“I won’t get triggered and ‘Hulk out’ over loud noises and explosions,” Jonah said.
Avery continued to glower, which Jonah much preferred over pity. “I never once implied such a thing.”
“What happened to your flowers?” Jonah suddenly asked, opening the can of worms he’d vowed to leave alone.
Avery only gaped at him unblinkingly. Who could blame him? The question had come out of nowhere. “My flowers?”
“The ones Romeo brought you. I caught you making heart eyes at them every time I stepped out of my office yesterday.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Avery scoffed. “I took them to my grandmother.”
Of all the possible things Avery could’ve said, Jonah hadn’t been expecting this one. “Why?”
Avery released a deep sigh. “I told you he wasn’t the guy for me.” It was Jonah’s turn to just stare. “Here was this handsome, successful guy who seemed to be interested in me, but I felt…nothing. No spark.”
Jonah snorted, and Avery scowled.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Avery asked.
“No spark?” Jonah asked. “I’d hate to see how you return from a lunch date when you do feel chemistry with a man.”
Avery stiffened in his chair. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Avery. Flushed cheeks and swollen lips. I recognize the signs of someone who has been thoroughly kissed…or more.”
“You th-th-thought I… that we…” Avery stammered. He swallowed hard and briefly closed his eyes. “You’re an idiot, Jonah. My pink cheeks and puffy lips were a result of a medical condition.”
Jonah raised a brow. “Is that what they’re calling it these days?”
“I had an allergic reaction to my lunch, asshole,” Avery practically shouted. “I didn’t see the little bites of heaven in my salad until it was too late.”
“Little bites of heaven?”
“Avocado,” Avery said. “I was stuffing my face while my date talked about his job. Suddenly, I noticed my face felt numb, and my lips were tingling. I shifted the lettuce around in my bowl and found the cause.”
Jonah buried his face in his hands. “I’m the biggest dick on the planet.”
“This isn’t the time to brag about your dick size, Jonah,” Avery chastised.
Jonah lifted his head and stared at him. “I said I am the biggest dick, not that I have the biggest dick. God, Avery, I’m—”
Avery held up a hand, cutting him off before he could apologize. “Stow it for another day when you make an even bigger ass of yourself than you have today.” Jonah doubted it was possible, but he wasn’t willing to wager on it. “Do you know what your problem is?”
“Is that a rhetorical question, or do you expect an answer?” Jonah asked.
Avery made a growly noise of frustration Jonah found sexy and sweet. “I could strangle you with my bare hands right now. You make me crazy with your hot-and-cold, push-and-pull personality. If you want something, then by God, go get it. Stop giving up at the first sign of a roadblock. Sometimes you go around the barriers and other times you run the fucking thing over.”
Was Avery encouraging him to make a move? Jonah’s pulse sped up.
“Take this Ison case, for example,” Avery said, crushing Jonah’s unbidden hope. “Trexler said no, so you’re willing to let it go just like that. You have innumerable resources and contacts who could help you look into the case further if you’re willing to set aside your wounded pride and ask for help.”
Disappointment was Jonah’s familiar foe. It was the uninvited dinner guest that popped by one night and never left. Avery was right. This wasn’t about Trexler, his grandfather’s ghost, his aunt’s career, or even Jonah’s pride. It was about Marla and Earl and Bo. He needed to find another way, even if it meant turning this over to Ellie. He trusted her beyond measure.
Jonah’s computer chimed, interrupting his musings. He knew what it meant but couldn’t look away from Avery’s bright, passionate gaze. A wicked smile spread slowly across his intern’s face, and he pointed at Jonah’s computer screen. Jonah looked at his monitor and confirmed Avery had broken through his firewall. He hadn’t even realized Avery was still typing during his big speech.
A knight in armor marched across Jonah’s computer screen, carrying a flag with a large letter A as trumpets blew victoriously.
“Checkmate, thundercloud,” Avery said smugly. “Your move. The question is, are you going to give up or go through the roadblock?”
“I’m going to run the fucker over,” Jonah replied.
The real question was, were they still talking about Trexler’s objections or the barriers Jonah had erected to fight his attraction to Avery?
“Earth to Jonah,” Felix said, snapping his fingers a few inches from Jonah’s face. “You’ve been staring off into space while swirling your French fry in ketchup for the last five minutes. Are you okay, man?”
Jonah blinked and refocused on his friend’s worried face. Beside him, Rocky simply shook his head. The private eye was more stoic and less likely to show concern.
“You look like a zombie,” Rocky said. “I’ve called you every filthy name I can think of, and you didn’t react.”
“I feel like a zombie,” Jonah admitted, dropping his fry back into his take-out container. “It’s been a rough week. Monday was the Monday-est Monday of all time with twelve hours of meetings where Trexler sharpened his teeth on my bones.”
“I have a feeling the hits didn’t stop there,” Felix said.
Jonah shook his head. “Not even close. Thank God tomorrow is Friday, and we beat our deadline to submit test results to Dickface a day early. At least I should be ending the week on a bright spot,” Jonah said.
“So, you spent a lot of time locked in your office with the adorable Avery this week?” Felix asked.
“How do you know he’s adorable?” Jonah asked. “You haven’t even met him.”
Rocky snorted. “Dude, you talk about him all the time. The guy has you wrapped around his finger, so he must be irresistible.”
Jonah could only stare at his friends for a few moments. “I wasn’t aware I spoke about him so much.”
Felix and Rocky just grinned.
“I sense there’s something bigger going on that you haven’t shared with us,” Felix said.
“Marla was waiting on my front porch when I got home Monday night. She has terminal cancer and has decided not to get treatment,” Jonah said.
“Oh, man. That’s rough. I’m really sorry,” Felix said.
“Me too,” Rocky added.
“Thanks, guys. I’m having a hard time processing it all,” Jonah admitted.
“We can skip the podcast production meeting if you want to go home and get some rest,” Rocky suggested.
“I appreciate it,” Jonah said, “but sleep has been elusive this week, and I don’t expect tonight will be any different. I’d rather not sit home and stew over things I can’t change.”
“If you’re sure,” Felix said. Jonah nodded. “Then let’s choose the subject of our next podcast episode.”
“I think the Tess Hamilton case is interesting,” Rocky said. “She’s suspected of killing all three of her husbands for their insurance money. They could never prove it before she died last year.”
“New evidence has come to light recently though,” Felix added. “We can focus on how law enforcement officers were fooled by her June Cleaver looks.”
“It would be easy to credit Tess’s appearance for her success, but there had to be more to it. She was forty-two when her first husband died, so her demeanor and looks probably played a significant role,” Jonah said. “What about later when she was sixty-five and eighty? She had to have made it nearly impossible for them to detect the poison in her husbands’ systems.”
“Or was some of her success due to luck?” Rocky asked. “All of the men had pre-existing health conditions, so the coroners weren’t going to spend a lot of time looking
for causes of death.”
“None of them had the same health issue either,” Jonah pointed out. “If all three men had heart issues, for example, it would make the pattern stand out more. Was that luck or part of her plan?”
“I don’t think it was luck,” Felix countered. “I think she was an evil genius. Hamilton moved around the state of Georgia so the deaths wouldn’t be easily connected. She seemed to take her time remarrying and executing her plans. She poisoned them slowly, so their decline was gradual and not obvious.”
“The only person who raised a red flag was the life insurance adjuster for her last husband,” Jonah said. “If not for her, we wouldn’t have known about Tess Hamilton’s string of victims.”
“True,” Rocky said. “Maybe we could get the insurance adjuster to join the podcast for an interview.”
“That’s a good idea,” Felix said, making a note. “I think this has excellent potential.”
“What else do we want to consider?” Rocky asked.
They continued discussing some of Savannah’s most sinister crimes for another hour. Being one of the oldest and most colorful cities in the United States, they wouldn’t run out of unique stories to share on their podcast for years.
“I still think Tess is the most interesting,” Felix said after they narrowed it down to their top five favorites. “What do you think?”
“Yeah, I agree,” Rocky said. “Jonah?”
Both men looked at him. “Yes” was on the tip of his tongue, but he couldn’t pull the trigger. As intriguing as this case was, he couldn’t forget the pleading in Marla’s voice. He couldn’t ignore the tension in his gut when he’d discovered Bo Cahill was incarcerated the night someone killed Earl Ison.
“Lola the Ice Queen,” Jonah finally said. Maybe he should’ve found another way to reopen the investigation that didn’t involve his friends, but Jonah trusted them.
Rocky’s brow furrowed. “That’s what you want to name the episode featuring Tess Hamilton?”
“Lola the Ice Queen,” Felix repeated, tipping his head to the side like Betty the French bulldog. “Where have I heard that name?” He straightened in his chair and snapped his fingers. “A drag queen who was murdered in the early eighties, right?”
“Yeah,” Jonah agreed. “According to Marla, Lola was pretty new to the queen scene and hadn’t fully conformed to her stage name. She refers to him as Earl.”
“The case was solved, wasn’t it?” Felix asked.
Jonah shook his head. “The case remained cold for thirteen years, and out of the blue, a man on death row for another crime confessed to killing Earl a week before his execution date.”
“Do you think it’s a false confession?” Rocky asked.
“I absolutely do,” Jonah confirmed. “Days before Earl’s death, DeKalb County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Bo Cahill for the murder that sent him to death row. He was incarcerated and held without bail. Bo Cahill did not kill Earl Ison.”
“Who were the investigators on Ison’s case?” Felix asked.
“Milton and Morrissey with SPD,” Jonah said.
“I’ve interviewed them before when writing articles on old cases,” Felix said. “They were the typical cops of that generation. Milton and Morrissey didn’t have much respect for the rainbow community, women, or people of color, but I never got the impression they were dirty. Lazy, maybe. Indifferent, perhaps.”
“Marla isn’t convinced they outright lied to her, and she’s not sure they were responsible for coercing the confession. Maybe they were just patsies,” Jonah said.
“If that was the case,” Felix countered, “what did Bo Cahill say to sway them? There had to be more to it than him saying he did it.”
“I was able to access Earl Ison’s case file and read what the detectives recorded, which wasn’t much. They either invested extraordinarily little energy in solving the crime or were too lazy to document the file properly. Cahill told them he’d masturbated with Earl’s panties, then shoved them in his mouth. Since it was exactly what the killer did, they closed the case and called it a day.”
“That is very specific information,” Rocky said. “I assume it was a detail they hadn’t shared with the press.”
“It wasn’t, but a construction crew found Earl. His killer had staged his body and hiked up his skirt to humiliate him. Any of the men working on the crew that day saw him and could’ve shared the details with friends and family,” Jonah explained.
“Cops talk too,” Felix added. “I have at least one reliable source in every county. Some talk because they like to feel important, and others are decent human beings that want to do the right thing.”
“So, the information about the panties could’ve been fed to Bo Cahill, but why would a man confess to a crime he didn’t commit?” Rocky asked.
“I’ve been asking myself the same question for days,” Jonah said.
“What conclusion did you come up with?” Felix asked.
Jonah expelled a long breath. “Bo Cahill confessed to protect someone else. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“The person who really committed the crime?” Rocky asked.
“That’s one possibility, but what if someone he cared about was in trouble with the law and he brokered a deal? His life for theirs? Cahill was already going to die, so what did he have to lose?”
Rocky and Felix contemplated his question for a few seconds before exchanging brief glances.
“I assume Marla brought this up recently,” Felix said.
Jonah nodded, tried to speak, but couldn’t get the words out past the lump in his throat. He took a drink of water and tried again. “She never bought the narrative. She wants justice for her friend before she…” Goddamn it. “Before she dies. I promised her I’d do everything in my power to make this right. I went to work the next day and accessed what I could, which wasn’t much for Bo Cahill, beyond his arrest records and notes about him being held without bail. It took me two minutes or less to realize Marla’s instinct was correct. I asked Malcolm for his permission to pursue it, but he reminded me of the proper chain of command and referred me to Trexler.”
Rocky and Felix both groaned.
“Yeah,” Jonah said. “The bastard wouldn’t even entertain the idea. All I asked Trexler to do was request a copy of the file from DeKalb County. He shot me down and wrote me up for insubordination.”
“Asshole,” Rocky muttered.
Jonah nodded. “He gave me some song and dance about protecting the reputations of retired police officers and court officials, but he’s not fooling me. He’d do anything to advance his career and playing the crusader wouldn’t get him the kind of attention he needs to get promoted.”
“Any devoted law enforcement officer should want real justice to prevail,” Felix said passionately. He narrowed his eyes. “Do you think Trexler treats you horribly because you’re gay?”
“It’s possible, I guess,” Jonah said. “I think his attitude is because he doesn’t respect my skills, and he resents that Malcolm hired me because my aunt encouraged him to do so. I don’t even know if Trexler is aware of my sexual orientation.”
“Under the Georgia Open Record Act, I can request a copy of Bo Cahill’s case file, and they have to provide it. I also have contacts at the DeKalb County Sheriff’s Department who might be able to get me what I need quicker. I could run an exposé piece for my column, or we could do a podcast on it. Either way, the shit will hit the fan, and you won’t avoid the splatter.”
“Gross,” Rocky grumbled.
Felix shrugged. “I’m a writer. I paint a vivid picture with my words.”
Rocky shook his head, then said, “Your aunt Ellen will get caught up in the crossfire too.”
“Yeah, I know. I’m not too worried about myself, but I don’t want to drag anyone else down with me,” Jonah said. “What if the dates were entered into the system incorrectly? What if Cahill had been granted bail and committed another murder while waiting to go to trial?
I don’t want to jeopardize your careers or my aunt’s without more facts.”
Rocky winked. “Trouble is my middle name. I can take care of myself.”
“Minerva will have my back,” Felix said, his fondness for his editor showing in his voice. “Let’s get a copy of Cahill’s file,” Felix said. “Once we confirm dates, we’ll talk about which route to take next. You could turn this over to Ellen, or we could pursue the investigation ourselves.”
“Fair enough,” Jonah said. “What do you think, Rocky?”
“I’m in. Trexler can come for me all he wants,” Rocky said.
“I’ll get on it first thing in the morning,” Felix told them. “In the meantime, let’s plan to produce our next podcast episode about Tess Hamilton. Maybe we end up bumping Tess for Earl, but let’s be prepared either way.”
“I agree,” Jonah said.
Rocky nodded. “Sounds like a plan. Can we just make sure our podcast doesn’t become the how-to guide for a new generation of spouse killers?”
Felix and Jonah laughed.
“Let’s avoid lawsuits if at all possible,” Felix said. “Rocky, you dig up everything you can about Tess Hamilton. Let’s form a concise picture of Tess for our listeners. I want to know her education, her hobbies, and what her childhood was like. Let’s assume her family are innocent victims in all this.”
“Will do,” Rocky said as he scribbled notes.
Felix looked at Jonah. “I want you to approach this as a profiler. Talk about the psychological aspects of how Tess was able to fool law enforcement.”
Jonah nodded. “Sounds great.”
Pointing his pen at his chest, Felix said, “I’ll start requesting official documents like autopsy reports from medical examiners and death certificates. I’ll also place a call to Jennifer Blossom, who was the insurance adjuster who connected all the dots.”
Rocky rubbed his hands together. “I think this has the potential to be a fascinating episode.”
Ride the Lightning : Sinister in Savannah Book 1 Page 8