The Murder of Sara Barton (Atlanta Murder Squad Book 1) by Lance McMillian (top 20 books to read TXT) 📕

The classic film The French Connection contains a scene where Detective Popeye Doyle and his fellow police officers take apart an entire car in search of heroin only to put it back together again as part of a sting operation. Scott has always wanted to French Connection a suspect vehicle, but this case doesn’t justify it. If Sam hid the file in his car, Scott would’ve found the documents. Where on earth are they?

I text Liesa to ask her about the file. The dwindling options leave me no choice. The galling insensitivity is not lost on me. Yet I ask all the same.

Two hours or so later, the phone beeps its distinctive notification of an incoming text. I grab at the device and see Liesa’s name. The response reads:

“Don’t know anything about your damn file. At least you waited until after the funeral. Barely. If you’re looking for another place of ours to turn inside and out, there’s our cabin in Young Harris. 125 Bear Creek Drive. The code to the house is 0527. Sam warned me about you. He had no idea.”

I stare at the screen for a good two minutes. The shame is real. But the compulsion of the case propels me forward—an unruly bulldozer clearcutting every obstacle that darts into his path. The cabin strikes me as the longest of long shots, and part of me wonders if Liesa wants to send me on a wild goose chase just for spite. If so, I’m a willing victim.

Young Harris is two hours away. A sober-minded person would wait until morning before hitting the road. But that file has invaded my thoughts, and I’m on the hunt.

I make the cabin and enter the 0527 code. The significance dawns on me. Sam and Liesa got married on May 27. Amber and I attended the wedding—a radiant picture of us together at the reception remains a favorite. The memory of the beaming faces of the bride and groom punishes me. Shakespeare wrote, “What’s past is prologue.” The happy past of that Saturday in late May was the prologue to the bleak future of the present. Will the epilogue be as desolate? I remind myself that Shakespeare’s best works were tragedies.

28

The cabin is cold and uninviting, reflecting months of disuse. The idea to come up here sounded smart in Atlanta. Now the likely futility of the search seems foreordained. I don’t even know what I expect to discover—nothing usable as evidence for sure. Searching the place all alone destroys any hope of establishing a legitimate chain of custody. Probably should’ve thought of that before, I chide myself. But that’s not right. I know the score. I’m chasing something Sam didn’t want me to find. Nothing hidden up here is going to help my case.

I start in the kitchen because it’s right next to the front door. The high places are populated by dead bugs and little else. The adjacent living area comes next, but the effort is cursory. Sam wouldn’t hide anything in such a high-traffic space. The used board games in the cabinet paint a nice tableau of a loving family enjoying one another’s company. The story warms the heart until you learn that dad was sexing up his client on the side. But that’s the thing about fairy tales—they were always dark until Disney got ahold of them.

The master bedroom is the last room on the main level. Sam wouldn’t be brave enough to hide something sensitive in the same room as Liesa sleeps. No matter. Searching a house means being systematic in checking off one area at a time. Sifting through their clothes drawers strikes me as profoundly intimate and unseemly. I feel like a thief.

I go through the children’s rooms upstairs without much enthusiasm. A walk-in attic holds some promise, but the pickings are sparse. I give the insulation panels a good hard look for any sign of disturbance, but come up with nothing. The false note in the otherwise perfect harmony of the house eludes me. I curse myself for the whole foolish enterprise and contemplate the drive home.

Thoroughness compels me to check the back deck. The full moon provides a partial glimpse of what must be a beautiful view in the glory of full light. I glance to the right and see an outbuilding adjacent to the house. The decent-sized shed sets off the alarm bells in my head. Sometimes you just know. The answer I seek lies in there one way or another. If it’s not there, it ain’t anywhere. I just wasted an hour searching the cabin. The shed is the thing.

***

The shed door is locked. I remember a set of keys on a hook in the kitchen and retrace my steps. One key fits. I pray the shed has electricity. I flip the only switch I can find, and the white light from the long, overhead fluorescent tubes flickers before catching. The surroundings before me lack the order of the main dwelling. The cabin is Liesa. The shed is Sam. I sit down on a small stool in the middle of things and scan the mess for the secret spot. I study the high places and see an unreachable shelf above the window from which Sam’s workbench looks out upon the valley below. That’s an odd place to put a shelf. A box on the shelf advertises itself as being a carton of motor oil. I’m dubious.

I move the stool next to the workbench and use the former to climb upon the latter. The built-in bench is made of stern stuff and easily holds my weight. I stand on my toes and grab a box far too light to be full of motor oil. I come down the way I went, sit back again on the stool, and dive into the box to see if my unplanned trip to the mountains was all for naught.

The file