The Mother. BEVERLY BARTON

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      “Yes, please, as soon as possible. I … uh … I haven’t told Janice yet, but I can’t put it off much longer. I’ll have to leave her to go ID the body. Janice is Debra’s closest relative here in Chattanooga.”

      “If you’ll give me your address and directions, I’ll be there within the hour.”

      “Thank you.” He hurriedly rattled off the street address and then went over the driving directions with her twice.

      Audrey laid the portable phone on the counter, picked up her cup, took two quick sips, and then dumped the tea into the sink before heading straight back to her bedroom. There was no time for breakfast or even a leisurely cup of morning tea.

      J.D. had left Zoe a note stuck to the refrigerator with an orange and white UT emblem magnet. They had pretty much fallen into a routine during the past year, each giving the other plenty of space, neither able to truly connect with the other. Most weekday mornings, they ate breakfast together and he dropped her off at Baylor—the outrageously expensive private school she attended—on his way to the office. But whenever he was called out before breakfast—weekdays or weekends—he’d leave her a note as he had done this morning. Since it was Sunday, he wouldn’t have to make arrangements for someone to take her to school, and at fourteen, she was old enough to be left alone without adult supervision during the day.

      After several come-to-Jesus talks with Zoe, he pretty much trusted her to do what she was told. She didn’t like it, but that’s just the way it was. She was a kid. He was her father. He made the rules. She followed them or else.

      Or else what?

      Damn it, sometimes he had no idea how to handle her.

      She had pushed him to the limit more than once. He had grounded her, taken away certain privileges, and tried to talk sense to her. Only once had he threatened to send her packing. The fear he had seen in her eyes that day was something he never wanted to see again. As much as she hated living with him, as often as she grumbled and complained about how much she disliked him and what a piss-poor excuse for a father he was, Zoe knew he was the only game in town. Nobody else wanted her. If not for him, she would be living in foster care.

      The thought unnerved him more than a little. He had heard the horror stories. He’d run across more than one juvenile delinquent who had come out of the system the worse for wear, neglected, and occasionally abused. If Carrie hadn’t gotten in touch with him before she died, if she hadn’t told him he had a daughter …

      Pushing aside thoughts of how bad he sucked at being a father, J.D. took the Soddy-Daisy/Hixson Pike exit off US-27 North and followed Garth Hudson’s directions to the illegal dump site in Soddy-Daisy. After taking TN-319 and following Tsati Terrace, he veered off onto what appeared to be little more than a winding, narrow paved lane. Within minutes, he saw the row of emergency vehicles lined up along the roadside and the swarm of personnel already on site. He carefully parked his ’68 Dodge Charger at the end of the line, got out, and then walked a good two hundred yards before reaching the edge of the crime scene. Ordinarily, he didn’t use his dad’s old car as a daily driver, but his ’07 Chevy Camaro convertible was in the body shop. Some goofball had rear-ended him last week.

      In a semiwooded area, less than twelve feet from the road, a band of investigators milled around a fifteen-by-fifteen-foot pile of discarded items. An old refrigerator. A ratty, seen-better-days love seat. A twin-size mattress. Empty paint cans. Several overflowing plastic garbage bags. And one old, broken rocking chair, the floral cushions faded with age and stained from exposure to the weather.

      Tam Lovelady turned just as J.D. flashed his badge to the officer guarding the entrance to the cordoned-off area. She threw up her hand and motioned to him. As he approached Officer Lovelady and Sergeant Hudson, his gaze focused on the woman in the rocking chair. Her body sat upright, rigid, as if made of stone. Her pretty face was unblemished, her long, dark hair had been draped about her shoulders, and a small skeleton, wrapped in a blue baby blanket, lay nestled in her lap.

      “Looks familiar, doesn’t it?” Tam said.

      “Yeah,” J.D. replied. “This is too similar to the scene at the Lookout Valley Cracker Barrel to be a coincidence.”

      “You think?” Garth Hudson said sarcastically.

      J.D. grunted. “So, are you sure she’s Debra Gregory?”

      “Ninety-nine percent sure,” Garth replied. “Mayor Hardy will ID the body. But for now, we’re working under the assumption that whoever killed Jill Scott killed Debra Gregory. Two abductions. Two murders. The skeletal remains of two babies left with the murder victims. It’s the same MO.”

      J.D. took a step closer to the body and paused beside ME Peter Tipton. Pete watched while the photographer, working under his supervision, snapped shot after shot of the body and the skeleton.

      “Asphyxiation,” Pete said.

      “Huh?”

      “Cause of death. She was probably smothered. Just like Jill Scott.”

      J.D. pointed to the bundle in the victim’s lap. “Not a doll this time, either.”

      “No, not a doll. Another child. About the same size. Probably about the same age.”

      “So far, we don’t have any idea who the first child was, only that it was a male about two years old,” J.D. said. “Once we get the DNA results back … Hell, we haven’t identified the first child, and now we have another one.”

      Pete glanced away from the body in the rocking chair and looked at J.D. “I hate to say it, but it appears we may have a really bizarre serial killer on our hands. A little profiling hoodoo”—Pete gestured with his hands—“might be in order about now.”

      “Are you suggesting we involve the Feds?”

      “Not unless you state boys can’t handle it,” Pete said. “I heard you’ve got some experience in that department.”

      “Where’d you hear something like that?”

      “Word gets around.”

      “I’m just an amateur compared to the real thing.”

      Only when Tam cleared her throat was J.D aware that she was standing nearby. “Sorry to interrupt, but I overheard the tail end of what y’all were saying, something about Special Agent Cass being familiar with profiling.”

      “I know a little something,” J.D. admitted. “But if the CPD wants a profile of the killer, then I can put in a call to a buddy of mine at the Bureau or either of you can call the BSU.”

      “I’ll run that by Sergeant Hudson.” Tam glanced at her partner, who was talking to one of the uniformed officers. “I don’t think he’ll object. As long as both the TBI and the FBI keep in mind that this is a CPD case and we’re in charge—”

      “Enough said.” J.D. knew the drill.

      Local law enforcement could be territorial, even if they wanted and needed assistance. When he’d been assigned to the Memphis field office, he’d had a bad run-in with a local county sheriff. The sheriff, a good old boy with a lot of influential friends, had come out of the confrontation smelling like a rose. J.D. had come out of it smelling like shit. He had learned his lesson the СКАЧАТЬ