Cover Your Eyes

Book 1: Morgans of Nashville

by Mary Burton

Genres: Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction; Suspense

Synopsis

DON'T LOOK



At first, they struggle to escape. Then a torrent of blows rains down upon their bodies until their eyes cloud over in final agony. The killer shows no remorse—just a twisted need to witness each victim's last terrified moments.



DON'T SPEAK



Public defender Rachel Wainwright is struggling to reopen a decades-old case, convinced that the wrong man is in prison. Homicide detective Deke Morgan doesn't want to agree. But if Rachel's hunch is correct, whoever fatally bludgeoned young, beautiful Annie Dawson thirty years ago could be the source of a new string of brutal slayings.



JUST PREPARE TO DIE



Rachel's investigation is about to reveal answers—but at a price she never thought to pay. Now she’s become the target of a rage honed by years of jealousy and madness. And a murderer is ready to show her just how vicious the truth can be . . .



Contains mature themes.

Release date: October 28, 2014

Publisher: Zebra Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

Thursday, October 13, 8 AM

Rain dripped from Detective Deke Morgan’s jacket as he pushed through the doors of the Tennessee medical examiner’s office, his shoulders tense with fatigue and a headache hammering his eyes. His latest homicide call had come after three thirty a.m., minutes after he’d polished off his second beer and scrawled his name on papers dissolving his second, and what he’d sworn would be his last, marriage. Conditioned by fifteen years on the force, he’d swapped regrets, faded jeans, and a Titans T-shirt for purpose, a coat and tie, and strong coffee.

With rain falling and thunder rumbling in the distance, he’d arrived at the murder scene by four thirty, greeted by the swarm of cops and news vans. “Driver’s license says Dixie Simmons,” said a young uniformed officer, eyes watery and troubled. The license showed the face of a pretty woman, thick lightly colored hair and eyes bright with amusement.

As the media had been corralled on the opposite corner and were firing questions at Deke, he’d donned gloves, passed the pallid faces of more uniforms, and ducked under the yellow crime-scene tape. When he had lifted the bloody sheet, he’d found an unrecognizable mess, which he’d studied with a clinician’s eye. As he’d left the scene he had heard whispered comparisons to his cop father, also known for a fearsome detachment that had made him as efficient as he was untouchable.

At the medical examiner’s security desk, separated from the lobby by a thick glass wall, Deke tossed the dregs of a fourth coffee into the trash and dug his badge from his pocket. With an all clear from a burly guard, the locked side door clicked open and he wound his way into the building.

Assistant medical examiner Dr. Miriam Heller had texted him a half-hour ago and told him his victim would be autopsied in exam room two. Outside the double doors, he put on a gown and gloves and then pushed inside the exam room.

Dr. Heller stood at the head of a stainless steel exam table, the body of Dixie Simmons covered in a clean white sheet.

Standing at five-foot-ten, Heller was a slim woman in her midthirties with a smooth olive complexion and long dark hair she kept twisted in a tight knot. Dark thick lashes framed blue eyes with a slight almond tilt. She rarely wore makeup and favored skinny jeans, flats, and sleeveless blouses. Caring and compassionate, she also possessed a dry sense of humor that kept most of the cops on their toes.

“Dr. Heller.”

She peered around the computer screen. “Detective Morgan. Where is your partner in crime?”

Detective KC Kelly had five days remaining until Department retirement. With thirty-two years on the Nashville Police force, he’d worked with everyone who’d been on the murder squad, including Deke’s father, the late great Detective Buddy Morgan.

Deke stretched the kinks from his neck. “He’ll be here soon.”

She tsked. “Short-timer? Less than a week to go but he’s already quit.”

KC now talked constantly about sailing the seas with his new girlfriend, who’d given him renewed purpose after his wife lost her life to cancer last year. “No. He’s still hitting it hard. He was interviewing witnesses at the murder scene when I left.”

“He doesn’t like my office. Calls me Morticia behind my back.”

“No offense intended, Dr. Heller.” KC was a good cop, but could run his mouth. “He doesn’t like the ME’s office.”

Eyes flashed with a mixture of annoyance and curiosity. “Then why choose homicide?”

“I never said he was sane.”

“Which one of you on the squad is?”

“Point taken.”

The Nashville homicide team had five members, Deke and KC, Ian McGowan, Jake Bishop, and Red Dickens. All solid cops and, except for KC and Deke, under forty.

“Is he having a big retirement party?”

“So I hear. I kicked into the kitty but haven’t paid much attention to the plans. When I’m told where to go, I’ll go.”

She adjusted the overhead microphone to within inches of her mouth. “Still working on that house?”

“Getting around to unpacking last night.”

A dark brow rose. “You’ve been out there what, six months?”

“There about. Never a fan of chores.” Unpacking amounted to accepting failures and a new life that still didn’t fit right.

Dr. Heller cut through the small talk to the heart of the matter. “If you want to sell, then do it. No law says you have to live in the family home.”

“The Big House is wrapped around a lot of family history. Got to give it a try.”

His mother had inherited the white plantation style house set on thirty acres from her parents and she and Deke’s father had moved into the showpiece right after they’d married. The four Morgan children had been a tight-knit pack thanks to their mother who’d served dinner nightly at the big table. Buddy took his place at the table often enough to regale his children with wild cop tales and to infect each child with the law enforcement bug. When their mother had died twelve years ago, the family tapestry had frayed and when a heart attack had claimed Buddy six months ago it had unraveled. Though all the Morgan children lived or worked within miles of each other they saw one another only when their jobs demanded it. The Big House was the last bit of Morgan glue.

Deke touched his dark necktie. “Tell me what you know about the victim, Doc.”

Dr. Heller pulled back the sheet. The body had been stripped of clothing, and exposed pale skin made the bruising and dried blood all the more obvious and grotesque. “Assuming the driver’s license did belong to this victim, Dixie Simmons was twenty years old, stood five-foot-two, and weighed approximately one hundred and ten pounds. There’re no defensive wounds. The first blow likely caught her by surprise. All her blows, except two, were sustained on or about the head and each would have been crippling.”

Deke studied the misshapen, crushed face. “He destroyed her face and her identity.”

She cradled the fractured face in her gloved hands and rotated it to the right to display a shattered cheekbone and eye socket. “She was hit eight to ten times on her face.”

He studied the carnage. “One blow would have been enough to kill her but to keep hitting her face . . . that feels personal.”

“I’ve seen drug abusers commit great violence that wasn’t personal.”

“Her purse wasn’t taken. None of her jewelry was taken and there’re no signs of sexual assault, correct?”

“I’ve not done a thorough examination but so far no bruising on the inside of her legs, which would indicate rape.”

“Now it’s my job to figure out what whack-job in Dixie Simmons’s life hated her so much.”

The double doors to the exam room swung open and KC eased into the autopsy room like a man facing a rattler. He’d shaken off his jacket but his near bald head glistened with rain. “Five days to go. I was saying last night to Brenda that if I never saw the inside of this place again, it would be too soon. No offense, Dr. Heller.”

She smiled. “None taken.”

He took extra time to tug on gloves before approaching. He stopped several feet from the body and studied the victim’s face. Sadness deepened the craggy lines etched around his eyes. “I won’t miss this.”

Deke shook his head. “I’ll give you two weeks before you are back hanging around the station. Brenda’s nice enough but not working is gonna drive you insane.”

KC shook his head. “No damn way. I put in my time, and I’m retiring before the job kills me.”

He stopped short of saying Buddy’s name but they both knew the force had taken its toll on Buddy’s heart. Eyewitness accounts had said Buddy had risen from his favorite booth at the diner after a hearty breakfast of bacon and eggs, winced, and dropped. He’d been dead before he’d hit the floor. “Before you take off, tell me what you learned. Witnesses have information?”

From his pocket, KC dug out a battered small notebook exactly like thousands of others he’d carried for years. He flipped through the pages until he’d reached the middle section. “I talked to a group of men who passed the victim about three o’clock in the morning. They said she grinned at them as she dug her cell from her purse. One of the boys whistled. She smiled but kept walking.”

“No one was following her?”

“They didn’t see anyone.”

“What’s their story?”

“Students at Vanderbilt on their way to a party. They said the party was a dud, which was why they left early and passed the crime scene at four a.m. I went to the party house and banged on the door. A not-too-happy kid answered. He verified that the boys had been at the party. The four had played video games, drank a beer, hoping girls would show and when the girls didn’t materialize the witnesses left.”

“Anyone else?”

KC flipped a page in the book. “A woman who lives a block over reported hearing a car backfire about the time of the murder. And we did find the victim’s cell phone. Back of the case was knocked off and I’m thinking she had it in her hand when she was attacked. Dropped, hit the sidewalk and back popped open. Forensics bagged it and will search for data.”

Frustration burrowed under Deke’s skin. “No one saw anything?”

KC shook his head. “I knocked on twenty doors this morning. Woke up a lot of people and messed with several morning routines. No one saw the murder.”

He shoved out a breath. “Did the uniforms find the murder weapon?”

“It would be long and thin judging by the injuries. Like a pipe or a tire iron,” Dr. Heller said.

KC again shook his head. “No sign of a weapon and the uniforms have been beating the bushes.”

A search of the victim’s purse at the crime scene had produced a napkin with a number scrawled on it. The logo on the napkin had read RUDY’S, which he knew was a honky-tonk on Broadway. The place was a local institution where the best of the aspiring singer-songwriters played hoping to get noticed by a record producer. His baby sister Georgia had been trying to get a spot on the evening lineup but so far, no luck. Georgia, unlike her three older brothers, could carry a tune but like her brothers had joined the force. She worked forensics.

If Dixie had been singing at Rudy’s then she’d had some talent.

“I’ll swing by Rudy’s this morning,” Deke said. “He might remember a customer who’d shown interest in the victim.”

KC stepped back from the table. “I can do that if you like. Rudy’s is my watering hole.”

His partner favored the tried and true police techniques. He’d gladly knock on doors before doing a computer search. “If you run the victim’s cell phone records, you can leave now. I’ll observe the autopsy and tackle Rudy’s in a couple of hours.”

KC grinned. “Deal.”

Dr. Heller reached for a set of bone shears and snipped them. “You don’t want to stay?”

“Sorry, Doc. Sacrifices have to be made.” KC turned, then stopped as he fished in his pocket. “By the way, Deke, I came across this flyer when I was wandering around Vanderbilt.”

Deke accepted the rumpled paper and smoothed it open. His mood soured instantly at the headline that read: JUSTICE FOR JEB JONES. “What the hell?”

KC shrugged. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”

Tension, like molten metal, seared his muscles. “She doesn’t know when to quit.”

Dr. Heller raised her brow. “And she would be?”

“A troublemaker,” Deke said.

KC’s demeanor toughened. “She is Rachel Wainwright, a local attorney who is wanting to reopen one of Buddy’s old murder cases. Look up Pain-In-The-Ass in the dictionary and you’ll see her picture.”

“How old is the case?” Dr. Heller asked.

“Thirty years.” Deke balled up the flyer. “She wants the DNA on the murder weapon tested.”

Dr. Heller watched the wadded ball sail across the room and bounce off the trash can rim. “Thirty years ago would have been before DNA testing. Hers is not an unreasonable request.”

“We didn’t need DNA to prove this guy was guilty of murder. We had a solid case,” KC said. “Wainwright is trying to make a name for herself.”

Deke picked up the wadded paper and dunked it hard in the trash. “She’s got a legal right to ask for the test.”

KC snorted. “She’s looking for her fifteen seconds of fame so she can build a book of business. The guy we sent away got what he deserved.”

Deke adjusted his tie, ignoring the temptation to loosen it. “She’s got a legal right.”

KC stripped off his gown and tossed it in the trash before reaching in a pocket for a stick of gum, Brenda’s current substitute for his preferred cigarettes. “Fucking ambulance chaser, if you ask me.”

“No one’s asking, KC,” Deke said.

The attorney was out to cause trouble for trouble’s sake, but bitching and moaning wouldn’t stop her. “Didn’t you say you had work to do?”

“Yeah.” KC studied the body and took a step back. “Talk to you soon.” The swinging doors soon whooshed behind him.

Dr. Heller reached for her scalpel and sliced a Y incision into the victim’s chest. The next couple of hours gleaned minimal facts about Dixie Simmons. She had not been sexually assaulted but she’d had an abortion within the last year. Her body didn’t bear the needle marks of a drug user, nor did she have old fractures to suggest any kind of abuse. She had breast implants and she’d had her nose redone.

By the time Dr. Heller had finished her exam, Deke had more information on his victim but no real answers. After Dr. Heller closed the body she rotated her own head from side to side, working out the tension.

“I’ll walk you outside,” she said.

“Sure.”

Deke and Dr. Heller stepped into the crisp morning air. He patted his jacket pocket and remembered he’d left his cigarette habit at the house he’d lost in the divorce.

She inhaled a deep breath and tipped her face to the sun. “I never take a pretty day for granted.”

Deke pulled his own notebook from his pocket and stared at the number he’d scrawled off Dixie’s napkin. “Let’s see if finding a killer is as easy as dialing a number.”

Dr. Heller pulled out a pack of cigarettes from the side pocket of her white lab coat. “That possible?”

“It would be about the easiest case I’ve ever solved.” He watched her light up, the old cravings tugging at him. “That stuff will kill you, Doc.”

She inhaled and then slowly exhaled. “Something’s going to kill us all.”

“Maybe.” He unclipped the phone from his belt and dialed the number.

She offered the pack to him. “You look like you could use one.”

“Thanks, Doc. I’ll pass.”

She tucked the pack back in her pocket. “How long has it been since you quit?”

“Six months and two days.”

“I quit once for a year.”

“As a doctor don’t you worry about what it will do to you?”

She inhaled and grinned. “Nope.”

“I’m not going back. I bought a one-way ticket, Doc.” Deke studied the napkin and the dark number written in a heavy, masculine scrawl. It rang once. Twice. At the tenth ring, with no answer, Deke hung up.

“Looks like it’s not your lucky day.”

Deke shrugged. “I’ll run the number back at the office. We’ll have a name soon enough.”

“I’ve no doubt.” She studied him an extra beat, as if she wanted to say more but then turned and inhaled again.

“If you get a hit with the tox screens you’ll let me know?”

“Always.”

Deke left the doctor to finish her smoke. The drive across town and down Broadway to Rudy’s honky-tonk took less than fifteen minutes. He managed parking on a side street within a half block.

He’d worked this area several times when he’d been undercover. In those days his hair had been long, his beard thick, his T-shirt and jeans dirty, and his leather jacket beat up.

At Rudy’s he looked through a large glass window past the CLOSED sign toward the bar where he saw an older man polishing glasses. Standing over six feet, the man sported a gray beard that reached a barreled chest and salt-and-pepper hair slicked back into a ponytail. Rudy Creed.

Forty years owning a honky-tonk, Rudy had seen the area go from near slums filled with drug dealers and drunks to a bustling tourism center that brought a lot of money into the city. Rudy’s was a legend in this town, known among the elite of country music for putting the best on fortune’s road to fame.

Deke rapped on the window with his knuckle and held up his badge.

The old man raised his head, gray eyes narrowing. Slowly he set the glass down and moved from behind the bar. Rudy wore a blue western style shirt, and jeans and red cowboy boots.

He moved with the unhurried gait of a man who’d seen more than his share of cops. This wasn’t the first time the police had visited his place and likely not the last. He unlatched the dead bolt and pushed open the door. He smelled faintly of soap and whiskey.

The morning light cast a harsh glare on the bar’s scarred tables and scuffed floors. Pictures of singers covered every square inch of the wall. He recognized some images. Small cocktail tables clustered in front of the stage.

A chandelier hung from the center of the room, its crystal teardrops catching the morning light. An anomaly in the rough country interior, the fixture had been a gift from a country music star who’d promised Rudy a chandelier if she’d made it big.

“Mind if I come in? Got questions for you about one of your singers.”

A frown deepened the lines around his eyes and mouth as if he’d bitten into a bitter apple. “Who did what to whom?”

Deke held up the victim’s motor vehicle picture. “Dixie Simmons. What can you tell me about her?”

He shoved out a sigh, closed and locked the front door. “She sang last night until about two. She’s good. Got a Patsy Cline sound that the folks like. She get herself into trouble?”

“Why would you say that?”

The question sparked amusement in his gray eyes. “Officer, you would not be here if there wasn’t trouble.”

“Dixie Simmons was murdered last night shortly after she left here.”

Tension darkened his expression as he rubbed the back of his neck with a large calloused hand. “What happened?”

“We’re still trying to figure it all out.”

Rudy moved to the bar and reached for a bottle filled with a honey-gold liquid. He poured a glass, offered it to Deke and when he declined drank it in one shot. He winced slightly as it burned his throat. “Any ideas who did it?”

“No, sir. That’s why I’m here. When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Last night. Two thirty a.m. I always open and close the place. Fact I walked her out and locked the door behind her. There was another bartender, Jim, but he left an hour earlier. Jim’s been with me a couple of years. I closed the joint right after she left.”

“She have any issues with anyone last night?”

“No. I mean she had some of the boys riled up with her dancing and flirting on stage, but that’s Dixie. Knows how to work a crowd.”

“No one in the crowd gave you cause to worry?”

“Not last night. A lot of out-of-towners.”

“I found a napkin in her purse and there’s a number scrawled on it.”

“You call it?”

“A couple of times on the drive over. No answer.”

“Not the first wrong number given out here.” He studied the bottom of his empty glass before carefully setting it on the bar. “Dixie wasn’t the brightest girl in the world but she could sing and she was willing to work hard. And the crowds loved her. Don’t see talent and drive in one package too often. But she had a weakness for men.”

“What can you tell me about Dixie’s personal life?”

“As long as my singers show up on time, give me their best and leave their issues at home, I don’t ask questions.”

“I’m willing to bet not much gets past you.”

A half smile tipped the edge of Rudy’s lips as if he agreed with Deke’s assessment. “No, not much gets past me. Bad for business to let too much slip.” He stood straighter, recapturing the energy Deke’s news had stolen. “Dixie liked the men. Liked them a lot. Rarely did she go home alone. Last night was one of the rare exceptions.”

“Why was that?”

“She said she had a man waiting for her. Said they’d been seeing each other on and off for months and she liked him.”

“He have a name?”

“I didn’t ask.”

Deke cocked a brow. “No matter what your rules about not bringing the personal to work, words and conversations get overheard.”

He peered back into the empty shot glass. “We had two other singers here last night. Chic Jones and Rennie Forest. You can ask those gals about Dixie. If she did any talking they’d have heard it.”

“Contact numbers would be appreciated.” Rudy reached under the bar and removed a black Rolodex stuffed full with cards. “If she was into this guy, why’d she take the number of another guy?”

Calloused fingers flipped through worn cards. “Hedging her bets, I reckon. Always good to have options.” He plucked a card from the Rolodex and then fished for the second.

“Names of recent hookups?”

“Like I said, I don’t ask a lot of questions as long as it don’t spill into my place. Ask Rennie and Chic.”

Deke scrawled the two women’s names and their contact information in his notebook. “Dixie have any confrontations that you remember recently?”

“No. Not a one. I had to give it to Dixie, when it came to work she was all business. She wanted stardom so bad she could taste it. Wanted to be on the top ten charts and land in the country music Hall of Fame. And she’d have done whatever it took.”

“How’d she get along with the other singers?”

“From what I saw polite but not overly friendly. By her way of thinking they were her competition and after the recording contract she wanted.”

“She get a contract?”

“Not yet. But it would have been a matter of time. Word was getting around about her. That’s why I let her sing last night even though she wasn’t on the lineup.”

“What happened?”

“Said she received a text telling her to sing at midnight. She arrived early, dolled up and ready to work. I’ve had other singers pull that trick before but never Dixie. I cut the scheduled singer short and let her sing.”

“Who lost stage time?”

“Dude by the name of Harrison Franklin. He wasn’t happy but it’s my way or the highway.”

Deke asked for and received Harrison’s contact information.

Rudy carefully replaced the cards on his Rolodex as he shook his head, his frown deepening with each moment. “Dixie was good with the customers. Could whip them up and bring them to their feet or have them crying in their drinks. She soaked up the attention like booze.”

“She craved attention?”

“Just about.”

A bucket rattled in the back of the bar. An older stoop-shouldered woman gripped a mop, a curtain of long gray hair covering her face.

“Cleaning lady,” Rudy said. “Rattles around here in the daytime.”

The woman vanished into the back. “Did she know Dixie?”

“No. She’s day crew. They stop work at four in the afternoon, about the time the night crew comes in.”

“And you work both shifts.”

“As long as I’m behind the bar there ain’t no trouble so I’m always behind the bar.”

“Rough schedule.”

“I don’t notice anymore. And there’s no better place than here as far as I’m concerned.” He recapped the whiskey bottle like he must have done a million times. “Another gal who might help too is Tawny Richards. She and Dixie shared an apartment. They lived in east Nashville.”

He wrote the name. “She a singer too?”

“Aren’t they all?” He rubbed calloused hands over the scrubby beard on his chin. “Tawny did sing here. She’s not as good as Dixie but she did all right. I used her as a last minute fill-in last August. She’s better than an empty stage.” He flipped through more cards and rattled off names and addresses.

Deke jotted down the information.

Rudy put the Rolodex back behind the bar. “You never said how she died.”

“Beaten to death.” He didn’t mention Dr. Heller’s theory of a tire iron, knowing some details he’d share after he had a killer in custody.

Rudy blanched. “Dear Lord. No girl deserves that.”

The show of shock, Deke guessed, was rare for a man like Rudy who no doubt revealed as much as an iceberg’s jagged tip. “Whoever killed her wasn’t looking for money or sex. This was about rage.” Recognizing a weakening in Rudy’s tough exterior he added, “We confirmed her identity by her fingerprints.”

Rudy unscrewed the whiskey bottle and again refilled his glass. He raised it to his bristled mustache with a trembling hand. “I liked Dixie. Liked her a lot. I should have told her she was dancing with trouble. Should have told her to ease up.”

“Ease up on?”

“The men. Sooner or later you’re bound to pick a crazy one.”

The well-ordered row of booze bottles behind the bar and the freshly wiped countertop said this was a man who paid attention to details regardless of what he said. “How long had she been working here?”

“About a year. She started waitressing and then asked if she could sing. She surprised me. In a good way. Like I said, she built a following. She was in the nine o’clock hour a couple of Saturdays ago. I don’t give that spot to just anyone.”

Deke pulled a card from his pocket. “If you think of any helpful information, would you call me?”

He took the card. “Sure, I’ll call.”

Deke left the bar but glanced back to see Rudy drink the glass of whiskey. The old man shoved out a breath, as if expelling poison.

Thursday, October 13, 6 PM

You’re poking the bear!

Rachel Wainwright ignored her brother’s unwelcome voice echoing in her head and resisted the urge to mutter back a rebuttal as she scanned the paltry collection of people gathering for her candlelight vigil at Riverfront Park near the banks of the Cumberland River.

The idea of a public gathering had come to her in a moment of desperation. To promote the event, she’d called local civic groups, churches, and media. She’d feared she’d have no takers from the media, but a last minute call from Channel Five offered real hope. The reporter had confirmed she and her crew would arrive momentarily to cover the vigil. She’d organized the event with the intent of drawing attention to her newest client who’d been referred to her by the Innocence Project, a nonprofit group dedicated to clearing wrongfully convicted people.

When she’d first read the summary of the Jeb Jones case, she’d quickly realized he’d been petitioning for the test for a decade. At the time of his arrest and trial, DNA had not been available and he believed DNA would once and for all prove he wasn’t a murderer.

She wasn’t naïve enough to take her client’s word alone. But there was enough evidence to argue for DNA testing and once she had the DNA results she’d determine if she had a case. She’d sent her petition to the cops over six weeks ago and so far no word. She found out that the case had been assigned to a Deke Morgan and had gotten through to Morgan once. He’d barely said three words as she’d stated her case and demanded a time line for the test results. “When I know, you’ll know,” he had said before hanging up and cutting. . .