Deadly Revenge, page 27
“It’s perfect.”
Soft organ music began as Max reentered the sanctuary and walked to his seat at the back of the church, nodding at Carter. The man barely acknowledged him.
Max had the distinct impression Harrison Carter would like nothing better than to skip their meeting.
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He slipped into the church from a side door. The receiving line reached all the way to the front door. A quick check of his watch confirmed there was no need to get in line—the service would start in ten minutes, and one thing funeral director Harvey Pickford prided himself on was starting a service on time.
There was room on the back pew, and he scanned the rows as he ambled toward the back of the church to see who all was there. Sheriff Stone’s granddaughter, the new chief deputy, sat two rows up with the police chief.
When he reached the last row, his mouth turned to cotton. He hadn’t noticed that Jenna Hart and that TBI agent were already seated on the pew. It would look odd if he looked for another seat. He swallowed down his fear.
“Excuse me.” After plopping down, he nodded to the deputy. “Afternoon.”
He had no idea what her response was as he concentrated on slowing his heart rate. A slight noise at the front of the receiving line drew his attention. Harrison Carter was speaking to Slater’s sister again. Carter hadn’t changed since he left town—he was the only one who counted.
In his mind he heard the explosion his bomb would make and how everyone’s attention would be pulled toward the lake. Then, with everyone looking the other way, he saw himself pointing his rifle at Carter and pulling the trigger.
Organ music swelled in the church, jerking him out of his fantasy. Except it wasn’t a fantasy because fantasies didn’t come true. And come Founders Day, Harrison Carter would be dead and the reservoir would be drained. The land would be returned to its original purpose.
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Two caskets sat at the front of the sanctuary, a sad reminder of what had happened Monday. It looked as though the whole town had turned out for the double funeral. Jenna scanned the faces of those who’d come out to pay their respects to Joe Slater and his wife.
Her grandmother sat midway from the front row. Maybe she’d get a chance to speak to her after they finished their interview with Carter. A few women dabbed at their eyes as Harrison Carter expounded about his time with Joe Slater.
Jenna continued to scan the sanctuary, seeking those who’d had their land condemned for the dam and reservoir. Todd Donelson was here, Junior sat with his wife on the left, behind the pallbearers. She hadn’t gotten the impression that either man liked Slater, so she was a little surprised to see them at the funeral . . . unless—
No, she couldn’t believe Junior had tampered with Slater’s Hummer. He was a mechanic, though—who better to know how to loosen the nut where the tie-rod would fall off? And Donelson wasn’t one to get his hands dirty . . .
Gordon Marsden sat on the row behind Junior. Another person she didn’t think particularly liked Slater. If her dad were here, he’d probably be sitting with Gordon. Her heart caught. She should be out looking for him. Alex was working hard on the case, but would it be enough?
She itched for the funeral to be over with so they could interview Carter and then check out the three remaining cabin rentals.
A chuckle rippled through the crowd, and Jenna pulled her attention back to the front as Carter made his concluding remarks.
“Time doesn’t permit me to tell all the stories I have of Joe and Katherine, and I’m sure you have plenty to tell yourselves. They both will be missed.” Carter stepped away from the dais and sat on the front row with Joe’s sister.
Jenna should have been paying more attention to what he’d said—she hadn’t known the Slaters, and every bit of information she learned about them helped frame a better picture of their lives.
After the funeral, she spoke to her grandmother, then followed Max to the foyer, where they waited for Carter, her patience getting thinner by the minute. By the time he joined them thirty minutes later, her patience had evaporated, especially when he totally ignored her, other than to give her a patronizing smile before focusing on Max. She understood she was only a deputy and Max was TBI, but Carter should at least acknowledge her.
Memories of difficulties in her former life in Chattanooga bombarded her, and she almost missed Max’s nod for her to start the questioning. Jenna brushed aside the insecurity that had crawled into her mind. She was good at her job, and Max knew it, and Mr. Senate Candidate was about to find out.
“Thank you for joining us,” she said.
Carter’s smile slipped. Jenna acknowledged the four bodyguards who had followed them into the room, and then she turned back to Carter. “I don’t think you’ll be attacked in here, so do we really need your security team? Besides, you may want some of our discussion to remain private.”
Briefly Carter’s eyes widened, then he gave her a stony glare before turning to the men. “I’ll be fine. Just wait in the hallway.”
The one who seemed to be in charge crossed his arms. “Are you sure?”
He nodded. “After all, we have Russell County’s finest with us.”
Jenna forced herself not to react. Carter was used to getting his way, and when he didn’t, it wasn’t pretty. She exchanged glances with Max, and he flicked his gaze toward the ceiling. Jenna tightened her lips to keep from grinning at his version of eye-rolling.
“Just what do you want to discuss that my security team couldn’t hear?”
She turned to Carter. “Several things. Have you received any more threats?”
“Not since I hired the team outside the door.”
“Good.” Jenna picked up her notepad. “I know your time is valuable, so we’ll try to be brief. Let’s start with Joe Slater and Paul Nelson. You worked with both—do you know anyone or any reason someone would take them out?”
“I thought Slater’s death was due to the accident.”
“It’s looking more like someone tampered with his vehicle,” Jenna said.
Carter turned to Max. “Is that correct?”
Heat flushed through her chest. The man wasn’t endearing himself to her. Max’s curt nod mollified her somewhat.
Carter paled and stared into space. “Nelson’s murder doesn’t surprise me, but the Slaters’? No. Everybody liked them, especially Joe. And to kill his wife as well . . .”
“No one comes to mind?” Jenna asked. The man was definitely shocked by the news, or he should win an Oscar.
He shook his head.
“Do you know where Joe got the money to buy that Hummer? Or his wife’s Escalade?” Max said.
“Don’t know that either . . . unless his wife inherited when her parents died.”
“Why did you say you weren’t surprised at Nelson’s death?” Max asked.
“He was a womanizer, and he was the love ’em and leave ’em type. I’m kind of surprised it didn’t happen years ago.”
Jenna doodled on her notebook. She hadn’t expected Carter to bring that up. “Do you know any of the women he dated?”
“The only women I know about are from years ago—they wouldn’t have waited this long to kill him. But, if this town is like it was when I lived here, you can ask Pete’s wife down at the diner. Ethel knows everything about everybody.”
He was spot-on there. Jenna made a note to talk to Ethel. Carter prepared to stand. “If there’s nothing—”
“I have a few more questions,” Jenna said.
A pained expression crossed his face. “What are they?”
“First, what do you know about a company by the name of TerraQuest?”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Not a thing. Next question.”
“Aren’t you at all curious about why I mentioned the company?”
“No.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I have a schedule to keep, and I don’t have time to dwell on foolish questions.”
Max leaned forward. “We think it’s an important question.”
“Okay. I’ll bite. Why did you ask me about a company I know nothing about?”
She nodded at Max to take over the interview. While he didn’t seem to like Max, Carter at least respected him more than he did Jenna. She wanted to study his body language, and Jenna couldn’t do that and deal with the man.
“I’m surprised you’re not familiar with the company,” Max said. “TerraQuest bought up a bunch of land in the valley during the early stages of the dam project before the grant was even approved.”
If she hadn’t been watching closely, Jenna would have missed the tiny twitch in his left eye. The man knew the company—she’d bet her badge on it.
Max flipped back through his notes. “Who applied for the grant to build the dam?”
Carter adjusted his tie. “I did, before I became mayor—that was my job, to find money to fund the city.”
“You weren’t aware of anyone buying land back before the dam was proposed?”
He raised his right hand. “I have no knowledge of land purchases, not before or after the dam proposal, and I resent the implication of your questions. I have never done anything improper during my public service. Do you have any other questions?”
Granna’s voice sounded in her head. “If his lips are moving, he’s lying.” But how would they prove it?
Jenna looked over the questions they’d jotted down. “Were you aware several landowners died before the land acquisitions went through?”
Carter sat back in the chair. “Not really. I do remember your grandfather died in an accident about that time, but he’s the only one.”
Funny he would remember that one unless he meant it as a threat? “You don’t remember Earl Donelson dying?”
He frowned and stared down at the table. “Oh yeah. I’d forgotten—hunting accident, right? Shot himself while getting out of a deer stand.” Carter stood. “If you don’t have any other questions, I would like to get on the road. I have a speaking engagement at the Kiwanis Club in Chattanooga this evening.”
Max nodded. “Thank you for your time. We’ll see you tomorrow. Are you still arriving around 4:00?”
“Yes. I have a rally in Nashville at noon, and then an interview with one of the Nashville TV stations.” Carter paused at the door. “I hope anything said within these walls will stay here.”
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Max looked across the table to Jenna. “That went over like a mud ball.”
“Yeah,” she replied. “Carter was lying about not knowing about TerraQuest.”
“You caught that twitch too,” he said. “So, what did we learn other than he wasn’t being truthful with us?”
“That he was willing to throw Paul Nelson under the bus if it diverted our attention from him. I know Alex is looking into that aspect of his life.”
“So we could be looking at two different cases. Are you ready to check out the rest of those rental places?”
“Definitely. I know where they are—one’s not too far from the house.”
“I’ll meet you at your SUV—let me tell the receptionist we’re done with the room.”
Jenna pulled to the side door and was waiting when Max came out of the building. He climbed in and fastened his seat belt. “I keep thinking about that house we stopped at,” he said as they pulled away from the church. “How the grass was messed up—definitely more than one vehicle there, and like someone hit the gas really hard and sped out of there.”
“Like they knew we were coming?”
They looked at each other. “Pull over so we can check for a tracker.”
They climbed out of the vehicle and knelt beside Jenna’s SUV, using their phones to shine a light under it.
“I don’t see anything,” Jenna said.
“I have a bug detector in the toolbox in my truck at your house if we don’t find it.” He moved down to the rear and felt along the inside of the bumper. His fingers closed over a small box, and he pulled it off.
The tracker was the size of a matchbox with a magnet on one side. He handed it to Jenna.
“I cannot believe I didn’t think of this before.”
She examined the box. “Do you think Sebastian put it there?”
“Or whoever was in charge at the Armstrong place.”
“Or maybe the person who broke in put the tracker on my car when we left it sitting in the drive?”
He nodded. “And possibly a whole lot more, like listening devices.”
“What do we do about the tracker?”
“Put it back.” He knelt and returned the device where he found it. “That way whoever put it there won’t know we’ve discovered it. We can remove it once we get to your house . . . or even better, change vehicles.”
“My gut says we need to go back and check out that cabin on the other side of Mr. Darby.”
“I agree, but first we need to check for bugs at your house and leave the tracker there.” He opened a family and friends locator app on his phone and added Jenna’s number to his group.
“Accept the invitation I just sent you—that way if we get separated we can locate each other.”
A text chimed on Jenna’s phone, and she clicked a couple of keys. “Done.”
When they arrived, Max said, “Once we’re in the house, act naturally, and be careful what you say.”
“Do you know how hard it is to talk naturally when someone might be listening to every word you say?”
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Max turned to her. “If there are listening devices in your house, whoever put them there will be expecting you to talk about your dad . . .”
“You’re right.”
She waited on the porch while Max retrieved the bug detector and swept it around his truck, kneeling once to pull out a small box like the one that had been under her bumper.
He put it back where he found it and jogged to the porch. “That was the only one on the truck. When we leave here, we’ll go by the sheriff’s office and swap your vehicle.”
Jenna grinned. “I like it—that way whoever is tracking us will be following the wrong person.”
He adjusted a knob. “I’m turning the sound off so they won’t know we’re scanning for listening devices. The lights will flash to let us know if the device picks up on one. And while I’m in another part of the house, shut off your computers—they’ll cause the device to alert.”
“Do you really think someone may have put listening devices in my house?”
“It would explain why the Armstrong place emptied so fast they didn’t have time to move the marijuana plants.”
Jenna hoped it was a coincidence. Just the thought of someone hearing everything they’d said . . . she couldn’t wrap her mind around it.
Once they were inside, Jenna said, “Let me check my email, then I’ll make us a cup of coffee before we leave to see Alex.”
“Sounds great.” Max started with the living room and moved to the bedrooms. By the time he reached her office, she’d shut her computers down. He ran the detector over her framed commendation from the Chattanooga mayor. Nothing. He placed the detector next to a USB charger. Again nothing.
“I’ll be glad when the picnic is over,” he said and moved to the modem. The device lit up like a Christmas tree. Max gave her a thumbs-up.
Even though Jenna expected Max to find bugs, the reality of being violated swept over her anew. It was all she could do to not throw up. How was she going to carry on a normal conversation when all she wanted to do was find this person—who probably had her father as well—and . . . Arresting him wasn’t enough. She wanted to pound him into the ground.
Max tipped her chin toward him. “We’ll find him,” he mouthed.
She drew in a deep breath and forced lightness into her voice. “I’ll go make coffee.”
“Make it in to-go cups, and we’ll drink it on the way to see Alex. She’s waiting for us to finalize the security measures for tomorrow’s picnic and political rally,” he replied and squeezed her hand.
Come on. Get it together. Jenna pushed her shoulders back and strode to the kitchen. If only there was some way to let her dad know she was looking for him.
She popped a K-cup in the coffeemaker. If the person who took her dad was the one with the listening device, maybe her dad could hear what was being said as well. A song from her childhood popped in her head, and she hummed the first few bars . . . then she softly sang the first words.
“Joshua fought the battle of Jericho. Jer-i-cho—”
“Jer-i-cho . . .” Max sang with her as he entered the kitchen. He swept the kitchen, stopping as the lights flashed like crazy when he passed it by the pendant light over the table. “Great song.”
She nodded, handed him the cup of just-brewed coffee, and put a K-cup in for herself. “Dad taught it to me when I was a kid.”
Her voice broke, and it wasn’t because she was acting. If anything happened to her dad . . .
“You ready?” Max asked.
Jenna waited for her coffee to finish brewing then grabbed it. “I think I’ve figured out why there’s been no ransom note,” she said once they were on the road.
“Why?”
“Because Phillip is responsible for Dad being snatched—he has a lot more to lose from my photos than Sebastian. Phillip wants me to be so anxious that I’ll give him the photos, no questions asked.”
“You could be right.”
“And I’ll give them to him before I let anything happen to Dad.”
Silence hung between them the rest of the drive. Alex’s face was grim when they walked into the chief deputy’s office. It was even grimmer when they finished explaining what they’d found. Alex pushed a photo across her desk.
“I emailed Sebastian’s prison intake photo to Dani Collins and asked her to sketch him with a more muscular build. This is what she came up with.”
Jenna studied the drawing. It barely even resembled the man she remembered. “I haven’t seen him.”
Alex lifted her eyebrows. “Well, the person who duplicates keys at the Walmart in Sharpton has. He identified the person in this drawing as a customer who came into the automotive department Tuesday afternoon and asked him to make a key. Said he was giving it to his sister. The Walmart guy remembered him because he’s a body builder and asked the customer where he worked out, only he never got an answer. The customer mumbled something he didn’t catch.”
