“The murder investigation we opened this morning on Heather Turnwat and the open case on Gwen Bridges from eight months ago both have a connection to it. Gwen was employed there, and this girl, Heather, has their number littering her phone records for the last seven months. The day of her death, she had over forty-one calls from that number. We need employee records and, possibly, to get a monitor on their lines.”
“And what? You think this is fucking TV? I need real shit if the judge is going to move on this.”
Shit.
Shane flips me the middle finger again before answering. “I’ll send you the files for both Gwen and Heather, along with the call records we pulled from Heather’s phone at the scene today. The circumstances of their murders are too similar to deny, Benny. We should have enough.”
“You’d better have,” Benny nearly growls. “I’m fucking disowning you if you send me into the judge’s chambers looking like a fool.”
“By the way, Uncle Benny, just curious ... which judge do you think you’ll be chatting with about this?” Shane asks, his tone light and airy.
“Why?” Benny sounds so irritated I can picture a vein popping out in the center of his forehead.
“I mean, it’d be nice if it was someone like Judge Belk,” Shane says. “He’s always pretty good at knowing when—”
“Shane, I swear to fuck. Is this your way of telling me your shit isn’t ironclad enough for someone like Judge Hopkins?”
“I mean, Hopkinsisa bit of a bear ...”
Truth be told, Judge Hopkins is one of the youngest and hardest judges in the city. He’s not old-school like Judge Belk, and in our case, we need the leeway Belk’s traditional thinking provides withoutcrossing a legality line. Shane might spout bullshit from time to time, and I might make smart-ass remarks, but integrity is at the core of everything we do.
“You’re a real pain in my ass, you know that?” Benny sighs. “Anything else you want to annoy me with tonight?”
“We also ...” Shane pauses, showcasing an amused grimace. “We really need it this week.”
Benny guffaws. “And I need a million fucking dollars.”
“C’mon, Uncle Benny. We have two girls dead, and we’d really love to give their grieving families some closure. Not to mention the whole whoever-murdered-them-is-still-out-there thing.”
It’s never easy breaking the news to someone that their loved one has been killed. It wasn’t easy when we told Gwen Bridges’s boyfriend and mother eight months ago. And it sure as shit wasn’t easy when we had to tell Heather Turnwat’s father and grandmother this afternoon.
“I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important, Benny,” Shane adds, underlining our current desperation to get some leads on this case as neutrally as he can.
“We’ll see, Shane, we’ll see.”
The line goes dead as downtown Nashville’s skyline comes into view, the bright lights of the city’s nighttime traffic streaking by us in both directions. I glance over at Shane. “That didn’t sound good.”
Shane chuckles. “No phone call with Benny ever sounds good. But he didn’t tell me to fuck right off, so I’d say we’re in decent shape. He’ll come through with the orders.”
I sure hope so. If we’re going to get a break in this case, we’re going to need access to CMA—and Hannah May’s calls—as soon as we can get it.
7
Hannah
Friday, May 10
12:00 p.m.
“Ohhh yeah,” I say, trying to ignore the phantom pain in my nipples as my CMA caller describes clamps and chains and the reddened, mottled skin they’ve supposedly left behind. “My nipples are ... nipped out.”
“Beautiful,” Randy—a.k.a. the current bane of my existence—comments. His voice is raspy with anticipation, and I try not to think too hard about the fact that he’s probably sitting on the other side of this call with his wiener out.Ew.“Now you can focus on my dick.”
Oh, how exciting ...I roll my eyes. This insane job, I swear, might be the death of me.
Not to mention, I’m already the proud owner of a new cell number because of my recent employment at Call Me Anytime. After Detective Dunn told me I gave him myrealnumber when he called the Ruby line, I couldn’t be sure if I’d made that grave error with another caller, so I took the inconvenient yet less risky path of a number change.
On top of that hassle, I’m out forty bucks, because if there’s one thing cell providers love, it’s nickeling-and-diming you in every way they can.
