Among the Dead

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Among the Dead Page 21

by J. R. Backlund


  He shrugged. “Once in a while, whenever I saw him around town. Jen used to drag him over here every spring to pick out a new bunch of annuals. I guess they would’ve been comin’ by soon if he was still . . . you know . . .”

  “Would you know if the two of them kept in touch over the years? Or maybe reconnected when Dean moved back to town?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t know nothin’ about that, I’m afraid. Could be, but I kinda doubt it.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  He scratched his forehead and said, “Hell, I don’t know. Just wouldn’t think they would is all.”

  Rachel studied him for a moment. “I heard about an incident that happened when you were in the ninth grade.”

  Rucker shifted, looking agitated. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. An incident involving drugs.”

  He scratched his forehead again.

  “Mind telling me about it?” she asked.

  “Ain’t much to tell, really. Got caught smokin’ a joint is all.”

  “I heard Dean moved away after that. Was it just because you guys got in trouble?”

  “Pretty much. They was threatenin’ to arrest him over it. Said he had to get outta town if he wanted to stay outta jail. He had to move back in with his mom and everything.”

  “Seems pretty harsh for smoking a joint.”

  “Well . . .” he looked at his feet. “Yeah.”

  “Was there something else?” she asked.

  He shrugged and used the toe of his hiking shoe to shape a tiny mound of yellow sand.

  “Mister Rucker?” She waited until he looked at her. “There’s something else, isn’t there? There’s more to the story?”

  “Yeah, I guess there is.”

  He didn’t volunteer, so Rachel asked, “It was you and Andy and Dean? You went out into the woods behind the school during your lunch break?”

  He nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What about your other friend? Martin?”

  His brow furrowed. “I don’t know no Martin. You mean Mark?”

  Rachel pulled the Steno pad from her jacket pocket and flipped it open. She drew a line through Martin and wrote a correction. “Okay . . . Mark. He was there too?”

  “Yeah, he was there.”

  “Anyone else?”

  He looked away.

  “This is important,” she said. “Mister Rucker?”

  He was chewing on his lip. He rocked his head to one side and said, “Yeah, there was someone else. Andy’s girlfriend.”

  Rachel recalled Brenda’s comments about a girl being expelled. “Is she the one who gave you guys the joint?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head quickly. “Dean got it from his uncle. He always had some for us.”

  “Okay. So you four boys and Andy’s girlfriend. What was her name?”

  “Jamie.”

  “Jamie,” she said, writing it down.

  “Yeah, Jamie Moody.”

  “Okay. So tell me what happened. The five of you snuck out together? Off into the woods to get high? No big deal, right?”

  He shook his head. “Yeah . . . I mean no, no big deal. Not at first.”

  “But then . . . ?”

  “Andy and Jamie started makin’ out,” he said. “And then Dean got in on it. You know, he started kissin’ on Jamie too.”

  “What did Andy do?”

  “Nothin’. I mean, he was kinda eggin’ her on to do it. She wasn’t really into it at first. He had to talk her into it.” He kicked the mound over. “Then, all of a sudden, Dean told us to keep a look out, and the three of ’em went off deeper into the woods. And they was back there for a while until Coach Grisley showed up.”

  “What happened then?”

  “We were supposed to yell out to warn ’em, but Mark and I was too busy puffin’ on that joint. It was just a tiny roach by then, but coach caught us with it red-handed. He was like, ‘What in the hell is goin’ on here?’ Then he heard Dean and Andy and Jamie scramblin’ to get dressed and went after ’em. And all the while, Mark was holdin’ onto that roach like a dumbass.”

  He chuckled. Rachel wanted to laugh too, but she sensed that there was real pain behind his story.

  He said, “Imagine . . . Coach walks up and finds us like that . . . Dean and Andy and Jamie screwin’ . . . me and Mark high as hell. He drug our asses straight down to the principal’s office.”

  “How much trouble did you all get in?”

  “Me and Andy and Mark, we all got suspended for a week. Our parents came in and begged ’em not to do any worse. Said we’d straighten up and stay outta trouble, and we did. But Dean was known as kind of a troublemaker already. They looked at it like he was the instigator, gettin’ us started on drugs and all. So, like I was sayin’, he had to leave town to keep from goin’ to jail.”

  “And Jamie?”

  “They were real tough on her. Coach tried to make her sound like she was a little whore or somethin’, performin’ sex acts for drugs and what not. They expelled her for good.”

  Rachel was jotting down the details. She looked up and asked, “Does she still live around here?”

  He shook his head. “Ain’t seen her since around that time. Maybe just once or twice after that, then she and her mom moved away.”

  “Were her parents divorced?”

  “I don’t know about all that. I just know Andy said her dad didn’t live with her.”

  He raised his head up and looked past Rachel. There was a man standing by the door to the trailer, looking around for help.

  Rucker said, “I’ll be right back,” and walked over to meet him.

  Rachel took the opportunity to finish writing the story. Sex and drugs and ruined friendships. It was interesting, but it didn’t help much. At least not yet. Perhaps there were more layers to uncover. She had a few people left she could try to talk to about it, but she doubted there was a motive for murder hiding in there.

  She walked back toward the office and spotted Rucker in the parking lot, helping his customer load a pair of small maple trees into the bed of a pickup. When they were finished, Rucker accepted a handful of bills and shook the man’s hand, then came back to the trailer to drop the cash in a lockbox.

  “Gonna be a good day,” he said, smiling.

  “That’s great,” Rachel said, leaning against the doorjamb. “I don’t want to take up too much of it. Just a couple more questions, if you don’t mind?”

  His expression soured. “Yeah, sure. I guess.”

  “Did you know Dylan Gifford by any chance?”

  “I heard of him. Met his mom a couple times. She come around with Bert Hood once or twice.”

  “How do you know Bert?”

  “We went to high school with his boy, Jerry. He was a couple years behind us.”

  “I see.” She considered that for a moment. “Can you think of any reason why Dylan would want to kill Andy or Dean?”

  “No, ma’am. I really can’t.”

  “Do you know if Andy or Dean were into drugs recently? Or anything else illegal?”

  “No, ma’am. Not as far as I know.”

  So little to go on, she thought, but it was all she had. “Do you happen to know where Jamie Moody lives now?”

  “Sorry,” he said, shaking his head.

  “How about Mark?”

  “Nope. Sorry.”

  “Okay, well . . .” She glanced over her notes. “Thanks for all your help . . . Oh, before I forget, do you remember Mark’s last name?”

  “Newfield,” he said.

  “Newfield,” she repeated as she wrote it down. “Thanks again.”

  Rachel went to her car and fell into the driver’s seat, wondering if she was wasting her time. It was a normal thought when a lead seemed to be heading nowhere, but persistence had solved more tough cases than she could count. Especially ones that depended on victimology. Studying the lives of the deceased, learning intimate details about them through second- or even third-hand accounts. Collecting stor
ies from people who knew the victims, but never quite knew them well enough. They offered up parts and pieces that Rachel had to assemble. A patchwork that could never be completely sewn up but might, nevertheless, reveal a mosaic if she worked hard and got lucky.

  She took out her phone and opened the web browser, typed “Mark Newfield,” and pressed the search button. The results appeared a moment later. A banker on LinkedIn, an insurance agent on Facebook, an orthopedic surgeon at some clinic in Knoxville, and dozens more, but none that stood out as the man she was looking for. She could spend hours, perhaps even days searching the Internet trying to track him. Even longer if she went looking for public records on her own.

  As a private citizen, she was handicapped. There were services she could pay to do the work for her, companies that had websites designed for investigative searches. But they were expensive, and she would have to go through the trouble of setting up accounts with them. She could call Miller and ask for his help, or perhaps even Carly for that matter, but there was another option she wanted to try first. One that would let her kill two birds with one stone. It had been on her mind since she had read the SBI report. Last night, sitting at the bar, making up her mind about whether she would stay in town, another thought had struck her. It was time to set the record straight about Lauren Bailey.

  50

  “Hi, Rachel, can you hear me?” Bryce Parker asked when he answered the call. He sounded like he was standing in a hurricane.

  “Yeah, I can hear you. Barely.”

  “Sorry, I’m at the beach. It’s windy out here. What’s up?”

  “I need your help with something.”

  “Okay . . .” he said cautiously. “What kind of help are we talking about?”

  “Remember the other day when I told you I was out of town?”

  “Say that again. Where?”

  “Out of town,” she said louder.

  “Okay. Yeah?”

  “I’m in Dillard City working on a case for the local police department. I’m in a bit of a time crunch, though, and I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Anyway, I was wondering if you could help me do some research on a couple of names.”

  “Uh . . . well, you know, Rachel, I’m out of town too, actually. I’m off for the weekend and—”

  “I didn’t know reporters took days off.”

  He let out a quick laugh. “Yeah, sure feels that way sometimes. But look, I’m really—”

  “I have something I can offer you in return,” she said.

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “Lauren Bailey. The report you sent me. I’d be willing to talk to you about it.”

  “I already wrote that story, Rachel. Afraid I couldn’t wait on you. Posted it Thursday morning.”

  “Posted it,” she said. “By that, you mean you put it up on the website, but it didn’t make the print edition?”

  “Wasn’t much of a story there.”

  “There will be when you hear what I have to say.”

  He was quiet for several seconds. Rachel heard distorted wind battering his phone. Then he said, “Give me a couple minutes. I’ll call you back.”

  It took him five. “Had to run back to my car,” he said. The background was quiet. “Just let me grab a pen . . . Okay, I’m ready.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I need to find two people, fast. All I have are their names, ages, what town they grew up in, and what high school they went to.”

  “And I’d be doing you a huge favor by getting that for you. On my day off, no less. So let’s hear what you have to say, and if it’s as good as you’re telling me it is, then I’ll be more than happy to help you.”

  “Then put the pen away, ’cause right now we’re off the record. Agreed?”

  “Okay. Off the record.”

  “Lauren Bailey was innocent. She didn’t kill her boyfriend.”

  “You’re serious right now?” he asked after a moment.

  “Yes.”

  “How . . . Wait, what makes you think she didn’t do it? I mean, is there evidence or . . . ?”

  “Settle down, scoop. One thing at a time. I mentioned I’m on a time crunch, didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, you did.”

  “So? Do we have a deal?”

  “Give me the names.”

  * * *

  Parker called back from his hotel room forty-five minutes later. Rachel was sitting in the gas station parking lot, sipping on a fresh can of Monster Energy and searching the Internet for more information on Rucker.

  “That was fast,” she said.

  “Well, I started with Moody first. You’re not going to like it.”

  “What did you find?”

  “An obituary and an article in the Johnson City Tribune,” he said. “Looks like she killed herself, February of last year.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, sorry. The article mentions her mother, Clarissa Moody, if that helps. I did a quick search on her. Found an address in Tennessee just outside Johnson City.”

  She put him on speaker and opened the map app on her phone. “Let me have it.”

  He read it to her, and she typed it in. When the route appeared on the screen, she said, “Got it. It’s not too far from here.” She shifted into drive. “I’m headed there now.”

  “All right. I’ll get started on Mark Newfield.”

  * * *

  Two hours and twenty minutes later, Rachel parked by the curb in front of a brick ranch house partially hidden by overgrown shrubs. She got out and looked around at the neighborhood. Most of the houses were in a similar state. Old and poorly maintained. Their yards were littered with old appliances and dilapidated cars.

  On her way to the front door, a voice called out, “Ain’t nobody home right now.”

  Rachel searched and found a white-haired woman in a rocking chair beneath the neighbor’s carport. She walked over and said, “Good morning.”

  “Mornin’.” The woman’s sandals scuffed the sandy concrete as she advanced and receded in the rocker. Her bottom lip puffed out, loaded with dipping tobacco. Her right hand held a Milwaukee’s Best can, the top of which had been cut off. There were brown drips running down from the edge. “You lookin’ for Terry?”

  “Actually, I’m looking for Miz Clarissa Moody.”

  “Uh-huh.” She put the can to her chin and spit, wiped the excess from her bottom lip with her finger, and said, “Well, she ain’t around, neither.”

  “Would you happen to know where I could find her?”

  “She’s at work, I assume.”

  “And where’s that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  The woman looked her up and down, suspicion in her eyes. “You a debt collector or somethin’?”

  Rachel forced a smile, pretended to look embarrassed. “Oh, no, ma’am. I work for Lowry County High School. I’m here to talk to Miz Moody about her daughter, Jamie. You see, we’re coming up on the school’s fifty-year anniversary, and we wanted to make a little memorial for those students who’ve, you know, passed on. I was hoping to see if I could get some photos for the slideshow.”

  The woman put a few cycles on the rocker while she contemplated that, then dropped another deposit in the can, wiped the residue off her lip, and said, “Well, all right. I guess she wouldn’t mind that.”

  * * *

  Clarissa Moody was working the chicken fryer at the Cash Saver grocery store. Rachel stepped up to the deli counter and asked the man in the hairnet if she could talk to her. Moody walked over a couple minutes later and asked, “How can I help you, ma’am?”

  She looked gaunt and tired, but not as old as Rachel had expected. She must have gotten pregnant while she was still a teenager.

  “Hi, Miz Moody. I’m sorry to bother you at work, but I’m working as a consultant with the Dillard City Police Department. I have a few questions about your daughter, Jamie. You think you might be able to spare a minute or two?”

  Moody took a step back and
looked away, thinking. She appeared to be on the verge of asking Rachel to leave, but then she glanced at the clock on the wall and said, “I go on break in twenty minutes. I’ll meet you out back.”

  She came out a few minutes early, pulling off a pair of clear poly gloves and dropping them in a trash bin. She put a stick of red chewing gum in her mouth and stood by the door, watching Rachel apprehensively.

  “You say you’re working with the police department in Dillard?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Rachel said. “Chief Miller hired me to consult on an investigation.”

  “I don’t know who that is. It’s been a long time since I lived there.”

  “About fifteen years, right?”

  “Uh-huh. What did you say your name was?”

  “Rachel Carver.”

  “And what is it you want to ask me about my daughter?”

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard, ma’am, but there’ve been a couple of murders recently in and around Dillard City.”

  Moody leaned against the wall and folded her arms. “I haven’t heard about it, no. But I don’t watch the news much anymore.”

  “I can’t blame you for that.”

  “Who was it that got killed?”

  “Two men,” Rachel said. “Men your daughter knew in high school.”

  After Rachel finished explaining why she was there, Moody went inside for a minute. When she came back, she was holding a cigarette and a lighter. She led Rachel to the designated smoking area, which was a metal picnic table situated by a dumpster full of rotting food.

  “Sorry,” Moody said. “I’m trying to quit, but you showing up here ain’t helping.”

  “I understand.”

  She lit the cigarette, pulled a long drag, and closed her eyes. “As far as I know, Jamie hadn’t talked to any of them boys since we moved away. I mean, damn, I haven’t even heard any of their names since the whole thing happened.”

  “Is it possible your daughter kept in touch with either of them without you knowing about it?” Rachel asked.

  “Anything’s possible. Especially with Facebook and all. But I never heard her talk about either of ’em.”

  “Did you and Jamie talk often?”

 

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