BODY COUNT: Killers (a novel): Chapter 31. Shelley Adams

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Shelley would turn 30 in June. She had had a number of affairs, some with boyfriends who were keepers and some who were throwaways, but there had been a disconnect with all of them. She had never found anyone she wanted to live with and had given up on the idea of marriage. She loved being in law enforcement, she liked the power it gave her, and she was damn good at it. Being with Blake’s team was a dream job for her. She was not only able to use her brain but also work with people who appreciated her input. And her skills as a sniper, which she had honed in hopes of getting out of undercover work, had already proved their worth.
    Now, with Captain Leo Hawkins, her world was turning upside down. He was 20 years her senior, twice divorced with two kids – one almost her age. But she was head over heels in love with him. At 50, he looked like he could step onto a football field and play quarterback. He was 6'-1" or 2" and had hazel eyes, a full head of light brown hair, and perfect, beautiful, white teeth that lit up his smiles. She found herself staring at him in a dreamlike state. It was driving her crazy, and the worse part was, he paid little or no attention to her at all. Their conversations began and ended with him asking her about the investigation. Not once did he speak of anything else.
    When she read the e-mail to pick Bobby Lee up at the airport, she knew she was in trouble. And a wreck on the freeway was making her late.
    Bobby had texted her twice from the curb outside the United terminal, where he now paced up and down the sidewalk. He had caught a 4 a.m. flight out of Memphis that next morning, which had left him with little or no sleep, and there had been a two-hour layover in Chicago. Not to mention the fact he would spend New Year’s in the Northwest. Waiting on Shelley was about the last straw. He tried not to think about her not doing her job and being the cause of his misery, but the fact was, she wasn’t doing her job and he was stuck at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
    At last Shelley pulled up and Bobby threw his bag onto the back seat of her rental car. Shelley could tell Bobby was pissed. “I’m sorry, Bobby, but the only way to the airport is by freeway, and it was a mess.”
    Bobby took a deep breath before he spoke. “We need to stop by your hotel and get your stuff. We’ll be on the road most of the time from now on.”
    Shelley pulled onto the freeway heading back to Seattle Center. “What do you mean, we’ll be on the road?”
    Bobby reached into the back seat and retrieved the file folder from his computer bag. “Can we get to Bellingham before dark?”
    Shelley hit the steering wheel with the palm of a hand. “Damn it, Bobby, tell me what’s going on!”
    Bobby slammed the folder closed. “You fucked up. That’s what is going on, and I’ve been sent to bail you out.”
    Shelley’s voice became dark and threatening. “I don’t need bailing out, and you had better stop acting like you’re my boss. I don’t work for you.”
    Bobby placed the folder on the back seat and calmly said, “I’m in charge of this case now, so you do work for me or you catch the next flight back to Memphis. Going back to Memphis wouldn’t be a good career move, by the way. Blake is not happy, but he’s giving you a second chance. I’m your friend, Shelley, and as your friend, I’m telling you this is how it needs to go. We start over, from the first killing until the last, and if we can’t find anything, we go back to Memphis.”
    Shelley knew he was right. She had become lost in a fantasy that was never going to happen, but which just that morning had seemed so real. “Okay, we’ll do it your way.”

The sun was setting as Shelley pulled into the Motel 6 and parked. Bobby had slept most of the way and only woke up when the car stopped. “Where are we?”
    Shelley popped the trunk and stepped out of the car. “We’re on the outskirts of Bellingham. We can get a room here and walk to that restaurant there for dinner. Tomorrow we can ride out to the site where the first body was found.”
    They checked into the motel and asked for two rooms next to each other, which placed them on the third floor. In the elevator, Bobby asked, “Did you speak to anyone other than the sheriff when you were here?”
    Shelley shook her head. “No, there was no reason to talk to anyone else. He had all the details.”
    The elevator door slid open and they stepped into the hall. Bobby sighed. “We need to speak to the first person to see that body. Do you know who found it?”
    Shelley patted her bag. “I’ve got it in my notes. I’ll dig them out and bring them with me to the restaurant.”
    An hour later they were stuffing fries and hamburgers into their mouths. Shelley had found the name of the man who had reported the body, along with his address. She may have dropped the ball by hanging around the police station for the last month, but before that she had made all the stops and taken a ton of notes. “Bobby, I’m not sure what happened to me. I got lost in what I was doing, so I did nothing.”
    Bobby plopped the rest of his hamburger on the plate and drank some of his Coke. “You have enough notes here to write a novel. Notes are good to have, but sometimes you can have too much information and forget to ask more questions.”
    Shelley finished her burger and was nibbling on the remainder of her fries. “Do you really think the guy that found the body saw something that’s not in the report?”
    Bobby took the last bite of his burger and stood up. “All we can do is ask. We’ll meet here for coffee early in the morning and then catch Mr. Franks at his work first thing.”

The next day they both carried go-cups of coffee from the restaurant by the motel. Bobby took the report out to review what had transpired. Tom Franks owned a lumber yard, which had been passed down from father to son for three generations. He was walking his dog the Saturday morning in question when the dog began to bark and pull him toward a construction site. The site was surrounded by storm fencing, and black plastic sheets covered the wire. He said he saw the body through a hole in the plastic. He called 9-1-1 and that was that.
    Bobby felt that there had to be much more to the story than that. “Shelley, it took 10 minutes for the first responders to reach Mr. Franks. What was he doing all that time?”
    Shelley was driving and only half-listening to Bobby as she navigated the rush-hour traffic. She turned into the lumber yard before answering. “I don’t understand the question. He was waiting for the police – what else would he be doing?”
    Bobby opened the car door. “Let’s go ask him.”
    Tom Franks was in the yard and had to be called back to the office. He came in fast and not happy with the disturbance. “I’ve given my statement to three different police. It doesn’t matter how many times you ask, the story is the same.”
    Bobby opened the folder and smiled at Franks. “I just have one question that it doesn’t seem like anyone asked. After you called 9-1-1, what did you do?”
    Franks looked puzzled. “I did nothing. I waited for the police.”
    Shelley tried to help. “We all wait in different ways. Did you sit on the ground and wait, or did you walk around? You did something – no one just stands in one place and does nothing.”
    Bobby closed the folder. “Mr. Franks, it doesn’t say in the report whether you checked to see if the man was indeed dead. That would be something for a person to do upon finding a body. Did you forget to add that?”
    Franks ran his hand through his hair. “I tried, but the gate was the only way in and it had a lock on it. I couldn’t get inside. The cops had to cut the chain.”
    Shelley had a hard time hiding her disbelief. “Are you saying there was no way into the site but through a locked gate?”
    Bobby put out his hand and shook Frank’s. “You’ve been a great help. Thank you very much.”
    As they were pulling out of the yard, Shelley looked at Bobby and said, “Are you thinking the same thing I am?”
    Bobby laughed. “The killer brought his own lock; that’s the only way he could have got in and locked the gate afterward. That means he had been there before – it wasn’t a random drop site.”
    Shelley slapped the steering wheel. “You’re a genius, Bobby! I’ll bet nobody asked about a stranger in the area a day or two before the murder, only about the night the body was dumped. We’re going back to the scene – there’s a lady who lives on the corner across the street. She was gone to a movie Friday night when the body was dumped, but she was home Thursday, and maybe Wednesday. If there was anyone around, she may have seen them.”
    Thirty minutes later Shelley pulled to the curb and stopped in front of Liz Swan’s house. They walked to the front door and Bobby rang the doorbell. Liz had a slim, striking figure, about 5'-7" and 125 pounds, with long, flowing gray hair. She smiled when she opened the door. “May I help you?”
    They flashed their I.D.s. “Liz Swan?” asked Shelley. “We would like to ask you about the murder across the street.”
    Liz pulled the door open wider and invited them in. “I told the other officers I wasn’t home. I went to a movie that night. I came home and went right to bed. I’m afraid I didn’t see anything.”
    They were standing in Liz’s kitchen and Bobby could see through the window above the sink straight onto the dirt road going to the construction site.
    Shelley said, “We were wanting to know if you saw anything Thursday or Wednesday. Maybe someone walking around or driving up there?”
    Liz thought for a moment. “You know, people fool around over there all the time, but it rained most of the day Thursday, so the work crew went home early. I was baking a cake to sell at church, and at about two that afternoon, when I came in to check the oven, I noticed a white Chevrolet Impala. It wasn’t new – my sister has one just like it and she bought hers two years ago. Anyway, there it was up by the fence in all that mud. I remember thinking how stupid that was.”
    Shelley’s excitement was getting the better of her. “Did you notice the license plate?”
    Liz walked over to the window and pointed out. “I could see it, but it was too far away to read, and besides, I had to get my cake out of the oven. When I looked again, the car was gone and I forgot about it until now.”
    Bobby had been taking notes, but now he stopped. “Think real hard, Mrs. Swan.” Bobby had noticed the wedding ring on her finger but doubted Mr. Swan was still alive. “Had you ever seen that car around here before? Or have you seen it since?”
    She shook her head. “No, and if I had, I think I would remember it. Like I said, my sister has one just like it.”
    They said good-bye to Mrs. Swan and left. Driving away, Shelley said, “What do we do now, Bobby? I think we need to let the departments know what we have. You and I can’t cover the area looking for that Impala like they can. Somebody saw the person in that car. If it was as muddy as Liz indicated, he washed it someplace that hopefully had a camera.”
    Bobby took out his phone and began calling the names of the people who were working the case. When he got to Captain Hawkins, he had to assure him first that Shelley was okay and promise to come by when they got back into town.
    “What the hell, Shelley? You and that police captain got something going on the side?”
    Shelley pretended not to care. “Why, what did he say?”
    Bobby took a deep breath and let it out. “It wasn’t what he said but the way he said it. Look, I’m not playing this shit. What you do on your own time is your business. Okay, we’ve done all we can do here. I want to go to Tacoma next. It’s the only body found floating in Puget Sound.”
    Shelley pulled into their motel. “You do know tonight is New Year’s Eve. Driving back through Seattle or getting a motel room will be impossible. Unless you want to sleep in the car tonight, our best bet is to stay here. We can drive to Seattle tomorrow afternoon and get a room. People will be heading home by then.”
    “I had forgotten about the holiday. There won’t be anyone working the docks in Tacoma until at least the second of January. Your plan makes sense.”
    That night they drove across the street in the freezing rain to a local bar. There were more local drunks than people welcoming in the New Year. They had a few drinks and went back to the motel. Bobby went to his room and opened the files while Shelley lay in bed watching the New Year come in around the world.
    The next day they paid the bill and checked out. Merging onto the freeway, Shelley said, “Let’s spend the night in Seattle. The motel I was staying in is close to the freeway and should have rooms. It’ll only take one and a half hours to reach the waterway where they found the body. There’s no use getting into Tacoma after dark.”
    Bobby was going through the Tacoma file. “It’s the weekend, so we won’t find anyone on those docks until Monday. Let’s face it, we’re stuck in Seattle until then. So have a good time with your friend, if you and he want to play house, but be ready to go Monday morning.”
    Shelley glared at Bobby. “That’s not the way it is between him and me.”

Copyright © 2019, 2020 by Ed Rogers