Marcie's Murder (2 page)

Branham
got in
to
the cruiser
and threw the transmission into reverse
, looking over his shoulder
.

“
So if
I
’m
under arrest
, what’s the charge
?” Hank asked.

“Just keep your mouth shut and don’t say anything,” Branham warned,
avoiding Hank’s eyes as he swung
the cruiser around and
accelerat
ed
out into the street. “It’s
going to
be a long night and you’re in a shitload of trouble
already
.”

2

Hank was
on vacation. Although he was wealthy thanks to his maternal grandfather
, whose will had made him a millionaire at the age of eight, he didn
’
t own a car and never drove anywhere himself, preferring to scrounge rides or take taxis wherever he needed to go. Vacations were t
he exception
. Every
autumn
he
went on vacation for
three weeks
. He
rented a car, threw a bunch of books in
to
the back seat and drove somewhere.
He
stop
p
ed
wherever he
felt like
stopping
,
soak
ed
in his surroundings, read a book
,
and pass
ed
the time quietly.

As a twenty-three
-
year veteran of
the p
olice
d
epartment in
Glendale, Maryland,
a city of just over a million people, Hank had devoted
half
o
f his life to
his
job
, given that he’d just passed his
forty-sixth
birthday
.
His father was
the late
Robert Vernon Donaghue, a criminal
defense
attorney and university
law
professor
. His mother was
Anna Peach Haynes,
former
s
tate’s
a
ttorney,
the
daughter of a
state g
overnor
and
grand-daughter of a state
Supreme Court
justice.
The youngest of four children and a
n academic prodigy, Hank accelerated through school and entered State University
in Glendale
as a
fifteen
-year-old
freshman.
He
majored in criminology and criminal justice,
earn
ing
a
b
achelor’s degree
,
and
then
went back for a
m
aster
of art
s. The completion of a law degree was a logical progression
,
and at the age of
twenty-two
Hank passed his bar exams
at the top of his class
and accepted a job in the
local
s
tate’s
a
ttorney’s office.

He worked for a year at the bottom of the ladder, married a fellow
a
ssistant
s
tate’s
a
ttorney, and learned the ropes.
Before long, however, he realized he was much more interested in investigation than prosecution and decided to change course, applying for admission to the police academy. It was a move that
disappointed both his
mother and his wife. He passed with flying colors
,
put in his eight weeks of field training
,
and received his assignment as a
uniformed
patrol officer.
H
is wife
filed for divorce soon afterward
.

Hank quickly ascended the ladder, earning promotions to detective, sergeant
,
and lieutenant in the minimum time allowed, but politics eventually caught up with him and he
ha
d remained at his current rank for the past thirteen years.
He was now working with
Detective Karen Stainer, who
was without a partner
after
transferr
ing
into Homicide from Family-Related Crime
after a suspension for insubordination
.
Although Hank outranked her she did not report to him, as the supervisory lieutenant position in Homicide was currently occupied
by someone else.

While working with Stainer on a case in May involving the local Triad society,
he’d been
shot in the shoulder while protecting
Peter Mah,
a Triad official
,
from a
n
assassination attempt.
Vacation, when it finally arrived, was a welcome break.

H
e
drove
across
West Virginia and south into Kentucky
. H
e
followed what
was
known as the Bourbon Trail, a circuit that include
d
six
distiller
ies
.
He
tour
ed
each
one
and
bought the three
liters
allowed
per day
under Kentucky state law
.
Some would be for
him
but most was
for his mother, a bourbon enthusiast
.

He started for home by passing through the Cumberland Gap
down into Tennessee and then northeast up into Virginia, following a scenic route through Scott and Russell Counties into Tazewell County, enjoying the
countryside
and
stopping to read for an hour here and there
at
rest stops
which
cropped up along the way.

Yesterday he
’
d
followed
Highway 460
to
Tazewell,
the county seat,
where he
ate
lunch.
He
got back
on
to
460 and
drove
as far as Harmony, about a third of the way from Tazewell to Bluefield
,
before deciding he’d had enough for the day.
At
the edge of
town
he
stopped at
the Harmony Mot
or Inn
,
booked
a room for the night,
grabbed
a shower
,
and
took
a
short
nap.

Lacking ambition
, he
ate
his evening meal in
a
Pizza Hut and wandered
along
Bluefield Street, Harmony’s main
thoroughfare
, window shopping as he strolled, hands in his pockets. It was a warm, pleasant evening in
mid-
September
. He approached a store with a small seating area out front enclosed by a low wrought iron fence. Three men sat at
a
table
watching the traffic in the street
. A
s Hank approached he caught the unmistakable scent of cigar smoke. It was a tobacconist’s shop.
H
e went inside and spent an hour talking to the owner, trading stories and shopping for cigars. When he left it was 9:00 p.m. and the store was closing.
Smoking
one of his purchases, he walked slowly back to his car in the parking lot of the Pizza Hut and
returned
to the motel.

On television t
he Orioles were playing the
Angels
at home
. H
e stretched out on the bed
to
watch the
rest of the
game.
At
11:00 p.m.
when the
news came on he was bored but couldn’t sleep, so he decided to
drive over
to a convenience store he
’
d seen on Bluefield Street for a six-pack of beer and a bag of potato chips.
T
he store was closed. On the way back through town, still craving a beer, he pulled into the parking lot of a run-down bar called
Gerry’s
. He parked in the spot closest to the sidewalk and got out.

As he walked through the parking lot to the bar entrance he passed two bikers standing next to their machines
. They were
discussing
compression
and tuning
.
One had a reddish-blond beard
and tattoos on his forearms that Hank couldn’t quite make out,
and the other had a
brush
cut
, a long mustache, similar tattoos
,
and wore sunglasses despite the
darkness of the night
.
Both
bikes
had
Pennsylvania licen
s
e plates.
Out of habit he memorized the numbers.

As Hank approached the door of the bar he saw a woman standing in the shadows
on one side
. She stepped forward to look at him and quickly stepped back again. She was in her forties, with wavy, shoulder-length black hair, prominent cheekbones, a high forehead, dark eyes, dark complexion, long slender legs
,
and a
good
figure.
She wore a light-colored dress
with large flowers on it
and black shoes
with a slight heel
.
She looked upset about something.

Hank stepped inside the bar and looked around. There were a few
middle-aged
men sitting at tables
and
one
younger
guy
hunched over the bar. There were two waitresses, one about Hank’s age and one in her early twenties
. There was
a
man
behind the ba
r. Faces turned in his direction and eyes looked him over.

Hank
went to a table along the far wall and sat down facing the room.
A
ccording to his watch
i
t was 11:19 p.m.

The young waitress smile
d
as she went by with a tray of beer for three men on the other side
of the room
, but it was the older woman who eventually served him. He ordered a beer and drank it slowly, watching the room.
H
e
was now being completely
ignored.
T
he bikers came in and settled down at the bar, one of them fooling around with a
cell phone
. A few minutes later
an athletic-looking
middle-aged guy
came in. He wore
a black sport
jacket and jeans. It was 11:25
p.m
. He sat at a table
and ordered
a beer from the young waitress
. When it arrived he
drank it
quickly. While he sat there he kept looking around, as though expecting to meet someone. He
left in about ten minutes.

Hank ordered a second beer.
When it was done
he got up, went to the washroom, came back out, left his money
on
the
table
,
and went out. The woman he
’
d seen outside the door was gone.
He
had
n’t seen her
come into the bar while he’d been t
here.
T
he parking lot
was empty
.
It was a couple of minutes before midnight.
H
e got into his rented
Grand Cherokee
and drove back to the motel.

He watched television for about a half an
hour,
after which he
turned out the light and fell asleep.