by Debra Webb
The last nabbed her attention. “Does that happen often?”
“If it happens once it’s too often,” he griped. “Like this weekend. That youngest one of hers started bellowing around ten and by ten thirty the other one was squalling, too. I banged on her door like you did just now but she didn’t answer. I checked the street and her car was gone. She’d done gone off and left those two babies in the house alone. She’s done it before. I told her if it happened again I was calling the police. So I called her husband. He’s a cop after all and they’re his brats. He guaranteed it wouldn’t happen again and it ain’t happened since.”
“Mr. Haines, can you recall what night that was?” The adrenaline was already charging through Jess’s veins.
“It was Sunday night. I know ’cause I went to a church supper with my sister. I was watching the ten o’clock news when the squalling started. Is that certain enough for you? I missed nearly all of it banging on that damned door and calling her husband.”
“Thank you, Mr. Haines. We’re sorry to have bothered you.”
“When you’re an old man who lives alone,” he called out as they walked away, “you get used to being bothered. Every damned thing bothers you.”
When they were loaded in the Mustang, Jess said, “I need to go back to the church.”
First United Methodist Church, 9:49 p.m.
While they waited for the minister to arrive and unlock the door, Jess paced in front of the main entrance. She had spoken to Burnett and given their location. He was not happy that she’d avoided his first four calls.
Lori had checked with Harper. He hadn’t located Sarah Riley, but her husband was on duty with the GTF.
“It’s official, by the way,” Lori said, drawing Jess from her musings.
“I’m sorry, what was that?”
“It’s official,” she repeated. “I’m moving into Harper’s place this weekend. Even if his son hates me.”
Jess winced. “I take it last night didn’t go so well.” The last she heard Lori and Harper were picking up his son after work.
“He wouldn’t talk to me or even look at me.” She groaned. “All he wanted to do was stay in his dad’s arms. It was just awful.”
“Give him time. When he warms up to you he’ll want to be in your arms all the time. Then you’ll have something to groan about.”
“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “Maybe.” She leaned against the wall next to the front entrance of the church. “I realized watching those boys this afternoon that having boys in the house is way different from having girls.”
Jess laughed. “My sister says boys and girls are as different as daylight and dark. Be patient. It’ll work out if you give it time. Time is the key.” To most things, Jess reminded herself.
“At least there’s only one kid I have to make like me,” Lori interjected.
“Until you decide to have one or two of your own,” Jess pointed out.
A car rolled into the parking lot.
“Saved by the minister,” Lori said with a laugh.
“Notice I’m not laughing,” Jess said.
“Not to worry, Chief,” Lori promised, “I have no plans like that for a long, long time.”
“Mmm-hmm.” Not more than two weeks ago Jess had heard something similar about moving in with Harper.
The minister hustled up the steps to the front entrance of the church, keys in hand. “I apologize for keeping you ladies waiting. I was all the way across town.”
“Not a problem, sir. We appreciate you coming on short notice.”
He pushed the door inward and motioned for them to go inside. “Might I ask why you needed to come back?” He turned on the overhead lights as they entered. “Did you leave something at the service?”
“I just need to see about something…” Jess hurried along the aisle until she reached the spot where she had stood during the service.
“Here we go.” She moved into the row where the Graysons and the Rileys had sat during the service.
On the pew right where Sarah had left it was the hymnal she had used.
Jess retrieved the largest evidence bag she carried. With a gloved hand she placed the song book in the bag, careful to touch only the very edges of the cover.
“You won’t mind if I borrow this, will you?” she asked the minister.
He looked confused but then shook his head. “Of course. Keep it as long as necessary.” He chuckled nervously. “Just remember where it came from.”
“Oh I will, sir. You can rest assured.”
Jess thanked him again and then hurried to Lori’s Mustang.
“The lab?” she asked.
“The lab,” Jess confirmed.
If Sarah Riley had been in the Grayson home the night Gabrielle was murdered there was only one possibility that they had discovered so far for placing any person, besides Gabrielle and Devon, there. The unidentified set of prints on the bottle. Those same unknown prints had been found on the handle of the milk jug in the fridge.
And if they could prove Sarah was in the house that night, was her husband helping to cover for her as she had covered for him when she lost her job over the OxyContin?
Jess thought about the seemingly loving couple she had watched in the church today. With two kids, it couldn’t be easy surviving on one income. And with a drug problem to boot, how were they managing to hold it together? Their neighbor had mentioned the two yelling at each other. He insinuated it was a routine business.
But did a volatile relationship or a drug addiction lead to murder?
Could Sarah Riley be Devon Chambers’s angel? Or was she just doing what she always did and protecting the devil himself?
Conroy Road, 11:50 p.m.
It had been a hell of a long day. Dan was beat. Why couldn’t Jess have rented a first-floor apartment? When he reached the landing outside the door of her new garage apartment he found her sitting in the darkness on a vintage patio glider. She wore that used-to-be-pink, one-size-fits-all cotton robe Wells had given her and her hair had obviously air-dried after her bath. He liked the way it curled and twirled when it dried naturally. Made him want to run his fingers through the silky strands.
In the moonlight she looked soft and cozy sitting there cradling a glass of red wine. His mouth watered with the desire to taste hers. But that would have to wait. He would respect her wishes about keeping work and them separate. As hard as that proved every single day.
“You got any more of that?” he asked hopefully.
She hitched her head toward the door. “On the counter. Help yourself.”
Dan went inside and found the bottle of pinot noir. He searched the cupboards until he found another wineglass. After pouring himself a nice serving he returned to the deck and sat down next to Jess.
“I’m envious.” God, she smelled good. Like fresh lavender and natural vanilla. “You’ve shed your deputy chief clothes and gotten comfortable. I haven’t even made it home yet.” He needed a shower and a shave.
“Where’ve you been all night?” She sipped her wine. Seemed content to stare off into the darkness as if she had no desire to talk and have him or anything else disturb her moment of relaxation.
“I had a charity fund-raiser for the historic foundation.”
“Ah, one of Katherine’s pet projects.”
His mother had served on Birmingham’s historic foundation for nearly three decades. Dan helped out when he could. It made his mother happy and let his dad off the hook once in a while. There was a limit to how many times a retired man could be forced to wear a monkey suit again. His father had worn a jacket and tie to work every day for as long as Dan could remember. He’d retired just last year. He deserved his freedom from the three-piece ensemble.
“They do a lot of good work.”
Jess made a noncommittal sound. She and his mother would never see eye to eye on the sun rising in the east, much less anything else.
“I like my new landlord,” she said. “I came home at
ten and he was still out there working in his flower beds. Making the place look pretty. Last night when he was working on my door I mentioned in passing that I wanted a glider on the deck and, voilà, I came home this evening and here it is. He left a note saying it had been gathering dust in the garage.”
“What a guy,” Dan agreed. “You’ll have to make him a fruitcake for Christmas.”
“I might buy him one,” Jess tossed back. “If I made him one he’d hate me.”
A comfortable silence drifted between them for a bit.
“The other prints on the baby’s bottle belong to Sarah Riley.”
Dan shifted so that he faced her. “Is that right?”
“It is.” She had another swallow of her wine. “She’ll try to say she probably touched the bottle when the two families had lunch together that day but I’m not letting her off that easily.”
Jess had brought him up to speed on Sarah Riley’s undocumented work troubles as well as her neighbor’s complaints about her children crying in the middle of the night Sunday. A whole hell of a lot of circumstantial evidence but not enough to charge her with anything beyond child endangerment.
“What’s your plan?” He tasted the wine. Made a sound of approval. “Nice choice.”
“It’s a housewarming gift to myself. The glasses are from Wesley.”
Dan scrutinized the stemmed glass he held. “I guess I’m behind. I haven’t gotten you a present yet.”
“Don’t worry.” She finished off her glass. “I’m making a list. It’s the least you can do after I maxed out my MasterCard at your friend’s shop.”
“My mother’s friend.”
“Oh yeah. How could I forget?” She sighed. “My plan. Well, the more direct path would be to wrangle a confession out of Sarah Riley, but that’s not going to happen because I’m not sure she killed Gabrielle Grayson. More likely she’s been protecting her husband. For years.”
“And how did you come to those conclusions?” He pointed to her glass. “Refill?”
She passed it him. “Yes.”
“Hold that thought.”
Back in the kitchen he added a generous portion to Jess’s glass and splashed a little more in his own. Before rejoining her outside, he shed his jacket and tie. Enough of the monkey suit today for him too.
“You were saying,” he prompted as he settled beside her once more and she took her glass.
“I can’t see her holding Gabrielle’s body still and sawing off her head.” Jess shuddered “I mean, could she possibly have the stomach to do the job? Sawing off a head is no easy task. Not with a handsaw, and that’s what we believe was used.”
“Good point.” Damn. The idea that one of his cops could be responsible for this… or even covering for someone else was unthinkable.
“I wish I’d had more opportunity to observe Sarah. Maybe I can shake her up tomorrow. See a more unguarded side. I’m interviewing her at nine downtown. You might want to be around.”
“Which of the husbands do you believe did it? Hers or Gabrielle’s?” He couldn’t believe he’d just asked that question.
“Not Gabrielle’s. The lieutenant has no idea who did this. He’s in shock or denial or both. The avalanche is coming, he can feel it but he can’t figure out from which direction it’s barreling his way. He’s waiting for me to show him. That’s what people who don’t want to see do. They wait for someone else to show them and then the someone else gets blamed.”
As unfair as it was, she was right about that.
“What about the two victims from Norwood?”
“Territorial killings. Low-level drug distributors who set up shop in the wrong territory. Our perp in the Grayson case used them to try to throw us off his scent. He somehow learned about the hit. Allen admitted that he knew about it days ago. You know damn well how the grapevine works. Our perp hears about it, cuts off their heads, and does a little scene staging and we’re supposed to believe Gabrielle’s case is connected to that one. Just another gang hit. The problem is, he failed to set up a proper motive. He should’ve known better. He’s a cop.” She savored another swallow of wine.
“You’re pretty certain it’s Sergeant Riley.” It wasn’t a question. “Before you go public with this, you need to be absolutely certain, Jess. Everyone in the department is watching you right now, waiting to see where your loyalties lie. Do this right and you’ll be a hero. Make a mistake and… well you know. The whole department will want to see you pay.”
She made a derisive sound. “I’m damned certain it’s him. But I have no real evidence. No motive I can confirm. I can’t even place him at the scene that night. But I know he did it. Maybe his wife helped him. They did it to protect his secret drug addiction. But I can’t prove it.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“I’ll make him and his wife believe that I have a witness who can identify the killer and that I’m about to make an arrest. Force one or both to react.”
“What’s the bait you’re planning on using?”
“My witness, of course.”
“But you don’t have a witness.”
“Riley doesn’t know that. For all he knows we found Devon and Devon saw everything. Unless Riley and his wife took Devon,” she qualified. “If that’s the case, they still can’t be sure I don’t have someone else who saw something. That’s the thing about an emotion-based act of murder. You just can’t think clearly enough to cover all your bases at that pivotal moment.”
“True.”
Silence settled between them again. Dan allowed enough time to pass to back up the point he was about to make.
“Notice I didn’t ask what role you planned to play in this operation.” She’d been on his back about the whole overprotective business. He really was trying to lighten up. It wasn’t going as well as he’d hoped. The idea that she would be dead right now if that Taurus had started twisted in his gut.
“You didn’t ask,” Jess agreed, “but you were thinking about it.”
“Was not.”
“Yes you were.”
“Maybe I was just a little.”
“My job is to plant the seeds of fear and doubt in the interview with Sarah and then we’ll wait and watch for the reaction.”
“As long as Harper or Wells is with you at all times,” he reminded her.
She made an agreeable sound.
“You mentioned Allen having prior knowledge of that double homicide. Is he a suspect, too?”
“Nah, he’s just a jerk. He hates my guts and wants me gone.”
“He told you he hates your guts?”
“In a roundabout way.”
Dan would be talking to that cocky SOB. Whatever his beef with Jess, Allen had better learn how to respect his superiors—all his superiors. Or else.
“I imagine when word gets around that I’m trying to pin a murder rap on one of BPD’s finest I’ll have a lot more fans like him.” Jess turned to Dan. “You sure you didn’t see all this coming and you hired me to be the ax man? Lopez said we had some bad cops.”
“You’re friends with Lopez now?” Dan shook his head. “You have a knack for attracting some very strange people, Jess.”
“Evidently I do. I was hoping I’d hear from him again about these latest vics.”
Dan couldn’t say he hoped for the same. “As much as I despise the idea of having that kind of cop in my department, if you’re right about Riley,” Dan promised, “he’s going down. What others think is irrelevant.” The fury built to a full blaze inside him. “Riley won’t get off easy because he’s a cop. I’ll see that he goes all the way down.”
“It helps to know you’ve got my back on this one.”
“Jess.” He reached out, caressed her cheek. “I’ll always have your back.”
It was all he could do not to kiss her. She didn’t turn away or try to evade his touch. But she had asked him not to go there until the case was done.
For her, he could wait.
He dropped his hand a
way. “You and Sylvia seem to be hitting it off.”
“She’s not so bad. She just likes making everyone think she is.”
“That’s Sylvia.” He finished his wine.
“One of these days you’ll have to tell me about your marriage to her sister. Feels like there’s a story there.”
“One of these days,” he promised. “Speaking of sisters, how’s Lil?”
“The doctor’s doing more tests. I spoke to her tonight and she sounds tired. So not like herself. I’m really worried, Dan. This could be bad.”
“Lily is a very strong woman. Just like you. She’ll get through this.” He wished he knew something more original to say but what he said was true. Frankly he didn’t know any one stronger than Jess and Lily.
“Tomorrow is going to be a long one,” Jess murmured, almost too softly for him to hear.
He worried that she was more right than she knew.
Putting a fellow cop’s head on the chopping block was a bold, unpopular move.
Dan would lay odds on Jess’s instincts every time.
Her cell rang. She fished it out of her pocket and checked the screen. She sat up. The glider swung askew. “Leslie, is everything all right?”
The Chambers girl? Tension cranked up inside him.
“We’ll be right there.”
Jess ended the call and shot to her feet. “It’s Devon.”
Ice trickled in his veins. “Has he been found?” God almighty let him be alive.
“He just showed up at the door of his own house.”
Whispering Stream Drive, Friday,
August 6, 1:30 a.m.
Devon Chambers was dirty and he had tape burns around his mouth, his wrists, and his ankles. He was starving and possibly a little dehydrated, but otherwise he appeared to be fine.
At the moment he was at the kitchen table gobbling down a second bowl of his favorite cereal and milk. Jess and Leslie stood at the far end of the room in the doorway leading to the living room.
“That was the first thing he said to me,” Leslie said without taking her eyes off her brother. “Fruity Pebbles, please.” She swiped at a lone tear. “I was so glad to see him I just grabbed him up and hugged him to death.” She turned to Jess. “Then I called you.”
