The Evidence Room: A Mystery (6 page)

A thin ribbon of dread began to unfurl itself in Josh’s stomach.

“We pulled Ms. Vincent’s file, Josh. It seems that she wasn’t taking orders from Turner Randall. She was making weekly visits to an inmate at Craw Lake.” Rush slid another booking photo over Pea’s. Doyle Hudson leered at the camera. The face had aged, but the smirk was the same.

His father.

Josh brushed both pictures aside. “What the hell is this?”

“Tell us who’s involved, Josh. We’ve got to get a handle on this thing before it gets out of control. And you need to start by telling me the truth.”

“It’s not what you think, Cap,” Josh began, realizing how lame it sounded.

To Josh’s surprise, Rush slammed a closed fist down on the table. When he spoke, he spit the words out in short trumpet blasts.

“Fizz asked me about you, Hudson. Before they picked the narcotics team. And you know what I told him? I said, Josh Hudson is the best we got. Doesn’t matter that your old man went sideways, I told him you do things the right way. We’re lucky to have him in this department, I said. Donovan and I, we both vouched for you. So you fucking tell me, Josh—what am I supposed to do when this shit lands in my lap?” He gestured at the pictures. “So I’ll give you one last chance here. To explain yourself. To tell me what’s going on with you and your dad and this woman and this drug thing.”

“Cap, I didn’t do anything,” Josh said, fearing it was far too late for the truth. “Pea—Ms. Vincent—I let her go. I did. Because she wasn’t a major player in this thing—and because she told me she could help me find somebody.”

“Who?”

“My sister. Liana.” He was unprepared for the rush of emotion that the simple act of speaking her name evoked. “I don’t know where she is, but I know she’s in trouble. She’s the one that put my dad behind bars. I need to find her. Cap, I swear to you. I’m not into drugs, I’m not part of some big conspiracy, and I had no idea Pea was involved with my father. I just want to find my sister.”

A flicker of understanding crossed Rush’s face, quickly replaced by the same disillusioned frown. “I don’t have a choice here, Josh. You’ll be placed on probation, on desk duty in the evidence room, until we can look into the matter further.”

“But, Cap—”

“It’s not permanent,” Rush said. “You can use your time there to think.”

Josh was going to be a powerless desk jockey. This was a nightmare.

“So that’s it? I’m done?”

“I’m going to need your weapon. While we sort this out,” Rush said quietly.

Josh unclipped the gun from his waistband and slammed it on the desk along with his badge. “Y’all have a great day now,” he said.

Outside, Josh leaned against the building, the relentless Florida sun scorching his brain. In his pocket, his cell phone buzzed. Josh dug it out.

Pea.

Bonjour
, the text read.
Just made bail.

He hesitated.
I had no idea
, he typed.
Just found out. I didn’t turn you in.

I know, sugar plum. I’m sorry I had to tell them about our deal. But we all have to save ourselves in the end, don’t we? You understand.

He did. Pea didn’t have to know what he’d discovered about her and his father. How much could Doyle do from prison? And she was still a connection to Liana. He had to see it through. What did he have to lose?

Of course
, he wrote.
All we can do is try to do right by each other.

The words appeared before he’d finished typing.

Tell me what I can do.

Something inside Josh leapt at the words. There was still a chance he could find his sister. Pea had her picture. She knew something.

I need a favor
, Josh typed. He couldn’t be too specific, not on this cell. He made a mental note to buy a throwaway.

The reply was almost instant.

Anything you need.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Aurora’s return to the place of her birth had been strangely serene. Her nerves, usually strung as tight as guitar strings, had unwound on the plane ride, and driving the hour and a half to Cooper’s Bayou, she had even rolled down the windows of the steaming rental car and hummed along to the morose strains of an unfamiliar country song on the radio. For once she was like all the people in the other cars on the road—just trying to get home.

Shiny strip malls and car lots gave way to swampland, the road ahead of her thinned to a one-lane strand winding through the bayou, brimming with earth-colored water. In the passenger seat, the keys to the house on the bayou anchored the fluttering road map from the rental car company, the location of her hometown outlined in a red circle.

It was only now, two miles from the turnoff for Cooper’s Bayou, that the reality of where she was going began to settle around Aurora’s shoulders. She’d been vague when requesting the time off from work, telling them she had to settle some affairs for her grandfather. Now she wished she’d confided in someone. She was the person people turned to at work to make death notifications, to handle the unbearable things that nobody else wanted to do, and now here she was, falling apart on a country road. She was stronger than this. She knew it, and Papa had known it too. He had entrusted her with this task. There had to be a reason.

Aurora searched her memory for the day she’d left here in Papa’s peach-colored Buick. She remembered the stifling interior of the car, the bugs clinging to the window. Nana had stroked her hair and drawn hearts and smiley faces on her back with her index finger, one of Aurora’s favorite games to play with her mother. She remembered the pink satin suitcase at her feet with the wheels covered in sparkling stars. She’d thought they were going on a vacation, that they’d be back and she would tell Mama and Daddy all about the adventures she’d had.

It was only later, when they had been in Connecticut a couple of months, that she realized that day in the car was the moment that everything had changed, and that everything in her old life was lost to her forever. Papa had sat on the edge of her bed in the guest room in the unfamiliar Connecticut house and told her that Mama was in heaven and that Daddy was a terrible man who had hurt Mama, and God had somehow delivered Aurora from that night. The same God who had spared her life had taken everything else away with no reason, no explanation. What kind of God could let that happen? She would never understand it.

The last turnoff, according to Luna’s directions, was little more than a dirt road leading directly into the bayou. The rental GPS was useless in the tangle of roads. She was going to have to find her own way into town later. She pulled off on the shoulder and stared at the map. She had to be close.

Aurora threw the car into reverse, and with a turn of her head, caught sight of the house. It was set off the road at an angle, as though turning a shoulder to her, its shuttered windows facing the bayou. Aurora pulled into the driveway and cut the engine, stepping outside into the slickness of the late afternoon humidity. The last of the sun’s long fingers grazed the bayou’s surface, the last slice of light hovering on the horizon, outlining the husks of half-sunken cypress trees. Aurora was a city girl and never had been much for nature, but there was something about this landscape that commanded her attention in a way that was more than a little unnerving.

Aurora turned back towards the house. Nobody had lived here for twenty years, and yet it glowed, emanating warmth. Four freshly painted white columns supported a delicate latticed porch like upturned palms. Papa had built this place with his own hands, for his wife, for his children. Wings beat in Aurora’s chest, her spine hardening. This was where she was supposed to have grown up. This should have been her home.

She climbed the steps slowly, drawing her fingers across the polished wood railing. A kiddie pool was wedged in one corner of the porch, one of the cheap plastic ones, translucent with age. It seemed out of place on the otherwise pristine porch. From this vantage point, Aurora could see something rippling the surface of the water. She moved closer.

It took her a moment to identify what they were; four black shapes arrayed in a diamond at the pool’s warped plastic bottom. Alligators. Baby ones, it appeared, each one no longer than her forearm. Aurora knelt by the pool’s edge and dipped a hand in the water, running her index finger along the ridges of one of the tiny prehistoric bodies.

“Dadgummit, they sure are cute, ain’t they?”

The voice behind her had the same sugared drawl as Papa. The man crouched next to her, his sun-battered face next to her own. He looked to be somewhere in his seventies with a thick beard and an Army-fatigue-colored fishing hat.

“They’re so tiny—it’s amazing.”

“Jefferson Gibbs,” he said, grasping her hand. “And you must be Aurora.” He scooped up one of the baby gators and held it aloft, like an offering. “I’ve been looking after these little fellas since your family left. Didn’t have the heart to just release the little fellas. You remember the gators? I remember when you were just a teeny little thing, your papa used to put you in here with the gators. Man, your mama didn’t like that one little bit. But you was just as happy as a puppy with two tails.” He grinned.

Papa had put her in a pool with alligators? It seemed so cavalier, so unlike him. “I never knew that,” she said. “Wasn’t he scared? Wasn’t I scared?”

“Nah,” Jefferson said. “Gators, they’re easy to predict. It’s people you got to watch out for.” This statement hung in the air between them, and Aurora held out her palms so that Jefferson could place the baby gator across them. She marveled in the perfection of it, the scales etched in miniature on the curve of the animal’s back.

“Your grandpappy,” Jefferson said in a reverent tone, “he was the alligator nuisance man. Nobody in this county knew more about gators than him. He taught me everything I know about ’em.”

“The alligator what?”

“He was the alligator nuisance man for Cooper County. Anybody had a problem with gators, they called your grandpappy, and he’d come out. Wouldn’t shoot ’em, no, not unless they hurt somebody. He’d truss ’em up and relocate ’em.”

Aurora searched her memory for any mention of alligators. Papa had always worn a suit and tie to his job at the bank, but insisted on pairing it with snakeskin boots. “Guess I’m still a country boy at heart,” he used to tease when she asked him about it.

“I guess he never mentioned it when I was growing up.” She lowered the gator down to the water’s surface and watched it submerge in one smooth motion.

Jefferson shrugged. “Not much work for an alligator man up north, I guess.” He laughed, but averted his gaze, as though afraid he had said too much. “Well, I’d better let you get settled. The house should be stocked with everything you need. I do hope you’ll let me know if there’s anything you need, Miss Aurora.”

“Thank you so much. I guess I need to find my way to the courthouse to file some papers about the house.”

Jefferson nodded. “I would start at the police station. They handle all manner of stuff down there, records and deeds and whatnot. It’s right in the middle of town. You can’t miss it.”

“Great.”

“I’ll let you get settled, then.” He gave her a salute and started down the steps.

“I’m sorry—Jefferson?”

He turned.

“Did you know my mother?”

“For true,” he said softly. “Raylene was prettier than all the stars in the sky.” The grief was written in bold strokes across his face. Her mother had meant something to Jefferson Gibbs. “For her to leave this earth that way—it wasn’t right. And your grandpappy, he never gave up trying to find out what really happened to her.”

Something fluttered in Aurora’s chest. “What do you mean?” The story was simple. Aurora’s father had strangled her mother on the shores of the bayou, then disappeared into the night, leaving Aurora on the steps of a local store. In her presence, they’d never mentioned her father. When she pressed Papa for details, he’d told her Wade was an evil man who’d killed her mother in a fit of rage. She’d never questioned the story, and to her knowledge, neither had he.

“Hunter came down here, every couple of months or so. Said it was to take care of the house, but I know different. He was working on something. He told me last time he was in town, he says, ‘Jefferson, I’m getting close to finding out what happened that night on the bayou.’”

“I don’t understand. The case is closed. We know what happened.” Even while she spoke, the pieces were falling together in her mind. The fishing trips before he’d gotten sick. ‘The fishing was good, just the catching was bad,’ he’d joked when he’d returned to the house empty-handed. Papa had been here. All this time, she’d thought he’d put her mother out of his mind, but he’d been coming here, trying to figure out what had happened to his only daughter that night on the bayou. She should have been stunned, she should have felt betrayed somehow—but she felt none of those things. Papa had always been her hero, her defender, the person she turned to for help. Knowing that he’d been the same for her mother, even after her death, just made her feel that he was the man she had known all along.

“Do you know what he thought? What he was working on?” The questions tumbled in her brain.

Jefferson shook his head and gestured towards the set of keys in Aurora’s right hand. “It’s not for me to know,” he said. “You take care, now, Miss Aurora. Call if you need anything at all.” He plodded back down the steps and then paused, turning back once again. “I left everything the way it was,” he said, “just like your granddaddy told me to.”

“Thank you.” She wasn’t sure what he meant, but she nodded in gratitude. “Thank you for everything.”

Aurora twisted the key and pushed the heavy door open. She flipped the light switch and then covered her mouth, grasping the elbow of a stately armoire to steady herself.

Crucifixes covered every available wall space. Silver and gold, plastic and wooden, large and small, they stretched in uneven rows around the length of the great room, floor to ceiling. Papa had been religious, but the sheer number of them suggested a fervor that Aurora had never experienced from him.