1 A Small Case of Murder

by Lauren Carr

  “You know something about guns, Mr. Thornton?” Sheriff Sawyer asked him.

  “I am a Navy commander.”

  “You’re a legal weenie,” the sheriff snickered. “Most legal weenies I know don’t know jack about guns.”

  “I didn’t go straight into litigation from the academy.” Joshua could feel the sheriff’s gaze on him. “Look at these powder burns.”

  “I get the feeling you’ve done this before.” Sheriff Sawyer motioned for his deputy to photograph her hand. “Don’t you be disturbing any evidence.” He handed Joshua a pair of evidence gloves and motioned for him to put them on in order to preserve the crime scene.

  The powder burns from the gun were evident, as was an outline over the top of her hand in which there was no powder burn. “If she fired this gun on her own, there should be a powder burn over the top of her hand,” Joshua pointed out.

  Sheriff Sawyer took Beth’s hand out of his. “Like I said, it’s a pretty big gun for such a little girl.” He showed Joshua her grip on the gun. Her fingers barely got around the trigger. The grasp was awkward and clumsy. Without saying anything more, he put the bag back on Beth’s hand and sealed it with the rubber band.

  Joshua peered inside the closet to which the door was open.

  Vicki’s wardrobe consisted of a variety of coats, pants and tops. There wasn’t one skirt or dress. Some of her clothes were hung up on hangers; others were in a pile on the floor. All of them were black.

  Except for a blue-silver trench coat.

  Joshua examined the coat hanging on a wire hanger.

  “I certainly didn’t expect Vicki to go peacefully,” Sheriff Sawyer was remarking about the murder victim stretched out on the bed. “What are you doing, Mr. Thornton? I told you not to go disturbing any evidence.”

  Joshua pulled the coat by the bottom hem out of the closet so it still hung on the hanger to display the front of it to the lawman. The front was splattered with blood and body tissue.

  Sheriff Sawyer joined him at the closet. “That’s a man’s trench coat.” He examined the coat and its pockets. “We have more gloves.” The sheriff removed a bloody leather glove from one of the pockets. After sniffing it, he held it out for him to smell. “Carbon.”

  “Whoever wore these gloves fired a gun,” Joshua ob-served. “And it’s too big for either Beth or Vicki.”

  After replacing the glove in the pocket, Sheriff Sawyer told the deputy to get a picture of the coat and the closet.

  Tad was making a note in his notepad when the sheriff said, “Thornton said you came here looking for Beth Davis. Considering all the trouble Vicki’s been causing you, I would have thought you would have stayed as far away from her as humanly possible.”

  “I had no choice. It was imperative to get Beth into detox as soon as possible,” Tad said. “I didn’t want to come here.” He pointed in Joshua’s direction. “That’s why I brought him with me.”

  “Why would you think Ms. Davis would be here?”

  “Beth was on a binge. Vicki Rawlings is a drug dealer.”

  “Wasn’t Ms. Davis a pharmacist?”

  After Joshua wordlessly advised him that there was no point in hiding the truth, Tad said, “Beth got fired from her job. There’s speculation that she was supplying pills to Vicki Rawlings.”

  Sheriff Sawyer laughed. “Speculation? You damn well talk like a lawyer.” He turned serious. “Was Ms. Davis afraid Vicki Rawlings was going to roll over on her to save her own neck?”

  Joshua replied, “It’s only speculation at this point.”

  Tad couldn’t take his eyes off Beth’s body.

  “What condition was she in the last time you saw her?” the sheriff asked.

  “Unconscious.” Joshua turned to Tad while he spoke to the sheriff. “Dr. MacMillan was the last one to see her.”

  Crossing his arms across his chest, Sheriff Sawyer turned his attention to the doctor. “What condition was Beth Davis in when you last saw her?”

  Tad was gone. He escaped the scene out the side door and into the barren backyard. He ran to the edge of the property before dropping to his knees and throwing up again. He jumped when he felt Joshua’s hand on his shoulder.

  Joshua knelt next to him to offer him a handkerchief.

  “She never got over you.” Tad fought the churning in his stomach.

  “I know.” Joshua wanted to ask if Beth had shown any signs of being suicidal.

  “Now is not a good time.” Tad threw up again.

  Joshua rounded the corner of the mobile home to find the lot illuminated with spotlights. Through the glare, he could make out Tess Bauer standing before the cameras.

  “This is Tess Bauer at the home of Victoria Rawlings, whose body has been found moments ago. From what we’ve been told, for the granddaughter of the Reverend Orville Rawlings and daughter of Wallace Rawlings, life has ended as violently as she lived it. She appears to have been murdered. According to an unidentified source close to the investigation, it appears that Ms. Rawlings was killed by a steel stake driven through her heart …”

  Joshua ducked into the shadows to return to the crime scene.

  Chapter Seven

  Joshua clutched the cushion to his chest. Even in his sleep, he was aware of a presence in his office. With effort, he opened his eyes. As his vision cleared, he made out the feminine form standing over him.

  “What—” He mouthed before he remembered where he was. He sat up on the sofa on which he had stretched out for a nap while packing up Dr. Wilson’s library.

  “That’s okay,” Marjorie Greene stepped back from the sofa to let him up. “I fall asleep in my office, too.”

  Shaking the sleep out of his head, Joshua noted with disappointment the mess that had failed to disappear while he was napping. Boxes and piles of musty books and journals occupied every available surface.

  His dirty work shirt, faded jeans with holes in both knees, and bare feet starkly contrasted her suit with matching pumps.

  “I’m sorry. You caught me.” He offered her a seat on the sofa. “Here I’m still clearing Doc Wilson’s junk out, and clients are coming out of the woodwork…unless this is a social call.” He sat on the other end of the sofa.

  “No, this is business.” With a critical eye on the cluttered office and disheveled appearance of her colleague, Marjorie shifted in her seat. Her eyes fell to his bare feet.

  He slipped on the pair of worn dock shoes he had kicked off before his nap. “I guess my roots are showing. My shoes seem to come off as soon as I cross the state line.”

  “I’m from West Virginia and I don’t go barefoot.”

  Joshua cleared his throat and took on a professional demeanor. “What can I do for you, Ms. Greene?”

  “I’m going back to Charleston. I was working on a case down there that had been continued, and now, with Victoria Rawlings’ murder, it is apparent that this case will be more involved than the attorney general had anticipated. He wants to appoint someone who can spend more time on it, someone better equipped to sort out all the intricacies, and who already has the local citizens’ trust.”

  Joshua caught her meaning. “Me? Special prosecutor?”

  “The attorney general spoke to your former commanding officer and he’s convinced you are the man to put Reverend Orville Rawlings out of business.”

  “I agree that Orville Rawlings is a pompous ass, but why is the attorney general so set on putting him out of business?”

  “Have you kept up on the local news?” There was a critical note in her tone.

  “Are you talking about the Amber tapes?”

  She was impressed with the phrase. “The Amber tapes. That’s good.”

  “Amber’s not exactly a credible witness.”

  “She wasn’t lying,” she said. “Rev
erend Orville Rawlings is the valley’s drug lord.”

  Gazing at her, Joshua shook his head. “I must be naive. The reverend has the biggest church in the valley.”

  “Can you think of a better cover for a drug lord than as a church pastor?” She sat back and crossed her legs. “Unfortunately, every time we, or the feds, think we’re about to get him, our witnesses end up dead or disappear off the face of the earth. When you called us about Vicki shooting at your cousin in a church full of witnesses and the evidence you had of her stalking him, we thought we finally got what we needed to get Vicki to roll over on her grandfather. Somehow, she ended up dead. Go figure.”

  “What do you want me to do? Get Rawlings, or solve Vicki’s and Beth Davis’s murders?” he asked. “I’ll find out who killed them, but I’m not going to set up Rawlings for their murders if he didn’t do it.”

  She laughed at his doubt. “Who else would have killed them? Reverend Rawlings’ glove was found at the scene.”

  “Was it his glove?”

  “Everyone saw him with those gloves at the arraignment.”

  “Don’t you think a man as powerful as Rawlings would have ordered someone to kill them for him?” He frowned at her. “I’m sorry, the scenario of Reverend Rawlings carelessly dropping a glove that God and everyone saw in his possession after driving a stake through his granddaughter’s heart and shooting Beth Davis in the head doesn’t fit.”

  Marjorie stood up in preparation to leave. “What should I tell the attorney general?”

  “Tell him I’ll look into the murders of Vicki Rawlings and Beth Davis. If Orville Rawlings is behind them, then I’ll get his man. If not, I’ll get their killer. If we’re lucky, I’ll get both.”

  “I thought you’d be hiding here.” Joshua found Tad in the basement of East Liverpool Hospital, located across the Ohio River from Chester. After tending to live patients during his office hours, the medical examiner had been probing Beth’s and Vicki’s bodies in search of evidence to capture their killer.

  Even though the hospital was in Ohio, another state and jurisdiction, they allowed Hancock County’s medical examiner to use their morgue. He sent the physical evidence that needed to be evaluated down the river to a state lab in Weirton, West Virginia.

  Tad was peering through a microscope when Joshua came through the swinging doors to disturb the quiet of the morgue. “What are you doing here?” The lack of sleep was evident by his unshaven face and the dark circles under his eyes.

  In his old jeans and a wrinkled shirt that he wore under his lab coat, the doctor contrasted Joshua who had gone home to clean up after his meeting with Marjorie Greene.

  “What did you find out in Beth’s and Vicki’s autopsies?”

  Tad returned to peering through the microscope. “Is this professional interest or are you being nosy?”

  “Why would it be professional interest?”

  Tad said, “It’s a small town.”

  While the medical examiner studied his microscopic specimen, Joshua scanned the reports on his desk. “What do you know about Orville Rawlings being the valley’s drug lord?”

  “I already told you. It’s a fact. Get your nose out of my desk.”

  Joshua put down the report. “Was he trafficking drugs in the valley when you were using?”

  “Yep.” Satisfied with what he saw, Tad made a note on his clipboard and turned off the light under the microscope.

  “Why didn’t you ever say anything to me about it?”

  “I figured that in this case the less you knew, the better.” Tad turned around on his stool to face him. “I got involved in drugs back when it was the in thing. Lulu introduced me to pot.”

  “Who killed her?”

  “Why are you asking me that? You were appointed to find Beth’s and Vicki’s killer.”

  “You know everything that goes on in this valley. Did Reverend Rawlings kill Lulu Jefferson because she saw the picture of that John Doe in his office?”

  “What picture in what office?”

  Joshua recalled that he hadn’t said anything to Tad about Lulu’s letter. He carefully chose every word in his response. “A source told me that on the day Lulu died she saw a picture in Reverend Rawlings’ office of the same man whose body she and my folks found in that barn.” He added firmly, “This information goes no further.”

  “I guess that means you aren’t going to tell me the name of your source.” When Joshua didn’t answer his question, Tad told him, “I didn’t even know Lulu was there with your folks until you told me.” He chuckled. “Do you seriously think Reverend Rawlings would kill Lulu because she saw a picture years after seeing a dead body?”

  Joshua replied, “Depends on who the victim is and what connection he has to Rawlings. If the good reverend is a drug lord, then he would have access to the heroin to kill Lulu.”

  Tad’s chuckle turned to laughter, after which he told Joshua the reason for his mirth. “Rawlings never has any con-tact with the drugs or the people involved in the dealing. That’s one of the ways he stays out of jail. He hires other people to do all the dirty work. All he does is give orders and take his cut.”

  “Then he’d order someone to kill Lulu for him?”

  “Right.”

  “And who would that someone be?”

  Tad answered with reluctance. “Sheriff Delaney.”

  “Who besides Delaney did the dirty work?” asked Joshua.

  “Bridgette was his dealer when she was in high school, back when you were in school.”

  “I remember some of my friends buying from her,” Joshua groaned. “I had no idea that her father was behind it.”

  Tad went on, “Now Bridgette is the second in command, right below the reverend. She’s the one the dealers deal with.”

  Joshua recalled, “You said Vicki blackmailed Beth into working for her.”

  “Beth dealt with Vicki. Bridgette isn’t stupid. She learned from her father that with each direct contact, there’s the risk of being caught.”

  Joshua wondered, “What about Vicki’s hatred for her fam-ily? Was that real? Or was it an act?”

  “No, it was real,” Tad replied. “Vicki hated her family. She’d say wild things. Like, she swore that the reverend killed her grandmother. Yet, she liked the money and dealing sup-ported her drug habit.” Yawning, he stretched and propped his feet up on the corner of his desk next to where Joshua leaned. “You see, Bridgette never got hooked. It was business for her. Vicki got hooked and that is where all the trouble started. You know the old Navy saying?”

  “Loose lips sink ships,” Joshua responded.

  “Vicki’s been airing a lot of dirty laundry about her family that never saw the light of day before.”

  “Dirty laundry without evidence doesn’t lead to legal conviction.”

  “Well, it’s coming.” Tad made a clicking sound with his tongue that resembled the sound of a clock ticking. “Maybe subconsciously she wanted to sink her grandfather, or maybe it was plain stupidity. When Bridgette was the dealer, those out-side the inner circle never guessed her father was the lead man. She knew to keep her mouth shut.”

  Joshua said, “That’s why all this is news to me now.”

  “You and everyone else from the outside looking in thought it was something Bridgette got involved in on her own. You know. Teenage rebellion stuff. If you don’t know, you will.” Tad snickered over the mental picture of Joshua trying to control his teenagers.

  The phone on the wall behind Joshua rang. Tad propelled his stool across the room to grab the receiver.

  “Hello.” A wide grin crossed Tad’s face. “No, you’re not bothering me. I’m glad you called. I was worried. How are you doing?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Joshua could see by Tad’s body language and tone that his concern for
the person on the other end of the phone line was more than in passing.

  “Would you like me to come up?” When the caller tried to decline his offer, he insisted that it was no trouble. “No, I can be there tomorrow if you need me.”

  Reminded of Joshua’s presence, Tad turned his back and lowered his voice. “Listen,” he whispered, “I’ll call you back in a few minutes. I love you.” After hanging up the phone, he turned his attention back to his visitor. “Maggie’s first broken heart. Now, where were we?”

  Joshua cocked his head at him. “Who is this Amber?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Come on!”

  “No, I don’t,” Tad insisted. “Listen, Josh, I stopped drinking and using over ten years ago. People, places, and things. I had to totally remove myself from all that. I don’t hang out with the old gang anymore. You think I’m the fountain of information in this valley, but that’s not true anymore. I’m out of the loop.”

  “Who do you think Amber is? Is she a fed?”

  “You’d know that better than I would.”

  Joshua was speaking more to himself. “If she was a fed, she wouldn’t have given that tape to a journalist.”

  “It wouldn’t be the first time the feds decided to prosecute a man through the media when they couldn’t get him in the courtroom.” Tad got up from his stool, shooed him from his desk, and sorted the stack of papers on it. “Listen, I know about flesh and blood and how fragile the human condition really is. When it comes right down to it, death doesn’t give a shit about how rich or powerful we are.”

  “Then tell me what you do know.” Joshua plopped down onto the stool the medical examiner had vacated.

  Tad referred to a report in a file. “The toxicology report says Vicki had been shot up with a muscle relaxant. She was also on a host of other recreational drugs. That was how the killer incapacitated her. The state lab is still trying to identify all the drugs in her system. The murder weapon was one of those camping spikes used to brace tent flaps. They found a couple more like them in Vicki’s shed behind the trailer. No usable prints. It went right through her sternum into the heart. One strike, on target.”