A Specter of Justice Read online

  “We’ll have her down as soon as we can,” Newly promised.

  With our flashlights crisscrossing the terrain, he led us under the arch and over the brow of the hill to where on the left Windswept Drive dead ended at College. The narrow road rose steeply up the grade of the highest ridge in a series of tight switchbacks, passing by the top of the bridge and up to a mountain peak community of homes with spectacular views.

  The brittle blue lights of police vehicles flashed above and below us, showing where the roadblocks quarantined the crime scene. Those cars coming over Beaucatcher Mountain would have a detour route available, but the homeowners above us would have to take Windswept in the other direction until Newly cleared all access.

  A brilliant white light cut through the darkness as the crime lab techs turned on powerful halogen beams to illuminate the top of the bridge. We left the road at a severe switchback and followed a short path to where one of Newly’s nephews guarded the perimeter. The backwash of the halogens lit his name badge.

  “Hi, Ted,” I said in a flat, solemn voice. No one was glad to see anyone under these circumstances.

  “Sam. Nakayla.” He turned to his uncle. “The techs are just getting started. I’ve got these for you.” He handed Newly a pair of shoe covers and latex gloves.

  Newly took them, looked at me, and shook his head. He knew I was anxious to investigate. “Sorry, Sam. This is as far as I can let you go. When Tuck comes back, give him your statement. I’ll not only need it for the record, but to rule you out as a suspect.”

  “Me?”

  “You were alone up here before the bus arrived. The fact that you were under the bridge when Molly was thrown over should eliminate you, but I have to do my due diligence. You understand.”

  I did. I would have done the same thing. At this point we didn’t know if the murder was committed by a single killer or a team, a team that could include me.

  “Uncle Newly, Hawkins radioed that Nathan Armitage and Tom Peterson want to come up. They say they’re part of the organizing group.”

  “Is that right?” Newly asked me.

  “Yes. But Nathan was at Pack Square and Tom Peterson was working near Grove Park Inn.”

  “Peterson is that new lawyer, isn’t he?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Just what Asheville needs. Another goddamned ambulance chaser.” He turned to his nephew. “Tell Hawkins to keep them at the roadblock. We’ll get statements later.”

  “You want a list of everyone who knew Molly would be at the bridge?” Nakayla asked.

  “Most definitely.” He yelled over his shoulder. “Al, I need you here.”

  Within a few seconds, Ted’s doppelgänger materialized out of the mist. A light drizzle seemed to accompany him.

  “What is it, Uncle Newly?”

  “Take Nakayla to your patrol car and write down the list of names she gives you.”

  “I was helping the techs,” he complained, clearly wanting to stay at the scene.

  “I can help the techs. These names are a priority.”

  “Okay.” Al Newland pulled out his flashlight and flipped it on. “I’m parked down at the lower roadblock on College.”

  “Al Newland, can you come here?” The voice came from the glow of the bridge lights.

  “He’s doing something for me,” Newly shouted.

  “Then have him check his shoe covers,” the bodiless voice demanded. “We found a ripped fragment and none of us has a tear.”

  Al played his flashlight over first one foot and then the other. The booties were intact.

  “I’d better get over there,” Newly said. “Take Nakayla, Al. Ted, wait with Sam till Tuck returns.”

  Ten minutes later, Tuck Efird and a couple of uniforms walked from the road to the small clearing where we stood on the fringe of the woods under an oak whose few remaining leaves offered a little shelter.

  “Newly wants me to give you a statement,” I said.

  “Whatever gets me out of the rain.” Efird shifted his weight from side to side with nervous energy.

  Wiry and twenty pounds lighter and twenty years younger than Newly Newland, Efird reminded me of a feral cat anxious to pounce on anything that came within range. And, like a cat, he apparently didn’t like water.

  “Let’s go to your car,” he said. “It’s closer.”

  When we reached the underside of the bridge’s arch, Efird quickened his pace and stepped away from me, hugging the edge of the road so that he could put as much distance as possible between himself and Molly’s body. He got in the passenger side of my CR-V, leaned across the seat and pushed the driver’s door open. As I slid in, I saw the rain on Efird’s cheeks wasn’t as heavy as the tears around his eyes. He pulled a note pad and pen from his jacket pocket.

  Without looking at me, he said, “You know what I need to know.”

  I gave him a concise summary of events from the time I checked in with Nathan Armitage, picked up my walkie-talkie, and drove to the bridge. I told him that I’d seen Hewitt Donaldson and Tom Peterson who were also getting their communications equipment. Tom was headed for the Grove Park Inn and Hewitt’s area was near a haunted B & B on the Hendersonville Highway. Neither had a storytelling role like me, but were simply on standby should some problem develop along the bus routes.

  “Didn’t you wonder why Molly didn’t show?” he asked.

  “Yes. I radioed that she hadn’t arrived.”

  “Did you walk up the road to see if her car was parked above?”

  “No. Our instructions were to meet under the bridge. There was no reason to go to the upper level. Did you find any tire tracks?”

  Efird ignored my question. “So, Molly was supposed to appear under the bridge?”

  “Yes. But when the first bus arrived, I went through my ‘Helen, come forth!’ routine, thinking maybe she’d improvised and decided to appear at the top.”

  “Was that rope part of the props?”

  “No. Molly was going to walk out of the dark asking if anyone had seen her daughter. That’s the way Helen’s sightings have been reported.”

  Efird drummed his pen on the note pad. “Well, did you see anything at all?”

  “The occasional car came by while I was waiting. I saw headlights of a few going up to the houses, but if someone cut their lights, I wouldn’t have known they stopped atop the bridge.”

  “So, you didn’t hear anything?”

  “Nothing that caught my attention.”

  Efird continued to stare at his note pad, yet to write a single word. For all his experience, the death had really shaken him.

  “When Molly…” he paused a second and started again. “When the victim came over the bridge wall, did you see a flash of someone else? A hand? A sleeve?”

  “No. I’m sorry. It happened so fast. And then camera flashes bounced off the mist like blinding lightning.”

  “Newly sent the tour bus to the station,” Efird said. “Maybe we’ll get lucky with the photos. That was quick thinking confiscating the phones and cameras. Thank you.”

  “I didn’t know Molly very well,” I said. “Do you have any idea why someone would kill her?”

  Efird shook his head. “No. Probably some psycho who saw an opportunity to create a spectacle. Or some religious nut who considers the spiritualists to be devil worshipers. We’ve got plenty of backwoods preachers who see Satan at work behind every bush.”

  A sharp rap sounded on the driver’s window. I turned to face Nakayla through beads of raindrops.

  “Newly’s ready to lower the body,” she said. “He wants to know if Detective Efird’s finished.”

  Efird closed his note pad and opened his door. “You can observe.” He hurried away without waiting.

  I pulled an umbrella from the backseat and shared its shelter with Nakayla.


  “Learn anything?” she asked as we walked to the bridge.

  “Not really. Just that Efird’s upset. I’ve been with him at other crime scenes, but he’s never been this distraught.”

  “You don’t know about him and Molly?”

  I stopped, forcing Nakayla to halt under the umbrella beside me. “No. What?”

  “They were a couple. She and Efird dated for several years.”

  “Jeez, no wonder Newly sent him up the hill away from the body. Had they broken up?”

  “About four months ago. Right before we started planning the ghost tour. Molly said it wasn’t pleasant.”

  “She broke up with him?”

  “Yes. She got into this spiritualist stuff and went to some psychic who claimed she was in a doomed relationship. You know Efird’s been divorced twice.”

  I didn’t, but I wasn’t surprised. Law enforcement takes a tough toll on marriages. “What did Molly mean by wasn’t pleasant?”

  “I guess he took it hard. She didn’t say he was violent or anything like that. Shirley or Lenore know more. They were all good friends.”

  “That’s going to be touchy.”

  “Yes. Former boyfriends make prime suspects. Efird needs an alibi.” Nakayla grabbed my hand holding the umbrella. “Come on, let’s go. They’ve got another ambulance in position.”

  We stopped by the rear bumper and watched the EMTs wheel out a gurney. They maneuvered it directly under the dangling corpse so that the body could be lowered faceup.

  “You ready?” Newly asked.

  One of the techs nodded. The rope had been anchored by a grappling hook lodged in a crevice in the stone wall. Someone had chiseled it in advance so that the hook could be securely wedged.

  “Okay, Al, Ted,” Newly shouted. “Extract the hook and let the rope down slowly.”

  Newly and the two techs gently guided Molly onto the gurney with as much dignity as they could. Efird stood apart, almost at attention. One of the techs retrieved a folded sheet from the ambulance while his partner and Newly secured safety straps across Molly’s torso.

  As the tech with the sheet started toward the body, Nakayla stepped from under the umbrella.

  “Wait a minute.”

  I followed behind her.

  “What?” Newly asked.

  “Her gown. It’s not the costume she was supposed to wear.”

  “It looks old-fashioned to me,” Newly said.

  “It is. But I borrowed one from the North Carolina Stage Company and it was a dingy white. This is ivory and in much better condition.”

  “It’s not Lenore’s?” I asked.

  “Who’s Lenore?” Newly asked.

  “Lenore Carpenter,” Nakayla said. “She’s playing the role of the Pink Lady at Grove Park.”

  “We should make sure they didn’t switch and forget to tell you,” Newly said.

  “That didn’t happen,” Nakayla insisted. “The Grove Park Inn’s ghost is dressed in pink. That’s how she got her name.”

  We stared at the vintage gown in silence, wondering what significance it might have.

  “Cover her,” Newly said. “There’s nothing more to be learned here.” He searched the perimeter for his partner. “Tuck. Contact the morgue and leave word for the ME to treat that dress as critical evidence.” He turned to the EMTs. “And leave that sheet with the body. If we find fibers, I’ll want to rule it out.”

  Nakayla and I stood under the arch and watched the ambulance disappear into the rain. There was no siren. There was no need.

  Chapter Six

  Nakayla spent the night with me at my apartment. Neither of us wanted to talk about the horror we’d witnessed, yet both of us were unable to put the tragedy out of our mind. Nakayla finally went to bed around four in the morning while I sat up in the living room, my good leg propped on an ottoman and my prosthesis lying on the floor beside me.

  Although Detective Newland had clearly indicated Molly Staton’s death wasn’t my case, the fact that a murderer had been lurking on the bridge right under my nose or, more accurately, right over my nose, entangled me with the crime as much as any investigation I’d ever been assigned in the U.S. Army. The sheer arrogance and bravado of the killer made it impossible for me to let go.

  Shortly before six, the gray of dawn seeped between the slats of the wooden blinds and I knew any attempt at sleep was futile. I fitted the prosthesis on my left stump and moved as silently as I could to the bedroom. Nakayla lay curled on the right side of the mattress, her face turned away from the window. I closed the curtains, grabbed clean clothes from the closet, and retreated to the kitchen to dress.

  I left three words printed on a paper napkin. “Gone to office.” No work awaited me there. The urge to do something simply became an urge to do anything. The office created the illusion I had a plan that would bring Molly’s killer to justice.

  Early Saturday morning traffic in Asheville consisted of the occasional delivery truck and a change of shift at the hospital. I made it to my reserved parking space in under ten minutes and walked up Biltmore Avenue, stopping briefly to smell the aroma of baking bread emanating from City Bakery Café. Alas, they wouldn’t open for another ninety minutes.

  The coin-operated newspaper rack by the main entrance to our office building seemed jammed full of extra copies. The macabre murder must have dramatically increased the press run. I dug enough quarters out of my pocket to buy one.

  A color photo of Helen’s Bridge filled the space between the middle fold and banner headline—“Ghost Tour Tragedy.” The photographer framed the arch with blue police lights streaking through the fog underneath it. The image of Molly’s hanging body appeared only in my mind. I was relieved none of the pictures from the Japanese group or Collin McPhillips had leaked to the press.

  The headline wasn’t as tawdry or sensational as it could have been. I scanned the front page as I rode the elevator to the third floor. The main article contained nothing beyond what I’d known when I left the scene last night. Newland was quoted with the perfunctory statement about the investigation being in its early stages and that any comment would be inappropriate speculation.

  The sidebar articles proved less benign. One column rehashed the grisly courthouse shooting as the backdrop for the Atwood twins’ fundraiser. There was another piece about the Asheville Apparitions and their steering committee organizing the event. Someone had told the reporter I was responsible for security, which made me look like an incompetent bozo, not the best image for a professional investigator to project.

  My unflattering publicity was inconsequential compared with the story about the custody fight for Jimmy and Johnny Atwood. Hewitt Donaldson figured prominently as did Tom Peterson. Clyde Atwood’s mother, Nelda Atwood, was quoted as saying the fundraiser had been planned by Helen Wilson in an effort to buy off the courts with the help of Satan worshipers. Nelda claimed the death of Molly Staton was a sign that her grandsons needed to be raised in a God-fearing home and not with a person who made deals with the devil.

  A preacher named Horace Brooks said the custody battle wasn’t for the earthly lives of the twins but for their eternal souls. “Helen Wilson might have that hotshot Hewitt Donaldson but the Atwoods have Jesus,” the preacher proclaimed. I wondered how Tom Peterson felt about having Jesus as his senior counsel.

  The upshot of the clamor was that Helen Wilson and her grandsons were once again at the center of a storm not of their making. And, sadly, the other person neglected in all the name-calling and custody histrionics was Molly Staton. Hardly a word was printed about her.

  I left the newspaper on Nakayla’s desk and noticed the message light flashing frantically on her phone. Ignoring what I suspected were the calls of desperate reporters, I retrieved water from the sink in the men’s restroom and started a pot of coffee in the small Cuisinart brewer Nakayla kept atop one of her fi
ling cabinets.

  Bolstered with a mug of java, I quickly sped through the voicemails that began at nine the night before and ended at one-thirty in the morning. Each message began with the man or woman touting journalistic credentials ranging from local radio stations to CNN and ended with a plea to return the call as soon as possible. I had no intention of speaking with any of them and each message was promptly deleted. Each message, that is, except the last one. A whispery male voice said, “Mr. Blackman. You have crossed Helen’s Bridge into the valley of the shadow of death. You and your black harlot. Be warned that the scythe of justice is sweeping away all who are found guilty.”

  My first thought was who the hell uses the word harlot these days? My second thought was he made a threat against Nakayla and that wouldn’t stand. I pulled my cell phone from my belt, activated the audio app, and recorded the man’s voice. Then I e-mailed the file to Detective Newland with the short text—Got this at the office at one-thirty this morning. I knew he had bigger fish to fry, but I wanted him aware of everything that might have any connection to Molly’s murder.

  I pulled a clean legal pad from my desk drawer and started writing the names of those people who knew Molly Staton would be at Helen’s Bridge. Our organizing committee had the most detailed information. They also had ironclad alibis. Nakayla and I were on the scene with a busload of Japanese witnesses. The same held true for Angela Douglas and Collin McPhillips. Hewitt Donaldson and Tom Peterson had been transmitting from their assigned locations and Lenore was in place for her role as The Pink Lady at the Grove Park Inn. Shirley and Cory were coordinating the entire event from their headquarters at Pack Square. Jerry Wofford had been checking in with the food and drink vendors positioned along the walking route downtown. The other person with in-depth knowledge was Nathan Armitage, but he was manning the communications network at the same site as Shirley and Cory.

  We’d kept the identity of those playing ghosts a secret to add to the impact when family and friends saw them in costume. Discovering whether someone had shared the cast list would be a priority. But names were only starting points. Without a motive, there would be no link between being aware of Molly’s location and being her murderer.