Collateral Damage: A Savannah Martin Novel (Savannah Martin Mysteries Book 19)

by Jenna Bennett

  “Just as soon as I take a shower,” Rafe said, peeling his shirt up and over his head.

  My tongue got stuck to the roof of my mouth. I unpeeled it—Carrie was gurgling on the floor, and besides, Rafe was injured, so it wasn’t an invitation to anything—and told him, “I’ve spent a couple hours on Jennifer Vonderaa’s Facebook page, looking for this guy. No luck so far.”

  “Try Tinder,” Rafe said, turning back to the hallway, shirt in hand and muscles moving smoothly under his skin. “Or one of the other matchmaker sites. Maybe they met that way.”

  Maybe they had. It wasn’t a bad idea.

  While he soaped and rinsed off the crime scene, and while Carrie gurgled on the floor, I started checking out matchmaking sites.

  It became obvious very quickly that I’d have to join to search. Turns out they don’t just let anyone cruise the meat market without registering first. Even the free sites wanted me to register. I tried to imagine myself explaining to Rafe that I’d had to set up a profile on a dating site in order to look for Jennifer’s boyfriend, and couldn’t do it.

  “Surely the TBI or somebody must have access to these sites?” I asked him when he came back out of the bathroom, barefoot and bare-chested, with a pair of jeans riding low on his hips, towel-drying his hair. “I can’t do it without signing up, and I’m not sure I want to. What if I make a mistake and I start getting emails from guys wanting to pick me up?”

  “I’d kill’em all,” Rafe said, rubbing the towel across the top of his head. The bruising on his ribs was staring to turn yellow around the edges, but was still deep black-purple in the middle. “Don’t worry about it, darlin’. We’ll find the guy. And yeah, I’m sure both the TBI and Mendoza have access to the sites. Nothing you need to handle yourself.”

  “If Mendoza has a Tinder profile, he must be inundated with women.”

  The thought slipped out before I could catch it, and Rafe gave me a look.

  “Sorry,” I added. “So would you, if you had a Tinder profile.”

  “I don’t need a Tinder profile to find women.”

  No, he didn’t. And Mendoza didn’t, either. But this time I stopped myself before I said it. “Ready?” I asked instead, brightly.

  That got me another look. “I look ready to you, darlin’?”

  Well, no. He didn’t. “Sorry. Guess I’m just hungry.” And eager for him to cover up, since watching him shirtless did things to my libido that I couldn’t do anything about while my daughter was cooing on the floor.

  He grinned, in that way that made my stomach do a swoop. “Hold that thought.”

  I promised him I would, and watched him walk back across the hall, where he pulled a clean shirt around all those muscles and came back into the nursery buttoning it. “I could go for a burger. Gabe’s OK?”

  Gabe’s is a tiny, hole-in-the-wall dive that Rafe favors, that—yes—does have excellent burgers. The rest of the ambience leaves a little to be desired, however. “Is it safe, with the baby?”

  “’Course it is. Hand her to me, would you? I can’t bend.”

  Of course he couldn’t. I scooped the baby off the floor and handed her over, and watched as he cradled her against his shoulder, one big hand on her fuzzy butt. “Are you going to be OK going down the stairs?”

  “I’ll be fine, darlin’. Just grab her stuff.”

  I grabbed her stuff, while I told him, “Felicia Robinson called to ask how you’re doing.”

  “I hope you told her I’m hanging on by a thread,” Rafe said, and turned toward the door. “C’mon. I’m starving.”

  I smiled, and followed him out the door and down the stairs.

  Gabe’s has deliciously greasy burgers with mounds of crispy French fries and golden onion rings, and I didn’t even suggest that maybe I ought to have salad. Rafe was right: they did love Carrie. The waitresses all cooed over her, and even the gray-haired bartender gave her a look and an approving grunt.

  “’Scuse me, darlin’,” Rafe told me after he’d devoured his burger and onion rings, and half my fries. “Wanna word with Gunner.”

  Gunner was the bartender, it turned out, since that’s where he went. The phone came out, and I assumed the picture of the picture of Spec Ops Guy was flashed. Gunner took a long look, and they talked for a few minutes before Rafe came back to the table.

  “Military?” I asked.

  He nodded. “Former Marine. And he employs a couple other vets in the kitchen. They come in here sometimes, looking for work, after they muster out. Word’s gotten out that Gunner might give’em a job.”

  “Did he recognize him?”

  “He wasn’t sure. Said he mighta seen someone who looked like that a month ago, but can’t say for certain.”

  “Did the guy fill out an employment application?” That would give us a name and phone number, anyway. Maybe even a social security number. At least we’d know who he was, if not where to find him.

  His lips curved. “No, darlin’. He wasn’t looking for work. And a place like this don’t really use applications, anyway.”

  Bummer. “So if he wasn’t looking for work, what did he do?”

  “Sat at the bar and drank a beer,” Rafe said. “Made small talk. Compared tours. Gunner served in the first Gulf War. This guy said he was in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

  “Did he give a name?”

  “Said his name was Lance.” Rafe shrugged.

  “That’s somewhere to start, isn’t it?” There were probably thousands of people named Lance in the armed forces, maybe tens of thousands, but it was less than the number we’d started with, which was everyone with a Y chromosome.

  “If it’s his real name,” Rafe said. “Gunner’s called Gunner because he was a Gunner. His real name’s John.”

  Ah. Yes, that did make it more difficult.

  “Did anything else happen? When he was here?”

  “Not that Gunner said. This place don’t look like a white supremacist’s hangout, so if he was trying to recruit, he musta thought better of it.”

  Obviously. Half the wait staff was black, and so was half the clientele. Gunner looked like he might have some Native American in him, or maybe Hispanic.

  “So he left,” I said.

  Rafe nodded. “If it was him and not somebody else with a short haircut and white skin.”

  “What happens if we can’t find him?”

  He didn’t sound concerned. “We’ll find him. Sooner or later. He’ll be back for the rest of the ammonal at some point. No reason why he’d pay for it and then leave it all there.”

  “Are you sure he isn’t planning to come back and blow the house up?” With the body inside. “What would happen to the freezer if he shot at the ammonal and the garage blew up?”

  “First of all,” Rafe said, although I could tell he was thinking, because his eyes got a sort of faraway look, “he’d have to get a clear shot at the stuff. It wouldn’t work to shoot it through the wall. The velocity of the bullet wouldn’t be high enough to set off the explosive.”

  “Maybe he has a garage door opener.”

  Rafe nodded. “Second, if he did manage to set off the ammonal, the garage would turn into splinters and so would part of the house. You saw what happened last night.”

  I nodded.

  “The freezer would either stay where it was or get blown over. But it wouldn’t turn to sticks the way the walls would.”

  “So blowing it up wouldn’t be a way to get rid of the body?”

  He shook his head. “If he wanted to get rid of the body, he’d be better off taking it outta the freezer and putting it in the car along with the ammonal. And then pitching it outta the car somewhere between here and Columbia. Or here and wherever he’s going.”

  “Is there any reason to think he’s going somewhere else?”

  “No,” Rafe said. “Rodney and Kyle are down there. Laurel Hill is down there. Lance was down there yesterday, to meet Clay. Clay’s also down there. It makes sense that whatever they’re planning h
as something to do with down there. But hell if I know what it is.”

  I had no idea either. So I changed the subject. “I don’t suppose the body’s there anymore?”

  “No, darlin’. It’s at the morgue. The ME has confirmed that her neck was broken. It was most likely quick and painless. She might not have known what was happening.”

  Or she might, and might have had a few seconds, at least, of fear and pain before it was over.

  I pushed my plate away. “I’m ready to go.”

  “Me, too.” He signaled for the check.

  Eighteen

  The call came at a quarter to midnight. I was sleeping the sleep of the just, worn out by energetic lovemaking. Rafe, of course, was wide awake as soon as the phone rang. He grabbed it from the bedside table and put it to his ear while I was still blinking my eyes open.

  “Yeah?”

  There was a second’s pause, and then he said. “I’ll be there in twenty.” He was already flinging the covers off. I murmured sleepily as the cold air hit my body.

  The phone kept quacking, though, and his body must have reminded him that he still wasn’t healed, because he ended up staying flat on his back and talking into it. “Are you sure you don’t wanna hit’em now? Why give’em a chance to regroup?”

  Whoever was on the other end said something else, and Rafe sighed. “Fine. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He shut the phone off on what was probably the other person’s goodbyes, and lay back down, pulling the blankets back up.

  “Problem?” I asked, still half-asleep.

  “No, darlin’.” After a second he added, “Sorry I woke you.”

  “You didn’t. The phone did.” I hesitated for a moment. “Grimaldi? Wendell? Mendoza?”

  “Mendoza,” Rafe said.

  “Did something happen at the house? Jennifer’s house? Did somebody show up for the body?”

  “Not the body,” Rafe said. “Which is a damn shame, or we coulda gotten’em on conspiracy to commit murder.”

  “Won’t you get them on that anyway? They shot you, right?” And if they were having target practice in Laurel Hill, in skull masks and armbands with swastikas, they must be planning to shoot other people, too. “Who was it? Was it Lance?”

  “Rodney and Kyle and Clay.”

  “Lance must have sent them instead of going himself. The coward. Although it sounds like Clayton’s still safe, anyway. They don’t know who he is.”

  “Seems that way,” Rafe agreed.

  “Why aren’t you on your way to interrogate them? Won’t Mendoza let you be there?”

  “Oh, he’ll let me be there.” Judging from Rafe’s tone, there wouldn’t be anything Mendoza could do to keep him out. Not that I imagined Mendoza would try. “He just don’t wanna do it tonight.”

  “Do you feel like that would be better?”

  He was staring up at the ceiling, still wide awake. I could see the faint light from the nightlight in the hallway reflect in his eyes. “They’re rattled right now. They’re mostly just kids. Chances are, neither of’em’s been arrested before. Other than Clay, anyway.”

  Of course. “And Clay has no reason to be rattled.” Although I’m sure he was pretending to be.

  “If we push’em now,” Rafe said, “they might give us the name of the other guy and whatever plans they have for the ammonal.”

  “So why won’t Mendoza confront them tonight?”

  “He thinks they’ll be even more likely to talk after a night in jail,” Rafe said. “They’re sitting in there, with the drunks and the dregs, getting more and more worked up. He thinks by tomorrow morning, they’ll tell us whatever they have to, to get outta there.”

  That also made sense. “Do you think Mendoza’s wrong?”

  “No,” Rafe said grudgingly. “It could work that way. But it could work my way, too. We’d get the answers either way.”

  And his way would allow him to get rid of some aggression right now. I got it. “If that’s the only reason, you’re probably just going to have to do it Mendoza’s way.” They were Mendoza’s prisoners, in Mendoza’s jurisdiction.

  Rafe grunted. Other than that, we lay in silence a minute.

  “Mendoza’s keeping’em together for the night,” Rafe said. “And keeping’em monitored, just in case they say something we’d like to know.”

  That was reasonable. “Do they get a phone call each?”

  “Tomorrow. If they’re arrested.”

  “They haven’t been arrested?”

  He shook his head. “Just detained for questioning. And that’s happening tomorrow at eight.”

  “And it’s OK to do that?”

  He sounded amused that I asked. “Sure thing, darlin’. We’re letting’em get a good night’s sleep before talking to’em.”

  “Considerate of you,” I said dryly. “If you have to be downtown early tomorrow, we should probably try to get some more sleep.”

  “I guess.”

  Another minute passed.

  “You wanna help me burn off some energy?” my husband inquired.

  My lips curved. “I guess I could do that. If you’ve got energy to burn.”

  He reached out, and slipped a hand around my neck. “You mind coming over here? It’d make it easier.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” I told him, and slid across the bed.

  ”Can I come with you?” I asked the next morning as he prepared to head out. “The construction workers are coming back, and I don’t have anything to do other than sit here while they hammer and saw downstairs. It’s awkward and boring.”

  He opened his mouth, and then closed it again. And shrugged. “Sure. If Mendoza don’t want you there, he can tell you to leave.”

  Fair enough.

  “Don’t be surprised if he does,” Rafe added.

  “I won’t. But I’ve met these guys. I’ve watched them. They shot my dog and my husband. They blew up my house.” Or at least we thought they did. “I’d like to hear what they have to say.”

  “Not sure we’re gonna ask’em anything about that,” Rafe said. “We gotta figure out the best way to handle this. They got all that ammonal for something, and we don’t know what it is. If they won’t tell us, the best thing may be to let’em go, and then see what they do.”

  I nodded.

  “And if we wanna do that, we can’t come up with too many good reasons for arresting them. If we do, they’re gonna be suspicious if we don’t.”

  Good point.

  “Let’s just see what happens,” I said, and headed for the door. “Thanks for letting me come.”

  He didn’t answer, just smiled. I thought about what I’d said, and blushed. He chuckled.

  “You know what I mean,” I said.

  “I do, darlin’.” He took the baby carrier with our daughter out of my hand and nudged me out the front door ahead of him. “And it was my pleasure.”

  “Not solely,” I told him, and preceded him down the front steps to the car, just as the first white painter’s van pulled into the driveway from Potsdam Street.

  Police headquarters are across the Cumberland River in downtown, just on the other side of the bridge. It’s a quick and easy drive. Fifteen minutes from when we walked out of Mrs. Jenkins’s house, Rafe had parked Mother’s Cadillac in the secure lot behind the building, and ferried Carrie and myself into the building and up to Mendoza’s office on the third floor.

  “She insisted on coming,” he told the detective when Mendoza arched his brows at the sight of me. “If you don’t want her here, you’re gonna have to tell her.”

  Mendoza smiled, and a dimple popped up in each of his cheeks. He’s so handsome it’s a little spooky, like one of those perfect specimens of Latin lover you see on Telenovelas. “Mrs. Collier.”

  “Detective.” I smiled back, sweetly. “If you don’t mind, I would really like to see what they have to say for themselves. Tamara Grimaldi would have let me.”

  “I’m not Tamara Grimaldi,” Mendoza i
nformed me. “But you can stay if you want. As long as you don’t expect to do anything but watch and listen.”

  Fine by me. “Are they still in a cell?”

  “They’re in holding,” Mendoza said. “And being quiet starts now.”

  I made a face. Rafe’s lips twitched, but he didn’t say anything. Not to me. Although he did put a hand on my lower back and circled it a couple of times. “I guess we’ll interview’em one at a time?”

  “I will interview them one at a time,” Mendoza corrected. “At the moment, we don’t know if we want you to appear in this.”

  Rafe opened his mouth, and Mendoza overrode him. “They know who you are from Columbia. They probably tried to shoot you.”

  Rafe nodded. I did, too.

  “I’m not sure we want them to know that we’ve made the connection with Columbia. They walked into a crime scene in Nashville, where someone had killed a young woman and put her in a freezer. That’s reason enough for me to talk to them.”

  That was true. And put like that, there was no reason for Rafe to get involved. I opened my mouth to tell him I agreed with Mendoza, and shut it again without speaking.

  Carrie, looking around wide-eyed, made a cooing noise, and Mendoza switched his attention to her. And smiled again. “Well, hi there, gorgeous.”

  He bent over the carrier to tickle her and make her giggle. It was another of those moments where every woman in the vicinity would have felt their biological clock start to tick louder.

  Rafe scowled, but told Mendoza, “Fine. I’ll stay back and let you interview them.”

  “And if I decide we can get better results by bringing you in,” Mendoza answered, straightening, “then we will.”

  Rafe nodded. “Take Clay first. I wanna know if he knows any more than he’s already been able to tell us.”

  “Let’s go down to the interview rooms, then.” Mendoza gestured toward the door. I headed that way with the baby. Rafe followed, and Mendoza brought up the rear.

  “Wait here,” he told us a couple of minutes later. We were all standing in a small room that had a window into an empty interview-room, the sort you see on TV. I’d been in one very much like it once or twice. I might even have been in that particular one. It was better to be on this side of the wall.