“Go on and try me.”
“My daddy will have your badge for that.”
“No, he won’t. Now, you going to talk to me or are we going in?”
She set her jaw and shook her head.
“OK, I’ll play it your way but—” Cash drawled looking over at Drew. “But I wonder how fast your daddy will be able to squelch the rape rumors pertaining to a certain ledge party your little brother participated in last night.”
“Who told you that?” Drew hissed.
“What ledge party, Drew?” Rebel demanded, twisting out of Cash’s grip. “Is that why you broke up with Jami? Coz you wanted to go to an orgy? And she had a problem with that?”
She punched him in the chest. “Why you low down good-for-nothing cur, I don’t blame her. How could you?”
Drew flinched and grabbed Rebel’s arms.
Cash growled low stepping toward him.
“I’m not gonna hurt her, Detective Cantrell. Damn it all to hell, that’s not why we broke up.”
“So you admit to participating in a ledge party at Delta house?” Cash asked.
“I did.”
“I want to know who those poor girls were!” Rebel shouted.
“First of all, those ‘poor girls’ were more than willing.”
“Willing? What girl in their right mind would willingly allow herself to be—sexually used by a bunch of dumb-ass frat boys while another bunch of dumb ass frat boys watched?”
“I can’t speak for what a girl thinks, Rebel,” Drew defended. “But nobody was forced to do anything they didn’t want to do. And I’m not going to tell you who they were, and you can’t make me tell you.”
“Detective Cash can,” Rebel said, turning to Cash for confirmation. “Can’t you, Detective?”
As much as Cash would like to beat the information out of Drew Prebe, he couldn’t. “I can’t do anything unless one of those young ladies comes forward with a complaint.”
“What about someone who witnessed it?” Rebel pushed.
“I can investigate, but until there’s a victim, my hands are tied.” Cash looked hard at Drew who seemed to be getting whiter but the minute. “Why did you break up with Jami?”
Drew shook his head. “It’s a private matter.”
“Where were you between the hours of 2:45 and 5 a.m. this morning?”
Drew looked at his sister.
“You don’t have to say a word, Drew,” she counseled.
He looked down at Rebel then over at Cash. “I was at Delta house until just about an hour ago when we heard about the murder.”
“Why didn’t you go and try to see her, Drew?” Rebel demanded. “Why’d you come here instead?”
“Because we broke up and I felt guilty as hell, ok?”
“I’m sure there’re plenty of folks who can attest to the fact you spent most of the early morning hours at Delta house?” Cash asked.
“Yes, sir, there were plenty.”
Cash ripped a sheet of paper out of his notepad and handed it to Drew. “I want a list.”
“If he gives you those names he’s going to become the pariah of the campus,” Collette said, stepping forward.
“Well, then,” Rebel said, setting her hands on her hips and getting right into the Amazon’s face, “I guess your judge daddy will just have to wave his magic wand and fix it for your little brother now, won’t he?”
“Rebel, this is none of your business. Stay out of it,” Cash said, moving in behind her. Whether to protect her from the Amazon or the other way around, he wasn’t quite sure.
“Jami is my business!” she defended. “She’s dead and someone close to her killed her.”
She grabbed Collette’s hands and squeezed them until the woman flinched. “Where were you last night? And why are your hands all raw? Did you do it, Colette? Did you beat poor Jami to death because you couldn’t stand a lowly coal miner’s daughter hooking up with your precious little brother?”
Colette yanked her hands out of Rebel’s. “That girl wasn’t fit for him to wipe his feet on,” she hissed.
Rebel stood back and said, “I knew you hated her. I just didn’t know you hated her enough to kill her.”
“I didn’t kill her. But I’ll admit when I saw the way she was making eyes at Drew, I told her to stay away from him. She refused. When things got serious, I approached her again. I offered her money to leave my brother alone.”
“You had no right to do that!” Drew said.
Colette sneered at her brother. “Your sweet-as-pie girlfriend laughed at me and said to get used to seeing her around.” Colette looked at Rebel then to Cash. “She told me she came to Gilman to improve her social status and, now that she had Drew hooked and reeled in, I could kiss her coalminer’s ass.” Collette laughed at her brother’s shocked expression. “Yeah, Romeo, she used you up like yesterday’s tampon.”
“Colette, do you have any of those Mr. Lincoln bushes out back?” Rebel asked out of left field.
Before she could answer Rebel’s odd question, Drew shouted, “She loved me, Colette! She loved me!”
“Loved you?” Colette laughed. “The only thing she loved about you was your last name. I’m glad she’s dead.” Collette moved between her brother, and Cash and Rebel. “Now, either charge one of us or leave.”
Chapter Five
“Why isn’t Colette Prebe in handcuffs?” Rebel demanded, hot on Detective Cantrell’s heels as they walked away from the Prebe house. Was he thick? It was as obvious as fried chicken and lemonade at a picnic that Colette killed Jami. Colette Prebe hated the girl, was as strong as a man, and lived less than a half mile from the crime scene.
“Because I didn’t have enough evidence to charge her with a traffic violation, much less a murder.”
“Can’t you pretend to? Have the evidence so you can get her in the hot box and then sweat out a confession?”
Cash turned around and caught Rebel by the arm before she slammed into him. “You watch too much TV.”
“Colette did it. I just know she did! She said she hated Jami! And her hands were beat raw like she’d been pounding on something. She’s strong too. All American four years in a row and just missed making the ladies Olympic basketball team two years ago.”
“Hatred and raw knuckles isn’t enough to arrest her on. I wish it was, but until I have something solid, I’m going to have to keep digging.”
“We’re going to have to keep digging.”
Cash shook his head. “There’s no we in this investigation, Rebel Yell.”
Rebel smiled slyly at him. Of course there was, he just didn’t know it yet.
“I don’t like it when you smile like that,” Cash said.
“Does it scare you?”
“Yeah.”
“I like scaring you, Detective. It means you respect me.”
He returned the smile, showing off brilliant white teeth.
Rebel pushed a wisp of hair off her cheek and squinted in the sunshine. As she did, the breeze picked up and lifted some more of her hair, blowing it across her face. As she reached up to smooth it away, the detective reached out to do the same thing. When their fingers touched, Rebel would have sworn firecrackers went off in her southern region. Catching her breath, she pulled her hand away, not because she didn’t like the way his skin felt on hers or was afraid of it, but because she respected his boundaries. For now anyhow. His fingers continued their journey brushing her hair aside and tucking it behind her ear, before stepping back.
“Why did you ask Collette about a Mr. Lincoln bush?” Cash asked, breaking the spell.
“It’s a type of rose.” She shook her head at the surprised look on his face. “Like I told you, Detective Cantrell,” Rebel huskily said. “There’s more to me than my southern-belle appearance.”
“I’m beginning to see that. Now tell me why you asked her about that specific type of rose?”
“I saw a rose in one of the evidence bags by your CSI kit. It looked an awful lot like
a Mr. Lincoln. My gran grows them, and she loses every year at the state fair to a Mrs. J R Prebe.”
“Damn it, Rebel, why didn’t you say something about that earlier?”
“I was upset, and I just remembered it. Can you get a search warrant to search her house? There’s plenty of roses in the back garden, I bet one of them’s a Mr. Lincoln. I can slip back there and take a peek.”
“How can you be so sure it was a Mr. Lincoln?”
“I have a photographic memory. Mostly with numbers, but sometimes things like roses and such are perfectly preserved in my head.”
“You’re just chock full of surprises aren’t you?” Cash said, looking past her to the house.
Rebel looked over her shoulder and said, “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I can’t have you go back there, Rebel. Not with me standing right here. I’ll get a search warrant and do it proper.”
“Well,” she said, backing up toward the house. “Unless you’re going to arrest me right this minute—” She turned and bolted for the backyard. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me!”
She heard him cursing behind her, but knew he wasn’t going to chase her down.
She slowed as she made the turn around the house. There was a large rose arbor welcoming visitors to the manicured back yard. Rebel walked beneath it, and though there were red roses climbing all over it, they weren’t Mr. Lincolns. As she rounded the back of the house the rose garden bloomed riotously before her. She would have stopped to smell the roses on any other day but today. Today, she needed one thing. To identify the red Mr. Lincoln bush. After her first pass she was frustrated. No Mr. Lincolns. She made another pass and came up empty again. Maybe the Mr. Lincoln’s were at Colette’s mama’s garden, because they weren’t here.
As Rebel came back around to the front to the house, she found Cash leaning against his cruiser, his long legs crossed at the ankle and his muscular arms crossed over his chest. Her belly did a weird little somersault, but she kept moving forward. He cocked a brow when he caught sight of her. She shook her head.
“Not one cotton pickin’ Mr. Lincoln! Doesn’t mean Colette’s innocent. I know her mama grows them. And that means Colette and Drew can get their hands on one.”
“You positive it was a Mr. Lincoln?”
“I’d have to see it up close and in person, but it sure looked like one to me.”
“This town is full of red rose bushes. It could have come from any one of them.”
“Not any one, a specific one.”
“I guess we’re just going to have to keep our eyes peeled for that specific one.”
Rebel smiled. He’d said we, not I. “Yes, suh, we sure are. Now how about a ride into town? I have a few things I need to take care of.”
When she reached for the door handle, Detective Cantrell went to open it for her at the same time and caught her hand in his. As her fingers tightened around the handle, the detective kept his hand on hers. His skin was warm, his hand strong. She turned a quarter turn to fully face him. Then looked up at him and sighed. They were close. No more than ten inches separated them. Rebel felt the fireworks going off again, and this time, she didn’t want to stop them. And from the hungry look in the detective’s eyes, neither did he. She licked her dry lips, and could have sworn she heard him groan.
“I’ll give you a ride, Miss Culpepper,” he said, his voice low and huskier. “If you promise me that your town business has nothing to do with my business.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I can’t make that promise. What if I see something that incites my curiosity and it happens to lead me somewhere, like straight to Jami’s murderer?”
Cash groaned again. The girl was driving him to multiple brinks. “Give me your word or you walk this time, no golf cart.” He looked down at her sandaled feet. He’d noticed right off she had showered and changed her clothes. He’d been too pissed off at her in the house to admire the way her low-slung blue jeans hugged her ass and the way that buttercup-colored jersey top she was wearing accentuated the high firmness of her breasts. But up this close and personal, she smelled clean and fresh like seashells and sunshine. Her thick, cinnamon-colored hair was still damp except for the tendrils that danced in the morning breeze. She wasn’t more than a mite, maybe five foot four and not sickly thin like so many of the girls on campus. She had nice curves wrapped in creamy soft skin. The kind a man could lose himself in.
He tried not to think about the age difference between them or the other differences, but they crept in nonetheless. Didn’t mean that he couldn’t enjoy the moment. Because flirting with Rebel Yell Culpepper stirred his blood up in a way even the most exciting car chase didn’t.
“You thinking about kissing me, Detective Cantrell?”
Leaning into her, he smiled and shook his head. She was direct. “No.” He breathed in, then honestly said, “I was thinking about after I kissed you.”
She smiled wide. Her teeth were glaring white and straight with just the slightest hint of an overbite. Her cheeks flushed a soft shade of pink. “Why, I do declare. I’m feeling all warm and flustered.”
“In another place and another time, I’d make you feel a lot more than that.”
“In another place and another time, Detective Cantrell, I would surely let you.”
Cash shook off the heat that had taken control of him. This wasn’t like him. He was serious, focused and committed to his self-imposed rules. He straightened and opened the door for her. “Just remember, I’m the detective; you’re the college student.”
“Oh, I won’t forget that. If only you would.”
He shook his head and closed the door. As they drove back to town, Rebel was unusually quiet. Several times he glanced over at her to find her looking straight ahead with a slight furrow to her brow. He rolled his eyes. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
“I’d heard there was another murder about five years ago here at Gilman.” She looked at him. “Is that true?”
“Yes.” He wasn’t giving her any more information than he had to.
“A girl. Strangled. The killer never found?”
“Yes, yes and yes.”
“Colette’s been here six years. Four as a student, two as a graduate assistant. She coaches the lady’s basketball team. I think I heard that other dead girl played basketball, too. I bet the murders are connected to Colette and basketball.”
“Anything is possible,” he safely said.
“I know what you’re doing, Detective. And that’s ok, you go on and keep me in the dark, but I’m not going away.”
“Far be it from me, Miss Culpepper, to try and shut that out-of-control imagination of yours down.”
“Was there a rose at the other girl’s murder scene?”
Cash grasped the steering wheel. That fact was never revealed to the public.
“By your silence, I’ll take that as a yes. It would interesting to see if the roses are the same kind. I bet they are. Find the source of the roses and you find your killer.”
“This town is full of roses. Every yard has roses in every color. I’ve never seen anything like it.” And it was true. Lockerby had dubbed itself the rose capitol of the Carolinas. And the residents took great pride in them.
“Just like each person, every rose has its own unique traits specific to that one type. Let’s see if they match.”
“I never said there was a rose.”
“Detective, I told you when we first met not to underestimate my southern-belle demeanor. You need to take stock in that.”
As they pulled up in front of the small, brown-brick PD building, which was actually the backside of the courthouse, he turned to Rebel and asked, “Where would you like me to drop you off?”
“Here’s fine.”
She was out of the car before he could open her door.
As Cash walked into the PD, she followed him in.
“Goodbye, Miss Culpepper,” Cash said over his shoulder.
“Goo
d bye, Detective Cantrell,” she said too easily.
Cash set her from his mind and called to the PD secretary. “Sara, did you pull that old file I asked you to?”
“It’s on your desk, Detective,” she called from the file room.
“Thank you,” he said and proceeded down the hall to his office. Before he opened the glass-topped door, he turned around to the pesky girl who had followed him. “Goodbye, Miss Culpepper.”
“I needed to ask where the ladies room is.”
“Back up the hall near the front door where we came in.”
“Thank you, Detective.”
As Rebel walked away, Cash shook his head and let himself into his office. He set the evidence bag down beside his desk, shrugged off his suit jacket and loosened his tie. He was in for a long day, and thankfully, it was Sunday. Not much happened in Lockerby on a busy day. On Sunday, most folks were in church then headed home for Sunday dinner.
He was about to step outside his office and ask Sara to put on a pot of coffee, but didn’t want to bump into Rebel again. She was too much of a distraction and she never shut up. For the second time that day, he felt sorry for her boyfriend current or future. He waited several minutes before he opened the thick manila envelope on his desk. It was all that was left of the Katie Burkhart file. The evidence was gone. Only the reports and photos were left.
Once he had all the crime scene photos laid out on his desk, he stood back and carefully looked at each one for similarities between cases. After several minutes he felt eyes on him. Looking up, he caught and held the dark brown ones staring intently at him from the other side of his door.
“I thought we’d said goodbye?”
She let herself in and he cursed himself for not locking the door. As her gaze swept the photos, he began to scoop them up. “Hey,” she said, “Let me see that one. The one with the necklace.”
Cash shook his head and piled them one on top of the other. “This is official business, Rebel, not a game. I’m not going to ask you to leave again. Now, I’m telling you. Go home.”
“Jami had a necklace just like the one it that picture.”
Cash’s heart slammed in his chest. He dumped the eight by ten glossies back onto his desk, and handed her the one with several of Katie’s personal articles on it. “Are you sure? Just like that one?”
Guns and Roses Page 29