by Debra Webb
“Thank you, Sheriff.”
Jess watched Larimore for a while longer, assessing his body language. A tall man, his shoulders were broad and straight despite his age. His overall physical condition looked quite good. He had a full head of gray hair and was well dressed in khakis and a white polo. His hands were wide and remarkably steady. The idea that he had touched her parents’ bodies tried to invade her appraisal, but she forced it back. The elderly man showed no outward indication of anxiety as he waited.
Foster reentered the tiny room. “Here you go, Chief. Your detective signed the necessary paperwork already.”
Jess accepted the small Styrofoam tote, the kind labs used to transport specimens. “Thank you. Let’s not keep Mr. Larimore waiting any longer.”
Foster opened the door to the interview room and waited for Jess to go in first. Like all the others she’d ever been inside, the walls were a shade of white, and the serviceable commercial grade tile floor was beige. The table and chairs were more plastic than metal and had seen better days. Nothing about the room was designed to excite the person being interviewed, and there was nothing to focus on other than the law enforcement officer conducting the interview.
She walked directly to the small table in the center of the room and took a seat across from Mr. Larimore. She placed her bag on the floor on one side of her, the tote on the other. “Good afternoon, Mr. Larimore. I’m Deputy Chief Jess Harris from Birmingham PD. I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me this evening.”
He eyed her speculatively. His eyes were pale, far too light to be considered brown. Gold, she decided. The eyeglasses made his eyes look far larger than they actually were.
“You look familiar to me. Have we met before?”
Sheriff Foster pulled a chair up at the end of the table. “She used to be with the FBI, Harv. She’s been all over the news for weeks now.”
Harv. So the sheriff and Larimore were well acquainted. As Foster had said before, Scottsboro was a small town where everyone knew everyone else. Before Jess could ask her first question, Larimore shook his head.
“Don’t think it was the news.” He narrowed his gaze as if trying harder to recall where he’d seen her.
“Mr. Larimore, did Sheriff Foster make you aware of your rights?”
One gray eyebrow hiked up higher than the other. “Does he need to?”
Jess smiled, hoping to appear at ease despite the whirlwind of emotions making her jittery. She crossed her feet at the ankles to prevent them from tapping. “I find it’s best to take care of that right up front. They teach us to be extra cautious in the FBI.” Might as well blame it on the Bureau.
Larimore turned to Foster. “What about it, Sheriff?”
Foster cleared his throat and recited the Miranda rights. When he’d finished, Larimore waved him off. “I don’t need no blood-sucking lawyer. Now,” he fixed that pale gaze back on Jess, “what do you want to ask me?” He tapped his temple. “Got a mind like a steel trap. Give me a name. If I prepared them for eternal rest, I can tell you everything there is to know about their final journey.”
Jess squeezed her hands together in her lap and ignored the way her throat tightened. “Thirty-two years ago there was an accident at Comer Bridge. You took care of the victims.”
He nodded. “Most likely. There’ve been a few accidents around that bridge. I don’t always recall the exact date but I never forget a name or a face.”
“Lee and Helen Harris.”
He stared at Jess for a long moment, and then he smiled. “That’s it. She must have been your mother. You look just like her.”
Another wave of emotion washed over her. Jess steadied herself. “Did you pronounce them dead at the scene and have their bodies transported to your funeral home to await further instructions from the family?”
“Who else?” Larimore glanced at Foster. “I was the coroner and the funeral director.”
“How long were their bodies in your possession?” Jess wished she had a drink of water, but she didn’t want anything to break the moment.
“Let’s see.” Larimore furrowed his brow in concentration. “The accident happened on a Friday afternoon, and the funeral home in Birmingham didn’t make it up here until Monday. I cleaned them up, out of respect you know, put their clothes and personal possessions in bags, draped the bodies with fresh clean sheets, and stored them in the cooler.”
“Did you discover anything unusual among their personal possessions?”
Larimore shook his head. “A wallet and some change. If your mother had a purse, it must have been left in the car.”
Jess’s heart bumped her sternum. “Beyond the services you described providing, was any other examination or procedure performed while the bodies were in your custody?”
He shook his head. “No need. State Trooper said it was an accident. Single car. One of those freak things, you know. The driver lost control of the vehicle. I listed the manner of death as accidental. Cause of death was consistent with drowning. White froth in the mouth and nose. Skin was wrinkled from being in the water. No reason whatsoever to send them over to the lab for an autopsy.”
She tightened her ankles when one foot jerked. “There were no other injuries to the bodies?”
“Only the expected bruising from the seatbelts.”
Jess steadied her hand when it trembled as she reached down for the Styrofoam tote. She placed it on the table, removed the top, then the jar, and sat it on the table. “Can you explain to me, Mr. Larimore, how this, along with numerous other body parts from other victims, made their way into Eli Mooney’s workshop?”
Larimore stared at the jar then reared back, anger sparking in his eyes. “Are you telling me that you found such as this in that low down, no account’s possession?”
“You have a beef with Mooney?” Foster was visibly startled by Larimore’s reaction.
The former coroner swung a now furious gaze toward Foster. “I fired that no good snake in the grass fifteen years ago.”
Foster and Jess exchanged a look. “He worked for you?” she managed to ask without her voice quivering.
Larimore scoffed. “He was my janitor. He wasn’t supposed to go near the bodies. Never! I warned him that even looking at them was a sin. Wasted my breath. I caught that devil taking pictures. I fired him on the spot. Beat the hell out of him first.”
“Why didn’t I hear about this?” Foster demanded. “I was already a deputy back then.”
“I didn’t want that kind of gossip floating around. I told Mooney if I ever heard any talk or saw any photos go public, I’d kill him.” He shook his head. “I might be an old man, but that SOB is a dead one! You hear me, Sheriff, I’m going to kill him. I should’ve killed him when I caught him taking those pictures!”
“Somebody already did, Mr. Larimore,” Jess announced. “What I need to know from you is if Eli Mooney had the opportunity and means to do this without leaving behind any evidence of the deed.” She gestured to the jar.
“That moron? Impossible?” Larimore visibly wilted. “My son, on the other hand, would’ve known exactly how to do it. That boy got nearly all the way through medical school before flunking out his final semester.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “God have mercy on his soul. He and Mooney were bosom buddies. They’re no doubt both burning in hell right now.”
“His son died ten years ago,” Foster explained.
Jess couldn’t summon any sympathy for his loss. “Was it customary practice at your funeral home to perform an internal examination on a victim?”
Larimore removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Certainly not.”
“Did you notice anything at all unusual about my parents’ bodies or perhaps something the State Trooper or others involved with the recovery said?”
“Nothing at all.” He settled his glasses back into place and rested his gaze on Jess.
“Did...” She moistened her lips. “Did my mother appear pregnant?” The coroner certainly ha
dn’t mentioned the possibility.
“She was small, like you, Chief Harris. If she was pregnant, she wasn’t showing at all.”
“I appreciate your cooperation, Mr. Larimore.” Jess stood. “I may have additional questions for you at another time.”
“Whatever you need.” He shook his head and muttered more scorching oaths under his breath.
Jess turned to Foster. “Sheriff, may I have a word with you?”
“Sure thing.” To Larimore he said, “I’ll be right back, Harv. We’ll figure out what to do next then.”
With her bag draped on one shoulder, Jess placed the jar back into the Styrofoam tote, incredibly without her hand shaking. Foster picked it up before she could and then held the door for her to exit the interview room.
In the corridor, Foster passed the tote to Hayes.
Jess struggled to hang onto her composure. There were several things she needed to do, but the one at the top of her priority list was getting back to Birmingham. First, though, she needed to ensure she and Foster were on the same page. “Sheriff, you and Mr. Larimore, assuming all these body parts came from the Larimore Funeral home, have your work cut out for you. I don’t envy you this task.”
Foster planted his hands on his hips and shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it, that’s for sure.”
“This morning Amanda Brownfield mentioned that her grandfather had friends.” Jess glanced at the tote the lieutenant held. “Some of the photos on those other jars looked familiar. You may find a connection between these two cases.”
“I was already thinking the same thing,” Foster confirmed. “I’m worried sick about what this is going to do to my town.” He shook his head again. “God almighty, I don’t know how I could have missed all this.”
“Obviously, these people have gone to great lengths to cover their tracks.” A clang from her cell phone startled Jess. She’d forgotten to silence it. “Excuse me.” She fished it from her bag to mute the annoying sound, but the name on the screen was one she couldn’t ignore. “I need to take this call, Sheriff. Please keep me posted on your investigation.”
Foster assured her he would keep her up to date. Jess thanked him and headed for the building’s front entrance. She hit call back without listening to the message Gant had left. Hayes hurried out ahead of her, surveyed the parking lot, and then moved aside for her to exit.
When Gant’s voice echoed across the line, she stopped, suddenly unable to make another step and have this conversation. The call was no doubt about Spears. “Sorry. I was in an interview.”
“I spoke to Burnett and Black with an update.”
Somehow, Jess made it the final few steps to the car. She opened the door and sat down, immediately engulfed by the buildup of heat inside the vehicle. Hayes started the engine and turned the AC to maximum, but it would be a few minutes before it was anything less than stifling inside. She kept her door open to prevent suffocating.
“I’m listening.” If he’d thought it was so important to give her the update personally, why the sudden silence?
Because it’s bad, Jess.
“We’ve identified the third woman who went missing.”
She waffled between being glad they’d learned her identity and feeling sad for the family who likely now understood how very dire the situation was. With all they didn’t know, Jess was certain of one thing: Rory Stinnet and Monica Atmore were in Birmingham. Amanda had basically confirmed that theory. Victim number three would be with them. She’d passed the information to Gant yesterday.
“Lisa Knowles, twenty-three, from Decatur, Alabama.”
“She’s probably in Birmingham with the other two.” Jess got out of the car. She couldn’t sit another second. “Is your special Joint Task Force broadening the search in the Birmingham area? Did you even listen to what I told you Amanda said?”
“You know it’s not that simple, Jess. A two-hour radius around Scottsboro encompasses far more than Birmingham. It goes without saying that we’ve broadened our search, particularly in the Birmingham area. You know how this works.”
Maybe she did. Before she let her emotions take the lead, she filled him in on the Eli Mooney discovery and what she’d learned from the retired coroner.
“We’ll be taking over that scene as well,” Gant said, “including the evidence you have in your custody.”
“I need a sample for analysis first.” She stood her ground. She wasn’t wading through the Bureau’s red tape to know one way or the other about the fetus. God, she had to talk to Lil. How did she tell her something like this?
What was the point until she knew for certain exactly what they had? She recognized that excuse was getting old. She couldn’t continue keeping her sister in the dark about this.
“He’s moving faster now, Jess,” Gant said, drawing her attention back to the call. “He’s growing bolder. My instinct says he’s feeling the pressure to bring on the finale. You need to be extremely careful.”
“What else would I be?” She might have had a reputation in the past for taking risks, but she had other considerations now. “If that’s all you’ve got, I have things to do, Gant.” Before she did anything else, she needed to talk to Dan.
“It’s no longer that simple, Jess. Your family and your past being dragged more deeply into this has changed everything.”
“What the hell does that mean?” She settled in the seat and closed the car door now that the vents were circulating cold air. “He’s been dragging my family into this for weeks.” She opted not to ask if Gant had been asleep the past month or so.
“Jess, he’s gone from targeting people close to your family and points of interest from your family’s past to focusing only on your family. The escalating pattern is hard to miss. I’ve discussed this at length with Chief Black, and we’ve decided it’s best if you have no further involvement in our investigation.”
“I don’t answer to you or to Chief Black.” Fury whipped through her.
“That may be true but, as of this moment, you will not return to the Brownfield farm or the Mooney crime scene. No more talking to Amanda Brownfield. You’re out of this, Jess.”
She choked on a laugh. “You can’t do that, Gant. This is about me. You can’t remove me from the investigation.”
“I just did. Focus on staying safe, Jess. Spears wants you vulnerable. Don’t give him what he wants.”
“If I’m off the case,” Jess held her breath, “then I guess we have nothing else to discuss.” She ended the call.
What in the world did she do now?
“I take it that didn’t go well.”
“Not at all, Lieutenant. Not at all.” Jess reached for her seatbelt. “I need to see Maddie Brownfield.”
Hayes shifted into drive. “Heading there now.”
Gant hadn’t told her she couldn’t see Maddie again. He probably hadn’t thought it was necessary. Being off the case, by default, included Maddie.
“While I talk to Maddie, I’d like you to take the... evidence by Dr. Baron’s office for a DNA sample. Then turn it over to the lab.”
“No can do, Chief.”
Jess took a moment to get her emotions under control. When she trusted herself to speak without biting his head off, she said calmly. “All right then. Call Dr. Baron and ask if she will wait for us at her office.”
“That, I can do.”
Jess leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. How did she get around Gant?
11
Mott Street Residence, Birmingham, 6:20 p.m.
Jess pushed the swing and four-year-old Maddie Brownfield squealed with delight as she soared ever higher. Hearing her laughter relaxed Jess somehow. Or maybe it was more about how such a simple act made the little girl so happy when her whole life had fallen down around her.
What a shame most adults, including Jess, couldn’t appreciate the little things in a time of crisis.
The people who were supposed to protect Maddie had failed. With every part o
f her being, Jess wanted to protect her child. If somehow she failed, Dan would not. As much as his mother had annoyed Jess at times, she and Dan’s father would—until they took their last breaths—be the kind of support system for their child that was missing in Maddie’s life.
Jess had an enormous task in front of her. She had to stop Spears. There was no other way to protect the people she loved and the innocent victims he would continue to devastate... like Maddie.
During the drive from Scottsboro, Jess had come to terms with how to handle Gant’s decision. She’d go around him. She’d done it before. He wouldn’t like it. Chances were he would probably expect her to attempt something along those lines. The only difficult part would be seeing to it that her team stayed out of trouble. If Dan ended up on administrative leave, Black would, in all likelihood, be selected as acting chief. He could make life miserable for Jess and her team. If that happened...
No need to borrow trouble. All her energies had to be centered on ending this game once and for all.
Maddie hopped off the swing, grabbed Jess by the hand, and dragged her over to sit in the grass. The child who wouldn’t say a word a few days ago suddenly couldn’t stop talking. She went on and on about her new doll named Jess. Emotion almost got the best of her as the little girl explained how Jess was the best doll in the world. Eventually, she stopped chattering to explore the grass for four-leaf clovers.
It was amazing how a child would open up when she felt safe. The people here had made Maddie feel safe with a warm and loving environment. The backyard was fully enclosed with a privacy fence. Surveillance cameras monitored the property and its boundaries. Though it was a shame all that technology and security were necessary, Jess was grateful to see it in place. At some point, permanent arrangements would have to be made. What happened next was up to the court.
“I saw your mom today,” Jess told the little girl. No matter that Maddie hadn’t mentioned her mother and seemed perfectly happy here with kind strangers, deep down she had to be afraid. The child was four years old. Her mother and grandmother had been her only caretakers until now. Of course, she missed them and wondered where they were even if a part of her—perhaps the part that had seen and heard far more than a small child should—pretended not to notice. She might feel relieved in some way, too.