Scene of the Crime: Bridgewater, Texas

by Carla Cassidy

  “Hey, Sheriff,” Deputy Joey Kincaid greeted him as he walked through the door. The young man was the only person in the place. “Anything new?”

  “Afraid not,” Matt replied. Joey was the most eager-to-learn-the-ropes deputy he’d ever worked with. He was like a sponge that soaked up any knowledge Matt might have to give him about the job. And he was an unusually quiet young man who rarely spoke unless he was asking questions.

  “Anything new here?” Matt asked.

  Joey shook his head. “Nothing. Linda and Jim went to lunch and I’ve just been holding down the fort.”

  “I’m going to take a quick shower. If anyone calls, just take a message,” Matt said and then stepped into his inner office.

  The first thing he looked at was the small, framed photograph that sat on his desk. In the photo was a beautiful blonde woman, his wife.

  For three years she’d been his world and then that world had been stolen away by a madman. He reached up and touched the scar on his face. It never itched unless he looked at the photograph and remembered all that he’d lost.

  It had been five years since Natalie had been taken, but there were days the wound felt as fresh as if it had just happened. Other days it felt like a dream he’d once had in another lifetime.

  Matt headed to the bathroom with a shower just off his office where his uniform hung waiting. He stripped naked and stepped beneath a spray of hot water.

  He worked to wash the stink of death off him before he donned his official khaki slacks and shirt. It was just after noon. He’d spend an hour or so reviewing the file on Miranda, then head out to the Sleepy Owl Motel and question Jenna Taylor.

  Maybe if he conducted an official interview with her she’d be satisfied that he was doing his job and would go away.

  He stepped out of the shower and dried off, then pulled on his clothes. Back at his desk he opened the pitifully thin file that contained the crime scene photos, reports of the evidence gathered and the interviews that had been conducted so far in the Miranda Harris murder case.

  He didn’t know how long he’d been reading when he heard the sound of voices coming from the other room. Assuming that Linda Jerrod, the dispatcher and Deputy Jim Enderly had returned from lunch, he got up to check in with them.

  The minute he opened his door he saw her. Jenna Taylor, her pert butt parked almost on top of Joey’s desk. The flirtatious smile that had lifted her lips slid away as Matt stepped into the room. Joey’s face turned bright red and he jumped up from his desk.

  “Hmm, Sheriff, this is FBI Agent Taylor. She was just asking me some questions about the Harris case,” he exclaimed.

  “Yes, we met earlier,” Matt said and tried to hang on to the anger the sight of her had evoked. Between her badge and her beauty, she’d probably been able to twist poor Joey into a million knots.

  “Joey, go to lunch,” he said. “And you—” he pointed a menacing finger at Jenna “—in my office.”

  Chapter Two

  Sheriff Matt Buchannan was livid.

  Jenna could tell by the color that filled his face, making the scar on his cheek stand out in stark relief. She sat in the chair opposite his desk and waited for the explosion she knew was imminent.

  He reared back in his chair and drew a deep breath. “Do you not believe in taking orders?” he asked, his voice deep and deceptively calm.

  “Depends on who’s giving them,” she replied.

  His eyes narrowed as he held her gaze. “Stay away from my deputies, and trust me, that’s an order you don’t want to ignore.”

  “I was just trying to get information about the murder. If you don’t want me bothering your deputies, then let me see your file. Give me copies of the crime scene photos and any interviews that you’ve conducted in response to the crime. Play nice with me and I won’t have a reason to go anywhere else to try to get information.”

  He leaned forward and pulled out a piece of paper. “How do you know Miranda?”

  Jenna realized that apparently he intended to interview her and had ignored her request for the official reports of the crime. “Miranda and I have been best friends since we were twelve years old.”

  “Had you been in contact with her recently?”

  “I spoke to her by phone the Saturday night before her death.” A rise of grief welled up inside her, but she mentally shoved it away. She refused to allow herself to show any emotion in front of this man with his hard gray eyes.

  “Did she mention anyone she was having problems with here in town?”

  Jenna shook her head. “No, even though she’d only been here a couple of months, she loved living here. She loved working as a waitress at the café and told me she was making lots of new friends.”

  “What brought her here to Bridgewater?”

  The heightened color had left his features and once again Jenna was struck by the fact that the sheriff was a hottie. She noticed the photo on top of his desk, a pretty blonde she assumed was his wife. She wondered what kind of a husband he was with his commanding presence and autocratic air. Probably a real pain in the butt, a his-way-or-the-highway type.

  “Agent Taylor?”

  She realized she hadn’t answered his question. “She was coming off a bad divorce and was looking to start over someplace new. She’d driven through here last fall and had thought it was a charming little town, and decided this was as good a place as any to start a new life.”

  “You said a bad divorce? Bad how?”

  “Nothing violent or anything like that. Mark just didn’t love her anymore, and it broke her heart when he asked for a divorce.” Miranda had been devastated by the death of her marriage, but she’d also been an optimist at heart, certain that true love and happiness was just around the next corner. “I can’t imagine her ex-husband having anything to do with this,” she added.

  “Do you know where he is? How I can contact him?”

  Jenna frowned thoughtfully. “Last I heard he had moved back in with his parents. I don’t know the address, but their names are John and Belinda Harris and they live on the south side of Dallas.”

  “What about any other next of kin? Do you know how I can contact Miranda’s parents? Any siblings?” he asked.

  “There is no next of kin,” she replied. “Her parents are dead and she had no siblings.” Except me, Jenna thought.

  “Do you know her last known address?”

  She told him and watched as he wrote down the information. The sunlight drifting in through the windows played in the thick darkness of his hair and she had the irrational impulse to lean forward and stroke that darkness with her fingers.

  A new irritation swept through her. “Are you going to let me have those files or not?” she asked.

  “Not,” he replied. “You have no place in this investigation.” Those cool gray eyes of his slid down the length of her. “Don’t you have a job to get back to, or were you fired for insubordination?”

  “I’m on a personal leave of absence, so I’m free to hang out here in Bridgewater,” she replied and could tell that he wasn’t pleased at the prospect.

  Tough. She wasn’t walking away from this. With or without his help she intended to investigate this murder. She owed it to Miranda who had been the only light in her world of darkness.

  She stood, deciding she’d had enough. She had work to do and if he wasn’t going to share what he knew, then she’d just have to work twice as hard to find out who was responsible for Miranda’s murder.

  “If you need to ask me any more questions you know where to find me,” she said.

  She was halfway to the door when he stopped her by calling her name. She turned back to look at him. “We found a will in Miranda’s personal effects. From what I saw of it you appear to be her sole beneficiary. You might want to contact David Waller. He’s the lawyer here in town and is taking care of the legalities.”

  Once again a wealth of emotion buoyed up inside her. Sole beneficiary. Somehow those words made Miranda’s dea
th final as it hadn’t been before.

  Miranda was gone forever. Grief clawed up the back of Jenna’s throat, the bitter taste nearly choking her. Never again would she see the brightness of Miranda’s smile, hear her girlish giggles as she shared something funny.

  Jenna turned on her heel and left. As she hurried out of the sheriff’s office and into her rental car she was half-blinded by tears. She leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and gulped air in an effort to stanch her sobs.

  Within moments she had successfully gained control. Control was one of the things that Jenna did best. She’d learned it early in her childhood. Don’t cry. Don’t show fear. Don’t show any emotion at all. If you did it could be used against you if Mommy was having a bad day. And Mommy had lots of bad days.

  She pulled away from the office and drove slowly down the street, checking out the businesses on either side of the road. It was mostly the usual stuff that made up small towns: post office, grocery store and city hall. There were also little specialty shops, a dress boutique, a store that sold stained-glass creations and a taxidermy shop with a stuffed wolf and a raccoon in the window that she thought was more than a little bit creepy.

  The place that most interested her was the café. She pulled into an empty parking space down the street from the Bridgewater Café. Miranda had worked there before her death and Jenna hadn’t had lunch.

  The place would probably be packed with the lunch crowd and hopefully some of them would be chatty about Miranda and her murder.

  Jenna was just about to get out of her car when her cell phone rang. She pulled it from her purse and checked the caller ID. Sam Connelly, fellow FBI profiler and friend.

  “Well, if it isn’t the prince of darkness,” she said.

  “Calling the princess,” he replied. “I just wanted to check in with you and see if you were doing okay.”

  Warmth swept through her as she heard the concern in his deep voice. She and Sam had worked more horrible cases together than she wanted to remember. Sam was sinfully handsome and sexy, but there were absolutely no romantic sparks between them. He came from a place of darkness like she did and although that made them good friends, it also kept them from being anything more to each other. They were just too much alike.

  “I’m fine,” she replied. “I’ve made contact with the local sheriff.”

  “How did that go?”

  “He’s an ass and not only doesn’t he want my help, but I also think he would gladly pay for a plane ticket to get me out of his town.”

  “Ah, one of those. So, what are you going to do? Are you heading back here to Kansas City?”

  “No way. I just found out I’m Miranda’s beneficiary, so I’ll need to hang around here and take care of her estate.”

  “And if you happen to catch a killer while you’re there, then it’s all good,” Sam said.

  She smiled into the phone. He knew her so well. “That’s the plan.”

  “You’ll call if you need anything or if you just want to talk?” he asked.

  “Of course,” she replied even though they both knew she would do no such thing. “Just do me one favor,” she said. “If somehow this jerk of a sheriff gets me behind bars, make sure you come and bail me out?”

  Sam laughed. “You know the smart thing to do would be not anything that will make him want to lock you up.”

  “Yeah, but when did I ever do the smart thing?” she said and with a murmured goodbye she clicked off. She dropped the phone back into her purse and stared at the door to the café.

  There was no way she believed that Miranda’s killer was somebody from her past. Jenna was the kind of woman who made enemies, not Miranda. Jenna worked a job that created enemies and if that wasn’t enough, her mouthiness and bad-ass attitude didn’t help. There was nobody from Miranda’s life before Bridgewater that Jenna could think of who would be a viable suspect.

  No, the killer was here, in this picturesque little town with its quaint shops and smiling people, people who hopefully liked to gossip. And a murder would definitely be fodder for all the gossipmongers in town.

  Matt Buchannan might want her out of his hair, out of his town, but Jenna didn’t intend to leave here until she’d exposed the killer.

  THE MOMENT MATT entered the café he saw her. Seated at the counter and chatting up Sally Cooper, one of the waitresses. Why was he not surprised?

  He approached the counter and smiled at Sally. “Hey, Sally, what’s the special today?” Although he didn’t look at Jenna he sensed her stiffening at the sound of his voice.

  “If it’s Tuesday it must be meat loaf,” she replied. “And we have your favorite dessert today, Sheriff. Michael whipped up a couple of lemon meringue pies this morning.”

  He slid onto the stool next to Jenna. “Great, then I’ll have the daily special and a piece of that pie.”

  It was only when Sally left the counter to put in the order that Matt turned to look at the woman seated next to him. “Learn anything?”

  She gestured toward the plate in front of her. “I’m scarcely halfway through my French fries, I haven’t been here long enough to learn anything yet.” She dragged a fry through a pool of ketchup, then popped it in her mouth. “Although I did manage to introduce myself to Sally.”

  Sally returned with the coffeepot and poured Matt a cup. “Anything new in the murder case?” she asked, her voice low as she leaned toward Matt.

  He could almost feel Jenna holding her breath to hear his reply. “Nothing that I can talk about,” he said.

  Sally shook her head. “It’s a scary thing. I’ve lived in this town fifty years and counting and I don’t remember a murder like Miranda’s ever taking place here. She was such a nice young woman, always smiling.” Sally shook her head again and walked away to fill another customer’s coffee cup.

  Matt took a sip of his coffee. He’d believed Jenna was as cold as they came when they had spoken about the murder. She hadn’t blinked an eye at the crime scene nor had she shown any emotion at all when sitting in his office.

  Until he’d told her she was Miranda’s beneficiary. It was only then that he’d seen a deepening of the blue of her eyes, a slight tremor in her full lower lip, and he’d realized she wasn’t as cold and unaffected as she’d pretended to be earlier.

  Sitting this close to her he could smell her, the pleasant scent of clean with a touch of something slightly citrusy.

  “Doesn’t your wife fix you a nice hot lunch?” she asked, breaking the silence that had welled up between them.

  “My wife?”

  “Yeah, I figured the picture on your desk of the pretty blonde was your wife.” She half-turned to look at him.

  “She was. She died five years ago.”

  “Sorry,” she replied.

  “Yeah, so am I,” Matt replied. He fought the impulse to scratch his scar, the scar he’d received while wrestling with a madman, the same man who had killed Natalie.

  “A man like you, surely you have a girlfriend who would be eager to fix you lunch, then.”

  “Agent Taylor, if I didn’t know better I’d think that was a backhanded compliment,” he said with a half grin.

  “Good thing you know better,” she replied. “And you might as well call me Jenna because I don’t intend on going anywhere anytime soon.” She picked up another fry. “You have to tell me something,” she said as she stared down at her plate.

  She looked back at him and in the depths of her eyes he saw a shimmer of pain. “I wasn’t given any real information before coming here, just that she’d been murdered. I need to know the details. They can’t be any worse than my imagination.” She broke off as Sally arrived with his plate of food.

  “I don’t want to talk about it here,” he said. He supposed there were some things he could tell her that wouldn’t compromise his investigation, although there were some details that hadn’t been shared with anyone and he wasn’t about to share those with her.

  “Then where?” she replied.r />
  “Why don’t we finish our lunch and then I’ll follow you back to your motel room. We can talk there without interruption, without anyone listening.”

  “Thank you,” she said and focused back on her plate.

  “Where are you from?” he asked.

  “A little town just north of Kansas City. I work out of the Kansas City field office.”

  “Married?”

  “Nope.”

  “Do you have a significant other?” he asked.

  “Yeah, a cranky cat that showed up half-dead on my doorstep.” She gazed at him with narrowed eyes. “What’s this? Be nice to the FBI agent and maybe she’ll go away?”

  “Something like that,” Matt agreed easily.

  “It doesn’t matter whether you’re nice or mean to me, I’m here for the long haul,” she replied.

  “Won’t your cat miss you?”

  “Nah, we have no emotional attachment to each other. That’s why we get along so well. I have a friend who is taking care of her while I’m gone.”

  The statement was definitely telling. He suspected that this was a woman who didn’t play well with others. What she had to realize was that when it came to an ongoing murder investigation in his town, he wasn’t willing to play well with her.

  Plus, he wasn’t at all sure he believed in the whole profiling thing. As far as he was concerned, solving a crime happened only one way—through intensive investigation, intelligent interrogation and exhaustive interviews.

  He thought profiling was a bit of hocus-pocus that might work in the case of serial killers, but there was absolutely nothing in the Harris murder that indicated this was anything but an isolated crime.

  “How long have you been Sheriff here?”

  “Almost five years. Before that I was a homicide cop in Chicago.”

  She looked at him in surprise. “Really, what brought you to this tiny town?”

  “I was born and raised here, but moved to Chicago to join the police force. I came back here after the death of my wife. It so happened that the sheriff was retiring, so I stepped into his shoes.”