Family Ties (Flesh & Blood Trilogy Book 2)

by Morgan, Christina

  “Let him have it,” I told her one day, when she’d called me after learning he’d probably get to keep the house. “You don’t want to live in a big house full of bad memories all by yourself, anyway.”

  She’d agreed and moved in with me within a week.

  Harper returned just a few moments later as I was throwing frozen pizzas in the oven, nostalgic for the days when I had a husband to cook actual dinners for. She had a sheet of computer paper held out toward me.

  “Found him,” she said proudly.

  “Already? That was fast.”

  “I told you, I’m good.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He’s retired—which should be obvious, since he’s ninety-two years old. He lives in a townhouse in the Henry Clay district of Lexington.”

  I looked at the clock on the wall. It was eight o’clock at night. Too late to call an old man, I reasoned. My grandparents, I recalled, used to go to bed early and wake up at the crack of dawn.

  “We’ll call him tomorrow,” I said decisively. “You up for some Tombstone pepperoni?”

  “Always.”

  ***

  I set my alarm for seven the next morning and rushed through my morning routine of showering, brushing my teeth, blow-drying my hair, and pulling on a pair of jeans and one of Ryan’s old Scott Miller t-shirts. When eight o’clock rolled around, I figured it was late enough in the morning to ring the old attorney. It rang several times, but just as I was about to hang up, he answered.

  “Hello?” He sounded every bit his ninety-plus years with his soft, quavering voice.

  “Is this B. Cecil Hayes?”

  “Yes. How may I help you?”

  “My name is Libby Carter. My maiden name is McLanahan. You represented my father many years ago. His name was—”

  “Randall. Yes, I remember. How is he?”

  “As well as can be expected, I guess. Listen, Mr. Hayes. I have a huge favor to ask you.”

  “Go on.”

  “Do you by any chance still have my father’s file? I know it’s been twenty years, but I was hoping—”

  “Well,” he sighed and I pictured him rubbing his wrinkly temple as he contemplated my question. “I suppose it’s here somewhere. I’ve kept all my old files. Especially from the bigger cases, like your father’s. Say, what’s this all about?”

  “All due respect, Mr. Hayes, but I would rather explain it in person. Is there any way you’d be willing to meet with me today? I’d like to borrow your file on his case. I’ll explain everything when I get there.”

  “I suppose that would be all right. That is, if I have your father’s permission.”

  “He’s still at Big Sandy. I’ll arrange for him to call you before I get there. Is it okay if I come, say, around three o’clock?”

  “Yes, that’d be fine. Let me give you directions—”

  “No need. We got your address from the internet. I’ll just put the address in my phone and get directions that way.”

  “Oh, I keep forgetting about all this new-fangled technology. All right, then. I’ll see you at three.”

  After I hung up, I asked Harper to contact the prison and explain that Randy needed to call his attorney.

  “Tell them it’s about his case. They have to let him make the call then.”

  “I’m on it.” Harper bounded up the stairs and returned only a few minutes later. “They’re going to have him call now.”

  “Great. Thanks. I’m so glad I hired you.”

  “You should be,” Harper said with a self-satisfied smile.

  ***

  Factoring in downtown Lexington traffic, we left the house on West Chestnut Street a little after two. Even though Nicholasville was less than ten miles south of Lexington as the crow flies, it usually took at least half an hour to make it downtown, due to traffic. The beautiful and historic Henry Clay district was located just a little east of the middle of town. Central to the area was Ashland, historic home of Henry Clay, a famous Kentucky politician from the early 1800’s. Ashland was a lovely brick mansion, which sat on several acres of lush green landscaping. People from all over America made the sojourn yearly to Lexington, just to visit the former plantation. All of the houses subsequently built around Ashland were large, pretty, and surrounded by tall oak trees which lined the streets and cast divine shade over the sidewalks. Most Lexingtonians envy those fortunate enough to live in this district.

  B. Cecil Hayes was one of those fortunate souls. His house, located at the end of Margaret Street, adjacent to the Idle Hour Country Club, was a grey-stone Tudor-style cottage with black shutters and a black front door. Beautifully tended pink Knockout roses nearly covered the front windows. Harper and I walked up the short sidewalk to the front door and I rang the doorbell. I could hear the melodic chime through the door followed by the voice of Mr. Hayes telling us he was on his way.

  The door opened and there stood the very old attorney, bent forward with age, leaning his weight on a gnarled wooden cane with an amber-colored glass knob on top. He was wearing a brown suit, which nearly swallowed him whole, and a yellow button-up shirt, no tie.

  “You must be Ms. McLanahan,” he said with a pleasant smile.

  “Actually, it’s Ms. Carter. But you can just call me Libby. This is my assistant, Harper.”

  He took a step to the side. “Well, it’s nice to meet you lovely ladies. Right this way, please.” He stretched out his arm, indicating we should step into the house.

  I couldn’t help but admire the original dark wood flooring, polished to a high shine. The walls were covered in hunter green and gold-patterned wallpaper and several framed paintings of famous racehorses lined the walls. The furniture looked to be antique and very expensive.

  We followed him through the living room and down the hallway until we turned right into a room at the back of the house—apparently his office.

  “The file you’re seeking is around here somewhere,” he said as he shuffled across the dark green carpet. “Your father called from the prison not long after we hung up and gave his permission for you to have it.”

  “That’s good,” I said as I glanced around the dark room, wondering how on earth he was going to find the file. Despite the nearly immaculate nature of the rest of his house, Mr. Hayes’s office was a wreck. Manila file folders were strewn about all over the floor, his desk, and on the large dark wood bookshelves. There was barely room to walk. Harper and I had to tiptoe around the piles of file folders to avoid tripping over them.

  He walked around behind the antique cherry desk and started rummaging through a tall stack of files.

  “Ah,” he said after a few awkward minutes of silence. “Found it.”

  Mr. Hayes produced a very thick file folder with a blue striped label and my father’s name on it, bound with a large red rubber band. He extended it in my direction and I grabbed it with both hands.

  “Now,” he said as he sunk down in his maroon wingback leather chair. “On the phone earlier, you promised to tell me why you need this file.”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to tell Mr. Hayes everything, but I knew I would need his input and that he might have a lot of information I needed if I was going to have any chance at helping Randy. “Recently, I became a private investigator. When I told my father, he surprised me by telling me he is innocent and he asked me to look into his case…see if I could exonerate him.”

  Mr. Hayes whistled as he leaned back in his big chair, the leather squeaking. “Interesting.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because, my dear, your father confessed…of his own free will. I was preparing to take his case to trial, until one day he told me he wanted to confess and take a plea deal. Just like that. No warning. I always just assumed he was guilty.”

  “Didn’t that strike you as odd, though? That he confessed out of the blue like that?”

  “Well, I suppose it did, but it wasn’t the first time one of my clients had a sudden change of heart. The prospect o
f a lengthy trial can be quite daunting and scary, especially if you really are guilty. Trusting your fate to the hands of twelve strangers is like shooting craps at a casino. The die could come up any way. Some people just can’t handle the stress and the uncertainty. But in your father’s case, I suppose it did strike me as a bit odd.”

  “What did he tell you?” Harper asked.

  “Nothing, really. Let me think…” He tapped his temple with his fingertips as he pondered. “No, he never said anything to me other than what I just told you. I never even heard his story until the sentencing hearing, when he confessed in open court. Took me quite by surprise.”

  “I was there,” I reminded him. “I heard what he said. He told everyone he had killed each one of those women. He seemed pretty confident about it at the time. Why do you suppose he would confess if he really was innocent?”

  “That, you’d have to ask him. I didn’t get to know your father very well. But I will say this,” he said as he held up a crooked finger. “He never seemed like the type to me. Not that I’d ever encountered an actual serial killer before, but I had represented dozens of accused murderers when I was practicing, and most of them, well, let’s just say I am usually a pretty good judge of character. It did take me quite by surprise when he confessed. I thought we had a decent chance at trial.”

  “Why do you say that?” Harper asked as she leaned her hip against one of the bookshelves.

  “Well, if I recall correctly, it should all be in that file. The prosecutor never really had much in the way of concrete physical evidence. Their case was mostly circumstantial.”

  “If they didn’t have any physical evidence, why was he a suspect in the first place?”

  He seemed to ponder this for a moment. “You know, I really can’t recall. But it would all be in that file. All I remember was that there was one witness who claimed to see him with the last victim the same day she went missing. At a truck stop, I think. The rest of their case relied heavily on the fact that he fit a profile. Like I said, we had a decent chance, had the case gone to trial, but then he confessed. I had no choice but to honor my client’s wishes, and so I arranged his plea deal with the prosecutor. I’m sorry. That’s really all I can remember. One forgets quite a bit when they’re approaching a century on this earth.”

  “Thank you,” I said, realizing I wouldn’t get much more out of B. Cecil Hayes. Plus, he looked very tired.

  “I’ll walk you out,” he said as he strained to push himself up from the leather chair.

  “No need,” Harper said politely. “You just rest. We’ll see ourselves out.”

  “You’ve been very helpful,” I said as we turned and left the ancient attorney sitting at his desk, looking as if he was about to topple over with exhaustion.

  Chapter 6

  We arrived back at the house around five and immediately headed upstairs. I couldn’t wait to pore over my father’s file. It had nothing to do with any eagerness on my part to work on his case; rather, a burning curiosity about the contents of the file. My whole life, I had been in the dark as to the details of my father’s case. The only thing I had known was that he was accused, arrested, confessed, pled guilty, and then was sent to prison. It wasn’t because my mother had hidden anything from me; she didn’t know much, either. It was because my father had purposefully shielded us from the gory details, ostensibly to spare us any further pain and humiliation. For that alone, I had been appreciative to Randy.

  But if I was going to stand a snowball’s chance in hell of clearing his name, I had to know it all.

  Harper sat down on the grey overstuffed loveseat I had found at a yard sale and I sat down at my desk. I opened the file and began to sift through the documents. At the top of the stack were all the final pleadings from the legal case—the signed plea deal, hearing notices, and Randy’s commitment papers. As I finished reading each one, I handed them to Harper and asked her to start organizing the documents by category and date.

  Next came Mr. Hayes’s nearly illegible notes, written on sheet after sheet of yellow legal paper. I skimmed through them, but there was nothing in there I didn’t already know. Held together at the top with a large black binder clip was a stack of papers, and on the stack was a yellow Post-it note that read, ‘Police Investigation file’. I unclipped the stack and laid it on the desk. Slowly, I started to flip through the pages.

  “What’s in there?” Harper asked without looking up, as she carefully organized everything I had given her so far.

  “The investigation file from the police department. Some photos. Witness interviews. Wait…and his confession!”

  “Oh, you have to read that out loud,” Harper said, looking up from her task.

  “I, Randall Terrance McLanahan, do hereby make this confession of my own free will without coercion from police, my attorney, or any other individual. I hereby confess to the crime of murder against Linda McGovern, Sandy Williams, Lucy Culvert, Melinda Driver, Shalonda Johnson, Theresa Baker, Cindy Shoemaker, Bambi Walters, and Shiloh Blackwater. I strangled each one of them to the point of death and discarded their bodies in various locations along Interstate 75. Signed on this 1st day of October, 1996, Randall Terrance McLanahan.”

  I laid the page down and looked at Harper. “I just don’t get why he would sign this if he didn’t do any of it.”

  “Doesn’t make sense to me, either.”

  “But…”

  “But what? What’s going on in that head of yours?” she asked.

  “It’s awfully succinct, isn’t it? I mean, yes, he admits to the murders. Yes, he names them all. And yes, he specifically says he strangled them and disposed of their bodies. But that’s it. No more details than that. You would think for a case with nine murdered women, there would be a lot more detail than that. And it looks like it was typed up by someone else and he just put his signature at the bottom.”

  “Well,” Harper said, seemingly pondering this thoroughly. “I don’t know anything about the law. That’s your department. But I’ve seen plenty of Law & Order: SVU episodes and they almost always type up the confession and have the suspect sign it. I’ve rarely seen them write it in their own hand. Have you?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen it done both ways. But you’re right. It just strikes me as very odd that whoever typed this wasn’t more specific.”

  “Probably because, like his attorney said, they really didn’t have much evidence. They probably didn’t know any more than that.”

  “I need to read some more of this file. I’ve got to figure out why they suspected him in the first place. How did they go from no evidence to arresting Randy?”

  “That’s what we have to figure out. Here, hand me the confession.”

  I handed it to her and then returned to the investigative file. When I flipped to the next page, I was stunned to see a stack nearly an inch thick of eight-by-ten glossy photographs. First were autopsy photographs of each victim. In my many years as a criminal defense paralegal, I’d seen countless autopsy photos. Plus, before Ryan’s murder, I’d harbored a strange fascination with all things murder-related. That fascination had fallen by the wayside, but I still had a pretty strong stomach when it came to looking at things that would make most people ill.

  All of them were white except two, and all were young and looked as if they might have been attractive when alive. Stapled to each photo was a copy of that particular victim’s autopsy report. Each one was almost identical to the rest. The only wounds were the strangulation marks across the neck. The coroner opined that, given the lack of defensive wounds or DNA under their nails, the attacker likely caught each one of them unaware and then strangled them each from behind with a soft cloth, such as a shirt or blanket. There were no fingerprints on any of the bodies.

  The next set of photographs were of the bodies as they lay in their dump sites. Most of them were lying in grassy patches in the woods along the interstate; some were in the river; all were left where they could easily be found.

  I ha
nded them to Harper, who looked them over, then let out a whistle. “Looks to me like whoever did this didn’t really care if the bodies were found.”

  “Either that, or the killer wanted them to be found.”

  “True.”

  “I think it’s time we talk to the lead detective on the case, don’t you?”

  “Couldn’t hurt,” Harper said as she finished organizing the photographs into separate folders.

  I turned around to my laptop and pulled up a new Google Chrome search page. In the search bar, I typed “Detective Joe Chambers Lexington Police Department.” There were several results. The first was the department’s website, but Detective Chambers was not on the current roster of detectives. The second result was an article from the Lexington Herald-Leader, entitled Veteran of LPD Hangs Hat after Thirty Years. I clicked on the link, opened the article, and read.

  According to the article, Detective Joe Chambers had retired from the Lexington Police Department a little over five years ago. The department had thrown him a big farewell party at the Griffin Gate Marriott. At the party, he had been given the standard gold watch and many commendations from the mayor for his years of “exemplary service to the City of Lexington.” There was a photo of Chambers receiving one such commendation with one hand and shaking the hand of former Mayor Jim Gray with the other.

  At the bottom of the article, the writer mentioned briefly that Detective Chambers had signed on with Alltech Distillery as their new head of security. The article was old, but it was the only lead I had to find the retired detective. I tried to look him up on WhitePages.com, but there was no listing that came close to matching. I looked up the number for the Alltech security office, scribbled it down on legal paper, tore it off and handed it to Harper.