Scene of the Crime: Bridgewater, Texas

by Carla Cassidy

  After dinner the night before, he and Jenna had gone in search of Bud Carlson and Doc Johnson, wanting to interview them both.

  They’d found Doc Johnson at his home and had spoken with him about Miranda and Carolyn. His alibi for the time of the murders was much like Leroy’s. He’d been in bed alone when both of the women had been killed. They hadn’t been able to catch up with Bud Carlson and he was on Matt’s to-do list for today.

  When they hadn’t found Bud, they spent several hours talking to Carolyn’s friends and family, but just as with Miranda nobody had any clue who might have wanted the pretty young woman dead.

  George’s alibi had been that, at the time of Carolyn’s death, he’d been at his father’s house having coffee. His father, who lived alone and suffered from insomnia often called George to come over in the wee hours of the morning.

  As Matt’s deputies arrived, he assigned them each duties relating to the crimes. Jenna was right about one thing, these weren’t isolated incidences and they appeared to be committed by a man working out some sort of fantasy or something in his mind.

  The roses. What did they mean? They were obviously an important key as to why the murders had occurred, an important clue to who might be responsible.

  It was a little over an hour later when Matt got up from his desk, poured two cups of coffee, then returned to the conference room.

  The moment he walked in he felt the grief hanging in the air, saw the telltale redness of her eyes that let him know she’d been weeping. His heart crunched. He knew grief intimately. He set the coffee cups on the desk as she rose from the table and quickly swiped at her eyes.

  Without conscious thought he opened his arms to her and was vaguely surprised when she stepped into his embrace. She fit neatly against him, her head just beneath his chin and even though he knew it wasn’t the time or the place, he couldn’t help the flare of desire that rose up inside him.

  He felt her heartbeat against him as she pressed her face into the front of his shirt. Her shoulders shook with a barely contained sob and he rubbed his hands up and down her back in an effort to soothe.

  She stood perfectly still for a long moment, then raised her head to look up at him. It wasn’t a conscious thought that drove him to lower his head and capture her lips with his. He was driven by sheer want, a crazy need.

  As he tasted the warmth of her lips, he half expected her to push him away, to be outraged, but instead she wound her arms around his neck and opened her mouth to him.

  She touched his tongue with hers and in that moment his effort to comfort turned into something altogether different. He stiffened slightly as he remembered they were in the conference room where anyone could walk in.

  She must have felt him tense for she instantly stepped out of his arms. “Sorry, I didn’t mean for that to happen,” she said.

  He smiled at her. “I meant it to happen sooner or later, just not here and now.”

  She looked at him in surprise and then offered him a rueful smile. “I don’t know exactly what you’re looking for Matt, but I’m pretty sure I’m not it.”

  He eyed her curiously. “Why would you say that?”

  She went back to the table and sat. “According to my last lover I’m selfish and closed-off and completely dysfunctional in a relationship. So, I’m definitely not the right woman for anything you might have in mind.”

  “Or he was definitely the wrong man,” Matt replied lightly. What are you doing, man, he thought. What was he doing flirting with a woman he scarcely knew, one who was only in his world because her friend had been brutally murdered?

  He joined her at the table and gestured toward the file. “Did you see anything that gave you any hint of what we’re up against here?” he asked.

  She frowned thoughtfully. “Our killer is obviously organized and methodical. I would guess that he knew both victims.”

  “In a town this small that doesn’t help us much,” he said.

  “You’re checking into the roses? They appear to be floral-shop quality.”

  He could almost forget the kiss as he concentrated on the conversation. Almost, but not quite. “They didn’t come from a floral shop here in town. I have one of my deputies checking with floral shops within a fifty-mile radius of here, but that includes Dallas. We might never know where those flowers are from.”

  “But they’re important. We know George didn’t give Carolyn those roses and there were six at both of the crime scenes, five in a vase and one left on the chest of the victim. Six roses, not a dozen. It means something to the killer, but I can’t get a handle on it. If you don’t mind I’ll take home copies of everything you have tonight and see if I can work up some sort of profile.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got a meeting with that lawyer in fifteen minutes to do whatever needs to be done about Miranda’s estate.”

  “You can get into her house anytime,” he said. “We’ve gone over it with a fine-tooth comb.”

  “Thanks, then maybe after my appointment I’ll check out of the motel and move my things into the house.”

  “Are you sure you want to do that? What if the killer returns to the scene of the crime?”

  Her eyes glinted with a hardness. “Then I’ll be ready for him. What are your plans?”

  “I want to catch up with Bud Carlson and will continue the investigation of Carolyn’s friends and family.” The kiss was forgotten as they talked for several more minutes about the crimes.

  “Why don’t we plan on meeting up at the café for dinner and you can tell me what you learned from Bud,” she suggested as she once again got up from the table.

  “All right. How about we meet at around five? I’ll make sure I have copies of everything for you then.”

  She nodded and went out the door, leaving behind only that heavenly scent that had the capacity to drive him half-mad.

  He sank down at the table and raked a hand through his hair, wondering what had possessed him to kiss her? It had been over five years since he’d kissed any woman. For several years after Natalie’s death the idea of being with another woman had been repugnant.

  When he’d started believing that he could love again, none of the women in the small town had interested him. Over the last year he’d had several casual dates, but nobody had affected him on a visceral level like Jenna did.

  Just his luck that he’d have the hots for a tough FBI agent who was only in town temporarily, a woman who’d already told him she was a mess when it came to personal relationships.

  He got up and focused instead on what was important, the fact that he had two murders to solve.

  Minutes later as he drove down the streets of Bridgewater his stomach clenched as he thought about the killer. There was no question now that the killer hadn’t come from Miranda’s past but rather was somebody here in town, somebody he knew and perhaps somebody he’d drank coffee with in the café or chatted with on the streets.

  He had Joey looking into points of intersection in the two victims’ lives. Had they gone to the same dentist? Used the same delivery service? It was a given that they’d probably shopped at the same grocery store and used the same beauty shop, because there were only one of each of those businesses in town. Still, there had to be something, some minute connection that could provide a clue.

  Although Bud Carlson hadn’t been home the night before when he and Jenna had tried to catch up with the man, Matt knew where to find him this morning. Matt had heard through the grapevine that Bud had been working on remodeling a room in the Jeffers’ home.

  Tom and Carrie Jeffers lived in one of the larger homes in Bridgewater, an old stone two-story with a wraparound porch and on a heavily treed large corner lot.

  Bud’s blue pickup was in the driveway and Matt pulled in just behind it. Carrie Jeffers answered his knock. She was a pretty blonde who worked part-time at the library.

  “Sheriff, is something wrong?” she asked, her brow wrinkled with worry.

  “No, I just need to speak with
Bud,” Matt replied.

  Carrie opened her door and allowed Matt in. “He’s in the back room.” Her words were punctuated by the sound of a hammer banging. “Just follow the noise,” she said.

  Matt walked through the formal living room and into a room that was a family room. Bud Carlson stood with his back to Matt, hammering nails into a piece of Sheetrock. He was shirtless, his body lean and ripcord taut.

  When he’d finished pounding the nail, he turned and started, then frowned. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to you,” Matt replied.

  “About what?” Bud leaned down and grabbed another couple of nails from a box on the plywood floor.

  “About Miranda Harris and Carolyn Cox.”

  Bud sat on the top of a five-gallon pail of unopened paint and set his hammer on the floor next to him. “What about them?”

  “Word around town is that you had a little thing for Miranda Harris.”

  Bud offered him a humorless smile. “Word around town is that I have a little thing for every single woman under the age of forty.” He shrugged. “Miranda was new in town. She was pretty hot and she was single. Sure, I was interested in her, but I sure as hell didn’t kill her.”

  “Where were you the morning she was murdered?”

  Bud frowned. “I heard she was murdered like at around five or six in the morning. I would have been in bed.”

  “Anyone in bed with you that morning?”

  “There hasn’t been anybody in my bed for the last couple of months, but don’t pass around that information. I’ve got a reputation to uphold.”

  There was no question, Matt didn’t like Bud, but he couldn’t let his personal feelings toward the man sway his judgment.

  “What about your relationship to Carolyn Cox?” Matt asked.

  “What relationship?” Bud asked with a defiant lift to his chin. “I didn’t have anything to do with Carolyn. She had a boyfriend.”

  There was something about Bud’s demeanor, a rapid blink of his eyes, a slightly higher pitch to his tone, that made Matt believe there was more to the story. “Bud, come clean with me now because if something comes out later that you didn’t tell me, it isn’t going to look good for you.”

  Bud frowned. “Okay, last week I was at Carolyn’s house. She called me to come over and look at her back porch which was falling down, wanted me to give her a bid on building a new one. But that’s the last time I saw her. I didn’t have anything to do with those murders.” He got up from his makeshift seat and grabbed his hammer. “We done here? I’ve got work to do and time is money.”

  “Bud, I highly recommend that you don’t leave town until these murders have been solved.”

  “I’m not running anywhere. I got no reason to run,” he replied and then turned his back on Matt and began to bang in another nail.

  Carrie was nowhere in sight as Matt left the house, a vague sense of dissatisfaction gnawing at him. Leroy, Bud and Doc Johnson had all expressed interest in Miranda Harris.

  Leroy would have had interaction with both women at the café and now Matt knew Bud had interacted with both women just days before their murders. Neither of them had alibis that could be substantiated, therefore neither of them could be removed from the short list of suspects.

  As he pulled away from the Jeffers’ home he could only hope that the rest of the day yielded something more productive. There had been only three days between the two murders. If the killer kept to that same time line, then he had less than forty-eight hours to find him before he struck again.

  Chapter Five

  It was just after noon when Jenna tore the bright yellow crime scene tape off the door and inserted her key into the lock of Miranda’s house.

  Now it was her house. She’d met with the lawyer, who had given her the key and gone over the terms of the will. Unlike many young women her age, Miranda had prepared for the event of her death. Jenna had signed paperwork and it was just a matter of time before it was official.

  As she stepped inside the entry a new wave of grief swept through her, blowing like a hollow wind with memories of Miranda.

  Jenna had always felt alone, but now her feeling of being utterly alone in the world was far more intense. Miranda had been the person who had kept her grounded, who had reminded her that there was good in the world.

  She left her suitcase on the floor just inside the doorway and went into the living room and sank down on the sofa, for a moment just breathing in the essence of the friend—the sister she had lost.

  As an FBI profiler she’d worked many heinous crimes over the course of her career, but this was the first that had touched her personally. Never had she wanted to catch a killer like she wanted to catch this one.

  She wasn’t sure how long she sat there indulging in memories that brought both tears and laughter, but eventually she roused herself, grabbed her suitcase and went down the hallway.

  Thankfully the door to the master bedroom was closed. Eventually she’d need to go in there and begin the process of packing up Miranda’s things, but not today.

  The guest room was across the hall from the bathroom. It was a small room decorated in bright yellow. Jenna set her suitcase on the bed and opened it. It took her only minutes to unpack the clothing she’d brought.

  She hung her blouses, folded her jeans into a drawer and then stored the suitcase in the bottom of the closet. It felt as much like home as the Kansas City apartment she was rarely in.

  The bathroom across the hall was decorated with a seashell motif in sea-foam greens and corals. A clamshell held a bar of soap on the sink counter and a smiling seahorse stood sentry next to it. Miranda had loved the whimsical side of life and it showed in the furnishings she had chosen.

  Jenna stored her toiletries beneath the sink and wondered if there was a local charity in town. There was no point in storing Miranda’s things. A charity might as well be the recipient of all her items.

  Except that ugly painting. A pain stabbed Jenna’s heart. The painting would leave with her and would hang wherever she lived for the rest of her life, a tangible memory of Miranda’s life.

  She carried her laptop and her notepad into the kitchen and set it up on the table. Matt knew this town and its people far better than she did and she trusted that he was out pounding the pavement and chasing down leads. The best thing she could do at the moment was put her thoughts and impressions down on paper and try to come up with a concrete profile of the killer.

  Even though she didn’t have copies of the official files in front of her, what she’d seen by reading them earlier that morning was emblazoned in her brain.

  She found a can of coffee and made a pot, then finally settled in at the table with a fresh cup to do what she did best—get into the head of a criminal. To do that she had to go to dark places, fantasize what it was like for the killer as he went about his work.

  Before she got down to business she sipped her coffee and stared out the window and thought about the kiss she’d shared with Matt.

  It had been hot. It had been exciting and she’d definitely wanted more. Oh, she didn’t want his heart or soul. She didn’t want to move in with him and make babies. She just wanted an hour of pleasure with him.

  She’d warned him off. She’d told him the truth when she’d said that she didn’t do relationships. So, if he decided to pursue her she wouldn’t feel as bad if or when she broke his heart.

  “Someday you’re going to have to trust somebody,” Jack Columbus, her last lover, had told her as he’d walked out of her life. “Maybe it’s your job, Jenna, but you focus on finding the bad in people and you hold back big pieces of yourself. That’s not how you have a meaningful relationship.”

  That had been a year ago and she hadn’t attempted any kind of relationship since then. She told herself she was most comfortable alone, dependant on nobody, wanting nobody. But there were moments in a restaurant when she watched a family interacting with one other, or in a park when she saw a moth
er pushing a baby carriage, when she felt a yearning for something more.

  With a frown she focused on the task at hand. She didn’t have time to ruminate on how hot the sheriff was in this town. She had a killer to catch.

  She began to write down random thoughts and impressions, making a list of identifying behavior patterns that had emerged at each scene.

  Red roses, the traditional flower of love and romance. Both women had been stabbed through the heart. So, was the killer a spurned lover? Somebody who had loved them but had murdered them because they didn’t love him back? It was definitely a likely scenario.

  She powered up her laptop and got online, searching for any references to red roses. She learned that in Greek and Roman mythology the red rose was tied to the goddess of love, that early in history it became a symbol for life and deep emotion and that in today’s society a rose bouquet was often the signal of the beginning of romantic intentions. But she found no reference, literary or otherwise, that might indicate what the roses meant to the killer.

  She considered calling her buddy Sam to see if he could add anything off the top of his head as to what the roses might mean, but she dismissed the idea. Sam wasn’t a rose kind of man. She doubted if Sam had ever given a woman flowers in his life.

  Matt was more the kind of man who might give flowers to a woman he loved. Although initially he’d come at her hard, with those gray eyes of his as cold and hard as ice, she sensed a softness in him that was vastly appealing.

  She frowned and focused back on her work. She couldn’t just sit around and ruminate over a man just because he’d kissed her. But what a kiss it had been, a little voice whispered in her head.

  She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting at the table, jotting down notes when she felt it—a slight stir in the air, a vague feeling that she was no longer alone in the house.

  Her heart leaped in her throat as she realized her gun was in her purse and her purse was on the bed in the guest bedroom.

  Foolish. Foolish! She mentally reproved herself. She should have carried her gun in here, but she’d had a false sense of security in the house.