Her breathing was shallow and she opened her eyes. “Are you ok?”
Another motorist came over. “Hey I’m a nurse, let me help.”
I backed out the way and pulled my badge out. The woman saw it. She tried to move and get my attention.
“She’s trying to say something!” said the nurse.
I leaned in to her.
She pointed at my badge and grabbed my ankle as if she was holding on for dear life.
“Yes I’m a Detective, what is it you want to say?” I asked softly.
She let go my ankle long enough to point toward the woods and then grabbed it again. She held me with a death grip.
“Killer, woods, he-he stabbed me.”
“Who?” I asked. “Who is this killer?”
“Man—tall,” she said and let go my ankle again and pointed at her face.
“A tall man in the woods stabbed you and he’s black,” I asked.
She tried to nod. I glanced over to where she pointed and scanned the area but saw nothing. She saw that I understood and smiled showing her pretty white and straight teeth. That’s how she looked when her spirit left her; smiling and staring into the dark abyss.
The nurse checked her pulse and her breathing. The young black woman was dead. The nurse looked at me and shook her head.
“I’m sorry Detective; but she’s gone.”
I felt bad. She looked so young and full of years. I got up and looked over at the woods again, still I saw nothing. It was dark. I decided to wait for the police to arrive.
I was so distraught that I didn’t notice Charlotte talking to the nurse. She then walked over to where I was.
“Are you ok?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just killed someone.”
“No, you didn’t,” she said, rubbing my back. The nurse said she is sure the lady bled to death from the wound in her back.”
I looked at Charlotte and then toward the nurse who was walking over to me.
“Detective, I’m not a coroner, but I believe this young woman was stabbed to death long before your car touched her.”
I didn’t know what to think.
“So far I didn’t feel any broken bones. I witnessed the accident. I believe she basically brushed against your car when you swerved,” said the nurse.
The police and ambulance arrived minutes later and shut down that portion of the interstate for their investigation. A young officer came up to me and I flashed my badge. I told him what had happened. He and another officer walked over to the wood-line and investigated.
“Hey, we got blood over here. Get a K9 unit.” One of them yelled back to the just arriving officers.
So she was right, I thought. I told Charlotte to wait with the nurse while I walked over to the wood-line where the two officers were standing with their flashlights shining on the ground.
“There is a trail of blood. Don’t know how far back,” said on the officers.
“It looks like she was running, with all the blood scattered like it is.”
I paused and looked where one of the flashlights had just glossed over.
“Shine your light over there again.” I pointed at the ground just in front of us.
“It looks like shoe prints—large shoe prints,” said one of the officers.
“That is exactly right,” I exclaimed. “Somebody chased this woman and tried to finish killing her and the bastard stood there watching all of us as she died, and he got away with murder, for now.”
The nurse and I told the homicide investigator everything that the young woman had said before she died and our contact information. I told him the hotel Charlotte and I were going to be staying and that we would be there the weekend until Sunday morning. I also learned that the nurse’s name was Lenora wells and that she was a registered nurse at Emory University Hospital Midtown.
The drive was different now. Before all this happened, Charlotte and I were listening to the music on the radio, holding hands, and thinking about the great weekend we were going to have doing some sight-seeing, a little shopping, and just having fun. Things had changed and everything in me wanted to turn around and go back home, but I thought about how the young woman looked at my badge and held onto me tight because I was her hope. I was the one she silently asked to find out what happened. To her, I was her hero.
Chapter 2
I felt like I had just closed my eyes for only a few minutes until my phone rang the second time. Charlotte was sleeping well with her head on my chest and her arm wrapped around me. I turned and looked at my phone at the third ring hoping it would somehow stop but it didn’t. I knew I had to answer it. I answered it.
“Hello?” I said in a low raspy tone.
“Detective Jackson please?” said the woman’s voice on the other end.
“Yeah, this is he,” I said looking at my watch.
“I’m sorry to call you so early in the morning; this is Agent Margaret Faulkner with the Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
I wiped my eyes. “If this is some kind of joke, it’s not funny,” I said.
“I’m afraid not Detective. I know it is early, but I wanted to catch you before you and your wife left out this morning.
The thought of her knowing my wife was with me was less than comforting.
“Ok, what do you need from me?” I asked. I looked at the coffee pot on the table and walked over to it.
“Well, Detective, like I said, I am Agent Margaret Faulkner, and I need for you to meet me this morning in the hotel lobby. It’s about the murder case last night.”
I filled the pot with water from the sink and listened to her. “Okay, what time?”
“Shall we say around 8:00 A.M.?”
“Okay, I’ll be there.” I hung up and poured the water into the coffee maker.
Charlotte stirred from her sleep.
“What time is it?” she asked.
“A little after five,” I told her.
She yawned. “Who was that on the phone?”
“Just the FBI,” I said. I flipped the on button to turn the pot on.
“FBI?” she asked, surprised.
“Yep,” the FBI. She wants to meet me in the lobby at 8:00 and talk about that murder case last night.
“Oh--another ‘she,’ huh?”
I knew that was coming. She never really got over that I had worked side by side with a beautiful female detective in New Orleans a month ago. Of course, nothing had happened, but she let me know that I at least should have told her and trusted her instead of trying to keep it a secret. She told me a man looked more suspicious when he hides something from his wife. Instead, he should come right out and say it. It actually made sense.
“At least I’m telling you about it up front this time.”
I tore the plastic off the cups and placed them by the coffee maker. She smiled.
“Would you like a cup?” I asked.
“No, baby, I’m gonna go wash my face.”
She brushed up against me and patted me on the behind and kissed me on the cheek.
“All right,” I said. “That’s how you got pregnant in the first place.”
I kissed her on the cheek. I then held her and tried to kiss her on the lips. She covered my lips with her hand.
“Uh-uh, after I brush my teeth.”
She walked in the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
I poured myself a cup of coffee. I pondered the conversation I just had with Agent Faulkner and wondered what else she knew about me—after all, she was the FBI.
Chapter 3
Agent Margaret Faulkner met me in the lobby right on time. She was a white woman, probably 5’2, with brown eyes and brown hair with some gray, and maybe in her late 50’s. I sighed a little in relief. She looked plain.
“Detective Jackson,” she said extending her hand. Her handshake was firm but her hands were soft. She held out her credentials for me to read them, much longer than I would have. I assumed she was proud of her job.