A Reunion to Die For (A Joshua Thornton Mystery) Read online

  Tucked in one step behind her, assistant editor Jan Martin was almost hidden. She struck an expressionless pose. She thought she looked stupid when she smiled. She had taken off her glasses for the picture. She only recently started wearing contact lenses on some occasions. She wore her straight hair loose. She was dressed in a blousy blue cotton suit with a long jacket. The suit’s shoulder pads and wide skirt looked out of proportion on her small frame.

  Joshua found Tori Brody’s portrait shot several pages back. She had been a sophomore when they were seniors. The photograph displayed above her name bore only a slight resemblance to the lawyer he had met that morning. Even at fifteen, she had oozed sensuality. He sat behind his desk and stared at her picture.

  In the decade following the era of sexual freedom, when it became acceptable for girls to let go of their virginity before marriage, the title of slut and whore was supposed to go the way of chastity belts. Not necessarily for girls like Tori Brody in Small Town, America.

  She was from the wrong side of the tracks. She lived in a mobile home park by the river. Her father took off when she was a baby. Her mother was a barmaid with the reputation of having affairs with married men. Her older sister dropped out of school to get married. Without adult supervision, Tori was exploring sex when Joshua was still working up the nerve to ask girls to dance at the junior high social.

  Tori Brody fell in with the type of people that Joshua and his friends avoided out of self-preservation. They were the first to smoke cigarettes and drink beer. By high school, they dressed in worn blue jeans and leather; rode in hot cars and motorcycles; dealt drugs; and thought nothing of inflicting injury on anyone unfortunate enough to cross their paths.

  With bleached-blonde hair; eyes framed with lush lashes; slender hips; and breasts accentuated in daring styles that pushed the envelope of the school’s dress code, Tori was hard not to notice when she entered Oak Glen High School. Within weeks, envious girls and lust-filled boys labeled her as not being the type of girl Joshua could take home to his grandmother. The most sensuous girl in the school, she was sought and won over by the leader of the school’s roughest gang.

  That was Max Bowman. Everyone knew he carried a switchblade, though few saw it because switchblades were illegal. He cherished his girl like the trophy she was.

  Joshua was indifferent to Tori and her friends. The gap between the two social classes in the world of high school was so wide that he would never even have met her if it weren’t for a photography class that he took in the spring of his senior year.

  As circumstance would have it, she was seated next to him. She managed to smile at him whenever possible. Within a matter of weeks, he laughed at her sexual innuendoes, which she could summon better than Mae West.

  Eventually, his apprehension around the promiscuous girl gave way to a friendship—until one spring afternoon when Joshua stepped out of the boys locker room after softball practice into a mob led by Max Bowman, who announced that he was going to make an example of him.

  It was Joshua’s first fight for his life. Max was armed with his switchblade. Untrained in self-defense, other than the childhood stuff he had learned from his grandfather, Joshua was uncertain about how he had been able to disarm the brute, but he had done so. Under the threat of having the weapon turned on him, Max and his friends ran away and never approached Joshua again.

  Tori claimed ignorance when confronted with the question of why her boyfriend had come after him. Joshua later heard that after finding out that her boyfriend had cheated on her, she started a rumor that she had slept with Oak Glen’s star quarterback.

  The snap of the fingers in his face brought Joshua back to the present.

  Tad MacMillan peered at him with curiosity. After entering his cousin’s home uninvited, he had raided his refrigerator to steal an apple. He was eating the stolen good while sitting on the corner of Joshua’s desk.

  “What are you in such deep thought about?”

  “Nothing.” Joshua held the yearbook on its end and slapped the front and back covers together to shut the book. When the album fell back onto his desk, the back cover flapped open to reveal the last page.

  They observed the pretty face that peered up at them from the album. Her blue eyes were happy. Her golden hair was lush and full. Her smile was dazzling. She had her whole life before her and so far it had been a happy one.

  Joshua ran his fingers across the face that lay before him. The words printed above her image read, “In memory of . . .” and below the picture “Tricia Wheeler” and beneath that: “1967–1984.”

  “I remember her.” Tad took another bite of the apple and spoke around it. “That was awful. I would never have thought she would have killed herself.”

  “That’s what everyone said.” Joshua closed the book.

  “Did you date her?”

  “No, I dated Beth. Remember?”

  “Did you sleep with her?” Tad knew that he could ask his cousin anything, no matter how personal it might be.

  “No.”

  “Did you want to sleep with her?”

  “She was my friend,” Joshua responded firmly. He put the album back on the bookshelf from which he had taken it.

  Tad’s voice took on a naughty tone when he deduced, “She turned you down.”

  “I never asked.” Joshua turned back toward him. “It was one of those situations where we liked each other, but one of us always seemed to be attached to someone else.” He concluded somberly, “She died before the opportunity could present itself.”

  “Too bad.” His sympathy was sincere. “Why the nostalgia?”

  “Gail Reynolds is in town.”

  Tad chuckled.

  “It’s not funny. She’s writing a book about Tricia’s death and she’s going to make me look like a fool. Why? Because she hates me and don’t ask me why.”

  “She doesn’t hate you.”

  “Then why has she made it her career to follow me around and criticize me on every case I get?”

  “Sounds like someone has had a bad day.” Tad pointed out, “Gail was not here when you were working on the Rawlings case. She wasn’t here when you ran for office.”

  Joshua resumed as if he had not heard his argument. “She was there at the courthouse every day when I prosecuted Admiral Thompson.”

  Tad tossed the apple core into the trashcan. “When did you sleep with her?”

  “What makes you think I slept with her?”

  “Come on, Josh. I know you better than you know yourself. Gail isn’t the first pushy woman to challenge you and she won’t be the last. Why should you get so upset about her coming back to town?” He answered his own question. “You had a one-night stand with her and you feel guilty. When did it happen?”

  “Right after that fight Beth and I had at your New Year’s Eve party,” Joshua confessed. “She told me that Beth sent her over to talk to me about making up. Grandmamma was out.” He shook his head. “She ended up seducing me. I found out afterwards that Beth didn’t send her.”

  “Some friend.”

  “That’s what I thought. It just happened. Only once. I told her right afterwards that it was a mistake.”

  “Did she put a gun to your head?” Tad was unconvinced that Joshua was totally innocent.

  “Okay, I went along because I was still mad at Beth for whatever it was we were fighting about. But then Gail tried to get me to continue seeing her; but I loved Beth. Within a few days, Beth and I were back together and a few weeks after that we got engaged. Gail and I never talked about it, ever, either of us. Beth never knew.”

  Tad gestured at the image of Tricia Wheeler now sealed in the album shelved in the bookcase. “Was she friends with Tricia?”

  “Everyone was friends with Trish.” Joshua rubbed an imaginary spot on the top of his desk. “I re
member the day I found out she died. I was driving Beth to school in that red van I had back then and, when we got there, there were all these kids in the parking lot. The girls were all hugging and crying, and the guys were in shock. Cindy Patterson came running up and said that Tricia had killed herself.”

  He looked over at his cousin, whom he admired for his wisdom. Tad was only a few years older, but he had learned much in his youth while traveling down the path of alcoholism.

  “It hit me like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over my head. For the first time, I realized my mortality.” Joshua cocked his head. “Does that sound insensitive? My friend was dead, and all I could think about was all the things that we had in common. We were the same age. Suddenly, out of the blue, she was dead. That meant that I could die, too.”

  “You were seventeen,” Tad stated simply. “We all think we are immortal when we’re seventeen. Her death was a shot of reality.”

  “Yeah. Reality sucks sometimes.”

  Joshua checked the time on his watch and realized that Tracy and his sons were late. “The kids must be gabbing with their friends and forgot about the time.”

  Tad told him, “I saw Hancock County’s new star in action today.”

  “What new star?”

  “Seth Cavanaugh.”

  “Oh, that new star,” Joshua replied with no hint of emotion. “Sawyer wanted to promote one of his deputies from within the department, but the commissioner saw Cavanaugh on the news lapping up the media attention after the Quincy boys got convicted and went all gaga over him. She said that having a noted detective working in Hancock County would be good for our reputation.” He confessed, “Between you, me, and the lamp post, my gut tells me that he’s not as brilliant as the newspapers made him out to be. But that’s just my gut talking.”

  Tad frowned. “My gut is telling me the same thing. He was there to question Rollins about the shooting. Funny thing is . . . I didn’t hear him ask one question. He just nailed the guy. Isn’t it the job of investigators to ask questions of everyone?”

  Before Joshua could respond, the phone on his desk rang. While he reached across his desk to answer it, Tad’s cell phone hitched onto his belt rang. The two men said “Hello” in unison.

  They were speaking to two different callers about the same subject. While Tad was listening to the emotionless tone of the sheriff department’s operator sending the medical examiner out on a call to conduct an on-scene examination of a murder victim, Joshua was listening to his eldest son report that one of their friends had been killed at the high school.

  It was déjà vu.

  As his Corvette rounded the corner of the high school into the parking lot, Joshua was struck by the similarity of the scene to what he saw that morning after Tricia Wheeler died. The girls were crying while the boys tried to decide how they should react to what had happened.

  The more things change, the more they stay the same. The only difference between then and now was the clothes and hairstyles.

  To collect their statements, the sheriff’s deputies separated Joshua’s three older children, as well as the other students who were there during the murder. Most of the teenagers wore athletic wear for football and other sport practice. Several girls were dressed in cheerleading uniforms.

  Under the protective eye of J.J., Deputy Pete Hockenberry, an older officer, was questioning Tracy at the van while Murphy, dressed in shoulder pads under muddy sweats for football practice, spoke with another policeman several feet away.

  J.J. and Murphy were their father’s sons in every way. At seventeen years old, they equaled their father in their lanky builds. They’d also inherited his blue eyes and wavy hair, which J.J., the introspective twin, kept cut short.

  Tracy looked and lived the role of the teenage girl with her silky auburn hair, creamy complexion and petite build. For her, it wasn’t a matter of role-playing when she chose cooking and fashion for her interests. Unlike the other girls there, Tracy was dressed in her school clothes. The tryouts for cheerleading had been in the spring, before their move to Chester. She would have to wait until next year to exercise her dancing talent on the cheerleading squad as she had done ever since she was old enough to hold a pom-pom.

  Yellow police tape was draped along the fence surrounding part of the practice field and across the walkway leading to the murder scene on the other side of the maintenance shed located at the end of the field.

  While Tad took his medical examiner’s bag and ducked under the tape to jog to the shed to check out the body of the murdered teenaged girl, Joshua crossed to the van where Tracy and Deputy Hockenberry leaned against the front fender. As soon as her father took her into his arms, she broke down and sobbed against his chest. Someone had given her a linen handkerchief in which to cry.

  “It’s okay,” Joshua murmured into her hair.

  On her other side, J.J. slipped his arm across her shoulders. “She’s been putting up a brave front. I was wondering when it was going to hit her.”

  Deputy Hockenberry observed Seth, slipping evidence gloves on, cross the field toward the crime scene. “I see that our new investigator is here to show us how it is done.” The deputy had put in for the job of chief detective. He had the experience and training, but none of the publicity Cavanaugh had acquired breaking the murder case in another part of the state. The deputy hitched his pants up over his potbelly, slipped his notepad into his pocket, and joined two other officers.

  Seth was questioning the coach, who looked like he was going to be sick. The older man seemed unable not to stare at the shed at the far end of the field. The coach led the detective to where the girl had been killed.

  Murphy had finished answering the deputy’s questions and joined his family. “Can you believe this? In broad daylight with the whole team and cheerleading squad on the other side of the building? That guy had a lot of balls.”

  “What guy? What happened?” Joshua found it difficult to refrain from studying the forensics team searching for minute pieces of evidence. He yearned to be with them, working the case, instead of just being a concerned father consoling his children.

  “The killer.”

  “Who was he?”

  His children shrugged. “No one seemed to recognize him,” J.J. said.

  “Who was killed?” Joshua asked.

  “Grace,” Tracy sobbed.

  “Grace?” Joshua felt as if he should know whom she was talking about.

  “Grace Henderson,” Murphy said. “She was one of the varsity cheerleaders.”

  “Remember?” Tracy added in a choked voice. “She came over a couple of weeks ago.”

  Joshua sighed and swallowed. “I remember her now.” He strolled toward the practice field.

  Murphy fell in beside him while his brother stayed to comfort Tracy, who didn’t want to go near the scene where her friend had died. He sensed his father’s nostalgia about when he used to lead his team toward field goals. History was repeating itself. Like his father before him, Murphy had made first-string quarterback in his junior year. So far, under his leadership, Oak Glen’s Bears were undefeated.

  “What happened?” Joshua asked again.

  “We were finishing up practice. The cheerleaders were done and they were in the stands with Tracy and J.J. Suddenly we heard this shot from behind the shed, and I saw him running for the fence.”

  “Him?”

  “I have no idea if it was a man or woman. They were wearing this big black trench coat—”

  “Trench coat?” Joshua’s thoughts raced to another high school shooting that involved youths dressed in black trench coats.

  “Yeah.” Murphy added, “But I don’t think it was anyone I know from here. It was way too big for him and he was no taller than Sarah. He wore this black bandanna and wrap-around sunglasses that, like, took up his whole
face.” He sucked in his breath and fought to keep the shudder out of his voice, “And he had the biggest gun I ever saw in my life.”

  “You saw the murder weapon?”

  Murphy nodded and pointed out across the track field to the chain-link fence that marked off the school property. A deputy was taking a picture of something that had become stuck on the fence.

  “I chased him across the field and over the fence and into the woods. When I was just about to tackle him, he turned around and pointed it right into my face.”

  “What were you thinking?” Joshua roared.

  “That I could catch him.”

  “He had just killed someone, and you didn’t think he’d do the same to you?”

  Murphy stood at his full height. His shoulder pads made him appear bulkier than he truly was. “Dad, I did exactly what you would have done.”

  Joshua reminded him, “He had a gun. He killed Grace. Like he would think twice about shooting you? I thought you had better sense that that, Murphy.”

  “I do have sense!”

  “Then use it!” Joshua sucked in his breath as if he were trying to pull back the words he had uttered. His son was right. He would have done exactly the same thing. How he sometimes hated the genes he had passed on to his children.

  Murphy pressed his lips together while he watched his father grimace in what he concluded was anger at him for his foolish behavior.

  “Was Grace going to meet anyone after school?” Joshua asked.

  “I don’t know. That’s something that maybe one of the girls knew, or maybe not. She didn’t really mix a lot. Her closest friend seemed to be Tracy, and she wasn’t allowed to get that close to her.”

  Joshua recalled the Saturday afternoon he had spent having tea with Grace’s mother, who had yet to learn of her daughter’s death. They resumed the walk around the outside of the yellow-plastic-taped fence while Murphy reported what little he knew about the victim. “Grace was not allowed to date until she was eighteen. She had to fight tooth and nail to get her folks to allow her to be on the cheerleading squad. Her mother escorted her to every game and chaperoned her when we went out after the games. Most of the time Grace didn’t go with us because she was so embarrassed about her mom tagging along.”