Justice Delayed (Memphis Cold Case #1)(34)

“I thought you’d changed to ibuprofen.”

“The pain is worse this morning.”

“Really?” Treece raised her eyebrows. “On a scale of one to ten, what’s your pain level?”

Andi hesitated. “Sixish.”

“Less than where mine is, and I haven’t taken anything that strong,” Treece said. “You need to get off of those things.”

Andi squared her shoulders. “I know what I’m doing. Without them, I couldn’t stand on my feet all day. So give it a rest.”

She squirmed under her friend’s stare.

“I’ll trust you on that. For now. Have you heard from the hospital about how Chloe is?”

“I called earlier, and they said she was awake and talking to them. I plan to go by there sometime today.” Andi frowned at her screen and clicked on a link and scanned the article. “Come look at this.”

Treece leaned over her shoulder as Andi read the headline from a Nashville online newspaper. “Riverbend prison corrections officer involved in near-fatal I-40 accident.”

She picked up her cell phone and dialed Will’s number. When he answered, she asked, “Did you see where one of the guards from Riverbend almost died last night in a car wreck?”

“No. Who was it and when did it happen?”

“Larry Ray Johnson.” She scanned the article again. “Happened about eleven last night. If you go back to Nashville, I want to go with you.”

“We’ll see.”

She knew what that meant. “We’ll see, my foot,” she muttered after he thanked her and hung up. Will Kincade better take her along if he wanted to continue receiving information from her.

“Do you think the accident is significant to Jimmy’s case?” Treece asked.

“I don’t know, but I think it’s worth checking out—someone at the prison stole Lacey Wilson’s letter.”

Andi noticed the time again and caught her breath. If she didn’t leave in ten minutes, she wouldn’t have time to stop and see Maggie.

She raced to her bedroom, throwing on clothes. A new prescription bottle sat on her dresser beside an ibuprofen bottle, and she quickly counted out sixteen pink tablets and dropped them in the ibuprofen bottle, leaving fourteen. She figured four a day would get her through to Monday morning.

“By the way,” she said from the bedroom, “I’m going to talk to our producer about a story on Laura Delaney’s political race. If she wins, and I believe she will, Laura will be the first woman to serve in Congress from this district.”

“And?” Treece asked as Andi came out of the bedroom. Then, she did a double take. “How do you get dressed so fast? Oh, never mind. You do everything fast.”

“No need to waste time.”

Treece laughed. “No one will ever accuse you of that. I don’t remember you being interested in covering a political campaign before. What’s the real reason you want to do a story on Laura Delaney?”

“If Jimmy didn’t kill Stephanie, that means someone else did. Laura lived in the house with Stephanie eighteen years ago, and anyone who lived there falls in suspect territory, even Laura Delaney. I thought if I hung around her, I might learn something.”

“That sounds more like you.”

Andi gave her friend a grim smile.

“Just don’t let the case become an obsession,” Treece said. “And leave revenge out of it.”

“I’m not looking for revenge,” Andi said, thinking of the years she’d spent hating Jimmy Shelton. “But I do want justice.”



“Thanks for letting me know,” Will said as Andi hung up. He wished he’d had the information about the wreck when he’d been talking to Brad. Not that it would make any difference. He turned back to the files on Stephanie’s murder case.

There hadn’t been as many as he’d hoped, and he shuffled through them again, searching for the investigating officer’s reports. He picked out the folder and opened it, looking for a name.

George Barnes.

Explained the slim case file. George Barnes had retired from the force not long after Will made detective. What he remembered most about him was his attitude of getting by with a minimum of work as he marked time until his retirement.

On one case he worked with Barnes, Will suspected the detective planted evidence to “help” the case, but he’d never been able to prove it. The career criminal that Barnes may have framed denied having the cocaine that was found in his car. Even so, a jury found him guilty and put him away for ten years.

Barnes probably never looked any further than Jimmy’s confession. Pain radiated from Will’s neck, and he massaged the knotted muscles in his shoulder. His cell phone rang, and he answered, barking his name.

“Uh, Detective Kincade, this is Walter Simmons.”

He winced. “Mr. Simmons, I’m sorry, didn’t mean to sound so abrupt. How can I help you?”

“Did you hear about one of the COs at Riverbend being in an accident last night? Larry Ray Johnson.”

“I heard,” Will said. “Do you know anything about it?”

“No, just that he had a bad wreck on I-40 about twenty miles this side of Lexington, Tennessee. He’s the one I suspected of taking Jimmy’s letter, and—”