Beyond Secrets, The Art of Murder_A Madison Hart Mystery

by DB Jones

  What Josh wanted to do was curl up with Madison, but he could see she would have no part of that…at least for now. I wish I knew what was holding her back. Wonder if she had a relationship that ended badly.

  Madison reached for her robe at the end of the bed and wrapped it around her as tight as she could; almost as though she was protecting herself from something. I wish I weren't so afraid of letting myself go. I could get used to having Josh around…sometimes.

  Josh picked up the bottle and poured the remaining wine into their glasses and then waited for Madison in the office area. She came up behind him, flipped the sheet off the whiteboard. It was quickly filling up with clues. “Let’s look at this with a fresh view tomorrow. I’m not as clear-headed as I’d like to be tonight.”

  “I agree. I need to get some rest, too. I don’t want my mind swimming around with all that information from the board. I think we both could use a good night’s sleep.” He took the last swig of his wine and carried his glass to the sink.

  Madison walked him to the front door. He turned and gave her a peck on the cheek and then left without saying anything else, but he wanted to pull her to him and feel her body next to his one more time, but he knew Madison would hold back. “We’ll touch base tomorrow to recap and then if you’re up to it, check out our other missing women,” he said in a back-to-business sort of way.

  “Josh,” she called out, as he was walking toward his car.

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you for a great evening.” She smiled as she held onto her robe.

  “My pleasure.” What the hell goes on in that mind of hers? One minute I think she can’t wait to get rid of me, and the next, my heart starts racing. He climbed into his car.

  As he backed up and turned around to leave, he glanced back one more time hoping to see her still standing there. But the shades of the office had been pulled closed, and she had already turned off the lights.

  Chapter 11

  Madison was sound asleep when she heard a loud knocking on the glass at the front door of her office. She staggered to the curtain and saw it was Josh. She turned to see her clock read: 10:00 a.m. “Oh shit!”

  She put on her robe and made her way to the door. “Woman, I’ve been calling your cell phone for over an hour.” He pushed his way into the room and handed her a large cup of coffee. “How soon can you get dressed? We’ve got another body.” He darted over to the board and flipped the sheet off.

  “Good morning to you, too,” Madison said as she sipped her coffee. “Just give me ten minutes. I’m still half asleep.” She struggled to make her way to set her coffee cup on the bathroom sink and then turned on the hot water. She grabbed something to wear out of the closet, took a big gulp of coffee and jumped into the shower. It was going to have to be a quick one, with no time for washing her hair. Josh was anxious and wanted to get going. He was pacing the room and gulping his coffee. She could hear him stomping around the room on the other side of the curtain.

  The moment she entered the room, he raced to the door without saying a word. It was back to serious work for both of them. The bodies were mounting, and chances of finding any of the missing women alive at this point were very slim.

  “Did you have your cell phone off?” he asked as he climbed into the car.

  “No, I guess I was exhausted more than I thought.” She struggled to hold onto her coffee cup as Josh sped around and hit the road with the siren blaring.

  “Okay. Do you want to tell me what happened? What makes you think it’s one of our missing women?”

  “She fits the profile. Madison, we have a serial killer in our neighborhood, and he’s pissing me off.” Josh drove past the spot where they found the body of Margaret Hill and continued toward the Audubon Society. “A staff member was cleaning up the trash pile in the back where they dumped the old straw from the aviaries when he thought he saw what looked like a human arm and called his supervisor. When the supervisor checked closer, he noticed it was a body and called the police. I tried to call you several times, but when you didn’t answer, I came out to the site. Then I called Doc and zipped over to get you before they removed the body. It’s a petite, young woman, well dressed and a bullet hole in the back of her head, just like the others.”

  As they pulled up to the crime scene. A crowd had already started gathering outside the taped-off area. Josh lifted the tape, and they walked slowly over to Doc Webb. “Doc, can you tell us anything?” Madison asked as she knelt down beside the body.

  “Yes. I can tell you that this son-of-bitch has to be stopped,” he replied looking up at Madison. “Agent Hart, what’s going on around here? Why are these women murdered in our little town?” Doc Webb shook his head and looked back at the body. “I’ve been the coroner in Maitland for over thirty years, and I have never seen anything like this before. I could bet my house this victim was also shot with the same .45 caliber.” He brushed back the hair from the victim’s neck to reveal the wound. “But you know the drill. I won’t know everything until I get her back to my lab.” Doc motioned for his assistant, Jimmy to bring the body bag.

  Josh walked around looking for evidence. He had his jacket opened in the front and one hand on his waist pulling the jacket to one side, and his other hand on his head. Madison walked up beside him. “Josh, we’ll get him.”

  “I hope so, Maddy,” he mumbled in almost a whisper as he continued scanning the area

  She was startled when Josh called her Maddy. She walked back to the road to backtrack through the bushes where she thought it might have been the route the killer took to dump the body, hoping to find some drag marks or footprints, but all she saw were shoe impressions near the trash pile. Any of the staff could have made them while tossing the trash.

  Madison asked one of the detectives if he would photograph and cast the shoe prints just in case so they could eliminate any staff members who worked back there. Then she slowly walked back toward Josh taking each painstaking step to make sure she wouldn’t miss any evidence, starting from the road and photographing each leg of the walk. Madison studied the direction of the broken limbs on the shrubbery and how much they had healed over. The grasses were high which made it easy to maneuver without being seen if someone was dumping a body. In her final steps, just before arriving at the pile of debris, she saw a hair clip on the ground. She placed a marker next to it and shot a photo, and then bagged it.

  Josh stood scratching his head as he looked over the crime scene, and didn’t notice Madison coming up beside him. “Josh, let’s grab another cup of coffee and some breakfast. It’s been a hell of a morning. We’ll call Doc Webb for an update after we eat.”

  Josh just turned and followed her back to the car. They sat in the car and watched as the coroner’s team loaded the body into their van. Madison sat quietly for a moment scanning the crowd, hoping something would pop out and then turned to Josh. “The best thing we can do for these women is get this bastard. We can’t do it if you start taking the case personally. If you want to do that, wait ‘till we catch him.” They had work to do, and she wanted him clear headed and on top of his game.

  He lifted his head and turned toward her. “You’re right. Thanks for the kick in the ass. Let’s get some coffee.”

  Josh started to back the car off the grass. One of the officers stopped the on-coming traffic driving along that narrow stretch until Josh got his car out and turned around. Just as they were leaving, Madison saw Kim in one of the waiting cars as they were driving out. She pretended not to see her, but she could tell Kim saw her. Madison had her sunglasses on but saw Kim’s head following her as they drove past.

  Madison had almost forgotten about the exhibit coming up at the Art Center until she saw Kim. I’d better call Aspen to see if she still wants me to take her.

  Josh drove toward The Breakfast Club, and during the entire drive, he seemed pre-occupied.

  “Anything you want to share?”

  “This case has been a puzzle from the get-go. We both
know there is a major piece missing that would tie it all together. Maybe we’re looking at it all wrong,”.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We’ve been so busy trying to find the connection between our victims when maybe the answer is with the killer. How about going back to the board after breakfast and looking at it with a new perspective?”

  Madison had been thinking the same thing and was excited that Josh had, too. “I’m with you on that.”

  Josh parked in the lot at the restaurant, and they took a table near the back. Lisa came to take their order, and they both ordered the same thing. Lisa stood there staring at them. Madison looked up at Lisa wondering why she was looking at them strangely.

  “Well, that was a surprise.”

  “What do you mean?” Madison asked.

  “You both ordered the same thing, but I don’t think either of you heard the other order. Must be something serious you’re thinking about.” Then Lisa turned and walked back into the kitchen.

  Josh shrugged his shoulders, scrunched his nose and looked at Madison. “What did you order?”

  “The Original Breakfast. Why? What did you order?”

  Josh laughed. “No wonder Lisa looked at us oddly. We both ordered the same thing.”

  Madison chuckled. “Seriously?”

  Josh reached for his coffee. “Yep.”

  “I guess my mind was on the board. I think we’re onto something and I’m eager to have another look.” Madison’s mind was swirling with the possibilities of what they would discover when they revisited the board.

  Josh took another sip of his coffee. “Me, too.”

  They finished their meal and took a coffee to go. The office was only about ten minutes away, but Josh was in a hurry to get there.

  “Slow down tiger. I’d like to get there in one piece.”

  Josh tapped the brakes. “Sorry about that. I guess the thought of discovering something new has my mind racing.”

  Madison flipped over the sheet covering the board and started another section, marked UnSub, short for an unknown suspect.

  She jotted down the beginning of a profile, and it was becoming very clear that the missing and deceased women all fit into the type of woman the unsub favored. But the puzzle remained, how did he lure them to their deaths, assuming the others were dead, and why did he choose these women? What triggered him? These were the questions Madison mulled over that seemed only to make the case more confusing for her.

  “Damn, Madison, we need more information, and we’re running out of leads. We’re back to the same missing thread that connects these victims.” Josh sat down at the table. “You feel like riding over to Doc Webb’s with me?”

  “Sure.” She was pretty sure she knew who the latest victim was and if it was, telling the parents was going to be no easy task. “Ther’s no telling how many women this bastard has killed, or how many more will die before we can get him off the streets.”

  Josh gritted his teeth. “But we will get him.”

  Josh called Doc Webb and had him on speaker phone, “Hey, Doc, it’s Josh. Anything new?”

  “No. I put her prints into the data bank, but nothing returned. She’s young, and that might be why there is no record of her yet. But I can tell you this young woman was well-dressed, similar to the others, and her nails were perfection. There was nothing under her nails when we scraped. Looks like she was fanatic about keeping clean, and I don’t see much of this anymore in someone this young. Not a smudge of anything on her clothing either. I’m no profiler, but if you ask me, she was OCD.”

  “Thanks, Doc.” Josh turned to Madison. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

  “Erin Wise.”

  Josh nodded his head. “Let’s fax her picture over to Doc’s lab and see if he can identify her from the photo.”

  “I would still like to look at her clothing. Let’s head over there now.”

  They grabbed the files on each victim and drove over to the coroner’s lab. When they arrived, there were three victims lying out on the tables; each murdered by the same lunatic, a serial killer. Madison was afraid there would soon be two more.

  Josh pulled out the photo of Erin Wise and placed it next to the last body. Though she had quite a bit of decomposition, the bone structure and hair looked similar, but they wanted a positive ID before moving forward.

  Josh and Madison decided to go back to Erin’s apartment with a forensic team. If they could lift any of the prints in Erin’s bedroom and match them to those of this last victim, they would have their positive ID.

  Before the doc could say anything else, the two were out the door. Madison called to have the forensic team meet them at the apartment, and then she called the roommate. Fortunately, she was still there. Otherwise, Madison was ready with a backup with the apartment manager’s master key. Madison did not mention to the roommate that Erin’s room may be taped off for evidence.

  Erin’s roommate greeted Madison and Josh at the door, but she wasn’t thrilled to have her place ransacked, again. Madison tried to assure her that her cooperation was going to be a big help in trying to find Erin. Madison didn’t want to frighten the roommate by mentioning that Erin may have met with foul play.

  When the forensic team arrived, they immediately taped off the room and started dusting for prints. The bedroom was nearly sterile, but when they entered Erin’s bathroom, they lifted one print from the corner of the mirror. They digitally entered the print, and within moments it came back to the print Doc Wells entered on his latest Jane Doe, and it was Erin Wise.

  Madison was relieved that her day would not be spent telling the parents of Cora Franklin that their daughter was dead, although she knew that day would most likely come, sooner or later.

  The team continued taking various samples from the room, but Josh and Madison returned to the police station to update the chief.

  Madison called Jim. “We have another body, and it’s one of the missing women.”

  Madison could almost hear Jim fall back in his chair. “Jim, are you there?”

  “Yes. I knew it. I was hoping my gut feeling was wrong this time. You know this isn’t going to end well. I believe the others are dead, too.”

  “I’ll keep you posted, but please don’t run with anything until we get all our facts together, Madison insisted.

  “You know I won’t. Have you told Winter yet?”

  “No. We’re trying to stay on top of this and gather as much evidence as we can. Can you bring her up to speed?”

  “I’m taking Jessie over there this evening, and I’ll discuss this with her then. She said you might be coming by this weekend. I know she’s eager to see you.”

  “I’m planning on it, but it all depends on where this case takes us. Will you please tell my sister that I love her, and I’ll come as soon as I can?” Then she hung up.

  “How’s your sister doing?” Josh asked.

  “Better every day.”

  “I’ll drop you off at your office after we meet with the chief. Do you want to get together and go over some of this later this evening?”

  “I would, but I’m taking Aspen to the exhibit at the Art Center tonight. It should be interesting.”

  Chapter 12

  Josh dropped Madison off at her office. She was planning on picking up Aspen and attending Tyler Kincaid’s new exhibit that evening. She called Aspen to make sure they were still on for the evening.

  “Hi, Aspen. Are you sure you’re up to going tonight?”

  “I can’t wait. Tyler called again to make sure I was coming. He’s so thoughtful, and I’m excited about seeing his new exhibit. Aren’t you?”

  “I’m looking forward to it. I’m sure it will be a very interesting evening. You want me to pick you up about 5:30?”

  “Perfect. That way we'll have some time to talk to Tyler before his serious buyers get there. They like to make a grand entrance just before he reveals his work as if he’s waited just for them.”

  Madison p
ulled out the invitation to the event and realized it was going to require more fancy attire than she had with her. She came down to Maitland with the bare necessities, but she did have a simple, tight-fitting, black dress. But she had no accessories to dress it up, then remembered Jessie and Jim were going to Winter’s that evening and hoped she’d catch her in time.

  “Hello, Maddy,” Jessie answered.

  “Jess, have you and Jim left yet?” Madison asked frantically.

  “No. Jim had something to take care of and will be a little late. Why?”

  “Well, I’m invited to the exhibit tonight at the Art Center and didn’t realize until now, it is a dressy affair, and I am drawing a blank. Can you help me out?”

  “Why don’t you come on over and I’ll fix you right up.”

  “Thanks, Jess. You’re a doll.” Madison put on her black dress and headed to Jessie’s.

  Jessie was standing in the driveway waiting for her. “Come on in; I have just the thing.”

  When Madison stepped out of the car wearing her black dress, Jessie stood back with her hands on her hips, “Are you looking to get laid or attending an exhibit?”

  “Too much?” Madison said sliding her hands down her dress.

  “No! But I’m afraid Mr. Kincaid will be more distracted by you than the ones handing him a check for his paintings. Now, let’s put the frosting on the cake.” Jessie led Madison into her room.

  Jessie opened her dresser drawer and pulled out a wooden box. “This ought to catch his eye.” The box had enough bling in it to blind someone.

  “These aren’t real, are they?” Madison asked as she picked up a piece.

  “They are real, and I want you to dazzle those snobs who think they own the town.” Jessie put one of the emerald and diamond necklaces around Madison’s neck.

  “I can’t wear this, Jess. What if something happens to it? I would never forgive myself.”

  “I’d rather it be worn and lost than spend the rest of its days in this wooden box. It’s perfect, and it shows off your long blond hair. I have a pair of earrings and a ring that will go great with it but not distract from the necklace. I just wish I could see their faces when you walk in.” Jessie laughed thinking about the reaction Madison would get from the women attending the gala.