Suddenly Mary Nell’s cell phone rang. When she struggled to open her purse, Audrey eased the leather clutch out of her trembling hands and retrieved the phone for her.
“Want me to answer it?” Audrey asked.
Mary Nell shook her head, and then reached out and took the phone.
“Hello,” Mary Nell said. “What? Yes, I’m still with Audrey. Why? Oh, all right.” She held out her phone. “It’s my daughter, Mindy. She wants to speak to you.”
Eying the phone in Mary Nell’s outstretched hand, Audrey instinctively knew that whatever Mindy had to say would not be good news.
“Hello, Mindy, this is Audrey Sherrod.”
“Dr. Sherrod, they’ve found her. They’ve found Jill. She’s dead.”
“Who contacted you with this information?”
“No one, not yet.” Mindy whimpered softly. “It’s already on the news, on the TV and the radio. They found a body. The newscasters are saying it’s probably Jill, that the woman fits her description and she’s wearing a gold cross. Jill always wore the gold cross Daddy gave her for her sixteenth birthday.”
“Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“It’s her. I know it is. Dad knows it is. I just didn’t want Mom to be alone and see it on the news or hear about it on the radio. Dad and I are coming by there to pick up Mom. We’re driving out to Lookout Valley where they found the body. They haven’t moved her yet. She’s still there. Oh, please, Dr. Sherrod, please come with us. Mom’s going to need you. We all are.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll have my secretary cancel my morning appointments, just in case,” Audrey said.
When she returned the cell phone to Mary Nell, her client looked at her pleadingly. “Don’t lie to me. Tell me what Mindy said. It’s Jill, isn’t it? She’s…oh, God, she’s dead, isn’t she?”
Audrey dropped down on her haunches in front of Mary Nell and grasped the woman’s clutched hands. Their gazes met and held.
“The police have found a body that fits Jill’s general description,” Audrey explained. “The information is on the TV and radio. Mindy didn’t want you to hear it and assume the body is Jill’s. She and Charlie are on their way here now. They want me to go with y’all to the crime scene. They want to make sure it isn’t Jill.”
Just one little white lie to ease Mary Nell into the situation and allow her a few final moments of hope.
When half an hour later, at approximately 7:45 A.M., J.D. and Holly arrived on the scene at 50 Birmingham Highway in the Lookout Valley area, they found semicontrolled bedlam. They had missed the initial frenzy, the first responders’ attempt to secure the site, the wail of sirens, and the rush of emergency vehicles. The area around the Cracker Barrel restaurant buzzed with official personnel, the first of many yet to come. Before the end of the day, the scene would be investigated by as many as fifty law enforcement and civilian specialists. The police had roped off the crime scene and strategically placed officers to keep the foot traffic to a minimum. One way in and one way out. News crews, barely held at bay by the uniformed officers, kept cameras zeroed in on the cordoned-off area and reported live to their television audience.
J.D. gained immediate entrance to the sealed area as soon as he flashed his badge. When he glanced back at Holly, she smiled and nodded, letting him know she’d be fine on her own. He’d never doubted it for a minute. Holly was a modern, I-can-take-care-of-myself woman.
Careful not to disrupt the ongoing investigation, J.D. took in the crime scene with a subtle visual inspection. He recognized a lot of the personnel, including the Hamilton County ME, Dr. Peter Tipton, and a couple of members of his team, one taking photos and another talking to two CPD investigators. J.D. knew the guy he assumed was the lead detective. He and Sergeant Garth Hudson had worked a case involving a gang-related murder eleven months ago, shortly after J.D. had been transferred from Memphis to the TBI Chattanooga Field Office. Hudson was a decorated, twenty-five-year veteran of the CPD. A smart guy, a good cop, a little on the cocky side. J.D. didn’t know the officer with Hudson, an attractive African American woman with a dark caramel complexion and petite, curvy body. As he approached them, she turned and glowered at him, her coffee brown eyes surveying him from head to toe.
“Who sicced the TBI on us?” Hudson growled the question as he glared at J.D. “The mayor, no doubt.”
“I’m here strictly in an advisory capacity,” J.D. assured him. “This is the CPD’s case.” J.D. smiled at the pretty lady with Hudson. “Introduce us.”
Hudson grunted. “Officer Tamara Lovelady, my partner. Tam, meet TBI Special Agent J.D. Cass.”
Tam nodded, her expression neutral.
“So, how about letting me take a look at Jill Scott,” J.D. said, then added, “if it is Jill Scott.”
“There’s a good chance it is Ms. Scott’s body, but no positive ID. Not yet.” Hudson glanced at his partner. “Tam will go with you. Look all you want, but don’t touch.”
J.D. wanted to remind Hudson that he wasn’t some rookie who needed instructions, but he kept quiet. For now, he wasn’t assigned to this case, and any privileges Hudson afforded him were at his discretion. He had worked with police and sheriffs’ departments throughout the state and understood how territorial local law enforcement could be. Trying not to step on any toes was just part of his job. A part he damn well hated. He wasn’t known for his diplomatic abilities. He supposed that was one reason he was still a field agent. That and a hot temper he’d been trying to control all of his life.
The TBI’s role was to assist local law enforcement in investigating major crimes, the operative word being “assist.”
When Officer Lovelady motioned to J.D., he followed her past the swarm of investigators and onto the restaurant’s wide porch.
Peter Tipton spotted J.D. and Tam heading his way. He paused in his examination of the body and moved aside to give J.D. a complete view of the corpse.
The victim—not yet positively identified as Jill Scott—sat upright in one of the numerous rocking chairs on the Cracker Barrel porch. Her eyes were shut and at first glance she seemed to be sleeping. Something swaddled in a delicate blue baby shawl lay nestled in her lap. J.D. strained to get a better look at the object.
He took a step closer, and then stopped.
“We thought at first it was a doll,” Tam told J.D. “But it’s not.”
Good God almighty!
“It’s real,” J.D. said.
“Oh yeah, it’s real all right,” Tipton replied.
J.D. had seen some weird sights in his time, as well as several sickeningly gruesome scenes, but never anything like this.
“It’s a first for me,” Tipton said.
“Yeah, me, too. Any idea who…what…?” J.D. found himself stammering, something he never did. But then he’d never seen a fresh corpse cradling the skeletal remains of a small child. He cleared his throat and asked, “Any idea how either of them died? The woman—?”
“Asphyxiation.”
J.D. studied the dark-haired victim sitting so serenely in the wooden rocking chair. Traffic from the nearby interstate hummed over the din of voices, conversations blending with news coverage and bystanders’ comments. Overhead the September sky was clear, the morning sun warm, the temperature somewhere in the high seventies. The beginning of a perfect pre-autumn day. But not so perfect for Jill Scott.
“Method of asphyxiation?” J.D. asked.
“Probably suffocation,” Tipton replied. “There’s no sign of strangulation.”
“How long do you think she’s been