Dead Ringer Read online

  Jacob dropped his gaze. ‘I’m on my way out. Can we talk later?’

  Zack raised a brow, noting the change in Jacob’s voice. He sipped his coffee and watched, unashamed that he was eavesdropping.

  ‘No.’ She’d been easygoing up until this point, but there was no missing the steel in her voice. ‘You and I need to schedule another appointment.’

  He drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I’m right in the middle of a murder investigation.’

  ‘You’re always in the middle of something. But so am I.’ He heard the rustle of the pages of her appointment book. ‘I’m at the hospital on Friday afternoon. How’s three sound?’

  The muscles in his back tensed like when he was boxed in against the ropes. ‘Not good.’

  ‘Unless you’re donating an organ, Detective, I expect you to be in my office.’ He imagined her piercing blue eyes peering over the edge of her black half-glasses. She’d done that a lot during their sessions last fall. She was savvy and she knew how to ferret out weakness.

  ‘No can do.’

  ‘Do I call Ayden and have you put on leave until you do?’

  Jacob’s temper rose. ‘Like hell you will.’

  ‘Get in my office and we won’t have a problem. Ditch this appointment and we’ve got trouble.’

  She had him by the short hairs and there wasn’t much he could do about it. ‘Fine. Three. Friday.’

  ‘Good.’

  He slammed the phone. ‘That doctor is going to drive me insane.’

  Zack tapped his finger against the side of his Styrofoam cup. ‘Dr Christopher, I presume.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘She’s a smart woman who knows her stuff.’

  ‘I’ve seen her six times. I’ve done my due diligence. There’s no more sense in digging up the past. What’s done is done. Time to move on.’ He said that a lot and most days believed it.

  ‘A few more visits won’t kill you. Just do your time and be done with it.’

  In the ring when he was against the ropes, he knew what to do: he came out swinging. But with the doctor she made him think about things he flat out did not want to consider.

  The phone rang a second time. He snapped it up. ‘Warwick.’

  It was Connie Davidson with the missing persons division. Her gravelly voice grated over the lines. ‘I think I might have a match for that Jane Doe you found this morning.’

  ‘Great.’

  Paper rustled as she flipped through notes. ‘We got a call from a Betty Smith. She says her neighbor has been missing for a few days. The woman’s name is White and she fits your Jane Doe’s description.’

  ‘What’s her full name?’

  ‘Jackie Taylor White. Lives at one-oh-three Mayberry Drive, Richmond.’

  ‘Jackie?’ That didn’t fit. ‘The charm around her neck read Ruth.’

  ‘Can’t answer that one.’

  Jacob frowned. ‘Right. Thanks.’ He hung up and brought Zack up to speed.

  Zack nodded. ‘I’ll get my coat. We can drive over now.’

  Within fifteen minutes the two were in Jacob’s car, the heater blasting, headed south on Parham Road. Rush-hour traffic combined with lingering ice slowed their progress. It took almost twenty minutes before they pulled up in front of the small, one-story brick house.

  White snow blanketed the front lawn and under a large picture window hung a window box filled with brown, drooping ivy coated in ice.

  Jacob and Zack got out of the car and walked up the cracked brick sidewalk to the front door. Three newspapers lay on the porch.

  Jacob pressed the doorbell, which echoed inside the house. ‘Looks like she hasn’t been around for a few days.’

  Zack frowned. ‘Three newspapers. Three days. She went missing on Friday.’

  ‘Maybe.’ No one answered the bell so Jacob rang it again. When that didn’t work, he pounded on the door. The two walked around to the backyard and looked in the utility room door. There was no sign of anyone. ‘She must have lived alone.’

  ‘Let’s talk to the neighbor,’ Zack said.

  They crossed the yard to another house that looked very similar. However, this house still had Christmas lights strung along the roofline and in several of the naked dogwood trees in the front yard. There was a snowman in this yard; a plastic red sled; and a blue bucket filled partly with snow, rocks, and sticks.

  Jacob rang the bell. Immediately he heard the sound of footsteps running around and young children yelling. A woman’s voice followed before steadier footsteps crossed to the front door. The glass storm door sucked inward as the heavy wooden one behind it opened to a young woman with a toddler on her hip. Clinging to her legs was a boy who looked about four.

  The older boy wore a bath towel around his neck like a Superman cape. The toddler had green Magic Marker scribbles up and down his arms. A haphazard ponytail held the woman’s hair. She wore no makeup, a stained Virginia Tech T-shirt, and sweatpants.

  From his back pocket, Jacob pulled out his police badge. Zack did the same. ‘Ms Betty Smith?’ Jacob asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Ma’am, we’re with Henrico County Police.’

  The four-year-old’s eyes brightened as he popped his thumb in his mouth. He clung to his mother’s leg but his eyes didn’t leave the cops.

  The mother was more cautious. The woman frowned and made no move to open the storm door. ‘You’ve come about Jackie?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you find her?’

  Jacob avoided the question. ‘Can you tell me why you filed a missing persons report?

  The woman unlatched the storm door and propped it open with her foot. Immediately, warm air scented with hamburgers and fries rushed out to greet them.

  ‘Come on in the house,’ she said.

  They stepped into the house. The front room was a combination living room and family room. A thick gray carpet warmed the floor and an overstuffed blue couch and ottoman hugged the wall. The coffee table was covered with crayons and coloring books. A corner hutch housed a television, which now displayed a cartoon. Beyond the family room was a small kitchen. A pot boiled on the stove.

  ‘I haven’t seen Jackie in a couple of weeks. The kids have had colds and we’ve not gotten out much. But yesterday I had some extra cake left over from a birthday party and thought she might like some. She loves cake.’ She smiled as if she sensed she was rambling. ‘I saw all the newspapers. Jackie always lets me know when she’s going out of town.’

  ‘She could have taken off on the spur of the moment,’ Jacob said.

  ‘Jackie plans out everything. She’s got a thing about schedules. Washes her car every Saturday. Taking off is not like her at all.’

  Jacob pulled out his pad and noticed the kids were staring at him with wide eyes. He nodded, not sure what someone was supposed to say or do with children that small. ‘How long have you lived next to Ms White?’

  ‘Less than a year. She moved in last summer after she separated from her husband.’

  ‘Was the separation friendly?’ Zack asked.

  A crease furrowed her brow. ‘I don’t think so. Her ex came by just before Christmas. I think they had a fight, because he drove off real fast. I know that because the boys and I were in the front yard stringing Christmas lights. Honestly, that argument was playing in the back of my head when I saw the newspapers.’

  ‘Do you know her husband’s name?’ Jacob asked.

  She thought for a moment. ‘Phil White, I think.’ The baby started to squirm so she put him down on the floor. That made him fuss louder so she picked him up again as she glanced at the boiling pot on the stove. ‘Is Jackie all right?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to figure out,’ Jacob said. ‘Do you have a picture of her?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She went into the kitchen, shut off the stove, and pulled the pot of pasta off the burner before moving to a refrigerator covered with dozens of snapshots, drawings, and reminder cards. The toys, the bubbling pot, and the genera
l chaos had a homey charm Jacob feared and envied.

  Betty flipped through a stack of pictures held together by a clip magnet. On the bottom she found a picture taken last fall. ‘This was taken at Halloween. I took a picture of the kids with Jackie. She was our first stop on our trick-or-treat route. Custom-made bags of candy for the kids.’

  The woman pictured with the tiny Spiderman and black ninja had shoulder-length dark hair streaked with some gray. She wore an orange sweater, a huge smile and cradled a large bowl of safety suckers.

  This was Jackie White. The contrast between this picture and the woman he’d seen by the river caught him a little short. This woman was so full of life. Radiant.

  There was no charm around her neck, but the sweater could have been covering it. Again, he was reminded of Kendall Shaw. ‘Did she ever mention a Ruth?’

  Betty thought for a moment. ‘No.’

  ‘It could have been a nickname,’ Zack prompted.

  The baby reached for her nose but she shooed it away. ‘Maybe, but I never heard the name mentioned.’

  ‘What about a mother, a sister, an aunt?’ he prompted again.

  ‘I don’t think so. She didn’t have family. I mean her parents were older and they’d passed. And she’d mentioned once that she was an only child.’

  ‘What can you tell me about her?’ Zack asked.

  ‘She was always nice to me. And she loved the kids and kept her yard up.’ The last statement prompted an embarrassed grin. ‘I liked her but with the kids I don’t have a lot of time to socialize. And she was always volunteering at her church.’

  ‘You know the name of her church?’ Jacob asked.

  She thought for a moment. ‘First Methodist in Glen Allen, I think.’

  Zack’s face looked grim. ‘You said her husband’s name was Phil White?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jackie had been strangled. Strangulation was a very intimate form of murder that required close contact. And her clothes had been intact as if someone wanted to preserve her dignity. It wasn’t uncommon for an angry husband to suffer remorse after he killed his wife. ‘Did she have any other friends, family, visitors?’ Zack asked.

  ‘Sorry, I really don’t know.’ On cue, the four-year-old struck a ninja pose and then kicked a kitchen chair. Betty glared at him and then smiled apologetically at Jacob and Zack. ‘It’s bad not to know who your neighbors are. But honestly, there are days when I don’t know up from down.’

  ‘Do you have a spare key to her house?’ Jacob asked. ‘I’m going to call for a search warrant and it would be nice if we didn’t have to break in.’

  She smiled. ‘That I can help you with.’ She moved to a drawer by the stove and opened it. It was crammed full of miscellaneous junk that didn’t belong anywhere. She dug through the mess for a good minute before she found the key attached to a Texas-shaped key chain. ‘Here it is.’

  Jacob accepted the key. ‘Thanks.’ He took Betty’s full name, address, and phone number.

  Her face looked pale now. She glanced at her kids, who hadn’t missed a word. ‘Has something b-a-d happened to Jackie?’

  Jacob attempted a half smile, but he doubted it was very comforting. ‘I really can’t get into the details until I’ve spoken to her husband.’

  Worry deepened the lines around her eyes. ‘But you’ll let me know?’

  Jacob saw the earnestness in her eyes. ‘We’ll be in touch.’ He handed her back the picture.

  ‘Keep it if you think it will help.’

  He nodded and pocketed the picture. ‘Thanks.’

  The two detectives strode out of the warm house into the bracing cold. They returned to their car, called their sergeant with a report, and began the process of getting a search warrant.

  Twenty minutes before the six o’clock newscast, Kendall leaned forward into the makeup lights that lined the vanity mirror and finished applying her lipstick. She’d always done her own makeup, having learned some of the best tricks of the trade when she’d modeled in college. She blotted her lips on a tissue and inspected them with a critical eye.

  Since her visit to the crime scene today, Kendall had reviewed the tape Mike had shot and she’d written copy. The piece wasn’t going to be more than thirty seconds because there just wasn’t much to say. She’d spoken with the surveyor who’d found the body but he couldn’t tell her much other than the body was female. Then she spent several hours calling contacts at the medical examiner’s office and the police department but no one was talking. Frustrating.

  Tonight’s lead story would be the construction on I-64. The other pieces included post-holiday credit card debt, homes still without electricity after the Sunday storm, and hot vacation spots. Her Jane Doe would be third on the story lineup.

  Kendall fluffed her hair, picked up her copy for the evening newscast, and headed toward the hallway to the studio. The station, one of the oldest in the region, was in the midst of a massive renovation. Walls were being torn out in the front of the building; carpet was being pulled; and new, brighter paint colors were being applied. The construction had made for a hectic few months, but the station manager had said the changes were necessary. The building, wiring, and broadcasting equipment were out of date. He’d promised the work would be completed by summer.

  The renovation was a pain but the good to come out of it was her carpenter. He’d worked on this job briefly and had come recommended by the job’s project manager.

  Kendall worked her way down the winding hallway and pushed through the doors into the newsroom. The buzz of conversation greeted her. The news station was quiet most of the day, but with ten minutes to airtime, controlled chaos ruled.

  Computerized editing stations divided the newsroom’s large square footage. Reporters used the stations to write and edit their stories. In the far right corner was the blue screen designed to project weather maps. In another corner was the setup for AM Virginia, the station’s morning show.

  Most visitors were surprised when they first toured the station. They found it was always much smaller than they expected.

  On her suggestion, they’d done away with the traditional anchor desk. Instead, she gave her reports from the center of the newsroom. Brett had been resistant at first but quickly discovered the new format gave the broadcast more energy. And the change had reflected in the ratings. Viewers felt Kendall was approachable when she wasn’t behind the desk.

  ‘Kendall, time to get fitted for your mike,’ Larry the soundman, who had worked at the station for several years, alerted her.

  She moved toward him as she glanced at her copy on the murdered woman. Larry fit the miniature microphone to the lapel of her suede jacket and ran the wire to a battery at her waistband at the base of her spine.

  Today, Henrico County Police responded to a 911 call at James River near the proposed River Bend development where construction crews discovered the body of an unidentified woman. Her body had been dumped and so far police are speculating on the cause of death. …

  An unidentified woman. The phrase bothered her. The woman had a name and for some reason Kendall felt remiss not knowing it.

  ‘All set,’ Larry said.

  She pulled her thoughts back. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘One minute to air.’ The announcement came from the show’s producer.

  Her belly fluttered, as it always did seconds before air. She didn’t mind the butterflies. They kept her on her toes.

  ‘Thirty seconds to air.’

  She glanced at her producer and nodded.

  An unidentified woman. The phrase lurked in the back of her mind as she stretched the muscles in her face. When the police released her name, she was going to do a profile on the woman.

  Her producer did the final five count.

  Kendall moistened her lips and smiled.

  The unidentified woman wouldn’t remain nameless and unknown. She would see to it.

  Three … two … one.

  ‘Good evening. This is Kendall Shaw reporting f
or Channel Ten News, Richmond …’

  Several hours had passed before Jacob and Zack returned to Jackie White’s house.

  Jacob slipped on rubber gloves before shoving the key in the lock. ‘I didn’t see a security company sign out front.’

  Zack donned gloves. ‘We’ll know for sure in a minute.’

  Jacob twisted the lock open and pushed in the door. No alarm chime sounded. Jacob flipped a switch by the front door. An overhead light clicked on.

  The room wasn’t large and could easily have been cramped but Ms White had furnished the room modestly with an overstuffed yellow loveseat and a small paisley chair. Three pillows neatly lined the couch. A small corner hutch housed a TV. The room was perfectly neat with not a magazine out of place. There was a fine coating of dust on the coffee table, but Jacob suspected it wouldn’t have been there if Jackie were alive.

  ‘The place is as neat as a model home,’ Zack said.

  Jacob glanced at the coffee table. Five Hollywood entertainment – style magazines were stacked in a neat pile. Nothing in the room was overly expensive but it was all kept in pristine condition. ‘She ran a tight ship.’

  They moved into the kitchen and flipped on the lights. The refrigerator was off white and neatly scrubbed, unlike the cluttered appliance in Betty Smith’s kitchen. The counters were clean, the dishes washed and put away; even the stove looked as if it had just been cleaned. The cabinets were full of organic products.

  ‘I’d say she was obsessed with cleanliness and her health,’ Zack said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He moved to a small nook that had a box marked ‘mail.’ ‘So how does she end up by the river, strangled?’

  He pulled out the mail and searched through the stack. Electric, cable, credit card. All were up to date. And the name Ruth did not appear on any of the bills. So far it appeared she’d lived her life clean and simple and yet someone had brutally killed her.