In the end, I called the only person I could call: Detective Anne Morrow of the Raleigh Police Department. As I dialed the number, I sent up a small prayer. This case was making me downright religious. She had been investigating Peyton Tillman’s death for at least ten days by now. Maybe she had found something, anything, to make her suspect that it could be related to Roy Taylor’s. If so, she might at least listen to what I had to say.
She was off-duty and out of the office. I must have sounded as desperate as I felt because the officer covering her phone offered to beep her for me. I gave him the pay phone number and waited, eyes closed, rehearsing what I would say. I’d confess to everything but my felony record. It was ancient history anyway. Other than that, it would be the whole truth and nothing but the whole truth.
The phone rang four minutes and thirty-three second; later. I snatched up the receiver on the first ring. “It’s me,” I said quickly. “Casey Jones. I’m in trouble.”
“I’ll say,” she answered. “You just interrupted a hot date.”
I’d forgotten that normal people might be out on dates or hanging out with their families. Casey Jones, social outcast
“Sorry,” I said. “But this is really, really serious. My ass is in a sl [ss t>
“Go on,” she said. “I’m listening.”
God bless her and her unborn children, too. I raced to explain before she could cut me off. I told her about everything: Judge Tillman’s fiancée and the missing court case files, George Carter’s death just after Tillman had visited him at Christmas, the partners’ visits to see Gail on death row, the bodies found on Pete Bunn’s Chatham County farm and, finally, all about Steven Hill, my stolen gun and my fake registration. I did not tell her why it was fake. She did not ask. After three murders and charges of corruption and conspiracy, illegal possession of a firearm was not that big a deal.
When I was done, Morrow remained silent. “Are you there?” I asked.
“I’m here,” she said. In the background, I could hear the clink of silverware and the hum of conversation: normal people leading normal lives in a restaurant that seemed a galaxy or two away. “I’m thinking,” she added.
“You believe me?” I asked.
“I believe that you think you’ve found the answer,” she said. “Now I’m just trying to put it all together and decide what I think. Those are some pretty heavy-duty accusations you’re making against a decorated cop.”
“So you know Hill,” I said, my hope evaporating. He had her fooled, too.
“No, but I’ve heard of him. He keeps a high profile.”
“You have to help me,” I pleaded. “No one else will believe me.”
“You got that right,” she agreed. There was a silence. “You know you left your case files in your car the night you were ran off the road,” she said. “The sergeant down at the impound brought them to me. I read through them. You’re pretty thorough. Some of your counter theories about who killed Roy Taylor were pretty good. They should have been looked into.”
I knew I had forgotten something that night: my files. “It was just theory back then,” I said. “Now I have more proof.”
“Yes, and part of it may be a bullet I found in your cooler. Ballistics called this afternoon. It was a .45 caliber ACP.”
“The same as killed Roy Taylor,” I said with relief. “The same issued to Durham police officers.”
“Don’t get too excited,” she warned me. “Half the people in law-enforcement use them. And half the people outside o [plefontf law-enforcement, for that matter.”
“Please, Detective Morrow—I know you don’t know me well, but you’ve got to help me out here. Steven Hill has everyone fooled.”
A tap on my shoulder sent me jumping a good foot in the air. The Chatham County sheriff stood behind me, his arms folded. He looked like he had been listening for a long time “Give me the phone,” he ordered, holding out a huge, work-worn hand.
I handed it over, too scared to protest.
“This is Stanley T. Johnson, Chatham County sheriff Who’s this?” he barked into the receiver. His tiny eyes narrowed as he listened, and huge furrows appeared in his rounded forehead. “Yeah,” he answered. “I heard it all. I’m not sure how much of it I believe, but I can tell you this— something hinky is going on, and I don’t like it. This Hill fellow is smoother than the belly of a well-fed pup and mighty lucky when it comes to finding evidence. He found that gun quicker than a pig rooting truffles. Maybe you ought to give this little lady the benefit of the doubt.” He passed the phone back to me and glanced at his watch.
“Thanks.” It was all I could manage to say.
He tried to glare, but his beady eyes no longer seemed mean. “When this is all over, you owe me one, little lady,” he said.
“Deal.”
He nodded and marched out the front door like he couldn’t wait to get back to Chatham County, where the living was easy and the criminals were high. He was leaving this mess to the city cops.
Forty-five minutes of uncomfortable questioning later, the door to the conference room opened. A small, portly black man entered the room. He was losing his hair on the top of his head, and what little remained on the sides had turned gray. A pair of gold-rimmed glasses framed his myopic round eyes, and, as he entered, he blinked in the room’s sudden glare. He was dressed in a golf shirt and pair of khaki slacks, and the front of his shirt was stained with what looked like a blob of barbecue sauce. In short, he was about as unassuming a person as I had ever seen. Yet all five of the Durham police officers present, including Steven Hill, rose to their feet. Even the FBI agent stopped looking bored.
Detective Anne Morrow followed the little man into the room. She was wearing a short black dress that ended a good six inches above the knees, and she looked incredible in it. Ignoring the assembled men, she spoke directly to me. “Casey, do you know Chief Robinette? He just took over the Durham Police Department a few months ago. I know him from Indiana State. He was a guest lecturer on computer crime one semester.”
The chief t [“>Tcolook off his glasses and wiped them clean on one corner of his golf shirt, blinking at me like a baby owl as he did so. “It was actually a course on the use of money transfers and foreign bank accounts in laundering cash,” he corrected her in a deep baritone. “Anne was one of my worst students. I bored her, I’m afraid.” He gave her a fond smile, then turned to the waiting officers. “If you boys don’t mind,” he said, “I’d like to speak to Miss Jones here in private for a few minutes. Why don’t you take a dinner break?”
Steven Hill opened his mouth as though he wanted to say something, but his burly coworker grabbed him by the arm and pulled him from the room before he could speak. The silence was complete as the room emptied of everyone but me, Chief Robinette and Detective Morrow.
Chief Robinette switched off the tape recorders and video camera, then took a seat at my elbow. “Okay, Miss Jones,” he commanded. “Tell me exactly what you told Anne.”
I did. He listened carefully and, when I was done, asked me several questions, mostly about the probable dates of Roy Taylor’s service on the force and when he had been partners with Carter, Bunn and Hill. He wanted to know if I had ever been personally involved with Steven Hill and apologized when I took offense. He also questioned me closely about the body of court cases involving Taylor’s former drug unit recognizing, as I did, that this was the common link.
“I have the transcripts,” I volunteered. “I downloaded them onto my system. They’re in Raleigh. I could print them out in an hour. It would be a whole lot faster than searching all the records again.”
The chief exchanged glances with Detective Morrow.
“I can take a look at them,” she volunteered. “I know drug law pretty well from my stint in Asheville. I could summarize for you. It would give you a good idea of what you’re dealing with.”
The chief nodded, then stopped and frowned. “On the other hand, Anne, I’d like you to accompany me to visit George Carter’s family. I feel that I should inform his wife personally, and, with no offense to you, I may need a woman’s touch. After that, I’d like you to be present when I inform certain individuals in the city government of these unfolding events.”
Was he for real? He was personally going to notify George Carter’s widow of his death? Suddenly, I felt as if I—and the Durham Police Department—were in very good hands.
“No problem,” Detective Morrow said. She spoke to me and I took her words as they were intended—as an order. “I’m going to be tied up for a couple of hours here. We can save time if you’ll get the transcripts, then meet me back here.” She stopped and reconsidered. “No, don’t meet me here. You live in Durham, right?”
I n [ndoh=“odded.
“Do you feel comfortable meeting me at your home?”
I nodded again.
“Okay, good,” she said, checking her watch. “I’ll meet you at your house in three hours. I need your address.” She slid a pad of paper across the table and I wrote my address below the scribbles of one of the Durham investigators. He had been drawing a hangman’s scaffold and noose.
“And Casey?” Detective Morrow added as she folded the piece of paper and stowed it away in her evening bag. “You know not to open your door for anyone else but me, right?”
“Right,” I agreed emphatically.
I drove back to Raleigh feeling as if the years of following cheating spouses were behind me, as if I had finally cracked a case that really mattered. I wouldn’t call Nanny Honeycutt with the good news, not yet. But I’d be able to make the call soon if Chief Robinette and Detective Morrow took me seriously. With resources like theirs, I was convinced that before long, they would come up with evidence that directly linked Steven Hill to Roy Taylor’s death. And even if they couldn’t get him right away, the fact that Hill might be involved coupled with pressure from the public, might force the governor to at least issue Gail a stay while the matter was investigated further.
These thoughts kept me occupied as I idled in what was supposed to be the fast lane of I-40, but had instead been reduced to a parking lot due to an accident on the other side of the median. I glanced in the rearview mirror: more than a mile of cars and trucks stretched behind me, and the line in front seemed just as long. A couple of impatient jerks, inevitably driving pickup trucks, were trying to sneak ahead using the shoulder, but most people waited patiently for the mess to be cleared. Never mind that the accident wasn’t even on our side of the road. Southerners don’t just rubberneck at accident sites, they pull out the popcorn, sit there and gawk. I crawled forward and waited my turn. It was a bad one: a four-car accident plus a tractor-trailer that had jackknifed across all three westbound lanes trying to avoid the wreckage. I knew it would be hours before the road to Durham was fully clear. I’d have to find another route back home after I picked up the transcripts.
The office looked lonely without Bobby D.‘s familiar silhouette hogging the front window. Unexpectedly, I missed him. It seemed so empty, like the whale pool while Baby Shamu was napping. I also felt guilty I hadn’t been to the hospital in days. Who was he complaining to about the food? And, more to the point, had he discovered yet that I’d stolen his keys?
I let myself inside, collected the mail, threw away everything but a check from a now rich ex-wife, then sat to work printing out the transcripts of the court cases. It took only a few minutes to route the documents to the laser writer, but there were so many pages that the actual printing would take nearly an hour. I spent a few minutes cleaning my office, then put my feet up on the desk and closed my eyes. My back ached from spending the night on the damp ground, and I longed to change into something a little more attractive than the stained sweat suit I was wearing. Unfortunately, the only outfit at my office was a pale-green shantung-silk dress from the fifties that I’d bought at the Bargain Box for two dollars. It needed heels to set it off, and I was not about to subject myself to such torture tonight.
I had almost dozed off when I heard a series of faint clicks at the front door, as if someone had turned the knob to see if it was locked. My senses were still on hyper-alert—I could have heard a mouse sneeze in China at that point. The lights in the front room were off, and my hole-in-the-wall office was so far in the back, that the only indication that I was here would be a faint gleam from the hallway. Slowly, I eased into a sitting position, holding my breath as my chair creaked in protest. I fumbled in the bottom of my knapsack for the magnum. The barrel rested against my thigh heavily as I pressed my back to the wall and inched down the hallway. I lifted the gun against my chest, then shrank back against the doorjamb and peered into the main room. I could see the outline of a figure fumbling with the doorknob on the other side of the Venetian blinds that covered the glass door. There was a loud click, and the door began to ease open. Then two things happened simultaneously. I stepped into the main room and shouted “Freeze,” like I was some leftover Charlie’s Angel, and the lights in the office blazed on so brightly that they blinded me.
“Don’t shoot,” a female voice squeaked in panic.
My vision cleared. A slender black woman dressed in a T-shirt and jeans held her hands high in the air, her eyes wide with terror.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Ruby’s sister Keisha. You hired me to clean the office after the break-in. I’m just finishing up the filing. My mother said she could baby-sit, and I thought I’d try to get it done by Monday.” She spoke faster than Speedy Gonzalez, as if trying to talk down the gun in my hand.