Faces of Evil [4] Rage (6 page)

She made a derisive sound. “And let Chief Black hijack
my
case? I don’t think so. Besides, you know you want me on this one. Grayson mentioned this was your idea.”

“I need you on it,” he corrected. “There’s a difference. I want Wells or Harper with you at all times. You can keep your head down and still work this case. Stay out of the limelight. Don’t piss off any reporters and have them hounding you more than they do already. Their focus on you adds to your visibility as a potential target.”

“As long as they stay out of my way we won’t have a problem.” She absolutely did not need Burnett telling her how to play nice with the reporters or how to take care of herself. They had been over this before.

Instead of arguing with him as he spouted all the reasons he was right and she was wrong, she used the most ridiculous observations to distract herself. He was wearing the navy suit today. The one she really liked. With the pale blue shirt and the red tie. The suit with its narrow lapels and sleek cut accentuated his broad shoulders and the color did amazing things for those blue eyes of his. None of which she wanted to notice, but she had no more will power where he was concerned than she did with a bag of peanut M&M’S.

The abrupt silence made her blink. He had stopped talking and was watching her stare at him. “You shouldn’t wear that suit.” She made an unpleasant face for emphasis. And to think just the other day she’d almost told him it was her favorite.

He looked down at his jacket, smoothed a broad, long-fingered hand over the trim lapel to the one button fastened at his lean waist. “I like this suit. What’s wrong with it?”

Her shoulders poked up then fell. “Don’t know. Maybe it’s the color.” She backed toward the door. “Or the cut. Something is”—she held up a hand and moved it back and forth as if she couldn’t excavate the precise words—“just not right with that one.”

He waved her off and headed for his desk. “I want a proper sound bite by five o’clock.”

There was something else he did exceedingly well. Tick her off. “Maybe then you can brief me on Sylvia Baron and why she thought you would take her side over mine.” The demand was out of her mouth before she could stop it.

Her insecurities notwithstanding, Burnett was supposed to have
her
back at moments like the one that occurred today between her and Baron. And he’d fallen down on the job.

“She’s Senator Robert Baron’s daughter. The Baron family believes they still run Birmingham the way they did in the old days.” He shrugged. “She’s throwing his office around, that’s all. It’s what she does.”

A senator’s daughter. Well, well. Jess remembered something about him and a senator’s daughter. “Weren’t you married to a senator’s daughter the first or second time?”

Burnett glowered at her from behind his desk. “I was not married to Sylvia.” He shuffled a stack of messages.

Oh my God, that was it
. If he hadn’t been married to her it had to have been someone close to her. “Her sister then.”

“Yes,” Burnett confessed as he reluctantly met her gaze once more. “I was married to her younger sister. It was a long time ago but Sylvia doesn’t seem to notice. When it suits her, she uses that ancient history to her benefit.”

Right there, in a nutshell, was the number-one reason Jess disliked small-town life. Everyone knew everyone else and made it a point to know his or her business. Furthermore, most people were related by blood or marriage, or both. The whole small-town mentality was as pervasive as it was invasive. It made her crazy.

“Do you have any other ex-wives or ex-sisters-in-law running around here that I’m likely to lock horns with?” Might as well get all the cards on the table. Burnett had married the first time less than a year after his and Jess’s breakup. Just like that, she did a mental finger snap. Six years together and he was over it in less than one.

But, like he said, that was ancient history. And yet, she couldn’t put it fully behind her.

“That is none of your business,
Chief
Harris.” Burnett faked a smile. “By the way, I almost forgot to ask. How’s Agent Duvall?”

Chief Harris?
“Don’t even go there. Wesley is my only—
only
—ex. Everyone’s entitled to one.” Jess promptly turned her back. “I have a case to solve.”

“See you at five,” he called after her.

“Five thirty,” she tossed back on her way out the door.

That was the thing about exes. Whether it was the other half of her one failed marriage or her twenty-year-old love affair with Burnett, an ex was like a bad penny, they just kept showing up again.

And these days a penny was pretty much worthless.

L
ieutenant Grayson saw his wife at eight last night when he stopped by to tuck his son into bed. When he left Mrs. Grayson was watching a movie.” Harper added the movie title to the timeline he had created on the white board in the SPU offices. “The DVD was lying on the coffee table at the scene this morning.”

“Can anyone else corroborate the times he gave for returning to work last night and leaving for home this morning?” Jess leaned against the front of her desk. According to Grayson, he and his partner, Sergeant Jack Riley, had been providing support to BPD’s Gang Task Force in their off-duty time. As head of the GTF, Captain Ted Allen was drawing as much manpower from the other divisions as he could in an attempt to get a handle on Birmingham’s escalating gang problem.

“Sergeant Riley and Lieutenant Prescott have confirmed that Grayson left for home just before eight last night and returned shortly before nine.” Harper noted the times on the board. “He pulled an all-nighter and didn’t return home until he got the call about the murder this morning.”

Prescott belonged to SPU but she, too, was on loan to the GTF. Considering she was not happy at all that an outsider like Jess had gotten the newest deputy chief position, she wasn’t likely in any hurry to be taken off that detail. Or to assist Jess in this case or any other. No matter that Birmingham was her hometown, Jess had spent more than two decades away. Most of that time she had worked with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That made her an outsider to those who’d served locally for their entire careers.

That she’d been offered this position by her former fiancé, Chief of Police Daniel Burnett, ensured that most failed to consider her qualifications for the job before assuming the worst. Jess had a long, uphill journey when it came to fitting in and gaining the respect of her peers and subordinates.

No problem. She’d been climbing hills since the age of ten.

“Nothing from Dr. Leeds on the time of death?” she asked Officer Chad Cook, the youngest and least experienced member of their unit.

“Not yet, ma’am,” he piped up. “Dr. Leeds’s assistant expects they’ll have some preliminary information around two.”

Jess hoped so. She had to give Burnett something by five thirty. The BPD’s division chiefs and the mayor would likely be at the six o’clock briefing. All involved would want assurances that the investigation was well under way. Getting some estimate on time of death and narrowing down cause of death would be helpful.

Detective Wells turned in her chair to face Jess and the others, hopefully with an update on the Grayson family financials.

“Lieutenant Grayson’s finances have changed in the past year. He inherited a handsome sum from a rich uncle. In addition,” Lori went on, “to the home on Shady Creek Drive, and the pool guy, he recently purchased a beach house just outside Mobile along with a boat and two Jet Skis as well as a vintage Corvette. We’re not talking millions here, but a tidy sum nonetheless.”

“A vintage Corvette,” Cook noted. “Nice. We young guys can never afford that. It’s always the old geezers driving a sweet ride like that.”

“That’s what Trenton meant,” Jess rationalized, ignoring their youngest member, “when he said Gabrielle’s finances had changed this last year.” Tied up that loose end.

“Gabrielle Marquez Grayson came into the marriage with no savings or assets that I can find,” Lori added, “but she had a good job. Charge nurse at New Life Rehabilitation Center. She worked there for five years before leaving to become a full-time wife and mother about the same time the lieutenant got his inheritance.”

“What about the divorce from Sylvia, the senator’s daughter?” Jess ventured. “Did money change hands other than what went to the lawyers?” Probably wasn’t pertinent, but Jess wanted to know for her own selfish reasons. She wanted to know more about Sylvia and her sister.

“Not anything documented. But”—Lori shot her a look—“in case you wondered, Sylvia Baron was born very rich and her tax bracket doesn’t appear to have changed.”

Jess wasn’t surprised. “I take it she didn’t remarry?”

Wells shook her head. “No other spouses, no children.”

Jess pushed off her desk and walked to the case board. She scooted her glasses up her nose and viewed the photos of the Grayson family, the partner, and the pool guy that Harper had posted. The timeline started at eight last night, since Gabrielle was alive at that time according to the husband. There was more to this woman’s life than they knew, far more. And a whole lot more to her death.

“Add Sylvia Baron and MS-13 to the board,” she told Harper.

“You really think this is gang-related?” he asked as he complied with her request. “Seemed way too personal to me, and Captain Allen says no one is claiming responsibility or issuing warnings of more to come.”

Jess agreed with the way too personal part. “No, Sergeant, I do
not
believe this is gang related. But if anyone asks or drops by and looks at our case board”—she turned to the board, which would be impossible to conceal from anyone who popped into their office—“they won’t know that until I’m ready for them to know.”

Some things were better left unsaid, she had learned, until theories were proven. Like the scenario that the ugly words written in Gabrielle’s blood were nothing more than an attempt to mislead the investigation. To distract from the true evil.

“We have a gruesome murder in a bedroom neighborhood that hasn’t seen any criminal activity beyond the occasional robbery around the Christmas holidays in its forty-year history.” Jess paced the length of the case board as she thought out loud. “Working-class folks. Most have lived in the neighborhood for a decade or longer. They go to church on Sundays and take pride in their homes and yards. It’s picture perfect.”

“Until now,” Harper countered. “Last night’s murder put a black spot on their clean record.”

“Let’s consider the scenarios.
All the scenarios
.” Jess grabbed a dry erase marker and uncapped it. “If this is gang related, which I doubt, what’s our motive?”

Harper peeled off his jacket and hung it on the back of his chair. His and Lori’s desks were stationed face-to-face. Lori’s gaze followed Harper’s move to get comfortable before turning back to Jess. Lori’s hardcore independent woman attitude was slipping just a bit. Jess wondered if she realized how hard she was falling.

“If,” Harper suggested, “this was an MS-13 grudge or revenge killing, then the motive would be related to something Mrs. Grayson or Lieutenant Grayson had done, either on purpose or unknowingly.” Hands bracketed at his waist, the senior detective strode over to stand by Jess. “Since Grayson has been helping out with the GTF, we could assume he’s crossed someone or gotten his name on the wrong list. He doesn’t believe so, but he could be wrong. He may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and not realized it. All white guys look alike to some people.” Harper smirked.

“Except,” Lori chimed in, “Gabrielle Grayson was decapitated, marking
her
as a traitor, in gang terms. We know she worked as a nurse at a rehab center for several years, maybe she provided medical care or drugs to the wrong people. And now it’s come back to haunt her.”

“And they waited more than a year to kill her?” Harper challenged.

“Unless,” Jess interjected, “she never stopped.” She listed the scenario on the case board.
Medical/drug connection
. “Maybe she liked having money of her own. She was a career woman before, earning a nice salary. Maybe motherhood and financial dependency wasn’t exactly how she’d seen her life playing out.” And maybe Jess was infusing a little too much of her own personal concerns into the scenario.

Lori got out of her chair and strode to the board. “What if she finally said no? After all, she was a mother. She had the child to think of. And there was always the worry that her husband would find out—assuming he had no idea about her extracurricular activities. Maybe she decided to do the right thing and refused to aid this unknown perp and he got pissed.”

Jess passed her the marker. Lori sent the two males in the room a cocky smile before adding motives to the medical/drug connection.
Money and fear
, then
revenge
.

Harper held out his hand. “If we’re tossing out fictional plot points,” he said flatly, “what if this make-believe person she provided with drugs and medical care is really the father of her child and threatened to take him. When she wouldn’t cooperate, he killed her.”