She toyed with her coffee cup, nodding. “So many people hated Mitch, but they just didn’t know him.”
I tapped an index finger on the table. I’d tried so hard not to put her on guard by asking her a direct question about her relationship with Burke. But come on. I shot Kyle a look and he nodded ever so slightly.
I widened my eyes. “I didn’t realize you two were close, Ella Jane. I’m so sorry.”
“Can you keep a secret?” Her blue eyes were full of tears when she looked up.
“I’m decent at it.”
She sucked in a deep breath and nodded as the tears spilled over. “I’m pregnant. We were going to get married next month.”
26.
What not to expect
I stared, my jaw going slack as Kyle pinched my knee under the table. I cut a look at him and saw in half a second that there was something he wanted to say, but didn’t feel like he could.
I tightened my fingers around Ella Jane’s hand. That might explain Burke’s fancy secret dinner in Charlottesville Thursday, but left a dozen new questions in its place. Why didn’t Burke want anyone to know he was taking her to dinner if he was going to marry her? Was she the last person to see him alive?
“I…I’m so sorry…” The words felt lame as they tripped through my lips, but with my brain spinning so fast, I had nothing else to offer. She clasped her other hand around mine and held on like she’d found a float in a sea of trouble. I covered that one with my free hand and patted. “Everything will work out.” Lamer still. But I’d missed the charm-school lesson on consoling pregnant women whose would-be fiancés had met an untimely end, and improv was failing me.
I put pressure on both of her hands. No ring I could feel.
Ella Jane squeezed back and then pulled away, brushing at her eyes and glancing around. “I must look a mess.” She tried to laugh. “Forgive me. I can’t believe I just did that. Stupid crazy hormones—I swear, I cry at the drop of a hat, and I’m either not hungry at all or I want the strangest things to eat. This baby stuff ain’t for sissies.”
Kyle nodded and flashed a smile. “Think nothing of it,” his best soothing agent-in-crisis mode voice said. “It’s often easier to talk to strangers about trouble than it is to talk to people you know. Less fear of judgement.”
Ella Jane pulled in a shuddering breath and nodded. “Well. Thank y’all for listening. You really think this is still normal? That they’re going to catch whoever did it?”
“I really do,” I said, standing when she did. The coffee sat forgotten on the table.
She set her pink lips in a firm line. “All right then. Hopefully Daddy is finding out something in Richmond as we speak.”
She walked us back to the door, pausing when she saw her computer screen. “The reports. Let me see if I can find Deputy Evans for you.”
I smiled a thank you. It had slipped my thoughts in all the revelation, but I’d still like to have them.
She disappeared, and I drummed my fingers on my thigh. “Wow,” I whispered.
“Just when I think I know where this train is going, we change tracks.” Kyle shook his head.
“I’d say that was worth the drive out here all by itself,” I hissed. “Though I seem to have traded two questions I walked in here with for a hundred new ones.”
“The questions always come cheap. It’s the answers that are pricey.”
I smiled. “Only if you don’t work hard enough.”
“Takes a bit of luck too.”
I opened my mouth to reply and closed it again when Ella Jane hurried back around the corner, talking a mile a minute into her headset. She kicked her chair out of the way and stepped to her computer, her fingers flying over the keys. “I have an ambulance on its way, Mrs. Toomey. I understand. Keep pressure on the wound, and they’ll be there in four minutes. Yes ma’am, I know that feels like a long time. How is the bleeding now?”
Whoever Mrs. Toomey was, she was panicked such that we could hear her screaming in Ella Jane’s ear from across the room. Ella Jane’s face stayed tight, but her voice was calm and even.
She didn’t just have this job because her dad was the sheriff. She was good at it.
Kyle and I listened as Ella Jane consoled the woman until the paramedics arrived. When she pushed the button behind her ear to dismiss the call, she sank into her chair and let her head fall back. “Sorry about that. There’s something else I’ve been lately—worn the heck out pretty easy.”
I smiled. “Well, Mrs. Toomey would never have known it. You were great with her.”
“Thanks. I like helping people.”
She stared at us with a vacant look for a minute before she sat up. “Oh! Your reports. Evans isn’t here, and they’re not finished yet. I’ll call you when they’re ready and I can fax or email them if you don’t want to drive all the way back out here.”
Since the freedom of information act didn’t require her to make that offer, I thanked her twice. “I appreciate your help,” I said.
“I appreciate yours.” She smiled, a little of the sadness in her eyes disappearing for the first time since I’d met her.
“Try not to worry,” I said. “It’s doubly bad for you these days.”
I strode back to the car with Kyle on my heels, yet another new question floating up.
Mitch Burke was from an old-money family, and Kyle said his bank account was plenty healthy. If they were engaged, where was her ring? And why did her dad think they weren’t serious?
“What do we know about the sheriff?” Kyle started talking before his door was shut, pulling his seatbelt around him as I started the car. “Besides that our murder vic knocked up his little girl?”
I picked up my phone and found Jinkerson’s address in three clicks, tapping it up on my map. Twelve minutes. Pulling out of the parking lot, I returned my attention to Kyle. “I’m wondering if Sheriff Rutledge even knows about this baby.” I bit my lip. Had I misunderstood him? “He said the other day he was glad Mitch wasn’t the marrying sort, and mentioned shipping Ella Jane off to her aunt in Texas. I thought he meant he wanted them broken up. But what if he didn’t?” I rolled my eyes. “Just when I thought we had an answer with your brilliant poison blueberry thing. Dammit.”
Kyle patted my hand. “One thing at a time. I didn’t get an I’m-hiding-things vibe from that guy.”
“Me either. He seems like an open book. Country law enforcement, career, I’d bet on military service from the way he carries himself and speaks. Seems smart. Burke’s social media feed does put him out here on Thursday evening though. He checked into a super-nice restaurant—alone—at six thirty.”
“So who was he eating with?” Kyle nodded, talking more to himself than to me. “I’m not technically assigned to this case, so I have to be careful how I ask, but I can check on security footage if you give me an address. See if a camera got something.”
I sighed. “Thanks. I keep feeling like I’m missing something.”
“I could tell by your face you didn’t suspect she was pregnant. But I think she loved him. Don’t you?”
“Maybe. Either way, I bet that chick has never even killed a spider.”
“Plus, no rich playboy baby daddy, no child support. Engagement or no.” Kyle raised his hands in mock surrender at my sideways glare. “Not trying to insult anyone. Just calling it like I see it. You can’t get mad at me for agreeing with you.”
I rolled my eyes, then focused them back on the blacktop in front of me as I made a left at the town’s only stoplight. “Whatever. Anyway—it wasn’t her. So who else do we got?”
“The sheriff.”
I tipped my head side to side. “I dunno. I think he’s too honorable to be a murderer.”
“But especially if he did time on active duty, he’s capable of it. And to protect his daughter? If I’ve learned one thing in all the years I’ve spent in police work, it’s that lots of folks have a button or two that can push them to the unthinkable. So would this have press
ed his?”
I held a breath for a three count, then blew it out slowly, a tickling in the back of my brain. “I wish I knew. There’s too much to figure out, and…” The words choked off into a sob and I pinched my eyes shut and shook my head, snapping them open a half-second later. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m sorry.”
He half-swiveled in the seat. “Stress. You have too much going on and it’s making you emotional.”
I nodded, Joey’s car sitting outside Sammons’s barn flashing through my thoughts and making it hard to breathe. Stress. Yeah. Just a smidge.
Slowing the car when the map indicated an upcoming turn, I raised a brow at Kyle as I drove under a rusted arch that probably used to read “Augusta Park,” but now halfheartedly welcomed us to “Gust Ark.”
Kyle’s jaw loosened as he surveyed a trailer park that a swift wind would flatten in half a tick. “This…” He cleared his throat. “This is where Jinkerson lives?”
“According to the interwebs, the only Phillip Jinkerson in the county resides,” I shifted into park in front of a rust-covered travel trailer that looked like it was once green, “right here.”
Kyle shook his head. “Either Sammons can’t afford to pay his people…”
“Or his people are spending their checks elsewhere.”
There was that tickle again.
Hulk. Even Mr. Jinkerson put money on us.
“Leaping Louboutins, he has a gambling problem.” Up flashed the photo of Burke with the similarly afflicted pitcher and Don Mario. And Sammons. “And didn’t you say Burke was betting with the Cacciones?” My brows shot up, eyes widening as I turned to Kyle.
“Maybe this goose is the right one.” He nodded to the door. “I don’t have a warrant.”
“He wanted to talk to me the other day. Let me see what I can get.”
“Do your thing, Lois Lane.”
I kicked the car door open and strode to the foot of the most dubious steps I’d ever seen. I’d risked my life for a story before, though never at the hands of rickety construction.
I settled one heel into a groove on the bottom one and pushed up on that leg, keeping the other behind me for balance as I rapped on the metal door. Probably not attractive, but effective.
No answer.
I tried again, this time calling Jinkerson’s name.
Nothing.
Turning to glance at Kyle, I slid two fingers under the lever latch and flicked them upward.
The door opened.
To a disaster area.
“Mr. Jinkerson?” Eyes wide, I gripped the edge of the door in one hand and the steps’ makeshift railing in the other as I climbed into the upended space. It was warmer inside than out by a good ten degrees, thanks to a metal structure and little insulation. The air was thick, a familiar odor heavy in it.
Hell and damnation.
I turned a slow circle, the acrid rotting-meat stench making my stomach heave. Was Jinkerson hiding—or was he dead?
“God, please no.” I’d seen more than three people’s fair share of corpses, but (thank Heaven) I’d never actually discovered a fresh one.
I inched past a mustard gold booth, the vinyl seats cracked, the linoleum tabletop dulled by a layer of grime. “Mr. Jinkerson? It’s Nichelle Clarke. We met on Friday night?”
Still no reply.
Shit.
Careful not to touch anything, I skirted open cabinets and a gaping mini-fridge, my eyes on the shoebox-sized bedroom and teenier bath straight ahead.
“Anyone home?” I fought the urge to take a deep breath, my stomach still churning from the stink, and plunged through the doorway.
Empty.
Whirling for the bathroom, I nudged the orange accordion curtain aside with the toe of one shoe.
In need of a bleach bomb, but no dead guy.
My eyes fell shut and I mouthed a silent thank you.
Back in the little galley kitchen, I crouched in front of the open mini-fridge. One half-empty six pack of Keystone, plus the source of the stench: an open package of bologna and a ripped paper butcher’s wrapper half-covering a lump of raw hamburger, both turning green in the warm May air. Standing, I pushed the little door shut with one foot and surveyed the rest of the tiny space.
The cabinets all hung open, and everything that looked like it belonged in them had been scattered around the room.
The place had been tossed.
“Nicey?” Kyle’s voice came from outside. “You okay?”
“I’m fine.” I stepped over a coffee mug and a saucepan and peeked outside. “There’s no one here. But we’re not the first people who’ve been here looking for someone—or something.”
He climbed the steps and poked his head through the doorway, a low whistle escaping his lips. “What the hell is this guy into?”
“Who the hell knows? I’d say gambling is a safe assumption, but is it the only thing? Any evidence of whatever he’s doing is probably long gone.”
Kyle’s head tipped to one side as he looked over the trailer’s interior. “Probably. If they knew where to look.”
“Huh?” I furrowed my brow.
“My folks had an old travel trailer like this for camping when I was a kid,” he said. “And if I lived here and wanted to hide something, I know where I’d put it.” His eyes drifted up. “I can’t come inside without risking compromising a case, but since you’re in there—go in the bathroom and check the ceiling. You should find a ventilation hatch above the toilet.”
The toilet. In this place? I swallowed hard. “The things I won’t do for a story.”
“Or for a friend.” Kyle winked.
I strode back to the bath closet and stepped past the accordion, gritting my teeth and picturing Parker and Mel, posing for photos Friday night.
He wasn’t guilty. And if digging around in the most disgusting bath closet in Virginia was how I had to go about proving that, so be it.
The hatch was hard to spot if you didn’t know to look for it, just a pattern of cracks in the dirty plastic ceiling. The cracks said it was good size too, and my heart stuttered as I eyed it. Just one little break. I rose up on tiptoe, but couldn’t quite reach the catch.
“Fine,” I grumbled, flipping the toilet lid down with my toe and testing with one foot to see if it’d hold me.
Satisfied that it would, I stepped onto the rounded plastic and reached for the latch.
Stuck.
A small scream of frustration escaped my throat.
“What?” Kyle sounded panicked.
“Nothing, just annoyed,” I called. “The damned thing is stuck.”
I worked a fingernail under the edge and pulled, and the door gave about a millisecond before my nail did. Clenching my jaw against the smarting in my hand and ignoring the drops of blood that fell to the floor, I reached into the recess in the ceiling.
And pulled out a manila folder.
Bingo.
I leapt off the toilet and ran back to Kyle, skidding to a stop in front of the door.
“You found something.” His eyebrows went up.
“Something important enough to hide in the bathroom ceiling.”
“Well? What is it?”
I shook my head. “Get the hell out of here now. Read later.”
He nodded. “Solid plan. I’ll drive.”
I shut the trailer door before I followed him back to the car, clutching the folder tight against my chest and whispering a prayer that Jinkerson was okay, wherever he was.
Kyle steered us back toward I-64 as I shot Bob a quick Think I’m onto something, will be in as soon as I can. Everything good there?
Bing. As good as an average Tuesday on Andrews’s shit list can be. Charlie has a story coming at noon. He’s waiting for it.
Shit.
Thanks for the heads up. I put the phone in the cupholder and opened the folder, flipping through a two-inch stack of papers.
“Anything good there?” Kyle asked
“Maybe?” I tu
rned past a photocopied article about the vineyard’s growth and found a spreadsheet with a collection of numbers that made no sense, but had Burke’s name handwritten in the upper corner of the page. I kept going and found a newspaper clipping—one of Parker’s columns about the Generals’ playoff run last season. Three paragraphs in the middle were highlighted, a couple of stars doodled in the margins. Next up: an article from a magazine about the Governor’s Cup. Four pages of unlabeled numbers. Three letters from the sheriff about complaints from Leroy Fulton—interesting. Behind those was a letter from an attorney demanding return of Fulton’s property and threatening legal action. So he did go to a lawyer. In the very back of the folder, I found the news clippings about Jolene’s death.
All of them.
No notes, no highlights. They were just there.
“What the hell?” I mumbled, shaking my head as I slapped the folder closed and looked up.
“Now can I ask?” Kyle’s tone was teasing.
“Several pages of random numbers, one with Burke’s name on it. Some clippings about the vineyard and the baseball team. And all the news stories about Jolene Sammons’s death. The more I think about that, the more convinced I get there’s more to that story.”
“You call the ME yet?”
“The file has been moved to storage. Eight to ten weeks. Oh, if it didn’t burn up a few months ago.” I rolled my eyes. “On one hand, it’s been forever and I get it. On the other, knowing what happened to her might help Parker and I don’t have that much time. Not that I have a lot of choice.”
Kyle nodded. “We weren’t involved in the case, which means coming up with a reason to ask for a report that old could be tricky, but let me see if I can work some magic. Damned shame for people who loved her to think she took her own life if she didn’t.”
“Agreed. DonnaJo is trying too. She knows everyone over there.”
My stomach burbled and I spotted a Sonic sign at the next exit. “You hungry?”
“I can always eat,” Kyle said. “And good for you, taking better care of yourself.”
Lethal Lifestyles (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery Book 6) Page 20