“Are you going to try and do a dental on her? Match it to our missing girl?”
The question was lingering in the air around them. No one wanted to say the name out loud in case it would become truth, crystallized by meeting the air.
“I’m going to have to. She’s burned up pretty badly.”
“I’ll call and see if her parents are already up here. They’ll need to get her dental radiographs for us ASAP.”
“Thanks, Taylor. I’ll post her first thing in the morning.”
Sam reached over and gave Taylor a hug. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and turned back to her van.
Baldwin turned to Taylor, who looked stricken and suddenly very tired.
“Do you think it’s her?”
Taylor sighed. “Yeah.” She pulled out her cell phone and speed dialed. “Fitz? It’s Taylor. Just wanted you to know. We may have found Jill Gates.”
43
The parking lot was full, people rushing about, yelling, panicking. The air smoldered, the scents of smoke and death lingered. A shiver of excitement went through him. It was happening, just as he planned, as he’d been told.
“And the angel took the censer, and filled it with the fire of the altar...”
He turned away. So much left to do.
44
Jill woke when the needle pricked her arm. She shook her head, trying to clear her vision, focusing on the stinging in the crook of her elbow. She started to cry, then felt herself melt away into the darkness again.
She knew the drugs were making her hallucinate. She thought she was sitting in a massive green courtyard, even though she knew she was in the bed. She tried to get her bearings, looking first right, then left, but her head felt as if it was tethered in place. Her arms were bound at her side. She could only look ahead, to the expanse of green grass in front of her. There was a shadow there, a woman swaying like a cobra mesmerized by an unknown song. She tried to speak, to ask where she was, but no words came out. The shadow shifted, slowly, so slowly, side to side, and Jill heard the sound of sobbing. The woman was sad. So very sad. And suddenly she was gone, and the shadows lifted, leaving only a blank wall of green in their place.
Jill heard a voice in her head. She knew it came from the woman. She was angry now, crying and yelling. Her voice faded in and out, and Jill tried so hard to hear what she was saying, but only snatches of the woman’s voice came to her. “I will tell,” said the voice. “I will tell them what you’ve done.”
Another voice joined the mix, this one somewhat familiar, deeper, comforting. Was it soothing the woman, trying to calm her? The voice of the woman grew fainter, and Jill could hear the gentle voice, quieter this time. “You will be honored.”
THE
FIFTH
DAY
45
Taylor and Baldwin shivered in the parking lot of the church. It was barely morning and exceptionally cool, overcast, and breezy. A few times through the night, hot cups of coffee appeared magically at their elbows, borne in on a tray by a young man Taylor didn’t recognize. Despite her distaste for straight coffee, Taylor had accepted the steaming foam cups gladly, holding on to the precious warmth and choking down the bitter liquid. Baldwin had been sucking down cup after cup and was jumping around like a child on Christmas morning.
Taylor took in his appearance with a smile. “Baldwin, you’re a mess.”
He gave her a hurt look and bent to examine his reflection in the side mirror of her car. He took a halfhearted swipe at his hair, which was standing on end and pointing off in every direction like a broken compass needle. He had two days’ worth of stubble darkening his jaw and cheeks, and his eyes were bloodshot from the smoke and lack of sleep. He hadn’t felt so alive in months.
“Yeah, well, you look great.”
Taylor blushed and turned away. She knew he was full of it, but didn’t argue. The mark of a true southern belle: Never put aside a compliment. She ran her hands through her hair, smoothed the mass into a messy ponytail. Gave him a smile.
Though it had been several hours since the fire, the reek of burnt flesh was pervasive, even without the bodies present. Taylor had been smoking all night trying to get the smell out of her nose. She’d succeeded only in giving herself a sore throat. Her voice had lowered an octave. The chill, the smoke, and the slight cold were catching up to her. She popped two Advil Cold & Sinus pills out of their blister pack and swallowed them down with the remnants of coffee sloshing around her cup. She wrinkled her nose; it had gone cold.
Baldwin rubbed his hands together and shoved them deep in the pockets of his jeans. “Do you think they’re about done in there? I’m getting hungry.”
“They should be. Let’s go check with the chief, see what’s keeping them.” They started toward the entry of the nave, but the fire chief walked out before she could reach the doors. He greeted her with a tired smile.
“Lieutenant Jackson. Long night. You’ve been freezing your tush off the whole time?”
“Yep. Fire Chief Andrew Rove, meet Dr. John Baldwin, FBI. He’s working the case with us.”
They shook, and the chief said, “FBI, huh? Well, you’ll want to know this is, without a doubt, arson. The combustible gas detector found gasoline was used as an accelerant near the confessional. Jackson, your Crime Scene techs are trying to lift some prints from the priest’s office; it looks like there were people in there before the fire started. Tea for three, laid out on the coffee table. How very civilized.”
“Tea for three. But only two bodies. The victims knew their killer,” Baldwin said.
“Could be. We didn’t find anything leftover, no gas cans, no rope, nothin’. Place is clean as a whistle except for the office. We’re pulling out now, there’s nothing more for us to do.”
“Thanks, Chief. I look forward to the report.”
With a nod and a small salute, he went to his truck.
Tim Davis, Sam’s death investigator on the scene, walked out of the church with several bags in his hands. Taylor jogged over to him. “Anything worthwhile?”
“I managed to pick up prints off two of the teacups. Unfortunately, the third was clean, still full of tea. Untouched. There was some liquid left in the two that I printed. I’ll run it through the mass spectrometer and see what turns up. And I’ll get these prints over to Lincoln. If I were a betting man, I’d wager they belong to our vics, so there may be nothing to compare them to if we can’t lift something off their hands. Third cup was probably the person who set the fire. Didn’t want to leave any traces behind.”
Taylor chewed on that for a minute. Baldwin was silent. She could see the wheels turning in his head.
“Good work. Get out of here, Tim. Thanks for everything.”
He waved his bags at her and walked away. Taylor turned to Baldwin, confusion settling in her eyes. She needed some time to think about what had happened. “Wanna get some breakfast?”
He looked deep into her eyes, recognizing the frustration she was feeling. “Yeah, let’s do that. I’m starved. My mama always told me, ‘When in doubt, eat.’”
They made their way to the car and headed out. They took the back roads past the huge homes in Belle Meade into Green Hills, skirted the morning traffic down Hillsboro Road, and pulled into the parking lot of the Pancake Pantry, a well-established staple for breakfast in Nashville. The restaurant was so popular that an hour wait was not uncommon, but on this brisk morning, the line was blessedly absent. They had to wait ten minutes for the doors to open, both standing with hands in their pockets against the cold. Baldwin moved closer to shelter her from the worst of the breeze. Taylor leaned against him gratefully, happy for the contact as much as the warmth of his body.
When the hostess finally came to unlock the doors, Baldwin held the door for Taylor. Inside, she caught a glimpse of a flyer in th
e window. The poster featured a large picture of a smiling Jill Gates. The headline read Have You Seen Jilly? Under her picture were her vital statistics, what she was last seen wearing, and the phone number to the tip line. Taylor felt all the breath being sucked out of her body.
Glancing up and down the street, Taylor realized there were posters tacked in all the store windows and stapled over the latest band announcements on the telephone poles. She felt sick to her stomach. She’d just seen Jill Gates, and she didn’t look anything like the smiling woman in the picture.
She didn’t know how she managed to make it to the table; her legs were wobbly, her vision blackening. She felt the chair slide in under her, heard Baldwin order her a Diet Coke, but nothing was registering. She tried to breathe, but the panic attack was on her. She bent at the waist, trying not to faint.
She had no idea how long it took her to get it back together. She heard Baldwin muttering softly in her ear and realized he was sitting in the chair next to her, holding on for dear life. She was mortified to have fallen apart in front of him, not to mention in such a public venue. She drew in a few gulps of air. Her head started to clear, and she sat up. Baldwin let her go and leaned back into his chair, his eyes full of concern.
“You okay?”
She nodded. Her breathing was returning to normal, and she opened her eyes, shocked to see how scared Baldwin looked. She gave him a weak smile and tried to make a joke.
“You’ve never seen a southern belle have a fainting spell?”
“That was no fainting spell, Taylor. You had a nice, full-blown panic attack. This happen a lot?”
“Can we not talk about this here? I’m fine.” She’d recovered enough to take a drink of the soda in front of her. Great, the waitress had seen the whole thing too. But when she looked behind her, the woman was standing at the kitchen door cracking jokes with the dishwasher. Thank God.
“You don’t look fine, Taylor.”
“Baldwin, let it go, okay?” Her voice rose and she sounded ridiculous to herself. Of course he’d recognize a panic attack; he was a psychiatrist after all. Which meant he’d want to get to the bottom of it. She just wasn’t up for analysis right now. She gave a conciliatory smile. “I’m fine, really. Just too much caffeine, not enough sleep, and I’m coming down with something. Inner ear’s all messed up. I need to get some antibiotics or something. Don’t worry about it, okay?”
He still looked doubtful, but took a deep breath and backed off. She’d talk about it in her own time. “Okay. What do you want to eat?”
“A lot. I’m starved.”
The waitress came back, and Taylor thought she could see concern on her face, but she was all business, taking their orders and bustling off.
Baldwin wanted to defuse the moment, so he tried a different tack.
“I knew you in high school, you know.”
“What?” Taylor was shocked. She knew most everyone she’d attended school with. And she’d figured Baldwin was in his late forties. She gave him a good once over, and decided he was definitely younger than that. Years had melted off in the past few days. She could now see he was much closer to her own age.
“I transferred in to Father Ryan my senior year. You were a sophomore, I think. Pretty little thing.”
She blushed. “I can’t believe I don’t remember you. I always hung out with the older crowd. Sam was dating Simon Loughley. He’s the guy that runs Private Match. He was a senior when we were sophomores. Did you know him?”
“Knew of him. I kept to myself a lot.”
“Why’d you transfer in so late? Where were you before?” Taylor realized she was anxious to learn more of Baldwin’s background. She blamed it on simple southern nosiness, but knew she was trying to get closer, to figure him out.
A brief look of pain shadowed his face. “My folks died my junior year. Car accident. We lived over by Old Hickory Lake. My aunt was on the west side of town. She took me in and moved schools on me. I wasn’t too thrilled about it, but I didn’t have much of a choice. She was trying to do what was best for me.” He took a long drink of water, and the smile returned. “She was a crazy old bat, kept after me constantly. I loved her, though, and respected her wish to see me complete my education, just like my parents wanted. She pushed me from Father Ryan into a college in Virginia, Hampden-Sydney.”
“I know of it. All boys, right?”
“Yep. I met a psych teacher there I liked, and he suggested I go on to med school. So I hit up Johns Hopkins, they accepted, then I got the JD to go with the MD and the other degrees, and here I am.”
“Where’d you go to law school?”
“George Washington. That’s how I got into the FBI, actually. I met Garrett Woods, my old boss, at a symposium on campus. He recruited me hard, and it seemed like it would be fun. So I joined up, did my fieldwork, and he pulled me into the BSU after a few years. That’s where it all went downhill.” He realized he’d been babbling, so he tried to turn it around. “What about you? Where’d you end up?”
“Criminal justice at University of Tennessee in Knoxville. My parents were so proud.” Her sarcasm wasn’t lost on him. “Having their only child run off to be a cop was the last thing they wanted. Oh my God, I completely forgot.”
“Forgot what?”
She shook her head. “Oh, it’s nothing. My father called me a couple of days ago. With the case and all, I managed to block it out.”
“You don’t talk with him much?”
“Nope. Win isn’t...well, we had a falling-out a few years back. When I said that my parents weren’t thrilled I wanted to be a cop, I wasn’t kidding. He was never around, anyway, like he could have influenced any of my decisions.” She was pulling away again, back into her protective shell.
“It mustn’t have been easy to be Win Jackson’s daughter.”
She looked up and laughed. “So you know all about it, huh?”
“Not all of it. Some. I was out of state when he was indicted.”
“Such a proud day for me. Four counts of interference and tampering with an election of a circuit court judge. God, I thought I was going to die. I saw it all on the news. They didn’t even have the decency to let me know what was happening until it was all over. My mom divorced him while he was inside. She remarried and moved to Aspen with her new husband, who’s some sort of ski gigolo. We don’t have much in common anymore, you know?
“But good ol’ Win spent his three years at the Club Fed, came back all changed. Righteous, full of remorse for all those years he’d ignored his only child. Decided if I was going to be a cop, damn it, I was going to be chief of police. Starts calling around, trying to find ways to get me into plainclothes. Can you imagine? A convicted felon trying to call in favors? I could have died.”
Baldwin almost laughed. The thought of Taylor Jackson needing Daddy’s help to make it on the force struck him as patently absurd. “I assume you got wind of it and shut him down?”
“With a vengeance. Had to make sure everyone I had ever come in contact with knew it, too. I was getting shit from every corner. I was very nearly forced to quit, had to stay in uniform an extra year, which really pissed me off. The worst thing about it—I was getting promoted. I’d passed the sergeant’s exam right when he decided to help my career along. He set me back instead. So we don’t have a lot of father-daughter time, if you know what I mean.”
“Why do you think he called now?”
“God only knows. Probably heard the director of the FBI was leaving and wanted to let me know he’s trying to get my name in the hat.”
Baldwin’s face darkened, and Taylor knew she had tripped right into his own nightmares. She decided she needed to change the subject, get back on safe ground.
“Anyway, I wanted to go to UT. Sam went there to be with Simon, so I went there, too. Familiarity, you know? Only I’m not h
alf as smart as Sam. She went on to med school, and I came back here and joined the force. That’s it.”
“Are Sam and Simon still together?”
“Yeah. They have been taking it very slowly. Every time I think they’re going to take the next step, something always comes up. Sam’s become the master of relationship procrastination. I think settling down scares the crap out of her. Simon gets so upset with her. He wants kids yesterday, and she won’t marry him until she’s ready to do that. They love each other, so they’ll work it out. Eventually.”
They were silent for a moment, each reveling in their new information on the other.
“So what happened with your shooting?” Baldwin asked.
Taylor was caught off guard. She stared at him blankly, visions of bullets and blood dancing through her brain. She immediately went on the defensive. “Why do you want to hear about it? Has Price said something to you?”
Baldwin shook his head. “No, no. Sorry, it’s none of my business. I’ve just been wondering what happened, that’s all. I haven’t heard the story, and I’d rather get it from your mouth than the rumor mill.”
Taylor was bristling like a cornered cat. “There’s no story to hear. We had a cop who was dirty. I found out. He tried to kill me. I shot him. That’s it.” She stopped herself before she told him everything. I killed a man who at one time I thought was my friend. And more.
Taylor’s cell phone chirped. She answered it with relief.
“Jackson...Yeah?...Okay, we’ll be there in a minute.” She clicked off. No more intrusions into her private world. All business, that was the way she needed to keep things with John Baldwin. He could be more dangerous than a loaded pistol pointed at her forehead. She felt a pang of sadness; she had enjoyed their breakfast, minus her little panic attack. She stood and gestured for him to follow.
“That was Price. Jill’s parents brought in her dental records. Time to go to work.”
Field of Graves Page 17