by Gerri Hill
“I don’t suppose we could pretend we’re detectives and go to plainclothes?” Murphy asked.
Her father’s mustache lifted at one corner. “How about we just stick to the uniforms for now?”
While Kayla wasn’t particularly fond of wearing one, she thought Murphy looked sensational in hers. She pulled her eyes away quickly when Murphy glanced at her.
“So? Drugstore first? Then Kirby’s?”
She nodded. “You’re lead detective. I’m just your sidekick.”
“We’ll see how long that lasts,” her father muttered. “She’s a little bossy,” he warned Murphy. “She gets that from her mother.”
Chapter Nine
It was going to be another hot, dry day, it seemed, but that didn’t prevent her from driving with her window open. After being in the city so long, she couldn’t seem to get enough of the fresh air that living in the country afforded her.
Kayla sat quietly in the passenger’s seat as they drove the short distance over to Rooters Drugstore. Murphy was still a little apprehensive about the situation she found herself in. The last time she’d partnered with an FBI agent, all kinds of wrong happened and Leon was caught in the middle…literally. It cost him his life. She gripped the wheel a little tighter as images from that fateful night flashed through her mind.
“So, Mandi, I understand you’re from Houston.”
Mandi? She turned her head and glared. “Just Murphy…that’ll be fine.”
That statement was met with a smile. “Is that the death stare that Lori warned me about?”
She turned into the drugstore parking lot and parked in the shade of the big oak in front. “Mandi is not a cop’s name,” she said by way of explanation.
“Well, I’m sure your mother had no idea what your profession would be when you were a baby. Or is your given name Amanda?”
“No. I could probably deal with Amanda. Mandi Murphy sounds like a porn star,” she said, causing Kayla to laugh.
“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. It’s not your name.”
“That’s true. So who did she name you after?”
“I don’t think anybody. She was hoping for a cheerleader when she named me.”
“I take it she didn’t get her wish?”
Murphy got out, remembering how hard her mother had tried to get her—and keep her—in a dress. No amount of dance lessons or piano lessons could squash the tomboy out of her. By the time she was in high school, her mother had thankfully given up. She glanced over at Kayla, wondering if Lori had already shared the gay gossip with her. She figured she had. And if she hadn’t, the sooner Kayla found out, the better.
“Well, I did become quite friendly with one of the cheerleaders, but I’m fairly certain that’s not what my mother had in mind.”
Kayla laughed. “Oh, my. My father would have killed me if that had been me.”
Murphy stopped walking. “What?”
“I was a cheerleader. He would have killed me if someone like you…you know, got friendly with me.”
“I imagine so. No doubt your boyfriend would have been a bit upset too.”
Kayla frowned. “Just how much do you know about me?”
She shrugged. “I rode with Tim for six weeks. He likes to talk,” she said as she started walking again.
Kayla caught up to her. “Why was I the subject of a discussion?”
“It was just the one time. He mentioned that you were coming back. I didn’t even know that Earl had a daughter.” She held the door open for Kayla and let her precede her into the store.
“Thanks, but that’s not necessary,” Kayla said as she passed by her. “I’ve worked in a man’s world for a long time. I don’t expect gallantry, especially from another woman.”
“Well, I wasn’t exactly shooting for gallantry. I figured they knew you here. They’re more likely to hand their video over to you than to me…a stranger.”
“Oh.”
“And I’ll let you get the door for me on the way out.” She smiled quickly. “I don’t mind gallantry.”
Kayla paused, matching her smile. “I don’t mind it either, actually. I just said I wasn’t expecting it.”
Kayla walked through the store and Murphy followed a few steps behind, trying to keep her eyes from locking on Kayla’s backside. Some women looked really, really good in a uniform, and others…well, not so much. Kayla definitely was in the former group, not the latter. Kayla bypassed the checkout, pausing to say hello to a Mrs. Wilson before continuing to the back of the store. Murphy also smiled and nodded at Mrs. Wilson, but all she got in return was a suspicious look.
At the pharmacy, Kayla knocked on the counter and a woman came around the side, her face breaking out into a smile.
“Hi, Dorothy.”
“Kayla Dixon! Why, I’d just heard from your Aunt Charlotte that you were coming back to town.” Murphy watched as Kayla was enveloped in a tight hug by the older woman. “You look so pretty, as always.” She leaned closer, her voice teasing. “My David is single again. Should I tell him you’re back?”
Kayla laughed. “You’ve been trying to get me and David together since I was ten. How have you been?”
“Oh, good, good. Nothing much changes around here.” Then her smile faded. “Of course, with what happened with Guy…” Her voice drifted away as her glance went out the window and Murphy assumed she was looking across the street at Kirby’s. “Terrible, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Who would have done such a thing? Why, I can’t even imagine that someone from town, someone we may even have as a customer here, would have done that.”
“I know.” Kayla stepped back. “Have you met Officer Murphy?” she asked.
Dorothy turned her attention to her, and Murphy offered a quick smile and extended her hand.
“Pleased to meet you.”
While Dorothy’s smile appeared genuine, her handshake was brief. “I’ve not met you before, no. Where are you from?”
“I’m from Houston, ma’am,” she said.
“Houston?”
Before Dorothy could question her further, Kayla stepped forward. “We’re lucky to have her. She was a detective there.”
“Lucky to have an FBI agent too, I’d say.”
“Thank you, but I’m in uniform. My dad finally talked me into joining his staff,” Kayla said.
“Well, that is good news.” She leaned forward, her voice again quiet and conspiring. “No offense to your daddy, but I think most people in town are going to love having the FBI here. I don’t believe they even have a suspect yet.”
Murphy wanted to roll her eyes, but she kept her face as expressionless as she could. Kayla glanced quickly at her, and Murphy could tell she was trying to hide a smile. “I’m not with the FBI anymore, Dorothy. However, Officer Murphy and I will be handling this case.” She cleared her throat. “Which brings me to the reason we’re here. Mr. Rooter has a surveillance camera outside, doesn’t he?”
“On the side at the drive-thru, yes,” Dorothy said.
“We’re wondering if we could take a look at the footage from yesterday,” Kayla continued.
“Well, I don’t see why not. I’m not sure how far they range though.”
“Even if it doesn’t reach as far as Kirby’s, sometimes things reflect off glass, off windows and such,” Murphy offered. “We’d just like to take a look.”
She nodded. “Okay. Let me go tell Roger. I’ll be right back.”
Murphy raised her eyebrows and smiled. “Roger Rooter? Really?”
“Afraid so,” Kayla whispered.
“So who’s David?”
“Dorothy’s son. He’s a few years older than me. If he’s single again, then I imagine his third marriage hasn’t worked out.” Kayla eyed her. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“You move here from Houston alone or do you have a…a partner or something?”
Murphy raised an eyebrow. “What? Lori got you fishing for go
ssip?”
Kayla laughed. “She does like to gossip, doesn’t she? But no, I was just making conversation.”
“You move here alone or is there a…a boyfriend or something?”
“A boyfriend?” Kayla seemed surprised by her question. “No, no boyfriend.”
“Husband then?”
Kayla laughed again. “No, there’s definitely no husband.”
Dorothy stuck her head back out. “Roger says for you to come on back.”
Chapter Ten
The upper right corner of the frame showed Kirby’s station and they could make out Guy Woodard’s gray Lincoln. Kayla nodded at Murphy.
“You were right. The shot came from the downtown area.”
“Rewind that again, please.”
Kayla did and they watched for the third time as Guy Woodard fell against the pump, then down onto his back. She could see no flash of gunfire, nothing else out of the ordinary.
“Doesn’t help us much,” Murphy said.
“No, it doesn’t. I’ll get Mr. Rooter’s permission to take this though. There’s no need for anyone else to see this.”
Murphy nodded. “Okay. Rooftops?”
“Let’s go across the street to Kirby’s first, see if we can get an idea of where to start,” she suggested. “And see about Guy Woodard’s habits, see if Monday was his usual day to stop for gas.”
“Okay. I guess I’ll call Tim, see if he wants to climb on some rooftops with us.” Murphy paused. “Or would you rather not involve them?”
“No, I think you were right. We’ll only alienate them if we keep them in the dark.”
Three hours later, they were standing out in the hot sun, surveying the view of downtown from one of the rooftops. Some of the old buildings didn’t have roof access any longer, but of those that did, there was only one with a good view of Kirby’s. Murphy felt pretty certain that the one they were standing on was the one used by the shooter. Kayla had to agree with her as they leaned on the ledge, both pretending to hold rifles. It was a clear, clean line of sight to Kirby’s.
“Seems kinda far,” Tim offered as he peered over their shoulders.
“Three hundred yards, tops,” Murphy said. “You deer hunt, Tim?”
“Yeah…and about two hundred yards would be my max attempt.”
Murphy nodded. “So maybe we’re dealing with an expert marksman.” She moved away from the ledge. “Anyone in town fit that description?”
“Got a lot of hunters in town, sure, and a lot would tell you they could make that shot, but they’d be lying.”
“What about ex-military?” Kayla asked.
“Yeah, there’s a few. Wesley Barker comes to mind. He did at least three tours in Iraq.” Tim shook his head. “Wesley’s a good guy. He’s working for the feed store. You know, they do plumbing on the side.”
Murphy raised her eyebrows questioningly. “Plumbing?”
“Yeah, his daddy is a plumber.”
“So Wesley Barker and his father work for Myer’s Feed as plumbers?” Kayla asked, just to clarify.
Tim nodded. “Yeah, but just because he’s ex-military, that don’t mean he’s a killer.”
“Of course not,” she said. “I wasn’t suggesting that he was a suspect.”
“But when you have no evidence and no suspects, you have to start somewhere,” Murphy said. “This wasn’t just a lucky shot. This was made by someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“So what now? You want to round up everyone in town who’s got a hunting rifle?” he asked defensively. “Because that’d be my whole family too.”
Kayla held her hands up. “We’re not suggesting that at all, Tim. What Murphy said is true. When you have no evidence and no suspects, then you’ve got to poke around and hope to stir up something.”
“So you want to question Wesley Barker?”
“No,” Murphy said. “We do some research first and find out what he did in the military. Maybe he was a mechanic and not a marksman. Let’s don’t jump the gun here. Just because we have no suspects, that doesn’t mean that everyone is a suspect.”
“Well, I know Wesley. He and my brother are friends. And I’m telling you, he didn’t do this.”
Kayla wondered if Murphy was second-guessing her decision to include Tim after all. Her father had been right to assign her and Murphy to this case. While she knew a lot of people in town—and was still considered a local—she wasn’t as close to them as the guys were. She could not say emphatically who was and was not capable of killing Guy Woodard. Neither could Murphy. Tim, on the other hand, already had his mind made up as to who wasn’t guilty and that was probably most, if not all, of the town.
“Let’s forget about Wesley Barker,” Murphy said. She spread her hands out. “We don’t have any shell casings up here, no shoe prints…nothing.” She glanced at Kayla. “This wasn’t an amateur.”
“I agree.” Which, of course, ruled out most—if not all—of the townspeople. “Unless it was a lucky shot.”
Tim looked between the two of them. “Okay, so what does that mean? Where do we start?”
Kayla noticed the twitch of a smile that Murphy hid, presumably because of Tim’s use of “we.”
“We already know they don’t have surveillance cameras downstairs so we need to question whoever was working yesterday. See who was in the store.”
“The store closes at five,” Tim said, referring to the old Sears store that now housed the local quilting and hobby shop. “He was shot right about six.”
“There’s no other access to the roof except through the stairwell in the attic,” she said. “Whoever shot him had to have come into the store at some point.”
“And had to know where the access was,” Murphy said. “And he had to get back out again.” She turned to Tim. “See if you can find out who came in yesterday. Maybe they saw a stranger in the store.”
Tim nodded quickly. “Yeah, yeah. I can do that. I know Miss Bernice.”
“Our shooter is most likely male,” she said. “I would assume most of Bernice’s customers are female. Shouldn’t be hard for her to remember a guy coming in here.”
“All right. I’ll go down right now,” he said, then he paused, glancing over at Murphy. “Unless there’s something else. Chief said you were the lead on this.”
“No, go ahead. We’ll be down in a bit.” He turned to leave but Murphy stopped him. “And Tim, just because I’m the lead, that doesn’t mean you don’t still have seniority, you know.”
Kayla had to admit that she was impressed with Murphy’s people skills. Tim was nearly beaming.
“Yeah…and don’t you forget that,” he said as he nearly jogged to the roof access door.
“Well played,” she said as soon as he was out of sight.
Murphy shrugged. “He’s a good guy.”
Kayla nodded. “You do know that after he questions Bernice, she’ll tell the very next customer she has. It won’t take long before it’ll spread around town.”
“Yeah, no doubt. I guess we should be thankful there’s only a weekly edition of the paper instead of daily.”
“And it comes out on Thursday, if my memory is correct,” she said.
“And Guy Woodard’s picture will be on the front page, probably taking up the whole top of the page.”
“And there’ll be a side article noting that the police department has no motive and no suspects,” she added.
Murphy smiled. “And in the gossip section, Bernice will have a starring role as she recounts the questions of little Timmy Beckman.”
Kayla laughed. “So you’re familiar with small towns.”
Murphy nodded. “I grew up in one.”
“Not Houston?”
“No. Eagle Lake. West of Houston. We moved to the city when I was ten,” she said as she started walking toward the door. “Still got family there. My parents recently moved back.”
“So why here?” she asked. “Why not closer to home?”
“Closer to hom
e didn’t have a job opening,” Murphy said as she disappeared into the stairwell.
Kayla had more questions—namely, why did she leave Houston in the first place—but Murphy was hurrying down the stairs. Kayla followed, deciding to save her questions for later. Back inside the store, they spotted Tim talking to Bernice near the counter. Bernice Nichols had to be pushing seventy-five by now, she thought. She could remember when her mother would drag her into the store back when she was a kid. Her mother had gone through a sewing stage where she wanted to sew all of Kayla’s clothes. They’d made numerous trips to Bernice’s shop for fabric. Fortunately for her, her mother’s newfound love of sewing didn’t last long.
When Tim saw them, he waved them over. Bernice’s eyes lit up when she saw her and Kayla found herself engulfed in a tight hug.
“Oh, my goodness! You’re as beautiful as the day is young,” Bernice said. “So good to see you again, Kayla.”
“Bernice, how have you been?”
“Oh, can’t complain.” She looked around her empty store. “Business isn’t what it used to be, that’s for sure. Not many people still take the time for handmade things anymore.” Bernice turned her attention to Murphy. “You must be the new one I’ve been hearing about.”
“Officer Murphy, ma’am,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”
“Well, Tim here seems to think that someone snuck up my stairwell to the roof and shot Guy Woodard. Is that true?”
Kayla cringed at that statement and she noticed that Murphy’s jaw clenched as well.
“No, ma’am, we’re just covering all our bases,” Murphy said with a quick glare at Tim.
“Well, Tim said—”
“We’re checking all the rooftops, Bernice,” Kayla said. “Not just yours.”
“She said she didn’t see anyone in here yesterday,” Tim supplied. “No men, in other words.”
“Marcie Perkins and her daughter came by after school. They were in here until almost closing,” Bernice said. “They were my last customers. Oh…and your Aunt Charlotte came by earlier in the day. I didn’t know she even still sewed, but she bought some fabric.”