The Morning After Read online

  Stretching in his chair, he considered the note he’d received this morning. The letter was probably mailed from another nutcase getting his rocks off by trying to rattle the department and get a little fame for himself. The envelope had been mailed to him as he was an easy target, the most high profile detective in the department compliments of the Montgomery case a few months ago.

  Which galled him.

  He reached into his top drawer, found a bottle of antacid and popped two with a swig of leftover coffee just as the phone rang for what had to have been the hundredth time today. He swung the receiver to his ear. “Detective Reed.”

  “Sheriff Baldwin, Lumpkin County.”

  Reed straightened. Not a usual call. Lumpkin County was over three hundred miles north. But familiar to him. Too familiar. “What can I do for you, Sheriff?”

  “I think ya need to come up here straightaway.”

  “Me?” Reed asked, his stomach knotting the way it always did when he sensed something wasn’t right.

  “I think it would be best.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Two boys were out huntin’ with their dog, up near Blood Mountain. One boy, Billy Dean Delacroix, he got lucky and wounded a buck. The kids took off after him and followed his trail into a ravine. Found the buck dead at the edge of a clearing. And that’s not all. They think they stumbled onto some kind of grave cuz of the fresh turned earth and their old hound was going ape-shit. One kid, Billy Dean’s cousin, Prescott Jones, got spooked and ran, said there was the devil there or somethin’ and hightailed it the way they came in. Billy Dean was pissed, thought his cousin was imaginin’ things, but a few minutes later, he gets to feeling jumpy and takes off after Prescott. Just as Billy Dean’s comin’ over a rise, he hears a scream that scares the liver out of him. He rounds a corner and sees the Jones boy doin’ a header off the cliff. Now, it’s fifty feet down and there’s no way to reach him, so Billy Dean, he runs to his daddy’s pickup and calls for help on the cell phone—which doesn’t work so hot up in the mountains. He has to drive a ways before the call actually connects.”

  “Jesus.” Reed was doodling, writing down the kids’s names on a pad, hoping the sheriff would get to the point.

  “The way we figure it, the two kids were out there where they shouldn’t be, probably high on somethin’, and they either had an accident or one kid pushed the other.” He hesitated, sounded as if he were drawing hard on a cigarette. Reed waited. Still didn’t know why the sheriff had called him.

  “Trouble was, it was just as the boy said. A grave was down in the holler, fancy coffin and all.”

  “Coffin?”

  “Yep, someone went to the trouble of buryin’ the bodies in a rosewood box.”

  “Bodies? As in more than one?”

  “Ye–ep. Two, as a matter of fact. One fresh, one not so…The reason I’m callin’ you is that we think you might know one of the victims.”

  “Me? Why?” Every muscle in Reed’s body tensed. He quit doodling.

  “We found your name in the coffin.”

  “What? My name?” Was the man insane? His name on the inside of the coffin? What did that mean? “In the coffin?”

  “That’s right. A note addressed to you. Along with a small microphone.”

  “Sheriff, hold on a minute. There was a note for me and a microphone inside a coffin that held two bodies up in the woods three hundred miles from Savannah?”

  “You got it. A hole was bored into the box and the mike placed in a corner, near the vic’s head, the note was placed at the foot, tucked into the lining.”

  “Any ID on the victims?” Reed’s mind spun. First, the weird note this morning and then this bizarre news about bodies in Lumpkin County, the part of Georgia where he’d grown up—a place he’d rather forget.

  “Both Jane Does. Maybe you should just come on up and see for yourself. I’ve already worked it out with the state police. They’ll fly you up in a chopper. The major crime team is already up there, preserving the site, but seein’ as your name was on the note, I really think you should take a look at this.”

  Reed was already reaching for his jacket.

  Around four o’clock, Trina said, “Something major is going on up in Lumpkin County.” She was on her way back from the soda machine, a sweating bottle of Diet Coke swinging from her fingers. An instrumental rendition of a Patti Page tune wafted from hidden speakers in the offices of the Savannah Sentinel as Nikki tried to put an interesting spin on her dry story about the school board.

  “How major?” Nikki looked up from her computer monitor. She was interested in anything having to do with news even though Lumpkin County was a long way north of Atlanta, not far from the Carolina border.

  Trina’s forehead furrowed a bit. “I don’t know. But big enough to warrant the interest of the Sentinel.”

  “Really?” Nikki was all ears.

  “All I know is that Metzger was so excited, he almost forgot to gloat.”

  Norman Metzger was the Sentinel’s crime reporter. His byline accompanied nearly every story having anything to do with the Savannah Police Department or other police agencies in the state. It wasn’t that he was such a bad guy, just inefficient in Nikki’s mind and, as Trina had indicated, had a high and extremely inflated opinion of himself. “He was grabbing his jacket and barking orders to the photographer, telling Jim to get a move on.

  “When I asked him ‘Where’s the fire?’ he threw me a grin that the Cheshire Cat would have killed for and just said ‘Dahlonega.’” Trina twisted off the cap from her Diet Coke and her eyebrows elevated over eyes that were charged with fire. “I figured you’d want to know.”

  “You figured right.” Nikki scooted her chair back, looked down the hall and saw Metzger plop a wool cap on his head and jangle his keys in the pocket of his jacket. He tossed Nikki a glance down the hallway, caught her staring and gave her a mock salute as he winked at her.

  Creep.

  He knew she wanted his job and couldn’t help but rub it in every chance he got.

  Her jaw tightened as she rolled her chair back to her desk.

  “Don’t let him get to you.” Obviously, Trina had caught the entire exchange.

  “With Metzger, it’s impossible.”

  “Nah, it isn’t. Don’t play his game. Let it slide. Water off a duck’s back.”

  “If you say so.” Nikki’s mind was spinning. What was it that was so important up in the north Georgia mountains? “Thanks for the tip,” she said to Trina. “I owe ya one.”

  “Oh, you probably owe me a dozen or more, but who’s counting. You can buy me a drink tonight. Remember, whatever this is, you’re not bagging out on us. I’m not going to be the only piece of sanity between Dana’s elation and Aimee’s despair. No way, honey. You’re showin’ up.”

  “Promise.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know.” Trina slid into her chair and disappeared behind the partition just as her phone began to jingle. “Savannah Sentinel, this is Trina Boudine…”

  Nikki didn’t waste a second. She picked up her cell and called a number she knew by heart. Another cell phone. This one belonging to Cliff Siebert who worked in the detective unit of the Savannah Police Department. He made it his business to know what was going on and for some reason, he usually confided in Nikki. Maybe he was interested in her, a thought she harbored but didn’t want to acknowledge right now. So far, he’d never really come on to her. Well, not lately. There was a chance he opened up to her because she was Big Ronald Gillette’s daughter, but, more likely it was because of a severe case of guilt.

  “Hi, it’s me,” she said brightly when he answered.

  He groaned, but it was good-natured. “What do you want?”

  “Something’s up. Something big if I can judge by the smile on Norm Metzger’s face. He’s on his way upstate. Dahlonega.”

  “How’d he find out about that?”

  “About what? And I don’t know.” There was a second’s hesitation, just as there
always was each time Nikki pried and Detective Siebert struggled with his conscience. “Come on, Cliff. What’s happening?”

  “You can’t find out from that end?” he asked, stalling. As he always did.

  “Are you kidding? You know how my boss thinks. Tom’s a good ole southern boy, who, beneath his liberal veneer, feels that all women should be a cross between Scarlett O’Hara and Heidi Fleiss.”

  “Careful now, I’m a good old southern boy, too.”

  “You know what I mean,” she said with a sigh. Cliff was getting on her nerves, but then, he usually did. Always had. Cliff Siebert had been her eldest brother’s best friend in high school. Andrew had gone on to Duke University. Cliff had gone through the police academy and had finished college while working at the Savannah Police Department. His family owned property outside of town, three farms that had been in their family for six generations, but Cliff had balked at becoming a farmer. He’d wanted to be a cop from the first time he’d seen a black and white cruiser patrolling the streets of the small town where they’d grown up. The weekend Andrew had died, Cliff was supposed to have visited him but had bagged out at the last minute. He’d been swimming in guilt ever since.

  “Metzger really gets under your skin,” he said now.

  “Amen.” Nikki tapped her pencil angrily. She’d had it with men who talked out of both sides of their mouths, the ones who extolled the virtues of the working woman by day, only to pull a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde routine after quitting time when they expected dinner on the table at six and their wives to act like thousand-dollar call girls—well, after the late night news and latest sports report, of course. Didn’t that attitude go out in the fifties? The NINETEEN fifties?

  Tom Fink, the Sentinel’s editor, could breathe fire, brimstone and right-wing politics all he wanted to from his side of the glass ceiling. But he wasn’t going to hold Nikki Gillette back. No way, no how. She planned to bust right through that invisible barricade. The way she figured it, Fink could cut himself a whole new attitude with the shards that flew out as she rocketed past him on her way to the big time. All she needed was the right story. Just one. She sensed that whatever was happening up in Lumpkin County might just be it. “Come on, give. What’s going on?”

  There was a heavy sigh, a loud creak, as if he’d turned in his chair, and then a lowering of Cliff’s voice. “Okay, okay. Listen. All I know is that Pierce Reed roared out of here. Fit to be tied. On his way to the sheriff’s department in Lumpkin County, if you can believe that. He left about twenty minutes ago. I don’t know what that was about, but I did hear that a kid was life-flighted from the backwoods in that part of the mountains, fell down a cliff or something, and he’s on his way to Mason Hospital in Atlanta. I don’t know all the details, don’t even know the extent of the kid’s injuries or how the whole mess is connected to Reed, but from what I can piece together all this came down about half an hour before Reed got the call.” He fell silent for a minute. “You know, Nikki. You didn’t hear it from me.”

  “I never do.” Nikki glanced at the clock. “Thanks, Cliff,” she said, mentally on her way to north Georgia. “I won’t forget this.”

  “Do—forget it. Okay? I didn’t tell you anything. If you spout off, it could cost me my job. So, remember, how you found out about this—you picked it up on the police band or something.”

  “Right.”

  “And Nikki?”

  “Yeah?” She was reaching inside her purse for her keys.

  “Say hi to your mom for me.”

  Nikki stopped cold. Just as she always did when she thought of her mother these days. Her fingers brushed the metal of her car keys and they felt suddenly icy. “I will, Cliff,” she promised, then hung up. In her mind’s eye she caught a fleeting glimpse of her mother, now frail, unhappily married, dependent upon a big bear of a man who, if he didn’t love her, at least wasn’t unfaithful. Well, as far as anyone knew. From outward appearances, Judge Ronald Gillette was the epitome of propriety, ever the doting husband to a sickly wife who was often confined to her bedroom.

  As Nikki shot to her feet she tried to shake off the sadness that settled like a blanket over her soul whenever she thought of her mother too long.

  At the reception desk, she marked herself out for the rest of the day and pushed all thoughts of her family out of her head. Holding her jacket tight around her, she hurried outside where the wind caught in her hair, blowing wild red-blond strands over her eyes and slapping at her face. The day was already dark, twilight pressing in as she dashed across the street to her little hatchback parked beneath a street lamp.

  What the devil was Pierce Reed doing in Lumpkin County, so far out of his jurisdiction? It smelled like a story, but she tried not to get her hopes up. Maybe this was all a wild goose chase. Yeah, well, if that was the case, then why was Norm Metzger hot on Reed’s trail? No, there was definitely a story there. Ramming her car into gear she sped toward I-16, pushing the speed limit. It would take her at least five hours to get to Dahlonega, and then what? Even if she caught up with Reed, what were the chances that he’d fill her in?

  Slim and none.

  Nada and zilch.

  Unless she found a way to get to the man.

  She maneuvered through town to the interstate while half listening to news radio. She also had the police band on and heard about traffic violations and a robbery at a convenience store on the south end of Savannah, but nothing about whatever it was Reed was involved in. Nothing at all.

  She passed a semi hauling something flammable and pressed her foot hard on the accelerator. The trucker honked and she gave him a cursory lift of the hand as she flew by like the proverbial bat out of hell. She didn’t know what she’d find in Lumpkin County, but she figured it was ten times more interesting than the latest action by the Savannah School Board. Anything surrounding Detective Reed was.

  Handsome, stoic, all business, Pierce Reed was a prickly one, a detective who never let anyone too close, a man who totally clammed up when it came to dealing with the press.

  But that was about to change.

  Reed just didn’t know it yet.

  “So, this is what we make of it. Whoever brought the coffin up here used this old logging road.” Sheriff Baldwin pointed to a fork in the twin ruts and angled the nose of his Jeep to the right. “We figure he probably used a truck with a lift and a winch. I’ve got a detective already talking to the DMV about possible owners of that kind of truck. We’re also lookin’ for any that might have been stolen.”

  “Good idea,” Reed said, unbuttoning his jacket. Baldwin was in his late fifties, but as lean as when he’d been a drill sergeant in the army some thirty years earlier. A no-nonsense man with a craggy face, sharp eyes and thick gray moustache, he had the heater cranked up, and it rumbled as it blew hot air onto the windshield and into the interior of the department-issued vehicle. The police band crackled with static and the engine whined as the rig bucked up the hill.

  “It’s a start. But not much of one. Hell, I’ve worked for the county for twenty years. Never seen somethin’ like this.” Baldwin shifted into a lower gear. The Jeep’s headlights slashed through the gloom, beams bouncing off dried grass, sparse gravel and the rough trunks of scrub oak and pine. An opossum appeared from beneath a scraggly bush, its eyes shining, then it turned and lumbered awkwardly into the darkness of the surrounding brush.

  “I just can’t figure why anyone would go to all this trouble.”

  Neither could Reed. As the Jeep bounced and whined its way through the woods, he glared into the darkness. What the hell was he doing up here, near the little two-bedroom house where he’d been born? How had his name been on a note inside a damned coffin with two bodies up here? From the moment Baldwin had called, Reed had thought of nothing else. He’d brooded about it during the helicopter ride, and the sheriff, when Reed had met him at the courthouse, hadn’t had enough answers to satisfy him. No one did.

  Yet.

  They’d been driving nearly fo
rty minutes, leaving the lights of Dahlonega and civilization far behind, when Reed caught his first sight of some kind of illumination through the trees.

  Here we go, Reed thought, feeling the usual rush of adrenaline he always did when coming upon a crime scene.

  “We started investigating late this afternoon, but daylight was fadin’ fast. The forecast is for rain and we were afraid we might lose a lot of trace evidence if we had a real gully washer, so we hauled in some major equipment ASAP,” the sheriff explained, but Reed knew the drill. Had seen it before on major cases.

  Other vehicles, vans, SUVs and cruisers were parked at odd angles about a hundred feet from a gate. Headlights, lanterns, flashlights and the glowing red tips of cigarettes cut through the gloom. Officers from several state and county agencies had already roped off the scene. The back doors of a van were open wide and crime scene investigators had already begun collecting evidence. Detectives and deputies from the county joined with the state police.

  Baldwin made a couple of quick introductions, then, as one of his deputies held a fluorescent lantern aloft, he pointed to a rusted gate that consisted of one heavy bar which swung over the dried grass and dirty, sparse gravel, the remains of what had once been a road. “See how the weeds’re bent, and the oil drips are visible on the grass?” Reed saw. “And the gate, here”—Baldwin pointed to the rusting bar—“had been chained and locked, but the chain’s been cut clean through. Had to be heavy cutters to take care of those links.” Reed squatted, bending close to observe the damage. “Whoever did it was careful to wire the gate shut behind him…See, here.” He swung his flashlight at a spot in the chain where the links had been severed, then reattached with something akin to coat-hanger wire. The gate had been dusted for prints and an officer was taking tire impressions. Others were scanning the weeds with flashlights and roping off the area to preserve it for morning light when they might be able to find trace evidence.