All hands scurried in the rain, draping the enormous tarps back over the forms to keep the rain off of the work. Sirens competed for air space as four vehicles sped to the site. Jeb led the pack in his sheriff’s truck. Butch brought up the rear. A gust of wind pillowed the tarp and pulled Kate toward the hole. Her legs dug in uselessly as the earth turned to mud and gave way under her weight.
Butch jumped from the truck and fought to her side. Self-preservation kicked in, and Kate let go of the tarp. She flailed her arms, trying to gain her balance as the mud under her feet moved. Butch pulled her against him, turning as the tarp lashed his back.
“We have to get the form covered,” Kate shouted over the wind.
Jeb, Butch, and the deputies worked with Kate’s crew to pin the tarp and weigh it down. Not soon enough, the storm lessened, passing on. It slowed to a steady rain but left everyone covered in mud, the sheriff’s men included.
Jeb left two men at the scene and shepherded everyone else into the trailer conference area. There hadn’t been time for questions when they arrived. With things now under some semblance of control, Jeb took the lead. “What the hell is going on?”
Waters drew a muddy towel down his face. “There’s a body in the wall. A woman. We found her when we pulled the tarp off.”
Jeb took a deep breath. “Did you recognize her?”
Waters shook his head. “She’s head down. Can’t see her face. She has blond hair. A lot of it.”
Kate rested her hand on Waters’s shoulder. “We didn’t know what to do when it started pouring. We tried to cover everything with the tarps to keep it dry.”
With the rain down to a drizzle, Jeb walked out to the site with his men, Kate, Tom, Butch, and Waters. Tom and Waters pulled back the tarp, sheeting any trapped water into the hole behind it. A woman had been stuffed into the wall. She was stuck sideways between the pale green rods that lined the front and back of the form. Somebody went to some effort to get her in there, as she wouldn’t have gotten down that far on her own.
“We didn’t see her until we pulled back the tarp.” Waters explained about the rain and the process. “The concrete flowed ahead of where we worked. It looks like part of her is in, part of her is out of it.”
Jeb stood on the forms, shining a flashlight below. “When did you cover it?”
“Originally? Tuesday morning. We just opened it up today as we went along.”
Jeb looked at his deputy. “Get the kit. Everyone out. Now. Back to the trailer.”
Kate did as Jeb said when she would rather have been out with his men. Out there, she could have been useful. Here, she paced like a caged animal, running from questions she didn’t have the answers to. “Just let me think,” she barked at the voices in her head. She clapped her hands sharply, pulling all eyes to her. “This is what we’re going to do. First, everyone give the sheriff full access. I know no one on this site had anything to do with that woman’s death, so we have nothing to be worried about. Second, everyone will receive full pay for today. Tomorrow, we’ll shift work around to other areas. Tom and I will deal with the investigators and inspections. We’ve had a good safety record so far, but we’re going to have to be perfect now. No short cuts. You see any, you tell Waters, Tom, or me.”
Tom curled around a cup of coffee. “Kate, Jeb could shut the site down for a while.”
“We’ll deal with that if and when it happens. This is a Riley project. We take care of ours. Hell, we can send them to Butch’s to start on the house.”
The men and women around the table, many wet to the bone, had been still since they sat. Paula played hostess, scavenged supplies of towels and rags, coffee and water, hugs and pats. Kate noticed some stirred as shock wore off. Thinking, planning, talking helped everyone’s sanity.
“Who could it be?” a laborer asked. “How could she have gotten in there?”
“How are we going to get her out?” Waters asked. “She’s half embedded in concrete. We take those forms down now, and we’ll have her and hundreds of pounds of concrete in the basement. It might be fast setting concrete, but not that fast. I’m thinking we’ll have to wait until it hardens and jackhammer her out.”
“I’ve never jackhammered a body out of concrete,” the laborer said. “This is Tennessee, not New Jersey.”
“I’m going to do it,” Tom said. “We’ll see if Jeb will let us out there. We can drive some sort of dam in at the joints and take apart just the last panel of the form. From there, we’ll take it in layers. Everything stays tied off. Belt and suspenders. Nobody else gets hurt. Butch, is there a doctor in town who could work with me?”
Butch leaned against the outer wall of Kate’s office, his arms crossed over his chest. “Doc Johnson. He retired three years ago but passes the time teaching at the university and stands in for the coroner.”
Kate sighed heavily, leaning next to, but not touching, Butch. “I need to call Cicada…and my father.”
“Can I talk to you a minute?” Butch pulled Kate into the privacy of her office. “I hate to do this, but I need to go for a few hours. Are you going to be okay here?”
She brushed the tips of her fingers over the hair on his arm. She didn’t actually feel skin, so it didn’t count as touching. “I was so glad to see you, I didn’t think to ask why you’re here.”
“I stopped to talk to Jeb after dropping Hyde at the garage. I heard Tom’s call come in.” Butch pressed her hand to his arm, holding when she pulled back.
“No intimate touching on the job. Can I ask where you’re going?”
“No one can see us so it doesn’t count. Finch and I are meeting the state investigators in Nashville. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.”
“Good. I’m glad he’ll be with you. Don’t worry about us.” She forced an encouraging smile to her face. “Give them hell.”
“That’s what I pay Finch for.” He leaned in to kiss her, but she ducked under him.
“No kissing either.”
Butch sweated the meeting during the wet drive to Nashville. He didn’t kill Angie but he knew his word didn’t mean a whole lot to law enforcement. The media circus that set up tent around his and Fawn’s divorce hadn’t noticed Angie. As Butch believed in counting his blessing instead of questioning them, he didn’t care why. Jeb didn’t attend the meeting but sent a deputy with a two-inch-thick folder. After two hours, they were on their fifth trip around the mulberry bush.
“Anything else, Mr. McCormick?” The investigator had hazel eyes that could scare a spring straight.
“I didn’t kill Angie. She wasn’t my wife, but she was part of my life. I wanted her to have a long, happy life. I’d hoped she’d find a good man, settle down. She wasn’t perfect, and neither was I, but isn’t that normal? She was trying to save snakes, for gosh sakes. How is that a reason to kill someone?”
“How much money did you say you gave her that night at the bar?”
Butch shook his head. “Whatever was in my pocket. I had already paid the bar tab. It couldn’t have been more than seventy, eighty dollars.”
“You didn’t count it?”
“No. Kate was walking out. I shoved the money at Angie and followed Kate. She looked upset, so I followed her.”
An eyebrow raised. “Was she upset?”
“No. More…overwhelmed. A country bar can be a lot for a stranger from Michigan to handle all at once. I took her home, that is, to the house. She was staying with me.”
“Kate Riley is your lover.”
“She is now. Then, she was my tractor mechanic.” Butch re-explained the chores-for-room-and-board agreement.
“Back to Angie, I understand y’all married because of a baby. You know it wasn’t yours?” The investigator said it with the cold knife of truth.
“Not until my brother told me yesterday.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Not murderous, if that’s what you’re asking. It was fourteen years ago. Finding out made me feel…introspective. You know, how
would my life have been different if it weren’t for that day she came to me, tears running down her face, saying she was pregnant? Maybe I would’ve gone to college. I was considering it, loosely. Maybe I’d have gotten a job and never chased the dream. Losing the baby and then my wife gave me motivation to do something with my life.”
The investigator closed the file on his desk and read the sign off to the recording device. “We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.” The investigator offered a hand, and Butch took it.
Finch extended his. “Any idea when you’ll make a decision?”
The investigator shook it. “When I’m done considering.”
On the drive back home, the wind pulled at the clouds like greedy fingers on cotton candy. Fingers of sunlight shone through, lighting rain-drenched fields. Butch took it as a sign. The investigator shook his hand, which had to be a good sign, too.
Butch raced to the construction site, determined to support Kate as she’d been doing for him. Finding a body on the project site was going to create a lot of headaches for Kate. Somebody associated with the project had to have done it. Who else would think to bury a body into a concrete wall?
By late afternoon, the rain made a soggy, muddy mess of the site. Butch drove back to the work area, unwilling to walk through the mud in his suit. The rain had stopped, letting the tarp be removed and the work of freeing the body begin.
Kate sat in Butch’s truck in stockinged feet while Tom and Waters worked with Doc Johnson and Jeb to free the trapped woman.
Butch rested his hand on Kate’s knee, content when she didn’t pull away. Kate glued her gaze to Tom’s back. Jeb had kicked her out as Butch pulled up, dragging her to the truck and into the passenger seat, delivering her into Butch’s keeping.
“This is my crime scene. Stay,” Jeb had said and walked away.
Butch had taken one look at the boots coated in thick mud and demanded she take them off.
She sat in the truck quietly, mud splattered on her pants, her brows pressed between her eyes. “My mind just keeps spinning. Who is she? How did she get here? Here, of all places. You can’t just walk around the site and not be noticed. How did she get inside the form work? Does someone hate the idea of the Cicada headquarters here so much that they were willing to kill to sabotage the project?”
“I don’t know, Katie. I just don’t know. Maybe once we know who she is, some of this will make some sense.”
“Maybe.” She changed the subject. “How did it go with the State Investigator?”
Butch took a deep breath and thought about it. “I think he wants to suspect me. I’m perfect, right? The ex-husband who she was hounding for money to save snakes. She was called from my house, found in my backyard. His biggest problem is…I’m too perfect, and I have Jeb and Finch. Finch gave him a run for his money.”
“Are you worried they’ll charge you?”
“Yes and no. If they do charge me, I’m in a world of hurt. I was in bed asleep and can’t do a damned thing to prove it. So yes, I’m worried about it. But on the other hand, I know I didn’t kill Angie, and everyone who knows me knows I couldn’t have killed Angie. So what’s there to worry about?”
“I wish I could be as relaxed about life as you are. I can’t seem to downshift. These past weeks have been a…a…I can’t think of a word.”
Butch gave her a cocky grin. “I can think of a word, but if you won’t let me kiss you on the site, I doubt you’d want me to say the word.”
Jeb climbed out of the hole and stomped over to the truck. Mud splattered with every heavy step. Butch opened the door but stayed out of the mud.
“It’s her, Butch. It’s Fawn.”
Butch blinked once. Twice. “What do you mean it’s Fawn?” He frowned and blinked again. He looked down, noticed he held Kate’s hand, and squeezed it.
“Doc says she was dead before she was dumped in the wall. Someone hit her with something heavy in the back of the head. Butch, when was the last time you spoke to her?”
Butch forgot about the mud and stepped out of the truck. He ran his hand through his thick hair as he started to pace. “Last Friday at the attorneys, Jeb. She called Sunday, but I didn’t answer. I swear it.”
Jeb patted his brother’s arm but looked into the truck. “Go back to the house and stay there. It’s going to take us a while to finish up. Then I need to talk to both of you.”
Kate looked up from the bench where she sat brushing rust off a lawn mower blade in the old barn. Time stopped mattering hours before, but the sky that had brightened after the rain had darkened again. In the open barn door, a rumpled figure stood. “You look like crap. Why don’t you go shower and change?”
“This is official,” Jeb said.
“I know, but I’m not going anywhere, and neither is Fawn. Take a few minutes.”
Kate figured Jeb hadn’t eaten, so she left the barn and went to the house. She waited for Jeb in the living room with a plate of hot food and a cold beer on a TV tray. She left the couch to him and sat in the armchair with her chin raised and her legs crossed. “You look better.”
“Long day.” Jeb shuffled in and took a seat on the couch.
Kate huffed. “That’s an understatement.”
They sat in companionable silence while he ate, neither in a hurry to face what came next. They listened to Butch playing in the studio.
“He’s been writing some good stuff,” Jeb said.
Kate nodded. “I didn’t know musicians worked that hard. It’s easy to buy the up-all-night, sleep-all-day mystic.”
“Butch has always had a way with words. Me? I’ve always been better with my hands.”
“Likewise. The words used in my family tend to be short and loud. I’m very proud of what he can do.”
“You can tell me it’s none of my business if you want, but what are your intentions with my brother?”
Kate looked at Jeb for a long minute, her heart in her throat. “I think I’m in love with him.”
Jeb chewed a bite of a roll slowly. “You think?”
Kate looked at her empty hands, uncomfortable saying it out loud. “I’ve never been in love before. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”
“I hear a ‘but’ coming.”
Kate smiled shyly, wondering which shade of red her face currently matched. Pomegranate, maybe. “But I’ve only known him for a few weeks. Can you fall in love that fast? But he’s been married three times. My longest relationship lasted six months. But he’s a high-profile celebrity, and I’m usually covered in mud. He’s so far out of my league, I can’t even afford the price of a ticket.”
Jeb swallowed his bite, his gaze back on his plate. “You’re wrong there.”
The steps creaked, warning that Butch was about to join them. Kate sat quietly while Jeb finished the last of the mashed potatoes and gravy. She kept her gaze on the stairs, waiting for Butch. Then she saw his sweet smile and his broad shoulders, and the world became a better place.
His emotional tank empty, Butch lumbered down the creaking stairs to face his brother, his lover, and his dead wife. A song for Angie tugged at him but stalled when he heard Jeb go down stairs after his shower. He’d played with the words, but they wouldn’t come, not while he worried about what Jeb had to say.
Butch had considered calling Finch. When should he start thinking about lawyers? If it was anyone but Jeb, it would be now. But it was Jeb, and Butch trusted his brother.
He came down the steps into the living room of his childhood, and that’s when he saw it. Katie’s eyes lit up. It was as if she had been staring at the empty staircase, waiting for him. Her face relaxed, looking younger as she smiled. And that smile was most evident in the depths of her liquid, blue eyes.
Butch winked at her, broadening her smile. Then he looked to Jeb. “You ready for this?”
Jeb nodded and cleared his mostly finished plate to the kitchen. He returned to the living room with a file folder and ushered Kate from the armchair to the co
uch where his brother sat. Butch pulled Kate in close while Jeb took her previous place in the chair, sitting with his legs wide and his elbows on his knees.
“The last time you both saw Fawn was when?”
“Friday,” Butch said.
“That Saturday in Nashville,” Kate answered.
“Butch, did you call her to talk about the divorce terms?”
“I didn’t call her. Period. Not to talk about the divorce or anything else.”
Jeb spread the folder open on the floor and passed a cell phone statement to Butch. “Her assistant sent me her cell phone record. Do any of these numbers look familiar?”
“That can’t be right.” Kate pointed to a 313 area code. “That’s my phone number. Monday at four-thirty. What were we doing?”
Butch had been in that bar with Abbey McNeil, which he was smart enough to tell Jeb in private. “I was in Nashville. Rehearsals.”
“I was at work. I didn’t have my phone that whole day.”
Jeb took the phone record back. “Do you have it now?”
Kate pulled it from her pocket. “I found it the next morning stuck between the mattress and covers.”
Jeb pulled on a pair of latex gloves, took the phone, and searched Kate’s call record. There it was. An outgoing call to Fawn.
Kate looked back and forth between the brothers. “I didn’t call her.” She’d lost the color in her face, and her eyes went wide.
Butch squeezed her hand as she held on to his like a talisman. “I know you didn’t, honey.”
“Can anyone vouch for you at four-thirty?” Jeb asked.
Kate didn’t blink as she stared at Jeb. “I don’t know.”
“We’ll need to ask.” Jeb tilted the phone in the light. “I want to see if I can get any prints off of this.”
Kate waved her hand at the phone. “Fine. I didn’t do this, Jeb.”
Jeb caught her eyes and held them.
“What?” Kate asked. “If you have something to say, Jeb, say it.”
“The scene was compromised. Between the rain and everyone working to get the site covered, the area is one big mud puddle.”
Lost in Tennessee Page 22