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“So, how about letting me take a look at Jill Scott,” J.D. said, then added, “if it is Jill Scott.”
“There’s a good chance it is Ms. Scott’s body, but no positive ID. Not yet.” Hudson glanced at his partner. “Tam will go with you. Look all you want, but don’t touch.”
J.D. wanted to remind Hudson that he wasn’t some rookie who needed instructions, but he kept quiet. For now, he wasn’t assigned to this case, and any privileges Hudson afforded him were at his discretion. He had worked with police and sheriffs’ departments throughout the state and understood how territorial local law enforcement could be. Trying not to step on any toes was just part of his job. A part he damn well hated. He wasn’t known for his diplomatic abilities. He supposed that was one reason he was still a field agent. That and a hot temper he’d been trying to control all of his life.
The TBI’s role was to assist local law enforcement in investigating major crimes, the operative word being “assist.”
When Officer Lovelady motioned to J.D., he followed her past the swarm of investigators and onto the restaurant’s wide porch.
Peter Tipton spotted J.D. and Tam heading his way. He paused in his examination of the body and moved aside to give J.D. a complete view of the corpse.
The victim—not yet positively identified as Jill Scott—sat upright in one of the numerous rocking chairs on the Cracker Barrel porch. Her eyes were shut and at first glance she seemed to be sleeping. Something swaddled in a delicate blue baby shawl lay nestled in her lap. J.D. strained to get a better look at the object.
He took a step closer, and then stopped.
“We thought at first it was a doll,” Tam told J.D. “But it’s not.”
Good God almighty!
“It’s real,” J.D. said.
“Oh yeah, it’s real all right,” Tipton replied.
J.D. had seen some weird sights in his time, as well as several sickeningly gruesome scenes, but never anything like this.
“It’s a first for me,” Tipton said.
“Yeah, me, too. Any idea who … what …?” J.D. found himself stammering, something he never did. But then he’d never seen a fresh corpse cradling the skeletal remains of a small child. He cleared his throat and asked, “Any idea how either of them died? The woman—?”
“Asphyxiation.”
J.D. studied the dark-haired victim sitting so serenely in the wooden rocking chair. Traffic from the nearby interstate hummed over the din of voices, conversations blending with news coverage and bystanders’ comments. Overhead the September sky was clear, the morning sun warm, the temperature somewhere in the high seventies. The beginning of a perfect pre-autumn day. But not so perfect for Jill Scott.
“Method of asphyxiation?” J.D. asked.
“Probably suffocation,” Tipton replied. “There’s no sign of strangulation.”
“How long do you think she’s been dead?”
Tipton glanced at the corpse. “She’s in full rigor. Time of death—six to twelve hours ago. I’d guess eight to ten.”
“You don’t think she was killed here, do you?” J.D. asked.
“She was probably killed somewhere else sometime before midnight and then brought here while it was still dark so it would be less likely anyone would see what was happening.”
“Yeah, not much chance anyone saw something.”
“Whoever killed her staged this little scene,” Tam Lovelady said. “He painted us a picture.”
“Mother and child,” J.D. surmised.
“He’s a sick son of a bitch, whoever he is.” Tam stared at the victim. “She looks so damn peaceful.”
“He went to a great deal of trouble to dispose of her body in such a dramatic fashion.” J.D. remembered a bizarre case in Memphis when he was a rookie agent where the killer had placed his victims by the river, sitting up in a camp chair and holding a fishing pole. Weirdest thing he’d ever seen. Until now. “He’s telling us something. We just have to figure out what it is.”
“He’s telling us that he’s fucking crazy,” Garth said, his voice a low grumble, as he came up behind them.
“What about the child?” J.D. asked.
“At this point, nothing more than the obvious—that the woman and the child didn’t die at the same time. So, if that’s all, J.D., I need to get back to work,” Tipton said. “We’re about ready to bag the body and the skeleton.”
“Yeah, sure thing.” As Tipton walked away, J.D. called to him. “We’ll talk again later.”
Tipton threw up his hand in a backward wave as he walked off.
“Are you hanging around?” Garth asked J.D.
“I thought I would, if you have no objections.”
Garth shook his head. “My crime scene is your crime scene.”
With a hard, craggy face, deep-set hazel eyes, and thinning gray hair, Garth Hudson looked every one of his fifty-some-odd years. Borderline butt-ugly, the sergeant wouldn’t win any beauty contests, but he was neat as a pin. Whenever J.D. saw the man, Garth was wearing neatly pressed slacks, a jacket, and a tailored shirt.
J.D. and the investigators watched quietly while Tipton slipped the blue baby blanket and its contents into a body bag and then carefully handed the tiny unknown child to one of his assistants. That done, he went back to the woman in the rocking chair. He covered the victim’s head, feet, and hands with individual bags and secured them with tape.
They stood by respectfully until the body was bagged and removed from the scene.
Before they could resume their conversation, a series of ear-piercing screams and mournful cries stopped everyone in their tracks.
“What the hell?” Garth’s gaze traveled around the crime scene and beyond, searching for the source of the noise.
“I want to see her!” a female voice shouted. “If it’s my baby, I want to see her!”
A uniformed officer rushed over to Garth. “It’s the mother. Jill Scott’s mother.”
“Damn!” Garth huffed. “How the hell did she find out?”
“My guess is from the live TV coverage.” Tam motioned past the crime scene tape to the horde of reporters chomping at the bit for a closer view.
“The whole family just showed up,” the officer said. “Mom, Dad, and kid sister. The mom’s screaming her head off.”
“Keep her out of here,” Garth said. “But tell the guys they’re to handle the family with kid gloves.”
“Want me to take care of it?” Tam asked. “I can go talk to the family.”
“Yeah,” Garth said. “You can handle a hysterical woman a lot better than I can.”
When Tam gave her partner a you’re-a-chauvinist-pig glare before walking away, J.D. fell into step beside her.
“Do you do that a lot?” J.D asked.
Without slowing her pace, Tam said, “Do what?”
“Handle the unpleasant tasks for your partner?”
“Sergeant Hudson and I have been partnered for less than a month. I’m the new investigator on the homicide squad. But before then, yeah, I usually handled anything my partner thought was woman’s work. Other women. Kids. Anything that had to do with emotional issues.”
“And you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind. I don’t have anything to prove. I know I’m a very good police officer and I’ll be a very good detective. And I don’t think of it as a negative thing that I’m capable of handling some of the most difficult aspects of being a police officer.”
“And one of those difficult aspects is dealing with the victim’s family.”
“Can you think of anything more difficult than telling a mother that her child is dead?”
Debra Gregory tugged on the ropes that bound her red, chafed wrists to the arms of the rocking chair. Her seemingly useless struggles to free herself had eaten away skin, leaving her wrists and ankles bruised and bloody. He had secured her feet together and tied her wrists before he had left her. She had screamed for help until she was hoarse, but had soon realized no one could hear her and that’s why he hadn’t gagged her. Wherever he was holding her captive was so isolated that there was no danger of anyone hearing her screams.
Dark and damp. And as silent as a grave.
Terror had given way to frustration, and frustration to anger.
She had lost count of how many hours she’d been in this horrible, obsidian hell. He had left her alone for what seemed like days, alone in the pitch-black darkness. She didn’t think she’d been here days. Not yet. Only a few hours. Maybe a little longer. God help her, she wasn’t sure.
The last thing she remembered before waking up here was coming out of the gym late Tuesday night. Days ago? Hours ago? She’d been one of the last to leave shortly before closing at eleven and noticed that only two other cars remained in the parking lot. She had hit the Unlock button on her keypad before reaching her Lexus, and just as she’d opened the door, someone had grabbed her from behind. It had happened so quickly. A strangely sweet odor coming from the cloth he cupped over her nose and mouth. Her senses dulling as the anesthetic took effect. The weightless feeling as he lifted her off her feet. And then unconsciousness.
The police are looking for me. My family is doing everything possible to find me. I’ll be rescued soon. I can’t give up hope. I have to stay alive, no matter what.
When would he come back?
She was alone in the darkness, strapped to a chair, unable to escape, going slowly out of her mind. Suddenly a dim light instantly obliterated the darkness.
She turned her head sideways, but couldn’t see the source of the light. It came from somewhere across the room. A candle? A lantern? Maybe a night-light?
Light had to mean that he had returned. Not enough light to see anything clearly, just enough to make out shapes and shadows.
Debra’s heartbeat pounded in her ears. Her fear escalated quickly as she sensed him moving toward her. Closer and closer.
“Did you have a nice rest while I was gone?” he asked from where he stood behind her.
“Please … please let me go.” Her voice quavered. “I haven’t seen your face. I don’t know who you are. I can’t identify you.” She was bargaining for her life, pleading with this unknown, unseen devil.
He stroked her hair, his touch terrifyingly tender. “You’re talking nonsense. Of course you know who I am.” He untied her left hand and rubbed her chafed, bloody wrist before pulling her arm inward toward her waist.
“I don’t …” She drew in a sharp breath when he reached over her head and around her shoulder and placed something in the curve of her arm. She looked down at the bundle lying in her lap and was able to make out the form of what she thought might be a baby wrapped securely in a blanket.
No, no, it couldn’t be a baby. It wasn’t moving, wasn’t crying. It wasn’t warm and alive.
“He needs you,” the man told her. “He won’t rest unless you sing to him.”
She swallowed the fear lodged in her throat. Was she holding a doll, a very large baby doll? As her vision adjusted to the semidarkness, she looked right and left, then upward, trying to catch a glimpse of her jailor. All she saw were his legs clad in jeans and the sleeves of his dark jacket.
“Sing to him. You know the song he likes,” he told her, his voice soft yet stern. “Rock him to sleep the way you do every night.”
“I—I don’t remember the song.”
“Of course you do. Now sing to him.”
She forced out the words of the most familiar lullaby she knew. “Rock-a-bye baby—”
“That’s not the right song!” he shouted. “Sing the right song. He wants you to sing the song you always sing. You know the words!” And then he sang the first verse. “Hush, little baby, don’t say a word …”
On the verge of screaming hysterically, Debra somehow managed to sing as she held the blanket-wrapped bundle in her arms. She vaguely remembered the tune, but not the lyrics. Sing, damn it. Make up the words. Improvise! Your life could depend on it.
“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word, Mama’s going to buy you a golden ring.” Her voice quivered. “If that golden ring don’t shine, Mama’s going to sing, sing, sing.”
“You’re mixing up the words.” Leaning over her, watching her, his breath warm against her neck, he whispered, “But he loves the sound of your voice. We both do. Keep singing.”
Debra forced the words, making them up as she went along, trying her best to fit them to the tune she barely remembered. She tried not to cry, not to panic, not to say or do something that would upset her captor. He held her life in his hands. As long as she cooperated and played his little game, she had a chance of staying alive.
Why she chose that moment—midsong and midthought of doing whatever was necessary to stay alive—to glance down at the doll, she would never know. With her eyes fully adjusted to the dim, distant light, she was able to see the object in her arms. Not a doll at all.
The song died on her lips, and the scream vibrating in her throat remained trapped there by sheer paralyzing horror.
Chapter 2
Charlie Scott kept his arm clutched tightly around his wife’s shoulders, the strength of his hold the only thing stopping her from breaking through the yellow barricade tape that separated the onlookers from the crime scene. While Mary Nell pleaded with her husband to release her, Audrey held eighteen-year-old Mindy’s damp, shaky hand as she tried to talk to Mary Nell. But Mary Nell was beyond listening, beyond anyone helping her at this point. There would be a time, later on, days from now or perhaps weeks or months, that Audrey might be able to help her. But not today.
“Why won’t someone tell us if it’s Jill or not?” Mindy’s soft voice was barely audible over her mother’s loud, pitiful cries.
“The police probably haven’t identified the victim,” Audrey said. “Until they do, we cannot lose hope that the woman they found isn’t Jill.”
“I can’t stand it.” Mindy gripped Audrey’s hand. “Mom’s falling apart and …” Unable to control her tears, Mindy jerked away from Audrey and dropped her head, hunched her trembling shoulders, and covered her face with her hands.
As Audrey turned to comfort Mindy, she spotted her friend Tamara Lovelady, lifting the crime scene tape, walking under it, and heading in their direction. She and Tam had been friends all their lives. Both of their dads had been Chattanooga policemen. Oddly enough, she and Tam had been born exactly two days apart. How many birthday parties had they shared over the years? Their last party had been four years ago when they turned thirty, an event hosted by Tam’s parents.
Tam’s eyes widened with a hint of surprise when she saw Audrey. Despite Mary Nell reaching out to Tam, she passed by Jill’s mother and came straight to Audrey.
“Are you here with the Scott family?” Tam asked.
“Yes. Mary Nell—Mrs. Scott—was with me when we got the news about the body being found here in Lookout Valley.” Audrey leaned down and whispered, “Is it Jill Scott?”
Tam, who stood five-three in her bare feet, looked up at Audrey, who towered over her at five-nine, and replied, “We’ll need a family member to officially ID the body, but, yes, we’re pretty sure it’s her.”
“What are y’all talking about?” Mary Nell demanded, her eyes wild with fear. “Tell me! I have every right to know if …” She gulped down her hysterical sobs. “If it’s Jill, I want to see her.”
“Mrs. Scott, I’m Officer Lovelady.” Tam’s gaze settled sympathetically on Mary Nell. “The body is being taken to the ME’s office. We’d appreciate it if a member of the family”—Tam looked directly at Charlie Scott —“would identify the body.”
Mary Nell keened shrilly, the sound gaining everyone’s immediate attention.
