Miller Avenue Murder: An addictive police procedural legal psychological thriller

by Nenny May

  “What did you find, and how does it have anything to do with my sessions with Paul Campbell?” Lisa scratched her nose, glaring skeptically at the District Attorney.

  “Paul Campbell isn’t the killer you’re after, Lisa. Bernard Sutter is. He had a motive; an opportunity and I know for a fact it was his shirt that was uncovered from the scene of the crime.”

  Lisa Patterson’s eyes blazed with apprehension; her espresso skin flushed and pulse thumping in her ears. “Please, help me understand why you believe the Governor of Tillamook killed a local prostitute.” It didn’t add up. What would a man that lived and worked in Salem have to gain killing a Tillamook prostitute? Had her services been that bad? And even at that, why result to stabbing her twenty-two times in the torso and strangling her to death in her Tillamook home?

  “He was a client of hers… she was going to destroy his marriage… I have proof…” She pulled out her phone and slid it across the table. Lisa reached for it. On the screen were screenshots of messages from a number registered as ‘Client-One’. Scrolling through the images, Blake Campbell had a rocky relationship with this number. And right on the nail, there were ceaseless instances where Blake had referred to the number as Bernard. The fights they’d gotten into were countless. And even still, he’d requested Blake Campbell adorn her wedding dress for their next session. The last message received had been a short one.

  ‘On my way.’. Sent less than thirty minutes before her murder.

  Paul Campbell didn’t kill his mother. Governor Bernard Sutter did.

  “We have to get this to the Sherriff’s Department.” Lisa Patterson suggested returning Regan’s phone. She blew out a nervous breath. It all became clear. Her desire to ruin Paul. He wasn’t her target. She deflecting her negative emotions towards what had happened to his mother. She was pushing it onto him, convincing herself that he’d had a part to play.

  He didn’t. That only meant he needed her services. And this contract was the beginning of an opportunity. Not to take him down for the murder of his mother, but to rescue him from the metal cuffs of grief. From the trauma of a drastic loss. She would be helping the son of a murder victim.

  Regan nodded. “I spoke to the Detective in charge of the case, she’s not going to be at the precinct, but at the gala on Laurel Avenue.” Lisa considered the heavy traffic in that part of town. If they left immediately, they would be able to make it before noon.

  She didn’t leap from her seat.

  “Can we get in?” Lisa didn’t bother a glance at her outfit. She had on work attire. If the event was strict on its dress code, they would be shunned at the entrance.

  “Being the District Attorney of the small town has it’s perks. I’ll drive.”

  ◆◆◆

  A phone blared; it was faint in the distance. It was picked up as quickly as it rang. The precinct on long prairie road hummed with an early morning zeal that Detective Rachel Olson had to admit was infectious. She didn’t get that every Thursday morning. Especially when she left the house ten minutes earlier than normal. But then again, it wasn’t every Thursday morning she got dolled up to accompany a man she’d almost kissed for a gala to support his sister.

  Long prairie hadn’t been her first stop. It wasn’t her final stop either. Tillamook Junior High had been her first. For a high school operating a semester in the middle of autumn, it was full, to say the least. Bodies had been leaned against cars in the parking lot, a sea of students in their hundreds gushed toward the front entrance. Rachel Olson hadn’t been dressed applicably. Tuscany had pleaded for Rachel to take her in Betty, excited that for once her cop neighbor had thrown on a dress for the first time. Rachel didn’t have a problem giving Tuscany a ride anywhere, she did however squirm in the driver’s seat each time the fourteen-year-old insisted on referring to her by her first name, Naomi in the presence of her school friends.

  It was one thing for Tuscany to call her by the name Cecilia-Jackson-Brown had called her growing up. It was another for complete strangers to butcher the name in a bid to thank her for driving the best car that morning. There was nothing wrong with the name, Naomi…it just brought to mind her mother who’d been brutally murdered.

  She’d as well stopped for gas and a coffee and managed to make it into the office before eleven-thirty. She gulped a lung full of the early morning and put on a sincere smile that matched the warmth she felt in the pit of her stomach.

  Cadets had been darting from door to door, forensics investigators crawled the ground floor—an open space of cubicles, a stubborn vending machine, and a questionable water cooler—and even the morgue attendants had been clustered by the door to Crime Scene Technician Janice Lee’s office. She would eventually need to speak with Janice, but she didn’t think she had the time that morning.

  She was early, that didn’t mean she didn’t have a packed schedule.

  Up the stairs, in a pair of shimmering Bottega Veneta strappy sandals, three doors down from the ladies’ room, she poked her head into his office, the cedar door had been ajar. She hadn’t bothered to knock. “Got a minute I could borrow, Woods?”

  The marshmallow-skinned man with reflective eyes cleared his throat.

  Evidence Technician Steve Woods perched by his table, leaned against it, hadn’t looked up from the files sprawled on it.

  A dead silence settled in between them and Detective Olson shifted her weight between her feet, and allowed herself to gather her scattered thoughts.

  Her memories of last night. It all felt… surreal… Beneath the sprinkled stars, on the shores of Cape Lookout, her lips had brushed against Chase Dawson’s. They’d had a moment, an almost kiss. Her stomach fluttered; lips drawn between her teeth. She couldn’t forget the night she and Dawson shared.

  Rachel swallowed, pushing that night to the back of her mind, especially since she would have to spend her morning at some gala on 7th Street with him as his plus one.

  “I was able to bypass her pin code,” Steve Woods rippled her thoughts. She blinked. He’d moved. He was by a drawer, pulling it open. He reached inside and produced a familiar object. “It was her late husband’s birthday, how predictable.” Rachel shrugged and picked up the Ziplock bag.

  “Yes, that year in MIT is really paying off.” She had forced a faint smile. She swiped the screen, compulsively opening the gallery app. Anything to help her retrace their victim’s last steps. There were pictures of the 9th, pictures of the day she’d died. And from the looks of things, pictures taken hours before her passing.

  “Hurtful. You couldn’t do it,” She nodded. That was true. The wedding dress had been her own decision it seems… She closed the app and opened the messaging app. She couldn’t evade it. The tingling feeling that plagued her skin as messages flooded the screen.

  “Anything I should be concerned about on it?” She nodded for him to walk with her. He did and she led the way out of his office. Her mouth had become a desert. She couldn’t stop glancing at the phone. The woman had a surge of messages from her service provider and only one from someone she’d saved as ‘client five’.

  “What makes you think I went through the phone?” Even from his high-pitched and cracked tone, she could tell he was lying. He wasn’t a good liar, but he sure as hell was a good Evidence Technician.

  “You expect me to believe you had the smart phone of a fifty-six-year-old dead hooker and you didn’t go through it?” She jogged down the stairs and quick on her heel-clad feet, made her way across the ground floor.

  “Wait, hooker?”

  “It’s all over channel nine. Apparently, it was how she was able to escape the mortgage on her house on Miller Avenue.” She weaved through the Cadets dashing from their cubicle.

  “Shit.”

  “So, what’s on her phone.” She stopped by a door and handed him the Ziplock.

  “Calls. Eight of them made on the day of the murder, three of which were made the night of her passing.” He placed the bagged phone in his blazer.

  �
�And?”

  “I gave a few of these numbers a ring myself and it just now makes sense why many of them were old local men in the area.”

  “Wait local men? With a house like that I figured she would go for the big leagues,” She had her hands on the door handle. She had to cut her conversation with Woods short. This was her twelve P.M.

  “I don’t know but one of them worked at a maid agency,”

  “We know about Maids for Tillamook; I’m supposed to meet with their founder in a little bit.” She said curtly. “Got anything else for me?”

  “One of the calls had been made from a burner phone.”

  That had to be their killer.

  “Get me everything there is to know about that burner phone.”

  Rachel let herself into the petite moss green room. It didn’t have much to offer. It was a small room the color of dead moss green, a metal table sat in the middle with three chairs tucked in it. A camera sat over the door, often to record the interrogation sessions. A two-way mirror had been hung at the farthest end of the room. There was one thing, the room had that it didn’t have any other day.

  “She went around,” The gruff baritone of his voice was music to her ears. She bit back the impulsive urge to let her lips twitch into a subtle smile. She was glad for her amber skin. It couldn’t tint pink and unveil her emotions.

  She lifted her chin. There was a tight well-done knot in her stomach. She rubbed the moisture from her palms on her flowing Cinderella Divine satin A-line dress, agitated at the streak it left behind. That hadn’t been a cheap dress. A compulsive buy, but an expensive one. She didn’t have anything that screamed gala, and she didn’t think she had it in her to turn up in something old and tacky or worse… work-related. No. Shortly after leaving the precinct, she’d ducked into a few clothing stores, tried on a few pencil dresses that didn’t do much for her rather curvy figure… That was until as the sun had been saying its final goodbye, her jar of hope completely run dry, she tried one more store by the Tillamook Mall’s exit door. It had caught her eye the moment she’d slipped through the wide opened glass doors. The mannequin that wore it was as voluptuous as she was and she knew she couldn’t leave that store without that dress. It featured a cowl neckline with tying thin straps, a leg slit, and a flowing A-line skirt.

  “Huh?” Since Mathew, she’d repelled advances from countless men… That’s to say, going out of her way and well beyond her budget to buy a dress for a date had always been out of the question. The same rules didn’t seem to apply with Detective Dawson… Not that he was making any advances that she had to repel.

  “The walls,” He rose a finger towards the door. “They’re paper thin. Might want to get Pierce in on that, this isn’t the best place to be speaking to our witnesses,”

  She internally winced. She’d overlooked the reports, the complaints from Cadets who’d used the interrogation room. She was supposed to have gotten the documents to Pierce’s table since Leona Wendy’s case… Shit!

  She fiddled with a lock of curled hair. She’d worn her hair all-natural, a style that didn’t exactly work with the dress of choice. In its natural state, Rachel Olson’s hair was a bed of untamed sable type-three-c curls. It resembled that of Madeline-Pettis, but inches longer. The curls were a gift from her mothers’ strong traits, as well as the soil-brown eyes accented with a cat-eye liner and a nude shimmering ombre shadow.

  “Wasn’t able to get any sleep last night, so I looked into our Jane Doe.” Had he been burdened by the night they’d shared? Had he been looking forward to the gala? She couldn’t help the mental image of an almost naked Chase Dawson in bed tossing and turning beneath the silk sheets…did he have silk sheets? Or was he more of a duvet guy? “By her forties, she’d slept with a good portion of Tillamook’s big leagues and in her fifties, well…” Detective Dawson trailed off. He hadn’t been sitting at the metal table in the middle of the room. He was much too jumpy to settle into a chair in the empty room. He’d been perched by the two-way window, hands shoved in his pockets. He’d thrown on a three-piece Gianni Ice Blue Slim-Fit Suit. A bulky frost-white watch was peeking out of the sleeve on his left hand. Her temperature jerked; her heart was a wild animal trying to escape her chest.

  “There was no one else to sleep with besides the locals.” Detective Olson finished for him recalling what Steve Woods had mentioned about the numbers their deceased had called.

  “Bingo,” He nodded. He approached her in countable steady steps. She calculated her breaths. Her amber skin might shield her from tinting in her cheeks, but it could do little against flushing in her skin. “And where are my manners,” His voice dropped an octave. He took her hand in his and brought it to his lips. For the love of all things sweet, she wished her hands hadn’t clammed up at his proximity. “You look breathtaking, Miss. Olson.” The way her name rolled off his tongue nearly made her weak-kneed. At nearly thirty-three, she was turning into near mush for her colleague, her work partner… what did that say of her?

  “Naomi,” She’d told him unsteadily. “I never did mention last night… I never got the chance to. But my mom… Cecilia, she always called me Naomi, all the time… it’s actually my first name and when she died, I didn’t want anyone calling me that. Although my fourteen-year-old neighbor Tuscany is convinced the name suits me better…” She babbled fighting the urge to pull away and cower. “I guess what I’m saying is, I want you to be able to call me that.” Even Tuscany didn’t find it this hard talking to the boys in her grade. She wanted to chuck it up to being rusty. She’d been out of the game since the divorce. It wasn’t her fault.

  Mathew had called her Naomi once. He hadn’t been a big fan of the name. He’d always preferred Rachel. But then again, he preferred her hair straightened, pressed, and neat. Presentable, he’d called it.

  “Well, your neighbor is pretty darn smart. It does suit you,” Detective Dawson said, and... had that been respect she’d picked up in his tone? She wasn’t sure. “What does it mean?”

  “Pleasant one.” She paused, chuckled to herself, and added; “Ironic, isn’t it?” He shook his head.

  “It’s perfect.” She beamed. She didn’t want to admit it, but she’d been looking forward to the gala. She hadn’t been up tossing and turning. No, she’d been on her computer… and not willing to fess up, she’d been researching etiquette for events of this manner. The last she needed was to eat like a slob and get him kicked out of his sister’s event.

  “Shall we?” Did he even need to ask? Nothing about her morning felt real… She was doing it; she was going on a date with Detective Dawson. Nodding, she allowed him to guide her out of the petite interrogation room, through the open space of cubicles, past the front entrance, and towards his Yukon.

  If only she’d anticipated that this wasn’t any ordinary gala.

  ◆◆◆

  The event center on 7th Street by Laurel Avenue had been renovated to a room of rounded tables, red carpets, and fog crawling up to the ankles. It was dark, rays of orange lights dancing from the stage, the walls curtained like a cinema, but lit up by vertically slanting ceiling lights. Each table had a candle in the middle. The décor was classy, the tables numbered. The ones closest to the stage were reserved, dressed in the Studio’s brand colors of orange with black borders instead of the default white that had adorned every other table from the entrance.

  She hadn’t kept count, but there had to be a few hundred tables in the room. It wasn’t a small room.

  Music blared, something slow, passionate from the speakers strategically positioned. She could hardly hear herself think.

  Annabelle Dawson though she didn’t have it in her to let a tear run down her makeup-caked-cheeks, she did let a sniffle through. Her hand in Amanda’s, she’d let the man in the white button-down from the entrance guide them across the room. They were early enough that the event hadn’t started without them, however, from the looks of things, it seemed they were cutting it pretty close. The tables had been occupied, only
a few were left vacant. She was in complete awe at the effort and time that went into setting up the gala for the studio. She couldn’t imagine how much Channel Six had invested into that morning. She’d stopped at an orange table. This had to be one of the best tables in the room. She was light-headed. How had she made it to this point? If anyone had told her in college this was the direction her life would turn, she would have shrugged them off. What was an engineering student doing as a reporter at a gala thrown in honor of her efforts to the studio? Though she wasn’t mentioned, she was a hands-on reason for the event and she couldn’t contain her smile. Would she be dining with Simon Neil? She couldn’t wait to see the look on his face!

  “You look happy,” Amanda acknowledged pulling out a seat and with a slight effort, lowering herself into it. She’d slipped into a glimmering midnight blue mermaid dress that accentuated her sharp curves. When Annabelle had arrived at Amanda’s earlier that morning, her friend had still been hopping around her home with one leg in a Saint Lauren ankle clasp sandal and her dress unzipped. She’d been instructing the babysitter on how best to handle her kids till she returned.

  “We made it, Amanda…” Annabelle joined her friend by the table. Her own lose fitting wine-red tulle dress by Alexandre Vauthier was easy to move about in. It had been a gift from her mother Brenda Dawson before Annabelle and Chase had embarked on a timeless journey to a new town, a small town in pursuit of nothing and everything Tillamook had to offer. She’d brought the dress along, not particularly knowing when it would come in handy. She couldn’t have been more thankful she hadn’t left it behind on her twin bed in her parents’ home in Los Angeles.

  She couldn’t wait for Chase to arrive. She hadn’t seen him in days. She could only picture this Detective he’d couldn’t seem to stop talking about. The last she’d been to his place on 9th Street by Coastville Park, he’d gone on and on about how invested the woman was on their latest case. The way he’d spoken about her, Annabelle knew this was more than a work partner. His eyes had blazed with adoration she hadn’t seen in a long time. Chase wasn’t a slacker at anything he did, and Annabelle was beyond ecstatic that he’d met someone that mirrored his enthusiasm. He didn’t always show it, but beyond his sarcastic wall of egotistical comments, he was a sweet boy with a heart of gold and she could only hope with her fingers crossed that the woman he couldn’t get out of his mind wouldn’t give him a reason to lose the spark that made him who he was.