Chapter Thirty-Seven
Braham Spring Park, 1:15 p.m.
“We’ve seen this before.”
Braddock crouched next to his partner. “Yep.” He shook his head, surveyed the young woman’s body. Partially nude and sprawled on her back in the grass near the picnic tables, she’d been found around noon by the lawn service personnel.
Cooper set the purse on the grass between her feet. “Wallet, including ten bucks, is still here. Tube of lip gloss, mascara, and her driver’s license. Couldn’t have been here too long or the ten bucks and driver’s license would have been long gone.”
The ME wasn’t here yet, but Celeste Martin had been dead two days or better. Her skin had that gray death cast. Her throat had been slashed. What was visible of the torso was badly bruised. Her face was bruised, both eyes blackened. A fly lit on her cheek, crawled toward her open mouth. Braddock waved it away. Someone had beat the crap out of her before killing her. His gut clenched.
“No blood on the ground,” he noted. “No way she bled out here.” He cocked his head to study her left side. “Looks like she lay on her side for several hours after death.” He pointed to the darkened area along the length of the left side of her body where the blood had pooledinitially after death. Once the heart stopped beating, gravity ensured the blood settled in the lowest point of the victim’s positioning. “Probably dumped here sometime this morning before daylight.”
The location was far too public for her to have been here any longer.
“Whoever sliced her throat was clean and efficient. One stroke.” Cooper leaned closer to the vic’s face. “Most of the tongue is missing. The removal not quite so clean. She must have moved around some.” Cooper sat back on her heels. “Just like the Hispanic girl from six months ago.”
“That one worked for Nash too.” And he just kept getting away with it.
Cooper nodded, then set her gaze on his. “She’s the one who talked the most to Patterson.”
“She’s the one.” His outrage stoked into a full burn. “Tests will probably confirm the blood found on CJ’s bed came from this woman.” The ME would estimate time of death, but he was reasonably sure she hadn’t been dead much more than two days. He needed to break this news to CJ before she heard it some other way.
“We got company.”
Braddock looked up expecting to see the meat wagon. Not so lucky. The chief. Perfect. He and his partner stood, walked beyond the cordoned-off crime scene perimeter to meet the boss.
“Sex worker?” Chief Burton Spencer asked.
“Looks that way, sir,” Cooper answered. “We’ll need to confirm, but we believe she’s one of Nash’s.”
Spencer planted his hands on his hips and shook his head. “God almighty, we have to find a way to nail that slippery bastard.” He glanced at Braddock, making no attempt to disguise the sympathy in his eyes. “You holding up all right on this? I don’t want any mistakes.”
“Yes, sir.” Braddock gritted his teeth. He could not allow his emotions to show. If Spencer thought for a second he wasn’t handling this objectively, he’d be off this case. “We’ll get him.”
Spencer had been chief of police in Birmingham for twenty years. He’d come here a year ago with a special agenda: to turn HPD back into what it once had been, particularly the west precinct. He wanted Nash, and those like him, cleaned up.
Quickly but legally. The only thing he hated more than scumbags like Nash were dirty cops.
“That’s three west-side murders in the space of one week,” he reminded. “We’re going to take some heat on this.”
By heat he meant bad publicity. Since arriving on the scene Braddock had already gotten a couple of calls from local reporters who wanted to know what the hell was going on.
He glanced back at the sheet now draped over Celeste Martin’s body. It felt like a war. Nash was fighting to keep his people in line and the cops out of his business.
The only way to end this was to cross the line.
That was something he would have to do alone. CJ would give Nash the message, then Braddock would take it from there.
Before someone else died—images from his niece’s murder and half a dozen others flashed in his mind—like this.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
3021 Appleton Street, 1:35 p.m.
Mr. O’Neal no doubt thought CJ had lost her mind, but she didn’t care. She’d knocked on his door and borrowed a number of tools, more than a hammer and nails this time. Though he hadn’t been able to go to the garage with her, he’d told her where to find what she needed.
Hammer, small crowbar, screwdrivers, and flashlight.
