“You can count on me,” she said as she was dismissed for the afternoon.
MONDAY MORNING DETECTIVE ABBY HART filled her coffee cup as soon as the pot finished, then settled in at her desk and turned on the computer. She yawned, covering her mouth with the back of her hand, still a little foggy without caffeine. She’d participated in a beach volleyball tournament over the weekend. It’d been hard and tested her conditioning, but she and her beach partner had triumphed and taken home the trophy.
As she stretched and grimaced at the sore muscles that screamed, she was glad the office was quiet; she was first in and anticipating a court appearance later in the week. A reminder about her scheduled meeting with DA Drew in an hour popped up on her calendar. Homicide cases could take years to get to trial. When they did, she needed her head to be right back in the midst of the investigation as if it were fresh. She had several cases pending in various stages in the court process. The one Drew wanted to discuss was a gang shooting that occurred nearly a year ago. It was due to go to jury selection soon, so she planned to review all the pertinent details. She also wanted to review her most pressing open homicide case, spending her day after the meeting with the DA going over the Adonna Joiner homicide details. She heard footsteps but didn’t look up because it was bound to be just another office mate or her partner, Bill.
“Abby.”
The sharp, clear voice demanded her attention. Lieutenant Jacoby strode toward her desk. Something was in the works. The LT wasn’t usually in until later. He dropped a manila envelope in front of her. “Glad you’re here early. Just got this regarding the Joiner case.”
Abby reached for the envelope. “I planned on pulling that file and calling the lab for an update.”
The brutal rape and murder of a ten-year-old girl was a study in firsts: the first case she and her new partner, Bill Roper, had caught on their first on-call shift. Together they’d hit it hard for forty-eight hours and gotten nowhere. Then frustration set in. For the months since, it was their priority case. Evidence had been collected from the victim’s body, but there was no hit in CODIS, the national offender database. Abby and Bill had knocked on doors and collected voluntary DNA swabs from several persons of interest, only to be stymied by a backlog at the lab. She often called Clayton and Althea Joiner, the victim’s parents, to touch base. In fact, she planned to pay them a visit tomorrow.
She looked at the envelope and realized that it was from the forensics lab. Her head snapped back and she stared at the lieutenant. “They got a match?” She undid the clasp and pulled the contents out, tense now and wide-awake.
“They did.” He pointed. “Halfway down. They got a match from one of the samples we took to exclude.”
Abby read the finding and was up out of her chair. “Unbelievable. It’s Curtis. I had a feeling.”
Javon Curtis, a single man, a loner, living two doors away from the victim in a house he’d inherited from his mother, had been Abby’s number one suspect. He had no prior record and cooperated completely, even willingly providing the buccal swab that just implicated him, but her gut had told her something was off about the man.
“As soon as Bill gets in, go pick him up and bring him in for an interview. Hopefully he’ll open up.”
The adrenaline evaporated like smoke. “I have a meeting scheduled—”
“DA Drew is in the loop on this. Knowing you, you’ll have a confession before noon.” Jacoby gave her a half salute and left the office.
Abby looked at the clock. Bill should be in any minute. She couldn’t sit back down. She did a happy dance all the way to the file cabinet to pull the Joiner file.
“Hallelujah!” she said to the empty office. “I knew it was him. I just wish we could have proved it two months ago.”
She wanted to call the young victim’s father. He’d been waiting to hear that his daughter’s killer had been identified, and Abby knew better than anyone what that kind of wait was like. But she decided it would make more sense to have the suspect in custody first and, as the LT had hopefully implied, have a confession. The killing of Adonna Joiner had been horrific, and the close-knit neighborhood she’d lived in was volatile.
Abby sat at her desk with the file and remembered that the suspect, Javon Curtis, had stood next to the grieving parents at many of the numerous press conferences while they pleaded for any witnesses to come forward. What a Judas. She and Bill were the only ones who suspected him, but there was no evidence. When Curtis claimed to have been out of town at the time the murder occurred and provided his buccal swab for testing in order to exclude, she’d wondered then if her instincts had betrayed her.
He snowed everyone with his easy compliance—tried to throw us off. Abby’s annoyance was tempered by the knowledge that he couldn’t fool the science of an exact match. But match notwithstanding, she wanted a confession. Abby hated relying solely on DNA in court. As strong as a DNA match like this was, she wanted an admission and, if possible, a little contrition. She rarely got the contrition; usually criminals only felt bad about getting caught. But a case where someone actually expressed remorse always made her feel a little better.
Abby had kept tabs on Curtis and a finger on the pulse of the neighborhood in the months since the murder. There had been understandable anger over the lab situation. But the Joiners were patient, churchgoing people. They had faith they’d get their answers, and Abby was overjoyed that it appeared their faith would be rewarded today.
Bill walked in, and Abby hit him with the news before he could fill up his coffee mug.
It was just before 9 a.m. when they arrived in the quiet neighborhood and knocked on the front door of the suspect’s residence. The only precaution they’d taken was having a black-and-white cruise the alley to be certain the man didn’t flee. But neither Abby nor Bill expected the suspect would give them any trouble.
He didn’t. Javon Curtis invited them inside his house and then quietly accepted being handcuffed after they informed him that DNA identified him as at least a rapist and at most a killer.
Then everything went sideways.
Abby stepped out of the house onto the porch, Bill and Javon behind her. Bill pulled the door closed, and Abby turned to take the first step down. She snatched her weapon from its holster as training kicked in.
There was a man on the lawn pointing a gun at them.
From the corner of her eye she saw Javon try to bolt left. Bill grabbed at him while conflicting emotions swirled through Abby’s insides like a debris-filled tornado. The man with the gun was her victim’s father, Clayton Joiner.
“Put the gun down now!” she ordered, reflexively shifting left to shield Bill and Javon.
Joiner ignored her, also stepping to the left. “He murdered my baby!”
“Please, Clayton.” Abby’s gun was up and on target. A thousand questions begging—most of all: How did Clayton know?
“He’ll be charged; he’ll pay. Put the gun down.”
Something like a sob and a groan escaped his lips. He raised his gun and fired.
So did Abby.
Click here to buy
Get a sneak peek at the next novel in the Cold Case Justice series . . .
Click here to order now!
PROLOGUE
“This looks like a fairy-tale cottage, one you’d see painted on the cover of kids’ book.” Abby Hart turned toward Robert “Woody” Woods as they reached their destination. “Trouble is, in those books something bad often lives in the cottage.”
Her partner laughed. “Think an ogre lives here?” he asked as they stepped out of the car.
“If this were fairy-tale Grimm, you can bet that’s what we’d find.”
She stood by the car door for a minute and took a deep breath, enjoying the fresh air. It had rained yesterday, but today was gorgeous—seventy-five degrees, puffy white clouds dotting a brilliant-blue sky with a gentle breeze rustling leaves on the trees. She turned as the patter of paws caught her attention. A medium-size shepherd tro
tted up to her, wagging his tail. Abby missed her own little dog Bandit and bent to scratch his head.
“Hey, cutie, you live here?”
Woody joined her and for a moment they showered the dog with praise.
“Nice dog. Collar, no tag. Wonder where he belongs.”
“He’s a little on the thin side . . . I wonder.” She looked toward the house. “We can ask, but first let’s find out about the odd guy that used to work here.”
They left the dog and walked toward the house.
Abby knocked on the door and stepped off the porch to wait, noting that the dog had followed and was watching her, tail wagging. She’d try to remember to ask who owned the dog, if they came up empty on their search, that was. They were asking about a cold case and you never knew if you were going to touch a nerve, unearth a buried clue, or receive blank, empty stares.
She took a police tactic out of habit, moving to one side of the door as Woody stood on the other. She been part of the West Coast’s federal cold case squad since November, and was now working with Woody and PI Luke Murphy. But she’d known and worked with Woody for years before that. He’d been her first training officer in uniform and a good, solid friend for the fifteen years since. Though he’d retried from the PD, Woody eagerly jumped aboard the cold case squad and Abby was happy to be teamed up with him. Around them birds chirped, and she noticed a hummingbird feeder hanging from a branch on one of the oak trees.
She was about to knock again when the door opened. From the corner of her eye, she caught a blur of fur and realized that the dog fled, tail between his legs. Frowning, she turned to the tall, dark-haired and bearded man who had stepped partially into the doorway but stayed in the shadows.
“Sergio?” Abby asked.
“Si. El jefe, he send you?” Through his thick accent, his tone was guarded, suspicious, and it set Abby on edge. But there could be a lot of reasons he was nervous.
“Yes, I’m Detective Hart, and this is Investigator Woods. The owner told you we’d be coming by to ask you some questions?”
“About Chester?”
“Yeah, what kind of problems did he cause?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know where he is.”
“What can you tell us about the man?”
He shook his head, looking for all the world like he didn’t understand the question. Abby squinted, trying to read his face in the shadows.
“We’re not from immigration,” she said, hoping he’d stop being obtuse. “We’re looking for a witness to a crime that occurred near here a few years ago. Maybe it was this Chester.”
She glanced at her watch. They were scheduled to meet Agent Orson for an early lunch after this contact, and at this rate they would be late.
“Your boss told us you fired him. Do you remember anything about him?” Woody asked, trying a different tack.
“Sí, I fire him, but I don’t know where he go.”
He looked bewildered again, and Abby got impatient with the shtick. And with the sun hitting her in the face, this was a position of disadvantage. She was ready to move on but wanted to be 100 percent certain.
“Maybe you have employment paperwork we could look at. Would you mind if we came inside to talk for a few minutes?” she asked, praying the man didn’t pretend he didn’t know what that meant. His employer had told them that most employee records were kept with Sergio. She hoped that he’d have something that would provide a more detailed work history about Chester than they had so far.
Thankfully, Sergio nodded and stepped aside, motioning for Abby to enter his home. Abby stepped up onto the porch and into the house, Woody behind her.
Sergio let them enter and closed the door. Abby turned to look at him just as he brought his elbow up and struck Woody full force in the back of his head. Woody went down hard.
Shock gripped Abby by the throat, and she dropped her notebook to reach for her gun.
Too slow.
Sergio knelt on Woody’s back, flipped open a switchblade, and held it to the fallen man’s neck, just below the ear.
“Don’t move or I will kill him,” he ordered, voice calm, with no trace of an accent. Keeping the knife pressed to Woody’s neck with his left hand, he held out his right hand. “Hand me your gun by the grip.”
Abby hesitated as Sergio pressed with the knife and a drop of blood pinched out.
Face flushed, she tried to think, tried to see a way out of surrendering her weapon.
“Now. The gun. Hurry.”
Knowing Woody would bleed out in bare minutes if Sergio pressed any harder, Abby carefully drew her weapon and handed it to Sergio. He took it and thankfully removed the knife from Woody’s neck and stood upright, pointing her .45 at her. As he backed up, Abby knelt to check on Woody, who started to get up. He put a hand to his neck where Sergio had drawn blood and rose to his knees. To Abby he seemed okay, if a little shaky from the blow to the back.
“Kudos to you two for finding me after all this time. I’ve stayed well-hidden but never lost my paranoia. Does Victoria know?”
Neither Abby nor Woody answered.
“Does she know?” he demanded.
“She will, when we take your butt in,” Woody said, the timbre in his voice telling Abby he was more than a little shook up.
“You don’t get it. You think I’m the monster—you’re wrong. She’s the killer and if she finds me, she’ll finish the job. I can’t let that happen. I can’t let you tell her that you found me.” He extended the gun their direction.
All Abby could think was Welcome to fairy-tale Grimm.
THREE WEEKS EARLIER
“Please state your name for the court.”
Abby had to admit to almost feeling sorry for the woman sitting before the judge today. Less than a year ago, Kelsey Cox had retired as a deputy chief after a thirty-year, trailblazing law enforcement career. And here she was in a prison jumpsuit, no makeup, bad hairstyle, and looking so painfully thin, Abby winced. She also sported what looked like a fresh black eye. Someone in jail had most likely recognized her as an ex-cop. Abby wondered if that was why Kelsey insisted on the fast track for her confession. If so, she understandably wanted to get out of the city jail and into a state facility where there were fewer chances of being recognized. She was set to confess to murdering and then concealing the body of Buck Morgan, Abby’s father, more than twenty-seven years ago.
Yeah, Abby thought, I almost feel sorry.
Cox cleared her throat. “Kelsey June Cox.” She stared at the microphone she spoke into, seemingly oblivious to anyone else in the judge’s private chamber. This had been one of Kelsey’s demands—along with the plea to speed up the process and have her hearing as soon as possible—that she be able to give her statement in private, with only a few people present and no questions except from the judge. All in exchange for a mere fifteen-year sentence.
Sure, I’m getting a confession, Abby thought. But why do I feel as though in our effort to close this, we’ve dealt away justice—real justice?
She looked over at Walter Gunther, Long Beach’s police beat reporter. She’d fought to have him here in a simple demonstration of petulance. It was one battle won in a lost war. As glad as she was that he was in her corner, she wished it were Luke Murphy by her side, giving her support.
“Please proceed with your statement, Ms. Cox, about what occurred on the night of June 16, 1988.”
After a sip of water, Cox began. “On that night, I left work late, after 10 p.m., and returned to my home on Granada, in Long Beach, to hear two men arguing.” Her voice was thin and reedy, not the same one Abby remembered barking orders when Kelsey Cox was a supervisor in patrol.
“I shared the home with Gavin Kent. He was a fellow officer and my fiancé. I recognized him as being part of the argument, but it was only when I stepped out onto the patio that I saw who the other person was. It was Buck Morgan.” She paused to take a drink of water. Her gaze flickered briefly to Abby, then back down on the mic.
“Was Buck Morgan an acquaintance?” the judge asked.
“Buck Morgan was known to me as one of the owners of a restaurant that had burned down, the Triple Seven. The fire had occurred two nights previous, and it was assumed by everyone that Morgan had died in it.”
“Did someone die in the fire?”
“We found three bodies. At the time we thought them to be Buck Morgan, his wife, Patricia, and Luke Goddard, their cook.”
The judge scribbled some notes.
“When you stepped out onto the patio, did the two men see you?”
“No, uh . . . I mean, I think Gavin saw me, but I was behind Buck.”
“What was the argument was about?”
“I only caught bits of it—it really didn’t make sense, and like I said, I thought Buck was dead, and that concerned me. What if he had faked his death? It occurred to me that he might be a killer; he might have killed his wife, the cook, and set the fire . . .”
Abby was almost up out of her seat. Beside her, DA Drew gripped her hand, and Walter shook his head. Face hot, heart pumping, Abby slowly settled back into her chair. For the first time Cox steadily looked her way, expression blank.
Abby fumed. Gavin Kent was the one who burned down her father’s restaurant, killed her mother. Of course her father had a reason to be arguing with him. What was it Kelsey was going to confess to, a bad hair day and taking it out on her dad?
The judge cast a frown Abby’s direction and then nodded for Cox to continue.
“I didn’t really know what to think, or what was happening, but I could see that Buck was trying to get Gavin to go somewhere with him. Fearing for Gavin, I moved in behind Morgan.”
“Did you have a weapon?”
“I’d left my duty weapon in the house and I didn’t want to waste time by going back to get it. I grabbed a shovel—we were having work done in our backyard and there was one handy. Morgan was getting more animated. Gavin was vulnerable he’d hurt himself and was not 100 percent.”
Drawing Fire Page 29