Jolene’s face turned white, and her hand slid down the wall as she collapsed to a crouch. “Are you sure?”
“She doesn’t have a pulse. CPR isn’t going to help at this point.” Sam put a finger on Melody’s chin, her flesh still warm, and tipped her head to the side. Blood from a deep gash matted Melody’s hair. “It’s a head injury.”
Jolene plunged her hand into her purse. “I’m calling 911.”
“Your phone’s dead.” He held out his phone to her. “Try not to touch anything in here, Jolene.”
As Jolene spoke a rush of words to the 911 operator, Sam swiveled his head to take a look around the room. As far as he could tell, nothing had been disturbed. Then he noticed blood on the edge of a glass coffee table. Squinting, he leaned in, careful not to touch it.
Jolene ended the call. “They’re on their way. What happened, Sam?”
“There’s blood and a few strands of hair stuck to that table. It’s the right shape. She could’ve fallen and hit her head on the table.”
“That would be enough to kill her?” Jolene sawed at her bottom lip with her teeth, her eyes wide and glassy.
“Do you see Melody’s phone? Her purse?” Sam inched away from the body. He had to get Jolene out of here. If there was any foul play, they didn’t want to be tromping around a crime scene.
Still gripping his phone, Jolene asked, “Do you think this was some kind of robbery gone wrong? Melody walked in on someone, and he pushed her? Took her purse?”
“I don’t know. Do you see the purse?”
“Melody always carried a small cross-body bag, It’s not...on her?”
Sam glanced down at Melody’s still form, her pink-streaked hair fanning across her face. His gaze tracked across her blouse, bunched around her waist, her skirt demurely smoothed over her thighs and her feet with one sandal on and one off. “I don’t see a purse.”
Jolene twisted her hair into a knot over her shoulder. “How could this happen? We just missed her at the bar.”
“Things happen when you’re drunk. Things happen when you’re drunk...and know too much.” Sam pushed up to his feet. “I hear the sirens. We need to step outside.”
Jolene seemed frozen in place. “Do you think someone killed her? That was my first thought, but I didn’t want to come off as paranoid.”
“Then we’re both paranoid.” Sam held out his hand. “C’mon. You already got your prints on that wall.”
“I’m a visitor here. My prints are going to be all over this apartment.” She grasped his hand with her cold fingers and he drew her up as the sirens ended in the parking lot below.
“We’ll let the police figure it out.”
“Like they figured out my father’s murder?” She shook her head. “They’ll take the path of least resistance. Her purse is missing, and she was drunk. That will be their main focus.”
“Whoever took her purse and phone must’ve turned it off. That’s why you couldn’t get through the last time you tried from my phone.”
Footsteps clumped up the stairs, and Sam led Jolene out of the apartment just as the first responders made it to the landing.
Sam raised his hand. “Over here.”
The next thirty minutes were a blur of activity. The EMTs didn’t try to revive Melody, as they’d discovered the same thing he had—no pulse.
How had that happened so fast? Melody had lost a lot of blood, but not enough to bleed out in twenty minutes. The blow to her head could’ve done her in immediately. Had someone hit her and then smeared her blood and hair on the table to make it look like an accident?
How many other deaths in that database were conveniently accidental?
Jolene had wandered back into the apartment when the EMTs called it quits on Melody. The crime scene investigators from the sheriff’s department were too busy to notice her presence. He hoped she wasn’t in there contaminating evidence. Maybe she just didn’t want to leave Melody alone.
The officer Sam had been talking to came up the stairs again. “The medical examiner is on her way. I don’t have anything else for you or Ms. Nighthawk. You have my card, and I have your phone numbers. We’ll be in touch if we need anything else.”
Sam pointed to the eaves running above the apartment doorways. “Too bad there are no cameras here.”
“We might be able to get something from across the street, and even though we don’t have her phone, we’ll get those records and see if she ordered another car.”
“I’ll be in Paradiso for a while on my case, so keep me apprised. Jolene, Ms. Nighthawk, is understandably devastated by the death of her cousin.”
“She’s Wade Nighthawk’s sister, too.” The deputy pointed down to the parking lot where Wade was talking to a uniformed cop. “Wade has friends in high places. Someone must’ve told him.”
Sam hustled back to Melody’s apartment and called to Jolene, who seemed transfixed by the CSI guys going through Melody’s living room.
She jerked her head to the side. “I—I just don’t want her to be alone.”
“I know.” He crooked his finger at her. “Come here a second.”
She gave a last look at Melody and approached him, tears streaking her face. She must’ve come out of the shock that had gripped her when they first discovered Melody.
He wrapped his arms around her and whispered in her ear. “Wade’s here.”
Her body stiffened, and he patted her back. “Don’t make any wild accusations against him—not here, not now. That’s his sister lying there.”
She nodded and buried her face in his shoulder. “We should’ve done more.”
“I know.”
As Sam drew her out onto the landing, Wade shouted. “What are you two doing here? They won’t let me pass.”
Sam steered Jolene toward her cousin. “We found her, Wade. The bartender at the Sundowner called Jolene to pick up Melody, and we got there too late.”
“How’d she get home? Who did this?” Wade’s smooth face had tightened into a mask. His dark eyes glittered with anger.
Jolene hugged her cousin. “We don’t know, Wade. We think she took a rideshare home. H-her purse is missing.”
“I told her not to live here on her own.” Wade smacked a fist into his palm. “She could’ve lived with us.”
With her arms still wrapped around Wade, Jolene asked, “When did she start drinking again?”
Sam held his breath.
“Don’t blame me for that. If you weren’t so busy running around with your head in the clouds, you would’ve noticed. I couldn’t make her stop.” He thrust his hand out toward Sam. “Ask your boyfriend there if anyone can get an alcoholic to stop drinking.”
Sam clenched his jaw, and then rolled his shoulders. The man had just lost his sister. “He’s right, Jolene. Nobody is to blame for Melody’s drinking except Melody.”
“You’re both accusing me of something I didn’t even say.” Jolene folded her arms. “I’m not blaming you. If anyone’s to blame, it’s me. If we had gotten to the Sundowner faster, we could’ve given Melody a ride home. Sam would’ve seen her safely inside.”
“Look, I’m sorry. Sorry, Sam.” Wade wiped his brow with the back of his hand. “I’m upset, lashing out.”
Wade smoothed his hand along his ponytail, and his chest heaved as he took a deep breath. The smooth politician emerged. “Do the police think it was a robbery or an accident? All they told me was that she died from a head injury. Did she fall, or did someone hit her? They didn’t tell me her purse was missing.”
The medical examiner’s white van pulled into the parking lot, and Sam touched Wade’s arm. “Let’s go downstairs, and let them finish their work here.”
Wade gestured to the neighbors poking their heads out their doors. “Did anyone hear anything? See anything?”
Jolene answered, “We don’t know, but the officers questioned them. They wouldn’t tell us anything. The apartment next to Melody’s is vacant. I remember when her neighbor moved out of there a few months ago. The management company hasn’t rented it out yet.”
They reached the bottom of the stairs and stepped aside for two people from the medical examiner’s van carrying a stretcher.
Jolene averted her face as Wade swallowed, a struggle to maintain control twisting his features for a minute.
“The officers said they might be able to get something from the cameras over there.” Sam pointed across the street.
“This damned building didn’t even have a security system or cameras.” Wade squeezed his eyes closed. “I told her. I told her.”
Jolene took her cousin’s hand. “Was Melody seeing anyone? Would someone else have picked her up from the bar?”
Wade’s lids flew open. “What are you saying? Don’t the police think this is either an accident or a robbery? You’re not suggesting someone murdered Melody, are you?”
“I don’t know.” Jolene shrugged. “I’m just asking a question, and it’s still murder if it was committed during a robbery.”
“You would probably know more about Melody’s dating life than I would. She didn’t tell me anything like that, not after...”
“Not after you chased off the last guy.” Jolene held up her hands. “I’m just saying.”
“He was bad news, and you know it, Jolene. He’s probably the one who got her drinking again.”
“Is that true, Jolene?” Sam’s hands curled into fists. “If so, Wade’s right—bad news.”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. Melody and that guy split up almost six months ago. I don’t think she’d been drinking that long.” Jolene ran a hand through her hair. “Or maybe I’m just clueless.”
“I don’t know.” Wade stared over Sam’s shoulder, his eyes blinking. “I have to go up and see Melody’s...body. I want to see her.”
“Of course you do.” Jolene squeezed his hand. “Let me know if we can do anything.”
They both watched Wade’s stiff back as he walked to the apartment’s staircase, still swarming with cops.
Melody rubbed the back of her hand across her nose. “He seemed upset—or Wade-upset, which is a little different from everyone else’s upset.”
“I don’t think Wade would murder his own sister—pay her off, threaten her, coerce her—but not murder.” Sam pinched the bridge of his nose. “I have a headache, and I can’t even imagine what you’re feeling. I’m sorry about Melody, Jolene. Like the bartender said, I always had a soft spot for Melody, too. She’s the one who introduced me to you.”
He hit the remote for his car, and Jolene glanced at him from beneath her lashes before following him to the passenger side.
As he opened her door, a hissing sound came from the bushes bordering the parking lot. Sam pivoted and peered into the foliage, as Jolene tucked her fingers in the waistband of his jeans.
As he stepped in front of Jolene, Sam barked, “Who’s there?”
A pair of eyes gleamed from a face that appeared between two bushes. “Hey, you ain’t the po-po, are you?”
Sam knew how to answer that question under these circumstances. “No, I’m not a cop. Why? Who are you?”
The man shuffled from his hiding place, twigs and leaves clinging to his bushy hair and beard. “I’m Tucker. Tucker the trucker.”
Jolene moved closer to Sam, pressing her body against his.
Reaching back, Sam opened the car door for her, but she didn’t move. “What are you doing out here, Tucker the trucker, and where’s your truck?”
The man laughed, displaying a set of teeth with a few gaps. “I don’t have it no more, man. No more truck.”
Tucker was missing more than his teeth. “What do you want, Tucker?”
He raised a grubby unsteady finger, pointing over Sam’s head. “I live there.”
Sam’s heart rate ticked up. “You live in that apartment building behind me?”
Tucker nodded, putting the finger to his lips. “I’m not supposed to, but the place is empty. I got in there once, so sometimes I squat there.”
“Really?” He must mean the empty apartment right next to Melody’s.
“Nobody’s there. What’s it to you?” Tucker puffed out his scrawny chest.
“Easy, man. I don’t care.” Sam twisted his head over his shoulder and whispered to Jolene, “Get in the car.”
“And miss this? No way.” She grabbed the top of the car door, peering over it at Tucker. “Did you know the woman who lived in that apartment? The one where all the cops are?”
“Pinky?” He grinned. “Yeah, I know her. She promised not to tell no one about me living there. She gave me beer sometimes.”
“Did you see Pinky tonight, Tucker?” Sam shoved a hand in his pocket. “Did you see what happened?”
Tucker scuffed the toe of his filthy sneaker in the dirt. “Do you have beer?”
“I don’t have any beer, but I have some money. If I give you some money, will you tell us what you saw tonight?” Sam pulled a crumpled ten from his pocket and bounced it up and down on his palm in front of Tucker.
When Tucker reached out for it, Sam formed a fist around the bill. “You gotta give me the goods first, Tucker.”
“She’s dead, huh? Pinky’s dead?” The man’s nose turned red, and he blinked his watery eyes.
Jolene sniffed. “Yeah, Pinky’s dead.”
Tucker cackled and slapped the thigh of his raggedy black pants. “I saw who killed her.”