I considered following Detective Ledgerman in my car, but I didn’t know the city well and didn’t want to get lost. So I climbed into her cruiser, and we headed out. Where Emily Young lived in a gentrified, stable neighborhood full of young professionals, her brother worked in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in town.
His church had a red brick exterior with an exposed limestone foundation. Plexiglass panels and thick bars protected hundred-year-old stained-glass windows in the sanctuary hall while the church’s exterior grounds sprawled across two city blocks. It had a basketball court, a tennis court, and even a small playground—all of which looked well used.
This church served its community well. Cameron ought to have been proud of that.
Detective Ledgerman parked on the street near a two-story brick home with elaborate dentil molding on the roofline. Had someone restored it, it would have fit into Emily Young’s neighborhood well. Here, the entire west side had crumbled, leaving the building open to the elements.
It wasn’t the only derelict building on the street, either. Across from it sat a three-story home in similar disrepair, and there was an overgrown, vacant lot beside it. Even here, though, there were a few homes that looked better than others. They had neat front lawns and flowers in window boxes. Cars parked up and down the street.
“I’m surprised there are so many vacant lots,” I said, walking around Ledgerman’s cruiser to join her on the sidewalk. She tilted her head to the side and shrugged.
“Didn’t used to be this many,” she said. “The city owns a lot of this property, and the mayor’s office would rather have a vacant lot than a crumbling house that could hurt a kid who goes exploring. Hurricane Katrina hurt, too.”
I smiled. “I didn’t realize the hurricane reached this far north.”
She glanced at me and walked across the street to the church. “St. Louis brick built New Orleans a hundred and fifty years ago. When Katrina hit, it damaged a lot of brick buildings. Contractors needed old St. Louis brick, and the best place to get that was in St. Louis. They drove into neighborhoods like this with semis and offered a hundred bucks per ton of bricks—no questions asked. People all over the city came in with sledgehammers and tore this place apart.”
“That’s awful,” I said.
She shrugged. “Especially for the people who lived here.”
We reached the other side of the street. Some boys up the street saw us and scattered, leaving a bright orange couch and a washing machine on the sidewalk. Ledgerman nodded in their direction.
“You think they’re helping their grandmother move?”
I stopped and looked for a moment. “Why would anyone steal a couch and an old washing machine?”
Detective Ledgerman stopped in front of me and shrugged again. “Probably found the washing machine and thought they could sell it for scrap metal. The couch, well…maybe they wanted somewhere to sit.”
The boys looked as if they were twelve or thirteen years old. Had I seen them dragging a washing machine down the street in St. Augustine, I would have stopped them and taken them home to their parents—or to school. Ledgerman didn’t seem too concerned about them, though. We had other worries than truancy.
Someone had locked the church’s side doors, so we walked around to the front, where we found an elderly woman pushing a small cart laden with canned goods out a door. I held the door for her, and we slipped inside. The church’s interior smelled like dust, coffee, and old paper. It reminded me of a library. Tile the color of faded red brick covered the floor while fluorescent lights buzzed on the ceiling.
Neither of us knew the church’s layout, so we followed the sound of voices to a large storage room in the basement. Crude wooden shelves made from plywood and two-by-fours filled the space like aisles in a grocery store. Refrigerators and freezers lined the back wall. Volunteers had stacked boxes of canned goods on every inch of open floor space. Three elderly shoppers walked the aisles and occasionally put cans of creamed corn or green beans in their trolleys.
Cameron Brody, Emily and Megan Young’s older half brother, stood near the freezers with an older woman. She had a hand on his tricep, and he nodded along to everything she had to say. When he saw us, he sighed and stopped speaking. The elderly woman pulled her hand away from him and looked from him to us before excusing herself and returning to the aisles.
The minister walked toward us a second later, a concerned look on his face.
“Cameron?” I asked, once he drew near. He looked at me up and down before his gaze turned into a glare.
“Do I know you?” he asked. “Because the only people who call me Cameron are my congregants and friends. You may call me Mr. Brody or Pastor Brody. It’s a sign of respect, something lacking from the police these days.”
“I apologize, Pastor Brody,” I said, clasping my arms behind my back. “We met a long time ago. I thought you’d remember me.”
“Sorry, Detective.”
“In that case, I’m Detective Joe Court,” I said, looking to Ledgerman. “This is Detective Amy Ledgerman.”
He blinked a few times, and then his expression softened.
“Joe Court,” he said, almost under his breath. “I never expected to hear that name again.”
“Glad to hear I made an impression,” I said.
“Hard to forget a girl named Joe,” he said. He looked at me up and down again. It wasn’t a leer; it was more of an inspection. “You’ve grown up. I don’t suppose this is a social call.”
“No, it’s not,” said Ledgerman. “Do you have an office we can talk in?”
He turned and looked over his shoulder and then back to us.
“I do, but I need to make sure my friends receive the help they need first. Meet me upstairs. I’ll speak with you in the sanctuary in a few minutes.”
Ledgerman and I agreed and then followed signs to the sanctuary. None of the overhead lights were on, but plenty of sunlight filtered through the stained glass windows. Detective Ledgerman and I sat in a pew near the back. Growing up in as many foster families as I had, I had attended dozens of churches. Baptist, Catholic, Lutheran, Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, the pews were all uncomfortable. That wasn’t the reason I had stayed away from church all these years later, but it didn’t help, either.
Cameron entered a few minutes later. He sat in the pew in front of us and turned around.
“Okay, Detectives,” he said. “My last client has left, and I’ve closed the food pantry for the next hour. I hope this is important.”
“We’re here to talk about your sisters,” said Ledgerman.
“I can’t help you much there,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to Emily in almost a decade. Joe can tell you why I haven’t spoken to Megan.”
Even as a small-town cop, I interviewed a good number of people, and I had learned a few things over the years. If the first sentence out of a witness’s mouth was a lie, everything that followed would be, too. I didn’t like being lied to.
“I give people one lie before I get pissed off,” I said, speaking before Detective Ledgerman could. “You used yours. Start over, Pastor Brody.”
He looked at me and smiled, but I couldn’t see much mirth in his eyes.
“Funny how time changes people,” he said. “You used to be polite.”
“And you didn’t used to be a liar. It’s not a trait I associate with a man of the cloth.”
He crossed his arms. “And what did I lie about, young lady?”
“Your relationship with your sisters, for starters,” I said. “How would your congregation react if they found out their pastor had let an innocent man go to prison for Megan’s death?”
He drew in a breath and looked at me. “You know what Christopher Hughes did to the girls in his house. He wasn’t innocent.”
Ledgerman looked at me askance, but I didn’t take my eyes from Cameron.
“You’re right. Hughes is a vile human being, but he didn’t kill your sister.”
He stood and shook his head.
“I don’t have to listen to this,” he said. “If you two want to talk to me again, you can call my attorney.”
“Please have a seat,” said Ledgerman, her voice soft. “We’re not here to interrogate you. We came because we have news you need to hear.”
He glared at me before sitting. “So this isn’t an interrogation. You could have surprised me.”
“When was the last time you talked to your sisters?” asked Ledgerman.
He cocked his head to the side and snorted. “I believe I’ve given you my answer. If this is all you have, you’re welcome to leave.”
“I found Emily’s body this morning in her house,” I said. “Megan died in St. Augustine yesterday. I’m sorry. I know you cared about them.”
For a second, his glare fell on me hard, but then his expression changed. He swallowed and then leaned back without saying a word.
“Emily kept a picture of the three of you in her house,” I said. “She was proud of you, I think.”
He blinked. It was like watching a dam fail in slow motion. First one tear came, and then another and then another. Ledgerman and I gave him a few minutes to compose himself. Then he reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and wiped his cheeks.
“I’m sorry,” I said again. “And I’m sorry for the way I delivered the news. I wish there were easier ways.”
He held up a hand and closed his eyes. “Just tell me how they died.”
I looked at Ledgerman. She leaned forward. “Somebody killed them. We’re trying to find out why. Detective Court is working the case in St. Augustine, while I’m working in St. Louis.”
He nodded. “I can tell you why they were murdered right now. Joe can, too, I bet. I tried to get them to change. I told them they should go to college. They were smart girls. They could have done anything in the world.”
“Emily still sold drugs?” I asked. Cameron looked at me and nodded.
“Megan, too. They were a team. They tried to tell me it wasn’t dangerous because their clients were rich, but rich people do stupid things just as often as poor people do. Maybe more often because they can get away with it. They didn’t listen.”
“Can you think of anyone who would want to hurt them?” asked Ledgerman.
He shook his head. “They sold weed. They weren’t out there shooting up neighborhoods. Emily and Megan were businesswomen. They owned real estate together. They bought and sold houses together. Weed was just part of what they did. They had this idea of opening marijuana dispensaries as soon as Missouri made it legal. They wanted to go legit.”
“Their clients ever threaten them?” asked Ledgerman.
Cameron chuckled. “Their clients were college professors and stockbrokers who liked to get high after work. They weren’t working with Pablo Escobar.”
“How about problems with suppliers?” I asked.
“They never talked about that end of their business,” he said. “I loved my sisters, but I’m a man of God. I tried to stay out of their business.”
It wasn’t the most helpful interview I had ever sat through, but at least we had viable leads. I doubted there were many distributors of high-quality weed in the city. Cameron may not have known who they were, but the drug enforcement officers in Detective Ledgerman’s department would.
“Is there anything else you want to tell us?” I asked. “Anything you think could help our investigation?”
Cameron hesitated but then nodded. “A guy came by about a week ago. He said he was a writer, and he was looking into Megan’s death for a potential book.”
“Oh?” asked Ledgerman, leaning forward.
“Yeah,” said Cameron, nodding. “He wasn’t a writer, though. He didn’t remember me, but he was a cop. He picked me up when I was in high school for trespassing at the Galleria Mall. I was there to buy Christmas presents for my foster mom.”
“Did he tell you his name?” I asked.
“Scott Gibson.”
“That’s helpful,” said Detective Ledgerman, standing. “I’m sorry about your sisters. If you’d like to make funeral arrangements, I’ll have someone from the Medical Examiner’s Office call you here.”
“I’d appreciate that,” said Cameron. He stood. He seemed to wobble for a moment. In other circumstances, I might have questioned whether he’d had a little too much to drink. Today, though, he had the unsteady legs of the bereaved. “I’m going to take the rest of the day off. If you need me, call the church office. My assistant will put you in touch with me.”
Detective Ledgerman nodded, and the minister walked out of the sanctuary. Once we were alone, I looked at her.
“Scott Gibson,” I said. “The name familiar?”
“Yeah. Brody was wrong, though. Gibson’s not a cop, at least not anymore,” she said, already heading toward the exit. “He’s a private investigator with one of the slimiest defense attorneys in town.”
“Think he’d torture and murder a woman in her basement?” I asked, hurrying to keep up with her.
“If there was enough money involved, oh yeah.”
“Are you up for paying him a visit?” I asked.
“I’m up for kicking his teeth in,” she said. “But I’ll settle for a visit.”
If he had been the one to torture Emily and murder Megan, I would have preferred the former, too.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Maybe if we’re lucky, he’ll resist arrest and we’ll get to pepper spray him.”
“We can always hope.”