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“Remember to let it go and breathe, doc. Just breathe today.”
Easier said than done.
The Major Crimes division was at the Richmond police department headquarters. Once Brick exited and left behind the busy traffic of the beltways that ribboned around and through the city, he brought Les to downtown Richmond, where the building was located.
When she asked why the traffic was so heavy, he told her the beltways were always clogged. A hefty local population shared the throughway with tourists headed toward Virginia Beach, or the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, the New England states and DC. There was also a sizable military base.
Once they got downtown, the roads were much quieter. A dotting of historic buildings and old sprawling trees were scattered around the large police complex and parking deck. She rolled down her window and put her hand out into the cool morning breeze. It held a hint of the heat the weather channel promised it would have later in the day.
As Brick drove around the building, he pointed out the window closest to where his office was. “I’m not important enough to have my own window.” He winked at her. “And since we’re often out in the field, in the labs, or head-deep into reviewing data, it’d be a waste anyway.”
He showed her eating places, coffee shops, green spaces and other downtown features part of his day-to-day working life. When they stopped at the storage place, she helped him load the truck with the chairs and table that had probably been part of a breakroom set. There were also several boxes of kitchen items, clothes, toys and non-perishable foodstuffs, since they’d also collected donations.
As Brick secured the load, Les noticed how competently he worked with the tie-downs. The straps slid over his fingers as he tightened up the slack and pulled on the bonds to ensure the furniture would stay where he’d put it.
Cue the shaky breath. As they pulled out of the storage building lot and headed for the exit from downtown, he glanced her way. “We’ll check out my office another day,” he promised.
“I’d like that.” Her palms were sweaty. From the exertion of helping him, she was sure.
The route he took brought them to the outskirts of the city. The roads wound through open and forested terrain. They passed mobile home neighborhoods, farms, and more widely spaced dwellings. The occasional suburban development marked the exodus of professionals who wanted to live outside the city’s growing congestion.
She liked the more widely spaced properties. Wildflowers grew in the drainage ditches. Though the developments might have newer, more expensive homes, the land had been clearcut to build them. The older homes, farms and trailers had the established, old growth trees, branches webbed with Spanish moss spread protectively over the structures.
It made her think of the trees in her backyard at home. Her favorite one had a sturdy branch, four feet off the ground, the perfect height and angle to brace herself against the trunk and read. She’d let her bare feet hang down, or bend her knees to curl her soles against the rough bark.
Brick’s phone buzzed. He glanced at the display, then hit the connect button as he pulled the truck onto the shoulder and let it idle. “Jefferson McGuire. Yeah, Sheriff, thanks for returning my call. It’s about the Whitfield fire. Your deputy took a witness statement from Tracey Sharone. It was thorough, so thanks for that. But would you mind if I call and talk to him about any impressions he had that might not have made it into his notes or our follow ups?”
He paused, listening. “No, nothing in particular. Just one of those gut things. Okay, appreciate it. Just text me his contact info.”
Les eyed him as he disconnected. “Jefferson?”
“It’s more official-sounding than Brick.” He sent her a half-smile. “I bring out the nickname if I want to build rapport. You remember the neighbor who said Jasmine and the kids were on a fishing trip with the boyfriend?”
“She said she saw them that morning.”
“Yeah, but eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable. She couldn’t remember what the vehicle looked like, and she saw them at a distance. It was early, she was letting the dog out, and there was a fog.”
Brick twitched a shoulder. “However, one of the two witness statements I was reviewing this morning now corroborates that. Her statement hadn’t been released to the press, so it wasn’t the grapevine effect. This guy was loading up his truck to go fishing himself. He noted the boyfriend’s pick-up going by, with the pole holder on the front and the cooler on the back. Colin Werther is the boyfriend, the volunteer firefighter I mentioned. They waved at one another. Colin had his window down, his arm on it.
“While the rear windows were tinted, the witness said the kids were back there. Jasmine Whitfield was in the passenger seat. It was really early, and it looked like she was taking a quick nap.”
She studied his pensive expression. “Have you gotten a statement from Colin?”
“Yeah. He talked about her drug problem, and how it had eaten him up, worrying about her relapsing. She was working the program, but he was concerned she was trying to do too much, too fast, and the stress was starting to pull her back down again. He was helping out as much as he could with the kids. Could barely get through the interview. Every time he talked about the kids, he broke down.”
Brick glanced in his rearview mirror and made another turn. “He was glad she’d agreed to the fishing trip and seemed excited about it. Then he said it kind of went to shit. He had to bring them back early, because the kids weren’t feeling good. Jasmine was in a mood, and that made it worse. She was pissed at him, blaming him for the kids getting sick because he brought a bunch of donuts. He offered to help, but she told him no.”
“No one saw them come back?”
“No.” Brick grimaced. “Rural area, no cameras on the neighbor houses. Fishing spot was accessible by backroads, so that was what he took to go there and come back. We have his receipt from the donut shop and a bait store, for ice.”
“Okay.” She raised a brow. “So corroboration is good. Right?”
“It’s the other witness statement that’s bugging me, the one I called the sheriff about. Jasmine worked at Tracey’s beauty shop, and Tracey said Jasmine had been clean for a year and was doing really well. Enough she was starting to have some confidence in herself. She’d gone back to school and was taking a computer class.”
“Which fits with Colin’s concern, about her maybe trying to do too much, too fast. Trying to balance school, her job, the kids.”
“Yeah.” He pursed his lips. “The part sticking in my head is Tracey said Jasmine was pulling away from Colin. She was starting to see her dependence on him as too connected to her old addict behavior. Said with him knowing her history, it felt like he was always expecting the worst of her, making it harder to leave that behind.”
