J. Margos - Shattered Image

Drew Smith had called and asked if he could come by. There was a development in our Cottonwood case. I told him to come on over, and I went into the kitchen to put on a pot of tea. I checked the cookie jar and discovered that my son had managed to actually leave some of my sugar cookies there. There were enough for Drew and me to share while we drank our tea. I decided to brew a really good green tea with jasmine. It was one I had discovered recently and I thought Drew might like it. He was a real tea drinker, and it was difficult for me to find something original for him to drink.

While the water heated to a boil, I went into the other room to put on something more decent than cutoffs and a faded old T-shirt. I changed into a pair of good jeans and a black round-neck knit top.

The whistle on the teapot began to go off just as the doorbell rang. I turned down the fire on the stove and went to the door. Drew stood on my front porch in jeans and a red golf shirt with a blue windbreaker over it, and a manila file in his hand.

“Casual attire?” I said.

“Officially off duty today.”

“Oh. So, of course you’re working on your day off.”

“Contrary to popular titles, death does not take any holidays.”

I smiled and motioned for him to come in. He looked toward the kitchen and sniffed thoughtfully, a question in his brow.

“Green tea with jasmine,” I said.

He smiled. “Now, that’s a new one for me.”

Yes! I thought. Out loud I said, “And my homemade sugar cookies.”

Drew shook his head and smiled. “Now, Toni, you are going to just spoil me.”

“It gets better,” I said. “It’s your mama’s recipe for the cookies.”

“Oh no. I hope you don’t have very many of them, because I have just managed to take off five pounds I gained from slacking off at the gym last month. I had to work out double time for two solid weeks. If you’ve got Mama’s sugar cookies, I could regain the whole five pounds in one sitting.” And then he laughed.

Now I shook my head. “Well, lucky for you, my son was over here the other day and he polished off quite a few of them before I managed to run him off.”

“Thank goodness,” he chuckled. “All the time at the gym will not be wasted now.”

He smiled that great smile with his gentle overbite. Drew had married when he was twenty-one and divorced before he was twenty-seven. His wife had left him for someone else. Drew said it was because she couldn’t handle his police work-he had been a state trooper then. Still, I wondered what that crazy woman must have been thinking. Drew was a treasure. I hated to be a matchmaker, but I just knew there must be a nice young woman out there for him somewhere.

I plated the cookies and poured our tea. Drew laid the file on the table and took off his windbreaker, hung it on the back of his chair and waited. He would never sit down until all the ladies in the room were seated. I sat and then he sat. I made a mental note to look much harder to find a nice girl for him. He would have been embarrassed to know that, but he would never know. I could be sneaky when I wanted to be.

We chatted for a while. He asked how Michael was and I asked about his mother. Mama Beatrice was doing well, he told me, but she was thinking about leaving Louisiana and moving to Austin to be closer to Drew. She was getting up in years and thought that living closer to her son would be wise. Drew’s sister lived in San Antonio and both of his brothers worked in Houston. Mama Beatrice didn’t like either of those places as well as Austin. Plus, I knew that Drew was the one of her children who took care of things for her.

I told Drew I’d be happy to help her find a place and relocate. I would love to have my friend Beatrice in the city. Drew said he’d take me up on that, and he’d keep me posted on her plans.

“So, what is new on our cottonwood case that has caused you to work on your day off?”

“She’s been identified.”

I set my teacup down. This was always the moment for which I worked and waited.

“Her name is Lisa Wells.”

I sat still for a moment. This young girl with whom I had become so connected and whose face had come to life again under my fingertips-this young girl was reconnected with her name and her history.

“How did you find out who she was?”

“Her mother saw the photos of the bust on the local TV news and recognized her. She called the number on the screen, and wanted to come in and identify her daughter.”

I sighed a deep sigh. “Oh man.”

“Yeah. I had to explain to her as gently as I could that it would not be possible. Then I explained that I would need her daughter’s dental records and we would confirm the ID.”

“How did she take it when you explained?”

“Pretty hard. I cushioned the news as much as I could, but there aren’t a lot of sweet ways you can tell a mother that her daughter’s remains consist of bones that lay exposed in a cottonwood grove for months and have been picked clean by buzzards.”

I ran my hand through my hair and sighed again.

“Sorry, Toni.”

“No, it’s not what you said. I deal with that truth on almost every case I have. It’s…just thinking about that mother.”

“Yeah.”

“Where was the victim from?”

“She lived in Dallas with her boyfriend, but the mother, Gladys, lives in Athens, just east of Dallas.”

“So, do we have any clue who killed Lisa Wells?”

“We do. Her mother says she was living with a man named Johnathan Rowell. The police had been called to their home numerous times for domestic violence. Lisa had been hospitalized several times for broken bones. Each time, she went back to him and charges were dropped.”

“Great. So, has he been charged yet?”

“Now wait.”

I sighed.

“Let me finish. We collected as much evidence as we could from the crime scene. The body had been wrapped in a blanket, and we checked that against fibers we took from the trunk of Rowell’s car.”

“That’s a long shot. Plus, if the blanket belonged to them, why wouldn’t fibers from it be in the car?”

“The blanket didn’t belong to them.” Drew smiled.

“Give,” I said, shooting him a look.

“I showed the blanket to Mrs. Wells when she came down to claim the remains. She said she didn’t recognize that particular blanket, but that it looked similar to something that Rita’s mother had made.”

“And Rita is…?”

“Lisa’s best friend. Her mother handweaves blankets, rugs, you get the picture.”

“So…”

“So, I contacted Rita-Rita Gallekamp-Rita says the blanket was hers. It was new and her mom had made it for her. She brought it over to Lisa’s the night before Lisa disappeared. Rita’s husband was out of town, and Johnny was out playing cards and drinking with his friends, and Rita and Lisa had decided to watch a movie on TV, eat popcorn, and have some fun-you know, a girls’ night in. Rita gets cold easily and she brought the blanket because she said Lisa’s place was always cold. Johnny kept the apartment cold, and he’d get mad if Lisa turned the heat up.”

“Cheap?”

“Yep.”

“So, the place was always cold and she brought her blanket.”

“She also wanted to show it to Lisa because it was new and her mom had just made it for her and given it to her as a birthday gift.”

“So, how did it wind up wrapped around Lisa’s discarded body?”

“Rita left the blanket there by accident. She was going to go back and get it the next day, but then Lisa disappeared. She asked Johnny to look for it, but it was gone. Johnny told Rita that maybe Lisa had taken it with her. Rita’s mother was real mad about the blanket. Rita kept thinking that Lisa would call her, but they never heard from her, and Rita never got the blanket back.”