Tin God (25 page)

The storm had finally dissipated, but Nick still felt drenched. He and Cage didn’t find anything else in Jaymee’s trailer. Charles still sought a search warrant. Evaline was locked up.

“Come over to my parents. Eat. Wait with us,” Cage suggested.

After a stop at Annabelle’s for some dry clothes, Nick found himself once again sitting at his mother-in-law’s tidy kitchen table, surrounded by her creepy, inanimate chickens.

Lorelai cooked something. Nick ate but didn’t taste the food. Cage made coffee. Nick drank it black. He should sleep, but he couldn’t. Not when Jaymee was out there.

“Maybe you boys got it wrong,” Oren said for at least the seventh time.

“No, Dad.” Cage answered in the same way he’d done all evening. “Uniform took her home. She’s not there. She’s not at work. Didn’t leave a note. Hasn’t called. You know she wouldn’t do that.”

“And Newton’s missing, too.” Nick said his line.

“Piece of dog shit.” Oren lit his pipe.

Naked without his phone, Nick had called Sergeant Kees from the Foster’s house to give her Cage’s number. Turned out Debra was singing loudly. The adoption ring had been Holden’s idea. After selling his baby with Elaine, he’d convinced himself he was doing God’s work, helping well-deserving parents and protecting unwanted children from a life of misery. Money was just a pleasant side effect.

Debra helped him streamline applicants, hide his finances. She found the parents and did the dirty work.

Holden hated Royce Newton and hadn’t wanted to succumb to the blackmail, but Debra convinced him he had no choice. At the very least, Newton could ruin Holden’s reputation by exposing their affair. His wife could ask for a divorce, and if his financials were closely investigated, there were a lot of questions he didn’t want to answer.

So Newton got his cut.

But something nagged at Nick–the same damned feeling that had been festering since he first arrived in Roselea. They were all missing something stupidly obvious. The answer coated the tip of his tongue but refused to take shape in his brain. They now had all the pieces but one. Nick just didn’t believe the missing piece was Royce Newton.

Charles called again. He’d been out to Jaymee’s trailer. Talked to all the residents. Nothing. With no crime scene, it was hard to declare her a missing person.

Most of the time, he and Cage didn’t speak. Their mutual pain connected the two of them just as it had four years ago, and the occasional glance, the manly nod, was all they could muster.

As the grandfather clock in the living room chimed the hours, Nick hovered in a state of rampant distress and overwhelming exhaustion. He paced the living room, desperate with the need to do something. When his head began to throb, he dropped onto the couch and sunk into the cushion.

Lorelai went to bed. Every so often, her sobs echoed down the stairs. Oren sat in his chair snoring, mouth hanging open. Cage slept folded over the kitchen table, phone in hand.

Nick didn’t know how many times he drifted off when Cage’s cellphone ringing startled him upright. He rubbed his eyes and tried to hear over Oren’s snores.

“We’ll meet you there.”

He got to his feet. Knew he’d need more coffee. Poured a cup and stuck it in the microwave. 4:02 a.m.

“Where?” he asked as Cage finished the call.

“Evaline. Charles got the warrant.”

Early morning darkness still reigned when Cage and Nick arrived at Evaline. Likely startled awake by the arrival of the police cruisers, a blue jay sang from the protection of a live oak. The stifling humidity made Nick’s lightweight shirt cling to his back and dampened the roots of his hair. He wasn’t allowed into the house. Pacing the corner of the whitewashed porch, he wiped the moisture off his forehead. Drawing a decent breath was impossible.

“You’re sure Royce has trinkets from the victims? From Jaymee?”

Cage nodded. “Had them in a box–in a hidey-hole.”

“Where?”

“All these old houses have stash places. First thing we did was start checking the floorboards for hollow spots and then moved on to the wall. We found the box in Royce’s office. The blueprints of the original house hang in the entryway, and according to them, Royce’s office used to be Henrí Laurent’s study. Detective Charles noticed the fireplace didn’t work and removed the iron guard. Box was behind the fake logs.”

“What’s in it?” The question made Nick’s already sour stomach twist into a knot.

Charles exited the house. His dress shirt was wrinkled, his salt and pepper hair stuck to his forehead, and his expression was caught somewhere between resignation and invigoration. He clutched a flat white box. “Don’t need that fax from your Sergeant Kees anymore.” He opened the lid.

Nick recognized the elegant writing immediately. A manila envelope lay at the top of the box’s contents, Elaine Andrew’s name printed neatly in the center. Charles picked up the envelope with a gloved hand. Beneath it lie photocopied bank records of deposits to RLN Enterprises from New Life Baptist Church. A feminine-looking scrawl, most likely Rebecca’s, dominated the bottom of the page. Along with the account number for RLN, she’d written what looked like two other bank account numbers with a jagged arrow pointing back to a nine-digit social security number.

“Rebecca found out about Royce’s misdeeds and made notes.”

Charles moved the photocopies. The next item slugged Nick in the midsection. A delicate gold cross, exquisitely made, the charm smaller than Nick’s pinkie fingernail, hung on a thin gold chain. Lana’s thirteenth birthday present from her mother. The gift she wore every day had disappeared with her murderer. Beside it, a gold ring with a green stone. Nick couldn’t tell if the emerald was fake or a real gem.

“Crystal’s ring,” Cage said. “I remember her wearing it.”

“Royce didn’t know about Debra’s arrest before he took Jaymee,” Charles said. “Thought silencing her would buy his freedom.” He rattled the box to reveal a pair of cheap black sunglasses hiding beneath the papers.

Cage released a broken-sounding moan. Nick didn’t have to ask who the sunglasses belonged to.

“Jaymee’s,” Cage choked out. “The night Rebecca was killed, she stopped at the diner to confirm Jaymee’s cleaning appointment. Jaymee asked about the sunglasses, Rebecca said she’d already laid them on the kitchen counter. Next morning they were gone, and Jaymee’s been looking for them ever since. Royce planned on taking her all along.”

Nick looked at the box. A sweltering breeze rolled between the Greek columns. He tasted the sweet magnolias and fresh air on his tongue. And something in his brain switched on.

“Why are they on the bottom?”

Cage and Charles both looked at him in confusion.

Nick grabbed the pen sticking out of Charles’s pocket and carefully lifted the envelope and papers. “The order is all wrong. He killed Lana first. If he started keeping this box then–which he would have, if he
were
a collector–Lana’s envelope would have been on the bottom and her cross with it. Then Rebecca’s papers, Crystal’s ring, and Jaymee’s sunglasses. Yet her sunglasses are on the very bottom.”

Cage shrugged. “Maybe things got shook up when he put the box away.”

“That envelope barely fits in there,” Nick said. “Sunglasses aren’t going to crawl underneath it and hide.”

“That’s true.” Charles rattled the box again. The envelope stayed resolutely in place. “”S’all backward.”

“Royce is no serial killer,” Nick said. “The Roselea murderer isn’t, either. Not in the true sense. He’s killing to protect himself. He’d take Lana’s papers and Rebecca’s evidence, but he wouldn’t give a damn about Crystal’s ring or Jaymee’s things.”

“Unless he was trying to lead police in the wrong direction,” Charles said.

“You’re saying the killer planted this?” Cage said. “To make Royce look guilty? That Paul did this?”

“Planted, yes. But Paul was accounted for during Jaymee’s disappearance.” The feeling he was missing something flittered in Nick’s brain with the skill of a heat-seeking fly.

“Ballard was in and out,” Charles said. “Home and then at the hospital with Holden. We’ve had a tail on him. If he’s got her, I don’t know when he would have done it.”

“Cage is right about one thing,” Nick said. “When he killed Rebecca, the murderer took Jaymee’s sunglasses. She’s his emotional end game. But why?”

“Paul Ballard hates her,” Charles said. “You should have seen him in the hospital, calling her the devil’s child, blaming her for Gereau exposing the truth and bringing shame on the Ballard name.”

“But he’s been tailed.”

“Newton’s only one who makes sense,” Cage said.

“Nick’s right,” Charles said. “This evidence stinks. Too neat, too easy.”

“Rebecca’s killer knew Evaline well,” Nick said. “Did Royce have the locks changed after the murder?”

“No.” Charles shook his head in disgust. “Said it was Rebecca the murderer had been after, and he’d be damned if he would show any fear. Another reason to make him look guilty.”

“Rebecca knew her killer,” Nick said. “That much we’re sure of. She let him in, assuming it’s not Royce. Aren’t there rumors of an affair?”

“No proof. She knew Wilcher,” Cage said, “but he obviously didn’t take Jaymee. Ballard’s whereabouts are known. Royce is the only person unaccounted for.”

Nick ran his hands through his sweaty hair slicking it back. He rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth trying to maintain control of his rushing emotions. The blue jay still sang, and the beauty of its song made the intense moment surreal. The muggy air seeped into his head, clouding his thoughts. He walked to the edge of the porch and sat down on the top step. In the east, a faint strip of pink streaked across the skyline like a delicate brushstroke.

Dawn.

They’d been wasting their time. Royce wasn’t behind Jaymee’s disappearance. He was probably hiding in Jackson. No, they were looking for someone who’d been watching from the sidelines all along, someone who knew about the illegal adoptions and wanted to protect Holden Wilcher.

Maybe there was another accomplice. Maybe Paul Ballard hired the muscle.

And maybe Nick was too late, again.

“Forensics won’t find anything.” Nick said. “They should be searching Jaymee’s trailer.”

“Charles has a second unit going,” Cage said. “County sheriff’s assisting.”

They stood off to the side of Evaline’s immaculate front yard, out of the way of the forensics team. Dawn had fully emerged, bringing with it more heat and yapping birds. Charles remained on the porch, phone to his ear.

“Tell me about the typewriter again.” Cage wiped his forehead with the back of his hand.

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Nick said. “Why send that letter at all? Without it, I wouldn’t have realized Rebecca and Lana were connected. Jaymee wouldn’t have made the connection to her daughter and the adoption. If he hadn’t sent the letter, the killer could have stopped with Rebecca.”

“Royce took Jaymee’s sunglasses. He planned–”

“The
killer
took them. And the letter had to have been mailed before he killed Rebecca. The moment he put that in the mailbox, he set all of this in motion.”

“He wanted to get caught.”

“He wanted to attack,” Nick said. “But he’s passive-aggressive. He stays on the sidelines, manipulating until he’s ready to strike. Jaymee’s his last target. But he had to take care of everyone else who posed a threat to Holden first.”

“All right,” Cage said. “So we’re back to Holden calling the shots. Hired gun.”

That wasn’t it. Too simple.

“What kind of typewriter was it again?”

“IBM Wheelwriter 3,” Nick said. “I never got the chance to look it up.”

Cage opened the browser on his phone and tapped in the search bar. Images popped up. Cage clicked on one to enlarge. Nick peered over his shoulder.

And forgot to breathe.

“Sonofabitch.”

“What?”

“That picture. The one of Crystal and Jaymee–where was it taken?”

“Looked like Crystal’s trailer. Why?”

“We need to get inside. Now.”

Cage shook his head. “Why?”

“That picture of the two of them,” Nick said. “They were standing next to a table. That table had a typewriter that looked just like this one,” he pointed at the phone. “God, why didn’t I notice it then?”

“It’s a typewriter. Not what you were looking for.”

“The one used to type the letter has a ‘K’ that sticks. Only way we’ll know for sure is to get to the typewriter.”

“Trailer’s locked. It’s no longer considered an active crime scene, and the landlord’s an ass.”

“I got a crowbar.”

“What if Crystal was somehow involved in this?” Cage argued. “Say she typed the note for Royce–or whoever the killer is–and sent it. He kills her later. We go breaking in there, and any evidence we find is useless in court.”

“Then put on your uniform and use your powers of persuasion.”

Nick stood behind Cage while he talked to Reggie Shaw, manager of Ravenna Court, who fit every stereotype of redneck southerner: tall, stick-legged, and a full beer-belly with stained white tank top and cigarette hanging from his mouth. He palmed a chipped yellow lighter in his dirty hand and looked at Cage with disinterest.

“I had a nasty-ass mess to clean up in that trailer. Crime scene clean-up from Jackson cost more than the piece of shit’s worth. Don’t need you going in there taking anything she might have had I could use to make some of my money back.”

“Her belongings go to her family.”

“She don’t have no family. None that we can find.”

“You haven’t given her family much time,” Cage said.

“That’s not your business.”

Cage pulled out his badge. The rising sun glinted off the gold shield. “It is my business, Shaw. And you know it wouldn’t take much for me to raid your little manager’s trailer. I’ve heard rumor you got a nice side business here, selling pot and maybe some of the hard stuff.”

Nick knew the drill. He’d played this game with lowlifes on the streets of Jackson a hundred times. He usually enjoyed the banter, but Jaymee didn’t have time for the ego swap. He pulled out his wallet. “Fifty bucks. All the time we need.”