CMM01 - Without Any Evidence Read online

  Without Any Evidence

  Paula Underwood Winters

  Published by Westview, Inc.

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2011 Paula Underwood Winters

  ISBN: 978-1-935271-86-4

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locals, or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Chapter One

  Carly never figured she'd be dragged into a murder case like this one. There wasn't even a body, for God's sake. But, like it or not, it was her job to find out what happened to Claire Simon Booth.

  Claire was a wealthy young woman with two children, a husband and a brand new house, and she was missing - as Carly would soon find out.

  Carly’s office wasn’t much to look at. It wasn’t even a real office. It was a big gray room with lots of gray cold metal desks. The entire detective squad worked out of this one room. It smelled like stale cigarettes and sweat. Since most of the detectives were men, that made perfect sense. The windows of the room looked directly at the back side of a brick wall, leaving no room for daydreaming while gazing out at the clouds. Not that any of that mattered because the windows usually had the old Venetian blinds closed so you couldn’t actually see out anyway. The blinds were yellowed and sticky with the years of buildup from all the cigarette smoke that always seemed to hang in the air, even though smoking had been banned in the building for years. It was one of those rooms where if you weren’t in a bad mood when you walked in, you were after you’d been there a few minutes.

  Carly‘s day had started out bad and continued to go downhill. She had one of those summer sinus headaches that seems to affect everyone in Nashville at one time or another, but she dragged herself out of bed and into a hot shower. What she really wanted to do was stay buried under her covers with her eyes shut all day.

  Instead, she threw on her cleanest pair of dirty Levis and clean black t-shirt. She sat on the chair next to her bedroom window and pulled on a pair of white men’s tube socks and slipped her feet into her sneakers. She ran down the stairs and out the door grabbing her keys from the table by the front door as she ran.

  As she jumped into her Jeep, she made a mental note to run it through the car wash. The usually shiny dark green Jeep looked gray from all the dust that had settled on it over the past few weeks of dry summer weather.

  She was already running late to work when she got caught behind a fender bender on Hillsboro Road at Edgehill and was stuck in the traffic. She looked in her rearview mirror and caught the woman behind her using the down time to put finishing touches on her makeup.

  “Damn. Just what I need.” she said to no one in particular.

  Then she looked over to the car next to her and saw the hunk behind the wheel laugh. She was busted. He’d seen her talking to herself. She blushed, turned her head and looked at the slowly moving traffic. “Great,” she thought, this time instead of talking out loud. “No wonder I can never get a date. I talk to myself. Who wants to date a chick who talks to herself?”

  Parking in downtown Nashville was always a challenge, but after driving around the block three times, she finally found a place to park about a block away from the station. Carly was dripping with sticky sweat when she walked through the door of the Criminal Justice Center. The cold air from the AC hit her sweat soaked clothes and a chill ran down her spine and gave her goosebumps.

  Her first stop was the coffee pot where she poured a cup of coffee, spilling the sugar as she tried to get the packet open. BOOM, she turned and ran right into the trash can. She stumbled to her desk, fell into her chair, let out a big sigh and was about to take a sip of coffee when the phone rang.

  "Metro Police, Detective Malone speaking," Carly said with her soft Southern accent that wasn’t country Southern, but almost a Scarlett O’Hara Southern.

  "My name is Ted Simon. I’m not sure I have the right department, but my daughter Claire is missing and I‘m afraid she might be…dead."

  "How long has she been missing?"

  "Well, to tell you the truth, she's been missing for two weeks."

  "Mr. Simon, is it?" Carly asked with a note of condescension that she wouldn’t have had if her day had been going better.

  "Yes."

  "Why did you wait so long to report your daughter missing? Is she in the habit of disappearing? And what makes you think she might be dead?"

  "Looking back, we shouldn't have waited. It's just that Jerry, that’s Claire's husband, told us that she had decided to take a short vacation. You know, just to get away from everyone for a little while. And that she specifically asked that no one get in touch with her for two weeks. She said she wanted time to sort out her life, you know? And that‘s why I think she may be dead. I don‘t think she‘d ever stay away like this."

  To tell you the truth, Carly knew exactly what he meant. There had been times in her life when she wished she could just run away from everything for a few weeks. Heck, there were times she would have loved to get away from her life for just a few days.

  Carly took down all the important information from Mr. Simon and told him they'd be in touch to ask more questions after they'd checked out a few things. Even though she was homicide and this was technically a missing person, homicide was slow right now and she figured since she had the time, she might as well check it out herself.

  Carly's life had been full of ups and downs and so when Mr. Simon told her about his daughter, she had to admit she had her doubts as to whether she was really missing or just enjoying a sunny beach somewhere with a cool breeze blowing over her and a margarita in her hand.

  Carly Malone was attractive, but not what you'd call beautiful. She probably could have been beautiful if she tried, but she was always happy with very little or no makeup, her brown hair, cut short, had a slight natural curl to it and it was so soft that it felt like baby hair. Jeans and a t-shirt were her clothes of choice. To dress it up, she’d throw on a blazer and maybe a pair of earrings. She was slender and well toned from her power walks through the hills at Warner Parks and Radner Lake. She probably didn't have but 110 pounds on her 5'4" frame and that was due to muscle tone. Her parents named her Carlton, after her dad. She was supposed to be a boy. Since she wasn't a boy, and they didn't have any girls names picked out, they named her Carlton anyway, but everyone called her Carly.

  Her mom was the typical housewife and her dad was an insurance salesman who made a pretty good living. A couple of years after Carly was born they had another daughter, Maggie. Then Carl up and died at 34 of a heart attack leaving her mom with a pretty heavy load to carry and no one to help her. That's probably why Carly never blamed her for marrying Ed less than a year after her dad died. After all, what did her mom know about making a living and raising kids by herself?

  Chapter Two

  "Wow," Carly's partner, Bill said as they pulled up the drive to the Booth home. Carly's reaction was the same.

  The paved drive was long and winding. It had lots of trees that lined the driveway and a thick vegetation of trees, bushes and underbrush all around. The house sat perched up on top of a hill in the Oak Hill part of Nashville. Oak Hill had become one of th
e more upscale areas of town. It was obvious as you approached the house that this was a family with lots of money. The house was very large, almost a castle. Most of the house was large gray stone, and it had huge windows facing in every direction. From one side of the house you could see the skyline of downtown Nashville with the BellSouth building (known to locals as The Batman Building because of the two spires that stick up on top) as the most noticeable landmark. From the other side you could see miles and miles of hills and roads. The yard was perfectly manicured and there was one of those big expensive wooden playsets and children’s toys over to the side of the house. The toys were lined up neatly against the fence.

  While the house was gorgeous, it had a cold feeling. It gave Carly a chill that ran right down her spine. The kind she’d had earlier in the day when the AC hit her. It was surely a sign of things to come.

  As they walked up the front steps to the massive wooden door, they both looked at each other and gave a little whistle. "Wow," Bill said again. “Wonder what this guy does to live like this?”

  “What makes you think he’s the one that does something? Could be this Claire lady makes the money,” Carly said shooting Bill a look and knowing full well it was her parents who had supplied most of the money for Claire and Jerry.

  Bill had short blond hair that looked even lighter because of his naturally dark complexion. Of course, sometimes it was blonder than others, like in the summer when the sun bleached it to almost white. He was tall and handsome and like many young police officers, he was muscular and very well toned.

  Carly reached out, rang the doorbell and waited.

  The large wooden door opened slowly and they were greeted by a woman they assumed by the uniform to be the housekeeper. Carly flashed her badge, "Hello, I'm Detective Malone, this is my partner Detective Martin. We need to speak with Mr. Booth."

  "Come in. Wait here please," she said pointing to the living room.

  Anna Hernandez was the Booth's housekeeper. She also helped with the children and did the cooking. She had been hired when Claire got pregnant with Arabella, or Bella, as everyone called her. Teddy was two at time, and Claire decided she needed the help. Jerry had been very reluctant to give in to her. He said he didn't like the idea of some stranger poking around in their belongings and always looking over his shoulder. That alone should have given Claire a clue as to what lay ahead with her husband. But, since he had given in and hired Ms. Hernandez, Claire went on about her life and tried not to let it bother her.

  Ms. Hernandez was only a little over 5 feet tall and slightly overweight, in a matronly sort of way. Carly guessed her to be 60 years old if she was a day and she had a very sweet smile. Her graying hair was pinned up on top of her head and she always wore a nicely pressed uniform, probably chosen by Jerry Booth to impress people who came to call.

  Carly and Bill were instructed to wait in the sunken living room. It had high vaulted ceilings and staircases on either side of the front door that went up to the bedrooms. A grand piano was on the opposite side of the room in front of the windows that overlooked the hills of middle Tennessee. It was an immaculate room. There was nothing out of place, which was easy in this very Spartan decor. The room, in fact the entire house, had hardwood floors that were so shiny they reflected every detail of the room. A huge family portrait hung over the massive stone fireplace.

  Jerry Booth was just under six feet with dark brown hair cut short. His deep blue eyes were framed with thick dark lashes. His shirt fit snuggly on his athletic body which suggested a home gym or a health club membership.

  “Hello,” he said as he entered the room, “I’m Jerry Booth.” His voice didn’t seem to have any accent at all. It sounded like one of those television voices that’s nondescript with no hint of where he lived. He extended his hand first to Carly then Bill “Any news on my wife?”

  "No. I'm sorry. But we do need to ask you some questions," Carly said back to Jerry as she opened her notebook and took her pen out of her pocket.

  "Tell us about the evening your wife left," Bill said.

  "Well, let's see. The kids had been running around and Claire seemed pretty upset. I followed her up to our bedroom trying to calm her down, when she started ranting about how she needed to get away for a couple of weeks. She sounded just like those women in the movies. She said she needed some space to find herself. She grabbed her suitcase out of the closet and started throwing some clothes in it and said she was going to go on a little vacation."

  Carly jumped in, "Is this something she had ever done before?"

  "No. Up until now she had seemed fine with her life. I've always given her everything she wanted…kids, a nice home, her hobby. She’s a photographer. She never had any reason to want to get away from her life."

  "Did she tell you where she was going," asked Bill.

  "No. She said she wanted to get away from everyone for a couple of weeks. I told her we still needed to know where she was in case of emergency, but she insisted. She also made me promise not to try to find her."

  "And you went along with that?" Carly asked. She was beginning to think something a little fishy was going on here, but all she had was a gut feeling.

  Chapter Three

  Carly's gut feelings had quite often turned out to be right. Like the time when she was 18 and she had a gut feeling that her step dad was a sleeze. That was actually more than a gut feeling. After all, she lived in the same house with the guy. But the gut feeling she got one day when she was on her way to work turned out to be right.

  Carly was working as a waitress at the Villager Tavern in Hillsboro Village while she decided what she wanted to do with her life. One day while on her way to work, she just got this gut feeling that she needed to turn around and go home. What she found when she got there changed her life forever.

  She walked through the back door and heard her Mom screaming. Quietly and calmly she slipped into the living room and pulled out a .38 Special that had belonged to her dad, from behind the books where it had always been hidden. Then she tiptoed back toward her Mom's room. That's where she found Ed. He had torn her mom's clothes off of her and was straddling on top of her punching her in the face. Carly didn't flinch as she lifted the pistol and yelled at him to stop or she'd shoot. Ed must have believed her because he jumped about three feet in the air and mumbled something about it being alright because they liked having rough sex. But Carly knew better. Her Mom just curled up in a ball on the floor as Ed grabbed for his pants. Carly never lowered the gun as she let it follow him around the room and out the door.

  "Get the hell out of here and don't ever show your face around me again or I swear I'll kill you," Carly said without any hesitation.

  "Alright, bitch, I'll leave, but you won’t ever find anyone that'll put up with you three the way I have. I've provided damn well for y'all for years," Ed said as he left for the last time slamming the back door behind him.

  That day Carly checked into what it would take to become a cop. She straightened up her life, went back to school part time, and at 21 became a member of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.

  Her mom didn't get to see that happen, though. She died the year after Ed beat and raped her there on the bedroom floor. Carly always thought it had something to do with those events, and she could have been right. Her mom was never the same after that happened. Carly was 19 and her sister Maggie was 17 when their mom died of cervical cancer.

  Chapter Four

  As Carly and Bill drove down the long driveway of the Booth's house, they both realized that they had the same feeling about Mr. Jerry Booth. Their gut feeling about him was that he was a killer. Something just didn't ring true about his statements.

  "So, what do you think of a husband who lets the mother of his two small children leave and not have a clue where she's going or when she'll be back?" Carly said to Bill, halfway knowing what his answer would be.

  "I think it stinks, and I think he's a lyin’ sack ah shit," Bill said in his dee
p southern drawl. "But, we've got nothing so far except she's gone, her car's gone, her clothes are gone, her passport’s gone and her husband says $5,000 in cash is gone with her."

  "I've got that weird feeling again," Carly said as they drove down Franklin Road. They hung a left on Harding Place, which is actually called Battery Lane at that point. One of Nashville’s little idiosyncrasies is that the same road can have more than one name depending on the area of town. Their next stop would be at the Simon's house. "Let's see what Claire’s parents have to say."

  The Simon's house was in the West Meade area of Nashville. The homes in this area are fairly large with large yards. A lot of these houses had been built many years ago, but were kept up very well. Ted Simon was a very prominent attorney in town and his wife was the typical socialite type. She volunteered on this board and that board and generally appeared in the newspaper several times a week at one or another social function.

  Their home was one of the nicer ones in the neighborhood. It had lots of large trees, mostly maple and magnolia, on a 2 acre lot. The lawn was perfectly manicured and there was a tennis court in the back yard. Some neighbors had pools in their back yards, but the Simons always used the pool at their club. Besides, they thought tennis had more class. The house was furnished with very nice furniture - and it all matched. That's one thing that Carly noticed, since nothing in her house matched. The Simons’ house was impeccably decorated. There were beautiful paintings on the walls. You could tell they were expensive. And they were all individually lit. The house was a little overly done, at least in Carly's opinion, but it was also very comfortable and warm. It reminded Carly of one of those make over houses after the make over.