Dangerous Passage (Southern Crimes Book #1): A Novel (7 page)

“So far, everything I’ve dug up has been aboveboard. And I’ve finished translating the letters.”

“Anything?”

“They’re letters from a friend . . . maybe her sister? From what I can tell, there doesn’t seem to be anything significant about the letters themselves except sentimental value.”

They were back to far more questions than answers. “So Tala keeps a couple letters, a photo, and an expensive ring—something Mr. Philips just confessed to taking—in a hidden pocket in her sweater. Why? Then our Mr. Philips finds her dead body—or kills her—and takes the letters and the ring, but leaves the photo.”

“Maybe I can answer that.” Tory leaned back in her chair and smiled. “I saved the best for last. I don’t think our Mr. Philips is as innocent as he’s trying to appear. There are no traffic cams in the immediate vicinity to the alley, but the bar beside it has a camera set up.”

“You’ve got footage of the alley?”

“Unfortunately, no, but there is one at the entrance. It picked up James Philips walking out of the alley, away from the murder scene.”

Avery shook her head. She needed something more. “That just proves what we already know. He’s confessed to being there and we have his fingerprints on our dead girl.”

“Oh, there’s more. Mrs. Waters told us that she saw him the night of the murder about four fifteen.”

“Right. That’s about the same time he just told us in the interrogation room.”

“But here’s where things get interesting. The video catches him leaving the alley not once . . . but twice.”

Avery smiled. Now Tory had her attention. “Twice.”

“The time stamp verifies that he was there at four thirty. But he was also there two hours earlier, exiting the alley.”

“Two hours earlier? That would place him there around the estimated time of death.”

“Two twenty-four, to be exact. Which means at four thirty, our Mr. Philips had already been there.”

“But why return to the crime scene?”

“That I don’t know. But we know that, one, he’s not telling the complete truth, and two, while we probably can’t narrow down the time of death any further, Mr. Philips was there during that window.”

Avery’s mind began to spin. “Did the cameras pick up anyone else exiting the alley?”

“Not during our time frame, but if Mr. Philips isn’t our killer, they could have exited from the other side of the alley. There were no camera angles on the other side.”

“Good work.” The pieces were finally starting to come together. Avery pulled out the receipt from the pawnshop. “Tory and Carlos, I want you to find me this ring. I want to know why Tala was hiding it. Maybe it was the Sourns’ and they’d turned in a claim to their insurance or filed a police report on it recently. Mitch, see if you can find any connection to James Philips and the murder of our last Jane Doe.”

Tory pulled her bag out from under her desk, then paused. “So you think Tala stole the ring from the Sourns?”

“That’s something I intend to find out.” Avery grabbed her car keys off her desk. “Which is why I’ve got a couple more questions for Mrs. Sourn, then I’ll be ready to go another round with Mr. Philips.”

M
rs. Sourn. I appreciate your willingness to speak to me again.” Avery sat on the same place on the couch as her last visit, this time without Mitch.

The paleness in the woman’s features hadn’t left her. “You know I want to do everything I can to help find my niece’s murderer.”

“I need to ask you about a ring.” Avery handed Mrs. Sourn a photo of the ring they’d gotten from the pawnshop. “Do you recognize this piece of jewelry?”

Mrs. Sourn fingered the photo. “I . . . yes. My husband had it custom designed. How did you get this photo?”

Avery ignored the woman’s question for now. “When was the last time you saw the ring?”

“I don’t know . . . two . . . maybe three months ago. I wore it to a dinner party with friends back at the end of April.”

“So you didn’t know it was missing?”

“No.” Mrs. Sourn set the photo down on the coffee table between them. “I assumed it was still in the jewelry box where I normally keep it.”

“We traced the maker’s mark on the ring to Hannah Celeste.”

“Yes, she’s one of the best designers in the area. I fell in love with her work several years ago and always wanted one of her
pieces. When my husband surprised me with it for one of our anniversaries, I was elated.”

“Where do you keep the ring?”

“In my bedroom.”

“It’s worth over ten thousand dollars. Why didn’t you keep it in a safe?”

Mrs. Sourn’s gaze shifted to the floor. “My husband would agree with you, and now I suppose he was right. He always said we should keep my jewelry in a safety deposit box, but it seems silly to own beautiful pieces and then keep them locked up, never wearing them. I have a few things locked away, but most of it I keep here in the house.”

“Where, exactly?”

“On my dresser in an old jewelry box that used to belong to my mother.”

“So, potentially anyone who was in your house could have had the opportunity to steal the ring.”

“I suppose.”

“Like Tala.”

Mrs. Sourn shook her head. “I can’t imagine her stealing from me. Where did you find it?”

“Tala had the ring with her.”

“Are you telling me she stole the ring from me?”

“It would appear that way.”

“I just can’t believe that.” Mrs. Sourn reached up and rubbed the back of her neck. “And the person who killed her . . . do you have any leads?”

“We’re questioning a potential suspect right now.”

“So you might have found her killer—”

“It’s too early to know at this point, but thank you for your help, Mrs. Sourn.” Avery stood. “I promise we will be in touch.”

An hour later, Avery slid the picture of Tala across the table in front of Bear. Features swollen and pale . . . the photo was haunting. “Mr. Philips. You’ve been lying to us, and this time I want the truth.”

So far he hadn’t asked for a lawyer, and she had no intention of giving him the chance until she got what she wanted out of him.

“This is Tala. The girl you found in the alley Sunday night.”

Bear turned away as if trying to escape the memory.

Avery pushed the next photo in front of him. “This is our Jane Doe.”

Carlos stood and walked around the table to the other side of Bear. “Six weeks ago, we found her dead beside a Dumpster. Just like Tala.”

“I—”

“Please let me finish. Two girls dead. Similar MO.” Carlos leaned closer to Bear, but kept his voice soft and nonthreatening. “They both died a horrible death that neither deserved.”

Avery pulled the third color photo from the folder and placed it between the pictures of the two girls. “Here’s another picture.”

Bear tipped his chair back and pushed away the photo. “That’s my wife. Why are you showing me a picture of my wife?”

“I think you know why. It’s interesting, isn’t it? All young, pretty, Asian . . . and they are all dead. Your wife’s case was never solved, was it?”

“You know it wasn’t, but I didn’t kill my wife. I would never—”

“Here’s the problem, Bear.” Avery kept her voice even. Tight. “We can already tie you to Tala’s death. There’s no question about that. And as for the other girl and your wife—”

“I didn’t kill my wife. I didn’t kill those girls.”

Avery noted the pain reflected in his eyes and wanted to believe
him, but no matter how much sympathy his manner evoked, the evidence was telling a different story.

“What do you think a jury will say when they learn that your fingerprints were all over the victim’s photo found on her body? You’ve admitted that you stole not only her letters from her, but a ring worth over ten thousand dollars. And if there were still any doubts, there’s the camera footage that puts you at the scene not once, but twice. And the first time is during the projected time of the murder.”

Bear flinched.

“Did you think we wouldn’t find out?” Avery leaned in closer. “Why did you lie about that, Bear? Why did you lie about the fact that you had been to the scene not once, but twice?”

“I . . . I don’t know. I wanted the letters and the ring, but the picture . . . I wanted to give her the picture back.”

“But it was too late. You’d already killed her—”

“No.”

“Bear, we’ve got motive, means, and opportunity. All the things we look for to convict killers. Three cases, all similar, one killer. How do you think that looks to us? How do you think that will look to a jury?”

Avery waited for his answer. Linking all three crimes might be a stretch at this point, but he didn’t have to know that.

“It looks bad.”

“Yes, it does.” Carlos leaned against the end of the table. “And no matter how you’ve been living these past few months, you’re a smart man. We only want to find out the truth, but you can see how this looks to us. You and your wife got into a fight one night about money or maybe she cheated on you. Things were tense between the two of you, and something snapped.”

“No.”

Avery studied his reaction. Shoulders hunched, head in hands,
elbows on knees. What they had to determine was if he was upset simply over the loss of his wife or if he was feeling guilt. Her department hadn’t handled Laurie Philips’s case, but she’d reviewed the evidence that had surfaced in the file. James Philips had always been the number one suspect. Lack of evidence was the only thing that had saved him, but there were still plenty of people who had worked the case who believed James Philips had killed his wife. And none of them could ignore the possibility that he’d killed again.

“Isn’t that what happened, Bear?”

“No. I didn’t kill those girls, just like I didn’t kill my wife. I loved my wife. When I lost her, I lost everything. Why would I kill again when I know how horrid it is when you lose everything . . . everyone you’ve ever loved.”

“You killed again?”

“No.” Bear started rocking back and forth in his chair. Frustrated. Agitated. Right where they wanted him.

Carlos sat down in his chair and pushed the photos back in front of Bear. “You killed your wife, but that wasn’t enough, so you killed these girls, one at a time. You lost control in your marriage, lost control of your job, which meant you were out of control professionally. In killing them, you wanted the world to know that you could still be in control. They were helpless. You are not.”

“No.” Bear’s shoulders slumped.

“Then why did you take the ring?”

“You said it. I have nothing left. I lost my job after Laurie’s death. People thought I killed her. Even when I wasn’t arrested for her death, people looked at me every time I walked by. The courts might have let me go, but the world still saw me as guilty. When I saw that ring, it was my chance. In the end, everyone would win. The owner would get the insurance money, and I would sell it and go somewhere far away.”

“Not everyone won.”

“I want a lawyer now.”

Carlos glanced up at Avery, then looked at Bear. “You’ll get your lawyer, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’re placing you under arrest for the murder of Tala Vuong.”

A
fter a long day of more waiting for test results and performing another, more routine autopsy, Jackson was ready for a break. Philips was in jail, awaiting arraignment without bond, but some of the evidence still niggled at Jackson. In his mind, it wasn’t all neatly tied up like it should be. Having a low-key evening might free up some new thought processes for him. Even a few minutes of grocery shopping had helped clear his head.

Jackson hung three plastic sacks of groceries on his arm, then fumbled to open the front door of his grandfather’s house. Like Papps, the house was beginning to show its age. He’d already replaced the gutters and painted the outside, but the to-do list seemed never ending. With summer here, the lawn needed to be mowed and the shrubs clipped, but that would have to wait until his next day off. As for some of the larger repairs, all he could do was tackle them one at a time.

Papps met him in the entryway of the one-story ranch-style house wearing shorts and an old Atlanta Hawks T-shirt. “Did you remember my . . .”

Jackson waited while Papps searched for the word.

“. . . the bologna I asked for?”

“Yes, and the peanut butter. Sorry I’m so late. You caught me just in time when you called. I was getting ready to check out.” Jackson crossed the worn yellow shag carpet through the living room and into the kitchen, where he set the grocery bags on the counter. “I still don’t know how you can stand the combination.”

“It reminds me of a time when things were simpler.”

“Whatever you say, Papps.”

Jackson chuckled as he watched his grandfather open the jar of peanut butter so he could make his peanut butter and bologna sandwich, and felt a wave of nostalgia sweep over him. His grandfather might have been born Henry Andrew Clay Bryant, but Jackson had called him Papps as long as he could remember. And he had become the only father figure in his life he could remember as well.

He watched his grandfather spread a thick layer of the peanut butter onto a slice of white bread. “That isn’t exactly a healthy dinner. I told you I’d bring you something from the deli. They have some great salads and homemade soups.”

“Bah. When you’re eighty-five, who cares. I don’t intend to spend the rest of my days eating rabbit food.” He slapped on a couple slices of the bologna, topped the whole mess with another slice of bread, then took a bite. “What are you eating?”

“Somewhere in these bags is a roast beef on sourdough with a side salad.”

“Rabbit food, I tell you. Your grandmother forced me to eat that stuff for fifty years.”

“I suppose after fifty years of eating lettuce and carrots you have the right to rebel.” Jackson grabbed the canister of Pringles Papps had asked for and shoved it into the pantry. “Within reason, that is.”

Papps pulled out the Pringles and popped off the lid. Jackson went back to putting away the groceries. He’d learned long ago
that arguing with Papps never worked. If anything, it only made him more determined.

“What about that girl you told me about? What was her name? Red hair, feisty, charming . . .”

“Did I use those words?”

“Maybe not feisty, but since you’ve yet to introduce us, I have to make up my own descriptions.” Papps held up a Pringle. “But let me warn you, you marry her and she’ll have you eating that salad without the roast beef sandwich on the side.”

Jackson laughed. Why was it that his grandfather forgot what day it was, yet could remember details about what had been said weeks ago? “Her name is Avery, and yes, I suppose she is a bit feisty. As for your not meeting her yet, she works, remember? She’s a homicide detective who’s probably busier than I am. Though, at this point, I’m not so sure things are going to work out between us.”

“And why not? If you ask me, it’s time you found yourself a woman—working or not—and settled down. I’m not going to be around forever, you know.”

“Maybe not forever, but I still intend to enjoy your company for a long time.”

Jackson finished putting the groceries away before joining his grandfather in the living room with his dinner, but thoughts of his grandfather’s deteriorating health—and the possibility of losing Avery—had put a damper on his appetite.

Papps sat down in his faded olive-green recliner and set up a TV dinner tray in front of him. Jackson loved his grandfather, but sometimes the nightly ritual felt like a scene from the ’50s.

“Where’s the remote, Jackson?”

Jackson settled into the recliner’s equally faded twin and unwrapped his sandwich. “It’s right beside you, Papps.”

Papps grabbed the remote from the cluttered end table and flipped on the television before muting the sound. “When I was a
young man, it wasn’t so complicated. You met a girl who struck your fancy, you took her someplace nice for dinner, got to know her, then asked her to marry you.”

Definitely the ’50s.

“I find it hard to believe that a relationship between a man and a woman could ever be that simple.” Lately, something always seemed to get in the way. “What about your book? Did you and Maggie get a lot done today?”

“Changing the subject?”

“Yes.”

Papps balanced the remote on the stack of papers next to him, then took another bite of his sandwich. “That woman you hired for me talks too much. Every day, I hear about one of her ailments. Today it was her bunion.”

“At least the two of you have plenty to talk about.” His grandfather’s memory gaps continued to widen, but keeping his mind as active as possible had seemed to help slow some of the symptoms. Hiring someone to stay with him while Jackson was at work had been out of the question, according to Papps. Hiring someone to transcribe the book he’d always wanted to write had worked. “Besides, at the rate the two of you are going, the book will be finished by Christmas. Then you’ll have to start on the sequel.”

The book had been Jackson’s idea. Four generations ago, Papps’s own grandfather had fought in the Civil War. Papps still remembered stories told around the dinner table as a young child. Jackson’s goal was for him to get as many stories as possible down on paper before he forgot them. Which, from the way things were going, wasn’t too far off

Papps turned the volume back on—loud—then switched to the national news channel.

Jackson sent up a silent prayer of thanks for his food and took a bite of the thick roast beef while Papps watched repeats
of the same news stories he’d probably been watching all day. His stomach growled and he took another bite of the tender meat. Maybe he was hungry after all.

Jackson studied Papps’s familiar profile while the TV blared. Thin, white hair, face creased with age, bifocals slid halfway down his nose . . . Jackson might have struggled with his decision to make the move from Houston to Atlanta, but the day he found out that his grandfather had gotten lost one afternoon and couldn’t remember how to get home had been the clarifying moment.

The solution had turned out to be a challenge, but besides his sister, his grandfather was the only family he had, and his grandfather needed him. Which meant he didn’t regret his decision. But watching his grandfather slowly lose more and more of his memory had been harder than he’d expected. Some days were simply better than others. At least today seemed to be a good one.

Papps took the last bite of his bologna sandwich, grabbed the remote, and switched off the television.

“You off to bed already?”

“Might as well.” Papps grunted. “I’ve seen that same news story a dozen times today, because those flashy reporters wouldn’t know a good story if it hit them in the noggin. Those producers think we all suffer from brain damage and don’t notice.”

Jackson chuckled. “Grams used to tell me it was watching too much television that would give me brain damage.”

“Except when it came to those silly soap operas she insisted on watching.”

Jackson took another bite of his sandwich. For Papps it was the same routine every night. Dinner in front of the television, complaints about news commentators and the direction the world was taking, then off to bed no later than eight. Of course, by four in the morning he’d be up again, puttering around the
house, looking for something he’d lost, or trying to remember how to use the coffee machine. Which was why Maggie had become such a blessing. She never seemed to mind coming early or staying late if Jackson had to work, or if he had plans to go out. Though it wasn’t as if his social calendar was booked. Avery had been the first person in a long time to make him want to change that.

“What about you?” Papps dug into the tube of Pringles he’d set next to his chair. “Are you about finished for the night?”

“No, not yet. I need to go over some of my autopsy notes.”

“You’ve got a new case?”

“A young girl I did an autopsy on a couple of days ago. I’m waiting on some of the test results, but there are still some questions I need to answer.”

“Like how she died?”

“No. The cause of death was the easy part. The rest, though, is like a puzzle. I’m just trying to sort out the pieces.”

An enlarged spleen could mean a number of things, from mononucleosis to leukemia to a bacterial infection. His job was to perform the autopsy and investigate any inconsistencies. Avery’s job was to decide if what he discovered was relevant to her case.

“I’m no medical expert so I can’t help you with this one, but I don’t have any doubt that you’ll figure it out.”

“What did you work on today?” Jackson asked the question, enjoying the conversation.

“Martha Ruth Noble.” Papps held up a photo of a woman from his stack of papers. “Martha was your . . .” He shook his head. The blank look was back.

Jackson waited for him to continue. If he jumped in with the answer, it frustrated Papps. If he waited too long to help, Papps would end up just as frustrated. Sometimes there was simply no way to win. But he was determined to enjoy every conversation
they had in the meantime, because the day was coming when Papps wouldn’t remember his only grandson’s name.

“That’s okay. Go on.”

Papps held up a second photo, this time of a Civil War soldier. “Anyway, she put on a uniform and enlisted in the Confederate Army.”

Jackson’s brow furrowed. “That’s the same woman?”

“She went into battle as a man.” Papps stared at the photo of Martha Noble, now with a fake mustache and soldier’s uniform. “Right alongside her male comrades. And apparently they didn’t find out. At least at the beginning. I was able to get hold of some letters she’d written from a cousin of your father’s. She ended up dying from marsh fever along with most of the men in her company, and her true identity was discovered.”

Jackson looked up from the photo. “What’s marsh fever?”

“Today we call it malaria. Back then they thought it was caused by breathing in poisonous swamp gases. They think that a fourth of the men—and women—involved in the Civil War died from it.”

“How long ago was malaria eradicated from the US?”

“Back in the 1940s? Maybe the 1950s. Somewhere in there. The US might have been successful in getting rid of it, but I’ve read it’s still one of the top ten killers in low-income countries.”

Jackson stood up, his mind spinning. Why hadn’t he considered this before? Maybe there was no connection, but then again . . . Avery hadn’t mentioned that Tala had traveled overseas, but maybe she had. “I think I’ve been looking in the wrong place.”

“What do you mean?”

“My case. The one I’m working on right now. You might have just given me another piece of the puzzle.”

Every test he’d thought of had come back negative. Nothing
to explain the enlarged spleen. But what if they weren’t considering every possible angle?

“I’ve got to make a phone call.”

“To your lady friend?”

“Not yet. First I need to test my theory.”