Root of All Evil Read online

  Root of All Evil

  Libby Howard

  Copyright © 2018 by Libby Howard

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Also by Libby Howard

  Chapter 1

  “I’m not getting into the dumpster.” I fixed my boss, J.T. Pierson, with a stern look.

  “Uh, me either. So don’t even think about asking.” Daisy wrinkled her nose and took a sidestep away from the metal container.

  We were in the narrow street behind the parking deck where Luanne Trainor had breathed her last. The case had brought almost as much media attention to Milford as Holt Dupree’s death had to Locust Point, and my boss was determined to capitalize on the event by filming an episode on the murder for his YouTube channel. There’d already been a few snags in this production. Detective Keeler had not only refused to perform in the reenactment, he’d refused to be interviewed at all. That left me to be the star of the show.

  I’d repeatedly told J.T. I was done acting in his low-budget reality show. There were only so many hours in the day. At work, my focus was on our actual work, and once I was off the clock, I really didn’t want to be an amateur actress in J.T.’s obsessive hobby. He’d managed to talk me into this one in a moment of weakness, when I was excited over receiving my investigator’s license. So far, beyond the interview I’d only had to appear with Daisy and some extras J.T. had grabbed off the street for the meet-and-greet scene, and walk through the parking garage to gasp in shock over the spot where Luanne had lain. That hadn’t been easy because the shadowy figure of her ghost was still hanging around the spot where she’d died, recreating the event over and over again in a weird loop that only I could see. I’d managed to get through that section of J.T.’s video in one take, walking through the icy chill of Luanne’s spirit to head to the sunny, narrow road behind the parking garage and businesses along the main street.

  That had been bad enough. I was drawing the line at the dumpster.

  J.T. turned to Daisy, giving her that helpless puppy-dog look that must have been successful in the past. They’d been dating. Well, they’d been sort of dating. Daisy had confessed to me that date number one had been awkward and without any sort of lightning-bolt attraction on her part. J.T. was enough of a detective to notice this and had dialed back his wooing. He was attentive, flattering, and came up with fun, interesting date ideas, but was clearly keeping his hands to himself. It was working. She’d never admit it, but Daisy was relaxing in his company and enjoying how the not-quite-a-romance was proceeding on her own terms.

  But the soft spot she was forming for my boss still had its limits.

  “I’m not getting in that dumpster, Gator Pierson.” She folded her arms across her chest. “Not happening.”

  J.T. sighed and pulled a wad of bills out of his pocket, turning to one of the two college kids he’d recruited to be his camera crew. He was pretty cheap, and I was sure he was paying them in “career-enhancing credit on the film,” so I was surprised when he stripped a ten off the stack of cash and held it out to one of the kids.

  “Ten bucks if you put the brown wig on and get into the dumpster.”

  The kid eyed the ten, then the wad of cash. “Twenty.”

  J.T. thought about that for a second. “Okay, twenty.”

  The kid put down the broom-handle boom mic and snatched a brown wig out of a box of props that J.T. had bought at a going-out-of-business costume shop. With an agile leap, he was up and over the edge of the dumpster.

  “Ugh. It stinks in here.”

  Didn’t I know it.

  “Gator” ignored him. “Okay, Daisy, you creep forward, snatch the tablet out of his hands, then close the lid on him.”

  “Hey! I didn’t agree to be closed in here—”

  “You.” J.T. turned to the camera guy. “Film it so all you can see is his hands and his wig hair. We’ll just slap ‘reenactment’ on it and maybe do a blurry filter and hope no one notices.”

  It was a YouTube video. No one would notice. And if they did, they wouldn’t care. Gator Pierson had gotten quite a following on his channel. His initial ten viewers had jumped to nearly two thousand over the summer, most of them probably locals. Even so, the modest success had meant J.T. spent almost as much time on his videos as he did on actual investigating. Good thing I had my license now, because someone was going to need to do the work around the office.

  Bitter? A little bit. Everyone had a hobby, but why did my boss’s have to involve me reliving near-death experiences?

  “Annnnnd, action!”

  We stood still, because the boom mic that J.T. was now holding had a habit of picking up ambient sounds. Daisy crept forward and snatched the tablet from the fake-Kay’s hands, slamming the lid on the poor kid’s head.

  “Ow.”

  The expletive was followed up by a few choice curse words. J.T. sighed, clapping a hand across his forehead. “Cut. I guess we can edit that out, or just have the reenactment clip silent with a voiceover commentary.” He looked over at us, then handed the boom mic to the cameraman, going over to place the garbage bags on top of the dumpster.

  “It’s really hot in here. And it smells horrible.”

  “Almost done,” J.T. replied, motioning to the waitress who was leaning against the building, waiting for her scene. It was a good thing J.T. knew the owner; otherwise I’m sure the taco joint would have refused to loan him a staff member for his video. J.T. scurried over to the cameraman and took the boom mic from him.

  “Annnnnd, action!”

  The waitress sashayed down the stairs like a runway model, posed in an exaggerated hands-on-hips pout as she regarded the dumpster, then began to carefully remove the bags. When the sound guy popped the lid open, she jumped back with a fake scream, hands across her chest.

  “Cut.” J.T. looked at his watch. “We’ll do the rest in the office tomorrow. Daisy, are you still on board to do the perp-walk scene?”

  Daisy sniffed. “Are you still buying me wine and steak at Etienne’s this weekend?”

  My boss gave my best friend the sappiest glance I’d ever seen. “Absolutely. Whether or not you do the perp-walk scene.”

  That was totally the right thing to say.

  Daisy turned to the side to hide a smile. “Yeah, I’ll do the perp walk. And yeah, I’m totally going with you to Etienne’s this weekend.”

  Oh my. My friend was falling for J.T.’s charm. I had no idea my boss even had charm, but clearly he was making an effort with Daisy that no one else had seemed to be worthy of.

  J.T. grinned at Daisy, then glanced down at his watch again. “You pack up the props and bring them by tomorrow at two.” He waved at the two young guys—one holding the camera and the other climbing out of the dumpster—before turning to me.

  “Can you run by the courthouse and pick up a packet from the Records Division for me? I
need to get back and meet with a client.”

  A client! I crossed my fingers and hoped it was something interesting, although Locust Point was a small town. Outside of the odd rash of murders we’d had lately, the most common crime was jaywalking or an occasional DWI. With my luck, this would be a missing dog investigation or a someone violating their HOA.

  Without waiting for my response, J.T. turned to Daisy, that sappy smile back on his face. “Are you free tonight?”

  And just like that, the doors slammed on my friend’s expression. “I…I have plans. But I’ll see you this weekend. For Etienne’s.”

  “It’s the sneak-peek opening of Kitty Harlem’s Kat Kafe. Five cats from the shelter will be there for yoga-with-cats.”

  I blinked in surprise, eyeing my boss and wondering if he seriously did yoga. He didn’t look like he did yoga, but I didn’t want to indulge in stereotyping. Either way, Daisy looked just as shocked as I did, then bit back a smile.

  “Yoga? With…cats?”

  J.T. shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets and attempting a casual posture. “It’s a new thing. I think it’s supposed to relax you or be more Zen or something. And the cats are all up for adoption. I know the owner, and she’s big into cat rescue, population control for feral cat colonies and all that.”

  Now I was interested. I’d never had a cat in my life before Taco, but the little guy had turned me into a huge fan of the species. I wondered if I could tag along on this date.

  “Oh.” Daisy was melting before my very eyes. “I didn’t know you liked yoga. Or cats.”

  J.T. gave her one of those sheepish little-boy looks that always worked for men no matter their age. “I’ve never done yoga in my life. Or had a cat.”

  I felt like I was watching the early part of a Hallmark movie.

  “I… I can reschedule that thing I had to do tonight. Are you going to actually do yoga? With the cats?”

  “I don’t think the cats actually do yoga,” J.T. said. “I think they just wander around and purr and stuff. But yes, I’ll do the yoga.”

  I didn’t know who tutored J.T. in the art of romance, but he or she deserved a medal. For a guy who’d never been married, he sure knew the way to a woman’s heart—and it wasn’t just steak and wine at Etienne’s. He was willing to risk looking like an utter fool to do something Daisy liked. He’d gone out of his way to find an activity she was sure to love, even though it meant he was going to have to put on sweat pants and try to contort his body on a mat for half an hour. With cats.

  Daisy’s face bloomed with her smile. “Well then, I will definitely go. What time?”

  “I’ll pick you up at seven?” He looked at his watch again and shot her an apologetic grimace. “I gotta run.”

  “Go.” She waved him on. “I’ll see you at seven.”

  I watched J.T. jog for his car and watched the two guys hauling their gear and the box of props off to an ancient, rusted Corolla. Then I turned to Daisy.

  “So….?”

  She blushed. “Okay. He’s fun. He’s so nice. I feel safe with him, like he’s rock solid, like he’s the kind of man who would put me first. I like that. It’s a novel experience for me.”

  We slowly made our way to our own vehicles, down the little set of stairs into the parking garage, and past the spot where Luanne Trainor had died. She was still there, a blur of smoke and shadow, slowly making her way to the exit, hovering near the steps, then collapsing into a heap. As we walked past the tableau, I shuddered with the cold, turning to see the shadowy figure vanish to appear about ten feet away from the exit. Poor thing. I wondered if this really was her ghost, or just some weird echo imprint of the violence of her death. That her spirit was still here going through the motions nearly a month after she’d died worried me. Eli’s ghost was still in my house, and I assumed Holt’s was down haunting Atlanta and the football team. Mr. Peter still occasionally lurked across the street. I’d always assumed that ghosts vanished once I’d sent their murderers to jail, but it seems some of them had other agendas and priorities.

  Which meant I couldn’t do anything else for Luanne Trainor except avoid this parking garage in the future and hope that eventually she drifted off to the light.

  “Yoga with cats, though,” Daisy continued, absolutely unaware of the ghostly scene playing out behind us. “That’s pretty impressive. I can’t believe J.T. came up with that. Yoga. And cats.”

  “He’s growing on you?” I asked with a grin.

  She winced. “You make him sound like a tumor, or a big mole. But yes, he’s growing on me. I’ve known him since I was a kid, but we never really ran in the same circles, so I didn’t really know him. In high school, I was punk, and he was…I don’t know. He was just some generic guy. I knew he was there, but he wasn’t hot or cool or anything.”

  “And you never ran into him after high school?” I prodded.

  She shrugged. “On occasion. J.T. never hit my radar as a guy I’d ever date. I was kind of shocked when he asked me out.”

  “I get the impression he’s liked you for a while,” I told her, unlocking my car.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. He’s never expressed anything before this summer.”

  I wondered if me working with J.T. had brought Daisy to his notice. Sometimes an old crush could be revived when someone circled back into your life with enough proximity to make a relationship a possibility.

  “So how much of a punk were you in high school?” I asked.

  Daisy pulled out her phone and scrolled, turning it to me when she got to the picture.

  Wow. In the photo, my friend was a statuesque, leggy, platinum blonde with an edgy hairdo and bold makeup and attire. She had a t-shirt slashed to where it was a miracle it had remained on her body. She was toothpick thin, with acne and raccoon-thick eyeliner. Her hair was shaved on the sides and up in a stiff Mohawk. Each ear was pierced five times from what I could see, which wasn’t the norm in the late 70s from what I remembered, although I’d been the nerdy yearbook committee girl, not an edgy punk one.

  “Those piercings closed up before I graduated.” She laughed. “My friend did them with a needle and some ice cubes, and they never healed right. They were always infected, and it was impossible to get a good night’s sleep on those things. I can’t tell you how much agony it was to have someone try to ram a sewing needle through your ear cartilage, ice numb or not.”

  I winced. “Can I confess that I wore clip-on earrings until college? Even then, I didn’t tell my mom I’d gotten them pierced until years later.”

  She put the phone back in her pocket. “My dad was never around, and Mom was so tanked on vodka and valium that she didn’t know whether I was home or not half the time. But yeah, J.T. and I weren’t exactly compatible back then. I’m not sure we’re compatible now.”

  “Do you enjoy being with him?”

  Her expression softened. “Yes. I do.”

  “Then stop worrying about it. Worst case, you’ve found a friend—although I’ll admit I’m a bit jealous about the yoga-with-cats thing. Best case, you develop feelings for him and take it to the next level.”

  She sighed. “He wants it to go there. I don’t know if it ever will on my part. I feel like I’m taking advantage of him. Mooching. I mean, Etienne’s isn’t cheap. And he’s actually going to do yoga for Pete’s sake. I don’t want to lead him on.”

  I fixed her with a stern look. “Daisy, J.T. is a grown man. He is fully capable of walking away from this. You’ve made your hesitancy clear. Whether he accepts that and continues to see you is his choice, not yours. Respect that he can make that decision for himself.”

  It was as if a weight fell from her shoulders. She turned to me with a smile. “You’re right. I do enjoy his company, and I’ve got to say this yoga-with-cats thing really raises the man up a few notches in my affections.”

  I climbed into my car. “Just relax and stop worrying about Gator Pierson. If he can face down some dude threatening to fill him full of bird shot fo
r repo’ing his F-250, then he can be patient with whatever may or may not be happening between you two.”

  Daisy gave me the thumbs-up, then practically skipped to her own car as I pulled away. And yes, I was still jealous about the yoga and cats.

  Chapter 2

  I swung by the courthouse on my way back to the office, leaving everything in my car except for my ID so I didn’t get held up at the metal detectors or have to deal with leaving my phone at the security booth. The Records Division didn’t have the copies ready for J.T. yet, so I climbed the stairs to the second floor and wandered around the halls outside the courtrooms, looking at the posted dockets to see who had what cases going on today.

  There was a whole lot going on in traffic court, and a dozen or so people milling about the hallway. A few of them were in hushed conversation with suited lawyers, while others stared numbly at the clock, waiting for their moment in court. I poked my head in for a few moments, quietly edging into a rear row. After three speeding cases where the defendants tried to claim they were running late to church as an excuse, I got bored and left. I was pretty sure the judge wished he could leave as well from the weary expression on the man’s face.

  I made my way past two other courtrooms, only to see that Judge Beck was in the last one, handling criminal cases. I eyed the docket, realizing that the poor guy had a full day’s work still ahead of him, and turned to leave. Hmm. Another ten minutes until my copies would be ready, and I really wasn’t thrilled about just walking the halls or sitting through more traffic court.

  Opening the door, I snuck in, slipping into one of the back booths and giving an apologetic glance to the three women who scooted over for me. The judge didn’t even look up, but I was sure he was used to lawyers and others coming and going during the trials and didn’t let it distract him. A few seconds in, and it became evident that this defendant was on trial for theft—workplace theft, to be exact. It seemed the woman facing the court with a defeated slump of her shoulders was accused of making off with over sixteen thousand dollars in automotive parts from the local Toyota dealer that had been her employer up until the last month. I’d been envisioning the woman driving off with a couple of engines in the back of her truck, but as the prosecutor laid out the evidence, it became clear that the thief was far more subtle and sneaky then I’d imagined.