Cold in Murder: Lessons in Murder, Book 8, page 9
“Please trust that we are doing everything possible to find Shondra’s killer,” Jamison added, also shaking her hand. “It’s been thirty years, and he may not even still be alive, but we’ll do our best and let you know what we uncover.”
“Thank you,” Tamika echoed with a somber expression. “I’m glad to know the Roanoke PD is being run differently these days. Nice to see a couple of female detectives too. Maybe we’ll finally get somewhere.”
12.
“Who could this mystery boy have been?” Jamison asked when they were back in the car. “Shondra must have thought her mother wouldn’t approve, or she would have mentioned him to her.”
“Agreed,” Jenna said, “but it doesn’t mean he wasn’t Black. What if he had been in a gang, maybe a dropout?” Jenna shook her head and started the engine. “That doesn’t play, though. I know love can do crazy things to people, opposites attract and all, but I just don’t see an honor student with a gang-banger. The witness who reported seeing a Black fellow fleeing the area could have been mistaken. Eyewitnesses are the least reliable evidence, even if they are relied on the most. I want to talk to the original investigators again. Tamika has every right to be angry and their lack of effort has made me mad too. Butler is all the way over in Vinton, so let’s drop by Brenner’s again first. Hopefully, he’ll be doing better today.”
Nicole answered the door and welcomed them inside for the second time. “I’m surprised to see you back so soon,” she admitted.
“We were hoping maybe catching your husband before lunch when he’s fresher will be a more favorable time,” Jenna said.
“We don’t mean to intrude,” Jamison added.
“Oh, you aren’t intruding. I can’t imagine what set Casey off yesterday, but he calmed down easily. It’s good you’re here early, though, as his occupational therapist comes this afternoon.”
The woman moved Jenna. “Mrs. Brenner, I have to say how much I admire you and the way you take this adversity in stride. Raising three children and operating a business out of your home is a big enough challenge, but taking care of a husband with dementia on top of it?” Jenna shook her head. “I don’t know how you keep that smile on your face—and it isn’t fake, either. I can tell.”
Her bronze cheeks flushed, and her smile softened to one of genuine affection. “Helping Casey might be a challenge, but it’s no burden, detectives. He’s my hero, my knight in blue armor.”
Jenna recalled Randi calling her that just days ago, and her emotions became further stirred.
“That man saved my life—twice—and in more ways than one. When I first saw him, I was pinned in my car after an out-of-control truck rear-ended me and smashed my car into a light pole. The power line fell over the roof and, naturally, it was pouring rain. Quite a dangerous situation. This police officer was the first at my window before the fire department or ambulance arrived. Despite the obvious hazards, he opened the door, pulled back the driver’s seat, popped the airbag, cut the jammed seatbelt, and carried me over puddles to a safe distance from dangling electrical lines and crashed vehicles. I paid attention to his nametag and thought about him often, but never mustered the courage to drop a note or call him.”
A soft glow enveloped Nicole’s face as she related the story. “Then six or seven months later, I was walking to my car at the far end of the mall parking lot at closing time. I had been doing late shopping because I’d gotten off a twelve-hour shift at the hospital, and few cars remained. I remember it was a cloudy night, with no moon or stars. Just my luck, the light nearest my car was out when this mugger attacked me, knocked me to the pavement, and wrangled my purse out of my hand. Then he kicked me for no reason. It hurt and I don’t know if I was more mad or scared when suddenly Officer Casey Brenner was there. He checked on me first, then chased the mugger, caught and arrested him, gave me my purse back, and I gave him my phone number. It was almost like a fairy tale, and we’ve been happy ever since. He started moving into less hazardous jobs with the department to have more time to help me with the children when they were little, and so he’d be less likely to leave them without a father. Casey is a good man, and he’ll help you solve your case if he can.”
She had just finished when Casey appeared in the entry to the front room. “Who’s here, angel?”
Nicole turned to him with a smile. “It’s Lieutenant Ferrari and Detective Jamison from the Roanoke Police Department. They were here yesterday.”
“Were they?” Wearing an RPD sweatshirt this time, Casey peered at them with no recognition in his eyes. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Casey Brenner,” he said, extending a hand.
Nicole moved beside him, wrapping an arm around his waist while Jenna and Jamison shook his hand.
“I remember a female detective,” he commented as his gaze wandered to the ceiling and his jaw hung open in anticipation of words. “Medcalf—yes, Detective Medcalf. Do you know her?”
“I haven’t had the honor of meeting her,” Jamison answered in interest.
“I think she retired a year or two ago,” Jenna supplied. “Mrs. Brenner, would you like to stay? We won’t be long.” She thought Brenner might remain calm and focused if his wife was with him.
“I could do that. Why don’t we all sit in here?” They followed Nicole into the front sitting area and Casey took an armchair facing the windows.
“Olaf and the ice monster,” he commented with a frown. “Frozen is coming, and no Elsa to set it right. Damn blue jays always causing trouble,” he grumbled and shook his head. “How can I help you?”
“We’re working on a cold case,” Jenna explained patiently as if she hadn’t told him that yesterday. “One you worked with Lieutenant Butler.”
“Oh, Johnny!” Casey beamed. “We go way back. Is he still running a tight ship over there? He’s probably a captain by now. Nicole, we need to invite him for dinner one of these nights.”
She reached over from her seat beside his and took his hand. “We can do that, baby love.”
“What do you want to know?” he asked, looking at Jenna.
“What can you tell me about Shondra Ramsey?” She leaned in his direction with her elbows on her knees, giving him her full attention, hoping beyond hope he would remember.
“Shondra?” Something shifted in Casey’s manner, and he radiated with youthful energy. “She’s probably at school or play practice,” he said. “Her house is on my beat. Collins and I drive by the schools often to make sure all the kids are safe. Sometimes I’m in the patrol car by myself because Collins has other things to do. With the rise in gang activity, we’re spread pretty thin. There’re more openings in the department than cops to fill them, so sometimes I’m by myself. I must watch out for the kids, and Shondra is a good kid. She won’t be in any trouble; I can tell you that.”
Expectation leaped to life inside Jenna at the realization Casey knew her back then or knew who she was at least. He remembered her, even if he had gotten the past and present confused.
“But she’s not safe,” Jenna prodded in a concerned tone. “Someone wants to hurt her.”
Casey’s eyes flashed to hers and he stiffed his jaw. “I won’t let anyone hurt Shondra. Never!”
“It’s OK, baby,” Nicole soothed and squeezed his hand. “I know you wouldn’t let anyone hurt somebody under your watch.”
“But what if you weren’t there?” Jamison proposed. “If you were called across town or were busy apprehending a criminal or helping someone who’d been in an accident? Who might want to hurt Shondra?”
Confusion replaced determination on his face. “J-Rod,” he uttered with disgust. “Troublemaker. Blue jay. A troublemaking blue jay, that one.” He pointed a finger out the window. “Going to bring a winter frost, sure enough. The accident.” Then he smiled and looked over at his wife. “Best day of my life, that accident. I met the woman who would make my heart whole again. My sweet angel.”
“J-Rod,” Jenna repeated. “What’s his real name?”
“Who?” Casey’s attention flicked back to Jenna, and the light of awareness left his eyes. “Have we met? I’m Officer Brenner, Roanoke PD, and this is my wife, Nicole. Are you selling something?”
“No,” Jenna answered with understanding. “We were just leaving. Thank you so much, Officer Brenner. You’ve been a big help to us. Please enjoy your day.”
“He was better today,” Jamison noted as they climbed in the car. A swoosh of wind slammed Jenna’s door before she could close it. Thick, white clouds blocked the bowl of mountains from view and experience told Jenna they could be in for more snow.
“Yes, he was,” she agreed. “Now, off to see if we can shake a little more out of Butler. He should know who this ne’er-do-well J-Rod was. We might as well catch lunch on our way to the ‘Sun Already Set on those Villas.’ Randy better outlive me, ‘cause I never want to end up in a sad place like that.”
“Boss,” Jamison said, bubbling with good humor. “If you lived there, it would never be sad. You’d order people to be merry and beat them over the head if they weren’t.”
“Really?” Jenna retorted sarcastically. “Is that what you think of me?”
Trish’s tinkling laughter filled the car.
Lunch was still being served at Sunset Villas when the pair arrived. They had ordered their sub sandwiches to go and eaten them on the drive over while a light flurry whipped and swirled like ash in a hurricane. The desk attendant told them Lieutenant Butler hadn’t come down from his apartment. Jenna knocked on the door to 215.
“Larry, I told you I wasn’t eating downstairs today,” yelled a gruff voice.
“Lieutenant Butler, it’s Lieutenant Detective Ferrari and Detective Jamison. May we come in?”
The sound of feet stomping was followed by a lock clicking and the door flew open. Butler couldn’t have looked more irked if they had been there to audit his taxes for the past twenty years. “Didn’t I talk to you yesterday? I don’t remember anything else,” he snapped.
“We visited Casey Brenner,” Jamison said with the hopeful mirth of a child who believed in magic. “He said to tell you hello, and he wants you to come visit soon. He spoke so highly of you. We only have a few follow-up questions.”
He sighed, wiggled his mouth, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, come in then. But I didn’t clean for company.”
“Thank you,” Jenna responded. “And we aren’t concerned with the state of your apartment.”
He led them into what appeared to be a one-bedroom suite with a kitchenette attached to a tiny living room. A closet was set in the wall closest to the entry and two doors past the refrigerator probably led to the bed and bathrooms. Across the living area were sliding glass doors to a postage-stamp-sized balcony. It was clean except for a few unwashed dishes, a bathrobe laid over a chair, and a newspaper spread out on the coffee table. Certificates, awards, and photos of Butler in his dress uniform with various dignitaries shared the walls with patriotic artwork and a crayon drawing of stick people fishing from a pier that looked like a grandchild might have made it. An afternoon game show played on the TV. Butler scraped up the remote control and clicked it off.
“Well, ask.”
“When we talked to Officer Brenner, he mentioned someone he thought might have bothered Shondra Ramsey, the high school senior whose murder you don’t recall investigating.” Jenna knew it was a jab, and it didn’t go unnoticed as Butler smirked at her. She thought she was behaving quite nicely considering how badly she wanted to kick his ass. “A guy in the neighborhood who went by J-Rod. Do you have any idea who he could have meant?”
With a heavy sigh, Butler leaned against his breakfast bar. “Poor Casey. Why’d you have to go and bother him, huh? The guy’s got it hard enough as it is, given his medical condition. But he’s lucky in one regard—he got himself a good woman, Casey did, and that’s a fact. I really should go visit, but it depresses me, and he’ll just forget I was there.”
“You could take a snapshot,” Jamison suggested. “Ask Mrs. Brenner to take a photo of you tapping your beer bottles together with a smile. Then he’ll have the picture to remind him. He would enjoy seeing you so much.”
“I know you’re right,” he admitted to her, dropping his chin. “He was always such a nice boy—idealistic, chivalrous, loyal, and all that made him a great cop. J-Rod, he said?”
Butler puzzled like he was trying to recall. It seemed to Jenna that he honestly cared about Casey Brenner, and maybe it was depressing to see him in that condition. She remembered when her grandmother first started getting confused and forgetting things. It had made them all sad, but especially Jenna’s mom. The summer after her grandfather died—the one before she got kicked out of her house—Granny came to stay with them. She couldn’t ever recall her mother being so busy. Between staying late at the laundromat, going shopping, and volunteering for things at the church, she was seldom home, leaving supervising Granny to Jenna and her siblings. One night after Granny had dozed off and her dad was out at a bar with his friends, Jenna had marched into her mother’s room to tell her off.
“Why are you never here? She’s your mother and you won’t even help take care of her,” Jenna recalled scolding in her clueless, teenage wisdom.
Mama had burst into tears with gut-wrenching sobs such that, angry or not, Jenna was compelled to comfort her. She never forgot the agonizing tone in her mother’s voice when she said, “It just hurts so bad to see her like that. I just can’t!” Jenna couldn’t ever recall seeing Mama and Granny hug or kiss each other. They had always maintained a formal relationship—one her mother patterned her own parenting after. The day Granny couldn’t recognize her, her mother’s eyes reflected a deep, haunting desolation, as if the long-held dream of a close bond had been shattered forever.
“I don’t recall a J-Rod, but I do remember Willy Fox.” Butler’s words shook Jenna from her past into the present and she refocused on the moment. “The Bloods and Latin Kings were going at each other in 1993. Willy Fox had a known Blood affiliation, and he lived in the part of town you’re talking about. You said the case file called it a gang-related drive-by gone wrong.” Butler nodded and pinned Jenna with a serious expression. “Willy Fox could have been the LK’s intended target.”
“The witness statements,” Jamison mentioned. “One said they saw a Black male running away and another pointed to a black coupe blaring rap music, speeding down the street. Maybe the fellow running away was Willy Fox.”
Jenna still didn’t think the gunshot had come from a passing vehicle, but she had to consider the possibility her gut could be wrong. At least the useless Butler had given them an actual name they could look up and track down. If Fox had been there, perhaps he saw who pulled the trigger.
The next instant she felt her blood began to boil. She gritted her teeth as her hands coiled into tight fists and then remembered to take a deep breath. With a practiced motion, she relaxed and rolled her shoulders while keeping an iron lid on her rage.
“Mr. Butler,” she addressed without using his title. Where did those awards and certificates come from? Was the whole department nothing but a good ole boys’ club back then? She needed to talk to Captain Myers. He was just starting as a rookie about that time and maybe could shed some light. He would at least have heard something about Butler. There were only a couple of hundred officers in the whole city, so the captain should remember this jerk.
“There was nothing in the report about Willy Fox being interviewed. If you thought he was a member of the United Blood Nation, why wasn’t he questioned at the time?”
Butler frowned, his steely jade eyes flashing at her with disdain. “I don’t know. I told you I don’t recollect this case. Maybe drugs and gangs had a line on him. He probably got arrested for something. Didn’t I tell you to check with drugs and gangs?”
“We did,” Jamison intervened before Jenna did something she would regret. “We talked to Sergeant Hernandez, and he was very helpful, but he wasn’t on the job in 1993. I’m sure it’s difficult to keep up with the thousands of crimes and criminals you’ve investigated over decades. The lieutenant and I just hoped to jar your memory. Willy Fox. That’s good. We can track him down and see what he can tell us. Thank you so much for your time.”
“Yes,” Jenna affirmed through a clenched jaw. “Thank you for your time.”
On the way out, Jamison let out a relieved, “Whew! I thought for a minute there you were going to deck that old man.”
“Thanks, Trish,” Jenna responded. “For a minute I was afraid I might too. How could that frickin’ man call himself a detective? He has the name of the guy they suspected was the intended victim and doesn’t even bother to talk to him? And with a witness who may have seen him flee the scene? You need to drive; I need to get to the gym at the precinct and hit something!”
13.
Jenna had calmed down by the time they returned to the office that afternoon. An inch of snow had accumulated on the ground, but the city was keeping the roads clear. An inch wasn’t bad.
“You’re back!” Jamison exclaimed as she preceded Jenna through the door. Bauman sat at his desk playing with his phone, which he quickly stashed upon their entry.
“Yeah, we tracked the hackers and shut down their business remotely,” he said with satisfaction. Then, making a face of dismay, he added, “Of course, they’re operating out of India, so we couldn’t arrest anyone. They’ll probably pop up again next week, but we severed all their little tendrils into Virginia banks and credit card providers, so they’ll doubtless try somewhere else now that we’re on to them.”
“So, Captain Myers is happy?” Jenna asked as she draped her coat over the back of her chair.
“Mastercard’s fraud insurance reimbursed his account,” Bauman replied. “And I gave them information their international operations security team can use to work on pinpointing the thieves. What have you two been up to—visiting more jewelry stores?”
