Grapes of Death (16 page)

“You mother is in her office and Maddy went down to check on the lodge cleanup. The crew she hired got started early this morning.”

Abigail slapped Jackson's hand when he reached for a piece of bacon, then she turned to dig through the grocery bags. “The boys ran through here earlier, but I haven't seen Ross or Caroline yet. Now, you two get out of my kitchen so I can get this shindig put together.”

“Yes, ma'am. Come on, Jax, let's go see what's holding up Ross and Caro.” She giggled as he snagged a piece of bacon behind her grandmother's back and spun toward the back door.

“I saw that,” Abigail called after them as they slipped out of the kitchen.

Crossing the side yard, Jackson held the gate for her and they followed the well-worn path through the field and around behind the cottage where Ross and his family resided.

As they neared the back deck, raised voices greeted them from the open windows. Ross and Caroline were obviously arguing about something, but their voices were just muffled enough that the contents of the quarrel were unclear.

She and Jackson exchanged glances. Before they could decide on whether to interrupt or not, Ethan and Caleb ran out of the wooded area along the river. Ethan was white with shock and Caleb was sobbing.

Alarmed, Elise started toward them and caught Caleb mid-flight as he launched himself at her. Ethan ran straight to Jackson and held on tight.

“Caleb, what's the matter, sweetie? Have you hurt yourself?” she asked, searching the child's body for injury.

He shook his head and wiped his nose with his shirt. “Not me, the lady in the woods,” he cried.

“What lady? What are you talking about?” Elise asked, feeling panic rise in her throat.

When both boys began to chatter at once, Jackson knelt down and took Ethan by the shoulders. “Slow down, big guy, I can't understand you. Take a breath and tell me what happened.”

Ethan took a huge gulp of air before blurting, “We were in the woods down by the river and found a lady. I think she's dead!”

Seventeen

“What's going on out
here?” Ross asked as he came through the sliding glass door out onto the deck.

Caroline followed close behind. When she saw her youngest child in tears, she hurried down the steps to take him from Elise. “Caleb, baby, what's the matter?”

“He's okay,” Elise said. “I think they both just had a good scare.”

“What kind of scare?” Ross asked.

Elise shot a look to Jackson before shaking her head. “That's not been determined exactly. It seems they stumbled onto something down by the river.”

“By the river?” Caroline leaned back and looked down into Caleb's tear-stained face. “You boys know you're not to be anywhere near the river without an adult.”

“
Mom
.” The word was drawn out and full of chagrin as Ethan came to their defense when his brother began to blubber again. “We weren't
at the river
. We were in the woods.”

Jackson stood up and aimed a meaningful look at Ross. “He says they found a woman in the woods and he thinks she's hurt. I'm going to need him to show me where.”

The dread on his friend's face when he nodded told Jackson he understood the gravity of the situation, and that they probably weren't talking about someone who was just
hurt
.

Ross turned to his wife. “Sweetheart, why don't you take Caleb in the house and I'll go with them.”

“I'll bring Ethan back as soon as he shows them the location,” Elise said when her sister-in-law started to protest.

Caroline reluctantly nodded and carried Caleb into the house, while the three of them followed eight-year-old Ethan along the trail that led back into the woods.

When they entered the copse of trees, Ethan stopped short and pointed. They didn't need him to go any farther; in the dim light Jackson could see bits of the woman's clothing through the brambles.

Even from a good fifty feet away, he knew by instinct that they were looking at a dead body.

“Ethan, you come with me now,” Elise said, taking him by the hand. “We'll let your dad and Jax take it from here.” She met Jackson's gaze. “I'll take him back to the house. Call me on my cell if you need anything.”

He nodded and waited for them to cross the tree line before turning back to Ross and the unpleasant task at hand. “Come on, Ross, let's get this over with.”

As they carefully made their way along the thin trail—and then through the shallow undergrowth to the body—Ross gasped when he caught sight of the woman's face. “Sweet Jesus, it's Harmony.”

“Yeah.”

Harmony Gates lay nestled in a small grassy area with her hands folded at her mid-section and her legs crossed at the ankles. Though her shoes were gone, the rest of her clothing was neat and tidy, everything in its place. If not for her eyes­—wide open and staring blindly at the oak canopy above—one would think she might have stretched out in the shade for a short nap.

He'd check for further injury, but with the amount of bruising around her slim neck and the petechial hemorrhaging around her eyes, Jackson was pretty sure strangulation was the cause of death. However, he'd have to wait for the Travis County ME to make it official.

“Okay, I'm going to need you to take three or four giant steps back the way we came. This is a crime scene now and I don't want to disturb it any more than we have to.”

When Ross continued to stare down at the unfortunate woman without answering him or moving away, Jackson put a hand on his friend's shoulder. “Ross? You okay, buddy?”

“We just saw her yesterday, Jax. We talked to her; El took her up to the house after that argument she had with Bud. Remember?”

“I know.”

“I mean, Uncle Edmond made enemies left and right, so having somebody murder him wasn't all that shocking. But Harmony?” Ross looked over at him then with eyes full of disbelief. “How does something like this happen? And so close that my boys could find her. God, Jax, she was harmless. Who would have done this?”

Jackson shook his head. “I don't know. But I'm damn sure gonna find out, I promise you that. Now move on back. I'm going to do a preliminary check of her body and the surrounding area, and then call it in.”

Just under four stressful hours later, Harmony's body was finally carried out of the woods to be transported into town. Ross had hung in there long enough for the crew to arrive before Jackson had sent him back to the house to wait.

After overseeing a search of the immediate area—and finding precious little to go on—Jackson was more than a little frustrated. Though the brush had been broken down from the trail to where Harmony had been left, the ground cover was too thick to get lucky with footprints.

He needed to head into the office to file his report as soon as possible, but while the crew finished up at the scene, he hiked back to Ross's house.

Jackson found Ross and Elise sitting out on the deck. At first glance, they looked like a couple of folks simply enjoying drinks in the late afternoon sun.

Until you looked closer.

Ross still had a shell-shocked look about him, and Jackson knew the scotch he held in his hand probably wasn't his first. Though Elise held a glass of wine and smiled as he approached, he could tell by her body language that she was keyed up and more than a little upset.

He really couldn't blame either of them. Two deaths on the property in as many weeks could be considered tragic. But that they were both homicides? What were the odds? It was pretty disturbing.

And in Jackson's opinion, more than coincidental.

“Did you find anything, Jax?” Ross asked.

“Not much.” He sat down on the end of Elise's lounge, took her glass, and sipped. “I'm fairly sure strangulation will be the cause of death, though we didn't find the murder weapon. Other than the bruising around her neck, she didn't have any other visible injuries that I could see. The ME will tell us for sure.”

“What's happening here, Jax?” Elise asked quietly. She dashed at angry tears that threatened. “What the hell did Harmony Gates do to anyone? It makes me so mad. And I feel so helpless, which only serves to make me more furious.”

“Who would have done this?” Ross asked. “Do you think it was the same person who killed Uncle Edmond?”

“Possibly.”

“But what link could there be?”

“I won't know what connection there may be until I find it. But at this point, I'm not ruling anything out.” Jackson rolled his shoulders, where tension seemed to have taken up residence. “All I know for sure is that I have two murders now within a two-week period, and the only common ground that I can see so far is River Bend.” He held up a hand before Ross could ramp up again. “Look, you're right. Harmony's death may well be random or a case of wrong place, wrong time. But I have to check every avenue, Ross. And I gotta be honest; my gut's telling me this is somehow all connected.”

Ross's perplexed expression didn't change. “But how? I don't think Harmony and Uncle Edmond even knew each other. They certainly didn't travel in the same social circles. Hell, there was thirty years or more in age difference alone.”

Jackson shook his head and stood up. “I don't know. I don't have all the answers—yet. But trust me when I say I'm going to get to the bottom of this.”

He looked down at Elise. “I have to go back into town, file my report. You want a ride home?”

“No, you go ahead. I think I'll stay here tonight. It's been a terrible day, to say the least, and Mom is a mess, though she's trying not to show it. I'll get a ride home from someone tomorrow.”

“Okay. Call if you need me.”

As Jackson drove back to the office, fragmented bits of information churned in his head. He couldn't explain it—and he knew it seemed like a stretch—but a small voice at the back of his mind insisted that Harmony's and Edmond's deaths were somehow connected.

Perhaps they were both part of some bigger picture. He just needed to figure out what that picture looked like. Whatever it was, River Bend was smack-dab in the middle of it. He needed to go back to the beginning, sift through everything he'd already learned.

Later, as he sat down to write his report, he thought a good place to start the process was Edmond's journal. He had a gut feeling that the key to the entire mess was concealed there somewhere. He hadn't had the time to slog through every entry, nor had he deciphered all the initials and codes the man had used.

By the time he put the finishing touches on his report, he realized it was almost ten at night, and his vision was beginning to blur. Revisiting the evidence and Edmond's journal would have to wait until the morning.

Going home and getting a good night's sleep sounded like a good plan. Unfortunately, when Jackson finally got to bed, he tossed and turned, had the strangest dreams, and woke just before the alarm feeling like someone had beaten him with a stick. So he decided to get up and get moving. There was a ton of work to do, and he had the uncomfortable feeling things were spinning out of his control.

That feeling only increased an hour later on the way into the office when he decided to swing by the small house that Harmony Gates had been renting. As he pulled up in front of the house, he noted that her car wasn't in the narrow driveway, but then, he hadn't expected to find it here.

Since she was still wearing the dress she'd worn to the wedding when she was found, she'd been killed before making it home. He'd need to conduct interviews to establish a timeline, and he'd start with the friends she'd been seen with at the reception.

In the meantime, he'd take a look around her place, see what clues he could dig up. Climbing out of the vehicle, he walked up to the small porch.

And his trepidation increased when he saw that the front door was slightly ajar.

“Hello?” he called, giving the door a push. “Anyone here?”

When there was no answer, he stepped inside. The place was trashed. Figuring Harmony probably hadn't trashed her own place before heading to the wedding, he deduced someone else had been here recently. And the
way
it had been tossed told him that whoever did this was either looking for something or trying to cover their tracks
.

Whichever the case, he'd call in the crew to process the house. As much as he itched to look around right away, he backed out instead and closed the door.

Pulling out his cell, he called the office and got Jim Stockton on the line. “Hey, Jim, it's Jackson. I'm out at Harmony Gates's house and it's been tossed.”

“No shit? That's an interesting development,” Jim said.

“Yeah, isn't it just? I'm going to hang some tape before heading in. Send a crew out to process the place, would you?”

“You got it. By the way, her folks were here bright and early. Darrell handled it, but man, they were wrecked.”

“I guess finding out that your daughter has been killed would have that effect on you.”

“Yeah, but get this: she was supposed to go out to their place after the wedding reception on Saturday night. Then she called around seven o'clock that evening to say that something had come up she needed to take care of and that she'd call later.”

“Did they say what?”

“No. Her mom got the impression that she was meeting someone, but she didn't know who. Evidently that was the last they heard from her.”

“Okay. At least it gives us a starting point. I'll talk to Darrell and get the full rundown when I get in.”

Hanging up, Jackson went back to the car for crime scene tape and hung it across the door before heading into the office.

Darrell had already left for the courthouse when he arrived, so he
went to his office to sort out his thoughts and work on a game plan.
He spent an hour sketching out what he knew on paper from the time they'd found Harmony and Bud arguing around four thirty to the last time he'd seen her at the reception just shy of six. He added anything that he thought could possibly be tied to Edmond Beckett.

Jackson had stayed out at the vineyard until almost ten o'clock himself before heading home Saturday night. And he had a vague recollection of Harmony walking toward the parking lot with a group of her friends as the reception was winding down. That had been around six forty-five. The call to her parents had to have happened not long after.

Where did you go after that?
he wondered as he stared at a picture of Harmony's eerily still body.

Just as he was adding the photo to the board, there was a knock at the door. Jackson was not surprised to see Darrell Yancy standing there, but he wasn't prepared for what had brought Darrell to his office in the first place.

“You got a minute, Jackson? I've got something I think you'll want to hear.”

“Yes, I need you to fill me in on your meeting with Harmony's folks.”

“Actually, it's not about that.”

“Shit's kinda hit the proverbial fan with this case, Darrell. Can whatever it is wait until later?”

“I don't think you want to wait on this. It directly affects your case—maybe both of them.”

Jackson studied the man. Where Darrell Yancy could be a total dick most the time, he wouldn't waste time on a murder investigation with something that wasn't pertinent. “Okay. What to you have?”

“It's not what—it's who. A witness has come forward with information you're not going to like much.”