"She wouldn't talk to me about it but she talked to one of the other waitresses, Connie Chastain. She told me that it was Steve hitting Kelly. It got better for a little while after I talked to him but then it got bad again."
"Did you talk to him about it again?"
Maxwell wearily shook his head. "Frankly, I didn't want to get involved in the drama. With Kelly there always seemed to be drama in her life. And then it wasn't long after that she just stopped coming to work. Eventually I had to replace her."
"So let me get this straight...a waitress that worked for you was being abused by her boyfriend and then one day she disappears. I don't suppose you thought to alert the authorities or anything?"
Shifting on the cushion, Maxwell appeared uncomfortable. He should, dammit.
"Steve said that Kelly had taken off." Maxwell's gaze bounced back and forth between Knox and Chris. "I thought it was a good sign that she'd left the loser. I thought maybe she'd get her life together, if only for her daughter."
They were going to have to speak to Steve again. He'd left out a whole hell of a lot of information.
"You knew about her daughter?" Knox asked.
"Yes, but I never saw the girl. Just a few photos that Kelly brought in to show Connie. The baby lived with her dad, thank goodness. Kelly was a sweet girl but she wasn't mother material, if you know what I mean."
"You mean that she was an addict," Chris replied, a hard edge to his voice. "You had to be aware of it."
His shoulders slumping, Maxwell nodded. "Okay, fine. She was an addict, but I don't think she did anything harder than pot and alcohol. Not that I knew of, anyway. She'd disappear for a couple of days along with her stoner boyfriend and then come back like nothing even happened. I thought about firing her a couple of times but like I said, the customers really liked her. That's why I didn't think much of it when she stopped coming in altogether. I even waited over a week to replace her in case she came back."
Chris had no idea substances Kelly might have dabbled in but her pictures didn't show the tell-tale face or body of someone on hard drugs. Or at least no hard drugs for a long period of time. If she'd "graduated" to something stronger she hadn't been doing it for long.
Now that Chris had to go back and speak with Steve Adams he wasn't in the best of moods. Ella always talked about how patient he was but she just hadn't spent enough time with him.
Chris stood and walked over to where Maxwell was standing, invading his personal space. He wanted to make sure this guy knew just how fucking serious this was.
"Now if I go talk to this Connie is she going to tell me the same things you have? Because I don't want to come back here."
Swallowing hard, Maxwell nodded. "She'll tell you about Steve's temper. Honest."
That was great but that wasn't what Chris was alluding to.
"Fine. Will she also back up your statement that you and Kelly were only acquaintances? That you didn't know her very well? Or is she going to tell me something different?"
A trickle of sweat rolled down his forehead. "Hey, I may have made a pass or two, pinched or made a grab, but who hasn't? Right? I mean, these girls were flaunting it in short-shorts and tight t-shirts. But we never–I mean–she and I never–you know. It was just a little slap and tickle. She had a boyfriend even if he was a total loser."
Knox stood as well, his expression sour. "So it's okay to grab a boob or pinch their ass if they have a boyfriend but sex is off the table. Unless she wants it, right? Nice philosophy of life you have there."
Maxwell tried again to defend himself. "Those girls knew how to get big tips. They weren't virgins."
And that makes it okay?
Arguing the point with a guy like Alan Maxwell was a waste of breath. They weren't going to change his mind, although he did at least have the grace to look a little embarrassed.
"One more question. The last time you saw Kelly did she act differently at all? Mention any new friends or maybe even a new club where she liked to party?"
Maxwell shook his head again. "Not that I remember. She worked and then went home. She and Connie talked about some movie they wanted to see that weekend but I don't remember what it was."
Pulling a business card from his pocket, Chris held it out. "Call me if you remember anything else. Even the smallest detail might make a difference to our investigation."
Trailing behind Chris and Knox, the man tucked the card into his pocket before opening the door. "Do you really think that you can find the guy that did this? All these years later? He could be dead or in jail for all you know."
Chris crossed the threshold but then turned back to answer. "That's true but he could also be walking around free as a bird thinking that he got away with it. He thinks that after all this time that he's safe, and that no one cared enough about an anonymous Jane Doe to try and find out how her life ended. I'd like to show him he's completely wrong. There's no statute of limitations on murder for a reason."
Leaving Alan Maxwell standing in his doorway gaping like a fish, Chris and Knox headed to their vehicle. They needed to talk to Kelly's friend and then it would be back to Steve Adams. If Connie corroborated Maxwell's story, Adams had a hell of a lot of explaining to do.
27
If Connie Chastain-March had slung beers in her youth in a dive bar, she'd left it far behind. Chris and Knox caught up with her at her suburban home, a comfortable ranch style in a middle-class neighborhood. Their research told them that she'd eventually earned a real estate license along with her husband Ted March. They had three grown children, two grandchildren, and three Corgis who happily greeted them at the front door. Chris was more a dog person than cat person and was happy to pet the wiggling canines.
"Alan called me."
That was the first thing Connie said but she didn't seem upset about it. She was smiling, welcoming them into her home as if they hadn't called her only a few hours ago asking to discuss a friend from over thirty years ago.
The walls were covered in photos of her family along with a large wedding photo in a gold frame of a much younger Connie in white lace and satin, holding a huge bouquet of pink roses. Today she was wearing casual slacks and a striped cotton sweater, her now gray-tinged hair cut short.
Knox leaned close to Chris so she wouldn't overhear. "I wish he hadn't done that. We don't know what he said to her."
"Hopefully we'll be able to tell if she's lying or covering for him."
Chris and Knox took a seat at the March kitchen table along with Connie.
"I appreciate you meeting with us on such short notice, Mrs. March," Chris said, pulling out his notes from his messenger bag. "You said that Alan Maxwell called you. Are you two still in touch after all of these years?"
Chris tried to make his question sound completely innocuous, as if the query was idle curiosity.
"Please call me Connie. We see each other from time to time, although less as the years have gone on. We're both in the real estate business. In fact, it was Alan that urged me to take the licensing exam. He had contacts that would hire me if I passed."
A perfectly plausible explanation but their friendship made anything she said less credible. Did they have the kind of relationship where one would lie for the other?
Connie twisted a ragged tissue between her fingers. "Alan told me about Kelly. I just...I just can't believe it. All these years she's been dead and we didn't know. Do you know who did it?"
Knox gave Chris a sideways glance that said it all. Alan had done more than just call Connie to warn her they were going to talk to her. It sounded like they'd had quite the conversation.
"Not yet but we're looking into it," Chris replied. "Alan said you and Kelly worked together and were friends. Is that correct?"
Connie nodded, her eyes tearing up. "It is. I really liked Kelly. She had some issues but she was a sweet girl. She had a smile that could light up an entire room. People loved her."
If Kelly was like that, she'd passed those traits onto Ella. She w
as the same, although she might not appreciate Chris comparing her to her troubled mother.
"Did Kelly confide in you about any personal problems she may have had?"
"You're talking about Steve," she replied knowingly. "They had a volatile relationship but they couldn't seem to stay away from one another. One of them would break it off and then a week later they'd be back together again. There were other men in between but she always went back to him."
Chris wanted to talk about Steve but he also wanted more information about one item that didn't seem to be clear.
"Our understanding is that she also had a substance abuse problem. Is that true?"
Her cheeks turning a bright pink, Connie squirmed in her chair. "We were young and we liked to party. I guess Kelly had trouble controlling it. I know that Steve did because when he got drunk or high he became a different person. A not so nice person."
"High?" Knox asked. "Can you be more specific?"
"Cocaine."
Connie's answer was short and clipped. "I see," Knox said. "And did Kelly also do coke?"
At first Chris didn't think Connie was going to answer but then she exhaled slowly, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue. "We all did at the bar, although some more than others. I'm not proud of it so don't think that I am. I have kids and when they asked me about drugs I told them to stay away. They can never know what I did back then. I could never tell them..."
Her voice trailed away as a silvery tear ran down the older woman's face. Since Chris had a heap of stuff in his past that he wasn't proud of he could understand her reticence to come clean with her children. But someday in the future when Annie asked him if he'd ever gotten drunk or done something stupid, he was planning to tell her the truth. Age appropriate truth, of course.
"Tell me more about Steve and Kelly's relationship," Chris invited. Her statement negated Maxwell's belief that Kelly didn't get into anything harder than pot and booze. "You said it was volatile and they broke up more than once."
"Several times," Connie said with a nod. "Really, I lost count. They were always arguing and making up. That's why I didn't think anything of Kelly disappearing. I thought she was finally getting away from him. She was afraid of Steve. Now I see that she was right to be."
Choking on a sob, Connie grabbed another tissue from a box on the counter. "I'm sorry. This is just so distressing. All these years..."
"You thought she left town?"
"Yes, a fresh start, so to speak."
"What about her daughter?"
Taking a shaky breath, Connie's shoulders sagged. "Bless that little girl. Kelly knew she wasn't a good mother. She was wrong about almost everything else in her life but she got that one right. She knew the father would take care of the baby and raise her right."
"Tim died a few months after Kelly," Chris said. "His mother passed on soon after. The toddler was put up for adoption."
Connie's hand flew up to her mouth, her eyes round with distress. "Oh no. No, no, no. If I'd known, I would have–"
She broke off and sighed heavily. "Who am I kidding? I wasn't capable of raising a child back then, either. But I would have tried. Krystle was the sweetest thing. So pretty and always smiling. She had Kelly's smile."
I think she still does. It's beautiful.
"You said that Kelly was afraid of Steve. When we talked to him he was really broken up about her disappearance and death."
Her lips tightened into a thin line. "Playacting. He could pretend to be the most loving boyfriend in the world and then black Kelly's eye the same night. If he's upset then it's out of guilt. You don't have to look far for who killed Kelly. It was Steve. I'd bet my life on it."
That was a firm declaration, and it was clear that Connie believed it.
"Did he ever threaten to kill her? Did you ever hear him say it?"
"No," she admitted. "But I did hear him say that if she left him she'd regret it. That's sort of the same, isn't it?"
Close enough. Time to talk to Steve Adams again.
Sitting at her desk, Ella watched one of the television monitors on the wall as it aired the story update she'd filmed that morning. She and a cameraman had driven to the body dump site and filmed during a lucky break in the weather. Even after all this time as a television reporter, Ella didn't enjoy watching herself. She could only see the flaws, not the positives and she cringed again today. She wasn't fond of the sound of her recorded voice, although at least she wasn't expected to be happy and perky for this story. For once, she could be sober and serious.
I should have stuck with newspaper work.
In the segment, Ella stood in front of the body dump site, dressed in a navy blue suit with her hair and face made up. Holding a microphone, she'd recited the scripted update she'd written early this morning over her first cup of coffee, highlighting the progress that had been made because of the forensic rendering and a renewed investigation.
"This is Ella Scott for Channel Thirty-Six News."
"Not bad."
Galen had snuck up on her and was now leaning on her cubicle wall and carrying a steaming coffee cup. His gaze turned to the television for a moment and then back to her.
He wasn’t smiling but he wasn’t scowling either. That was progress.
"Thank you," Ella replied. "It's good to have made progress in the investigation."
It was now public knowledge that Jane Doe had been identified as Kelly Perkins, but Ella hadn't told anyone her connection. Least of all Galen. As he reminded all of his employees, he was their boss, not their best friend.
Even if he had welcomed the personal revelation, he would have insisted she become part of the story and that was something she didn't want to happen. She'd made a sort of peace that she was part of the investigation, but telling others - strangers - wasn't going to happen. Not yet. Maybe never.
"You've shown a real grit that I didn't know you had, Ella. A persistence that's impressed me. This story has really opened my eyes about what kind of reporter you could be."
About time. When Ella had been laid off from her newspaper job and taken this one, she would never have thought that she'd still be proving herself.
"Thank you," she said again. "I appreciate the compliment. This was a fascinating story."
She had a gift for understatement. Galen, however, wasn't paying much attention to what she was saying. He appeared to have an agenda of his own.
"Do you have any others?"
Was he asking what she thought he was asking?
"More?" Ella stammered. This was huge. Huge. "Are you offering to let me do more stories like this?"
"If you want to. You seem to have a nose for what interests our audience."
Holy hell.
"I'll do that. Right away. Thank you, Galen."
There were a few people at the station who weren't going to be happy, but she'd deal with them later. This was her chance and she was going to make the most of it.
He checked his watch. "Great, why don't you meet me in my office in about an hour? We can talk about your new assignments. I want you to start on a new story immediately."
"That's–" Wait, right now?
"Is it a problem?" Galen's brows were pinched into a frown. "I'm not sure I'm following. You found Jane Doe's identity. Good work. You're done. Now you can move on to something new."
"We–I mean, Chris hasn't found the murderer yet."
"So? You can cover it when he does. If he does. Are you even close?" He cocked his head, his gaze intent. “Is an arrest imminent?”
"Well...no," she admitted, although it pained her to do so. "I don't think so but I've never worked on a murder investigation before so I could be wrong. But now that we actually know who she is we have a much better chance of finding out who did this."
Galen took a sip of his coffee. "That's true. Listen, Ella, I feel like I've given you a great deal of freedom on this case, more than I've given to others. I've basically let you become part of the investigation team but they can't have yo
u forever. You have a job to do here. When they find the killer, I promise you can report on it but I think that needs to be the extent of your involvement. Reporting, not investigating. It sounds like they’re not even close, to be honest."
Once Galen made up his mind it was damn near impossible to get him to change it, but every now and then he would if the reporter made a good argument. She wasn't going to give up easily, but it required her to tell him about her apartment. It was an item she'd kept to herself but it wouldn't reveal anything too personal if she told him.
"I didn't tell you this before but my apartment was broken into and ransacked. They didn't take anything but they destroyed whatever they could. Chris thinks it was to scare me into dropping the investigation."
Galen's brows rose in surprise. "That's news, Ella. You shouldn't have kept this to yourself. Your safety - and the safety of all of my reporters - is important to me."
Sighing, Ella tried to reason with him. "I don't want to become part of the story and I sure as hell don't want whoever did it to think that I'm spooked or scared. I don't want them to think they've had any effect on my life at all."
"That's very brave of you."
"It's not all that brave. Besides, if you think about it what they did was rather cowardly. They came and messed up my apartment when I wasn't there. They didn't want to face me so why should I be scared?"
Rubbing his chin, Galen nodded in agreement. "You make a good point there, although now I'm going to worry about you. Frankly, it's another reason to step back from the case. It's not your job to find the killer, Ella. That belongs to the cops. You have a job here."
His emphasis was clear. She needed to be available to take daily assignments, not running around interviewing people about a thirty-year old murder.
"Does this investigator really need you, Ella?" Galen asked. "I'm not trying to be unkind here but he's a professional, right?"
Did Chris truly need her? No, he'd do fine by himself.
"He could handle it without a problem. I was working with him to get it all first-hand."
Elusive Identities: Cowboy Justice Association (Serials and Stalkers Book 1) Page 19