In The Shadows (2 page)

 Chapter One

Brandon Masterson had lived in Selma, Alabama, all his life. Brandon witnessed many disturbing things growing up in the South, but he was a wiser man because of those lessons in life. Luckily for Brandon, his mom raised him in the church. He was a Southern Baptist and had accepted God at an early age. Brandon and his sister, Kathryn, were baptized together, although she was three years younger than he was. His father, the Dallas County Chief of Police, did not attend church with them on a regular basis, but Mrs. Masterson made sure her children did. While professing to be a Christian, Brandon often wondered if he and his father ever served the same god.

Brandon had graduated two years ago and decided to join the police force following in his father’s footsteps. While following in those footsteps, Brandon had to set the record straight on more than one occasion that he was not his father. Sheriff Masterson was from the old days when blacks and whites were segregated, and sometimes Brandon would wonder if he wished it were still that way.

* * *

When Brandon was a freshman in high school, a local girl went missing and had the whole town in an uproar. Stella Stone was a very popular fourteen-year-old African American girl who disappeared one day after leaving the library. She was a very active member in the community as well as a cheerleader for the Lakeview Tigers.

Although Brandon was a year older than Stella, he remembered watching her grow up as they attended the same school. Brandon knew Stella was a good girl who always spoke when she saw him, regardless of who was around. Stella didn’t let the fact that she grew up in a sometimes racist town keep her from excelling. She was well liked by most people, and no one could understand why anyone would want to hurt such a nice girl. Making the honor roll every semester, Stella was bound to do great things.

Brandon was stunned to hear of Stella’s disappearance and wasn’t sure what to make of it. They had been attending the same school since middle school and had become pretty good friends. Selma had several close-knit communities where everyone knew everyone, and all the children, regardless of color, were friends. Although there were still some racial tensions present in the city, the disappearance of Stella seemed to put all that to rest.

Brandon and a few of his friends even tried to figure out the murder themselves by conducting their own investigation. He, Brad, and Tyson had been friends since elementary school and played cowboys and Indians, cops and robbers, and every other childhood game boys would play together. They would meet in their clubhouse in Brandon’s backyard every day after school and try to come up with a list of clues and possible suspects. Brandon wanted to solve this case and make his father proud of him.

The boys would go over the facts and events leading up to Stella’s disappearance and tried to develop a list of things that could’ve happened to her, places where she could possibly be, and finally, a list of suspects. They all knew Stella was a very likeable girl and couldn’t possibly have enemies. Brandon felt it was an accident or a random crime.

The list of suspects included a couple of the town’s rowdiest people, a suspected member of the KKK, a drifter who showed up in town a few months back, and one of the town’s most recently released sex offenders. After they’d come up with a good list of suspects, they now needed to find out if they had an alibi for the day Stella disappeared. Between the three of them, they would split the list with Brandon taking the lead and volunteering to snoop around his dad’s office.

When the boys met up the next week, it was discovered that all had an alibi except for the sex offender and Johnny Rush, the drifter. Cole Jones was not supposed to come in contact with any minors and had been questioned by his parole officer. Johnny Rush could not be found.

Two weeks had passed since Stella disappeared, and Brandon found himself consumed with trying to figure out what happened. Initially, a lot of kids thought Stella had run away from home. Growing up in a place like Selma, with the largest nearest city being Montgomery which was forty miles away, people dreamt of getting out and taking advantage of the opportunities of a larger city. In Selma, the biggest business in the area was the paper mill on the west side of town. People talked about running away to Birmingham or Montgomery all the time, so when it was discovered that Stella had relatives in both places, the story of her running away sounded even more believable.

It was on a Thursday morning when the search for Stella Stone came to an abrupt halt. Stella’s body had been found in a wooded area not far from the local high school. She’d been missing for three weeks and disappeared without a trace. Since Stella attended Lakeview High School, the school decided to postpone classes the day her nude body was discovered bound and gagged.

The Summerfield community was in an uproar over the senseless killing, and they urged the police to work around the clock to make an arrest. Although it was a time when things weren’t so fair for people of color, people of all races were shocked and saddened by the news and demanded justice. Once it was released that Stella had been raped, the accident theory was thrown out, and Brandon knew there was a murderer in the midst.

* * *

Days turned to weeks and weeks into months. It wasn’t until the boys’ senior year did they officially give up solving the murder. The sheriff’s office wasn’t any closer to finding the killer than they were two years ago. The city and people had pretty much returned to normal, except maybe for the black community. They had their own suspicions of what happened to Stella. The only suspect Brandon thought was credible was the drifter, who the sheriff’s department seemed to have no interest in.

In Brandon’s mind, the most reasonable theory was that the killer was someone passing through who had no reason to return. All their leads turned out to be nothing, and all the suspects had alibis except for the drifter. Brandon believed Johnny Rush disappeared around the same time Stella did. The thing that frustrated Brandon the most was that his father never once considered the information Brandon gave him to be credible, which further drove a wedge between them.

 Chapter Two

Although Tonya had a basketball scholarship at the University of Alabama, her focus was majoring in criminal justice. Ever since she was a little girl, she was always fascinated with solving mysteries and had developed quite a knack for it. When Tonya left Georgia, she knew living apart from her parents would be difficult since she’d been the baby of the family for so long.

Her brother, Tony, lived in San Antonio, Texas, with his wife, Serena, and their new baby. Her sister, Tara, had left the military to travel around the country with Terry, who still played professional basketball for the Miami Heat. Tara and Terry had finally set a wedding date, and Tonya and her family were so excited.

Now it was just her mom and dad at home, and they could focus on each other without the typical interruptions. Home was only three hours away, and Mr. Danston made sure he got his baby girl and scholarship recipient a dependable vehicle for travel back and forth. Although her relatives there would be able to assist her should she need it, Tonya had always been independent and never wanted to have to lean on anyone for anything.

Tonya’s parents had made a deal with her upon arriving at the university. She would have to remain on campus her entire freshman year. If she maintained a 3.5 or higher grade point average at the end of her freshman year, she would be able to move off campus and get an apartment. Tonya knew this was a fair deal, one she would be able to keep. She couldn’t wait until next year and had already been viewing the neighboring cities to find a decent place to live.

Tonya would have Sunday dinner with her relatives every first and third Sunday, which made the feeling of being homesick subside. She enjoyed having relatives not far from school, and she liked the fact that she could visit whenever she needed to. Tonya had been trying to convince her cousin Natalie to come out to UAB and tour the campus.

Natalie was a basketball fanatic too but had always envisioned moving away from home to go to college. She was interested in journalism and knew she would be news anchor some day. Natalie and Tonya were very close and had become even closer since Tonya moved to Tuscaloosa. Tonya had even made it to her high school to watch her play during a tournament. The girls got along well, and Tonya tried to teach Natalie everything she knew and steer her in the right direction just as Tara had with her. Natalie was an only child and appreciated the time she and Tonya spent together.

* * *

When Tonya made it home, she was exhausted. She’d had a slight head injury in the second half of the game. Once she was checked out by the team’s physician, she rested on the sidelines a few minutes before returning in the final minutes.

The basketball game was a thriller from start to finish. Tonya was one of the starting guards and was known for her incredible speed and ball-handling skills. She had scored eighteen points in the game, which was the most she’d scored since she began playing college basketball. The coach was very impressed with her, and her teammates were just as happy for her.

Since she lived in the sports dorm, she almost felt like she had more sisters than she could stand, but she welcomed it. Having Tara out of the house and so far away forced her to enjoy her surroundings even more. If her parents agreed to getting her that apartment next year, being in the dorm with girls from all walks of life who gave their advice freely would be the one thing she would miss.

Tonya had been in the area for several months and felt like Tuscaloosa had become her home. It was not much different from Fairburn. Both cities were proud southern cities with the fine southern warmth. She still had not begun dating, and with her short-term goals of making good grades and getting her own place, there was no time for dating.

All her close friends from home decided to stay close to home while Tonya settled on relocating to Tuscaloosa. She knew being on her own would help her to become more independent and grow up faster. At her high school graduation, she and some of her closest friends vowed to keep in touch and get together every summer. They would have their own annual reunion back in Fairburn.

She knew the next day was the first Sunday of the month, and she needed to prepare for church. By the time she was dressed and ready for bed, it was almost midnight. Sunday school started at ten in the morning, and immediately following that was the regular church service. On the second and fourth Sundays, if Tonya was determined to go to church, she would visit some of the other local churches closer to the university.

When Tonya arrived, the girls were dressed and ready to go. Tonya had been taking Natalie and Janelle to church with her every Sunday she attended with them. This Sunday, the girls asked Tonya to pick up one of their new friends on their way, and Tonya agreed willingly. When they pulled in front of Danielle’s house, the girls watched her walk out onto the front porch and lock the door before walking to Tonya’s car. Once the exchanges were made, the girls got comfortable and sang along with the music on the gospel station Tonya was playing in the car.

Natalie’s mom and dad met the girls at church, and they all went out to lunch after church was over. Danielle seemed to fit right in with the girls, and Tonya liked her immediately. She was nice and mannerable, and Tonya thought she would definitely be a positive influence on the girls.

Although the girls wanted to go to college out of state, Danielle wanted to tour the university’s campus and look at all her options. Since Tonya didn’t have a game next weekend, she agreed to get the girls and take them back to the campus for a tour. They would make a day of it and even have lunch with Tonya in the cafeteria. Being new to the area, Danielle didn’t think that relocating and leaving her mom while her father was still deployed was the smartest move to make.

 Chapter Three

The boys decided to go their separate ways with Brandon deciding to relocate to a small town outside of Tuscaloosa. He wanted to be in law enforcement, and he felt the best place to start was away from his father. Because Brandon was becoming more independent and was now old enough to voice his opinion without getting in too much trouble, he felt he could reveal to his father what had been on his mind for so many years.

There were a number of things concerning him, like the way the city was run and crime was handled, and most importantly, the investigation of Stella’s disappearance. Brandon felt more could have been done had his father been a little open minded. Knowing the history, he knew he couldn’t work for his father.

Brandon needed to spread his wings and get away from the influence of his father’s image and reputation. Brandon didn’t need all the niceties the big city held. He was a country boy and couldn’t imagine being anything else. He had relatives not far from Tuscaloosa and was able to stay in one of their rental properties while working at the local police department and going to school part time at the university.

He never dated much in high school and felt he would be wasting his time. He’d watched his father go through his share of women after Brandon’s mother divorced him. Brandon knew that was not the type of life he wanted for himself.

Brandon’s mother had taken his baby sister and relocated to Ohio and never looked back. He would hear from her from time to time and would always get a birthday card like clockwork, but his mother vowed to never set foot in Alabama again. Brandon missed his mother as any boy would. He’d gotten used to eating his father’s cooking or cooking for himself. He missed her most during holidays or school events and especially when he was hurt or sick.

Brandon thought back to the time he’d severely cut his finger in the eleventh grade and thought it couldn’t be saved. Upon his arrival to the doctor’s office, he’d lost a considerable amount of blood and was beginning to feel faint. His father was told by the receptionist that the doctor had been transferred earlier that week. Brandon’s father was livid that he wasted the time traveling to the clinic when he could have easily driven to the hospital.

Luckily Brandon’s father got him to the emergency room in the nick of time, and the doctor there was able to save his finger and ultimately his life. The cut left Brandon with a scar and some loss of motion and feeling, but he was thankful he could fire his weapon with both hands and was still a good shot. Having his mom in his life during some of the most difficult times would have probably spared the ill relationship he had with his father.

Brandon was getting accustomed to his new surroundings. He lived in Northport, which was about twelve miles from where he worked. His hours were set from six thirty in the morning until three thirty in the afternoon, with the occasional weekend duty. He would be in training for another month before he was considered an official sheriff’s deputy. He had completed all the training sessions he needed to start his patrols. He would split the months and spend two weeks on the desk and two weeks on patrol until he found a full-time position at the department in Tuscaloosa.

Brandon had not made many friends since arriving, other than the women and men on the force. Brandon missed his friends at home but not really being at home. He spent most of his time at the gym when he wasn’t working or studying. He attended school on Tuesday and Thursday nights from 5:30 p.m. until 9:30 p.m.

The hours worked okay for him since he didn’t have a personal life. He worked out every day during lunch at the gym near the station, and once he was home, he was home. He occasionally attended church on Sunday mornings, but when he wasn’t at church, he was at his rental house in Northport.

It was almost seven o’clock on Saturday evening when Brandon finished grocery shopping at the local Food Lion. He normally did his shopping on Saturday morning, but he felt like being lazy and refused to get out of bed. He loaded his Chevy pickup and headed home on Highway 69. As he looked down at his gas hand, he realized he needed to stop and fill up for the week. There was a Philips 66 and Subway combined a few miles ahead, and Brandon figured he would grab lunch too.