Scene Of The Crime: Who Killed Shelly Sinclair?

Chapter Two

Daniel had spent a restless night plagued by dreams of New Orleans and the passionate woman who’d come with him back to his hotel room from the bar. He’d finally awakened before dawn and after a shower and two cups of coffee, he thought he was prepared to face the woman who was now his boss.

Lily had only been a dream, but Olivia Bradford had already shown herself to be a formidable figure. Daniel wasn’t afraid of her digging into his professional or personal life. He’d never even taken a free cup of coffee from the café in his position as deputy and as temporary sheriff. He had nothing to hide, but there were several deputies he knew who didn’t hold themselves to the same standards.

Olivia appeared to be the type who would leave no stone unturned both in her internal investigation and any others that might present themselves, due to Trey Walker’s dictatorial style and lack of real investigations during his reign as sheriff.

Daniel arrived at the station at six forty-five ready for roll call at seven o’clock. He was unsurprised that Olivia was already in the office. He had a feeling that she was the type of woman who wouldn’t abide anything but strict punctuality.

Apparently, the men knew that, too. Even the deputies who had often been stragglers to roll call were all present, uniforms neat and eyes clear.

Five deputies worked the day shift and then five worked the evening shift until midnight, then five more were on duty from midnight until eight in the morning. The extra four worked shifts when the others had days off.

Daniel had worked the night shift until he’d become sheriff and then had changed to the day shift. He assumed he would continue his day shift even now that Olivia was here.

At precisely seven the five men working the day shift were in the conference room and Olivia walked in. Today she was clad in a pair of black slacks, a crisp white short-sleeved blouse with her badge pinned to the blouse’s pocket and her gun belt around her waist.

Her hair was pulled back and her makeup minimal. She held a file in her hand. “Good morning,” she said. “The first thing I’d like for you to do is stand up one at a time and state your name.”

Daniel stood up first, followed by Josh Griffin, Wes Stiller, Ray McClure and Malcolm Appleton. Daniel and Josh were particularly close, having been friends for years, and they had worked together to bring down Trey and Jim.

Once they had all introduced themselves, Olivia held up the file in her hand into the air. “I spent most of the night going through criminal file records for the last five years and one in particular captured my attention.”

Daniel knew immediately which file she held in her hand. It was woefully thin and unsolved. Guilt immediately pooled in his gut as he and Josh exchanged a quick glance.

“Who killed Shelly Sinclair?” Olivia’s question hung in the air for a long, pregnant moment before she continued. “This is a two-year-old unsolved murder case and as far as I can tell, very little was done at the time of her murder in the way of an investigation.” She placed the file down on the table in front of her.

“That’s because at the time of the murder we knew who had committed it,” Ray said. “Bo McBride killed Shelly. He was her boyfriend at the time.”

Olivia frowned. “Then why isn’t the case closed?”

“We couldn’t find the evidence necessary to make the arrest,” Wes said.

“Is there another file someplace? What I have here surely doesn’t contain all of the interviews and statements of people who might have been involved in the case.” Olivia’s dark eyes radiated confusion as she looked at each of the men.

“A good solid investigation was never done,” Daniel said as the guilt knot in his gut twisted tighter.

“I don’t understand,” Olivia replied.

“That’s because you weren’t working for Trey Walker,” Josh added. Daniel knew Josh had suffered just as much guilt as Daniel had with the way the case had been shunted aside. “Trey had made up his mind that Bo was guilty and he made it clear that any of us who wanted to investigate further did so at the risk of our jobs.”

Olivia’s lush lips pressed together in a sign of obvious disapproval. “You have an unsolved murder that’s now become a cold case and a shoddy investigation at best at the time the murder occurred. We’re going to reopen this case and get it solved. Daniel, I’d like to see you in my office and the rest of you get back to your usual duties.”

“What a waste of time,” Ray grumbled when Olivia had left the room. “Everyone knows that Bo did it. It’s not our fault that we couldn’t prove it.”

“Not everyone is so certain that Bo was responsible,” Josh replied.

That’s the last of the conversation Daniel heard as he left the room to head to Olivia’s office. He was glad that she was being proactive in the case of Shelly’s murder. The unsolved case had been like a stain on Daniel’s soul for far too long.

He knocked on the door and then entered the office where she gestured him into one of the chairs in front of her desk.

“I read what little was in the file, but I want you to tell me about Shelly Sinclair and her death,” she said.

Daniel nodded and tried to school his thoughts. The scent of a lilac-based perfume filled the air. He hadn’t noticed it yesterday, but he remembered it from the night they had hooked up in New Orleans. He had found it dizzyingly intoxicating then and it still affected him on some primal level.

“Daniel?”

Her voice yanked him out of the past and to the present.

“Sorry...yes, about Shelly. She was found floating in the lagoon at the south end of town. She’d been strangled. The area has a bench and some bushes, and from the scene it appeared some kind of a struggle had ensued. Her purse and phone was found on the bench, but her engagement ring was missing and has never been found.”

“Now tell me about Bo McBride.”

Daniel shifted positions in his chair, oddly disappointed that her eyes held nothing but professional curiosity about a crime. Of course, that was how it should be. A married woman shouldn’t be interested in the five years that had passed since a hot hookup had occurred.

“At the time of the murder, Bo owned the place that is now Jimmy’s Place. Bo and Shelly had been a couple since junior high school and it was just assumed that eventually they’d get married. They often met at the bench by the lagoon late at night before Shelly started her night shift working as the clerk in The Pirate’s Inn. When Shelly wound up dead it was only natural that Bo would be one of the prime suspects.”

“And from what I read in the file, his alibi was that he was at home sick with the flu on the night that Shelly was murdered.”

“And the last text message on Shelly’s phone was from Bo telling her he was ill and couldn’t meet her that night,” Daniel replied.

Olivia shuffled through the few papers that were in the file. “And no other suspects were pursued? All I see in here are interviews of Shelly’s sister, Savannah, her brother, Mac, their parents and a couple of Shelly’s friends. Is there anything more you can tell me that isn’t in this file?”

“Several things have come to light in the last couple of months. Shelly told some of her friends that she was in a sticky situation, but we never managed to figure out what that meant. While we were investigating the attacks on Shelly’s sister, Savannah, we discovered that Eric Baptiste had become friendly with Shelly right before her death, a detail we never knew during the initial investigation.”

Olivia held up her hand to stop him. “I’m already confused by names and incidents I know nothing about. Obviously you can’t completely update me in a brief talk right now.” She frowned thoughtfully. “What I’d like you to do is head up a four-man task force and focus efforts on starting this investigation all over again from the very beginning.”

“I’d be glad to do that. I always felt like Bo was an easy scapegoat and the crime wasn’t investigated right from the start. Is there anyone in particular you want on the task force?” he asked.

She shook her head, her dark hair shining richly in the light flooding in from the windows behind her desk. “You know the men better than I do and you know who you’ll work best with. I just want go-getters, men who want to work hard and close this case with a killer behind bars.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I want this cleaned up before I leave here.”

There was nothing of Lily in the hard-eyed woman seated across from him. “We’ll get it cleaned up,” he said, hoping his words of confidence would somehow soften her features.

They didn’t. Instead, in an effort to get a small glimpse of the woman he’d briefly known, he changed the subject. “I couldn’t help but notice the wedding ring on your finger. I’m glad that you found somebody important in your life.”

She stared down at the band for a long moment and then looked back at him, her eyes shuttered and unreadable. “I got married to a wonderful man, had a daughter and then last year he died. It’s just my mother, my daughter and me now.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry.” That’s what you get for trying to take the conversation to a personal level, he thought.

She frowned. “I’m not the first young widow and I won’t be the last. What’s important to me now is my family’s well-being and my work. And now, don’t you have a task force to pull together?” She raised a perfectly arched eyebrow and glanced toward the door.

Daniel beat feet to the door and it was only when he was back at his desk that he processed what he’d just learned about her. She wasn’t married. She was a widow.

Although he was sorry that she’d lost her husband, he wasn’t sorry that she was single. Right now the night they had spent together was like a white elephant in the room whenever they were alone together.

Sooner or later he was going to bring it up. He was going to have to talk about it. Sooner or later, as crazy as he might be, he hoped that just maybe there might be a repeat of that night in their future.

* * *

OVER THE NEXT two days, the task force was pulled together and assigned to work from a small conference room in the back of the building.

Daniel had chosen Josh Griffin, Wes Stiller and Derrick Bream as his team. It was obvious the men had a good relationship and equally obvious, as Olivia had observed the deputies over the last two days, that Daniel was a natural-born leader. All of the men respected and looked up to him.

Olivia had spent most of the two days interviewing the deputies who worked for her and finishing up going through case files of crimes that had been handled by Trey Walker.

Daniel had been right; for the most part other than during the last couple of months, Lost Lagoon had been relatively free of any serious crimes. Oh, there had been the usual domestic calls and shoplifting... Petty crimes that had been resolved immediately.

She’d arrived in her official capacity on Monday morning and by Wednesday evening she had learned that everyone in Lost Lagoon seemed to move at a slower pace than anywhere else in the world. She’d discovered that the town was rich in pirate lore and that a new amusement park being built on a ridge just above the town had the business owners excited about new commerce.

It was after seven when she packed up to leave to go home. She’d already called her mother to tell her to go ahead and feed Lily and get her ready for bed.

She was surprised to leave the office and see Daniel at his desk. She’d assumed he’d gone home at four when he was off duty.

“I thought you’d have left by now. Don’t you have a family to get home to?” she asked.

He reared back in his chair, looking as fresh and alert as he had that morning. “No wife, no family and no desire for either. I’m a confirmed bachelor,” he said. “I assume you’re headed home?”

“Eventually, but before that I want to go to the scene of Shelly’s murder. I haven’t really gotten out and about town much and I just want to get a feel for where the crime took place.”

Daniel frowned. “I’d rather you not go there by yourself. How about I drive there and you follow me? I can give you a better idea of what things looked like on that night.”

“I can’t ask you to do that,” she protested.

“You didn’t. I offered. Besides, it’s my job to assist you.” He stood as if it were settled. “I was ready to knock off for the night anyway.”

Minutes later Olivia followed behind Daniel’s patrol car toward the south end of town. They traveled on Main Street, and as she drove she glanced at the various businesses that lined the streets.

So far she’d only gone from the station to her home on the west side of town. She hadn’t ventured into the heart of Lost Lagoon. On one side of the street she noticed an ice cream parlor and made a note to be sure and visit it with her mother and Lily. Lily loved ice cream.

Lily. If she’d been conflicted at all about telling Daniel that their night of passion had resulted in a daughter for him, her conflict had been resolved when he’d said he had no desire for a wife or a family and that he was a confirmed bachelor.

She focused back on her surroundings. On one corner a shop held a large sign that indicated it was Mama Baptiste’s Apothecary and Gift Shop and further down the road was a two-story hotel named The Pirate’s Inn. In between were shops catering to tourists, a dress boutique and Jimmy’s Place where the parking spaces in front of the three-story building were filled with various makes and models of vehicles.

Olivia’s stomach rumbled as she thought of all the people inside enjoying a meal. She’d skipped lunch that day and although she knew Rose would have kept something for her to zap in the microwave for dinner, her stomach was ready to be fed as soon as possible.

While they continued on, the buildings ended and Main Street joined an outer road that she knew circled around the entire town.

Olivia followed him onto the outer road and then when he stopped and pulled to the curb, she did the same. On the opposite side of the road in the near distance was a row of bushes broken only by a stone bench.

Daniel got out of his car and she followed suit. Here the smell of the swamp was thick in the humid air. The scent of tangled musty foliage battled with a fishy smell, and the humidity was thick enough to cut with a knife.

Daniel joined her by the side of her car. “Bo worked the night shift at Bo’s Place and Shelly worked the night shift at The Pirate’s Inn. Before she went into work, Bo often sneaked away and the two of them would meet here for a few minutes before they each returned to work.”

“So Shelly showed up that night, but according to the message that she got from Bo, he didn’t come.” Olivia stared at the bench where a young, beautiful woman had spent the last minutes of her life. Who had met Shelly here in the middle of the night and strangled her to death then threw her body in the nearby lagoon?

They crossed the street. Beyond the bushes and the stone bench was a grassy area that ran from one edge of the swampy growth to the other side, and beyond that the lagoon water sparkled darkly in the waning sunlight.

“No evidence was found?” Olivia asked.

“The bushes on the left side of the bench were trampled down, indicating that the struggle occurred there, but we didn’t find anything in the way of evidence.” His voice held a wealth of frustration.

“From the minute I read this file, I’ve been haunted by her,” Olivia said softly.

“You aren’t the only one. I’ve spent two years with her ghost haunting my dreams, begging for justice. In the last year, Shelly’s sister, Savannah, kept her sister relevant by dressing up like a ghost and walking on the grassy area just in front of the lagoon.”

Olivia looked at him in surprise. “Really?”

“On Friday nights teenagers would gather and hide behind the bushes, waiting for the ghost of Shelly to appear. Savannah used a tunnel that runs from her backyard to the base of a tree.” He pointed to the right of the grassy area where a cypress tree rose up. “She’d wear some gauzy white dress with a flashlight tied to her waist beneath to give her a ghostly glow. She’d walk across to the other side where a cave led back to the tunnel that would take her home.”

“Why would she do such a thing?” Olivia asked, wanting to know all the ins and outs of this case.

Daniel shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the dark lagoon water. He appeared haunted, his eyes fixed in the distance and his posture one of faint defeat.

“When Shelly was buried, Savannah’s parents moved away and left her and her brother, Mac, the family house. Mac married and moved out soon after that. According to Shelly, she wasn’t allowed to speak of her sister, either to her parents or to her brother. She did her ghostly walks to hear the teenagers behind the bushes gasp and shout out Shelly’s name. It was her way of keeping her sister alive.”

He pulled his hands from his pockets and turned back to gaze at Olivia. “Thankfully, Josh caught on to what she was doing and with his love she’s healing. But she needs closure. She needs her sister’s killer behind bars to fully embrace the life she’s building with Josh.”

“Tomorrow I’d like you to go with me to interview Bo McBride. I know small towns and that often people are hostile or suspicious of strangers. I think I’ll get more answers if you’re with me.”

Daniel nodded. “Just tell me when and I’ll be glad to go with you.”

Olivia walked forward and sat on the bench, as if she could somehow pick up something from the horror of the crime that had happened so long ago.

It was darker here, the sinking sun unable to penetrate the shadows formed by the swamp vegetation and the trees with thick Spanish moss dripping from their branches.

Daniel sat next to her. His spicy cologne was familiar as it wafted to her. It wasn’t just a familiar scent she’d noticed over the last couple of days, but one she remembered from a night that shouldn’t have happened. It was a night that should have been erased from her memory bank long ago.

“Tell me about Bo McBride,” she said in an effort to keep away memories that had no place in her head.

“Bo was one of the golden boys in town. He was liked and respected by everyone. He was handsome and had a beautiful girlfriend. His business was extremely successful and at least on the surface it appeared he had the world by the tail.”

“Do you think he killed Shelly?”

His features were dappled by shadows and his eyes glowed silvery green in the falling of twilight. They had glowed like that when he’d taken possession of her body. Darn it, she had to stop remembering him naked and filled with desire for her.

He raked a hand through his thick short hair and leaned back against the bench. “Do I think Bo killed Shelly? My gut instinct is that he didn’t.”

“And how good is your gut instinct?”

He grinned at her, his perfect white teeth flashing bright. “Better than most, but in this case I guess time and more investigation will tell us if it’s on the money.”

“Who found her body? I didn’t see anything in the report.”

“An early morning jogger named Tom Dempsey. Tom is sixty-seven years old and jogs at odd times of the day and night. It was four in the morning when he saw Shelly floating in the swamp and called it in. Thankfully, we managed to retrieve her before any gators or other wildlife got to her.”

Olivia had been involved in many homicide cases in Natchez, but for some reason the case of Shelly Sinclair was hitting her hard. She rose from the bench, not wanting to sit another minute in this place of death.

Daniel stood, as well. “I have a favor to ask you,” she said as they walked back to their cars. She paused and gazed up at him. “I’ve been watching the way you interact among the men and it’s obvious they look up to you. What I need to know is if I can trust you completely?”

She held his gaze steadily. She might be making a mistake, but she needed somebody on the inside, somebody who had worked closely with the other men in the department.

She had no real reason to trust Daniel. A single night in bed certainly wasn’t the basis to build trust on, but her gut instinct told her he was the one man in the department who was an upright, by-the-book lawman.

“Of course you can trust me completely,” he replied. The earnestness in his eyes comforted her.

“Then what I’d like to do is meet you for coffee one evening soon at the café and have a talk about some of your fellow officers,” she said.

He frowned. “I’d really rather not do that at the café where people can see us together or might overhear the conversation. I don’t want the men to think I’m being a snitch.”

“Of course, I didn’t think about that.”

“Why don’t you follow me to my place now and we can talk privately there?”

Olivia thought about all the questions she had about some of the deputies. “Okay,” she agreed a bit reluctantly.

It was only when she was back in her car and following him to his place that she thought this might be a bad idea. First and foremost she was running only on a gut instinct and his word that he was trustworthy.

More important, she feared that in the privacy of his home he might bring up that night they’d shared five years ago, a night she’d spent the last five years trying desperately to forget.