Читать книгу Murder in Mayberry - Jack Branson - Страница 21
ОглавлениеWe headed for the basement. Everything appeared as Ann would have left it. She tended to stack things on the basement stairs, letting Judy eventually put them in their proper places. Right now, pictures she’d planned to frame were stacked on the stairs along with a variety of household clutter. We inched down the narrow stairs, navigating around knickknacks, newspapers and paraphernalia that had meaning only to Ann.
Like most basements in older homes, Ann’s was not designed for company. It was dark, dank and served as her dusty catchall. But today the basement was pristine except for the spot where Ann’s body was found. Apparently, blood continued to seep from her body after the killer cleaned the crime scene. Police cut away the carpet and now the bloodstained concrete floor was exposed. The dark spot could have been any type stain, but we were acutely aware that Ann’s battered body had lain in the spot now marked by her blood.
We stood motionless on the final step, surveying the basement. Ann kept a small waist-high freezer at the bottom of the stairs, and it was gone. Everything else seemed to be in place: small piles of magazines, boxes of memorabilia and stacks of laundry. Everything was perfectly placed against an eerily clean backdrop.
We moved quietly, almost reverently, around the dark basement. This was the place where Ann’s life ended. This was the room where someone hated a 115-pound older woman enough to bludgeon and stab her to death. In the stillness of the basement, I could imagine the thud of Ann falling to her death. I could almost hear the steady monotone of stab wounds to a still body that, even in life, would have been too fragile to fight back.
The killer had walked where we were walking. He’d scrubbed blood off the walls, moved past Ann’s mutilated body to the far side of the basement and taken a shower. A washer and dryer stood next to the shower. I imagined the killer washing his clothes while he showered, leaning indifferently on the wall as his clothes dried, and then stepping over Ann’s body to climb the stairs.
Jack and I walked over to the old-fashioned shower stall. A slight and continual drip kept the entire stall damp. Jack squatted, shining a light from his key ring into the drain. I knelt beside him and followed the light beam. Hairs and fibers glistened in the light.
Jack used a key to pull the now-useless evidence from the drain. The house had been turned over to the family, and all evidence would now be considered contaminated. We knelt by the shower and stared flat line.
Earl called down the stairs to Jack. “We’re going to try to find Ann’s gun. Want to help us?”
Earl, Jack and David went back to Ann’s bedroom. I walked over to the desk where Ann kept phone messages and notes. Scraps of paper were everywhere, scrawled with names, dates and phone numbers.
I sensed Judy behind me.
“You know what’s hard to understand?” she asked me. I looked up and waited for her answer.
“I was the last one to talk to Miz Ann, and they never even searched my house. They didn’t ask me to take a lie detector test or anything. It’s just weird, that’s all.”
Jack stormed into the room. He slammed a gold revolver on the table. He doesn’t get angry often, but he was furious now. In the past few days I’d seen Jack display as much anger and impatience as he normally displayed in a year.
“I told the cops to call Bob and ask him where Anna Mae kept her gun. That’s all they had to do. I called Bob, looked behind the books on the bookshelf—where he said—and found it in three minutes.
“These cops couldn’t find their way down a railroad track if they were riding on a caboose.” Whether the judgment was fair or unfair, Jack was frustrated and I knew he needed to vent among family.
“Well, you’re sure out of control,” Grace said in the cutting tone we’d come to expect in recent months.
Jack glared at her. “We should all be out of control. Someone’s been murdered. And the victim was your sister and my aunt. This isn’t a time to be polite. I want Anna Mae’s murderer found. If we sit back while the locals play whodunit, the killer will go free.”
“Jack,” Janet spoke his name with a slow Kentucky drawl. “We can’t make the police angry. They’re all we have.”
“If we don’t do everything—everything—possible to find the killer, then Anna Mae’s murder will still be unsolved a year from now,” Jack said on his way out the door. “Mother, if you want to stay here a while, maybe Earl can drive you home.”
Once in the car, Jack called Captain Randy Hargis. He spoke to Hargis’ voicemail as if they’d never met, and I knew he’d passed his edgy stage and was now into full-blown volatility. It was a side of Jack I seldom saw, but I knew the stress of the situation had removed the tiny bits of courtesy he usually slapped on the outside of his abruptness. “Captain Hargis, this is Special Agent Jack Branson. I’m Ann Branson’s nephew from Atlanta. Earl Winstead now…has…the…gun…that you and your investigators were unable to find. I found it in a matter of minutes by doing exactly what I suggested you do. I called Bob.”
Jack hung up and took an audible breath. This type of fury seemed strange coming from a man who calmly put on body armor and busted down doors as part of a regular day. But this crime was personal, and Jack was hurting as I’d seldom seen him hurt.
We drove in silence for a few moments while Jack regained his composure. “We need to let Hargis know what Judy said about the truck,” Jack told me.
“You mean about someone seeing a truck pulling out of Ann’s driveway that night?” I asked.
“Yeah.” Jack took a breath. “Honey, if I call him again, I’m going to say some things I’ll regret—again. Will you call him?”
Jack handed me his phone and I pressed redial. I left a second message for Captain Hargis.
“Thanks, hon,” said Jack. We stopped at a red light and Jack turned to me. “You know how I’m feeling. I don’t want this to go on for a year or more. I want every resource possible on this case.”
“I know.”
“And there’s a lot I can’t do while I’m an agent,” Jack continued. “I have access to all kinds of information, but legally I can’t use it unless I have an official case open.”
“We could hire a private investigator,” I offered.
“I was thinking the same thing.” Jack reached across the ’Vette’s console and squeezed my hand. “It’s expensive, and I don’t know if anyone else will go in with us.”
“I don’t see how we can do anything else.”
Jack’s mom came home about an hour after us. She looked frail and tired. She was barely a size two, and we worried about her on a normal day. Her leukemia caused sores to break out periodically on her arms and legs, and her current stress had caused an outbreak.
“You’ve got to get some rest, Mother,” said Jack.
Iva Ray perched on the arm of a leather recliner and nodded.
“Maybe it’ll all be solved soon,” she said. “Grace thinks it’s Maggie, a friend of Ann’s. Grace said Maggie’s always been jealous of Ann. Ann loaned her clothes. She didn’t have a lot of nice things herself.”
“We only met her once,” I said. “It was the time you and Jack and I had supper with Ann and another lady at that little restaurant downtown. That was Maggie, right?”
“Yes,” said Iva Ray. “I don’t know her too well either, but she does seem to have a temper.”
“So does Grace,” observed Jack.
Iva Ray nodded solemnly. “She certainly showed it today. After you left, she talked so hateful to Judy that she had her crying.”
“Mother, until we know who killed Anna Mae, everyone’s a suspect. What do you think about getting a private investigator?” Jack asked.
“I guess that’s a good idea,” Iva Ray said slowly. “I don’t know what the others will say. I’ll ask them, though.”
“That’s fine, and I hope they want to go in with us. But Mary and I are doing it anyway,” Jack assured her. “With or without the rest of the family.”
Later that evening, Jack stopped by The Pantry convenience store to pick up milk. When he returned, he shoved the milk into the refrigerator and slammed the door. Through clenched teeth, Jack relayed his milk-buying experience.
“Two old bags were talking about Anna Mae’s murder.” When Jack is angry, he resorts to mild name calling. Old bag and old geezer are two of his favorites. “One of them said, ‘She had her rings on when she was murdered.’ The other one said, ‘Oh, no, she didn’t.’
“They stood there arguing like two old crows, both of them so sure they were right. Both of them were treating Anna Mae’s murder like small-town gossip.
“I finally walked up to them and said, ‘She had her rings on. And she was my aunt.’”
