Rebel raised her swollen, dark chocolate-colored eyes up at him and sniffed.
Cash kept his resolve firmly in check as he fought the overwhelming urge to take the cinnamon-haired, firecracker by the name of Rebel Yell Culpepper into his arms and soothe away her sadness. But until he ruled her completely out as a suspect, he could hardly do that. Hell, not even after that. She’d still be a witness. Besides, she was nothing short of a kid. And a white one at that. And he had a thing about that.
“I was supposed to meet her last night. Right there,” she pointed to the closed door. “Third floor study hall. I was on my way when she called to make sure I was coming. But I—” Rebel rubbed her eyes and shook her head. “I called her and told tell her I was on my way, and I was, but somebody grabbed me and said I had to take a swing at the piñata before I could have another shot. I think I did… then I came up. I was here—” She rubbed her eyes again as if clearing her vision would clear her memory. “But I had to pee, and I went looking for the bathroom… I guess I stumbled into that closet by mistake and passed out.” She looked up at him, the sadness and regret poured out of her expression. “But if I hadn’t drank so much, I wouldn’t have got sidetracked with that piñata and then mistaken the closet for the bathroom and passed out. I would’ve been here and whoever did that to her wouldn’t have.”
“What makes you so sure you could have prevented it? You’d been drinking. A lot. Maybe you both would be laying there dead.”
She stiffened at that. “I might look like a helpless southern belle, but I can assure you, Detective Cantrell, I have moves. My Pappy taught me from the time I could crawl how to take care of myself.” She sniffed and grabbed the edge of her sarong and blew her nose. “I could have scared whoever did that to her away!”
“I seriously doubt you would have scared Jami’s attacker so bad that he felt in fear for his own life.”
Rebel shook her head and looked up at him with all the trust of a baby. “I—” She ran her hands up and down her bare arms. “I never drink. This was my first frat party—” Her eyes widened. “Do you think one of those boys killed her? But why? Why would anyone want to hurt Jami? She was as sweet as cream pie.” Her teeth chattered hard in her head. Her entire body began to shake uncontrollably. “Why?”
Cash grabbed his radio off his belt and shouted, “Sorrell, get me some piping-hot coffee up here, stat.”
“You be wantin’ some cream an’ sugah with that coffee, suh?” Sorrell asked.
“Bring me what you got, Sorrell.” Cash shouted. This was turning into a southern spoof. He had a dead woman on the other side of that door that needed his help, but his gut told him the woman—no, the girl—standing in front of him was not the killer, but the key to finding him.
Cash was an instinct man. They’d never steered him wrong. And his instincts told him the rumpled flower in front of him was not involved in the victim’s death. She had no defensive wounds or blood on her. She was also genuinely distraught. Plus she smelled like a tequila factory and had puked all over his shoes. No way could she have caused the damage to Jami in that condition. Good for him he’d slipped on a pair of booties when he arrived on scene, or his black wingtips would be ruined otherwise. He believed her when she said she’d passed out mere feet from where her friend was murdered, probably while it was happening.
Did the killer know?
“Cash,” Sorrel chirped on the radio. “Mags wants to know if you want decaf or regular, said she can do either or.”
“I don’t care, Sorrel!” Cash shoved the radio back onto his belt then took off his suit jacket. As he wrapped it around the girl’s trembling shoulders he muttered, “Holy mother of Jesus, get me though this day.”
Rebel looked up at him with that trusting look again and it nearly got him. He stiffened. “Your jacket’s warm and smells good,” she quietly said. “Thank you.”
Cash muttered several curses to himself.
“I really do need to use the little girl’s room,” Rebel said as if she was sorry about it.
He pointed to the half open door at the end of the hall next to the closet she’d passed out in. She moved past him and when she reappeared a few minutes later, the hair around her face was damp. Her cheeks were pink and dewy and she smelled like soap. Cash moved her over to one of the plastic chairs against the wall and sat her down. Squatting in front of her, he grabbed her chin between his fingers and softly, but firmly, said, “Jami was murdered. You were the last person she spoke to, at least on her cellphone. I want to know what you two talked about. How was she acting? Was she afraid?”
Rebel shook her head as if it would clear the cobwebs. Taking a deep breath, her body shuddered with the aftershock of her crying. But she looked directly at him and he saw the steel in her eyes. Yeah, she was heartbroken her friend was dead, but he knew this girl would go to Hell and back to find out who did it, and Lord help them if she got her hands on them.
“Jami’d been acting a bit off lately. Cancelling our study sessions at the last minute, even blowing off her job at the Dairy Queen. That’s not like Jami. While she doesn’t come from money, her people are hard workers.”
“How old was Jami?”
“Nineteen.”
“Tell me about her and Drew Prebe.”
“You know about him?”
Cash cocked a dark brow. “I’m a detective.”
“And as such, I’m holding you to finding out who killed Jami,” Rebel said, poking him in the chest with her index finger. ”But I’ll tell you right now, it wasn’t Drew. He doted on that girl.”
“Love and hate are but reflections of the other.”
Rebel rolled her eyes at him. “That not only sounds like a load of chicken crap, but it is. I know Drew, and I know he doesn’t have a mean bone in his body especially when it came to Jami. Now his sister Colette’s a different story. She despised the fact that her little brother was running with a coalminer’s daughter.” Rebel shook her head as her eyes welled up with tears again. “Does Drew know?”
Cash stood not trusting himself around her tears. One minute she was as a prickly as a briar, and the next, all soft and vulnerable. He bet her boyfriend was bald from pulling his hair out.
“We haven’t released the name of the victim. When she was discovered almost an hour ago, her face was covered by her hair, so no one knows for sure who it is, but I suspect there’s lots of speculating going on downstairs. There’s going to be more when word gets out you might have been up here when it happened.”
Rebel swallowed hard. “You think the killer will come after me thinking I know something?”
“It’s possible.”
“Well, I don’t know anything! I was passed out in that closet. Can’t you put that out, like an APB on television?”
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you,” the detective said.
Rebel caught his intense stare and her belly did a slow somersault.
“I would appreciate that, Detective Cantrell.”
“I’d just be doing my job,” he curtly said.
The detective reached past Rebel and grabbed a bottle of water and a pair of green booties from a large black leather suitcase with the faded white letters LPD CST stamped on the side.
“Put these on,” he said, handing her the booties. “Then have some water.”
With shaky hands Rebel put the booties on her bare feet and idly wondered where her sandals were. Then she took the bottle from his big steady hand. “Thank you,” she said.
“You’re dehydrated and in shock. I don’t want you passing out on me.”
“Just part of the job,” she sarcastically said.
He scowled as he replaced his vomit-covered booties with fresh ones. “What else did you and Jami talk about?”
Rebel rubbed her throbbing temples, trying to get the horrifying vision of Jami lying naked and bloody on the floor out of her head. It would never go away. It would haunt her dreams for the rest of her life. “Good lord, the last thing I cl
early remember was swinging at that green and yellow tequila bottle piñata.” She rubbed her forehead then pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes. A deep, shuddering sob wracked through her as tears erupted again.
A big, warm hand touched her shoulder and gently squeezed. “Miss Culpepper, I know this is hard, but I need for you to collect yourself.”
Rebel’s shoulders rose and fell with her deep sobs, but she nodded. Raising her head she swiped the tears away with the back of her hand. “I’m going to help you find her killer.” Sitting up straight, Rebel pushed her shoulders back and looked the handsome detective straight in the eye. “Tell me what to do.”
“Start by telling me the truth about Drew and Jami.”
Rebel bit her bottom lip and looked down at her feet.
The detective nudged her under the chin with his finger until she met him eye to eye. “What don’t you want to tell me?”
“They had a big fight,” she blurted.
The detective’s eyes danced with excitement. “Now you’re talking, girl.” He reached toward her and grabbed the lapel of his jacket. “Excuse me,” he roughly said. When his big hand dove in, and his knuckles brushed against her left breast, Rebel stiffened. “Detective, really? We just met!”
To his credit, his cheeks flushed red. And if truth be told, she didn’t mind at all.
“My apologies, ma’am. I’m just getting my notepad.” Once he retrieved it, he moved a respectable distance away and jotted down notes.
“Just because they were fighting doesn’t make Drew a killer,” Rebel challenged.
“Doesn’t clear him though, does it?” the detective countered.
Rebel shivered and shook her head. She’d never met a killer before.
“I’d like a list of Jami’s friends, as well as the people she worked with if you know them. I suspect Drew’s number will be in Jami’s cellphone?” he asked as he scrolled through it again.
“I have it, too. Every now and again he needed a math lesson and called me for some tutoring.”
The detective’s lips quirked. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a mathematician.”
She stiffened. “Just what did you have me pegged for? Some silly girl who waves her hand and blows kisses from a homecoming float?”
“Among other things…”
“Detective Cantrell, didn’t your mama teach you not to judge a book by its cover? Even one such as myself in my current state of dishevelment?”
He grinned like the tom cat she knew he was. “My mama taught me a lot of things about women, Miss Culpepper, but none of it had to do with what I’m judging you by, right now.” His grin widened, nearly splitting his face in half. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look at your cellphone.”
“I do mind, but for Jami, you can take it apart for all I care.” She handed him the phone.
As he took it, the detective asked, “How old is Drew? Does he live on campus?”
“He’s nineteen, same as Jami. He’s over at the Johnson House dorms, but he was a pledge to join the Kappas here. Jami told me just last week they were going to be initiating him any time now. She was as satisfied as a cat lapping cream about that.”
“Why?”
“She’d never dated a college boy before, much less one in a fraternity.”
The detective scrolled through the phone until he came to the number he wanted, then jotted it down. He looked at Rebel and said, “You have a message. I want to listen to it.”
“I’m not keen on allowing a virtual stranger listen to my personal voicemails.”
“You afraid I might hear something intended for your ears only?”
Her cheeks heated. “I can assure you, Detective Cantrell, there is no one in my life that would be sexting or sending sexy voicemails my way.” Not that she would be opposed to one or two once in a while.
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“Despite the unladylike manner in which we were introduced, I can assure you, I’m not a fast girl.”
He smiled that cat-that-ate-the-canary smile and Rebel was glad she was sitting down. Otherwise she just might have swooned. “Well, excuse me then, Miss Culpepper for drawing the wrong conclusion about you.”
“Under these terrible circumstances, your apology is accepted.” She extended her hand to the detective. “My phone, please.” Reluctantly, he handed it to her. She snatched it out of his hand, afraid any lingering touch might shake her up more than she was already shook up.
“Did Jami have any enemies?” he asked as she navigated her phone’s apps. They were a mess. Lord only knows what kind of drunk dialing she had done last night.
“No,” Rebel said, looking up at the detective. “She was a sweet girl. Not very bright, mind you, but sweet as they come.”
“Was she a student here?”
“A freshman on a partial basketball scholarship. She worked the night shift at the Dairy Queen to help pay for what her folks couldn’t.”
“You said she didn’t come from money. Where is she from?”
“Her people are from East Tennessee. Mining folks.”
“How do you think Drew’s daddy felt about that?”
Rebel swallowed. She knew exactly how the Prebe clan felt. “It wasn’t Drew’s daddy Jami was afraid of; it was his sister, Colette. She had a hissy fit with a tail on it when she found out about the two of them.”
Frustrated with her phone, Rebel exasperated. She couldn’t pull up her dang voicemail! The good detective held out his big hand to her. “I’m not simple! I just can’t figure out what I did to my phone. It’s fickle and sometimes I can’t get the touchscreen to respond. I tried turning it off then on again but that—”
“For the love of God and all that’s holy, Rebel, can’t you just keep that motor mouth of yours shut for one cotton pickin’ minute and hand me the damn phone?”
“Well, I—” She slapped it onto his palm. “Be my guest, Detective.”
In just a matter of a few seconds he asked, “What’s your pass code?”
She set her jaw. He looked at her expectantly, but she gave it to him. “One, two, three, four.”
“Wow, that’s genius.” He tapped the numbers on the screen and her voicemail popped up. “This voicemail came in at three oh eight this morning. It’s from Jami.” The detective looked at his watch. “It’s nine thirty-eight. I figured her time of death was four to six hours ago.” He exhaled then looked hard at Rebel and punched the play button.
“Rebel, where are you?” Jami’s voice boomed. “I been waitin’ a half hour. I need to talk to you.” She started to sob. “Oh, Rebel I got myself into such a mess an’ Drew is so mad at me; I thought he was gonna strangle me! But he did worse. He broke up with me. Told me to go back home! Oh, God, I need you to talk to him. He listens to you—” There was a brief muffling sound as if Jami put her hand over the receiver. “Why are you here?” she asked someone. A deep muffled voice answered.
Wide-eyed, Rebel fixated on the phone. Her breathing accelerated. “The killer,” she whispered, looking up at the detective.
Detective Cantrell put his finger to his lips.
The sound of a door soundly closing followed an eerie silence. Then Jami said what sounded like, “Did I get what?” A deep sob followed her question. Her last words were followed by a terrifying scream and then the phone went dead.
Rebel’s skin had frosted to ice. She shook violently. She should have been there!
“Don’t blame yourself for this, Rebel. It’s not your fault.”
“Yes,” she whispered, “it is.”
“Dig deep now, because I want you to listen to this again. Listen hard and tell me if you recognize the voice at all.”
Rebel turned blurry eyes up to the detective.
“Can you do that for Jami?”
“I’ll listen to it a hundred times if that’s how many times it takes.”
“Good girl.”
He played the recording again, and again, an
d each time it was impossible to tell if it was a man or a woman. Just as the detective played the recording a fourth time, that security guard, Sorrel Nelson came walking up the stairs with two cups of coffee.
When Jami’s scream echoed in the hallway his hands shook. “Holy hell, what’s that?”
“That’s Jami and the killer,” Rebel said. “Recorded.”
Sorrel turned as white as a sow’s belly. “Fur real? You got ‘im?”
Detective Cantrell took the two cups of coffee from Sorrel and inclined his head toward the stairway. “Get on back down stairs, Sorrel. I’ll call you if I need you.”
“Yessuh, but I wanted to tell you, we had a hard time locating Jason Green, the boy who called it in. Apparently, he was so shaken he took off, but he’s coming directly.”
“Bring him up as soon as he gets here.”
“Can I go with you when you arrest the killer?” Sorrel asked all excited.
“We’ll see. Now go get that boy and bring him to me.”
As Sorrel headed down the stairway, Rebel stared after him. She shivered and took the proffered cup of coffee. “On campus we call him Sorry because he can’t seem to find his way out of a paper bag.”
“He’s a sorry excuse for a security guard, that’s for sure, but he means well.”
Rebel took a sip of coffee and her stomach immediacy roiled. She shivered and set it down on the floor. “Why did the killer leave the cellphone? Wouldn’t he be afraid the person on the other end, which is namely me, would have heard him?”
Detective Cantrell looked hard at her then said, “That’s the million dollar question, because he must have known she was on the phone when he entered the room. I found it underneath Jami’s back. Either the killer was in a rush to get out of here and, when he didn’t see it in plain sight, gave up on it, or he forgot about it in his violent tantrum.”
“How exactly did she die?”
“Strangulation.”
Rebel sharply inhaled. “Oh, my God—Jami said Drew was so mad at her she thought he was gonna strangle her!” She didn’t want to accept that whatever it was Jami and Drew were fighting about, got her killed. “Bu-but there’s all that blood.”
Guns and Roses Page 27
