“Done.” She glanced at her watch. An appointment? Or done with me? “Well, it was good speaking with you, Detective.”
Done with me.
“Call me Jagg, for the tenth time. And keep your eye out for a blue sedan.”
I took another glance at my soul-brother.
“Have a good day, Miss Harper.” I turned into three pairs of beady eyes and three wagging tails. I dipped my chin. “Tango. Athena. Max.”
I felt Sunny’s eyes boring into my back as I started down the river bank.
I turned, catching her stare.
“Hey, Sunny?”
Her brows arched.
“You might want to move those wind chimes you’ve got hanging above your truck. Hate to have anything happen to that beauty. And that reminds me, I have one more question to ask you. What church do you go to?”
I watched her wheels start to turn. “Religion isn’t confined between four walls.”
“Or within the three knots of the triquetra symbols you’ve got hanging from those chimes.”
“You’re observant, Detective.”
“Jagg. Eleven. And it’s the job. What’s with the triquetra?”
“Why don’t you just come out and ask me if I’m a witch?”
“Are you a witch, Miss Harper?”
“Sunny. And no.”
“Do you practice Wicca?”
“What does this have to do with anything?”
“Gathering facts.”
“The triquetra symbol represents life, death, and rebirth—and protection.”
“It also represents the Wiccan Triple Goddess and the interconnected parts of human existence, as practiced in witchcraft.”
She narrowed her eyes in a way that reminded me of the moment after I tackled her in the park.
I smiled. “Just looking out for that Chevy. Love to take it for a spin sometime.”
“I’ll bet you would. Good day, Detective.”
I turned, her obedient soldiers watching my every step.
17
Jagg
The rest of the morning was spent visiting used car dealerships inquiring about blue, four-door sedans, leaving three more voicemails with Briana Morgan of Harold and Associates, leaving two with Arlo Harper, who was also avoiding my calls, and then working my other cases I’d let drop over the last twenty-four hours. This last fact emphasized by the nineteen voicemails I had when I finally got back to the station, at three in the afternoon. The temperature had hit a sweltering ninety-five by noon, and the feels-like temp well past one-hundred. As suspected, air conditioners were breaking all over town, causing a spike in nine-one-one calls and two fist fights at the local HVAC company. Tempers were running short.
I yanked at my wrinkled collar as I slid behind my desk. Ignoring the phone, I pulled out the black and white images I had of the Black Bandit, then checked Griggs’ height and weight from his case file. Then, I pulled up a few full-length images and videos of him from social media. I went back and forth between both sets of pictures for what felt like a full ten minutes. The weight was undoubtedly different. The Bandit was leaner than Griggs, narrower shoulders. The way they walked, moved, all different. There was also no sign of a limp on Griggs’ left hip. I’d asked the ME to confirm this as well during the autopsy. Not that I needed the information after comparing the photos. Combining all this with the fact that his truck had been parked at the trailhead while Sunny had spotted the blue sedan across the street confirmed that Julian Griggs was definitely not the Black Bandit.
I ran my hands through my hair and leaned back, feeling a headache brewing along with the ache in my back.
I was mid-reach for my pain pills when a rap of knuckles sounded at the door.
I grunted.
“Hot as balls out there, ain’t it?” Lieutenant Colson sauntered in and Sunny’s remark about the male obsession with nuts ran through my head.
“You get the AC fixed in your Jeep?” He asked.
“Not yet.”
“You can use the station’s loner if you need to.” He grinned.
The Gray Ghost was a fifteen year old black impala with shoddy wheel alignment, a cracked windshield, and a pair of stains in the backseat that no one claimed to know how they got there.
“I’ll pass.”
He sank into the seat across from me.
“How’s the wife?” I asked, noticing the bags under his eyes.
“Insomnia. Pregnancy insomnia,” he emphasized each word as if pronouncing the rarest disease known to man.
“Can’t you sleep on the couch?”
“She walks. Paces. Circles. Hums sometimes. Through the entire house. Last night she hummed Sweet Caroline while pacing the kitchen for two hours. Guess that’s the name. Anyway, I woke up this morning to an empty jar of peanut butter in the oven, a jug of milk in the pantry, and three guns disassembled on the kitchen table.”
I grinned. Lieutenant Colson was hell on wheels in the office, but it was no secret that when it came to his wife, all bets were off. Bobbi wore the pants in the relationship. Very stretchy pants.
“How much longer do you have to go?”
“Three weeks.”
“You can hold out three weeks.”
Colson shook his head, giving me a look of pity not unlike how Sunny had looked at Brutus. “You really need to get a woman in your life, Jagg.”
“So I can get no sleep?”
“You don’t sleep anyway.”
He got me there.
“No,” he continued, “because if you had one, you’d at least know that when the baby comes, sleep will be even more elusive than with an emotional insomniac.”
“And that’s exactly why I don’t have a woman. Or a baby.”
“There’s more to life than a job, you know. What’s going to happen if you lose this one? What are you left with? A box television and a window AC unit that smells like asshole?”
“You come in here to give me a life lesson, Colson?”
“No.” He leaned forward on his elbows, his gaze sharpening. “I came here as a partner, a co-worker. A friend. You know how I feel about you dropping either Seagrave’s case or the Harper case, regardless if you think they’re connected. Hear me, Jagg. You need to take a step back. Your little attitude with Sunny’s dad and the chief last night did nothing for you. I’m looking out for you, man, same as you would for me.”
“I don’t need it.”
“You need this job. Or a life. Both, preferably.”
“Noted.” Heat began to rise up my neck. I wasn’t in the mood.
“Fine.” He leaned back. “I’ve said my piece. Anyway, I wanted to tell you Bobbi’s brother, Wesley Cross, is going to take a look at the bullet casings from Seagrave’s scene sometime today. Hoping he’ll be able to determine the model of gun that was used. He’s not making any promises, though.”
“And he also knows to compare them to the one found at Sunny’s scene?”
Colson nodded.
“Let me know when you hear something.”
There were three big things this information would give us: One, if the casings found at Seagrave’s matched the ones found at Sunny’s, then it would be undisputed that the cases were linked. Two, if both those casings matched the gun Sunny carried the night of her attack, then she was in a world of trouble. Third, if the casings did not match, and the bullet used to kill Julian did not come from Sunny’s gun, then she was telling the truth and we’d need to buckle down and find this third mystery person.
Colson leaned back in the chair. “Town’s already gotten wind of it. Church is in an uproar, demanding answers, wanting someone’s head. Whispers of witches returning with the full moon is already spreading like wildfire through town. Pun unintended.”
“Well, they’re going to have to keep their stakes at home.”
“No, they’re going to need answers before this thing gets out of hand. People are picketing on the square to cancel the Moon Magic Festival this weekend. It’s a
fucking mess, dude. The longer this thing—”
“I get it. I know.”
Colson crossed his ankle over his knee and stared at me a minute. “How is she?”
“Who?”
“Miss Harper.”
I shrugged, keeping my eyes on my computer while taking notice of the defensiveness that sparked at the mere mention of her name. Like she was mine. Only mine. My business.
Not his.
“She must be in a boatload of pain today.”
I narrowed my eyes and looked up. “Say it.”
“You could have given her a ride or called me to take her to her car. You didn’t have to carry the woman down Main Street in the middle of the damn night.”
I’d debated on telling Colson about my visit to Sunny earlier that morning, but that just sealed the deal.
“Why didn’t you take her to her car last night, Colson?”
“Why are you so defensive about her?”
A knock at the door paused the pissing match. It also had me unclenching the fist that had curled into a ball under the desk.
Darby poked his head in. “Oh. Sorry. Am I interr—”
“No. Come in.”
Colson pushed out of the chair, dipped his chin. “Keep me updated.” Yeah, right.
“Same.” Yeah, right.
Darby stepped inside. “How you doing?”
“Shut the door.”
I didn’t wait for the door to click closed before going in.
“Next time you decide to run your mouth to everyone like a gossipy little girl, consider it the last you ever work with me, you got that kid?”
Darby’s Adam’s apple bobbed. “I only told them that I saw you helping Sunny to her car last night. That’s all, I promise.”
I surged out of my chair, a sharp pain adding to the fire brewing inside me. “You lie to me again, I’ll have your badge pulled. You saw an opportunity to share information—gossip—and pounced on it in a bullshit effort to make yourself seem important. The fact that I carried Miss Harper to her car has no bearing on the case other than that the woman could barely walk. Gossip doesn’t look good on anyone, kid. Especially a rookie cop. Don’t fucking forget that.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way. Why are you here?”
“Two things. Sir.”
I lowered into my chair. Fucking back.
“Sit, Darby. Relax. Just don’t ever gossip about me again.”
“Yes, sir.”
The rookie sank into the chair Colson had just vacated and placed a folder on my desk.
“You asked me to look into Sunny’s ex-boyfriend. The one who attacked her in Dallas years ago.”
And almost killed her.
I picked up the folder and began flipping through.
“Like I told you last night, the guy, Kenzo Rees, got six years in state prison for the attack and previous transgressions. But get this, he got two more added on once inside.”
“Why?”
“Beat a fellow inmate within an inch of his life.”
My gaze slid up to his.
“Incident report says Rees stole a meat mallet from the kitchen. Cornered the guy in a cell and beat him until he almost died, but not before torturing him first. Started with breaking his fingers, knee caps, collar bone. Then, wrapped the guy’s head in a sheet, busted his teeth out, his nose, his face to a pulp. Then started on his skull.”
“How did it get that far? Did the guy not scream?”
Darby nodded to the report. “You’ll read in there that Rees gained quite the following in prison. Had his buddies stage a fist fight in the rec room while he beat the guy. Rees spent two weeks in the hole.”
“What was the fight about?”
“My DPD contact thinks some sort of show of power. Leadership.”
I skimmed Rees’s latest mental health assessment where the psychiatrist diagnosed him with BPD, or Borderline Personality Disorder, with emphasis on something called Borderline Rage, described as inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger. The doctor noted that this impulsivity appeared to increase with his time in imprisonment. The doctor suggested antidepressants, on-going therapy, as well as a full medical evaluation and DNA analysis.
Goosebumps flew over my skin as I stared down at the image of Kenzo Rees taken after the incident of him beating an inmate. Short, buzzed hair highlighted a blotchy, scarred scalp and a two inch row of stitches above his right ear. He had narrow, beady eyes, a sharp nose and jawline. Tattoos colored his neck, a few extending onto his jaw. I knew his type. I’d arrested his type.
I’d kicked his type’s ass.
A flurry of thoughts shot through my head, including Rees ripping Sunny’s hair from the roots. Throwing her down the stairs, beating her head against a mirror. Then, my thoughts switched to images of her kissing him. Having sex with him. Her being his.
My pulse skyrocketed.
I zeroed in on a small, circular tattoo just below his left eye.
“Was Rees in a prison gang?”
“It was the assumption. The Collars, they called themselves. The crowd he ran with was no stranger to solitary confinement, let’s just say that.”
“The tattoo under his eye appears to be new. See if he got it in prison.”
Darby shook his head. “Tattoos are illegal in prison. In the US, anyway.”
“It’s amazing what you can do with a confiscated ballpoint pen.”
I couldn’t tear my eyes away from Rees’s picture. Dark, slitted eyes with wide pupils, the irises as black as the ink below. There was a swirly look to them, feral. Crazy.
And Sunny had dated him?
My headache turned into a meat mallet pounding my brain. The fact that rich-girl Sunny had dated such a loser was another thing about the woman that didn’t add up.
What the hell was she thinking?
Sunny didn’t lock her doors, didn’t listen to me, her doctor, and dated gang members?
What had she seen in him? I knew he’d been her high school boyfriend, but even if the guy had drastically changed over the years, I knew from experience, that someone who had the capability to beat another human unconscious showed signs years before the attack, sometimes as early as childhood. What had a beautiful, smart, well-kept millionaire’s daughter seen in Kenzo Rees?
I contemplated that for a minute, then realized I couldn’t see her with the captain of the football team, either. I couldn’t see Sunny with anyone. Nothing, or no one, seemed to fit the badass loner.
I visioned her from the visit that morning. The softness I’d seen in her, the nurturing care and love she put into her dogs. The dedication she put into training and rehabilitating animals.
“It’s not just time and effort, its perseverance. Not giving up on them.” Her words suddenly hit me like a ton of bricks.
Sunny Harper was loyal. She was the type of woman who didn’t give up on someone. She put in the work. Didn’t back down. Didn’t run when the cards weren’t in her favor.
Sunny Harper was a freaking saint.
She’d probably stood by Kenzo Rees, trying to pull him back when he strayed to the dark side. My dad had been the same way. Loyal to a fault. And look where that got him.
The thought made my skin crawl for so many different reasons. And, for what seemed like the hundredth time since I’d met Sunny, I suspected there was more to the story.
I wanted to know more about their relationship. I also wanted to confirm that I wasn’t being fooled by her like every other man that crossed her path.
“Talk to the warden there,” I said to Darby, finally tearing my eyes away from the monster in my hands. I slid the picture into the folder and shut it. “See what other information you can get from him about our boy here. Figure out when Rees is up for parole next.”
“Yes, sir.”
18
Jagg
It had been a hell of a day and when the clock on my office wall clicked to eight-thirty,
I decided to take a break with only one thing on my mind. … Fine, two.
A beer would have to do.
I rolled to a stop next to a browning pine tree and cut the engine, a blanket of humidity replacing the breeze from the drive. The air was still, stifling. Heavy. The flickering neon light of Frank’s Bar flashed off the trees. Laughter followed by a fiddle from a country song floated through the air. A million stars twinkled around an almost-full moon.
Damn full moons.
It felt like everything was aligning for something big.
I could feel it in my bones.
My aching, creaking, popping bones.
Halfway across the parking lot, I decided on a whiskey instead of that beer.
I pushed through the front door. There was a different scent lingering in the air that night—chemicals and vanilla. Aqua-Net and cheap perfume.
It was Karaoke night at Frank’s Bar. Less known as Berry Springs’s Single’s Night. The place was packed. Funny how quickly people forgot about a slain cop.
I ignored a few cat calls as I made my way through the Stetsons and Old Spice, beelining it to the only open seat at the end of the bar—my seat.
“Howdy do, Detective?” Frank called out from behind the taps, a sweat of sheen across his brow, a fresh tattoo down his forearm. “The usual?”
“A double.”
“You got it. Be just a minute. Damn full moon.”
Good to know I wasn’t the only one who believed in ill decisions at the turn of the tides.
As if on cue, the juke box switched to an old Bobby Bare song called Marie Laveau. Took me a second to realize the song was about an ugly witch from the Louisiana bayous. Took me even less than that to register the giggles and chiding at the other end of the bar. Something piqued in me, a sixth sense if you will. I leaned back on my stool, zeroing in on the notorious Aldridge twins. Two wild, twenty-something southern spitfires who thought they ran the town and every man in it. Their blonde, over-teased hair sat like helmets over pointy shoulders, barely-there tank tops, and wranglers that gave new meaning to the word camel toe.
As quickly as I noticed them, my gaze shifted to the strands of dark curly hair peeking out from the center of a group of big-bellied cowboys next to the twins.
Jagger (Steele Shadows Investigations) Page 15