Mischief 24/7

“You want strict outline form, Roman numerals, that sort of thing, Ms. Sunshine, or do I just wing it?”

Jade finally smiled. “I’m giving orders, aren’t I? I’m supposedly very good at that, being bossy, Jolie says, although I’ve never really noticed. Sorry.”

“All right. And I’ll be sorry that I’m not very good at taking orders and do what you want, even as I add a second line—mother of dead baby, question mark.”

“That’s out of order,” Jade said, and then bit her lip. “No, no, that’s good. Now let’s go back to more on Tarin as Tarin, not as prostitute or as anybody’s mother. We know from her autopsy report that she had extensive dental implants, high-quality work.”

“Unusual for a street prostitute, correct,” Court said as he wrote on the pad. “And thanks again to Jessica and Matt and to one intimidated dentist Teddy found just before he died, we now know that Joshua Brainard, mayoral candidate and husband of the late Melodie Brainard—who, it turns out, is your father’s supposed victim—paid for that extensive dental work.”

“Which still totally blows my mind,” Jade admitted as she turned over pages in the Fishtown

Strangler file. “The connection is definite, easily proved with the dentist’s records, and Brainard has to know that. You’d think he’d be running scared, not running for mayor. But now we get back into conjecture. Like, Tarin wasn’t a prostitute at all. Like, her boyfriend was the very wealthy, handsome Joshua Brainard, just out of grad school, married, and up-and-coming-man-about-town back then, Philadelphia’s fair-haired son now.”

Court consulted Jessica’s notes. “While talking about Joshua Brainard, we have to take into consideration that he and his father were present at the gravesite when Tarin was buried. Jessica and Matt got the tape from her studio archives and there they were, front and center. Them, and a few prostitutes. We think we might know why Joshua was there, but how do you explain the prostitutes?”

“A show of solidarity? They assumed Tarin was one of them, because all the previous Fishtown Strangler victims had been working girls?” Jade shrugged. “And the Brainards were there because Daddy Brainard was a member of the mayor’s commission pulled together to help solve the Fishtown Strangler case. That’s their story, and they’re sticking to it. And to be fair, the rest of the commission was also there.”

“But that doesn’t explain Joshua. He wasn’t on the commission.”

“He was lending his father moral support, or at least I’m sure that’s what he’d say if anyone asked. I don’t know why he was there, Court. Maybe because he was Tarin’s married lover. Maybe he paid for her dental work and fathered her child and then killed both of them because Tarin was suddenly more inconvenience than potential life partner. Maybe because he’d figured out that with his looks and Daddy’s money and position, he had a big future in politics. He didn’t need the baggage, Tarin didn’t want to go away quietly, so he chose a more permanent way of saying farewell to young love. That’s the conjecture part.”

“Mixed with the facts. Like the dental implants.”

Jade toed off her shoes and tucked her feet beneath her on the couch. “Here’s another fact. With Clifford Brainard as one of the commission members, sonny boy would have had access to anything his daddy brought home from the office. Like, for instance, how the other women died. Right down to the brand of rope used to tie up his former lover, beat her, rape her and then strangle her—and, by the way, strangling someone isn’t easy. It takes time, lots of up-close-and-personal time, so strangling someone is actually pretty rare, rare enough to brand a killer. Strangling someone you once loved, someone who bore you a child, takes a special sort of sadistic bastard, Court. Except…”

“Go on.”

“Matt told me something a few days ago,” Jade said, frowning. “And he took the medical examiner’s one-page summary out of Tarin’s file so Jessica wouldn’t see it and go ballistic, so don’t bother looking for it. According to the medical examiner, Tarin wasn’t raped and then killed. She was killed—strangled—and only then assaulted sexually with a foreign object. Like, you know, the other victims were raped, so Tarin had to appear to have been raped, as well, to keep with the MO. Which is why Matt and I weren’t as surprised as the rest of you when the Fishtown Strangler denied that Tarin was one of his victims.”

Court sat up straight. “What?”

Jade nodded. “I know, I know. It sounds crazy. The other victims were raped perimortem—we know that from their autopsy reports, just like we know from Tarin’s that she’d given birth not too long before she died. Maybe a couple of months,

Matt told me. Making it possible that she’s the mother of the Baby in the Dumpster.”

“You really think Joshua Brainard murdered Tarin White in a copycat killing?” Court frowned and then held up his index finger, as if asking her not to answer him yet as he was still working it all out in his mind. “If there was any physical evidence left behind by the rapist, that evidence couldn’t differ in Tarin’s case, correct? So he couldn’t rape her. He couldn’t take that chance. But she still had to appear as if she’d been… violated.”

“Exactly. And one other thing. Herman Long-street is a nonsecretor, meaning they can’t get a blood type just from bodily fluids. That was in the police files from the get-go. You can fake a lot of things, but you can’t fake that. So first Joshua kills her and then he sets the scene, simulates the rape. According to Matt, the police weren’t all that concerned with the victims back then, as the killings were still going on and all the victims were assumed to be prostitutes. If they’d found a suspect, if a case had gone to trial, then the discrepancy in Tarin’s autopsy would have immediately become apparent. But there never was an arrest.”

“You’re sold on this, aren’t you? That Joshua

Brainard murdered Tarin White and made it look like she was one of the Fishtown Strangler victims.”

“He killed Tarin and the baby. Don’t forget that poor baby. And yes, I do believe it. Because then the rest makes sense. Think about it, Court. Teddy was investigating all these cases for years, right? He’d pretty much solved the Vanishing Bride case before Jolie and Sam took it over. I love Jolie, I really do, and I’m proud of what she did, being a complete amateur detective, but she and Sam really fell into solving that case. Teddy even had the plane ticket so he could go see for himself if he was right.”

Court shook his head. “No. We’re back to the Vanishing Bride case? Sorry, I’m not getting where you’re headed on this.”

“I’ll explain. Why wouldn’t Teddy have gone flying off the moment he thought he’d figured it all out? I mean, after all the years of chipping away at these cold cases, he finally makes a breakthrough on one of them. He had to be over the moon with his success, so why wait to see if you’re right? Why make airline reservations a week or more out?”

“Because he thought he was also close on another case? Or even better, on two other cases that had suddenly rolled into one?” Court said, and Jade wanted to kiss him. He was so smart.

“Where was Teddy seen the night he was killed? At Joshua Brainard’s house, right? Teddy wouldn’t have gone there looking for Joshua, because Joshua had some speaking thing going on in Kensington, and Teddy would have checked that out easily enough. No, he went there at that time, at night, expressly to see Melodie Brainard without chancing that Joshua would also be there.”

“All right. That makes sense.”

“I know, scary sense. What did Brainard tell Jolie? That Teddy had been stalking Melodie for a couple of weeks, right? The card Matt found in one of Teddy’s shirt pockets, the one with the dentist’s name on it? Teddy had been to see that dentist around two weeks before he died. That made the connection for him. After all these years of schlepping himself from dentist to dentist throughout the greater Delaware Valley and parts of New Jersey, flashing that photograph of Tarin, hitting dead end after dead end, he finally struck pay dirt and landed on the guy he’d been looking for. He finally found out who had paid the freight for Tarin’s pretty smile.”

“Joshua Brainard.”

“Exactly. And suddenly, dotting the final i’s and crossing the final t’s on the Vanishing Bride case had to take a number and get in line, because this was big—huge. He tried to see Joshua at his campaign headquarters, but the great man was too busy with his race to be elected to see him, so Teddy went after the wife, Melodie. Teddy was on to something, Court, he was close. Close enough to call attention to himself. And Joshua Brainard has a lot to lose, doesn’t he?”

“Do you think Melodie told Teddy anything?”

Jade shook her head. “I don’t know. The better question might be—what did Teddy tell her? Let’s switch to what we learned from the girl who shampooed Melodie Brainard’s hair about ten days before the murder. She told us about the bruises on Melodie’s neck and cheek, the ones Melodie tried to cover with makeup, remember? And then that business about that same shampoo girl overhearing Melodie telling her hairdresser she wasn’t going to take it anymore, who did he think he was…whatever that was all about. So, yes, Teddy might have told her something, and maybe she repeated what he’d said to Brainard, who went ballistic on her.”

“All of this taking place about two weeks before they were both dead. Teddy kept going back to see Melodie, didn’t he? Including that last night. He had some information or some plan we still don’t know about, didn’t he?”

“But I think we do know about it, Court,” Jade said, her heart pounding so hard she was surprised he didn’t hear it, and comment on it. She still couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed anything different in Teddy’s behavior, or that he hadn’t chosen to confide in her. When adding up her list of hurts, those two things pretty much topped the list. “I think I suddenly understand why Teddy kept going back to Melodie Brainard, kept working on her, and why he needed her.”

Court laid down the pen. He’d stopped taking notes long ago. “Feel up to sharing?”

Jade pressed a hand to her chest. “I’m sorry. I feel like Jessica, jumping to conclusions—and thank God Matt has put so many stars in her eyes that she hasn’t seen this yet for herself, not that she won’t soon, which is why I’m actually glad she’s gone right now. But I think I know better how Teddy operated, having worked with him. I think I know what he was after. If he had connected the cases, that is. I mean, the idea that the baby’s body was frozen for all those months? What other reason than to disguise the time of death, make it unlikely that Tarin’s death would be in any way connected to the baby’s death, correct?”

“Is this all coming to a head anytime soon? Like Jolie and Sam and Jess, I also don’t have my PI license, remember?”

Jade closed her eyes for a second and then looked at Court. “I’m betting Teddy was after Brainard’s DNA. The man’s staff wouldn’t let Teddy near him, so what better way to get it than to ask the little wife’s help?”

“Why would Melodie Brainard want to help Teddy?”

Jade shrugged. “It wasn’t a happy marriage? Remember the bruises, Court. Teddy and I worked a lot of divorces, have met a lot of wronged wives. He’d have picked up on Melodie’s unhappiness in a heartbeat, and then worked it to his advantage. That’s what he did so well, turning on his Irish charm for the ladies who felt neglected and abused. You’d be amazed to watch him work a divorce case. Even in a no-fault commonwealth like Pennsylvania, smart wives know that having a little leverage, be it a mistress or some iffy business dealings, can go a long way in fattening up the private divorce settlement.”

“Is this where I thank you and Teddy for not putting me through the wringer in our divorce, even though I kept telling your lawyer that anything I had was yours? Not that I had anything to hide, mind you.”

Jade made a dismissive motion with her hand, her mind locked tight on where she was going. “Shh. I’m on a roll here.”

“I’ll make a note not to get back to that subject later,” Court said, grinning at her. “All right, Nancy Drew, carry on. I’m impressed, I really am.”

“I’ll ignore that crack, too. We know the marriage hadn’t been real for a lot of years. Brainard was being all boyish and penitent to Jolie and Sam, blaming himself, their inability to have children, all that stuff. He didn’t just hint or suggest, he came right out and said it. Honest Joshua, Philadelphia’s next mayor, confessing that he and his wife were the best of friends in an otherwise loveless marriage. Jolie said she wanted to puke, except the guy is so good at coming off all boyish and sincere that she was mad at herself for disliking him. Oh, damn it…”

Court covered her hand with his own. “What’s the matter? Something’s bothering you. What are you thinking that obviously hasn’t occurred to me?”

“What if Melodie saw her chance to lord it over Joshua, and told him she’d given Teddy some of his hair, his toothbrush, whatever? No, maybe not that. That would be stupid, because then she’s smack in the middle of a public scandal. She wouldn’t have wanted that. I mean, she would have left Brainard long ago, right, unless there was something in the marriage for her. Money, position, that sort of thing. Less stupid, making it plausible, is that she threatened Brainard with something Teddy had told her, in order to scare him. Sort of an ‘I know what you did’ kind of threat that would get her something she wanted. Blackmail. People are that kind of stupid all the time. And it always backfires.”

“What would she have wanted?”

“Like maybe she was tired of playing the game of public happy family, lousy private life, and she wanted a divorce after the election and half his considerable wealth in exchange for her silence? Or maybe she was a romantic, still loved the bastard, and the demand was that good old Josh keep it zipped and come home once in a while. Maybe Tarin was the only straying he ever did—but I’m doubting it, not if he and Melodie weren’t living as man and wife all these years. The guy’s ego couldn’t take not having it, and other parts of him, stroked on a regular basis.”

“Sometimes I feel like I’m in the middle of a TV cop show, do you know that, Jade? Who writes your dialogue?”

Jade felt herself blushing. “Sorry. Cop talk again. It can be a little raunchy, but it doesn’t really mean anything and keeps a person from feeling too much when facts are what we need to concentrate on. Teddy didn’t bother to watch his words around me. But let’s get back to this, okay? Does anything I said make sense to you?”

“I think so, yes. Especially the part about Melodie trying to hold what she thought she knew over Brainard’s head and Brainard deciding that his wife—and of course, Teddy—had to go. Kill one, blame it on the other one, play the grieving widower all the way to City Hall in November. The press has already all but ordained him, his wife’s murder passed over in favor of concentrating on the bereaved husband who will press on through this personal tragedy for the good of the city. Very neat, a tidy, convenient solution to all his problems.”

Jade closed her eyes for a moment. “Kills Tarin, kills his own son and then stands there as Tarin is buried, not even blinking. Nearly two decades later, another problem slams him in the chops. What can he do? So he thinks, hey, if it worked once to solve his problems, murder, that is, why couldn’t it work again? They say it’s the only thing that gets easier the more you do it—killing people. Joshua Brainard is a monster, isn’t he? A sociopath with no heart or conscience.”

“If we’re right, yes. If we’re wrong, he’s the wildly popular and lovable guy with a fistful of top-tier Philadelphia lawyers ready to strip us all to our skivvies in a civil lawsuit. Which begs the question—what next? We’re still working on that slim margin of facts up against a ton of conjecture.”

“Yes, but what if we’re right, down-the-line right, start to finish? I don’t think this can wait for Matt and Jessica to get back. We can’t hold off a moment longer than we have to, not with the news about Tarin White not being a Fishtown Strangler victim going to hit the papers at any time. We’ve got nothing to connect Brainard to Teddy’s murder, not a damn thing. We need a confession.”

“Back to Teddy. Right. Nothing like keeping our priorities straight.”

“Don’t do that, Court. Yes, back to Teddy. What happened to Tarin and her baby was horrible, but Teddy was my father, damn it. Tarin is our one big piece of leverage there and I don’t want to lose it. I think we have to confront Brainard immediately, Court. Just go right in, head-on, and slap him with what we do know, and hope he slips up, says something incriminating. We get that, and it’s like dominoes—they all start to fall.”

“Fine. With one caveat. I want to wait until Jessica and Matt get back. You said they’ll be home tomorrow night. Excuse the cop talk, but it always helps to have a badge along.”

“No, not Matt. He’s already skating on thin ice with the department, according to Jessica. We’ll do it ourselves, tomorrow morning. Unless you’d rather not go with me, and I’d certainly understand if you didn’t want to. I can take Bear Man with me. As Sam said when Jolie pulled one of her stunts that backfired on him, you have to do business in this town.”

“Now I guess I’m caught between bragging—saying Brainard can’t hurt Becket Hotels—and being a wimp and pointing out that, if we’re wrong or just can’t prove what we’re saying, Brainard will use all his political clout as mayor to drive me crazy with inspections and zoning changes and you name it every time I want to put up a new towel rack in the hotel. Let’s stick with bragging—I’m going with you.”

Jade quickly closed the file in front of her and stacked all the folders together on the coffee table. There was still one more case, the most personal of the cases—that of scholar athlete Terrell Johnson. But that had to wait. “Your call, Court, but thank you. I’m going to go upstairs and check Joshua’s official Web site, see where he’s making campaign appearances tomorrow.”

“Out of curiosity, what do you plan to say to the man?”

“All right, let’s review.”

“Please. I like to think I’m a fairly intelligent man, but I have to tell you that it’s getting so a man can’t tell the players without a scorecard. You want to be the one who tells him about Tarin, correct? That’s your opening?”

“See? You do know what I’m planning. Matt said it will be a day or two before the press learns that Tarin White was not one of the Fishtown Strangler’s victims. Knowing how City Hall leaks, knowing that Brainard’s father knows everyone down there, I’d say one day. I think I want to be the one who breaks that particular piece of news to Joshua Brainard. I want to tell him we know he paid for Tarin’s dental implants—that should work for starters—and then hit him with the rest. I’ll be able to tell a lot from his reaction to those two facts. Then I’ll pile on a little with one other piece of information—that we know he donated the plot for Tarin’s burial so that she wasn’t buried in a potter’s field like some charity case.”

“When did we find that out?”

“We didn’t. We just know some anonymous donor came forward and fronted the money for the private plot. We just say we know it’s him, and maybe he admits it, maybe he doesn’t.” She rubbed her palms together carefully as, yes, they were still tender. “I’m glad Jessica isn’t here. I’ve been sidelined long enough with waiting for these burns to heal, and then with chasing my tail trying to get somewhere with the Terrell Johnson case. I can’t wait to go at Brainard tomorrow.”

wait a minute, Jade, I think I might have found a flaw in your plan,” Court said. “Brainard isn’t in town, remember? After his father’s collapse at that political rally last week, he took the old man to some vacation home they’ve got out west. We don’t know if they’re back yet.”

“Damn, I forgot that part,” Jade said, clenching her fists. She was so ready to go after the man. “You know, I still think Clifford Brainard is much too protective of his golden child. That was a pretty convenient collapse, just as reporters were asking him questions about Melodie’s murder seeming a lot like the Fishtown Strangler had struck again. Man, when Jess lies, she lies for effect, doesn’t she? I still can’t believe she got her reporter friend to print that one.”

“You think Clifford Brainard knows his son is a murderer?”

“He wouldn’t be the first parent to protect a monster of a child. Yes, anything’s possible. But that’s a good thought, Court. We need to meet Joshua away from Daddy Brainard.”

“Cut the calf from the herd, you mean. I think I remember now that the Brainard vacation place is a working cattle ranch. Sorry.”

“You’re forgiven. I’m still going to go check Joshua’s appearance schedule on his official Web site. Leading in the polls or not, he can’t stay off the campaign trail too long. I’m betting he’s back and will resurface at some point tomorrow. Breakfast at seven?”

Court stood up just as she did, his body close to hers once more. “That sounds reasonable. I have one or two calls to make, playing time-zone tag with a few investors, so I’ll be up around four. It’s almost a waste to try to sleep now, although going to bed remains an option.”

Once again Jade’s eyes pricked with tears. How long had she been holding back the torrent of tears that kept prodding her to let them fall? “Big game tomorrow, coach,” she said, trying to keep her voice upbeat as she pushed a smile onto her face. “No sex before the big game. It’s a team rule.”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him the way he had kissed her—quickly and on the cheek. “Which doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate a win when it’s over.”

“As pep talks go, that one was pretty short, but definitely full of incentive,” Court told her, matching her smile for smile.

His smile didn’t reach his eyes any more than she knew her smile had been anything more than lame window dressing. Their smiles, even their banter, only covered a much deeper problem that hadn’t been solved by the two of them sharing a bed the week before, an impulse move that would only make her miss him so much more when he finally went back to his life in Virginia.

But Jolie and Sam were happy again, and Jade had met Jessica in the hallway that night last week, her younger sister more than willing to share that she and Matt had plans for the evening. Why should she, Jade, sleep alone, when Court was so close? As she’d thought at the time, what could it hurt?

Yet it had hurt, badly. She’d never felt more alone than in the days since she’d knocked on

Court’s bedroom door, let him take her hand and lead her to his bed.

“I need…please, Court.”

“I know. Teddy first. I’m familiar with the drill.”

She tried for humor. “Maybe I’m just not good at multitasking.”

“Will I always come in second to Teddy, Jade? Even now? I want you, sweetheart. I want to hold you, love you. Even if it’s only a temporary solution. We can work on the rest.”

“Can we? We still live in two very different worlds, Court. Last week was a mistake and we both know it. So are we going to fight again now? Because I really don’t want to fight now.”

“No, sweetheart, we’re not going to fight now. I already lost, more than a year ago. Sometimes I just seem to have a little trouble believing that. Maybe I’m a poor loser. Was it so bad between us, Jade? Sharing my bed again, letting me love you?”

She felt Court’s gaze on her.

It was his eyes that had gotten to her the first time they’d met, those dark, soulful, old-as-time eyes. She had fallen into them without a thought, without a backward glance.

How easy it would be to simply slip into his embrace the way she had last week, let him hold her, make love to her, even take her with him when he went home—the whole fairy-tale line of Take me away from all of this.