by BJ Bourg
“What is it?”
I shook my head and scowled, looking down at the dead kid. “He wanted to meet me right away, but I told him I was busy. He told me it couldn’t wait, but I told him it would have to wait. I was with Samantha. I could’ve easily left, but I didn’t. If I would’ve listened to him, we’d probably have all the answers we need. We could’ve probably closed this case last night—maybe even found Shelby.” I tilted my chin in Marty’s direction. “And he wouldn’t be dead.”
“You can’t blame yourself for this, Brandon. We all make our choices blind, not knowing exactly how they’ll turn out. Last night you made a choice to spend time with your daughter. That’s to be admired. This situation was out of your control and it had nothing to do with your decision.”
“The ring has to mean something,” I said. “Hell, he killed himself over it, so it has to mean something.”
Dawn’s brow furrowed in thought. Finally, she said, “Maybe it’s his ring and that was his way of confessing, of getting it off his chest before he died.”
“Could be.” I patted Marty’s front jean pockets and felt a set of keys. I pulled it out and found that the keychain held two identical car keys with matching remotes. Blood was smeared over the Dodge emblem. Without saying a word, and careful not to destroy the blood evidence, I stood and we walked out to the front yard, where the Charger sat waiting, almost teasing us. I pressed the unlock button and then gave the key to Dawn for packaging. Once that was done, we entered opposite sides of the vehicle—her on the passenger side and me on the driver side—and searched every inch of the interior. She broke out her evidence vacuum and, using separate filters for each quadrant, began vacuuming whatever trace evidence might have been there. The humming of the handheld machine made it impossible for us to talk, so I pushed the trunk release button under the dash and moved to the back of the car.
I pulled the trunk lid open and sunlight splashed inside, lit up the area. My eyes widened and my insides grew cold when I saw what was inside. “Damn,” was all I said, as I stared.
Dawn had switched the vacuum off to change filters and must’ve glanced in my direction, because she asked what I was looking at. I could only point. She hurried to my side and nearly knocked me over trying to get a look.
“Holy shit!” she said. “Is that—?”
She threw a hand to her mouth as she took in the large quantity of blood staining the gray carpet and the bloodied baby clothes bunched up in the corner to the right, near the wheel well. When she regained her composure, she whipped her camera to her eye and shot some pictures. She pointed to a plastic bag near the clothes. “There’s something in there. Do you think it’s Shelby?”
“It’s too small—I hope.” I ripped the latex gloves off of my hands, tossed them aside and pulled an extra pair from Dawn’s back pocket. Once I’d slipped them over my hands, I leaned in and took care in spreading open the bag. I sighed when I saw that there were no baby body parts inside. The only items in the bag were a set of bloodied brass knuckles and a crimson-drenched T-shirt. I guess I was wrong about you, Marty Harrison.
“Yep,” Dawn said. “It looks like your boy did it.”
I held the brass knuckles for her to photograph.
“The face of those knuckle thingies is consistent with the circular marks on Janice Prince’s face,” she said. “Do you still think Marty lacks the—what did you call it—to kill a person with his bare hands?”
I stepped back so she could recover the new evidence. “Hard to argue with a murder weapon in the trunk, especially when the only two keys to this car were found in his pocket.”
“This is bad news for us, Brandon—very bad news.”
“How’s that?”
“Now we know for sure we’re searching for a baby’s body.”
CHAPTER 32
When we were done and had secured the packaged evidence in the trunk of my cruiser, I turned to the group of patrol deputies huddled in the driveway. “Sergeant,” I called to one of them, “will y’all stand-by until the meat wagon and the wrecker get here?”
The sergeant nodded. I waved my thanks and Dawn and I got into my car, drove to Sharon Harrison’s house. Dudley’s car was parked outside and I looked at Dawn. “Did you really get Karla and Dudley to do our dirty work?”
She smiled and nodded.
I shook my head and stepped outside, followed her to the front door. Dudley saw us before we knocked and let us in. We found Karla seated at a table with Sharon, who looked up when we approached.
“Oh, I’m glad to see you,” Sharon said when she saw Dawn. “They’re trying to say my son committed suicide and I know that’s not true.”
“How do you know that’s not true?” Dawn asked in a soothing voice.
“Because I know it! He was full of life. He had plans, dreams. He’d just rented that house and he just got a raise at work. He wouldn’t hurt himself. He was happy.”
“Where was he working?” Dawn asked.
“At that boxing gym. He said he worked the corner, or something. It sounded perverted to me until he explained it. Said he helped the coach with the boxers who fought. He got to be good friends with the man who owns the gym. Spencer, something or other, is his name. You see, Martin’s dad left when he was two and I never remarried. It was kind of tough for Martin growing up with no dad. There was no one around to show him how to do manly things. I tried my best, but I’m a woman. Kids would tease him because he didn’t know how to do what normal boys could do. He couldn’t even ride a bike until he was almost twelve.” Sharon shook her head slowly. “I felt like such a failure as a mother. He said it didn’t bother him, but even when he grew up to be a man he was socially awkward.
“When he found that gym”—Sharon smiled—“everything changed. Spencer let the coaches teach him some stuff for free. After too long, Spencer let him do some little odd jobs around the gym and even at his house, because he lives behind the gym. And then he hired him on fulltime.”
Dawn made some notes. “How much did he make working there?”
“I don’t know, but he seemed to always have money on him.”
“You said he got a raise at work. What was that about?” Dawn wanted to know.
Sharon shrugged. “I’m not real sure. I just know he was making more money than at any other job he ever had. Spencer was real nice to him. He’s a good man, that one.”
Dawn made a note of the information, looked up. “Was Martin right handed or left handed?”
“He was right handed.”
“What hand did he shoot a gun with?” Dawn asked.
“Oh, he doesn’t shoot guns.”
Dawn’s eyebrows puckered. “Does he own a gun?”
“His grandpa gave him a gun before he died. A big silver gun. It wasn’t like the fancy guns they have now. It was one of them cowboy guns with the round thing that turns when you shoot it. But I don’t think he ever shot it.”
“Where’d he keep it?” Dawn asked.
“He had it in an old shoebox under his bed the last time I saw it.”
Dawn closed her notebook, glanced at me.
“Ma’am,” I began, “did Marty ever say anything about getting paid a large sum of money for doing a job?”
“No, my boy never said anything about receiving a large sum of money.”
I turned to Dawn, shrugged.
“We’re going to have to take your car for evidence,” Dawn explained. “We found some things in there that might help answer some questions.”
“Please do whatever you have to do to find out what happened to my boy.”
“We will.” Dawn walked up to Sharon and gave her a hug. “You have our number. Call if you need anything.”
The four of us walked outside.
“Do you think Martin was paid to attack that family?” Dawn asked.
I frowned, not wanting to believe it. How had I misjudged Marty? “It’s possible. You take an impressionable kid like Marty who’s starving for attention a
nd you toss in a bunch of money...there’s no telling what he’d be willing to do just to make someone happy.”
“But who would want them—?” Dawn’s phone vibrated loudly in her pocket. She pulled it out and read the text message, looked up. “It’s the office. The coroner will do the autopsy in an hour.”
We waved to Dudley and Karla and drove off.
I scrolled through my address book until I found Home and pressed the green button. Debbie answered after three rings.
“Hey,” I said. “I didn’t think you would answer. I was about to hang up.”
“Here’s Samantha.”
Samantha got on the line and we talked until I reached the coroner’s office.
CHAPTER 33
2:37 PM
Magnolia Parish Coroner’s Office
A woman I’d never seen before was already cutting into Martin Harrison when we walked into the autopsy room. She looked up, smiled. “I’m Doctor Ally Fitch, assistant coroner. Sorry for starting before you two got here, but I have an impatient ten-year-old waiting at home. It was supposed to be my day off and I’d promised to take her to a movie, but Mr. Harrison here decided to die and Doctor Wainwright wouldn’t answer his phone, so I get to do the honors.”
“It’s Dawn’s fault,” I said. “She took her sweet time processing the crime scene.”
“It’s no problem, really.” Doctor Fitch reached for the shears to cut away Marty’s breastplate. “We’ll go to the evening show. It’ll probably be less crowded anyway.” She pursed her lips, began snapping Martin’s ribs one at a time so she could remove his breastplate. The muscles in her slender arms jumped as she worked the long-handled tree shears. When she was done, she placed the shears on the table and continued working. Dawn took pictures while I took notes.
When she’d completed the autopsy, Doctor Fitch pulled off her gloves and tossed them into the hazardous material container. “Pending the toxicology screening, this one will go down as a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.”
I followed Dawn out into the warm, clammy afternoon. If there was a breeze, it was moving too slowly to be felt.
Dawn tugged repeatedly at the front of her shirt to get some air into it. “I can’t wait for winter.”
Ignoring the comment, I said, “We have to let Janice know Shelby’s presumed dead.”
“Yeah.” She chewed on her lower lip. “If we had a picture of Shelby we could circulate it on the news.”
“What’s the point if she’s dead?”
“We can’t be sure she’s dead until we get the blood on that shirt tested,” Dawn said. “If she is still alive, maybe someone will know where she is. But even if she was killed, maybe someone saw her before she died and they can help us retrace her whereabouts.”
“You’re right. If only we had—” I slapped my forehead. “Shit! It’s been there the entire time!”
“What?” she asked. “What’s been there?”
“We have a picture of Shelby.” I jumped into my car, motioned for her to do the same. I explained my idea as I drove.
“That might work. Before we head to the substation, why don’t we grab some takeout?”
I shook my head. “Not so quick. I want to drive by the boxing gym and find out what they know about Marty.”
She wrinkled her nose. “That place stinks.”
“It’s the sweet and brutal smell of battle.”
“It’s the smell of stale sweat and rotten feet—like a prison cell.”
We argued about the smell of the gym until we arrived. I shut off my car and stepped out, glanced at Dawn. “You can stay out here if the smell’s too much for your sensitive nose to stomach.”
“I can handle it,” she said. “I smelled worse yesterday. Not much worse, but...”
I pushed through the front door and the rhythmic sound of speed bags pattering against solid wood platforms greeted us. Tom was in the ring barking commands at a boxer I’d never seen. We headed in his direction, but Spencer cut us off.
“What’s up, Champ?” Spencer shoved his hand at me, pumped my arm. “You’re here early today.”
“I’m here on business.” I shot my thumb in Dawn’s direction. “This is my partner, Detective Dawn Luke.”
Spencer smiled wide, exposing a row of bright and perfectly-fitted dentures. “It’s always my pleasure to meet such a beautiful woman—especially one that knows how to use a set of handcuffs.”
“Save it,” Dawn said. “What can you tell us about Martin Harrison?”
“Marty?” Spencer looked from Dawn to me and back at Dawn, frowned. “What’s going on? Is he in some kind of trouble?”
“Martin killed himself earlier this morning,” Dawn said.
Spencer’s mouth fell open. “What? But...but, why? He always seemed like a happy kid. I couldn’t tell anything was wrong with him. He seemed normal.”
“What can you tell us about him?” Dawn asked again.
“Not much to tell. He dropped in one day out of nowhere, said he wanted to be a boxer. Tom had a look at him, but there wasn’t much promise. He gave some sob story about growing up without a dad and not having anyone to teach him to fight. We let him train here for free and Tom taught him more for self defense. I was going to let him enter one of the amateur shows, put him in easy.” Spencer shook his head. “I still can’t believe he killed himself.”
“Who killed himself?”
I turned to see Tom Keller walking up behind us, pulling punch mitts from his hands. I nodded. “Marty Harrison.”
“What?” Tom dropped the punch mitts. “Are you kidding?”
“I’m afraid not. We found him dead in his house, an apparent suicide.”
Tom stood there with his mouth agape. Finally, he shook his head and moved closer to us. Dawn moved a step back and we made room for him in our circle.
“I was just telling them how we felt sorry for Marty and let him train here for free,” Spencer said.
Tom nodded. “He was getting pretty good. I’d let him spar with some of the newer kids so they could get some experience fighting a southpaw.”
“When was the last time you heard from him?” Dawn asked.
“Yesterday evening. It was later in the day, maybe about eight or nine. He was usually the last one to leave.” Tom shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s gone. He was a good kid, did whatever you told him to do.”
“What was the raise about?” Dawn asked.
Both Tom and Spencer scowled.
“Raise?” Spencer asked. “What raise?”
“Martin’s mother said he worked here and that he’d just gotten a raise,” Dawn explained. “Hell, he just rented a big ole house on East Bayou Lane.”
“Marty didn’t get paid to work here,” Tom said. “I gave him free lessons in exchange for the jobs he did for Spencer.”
I looked at Dawn, then at Spencer. “His mom said he always had extra money on him.”
Spencer laughed, then quickly stopped. “I don’t mean to make light of the situation, but that kid never had any money on him. We had to buy him lunch every day he was here.”
“He’s right,” Tom said. “He didn’t even have his own car. Had to use his mom’s. I’d give him gas money every now and then, because he couldn’t afford to get back and forth to the gym.”
“Yeah,” Spencer said, “I don’t know what his mom’s talking about, but he was always broke.”
I frowned, thanked them both for their time.
“You’ll be here tonight, right?” Tom asked.
“It depends on where this case takes us.”
“I know you’ve got a job to do,” Tom said, “but if you want to fight in a couple of months, you’ve got to put the time in the gym. We need to log some mitt work and sparring sessions.”
Spencer slapped my back. “He’ll be ready, Tom. He’ll be ready.”
We left the gym and drove back to the Magnolia Parish Substation. Once inside, I grabbed the disc that contained the footage from the parkin
g lot at Seasville Groceries and More and slipped it into the DVD player. I used the search feature until I reached the part where Janice was taking Shelby out of the Suburban.
“Shit,” I said. “You can’t see the baby’s face.”
Dawn switched the discs, replacing the parking lot one with the one from the Health Foods section. “She took Shelby out of the car seat to burp her,” she said. “We should be able to get a good shot there.”
When the image came up, I scowled. They were too far from the camera and Shelby was bundled up, so it was impossible to make out her face. “She could be holding a baby doll for all we know.”
Dawn scrolled through one disc and then the other, her hands working feverishly. She reached the video where Janice dropped the outfit and—
I grabbed her arm. “Go back!”
“What is it?” She backed up the video and replayed it in slow motion.
“Look at the guy in the background, behind Janice—it’s Marty Harrison!”
Dawn leaned closer to the screen and squinted. “No kidding, it sure is.”
“He was following her.”
“Yeah.” Dawn nodded. “He’s staring right at her.”
“Let’s see if he shows up again.”
Dawn continued through the remainder of the disc and then slipped the last one into the computer. When she had gone through that video as well and there hadn’t been a single clear shot of Shelby and no other sign of Marty, she settled back and shook her head. “What if the baby isn’t even real? Like, what if she never existed and this is all a big hoax?”
“I doubt that, but it is weird that they didn’t have any baby pictures around. I’ve got pictures of Samantha from right after she was born.”
Dawn cast a hard stare in my direction. “Right after, because you weren’t there right when she was born.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like Debbie with all that—” I stopped talking when footsteps clanked down the hall and drew near. They sounded rushed and that usually meant something was going down.
When the footsteps stopped outside the doorway, Becky stuck her head into our office. “The sheriff’s on line two—it’s urgent.”