
“Wouldn’t hurt for me to hit the hangouts where the runaways gather as I’m patrolling today.” Someone always knew something, and it was simply a matter of finding the right person. The faster she moved, the better her chances of unearthing a lead before it went cold.
He shrugged as if his mind had already shifted to more important cases. “I won’t say no. You’ll keep me posted.”
“Of course.”
Martin straightened. “Let’s have a look at the backpack.”
Martin planted a number next to the backpack. Next he documented the item first in a sketch, then with more pictures. “Sheriff, you can open the backpack now.”
The sheriff shook his head. “Let Tatum do the honors. She was first at the scene.”
Riley unzipped the bag and examined the contents: a water bottle on top of worn jeans, a sweatshirt smelling of sweat and dirt, athletic shoes slightly worn on the bottom, a yellow dress, heels, and a toothbrush wrapped in a plastic bag.
Sheriff Barrett tugged off his glasses and leaned closer. The lines around his eyes and mouth deepened as he frowned. “ID?”
“Not in the bag,” she said.
In a side pocket she found several crumpled one-dollar bills and a pamphlet for a youth e
mergency shelter she recognized.
Sheriff Barrett rested a hand on his holstered gun. “Trooper, what’s the backpack tell you about her?”
“The bag suggests she’s been moving around,” Riley said. “She’s thin, likely underfed by Jax, so she’s been with him at least a month. But the pedicure looks fresh and professional. Most pimps like Jax don’t make that kind of investment. Girls like her are lucky to get a shower and fed.”
Martin straightened and lowered his camera, bending backward to stretch his back.
“I see the pamphlet is for Duke Spence’s shelter,” Sheriff Barrett said. “Spence is always handing out flyers at the truck stops, malls, and city streets.” He looked at the victim. “There was something about that girl I couldn’t put my finger on until now. She looks a little like you, Trooper.”
Riley, grateful for the protection of her sunglasses, delayed her comment until her annoyance passed. “Not even close.”
The sheriff shrugged. “Not saying that to rattle your cage, Tatum. I mean it.”
Not convinced his intentions were sincere, she didn’t look at the body. “Dark hair and tanned skin. That’s about all we share.”
Sheriff Barrett stared at the dead girl’s face a long moment. “Hell, Tatum, she could be your sister.”
His words burrowed under her skin and he knew it. Cops were always searching for weakness within their ranks, and she’d absorbed her share of hazing when she first rode patrol. With cops, the teasing never really stopped.
Grinning with satisfaction, he checked a worn black Timex watch. “When will the body be transported to the medical examiner’s office?” he asked.
“About an hour,” Martin said. “Team is on the way.”
Eight years of working patrol had introduced her to death multiple times. Car accidents, shootings, domestic fights. Still, heaviness settled in Riley’s chest as she struggled to remember the girl alive. No one deserved this.
Kids from the streets were invisible to most. Faceless. Nameless. Most of the politicians didn’t care if a homeless kid, here or there, vanished. This girl’s death would soon fall off the radar.
“Riley,” Martin said. “Open the side pouch of the backpack while I photograph it.”
Riley squatted and unzipped the pocket. She held the flap open while the camera snapped.
“Go ahead and remove the contents of the bag,” Martin said.
She reached in and pulled out five playing cards, which she fanned. Thick paper stock. The face of each card was smooth, but carefully detailed. Tension rippled up her arm, and when she turned the cards over and stared at the ornate scroll pattern on the backing, her breath caught. The word Loser was written in bold black lettering on the back of each card. “A three of spades, a two of diamonds, a five of clubs, a four of hearts, and a king of diamonds.”
The cards struck an unwelcome chord she thought long buried from a case dating back twelve years. As her heart kicked into gear, Riley was careful to keep her expression neutral as she bagged each one and handed them to Sheriff Barrett.
“If she was playing poker,” Sheriff Barrett said, “she would’ve been a loser. She was holding about the worst possible hand.”
“The deck of cards to a serious player is critical,” Riley said.
“You a card player?” Sheriff Barrett sounded amused.
“Stepfather was a big gambler. According to him there were good cards and bad cards.”
Sheriff Barrett shrugged. “They’re all good. Depends on the combination you need.”
The heat of the day faded; the sound of traffic on the main road vanished.
When she’d run away, street life was far tougher than she’d imagined. She quickly ran out of money and within days was so hungry. When a church volunteer had offered her bottled water, she’d taken it gladly. That was the last thing she remembered. She lost seven days.
At the end of those missing days when she’d crawled free of a void, she could barely focus, her system loaded with some narcotic cocktail. But one of her first memories was of finding five playing cards in her back pocket. Same deck as these, different spread. But there were no words scrawled on her cards.
CHAPTER FOUR
Tuesday, September 13, 3:00 p.m.
Riley stood in the field staring at the cards, burrowing into those lost days in her past, trying to remember any detail.
“Riley?”
She glanced up at the sheriff. “Yeah.”
The lines around his eyes deepened. “You see something?”
She tore her gaze from the cards. “I thought I did, but no.”
“You sure?” Sheriff Barrett had been a cop too long not to sense tension or smell an evasion.
“I thought they reminded me of an old case I came across a couple of years ago.” Lies worked best when you kept the details scant and threaded in the truth when possible. “But I was wrong.” She handed the cards back to him.
The sheriff held the plastic bag up to the light and glared at the cards as if searching for what she might have seen. “Where do you think they came from?”
Keeping her voice steady when she spoke, she said, “These are professional-grade cards. They don’t come cheap.”
“And the word Loser?”
“I don’t know.” The crisp lines of the white-and-black baroque were more likely linked to a high-stakes private game. She studied the delicate pattern.
“You sure?” Sheriff Barrett asked.
She looked toward the victim again, studying the color of her hair, the long, lean limbs, and the tapered hands. “Nothing catches my eye yet.”
“Trooper, you’re studying that face mighty hard,” the sheriff said.
Riley straightened but made no comment.
“We don’t get many murders in this county, but always stings more when they’re young. I never get used to it.”
“Once I have the scene processed,” Martin said, “I’ll let you know if we find anything else.”
“Sounds good,” Sheriff Barrett said.
Riley was puzzled by the body’s position. “The killer took the time to pose her sitting up as if she were resting. She’s also fully dressed. He could have abused the body, but he didn’t. And her face was turned downward, so her eyes didn’t look up at him.”
“That’s one way of looking at it, I guess,” the sheriff said. “Or they could have been doing drugs or having sex and it went sideways.”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. He strangles her, which is a very personal way of killing someone, but then he feels bad enough not to dump her body like a bag of trash.”
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Sheriff Barrett glanced back toward the interstate ramp. “The killer could have disposed of her body and been back on his way north or south in a matter of minutes.”
“He could be three states away by now.”
“Martin, any tire tracks?” the sheriff asked.
“Not in the field, but there are fresh ones on the side of the road just beyond Hudson’s truck. I’ve dropped flags to preserve them. There are plenty of footprints, though. Someone walked around the body several times. Could have been Hudson, since the impressions were made by work boots, which I am assuming he’s wearing.”
“He is,” Riley confirmed.
“I’ll need impressions of Hudson’s boots.”
“I’ll swing by his place and get them,” Sheriff Barrett countered.
“Judging by the size of the footprints, I’d say a man’s ten or eleven,” Martin said.
“We should be able to clear Hudson as soon as I get his impressions,” Sheriff Barrett said.
“A DNA swab wouldn’t hurt,” Martin added.
“Sure.” The sheriff rolled his head from side to side. “Trooper, any other thoughts?”
“The victim is thin, so she wouldn’t have been hard to carry,” Riley said. Had he slung her over his shoulder or carried her in his arms? Both images, one suggesting disinterest and the other care, bothered her. She shook
both off. As a cop, it was better to focus on facts rather than feelings. Easy enough during the daylight, but at night those denied emotions robbed her of sleep. “Can you tell if she died here?”
Martin examined the victim’s back and side. The victim’s right side was stippled with dark blue as if bruised. “When she died and her heart stopped, she was on her side. Likely stayed that way for a while—gave the blood time to settle. If she’d died here, like this, the blood would have settled in her hands and the bottom half of her legs. My guess is she died somewhere else.”
“Gambling’s not legal in this state,” Sheriff Barrett observed as he studied the cards.
“Doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Private games go on all the time,” Riley said. “The big players don’t fuss with public venues.”
“High stakes. In a fancy backroom game. Sounds far-fetched,” he said, more to himself.
Riley blinked, remembering her stepfather had been a high roller who couldn’t stay away from the tables. “These guys play with the best cards, and they hire the prettiest girls to serve them drinks and keep their mouth shut about what they see.”
The sheriff’s head cocked slightly as he studied her. “You pick all that up while on patrol?”
“I pay attention.”
“All right,” he said after a pause. “Keep me updated. I’ll contact criminal investigations with the state and turn the case over to them.”
“Sounds good.”
Sheriff Barrett crossed the field, shook DuPont’s hand, climbed in his car, and left.
“Are you okay, Riley?” Martin asked. “You look a little pale.”
She cleared her throat and squared her shoulders. “Still worn out a little from yesterday. I’ll be fine.”
“Sure? Hell, you look like someone walked on your grave.”
His concern pricked at her pride. “You’re being dramatic.”
“Yeah, that’s me. Mr. Drama.” A deadpan tone made the statement laughable.
“I can see that.” Riley grinned, hoping to break the tension coiling inside her.
But the levity was fleeting. If not for the cards, she would have theorized that a john or one of Jax’s friends had killed the girl. It was the most plausible conclusion. If not for the cards.
