by Mary Burton
Winchester had recently married Dr. Jo Granger, a psychologist who worked from time to time with the Rangers. Rumor had it the two had been married in college, but it wasn’t Bragg’s style to poke into another man’s personal business. Lord knows he had his share of personal crap he didn’t discuss.
Winchester pushed away from the wall and tucked his phone in its hip cradle. “Once I heard from you, I called ahead and let the medical examiner know we were coming.” He extended his hand. “Told them to clear the decks.”
Bragg’s iron grip matched Winchester’s. “Good. I want answers before I visit with the family.”
Bragg and Winchester showed their badges to the officer at the front desk and then headed to the bank of elevators.
“I pulled the victim’s rap sheet, like you requested. Sheriff Wheeler was right. Rory Edwards has been in trouble since he could drive. Family’s been cleaning up his messes for years.”
Bragg hit the down button, thinking his own old man had never eased his trouble, but had been the source of his burdens. The old bastard had been a worthless drunk who’d used Bragg and his older sister Sue as punching bags. Sue had left home at seventeen. He’d been fourteen and figured she’d send for him when she settled. But she’d found herself a man within months and married. Sorry, Tec, I just can’t take you with me. I got a chance to be happy and need to take it. You’ll find your chance one day.
Sue had sent him a Christmas card the next year and told him she’d had a son, Mitch, but that had been the last he’d received word from her until three years ago when an officer in Houston had notified him she’d died of an overdose. The husband, who’d never legally married Sue, had been long gone and the boy, Mitch, pissed as hell, had enlisted in the Marines.
Mitch had returned to Austin two months ago, recovering from wounds both visible and invisible from his tour in Iraq. Bragg would later learn the Humvee Mitch had been driving had been hit by a roadside bomb, which had all but obliterated the vehicle. There’d been four soldiers inside. Everyone but Mitch had died.
When the boy’s commanding officer had contacted Bragg, he’d informed him the boy was in a bad way. Seeing as Bragg was all the family Mitch had, he’d accepted the promotion and transfer back to Austin. His family might be a fractured mess, but it was his family.
Bragg didn’t hold illusions of a Hallmark family reunion, but he had figured he’d get the boy on his feet before he returned to fieldwork on the border. However, he’d quickly learned nurturing a troubled kid fit him as well as politicking.
Mitch’s wounds from shell fragments had been easy enough to fix but it was the post-traumatic stress disorder that had left invisible scars. The kid had nightmares constantly and most were loud and violent. Mitch wasn’t eating, and his drinking was becoming a real problem. Last night Mitch hadn’t come in the door until four A.M., and he’d been drunk. Bragg and Mitch had one hell of a fight, and Mitch would have left if Bragg hadn’t taken his keys. You’re not my father! The situation had to change soon for both their sakes.
Bragg could track a killer to hell and back, but he couldn’t find the words to soothe his nephew’s grief.
He shoved aside the unease and focused on the job. “They won’t be able to help him out of this mess.”
“No amount of money is gonna fix this.”
Bragg checked his phone half hoping he’d gotten a message or call from Mitch. He’d received several calls from the office, but none from his nephew.
After the predawn blowup, the boy had staggered to his room and fallen into bed. Bragg had left him but now questioned that decision. Bragg feared the boy wouldn’t make it to September at the rate he was withdrawing.
“How’s Mitch doing?” Winchester, a former marine, punched the elevator button.
Bragg never talked about his personal life. Ever. But this problem, like the weather, didn’t give a shit about what Bragg wanted. “He’s quiet. Doesn’t talk much.”
Winchester didn’t speak for a moment. “You know my wife is a psychologist.”
“Yeah.”
“Jo would be glad to talk to him. She’s good with people.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Getting Mitch to talk is like pulling teeth.”
“He needs to talk and get engaged. Being alone is the worst. Is he drinking excessively?”
He flexed his fingers. “Yeah.”
Mitch was Bragg’s only family. His problem. His to fix. But he didn’t have any ideas. “The VA hooked him up with a support group at the local crisis center. It’s run by volunteers and a guy named Stewart.”
Winchester kept his stance casual, his gaze ahead. “Is it helping?”
They stepped onto the elevator. “I don’t know. It’s hard to get the boy to string more than two words together.”
Winchester grunted disapproval. “I can ask Jo about the group. If she doesn’t know about it, she’ll find out.”
Bragg rubbed the back of his neck and punched LL for lower level. Getting outside help went against Bragg’s nature. “I’d appreciate that.”
Winchester texted the details to his wife. He hit send. Another text came back in seconds. He read it and nodded. “She says they’re a good group. Dr. Stewart’s well respected and good, she says. She’s off to a meeting but will dig up more information.”
“Great.”
The elevator doors opened. They stepped off and moved down the hallway toward a set of double doors and into the exam room. A foul odor greeted them and drew their attention to a stainless-steel gurney holding a sheet-clad body. Another smaller table held a collection of instruments. A medical assistant, dressed in scrubs, pulled the sheet back.
Next to the gurney stood Dr. Hank Watterson. In his mid-thirties, Watterson stood tall, thin like a young poplar, in his green scrubs. A thick dark mustache added interest to an average face.
“Dr. Watterson,” Bragg said.
The doctor glanced up from a sink where he lathered his hands with soap. Intelligent, sharp green eyes stared at them through horn-rimmed glasses. “So, you two are the reason I was called in on my day off?”
Winchester grinned. “Sorry, doc. No rest for the wicked.”
Dr. Watterson grunted. “Body arrived about a half hour ago, and I was just about to start the autopsy.”
Bragg didn’t care much for the medical examiner’s office. Cold and sterile, the buzz of fluorescent lights, it reminded him of the hospital where his mother died when he was six. “Appreciate you getting right on this.”
“Sooner it’s done, the sooner I can get out of here.” Dr. Watterson nodded toward the surgical gowns. “This one is not going to be easy. Might as well suit up.”
Bragg and Winchester donned hospital gowns, and stood back. The victim’s clothes had been stripped and tagged, and his hands remained wrapped in paper bags, as they had been at the crime scene. Dr. Watterson studied the body’s bloated belly.
Rory Edwards’s hands and feet were black with settled blood and his head tilted to the left as it had when he dangled from the rope. His arms and chest were covered with tattoos. A skull on fire. Barbed wire through a heart on his arm. Crosses. The letter E. Stripped he looked leaner and malnourished. Fading track marks peppered the veins of his left and right arms.
The doctor started with an external examination, noted the rope burns around the neck, and confirmed the victim also had ligature marks on his wrists. He went on to catalogue rope marks, tattoos, and the absence of any other trauma.
As he pressed a scalpel to make a Y incision in the victim’s chest, Dr. Watterson said, “I hear the victim’s brother’s pretty rich and has a lot of connections.”
“He is.” Bragg nodded. “Which is why we wanted to be absolutely sure we’ve identified the right man before we made the death notification.”
Dr. Watterson kept his gaze on the body as he spoke. “No sense churning up a hornet’s nest unless you have to.”
“About right.”
The technician removed t
he bags from the victim’s hands, and Dr. Watterson, after a thorough inspection, scraped under the fingernails. If Rory had fought with his killer, the possibility existed that DNA remained under his fingernails.
“I’ll run a toxicology screen but won’t have results back for a day or two. But judging by his teeth, he was malnourished and had one hell of a tooth infection. Left untreated the tooth infection alone would have done him serious damage soon. My guess is he turned to meth in recent years.”
Dr. Watterson turned to a light box illuminating dental X-rays. “The bridge work and fillings belonging to Rory Edwards’s dental records matches your victim.”
“This guy is Rory Edwards.”
“Yes. And I can confirm he did die of strangulation.”
“He was dangling from a tree,” Winchester said.
“You never can tell for sure until the exam.” The doctor moved to the head of the table and pulled lighted magnifying lenses toward the dead man’s neck. He studied the rope burns. “There is old scarring on his neck.”
Bragg frowned. “What kind?”
The doctor was quiet for a moment. “Looks like an old rope burn. The current burn covers most of it up. Could have been easily missed. But it’s there.” He pointed to a small faint white area ringing the victim’s throat. “He hanged by his neck before.”
“Suicide attempt?” Winchester said.
“Maybe. Asphyxiation games aren’t uncommon in high-risk individuals. And this fellow is definitely high-risk.”
Bragg leaned in and studied the faint white scar. “The crime scene didn’t have the look of an erotic game. But who knows. How old are the scars?”
Dr. Watterson shrugged. “Can’t say, Bragg. But it’s been years.”
Bragg thought about the image of the teenage couple nailed to the tree. It appeared Rory had been a happy kid. In fact, conjuring the picture, Bragg would have figured the girl with the moody, edgy glint in her eye was the troublemaker.
Chapter Two
Monday, June 2, 3 P.M.
Temperatures had slid into the triple digits when Bragg and Winchester arrived at the sleek glass tower located in the heart of Austin. A centerpiece in the city, the glass building glistened, but despite the heat, had a chilling effect.
They moved through the revolving door and to the main reception desk. Bragg showed his Texas Ranger star to the heavyset, gray-haired rent-a-cop behind the desk. “Texas Rangers for David Edwards.”
The request prompted confusion, but the guard picked up the sleek black phone and pressed a button from the dozens on his console. He passed on Bragg’s request, listened, and then replaced the phone in the receiver.
The guard stood and tucked in his shirt. “His office is on the twentieth floor. The receptionist said you could come up, but she didn’t promise access to Mr. Edwards.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to take that up with her when we arrive.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Rangers made their way to the bank of elevators and punched the UP arrow. The doors opened immediately and the ride to the twentieth floor was quick and as smooth as the building’s glass exterior.
When the door opened, there were more sets of glass doors and beyond that another receptionist. Etched in the doors was a large letter E.
“Rory had an E tattooed on his body,” Winchester said.
“Odd a guy who spent his life avoiding the family would tattoo a memento of it on his chest.” Bragg shook his head. “But then dealing with family doesn’t go hand in hand with logic.”
Winchester pulled open the glass door and let Bragg walk in ahead of him. Bragg pushed back his coat so the thin blonde saw his star. “We need to see Mr. David Edwards.”
A cool thin smile added brittleness to her otherwise flawless face. “He’s in meetings.”
“This is about his brother.”
“Rory?” She arched a brow. “What has he done this time?”
“That’s between Mr. Edwards and me, ma’am.” He smiled but a razor’s edge sharpened the words. “I suggest you go ahead and let him know we’re here because he’s gonna be mighty mad later if he finds out through the media.”
Lips pursed, she rose and walked down the carpeted hallway and spoke to another administrative assistant positioned outside another office.
“You’ve made a friend,” Winchester said.
“I’ve a talent.”
Winchester studied the modern reception area filled with lots of chrome and reflective surfaces. “Guy’s a thing for the ice.”
“So I noticed.”
The receptionist returned. “He will see you.”
A smile quirked the edge of Bragg’s mouth. “Good.”
The receptionist passed them off to the administrative assistant, another cool blonde, who opened Edwards’s door. The office, like the building, was all glass. The view of Austin was impressive, showcasing Congress Avenue all the way to the white dome of the state capitol.
Edwards, a midsize lean man, had short dark hair, an olive complexion, and square jaw. He was dressed in a hand-tailored suit, white shirt, and a red tie. Gold cuff links winked from his wrists. The family resemblance to the victim was evident. They shared the eye color and skin tone, but this man had a lean sharp stare contrasting the heavy-lidded gaze of Rory Edwards in his Texas Department of Motor Vehicles photo.
Edwards came around his desk, moving with the confidence of a man in his domain. He didn’t extend his hand. “I’m David Edwards.”
“Ranger Tec Bragg and Sergeant Brody Winchester. Texas Rangers,” Bragg said. “We’ve got some bad news regarding your brother.”
“Rory’s gotten himself into enough trouble but never enough to attract the Texas Rangers.” His tone lacked worry or excitement as if he’d spoken to law enforcement about his brother many times before.
“He has our attention now.”
A muscle pulsed in Edwards’s jaw. “What’s he done this time? And what do I need to do to make the problem go away?”
Rory’s rap sheet detailed dozens of petty crimes. Clearly a guy like David wouldn’t appreciate a brother like Rory. Bragg had gotten calls in the last months on Mitch. He’d smoothed out the minor messes, growing more frustrated with each new debacle.
“He was murdered,” Bragg said.
David raised a brow. Again no surprise registered but perhaps a bit of resignation. Relief even. “How?”
Bragg had never figured Mitch would get himself into enough of a scrape to get himself murdered. But he’d feared car accidents and a half dozen other tragedies when he’d been up late waiting on the boy.
“He was hanged.”
Interest sparked brighter than shock. “Hanged? You’re sure?”
“We are,” Bragg said. “I watched them cut him down this morning.”
Edwards rubbed the back of his neck with his hand. “It was a suicide?”
“That’s what the responding officer thought at first. But it appears he wasn’t alone when he died.”
Edwards shook his head. “Rory ran with a bad crowd. Bunch of degenerates interested in their next score. I can imagine one of those clowns watching Rory hang himself and be too messed up or too apathetic to help.”
“His hands had been bound behind his back.”
Edwards frowned. “He probably didn’t have the stones to go through with it so he got help.”
“Why would you think Rory would try to kill himself ?” Bragg said.
“Rory liked attention. He’s pulled more than a couple of stupid stunts to get my attention.”
“Hell of a way to get it.”
“He was angry I cut him off.” He sighed. “He called here about a week ago. Said he was clean and sober and said he wanted to make amends. Nothing I hadn’t heard before. I’d tolerated him when our mother was alive, but after she died, I told him to clean up or go to hell.”
Winchester rested his hands on his hips. “And you think he staged this hanging to get your attention?”
Anger deepened the lines on his brow. “Yes. He knows I want to run for public office. He wanted to embarrass me. But like every other scheme he hatched, he fucked it up. Like I said, he hooked up with a few clowns and they didn’t have the sense to free him.”
“He was found in a fairly remote area,” Bragg said. “A real bid for attention would be more public.”
“I stopped trying to understand Rory a long, long time ago. Like I said, he didn’t think through events and consequences too well.”
“Do you know some of the guys he hung out with?” Winchester said.
Edwards squared his shoulders and turned from the Rangers to stare out the large glass windows. For a moment he didn’t speak but then turned and faced them. “Dan and Spike are two names that come to mind because Rory was arrested with those two idiots about a year ago. I’d start with them.”
“When is the last time you saw your brother?” Bragg said.
“A year. The night the Austin cops arrested him with Spike. When he called me from jail begging for help, he threatened to call the media and tell the world what kind of family we came from. I went to see him. Told him our mother was dying. He was more worried about getting out of jail and getting his hands on a few bucks than he was her. So I called his bluff. Told him to contact the media. He never did. And he didn’t come to our mother’s funeral.”
“What was your family like?” Bragg asked.
“Not perfect. I will admit that. My father was driven and my mother, well she had trouble standing up to him. Not perfect, but also not the worst by far. But Rory would have found a way to make us sound like a terrible mess if he could make a buck.” David flexed the fingers of his left hand. “I haven’t seen Rory since that night in jail. After his first phone call last week, I told my secretary not to put any more calls through.”
“Anybody have a strong enough grudge against Rory to kill him?”
“The person who hated Rory the most was Rory. He was never comfortable in his own skin. Believe me, he thought he could stage a stunt, and he managed to screw it up.”