Save Your Breath

by Leigh, Melinda

  “Are you thinking he killed those girls?” Grandpa asked.

  “I don’t know. But it would explain why he didn’t want to talk about an appeal for his brother. If Joe is guilty, he wouldn’t want the case reopened.”

  Grandpa pointed to the doorway. “Would you get my laptop from my bedroom?”

  “Sure.” Morgan fetched his computer. “Could you find Joe’s testimony in Cliff’s trial? I’d like to read it.”

  They sat side by side at the island. Morgan reviewed Joe’s testimony and background information but found nothing new. Then she shifted her focus to the auto shop where Cliff worked. To date, it was the only link between all six women besides their disappearances. Morgan was scanning the ABOUT US page when she noticed the initials at the bottom of the website.

  “Site design by JF, Inc.,” she read aloud, a chill settling over her.

  “Joe Franklin’s initials are JF,” Grandpa said.

  Morgan searched her computer for the background report from Lance’s mother. Buried on the second page was the name of Joe’s game development company. “There it is. Joe owns JF, Inc.”

  “He must have some relationship with the owner of the auto shop where his brother worked if he designed the website.”

  “If he designed the website, would he also have access to all of the customer records, including the names and addresses of Brandi Holmes and the other five women who went missing?”

  Could Joe have killed six women? Was Olivia number seven?

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Lance stared through his windshield at the garden center. The afternoon sun shone on the hood. They’d been watching the exit for hours, waiting for Ronald Alexander to leave work.

  Sharp’s hand bounced on his knee. He reached for the take-out cup of coffee in the console and shook it. Lance had half a cup left, but he didn’t offer it to his boss. Six months before, Sharp had suffered a serious abdominal injury. He’d fully recovered, but he looked gaunt today, as if he’d lost some of the fifteen pounds he’d gained back since his injury. Lance understood. He felt sick and helpless over Olivia’s disappearance. If Morgan were missing, he would be out of his mind.

  Sharp twisted the cap off a bottle of water. “There he is.”

  Lance spotted the former Olander Dairy employee leaving the main building of the garden center. A dozen vehicles sat between the Jeep and Alexander’s truck. Lance wasn’t worried about being seen.

  Alexander crossed the parking lot and climbed into his battered pickup.

  “What do you want to do?” Lance started the engine of the Jeep.

  “Let’s follow him and see where he goes.” Sharp straightened, rolled his head, and checked his phone for the fiftieth time.

  Lance hung back, waiting for Alexander to pull out of the lot before steering the Jeep toward the exit. He drove onto the country road, keeping two cars between the Jeep and Alexander’s truck.

  “He’s not going home,” Sharp said as the pickup made a left at a stop sign.

  Lance eased off the gas. They’d lost the two-car buffer. He allowed more distance between the vehicles.

  Ten minutes later, Alexander turned into the entrance of a small local bar, Wings & More.

  Lance parked three rows away. “What do you want to do?”

  Sharp reached for the door handle. “Let’s go talk to him.”

  Lance followed him inside. At two o’clock in the afternoon, the crowd was light. A few men sat at the bar, their attention on football highlights that played on a flat-screen TV. Most of the tables were empty. The bar smelled of hot grease and beer. He spotted Alexander alone at the end of the bar, drinking a beer. Lance and Sharp split up and flanked him. Alexander was focused on his drink.

  Sharp tapped on the bar. “Whiskey. Make it a double.”

  Lance raised a brow at him behind Alexander’s back. His boss rarely drank hard liquor.

  The bartender looked questioningly at Lance, and he ordered a club soda. She poured Sharp’s whiskey and slid it across the bar toward him. He lifted the glass, then downed half the liquid in one smooth gulp. The bartender set a glass of club soda in front of Lance and walked away.

  Lance turned and put his elbow on the bar, crowding Alexander between him and Sharp.

  On the other side, Sharp’s arm bumped Alexander’s. Beer sloshed over the rim of his mug.

  “Hey.” Alexander mopped up the bar with his cocktail napkin. He glared at Sharp. Recognition dawned on his face, and his angry stare turned suspicious. “What do you want?”

  “Remember me?” Sharp drained his glass and tapped it on the bar. The bartender refilled it.

  “Yeah. You work with that bitch cop.” Alexander’s mouth turned smug. “You can’t make me talk. Charge me with something or leave me the fuck alone.”

  “I’m not a cop.” Whiskey in hand, Sharp turned to face him.

  Lance added, “Neither am I.”

  With an assessing glare at each of them, Alexander sipped his beer. “Then why are you here?”

  “I have a few follow-up questions.” Sharp drank another finger of whiskey. “About the LMS.”

  Alexander choked and almost dropped his beer. “Shh.”

  “Let’s get a table.” Lance pointed at an empty table at the back of the room.

  “No.” Alexander swiveled on his stool, putting his back to the bar. “I ain’t saying anything.”

  Sharp got in his face. “There’s a woman who went missing last Friday morning. She’s my girlfriend. This is personal. I’m not fucking around here.”

  “That reporter I saw on the news?” Alexander frowned.

  “Yes.” Sharp nodded.

  “Not my problem.” Alexander shrugged.

  Sharp’s face reddened. He finished his second drink and set the empty glass on the bar. “The LMS could be involved.”

  “Then the bitch is probably dead.” Alexander set his beer on the bar. “You know what happened to Kennett, right?”

  A muscle under Sharp’s eye twitched.

  “Why would the LMS murder Kennett Olander?” Lance asked.

  Alexander paled, clearly realizing his mistake. “How would I know?”

  “Hypothetically,” Sharp said. “Why would an organization like the LMS kill a man?”

  Alexander ignored the question.

  Sharp grabbed Alexander by the front of his sweatshirt and dragged him off his stool. “The reporter was at the Olander farm last Monday night. Did you see her there?”

  “I wasn’t there. I got fired, remember?” Alexander spat in Sharp’s face. “Fuck off.”

  Lance moved around Alexander and tried to catch Sharp’s arms. “Time to go, Sharp.”

  But Sharp shook him off. The older man spun, and before Lance could stop him, he punched Alexander square in the face. Alexander’s head snapped back, and he stumbled.

  “Hey!” A tall, hefty man charged from the back of the room, a beer bottle in his hand. With no hesitation, he swung it at the back of Sharp’s head. Sharp was focused on Alexander. He didn’t even see the man coming.

  Lunging forward, Lance jumped in front of the assailant and blocked the blow, forearm to forearm. The impact rang through the bones of Lance’s arm. The man drilled a punch into Lance’s solar plexus. The air whooshed from his lungs, and he doubled over.

  The man raised the bottle high, his mouth twisting into a mean smile. He was enjoying the fight.

  Lance took a breath and grabbed the man’s arm as the bottle came down. With a twist of his hips, he threw the man to the floor. The beer bottle flew from his hand, hit the wall, and shattered. The man rolled to his feet, swiped a hand across his mouth, and lunged at Lance, trying to tackle him around the thighs. Lance shot his legs out behind him and centered his weight onto the man’s shoulder blades. The man went down on his face.

  Spinning around, Lance grabbed the man’s arm and twisted it behind his back. Heart sprinting, lungs heaving, Lance paused for air.

  Ten feet away, Sharp was stradd
ling Alexander’s chest and punching him in the face. Hauling his hand back, he made another fist. “I asked you a question. Why would the LMS have killed Olander?”

  “Money!” Alexander spat blood from his mouth. “They paid for the farm. He mortgaged it and took the money for his dumbass son’s defense.”

  Sharp shook him by the front of his shirt. “How do you know that?”

  “I worked there for years. I heard things.” Alexander wet his lips.

  “Did they kidnap Olivia Cruz?” Sharp asked.

  Alexander closed his bloody lips.

  Sharp raised a fist over his face, ready to pound him again.

  “Sharp!” Releasing his opponent, Lance staggered to his feet. He launched himself at Sharp’s back and hooked his arms under Sharp’s shoulders. He dragged his boss off Alexander and held him in a full nelson. “Calm down!”

  “Let me go!” Sharp struggled against Lance’s grip. Hooking a foot behind Lance’s ankle, Sharp tripped him. They went down to the floor in a heap, with Sharp still fighting him. Frustration and desperation lent him stamina and strength.

  Lance didn’t want to hurt him, but he couldn’t let him beat the hell out of Ronald Alexander either.

  As Lance pinned Sharp to the floor with his weight, he heard the sirens approach.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Scarlet Falls Police Station occupied the entire first floor of the township administration building. Morgan crossed the gray-tiled lobby and walked through an open space filled with cubicles. She saw her sister in her cubicle, staring at her computer.

  She stopped in front of Stella’s desk. “Where are they?”

  Stella hit a key, and her screen went blank. She rose, her body sluggish. Her blouse and slacks were wrinkled. She was putting in as many hours as they were. “I put Lance and Sharp in the conference room. The other two guys are in interview rooms. I didn’t have the heart to put Sharp in a holding cell, although I should have. He assaulted Ronald Alexander.”

  “What exactly happened?” Morgan asked. Stella had been short on details when she’d called.

  Stella walked toward a short hallway. “On the Wings & More surveillance video, Sharp was questioning Alexander. Then Sharp lost control and punched him.”

  “He’s not himself.” Morgan didn’t know how Sharp had held it together this long.

  “I know that, and that’s why he’s cooling off in the conference room instead of a cell.” Stella turned down a hallway. A patrol officer stood by a closed door. “Lance tried to stop him but got sucked in when one of Alexander’s friends jumped into the fight.”

  “Do I need to post bail?” Morgan asked.

  “No. They’re lucky. Alexander has a record. He isn’t interested in filing a complaint as long as Lance and Sharp reciprocate. Ronald’s buddy also has a record and is willing to call it even. There wasn’t any property damage, so the owner of the bar isn’t filing a complaint either. Lance and Sharp are banned from the bar for life, and they can’t go anywhere near Ronald Alexander.”

  Morgan rubbed her forehead. “Sharp is not going to like that. We have so few leads, and none of them are panning out.”

  “I know, but it’s the best I could do under the circumstances. Either we cut deals, or he can end up being charged. He could lose his PI license.” Stella opened the conference room door.

  Lance nursed a cup of coffee at the conference table. In the chair next to him, Sharp held an ice pack on his hand. He looked up as Morgan and Stella walked into the room. Stella closed the door behind her. Bruises surrounded one of Sharp’s eyes. Alexander must have gotten a punch in at some point. But it was the bleak look in his eyes that hurt Morgan’s heart.

  How could she help him?

  She greeted Lance with a quick kiss, then turned a chair to face Sharp and sat down. “Are you all right?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  Morgan outlined Stella’s deal. “I think you should agree.”

  Sharp nodded. “I fucked up. I know it. Alexander said Olivia was probably dead, and he said it like it didn’t matter. My brain shorted out. I wanted to kill him with my bare hands.” He lifted the ice pack and stared down at his red raw knuckles. They were sore and would hurt even more the next day. “And now we’ve lost one of our only leads.”

  “I might have another.” Morgan explained how she discovered Joe Franklin had designed the auto shop’s website.

  Sharp rose. “I need to talk to Joe again. Now.”

  Stella held up a hand. “No. I’m going to visit Joe as soon as we’re done here, and I can’t take you with me.”

  Sharp dropped into the chair, his posture defeated. “I understand.”

  Stella gave Sharp a pointed look. “But Morgan can come with me if you promise to stay out of trouble.”

  Sharp nodded. “Deal.”

  Stella handed Lance a set of keys. “I had your Jeep brought here. One more thing.”

  Lance closed his fingers around the keys. “What is it?”

  “I questioned Alexander after he was brought in. He has an alibi for the night Olivia disappeared. He was drunk in the same bar he was in today. He’s a regular. The bartender confirmed that he closed the place last Thursday night. He was so hammered, she took his keys and poured him into an Uber at two a.m. She has the confirmation on her app that he was dropped off, and he was far too drunk to have committed any crime, let alone one that required finesse. If the LMS had Olivia kidnapped, Alexander wasn’t the man who did it.”

  Lance took the keys. “Let’s get out of here.”

  In the hallway, Lance paused. “Sharp and I have to get our personal effects.”

  Including their weapons.

  Morgan touched Lance’s arm. “In that case, I’ll meet you at the office after Stella and I interview Joe Franklin.”

  Morgan followed her sister outside. They crossed the parking lot, and she slid into the passenger seat of her sister’s unmarked police car. “Thanks for taking me with you.”

  Stella drove out of the lot. “You know more about the Franklin case than I do. I’m counting on your help. Plus, I don’t want to take a uniform. Might put him on the defensive. He’s already reluctant to talk about the case.”

  “Does the chief know you’re questioning Joe about a closed case?”

  “No.” Stella turned left. “There are still five missing women. Their cases are still open. I know the chain of evidence was screwed up and the former sheriff was a corrupt bastard, but planting evidence wouldn’t have been easy. The case was big. There were a lot of eyes on it. I have a hard time believing in elaborate conspiracies.”

  “Do you think it’s more likely the chain of evidence error was an oversight, nothing deliberate?” The theory made sense to Morgan. “You don’t think it’s possible Cliff went to prison for a crime Joe committed?”

  “I don’t know, but that’s what we need to find out. Joe didn’t want his brother to get an appeal. Why not? Most brothers would have lied for their sibling. But not Joe. He also designed the website for the auto shop, so he had access to the customer records. If he couldn’t alibi his brother for the night Brandi Holmes was killed, then he’s in the same boat. Home alone, sleeping, isn’t an alibi.” As the car cruised along the rural highway, Stella drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “We can’t arrest him for designing a website or for not having an alibi. How would he have met the women? He didn’t work at the shop.”

  “Designing the website is a solid connection with the auto shop, and he could have gone there when Cliff was working.”

  A short time later, Stella turned into Joe Franklin’s driveway, pulled up to the intercom, and pressed the button.

  “Yes,” said a male voice.

  “This is Detective Stella Dane from the Scarlet Falls Police. I’d like to speak with you.”

  A few heartbeats ticked away before he answered. “All right. Come up to the house.”

  Morgan got out of the car and opened the gate. After St
ella drove through, Morgan closed it and got back into the car. Stella drove around a curve and parked in front of a tall stone house.

  Morgan stared at the house. Ivy climbed three stories of gray stone. Three goats trotted across the front lawn. “It looks medieval.”

  Stella used the radio to report her location. They stepped out of the car and walked up to the house. A tall man answered the door before they knocked. He stepped out onto the porch and closed the door behind him. From inside, the deep bark of a large dog echoed. When Joe turned his head, Morgan could see the top of a small flesh-colored hearing aid. He wore jeans, a flannel shirt, and boots.

  “Mr. Franklin.” Stella introduced herself and Morgan. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

  “Go ahead.” He crossed his arms.

  “Do you know about the chain of evidence error in your brother’s trial?” Stella began.

  Joe met each of their eyes, assessing them, maybe trying to decide if they knew about Sharp and Lance’s visit from the previous evening. “I heard about it last night.”

  “Have you spoken with your brother or his attorney?” Stella asked.

  “Not yet.” Joe licked his lips.

  “You’re not excited to help your brother appeal his conviction?” Stella’s eyebrows and voice rose.

  “I just haven’t had a chance, that’s all.” Joe shifted his weight and looked away.

  Liar.

  Stella rocked on the balls of her feet. “How do you know the owner of Speedy Auto?”

  “Who says I know him?” Joe raised his chin.

  “You designed his website,” Stella said.

  “That was years ago.” Joe uncrossed his arms and shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans. His voice sounded as if he were calm, but his inability to stand still or maintain eye contact said otherwise. He needed a push.

  Morgan went for a major shock. “Did you know Brandi Holmes?”

  His gaze snapped to hers.

  “No,” he said, but his eyes were worried. He understood the implication behind Morgan’s question.

  Morgan pressed harder. “How about Cassandra Martin, Samantha Knowles, Jessie Mendella, Brenda Chase—”