Chapter Thirty-Two
CJ waited in a small conference room. Braddock had instructed her to wait here while he and his partner reviewed the autopsy findings. Apparently the ME had only just faxed the report to him and he wanted to be prepared before discussing the findings with CJ.
Exhaustion clawed at her. Sleep had been impossible last night.
Edward had been the perfect host, as always.
Usually his home was a relaxing retreat.
He catered to her every need. But she’d awakened repeatedly after horrific dreams. Expecting a decent night’s sleep under the current circumstances, she supposed, was a little foolish, anyway.
Evidence technicians had scoured for prints yet again or other elements that might lead to the identity of the intruder who had come into her house and doused her bed in blood, but they’d found nothing useful other than the fact that the blood was indeed human.
The blood had been analyzed and wasn’t Ricky’s type, but unless they had a comparison specimen, it was of no use to this investigation or any other.
CJ already knew who’d come into her room and she was very nearly certain who the blood belonged to.
Like the first message written on her wall, Tyrone Nash was unquestionably the one who left her that second message. Maybe not Tyrone himself, but one of his minions. The blood on her sheets—she squeezed her eyes shut—likely belonged to Celeste.
While the evidence techs had worked in her bedroom, she and Braddock had changed the locks on the doors.
If Edward had his way, she wouldn’t be staying the night there again, but the house needed to be secured as well as possible.
Truth was, in the village, nothing was secure unless it was nailed down, and sometimes not even then.
When this was done, she intended to take the first step in moving forward with her plan.
No matter that Braddock had raised almighty hell last night before she’d left his condo and had beaten that same dead horse over and over today.
He hadn’t let her out of his sight all day. Still, she would not be deterred.
She would get this done one way or another. With or without Braddock’s help. And certainly discussing her plan with Edward had been out of the question. He would probably have had her locked away for her own protection.
And maybe that was what she needed.
No. What she needed was to find Shelley’s killer.
Tyrone had contacts everywhere. He knew every damned body in this town.
If he wasn’t the one who killed Shelley, he would make it his business to know who had, since, as Braddock said, he considered her his property.
He would want to set an example for anyone else who might decide to come into his territory and mess with his people.
CJ wanted to be there when that happened.
If along the way she learned enough to put Tyrone away, too, that was all the better. Far too many women had suffered at his hand. It was time someone made it stop.
Braddock could cooperate with her or she would go it on her own.
Shelley had done it.
CJ could too.
Maybe they had been more alike than CJ had realized.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, Dr. Patterson.” Detective Cooper breezed into the room, Braddock close behind her. “Would you like something to drink?”
CJ shook her head. “I’m fine. Thank you.”
The two detectives settled into chairs on the opposite side of the table from CJ. Both wore those impassive official faces that gave away nothing of their thoughts.
Braddock opened the file in his hand. “I have the final autopsy report.” He scanned the first page.
“Cause of death was asphyxiation. But”—his gaze locked with CJ’s—“the injuries sustained were not consistent with a hanging scenario. This was a far more intimate act. The killer most likely used, according to the bruising on her throat, his gloved hands. She was already dead when he suspended her body in the woods.”
CJ was thankful for that. A hundred times she’d imagined Shelley fighting her attacker, clawing at the rope to get free those final moments before . . . CJ shuddered and pushed the thoughts and images away.
“No additional trace evidence was discovered. Her skin and fingernails had been thoroughly cleaned. The killer took no chances. Finally, the ME concluded that the staging was completed postmortem.”
CJ thanked God her sister hadn’t suffered those atrocities as well.
The bastard had wanted to humiliate her in death.
All of it pointed to her drug use and her sexual promiscuity.
Had he known about the pregnancy too? CJ rubbed her eyes with her thumb and forefinger.
Keep it together. “How far along was the pregnancy?”
Braddock and his partner shared a look.
Didn’t they know she could see them? They were sitting right in front of her.
“Shelley was not pregnant at the time of her murder.” Braddock made the statement as if he were making it for the record.
“But her lab results at the clinic . . .” CJ tried to reconcile this new information. Shelley had just gotten the word shortly before she was murdered. Lab results were often a false negative, but false positives rarely occurred.
“The ME,” Cooper spoke up, “suggested that it was possible she had been pregnant and the pregnancy was spontaneously—”
CJ held up a hand. “Yes, I know how that works. But this would have been recent. Unless she’d had a full menstrual cycle, there would have been evidence that she had recently lost a pregnancy.
” Shelley hadn’t had a period, otherwise she wouldn’t have called CJ the night before she died and left that elated message.
If she’d gotten her period, she would have been depressed.
Or maybe the opposite was true. Maybe she’d had the pregnancy scare, gotten her period, and been thrilled not to have to face that burden.
CJ didn’t know. She was guessing. But if the ME didn’t find any indications a pregnancy had existed since the last menstrual cycle, then it didn’t exist. Shelley had obviously gotten her period since taking the pregnancy test at the clinic.
There had been no reason for her to call Juanita and tell her.
But why keep the evidence she had been pregnant hidden? Had she forgotten? This didn’t make sense.
“Where does this leave us?” CJ’s voice was thin. She was tired. Most of this news she had known was coming. Still, it drained her emotionally, frazzling already raw nerves.
“Since there was no pregnancy issue,” Braddock offered, “her murder likely wasn’t related to an angry lover who didn’t want the child.”
CJ agreed.
“Banks is dead,” Cooper put in. “We can assume that rules him out as a suspect, or we can presume that he was the killer and Nash took him out as payback. He doesn’t like any of his people making decisions or taking action without his approval.”
CJ didn’t like where this was headed. “If Tyrone settled the score by killing Ricky,” she suggested, the idea making her feel ill, “then that’s the end of it. The only way we can hope to know for sure is to watch him and see what he does next.”
“With no evidence or other leads,” Cooper continued as if CJ hadn’t spoken, “the end game comes down to Nash. Preliminary tox screen results showed Banks had not been drugged, but his alcohol levels were off the charts. He appeared to have been repeatedly disabled with the Taser. That’s why his body showed no signs of resistance to his attack.
” Cooper leaned back in her chair and pursed her lips a moment.
“The whole excessive force thing is definitely Nash’s MO.
He enjoys the struggle. Wants the victim to experience every moment of the pain.
Yet the scene had that complicated feel the same way Shelley’s did, and something about that doesn’t feel right. ”
“The investigation still boils down to Nash,” Braddock concluded.
“Which brings us to the plan you proposed to my partner,” Cooper said. She turned to Braddock. “For the record, I think this is the stupidest idea yet.”
“I said the same thing.” Braddock looked to CJ. “About how many times?”
“Several. Nothing you say is going to change my mind. I’m doing this with or without the two of you.”
Cooper pushed back her chair and got up. She started pacing the small room. “Do you have any idea how dangerous this plan you’re suggesting is? Nash will kill you without so much as a blink if he figures out you’re up to something. And he’s going to be suspicious.”
Braddock had been over all this with her last night. “Yes. I understand the risk.”
Cooper wheeled on her, braced her hands on the table, and glared at CJ. “Are you stupid? Or does mental instability run in the family? Getting yourself killed isn’t going to bring your sister back.”
CJ stood, the legs of her chair scraping across the tile floor. “I could say the same thing to you, Detective. You put your life on the line every day for people who aren’t related to you by blood or even friends. Does that make you any different from me?”
Cooper held her gaze a moment, then shook her head. “The chief won’t allow this.”
“The chief won’t know,” Braddock clarified.
“Maybe you don’t mind losing your shield,” Cooper argued, “but I got a major problem with that.” She let out a big sigh. “The chief’s already got his eye on this investigation. What if she gets herself killed?” Cooper leveled a look at Braddock. “Can you live with that?”
CJ didn’t wait for Braddock’s answer. She’d heard enough. “Like I said, I’m doing this with or without your cooperation.” She walked out. She didn’t care if Jenkins or even Braddock himself followed her.
There were things she had to do. Talk to Juanita about those lab results. And make a plan for taking the first step toward getting more from Tyrone.
She had to be on her toes to do that. Tyrone had been doing this for years. He wouldn’t be easy to fool. CJ had to come up with a strategy clever enough to beat him. And she had to do it as quickly as possible.
The sooner he was behind bars, the sooner she could lay her sister to rest in peace.