Chapter Six #2
“There are things we don’t fully understand yet,” he confessed. “It’s complicated. In the best interest of the investigation, we’re not prepared to release certain details at this time.”
“Are you refusing to tell me anything at all?” Could he do that? More of that anxiety and outrage coiled inside her. She needed to know, to understand how this had happened.
“I’ll give you what I can.” Reluctance and frustration presented itself in his posture, on his face.
“She was found in the woods on the west side of the intersection of Triana and Johnson. A couple of kids stumbled upon the scene just before dark on Saturday evening. A nylon rope had been used to hang her . . . by the neck. There was drug paraphernalia. But as Dr. Dobbins said, none in her blood.”
The image of Shelley hanging from a tree in those woods invaded CJ’s mind.
Well before becoming a doctor, CJ had been intimately familiar with murder.
She’d grown up in a neighborhood where the occasional murder and the frequent robberies and assaults were more often than not a part of the norm.
Her own father had been murdered. But this wasn’t the guy down the street .
. . or the bastard of a father who’d slapped their mother around and terrorized his own children.
This was Shelley. Her baby sister.
CJ didn’t wait for Dobbins. She reached down, carefully opened the bag. Her heart sank.
She stared at her sister’s ashen skin. Long honey-blond hair lay behind her head like a silk sheet.
Her blue eyes, the same deep, deep blue both she and CJ had inherited from their mother, were closed in death.
Her slender throat was bruised and bore angry ligature marks.
There was an abrasion on her left cheek.
Bruising on her upper arms as if someone had grabbed her and maybe shaken her.
CJ’s chest tightened in agony. She should have been here . . . shouldn’t have let this happen.
She lifted her gaze to the ME’s. “Did you find anything else?”
“Minor scrapes and tiny tissue tears along her shins and thighs, possibly indicating that she may have been running through the underbrush in the wooded area where her body was discovered.”
Running. Fury bolted through CJ. “Have you even questioned Banks yet?” She glared at Braddock, wanted him to see the accusation in her eyes. He’d said Banks was on his suspect list, but that told her nothing. “You have to know he did this.”
“We’re still working on tracking him down.”
Was he kidding? That he remained totally calm and utterly rational made her want to scream. He wouldn’t be so damned unfazed if the victim had been a resident of the Twickenham District or one of the other wealthy neighborhoods around town.
“Until we’ve confirmed cause of death, reviewed any evidence—”
“Banks has always been a bully.” Who did Braddock think he was talking to?
CJ had known Banks since he was a snot-nosed kid.
“I can’t even tell you the number of times he’s roughed her up.
Long before you showed interest in her life,” she added pointedly.
“I can see him chasing her down like an animal and then humiliating her by leaving the drug paraphernalia.” Sick bastard.
“CJ”—Braddock used that tone, the one a parent used when gently scolding a child—“there are certain ordered steps in any investigation. Rest assured—”
“That bastard killed her.” CJ peeled off the gloves. “His arrest is the only step I care about.” With a final, aching look at Shelley, CJ silently promised to make sure Banks paid.
She was finished here. “Thank you, Dr. Dobbins.”
CJ headed for the exit, tossing her gloves in the receptacle near the door. She would find Banks and she would make him tell the truth. He’d lived in the mill village his whole life. Finding him shouldn’t be that difficult.
“CJ,” Braddock called after her.
She didn’t turn around or slow her departure.
She had nothing else to say to him. Unfortunately, she understood all too well how this investigation would go—the same way it had gone when her father was shot dead on the sidewalk in front of their house.
The same way it went when her mother died of what was labeled an accidental overdose.
No one would really investigate the case.
Just another dead lowlife from the village. Good riddance.
Braddock caught up with her in the corridor and fell into step beside her. “I will find and arrest the person responsible for this. But to do that, I need the autopsy results and evidence. Right now, we don’t have either.”
CJ stopped and turned to glare at him. “There’s no evidence? What about fingerprints? Hairs? Fibers? You haven’t found anything?”
The resignation on his face gave her the answer even before he spoke. “Unless the body gives us something, we have nothing. No prints, no trace evidence from the scene at all. We’re in the process of a third sweep. We could get lucky. But I’ve never relied on luck to close a case.”
This was insane! “Wait.” CJ should have thought to ask this already. “How long had she . . . been there before she was found?”
“It’s been hot as hell. That escalates things. And, like I said, it rained before her body was discovered.”
CJ held up both hands for him to stop overexplaining. “Just give me the preliminary estimate.”
“Ten to twelve hours, possibly longer.”
CJ had gotten the call from Shelley around two Saturday morning. That meant her sister had been murdered later that same morning—well before noon, if the preliminary estimate of time of death was accurate.
She should have taken that call. Should have called Shelley back.
Those mental walls she had used to keep her emotions in check shrank around her now, making it impossible to breathe.
CJ couldn’t talk about this anymore. Braddock was saying something to her, but she couldn’t listen.
Not right now.
Right now, full-on reality was throttling through her.
Her sister was dead.
The bastard responsible was out there . . . getting away with it.