Murder! Too Close To Home (33 page)

I was banking a lot on those psychology classes I had taken in college years ago.

I was about ready to dive for cover when I noticed that the deputy was approaching the sheriff’s position.

“Sounds like a good idea to me, Sheriff. I’ll be right out here if you need me.”

Lean McHenry waivered for a bit, but finally relented and handed his revolver to Deputy Smith.

“You come running if I give you the signal,” the sheriff commanded, the deputy nodding before stepping back with the weapon.

“I heard you were looking for JJ for some kind of questioning, locking her house down as a crime scene! What the hell are you doing, Celtic?”

The sheriff walked in a few steps, looking around for the first time.

“What the hell have you done to her place?” he accused with a disgusted look on his face. “You people have torn the hell out of this place.”

He took a cigarette out from behind his ear and popped it in his mouth angrily, digging his Zippo out of his pocket and lighting it before flipping it closed with one hand and reinserting it back into his pocket.

“Sheriff, we just had some questions for her earlier.” I swallowed hard before continuing, “But now, with everything we’ve discovered, she is the primary suspect in the murders.”

The sheriff was in the middle of a large drag when the reality of what I had told him hit.

“WHAT?” he screamed, smoke billowing out with his words, temporarily covering his face in an eerie display.

“You people are fucking nuts; my daughter wouldn’t hurt a fly…unless it bit her first.”

“We have incontrovertible evidence of her involvement, Lean. She has a copy of the codebook, and that bedroom over there is a
monument
to murder. Jasmine is the name of the mastermind, and we have just proven that Jane
is
Jasmine.”

“I know she’s your daughter, Lean,” I continued quickly, but with sympathy. “And I can’t imagine what you’re going through at the moment. But facts are facts, and we need to find her and fast, before she hurts somebody else. We can get her some help Lean, all we gotta do is find her.”

“Now,” I sighed when I saw the hardness in his eyes dim slightly, “It looks like she cleared out of here in a hurry. Any idea where she would go?”

Lean grimaced angrily, still unbelieving, pushing smoke slowly out through his teeth.

“Nope, unfortunately my daughter and I don’t socialize much anymore. I don’t know how or where she spends her time when she ain’t working.”

“What about the house in Franklin County?” Frank asked, “You think she would go there?”

“She must have had some connection to the house to send Wesley there; I doubt he would have found it by himself.”

The sheriff got a funny look on his face before asking, “Do you know the owner’s name of the Franklin County House?”

Frank dug out his notebook, flipping through a few pages before announcing, “Barbara Schwartz. We looked into any local connections, but haven’t found any yet.”

I looked back at Lean, who was now white, his lower lip trembling. Bringing his hands to his face in shame, he started mumbling, “Oh my God, what has she done?”

I walked over to him, “Sheriff, what the hell’s the matter?”

Pulling his hands down, he looked at me through tears. “Barbara Schwartz is my sister-in-law, my wife’s sister. She’s in a nursing home now, dying of cancer. That house and farm she inherited from my wife’s parents. No one’s lived there for years.”

“Would Jane be able to get in easily?” I asked.

“Jane takes care of it for Barbara, she has the keys.” He almost cried before again covering his face with his hands.

I looked at Betty and Frank, none of us believing how this was unfolding. This case was starting to solve itself, but it definitely didn’t feel like our finest hour.

“Lean, assuming she won’t go back to that house, is there any place else she might go?”

Pulling his hands down reluctantly, he suddenly dropped into a chair, his legs no longer able to support him. He sat there inhaling deeply, trying to will himself to calm down.

“There is another house,” he panted out, “on the same farm, the next mile over.”

“My wife inherited it same time her sister got the other. I own it now, was going to give it to Jane. She used to love it out there.”

“Will you take us there?” I asked quietly. “We have to find her, Lean.”

He nodded, taking another deep breath before standing and heading to the door. Looking over his shoulder as he exited, “I’ll ride with Tom, you guys follow us,” he commanded.

As we headed out, Betty half whispered, “I’m still not believing this.”

I shrugged, not knowing what to think myself. I was guessing though that we would find out soon enough the how and the why of it all.

Had I known what we were about to confront, I would have turned on lights and siren and drove as fast as I could…the other way.

Chapter 92

April 3, 1997

We are again quiet as we sped toward Franklin County. I was driving with Betty along side me in the front seat, Frank manning the rear. Half way there, Betty laid her hand on the seat between us palm up. I looked over to see a worried look on her face, one that matched mine I was sure. I reached out and grabbed her hand in mine, risking the one-handed, high-speed driving to comfort my beautiful wife…and myself for that matter.

The sky was overcast as we drove, a fitting day for the task at hand. Thirty minutes after we started our trek, the lights on the cruiser in front of us went off as the siren grew silent. We were going in quiet as we slowed to 20 mph for the last mile before finally turning slowly into a driveway.

Scanning the area and seeing no other vehicle in sight, I assumed that she may not be there yet.

We parked about fifty feet from the house and exited the vehicle. The Sheriff and his deputy were huddled at the front of their car, discussing something that had the deputy not looking happy. When we joined the two men, Lean looked over at us and stated, “I’ll go in alone.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea Sheriff,” Betty said with concern.

“She’s my daughter,” he said determinedly as he looked toward the house. “I should be the one to bring her out.”

He started walking toward the building before any of us could say anything to dissuade him. He was unarmed.

“Are we just going to let him do this alone?” Betty asked with concern.

“Let him get inside,” I said, “then we can position ourselves around the house, just in case.”

He got to the door and tried the knob, which was unlocked. He slowly stepped in…closing the door behind him.

“Frank, you take Tom and go around to the left, Betty and I will take the right.”

We split up and went in low with weapons drawn. We came across a side door, and I indicated to Betty to stay there while I proceeded to the back of the house where I met up with Frank at another door.

Jane’s truck was there, having been blocked from view by the house. We quietly crawled up onto an old porch and then to the back door. A loud conversation was going on inside the house; the voices now clear to us.

“You brought them here?” I heard Jane literally scream.

Pleading, “What’s going on with you Jane, why are you doing this?”

I edged up along a window and looked in. Jane was there to my right, wearing her uniform and what I assume was a blonde wig. Lean held a position to my left, just this side of the door where I had left Betty. I hoped she could get the lay of the scene from over there. I had no way to communicate with her from where I was at.

“You have no idea do you? You have no clue you drunken sot!”

“You’re right,” Lean shouted back, “I don’t have a clue. I
do
know this is not how I raised you girl.”

“You didn’t raise me you bastard,” screaming again. “Momma raised me. Momma did
everything
for me,
and
for you.”

“I know that I’ve been too busy sometimes, but I love you JJ. And I loved your momma too.”

“And when she got sick? Then you decided it would be a good idea to be gone even more?”

“I’m sorry…I just didn’t know how to handle the Lupus.”

“The Lupus didn’t kill momma you idiot, she died of loneliness. I tried everything I could to make her happy, but all she wanted was you. You to talk to her…to pay attention to her. You couldn’t even do that could you? You couldn’t even give her a few minutes a day out of your lousy life to make her happy.”

“You disgust me.”

Glancing back at the Sheriff, I saw tears rolling down his cheeks.

“I was scared, I admit that. I didn’t know how to handle a disease like that. If you don’t know how to handle something, sometimes you just hide from it. But to kill all of those people for what I did? Your momma never would have wanted that.”

“She’s dead now, and the rules changed the day she died” Jane said matter-of-factly.

“The rules of humanity didn’t change! The rules of right and wrong didn’t change either!”

Jane sneered at him. “All the rules changed, Dad. I made new ones. I’ve done things you’ve probably never even heard of since then. I’m living
my own
life now.”

She took a few steps farther from me, strutting really. “Jasmine is my name now, and Jasmine is who I am.
Jasmine
can do anything she wants. And
Jasmine
doesn’t like
you
Sheriff! You shouldn’t have pissed her off.”

She turned back toward me and I quickly ducked back out of sight.

“We even sell our body, what do you think about that,
Dad?
When we realized we needed more money to put you in your place, we went to the city and got it done.”

The voice had changed, and I risked another look in the window. She was facing Lean once more, rubbing her hand up and down her belly, and lower; moaning with her eyes closed while her head tilted back in enjoyment.

“Mmmm, it’s delicious, getting paid to do what I do. Now
that
is a sin!”

“Five thousand a night dad, that’s what I get paid to fuck strange men, powerful men!
Never
a complaint, they were
all
smiling when I got done. I even got a couple of marriage proposals.”

Throwing her head back, she let loose a loud, evil laugh, straight from the bowels of hell.

She stopped suddenly and put on a sweet face, bringing her finger to her chin while finishing in a little girl’s voice.

“Aren’t you proud of me daddy?”

Lean McHenry was on his knees, openly crying tears of agony while wailing, “what have I done, what have I done?”

Jane was silently watching her father’s pain. A small, satisfied smile crossed her lips before turning quickly into a full blown grin, her beautiful teeth seemed to glow eerily in the dark room.

She slowly pulled her weapon from the holster on her hip. Spreading her feet into a shooting stance, she brought the gun to bear on her father.

“It’s a shame really, if it hadn’t been for fucking Celtic and his crew, you never would have figured it out. Rest assured, I’ll take care of them later.”

“At least this way, I get to personally witness your last breath,” she grinned as she cocked her gun. “Quite the consolation prize, I assure you.”

I glanced over at Frank to see if he was ready. He nodded his head in affirmation, tensing himself to break through the door. I took one last look in; she was leveling the automatic and holding steady while she finished her story.

“I damn you to Hell Sheriff…you should feel right at home there.”

The room suddenly filled with the sound of splintering wood and glass as Frank and I rushed in from the porch, temporarily blinded by the darkness of the room. I noticed movement on my left and realized that Betty had also entered the room from her position at the side door.

My eyes were locked on her as she rushed to the Sheriff’s position, pushing him out of the way as she took aim on his daughter.

Jane screamed in anger, releasing a shot simultaneously with Betty’s.

My heart stopped.

The room slowed as I saw the muzzle flash of both weapons, the explosive sound hitting me like a long, low rumble. I could see the bullets cross each other and head for their targets. Another explosion to my right told me that Frank was also getting off a shot, risky as he was shooting toward the side of her body.

My eyes were drawn back to the scene in front of me as Betty’s shot hit Jane in her chest…right in the middle of her deputy’s badge.

Turned to the left with the force of the bullet, Frank’s shot then found a target and punctured her chest on her right side as a reddish spray exited from her back. She fell toward the ground.

My attention moved back toward Betty. She was standing with knees slightly bent, her weapon still in her hand but propped against the door frame behind her for support. A small patch of red was slowly growing on her left shoulder.