He thought about his drive around the city earlier and it hit him. The river was only a block away. There were three bridges, too, one of which was solely for pedestrians.
JR assessed the man beside him. He was drunk enough. He’d never be able to swim.
It wouldn’t have the satisfaction of the knife — nothing could top that — but this would solve one very large, loud, nagging problem.
He turned to his old friend.
“Come on, Heath. Let’s go for a walk.”
Stover fell into step beside him, yammering away. God, did the man ever shut his trap?
Well, JR, give him this. It is his last will and testament, after all.
It only took five minutes to mount the bridge and cross halfway to the highest point. He stopped to admire the view. They were standing over the murky river water, the lights of Nashville shining majestically in the darkness.
Time to say goodbye.
He didn’t mean to do it. He really didn’t. JR gave Stover a push, and the drunken fool began to struggle, and there was nothing to be done for it. The blade was in his hand before he even gave it a second thought. JR shoved the knife in quickly, then drew it out. The pain was enough to stop Stover’s cries. He didn’t move for a moment, looking vaguely surprised, then toppled over the edge of the bridge himself, with no effort whatsoever.
JR did something he’d only done once before, in another moment of extreme distress. He tossed the knife off the bridge after Stover’s body. It killed him to do it — my God, what a prize for his collection, a blade that took not one, but two lives, in a single day — but he’d been forced into impulsivity here in Nashville, and like any animal who knew it had just survived a close call, he needed to retreat to his bolt hole and lick his wounds.
He would call the conference organizers first thing in the morning and plead a bad case of food poisoning. In the meantime, he needed to cut his losses and get the hell out of Dodge.
Nashville had been a little too good to him.
Taylor spent Monday evening keeping the wheels in motion on Go-Go’s murder. She had a long sad chat with Joe Dunham, promised him she’d do everything in her power to bring Go-Go’s killer to justice as quickly as possible. It wasn’t an empty promise, she had several solid leads already. She was confident she’d have her man soon.
The interrogation of Derek Rucka gave her absolutely squat, outside of the fact that Go-Go had been known to suffer from a wee bit of kleptomania, and going off her meds exacerbated the syndrome. She was a pack rat, lifting anything she could get her hands on — wallets and phones mostly, but brushes, lipsticks, pens — anything that could be separated from its owner. According to Rucka, it was purely for fun; she took a perverse pleasure in getting away with it.
The kid’s story checked out, and a canvass of the protestors confirmed that he was on the other side of the memorial when Go-Go went down. Taylor cut him loose just after midnight. They’d also found all the wallet and cell phone owners save one. Gustafson. Everyone else checked out. Taylor had that niggling feeling in the back of her head that there was something to this guy. There was a certain arrogance in his eyes she'd seen before. Alone at her desk, she stared at his license photo for a few minutes, then ran him through the system. Clean. She found a phone number and called, but the phone just rang and rang and rang.
Instinct is vital for every homicide detective, and hers was on fire. She called the local precinct that serviced the area Gustafson lived in Virginia, but it was late, and they were busy working their own cases. Someone would get back to her tomorrow, supposedly. She knew well enough that she’d have to call back in the morning, made a note of it on her list.
She’d lock him down tomorrow. Frustrated, she headed home.
John Baldwin, her fiancé, an FBI profiler, was in Minnesota working a case, so Taylor had the house to herself. Sleep never came easy for her with or without Baldwin’s presence, but she’d grown accustomed to having him in her bed while she gazed at the ceiling, at the very least to warm her chilly feet. With both he and Sam gone, she was a bit lonely. But instead of wallowing in it, she grabbed a beer from the fridge, racked up a game of nine-ball and expertly shot the balls down one by one, until she finally began to weary around three. She slept a couple of fitful hours, then got up, showered and headed to Forensic Medical for Go-Go’s autopsy.