Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Jack took one look at me as we climbed into the Tahoe and frowned. “When’s the last time you ate?”
“I had cookies.”
“Cookies.”
“Emmy Lu left them on the counter. Snickerdoodles.”
“That’s not food, Jaye. That’s sugar and carbs.” He started the engine but didn’t put it in gear. “What else?”
I thought about it. “Water?”
“For the love of—” He shook his head and pulled out of the parking lot, but instead of heading toward the address Cole had texted him for Andre’s mother, he turned left onto Main Street.
“Where are we going?”
“To get you actual food. You’re growing a human being. You can’t do that on snickerdoodles.”
“The baby likes snickerdoodles.”
“The baby doesn’t get a vote yet.”
Ten minutes later, we were parked in the lot of Taco Loco, a little hole-in-the-wall place on the edge of Bloody Mary that had been serving the best tacos in King George County for as long as I could remember.
Jack ordered through the window—carnitas tacos for both of us, rice and beans on the side—and we ate right there in the parking lot with the AC blasting and the windows up.
“Better?” he asked after I’d demolished my first taco.
“Much.” I wiped my mouth with a napkin. “Thank you.”
“Someone’s got to take care of you when you forget to take care of yourself.”
“I didn’t forget. I was busy.” I watched him work through his own tacos. “When’s the last time you ate?”
“Breakfast.”
“And you’re lecturing me?”
“I was stuck in the council meeting from hell all afternoon,” he said. “I would have gladly escaped if I could have to eat.”
“Uh-huh,” I said.
“Are you going to tell me what you found?”
I started on my second taco. “Cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Small caliber, .22, close range. I recovered the round. It’s on its way to Richmond for ballistics.”
Jack nodded, his jaw tightening.
“He was tortured for two to three days before they killed him. The bruises and burns were in different stages of healing.” I took another bite, chewed, swallowed. “I also found Klonopin in his system. It’s an anti-seizure medication.”
“Seizures?”
“With the amount of old head trauma I found—I’m talking years of it—It’s not surprising.
Repeated blows to the head cause cumulative brain damage.
Seizures are one of the consequences.” I wiped my fingers on a napkin.
“But here’s the thing. The levels were therapeutic.
Normal. He was taking his medication exactly the way he was supposed to. ”
“So nobody slipped him anything.”
“No. Whoever grabbed him did it the hard way.” I crumpled my taco wrapper. “Which makes me wonder what else we don’t know about this kid’s life.”
“His mother’s name is Loretta Washington. She lives over on Maple Court, in the Riverside apartments. Cole ran the background while you were doing the autopsy. She’s a nurse’s aide at the hospital, been there twenty years. Andre was her only child.”
Her only child. And now we were about to knock on her door and tell her he was dead.
But even as the dread of the notification settled over me, something else nagged at the back of my mind. Construction workers didn’t get executed. They didn’t get held for days and tortured. Whatever had put him on that killer’s radar, it wasn’t framing houses and pouring concrete.
* * *
The Riverside apartments were a cluster of two-story brick buildings on the east side of King George Proper.
It was a place where working people lived paycheck to paycheck and kept their heads down.
Close to the naval base, close to the hospital where Loretta worked her shifts.
The parking lot was half full at this hour, sedans and pickup trucks baking in the late afternoon sun.
A group of kids kicked a soccer ball around on a patch of brown grass, their laughter carrying on the humid air.
Jack parked near building C and killed the engine. Neither of us moved for a moment.
“I hate this part,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“It never gets easier.”
“It’s not supposed to.” I reached over and took his hand. “That’s how you know you’re still human.”
He squeezed my fingers, then let go and opened his door. “Let’s get it done.”
Loretta Washington lived in apartment 2B, up a flight of concrete stairs with a wrought-iron railing that had seen better days. The door was painted a cheerful blue, and a welcome mat with sunflowers sat on the landing. A wind chime made of sea glass tinkled softly in the breeze.
Jack knocked. We waited.
The woman who opened the door was in her early fifties, with gray threading through dark hair she wore pulled back in a neat bun. She was still in her scrubs—pale blue, decorated with cartoon cats—and her eyes were tired but kind. The kind of tired that came from long shifts and longer worries.
Those eyes went from Jack’s badge to my lanyard and back again, and something in her face shifted. She knew. Before we said a word, she knew.
“No,” she said softly. “No, please.”
“Mrs. Washington?” Jack’s voice was gentle. “I’m Sheriff Jack Lawson. This is Dr. J.J. Graves, the county coroner. May we come in?”
Her hand flew to her mouth. She stumbled back from the door, and Jack caught her elbow, steadying her.
“Andre,” she whispered. “Something happened to my baby.”
“Let’s sit down, ma’am.”
The apartment was small but immaculate. A floral couch with hand-crocheted throw pillows.
A bookshelf filled with photos—Andre in his Marine dress blues, Andre as a gap-toothed kid in a Little League uniform, Andre and his mother at what looked like his high school graduation.
Everywhere I looked, there was evidence of a mother’s love, a mother’s pride.
Loretta sank onto the couch like her legs had given out. I sat beside her while Jack took the armchair across from us.
“Mrs. Washington,” Jack said, “I’m very sorry to have to tell you this. Your son Andre was found deceased early this morning.”
The sound she made wasn’t a scream. It was worse—a low, keening moan that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside her, a place where words couldn’t reach. I put my hand on her arm and let her cry, let the first wave of grief wash over her without trying to stem it.
Some things you couldn’t fix. You could only witness.
When the sobs finally quieted to shuddering breaths, I reached over to the box of tissues on the end table and pressed a few into her hand. She took them with trembling fingers, dabbing at her eyes, her cheeks, the tears that kept coming no matter how many she wiped away.
Jack gave her a moment. He was good at that—knowing when to push and when to wait. It was one of the things that made him good at this job, even the parts of it he hated.
“Mrs. Washington,” he said gently, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, “I know this is going to be difficult, but we need your help. We need to find the person who killed Andre.”
She looked up at him, her eyes red rimmed and devastated. “Who did this? Someone—someone killed my boy?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re investigating this as a homicide.”
The word hit her like a physical blow. She folded in on herself, arms wrapping around her middle as if she could hold herself together through sheer force of will.
Fresh tears slid down her cheeks, but she didn’t make a sound.
This grief was quieter, deeper—the kind that settled into your bones and never fully left.
“I knew,” she whispered. “I knew something was wrong. He didn’t call me back.
Andre always calls me back, even if it takes him a day or two.
But it’s been almost a week, and I kept telling myself he was busy, working overtime, maybe he met a girl and lost track of time.
” She pressed the tissues to her mouth. “But I knew. A mother knows. I felt it in here.” She touched her chest, right over her heart.
“When did you last speak to him?” I asked, keeping my voice soft.
“Thursday night.” A smile crossed her face.
“He called to check on me, like he always does. Every Thursday, sometimes Sunday too. We talked for maybe twenty minutes about nothing much—what I was cooking for dinner, how his week went, whether I’d watched that show he told me about.
” Her voice cracked. “He sounded good. Happy. Said he had something to celebrate, but he wouldn’t tell me what.
Said it was a surprise. I told him I was too old for surprises, and he just laughed. ”
“Did he mention any plans for the weekend?” Jack asked. “Anywhere he was going, anyone he was meeting?”
Loretta shook her head slowly, her gaze drifting to the photos on the bookshelf. Her boy in his dress blues. Her boy as a gap-toothed kid. Her boy, frozen in time, never getting any older.
“He didn’t say. Andre was private like that. Even when he was little, he kept things close to his chest. Didn’t like to worry me.” She let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “He thought I didn’t notice. But I always noticed. I just learned to let him tell me things in his own time.”
“What about his work?” Jack shifted slightly, his voice still gentle but probing. “Did he ever mention any problems at King Construction? Conflicts with co-workers?”
“No, nothing like that. He liked that job. Said the crew was good, treated him with respect.” Her hands were still twisting in her lap, the tissues shredded between her fingers.
“He was saving up, you know. Wanted to buy a house someday, maybe start his own business. Something with his hands—he was always good with his hands.” Her voice wavered, stretched thin.
“He was so smart, my Andre. Could have been anything he wanted.”
I let the silence hold for a moment before asking, “Did he have a girlfriend? Anyone he was seeing?”