Jerome still wasn’t convinced, but that was irrelevant as far as Jess was concerned. When she and Harper reached his SUV, she hesitated before getting inside. “We need Officer Cook today. Now. I want someone tailing Frazier. He either knows where DeShawn Simmons is or he’s heard from him since his disappearance.”
The parking lot had begun to fill with the early lunch crowd. The morning was gone and the afternoon would fly just as fast. Jess had a list of DeShawn’s friends as long as her arm that she wanted to interview. Sheriff Griggs along with the deputy chiefs of both Patrol and Support had met first thing this morning to form additional search teams. The media attention DeShawn’s case was getting had lit a fire under the BPD.
DeShawn Simmons was now the poster boy for a better awareness of social and economic equality. The mayor and all the others in charge of this city had better listen up. Jess had a feeling this was not going away.
“I’ll put in a call to Deputy Chief Hogan in Patrol and see if we can make that happen ASAP,” Harper said as he reached for his cell. “Frazier’ll be on shift here until two thirty. We should be able to have Cook in place by then.”
Before Jess could thank him or open the passenger-side door of his SUV, a van whipped into the parking lot and stalled behind them, blocking any possibility of backing out of the parking slot.
Channel 6
.
After a nod from Jess, Harper walked away from the vehicle to complete his call. She turned to face the nuisance.
Gina Coleman.
Birmingham’s most beloved reporter.
This made the moment truly perfect. Beautiful, talented, former lover of the chief of police, Gina strode determinedly toward Jess, her cameraman hot on her heels.
Jess was several inches shorter than both Gina and Annette. She walked with the purpose of a man and she had wrestled numerous criminals. She’d even shot a few. No matter the designer label she wore or the time she took to apply makeup or style her hair, there was no way she would ever look like these women. Both far outclassed her in the beauty and style departments.
Just one more reason she didn’t fit in Dan Burnett’s world.
Her stomach knotted in protest.
“Chief Harris, is it true you were removed from the Darcy Chandler murder investigation?”
Apparently Jess’s shrink wasn’t the only one who could toss out trick questions.
“Any questions you have about the Chandler case,” Jess said calmly, “you’ll need to take up with Deputy Chief Black.”
Jess reached for the door handle.
“So you were removed from the case?”
Jess produced a smile. “Since my full attention is required on the Simmons case, I am not involved with the Chandler case. That’s true.” To say she had been removed carried a negative connotation. Coleman wasn’t getting that sound bite from her.
This time she actually got the door open before the next question was hurled at her.
“Were you assigned the Simmons case because of your past connection to his neighborhood? Have you spoken to your aunt since returning to Birmingham? Did you know she still lives in the same house?”
Fury whiplashed Jess. She slammed the door and got in Coleman’s face. “Do you understand what you’ve just done?” The woman had just mentioned that Jess had family in the neighborhood where some of the worst gang activity in the city played out.
Coleman held up a perfectly manicured hand and her cameraman backed off. “I’ll edit out that last part.”
Jess wanted to like this woman. She really did. She doubted the feeling was mutual since she’d left Coleman holding the bag on a so-called exclusive story last week. But this was going too far.
“What do you want, Coleman?” Besides a pound of flesh.
“I want to know if Darcy Chandler was murdered.”
“Like I said, you’ll have to ask Chief Black.”
“I’m asking you.”
What was up with these people? First the ME and now Coleman? The ME could cite his age. Coleman was as old as Jess for sure. She’d just opted for Botox so it didn’t show. In her line of work she could likely use it as a tax deduction.
“You owe me, Harris,” Coleman reminded.
“Off the record,” Jess made clear, “there are inconsistencies, but nothing substantial. Talk to Black. Ask him about Chandler’s shoes.”
Coleman nodded. “I will. Thanks. Do you have an update on DeShawn Simmons?”
Jess hadn’t released the rendering of Simmons’s mysterious female friend to the press. Maybe this would earn her some points with Coleman. She dug out her cell and forwarded the image to the number she had for Coleman. “We believe this young woman knows something about DeShawn’s disappearance. If anyone recognizes her they should call the tip line.”
Coleman checked her cell. Clearly surprised to get any kind of heads-up, she passed Jess a business card. “Let me know if I can be of assistance to your investigation.”
As the reporter and her cameraman loaded up their van and drove away, Jess considered that she and Coleman didn’t have to be friends as long as they were working toward the same goal.
Funny, as hard as Jess tried to keep the Chandler case off her mental plate, folks just kept shoving another serving her way.
• • •
Galleria Mall, 8:15 p.m.
Jess couldn’t claim to have participated in any real covert investigations. A few times she’d ended up in the middle of an outburst and wound up in a struggle, but most of her professional battles had taken place over a desk or in a training facility. Her work as a profiler with the bureau had been conducted in formal interviews where those present understood the legal ramifications of any and all exchanges. She observed and analyzed. Before and after the interviews, she researched. The persons of interest, where they lived and worked, were extremely important to her final assessments of any case. Knowing how each individual involved acted and reacted in their daily lives was almost as telling as any physical evidence found at a crime scene.
Each act was motivated by an emotional reaction or lack thereof to stimuli. If the motive was unearthed, all the rest fell into place. It was that simple and, at the same time, vastly complicated.
The circus music accompanying the spinning of the mall’s carousel dragged her from her musings. Where the devil was Schrader? He’d said eight o’clock. Near the food court at the carousel.
Jess had done her research on the cocky Dr. Harlan Schrader. He was in the final days of a forensic pathology fellowship program with the Jefferson County Coroner’s Office. He was a short-timer, which meant he had little to lose if he decided to spill about something he’d seen or heard. Hotshot Dr. Schrader was on his way to the Mayo Clinic in just a couple of weeks. He either wanted to have a little revenge against a colleague who had rubbed him the wrong way or he genuinely felt compelled to reveal whatever information he intended to pass along.
If he ever got here.
Another check of the time on her cell showed it was five minutes later than the last time she checked. After hours of interviewing friends of DeShawn Simmons and sitting in on an update with the search team commander, she was pretty much exhausted.
She scanned the crowded mall. Who dragged their kids around in a public place at this hour? There were enough small children and bright colors to prompt flashbacks to Munchkin Land of the Wizard of Oz fame.
Her attention landed on a black tee and jeans on the other side of one of the play areas. Dr. Too-Sexy-to-Be-Punctual leaned down and kissed a young woman. Surprised, Jess watched as he ruffled the hair of a small boy before heading in her direction.
So the hotshot had a baby and the requisite baby-mama. Maybe he had a little more at stake than she’d gauged by his attitude and bio.
He surveyed the crowd in both directions with just about every step he took. By the time he reached her he would likely be suffering from neck strain. The doctor was a wee bit nervous. How big could his news be?
“Let’s sit so we’re less conspicuous.” He motioned to a bench that had just been vacated a few feet away.
That he didn’t wait for her to sit first was no surprise. “What has you so upset, Dr. Schrader?”
He stared at her as if she’d asked him to produce documentation that he was an actual American citizen. “I’m not upset. Who said I was upset?”
Jess kept her lips bent into a smile. “I’m sorry. You just seem a little out of sorts, that’s all. And you mentioned on the phone that you were taking a risk. I just assumed that meant you were upset.”
“I’m not upset,” he argued, still scanning the crowd. “I’m frustrated and offended.”
“I see. Why don’t you explain the situation and perhaps I can help?”
“He’s going to rule her death accidental.”
The decision reached by Dr. Leeds, Jefferson County coroner, was not a total surprise. Since a complete autopsy wouldn’t be necessary in a case where no foul play was evident, the coroner’s decision would rely solely on the circumstances at the scene and the less invasive preliminary examination of the body, and, of course, a full toxicology screen. Considering the suspected cause of death, those procedures were sufficient to reveal the injuries consistent with a fall and any indications of a struggle that might have occurred prior to the fall. If the victim used one or more drugs that might have contributed to an impulsive act or the lack of balance in a woman with particularly good balance, those secrets would be discovered in a comprehensive toxicology report.
“Her injuries were consistent with a fall from that height,” Jess guessed. “No signs of a struggle.”
He performed another survey of the crowd. “Nothing irregular in toxicology. No drugs at all. Darcy Chandler was a very healthy thirty-eight-year-old female. The official cause of death is traumatic brain injury. The extent of the injury precluded any possibility of survival. She may have been conscious for moments or a minute, but death was imminent and inevitable. However, there were two inconsistencies in my opinion relative to the manner of death, and that’s where my concerns lie.”
“Did you bring these inconsistencies to Dr. Leeds’s attention?”
“Of course.” He swung his attention from the crowd long enough to glare at her. “He insisted those anomalies were not sufficient to warrant deeming her death anything other than accidental.”
And Jess would just bet that given Chandler’s standing in the community and the lack of any good-bye note, suicide was off the table. “Why don’t you tell me about the inconsistencies that disturbed you?” The routine never changed. Someone came forward with information and inevitably she had to extract it.
“There was a first-degree contusion on the outside of the lower left leg. This mild bruising was not consistent with the impact of falling fifteen feet or with any other object in her path as she fell. It would have been far more severe had it occurred in the final impact of the fall.”
“Maybe she bumped into something that morning.” Unless he had more than this she would tend to agree with Leeds.
“The injury was very recent, minutes before death,” he insisted. “And it was exactly the width of the upstairs handrail.”
Now he had her attention. “You confirmed the width of the upstairs handrail?”
He cut her a look that warned he suspected she knew the answer to that question. “I measured. The bruising is exactly the right width. As if she fell over the rail from an elevated position, striking her lower left leg as she pitched over.”
“Like someone threw her over,” Jess offered.
“But she wasn’t expecting the move, so she didn’t have time to react. There was no indication of a struggle with another person or an attempt to catch herself. Her fall was totally unforeseen and unprepared for, in my opinion.”
Jess conjured the scene in her head. “She might have stumbled as she started to climb over the railing if suicide was her intent.” That one seemed highly unlikely.
“Darcy Chandler was right-side dominant,” Schrader explained. “Her instinct would have been to put her right leg over first. And either way, there is no scenario where she would have bumped the top of the railing with the outside of her leg by lifting it from a normal standing position and going over the rail.”
“Obviously you’ve considered the scenario at length.”
“I went back to the house and proved my theory.”
“How did you get back in the house?” Had one of Black’s detectives escorted Schrader on a second review of the scene? Seemed the only feasible possibility.
“Mrs. Chandler asked me to take a closer look.”
Was he kidding? “Mrs. Chandler, as in the victim’s mother?”
He shook his head. “Her grandmother. She and my grandmother are close friends. She’s convinced that Darcy was the victim of foul play.”
And there it was. The proverbial hornet’s nest. No way was Jess kicking that one. “Dr. Schrader, you really need to share your thoughts with Chief Black. This is his case and he will decide what direction this investigation needs to take.”
She was not getting dragged into this emotion-driven war.
“I thought you would get it.” He shook his head. “I read up on you. I expected more.” He stood. “I guess I wasted your time and mine.”
“Wait.” Not that she was going to change her mind, but he had said there were two things. “You didn’t tell me about the other anomaly.” They were both here, smack-dab in the middle of Munchkin Land. She might as well get the whole story.
“There were traces of a material trapped between the fingers of her right hand.”
Fabric from her assailant’s clothing? Not hair or he would have said as much. “What kind of material?”
“Marabou. White in color.”
“Marabou?” She didn’t have a clue. Given a few seconds she could Google it using her phone.
The cocky expression reappeared on the handsome doctor’s face. “Small, soft, white turkey feathers. Commonly used in feather boas. Since the victim wasn’t wearing one, makes you wonder how she got her fingers entwined with one.”
Jess knew exactly how.
Five Points, 9:45 p.m.
Lori waited until her cell started to ring before answering the door.