Among the Dead Page 2

  Braddock waited until he was sure that Harrelson was out of earshot before he said, “Tee Pee?”

  “Always hated that damn nickname.” Pritchard drummed his fingers on his desk. “Danny, how many murders did you work when you were in Raleigh?”

  “Eight,” he said.

  “How’d they turn out?”

  “Five arrests. Four convictions. One got off. The others went cold before I moved. One of them was closed two years ago.”

  “Did they get a conviction?” Pritchard asked.

  “No. The suspect was shot and killed. Tried to rob the wrong guy.”

  “Any of those cases like this one?”

  Braddock shook his head.

  Like many of the sheriffs in Western North Carolina, Pritchard had never been a homicide detective. His previous law enforcement experience was limited to seven years as a state trooper in the Highway Patrol, which his wife had complained was too dangerous. So he had taken a job as the Lowry County Manager. When he’d run for sheriff, Braddock had supported him. Now, confronted with what was shaping up to be the most difficult case of his career, Braddock hoped that his boss recognized how ill equipped they were to handle it.

  Pritchard rubbed his eyes again and sighed. “So this ex-SBI agent you want me to hire as a consultant . . . what’s her name again?”

  “Rachel Carver.”

  “Right. And how do you two know each other?”

  “We worked together in homicide, before the SBI recruited her.”

  “Recruited her? I didn’t know they did that.”

  “Apparently, the special agent in charge of the Capital District took a liking to her.”

  That caused Pritchard to raise an eyebrow. “Is that so?”

  “It’s not like that, boss. She’s good. Hands down the best investigator I’ve ever met.”

  “Fair enough.” He stared at his desk for a moment and asked, “You really think we need her?”

  Braddock shrugged. “The state’s not exactly jumping through hoops to send us any help. With everything else that’s been going on around here . . .” Braddock didn’t have to use the word scandal. He knew it would be the first to enter Pritchard’s mind. “I think it’d be a smart move to bring her in.”

  Pritchard thought about it for a few more seconds, raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, and said, “All right, Danny. I don’t know how I’ll pay for it, but what the hell.”

  4

  The three-hundred-mile trip required five Monster Energy drinks, a possible UTI—from holding it in too long between stops—and a power nap in a McDonald’s parking lot just west of Greensboro. Shortly after 2:00 PM, Rachel steered her Camry off the Great Smoky Mountain Expressway and headed into the center of Dillard City. She turned onto Main Street and found a one-story brick motel two blocks down called the Fontana Lodge. She parked, sent Braddock a text to let him know that she had arrived, and went to the office to get a room.

  “How many nights will you be with us?” the clerk asked. He was short and spindly. Bald, save for a few wispy strands. Had tawny skin dotted with liver spots.

  “Not sure,” she said. “Can I just pay by the night?”

  “Sorry?”

  “I’m not sure how long I’ll need to be in town.”

  He stared at her for a moment, open mouthed and confused. “You mean, you don’t have no idea at all?”

  She glanced out the window. Aside from her Camry and a small pickup parked in front of the office, which she suspected was his, the parking lot was empty. “Does it really matter?”

  “Well . . . I gotta put somethin’ in this computer.”

  “Let’s just say three nights.”

  “All right then. Three nights.”

  “Yeah, for now.”

  His mouth fell open. He stared at her for another moment and said, “Well . . . what d’ya mean, ‘for now’?”

  * * *

  The room smelled like leather and fried chicken. Rachel guessed the furniture had been there since the early 1980s, along with the matching floral-patterned drapes and bedspread. She spun the knob on the through-wall air conditioner and welcomed the musty air. She laid her briefcase on a lopsided table, hefted her rolling suitcase onto the bed, and unzipped the main compartment.

  A shower would have made her feel like a new woman, but a text from Braddock said he was on his way over. She settled for washing her face in the sink and applied a fresh coat of Secret. Then she added a black single-button blazer to her jeans and white T-shirt. Standing in front of the mirror, she liked the way the jacket hugged her waist, happy that her Brazilian jiu-jitsu classes were holding an otherwise unhealthy lifestyle at bay. But her hair was another matter. It looked flat and oily, almost black in the dim lamplight. She pulled it back and cinched it into a ponytail. Decided it was best to stop looking.

  She grabbed her briefcase and her last can of Monster Energy and went outside. Braddock was waiting in the parking lot, leaning against the side of a black Chevy Tahoe. He was taller than she remembered, and he’d lost weight. She guessed at least twenty pounds, which gave his oval face some much-needed definition, his brown eyes more prominence. He was dressed in a black snug-fitting sweat shirt and a pair of those utility cargo khakis that men in law enforcement were so fond of wearing. His service automatic was clipped to his belt. There was a gold badge embroidered on the left side of his chest. The writing beneath it read, “LCSO.”

  “Welcome to Lowry County,” he said. “Hope the drive wasn’t too rough on you.”

  “I’ll survive.” She hugged him and suddenly felt too short and out of shape.

  He glanced at the oversized can in her left hand and smiled. “I forgot how much you like that stuff.”

  * * *

  Main Street ran alongside the Tuckasegee River on the way out of town. After a couple of miles, the tree line fell away from the road, and Rachel took in the expanse of the Appalachian Mountains. The rolling hills looked like an ocean of green waves, each one cresting higher than the one before it. A forest-covered tsunami rose in the distance. Pine, birch, chestnut, hickory, white oak . . . every type of tree that Rachel could think of fought for exposure on the crowded mountainsides.

  “Do you ever miss living in the city?” she asked.

  “Not even a little bit.”

  The thin lines at the corners of Braddock’s eyes deepened. There was the hint of a smile, perhaps even contentment.

  A handheld radio sitting in a cup holder in the center console chirped. A garbled voice followed. Braddock turned the volume down and said, “So I guess I should let you know what you’ve stepped into by coming here.”

  Rachel didn’t like the way that sounded. “Uh-oh.”

  “Yeah.” He glanced at her and smiled. “It’s nothing too bad. Just politics as usual around these parts.”

  “Okay.”

  “You see, Ted . . . Sheriff Pritchard . . . he’s in his first term, and it’s been a rough ride so far. A few years back, the county commission voted to build this big, expensive new jail. Cost around nine million bucks. Was way more than we needed, but the last sheriff pushed hard for it. He said we would get money coming in from the surrounding counties if we built the facilities to house their inmates.”

  “I’m guessing it didn’t work out that way.”

  “Took you all of ten seconds to realize what the commission couldn’t figure out in two years’ worth of planning. The damned thing’s been less than half full since it opened.”

  “That’s gotta sting a bit.”

  “Yep. And when Ted was running against the previous sheriff, he wasn’t afraid to use that to his advantage. The problem is, since the commission approved it, his campaign made them look bad too. But not bad enough, as it turned out. Four of the five were reelected. And that’s made things tough on us. They’ve kept the budget tight and looked for any excuse to criticize us.”

  Braddock turned onto a stretch of rough asphalt that was barely wide enough to make two lanes. T
he nose of the Tahoe dove as they dropped into a valley. A quarter mile in, the road burrowed into a dense forest.

  “And last year,” he said, “we gave them exactly what they were looking for.”

  “What happened?”

  “A kid from the local high school went and beat the absolute hell out of this other boy. Put him in the hospital. It was bad. The DA wanted to charge him with attempted murder. His parents sold their business, mortgaged their house, brought in this big-name attorney from Charlotte. The DA got nervous. She said we needed physical evidence to make it stick. So we did another search. The house, the property, and most importantly, the crime scene, which was a trail through the woods behind the high school. The victim used to walk it every day to get from his house to the school and back.

  “The suspect claimed he hadn’t been on the trail at all that day. Said he had gone home a different way. We had two witnesses who said they saw him follow the victim, but there was also a girl who swore up and down that she saw him going home the other way. So during our second search of the scene, one of our detectives happened to find the suspect’s school ID card buried under some leaves. It was a little outside of where we had looked the first time, but close enough that it could have been kicked away in a scuffle. We felt really good about it until the kid’s lawyer showed up with some videos of us searching the house.”

  “You’re kidding.” She knew what was coming.

  “Nope. The suspect’s parents had planted nanny cams around the house, including in the kid’s bedroom. And on that video, the same detective who found the ID at the crime scene can be seen pocketing something he picked up from the kid’s dresser.”

  “Wow. What happened?”

  “Ted fired the detective, of course. The chief deputy resigned, and I took his place. But we couldn’t save the case.”

  “That sucks.”

  “Yeah. Since then, the commissioners have done everything they can think of to get Ted to resign, but he’s been hanging in there. Now we’ve got a killer on the loose.”

  She thought about how stressed out he had sounded on the phone. “You said it doesn’t happen very often. How many murder cases have you worked since you moved here?”

  “None.”

  She almost asked if he was joking. “In five years?”

  “Hell, Rachel, we’ve only had three since then. The last one was drug related, so the state came in and took it over. The two before that were investigated by the detectives who are no longer working for us on account of the aforementioned shit storm.”

  “Damn, Danny.”

  “Exactly. I have two detectives left, and neither one of them has any experience in homicide. Which is why I need you. We’ve got to be as thorough as possible, and we can’t afford to have any missteps. So, as much as I’d love for you to help us catch the bad guy, you’re really here to make sure we don’t fuck this thing up.”

  Rachel slumped in her seat. Her last case as an SBI special agent had ended in a political mess. The last thing she wanted was to find herself in the same situation all over again.

  Braddock chuckled. “What’s the matter? Starting to feel a little pressure?”

  “Actually, yeah. I kinda wish you hadn’t told me any of that.”

  5

  Braddock turned onto a dirt driveway, eased past a parked patrol car, and emerged into a clearing. A small ranch house sat in the center atop a gentle rise. It was brick with yellow trim, and it had a metal carport that looked like it had been added as an afterthought.

  Three more law enforcement vehicles were parked on the grass. The first was a black Tahoe, like Braddock’s, but with yellow stripes and the words “Lowry County Sheriff” painted across the doors. Next was a white Explorer with an SBI logo on the doors and the words “Crime Scene Search” painted near the back. Last in line was an unmarked Crown Victoria. Braddock parked beside it and reached into his back seat to retrieve a notepad.

  “Victim’s name is Dean McGrath,” he said, looking over his notes. “Thirty-one. Divorced. Lived alone. No children. Found early this morning by a guy claiming to be the victim’s friend. Guy named Adam Butler. Call came in at six thirty-two.” He flipped to the second page, looked it over for a few seconds, and then flipped back. “A deputy was first on the scene. Arrived at six forty-three. He found Butler in the front yard, still on the phone with the operator. He went in through the side door over there by the carport, found McGrath lying on the kitchen floor, face up, with a knife in his chest.”

  “Sounds painful,” Rachel said. She looked toward the carport and imagined herself approaching the house as the first responder.

  “I thought so too. EMTs showed up a few minutes later and pronounced him dead. Looks like he’d been that way for a couple of hours. ME estimates time of death to be between two and four in the morning based on rigor, lividity, liver temp, and all that other witchcraft. But McGrath was a bartender in town. He worked last night, and the owner says he usually left the bar around three after cleaning up. There were no signs of a struggle. No signs of forced entry.”

  “Interesting.” Scenarios began to play out in her mind.

  Victim throws a drunk out of the bar. Drunk follows him home. Victim lets him inside? Probably not.

  Victim doesn’t lock his door, and the drunk barges in? Would have been a struggle. Try again.

  Victim meets a friend at the bar, invites him home for a few after-work beers. They get into an argument. Then a fight. Things go too far. The friend kills him, cleans up the evidence, and calls 9-1-1? Maybe.

  Braddock tossed the pad in the back seat. “Shall we have a look?”

  “Are the crime scene techs done?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  They got out of the Tahoe and started toward the house. A deputy jogged up to them holding a clipboard in one hand and a pen in the other. “Can I get you to sign in, Chief?”

  “Ladies first,” Braddock said.

  Rachel took the clipboard and filled in her name and the date, checked her phone for the time and wrote it down, left the space for “Agency/Department” blank, then handed it over to Braddock. While he was signing in, she tried to bring up a bird’s-eye view of the crime scene, but as soon as she opened Google Maps, a message appeared—there was no network connection. She held her phone up, stepped away from the vehicles, and spun in a circle.

  “I wouldn’t waste your time,” Braddock said. “We use the only carrier that works down in this valley. If you had it, you’d know by now.”

  “Hmph.” She slid the phone into her back pocket.

  “What are you trying to do?”

  “Just wanted to look at the area from overhead.”

  “I’m sure you’ll get a good signal back in town. If not, we’ll let you use a computer at the office. I don’t imagine the Fontana Lodge has free Wi-Fi.”

  Braddock led Rachel into the carport, which housed the victim’s red Ford Ranger pickup. A baby-faced man with a buzz cut and a thin mustache leaned against the front end. He wore black slacks and a white polo shirt that was too tight for his muscular frame. Braddock introduced him as Detective Shane Fisher.

  “They almost done in there?” Braddock asked.

  “I believe so,” Fisher said. “Wasn’t much to collect but a few prints and the dishrag.”

  “Dishrag?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. We found it on the floor next to the victim. Appeared to have some blood on it.”

  “When was the body picked up?”

  “About a quarter after nine.”

  “That reminds me,” Braddock said. “The pathologist is off for the next few days. As a courtesy, she agreed to stay late to do the autopsy today.” He checked his watch. “She’s going to start at three thirty. You need to be there in case she has any questions.”

  “Roger that, Chief,” Fisher said. “I’ll head that way as soon as we finish up here.”

  Though he didn’t look too happy about it.

  A few minutes
later, the crime scene technicians emerged from the side door. The first one out, a stocky, red-haired man, gave a quick nod as he walked past them carrying a collection kit. A tall, muscular woman stepped out next. She had closely cropped black hair and appeared to be American Indian. She was holding a clipboard and had a bulky digital SLR camera hanging from her neck.

  “Hey, boss,” she said, sounding tired.

  “This is Carly Brewer,” Braddock said to Rachel. “She works for us.” He leaned in close and lowered his voice. “She does CrossFit.”

  Carly rolled her eyes.

  Rachel introduced herself, and Braddock asked, “Are we good to go in?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Didn’t get anything new while you were gone.” She nodded in the direction of the Explorer, where the other tech was stowing his equipment in the back. “Our SBI friend says it’s one of the cleanest homicide scenes he’s ever seen.”

  “Meaning the killer cleaned up after himself?” Rachel asked.

  “Meaning he didn’t make much of a mess to begin with.”

  “Really? No castoff, no bloody prints, no tracks?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing that we could find. And we just about sprayed the entire kitchen with Hemascein.”

  Rachel was surprised. She had worked dozens of stabbing cases in her career, and they had all been quite messy. The victims who had left the least amount of blood evidence were the ones who had done most of their bleeding internally. They were usually able to move after the attack, or at least call for help. And they usually died on the way to the hospital. But McGrath had died lying on his back, with no sign that he had tried to get help or struggled with his attacker.

  Carly patted the camera on her chest and said to Braddock, “Boss, I gotta run. I need to make sure these photos get to the pathologist before the autopsy.”

  Fisher said, “I’m outta here too, Chief.”

  “All right,” Braddock said. “Call me right away if she finds anything worth talking about.” When Fisher and Carly were halfway to their vehicles, he leaned over to Rachel and said, “Shane’s a good guy, but I think he’s a little squeamish.”