The Buzzard Table

CHAPTER

9


Vultures prefer to eat fairly fresh meat.

—The Turkey Vulture Society




Major Dwight Bryant—

Wednesday afternoon (continued)

Yes, we have found blood,” Dwight admitted to an angry Dave Jowett, “but until we have a sample of your wife’s DNA to test it against, we can’t know for sure that it’s her blood.”

“Who else’s would it be?” the man asked as his anger gave way to apprehension and the beginning of grief. “My God, she is dead, isn’t she?”

“It was a lot of blood,” the big deputy said quietly. “Be a real coincidence if it isn’t hers what with her missing and all, but coincidences do happen.”

He nodded to Mayleen Richards, who leafed through the file folder on the table and pulled out a form.

Dwight handed it to Jowett. “This gives us permission to search your house.”

“Search my house? Why? The blood was in that other house, not ours.”

“But there might be clues that will help us identify who she was meeting.”

When Jowett hesitated, Dwight leaned toward him and said, “Right now, we don’t have enough to get a formal search warrant, but if you make us wait until we do, you’re giving whoever’s responsible more time to cover their tracks.”

Dave Jowett reached into the breast pocket of his jacket and pulled out a pen. “Where do I sign?”

“Is there a computer at your house?”

“Yes, but Becca never uses it. She gets all her mail on her iPhone and uses her iPad for everything else.” He finished filling in the blanks, then signed and dated the form.

“One more thing, sir,” Richards said.

She was turning a faint pink and Dwight realized that she was about to say something embarrassing despite her experience here on the force.

Seeing the gleam of amusement in her boss’s eyes, Mayleen lifted her chin with determination. “When did you and your wife last have sex?”

Outraged, Jowett glared at her.

“It’s for purposes of elimination,” she said, stubbornly holding her ground and looking him squarely in the face.

“Along with the blood, we found semen stains on the couch,” Dwight told him.

Now it was Dave Jowett who looked embarrassed. “Not since New Year’s Eve.” Completely deflated now, he dropped his eyes and added, “I guess she’d drunk enough champagne to give me pity sex.”



While Dwight turned to other matters that required his attention, Richards gathered up a team that included Percy Denning and Detective Raeford McLamb, and they headed over to the Jowett home, where Dave Jowett let them in. He gave them his cell phone number and said, “I’m going over to her mother’s. Lock up when you’re finished.”

They put on latex gloves and spread out through the house, where they quickly identified Rebecca Jowett’s bedroom. From the toiletries they found, Mayleen realized that not only did Dave Jowett sleep in the guest bedroom, but he had also been relegated to the guest bathroom.

Mentally crossing her fingers, she immediately went to the laundry hamper in the master bath.

“Bingo!” she crowed to Denning, who was right beside her.

The hamper was three-fourths full, indicating that the missing woman was not someone whose clothes went into the washer downstairs the same day that she took them off. Underpants and bras were tangled in with shirts and ankle socks.

While an assistant recorded everything with a digital video camera, Denning carefully laid the clothes out on the bathroom floor as if documenting layers from an archaeological dig. Near the top of the hamper was a lace-trimmed bikini brief with stains that made Denning smile when he hooked them out with a gloved finger. “Looks like postcoital vaginal leakage to me,” he said and carefully transferred it to a separate evidence bag. The other undergarments were also bagged and labeled. At the very bottom were a similarly stained pair of underpants.

They checked the medicine cabinet and the bedside drawers, but except for birth control pills, the only drugs they found were over-the-counter items.

Her iPad was on the dining table next to her purse, and a quick check of her electronic calendar showed all of her appointments for the year. For Saturday, there were two midday appointments.

In addition to the Todds, Becca Jowett appeared to be actively involved with two other clients, and she had evidently planned to meet with one of them Sunday afternoon to show a house out in the country.

Farther down, in the 5:30 slot, was the notation “Reid S.” and an exclamation mark.

McLamb was examining the missing woman’s purse and wallet and Mayleen showed him the calendar. “What do you think, Ray? Reid Stephenson?”

“The attorney? Could be.” He grinned. “They say he lights up a lot of women’s lives.”

Richards copied off the names before sliding the device into another evidence bag.

“Too bad she took her phone with her,” he said and patted his own phone that was clipped to his belt. “We’re all walking around with almost everything worth knowing about us right here.”

As Dave Jowett had told them, the computer in their downstairs office appeared to be used solely by him. Apparently he was a trusting soul because nothing was password-protected, not even his email.

The few messages to or from his wife were the usual innocuous reminders about household matters, appointments, and social engagements. Considering the state of the Jowett marriage, they were surprised to see references to so many of those. Most seemed to be family-related. Both Jowetts were from the county and both sets of parents still lived nearby. There were events for various relatives—“Don’t forget your mom’s birthday on Wednesday,” read one recent message signed “B.”

Another was, “Jen wants to know if we can come over for bridge tomorrow night.”

There were also dinners with Dave Jowett’s business associates—“Please don’t forget that Dale’s wife is a Tea Party conservative, so no smug liberal comments, okay?” or “I’ve told the Krongards you had a four-bedroom house on your books and they sounded interested. You might want to have a few pictures on your iPhone when we meet them for drinks tonight.”

All were signed “xoxo, Dave.”

“Poor guy,” Richards said. “I guess old habits die hard.”

Her own phone rang, and Major Bryant’s name appeared on the screen.

“Is Denning still there?” her boss asked.

“Yessir.”

“Good. Sounds like we’ve found Rebecca Jowett’s body.”