Who Killed Kasey Hill

by Charlotte Moore

  B.J. thanked Andrea for the help.

  “I think we’ll be good now that the power’s back on,” she said. “Thanks for your help. You go get some sleep.”

  “Not much chance with my kids!” Andrea said. “But I’ll try.”

  “Hey, Chief!” the dispatcher called out. “The coroner’s on the phone for you.”

  Will Tapper sounded brisk.

  “I’m heading to the hospital,” he said, “Dr. Lee came in early, and called me. He wants somebody to make a definite identification on this young woman’s body before he does the autopsy. He’s going to need the date of birth and all that.”

  “I’m going to go pick the sister up to make the I.D.,” B.J. replied. “I’ll get her over there as soon as I can, but I didn’t think we’d need an autopsy. You did tell him the trailer got smashed in by a pine tree during the tornado, didn’t you?”

  “Yeah,” Tapper said, “I told him the whole thing, but he says whatever fell on top of her, the cause of death was manual strangulation and you’ve got a homicide on your hands.”

  Chapter 4

  When B.J. arrived, the Wellstons’ home was undergoing a transformation and smelled like bleach and lemons. The toys were off the floor, and a stout woman with bright orange hair was clearing clutter from every horizontal surface in the living room, pushing magazines, toys and coffee mugs indiscriminately into a cardboard box, and then spraying and dusting.

  In the dining room, a young man with long curly brown hair held back in a ponytail was running a vacuum cleaner, stopping now and then to dab at his eyes with a tissue.

  B.J. recognized them as Chloe Carpenter, owner of Chloe’s Clips, and her son, Jazz.

  “Turn that thing off for a minute, Jazz!” the woman shouted, and he did.

  Wendy Wellston appeared from the kitchen holding a powdered sugar donut, and explained things to B.J.

  “Aunt Chloe and Jazz are cleaning things up because lots of people are going to come over because Kasey has gone to heaven,” she said.

  “That’s nice of them,” B.J. said. “Can you go tell your mom I’m here?”

  Wendy started up the stairs, yelling “Mom! MOM!”

  “We just thought we’d get the housecleaning off Holly’s mind,” Chloe said to B.J. “That’s what family’s for.”

  “You’re related?”

  “I forgot you’re not from around here,” Chloe said. “Yes M’am. Janie, their sweet mother was my first cousin on my daddy’s side. Kasey worked for me. These girls have been through a lot.”

  Jazz joined them, brushing his hair away from his face, and said, “Mama was real close to Cousin Janie, and she was the one who got Kasey to go the tech school and learn about hair cutting and styling.”

  Then his face crumpled.

  “I’m going to miss that girl so much.”

  “Don’t start again,” his mother said briskly. “You can cry at home. We need to get this house in shape, now, and take that worry off Holly’s mind.”

  Jazz brushed his hair out of his eyes again and turned to B.J. “Kasey wasn’t just my cousin. She was the best friend I ever had, and if I hadn’t swapped times with her, she’d be here….”

  “Jazz!” his mother said. “Just don’t go there. Keep your mind on cleaning, and get that box over there. Put it on the back porch for now.”

  He slumped away, and Chloe said in a lowered voice, “That poor boy. Kasey was supposed to be working yesterday afternoon, and he was supposed to be off, and she talked him to swapping with her, told him she was worried that Logan was coming down with something—like Holly couldn’t handle that even if he was.”

  The younger girl came skipping down the stairs ahead of Holly who was dressed neatly but looking exhausted. Logan was clinging to her.

  Holly looked around and asked, “Where’s Roger?”

  “He just went over to see about the trailer again to see what he could find,” Chloe said. “Jazz can look after Logan, and the girls, too. Don’t you worry about it.”

  B.J. decided it wasn’t the right moment to explain to any of them that Roger wasn’t going to get anywhere near the ruined trailer. Or if he was already there, poking around, he’d be sent away. In the last fifteen minutes she had already sent Demetrius to barricade that end of Butterfield Road and to put up crime scene tape. He would be there with Andrea Cole, who wouldn’t leave for home until another of the sheriff’s deputies arrived as backup. The crime scene team might be there in thirty minutes.

  She wasn’t really worried about Roger Wellston and his need to scavenge, though. Her main goal was to get Holly Wellston through the next step in her personal tragedy.

  “Are you ready to go?” she asked Holly. “The coroner’s there now.”

  The morgue was in the back of the first floor of the Laurel Grove Hospital, located so that most people didn’t know it was there, but ambulance and hearse drivers had easy access.

  Holly had been quiet on the drive there, and B.J. had honored that silence, but now, as she pulled up to a stop, she knew she had to prepare the young woman for a second shock.

  “Before we go in,” she said, “I need to tell you something. The pathologist, Dr. Lee, doesn’t think that your sister’s death was an accident.”

  Holly gave her a blank look.

  “I don’t understand. How could a tornado not be an accident?” she asked.

  “He thinks she died before the tornado hit,” B.J. said, “He thinks there are signs she was strangled.”

  “Is he crazy?” Holly asked angrily. “I saw that trailer. It was smashed and she was under the smashed part. Is this man nuts, or did somebody just not tell him…”

  “I just thought you should know,” B.J. said. “I know this is really hard for you. Are you ready to go inside?”

  “Yes,” Holly said, calming down. “Let’s get it over with. I just hope somebody told him what happened.

  Kasey’s body was under a sheet and when Dr. Lee pulled the sheet back to expose her face, B.J. saw that she was still in the red and white dress, which had dried into deep wrinkles. She hadn’t been prepared yet for the autopsy, but someone had turned her onto her back, scrubbed her face clean and brushed her hair out to surround her face, which looked distorted.

  Holly kept her composure and told the coroner, “This is my sister, Kasey Elizabeth Hill,” and leaned over to touch her sister’s cheek.

  “Poor baby,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry. We’ll look after Logan.”

  That was when she saw the brutal deep purple bruises on the right side of her sister’s neck, and looked up wide-eyed at Dr. Lee.

  “You think somebody did that to her?” she asked in a near whisper. “That’s what Chief Bandry meant by strangled?”

  “It seems so,” he said in a gentle voice. “There are other signs, as well. We’ll know more after the autopsy.”

  Holly nodded and looked distracted.

  “Why is she wearing that?” she asked, looking perplexed.

  “That’s the dress she had on yesterday,” B.J. said.

  “Why on earth was she wearing one of her party dresses? She told me she was going to do some housecleaning and play games with Logan.”

  She stood there for a moment looking down at her sister, and then turned to B.J.

  “I want to go home. Are we done? It’s cold in here.”

  On the ride home, Kasey seemed fixated —- not on the signs of strangulation –but on the dress.

  “I don’t understand why she wearing that dress,” she said. “I didn’t even know she still had it.”

  “She was wearing red heels,” B.J. offered, just to keep Holly talking without questioning her.

  “She loved those shoes,” Holly said. “I guess she was dressing up to go somewhere, but why would she want Logan with her then? I mean, I wasn’t expecting her to come by for him a
t noon like she did. I guess something came up after she got home, and they were going somewhere. She’d changed his clothes to those new overalls.”

  “Who might have come by to visit her?” B.J. asked, keeping the question like idle conversation.

  “I don’t think anybody just comes by except Jazz,” Holly said. “He’s kind of her best friend. Or maybe Champ might have. I think she wanted to make up with him. That could be it. She might have dressed up for Champ and wanted Logan there, because Champ was sort of attached to Logan.”

  “Who’s Champ?” B.J. asked, pulling the cruiser up to the curb in front of the Wellston home.

  “Champ Brennan. He was her boyfriend,” Holly said. “He lived there with her for five or six months. He just moved out about a month ago. I guess he moved back in with his sister and brother-in-law.”

  “Any bad feelings there?” B.J. asked, still taking advantage of Holly’s calm, which she suspected would turn to a storm soon.

  “Well, yeah, but Champ wouldn’t have …,” Holly said, and then she stopped and thought. “No way,” she said.

  They were in the house before the storm broke and Holly ran to her husband’s arms.

  “Somebody strangled her!” she sobbed. “Somebody killed Kasey.”

  The others gave them their space, watching.

  The cleaning was done. The house looked shiny and the smell of bleach had been added to the lemon smell. Chloe was spreading a tablecloth on the dining room table. Jazz was holding Logan, and the little girls were coming down the stairs to see what was happening.

  Roger Wellston looked over his wife’s shoulder at B.J. and asked angrily, “Is this why they ran me off my own property? I’ll tell you one thing. If somebody killed her, it was Champ Brennan.”

  “Oh, Roger,” Holly said. “Don’t say that. He wouldn’t have.”

  B.J.’s phone buzzed and she stepped out onto the porch to take the call.

  It was Darby.

  “I’m a little north of Macon,” he said. “Sheriff Harp just called and assigned me to assist with that homicide case you’ve got.”

  “Great,” she said, glad that he was nearly home and glad that he would be helping. “I’ve already got two persons of interest. I’ll hold off on any interviews so we can do them together.”

  The crime tech team was putting big white tents up over the debris of the trailer. B.J. got out to talk to Demetrius before she met with the man who was ordering everybody else around.

  “That Wellston guy came back and he really pitched a fit when I made him leave the scene,” Demetrius said, “He had a couple of big plastic bags and was looking for stuff he could save. He says he’s going to call the mayor and have us all fired.”

  “Yeah, he’s still mad,” B.J. shrugged. “Do you know a guy named Champ?”

  “Champ Brennan,” Demetrius said. “I see him at the gym a lot. He and Kasey had something going on, I think. She came to the gym once with him, but she didn’t like working out and she didn’t show up again. He’s Joe Miller’s brother-in-law. Works at the lumber yard.”

  “They definitely had something going on,” B.J. said. “He was living with her until about a month ago. You know where he lives now?”

  “No, I don’t know him that well. He hasn’t lived here that long. You think he could have strangled her? He seems like a nice guy to me. He’s been back at the gym more lately.”

  He changed the subject.

  “At least her being killed explains why she wasn’t looking after the little boy,” he said. “That was bothering me. I never thought she was a saint or anything, but I didn’t see her not protecting her child.”

  “That’s worth remembering,” she said, “Because whoever killed her was somebody who’d leave a two year on his own. I wish Logan could tell us what happened.”

  “No, you don’t,” Demetrius responded firmly. “Whatever he saw, it’s better for him to forget it.”

  “Darby’s going to be helping, so you ought to take tomorrow off,” she said. “Sorry you’re missing church.”

  “You can tell my daddy that,” he said with a smile.

  The head of the crime scene technicians was a wiry little man named Barney Thomas. He considered himself a humorist.

  “Looks like there was quite a struggle here,” he said.

  “The pathologist says she was strangled,” B.J. said.

  “OK, got any ideas what we’re looking for besides the usual?”

  B.J. considered the question and said, “At this point I know she was dressed for company, after telling two different stories about why she was staying home instead of working. She broke up with her live-in boyfriend about a month ago. Maybe they were getting back together and it went wrong. I haven’t talked to him yet. She was dressed up. I guess we need any indication that she had a male visitor.”

  “A dozen red roses?” Thomas asked with a wry smile.

  “That would help,” B.J. said. “Or liquor or drugs. And another thing. A little boy, under two, got out of this mess without a scratch. We don’t know if he left before the tornado hit or he managed to climb out of the wreckage, but he was out running around on his own. Can you tell if the doors were locked before this thing caved in?”

  “Probably, once I find the doors. This is going to take a while.”

  A car had slowed down on the street. B.J. left Demetrius with the job of keeping gawkers at a distance.

  At the Tinsley Mansion, Evergreen had gotten her herbs back on the deck for a few more days outside. She had also finished putting away her candles from the night before. Some had melted down to stubs, and she knew she’d need to make more, but the tapers she had inherited from her grandmother were still as tall as ever.

  She had stayed in her bathrobe half the day—the old one her late husband had given her one Christmas years back. It had been a deep rose, but now was faded to a pale pink. The cuffs were frayed, and there were holes in the pockets, but she always pulled it out of the closet when something the days were getting chillier and something was bothering her.

  She was bothered about Janie Hill’s daughter Kasey, and that child running loose. It was wonderful that Lady had shown up to look after him, but Ingrid had been right. Why on earth hadn’t that girl gotten out of that trailer when the first warning started? And was she so careless that she wouldn’t see to her child’s safety?”

  Evergreen had dreamed about Janie Hill the night before. Janie in the bank, where she was a teller for years, telling everybody who came to console her, “It’s just like Kasey to get herself in a mess like that. She was always the pretty one, but not smart at all. Not like Holly. Holly would never get into a mess like that, but Kasey just wanted to do what Kasey wanted to do.”

  The dream was hardly a nightmare, but it left her feeling unsettled and anxious. She’d never heard Janie say one word comparing her girls. The problem was that Evergreen’s dreams always told her something, but it might be days before she understood what the message was.

  Chapter 5

  B.J. was always happy to see Darby, even if he’d only been out of her sight for a couple of hours, but she’d never been more relieved to see him than she was when she spotted his old blue Toyota through her office window.

  He’d be the one who looked at everything from three or four different angles, who tested out wild guesses. He’d know by Monday morning if Kasey Hill had any money problems and what her credit score was. He might even have some ideas about chasing down that little boy’s father, and he certainly would be a help in interviewing Champ Brennan.

  Also, he was good with angry people, and he might be able to calm Roger Wellston down, if the man didn’t settle down on his own. She didn’t want it to be Holly’s husband, because that would mean a calamity for the whole family, but neither did she like his wanting to poke around at the trailer site so soon, and his quickness to point a finger at h
is late sister-in-law’s former boyfriend. B.J. knew that people had different emotional reactions in times of crisis, but Roger’s were the kind that required looking into.

  Detective Darby, who insisted on being called Darby, was tall and a little gangly, with glasses that made his far-sighted eyes look a little owlish. He had started to work at the Laurel County Sheriff’s Office just as B.J.—who was then Acting Chief in Laurel Grove—found herself facing a complicated case. He had been assigned to help her solve the case and had helped her prove herself, not just to the city fathers, but also to herself.

  “So,” he began, once he had let her out of a hug. “I hear you jumped over a power line to save a child, and you’ve got a perpetrator who strangled a young woman and then magically arranged for a tornado to cover his evil-doing. Have you got Evergreen working on this yet?”

  She laughed and said. “No, but I’ve got the victim’s best friend who probably knows more than he’d say in front of her family or his mother, and I’ve got two people we need to talk with and try to rule out—a live-in boyfriend she broke up with about a month ago and a brother-in-law who’s made two trips to try to go through the trailer debris. He owned the trailer. He immediately jumped in and accused the boyfriend, and now he’s being very territorial about the trailer. Apparently he owned it.”

  An hour later, they were standing at the front door of a Cape Cod house with a double garage.

  “These are nice houses,” Darby said, pressing the doorbell.

  “I don’t like subdivisions,” B.J. said. “Look around at all the dinky little trees. There aren’t any sidewalks, and there’s a house just like this one right over there.”

  The door opened and a woman in her thirties frowned suspiciously.

  B.J. hurriedly showed her badge, and introduced herself and Darby

  The suspicion diminished, but the frown remained. She did not invite them in.

  “We’re looking for Champ Brennan,” Darby explained. “We think he might be able to help us with an investigation. Is he here?”