Everywhere She Turns (6 page)

She made an impatient sound. “Absolutely. I needed to see what the killer saw while he worked. You know, touch all the places he touched.”

That was another thing about his partner. She was a freak. “Okay. Okay. I gotcha.”

He tossed his sunglasses to Cooper, grabbed a branch, and prepared to propel his body up onto the lowest limb.

“Don’t wrinkle those khakis.”

He didn’t appreciate the humor in her comment, but apparently both techs did.

“All the way up to the branch he used to secure the rope,” she prompted.

Since he wasn’t vertically challenged like his partner, it wasn’t necessary for him to climb onto that final branch. He could see what she’d discovered by standing on the one just below it.

Letters had been carved into the bark. He frowned, considered what the combination spelled. “How do you know this hasn’t been here for weeks or months?” Anyone, some kid or whatever, could have done this.

“Arborist.”

Braddock sent his partner a look. “An arborist? You had an arborist out here? Today?”

She nodded. “He says the work is fresh. The last forty-eight hours for sure.”

Braddock didn’t even want to know how she’d gotten an arborist out here on such short notice. On Sunday at that.

“Remember the guy I told you about with the shoe fetish?”

Jesus Christ. “I remember.” He definitely didn’t need to hear that story again. “Enough said.”

“He was more than happy to come take a look,” Cooper said with a wicked smile.

“It’s nice to have friends,” Braddock commented, distracted now by the carefully shaped letters. Whoever had done this hadn’t rushed. The work was too meticulous. Perfectly straight. Precisely spaced. Took major balls to spend this much time at the scene of a crime, before or after.

The bastard thought he was untouchable.

The idea that he or one of his minions might have staged the scene first and then come back with the body was gaining ground in Braddock’s opinion.

“I checked with information,” Cooper advised. “There are six listings with that last name. But none whose first name begins with an
E
.”

Interesting. He doubted it would be a name. A clue to puzzle over, probably. The killer wanted to show Braddock who was boss. This was a game to him. Didn’t matter about the collateral damage.

“Could be something.” Braddock moved down one branch, then jumped to the ground.
Could be nothing
. He dusted off his khakis. “whatever it is, you know it won’t be this easy.”

“It never is.” She cocked her head, narrowed her gaze thoughtfully. “I figure it’s an anagram.”

“That makes the most sense.” He reached for his Wayfarers, then slid them into place. “But you’ll have to knock on doors just the same.” They’d spent most of the morning tracking down and interviewing everyone close to Shelley. They still hadn’t located Banks, the ex-boyfriend. But Braddock had a plan in place for that hurdle. They’d have him before this day was over.

He wanted Ricky Banks. Though he didn’t believe for a second Banks was the killer, with the right incentive Banks just might decide he was far more afraid of losing his freedom than he was of the repercussions of seeking immunity.

“Yep,” she agreed. “Gotta follow all leads, no matter how unlikely.” Stripping off her gloves, Cooper started back in the direction of the street. “Thanks, guys,” she called to the techs as she ducked under the tape. “Gimme a ring when you finish up here.”

Once beyond the tape, Braddock shed his gloves and shoe covers.

“So, what’d the sister have to say?”

Braddock trailed after his partner, ducked to avoid a limb that went right over her head. “Not much.”

“You think she knows anything that might be useful? Maybe she heard from the vic recently.”

“She doesn’t know anything,” he assured Cooper. “I’ve got Jenkins watching her just in case she makes contact with Banks.” If he knew CJ, she would be pounding the pavement
looking for the scumbag. Having Jenkins keep an eye on her was as much for her own protection as it was to observe any contact.

“Good idea. About the other . . . did you tell her?”

“No.”

“That’s going to come back to bite you in the ass, partner. She already doesn’t like you. She finds out you’re keeping something like that from her, she’s going to be out for blood.”

Yeah, well, he was used to CJ going for his jugular. That was his fault, too. Just something else to regret.

He paused at the street. “I’ll just have to deal with whatever she tosses my way.” He glanced around even though he knew Cooper’s truck wasn’t here. It wasn’t like it could be overlooked. “Where’s the monster?” She didn’t like that he called her vehicle that, but she’d given up trying to win him over to the joys of owning something fully capable of climbing over small buildings.

“I was running a little behind after lunch.” She hunched her shoulders in one of those careless shrugs she was famous for. “I got dropped off.”

“Uh-huh.” Which meant lunch wasn’t about dining.

“About the carving.” She paused before opening the door of his G6. “Could be the first move in a game.”

Braddock opened the driver’s-side door. “Could be an invitation to play.”

“Or a riddle.” She dropped into the passenger seat and propped a sneakered foot on the dash. Braddock grimaced.

“It might”—he started the engine and pulled out onto the street—“be a reference to a place or an event.”

“True,” she agreed. “I’ll run it through the system and make some calls.”

As unnecessary as he knew it would prove, ruling out
E. Noon
as a name was step one.

Mill Village
3:48
PM

CJ shoved her three-quarter sleeves higher up her arms. Sweat slid down between her shoulder blades. She raised her fist and banged on the next door.

She’d been knocking on doors for the last hour. This house had been her initial stop, but no one had been home. She hoped against hope that was no longer the case. Frances Jennings never missed a Sunday in church. Surely by now church was over.

If the cops couldn’t find Ricky Banks, it was because they didn’t know the right places to look. Or simply didn’t care, like Braddock. CJ had grown up in this neighborhood. She knew where to look.

The door opened a tiny crack.

Thank God
.

“Mrs. Jennings?” CJ couldn’t see a damned thing through that narrow opening, but, according to the neighbors, Frances Jennings still lived at this address.

“You Cecilia Patterson’s girl? The doctor?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Anticipation fired in CJ’s veins. It was definitely Frances Jennings, one and only aunt to Ricky Banks. “Is it okay if I come in, Mrs. Jennings?”

“I heard about your sister.” Frances opened the door a little
wider, eyed CJ suspiciously over her bifocals. “It’s a shame, that’s what it is.”

CJ nodded, pushing aside the images that immediately tried to invade her thoughts. “I was hoping to talk to Ricky.” Just saying his name made CJ want to tear something apart. A year younger than CJ, Ricky had been in and out of Shelley’s life since middle school. One of the mistakes her sister hadn’t been able to stop repeating.

“He ain’t here, but you can come on in.” Frances Jennings shuffled back, opening the door wider and staying slightly behind it as if she feared she might need it as a shield. Life in the village would do that to a person.

“Thank you.” CJ stepped across the threshold, flashbacks from all the times she’d been here before, usually complaining about Ricky, tumbled one over the other.

Francis closed the door and set the lock. “The two of ’em never could seem to stay away from each other. I always thought they’d end up married.”

Yeah, right
. Ricky loved whoring Shelley out too much to marry her. She was his meal ticket. “I know what you mean,” CJ lied.

Frances smoothed the skirt of her Sunday-go-to-meeting dress and lowered her hefty bulk into her rocker-recliner. She set the chair in motion. “Neither one of ’em could ever stay out of trouble, either.”

Moving to a chair, CJ tried as inconspicuously as possible to survey the living room and what she could see of the kitchen beyond. “It’s harder for some than others.”
Careful. Don’t say the wrong thing. Don’t let her see your hatred
.

Frantic scratching somewhere deeper in the house had CJ leaning forward in her chair before she could stop herself.

“Don’t pay no mind to that,” Frances said. “It’s that big old dog of Ricky’s. I make him keep that beast shut up in his room when he ain’t here.”

CJ nodded, relaxed marginally. Ricky had a brute of a mutt. A pit bull or Rottweiler or something like that. A savage pet for a savage man.

“The police were here looking for him last night.” Frances folded her hands together in her lap.

Another shot of adrenaline pierced CJ’s chest. “I guess they just want to talk to him about Shelley.” She tamped down the outrage that mounted, threatened to climb into her throat and out of her mouth in violent screams. “Surely they can’t believe Ricky would hurt Shelley like that. He likes to push folks around when he gets fired up, but he wouldn’t kill anybody.” The words left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Frances nodded, her saggy double chin wobbling with her stern conviction.

CJ held her breath.

“That’s what he said. He didn’t kill nobody. The police just want somebody to blame. Why, that boy has gone to church with me every Sunday for the past twenty years. ’Cept for today. Wears that crucifix I gave him every day of his life. He ain’t guilty of a thing but trying to survive.”

CJ made a concerted effort not to roll her eyes. If dear old Aunt Frances only knew.

The naive old lady harrumphed. “That’s why I told ’em I didn’t know where in the world that boy was.”

“The problem is”—CJ had to tread cautiously here—“if he doesn’t answer their questions, the police are going to presume he’s guilty.”

Frances stopped her rocking.

“He really should tell them what he knows so they can start looking at other possibilities.” CJ moistened her lips. “You . . . you know as well as I do how the police are about folks in this neighborhood. They probably figure nailing Ricky for her murder would kill two birds with one stone. They’re not going to bother looking for the real killer if they’ve got someone they can blame.”

The old woman’s eyes narrowed behind her corrective lenses. “You mean like putting Ricky in jail takes him off the streets and then they don’t have to worry about him causing no more trouble?”

“Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly what I mean. Shelley’s dead.”
Emotion pounded against CJ’s sternum. “They figure she didn’t deserve any better than she got, so why not rid the city of another one like her?” She leaned forward, pressed the older woman with the certainty in her eyes. “They don’t care about us. They’d have torn this village down years ago when they demolished the mill if some hoity-toity historian hadn’t insisted the historic value had to be preserved. And all those promises of new jobs for all the laid-off mill workers were over and forgotten as soon as the new mayor was elected.”

The rocking resumed. “Politicians always make promises and then they do nothing. Without the mill, some folks felt they had no choice but to turn to crime to survive. And not one thing was done to stop it.”

CJ nodded, the movement stiff. “We can’t let the police get away with accusing an innocent man just so the mayor’s views on keeping the streets clean look good.” Her lips tightened with the lie. “I’ll go to the police with Ricky. My sister would want me to.”

Frances stilled once more, her gaze engaging fully with CJ’s, searching for the sincerity in her eyes that she heard in her voice.

Think! What now?
“Maybe if I could talk to Ricky, I could make him understand that the only way he’s going to get through this without serious trouble is if he lets the police know he didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Shelley. I feel certain he has an alibi. But it won’t do him any good if he doesn’t give it to the police. Running or hiding just makes him look guilty.” CJ reached out, patted the old lady’s hand. “You have my word I’ll go with him.” Damn straight she would. “I want the truth just as much as he does.”

The silence boomed in CJ’s ears.

Just tell me where he is!

Frances Jennings tapped her fingertips together. “Those homeless folks still sleep under that Governor’s Drive overpass, you know. No matter how often the police shoo them away, they just come right back. The police don’t pay no real attention. The president himself could be right in the middle of that horde and nobody would notice.”

CJ’s respiration came in tiny, fragmented bursts. “But they don’t usually come out until after dark.”
Where would he be now?
She needed to find him
now
.

The old woman nodded again. “Yes’m. In the daytime they like to mill around in the park. With all the hippies and those no-account kids in black skulking about, the homeless just sort of blend in.”