Chapter Eight #2
Jude felt some of Emmy’s earlier silences take on a deeper meaning. She skimmed the photographs on the floor. She easily recognized the Dew Drop Inn, which hadn’t changed since she’d sneaked into vacant rooms to get drunk and high with the wrong kind of man back in high school.
She assumed Emmy’s team would run down the identities of the couples who’d been caught entering various rooms. There were dozens of photographs of cars that captured license plates.
A few showed men handing over cash at the front desk to pay for rooms. Another showed a different man standing by one of the distinctive, old-fashioned lamp-posts that lined the streets of downtown North Falls.
His haircut was high and tight. He was dressed in a nondescript dark suit, red tie, dark sunglasses, and black leather derby dress shoes.
Sherry said, “Looks like an insurance salesman.”
“Any news on Mandy?”
“Nothing yet, but Jesus, she’s gonna be devastated if she makes it. Allison was a terrific mom. Showed up whenever Mandy needed her. She could’ve done a hell of a lot more with her career, but she prioritized her kid.”
“Allison’s husband never hurt Mandy?”
“God, no. We woulda been here years ago, only Bill woulda been the one lying dead on the floor.”
“You think Bill is the killer?”
Sherry shrugged as if to ask who else would it be?
Jude wasn’t so sure. She had walked through enough domestic violence crime scenes to know that they tended to look a hell of a lot messier than this. “What about Reggie? He seemed very emotional about Allison.”
“Reggie’s emotional about everything,” Sherry said. “He and Allison were sleeping together a while back.”
“Did Bill find out?”
“No idea. To be honest, I wasn’t talking to her much lately. She was off the job, and all I do is work. I barely have time for my dog. Hard to make plans when you’ve gotta drop everything the second the phone rings.”
Jude knew there was more to the story. Being a friend to an abused woman was a lesson in heartache. Stepping back could oftentimes be a form of self-preservation. “Tell me about Clayville PD.”
“The state’s hands off with the department.”
“Because they’re squeaky clean or because you’ve been told to not look too closely at anything?”
“Never got an official memo, but it’s one of those unwritten rules.” Sherry shrugged again. “The Wilders are pretty connected. Reggie’s got an uncle who’s a US senator.”
“Victor Wilder. We went to high school together. He used to hide in the girls’ locker room so he could watch us change. Destined to become a politician.”
Sherry snorted a laugh behind her mask.
“Did Allison have another office somewhere?”
“It’s possible, but why pay rent when she’s working out of here for free?”
“Good point.”
Jude wasn’t going to mention the dimple key she’d spotted in the foyer. The precision keys were designed for high-security locks that were usually found on commercial and exterior doors.
Sherry asked, “You want to start upstairs?”
“Sounds good.”
Jude followed Sherry up the stairs. In the hallway, yellow markers indicated where her own blood sprayed the floor.
Jude pretended to study the pattern to buy herself some time to process what had happened.
Her head still ached from a mild concussion.
She didn’t let herself think about how close the bullet had come.
She focused on what was in front of her so she could keep moving forward.
She said, “Walk me through it.”
Sherry said, “The slug that grazed your head was lodged in Mandy’s bedroom wall. No casing found yet.”
Jude could see the marked hole in the wall near Mandy’s headboard.
She turned toward Allison’s bedroom. A white-suited tech was sweeping the debris with a metal detector.
He would’ve started at the doorway and worked back as he searched for the fourth and fifth empty shell casings.
She found it odd that he hadn’t located them yet.
Sherry said, “I’ve got a truck coming down from headquarters to collect all the Sheetrock. We’re going to need a few weeks to put all of it back together.”
Jude followed her into Allison’s room. They both stepped carefully around the debris.
Jude blinked, and she saw Emmy kneeling on the floor across from her.
Heard the sorrowful wails that had come out of her mouth.
Emmy probably hadn’t even realized she was making them.
Jude had spent the last six weeks watching the world try to break Emmy in two.
Jude’s own feelings of helplessness brought a kind of pain that was hard to describe.
She turned toward the closet so she could collect herself.
The dust was as good an explanation as any for the tears in her eyes.
She looked at the shoe cubbies that Emmy had shown so much interest in.
The wear marks told a longer story than what had happened today.
She turned and looked at the windows facing the backyard.
The broken glass in one. The bloody, smeared handprints on the other.
Sherry asked, “Any thoughts?”
Jude had a lot, but she wasn’t ready to share all of them. She went to the windows. The bloody prints indicated someone had tried to open the window on the right, then broken the glass out of the left side to make their escape.
Or maybe not.
She said, “The glove on the porch roof. Do you think it was tossed from the window?”
“You mean instead of dropped by the killer when he fled?” Sherry leaned toward the double windows that overlooked the porch. “He could’ve staged it. Threw the glove, then ran down the front stairs while Emmy was running up the back.”
“Maybe.” Jude looked around the room again. Her gut told her that all the pieces of the puzzle were here. She was just failing to see how they connected. Her father would have said it was her DFR. Everything was screaming don’t feel right.
As if on cue, the metal detector started to beep rapidly. The tech leaned down to look under the bed. “Holy shit, that’s a Glock 19.”
Sherry asked, “You think it’s the murder weapon?”
“Maybe.” He leaned in for a closer look. “I think I can see the serial number.”
While they recorded the details, Jude looked up at the ceiling. Mandy had fallen between the joists. Or maybe she’d lain there as she’d bled out and gravity had done the rest.
There was no reliable calculation for determining the rate of blood loss from a gunshot wound to the head, but by Jude’s rough estimation, Mandy had lost nearly thirty percent of her total blood volume before the ceiling had soaked through and collapsed under the girl’s weight.
Jude turned to Sherry. “Do you mind if I take a look at Allison’s car on my way out?”
“Sure, but—” Sherry indicated the room. “Any impressions you can share?”
“I agree with your assessment,” Jude said, though Sherry hadn’t given one. “The shooting appears to be premeditated. He wore at least one glove. He didn’t hesitate to neutralize a witness.”
Sherry asked, “You think it was a professional hit?”
“I’m not sure what I think,” Jude said, which was the truth. “Statistics tell us that an abused woman is five to six times more likely to be murdered if there’s a gun in the house.”
Sherry gave a quick nod. “She was definitely abused.”
Jude said, “I’ll let you both get back to work. Thanks for the indulgence.”
She found herself thinking about Sherry’s last question as she walked down the curving stairs.
Professional hits didn’t generally happen in North Falls, and professional killers didn’t usually miss the first two times.
Jude needed to know more about Allison’s life.
Who did she work for? Who did she piss off?
Was there a money motive? A life insurance policy?
Jude stopped at the bottom of the stairs.
Despite being in the middle of a violent crime scene, she took a moment to silently laugh at herself.
As Emmy had pointed out, this wasn’t her case.
She wasn’t wanted here. In fact, Emmy would likely be furious when she found out that Jude had gotten a tour.
Still, old habits die hard. Jude fished under her Tyvek suit to find her phone in her skirt pocket. She took several photographs of Allison’s makeshift dining-room office before leaving the house.
Outside, Jude quickly shifted out of the protective suit. Sweat coated her body, though they were heading into autumn. She hadn’t even noticed how stuffy it was inside the house. She went to the back of the crime scene van. Disposed of the suit in the contamination bag.
“Aunt Jude.” Cole jogged over with his usual eagerness. “I sent through the search warrant requests for Allison and Mandy’s digital devices.”
“Is Uncle Cleetus still a circuit judge?”
“I’ll ask him to put a rush on it.” He started texting on his phone. “I got the names of some of Mandy’s friends on socials.”
Jude found a fresh pair of gloves. “Get their addresses so your mom can interview them later.”
He followed Jude to Allison’s Toyota. “What’d you see in there?”
“Too many arrows pointing in too many different directions.” She thought of something. “Mandy had her phone on her when she was in the attic. Check the 911 logs. See if she called for help.”
Allison’s blue Toyota RAV4 was parked nose-out facing the street, which was how most police officers parked their cars. Jude opened the driver’s side door. As with the house, the vehicle looked spotless.
Still, Jude ran her fingers inside the door pockets.
Checked the plastic indentations in the armrests.
She opened the center console. Found a pack of gum and a black case with a pair of sunglasses.
She studied the console’s plastic liner.
Someone had wiped it clean, but there was a fine yellow dust caked into the crevices.
You’d need a toothpick or some kind of scraper to get it out.
Cole was returning his phone to his pocket when Jude shut the car door. He said, “The only calls to 911 were after the shooting. Nothing from Mandy or Allison.”
“Dr. Archer?” Sherry was coming down the porch stairs.
Jude told Cole, “Check across the street. Make sure Darla Bell didn’t see any other cars parked in the driveway in the last few weeks.”
He saluted before jogging off.
Sherry didn’t speak until she was close enough to Jude for privacy. “The Glock belongs to Allison.”
Jude wasn’t surprised. The Crown Royal bag had been a dead giveaway. “Did you find any cash in the house?”
Sherry gave her a cautious look. “That’s why I came out to find you. We found a blue plastic container with a ton of cash in the attic.”
“FinCEN probably has a paper trail on the withdrawals, but you might be low on their list of investigations. Be sure to tell Emmy as soon as she’s back.”
“You’re not sticking around?”
“The sheriff has this under control.”
“It’s just—” Sherry dithered. “Emmy’s had a hard time of it lately. The way she went after Reggie—”
“You’re right. She should’ve arrested him. But the Clayville Police Department is hands off, right?”
Sherry got the message. “Right.”
Cole was jogging down Darla Bell’s driveway by the time Jude made it into the street. “Coach Bell said she told Mom that Ginny Saddler’s son drove by right before the shooting, but nobody else.”
“Do you know where Ginny lives?”
“Two streets over.”
“We’ll swing by on the way home. We both need to change, and you need to find Ginny’s son. He’s likely our only witness.”
“Are you going to Taybee’s farm?”
“No, I’m meeting an old friend.”