Rich Waters (Jason Rich), page 15
Jason narrowed his gaze. “Kisha?”
“Tonight.”
30
Shay Lankford slammed the door to her office once she and the sheriff were both inside. “Griff, what in the hell happened today?”
Sheriff Griffith stared back at her with hard eyes. “We won is what happened. The case was bound over to the grand jury.”
“That’s not what I mean, and you know it. Where is Hatty?”
“Sick,” the sheriff said.
“Bullshit. Hatty hasn’t missed a day of work in three years. I saw her yesterday, and we went over the examination and the expected line of cross. I prepared her and ended up having to roll with George.”
“And you and George rolled fine,” the sheriff said.
“Only because it was the prelim.” She took out her phone and held it out in front of him. “I’ve called her ten times today, and it rings and rings. Goes to voice mail every time.”
“She’s probably screening your calls.”
“And when have you ever known Hatty to do that.”
Sheriff Griffith gave his head a jerk and turned for the door. “I do it when I’m sick, Shay. Look, I’ve got other things to do today.”
“Don’t you dare blow me off, Griff. This is a capital murder case. The second one my office has filed in two years. Shall I remind you how the last one went?”
“No,” he said, looking down at the floor.
“Well, we may have accomplished the objective today, but we didn’t start off strong. George Mitchell is not Hatty. He’s a beta, and I need a damn alpha on the stand.” She paused and walked toward him, leaning forward with her hands on her hips. “I need Hatty.”
“You had her for the Jana Waters case, and you still lost.”
“We lost, Griff,” Shay said. “Just like we will both lose in November if we don’t make damn sure Trey Cowan is lethally injected for murdering one of your officers. Do you understand?”
The sheriff gritted his teeth. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”
“Good,” Shay said, turning and walking back to her desk. As the sheriff grabbed the door handle, she called after him, her tone as cold as ice. “Griff?”
“Yes.”
“The second you hear from Hatty, you tell her that I want to speak with her.”
“OK,” he said.
“And Griff?”
He stopped as he was halfway out the door but didn’t turn around.
“It would be nice if your department could figure out what, specifically, Kelly Flowers was doing at Branner’s Place before he was killed.”
The sheriff scratched the back of his neck and nodded his head.
“Really nice,” Shay added.
31
The phone buzzed in the passenger seat, but Detective Hatty Daniels didn’t take any notice of it. She kept her hands on the wheel, forcing herself to focus on the green road signs.
She sucked in a deep breath and felt her heart begin to pound again. She glanced at the phone, saw the name on the screen—Sheriff Griffith—and then shifted her gaze back to the highway.
How many times had Griff called her today? She’d lost count. And whatever the number, it wasn’t as many as the district attorney.
“What am I doing?” Hatty asked out loud. Her voice sounded almost foreign to her, and she realized that she hadn’t said a word all day. She looked again at her phone, which had finally stopped vibrating. The device was resting on top of a manila folder.
Inside the binding was a copy of every document in her investigative file. Keeping her left hand on the wheel, she moved her right to her pants pocket, feeling the indention created by the thumb drive. Since leaving Guntersville at three thirty this morning, she’d probably checked to make sure she had the USB stick once every hour. As if it might be an engagement ring or some family heirloom that she didn’t want to lose.
I wish, Hatty thought, grinding her teeth together. As far as she knew, the folder and the USB drive were the only two copies of her investigation into Sergeant Kelly Flowers. She’d made them three weeks ago, right after notifying Griff of her conclusions. At that time, the file had been kept on the hard drive of her laptop but not on the interdepartmental network. Her partner, Sergeant George Mitchell, had felt the investigation might be compromised if the file was available to everyone, and his stance had made sense to Hatty. In fact, she had even agreed with it. If anyone had ever gotten wind of what she and George were doing, they could search her documents and find the drive saved as “KFI,” which was short for “Kelly Flowers Investigation.” Were they being paranoid? Maybe a little. But when you suspected one of your comrades of being in cahoots with the county’s foremost drug dealer, you couldn’t take any chances.
Saving the documents on a backup drive was sound police work. What if she lost her computer or someone stole it? With it also being on the USB stick and printed out, the investigation was more secure. But, if she were honest with herself, she knew those solid reasons weren’t the impulse that had driven her to make copies of everything.
Had she really thought someone would delete the file from her laptop? I mean, how stupid was that? Any computer guru worth her stuff could go into the metadata of the computer and discover that the file had been destroyed. No one would do that, right?
Wrong. Three days ago, she had discovered the file folder missing on her hard drive. At first, she’d thought it was a glitch. She’d rebooted the laptop twice to make sure that her eyes weren’t deceiving her.
They weren’t. The file was gone.
The only times she’d ever not had the computer with her were on short lunch breaks or occasionally when she’d walk across to the courthouse to visit with the district attorney. She had always shut the door to her office when she left. Wasn’t that reasonable? In a sheriff’s department, no less?
Yes. Of course it was. But the fact remained. The folder had been erased. Someone, another officer or employee of the department, must have gone into her private area, booted up her laptop, typed in her personal password, found the drive containing the KFI investigation, and pushed the delete button.
Who could have done that?
Hatty could think of only one realistic possibility, and the very idea made her arms shiver with gooseflesh. How could George Mitchell, her partner for years, do that to her? And why?
What didn’t she know?
She sighed and rolled down the window of her silver Honda Accord. She’d kept her civilian vehicle eight years ago when she was finally issued a black unmarked Dodge Charger. She wasn’t exactly sure why other than she didn’t want to go through the hassle of selling it. The small sedan was so old that the Kelley Blue Book value was next to nothing. So she’d kept the fossil of her former life, and every so often, she’d driven it to the grocery store or to the gym. She probably hadn’t put more than a hundred miles on it since she’d been granted the Charger.
She’d driven over two hundred already today.
Hatty squeezed the wheel and again glanced at the manila file folder. She had worked too hard to lose her career. She wouldn’t lie to protect a police officer’s reputation. She wouldn’t withhold evidence to ensure that her boss won reelection in November. She wouldn’t compromise her values. She was forty-four years old and had spent half of her life in law enforcement.
But what could she do? Since noticing the file had been deleted, she’d also gotten the sense that she was being followed. She’d noticed the same blue Mustang behind her the last couple of days to and from work. Was she being tailed? And if so, by who? Someone in the sheriff’s department? Tyson Cade?
When Hatty had left this morning, she hadn’t seen anyone behind her. She’d been watching her rearview mirror like a hawk ever since, and she had seen nothing suspicious. She’d driven south toward Birmingham and made it all the way to Montgomery before she turned around and headed north.
As the sun began to set, Hatty crossed the Tennessee state line. A few minutes later, she clicked her blinker and got off on the familiar exit. Then she turned left onto Highway 31.
She was confused. She was scared. And she was exhausted.
But she knew what she needed.
A safe harbor where she could think through her next move . . .
. . . and a damn good lawyer.
Hatty breathed a deep sigh of relief as she passed a sign stating PULASKI, 20 MILES, knowing that she was going to the only place that might have both.
“Home,” she whispered.
32
Lynn Caldwell Branner had been called “Bull” since he was seven years old. Then, he was five feet, four inches tall and well over a hundred pounds. Huge for a first grader. Over the course of the next fifty years, Bull hadn’t grown another inch, but he had packed on another 150 pounds. The man was built more like a barrel than a bull, but the nickname had stuck.
At 6:50 p.m., Bull was shooting an AR15 in one of the twenty stalls at Screaming Eagle Gun Camp, affectionately named after the unit that all three Tonidandel brothers belonged to in the army. The target was a good fifty yards away, and from Jason’s standpoint, the compact man was hitting the middle of it pretty much every time.
Jason wore earplugs and goggles and stood next to Satch, who had said that Bull would speak with them after he finished his session. At this time of night, there was no one else at the range, as closing time was in just a few minutes. Jason pulled out his phone, checking the time. He needed to be back in Guntersville by 7:30 p.m. for dinner with Kisha and Teresa. He saw that he had a text from Harry and clicked on it.
Call me.
Classic Harry. As cryptic as ever, but the investigator wouldn’t be texting if he didn’t have something.
Jason put the phone back in his pocket and continued to watch Bull, who peppered the air with shots. Over the course of the past thirty days, Jason had spent several afternoons at the range with Satch, trying to get comfortable with the Glock handgun he’d bought after his trip to Perdido. He’d never been a gun guy. His dad had enjoyed hunting and shooting skeet, but Jason had never taken to it. Before his first session with Satch two weeks ago, he could count the times he’d shot a firearm on one hand.
Now, though being around a range was still relatively foreign, he’d at least gotten over the flinches. Even with earplugs, the sound of an AR15—or hell, just about any gun—was jolting, and it took a while for Jason not to jump out of his shoes every time he heard one fire. But eventually, the sounds became part of the background and nothing more.
Finally, Bull pushed a button on a screen to the left of him, and the target moved toward him until he ripped the paper off the background. He examined his handiwork and then wadded it up and stuffed it into a carrying case he’d brought with him. He carefully placed his rifle in the case and then approached Satch and Jason.
“Good shooting,” Jason said.
Bull took off his goggles. Jason had met him years ago during high school, but he doubted Bull remembered. The man’s expression was kind of a perpetual half grin, mouth slightly open and eyes glazed as if he always had a three- or four-beer buzz. He looked down, and for a moment Jason thought he might spit, but instead he peered back up at Jason. “The colonel . . .” Bull nodded at Satch. “. . . says you wanted to speak to me about Kelly Flowers’s murder.” He stepped forward, and his forehead was about even with Jason’s chin. His massive belly protruded to where it almost touched Jason’s clothes. He was close enough that Jason could smell a pinch of dip on the man’s breath. Sure enough, Bull turned around and walked back to his stall, spitting into a cup he’d placed on the counter. Then he threw the cup away and picked up his carrying case. “Come on. Let’s talk out by the truck.”
Jason glanced at Satch, who shrugged. Then they followed Bull out of the range, into the lobby, and then outside the building. Once they had closed the door, Jason looked back and saw Chuck Tonidandel turning the OPEN sign around so that it now read CLOSED.
Bull pulled the tailgate down on his Ford F-150 and slid the case into the back. Then he spat tobacco on the ground and squinted at Jason. “Whatcha want to know?”
“Do you still own the property off Hustleville Road where Kelly Flowers was shot and killed?”
“Shore do,” Bull said, spitting again. “And I’ll tell you just like I told Detective Daniels. I didn’t see nothing. I ain’t hear nothing. I got up for work in the morning and saw a body lying on the ground. I walked over to check it out and recognized Kelly Flowers. He had his uniform on, and his chest was a bloody mess. Dead.”
“How’d you know it was Kelly?”
“Kelly was from the Sprangs just like Trey.” Bull pulled a can of Skoal out of the back pocket of his jeans and took another pinch out. He stuffed it under his bottom lip and squinted at Jason. “Kelly was a pretty good kid growing up. Never got in much trouble. He came to my store at night like the other teens, but never ran afoul of the law that I remember. His mom and dad were quiet folks. Mac Flowers worked at Wayne Farms, and I think Jill was a housekeeper. Both dead now too.”
“Any other family?”
“Older sister named Bella. Quite the looker. She lives in Huntsville now.” His half grin widened. “Rumor is she dances the pole.”
Jason cocked his head.
“She’s a stripper,” Bull clarified, though Jason had understood his meaning the first time. “Or so I’ve heard.”
“Where does she . . . work?” Jason asked.
“I can’t remember. Either Jimmy’s or Visions. Both of them are out Highway 72.”
Jason pulled out his phone and brought up the notes section. He typed in Bella Flowers, Visions, and Jimmy’s with his thumbs. “Anything else you can tell me about the family?”
“Naw,” Bull said, spitting a stream of brown snuff onto the grass adjacent to the pavement.
“What about Kelly Flowers before he died?”
“What about him?”
“Did you have any contact with him? What was he like? Did he still live in Alder Springs?”
Bull rubbed his chin. “Yes, to the last one. He lived in his folks’ old house, which was about a mile from my land.”
“And you still live near the barn?”
“My house is right behind it, but I never go in there. Hell, I hardly use the barn anymore.”
“On the night of Kelly’s murder, did you—”
“I was out cold, son,” Bull interrupted. “I drink a six-pack of Miller Lite every night before bed. You could say it’s my version of melatonin.”
“What are you doing these days for work?” Jason asked.
“I work on the assembly line at Pilgrim’s Pride. Seven a.m. to three p.m. Monday through Friday. Been doing that for near about thirty years.”
“Did you hear the gunshots?”
Bull smirked. “I didn’t hear shit. I woke up the next morning at seven a.m. for my shift. Was going to work and saw the body. Then I called 911.”
“What happened next?”
“The cavalry arrived at my barn, and Detective Daniels started in asking me if I seen anything or heard anything, just like you been doing.”
All the mentions of Hatty Daniels reminded Jason that she hadn’t been there this morning at the preliminary hearing. Was that strange or was it strategy? Jason snatched his phone, remembering his dinner with Kisha and Teresa. It was now ten after seven.
“What about my client, Trey Cowan? What can you tell me about him, Mr. Branner?”
“Call me Bull.” He spat again. “Trey was a good kid. I hardly ever saw him at my barn because he was all about football and getting a scholarship.”
“What about after the injury?”
Bull stared down at the pavement. “I’ve heard a few rumors.”
“Like what?”
“Like him maybe getting mixed up with Tyson Cade. Needing money and such.”
“What about Kelly Flowers? Any rumors about him?”
Bull blinked and again spat on the ground. “I heard he was investigating Cade for the sheriff’s office.”
Jason felt his pulse quicken. “Anything specific?”
“No,” Bull said, but Jason felt the answer was a bit quick. Almost rehearsed.
“No?” Jason pressed.
“No,” Bull repeated. “Listen, boys . . .” He glanced at Satch and then back at Jason. “I wish I could help you. I wished I coulda helped Detective Daniels. But I don’t know nothing. I’m sorry.” He opened the door to his truck and climbed in. When he cranked up the ignition, Jason knocked on the window. Bull rolled it down and stared at Jason.
“Let me know if you remember anything else.”
“You think Trey’s been set up?” Bull asked.
“Yes,” Jason said, not entirely sure he believed it but wanting to give Bull a reason to come clean if he hadn’t told them everything.
Bull took a cup from the center console and spat into it. Jason wondered how many spit cups the man had lying around his house and automobile. “Well . . . that’s some tough shit,” he finally said. Then the pickup eased forward. Seconds later, it was turning right onto Highway 431.
“I think he’s hiding something,” Jason said, watching the truck disappear into the distance.
“Maybe,” Satch said. “But if he is, we’re not ever going to find it.” Satch paused. “And you know damn well why.”
Jason sighed. “Cade.”
33
Bull Branner bought a case of Miller Lite on the way home. He was going to need a bit more than his customary sixer tonight. He drank three cans on the way home and cracked open a fourth as he hopped out of his truck. He enjoyed shooting guns, but he might have to find a new range. The Tonidandel brothers had always been good to him, but no amount of friendship and loyalty was enough to even chance getting on the wrong side of Tyson Cade.
Bull drank his fourth beer in two swallows by the truck and then hauled the rest of the case the two hundred yards from his three-bedroom shack to the barn he and his family had operated for three decades as “Branner’s Place.” He unlatched the gate and stepped inside, breathing in the smell of hay. Nowadays, he leased the barn to local farmers to store hay and soybeans. It had been eight years since the store was open, but there were still a few remnants, including the long bar in the loft upstairs. Back then, you could get a drink either upstairs or down, and there was also a package store where you could take your booze home or, in the case of the local teens, just outside to their vehicles, which were always strewed across the grass in every direction. He’d gotten busted a few times for bootlegging, but not enough for the risks to outweigh the profits. And once he got on the good side of the local meth trade, the cops left him alone for good. Eventually, though, the locals got tired of the youngsters and their teenage antics and found other places to catch a buzz. Every watering hole had its expiration date, and Branner’s Place got to where it was costing too much to keep open.
