A Dirty Shame (13 page)

I shoved the photograph I’d found in George’s throat at Jack the moment we walked inside, much to his surprise. I escaped upstairs, where I tried to get my composure back under the hot spray of the shower. I pulled on a pair of old sweats—mostly because my subconscious was trying to tell me to wear something as sexless as possible—and I headed back down to face Jack, having practiced what I was going to say while I was in the shower.

Those thoughts seeped out my ears the moment I smelled food. It took two cups of coffee and a large bowl of soup before I started to feel human again, and somewhere along the way I caught my second wind.

“So—” I said. “You said something about murder. We should probably talk about that. And then we should go to bed.”

Jack grinned at me, and I felt the heat rush to my face.

“Separately, I mean. Because it’s been a long day, and I’m kind of tired.” The temperature rose and my old sweats weren’t doing the job of being sexless if the look he was giving me was anything to go by. “Is it hot in here to you?” I wished Jack would show some mercy and just shoot me between the eyes, but luck wasn’t on my side so I continued on. “And I’m supposed to meet with Reverend Thomas and Mr. Oglesby tomorrow after church services to talk about the Reverend’s interment. Should be a packed house. And then there’s Mrs. Perry’s hair and makeup to schedule.”

“You want some more coffee?” he asked.

“No, why?”

“I just figured your throat might be dry. I’m not sure I’ve heard you talk that long since you’ve been back. It’s nice to know I make you nervous.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I sputtered. “You don’t make me nervous. Can we please talk about dead people now? Did you see anything in the photo I gave you?”

“Nothing on the surface, other than the fact it was taken several years ago.”

“I noticed that too.”

“It obviously has some meaning or it wouldn’t have been shoved down his throat.”

“I was thinking about that,” I said. “And I don’t think it
was
shoved down his throat. I think he tried to swallow it himself.”

Jack’s brows rose with interest. “Explain.”

“There was no damage to the inside of the mouth. There would have been scrapes along the inside of the cheek or even a chipped tooth if someone had tried to force him to swallow it. And it was far enough down in the trachea that he had some success at swallowing it before they killed him.”

“Huh,” Jack said. “That changes things some.”

“Did you find anything else out today?” I asked.

“I’ve called in some help from Agent Carver in the Richmond FBI office. He’s going to drive over in the morning. We’re going to have to form some type of task force between local law enforcement and the federal guys.”

He gathered up our dishes and rinsed them off in the sink before he put them in the dishwasher. “Let’s head to my office, and I’ll show you what I’ve got.”

I went ahead of him to the office at front of the house. The room was dark and masculine. Books lined the walls on either side of a gray stone fireplace, and his desk took up almost all the space on the adjacent wall. A thick rug lay in the middle of the floor, and two overstuffed chairs flanked each side of the fireplace. A well-used leather couch sat against the opposite wall, and there was an ancient throw Jack’s mom had knitted in hues of green tossed carelessly over the back. It was a comfortable space, and it was obvious it was where he spent most of his time.

White boards were set up in front of the windows, identical to the ones he had up in his office, and he had the curtains pulled tight so no one could see in or out. It was hard to miss the garish evidence of what we were dealing with when it was so starkly presented. Jack handed me a fresh cup of coffee when he came in.

“I’ve got Doctor Vance under surveillance,” he said. “There are two other departments working with me who don’t have assholes in charge, so I’m using their resources for surveillance purposes. I don’t think we’re going to pin this on Vance though.”

“But you think he’s guilty?”

“I think he knows what’s going on, at least part of it, but his hands are clean. He’s made sure of it. But I’m not sure he’s trained his sons to be so careful. William and Gregory Jr—I’ve got them both under surveillance. One of them reads like an altar boy. Comes off squeaky clean. The other doesn’t have a record of violence, but he’s got a hell of a temper, according to a few people who’ve worked with him in the past.” Jack rubbed at the back of his neck. “One of the Vances is involved somehow. Maybe all of them. But I don’t have the evidence to pin a murder on anyone.”

“Let me guess. The younger Doctor Vance is the one with the temper.”

“Bingo,” Jack said.

“How are we supposed to find everyone involved in this?”

“We’ve got a warrant for the membership list. I’ll serve it in the morning and have one of the tech guys pull it from online. If someone paid the membership dues and was ever entered into the system, then it’ll show up in the list.”

Jack grabbed a folder from his desk and went to the extra white board set up next to the murder board. “And to answer your question. We’re
not
supposed to find everyone. That’s for the federal guys to deal with. We have to focus on Daniel Oglesby and George. It all comes back to them. Have a seat, buttercup. We’re going to be here for a while.”

I curled up in one of the oversized chairs in front of the fireplace and watched Jack construct the puzzle pieces by sticking them to the board in a loose timeline. Daniel Oglesby’s photograph went up first—not the crime scene photo, but one identical to the picture hanging in the church.

“He was taken Sunday afternoon,” Jack said, writing in approximate dates and times. “By one initial assailant who had access to a drug only available to doctors. Who has access?”

“In Bloody Mary or in the county?” I asked.

“In the county. Anyone you can think of.”

“I’d have access. Doc Randall would be the only other one here in Bloody Mary. But he’s old as dirt. I can’t see him stabbing anyone in the back with a hypodermic needle. He can barely see two feet in front of him.”

“Who else?”

“King George Proper has several doctors who work at a clinic there in town, and all of them would have access to Augusta General. Nottingham and Newcastle are small like we are, so just a few. We’ve already established that Doctor Vance had access. I feel like you’re testing me. You have that look on your face that says you know all of this already.”

“Sometimes it’s better to hear it all out loud in case it knocks something loose. Augusta General is our place,” he said. “Twenty milliliters of Diprivan are unaccounted for. The nurse who mans the cage where they keep all the drugs has no explanation, and we can’t find a tie in to the Diprivan Doctor Vance signed for a week ago. Everything in their records shows every doctor logged in like they were supposed to. Even Doc Randall on the afternoon before Daniel Oglesby went missing. But the hospital can’t pin the theft on any one of them.”

“You’re shitting me,” I said.

“I got the chance to talk to Doc Randall this afternoon while you were digging into George.”

“I bet that was an interesting conversation.”

“In all honesty, I’d have rather watched you put George back together instead of dealing with what I did today. You’re right. Doc Randall can’t see two feet in front of him, and he’s as old as dirt. He started to cry as soon as he saw me at the door. Easiest confession I’ve ever gotten out of a suspect before.”

“He confessed to injecting Reverend Oglesby with the drug?” I asked incredulously.

I didn’t have feelings for Doc Randall one way or the other. He’d kept his opinions to himself about my parents as far as I knew, and I’d only gone to him a couple of times as a patient when I was a child. But I still didn’t believe he’d be capable of doing something like that. He was just so—old. And small. And his glasses were thicker than Coke bottles.

“He confessed to getting an envelope full of money in his mailbox last Thursday. He said his practice has dwindled down to nothing. Most everyone is driving over to King George to the clinic there or waiting for you to open a private practice here.”

“What? Really?” I asked, intrigued.

“Focus,” Jack said. “He said his social security isn’t enough to pay for his malpractice insurance and still live on, and he keeps hoping he’ll die of old age soon so he can get some rest.”

Jack rubbed his forehead and put up Doc Randall’s photo on the timeline before Reverend Oglesby, and the date he stole the medicine.

“Christ,” I said.

“Just shoot me if I ever get to that point. The man’s been working for sixty years and has nothing to show for it.”

“Who left the money in his mailbox?”

“He doesn’t know. There was a note that said what they wanted and how much to get, and they said if he delivered the product on time that the other half of the payment would be sent. I took it all into evidence, and maybe we’ll get a couple of prints, but they’ve been careful so far. It was a quarter of a million dollars.”

I whistled between my teeth. “That’s a hell of a price to pay to make sure a gay preacher is taught a lesson.”

Jack looked at me and nodded. “That was pretty much my thought. Which means something else is going on here that we’re not seeing.”

He filled out the rest of the timeline, his block handwriting square and neat below each photo. Doctor Vance went on the board next, and underneath him went two more pictures. The first I didn’t recognize, but something flickered in my mind about the second.

“Hey, I know that guy,” I said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“I don’t
know him,
know him. But I recognize him from somewhere.”

“That’s the younger Doctor Vance. He’s a cardiologist.”

“That would explain the temper,” I said. “Cardiologists all have a God complex.”

“Have you spoken to him before?”

“I don’t think so, but I must have seen him at the hospital before.” I stared harder at the photograph, trying to place where I’d seen his face, but I was drawing a blank.

“Greg Vance Jr. is alibied by his wife for the night in question, but William here doesn’t have anyone to vouch for him. He says he was home alone and asleep. We’re not pressing for now because they have a few political connections, and the younger Doctor Vance is already crying harassment.”

“Where was George going when he left this morning?” I asked. “Does anyone know?”

“Yeah. He logged it in at the garage before he left. The form he filled out said there’d been a request for a tow—a 1994 grey Taurus—and it gave the address at the location we found his body. But I didn’t find any calls that matched the request on the garage phone, and we didn’t find a grey Taurus anywhere in the vicinity. We’ve yet to recover George’s cell. I’m thinking the killers probably took it with them. I’ve got a trace on it, but they’ll have ditched it. Probably in the river. Unfortunately, they’re not stupid killers.”

He continued writing and put up more photos.

“Whoa, why are you putting Lorna up there?” I asked when her face went up next to the others Jack had questioned. “They don’t let women into the Aryan Nation.”

“No, but she knew about Vaughn and Oglesby. As far as I can tell that was a well kept secret. Especially in a town like this. I didn’t have a clue, and I’m usually one of the first to hear the gossip. I’m mostly just keeping a visual record of everyone we’ve talked to and what they know. And Lorna’s been awfully damned nervous every time I try to talk to her, so something is up with that.”

“That’s hormones. Trust me.”

“An expert, are you?”

“At watching other women throw themselves at you? Yes, I am.”

He looked over his shoulder and gave me that smile that had brought legions of women to their knees. Only this time I felt that low pull in my gut, and I knew I was now a member of that exclusive club.

“Trust me. You’ll be glad I had the practice,” he said, winking.

“Jesus, Jack.” Heat rushed to my face, and I cursed my pale complexion.

“Relax, J.J. You’ll know when I’m ready to make my move.” Jack went on like he hadn’t just upended my world. “Lorna goes on the board anyway. Along with Vaughn. I need to talk to him again, but he isn’t answering my calls. Tell me who was at the auto shop when you were there this morning. Obviously someone saw you talking with George.”

“Wormy Mueller was there like usual. Mr. Martin was putting up a new sign in the window of the grocery store, and he came over and talked a while. Jimmy Hayes and Kenny Laubach were both working in the bays, but they stopped to talk with Mayor Glass and Rufus Swain when they brought their cars by. George worked on my car in the bay on the end, and we didn’t even speak much until he wrote up the ticket. That doesn’t mean a hundred other people didn’t walk by during the time I was there, and a good number of them I didn’t know. The station is right there on the corner of the square, and you know he’s the best mechanic in the county. People from all over take their cars there.”

Jack grunted and put up another photograph. “I did some research on the five-point crown Doctor Vance pointed out on Oglesby’s body. It’s a symbol used by a group called Blood Brothers. There wasn’t a lot I could find, and Carver, my FBI contact, said they had little to nothing about the group in their files, though he did know of them. They’re supposedly a different hate organization all together, but there have been a few loose ties between them and the Aryan Nation.”