Avery drew her eyebrows together, confused. Why had her father collected these? she wondered. She picked up one of the clippings and gazed at the grainy, yellowed image of Sallie Waguespack. She’d been a pretty woman. And young. Only twenty-two when she died.
So, why had her father collected the clippings, keeping them all these years? Had he been friends with the woman? She didn’t recall having ever met her or heard her name, before the murder anyway. Perhaps he had been her physician?
Perhaps, she thought, the articles themselves would provide the answer.
Avery dug all the clippings out of the box, arranging them by date, oldest to most recent. They spanned, she saw, four months—June through September 1988.
Bread and coffee forgotten, she began to read.
As she did, fuzzy memories became sharp. On June 18, 1988, Sallie Waguespack, a twenty-two-year-old waitress, had been brutally murdered in her apartment. Stabbed to death by a couple of doped-up teenagers.
The Pruitt brothers, she remembered. They had been older, but she had seen them around the high school, before they’d dropped out to work at the canning factory.
They’d been killed that same night in a shoot-out with the police.
How could she have forgotten? It had been the talk of the school for months after. She remembered being shocked, horrified. Then … saddened. The Pruitt brothers had come from the wrong side of the tracks—actually the wrong side of what the locals called The Creek. Truth was, The Creek was nothing more than a two-mile-long drainage ditch that had been created to keep low areas along the stretch from flooding but ultimately had served as the dividing line between the good side of town and the bad.
They’d been wild boys. They’d gone with fast girls. They’d drunk beer and smoked pot. She’d stayed as far away from them as possible.
Even so, the tragedy of it all hadn’t been lost on her, a sheltered fifteen-year-old. All involved had been so young. How had the boys’ lives gone so terribly askew? How could such a thing happen in the safe haven of Cypress Springs?
Which was the question the rest of the citizenry had wondered as well, Avery realized as she shuffled through the articles. They fell into two categories: ones detailing the actual crime and investigation, and the lion’s share, editorials written by the outraged citizens of Cypress Springs. They’d demanded change. Accountability. A return to the traditional values that had made Cypress Springs a good place to raise a family.
Then, it seemed, things had quieted down. The articles became less heated, then stopped. Or, Avery wondered, had her father simply stopped collecting them?
Avery sat back. She reached for the cup of coffee and sipped. Cold and bitter. She grimaced and set the cup down. Nothing in the articles answered the question why her father had collected them.
She had lived through these times. Yes, her parents had discussed the crime. Everyone had. But not to excess. She had never sensed her father being unduly interested in it.
But he had been. Obviously.
She glanced at her watch, saw that it was nearly noon already. Perhaps Buddy would know the why, she thought. If she hurried, she should have plenty of time to stop by the CSPD before her two o’clock appointment with Danny Gallagher.
CHAPTER 6
Cypress Springs’s police headquarters hadn’t changed in the years she had been gone. Located in an old storefront downtown, a block off Main in back of the courthouse, it resembled a hardware store or feed and seed more than a modern law enforcement center.
Avery entered the building. The whirling ceiling fans kicked up fifty years of dust. The sun streaming through the front window illuminated the millions of particles. The officer on desk duty looked up. He was so young, he still sported a severe case of adolescent acne.
She stopped at the desk and smiled. “Is Buddy in?”
“Sure is. You here to see him?”
“Nope, just wanted to see if he was here.”
The kid’s face went slack for a moment, then he laughed. “You’re teasing me, right?”
“Yes. Sorry.”
“That’s okay. Are you Avery Chauvin?”
She nodded. “Do I know you?”
“You used to baby-sit me. I’m Sammy Martin. Del and Marge’s boy.”
She thought a moment, then smiled. As a kid, he had been an absolute terror. Interesting that he had decided to go into law enforcement. “I never would have known it was you, Sammy. Last time I saw you, you were what? Eight or nine?”
“Eight.” His smile slipped. “Sorry about your dad. None of us could believe it.”
“Thanks.” She cleared her throat, furious with herself for the tears that sprang to her eyes. “You said Buddy was in?”
“Oh, yeah. I’ll tell him you’re here.” He turned. “Buddy! Got a visitor!”
Buddy shouted he’d be out in a “jiffy” and Avery grinned. “Fancy intercom system, Sammy.”
He laughed. “Isn’t it, though. But we make do.”
His phone rang and she wandered away from the desk. She crossed to the community bulletin board, located to the right of the front door. Another one just like it was located in the library, the post office and the Piggly Wiggly. Cypress Springs’s communications center, she thought. That hadn’t changed, either.
She scanned the items tacked to the board, a conglomeration of community information flyers, Most Wanted and Missing posters and For-Sale-by-Owner ads.
“Baby girl,” Buddy boomed. She turned. He came around Sammy’s desk, striding toward her, boots thundering against the scuffed wooden floors.
“I was afraid you’d be at lunch.”
“Just got back.” He hugged her. “This is a nice surprise.”
She returned the hug. “Do you have a minute to talk?”
“Sure.” He searched her expression. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine. I wanted to ask you about something I found in my dad’s closet.”
“I’ll try. Come on.” He led her to his office. Cluttered shelves, battered furniture and walls covered with honorary plaques and awards spoke of a lifetime of service to the community.
Avery sat in one of the two chairs facing his desk. She dug out the couple of clipped articles she had stuffed into her purse and handed them to him. “I found a box of clippings like these in Dad’s bedroom closet. I hoped you’d be able to tell me why he’d kept them.”
He scanned the two clippings, eyebrows drawing together. He met her eyes. “Are you certain your dad collected them and not your mom?”
She hesitated, then shook her head. “Not one hundred percent. But Dad had removed everything else of Mom’s from the closet, so why keep these?”
“Gotcha.” He handed the two back. “To answer your question, I don’t know why he saved them. Even considering the nature of the case, it seems an odd thing for him to do.”
“That’s what I thought. So, he wasn’t involved with the investigation in any way?”
“Nope.”
“Was he Sallie’s physician?”
“Could have been, though I don’t know for sure. I’d guess yes, just because for a number of years he was Cypress Springs’s only general practitioner. And even after Bobby Townesend opened his practice, then Leon White, your daddy remained the town’s primary