Page 15 of Dirty Valentine (A J.J. Graves Mystery #17)
CHAPTER NINE
The alarm’s shrill cry pierced through my dreams like a blade, dragging me from the blessed darkness of sleep into the harsh reality of another day. Before I’d even opened my eyes, my stomach was already staging its morning rebellion, rolling and pitching like a ship caught in a hurricane.
I barely made it to the bathroom before the nausea hit with the brutal efficiency of a sledgehammer to the gut. The cool porcelain against my knees was a small mercy as my body purged itself of whatever imaginary toxins pregnancy hormones had convinced it were poisoning my system.
Jack appeared behind me like he had every morning for the past two weeks, his warm hands gathering my hair away from my face while his other hand rubbed steady circles between my shoulder blades.
Even half asleep and dealing with his wife’s unglamorous morning ritual, he managed to be exactly what I needed.
“This is so romantic,” I gasped between waves of sickness, my voice echoing off the bathroom tiles. “I bet this is exactly how you pictured married life.”
“Actually,” Jack said, his voice rough with sleep but gentle with understanding, “it’s exactly what I imagined.”
Despite feeling like death warmed over, I managed a weak laugh. “Your optimism is inspiring.”
“It’s realistic,” he corrected, helping me to my feet when the worst had passed. “This won’t last forever. And once it’s over, we get a baby out of the deal.”
After dry toast that tasted like cardboard and weak tea that barely qualified as flavored water, plus a hot shower that finally made me feel human again, we were ready to face whatever the day had in store.
The drive to the sheriff’s office was peaceful in the way that only early mornings could be, with mist rising from the Potomac like the breath of sleeping giants and the countryside painted in soft watercolors by the growing light.
We’d spent breakfast planning our strategy over Jack’s coffee and my tea.
Richard Blackwood and Margaret Randolph topped our interview list—they were the ones who’d directly threatened Thomas Whitman according to Patricia.
But we also needed to approach the current generations of the Morton, Hughes, and Mills families to see if they could think of a reason their ancestors’ graves would have been marked in relation to a murder.
The King George County Sheriff’s Office occupied a brick building across from the courthouse in the Towne Square.
The lobby was all polished linoleum and harsh fluorescent lighting, with community safety announcements and wanted posters covering a bulletin board that looked like it hadn’t been updated for the last decade.
Jack parked in his designated spot, and we went in the side door instead of going through the front.
Jack typed in his code and we passed through the security door into the heart of the operation.
The bullpen was already humming with the controlled chaos of a shift change, phones ringing and coffee brewing while detectives and deputies prepared for another day of keeping King George County safe from itself.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” Cole drawled teasingly. “And here are me and Martinez, up all night looking through surveillance footage.”
“That’s why we make the big bucks,” Martinez said, grinning and putting his feet up on his desk.
“I thought you were looking a little worn around the edges, Martinez,” Jack said good-naturedly. “Not often I see creases in those fancy shirts. I thought you were having woman trouble.”
“Ahh, well, there’d have to be time for a woman to have woman trouble,” Martinez said, dramatically clutching his heart. “We’ve been a little busy lately.”
“No rest for the wicked,” Cole said, sadly.
Martinez and Cole both had dark shadows under their eyes, but there was still an alertness there that belied years of experience in pushing through personal discomfort in the name of justice.
Jack went to the coffeepot and looked at the black sludge sitting inside and decided to start over by making a new pot. I detoured into his office where he kept a Keurig and I made a cup of tea for myself, needing the stronger kick now that the nausea had passed.
When I came back out of Jack’s office some of the morning crowd had thinned out—deputies leaving to go out on patrol or answer calls—and the morning chatter had died down to a low buzz.
Jack was sitting on the corner of Cole’s desk, and I took up residence in Sergeant Holt’s ergonomic chair that he had specially requested because he had back trouble. It was pretty comfortable, and I rolled closer so I could hear the conversation.
“Give me an update,” Jack said, blowing on his coffee.
“We were able to get security footage from the gas station across the street,” Cole said.
“It’s not great, but we were able to get a partial view of the vehicle and a partial of the front license plate.
Dark sedan—not sure of the make and model since the video quality isn’t great—is recorded pulling up around eleven the night of the murder. ”
“That tracks with what Al told us about the time he went to check the gates,” Jack said.
“Vehicle is recorded as leaving in the opposite direction about fifteen minutes later,” Cole continued.
“The inside of the gas station closes at midnight, but the pumps stay open twenty-four seven. There’s a few cars that came through between midnight and three, but around two forty-five the dark sedan pulls back up and parks in the same place.
Still can’t see the full body of the vehicle or the license plate, and no sign of anyone entering or exiting the vehicle from our camera angle. ”
“Maybe someone told them exactly where to park,” Martinez said.
“Maybe,” Jack agreed, a crease forming between his brows as he thought it through.
“There are houses in the direction the vehicle left,” Cole said. “We’re going to knock on doors and see if anyone has cameras that might have gotten a shot of the car as it drove down the street.”
“Any hits on the partial plates?” Jack asked.
“We’ve got two visible letters,” Martinez said.
“ J and F . And when we run it through ALPR we get four hundred and sixty-seven potential matches in the tristate area. When we cull that down to sedans we get two hundred and two matches. I’ve got Riley going through the list to eliminate by color and then prioritize as far as location and where the vehicle is registered. ”
From our location in the bullpen, we had full visual access to the front of the station where Sergeant Hill guarded the inner sanctum like the walrus-mustached veteran cop he was.
He sat behind a thick partition and directed people to the right department.
So we saw the courier come up and say he had a delivery for Sheriff Lawson.
“Go ahead and sign for it,” Jack told Sergeant Hill. “I’m expecting some information from Patricia Whitman.”
“That’s who it’s from,” Hill said, signing the courier’s electronic pad. “I’ll take it at the side door.”
Hill crept off his stool with the careful consideration of someone who was no longer able to chase down suspects, and he ambled over to the locked door that led into the bullpen and let the courier inside with a large box.
“Just put it here,” Jack said, motioning to the top of Cole’s desk.
The courier was sweating under the strain, and seemed happy to dump the box onto Cole’s desk before he hurried back out and Hill locked the door behind him.
“Jaye and I started a murder board in my office last night when we got back from meeting Al. We’ve done preliminary research on all of the families who had marked graves around Whitman’s body, but I don’t want to take a chance on anything happening to all of Whitman’s research.
Let’s move everything to conference room A and let’s keep it locked down tight.
Someone contact Derby and have him transfer everything from my home office to the system here so we’re all on the same page. ”
Jack lifted the box with ease and started toward the hallway that led to conference room A. I was slower to follow since the hot tea and coziness of the chair had made me uncharacteristically lethargic. I felt like I could have slept for days.
I was just a few steps behind the guys when I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. Jenkins and Riley were escorting a big brute of a man who’d been partially slumped over through the door that led to the holding cell area when all hell broke loose.
Before I knew what was happening Jenkins rammed into the wall like a rag doll, and Riley let out a yell as the perp’s rock-solid head made contact with his nose. There was blood and shouts and chaos in a matter of seconds.
The man looked like he’d been constructed from spare linebacker parts and steroids—easily six-foot four and dense with muscle that strained against a torn T-shirt advertising some long-defunct motorcycle rally—and he was definitely on something as his eyes had the wild look of someone who lived in a different reality.
Prison tattoos covered every visible inch of skin that wasn’t already hidden by grime and old scars. His arms were thick as fence posts, his neck disappeared into shoulders that belonged on a professional wrestler, and his hands—securely cuffed behind his back—were the size of dinner plates.
Jack, Cole, and Martinez didn’t hesitate to jump into the fray, and I winced as Martinez grunted as the guy kicked out and made contact with Martinez’s thigh.
An inch or so north and Martinez would have been singing in a boys’ choir.
Cole was able to move in behind him and get an arm around his meaty neck in a chokehold, but it was like trying to hold on to a bucking bronco.