Stolen Innocents (The Shadow Series Book 2) (15 page)

“Okay…” Jenna replied.

Joe began pouring Jenna a cup of his special blend of coffee. She noted how it looked remarkably like mud, and the smell wasn’t that far off either. Cole and Natalie were sitting at their father’s kitchen table giving DiNolfo looks of warning.

“Don’t do it…” Cole warned with a laugh as he ate his cereal.

“Be quiet!” Joe scolded Cole as he handed Jenna a mug that read “World’s Best Chef.”

“You can’t say we didn’t try to warn you,” remarked Natalie as her eyes scanned the fashion magazine in front of her.

“How bad could it possibly be?” DiNolfo asked as she prepared to take a sip.

Joe watched Jenna’s face as she took a sip of his coffee and immediately regretted standing so close to her. After just one sip, coffee came spewing out of her mouth and showered down over Joe’s face, hair and shirt.

Jenna yelled, “What the hell is this shit?!”

Joe, who had closed his eyes at just the right moment, was now wiping coffee off of his forehead, nose and chin. He grabbed a napkin and dried his mustache which was dripping of his beloved Ethiopian Yirgacheffe coffee.

“Clearly some people don’t recognize culture when they see it! I pay twenty-two dollars a pound for that glorious roast!” insisted Joe.

“I’d say you got ripped off, my friend!” said Jenna as she, Cole and Natalie laughed until they were red in the face.

***

Joe still laughed every time he opened the pantry and saw the coffee can with the smiling camel on it.

More for me!

Joe took one last delightful sip of his coffee before throwing the hood of his coat over his head and stepping out into the miserable weather. Joe always took the same route to work. He walked straight out his front door and made a left on Caribou Road. At the end of the road, he took a short cut through the Forest of York, past the Bone Tree, and down a narrow path that led straight to the back of Monte’s Café. It was an overgrown area of the forest, but it was the easiest way to get to work. He opened the back door of Monte’s with a swift twist of his key. Time to turn the lights on; his kitchen and wait staff would be arriving soon. He went through the same motions every single morning, and after thirty plus years of opening the restaurant, his movements were second nature. He flicked the lights on, powered up the cash register, checked the answering machine for any messages, and preheated the oven to prepare for the morning rush. He walked with purpose through the dining room to make sure all the tables were clean and the floors were swept the night prior. He wanted his guests to have an enjoyable experience. Next, he had to take on the task of pulling up all the shades on the windows. All eight windows.

I really need to figure out a way to make this process automatic.

Finally, when he came to the last window, he pulled the shade like the others, but this time something caused his breath to shorten. As he peered out onto Mountain Road, it wasn’t the rain that caught his attention, or the gaudy lawn ornaments that Edna and Peggy had displayed outside of Harrow’s General Store. It was the erratic tire tracks that swerved through the mud, and the red puddle that lay in the middle of Mountain Road. Amidst the bleak scene were discarded clothes, a gun, and other debris. But nothing troubled Joe Piedmonte quite as much as seeing the undeniably dead body of a young woman laying face down in the mud.

***

Jenna woke up to the unrelenting squeal of the telephone that sat on Joe’s bedside table. She woke with a start, reaching for the phone.

Something had to be wrong
, she thought. Joe had always let her sleep in before. Jenna looked at the alarm clock.

6:17 A.M.

Jesus Christ.

“Hullo?” Jenna said groggily into the receiver.

“Better get your boys down on Mountain Road. There’s been a murder.”

***

Jesse Trafford left the Elkhart Police Station with an ill-favored look upon his face. He threw the hood of his sweatshirt over his head as he trudged out into the rain. Skulking down Mountain Road, he was swallowed by the darkness as a feeling of discontent grew in his chest.

Chapter              9

June 18, 2000

Elkhart, PA

Dawn

The sun rose red and fiery over Mountain Road when officers Adam and Liam Morrow arrived on the scene. They had no idea what waited for them outside Monte’s Café. DiNolfo spat into the phone, “Get to Monte’s. NOW!” before she hung up abruptly.

Liam pulled a roll of police tape from the trunk of the police cruiser as he began blocking off the road to oncoming traffic. Adam approached the crime scene with caution as he tried to disturb as little as possible. It took him a moment to process the scene before him. They were in the fickle hour when the sky was just waking but the road before them was still dark. Adam took a flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on. The bright light cut the early morning darkness and provided glimpses of what nightmare lay in front of them. Puzzle pieces cloaked by darkness. Adam’s mind processed the evidence piece by piece:

A pool of red pulsed under the weight of the heavy rain.

An abandoned gun was carelessly tossed into a puddle.

A ripped t-shirt was soaked and muddy from the rain.

The print of a hiking boot lay stranded in the mud.

A wallet left in plain sight with a driver’s license sticking out.

Adam slowly scanned the road for more signs of evidence. He had thoroughly checked the road ahead. If there was blood, surely there had to be a body somewhere. Suddenly, a thought occurred to him. He pointed the flashlight towards his feet. It took a moment for Adam’s brain to process what he saw. A dead woman, no older than twenty years of age, lay dead at his feet. She was a blonde woman with a thin figure and a small “T” tattoo on her right shoulder.  Lying face down in the mud, she was scantily dressed with just a bra and a pair of ripped jeans on her body. She was lying face down on top of a green tarp.

She wasn’t killed here…

Adam kneeled at the victim’s side to get a closer look. He hoped he would be able to identify the victim. The torrential rain reduced visibility as it pounded atop his hat and trickled down his shoulders. Crouching down, he was able to get a better view of the victim’s profile. Identification was still difficult because the victim’s face was bloody and bruised. With gloves on, he moved the victim’s head out of the mud, hoping to be able to ID her. Rain poured from the early morning sky, slowly revealing the victim’s identity. The mud washed away from her face in gentle streaks. Her face was badly bruised and her nose was clearly broken. Adam lamented at the victim’s beauty; a life that was taken before it’s prime. Finally, the rain washed away the mud from around the victim’s eyes. Adam became frozen in his shock. A pair of eyes of the deepest blue stared back at Adam. The eyes held a certain depth and sorrow that he had never witnessed when the victim was alive. Adam’s hands trembled and his stomach churned. It took forcible measure to turn his eyes away from Courtney O’Mara’s gripping stare.

How on earth am I going to tell Tommy?

***

Liam secured the perimeter of the crime scene and recommended that Monte’s and Harrow’s close up shop for the day. They closed off Mountain Road to traffic so that they could thoroughly investigate. Edna and Peggy locked themselves inside their apartment above Harrow’s, too petrified to even look outside. Meanwhile, Joe Piedmonte closed up shop to the public but offered to keep the kitchen open for the officers who were processing the crime scene. It was the least that he could do. He felt absolutely horrible for the O’Mara’s.

***

DiNolfo arrived on the scene at twenty of seven with a look of deep concern on her face. She lifted the crime scene tape and quickly ducked underneath. She made a beeline over to Adam who was taking photographs of the crime scene. He began to fill her in on what he had discovered so far.

“The victim is Courtney O’Mara, age twenty. I’m trying to bag as much evidence as I can before the rain destroys it,” Adam began as a frustrated sigh escaped his mouth.

DiNolfo was impressed. Processing a murder scene in the pouring down rain was like watching a bomb tick off its final seconds. If you’re not quick enough, some crucial evidence could be washed away.

“The evidence I’ve bagged so far is locked in Joe’s office, so you can check it out there.”

DiNolfo nodded as she looked down at the victim.

“What are these marks all over her?” DiNolfo asked.

“She sustained multiple injuries. The cause of death was clearly the gunshot wound to the back of her head. There was obviously a struggle… Her nose is broken, her face is bruised and her neck is broken, but I think those injuries came later.”

DiNolfo listened intently as Adam Morrow pieced together the crime scene. She had trained him well.

This kid knows what he’s talking about…

“But these marks,” Adam said as he pointed to the black broad marks that ran across her legs and torso, “Are tire tracks.”

“Good work, Morrow…”

“That’s not all though…”

“Oh?”

“No, not by a long shot…”

Adam crouched down next to Courtney’s battered body.

“Look here…” said Adam as he pointed to the green tarp that lay underneath Courtney’s body.

“A tarp…”

“She wasn’t killed here. This is a dump site. I think she was pushed out of a moving vehicle and that is when her neck and nose broke. Post-mortem.”

“Decent hypothesis. But what about the tire tracks?”

“They probably ran back over her to add insult to injury.”

The thought was chilling but DiNolfo thought Adam was right on the mark.

“Solid work. Keep going. I’m going to review the evidence inside. Continue bagging as much evidence as you can. The weather is working against us.”

***

Joe walked into his office and closed the door shut behind him. He tried his best not to look at the evidence on his desk as he grabbed his cell phone out of the top drawer. In a quiet voice, Joe talked in to the receiver.

“Hello?” asked Jack in a grouchy tone of voice.

“It’s Joe.”

“Hey, what’s up?”

“It’s Courtney…”

Jack paused.

“What about her?”

“She’s dead. Murdered by the looks of it. We found her out on Mountain Road. Keep your boy under lock and key. This doesn’t look good at all.”

***

Adam had finally finished bagging up the evidence when the van from the Medical Examiner’s office arrived. A burly officer and a short female officer dressed in white covered the body with a sheet and lifted it into the back of the wagon. The medical examiner would need to perform a full autopsy to provide an official cause of death.

***

DiNolfo scanned the evidence that was labeled and bagged on Joe’s desk. This was definitely not a cut and dry case. Adam had collected a leather wallet with a ten dollar bill and a driver’s license belonging to Jesse Trafford. There was a photograph of a single black hiking boot track caked in the mud. There was also a semi-automatic hand gun, a tattered shirt, and a single piece of black thread which was retrieved from the victim’s hair. The unskilled mind would have all officers beating down Jesse Trafford’s door. Fortunately, DiNolfo had some inside information. Jesse Trafford had an iron-clad alibi from 7 P.M. on June 16
th
to approximately 5 A.M. on June 17, 2000. DiNolfo had arrested Jesse herself for disorderly conduct in Shooter’s Pool Hall. She left him sitting in a holding cell overnight until he decided to calm down. His brother posted his bail and he was now a free man. The trouble was where was he between the hours of 5 and 7 A.M.?