Page 28 of The Secrets We Hide
Emmy clenched her teeth so tightly that her jaw muscle spasmed.
Coach Bell picked up on her anxiety. “Oh, no, honey. I’m so sorry. I would’ve told you before if I thought it was important.”
“How many times did you see Woody over there?”
“Only once,” she said. “Two days ago, which was Thursday, I was checking my mailbox and I saw him with Mandy at the front door. They were standing very close. She looked uncomfortable, but I assumed that was because she knew I’d tell her mother.”
“You’re sure it was Woody?”
“Absolutely. He stared me right in the face. It was chilling.” She leaned her elbow on the windowsill. “I had that nasty piece of work in my health class one year. He was very polite, always did what he was supposed to do, but there was something about him that reminded me of a snake. His eyes were so cold, always studying you like you were a bug he wanted to squash. I went to school with his grandfather. Your sister could tell you some stories. Leroy Rawley was the exact same way.”
Emmy didn’t need more horror stories about Leroy “Bubba” Rawley. She’d grown up hearing them at the family dinner table. “You told Allison that you saw Woody with Mandy?”
“Immediately.” Coach Bell stared across the street as if she could still see Woody and Mandy there. “I assumed he was selling her drugs. He might be a Woodrow, but he’s a Rawley through and through. That’s the family business. Selling poison to children.”
They did more than that. “Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”
Emmy helped her close the window. She thought about thecash in Allison’s attic as she walked down the driveway. Every woman she knew kept an emergency stash, but they accumulated it in tens and twenties over time, not bricks of hundreds, and they usually couldn’t afford to sit on more than a few hundred at a time.
She could think of only two scenarios where Allison might be able to build that kind of nest egg. One had been shot down by Sherry earlier—skimming from Bill’s accounts. The other reached back into Allison’s time as lead detective on the narcotics squad of the Clayville Police Department—being paid off by the Rawley family to look the other way.
There wasn’t a cop below the Mason–Dixon Line who didn’t know the Rawleys. For generations, they had been an integral link in the drug supply chain from Florida up into New England. Back in the sixties and seventies, Leroy Rawley had controlled half the state for the Dixie Mafia. Leroy Jr. had started running heroin in the seventies before overdosing on his own supply. Leroy the third, who reportedly went by Bubba, had trafficked crack in the eighties, then followed the trend into meth, then Oxy, and was currently a key supplier of fentanyl in the region.
Bubba’s younger sister, Tanya, had done her best to stay away from the family business. His wife had died in childbirth. Their daughter Violet had ended up marrying a man who’d beaten her to death. That man, Avery Woodrow, had been dealt with by the Rawleys, never to be seen or heard from again. The son, an eight-year-old named Wesley, had been raised by Tanya until she’d died of cancer a few years ago. By that time, Tanya was firmly back in the family fold, as was Bubba’s grandson with the serpent’s eyes.
As Coach Bell had said, Woody was a Rawley through and through.
With any other suspect, Emmy would’ve contrived a reason to bring him into the station for a chat. Woody was not any other suspect. There was no way he’d voluntarily go to the station, let alone speak to her without one of his $1,000 an hour Atlanta lawyers. Woody was cunning and clever, and he knew his rights better than most cops. If Emmy picked him up, it had to be to arrest him, and to arrest him, she needed iron-tightprobable cause, not off-the-record testimony from a terrified witness and a statement from a woman who thought she was standing up to a petty thug but was actually taking on an entire criminal organization.
Loud music pulled Emmy out of her thoughts. Drake was making a four-point turn to leave the scene.
“Boss.” Cole jogged over. “Two more doorbell camera files came in. I can—”
“Get in the cruiser.” Emmy climbed behind the wheel. Cole got in beside her. She didn’t speak until they were back on the two-lane heading into town. “Mandy’s friends. Was there one she was closer to than the others?”
“She called Talia Wilkinson her best friend in one of her videos.” Cole took out his phone, scrolled through his notes. “The Wilkinsons live on Roanoke. Her mom’s North Falls people.”
“Put your seat belt on.”
Cole did as he was told, keeping his mouth shut while Emmy took a hard left onto the back roads that ran behind Taybee’s farm. She knew that he had questions. Her son was green, but he was not stupid. The closer they got to town, the more tension she felt radiating from his side of the vehicle. He shifted in his seat. Pulled at his seat belt.
She bit her tongue to keep from telling him to stop fidgeting. She needed to think about Mandy’s best friend. Sixteen-year-old girls tended to tell each other everything. If Mandy had been groomed by an older man, then her best friend would know, and that same best friend might be able to offer up some details: Did Mandy ever meet Woody anywhere other than the house? Were there any photographs of the two of them together? A chance that a CCTV camera might have caught them? Did Woody ever give Mandy money? Buy her jewelry? Give her a burner phone? How did they communicate? Did Mandy ever confide that Woody had hurt her? That she was scared? Did either girl keep a journal where they talked about the illicit relationship?
Emmy might not be able to arrest Woody off the murder just yet, but she sure as hell could arrest him for the statutory rape of a minor.
Cole said, “It’s the blue house on the left.”
Emmy pulled over to the curb. They were in downtown North Falls, three blocks from the police station. She took a deep breath to help focus her thoughts as she got out of the car. She caught Cole looking around the neighborhood. He had a wistful expression on his face.
The first eleven years of his life had been spent living in a similar cottage four streets over. Emmy had inherited the house from her grandmother. She’d been in the process of restoring it bit by bit until her divorce from Jonah had forced her to sell. He’d used his part of the proceeds to buy a seedy bar on the outskirts of town. Emmy had taken full custody of Cole and moved them in with her parents so she could build up her savings, which is a thing that never happened because Cole had kept needing things like healthcare, braces, and food.
He adjusted his duty vest. “You spent an awful long time talking to a witness who said he didn’t see anything.”
Emmy climbed the stairs to the front of the house. She gave the door three hard raps, then stepped back and waited.
The woman who greeted them was about Emmy’s height, but with a short, choppy haircut and round glasses. “Sheriff?”
Emmy said, “Ms. Wilkinson—”
