Uncovered: A Hearts of the South story

by Linda Winfree

  Knowledge and recognition flared in Nick Hall’s eyes. He knew. Madeline watched him, the way his slight body tensed before his shoulders fell. Intuitive realization trailed through her. This was the person who’d murdered Kelly.

  Or he knew who had.

  The knowledge flashed through her mind in mere seconds.

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Tick said in a quiet voice.

  Hall nodded. “I know why you’re here.”

  Madeline sensed the jolt of surprise that ran through Tick’s tall frame. She could relate. She’d never had a possible suspect come out with something like that.

  “Why are we here, Mr. Hall?” Madeline asked.

  “You’re here because of the girl.” Hall seemed to fold in on himself. “The one under the house.”

  Madeline lifted her eyebrows at Tick. His mouth tight, Tick held up a hand. “Please don’t say anything else, Mr. Hall. I would like for you to come back to Chandler County with us to answer a few questions and possibly give us a statement, but first I need to apprise you of your rights.”

  Hall nodded, listening in silence while Tick rattled off the Miranda warning. Hall’s expression of quiet acceptance never altered. Confusion twisted Madeline’s brow into a frown. In her experience—and she’d had plenty—suspects didn’t do this.

  “Do you understand each of these rights as I’ve explained them to you?”

  Hall’s chin moved in a short nod and his Adam’s apple bobbed in a hard swallow. “Yes.”

  “Bearing these rights in mind, would you like to talk to us now?”

  Hall nodded once more, and this time, before his lashes fell, Madeline caught the glitter of tears in his blue eyes. “Yes, I want to talk to you.” He pointed over his shoulder. “Should I get my keys or do I have to ride with you?”

  “You’re not under arrest,” Madeline said. She met Tick’s shuttered gaze, and he nodded. “You can drive if you like, and we’ll follow.”

  Within minutes they were on the highway again. Tick’s attention locked on Hall’s SUV before them, traveling at a moderate speed. “Madeline, have you ever…?”

  “No. Never.”

  “Me, either.” He dragged a hand through his hair, the dark strands falling on his forehead in disarray. He really needed a haircut. “It’s too easy.”

  “He didn’t mention a lawyer.” Madeline brought up the point that niggled most with her. The guilty ones always screamed for a lawyer first. It was the ones who believed themselves innocent who often did not.

  Back at the sheriff’s department, they escorted Nick Hall inside. In the squad room, on their way to the small interview room, Tick paused. “What the hell?”

  “Son of a bitch! You fucking asshole!”

  Madeline frowned toward the stairs. A woman’s voice screaming obscenities trailed up from the jail level.

  A familiar female voice. Madeline caught Tick’s eye. “That’s—”

  “Yeah.” As Cookie’s voice joined Allison’s incensed screaming, a grin hitched up one corner of Tick’s mouth. “That’s from the booking area. Guess that warrant came through, and he turned up enough for an arrest. This way, Mr. Hall.”

  In the small room, Madeline reviewed the Miranda warning with Hall again and procured his signature on the release while Tick set up the video camera to record the interview. Madeline waited, impatience trembling through her. Finally, Tick settled into the chair farthest from the table and jerked his chin at her, tacit permission for her to take the lead in the small gesture.

  She folded her hands on the table. “Mr. Hall, tell us about the girl under the house.”

  He buried his face in his hands, a rough sound—almost a sob—shaking his body. “I tried to forget about her. I knew this would happen some day, but I tried to forget. In the last few months, since I came to the Lord, I knew I should come forward, tell someone, but I was afraid.”

  “We’re all afraid at times,” Tick said in a soft, almost expressionless voice. “Were you afraid of someone? Was there someone else involved?”

  “No. No.” Shaking his head, Hall lowered his hands. “Just me. I did it.”

  Madeline caught Tick’s eye again, read her own surprise reflected in his dark gaze. Just him? Had they been wrong?

  She leaned forward. “Tell us what happened, please.”

  “I’d been at a party—”

  “One second, please.” Tick grimaced and scratched a note on his pad. “What month was this?”

  “September. After Labor Day.” Hall rubbed a hand over his eyes. “I’d been at this party and I met this girl. Shoot, I never even knew her name. She’d been drinking or something, like she was high or something, right? Stumbling, slurring her words. I wasn’t sober, neither. She was real cute and I thought… Well, she didn’t fuss any when I kissed her. She even went to the car with me, and I took her home, back to my place.”

  “The house on Miller Court,” Tick clarified.

  “Yeah. That one.” Hall paused, staring down at his hands splayed on the tabletop. “We came in the back door, into the kitchen. Once we were inside, we, um, I started to touch her. I thought she was into it, you know? Except then she starts crying, and she’s trying to push me back. I grabbed her, shoved her into the counter and cussed at her for playing hard to get. I was a different person back then, you know?”

  Tick scratched another note and flicked a glance at him. “Go on.”

  “So she picked up this knife I’d left out on the counter and tried to cut me. Like I said, she was drunk or high or something, and she barely scratched me, but it pissed me off. I took the knife away from her and…and…”

  Eyes clenched shut, he bit down hard on his lip. His shoulders shook. Madeline stared, no sympathy stirring in her. But she had plenty of questions swirling around. Something about his story didn’t sit right.

  She leaned back in her chair. “And? What happened?”

  Even she could hear the chill in her voice. Yes, bitch-cop, as Jack had so often called her, was back in full force.

  “I just went crazy. I snatched the knife, and I stabbed her, over and over.” Hall’s voice broke. “And then it was done and she was lying there on the floor and there was so much blood…I panicked. I hid the body under the house and cleaned up and waited for the police to catch up with me. Sometimes I’d forget for days at a time, but then I’d dream of it and all of it would be right back in my head.”

  Madeline focused on his face. “Is that all?”

  “Yeah.” Hall nodded, a sick look twisting his features. “That’s all.”

  Tick looked up. “You’re sure?”

  Obviously, he’d noticed the same thing she had.

  “I’m sure.”

  Tick gave a slow nod. “I want to get your official statement. Investigator Holton and I will be right back.”

  In the hallway, Tick leaned an arm on the wall. Madeline gazed through the two-way glass. “Notice anything odd?”

  “Like how he didn’t mention anything about Allison?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t involved.” As much as it pained her to articulate it, the detective in her had to face the fact—it was entirely possible Allison hadn’t been involved. “He didn’t say anything about a head injury.”

  “Ford said she’d taken a hit to the skull hard enough to kill her.”

  “Know what else bugs me?” Madeline rested her shoulders against the wall and stared at the map of Chandler County hanging opposite. “He keeps talking about her being drunk or stoned…and Kelly didn’t drink, ever. No drugs either.”

  “She’d been gone a long time, Madeline. People change.”

  “But she was moving forward with her life, Susan said so. Why would she have been drinking or using if she came up here to confront Allison?”

  “False courage, maybe?”

  “No.” That much she was sure of. “I don’t think so.”

  Tick frowned. “He said she was stumbling, slurring her words.”

  “Yes.
”

  His eyes glinted. “So what else causes that?”

  “You mean something like a slow subdural cerebral hemorrhage?” Madeline tilted her head. “From a head injury that she suffered at or before that party?”

  Tick cleared his throat and passed a hand over his jaw. “We need a time frame.”

  “Yeah. Go call Ford. I’ll take his statement, find out everything I can about the location of that party, who might have been there.”

  “Madeline…the guy confessed. He killed her. She was alive when she got to his house. That makes him the murderer.”

  “Yes, and I don’t believe Kelly would have gone with him if she’d been in her right mind. I want to find out what happened to put her in that situation. She deserves the truth, Tick.”

  “Yeah. I know.” His voice lowered, roughened. “I’ll go call Ford.”

  “Man, you really know how to pick ’em.”

  At Cookie’s dry remark, Tick looked up. He’d been on hold with the GBI lab longer than he wanted to think about. “What are you talking about?”

  “At least your taste improved.” Cookie dropped into the chair facing Tick’s desk. A wicked grin curved his mouth. “I don’t think Falconetti ever referred to me as a ‘fucking asshole’.”

  Tick couldn’t resist the answering grin. While Caitlin could curse with the best of them—more than a decade in law enforcement tended to enhance one’s vocabulary—he was pretty sure those particular words had never left her lips joined together. Her taste in insults ran a little more highbrow. “I think she’s referred to you as a cretin once or twice, though.”

  Cookie gave him the finger, and Tick laughed. He set the phone to speaker and returned the receiver before leaning back in his own chair.

  “I’m assuming since you have her downstairs that the warrants turned up something.”

  “Yeah. She used the computer at Donna Martin’s house, where she’s staying while she’s out of her own place. Tried to play it off, lay the blame on Donna, but Donna was clocked in at the chicken plant and the kids were at a friend’s, so her story doesn’t even begin to hold water. I don’t think she’s gonna be welcome at Donna’s after she makes bail.”

  Tick pinched the bridge of his nose. “That’s great. Wish she’d thought about that before she did something this stupid. What about her kids?”

  “That woman reproduced?”

  Tick held up two fingers. “Twice. One from each marriage.”

  “That bitch as somebody’s mother is a scary thought.”

  “Yeah.” A humorless laugh puffed from his lips. “Try imagining her as the mother of your kid.”

  “No thanks.” A grimace twisted Cookie’s mouth. “But it sounds like you’ve been there a time or two in your head.”

  “She lied to me about being on the pill back when we were dating. I checked the oldest daughter’s date of birth, just to make sure.”

  With the background music provided courtesy of the GBI, Cookie laughed, damn him, deep guffaws that grated on Tick’s already stretched nerves.

  “What is so damn funny?”

  “The idea of you”—Cookie pointed at him—“married to her.” He gestured toward the hall and the stairs beyond. “She’s the type to smother a guy in his sleep because he told her his steak was underdone. What the hell did you ever see in her?”

  “I was a kid. What do you think I saw in her?”

  A knowing gleam lit Cookie’s gray eyes. He opened his mouth, and Tick cut him off. “Has she tried making bail?”

  Cookie shrugged. “She called Larry over at Quick Bonds, but he hasn’t done anything yet.”

  Tick steepled his fingers and tapped them against his mouth. “Wouldn’t mind keeping her here as long as we could. Makes me feel better knowing where she is and that she can’t do anything.”

  “I can charge her with assault or making terroristic threats.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Cussed me out, told me I’d be sorry. Sounds like a threat to me.”

  “Me too.” It was a technicality, and Tick struggled with the ethics for all of two seconds. “Charge her. We can drop it later. If Larry’s willing to throw bail on both charges, hold him off as long as you can. I want some time to try to link her to Kelly Coker’s death.”

  “Gotcha. Want me to—”

  “Agent Ford.” Sara Ford’s deceptively sweet voice cut him off. Tick reached for the receiver.

  “It’s Calvert. I need to ask you a couple of questions about Kelly Coker’s autopsy.”

  “Okay. Hang on one second while I find the report.” Papers rustled on her end. “Got it. What do you need to know?”

  “That skull fracture you mentioned. Could she have bled out from that head injury?”

  “I believe so, yes. It’s a radiating fracture, from blunt-force trauma.”

  “If she died from the stab wounds, what’s the time frame for her receiving that blow to the head?”

  “From the size of the fracture? Thirty minutes to an hour. Any longer and she’d have been unconscious.”

  “The brain bleed…would that present as drunkenness?”

  “It could. She’d be disoriented, uncoordinated, probably displaying slurred speech.”

  Hell, yeah. He scratched notes on the conversation. “You said thirty minutes, maybe an hour?”

  “Probably closer to the thirty-minute mark. It depends, but my money would be on a fast bleed.”

  He frowned and doodled his name across the bottom of the pad. “Any idea how she got the head injury? I mean, is it from an object striking her or her head hitting a hard surface?”

  “I can’t say for sure, Calvert—”

  “But you have a theory, Ford. You always do.”

  “The fracture is to the back of her skull…like someone slammed her head against a wall or into the floor. Does that help?”

  “More than you can imagine.” He tapped his pen on the pad. “Thanks, Ford. I owe you one.”

  “You owe me several.”

  “Yeah. I’ll make it up to you at some point, I promise. Later.”

  “Somehow, I think you’ve made that promise to me in the past. Goodbye, Calvert.”

  Replacing the receiver, he went looking for Madeline. He found her in the squad room, typing Nick Hall’s statement. The subdued man sat in the hard wooden chair cater-corner to the desk, responding in a low voice to Madeline’s periodic questions. Tick pulled up a chair at an angle. Madeline cast a quick look in his direction.

  “The party then, you said it took place at the home of one Jon Williams?”

  “Yes.”

  Madeline glanced at Tick again, obviously to see if the name got a reaction. He nodded at her. He knew Jon Williams, they both did—he’d been a year behind Tick in school, had graduated with Madeline—and if Tick remembered him correctly, had been the kind of kid neither of their parents would have wanted them hanging out with. Trouble from the word go.

  “So, Kelly, the girl under the house…who invited her?”

  Confusion twisting his face, Hall shrugged. “Nobody. It wasn’t that kind of party. People just showed up.”

  Tick leaned forward, hands clasped before him in a loose grip. “Did you see her with anyone?”

  Hall shook his head. “She stumbled out of the bathroom as I was coming down the hall, ran into my chest and put her arms around me.” He fingered the tattoo on the inside of his wrist. “That’s why I thought she was into us, you know?”

  “How long was that before you left?”

  “I dunno…maybe five minutes. I grabbed another beer and we left.”

  “How long did it take you to get back to your place? The Williams place is out in the country, right?” With each of Tick’s easy questions, Madeline’s fingers clicked over the laptop keys. He was grateful for that, as her transcription allowed him to watch Hall’s face for reaction rather than split his attention taking notes.

  “Ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

  Approximately twenty minu
tes, which fit within Ford’s timeline.

  Only they still didn’t know how she’d received the head injury. Or how she’d gotten to that party.

  A frown tugging at his brows, Tick met Hall’s miserable gaze. Hell, maybe he should go for broke. “Did you know a girl named Allison Barnett? She might have been going by the last name Turner.”

  “No. I don’t remember an Allison anybody.”

  Tick didn’t miss Madeline’s did-you-really-think-it-would-be-that-easy look. He lifted his eyebrows in a one-could-hope expression before realization slammed into him. Holy hell, they were using the same nonverbal communication he and Cookie employed. Somewhere along the way, she’d become one of them.

  He cleared his throat. “Mr. Hall, we’re charging you in Miss Coker’s death. I’m going to have a deputy escort you downstairs to intake, where you’ll be fingerprinted and booked into custody.”

  After he’d called a jailer up to handle the booking and they were alone in the squad room, he expelled a rough sigh. “Damn it.”

  Madeline looked up from her laptop. “What?”

  “Just facing an ugly fact.” He shoved a hand through his hair.

  A small frown drew her brows together. “Which fact is that?”

  “The totally shitty one that says we may never be able to tie Allison to Kelly’s death.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Don’t throw in the towel just yet, Calvert.” Madeline saved the file holding Hall’s confession and sent it to the printer. “Just because Hall didn’t place Allison there doesn’t mean we don’t have avenues. There were other people at that house.”

  “Well yeah, I know, but it’s not like there was a guest list we can track down.”

  “True, but we’re talking about the wicked witch of Chandler County here. Back then, she never went anywhere without her entourage. Ten bucks says either Donna or Stacy was with her. They might be loyal, but they’re not stupid. If they think they might face charges of some sort for withholding information—”

  “Donna’s pissed off with her.” A slow grin passed over Tick’s face. “Allison tried to pawn the whole putting-your-name-on-the-Internet thing off on her.”

  “Then that’s where we start.” Madeline pushed up from the chair and reached for her jacket. “Because if Donna’s in a mood, she’ll turn on Allison in a heartbeat. Trust me, been there, done that.”