For the Love of Jazz (25 page)

“I’d be more than grateful for any help you can give me,” Marlie offered shyly. “I have no clue how to begin.”

Settling back in his chair, Tate snagged Marlie’s wineglass and drank half of it while his mother and fiancée talked of silk and lace. After a few moments, Marlie’s face lost its stiffness and she became more animated. She was so beautiful. And his.

Mine
, he thought again, his fingers curling around the delicate stem of the glass.

“Just think, this time next week, we’ll be at Jazz and Anne-Marie’s wedding,” Ella mused. “You’d think it was spring, with all these weddings going on.”

“I saw her dress,” Marlie said. “She looked so beautiful. Pure white, lace and pearls.”

Ella’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as Marlie described the dress. “I’ve seen something similar to that in Lexington.”

Flushing, Marlie laughed and shook her head. “That’s not for me. I want something simple. Ivory, I think.”

“Wise choice,” Ella decided after a moment. “Nothing too fussy. Understated elegance, that’s what we need for you. Perhaps we could go looking…?”

“Oh, I’d love that. But Momma…” Marlie said quietly, a little worried.

Ella smiled. “She’ll go, too. We’ll make a day of it. How about the weekend after next?”

Tate’s thoughts drifted away as they spoke, his contentment fading as his mind focused on the case. Who had killed Larry Muldoon? Mind spinning, he offered occasional ‘hmms’ and ‘uh-huhs’ as he laid it out piece by piece in his mind.

“…your hair?”

His eyes flew up from the wineglass he had been studying without seeing it. Reaching out, he brushed his hand down Marlie’s silvery blonde locks. “I’d like it down,” he said quietly, twining a thick ribbon of hair around his finger. “You’ve got the most beautiful hair.”

As her future daughter-in-law flushed and flirted shyly with Tate, Ella settled back in her seat with a smile on her face.

* * *

Jazz stumbled up the steps, his arm thrown across Tate’s shoulders for balance. “How come there’s so many stairs?” he mumbled. “I coulda swore there were only three of them earlier.”

“There’s only three now, cuz,” Tate replied, half-dragging Jazz’s body up those three stairs. “Damn it, Jazz. Lose some weight.”

His drunken laugh ended abruptly as he banged his elbow on the doorjamb when Tate let go to dig out his keys. “Bastard,” he mumbled, nursing his stinging elbow and glaring at the shadow of his cousin.

“Sue me,” Tate offered, jamming the key in the lock and turning it. “Now quiet down or you’ll wake up Mabel and Mariah.”

“Not my fault ya’ll wanted to throw some hokey party,” Jazz said as he stumbled through the door. “Six more days, Tate. And she’s all mine.”

Shooting his cousin an amused glance, Tate said, “Hell, she’s always been yours. She—”

The drunken cloud faded from Jazz’s mind as he laid one hand on the banister. The silence echoed in his ears, unbelievably loud. Something was wrong…

He looked up, his eyes focusing halfway up the staircase to a single bloody red swipe that marred the soft yellow paint. A thick silence filled the house and Jazz could swear he heard his own heart stop.

Tate grew aware of it just as Jazz did, reaching inside his jacket for his gun. “Get out,” he said flatly. “Call dispatch.”

“Hell I will,” Jazz said, shaking his head and scrubbing his hands over his face. “My home, Tate.” He tore off up the stairs at a run, Tate’s muttered curse and booted feet close behind.

Throwing open the door, he lunged for Mariah’s bedside. “She’s fine,” Tate said low, gripping his arm from behind as Mariah’s soft, gentle snores filled the room. “Will you stay here?”

“Where’s Mabel?” he asked quietly. “She would have met us at the door. I know her.”

“Stay with Mariah. What if he’s still here?” Tate ordered, his voice full of authority as he reached for the phone. In a quiet voice, he issued orders before turning and studying Jazz. He still stood there, staring down at the sleeping body of his daughter.

As they watched, her face puckered in a frown and she mumbled something before flopping over on her side, dislodging her little, ragdoll. Cherries went tumbling to the floor.

The head of the doll was missing, replaced by a gaping hole that spilled white, cotton stuffing. Slowly, Jazz lowered himself to his knees and lifted the beheaded doll. “Find Mabel, Tate. Find her now.”

Tate didn’t have to look far.

Sturdy, old Mabel, her smooth, brown face was still and cold. Frozen in an expression of pure shock as she lay on her back in the bathroom just down the hall from Mariah’s room. By her outstretched hand was the missing doll head.

Tate’s eyes fastened on the little piece of metal protruding from the doll’s head. Then his eyes locked on the nail gun lying by the door. Finally, he turned and focused on the macabre sight of Mabel Winslow laying in a sprawl in the middle of the floor, her eyes rolled up, as if trying to see the nail that shot into her skull.

Blood and gore splattered the bathtub behind her from where she had fallen and hit the tub with her head.

Pausing, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. And then he backed out of the bathroom. “Jazz, I’d advise you to call Anne-Marie to come get Mariah.”

* * *

The whole town was silent, nervous. People shot each other suspicious looks and glanced over their shoulders often.

Instead of a wedding, the rainy Saturday had a funeral scheduled. Ayeisha Winslow dabbed at her streaming eyes with a handkerchief, staring at the headstone inscribed with her momma’s name. There was no body. The body couldn’t be released yet, but Ayeisha had gone ahead with the funeral without the body.

The body.

Oh, God. Momma.

“You’ll find who killed my Momma, Sheriff McNeil,” she said softly to the man standing next to her. He stood there, quiet and somber, his hat in his hands and his head bowed. When she spoke, he looked up from the headstone and nodded. “I will find him, Ayeisha. I promise.”

Though the minister had spoken his final words some time back, people still crowded around the headstone, out of respect, shock, grief and curiosity. Mabel Winslow had been a fixture in this town, much like Betsy Crane.

Softly, he said once more, “I’ll find him, Ayeisha.”

Nodding once, her proud chin went up in the air. “I’ll hold you to that.” Across the grass, she met the tearful gaze of Betsy Crane. Her silly, red hair was covered by a wide-brimmed hat draped with black netting. It didn’t surprise Ayeisha to see tears in those eyes. Querulous bigot that Betsy was, Betsy had, in her own weird way, really liked Mabel, liked arguing with her, liked insulting her, liked pretending to dislike her.

Mabel had known, as did Ayeisha.

A tear spilled out of her eyes, trickled down her cheek as she moved across the wet grass to the headstone. Laying her hand on it, she closed her eyes. “Momma, Tate’s gonna find who did this. I promise.”

* * *

Anne-Marie stood in the Winslow kitchen side by side with Marlie, slicing a loaf of fresh-baked bread. “I just don’t understand it,” she whispered. “Who could kill Mabel? And why?”

“I don’t know.” Marlie’s voice was husky and thick with tears. “It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Casting a look over her shoulder, Anne-Marie studied Jazz’s averted profile. “He’s blaming himself. He keeps trying to pull away from me. I think he’s trying to protect me. Whoever did this, did it to get to him.”

Quietly, making sure nobody could overhear, Marlie murmured, “Tate’s stumped. There are no prints, no connection, really, other than Jazz.”

Anne-Marie’s reply cut off as Ella entered the room, looking ten years older. Marlie went to Ella and hugged her. “It’s going to be okay, Ella. Tate will find out who did it.”

Reaching up, Ella stroked her carefully tinted hair. “She just did my hair last week,” she whispered, stricken. “We went to school together. She was too young…

“It just doesn’t make any sense. What in the world is happening to Briarwood, Marlie?” Ella asked, turning away, staring out into the miserable rain.

* * *

Three weeks passed, three terror-filled, endless weeks. No evidence, no suspects. Nothing. The silence hadn’t lulled anybody into thinking it was over. Instead, people became jumpier and meaner and just plain dangerous. Tate raised his head, staring into the cells across the room from his desk. All three were full.

That simply didn’t happen in Briarwood, Friday night or not.

The thin, early morning light shone through the windows as the three drunks continued sleeping it off. The damage done at the bar had been light, this time. But one man was in the hospital after Bobby Mason had broken his hand.

Tempers were flying high, fear filled every face Tate saw, and there was no end in sight.

God, he wanted this over.

He wanted to marry Marlie, take her to bed, and wake up wrapped around her, no thoughts on his mind save for making love to her again.

Instead, the weddings, both his and Jazz’s, had been postponed.

“What am I missing?” he asked himself, locking his hands behind his neck and staring down at the reports on his desk.

With a sour laugh, Tate admitted there wasn’t much to miss. No evidence. No hairs. No fibers. The nail gun had come from Jazz’s toolbox out in the garage. The only prints were his. And, thank God, Jazz had a good alibi for that night.

When the phone rang, Tate reached for it automatically. “McNeil here.”

“Tate.”

The fear in Marlie’s voice had him on his feet. “What’s wrong?”

“Tate…I need you to come out here.”

“What’s wrong?” he demanded, the fear filling his gut making him ill.

“Please come.”

And the line went dead. He slammed it down and was out of the station house in seconds.

When he arrived at Marlie’s, he found her sitting in her twin bed, surrounded by locks of pale blonde hair. Her beautiful hair had been hacked away, in some places leaving it hardly longer than an inch. As her eyes met his, he saw they brimmed with confusion and terror. They were oddly dazed, the pupils were wide, not contracted at all when he lifted the shade, letting light flood the room.

“Somebody cut my hair,” she whispered, reaching up one hand to touch her scalp. “I was sleeping and they just cut it off.”

“Honey.” It was hard to remember he had to be a cop now, hard to remember he had a job to do, when it was his woman sitting there, her eyes filled with fear and confusion.

“I called Anne-Marie,” she whispered softly, her voice singsong. “I don’t know why.”

“What in the hell…?”

Tate’s eyes turned to see Anne-Marie standing in the doorway. It shook him to discover he hadn’t even heard her drive up. “Somebody is going to pay for this,” he said, rising, lifting Marlie’s shaking form in his arms.

“Momma?” Marlie asked, lifting her shorn head from Tate’s shoulder. “Is Momma okay?”

“I’m sure she is,” Anne-Marie said quietly. “I’ll go check on her.”

Tate settled in the living room after making his call to Darla. Anne-Marie found him there, rocking Marlie back and forth while the young woman whimpered in his arms.

“Tate.”

He jerked his head around at Anne-Marie’s voice, feeling the color drain from his face. Please, God, no.

“Naomi’s not there,” Anne-Marie whispered quietly, casting Marlie a troubled glance. “Not anywhere.”

* * *

With a jerk, Tate pulled down the yellow police tape and stood aside as Jazz unlocked the door.

“What are we looking for?” Jazz asked as he entered the house.

I don’t want to be here
, he thought, staring at the red smear on the wall. It was Mabel’s blood and brain matter, smeared there by her killer to torment Jazz.

“I really don’t know,” Tate responded, shaking his head, walking around the living room. “There has got to be something.”

“How is Marlie?”

“Holding up. Laura fixed her hair and…”

“You don’t give a damn about her hair,” Jazz interrupted when Tate’s voice trailed off. “I can’t make any sense of it. Why cut her hair off? Why let her momma go off wandering around alone? The woman’s lucky she ain’t dead somewhere.”

“I know. It’s got Marlie all torn up inside. I just can’t figure out how they connect to you.”

“Neither can I.” Turning away, Jazz studied the painting that Mariah had picked out at a flea market. In the glass, he could dimly see Tate’s reflection as he wandered the room.

“This just doesn’t make any sense.”

Mumbling, pacing back and forth over the floor, Tate said, “There’s a connection here somewhere. I know it. We’re probably looking right at it.”

It took two days for them to find Mrs. Muldoon, and then she ended up in the hospital for dehydration and exposure. Tate got nothing from her. From the looks of her, she had done nothing more than wander around, until she was seen by a passing truck driver. The trucker had recognized her from a picture in the local paper when he stopped at the small park where Naomi had stopped to splash in the water like a child.

A few more days…she would have likely died. Her mind was too far gone to remember things like food and water, even the basics of shelter.

The killer had most likely known that.

* * *

“Anne, I can go home. I’m fine,” Marlie insisted, following Anne-Marie down the hall, a frown creasing her face.

Turning on her heel, Anne-Marie studied that pale face dispassionately and decided, “The hell you are.”

Determined, Marlie said, “I am not going to spend the rest of my life hiding because some nut snuck up on me while I was sleeping and cut my hair.”

“He could have cut more than that,” Anne-Marie said, jamming her arms into the sleeves of her jacket.

“Don’t you think I know that?” Marlie asked quietly, arms held stiffly at her sides, hands clenched into fists. “Don’t you think I’ve had nightmares about that? My God, I wake up expecting to find my throat slit.”

The sheer terror in Marlie’s voice slowed Anne-Marie’s steps. One hand resting on the newel post, Anne-Marie stared straight ahead. It wasn’t a stretch of the imagination, not by any means. The worse thing was that it was nowhere near being over. “All the more reason for you not to be alone,” she finally said, turning to study the face of her new friend.