Devils Among Us (Devin Dushane Series Book 1)

by Chastity Harris

  Devin was so angry when she slammed back through the screen door, she spent a good five minutes talking to the empty room about what an idiot Shane Whitlock was. Twice she picked up her cell phone. Once to call Marcy and once to call Carter, but thought better of it. Questions about why he irritated her so much would only serve to irritate her more. In the end she settled for what always soothed her jagged soul—work.

  Slipping the black elastic off her wrist, Devin pulled her hair back out of her face into a loose ponytail and took her place at the head of the dining room table, facing the black plate-glass window that overlooked the street. Normally Henry’s lights would have brought the view to life or even their lone street light would have added a glow, but on this moonless night, nothing penetrated the darkness, and Devin could barely make out the lonely outline of Henry’s empty house across the street. She tapped her pen on the legal pad to bring her back into the moment and then smoothed her hand across the clean surface of the paper. There was something about a fresh legal pad that felt inspiring. She’d never actually admit that to anyone, because she’d sound like a fruit cake, but secretly she would always like it.

  With a sad smile that at least something was right in the world, Devin picked up the accordion file that had been with Henry’s and dumped it out on the table top. Her smile froze as her brow knit and she stared at the contents in confusion and then understanding formed a block of ice in her stomach.

  Chapter 18

  Devin ran her hands across the contents of the file spreading everything across the table, her brain still trying to grasp what she was looking at. There was a stack of newspaper clippings on the Bennett murder, every one of them with sections circled or underlined and questions written in the margins. Bailor Whitlock had pages of notes on what appeared to be his theories about the murder and ties to the moonshine business and letters from his exchanges with the detectives on the case.

  Disturbed, Devin stared at documents from a criminal record that, to her knowledge didn’t exist. At least they had not appeared in the official record when she had pulled it several years before. The most damning evidence in the file, however, were the pictures—four photographs from the series Beth had taken the night Laney was murdered—photos not in the evidence cases at the sheriff’s department. There, smiling out at the camera with his arms wrapped around Laney, was the one person who had always said he wished he’d been at the Summit the night of the murder, the sixth driver in the moonshine ring.

  Bobby Bennett.

  Devin’s hand didn’t hesitate on her cell phone this time. She punched in a speed-dial combination and waited still frozen in her position at the table. After four rings, an antiquated answering machine screeched to life. ‘You’ve reached the Eastside Garage. Please call back between…’ She cut the message short and jabbed in the speed dial code for Mickey’s cell phone. Eight more rings and no answer. Glancing at the clock on the wall, Devin fired off the number for the garage again.

  I know they’re there. No way they miss a card night. She was beginning to contemplate getting in her car and driving to Richmond, when Mickey picked up the garage line.

  “Devin, honey, where’s the fire? You know it’s poker night.”

  She had been tensed and waiting, but hearing his voice was like pulling a trigger, and she shot to her feet, knocking her chair back and several stacks off the table. All niceties of phone conversation were thrown out the window as she snarled at him. “Put him on the phone!”

  “What? Who?” Always jovial light-hearted Mickey was about the only person who could stay completely un-phased by Devin’s wrath.

  “Put...my...father…on...the...phone!”

  There was a slight pause, as if he was motioning to someone.

  “Sweetie, if you’re having problems with your water heater or somethin’, there’s not much he can do from here. You should just call a handyman.”

  Devin had to take a deep breath and force it out her mouth, because she was clenching her jaw so tightly she was in danger of cracking a tooth. “Tell him I know he was there that night, and he can get on the phone and talk to me right now, or the black and white I have on the way can just hold him until I get there. It’s his choice, but he’s got about ninety seconds until the squad car gets there.”

  “Aww geez, Devin! What’d you go and do that for? Hang on.”

  Mickey’s voice became muffled as he covered the receiver to relay her message, but there was no disguising the mayhem that broke loose as curses flew and chairs were overturned in everyone’s haste to leave. Devin smiled on her end of the line in grim satisfaction. Mickey and her father played poker with some unsavory characters, and none of them would want to be present for an unscheduled visit from the police.

  Her father sounded tired but not surprised to be hearing from her. “That’s pretty cold-hearted to send the cops after your old man, Devin.”

  “No, it was a really good bluff. Apparently we Bennetts are very talented liars.”

  His short raspy laugh was humorless. “Well played, darlin’.” As he drew on his cigarette, Devin could almost smell from memory the pungent odor of the unfiltered cigarettes he preferred. The scent would hang on him like a cloud and mix with the smell of auto grease and Old Spice. Still today smelling any combination of those scents brought back vivid childhood memories for Devin, and they were not always pleasant.

  “Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out?”

  There was a long pause as he exhaled a slow billow of smoke. “I was hoping. Nobody else has put it together all these years, but I knew as soon as you started poking around…” He trailed off for another draw on his cigarette. “I never wanted you in Fenton in the first place.”

  “Obviously.” Devin had been pacing the front hall, but she retraced her steps to the dining room and sat down with her clean legal pad again. “Alright, so tell me why you’ve been lying all these years.”

  “I haven’t been lying.”

  “Really? Because my entire life you’ve gotten drunk and rambled on and on about how you should have been there to save her. So either you’ve lied to yourself so long you believe it, or Photoshop was secretly invented about thirty years before its time.” It was taking all she had not to rip his head off and call him a murdering drunken piece of dirt that had ruined her life. “Let’s try this a different way. Where were you the night of May 17th, 1964?”

  Bobby gave a patronizing sigh, as if he had expected this. “I was at the Summit.”

  “No kidding. How about a little more detail. How long were you there?”

  “From eight p.m. until seven a.m. the next morning. As soon as Beth couldn’t find Laney, Henry and I started searching for her, and we were there all night.”

  “In no police report does it mention you already being at the Summit. Why were you not interviewed with everyone else?” Devin was finally able to switch off her emotions and operate strictly in detective mode.

  “My involvement that night was kept quiet.”

  Devin rolled her eyes. Fine. If he wants to play twenty questions, I’ll play.

  “Who kept it quiet?”

  “The Revenue Agents.”

  “The moonshine cops? Why?”

  There was a hint of a smile in her father’s voice. “Yeah, the moonshine cops. They needed a clean case, and they couldn’t have a murder connected to their bust, so I disappeared.”

  Devin stopped writing and lifted her eyes to stare out the window at the dark shadows of Henry’s house. Her father was leading her. He wanted her to think he was involved with his sister’s murder. Bobby Bennett was looking for some penance for his guilt. She didn’t have the patience tonight for his self pity.

  “Did you have any reason to hurt her?”

  “Money, her half of the trust. Kids of dead cops get trusts, and Laney was about to come into hers. She wouldn’t lend me any to start my own place.” The answer was too quick, too well-rehearsed.

  “Trusts don’t work like that
. Since she wasn’t of age, her money reverted back to the fund, not to an heir. There was no financial benefit for you in her death.” She paused to give him opportunity to deny it, and when he didn’t she plunged on. “You’ve been lying for thirty-five years, and for some reason the entire town seems to be going along with it.” Devin’s voice seethed with anger. “Everyone was supposedly devastated, but not enough to air out their dirty little secrets to catch her killer. Even the revenue agents were willing to let Henry go down for murder to not endanger their case.” She paused on this point. “Why cover for you and not Henry?”

  “Their little bust didn’t go down quite like they planned. Drivers were wiley characters and most of ‘em got away. Afterwards Henry was so torn up about Laney, he couldn’t, or wouldn’t tell them who he sent where.” Bobby paused for another long inhale. “Those agents were so ticked off they let him swing for it. I was the only link they had to a new supply line. If I was exposed as their informant and being at the lake, I would’ve been suspected in the murder. Heaven forbid the validity of their bust be called into question by a murder investigation. It was better I just disappear that night.”

  “So you never said a word? You just watched them beat Henry down.” Momentum was building in her voice. “You were at the Summit that night. You were just on the wrong side of the lake. That’s what you regret.”

  “Geez kid, I’d hate to see you in a face-to-face interrogation.”

  “Yes, you would. I’m the very best at what I do.” She picked up her pen and began making notes again. “How did you become involved with the bust that night?”

  Bobby swore under his breath. “Those revenue officers are the ones that got her killed, bringing all those low-lifes to one place like that, and that close to a bunch of kids, too. I guess to them she was just collateral damage.” His voice had become tight, and it was almost a full minute before he spoke again. “About a month before it all went down I got busted just across the state line with a trunk full of illegal hooch and a stolen hand gun. Well it turned out the guy I had bought the gun off of not only stole the gun, he used it in an assault and armed robbery.”

  Devin snorted. “Classy. So how did you go from jail to a clean record?” She heard the familiar sound of glass clinking. If she had to guess it was Jack Daniels into a cracked coffee mug.

  “Henry. He heard I’d been arrested before they could even get me to the federal lock up in Richmond. He did some fast talking with his handlers and got me a deal. I was home in time for breakfast.” There was a pause as he savored a long swig of his beverage. “It was just lucky that I was working with some suppliers they didn’t have a line on already.” The pause was longer this time as he drained the cup, followed by the clinking of the bottle once again. “Too bad for Laney, they were sadistic animals.”

  Devin didn’t have a chance to ask who ‘they’ were, the line went dead. Apparently that was all her father had in him to share.

  She snapped her phone shut and flung it on the table with enough force to send it sliding to the far end of the dining room. By the time it hit the floor, she was taking the stairs two at a time, yanking her t-shirt off over her head as she went. The shirt flew towards the bed, coming up short as she rummaged through the dresser drawers looking for her running clothes.

  These people are crazy! You think you’re in happy small town America, but its all dark secrets and lies and everyone is in cahoots to keep the ugliness very hush hush.

  Devin froze and looked at herself in the mirror as she was putting her hair up in a ponytail. Did I just use the word “cahoots”?

  “Aaargh! I hate this place!”

  Devin had run for miles and had finally exhausted her anger to an irritated frustration. Despite it being close to ten o’clock at night, it was still a humid ninety degrees, and she was dripping. A cold shower should calm her down the rest of the way. Her mind was still twisting with new discoveries. After all this time spent grieving, her father and Henry held the keys to solving the murder in their secrets. There was really no mystery, just no justice. How could they have stayed silent while a killer walked free? Venom started to pour into her mind once again as she considered the wasted time and emotion.

  Even consumed in her thoughts, Devin’s senses began to tingle as she closed in on the house. Slowing her pace, she scanned the shadows, wishing she’d taken the time to turn on the porch light before she left the house. It took only seconds for her eyes to adjust and locate the dark figure in the far corner of the porch. It emerged and leaned against the front railing as she reached the driveway. Adam.

  “Skulking around in the dark could get you shot.” She stood at the bottom of her porch steps with her hands on her hips, still panting a bit from her anger and her run.

  “Going running in the middle of the night is going to make you someone’s hood ornament. And I was not skulking, I was waiting patiently. It’s not my fault you don’t have any security lighting.”

  “I’m lucky the place has indoor plumbing.” She collapsed on the top step. It might be his fault that she wasn’t in a cold shower right now, but it was not his fault that she was having such a bad evening. Adam laughed at her sour face and sat down next to her. His coral polo shirt and blue jeans looked freshly pressed.

  How does he look so crisp and cool in this heat and I continually look like day-old wilted spinach?

  “So what’s the reason for the midnight run? What’d Shane do?”

  She grinned as she leaned over to rest her elbows on her knees. “As obnoxious as he was this evening…this is not Shane’s fault. I’m finally getting somewhere in this investigation, only to find out that it could have been solved years ago, if everyone hadn’t lied to cover their own skins.”

  Devin filled him in on what she had discovered so far and how the pieces were coming together. Most importantly she told him of her father’s lies.

  “You think you’re father had something to do with his sister’s murder?” Adam too was leaning his elbows on his knees and brought his finger tips to his lips in thought.

  She folded her hands together and studied the sidewalk below them. “I think what my father was involved with had something to do with her murder.”

  Before Devin could elaborate on her theory anymore, the shifting of a diesel engine broke the stillness of the neighborhood. She cringed. “No matter what I do to him, he keeps coming back for more.”

  Adam was still laughing when Shane parked his truck in Devin’s driveway. Shane eased up the sidewalk, managing to look sheepish and scowl at Adam at the same time. “What are y’all doing sittin’ in the dark?”

  “Discussing the case.” Adam answered honestly.

  “Making out.” Devin kept her voice completely serious.

  Adam looked shocked for a moment, then threw his arm around Devin’s shoulders with a huge smile. “We’ll go with her answer.”

  Shane’s scowl deepened and shoved his hands in his pockets like a pouting child. “Did you find anything useful in the box?”

  Devin tilted her head back and forth weighing her answer. “Useful…excruciatingly truthful, ehh. It’s a toss up.”

  His eyes went wide, all thoughts of a jealous pout now gone, he took a seat on the bottom step. “What was in there?”

  She reiterated the story again, finding it was becoming less painful in the telling. This time she was able to expand on her theory uninterrupted.

  “I still think it was more than being in the wrong place or seeing something she shouldn’t have. This attack was very personal. I think someone was sending a message.”

  It was after midnight before Devin finally got her cold shower. For hours, the three detectives had sat on the front steps discussing theories on how to proceed, but in the end decided they had to find and interview everyone that had been arrested for moonshining the night of the murder.

  Chapter 19

  Interviews did not progress as well as Devin might have hoped. There was no finite list of arrests from the b
ust. For some reason many of the distillers and drivers had been charged separately in what appeared to be unrelated cases in whatever jurisdiction they were arrested in. Linking anyone back to the Summit was proving to be extremely difficult. To make matters worse, a string of break-ins began at homes in the southern part of the county that Shane and Adam were investigating. Devin was on her own searching for a needle in a haystack. It had been a slow week with a lot of dead-end phone calls.

  In the early hours of Thursday morning, as Devin was getting ready for her morning run, she was considering skipping the office and doing something productive with her day like painting the kitchen. Sure it’s not solving a murder, but everybody needs to play hooky once in awhile, right?

  She nearly tripped over Bo in the front hall. “Since when do you get up this early?” Usually her temporary boarder barely cracked an eye as she left to go running. Finally stepping clear of the dog as she swung thru the screen door, something caught Devin’s eye that would turn her whole day upside down. A large pocket knife was jammed into the wooden door frame just to the left of her house number. Blade and handle protruded about seven inches all together, with an inch of the aged dark metal blade sunk into the wood. The knife pinned a photograph to the wall, of Devin sitting alone on the dock at the Summit, and hanging from the worn black handle was a silver heart shaped locket that contained a tiny diamond in the center, no more than a chip. It was coated with dark dried blood.

  She scanned the yard and street, but everything was still in the early morning dew. Working hard to keep Bo in the house, Devin eased backwards until she could reach her cell phone on the hall table, keeping her eyes on the knife the whole time as if it would wrench itself free and plunge for her heart.

  After seven rings an incoherent Shane mumbled into the phone. “’Lo, ’tective Whitlock.”

  “Shane, it’s Devin. Someone fastened bloody jewelry to my door with a knife. Can you come do some forensics?”