We arrived in Pineywoods and PJ drove to Olivia Cooper's house from memory. She said she had located the address on Google Maps and that given the size of Pineywoods it wasn't that difficult to remember how to get there. PJ may be the first woman I've ever known who wasn't directionally challenged. I knew they were out there. I'd heard first hand accounts of sightings, I'd just never met one myself.
We pulled up in front of Olivia Cooper's modular home. PJ parked on the street and we walked up the short crushed stone walk to the front door. The house looked like it was once a pastel salmon color, but years of South Florida sun had stolen most of the pigment and it was now just a dirty beige with occasional streaks of black stain running down the sides. We looked for a doorbell, but found none so I rapped on the front door.
The faded wooden door swung open revealing a tall, thin, very well endowed, bleached blond. She was wearing skin tight yoga pants and a tube top that barely contained what had to be man made breasts. God has better taste in distributing sizes. She wore heavy make-up that looked as if she had slept with it on. With the raspy voice of a heavy smoker she said, "What ever it is, I don't want any." Then her eyes roamed up and down me and she added, "Well, maybe on second thought."
PJ asked, "Are you Olivia Cooper?"
Continuing to ogle me she replied, "Naw, Olivia's at work. She'll be back later. What do you want with Olivia, anyway?" She still hadn't looked at PJ.
PJ said, "You must be Laura Atkinson."
Her head swiveled toward PJ as if she'd been slapped on the side of the face and she said, "Maybe, who's asking?"
PJ handed her a business card and said, "We're looking into the death of Jessica Parry. Did you, by chance, know Jessica?"
Bright red fingernails disappeared into her bleached blond hair as she thought about the question. "Naw, can't say I've ever heard of her," she looked at PJ's card, "Course I only lived in the shit hole of a town for a year, so I don't know that many people. Didn't even hear about a murder though. I'm guessing it was a murder or investigators from Hollywood wouldn't be way out here in the sticks. When did it happen?"
PJ nodded and said, "Oh, years ago. Guess you wouldn't have known the victim. You say Olivia is at work. What time will she be home?"
"Shit, I don't even know what time it is now, I just got up." She turned and looked at a clock on the wall and said, "Damn, it's nearly one, I got to get my ass moving. I got to get to work myself soon."
PJ repeated, "And what time should Olivia be home?"
"She'll be home in a couple of hours. Now, I got to get going. I got some major repair work to do on my makeup before I head back to that dump I dance in. Only good thing about going in early is I get out early." Looking at me again she slowly ran her tongue across her upper lip, "Should be home around ten tonight, if you want to stop back."
PJ didn't respond, she was enjoying my discomfort too much. I said, "Thanks for the offer, but we have work to do."
She cooed, "Too bad, you don't know what you're missing."
As we got back into the car PJ parroted her, "Too bad, you don't know what you're missing."
"Sure I do, several strains of STDs."
She grinned and said, "Well, there's that too."
Changing the subject I asked, "Should we grab a bite before we go looking for the next one?"
"Probably a good idea. You want to go to Pappy's Cafe or would you rather go to Pappy's Cafe."
I hesitated and finally said, "Hey, let's go to Pappy's Cafe."
"Great idea."
Saturday was even slower at Pappy's than Thursday had been. In fact when we entered it meant they had two customers . . . us. Ms. Congeniality was in some type of a slumped posture behind the counter thumbing a cell phone. Since there was no one else in the place we opted to stay inside and took a small table on the far wall. With a look of pure disgust at the interruption and the audacity of us expecting her to walk the fifteen feet to our table she arrived and tossed two menus on the table. "Drinks?"
I said, "Sure, I'll have a gin and tonic and my friend will have a vodka martini, dry."
She cocked her head and looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language. I couldn't resist, so I added, "Gray Goose for the martini. Any good gin will do for me."
She snarled, "What are you talking about. We don't serve alcohol."
"Okay, I'll have a cup of coffee and my friend will have a Coke." When we walked in I had noticed that the pot behind the counter was nearly full, so thought I'd chance the coffee.
She turned on her heal muttering, "Whatever."
PJ looked around the place and said, "You know what, I don't think I'll chance my luck, I think I'll have the same wrap I had the other day." I agreed that it was probably a good strategy. When Ms. Congeniality returned with our drinks we ordered. She retreated toward the kitchen without a word.
PJ was still pouring her can of Coke into the glass and I was taking my first sip of coffee when we heard a commotion from the area of the kitchen. A short heavyset man in his sixties burst through the two swinging cafe doors. He wore a long, moderately stained, white apron and had a stocking cap on his head. The deep scowl of his face was consistent with the daggers emanating from his dark eyes. He strode up to our table and grabbed my coffee and PJ's coke in his meaty hands. He growled, "Get the hell out of here, you two aren't welcome here. Get out."
Once regaining my composure from the initial shock, I asked, "And you are?"
His right eye twitched, "I'm Pappy. That's who the hell I am. I own this place, and I'm telling you to get the hell out of here."
PJ asked, "Have we done something wrong?"
"You sure as hell have. You're poking around in the death of Jessica Parry. That's what you've done. Can't you just let that poor girl rest in peace? You got to come around here and cause trouble for everybody."
I said forcefully, "Jessica worked here for years. I'd think you, of all people, would care what happened to her."
He leaned in toward me with hate in his eyes, "I know what the hell happened to her. Everybody knows. That Robinson boy killed her. That's what happened, and now he's gonna get what he deserves. Ain't nothing you can do about that, so all you're doing is stirring up old memories, hurtful memories. We don't need that around here. So you two just get the hell out of here."
PJ started to speak, "Sir . . ."
He cut her off roaring, "I said get the hell out of here or I'm calling the cops and filing a trespassing complaint."
PJ and I rose from the table and headed for the door. As I passed Pappy standing there glaring at us with our dishes in both hands, I momentarily considered kicking him in the groin, but decided PJ would not approve, so held myself in check.
Once we were in the car and driving out, PJ turned toward me and said casually, "I really enjoyed lunch today, how about you?"
I couldn't help but laugh before replying, "Remind me to have Juan pack us a lunch the next time we come to town."
"The sad thing is that I don't think there is anywhere else to eat in town. You remember what Windy said about the bar at the other end."
"Yeah, besides if that's the way we get treated in a cafe I can't imagine how we'd get treated in a redneck bar. Probably have to shoot our way out. You did bring your gun today?"
"I brought it, but would rather not use it just to get lunch," replied PJ. She sighed and then added, "Oh well, I could stand to lose a couple of pounds anyway." She might be tough as nails and smart as a whip, but she's all woman. It's genetic, women are never satisfied with their weight.
I said, "Might as well try to find the other girlfriend. Is her address in your notes?"
PJ reached down into the satchel on the floor under her legs and handed me her notepad. I found the address and entered it into the navigation app on my phone. The app directed us right there. Well, nearly right there. It told us we had arrived at our destination about fifty yards before we reached the driveway, but close enough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I looked at PJ and said, "Are we still in Pineywoods?"
"Same zip code, different world."
We walked up the cobblestone pathway to the large porch and front entry consisting of two nine-foot-tall mahogany French doors with carved reliefs of bucking broncos. I pushed the doorbell and heard the deep chime of a bell resonate inside. We waited, but after a couple minutes of no response I pushed the button again. Another couple of minutes and PJ said, "That's the problem with just dropping in on people, they're not always home."
As we were walking back toward the car we heard the noise of a high pitched motor like a vacuum cleaner coming from the area around the corner toward the back of the house. We followed another cobblestone pathway along the side of the house to a large covered patio area between the house and a screen lanai that was covering a kidney shaped swimming pool. One side of the patio was lined with an outdoor kitchen built into a stone island. A woman, with her back toward us, was bent at the waist using a gas powered blower to clear landscape debris from the patio. She was dressed in jeans and a blue denim work shirt.
Knowing that she couldn't hear us approaching and not wanting to startle her, PJ and I walked in a wide arc across the patio in her direction. We must have entered her peripheral vision as she suddenly stood upright and turned the blower off. She said, "Oh, hi, I didn't hear you coming. Can I help you?"
PJ smiled warmly and said, "Hope we didn't startle you. We're looking for Sophie Campbell Walsh, is she home?"
She gazed at us momentarily as if trying to figure out who we were. Then she said, "I'm Sophie, how can I help you?"
PJ handed her a business card and introduced us. "We're looking into the death of Jessica Parry and we understand from her mother that you were good friends with Jessica in high school."
Before PJ could continue, Sophie interrupted and asked, "You've seen Jessica's mother? How is she doing?"
PJ replied, "Physically she seems very well. We have only met with her once so far, but I guess I would say she is still struggling psychologically."
Shaking her head, Sophie said, "Such a tragedy all the way around. Three people died that night, Jessica, her mother, and Freeman." She sighed, "They all died."
PJ paused, I could tell she was intently evaluating Sophie. PJ said, "Some people believe Freeman will be getting what he deserves."
Sophie looked directly a PJ, "Those people can go to hell. None of us has the right to take another's life. Having the state do it for us does not make it right. Just putting someone in a cage on death row begins the process of killing them. Have you seen Freeman lately? I saw him two years ago, they've already killed his spirit, it's just his body they're going to kill next month."
Our faces must have betrayed our surprise in the fact that Sophie had visited Freeman on death row because she followed up with, "Yeah, I visited him. Why shouldn't I? We were friends in high school, friends, just friends, nothing more. I wasn't one of his conquests, if that's what you're thinking. It just bothered me that everyone he knew here had shunned him. I finally went up to see him in Raiford, but to be honest it was too depressing to see him broken like he is, so I haven't gone back." She hung her head, "I guess I'm not as tough as I thought I was."
PJ said, "You sound plenty tough to me. I don't think many of his former friends have been there to visit him. Let me ask, do you think Freeman killed Jessica?"
She looked surprised. "Well he must have. He was convicted by a jury after a trial. He must have done it." She hesitated and then continued, "I just can't see him doing something like that."
"You don't think Freeman would have killed Jessica? What do you mean by that?"
She laid the blower on the floor of the patio and leaned against the stone counter. "Oh, I don't know. It's just that I don't think Freeman would ever harm a woman. You haven't met his grandmother, but she instilled a real respect for women in Freeman. She raised him from the time he was a little kid, and he had his faults, but disrespecting women was not one of them." We had met his grandmother and what she said rang true. It was also Windy's assessment of Freeman.
Sophie walked a few feet along the counter and opened a built-in refrigerator stocked full of beer. She offered us one and PJ declined for us, much to my dismay. After popping open a can of beer and taking a long drink, Sophie asked, "Exactly who hired you to look into Jessica's death? Seems a little late for that, doesn't it?"
PJ explained that an attorney was attempting to find grounds for a last minute stay of execution and that we were looking into the original investigation. I was impressed how PJ tailored the version of what we were doing to fit her assessment of the person asking.
Sophie squinted at the mention of the pending execution. I thought this would be a good time to forge ahead, so I asked, "Sophie, I think you have real doubt about Freeman being guilty, jury trial or not. It that true?"
She got a far away look in her eyes before answering slowly, "I don't really know. I'd gone away to college right after high school. I'd come home for a visit the night before it happened. By chance I drove by and saw them talking in town, but I didn't stop to talk to them. I was back at college before they arrested Freeman." She paused and then said, "I just don't think he's capable of having killed Jessica, but I guess you hear that from people all of the time. They never think their next door neighbor would kill his wife, do they?"
PJ said, "Sometimes that's right, we don't always know what people are capable of, but sometimes our gut instincts about people are pretty accurate. We really appreciate your candor with us. So, if Freeman didn't kill Jessica, who would you suspect?"
Without hesitation, "That jackass step-father of hers. I know he knocked her mother around, Jessica told me so, and I think he hit Jessica, too. She never admitted it to me, but she seemed to come up with mysterious bruises ever so often. She always gave me some lame story about running into the corner of the bed or tripping, or something like that, but I didn't ever believe her. I asked her directly a couple of times if he was hitting her and she got real mad and said that was crazy and not to say it again. How crazy could it be though, given the fact he was hitting her mother."
PJ asked, "Were you ever at her house when her dad was there?"
Sophie laughed, "She never brought anyone home when he was around."
I asked, "We were told that Jessica was pretty close with Butch Bennett when she was young, she went with him on his delivery routes and stuff like that. What do you think happened?"
Another far away look, "I don't really know, but my guess was always that at some point when he started drinking too much he started knocking Jessica and her mother around and that was the end of the great relationship. Just my guess."
I said, "Not a bad guess. Wouldn't be the first time that story played out in a household."
Sophie's face suddenly hardened, "And some of those stories end with someone dead, don't they?"
We both nodded. PJ asked, "Who else of your friends, the group you and Jessica hung out with, should we talk to?"
"You should talk to Debbie Chapman. If anybody knows the inside story, she does. She'd left town before Jessica was murdered, but they had been inseparable all through school. If anyone knows what was going on inside that house, Debbie does."
"Do you have any idea where we could find her?"
"Not the slightest. I was in touch with her for a couple of years, but then lost contact. I looked for her on Facebook a couple of times, but no luck."
I asked, "Where was she when you last had contact?"
"Orlando, working at
Disney World."
PJ asked, "Does she have family still in the area?"
"No. Her dad worked for the federal government. He was a vet for the USDA, but he got transferred about a year after Debbie left town, so they moved. I have no idea where though."
"Do you recall his name?
"Sorry, I don't. Been so long. Last name is Chapman though. Maybe you can track him down through the USDA."
We thanked Sophie for her time and asked if she minded us calling her if we had additional questions. She readily agreed. As she walked us toward our car I commented on the beauty of the ranch. She told us that she and her husband had met in college and after graduating they had started a small tech company. After five short years they sold the company to Microsoft and bought the ranch. Her husband is still dabbling in technology and she runs the ranch. Sounds like a nice life.
As we drove away, PJ said she'd do a little digging and see if she could track down Debbie Chapman's father through the federal government. Hopefully, he would know where Debbie is living now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
We decided that we would drive by Olivia Cooper's house to see if she was home yet. Just as we were about to turn onto the street leading to Cooper's we heard the short blast of an emergency siren. PJ glanced in the rearview mirror and said, "Now what?" I turned in my seat and saw a Pineywoods' police car behind us with its emergency lights flashing. PJ steered to the curb. I watched as Chief Davies stepped from the car, the sun reflecting off his mirrored sunglasses. He slowly walked up to our car.
As he reached us, PJ lowered her window and said, "Afternoon Chief, was I doing something wrong?"
He didn't stop in the position behind PJ's shoulder, utilized by police officers for safety, but stepped forward, crouched down and leaned casually on the window sill. "Oh, you probably were. Crossed the center line, weaving in your lane, failing to signal a turn. I'm sure you could be doing all kinds of things to warrant a traffic stop, but this isn't a traffic stop." He exhaled deeply as if about to do something he found distasteful. He continued, "I was hoping that maybe you," glancing toward me, "and your partner, could take a few minutes and have a cup of coffee with me. Maybe we could chat a bit."
Driven Be Jack_A Jack Nolan Novel Page 13
