The Buzzard Table

CHAPTER

7


Turkey vultures do not have a voice box and thus have limited vocalization capabilities.

—The Turkey Vulture Society




Major Dwight Bryant—

Wednesday morning, February 9

The skies had finally cleared and bright winter sunlight flooded through the tall windows of the family room, making the bloodstain on the end of the floral patterned couch look like a misplaced bunch of darker roses that had trailed down onto the sand-colored carpet. Dwight Bryant stood in the archway with the owner of Coyne Realty and watched while Percy Denning, who headed the department’s crime scene team, finished going over the area inch by inch. They could hear voices echoing through the empty rooms as other officers dusted for fingerprints on doorknobs and handles.

“I know you went over everything with the officers last night,” Dwight said, “but I’d appreciate it if you would take us through it again this morning.”

“It’s Becca Jowett’s blood, isn’t it?” Ms. Coyne asked. She had stressed the Miz in a businesslike tone when they met, then smiled. “Or you can just call me Paula.”

Late fifties, with a tipped-up Irish nose and a body kept taut by daily horseback rides, the real estate agent normally had an easy laugh. She was not laughing now.

“It’s too soon to tell,” Dwight said. “All we can say for sure is that it’s human.”

“O-positive?”

“Is that her blood type?”

Paula Coyne nodded. “We give to the Red Cross every two months. I’m A-positive and she’s O. It is Becca’s blood, isn’t it?”

“Now, Ms. Coyne—”

“And she’s still missing. As soon as I saw that stain, I was afraid we were going to find her stuffed in one of the closets.”

“How long has Mrs. Jowett worked for you?”

“Six years. She was my last hire before the market topped out, but she busted her britches to help some of our low-end clients find affordable homes when the others on my staff were coasting with the free spenders, so she’s the one I kept on even though things have slowed so much now that I could pretty much handle the sales by myself. We only represent buyers, not sellers, but it’s been a pretty lean time for the whole industry.”

Holding her thumb and index fingers almost touching, Ms. Coyne said, “Becca was that close to selling this house. It’s been on the market for almost a year, waiting for the bank to set a realistic price. As soon as it dropped into their price range in January, she called the Todds. They signed the due diligence agreement the very next day and put down earnest money. Everything’s been done—the repairs and the inspections—and they were due to close tomorrow.

“When we didn’t hear from Becca, I stepped in to cover—did a walk-through in the morning to familiarize myself with the property and made sure that everything was in order for the closing. The Todds called back last night, though, and wanted to take one more look upstairs even though they were legally committed. Now?” She sighed. “Mrs. Todd doesn’t want to have anything to do with this house even if it means losing their earnest money, and I can’t really fault them, even though this is their dream house. Closer to her parents, a better school for their children.”

A sturdy young woman in dark slacks, white shirt, low heels, and a windbreaker with CCSD for Colleton County Sheriff’s Department stenciled on the front and back came through from the rear of the house and Dwight motioned for her to join them. Deputy Mayleen Richards had been one of the responders last night and she nodded to the agent, who gave the cinnamon-haired detective a wan smile of recognition.

“Ms. Coyne’s telling me about last night,” Dwight said.

The older woman shook her head. “There’s really nothing more to tell. I got here just as the Todds were pulling into the driveway, about ten-thirty.”

“A little late to be showing a place, wasn’t it?”

“And it was pouring rain, but this is a step up for them and they were understandably a little nervous about taking on that much debt. Certainly she was. Two of the bedrooms upstairs have sloping dormer ceilings and she wanted to measure the height, see if their daughter’s canopy bed would fit. We had started up the stairs when her husband said something about getting the bank to throw in the couch, and that’s how we found the bloodstain.”

Dwight raised a dubious eyebrow. “He wanted the couch?”

Ms. Coyne smiled. “Looks a little girly with those roses, doesn’t it? But it’s well built and Mr. Todd liked the length. He’s tall as you are.”

“So the first time you saw the blood was when she came in and moved the afghan?”

She frowned. “Actually, I believe he was the one who pulled it off because it was a different shade of red from the roses.”

Dwight looked at Richards for confirmation. The deputy shook her head. “All I know is that Mrs. Todd said that they were taking a closer look to see if the couch would match their other furniture when they saw the blood.”

“You didn’t notice it when you were here earlier in the day?”

“No.” Ms. Coyne pulled a crumpled pack of cigarettes from her coat pocket and held the pack briefly to her nose. “You ever smoke, Major Bryant?”

Dwight shook his head. “The surgeon general didn’t have to tell me about tobacco tar. I stayed covered in that sticky black stuff every summer.”

“Unfortunately, there were no tobacco farms in Pittsburgh where I grew up,” she said and ruefully crammed the cigarettes back into her pocket. “As I said, I did a walk-through yesterday morning after Mr. Todd called me Monday afternoon. They hadn’t heard from Becca since their last time here Saturday morning. She’s usually off on Mondays and her grandmother hasn’t been well lately, so I thought maybe she’d run down to New Bern to check on her. But then her husband called to ask if I’d seen her. I guess that’s when he reported her missing?”

Dwight nodded. “So yesterday morning was your first time in this house?”

“That’s right. The Todds were Becca’s clients, so normally I wouldn’t have anything to do with the sale.”

Dwight glanced through the notes he’d made on his pad. “Last night, Mrs. Todd told Detective Richards here that Mrs. Jowett first showed them the house in mid-January and they put in an offer on the twenty-fourth. She said they were here several times since then and that the afghan was slung over the white chair each time. The last time was around noon on Saturday. Where was it when you did your walk-through on Monday?”

Ms. Coyne’s forehead creased in thought and a faraway look shadowed her eyes as she concentrated. “I’m almost certain it was draped over the end of the couch and trailed onto the floor very casually. I thought it was a nice touch.”

“You told the officers that the door was locked and we’ve found no signs of a forced entry. Who else would have keys?”

She gestured toward the front door. “There’s usually a key box hanging on the front doorknob, and you can get the letter combination to open it from the listing agent. Cubby Lee Honeycutt has an exclusive on this property and his locks are usually set to CLH. But once the Todds started the due diligence process, no other agent would show the house.”

“So far as you know?”

“True. And any agent who knows Cubby Lee would also know the combination. We’re supposed to ask him before we take someone through, but he’s pretty loosey-goosey about it. He’d rather we show his properties to someone on the spur of the moment than risk losing a sale.”

“Do you know if Becca showed the house to anyone else?”

“I’d have to check her records, but I’m pretty sure that she didn’t. And certainly not since the Todds put in their offer.”

“What about the Todds? Was your agency the only one representing them?”

“We’d better be. They’ve signed an agreement to that effect. We put in too much time and effort to have clients jumping from one agency to another. Becca’s been working with the Todds for almost two months now. This was one of the first houses they looked at, because it met most of the features on their wish list and she was pretty sure the bank would eventually drop the price again. She helped them find financing and she even lined up the inspector after the bank did the repairs. Mr. Todd already did a termite check himself last Tuesday.”

“The Todds own a pest control business,” Richards murmured.

“Did Mrs. Jowett have any problems with the Todds?” Dwight asked.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“What about her personal life? Any problems there?”

Ms. Coyne shook her head. “I never get into an employee’s private life and Becca isn’t one to share intimate details anyhow. I’ve only met her husband twice in passing.”

She hesitated.

“Something?” Dwight prompted.

“It may be my imagination, but in the last few weeks, she’s dropped a few disparaging remarks about him, almost as if she’s quit considering him whenever she decides to work weekends or evening.”



“Well, I certainly don’t mean to be the one to gossip,” Ms. Coyne’s secretary told Mayleen Richards an hour later, “but I’m pretty sure they have separate bedrooms. Last week I was complaining about how my husband’s snoring was keeping me awake at night and she said I ought to do like she did and move him into the guest room.”

“Any new man in her life?” Richards asked.

The secretary shook her head. “Not that I’ve heard, but she really doesn’t talk about her private life much at all. Not to me anyhow.”



Following up on the bit of gossip Judge Knott had passed on to Major Bryant, Richards’s next stop was at the Cut ’n’ Curl, which was where she got her own hair done. She was directed to Charlaine Schulz, the woman who did Rebecca Jowett’s hair and who had the station next to Mayleen’s own beautician.

“She was in here just this past Wednesday to get her split ends trimmed and have her roots touched up,” Charlaine told her. “Not that she has any gray—she’s only thirty-four—but her natural color’s a mousy brown, so the roots need regular work.”

In the picture Dave Jowett had given them when he reported her missing on Monday, Becca Jowett had brown eyes and long dark brown hair that fell in loose swirls around an attractive oval face.

“When I washed her hair, I saw she had a fresh hickey right about here.” Charlaine had beautiful skin that seemed to glow from within as she touched a spot on her smooth neck halfway between her left ear and her collarbone. “She wasn’t happy about it either when I started to tease her. I said, ‘I guess he likes to mark his territory, huh?’ and she made a face and said, ‘First and last time. From now on, this territory’s off-limits to him.’”

“Was she talking about her husband?”

“What do you think, honey?”

“Do you know who the man was?”

Charlaine shook her head. “She never names names.”

“But she does talk about men she’s been with?”

“Not in so many words. Just enough to let me know she’s been cheating on poor Dave for two or three years now.”

“You know him?”

“Oh sure. We were in school together.”

“Does he know about her cheating?”

“Not from me he doesn’t. I did ask her last year if she was going to leave him and she just laughed and said she couldn’t afford to as long as the real estate market was so bad.” The hairdresser paused. “You know, though, she did say that it looked like things might have bottomed out and be ready to take an upswing, so it wouldn’t have surprised me if they’d split up in the next few months. What do you think, Mayleen? You reckon she’s still alive?”



They were finished with the house by noon. The only additional bit of information gained was from scuff marks and light scratches where something heavy had been pulled across the newly refinished wood floor of the living room from the couch to the front door.

“Probably the body wrapped in a tarp or something,” Denning said.

From there to the driveway, a driveway screened by two large fir trees and several tall azalea bushes, was only a few steps.

A second canvass of the neighborhood added nothing to their knowledge of what had happened there Saturday night, which was the last time anyone could definitely say they had seen Rebecca Jowett. That particular someone lived directly across the street and had a clear view when the light went on over the Jowetts’ front door around seven that evening. He had seen Becca Jowett come out, zip up her jacket, and adjust her earmuffs against the chill winter air, then watched as she used the porch railing to do a few leg stretches before she sprinted down the street and out of sight.

“Sounds like he takes a right neighborly interest in her,” Sheriff Bo Poole told Dwight when they met for lunch. He waved aside the menu the waitress offered and said, “Just bring me a bowl of chili and a glass of sweet tea, please.”

“Same here,” Dwight said. “Only make mine coffee instead of tea.”

He drained the glass of ice water in front of him before telling his boss, “Yeah, McLamb said he admitted man-to-man that she turned him on.”

“But?”

“It’s Colonel Gessner, Bo.”

“Oh,” said the sheriff, and there-but-for-the-grace-of-God was in that one syllable. Three days before that Marine officer was due to rotate home from Afghanistan, he had caught a sniper bullet in his lower spine.

“What about the blood on that couch? You gonna ask for a DNA test?”

Dwight shook his head. “Waste of money right now, wouldn’t you say? It’s the same blood type as the missing woman. Denning says that it’s so deep into the couch padding that she probably bled out right there and the cotton sucked it up like a sponge. He doesn’t think anyone could have lost that much blood and still be alive.”

Their chili arrived and both men crumbled packets of crackers into the steaming bowls before digging in.

“Denning found semen stains on the couch, too,” Dwight said, “but no point in asking for the test till we find a body or can link someone to the scene. For what it’s worth, he thinks one stain is somewhat older than the other and that the fresher one’s no more than a week old. The components haven’t broken down much. I’ve got McLamb chasing down the origin of the couch. Cubby Lee borrows things from a store out on the bypass whenever he needs to stage a house.”

“Stage a house? What’s that mean?”

Dwight laughed. “Make it look like someone lives there. It’s good advertising for the store, and if the buyers want to keep some of the furniture, the store will give ’em a good price. The people who were going to buy the house wanted that couch till they saw all the blood.”

The waitress refilled Bo’s glass of iced tea and he thanked her with old-fashioned courtesy while Dwight continued to bring him up to speed on the investigation. As they scraped the last of the chili from their bowls, he said, “You talked to the husband yet?”

Dwight checked the clock above the sandwich shop’s main counter. “I better get moving. He’s due over at the office any minute now.”



“Do I need an attorney?” Dave Jowett asked when Dwight inquired if he objected to having their interview recorded.

“I don’t know,” Dwight said mildly. “Do you?”

“I’m not stupid,” Jowett said. “I know that when someone goes missing, the spouse is always the first suspect. So maybe I do need a lawyer.” He paused and gave a wry grin. “Except that the lawyer I know best is Rob.”

Dwight smiled back. “I think my brother only handles civil matters. Look, Mr. Jowett—”

“Dave,” he said.

He sat at the interview table across from Dwight and Mayleen Richards while another deputy fiddled with the video camera. Bo had hoped to squeeze enough money out of the county commissioners to set up a more modern system, but they had frozen his budget for the fourth year in a row and recording equipment ranked far below replacing worn-out patrol cars.

Like Rob, Dave Jowett was two years younger than Dwight. Back in high school, a two-year age difference meant that they had run in different crowds. Jowett had developed early male-pattern baldness and did not try to hide it with a toupee or elaborate comb-overs. What you saw was what you got, Dwight decided: an average-looking man comfortable with advancing middle age, but still in good shape.

“Look, Dave,” Dwight said. “We’re not looking to jam you up here and you’re certainly not under arrest. We only want to have a record of your weekend. If there’s a question you don’t want to answer, just say so. You’re free to stop talking at any point and to ask for an attorney. Okay?”

“Fair enough,” said Jowett and leaned forward with his hands clasped on the table in front of him. “Fire away.”

“When did you last see your wife?”

“Around three o’clock Friday afternoon. Some friends and I flew down to Shreveport for the weekend and Becca came out to say hey to the guy that picked me up, but it was starting to rain, so she saw us off from the porch.”

He gave them their names and phone numbers, which Richards wrote down for later confirmation, along with their takeoff time in a private plane from the county’s small airport.

“Was that the last time you spoke to her?”

He nodded. “I tried to call her Sunday afternoon to say I’d be home after dark, but it rang three times, then went straight to her voice mail.”

“Was this usual?”

Dave Jowett nodded. “She keeps her phone on vibrate if she’s with a client or in a meeting.” He took a deep breath, then added, “And let’s face it. Sometimes she just wouldn’t answer if it was someone she didn’t want to bother with.”

“Like you?”

He shrugged. “Your wife pick up every time you call?”

“Nope,” Dwight said.

Mayleen Richards suppressed a grin. She knew how it drove her boss nuts that the judge insisted that her phone was for her convenience and not anyone else’s and that it stayed in her purse switched off more often than in her pocket switched on.

“So when exactly did you miss her?”

“Not until Monday morning.” He explained that he and five other friends had formed a tight bond in college when they discovered they all had February birthdays. They continued to get together every year for a rotating birthday bash. “Even though we live at opposite ends of the country, three of them have their own planes and one of them will swing by for Brendan and me. Last year, it was Denver, this year, Shreveport. Brendan drove us out to Colleton International on Friday,” he said, using the tag that local wits had hung on the small airstrip, “and he dropped me off around six-thirty Sunday night.”

“Brendan?”

“Brendan Rehon.” He spelled the name for Richards and gave her a Raleigh address.

“He come inside?” Dwight asked.

Jowett shook his head. “We were both pretty beat.”

“Any sign of your wife?”

“The lights were on, like she’d just stepped out. I tried her phone a couple of times while I fixed myself a sandwich, and then I just fell into bed. Didn’t turn over till the alarm went off at six. When I went downstairs, I saw that the lights were still on and her bed hadn’t been slept in.”

He hesitated, looked embarrassed, then said, “No big secret that we have separate bedrooms. She says it’s my snoring, but…I don’t know. I guess it’s just a matter of time till we call it quits.”

“Is there someone else?”

“Not for me. For her?” Jowett gave a palms-up gesture. “They say the husband’s always the last to know. I tried her cell phone again, then called her mother, a couple of her friends, her office. I even spoke to the neighbors, but no one’s seen her since Saturday, so that’s when I called you people. Her purse is still on the dining table. Her cosmetic bag’s still in the bathroom. All the suitcases are in our storage closet. I don’t know if any clothes are missing, but her running shoes are gone and Shep Gessner—he’s our neighbor across the street—Shep says he saw her go running Saturday night. How could she just disappear off the streets of Dobbs, Dwight? Where is she? Her mother’s going crazy and her sister—”

Before Dwight could answer, Jowett’s phone rang. He looked at the screen. “Her sister,” he said, and immediately held the phone to his ear. “Yeah, Jen? Any word?…Huh? Where?”

A minute later, he clicked off and glared at the two officers. “Someone told her sister that y’all found blood in a house Becca was showing. When were you going to tell me that my wife’s been killed?”