Scream for Me (15 page)

“Same reason you are, I’d guess.”

“But I never told. I never told him anything. I swear it.” Her voice shook.

“Sshh. Good for you, Bailey. You’re stronger than he thinks. So am I.”

“How did he know about you?”

“I don’t know. I visited your house . . . yesterday morning. Your cousin was there.”

“Alex?” The sob rose again and she pushed it back. “She came? She really came?”

“She’s looking for you, Bailey. She has Hope. She’s safe.”

“My baby?” The tears did come now, quiet but steady. “You didn’t tell her, did you?” She heard the blame in her own voice, but couldn’t stop it.

He was quiet for a long moment. “No, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I’m sorry.”

She should say
I understand
. But she wouldn’t lie to a reverend. “Did you tell
him
?”

“No.” She heard the pain behind the single word.

She hesitated. “What has he done to you?”

She heard him draw a deep breath. “Nothing I can’t take. And you?”

She closed her eyes. “The same. But I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”

“Be strong, Bailey. For Hope.”

Hope needs me.
The mantra would have to keep her going a little longer. “Can we get out of here?”

“If I think of a way, I’ll let you know.” Then his finger disappeared and she heard dirt trickling back into the hole as he covered it up from his side.

She did the same, then crawled back to where she’d lain before.
Alex has Hope. My baby is safe.
That’s all that really mattered. Everything else . . .
Everything else I brought on my own head
.

Chapter Eight

Dutton, Tuesday, January 30, 11:15 a.m.

W
anda Pettijohn looked at Daniel over her half-glasses. “Frank’s not here.”

“Is he out on call, or sick?”

Deputy Randy Mansfield came out of Frank’s office. “Just not here, Danny.” Mansfield’s voice was even, but the message was clear—
it’s none of your business, so don’t ask.
Randy slid a thin folder across the counter. “He asked me to give you this.”

Daniel scanned the few papers inside. “This is the Alicia Tremaine file. I expected it to be thicker. Where are the crime scene photos, the interviews, victim photos?”

Randy lifted a shoulder. “That’s all Frank gave me.”

Daniel looked up, eyes narrowed. “There had to have been more than this.”

Randy’s smile dimmed. “If it’s not there, it didn’t exist.”

“No one took a Polaroid of the scene or made a sketch? Where was she found?”

Jaw cocked, Randy pulled the folder around and ran his finger down the page that was the initial police report. “On Five Mile Road.” He looked up. “In a ditch.”

Daniel bit his tongue. “Where on Five Mile Road? What was the nearest intersecting road? Who were the first responders? Where’s the copy of the ME’s report?”

“It was thirteen years ago,” Randy said. “Things were done differently then.”

Wanda came to the counter. “I was here then, Daniel. I can tell you what happened.”

Daniel felt a migraine coming on. “Okay. Fine. What happened, Wanda?”

“It was the first Saturday in April. The Tremaine girl wasn’t in her bed when her mother came to wake her up. She hadn’t been there all night. She was a fast girl, that Alicia. Her mother started calling all around to her friends, but nobody’d seen her.”

“Who discovered the body?”

“The Porter boys. Davy and John. They were out riding their dirt bikes.”

He jotted it in his notebook. “Davy and John were the middle kids of six, as I recall.”

Wanda gave a nod of respect. “You recall correctly. Davy was about eleven and John was thirteen. There are two brothers younger and two more older.”

Davy and John would be twenty-four and twenty-six now. “So what did they do?”

“After he threw up, John rode his bike up to the Monroe farm. Di Monroe called 911.”

“Who was the first policeman on the scene?”

“Nolan Quinn. He’s passed now,” Wanda added soberly.

“He was never the same after finding Alicia,” Randy said quietly, and Daniel made himself remember that this wasn’t just a file for them. It was perhaps the worst crime Dutton had seen up until this weekend. “I joined the force out of school the next year and Nolan was never the same.”

“I can’t imagine anyone could discover something like that and be unaffected,” Daniel murmured, thinking of the Porter boys. “Who did the autopsy, Wanda?”

“Doc Fabares.”

“Who’s also since passed,” Randy said and shrugged. “That whole generation is mostly gone. Or sittin’ on the barbershop bench.”

“But Doc Fabares would have kept records,” Daniel said.

“Somewhere,” Randy said, as if
somewhere
wasn’t anywhere they’d be likely to find.

“What was found on the body?” Daniel asked.

Wanda frowned. “What do mean? She was naked, wrapped in a blanket.”

“No rings or jewelry?”
Or keys
? But the keys Daniel would keep to himself.

“None,” Wanda said. “The drifter had robbed her.”

Daniel found the arrest report. “Gary Fulmore.” A mug shot was stapled to the report. Fulmore’s eyes were wild and his face was haggard. “He looks stoned.”

“He was stoned,” Randy said. “That much I remember. He was high on PCP when they found him. Took three men to hold him down so Frank could get the cuffs on him.”

“So Frank arrested him?”

Randy nodded. “Fulmore had wrecked Jacko’s autobody shop, breaking glass and waving a tire iron. They arrested him, then found Alicia’s ring in his pocket.”

“That’s all? No semen or other physical evidence?”

“No, I don’t remember them actually finding any semen in her. That would be in Fabares’s records, most likely. But the way her face was beaten in . . . only a person hopped up on PCP could’ve done that kind of damage. And he had the tire iron.”

“He was found in an autobody shop. Of course he had a tire iron.”

“I’m just telling you what I remember,” Randy said, annoyed. “You want it or not?”

“I’m sorry. Please go on.”

“The tire iron had Alicia’s blood on it and they found her blood splattered on the cuffs of his pants.”

“Pretty solid evidence,” Daniel said.

Randy’s mouth twisted in a fuck-you smile. “Glad you approve, Agent Vartanian.”

Daniel closed the folder. There was nothing more in it. “Who took his statement?”

“Frank did,” Wanda said. “Fulmore denied everything, of course. But he also claimed to be some rock singer, as I recall.”

“He said he was Jimi Hendrix.” Randy shook his head. “He said a lot of things.”

“Randy’s daddy prosecuted him,” Wanda said proudly, then her mouth drooped. “But he’s passed, too. Heart failure, twelve years ago now. He was only forty-five.”

Daniel had read that Mansfield’s father had prosecuted in one of the articles Luke had downloaded, but he didn’t know the man had died. Not being able to interview any of the original players was damned inconvenient. “I’m sorry to hear about your father, Randy,” he said, because it was expected.

“I’m sorry to hear about yours,” Randy replied in a tone that said he really wasn’t.

Daniel let it go. “Judge Borenson tried Fulmore’s case. Is he still alive?”

“Yes,” Wanda said. “He retired and has a place up in the mountains.”

“He’s an old hermit,” Randy said. “I don’t even think he has a phone.”

“He has one,” Wanda said. “He just never answers it.”

“Do you have his number?” Daniel asked and Wanda flipped through her Rolodex.

She wrote it down and gave it to him. “Good luck. He’s a hard man to track down.”

“What happened to the blanket Alicia was found in?”

Wanda grimaced. “We got flooded during Dennis and lost everything below the four-foot waterline. That file was stored higher up, or it would’ve been gone, too.”

Daniel sighed. Hurricane Dennis had caused massive flooding in Atlanta and the surrounding counties a few years before. “Damn,” he murmured, then winced when Wanda glared. “Sorry,” he muttered.

Her glare became a worried frown. “The man who killed Janet. He’s killed another.”

“Last night. He seems to be copying the details from this old murder pretty closely.”

“Except for the key,” Wanda said, and it took all of Daniel’s control not to blink.

“Excuse me?”

“The key,” Wanda repeated. “The one that was found on the new victim’s toe.”

“Pics are on the Internet,” Randy added. “The key tied to her toe was pretty clear.”

Daniel shoved his temper back down. “Thanks. I hadn’t seen the news reports yet.”

Randy’s expression slid from sober to just shy of smug. “I’d say you have a leak.”

Or a damn dog named Woolf. “Thanks for your time.” He turned to go, then remembered his promise to Alex. “Oh, one more thing. Bailey Crighton.”

Wanda’s lips thinned. Randy rolled his eyes dramatically. “Danny . . .”

“Her stepsister is worried,” Daniel said, making his tone apologetic. “Please.”

“Look, Alex didn’t really know Bailey.” Randy shook his head. “Bailey Crighton was a hooker, plain and simple.” He looked over at Wanda. “Sorry.”

“It’s the truth,” Wanda said, dark color flooding her cheeks. “Bailey was white trash. She’s not
missin’
. She’s just
gone,
run off like the druggie tramp she’s always been.”

Daniel blinked at the venom in Wanda’s tone. “Wanda.”

Wanda wagged her finger at Daniel. “And you’d best be watching yourself with the stepsister. She may look all sweet in the moonlight, but she was trouble, too.”

Randy put his hand on Wanda’s shoulder and squeezed. “It’s okay, sweetheart,” he murmured to the old woman, then turned to Daniel, his eyes telegraphing
back down
. “Wanda’s son had a . . . relationship with Bailey a few years back.”

Wanda’s eyes blazed. “You make it sound like my Zane intended to take up with that whore.” She shook with fury. “She seduced him and nearly broke up his marriage.”

Daniel searched his memory. Zane Pettijohn was his age and had played ball at the public school. He’d had a penchant for curvy girls and hard liquor then. “But all’s well?”

Wanda was still trembling from rage. “Yes, with no thanks to that tramp.”

“I see.” Daniel let a few beats pass and Wanda sat back down in her chair, her scrawny arms crossed over her scrawnier bosom. “All that notwithstanding, what’s been done about Bailey? I mean, have you searched her house? Where’s her car?”

“Her house is a sty,” Randy said with contempt. “Garbage everywhere. Needles . . . dammit, Danny, you should have seen that little girl we took out of the closet. She was terrified. If Bailey’s gone, she left on her own two feet or one of her johns got her.”

Daniel widened his eyes. “She was still hooking?”

“Yeah. If you run her record, you’ll find she’s got a sheet as long as your arm.”

Daniel had, actually, and found Bailey’s last arrest was five years ago. She’d been busted for solicitation and possession several times before that. But she’d been clean for five years and nothing Randy had said about Bailey’s house matched what he’d heard from Sister Anne the night before. Either Bailey had gotten really good at not getting caught or something wasn’t right. Daniel was leaning toward the second one.

“I’ll run her record when I get back to the office. Thanks. Y’all have been a big help.”

He was in his car when it hit him.
You’d best be watching yourself with the stepsister.
She may look sweet in the moonlight . . .
He’d kissed Alex last night, on her front porch, in the moonlight. Someone had been watching them. The bungalow was right off Main Street, so it might have been a goggle-eyed biddy and nothing more. Still, he was uneasy and Daniel was a man who listened to his instincts.

Which was why he’d kissed Alex Fallon last night, in the moonlight. His skin warmed at the memory. Which was why he planned to do so again, very soon. But his unease persisted, shifting to worry. Someone had been watching them. He dialed her number and got her cool voice as the call went to voicemail.

“It’s Daniel. Call me as soon as you can.” He started to pocket his phone and then frowned.
Woolf.
He called Ed. “Have you seen the news?”

“Yeah,” Ed said glumly. “Chase is on the phone with the powers that be, explaining how Woolf managed it.”

“So how did he?”

“BlackBerry. Snapped the picture and winged it off onto the Internet.”

“Dammit. I didn’t list his BlackBerry in the warrant. I have to call Chloe and re-up.”

“I already did, only the BlackBerry’s not in his name. It’s in his wife’s.”

“Marianne,” Daniel said with a sigh. “Can Chloe turn it around fast?”

“She thought so. Hey, you get any of the old evidence from the Tremaine case?”

“No,” Daniel said, disgusted. “Flooding took out their evidence room and the file is pathetic. The only thing I can tell you is that there was no key. That’s a new MO.”

“The two keys match,” Ed said. “Same exact cut, but that’s not surprising. Did you talk to the principal of that middle school?”

“Yeah, on my way from the crime scene to the police station. She said Janet rented a minivan to take the kids to Fun-N-Sun. I called the parents and all of them say Janet dropped off the kids at seven-fifteen. Leigh’s running down the car rental place from Janet’s credit cards. If anybody asks, I’m headed over to the morgue. I’ll call you later.”

Atlanta, Tuesday, January 30, 12:55 p.m.

Alex gave the photo of a smiling Bailey one last look before she slid it into her satchel, which sagged from the weight of her gun. Meredith had frowned when Alex had taken the gun from its lockbox, but Alex was taking no chances. Hefting the strap of her satchel higher on her shoulder, she looked up into the face of Bailey’s boss.

“Thank you, Desmond. For everything.”

“I just feel so helpless. Bailey’s been with us for three years now and she’s become more like part of our family. We just want to
do
something.”

Alex toyed with the yellow ribbon someone had tied across Bailey’s station in the very upscale Atlanta salon. “You’ve done a lot.” She pointed to the flyer they’d posted. She’d seen dozens like it as she’d walked through Atlanta’s Underground shopping mall. It was a picture of Bailey, along with an offer of a reward for information leading to her whereabouts. “I wish the people in her hometown were as generous.”

Desmond’s jaw hardened. “They would never let her live down her mistakes. We begged her to leave, to move here, but she wouldn’t.”