Follow Me Home (Detectives Kane and Alton)

“Yesterday, I sent Webber out to investigate the complaints we’ve received about dogs running loose in town. Ah, Kane mentioned them being dangerous and all.”

“Yes.” Jenna drummed her fingernails on the desk, and the action made Rowley’s face pale.

“Well, seems he wrote about twenty tickets or more. I was on the 911 call-out last night and people were calling me at all hours complaining about him.” His cheeks pinked. “I thought you should know, ma’am.”

Annoyed idiots too stupid to keep their dogs under control had blocked the emergency line with stupid calls, she pushed to her feet. “Good job. Those dogs are becoming a hazard, and as to the people waiting to pay their fines, leave them to me.” She strode past him and headed for the door then stopped. “Tell Bradford to help Maggie on the desk until we clear the backload.”

The line of people waving tickets glared at her as she approached. She cleared her throat. “Listen up, folks.” She waited until all eyes had turned to her. “We are currently doing a blitz on dogs. Many are running on the roads causing accidents and others are forming packs. If they bite a child, the owner will be held responsible.” She ran her gaze over them all. “Secondly, if anyone calls 911 without a true emergency, I will personally write you a ticket for falsely reporting a crime. Do you understand?”

Not waiting for a response, she turned on her heel, and seeing Wolfe and Kane at the coffee machine, she headed through the office to speak to them. “Do you have an autopsy report on Jane Stickler for me, Wolfe?”

“I have a preliminary report. The toxicology screening will take weeks before I can give a positive cause of death but I have discovered evidence of interest that might point to our killer.”

“Okay, we’ll wait for Bradford to finish on the desk then I want everyone in my office for an update.”

She flicked a glance at Kane, who was busy making coffee. “Can you grab me one of those?”

“Sure thing.”

She walked back to her office and pulled down the whiteboard. She entered the information on Angelique Booval to the list of suspects for the vigilante murders then added a new column for Jane Stickler. After staring at the lack of information, she heard Kane’s voice behind her.

“The troops were busy while we were out yesterday. They tracked down more information on the victims. I mean the first two victims, Price and Dorsey.” He handed her a cup of coffee. “Rowley has been working hard and interviewed the people who last saw them alive.”

“That’s great.” She sipped her coffee then smiled. “I was starting to think they were phantoms.”

She waited at the whiteboard for her deputies to take seats in her office then placed her coffee cup on the desk. “Okay, Rowley, you have some information to share—you can start.”

“I received a couple of calls last night on the crime info line we set up with the local news channel.” Rowley made a show of going through the folder on his lap. “Amos Price was seen at a party on the Sunday before his death. Sam Button hired him for his son’s birthday party over in Blackwater. It was a word-of-mouth engagement and didn’t go through Party Time. The second sighting was on Monday, he went into the convenience store. The one near the library on Main Street. He purchased chocolates, a bottle of bourbon, and condoms. The checkout guy, Pete Sadler, said he paid cash. He remembered him, as he had a baseball cap pulled down low on his head and looked suspicious, so he was watching him on the CCTV camera. I have a copy and it’s Amos Price.” He cleared his throat. “He is wearing the same clothes as when we found him.”

“Was he alone?” Kane turned in his seat to look at Rowley.

“Unfortunately, yes. I could clearly see his truck in the video taken from the camera outside and no one was waiting for him inside.”

Jenna made notes on the whiteboard. “So we can place Price’s murder on Monday?”

“No, because he was picked up driving by on the CCTV camera on Tuesday as well.”

She glanced at him. “Do you have a time?”

“Yeah, two thirty.” Rowley flipped back through his notebook.

“That is great work, Rowley.” Jenna smiled at him. “Anything else on Dorsey?”

“The motel owner was the last person to see Ely Dorsey alive. He remembers seeing his vehicle drive past the office. He had nobody with him. I spoke to the owner of Party Time and he said Dorsey had taken time off work, said he needed a few days to repair some things in his cabin. He spoke to him about ten the day of his death.”

“I have something too.” Wolfe raised one blond eyebrow. “I spoke to all the nurses on duty at the hospital and the doctors. Jane Stickler had three visitors: her parents and her brother. The nurse on night duty picked up her coffee as usual at midnight then chatted with two other nurses for a few minutes before returning to her desk. She remembers feeling sleepy but nothing until she woke around four in the morning. She went to check on Jane but only shone her flashlight on her. She thought she was asleep. It wasn’t until she went back at five to take her vitals before the shift change that she found her deceased.”

Jenna made more notes on the whiteboard as her deputies spoke. “So, we can assume her killer was in the hospital before midnight to drug the coffee.”

“Yeah.” Wolfe’s forehead creased into a frown. “There lies the problem. I called the hospital administrator and insisted he give me a list of the people who entered using their cards. One of them is dead and has been dead for some time. I would say the killer has his hospital access card.”

Oh, wonderful, another curveball. Jenna rubbed her temple. If anything could go wrong to make the case more complicated, it would. Her day was getting better by the second. “Why can’t we have simple murders? Why is everything that happens in this town so darn complicated?”

43

Bobby-Joe Brandon’s week could not get any better. He sat at Chris’s kitchen table with his hand wrapped around a bottle of beer and rubbed his thumb over the condensation. He grinned at his friend. “It was easy; nothin’ had changed. As usual, the deputy on duty went home when they secured the ward. All I needed was the swipe card and I had access to all areas. As I had expected, the drugs worked on the night nurses on the floor below as well. It worked slowly so they would all believe they had dropped off to sleep. Hell, it happens all the time on the graveyard shift. They won’t report fallin’ asleep on duty now, will they?” He sipped his beer. “I found the girl’s room easily enough. The bitch tried to run but I caught her before she escaped in the elevator. You should have seen her eyes, man.” He grinned at his friend. “She was shit scared of me. I gave her a head start to make it interestin’ and she was at the elevator door pounding the buttons. Those elevators are so slow, and when I came up, I hit every floor on the panel to send it back down. It was movin’ so darn slow, I could take my time and enjoy watchin’ her. I wish it could have lasted longer but I needed to get out of there. I slipped a needle into her arm and bang, she was dead.”

“What about the person you saw in the room? Can they identify you?” Chris looked like he was going to spew. “We can’t meet the girls now. It’s too soon after the murder. It will be all over the news the moment we take them, and they will see the connection. Shit, she was Ely’s girl, they’ll know everything by now.”