The Dark Woods (Winchester, Tn. Book 2)

by Debra Webb

  Sasha banished the question and moved on to the drawers. She found her mother’s peppermint stash. She unwrapped a piece of the red-and-white candy and popped it into her mouth. Still tasted okay. More work files and office supplies but nothing else.

  A memory of her mother working late in this office flashed through Sasha’s mind. Her position had been very stressful and demanding. But could it have had anything to do with her death? Sasha couldn’t see how. She’d only been in the position for four years. Perhaps an outsider coming in and taking a top spot had caused some resentment. But was that enough motive for murder?

  There was that woman with whom her mother had lunch occasionally. What was her name? Penny something. Sasha remembered her, mostly because she always seemed to be intense, so needy. She should find the woman and ask her about her mother’s work. First, though, she had to figure out what the woman’s name was. Her attention settled on the old Rolodex and she reached for it. Seemed like a good place to start looking for names.

  She moved from A to B and so on, turning the wheel to the next letter. Still no Penny. Maybe she had the name wrong. Could be some other P name. Patty? Pricilla? Penelope?

  The digital number on the phone snagged her attention. It was one of those old-fashioned phones with the built-in answering machine.

  “Old as dirt.” Sasha studied the device. The handset was cordless, so not entirely ancient.

  A number 2 stared at her from the small window that displayed the total of stored messages on the answering machine. Sasha had no idea if the machine still worked, but the small button glowed red for answering machine on.

  With nothing to lose, she pressed the play button. The first message was from the dentist’s office, reminding Mrs. Lenoir that her daughter Sasha had an appointment the next day.

  That appointment hadn’t taken place for another month.

  Another voice echoed in the room. The sound quality was a little scratchy but it was certainly clear enough to understand.

  We need to talk, Alex. Call me as soon as you can. It’s important.

  The date-and-time stamp indicated the message had been left the afternoon of the day before her parents died.

  Was this the woman who had been her mother’s friend? Penny or Patty or whatever?

  It’s important.

  Maybe this woman had the answers Sasha needed.

  All she had to do was figure out who her mom’s friend was and then find her...assuming she was still alive. And that she was the woman who had left that message.

  With nearly three decades having elapsed, anything could have happened.

  Chapter Six

  It was almost dark by the time Branch reached the Winchester city limits. He had tried to call Sasha since he passed the Tullahoma exit but she hadn’t been answering. He just kept getting her voice mail. Since he had promised to catch up with her as soon as he was back in town, he headed to her grandmother’s house.

  He’d done a lot of thinking on the drive back from Nashville and none of it was about the offer he’d been made in the meeting. The promotion and the opportunities available in Nashville were a far cry from the future he could expect in Winchester and still he hesitated.

  As crazy as it sounded, he had sort of grown accustomed to the slower pace in Winchester and being around family and old friends. But the Nashville offer was one he’d been hoping would come his way for a long while now. He’d been certain the trouble in Chicago early last year had set his career back at least a decade. Last month’s high-profile takedown had launched his career back up to where it belonged.

  As gratifying as the offer was, at the moment he couldn’t keep the Lenoir case off his mind. There was more to what happened twenty-seven years ago than was in the pages of those investigation reports. Maybe it was all the years of his grandmother shaking her head and commenting about what a travesty the investigation into the case had been.

  She had insisted that Brandon Lenoir would never have murdered his wife. The question was, why hadn’t Viola Simmons demanded the case be reopened? She had kept quiet and allowed the police to do their job, whatever the outcome. Not once had Branch ever heard his grandmother mention Mrs. Simmons’s thoughts on the matter. Maybe Mrs. Simmons believed his grandmother spoke loudly enough for both of them. But he had watched the elderly lady go after councilmen in city council meetings. He’d witnessed her speaking on behalf of the lack of opportunities for young black women in the area. When Viola Simmons believed in something, she went the distance.

  Why hold back when it came to the murder of her own daughter?

  It just didn’t fit.

  He parked in front of the Simmons home and made his way to the door. He knocked twice. No answer. No sound inside. Sasha’s rental car wasn’t in the driveway or on the street. She had said she would be reviewing the reports. Maybe she’d found something she wanted to follow up on. He sure wished she had kept him informed. He would have to talk to her about the need to stay in touch. Going off on her own wasn’t a good idea. She could run into trouble and he’d have no idea what happened.

  He called her cell again and this time it went straight to voice mail.

  For the next half minute he considered what he would do if it was his history he was attempting to dissect and correct.

  First, he wouldn’t have screwed things up with her all those years ago. He’d been attracted to her since high school but she had completely ignored him. She’d always been busy with her friends. Always had a boyfriend hanging around. No surprise there. Sasha was the prettiest girl in school. The biggest stumbling block had been his grandmother. She had warned Branch about doing anything that might in any way take advantage of or hurt Sasha. She had been through enough, his grandmother cautioned.

  And he had. He’d done exactly what his grandmother told him...until that fall Sasha showed up for a high school reunion. If she had been pretty growing up, she had become a stunningly beautiful woman. Just looking at her had taken his breath. That one night, thirteen years ago, had turned him inside out. He hadn’t managed a serious relationship since. Oh, he’d had plenty of dates, but none that had gone beyond the physical. He hadn’t met anyone who made him want more.

  Work had consumed his life. And he had been exceedingly good at his job. Then he’d made the mistake of his life by getting involved with a witness and she’d lost her life because of his error. That wasn’t entirely true. He had been cleared of wrongdoing related to her death, but deep down he would always feel that if he’d done things differently maybe he could have seen what was coming.

  He would second-guess himself on that one for the rest of his life.

  Clearing his head of the troubling memories, he decided to check the old Lenoir place. It was possible Sasha had decided to have a look around in the house without him. Not that he could blame her. There was no better way to put herself in the middle of the past than by going back to the scene of the crime.

  The Lenoir house wasn’t that far outside Winchester proper, still in the city limits but nestled deep in the woods off South Shephard and Gem. The area was densely wooded and the old place had been abandoned since Sasha’s parents died. Mrs. Simmons refused to allow the property to be sold or rented, or even maintained.

  Weeds had encroached on the long driveway, making it narrower. Cracked and broken asphalt aided the weed coup. He breathed a little easier when he spotted Sasha’s rental car parked near the house. He had no more appointments for the next few days, which left him free to focus on this investigation. And her.

  He shook his head, reminded himself that he had to look at this as a case—not as a personal venture. This was not about spending time with Sasha—well, maybe it was in part—it was about finding the truth. There was an aspect of the case he needed to find an opportunity to present to her. As much as she wanted to clear her father completely of any fault in what had happened, Branch worried
that wouldn’t be possible. One of the two victims, either her father or her mother, was involved on some level. People rarely got murdered in this manner—planned and executed—without some degree of involvement.

  First thing, they needed to set some ground rules. Although he had no reason to believe either of them was in danger related to this exploration of the past, it was best not to take any chances. If they learned someone else was responsible for her parents’ murders, that person in all probability would not want his secret revealed.

  If that person was still alive.

  Branch wanted to remain objective on this case but he was having a difficult time doing so. Maybe because of his grandmother’s certainty, maybe simply because he wanted a different ending for Sasha.

  He thought of her daughter. Was there still a connection between her and the girl’s father? She hadn’t mentioned a relationship with the man but it was more likely than not. After what Sasha had been through losing her parents, he felt confident she would want her daughter to have a relationship with both her parents if possible.

  He walked to the door and knocked. It was quiet inside. He glanced around the overgrown yard. He would call the lawn service his mother used and have them come over and work on the property. Sasha would potentially want to put it up for sale now. He wasn’t sure it would pass any sort of inspection considering the condition of the roof and the siding, but all those things could be repaired. It could be a nice place again. A little TLC would go a long way.

  He reached up to knock again and the door opened. She started, stared up at him in surprise.

  “You didn’t answer your phone.” He removed his hat, held it with both hands, mostly to keep them busy since his first instinct was to reach out and touch her.

  She frowned. “The service is really bad out here. Sorry. I guess I should have sent you a text to let you know where I’d be.”

  “How’s it going?”

  “I haven’t found anything earth-shattering.” She shrugged. “Anyway, come in. I can’t offer you any refreshments because there’s nothing here.”

  He followed her through the entry hall and then into a room to the right. Her mother’s office. Sasha went around behind the desk and sat down. She pushed a button on the phone. “Listen to this.”

  He listened through two messages. The first was an appointment confirmation; the second was from a female who urged Alexandra to call her. “Do you know the caller?”

  She shook her head. “I tried to review the numbers on the caller ID but they’re no longer available. The only reason the messages are still there is because it’s one of those old answering machines with the cassette tape.”

  “The voice doesn’t sound familiar to you?”

  “It’s too scratchy or low, maybe both. I know Mother had a friend, Penny or Patty. Something like that. I’ve been looking through her Rolodex and her notes. I haven’t found a reference to a female with a name that starts with P.”

  “Rolodex? Really?”

  The hint of a smile peeked beyond her obvious weariness. “Believe it or not, there are people in this world who would die protecting their Rolodex. For a businessman or woman who’s been around since before contact lists and smartphones, a Rolodex is sacred.”

  She gave the Rolodex wheel a spin; the alphabetized cards tumbled around the wheel. “I can ask my grandmother if she remembers anyone in particular who was friends with your mom.”

  Sasha’s gaze lit up. “That would be great. I considered calling her but I thought I’d exhaust my other options first.”

  “Frankly, I’m surprised the phone and the answering machine weren’t taken into evidence.”

  “That was my first thought,” she agreed. “It feels like the investigators had made up their minds and simply didn’t bother looking for evidence.”

  He wasn’t prepared to go that far just yet, but he had to admit that there was a lot that had been missed. Then again, hindsight was twenty-twenty.

  “Why don’t you give me a tour—if you’re up to it.” Branch had been here a few times growing up, but he never paid much attention to the layout of the house. He’d always been focused on the green-eyed princess who lived here.

  “Sure.” She pushed away from the desk and stood. “Obviously you can see this was her home office. She worked a lot of long hours and she didn’t like spending so many away from Dad and me. So, she brought homework from the job nearly every day.”

  They moved into the living room and she walked him through the scene though he already had a good grasp from the crime scene photos. The closet where Sasha had been hiding was literally less than a dozen yards from where her parents had died. God Almighty. No child should have to go through that kind of trauma.

  The kitchen and dining room were next. Branch stared out the rear windows at the gathering gloom. “Do you remember exploring those woods as a kid?”

  “I do. There was an old shack. Rey and I used to use it for a playhouse. We spent hours pretending to clean and cook.”

  He wondered if that was the same one where the drug cookers had taken up residence during the time frame when the Lenoirs died. He would look into the exact location. “You never ran into anyone out there?”

  She shook her head. “Never.”

  As they walked back into the living room, Branch studied the scene once more. The living room was located about midway between the front door and the back. If there was someone else in the house and they went out the back, as Sasha recalled, then they must have cut through the woods to get to where they had parked. Otherwise they would have had to go around front and to the main road and risk being seen by neighbors.

  “How far through the woods until you reach another road?” he asked.

  “Not that far. The woods are dense and there’s probably a lot more undergrowth now since no one’s been keeping it tramped down. For an adult running, maybe fifteen minutes. As a child it took a little longer.”

  Branch would follow up on where the shooters might have parked and, if they were lucky, someone who still lived nearby had seen someone. It wouldn’t have mattered twenty-seven years ago because apparently no one was looking for a killer beyond the husband.

  “Have you gone through the bedrooms?”

  “I poked around a little. No serious digging.”

  Her arms went around herself as if she were cold and needed to protect herself from potential harm. She was tired and not entirely comfortable here, no matter that she wanted to appear strong and capable.

  “Did coming here prompt any new memories?”

  That was the real question. She hadn’t been in this house since the night of the murders. It was possible seeing everything with new eyes had nudged one or more hidden memories.

  “Nothing important that I didn’t already know. There were two men in the house that night besides my father. I heard their voices. I’m almost certain there were two distinct voices.” She shook her head. “My father didn’t do this, Branch. No matter what the reports say and no matter how bizarre it sounds after all these years. My father did not kill anyone.”

  The thing was, he believed her.

  Chapter Seven

  Sasha chafed her arms to chase away the chill. Branch watched her so closely, his blue eyes seeming to see right through her. She wanted him to see her strength and determination but at the moment it felt as if all he saw was her fear that she wouldn’t be able to prove what she believed in her heart.

  And what if she was wrong?

  No. She refused to believe her father had done this. Her entire life she had known, without doubt, that he was innocent. Now she had the opportunity to prove it and she was extremely fortunate to have Branch offering to help. Local law enforcement would lend far more credence to his investigation of an old case than to that of a member of the family—particularly the daughter determined to prove her father’s innoc
ence.

  “Why don’t we call it a day?” Branch glanced around. “You’ve taken in a lot today. Maybe let it filter tonight and start fresh tomorrow.”

  Not until that moment did Sasha realize how incredibly tired she was. It was as if his words somehow prompted her to relax, to stand down from the fight. “Good idea. I am unreasonably exhausted.”

  “I’ll take you to dinner,” he announced. “You can give me your thoughts on today’s effort and I’ll give you mine.”

  If she was smart she would pass. If she was smart she would go directly home, take a shower and hit the sack.

  If she was smart she would recognize how very precarious this cliff upon which she had perched herself really was.

  But she wasn’t smart when it came to Branch Holloway and the past they shared.

  “I’m not really dressed for going out.” Good job, Sash. At least she tried, despite the idea that she felt herself leaning toward him, waiting for him to give her one good reason why her manner of dress didn’t matter one little bit.

  “The Back Porch is a great pub just off the town square.” He looked her up and down, her skin heating with the move that even in an innocent moment like this one exuded sex appeal. “Nothing fancy, but great food.”

  There it was, the excuse she needed. “Well then, let me lock up here.”

  He followed her to the kitchen, where she locked the back door. “We can drop your rental off at your grandmother’s and you can ride with me, if that’s okay. No need to take both vehicles. Parking is sometimes at a premium.”

  She glanced at him. “Sure.”

  He trailed her back to the front door; she turned off the lights as she went. They stood on the porch while she locked the front door. No matter that it wasn’t completely dark yet, it was utterly dark on the porch. The dense woods blocked the fading sunlight from reaching this far. She thought of all the times she had chased the looming shadows across the yard. She had never once been afraid here...not until that night.