“But good ole Win spent his three years at the Club Fed, came back all changed. Righteous, full of remorse for all those years he’d ignored his only child. Decided if I was going to be a cop, damn it, I was going to be chief of police. Starts calling around, trying to find ways to get me into plainclothes. Can you imagine? A convicted felon trying to call in favors? I could have died.”
Baldwin almost laughed. The thought of Taylor Jackson needing Daddy’s help to make it on the force struck him as patently absurd. “I assume you got wind of it and shut him down?”
“With a vengeance. Had to make sure everyone I had ever come in contact with knew it, too. I was getting shit from every corner. I was very nearly forced to quit, had to stay in uniform an extra year too, which really pissed me off. The worst thing about it—I was getting promoted. I’d passed the Sergeant’s exam right when he decided to help my career along. He set me back instead. So we don’t have a lot of father/daughter time, if you know what I mean.”
“Why do you think he called now?”
“God only knows. Probably heard the Director of the FBI was leaving and wanted to let me know he’s trying to get my name in the hat.”
Baldwin’s face darkened, and Taylor knew she had tripped right into his own nightmares. She decided she needed to change the subject, get back on safe ground.
“Anyway, I wanted to go to UT. Sam went there to be with Simon, so I went there, too. Familiarity, you know? Only I’m not half as smart as Sam. She went on to med school and I came back here and joined the force. That’s it.”
“Are Sam and Simon still together?”
“Yeah. They have been taking it very slowly. Every time I think they’re going to take the next step, something always comes up. Sam’s become the master of relationship procrastination. I think settling down scares the crap out of her. He gets so upset with her. He wants kids yesterday, and she’s scared to commit so fully. They love each other, so they’ll work it out. Eventually.”
They were silent for a moment, each reveling in their new information on the other.
“So what happened with your shooting?” Baldwin asked.
Taylor was caught off guard. She stared at him blankly, visions of bullets and blood dancing through her brain. She immediately went on the defensive. “Why do you want to hear about it? Has Price said something to you?”
Baldwin shook his head. “No, no. Sorry, it’s none of my business. I’ve just been wondered what happened, that’s all. I haven’t heard the story, and I’d rather get it from your mouth than the rumor mill.”
Taylor was bristling like a cornered cat. “There’s no story to hear. We had a cop who was dirty. I found out. He tried to kill me. I shot him. That’s it.” She stopped herself before she told him everything. I killed a man who at one time I thought was my friend. And more.
Taylor’s cell phone chirped. She answered it with relief.
“Jackson. Yeah? Okay, we’ll be there in a minute.” She clicked off. No more intrusions into her private world. All business, that was the way she needed to keep things with John Baldwin. He could be more dangerous than a loaded pistol pointed at her forehead. She felt a pang of sadness; she had enjoyed their breakfast, minus her little panic attack. She stood and gestured for him to follow.
“That was Price. Jill’s parents brought in her dental records. Time to go to work.”
Forty-Six
The squad room resembled a horror flick, with zombies dominating the room and halls. It had been a long couple of days for everyone.
Jill Gates’s parents had arrived from Huntsville. They called and talked with Taylor from their downtown hotel, which had luckily made it through the storm unscathed. She told them they had found a body. Jill’s father made the short trip to Huntsville and retrieved Jill’s dental records and had driven the radiographs back to Nashville. He and his wife had taken Taylor’s advice to stay put in their hotel until some sort of identification had been made. They’d agreed and seemed rather calm for the circumstances. Jill’s mother was absolutely convinced that the body they had found at the church was not her daughter. She claimed she would know in her heart if her Jilly had died, and she just didn’t think it was her child dead in the morgue.
Taylor didn’t try to dissuade her. Let Sam do a positive ID, then they could deal with the fallout.
Lincoln had been on the computers all night, searching through ViCAP and the regional missing person databases while Taylor and Baldwin oversaw the investigation at the church. He greeted them with sleep in his eyes, his suit rumpled and hair flattened on one side from where he had rested his head in his hand for the better part of the night.
“You find anything?” he asked.
“Nothing yet. There are missing person’s fliers all over town for Jill. Someone mounted a pretty big campaign. How about you?”