Guns and Roses
Page 30
“Yes, a gold heart pendant. Exactly the same. She had it on yesterday. She said Drew gave it to her.”
“There was no pendant at the crime scene. A broken gold chain, but no pendant.”
“I’m telling you, I saw it yesterday. Jami was flying high; she said Drew had left it in her locker as a way to say he was sorry without actually saying he was sorry.”
“Well, finding out about the ledge party must have changed things because we know they were back to fighting again.”
“What about that girl’s boyfriend?” Rebel said pointing to the picture. “Who was he and was there any doubt about him?”
“It’s been a long time since I looked at the file, but as far as I remember, he had an airtight alibi.” Cash dug through the reports until he found the one he was looking for. “It says here her boyfriend was in Winston-Salem for his niece’s christening.” He read further down. “When asked about the pendant, he said he had not given it to her.”
“Maybe she had a secret admirer. Maybe Drew didn’t give Jami hers, either. What if she had the same secret admirer that gave Katie hers?”
Cash’s heart did a giddy up and go. “Miss Culpepper, you might just be on to something there!” He dug through the pictures until he found what he was looking for. “Is that a Mr. Lincoln?”
Rebel looked at the picture. “Sure looks like it, but I’d have to see it in person to say for sure.”
Cash reached down and picked up the evidence bag then withdrew the clear bag with the withered rose in it. “I can’t open this, and you can’t touch it, but is that a Mr. Lincoln?” he asked holding the bag up for her to get a good look at.
“Yes, suh, it sure is.”
Cash grinned. “You really want to help me with this case?”
“More than anything.”
As Cash gathered up the pictures and put them back into the folder, he said, “I need to make a call, then we’re going for a ride.”
Chapter Six
“Where’re we going?” Rebel asked Detective Cantrell from the passenger seat of his police car.
“West Jefferson to talk to Katie’s mama.”
“That’s over in the next county!”
“I’m aware of its location, Rebel. Now, while I drive, from page one, start reading me the report.”
Rebel smiled. “Really? You’re letting me in on official police business?”
“For now.”
Never satisfied with simple answers, Rebel had to ask, “Why? What made you change your mind?”
The detective gave her an odd, sideways glance before he turned his attention back on the road. “A few reasons.”
“Name them.”
The detective let out a long exasperated breath. “One, if by some slim chance the killer finds out you were there, even though you were passed out, you’re safer with me. Second, I’m an instinct man and my gut tells me with you so closely tied to the victim and to Gilman, you’re going to see something I’m not, like the type of rose connection and the pendant connection. And third, if I leave you to your own devices, you’re going to get yourself or somebody else killed. And since my job is to serve and protect the citizens of Lockerby, they’re all safer with you right where you are.”
“I suppose I could take some of that the wrong way, but I won’t because boiled down it means you trust me. And for that I thank you, Detective Cantrell. It means a lot to me.”
“I’m trusting you to see what I don’t, Miss Culpepper. And my name is Cassius, my friends call me Cash.”
“My friends call me Rebel… Cash.”
He smiled, but didn’t look at her. “Get to reading, Rebel.”
She shuffled through the papers until she had them all in order. “I’ll say this from just glancing at these reports, whoever wrote them did a poor job of articulatin’.”
“That would have been the old Chief. He medically retired. Dementia.”
“Well, without sounding insensitive, this reads like a mentally challenged person wrote it.”
“Let’s take from it what we can.”
“Ok, so the body of Katharine Mae Burkhart was discovered on a Sunday morning five years ago this month at Kappa house.” She shivered. “By Robert Merle, a pledging freshman.” Rebel swallowed hard. “Says here that she was found in the third-floor study hall. Strangled and bludgeoned, her body positioned spread eagle and her clothes removed from her.” Rebel shivered. “Just like Jami.” She exhaled and continued. “A bloody red rose and a gold heart pendant necklace was found wrapped in her bra that the killer had wound around her neck.”
She shuffled through the paper work for the coroner’s report. “The coroner says despite the multiple stab wounds and blood loss she died of asphyxiation by strangulation.” She looked at Cash. “That’s how Jami died?”
“The coroner has to confirm that, but yes.”
Rebel let out a long slow breath. “Poor girl, she must have been terrified, knowing she was going to die.” She sniffed back her tears and shuffled through the papers. “I don’t see a forensic report here. Don’t tell me no one collected the evidence.”
“Oh, it was collected alright. Tagged, too, and mailed to the State lab in Raleigh, but once it arrived, it got lost.”
“How does a box of evidence grow legs?”
“I don’t know, but it stinks to me. I’ve gone back and forth on that for four years. There was DNA evidence in that box that would have directly linked the killer to Katie. It’s gone now.”
“What about the DNA evidence on Jami?”
“Killer soaked her fingers in bleach then wiped her body down with it.”
“No!” Rebel gasped. “He wasn’t gonna tempt fate twice and hope the evidence disappeared.”
“Or the killer didn’t leave it to chance the first time. That son of a bitch got a hold of that evidence once it got to Raleigh. How I don’t know. I’ve been back and forth, inside and out of it.”
“Maybe it was never sent.”
“I have the receipt from the post office and the tracking document. The box left Lockerby, got to Raleigh and then disappeared.”
“Maybe the box that left Lockerby wasn’t the box of evidence. But someone wanted to make it look like it was. ”
“Now that’s a thought I will be pursuing as soon as we return to the PD,” Cash said, impressed. He nodded over at her and smiled that smile that warmed her to her toes. “It’s thinking like that, Rebel that endears you to me.”
“Is my brain my only endearing quality?”
“Don’t go there, Rebel,” he said, his voice clipped, his focus back on the road. It didn’t fool her. She saw the way his nostrils flared and his knuckles whitened around the steering wheel when she asked the question.
“Why not? I’m a woman full grown who knows what she wants, not some fickle school girl.” And Cassius Cantrell was a man worthy of any woman. His good looks and charm aside, he was smart, mannered, and Rebel suspected, he could be right dangerous when he had to be.
“Stop sidetracking me. I need to focus one hundred percent on finding the killer. Now go to the part of the report that talks about the boyfriend.”
“I don’t mean to sidetrack you, Cash. I want to find Jami’s killer as much as you do, maybe more, but I can’t help it if you make me feel all explosive inside.”
“Rebel,” he growled.
“I know you’re all worried about our differences. The fact that you’re black or part. You’re not all black, are you? Not that I care, but your skin isn’t as dark as some I’ve seen. And your eyes are hazel, sometimes like when you’re thinkin’ about things you shouldn’t be thinkin’ about or mad like you are right now, they’re almost green—”
“Rebel!”
“Cash! I need to get this off my chest if we’re going to work together.”
“There is nothing to discuss.”
“Are you saying you aren’t attracted to me?”
He exhaled loudly, white knuckling the steering wheel. “Whate
ver I feel toward you is irrelevant. I leave at the end of the week, Rebel.” He looked hard at her. “And I’m not coming back.”
His news stunned her to silence. It shouldn’t have. He was just a man. A man she just met this morning over a dead body. Why should she give a care if she never saw him again after this week?
Clearing her throat, Rebel dug out the contact reports. “Brayden Halstead was contacted two days after Katie’s body was discovered. Says here he was at his niece’s christening in Winston-Salem the day before, day of, and day after Katie’s murder.” She looked at Cash. “Winston-Salem’s only a couple hours each way. He coulda skulked in and out at night.”
“Could have, but not likely. Besides I’ve kept tabs on him. He’s settled up in Richmond now, has a family and works for his father-in-law’s law firm. There’s no connection between him and Jami.”
“I bet Katie’s folks don’t come from money.”
“We’re going to find that out in about thirty minutes.”
As they drove, Rebel read the reports out loud. Occasionally Cash would make a comment or ask a question. Their earlier camaraderie dried up. Now it was just business and Rebel supposed that’s the way it ought to stay. She wasn’t much for getting her heart broken, and Cassius Cantrell with all his simmering sensuality was just the kind of man that could do it.
When they pulled up in front of a single wide in a broken down trailer park, Rebel shook her head. “Classic. Pretty girl from the other side of the tracks lands her a rich boy only to get murdered for it.”
When Cash came around to open her door, Rebel beat him to it. “I’m not helpless ,” she snipped.
“Rebel,” he roughly said. “You’re acting like a petulant child.”
“I guess I am a petulant child.”
He chuckled shaking his head.
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked up at him. The sun was beginning to set. It had been one hell of a long day. She was tired, afraid and in mourning, but running roughshod on top of all of that was she was feeling exceptionally anxious emotionally and, she sharply inhaled, sexually.
She dropped her arms and looked straight up at him and blinked. His eyes were dark green with gold flecks of fire in them. Her breathing hitched up several notches as she imagined how his skin would feel against hers. It must have showed all over.
“Miss Culpepper, you have a dirty mind.”
“Can’t help it, Detective Cantrell.” She breathed, stepping back.
“I think it would be best if you stayed in the car.”
“Then what was the point of dragging me along?”
“I didn’t drag you; you came willingly. Hell, you would have hijacked my car and come yourself if you knew where I was going.”
“Deputize me and make it all official.”
“I can’t do that.”
“They do it on TV all the time.”
“That’s fiction. This is real life and death, Rebel.”
“I know, Cash.”
“Let’s go.”
“I’m right behind you.” And as he moved past her and started to walk, she smiled. She didn’t mind the view at all.
When Cash knocked on the door, a shaky female voice called out, “Who is it?”
“Detective Cantrell, Mrs. Burkhart, with Lockerby PD. I called a while ago.”
“Oh, yeah,” she said. The sound of several chain locks sliding open scratched on the other side of the door. When it cracked open and a worn out looking woman stuck her head out, she frowned. “You’re black.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“None of them other detectives were black.”
“We come in all colors, ma’am.”
“Well, I ain’t lettin’ no black man in mah house.”
“Um, Mrs. Burkhart?” Rebel said, squeezing past Cash extending her hand. “I’m Rebel Culpepper, a friend of Katie’s at Gilman. I’m here with Detective Cantrell who’s in charge of cold cases. And we’re both hoping by talking to you, we might pick up something those other detectives didn’t and find out who killed Katie. If you let us in we’d be much obliged.”
The door slammed shut.
“Hells bells,” Rebel muttered, looking up at Cash who scowled, but didn’t look overly surprised or upset by Mrs. Burkhart’s bigotry.
“Welcome to my world,” he said. Not as a complaint, but as a simple fact of life.
It fried Rebel’s rear-end that Mrs. Burkhart was being so ridiculous.
The door squeaked open. “C’mon in,” Katie’s mama said, stepping back and keeping an eye on Cash.
“I can assure you, Mrs. Burkhart, he don’t bite.”
Chapter Seven
“Thank you, Mrs. Burkhart for seeing us on such short notice,” Cash said as they entered the small trailer. Life had not been kind to the woman. Her daughter had been brutally murdered and her lifestyle left nothing to be desired. The trailer was clean, but barren. The woman looked like she was seventy, not forty or fifty as Cash suspected she was.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” Rebel said from bedside him.
Mrs. Burkhart raised grey sunken eyes to Rebel. “You knew my Katie?”
“Not well, we had just met a few days before—before we lost her. She was such a sweet girl.”
Cash coughed, cuing Rebel to knock off the bull.
“Miss Culpepper is assisting me with the cold case files,” Cash reiterated what Rebel had already said in an effort to gain the woman’s trust. She was eyeing him like he was going to rape her, then slit her throat. “I’ve made Katie’s case my top priority.”
Ignoring Cash, Mrs. Burkhart focused on Rebel. It was there she felt most comfortable and it was there Cash would let her be. “Pleased ta meet you, Miss Culpepper. Any friend of Katie’s is welcome in mah house.”
There was more than one way to catch a fly. Cash moved slightly behind Rebel. Touching the small of her back with his fingertips he nudged her forward. Rebel was a smart girl; she immediately caught on.
“Would you mind showing me, Katie’s room, Mrs. Burkhart?” Rebel asked her mother.
“I’d be happy to. She didn’t have much, it bein’ just the two of us and me workin’ to support us both, but what she had, I kept, just like the day she left for college.”
“Was she popular in high school?” Rebel asked. “She wadn’t the cheerleader type. She loved basketball and was a math whiz. It’s how she got to go to that hoity-toity college. The girl earned herself a full ride. I couldna been prouder of her.”
“What about her daddy?” Rebel carefully asked.
“I wouldn’ spit in his ass if his guts were on fire.”
“I take it then he wasn’t around much.”
“More like not at-tall.”
Mrs. Burkhart opened the door to Katie’s room and it was like walking into a pink explosion. “Did you ever meet her boyfriend, Brayden Halstead?” Rebel asked.
“No, but she talked ‘bout ’im all the time.”
“Yeah?” Rebel said. “What’d she say about him?”
Cash just stood back and let Rebel do her thing. She had a way of getting a person to talk and say things they weren’t intending on saying. And since Mrs. Burkhart still had a jaundiced eye on him, he wasn’t going to rock her boat.
“She said for a boy who wanted to be a lawyer he was dummer’n a bag of hammers. She spent a lot of time helpin’ ’im. That’s how they got to know each other so well.”
“So they fell in love in study hall?”
“I guess that was how it happened. She was happy ‘specially since he was a big man on campus.”
“Katie was high in the cotton then,” Rebel casually remarked. Cash cringed. Not the thing to say—Mrs. Burkhart turned on Rebel’s observation. “That girl never once went back on her raisin’! She was good through an’ through. If it weren’t for her, that boy woulda flunked his finals.”
“I didn’t mean any disrespect, ma’am. I’m sure Brayden was grateful for her help.”
&n
bsp; “Pfft. She picked one like her daddy. Not a grateful bone in ‘im. The bastard broke up with her right after he found out he’d passed his finals and would be graduatin’. ‘Bout broke my heart with hers breakin’ like it was. She was dead two days later.”
“So, she called you to talk about the breakup?”
Mrs. Burkhart leveled watery eyes at Rebel. “Katie called me hysterical the night it happened. But then she got real quiet an’ said, ‘Mama, don’t you worry none ‘bout me. I’m gonna be jus’ fine. I have a granddaddy of an insurance policy, an’ I’m gonna use it to get back my man.’ In the end she didn’t have nothin’, ‘cause I never saw any insurance money come through.”
Rebel caught Cash’s stare. “I know you’ve already been asked this question, but can you tell me who gave Katie the gold heart locket?”
“I told the cops I thought it was that boy she was seein’, but he told the police he never gave her nothin’. Ain’t that grand of ’im? After all the time she spent gettin’ ’im through those math classes?”
“Men can be mighty ungrateful sometimes, Mrs. Burkhart. You offer them the world and they just throw it back in your face for no good reason. Makes you want to cut parts of them up.” Rebel stole a smirk at Cash over Mrs. Burkhart’s head. He had a hard time keeping a straight face.
“So, after all this time, no one else came to mind who could have given Katie that pendant?” Cash asked.
Mrs. Burkhart shot him a look that could have killed a lesser man. “No.”
“Would you show us the locket, Mrs. Burkhart?” Rebel asked, touching her shoulder.
“’Course, it’s right here in Katie’s jewelry box.”
Carefully she opened the little pink rhinestone encrusted box. “It was here,” she said worried as she rummaged through the costume jewelry. “I put it right here. I never took it out. It’s gone.”
“When was the last time you saw it in that box?” Cash asked stepping closer.
“A few months ago when I was dustin’.”