CMM01 - Without Any Evidence Read online

  "Detective Malone?" Nicole said, putting out her hand.

  Carly stood up and grasped Nicole's hand. They both had firm handshakes, which Carly always felt was a must. There was nothing she hated more than shaking hands with someone who had that limp fish type of handshake.

  "I'm Nicole Manning. I spoke with you this morning."

  "Yes, thank you for coming in. Please, have a seat," Carly said pointing to an old wooden chair next to her desk.

  "We're working on trying to locate Claire Booth and I understand you and your children were supposed to have a play date with Claire and her children the day after she disappeared?"

  Nicole was quite tall, probably close to 5'11" and slender built with beautiful long blond hair. You could tell by the way she handled herself that she was raised with money and class. She just had that air about her. But she was friendly, not at all conscious of how beautiful she was.

  "Yes, Claire and I had made plans to get our kids together to let them play for the afternoon. I was supposed to be there at 11:30 and we were going to eat and then let the kids do their thing while we talked and visited. Claire was upset because she suspected that Jerry was running around on her and she needed someone to talk to about it." Nicole was visibly upset by having to divulge the intimate details of her friend's marriage.

  "What made her think Jerry was going out on her?" Carly asked.

  "Well, there were several things. First of all, people had seen him out with other women. There are a lot of people in this town who love nothing better than to gossip, so it didn't take long for that to get back to Claire. Not that she didn't need to know, but still there's a possibility it could have been business. But then, Claire found some credit card receipts to the Holiday Inn over near Vanderbilt. That's one we couldn't explain." Nicole said as she reached in her purse for a tissue. She had begun to cry just a little and she wiped the tears away and went back to her story.

  "When I got to Claire's house that morning, I rang the bell and it took forever for Ms. Hernandez to come to the door. She told me Claire was gone, but that the kids could still play."

  "Did you ever see Jerry while you were there, or did anything seem amiss?" Carly questioned.

  "I've been racking my brain about that. Trying to remember everything from that day. There was this rug. It was in the hallway rolled up. If you've ever been in the Jerry and Claire's house, you know, there are no rugs. Jerry forbade it. He said they were dirty and musty, no matter how clean you tried to keep them, I think it went back to his childhood. So he didn’t allow them in the house. He had to have everything his way and he hated anything but bare wood floors. I never could figure out why there was a rug there, but I was so rattled by the fact that Claire wasn‘t there that I didn‘t say anything. I took the kids outside to play and about an hour or so later when I came back in, the rug was gone."

  "Have you heard from Claire since she left?"

  "No. And I don't care what Jerry says, Claire would never have left Teddy and Bella. Not only that, but she missed Bella’s birthday. There's no way she went away willingly."

  "What about drugs? Jerry mentioned that Claire used drugs?" Carly asked.

  "Who doesn't use a little recreational drugs these days?" Nicole answered, then thinking better of her answer to a police officer, she added, "Not anything bad. Just a little pot every now and again. Claire was much too conscious about her health to do anything more than that."

  Nicole was firm in her belief that something had definitely happened to Claire Simon Booth. Now it was up to Carly and Bill to figure out what. And the things that everyone seemed to agree on was that Claire had not left on her own, and that Jerry Booth was involved in some way. With the information Nicole had provided the police now had a motive.

  The forensics team hadn't found anything out of the ordinary with the car. They only found fingerprints that belonged to Claire and Jerry. There didn't seem to be any evidence that she had been taken against her will. There was no sign of a struggle, no evidence of any kind pointing to something bad happening.

  Chapter Nine

  When Carly left the office that night, she decided to take a drive out to the Booth home. She didn't have any questions to ask, she just wanted to sit in the dark and watch. She was trying to think of every possible scenario. And trying to see if there was any way that the neighbors could have seen anything.

  As Carly drove up the dead end road that led to the house, she pulled over and parked. She couldn't really see the house from there, but for some reason, she just felt that being close to the house might help her figure some things out that had been puzzling her. It was completely dark up on top of the cul de sac where their driveway went up the hill. The sound of the crickets was almost deafening. Carly leaned her head back and began going over all the information she and Bill had gathered during the day. She couldn't shake the feeling that Jerry Booth had done something to his wife.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  Carly jumped about three feet in the air as her head whipped around to the passenger side window.

  "What are you doing out here all by yourself?" Miguel said.

  Carly was trying to think of a plausible answer as Miguel opened the door and climbed into the car. Her heart was pounding fast and strong, not only at being scared half to death, but at the fact that Miguel was now sitting so close to her that she could feel the warmth radiating off his body. His arm was still a few inches from hers, but the hairs on her arm were bristled and the air was charged with an electricity she had never felt.

  "I'm just thinking," Carly said. "I needed a quiet place to sit and think and this place came to mind, so here I am"

  "Ah, well, it is quiet, except for those damned crickets. What were you thinking about?" he asked as he turned to her and moved in a little closer.

  Carly knew better than to tell him anything about the case, but what really flustered her was the fact that she had actually been sitting there in the dark thinking about him when he showed up and tapped on her window.

  "Oh, nothing really. Sometimes I just like to get away to a quiet place and try to think of nothing. You know, just clear my mind and shake out the cobwebs. What are you doing all the way down here?" she asked him. She was really trying to figure out whether anyone else had seen her.

  "I needed to get out of that house for a while, so I took a walk. I don't know whether you know it or not, but I'm not crazy about Jerry Booth. I love his father dearly, but he has always been a spoiled brat."

  Miguel and Jerry had never gotten along. They were about the same age, and when Wade had taken Miguel and his sister, Rosa, under his wing, Jerry resented it. It had been just Jerry and his father for two years and he didn't like anyone else coming into the picture. Rosa was only two at the time and Wade seemed to like having a little girl trailing him around, looking up to him.

  "Wade loves Jerry very much. Too much I think sometimes. Jerry can guilt Wade into doing things he shouldn't." Miguel said as he looked into Carly's big brown eyes.

  "What kind of things," Carly asked. She was now thinking about business again. As opposed to thinking about what she'd like to be doing with Miguel. And considering she was working on a missing persons case, possibly a homicide, that involved the family with whom Miguel was very close, it could be a very compromising situation.

  Miguel looked straight into Carly's eyes again and stayed there. "I shouldn't be talking to you about all this, but for some reason, I am very drawn to you. I trust you. You have an honesty about you."

  Now Carly was blushing. The rush of this back and forth from lust to business was about to wear her out. But she pushed those feelings back and asked him again to tell her what he thought was going on in the Booth household.

  "I think…now this is just my opinion, mind you, but I think that Jerry killed Claire." Miguel said in almost a whisper.

  "What makes you think that?," Carly whispered back.

  "Several things. It doesn't make sense that Claire would leave like
that. And I have overheard Jerry and Wade fighting. I couldn't say for sure what was said, but it sounded like they were fighting about Claire. And Jerry was telling his father that he'd better keep his mouth shut. That much I did hear." Miguel sounded upset. "I don't put it past Jerry to have killed her and I think he is perfectly capable of doing something to his father if he ever crosses him."

  "Do you think Wade knows what happened to Claire?"

  "I don't think so. I think he suspects Jerry did something with her. I have my own theories on that one, too." Miguel said leaning in even closer to Carly.

  "What is your theory, Miguel." Carly sighed. She was actually acting like a girl and she wasn't sure she liked it, but she found herself doing it anyway.

  "I think that Jerry's story about them fighting is right. I think they did get into a big fight, but I think it didn't stop with Claire packing her bags. I think Claire threatened to divorce Jerry and he lost it. Jerry knows martial arts, you know. I think he lost his temper and killed her and then disposed of her body."

  "How do you think he got rid of her body?"

  "I think he hid it in the woods, or in something in the house, while he took care of things. Don't forget, he's a lawyer, he knows what kinds of things need to be done to protect himself. And he had plenty of time, two whole weeks to get everything situated. "

  Carly’s mind began racing as she started thinking about the questioning she and Bill had done that day at the station. Nicole's statement about a rug that was out of place was something that needed looking into. Could it be that Jerry had hidden his wife inside the rug and then disposed of it? Bill said the housekeeper, Ms. Hernandez, was told not to clean the children's playroom that day. In fact, Jerry told her not to go in there, that he was in the middle of some project. Could he have hidden Claire's body in the playroom until it was safe to move her? There were several possibilities and all of them plausible.

  When Carly really thought about, Jerry had the perfect way to kill his wife. He could kill her with one blow and never spill a drop of blood. He was an expert at martial arts and he was strong. He worked out at the gym every day. Claire was small. Only a little over 5’ and she weighed less than 100 pounds, so it wouldn't be hard to hide her body and he had all night to do the deed. He could easily have hidden her in a rug while making phone calls to his father to tell him that Claire had left him. By telling Claire's parents that she had asked not to be found, he had bought himself plenty of time to take care of getting rid of the body and taking the car and leaving it on West End. Jerry could have either jogged or even ridden his bike from West End back to their home off Franklin Road.

  By the time Claire's parents decided to call the police, Jerry would have been pretty sure that Claire wasn't going to be found. Miguel also suggested that Jerry could have put her inside a dumpster somewhere. Once a dumpster is emptied in the landfill, if the body wasn't detected quickly, it would never be found. Tons of garbage are dumped daily and bulldozers are constantly moving dirt and garbage around.

  Carly drove off leaving Miguel standing in the middle of the cul de sac. She couldn't help thinking about how what she really wanted to do was take him home with her. Or at least throw him down on the ground and jump him. But, she was much too professional to do anything like that.

  Chapter Ten

  The room was dark except for three candles burning on the table. Carly was lying on her bed when the door opened. She looked up to see Miguel standing in the doorway. Curls of dark hair were visible from his unbuttoned shirt. Carly slid out from under her sheet and walked over to Miguel. Her naked body was aching for his touch as they stood there toe to toe. The air in the room felt like it was about to ignite.

  Carly opened Miguel's shirt to reveal his muscular chest. She slipped it off his shoulders and down to the floor. Then she reached down and unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned the top of his jeans and slid the zipper down revealing more of the dark hair that ran down from his navel.

  Miguel reached down and picked Carly up, drew her close, their lips touched. Carly wrapped her bare legs around Miguel as he walked to the bed.

  The sun was streaming in through the window as Carly awoke to a pulsing between her legs. She hadn't had a dream like that in years and it made her feel more alive than she had in a long time. She jumped out of bed and threw on her jogging clothes and headed out to Radnor Lake for an early morning walk. She grabbed her headphones and and her new CD player from her car and started walking. She was almost singing out loud to her Van Morrison CD as she walked along the road by the lake. “Brown Eyed Girl” was one of her favorite songs and after the dream she had last night, she was feeling very sexy and in a better mood than she had been in in years.

  Carly tried to think how to tell Bill what had transpired the night before with Miguel. Exactly how much to tell Bill was the question. Should she tell him about talking with Miguel or should she just tell him what she had theorized had happened to Claire? She decided on the later.

  Chapter Eleven

  After running the theory by Bill and their captain, the forensics team was sent out to Jerry Booth's house to search the house, the woods, and anything else that might be in question. So far they hadn’t needed a warrant. Jerry had been cooperating with the police and letting them have the run of the grounds and the house. It was almost as if Jerry wanted them to search everything. To show that he didn’t have anything to hide.

  “What do you think Bill? Do you think he’ll continue to let us seach?” Carly asked as she drove.

  “You know, I think he will. I think he’s just cocky enough to want us to search. He acts like he knows we won’t find anything. And to tell you the truth, I think that’s the case. I don’t think we’re gonna find anything that’s going to help us put him away. But we might as well try.”

  The dogs were sent, too. They found nothing. And while Jerry Booth hadn't yet been named an official suspect in his wife's disappearance, everyone involved in the case sure felt like he was guilty of something. But, the police had nothing concrete to pin anything.

  When Carly and Bill got to Jerry Booth's house, the cadaver dogs were already there. They were checking out the woods that surrounding the house. Cadaver dogs are trained to pick up on the scent of rotting flesh as opposed to tracking dogs that are trained to follow a particular scent. You see it in the movies when someone will take an article of clothing that belongs to the person they want to track and they’ll shove it under the dog’s nose and the dog takes off howling. Cadaver dogs pick up on a different scent. One that most people hope they’ll never experience.

  Ms. Hernandez met Carly at the door.

  "Hello Ms. Hernandez," Carly said. "I won't be too long, I just need to see Mr. Booth's office. Did Mrs. Booth have an office, I don't remember seeing one the other night when I was here?"

  "Yes, she has one off her studio, next to the darkroom. Not really an office, just a computer in one of those hutch things," Ms. Herndandez replied as she led Carly through the living room to Jerry Booth's office.

  Jerry’s office had huge windows overlooking downtown Nashville. Carly couldn't help but think that he probably sat at his desk looking out over the city feeling somewhat like God himself.

  The desk had the usual stuff on it. Desk pad, calendar, pens, etc. On the credenza he had a file holder. Carly sat down and started with the first folder. The first thing Carly noticed was that Jerry wrote his dates the European way. With the day first, then the month, then the year. Most people, at least the one's in Nashville, didn't write the date in that way.

  The next thing she noticed was that they were all written on the computer. Not one hand written note. Even the shortest notations were typed on computer.

  Ms. Hernandez walked into the room. "Would you care for something to drink?"

  "No. Thank you though. I'm finished here. I'd like to see Mrs. Booth's office now."

  Claire's office was quite different than Jerry's. It was rather haphazard. There were matted photos all ov
er the place and framed black and white photos leaned against the walls. When you opened the hutch, it was covered with notes, all hand written. Claire had beautiful handwriting. There was a computer, but the way it was covered with notes and drawings lying over the keyboard and desktop, you could tell it wasn't used very much.

  As Carly sat down at Claire's desk, she picked up the top piece of paper and noticed that Claire always dated her notes as well. But, unlike her husband, hers were done with the month listed first, then day, then year. There were some typed schedules, so Claire obviously used both the computer and handwrote her notes.

  "Did Mrs. Booth always write down her daily schedules?," Carly asked Ms. Hernandez.

  "Oh, yes. She always said she'd forget her head if it wasn't attached, so she always wrote down everything. All her appointments, all her lunch dates, the kids special outings, everything was written down."

  "If that's the case," Carly asked, "then wouldn't she have written out a schedule of what the children needed to do while she was away?"

  "I suppose she would have, but I haven't seen one."

  Carly finished looking through the items in Claire's office, looked around the darkroom and went outside. She walked down a path to a small gazebo sitting in the woods. It was shady and cool, but kind of spooky considering the circumstances. She sat down in one of the chairs and closed her eyes. She realized her headache was back and she hoped taking a minute to relax help.

  "Hello," Miguel said in a quiet tone, almost a whisper.

  Carly jumped. It seemed she was jumping a lot lately. "Oh, Miguel, how are you?"

  "I wanted to find you and talk to you. Jerry is really mad that the police are treating him as a suspect in Claire's disappearance. I think he's going to take off to Mexico with Señor Booth."