Back out on the porch, Julia sat down again and spread the pictures of the dimes out in front of her. She studied them one at a time. By the time she was finished examining each one, she was pretty sure she knew what the killer had meant. The coins all had different dates, but every one had been minted before 1964. If she recalled correctly, that was when the government stopped using pure silver in dimes. That meant thirty pieces of silver, and in Biblical terms that meant betrayal. The perp was exacting revenge for some kind of betrayal. The tongue-slashing could be revenge for something the judge had said to or about the killer. She checked the 1964 date on the Internet and confirmed that she remembered right about the silver in the minting.
Excited, she picked up the phone and punched in Will’s number. He picked up at once.
“Yeah, Julia? What?”
“I think I just figured out the meaning of the coins.”
“Hit me with it.”
Julia told him, almost positive now that she was right.
Silence for a few beats, and then Will said, “That makes perfect sense. Good work, Cass. Now all we’ve got to figure out is who and why.”
No calling her Jules anymore. No joking. Special Agent Serious as Sin. “So what about the Battle Street gang? You find out anything?”
“Yeah. I talked to a couple of our guys who work undercover for us, and they verified that the gang will kill Maria if they get to her. They’re going to try to find out more on her background. Ask around with some of the gang members.”
“That’s good. Hopefully she’ll show up for us before they get her.”
“God, I hope so. She’s got a little kid.”
Julia had enough experience with gangbangers to know they wouldn’t hesitate to kill a mother and her child. She thought of Maria’s darling little boy with his big, innocent dark eyes. Her heart clenched, and she hoped Maria had found a good place to hide.
“Keep working on the scales. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, bright and early.”
“Right.”
About an hour after she’d ended that conversation, she heard the low buzz of a boat’s motor. She walked outside and down the steps to the dock. Charlie Sinclair was approaching her dock in his old black-and-gold bass boat. He was alone, and he saluted her. She watched him expertly maneuver the craft up alongside the well-maintained dock. He looked good to her. His gray hair was cropped very short, his mustache and goatee neatly trimmed. In the Marines he’d been a veterinarian for service dogs, and still used that training in his veterinarian practice and dog-boarding business. He was just over five foot ten, muscular, agile, and strong; and a dog whisperer, if ever there was one.
“Welcome to my new home,” Julia said, taking the yellow ski rope he threw her and looping it around the piling.
“You’re a sight for sore eyes, girl,” Charlie said, looking up at her. “Lonnie called and said you might want me to take Jasper back to my place for a checkup and shots.”
“Yeah, I’d appreciate it.” Julia eyed his rope and remembered the last time she’d seen a yellow ski rope. “Where’d you get this rope, Charlie?”
“The ski rope?” He paused, thinking about it. “I think I bought it on sale at Home Depot. Why?”
“I was just wondering.”
“Don’t tell me you’re taking up skiing on the Tennessee River?”
“Nope, not yet.” She smiled. “C’mon up and have a soda. I have beer, too, if you’d prefer it.”
“Don’t mind if I do. I’ll take the beer. Bud Light, if you’ve got it.”
“I do have it. Lonnie’s got Jasper and his dogs out for a run. They’ll be back any time now. That’ll give us a little time to talk.”
Up on the porch, they sat across from each other at the glass-topped wicker table. Charlie cracked open his Budweiser and took a deep slug. He wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his tan, long-sleeved shirt. “It’s good you’re here, Julia. Just like old times, ain’t it, with all of us livin’ out here within hailin’ distance?”
She smiled. “Not quite hailing distance, but close enough. You know what, Charlie? For some reason, I feel like I’ve come home, even though I’ve never lived in Chattanooga before. It’s just, well, comfortable and peaceful, and like I’m right where I ought to be. Cathy’s the best friend I ever had, and I’ve missed her more than I thought.”
“And I am?”
“Well, you’re a good friend, too. And you know it. You’re more like my K-9 mentor, my dog guru.”
“Kinda like Yoda?”
“Sure, especially in the looks department.”
They laughed together. Charlie’s grin faded, and his face grew somber all of a sudden. He scratched his graying goatee and placed a troubled gaze on Julia’s face. “Any word on who killed the judge?”
“We’re working on it.”
“He wasn’t exactly the Mother Teresa of the Hamilton County criminal court system, but if the rumors are true, he died pretty hard.”
“I can’t really discuss it, Charlie. You know that.”
“Right. I’m not pressing you. It’s all anybody’s talking about downtown. They’re goin’ crazy trying to reschedule his docket. Jane’s distraught, but everybody knows she was in love with the judge. It wasn’t hard to see.”
“And he loved her, too?”
“If he did, he sure didn’t show it at work. He treated her as disrespectfully as he did everybody else.”
“How’d he treat you?”
“About the same as he did other people. Just a lot of condescension and hatefulness. If you made a mistake or said something wrong, you know, incorrect English and whatnot, he’d put you down for it, in front of everybody if he could manage it.”
“I’m sorry, Charlie. You don’t deserve that.”
“That’s why I’ve worked with dogs all these years. They love you unconditionally and never talk back.”
“Why’d you sign up as a bailiff?”
“It came open when I was wantin’ something to do. I thought it sounded interesting and like something I could do and still keep my vet work part-time while I trained my dogs. I’ve been really lonely since Sonia died. I don’t mind admittin’ that. She was the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“Yeah, she was special, to be sure. Is it still lonely, even with all the dogs around?”
“Not so much anymore. Lonnie’s gotten to be a good friend since he married Cathy and I got to know him some. We fish when Cathy’s got something goin’ on. I’m pretty much just layin’ back enjoyin’ life right now. Just takin’ things slow and easy as they come along.”
“Speaking of dogs, I think I hear them coming.”
Moments later Lonnie showed up, all three dogs running out in front of him. Julia caught Jasper and snapped on his leash and got the directions up to Charlie’s place, then stood watching the two men herd all three dogs into the boat and take off. Lonnie’s dock wasn’t far upstream, and Charlie would drop him off, then head home. She watched them until they were out of sight; she already missed Jasper. She could pick him up at Charlie’s in the next couple of days, though, and she did need to do more research on those damn scales. Maybe she could even get into some of the judge’s old cases and find out if any of them were particularly controversial. If it was revenge that motivated this kind of mutilation murder, she suspected more than one convicted felon would hold a grudge against a judge like Lucien Lockhart.
Chapter 9
Julia opened the front door of the Cracker Barrel at Lookout Valley and scanned the gift shop looking for Will. He had called and asked her to meet him there. Why, she did not know. She finally saw him where he was standing and reading a newspaper near the hostess station at the back of the shop. When Will looked up and saw her, he waved her over, and she wound her way through about twenty customers browsing around the island shelves or checking out the nifty gift items at the cashier’s station.
“Thanks for meeting me here,” he said, placing the folded newspaper under his arm. “I thought we could discuss the case over lunch and fill each other in on what we’ve been doing.”
“Sounds good to me.”
Will asked for a table for two, and they followed the waitress into the noisy dining room with its wood tables and chairs and giant colonial fireplace. Julia liked the food at Cracker Barrel; good, old-fashioned, Southern home cooking, especially the chicken and dumplings. Yum. Her stomach took notice of the delicious aromas wafting out of the kitchen.
“You ever eaten here before?” Will asked her.
“Who hasn’t?” she answered, sliding into the wooden booth near the front windows while Will took the side facing the door.
The waitress took their drink orders; both ordered sweet tea with lemon. Will placed his menu aside. “I always order chicken and dumplings,” he said. “They’re not as good as my mom’s, but they’re good.”
Julia’s antennae went up. Did Will actually mention his family? No way.
Well, well, Brannock, what a momentous first in our relationship.
Of course, she jumped on it. “So your mom’s a good cook?”
Will instantly looked disconcerted. Julia could almost read his thoughts:
Oops, I mentioned my mother to Julia. Quick, call in the cleanup crew.
Frowning, she watched him squirm. What in the world was his problem with all this silly secrecy with which he surrounded himself? Julia wasn’t a snoop or a busybody, and didn’t really care how good his mother’s dumplings were. On the other hand, she was the suspicious type—detectives usually were—and she’d never known anybody who could shy away from questions about his past as skillfully as Will Brannock could.
After a ridiculously long pause during which Julia stared unblinkingly at him, Will finally said with totally feigned nonchalance, “Yes, she is. Some of her dishes put Paula Deen to shame.”
“Then she’s a pretty damn good cook.” Julia closed her menu and placed it atop Will’s. “I just bought a Paula Deen skillet. An orange one. It’s great for frying chicken. Does your mom live around here? I’d love to meet her.”
“No.” Will looked away from her rapt gaze and checked out the nearby tables. As was his wont, he quickly changed the subject, slick as a whistle. He picked up the
Chattanooga Times Free Press
and tossed it down on the table in front of her. “I guess you’ve heard that the media’s coined a name for our perpetrator?”
Picking up the paper, Julia looked at the giant headlines:
WHEN WILL THE TONGUE SLASHER STRIKE AGAIN? CHATTANOOGA WAITS IN FEAR
. She grimaced and lowered her voice. “Well, why don’t they just send him an engraved invitation to kill again? They might as well. And yeah, I heard it this morning on CBS. Catchy, huh? Pretty apropos, though. How do you think they found out about the tongue?”
“Who knows? Probably somebody with an agenda or in need of quick cash leaked the details. We’ll probably never know. Phil’s trying to find out. How did your search of the scales go?”
Thus, another of Will’s usual and abrupt 180-degree changes of subject, casual but effective. She had a feeling he’d had lots of practice perfecting the technique. The little dickens thought he was getting out of telling her about his family. Wrong. Some serious digging was now in order. “Tell me, Will, do you have any family in Chattanooga?”
Will’s brow creased noticeably; he was obviously annoyed with her persistence. Did she hit a nerve, or what? It was certainly an innocent enough question. What was the big deal with him?
Neither of them said anything while the waitress put down two frosty glasses of iced tea and scribbled down their order. Chicken and dumplings for her, with fried okra, fried apples, and green beans on the side. Will had the same but with macaroni and cheese and corn, and opted for the fried apples, too. All good food and exactly the same, no matter which Cracker Barrel in what city.
But Julia wasn’t going to let him adeptly slippery-slide himself out of answering her questions this time. “So, what is it? Anybody related to you live around here or not, Brannock?”
He gave in. “No. I don’t have much family. None around here.”
“Well, I can relate to that. J.D.’s all I have now.”
Will sipped his tea and kept up his intense surveillance of the premises, like he was expecting a swarm of killer bees to wing their way through the windows. He looked at her. “We still haven’t gotten a hit on Maria Bota’s whereabouts. She’s gone underground with her son.”
“Or the gangbangers already snatched her.”
“If that’s the case, she’s probably dead.”
From what Julia had pulled up on the Battle Street gang, she didn’t doubt that. The idea was sobering. “Maybe she’ll turn up soon. If so, I can’t wait to reinterview her.”
“Yeah, me either. Anything new on the scales?” he asked again.
“Nope, not yet. It appears to be a unique piece, but I haven’t searched all the websites yet. None of the big manufacturers list it in their catalogs.”
“He could’ve picked it up at a flea market or a garage sale.”
“Maybe. I’ve been thinking that he might be connected with the legal system somehow. You know, the scales of justice, and all that. It would fit right into our scenario. The victim was a judge, after all. It could be something like that.”
“Yes, definitely. Or the killer could be one of Lockhart’s multitude of lovers, someone he jilted or abused. By the sound of things, he had plenty of them.”
While he spoke, Will’s eyes were darting from the people eating around them to the entrance and back to the exit, examining each and every customer, as if to get the jump on the one with the belt of live grenades. She looked around, too. Oh yeah, maybe that little eighty-year-old granny with the white hair, navy-blue polyester pantsuit, and white sneakers was having lunch with her grandkids because she needed a break from her domestic terrorist bomb-making.
Julia scanned all the other tables. Unfortunately, being around Will so much was beginning to make her into a Paranoid Patty. Maybe while she was working with him, she should strap an extra .38 snub nose to her ankle. “Or that could be the motive,” she suggested. “His wife’s as frosty as a snowbank. Yes, I can see her exacting revenge. You know, the poor-little-me, mistreated-and-abused-wife routine.”
Will halted his heretofore steady surveillance of Cracker Barrel diners and caught her gaze. “You really think a woman like Iris Lockhart could mutilate her husband’s body like that?”
“I think anybody is capable of just about anything, given the right opportunity. Especially to right a wrong they felt was perpetrated against them. I’m sure you’ve seen that kind of thing in your tenure at the TBI.”
“I have, but why would Iris act now? She’s put up with him for years. And from what I could tell, she’s doing exactly what she wants to do, and did so even before he was murdered. There’s a three-million-dollar life insurance policy that she’ll get, but she already has access to all the money they have. Both their names are on everything.”
“Did you check into her love life, if she’s even got one? My bet is that she’d probably have to pay a man to take her out.” Julia decided to inject a bit of humor; it seemed Will could use a hefty dose of ha-ha lately. “Hey, maybe we ought to look into the Elite Escort Service. They probably have some guys who’d squire her around for, say, ten million dollars.”
Will didn’t bite. Didn’t smile, either. “I doubt that. I have agents checking out her mother and friends in New Orleans. So far, they’re all upstanding citizens and beyond reproach. I still think the gang angle is more probable. Iris wouldn’t dirty her hands.”
What in heaven’s name had happened to that happy-go-lucky guy with all the clever banter she’d first met? Had making her acquaintance turned him into a zombie? Or does the smiley Will Brannock go into hibernation until the weekends? More pertinent of all, perhaps: Does Will Brannock have a split personality?
“Everything okay with you, Will?”
He looked back at her, surprised. “Yeah, why?”
“Well, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy—you know the drill.”
“Are you saying I’m dull?”
“No, just distracted and sort of, well, wary of everything.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Okay, then.”
Brannock wasn’t going to tell her anything concerning himself—even if he had a knife sticking out of his chest he wouldn’t admit it, so she might as well give up with the inquiries. At least she knew his mom could cook. “I was talking to Charlie the other day, and he told me that Judge Lockhart had lots of controversial cases. Some of them that Charlie says were rumored to involve payoffs to the judge.”
“I’ve heard the same thing through other sources. You and Charlie Sinclair are good friends, I take it?”
“Like I told you, he trained me when I first started with the Nashville K-9 unit. I learned just about everything I know about dogs from him. So did Cathy. We went through the initial K-9 training courses together. Later, he made both of us instructors.”
Will nodded and seemed to ponder things for a moment. “It could be some past defendant, or maybe some kind of personal hit arranged by a criminal element that he betrayed somehow.”
Both remained quiet as the waitress arrived with their food. She hovered a moment to refill their tea glasses. Julia watched Will pick up a corn bread muffin and slather it with real butter. Good, she liked people who actually ate and enjoyed their food. As far as she was concerned, there was way too much emphasis on being superskinny. She had never worried much about her weight. She was naturally tall and slender, but nobody liked food as much as she did. She picked up a biscuit and broke it open. It was fluffy inside and still warm.
She added butter, took a bite, savored it a moment, and said, “I know we’ve talked about this, but I still can’t quite figure it. If the Battle Street guys are involved in this because of Maria Bota, why would they murder and mutilate the judge and give her time to run? Why wouldn’t they just off her and end it?”
“I know. Slashing the tongue could have been a warning to her, but why use the judge to send the warning?”
“Unless he’d been coming down hard on one too many of their members.”
“I’ll let you check that out, too,” Will said, forking one of those delectable dumplings into his mouth.
“I’ll get on it today.”
They continued to discuss the case while they ate, making sure to keep their voices low. Except for the tongue removal, the pertinent facts of the murder hadn’t hit the news yet, but it was only a matter of time. Problem was, they had lots of leads but no real clues. That was not a good thing. She needed to come up with something concrete, or she and Will Brannock would still be discussing the same possibilities over chicken and dumplings a month from now. Something was bound to break, something hiding in plain sight that she’d been missing. She’d go home, get out the crime scene photos, and study every detail. All night, if she had to. She was missing something significant, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find it.
“Well, well, lawsy me, if it isn’t the prettiest little detective this side of San Diego,” said a man’s deep voice close behind her.
Julia jerked around and found Maximilian Hazard standing right behind her. He grinned down at her, looking as handsome as ever, all tall and broad-shouldered in his loose blue- and yellow-flowered Hawaiian shirt, flip-flops, and long khaki shorts. Charming and devil-may-care, Max had sun-bleached blond hair long enough to tuck behind his ears, blue eyes the exact color of today’s August sky, a square chin, clean-shaven cheeks, and a sensual mouth that was always smiling or laughing. He used to make her laugh like nobody else. Too bad he lived up to his last name.
“Hello, Max. Funny meeting you here. Are you following me again?” He had followed her around, once upon a time in Nashville when they were investigating the same murder. Since he lived in and investigated out of Chattanooga, she hadn’t seen him since that case had ended nearly two years ago.
“Mind if I join you?” Max said, and without waiting for an answer sat down beside her, forcing her to scoot over.
“Yes, I do. This is a private conversation.”
“Please, please, don’t tell me you’re married to this guy,” Max groaned, giving Will a considerable once-over. “It’ll break my heart if you are, Julie girl. I won’t survive it, I tell you. I’ll die.”
“What do you want, Max? I thought I made it clear I didn’t want to see you anymore.”
“But that was then, and this is now. And I am here, and so are you. So who’s Mr. Grim across the table? He doesn’t like me one bit—I can tell.”