The Root of Murder Read online

  “Good job.” Cameron bumped fists with the investigator before turning to Joshua. “Now all we have to do is figure out which of our victim’s women took him out.”

  “According to Moore’s neighbor, it could be both.”

  Chapter Nine

  With a heavy sigh, Poppy dropped her head into her arms. “At the rate I’m going, I’ll finish school when Izzy is getting her degree in veterinary medicine.”

  Seated next to her at the Thornton kitchen table, Izzy wrapped her arms around Poppy’s shoulders. “It only feels like that now. Once you get algebra down, then it’ll be downhill from there” —she winked at J.J. from behind Poppy’s back—“until you hit calculus.”

  Poppy sat up. “I don’t need calculus to get my high school diploma.” She turned to where J.J. was going over her homework for that night’s GED class. “Do I?”

  “No, you don’t need calculus.” J.J. reached around her to tap a giggly Izzy on the arm.

  “I’m never going to get algebra.” Poppy slapped her laptop shut. “I’ve got a career that I love. I’m marrying the love of my life. I have friends and a family. Why do I need to make myself feel like an idiot by going back to school—especially in the middle of planning a wedding?”

  “Because you’re not an idiot.” J.J. kissed her. “One day, you’re going to need that slip of paper. Maybe not now, but one day. Like maybe you’ll decide later to go to veterinary school.”

  “We can go to veterinary school together,” Izzy said with a broad grin.

  “Not if I have to learn calculus,” Poppy said.

  Admiral galloped into the kitchen from where he had been sleeping on the living room sofa. The giant dog hit the rug, slid across the room, and collided with the back door at the same time Cameron was opening it from the other side. Smelling oriental food, Irving launched himself from the window sill to join the dog in greeting Cameron and Joshua.

  “Honey, I’m home,” Joshua sang out while holding up the brown paper bags.

  “Did you get veggie egg foo young?” Izzy ran to the cupboard to take out plates.

  “And egg drop soup and spring rolls. We got enough to feed an army.” Cameron helped Joshua unload the bags.

  Admiral ran his nose along the counter’s edge to sniff out the possibilities for food theft.

  “Did the forensics investigators locate the crime scene?” J.J. asked while holding out a bowl for Cameron to ladle soup into.

  “If you’d stuck around, you’d know the answer to that.” The corners of her lips curled.

  “I had to pick your kid up from school.” J.J. handed the bowl to Poppy who switched it for an empty bowl.

  “That kid is your sister.” Joshua set the opened boxes in the middle of the table. He placed serving spoons into each one.

  “I like it when J.J. picks me up from school.” Izzy ripped open a package containing a pair of chopsticks. “Then I get to go to the farm before doing my homework.”

  “Delaying the inevitable,” Joshua said.

  “Did you see Pilgrim?” Izzy plunged on without waiting for Joshua’s answer. “Poppy and I gave her a bath and combed out her mane and tail. We trimmed them, too. She’s going to have her baby at the end of March—right about when J.J. and Poppy get married.” Her mouth dropped open. “Wouldn’t it be awesome if Pilgrim had her colt on your wedding day?”

  “What else did Rod say about Pilgrim? How sick is she?” Joshua held back the urge to ask if the new horse had a contagious ailment that would infect J.J.’s champion quarter horses.

  “She’s full of parasites and malnourished, but with a lot of TLC, she’ll be fine.” Poppy flashed Joshua a grin of reassurance. “We’ll keep her in quarantine until the vet gives her a clean bill of health.”

  Everyone dove into their dinner. Once their plates were filled, J.J. repeated his question. “Did the forensics investigators find any evidence in the Moore apartment to prove Derek innocent?”

  “You don’t have to prove his innocence,” Joshua said. “All you have to prove is reasonable doubt. The burden is on the prosecution to prove guilt.”

  “Which is my job,” Cameron said, while grabbing her buzzing phone. She got up from the table as she put it to her ear. “Yes, Seavers, what have you got?” She left the kitchen to talk to him in a quieter location.

  While shooing Admiral and Irving away from Cameron’s plate, Joshua told J.J., “Unless the prosecution can find evidence putting Derek in that apartment, you’ve got grounds to move for a dismissal.”

  “Bishop Moore is dead,” Cameron heard Tony say while she rushed into the study.

  “Why am I not surprised?” She flopped into the leather executive chair behind Joshua’s desk.

  “Now here is the surprise,” Tony said. “His last known legitimate address was North Jackson. He tended bar in Austintown and was killed in a hit and run thirteen years ago.”

  “Are you sure it’s the same Bishop Moore? This Bishop Moore is a travel agent.”

  “I used the information on his lease application for the background check,” Tony said. “All the management did back then was run a credit check. They didn’t check to see if the guy was alive. I guess they assumed he’d be alive if he was well enough to rent an apartment.”

  “So the real Bishop Moore was hit by a car—probably one of the drunks—”

  “Based on the crime scene report, he was murdered,” Tony said. “He was hit, then the vehicle backed over him, and ran over him again. The detectives do have a suspect—his girlfriend’s ex—but they were never able to pin it on him. The guy had an alibi and they’ve never been able to break it.”

  “The point is Bishop Moore was killed thirteen years ago, and he’s been renting an apartment in Calcutta for the last twelve,” Cameron said.

  “I think John Davis stole his ID,” he said. “You were right. The ME said Shawn Whitaker’s dental X-rays are an exact match for John Davis’s body.”

  “And the fingerprints are a match for John Davis’s,” she said. “Shawn Whitaker and John Davis are one and the same. That gives us two pools of suspects to choose from.”

  “But Derek had the murder weapon—”

  “Which matches the knives in Moore’s apartment,” Cameron said. “Plus, forensics found blood splatters and blood on the scene to indicate the murder happened there.”

  “Derek publicly threatened the victim.”

  “But we can’t put him in the apartment,” she said. “No fingerprints—”

  “The place was wiped down,” he said. “He cleaned up afterwards.”

  “Were you in that courtroom today?”

  “Yeah,” he said with a scoff. “Why?”

  “Do you really think Derek Ellison has the mental capacity to think through moving a body and cleaning up a crime scene to conceal his crime?”

  “His fingerprints are on the knife which came from the victim’s apartment.”

  “Oh, and then, after cleaning up the crime scene and moving the body, he was stupid enough to take the bloody murder weapon home with him,” she said. “If he was swift enough to clean up and dump the body, then he’d be smart enough to ditch the murder weapon where it wouldn’t implicate him. You’re right. He did threaten the victim, which made him an excellent patsy to frame for the murder. Based on this new information, I’m going to tell Sanders that we need to get a continuance or drop the charges until we can fully investigate this new evidence.”

  “You’re the boss,” Tony said with an edge in his voice.

  “That’s right,” she said. “Here’s what we’re going to do. Have you told anyone about Whitaker’s dental records being a match for Davis’s body? Did you contact the family?”

  “No, I thought I’d leave that news up to you.”

  “Good. Tell no one.”

  “No one? How about the victim’s wife? I me
an, second wife.”

  “Especially not the victim’s family—either of them. Contact the medical examiner and tell her not to let this news go anywhere. That includes her staff. As far as everyone’s concerned, Shawn Whitaker is a missing person.”

  “Will do. Anything else?”

  “Bea Miller. Does anyone know where she is?”

  “I checked on the restraining order. It’s still in place,” Tony said. “Her last known address is a rental at a trailer park in Calcutta.”

  “Weren’t we just in Calcutta?” Cameron asked.

  “Yeah,” Tony said. “Bea Miller lives practically across the street from our victim.”

  “Very interesting.”

  “Whoever cleaned up the murder scene missed blood splatter on the underside of the upper cabinets,” Joshua was telling J.J. when Cameron returned to the kitchen. “The pattern indicates high velocity blood splatter—a violent death. There’s enough blood for them to run a DNA comparison.”

  “And if it is John Davis’s blood, that means he was killed there and his body was dumped at the Newhart farm, which belonged to Shawn Whitaker’s in-laws,” J.J. said.

  “Who were also Davis’s in-laws because Whitaker was Davis,” Cameron said as she took her seat.

  “What about Bishop Moore?” J.J. asked. “Is he a third identity of the same man or an accomplice who helped Davis and Whitaker—what should we call him?”

  “Right now, I’m leaning toward Moore being a third identity,” Cameron said. “Our background check indicates that Moore died thirteen years ago—one year before his identity was used to rent that apartment.”

  “Somehow, Davis got his hands on Bishop Moore’s information and used it to rent a place to rest between wives,” J.J. said.

  “John Davis has to be the primary identity. I’d known the man since high school.” Joshua set down his fork. “Which is why I find this so unbelievable. John was never a big womanizer. He always treated women with respect—never leering or making rude jokes. He liked—I mean really liked women and obviously, they liked him—”

  “Obviously,” Poppy said with a sly grin.

  “He wasn’t that attractive,” Joshua said. “He wasn’t the type of man that women chased after and he didn’t chase after them. So how did he end up with two wives?”

  “Well,” Cameron mused, “when you look at it from an investigative point of view—everything you’ve described makes John Davis above suspicion for being a bigamist.”

  “Cam’s got a point,” J.J. said.

  “John dated Kathleen all through school,” Joshua said. “He married her well over thirty years ago.”

  “He was married to Sherry Whitaker for twenty-seven years,” Cameron said.

  “Shawn Whitaker died like thirty years ago,” Joshua said. “Kathleen was the executor of her brother’s estate. That would have given her access to everything John needed to file for a birth certificate and get a social security card to create a second identity.”

  “Madison Whitaker is the same age as Tracy. And so is Heather.” J.J.’s mouth dropped open in a gasp. “If John Davis and Shawn Whitaker are the same man, that means Heather and Madison are sisters.”

  “Half-sisters,” Joshua said. “I can’t believe with all the stuff that went down between those two in high school that no one ever found out that they had the same father.” He chuckled. “You gotta hand it to John. Two families—living how far apart?”

  Cameron was already checking on her tablet. “The two women’s addresses are twenty miles apart—with the state line dividing them.”

  “My big question is why,” Joshua said. “What man in his right mind starts a family with two different women?”

  “Do they know each other?” Cameron asked.

  “I’m sure they’d met when Heather and Madison were in dance together at Miss Charlotte’s Dance Studio,” J.J. said. “They were never friends from what I saw. Not enemies. Just from different worlds.”

  “If they had been, I’m sure their friendship ended after you entered their daughters’ lives,” Joshua said with a chuckle.

  “What did you do to them?” Poppy asked J.J.

  “I did nothing to them.”

  The women around the table turned to Joshua for the answer.

  “J.J. dated both of them at the same time.”

  “Not at the same time,” J.J. said.

  When the women turned to Joshua to confirm J.J.’s statement, he nodded his head to indicate that he did.

  “I bounced back and forth between them like a ping pong ball, but I was upfront about it,” J.J. said. “I couldn’t decide between them. I started out dating Heather. She was co-captain of the cheerleading squad with Tracy. She was so sharp and organized and really had her head on straight. She always knew what she wanted to do.”

  “She graduated from WVU with her MBA in five years,” Joshua said. “She works for a big marketing company out in Robinson.”

  “She was taking dance lessons at the same studio as Tracy,” J.J. said. “I went there to pick them up a few times. That was where I met Madison. She was a fantastic dancer.”

  “Wasn’t Heather’s sister taking lessons there, too?” Joshua asked.

  “Heather’s sister?” Cameron asked. “Are you talking about Derek’s wife?”

  “Lindsay.” J.J. shook his fork in Joshua’s direction while slowly saying, “I forgot all about her. I think Lindsay enjoyed dancing more than Heather. But then she loved partying more than dance.”

  “She had to drop out when she got pregnant in her junior year of high school,” Joshua said. “She was eight months pregnant at Heather’s graduation. Kathleen was horrified with embarrassment.”

  “Didn’t she die in a drunk driving accident three years ago?” Cameron asked. “Supposedly, that’s what sent Derek off the deep end.”

  Joshua and Cameron noticed a shadow cross J.J.’s face before he turned his full attention to the food on his plate.

  “Are we missing something?” Cameron asked.

  “I wasn’t here when Lindsay died.” J.J. glanced from one of them to the other. “I’ve only heard rumors.”

  “What kind of rumors?” Joshua asked.

  “About Lindsay’s accident.” J.J. cast a nervous glance in Izzy’s direction.

  Aware of all eyes aimed at her, Izzy lifted her shoulders. “I know how babies are made and where they come from.”

  “She even assisted in birthing a foal last spring,” Poppy said.

  “This isn’t about sex,” J.J. said.

  “I know about death, too,” Izzy said. “Have you forgotten that my mom was murdered? That’s how I ended up here.”

  “She does have a point,” Joshua said.

  Relenting, Cameron said, “Just don’t go repeating what we’re talking about, Izzy. It may be helpful in catching a killer.”

  With a shrug of her shoulders, Izzy returned to eating her spring roll.

  “Out with it,” Joshua ordered J.J.

  “There’s nothing concrete to come out with,” J.J. said. “Rumor has it that Lindsay committed suicide.”

  “Sheriff Sawyer investigated that crash out on Washington School Road,” Joshua said. “She had gone out drinking—”

  “After having a huge fight with Heather,” J.J. said.

  “What were they fighting about?” Cameron asked.

  “Heather blew off coming back home for Luke’s birthday party,” J.J. said. “She chose to go to a conference instead. Lindsay took it personally.”

  “Even if she took it personally, that doesn’t mean she purposely wrapped her car around a tree,” Joshua said. “She was on methamphetamine and had a blood alcohol level of point four. She never should have gotten behind that wheel. We can only thank God she didn’t take someone else out with her.”

  “I’m on
ly telling you what I heard,” J.J. said. “Lindsay had a lot of regrets about decisions she had made. She knew she had a problem with drugs and booze. She was afraid of how Luke was going to turn out with her as his mother.”

  “Did she leave a note saying that?” Cameron asked.

  J.J. shook his head. “I can’t even tell you where I heard it. It’s just been going around.”

  “What does Derek say?” Cameron asked Joshua.

  “He says Lindsay wrapped her car around that tree by accident,” Joshua said. “According to what Sawyer uncovered during his investigation, Lindsay did have a big fight with Heather about not coming home for Luke’s birthday. She told Derek that she needed to go out. That was about seven o’clock in the evening—right after dinner. He gave her a twenty-dollar bill and she left him home with Luke, who was already in bed. Witnesses saw her eating pizza and drinking in Chester Park. It was close to three o’clock in the morning when one of Sawyer’s deputies discovered the wreck on Washington School Road. Her body was in the middle of the road. There were skid marks all over. Sawyer concluded she had lost control of the car going around the hairpin curve. She got thrown from the car and it rolled over her before going over the hill. The broken clock on the dash registered the wreck as being close to one-thirty in the morning. They lived right down the road. She must have been going home when it happened.”

  “What a waste,” Cameron said.

  “Lindsay loved to dance,” J.J. said. “She wanted to be a professional dancer until she got caught up in drugs.”

  “It was Heather who went to competition,” Joshua said. “Madison was her arch rival. She’d win every time with Heather coming in right behind her—just missing that big trophy. That drove Heather, who has always been very competitive, crazy. When J.J. decided to step out with Madison—”

  “Dad, you make it sound like I was cheating on Heather.” Aware of Poppy looking at him out of the corner of his eye, J.J. turned to her. “Heather and I did not have an exclusive relationship. Madison invited me to go dancing with her one night, and I like to dance. We had a good time. Then, she asked me to be her date for homecoming at her school and—”