Book Report

Jessica
4, October, 2010
Book Report

"River's Edge"
Terri Blackstock


It all starts on a beautiful little island named Cape Refuge set just east of Savannah, Georgia on the Atlantic Coast.
Morgan Cleary, owner of the Hanover House, a refuge for those who are going through a rough time and needs help, wakes up due to cramps at 3:30 a.m. Just the day before, she had been pronounced pregnant. Her husband, Jonathan Cleary, who is a running elect for the town mayor position, is thrilled by the news for have been trying for 7 years but to no avail. Morgan quickly decided that she didn't need to say anything but that was before she saw the blood. She immediately woke Jonathan up and he rushed her to the hospital but as they were
driving, they knew they lost the precious little baby.

Stricken with grief, guilt, and anger, Morgan and Jonathan wept quietly as the sun rose and shone over Cape Refuge. Later that day, Morgan tried to call one of her best friends, Lisa Jackson, the wife of Ben Jackson who was also running for mayor. Lisa also has fertility issues and has been trying to conceive for thirteen years now. She was now going through her third round of In Virtro Fertilization with her fertility doctor by the name of Alan Sims hoping that Ben and she would finally have the child of their dreams. When Morgan couldn't get a hold of Lisa, she wasn't worried for Lisa owned a business of real estate and was often unreachable.

Police Chief Cade --simply known as Cade by everyone who knew him-- came to the Hanover House the next morning to deliver some news; bad news. Once he got there, he ask Morgan the last time she's seen Lisa Jackson for her husband, Ben, had reported her missing them previous night. When Morgan told him she hasn't seen her for some time, the mystery goes into full throttle. Lisa was missing and just before
the major debate for Cape Refuge's mayoral race.

Morgan's best friend's disappearance haunted her all morning and she finally decided to drive to Lisa's real estate office and visit Rani Nixon, Lisa's partner but Rani hasn't seen Lisa either. The only thing Rani could help Morgan with it by telling her about the letters that had been mailed to Lisa from a mysterious person. The letters where written by supposedly Lisa's husband's secret lover. That he had been having an affair. Morgan was shocked at the letters but nevertheless, she convinced Rani to take the letters to Chief Cade for perhaps they might help with the disappearance of Lisa.

The next day, Rani called Lisa over and over, went to every property she could think of that Lisa might be at but to no avail. That's when she receives a phone call from a physic which she gladly answers. His name was Carson Graham and even though she didn't even know who he was, she quickly did a computer search on him and finds out that he did palm readings, astrological charts, tarot cards and even claimed that he has helped the police solve a number of cases through physic readings on the victims. When he offered Rani his services for perhaps helping find out where Lisa was by doing a reading of something that Mrs. Jackson owned, Rani liked that sound of that and decided to meet Graham at Winston's Restaurant. Rani arrived at the restaurant a little bit later with a sweater that Lisa had. Graham took the sweater and did a reading, pronouncing that Lisa was dead. That he had seen a vision of her car going into the water about half a mile east of Bull Bridge. Fear rammed into her chest again. There was no way Lisa was dead. This physic was flat wrong. Rani couldn't make herself just ignore the piece of information so she drove as fast as she could to the police station where she found out that Cade was at the site where Lisa was supposed to have shown property the day before.

After Rani told Cade all she had found out, Cade didn't want to send divers to a spot where a not to be trusted physic claimed the spot where Lisa was. Nonetheless, Cade drove to Bull Bridge just because he knew he had to follow up every lead he got. He left his car and walked through the surrounding trees to where he could see the ground up and down the river. After looking for a couple minutes and not seeing anything, he decided that the physic had lied. Just as Cade was turning back, that was when he saw them. Tire tracks dug into the river leading right into the river's waters along with shoe prints with a Nike design in the mud. He radioed the Department of Resources and got some divers to come down to Bull Bridge to search the water along with some detectives. To see if Lisa indeed was at the bottom of the river...dead.

The police searched the water and they found a car at the river's bottom. As they pulled it out, they could see Lisa's lifeless body inside the water filled car. Once the door was opened and the water all had poured out, the medical examiner immediately searched for a pulse.
Finding none, he pronounced that she was dead. The medical examiner had ruled out immediately that Lisa had not committed suicide for the marks found on her neck indicated that she had died of strangulation with a telephone cord which they found on the floor of her car. Cade tried to fit all the pieces of the puzzle together but he just couldn't figure it out. Was Ben responsible for killing his wife? Did Carson Graham murder Lisa? After all, he had known where to find Lisa. Cade went ahead and questioned Graham but found nothing useful but he was still suspicious. The only thing he could center his investigation on was the main suspect, Ben Jackson. So, Cade called the D.A and got a search warrant to search Ben's home. After entering with detectives from the State Police, they found a phone missing its cord after a thorough search. They bagged loads of potential evidence, confiscated the computer, and canvassed the neighborhood looking for anyone who might have information. That was when they found shoes. Shoes that matched that same size and print from the crime scene at Bull Bridge along with the same Nike design. The only thing, these particular shoes were popular. It didn't mean that Ben had killed his wife.

Blair Owens, the former town librarian who now owns Cape Refuge Journal, who is also Cade's girlfriend followed the investigation very closely. After all, her job was
to report and she wanted to get every bit of details she could get! She printed the newspaper with the headline, "Physic Leads Police to Body" and she put
two pictures on the front. One of Carson Graham which she pulled off of his website and the other of Lisa Jackson. She hoped Cade wouldn't be upset by the headline because Cade felt like Graham tried to get into every investigation he could and try to solve it or at least play a major part in it so he could get all the glory.

The same day, Cade was looking at the Observer's latest paper written by Vince Barr. "Lisa Jackson Found Dead - Husband's Footprint Found at Crime Scene." Cade couldn't figure out how Vince got the husband's footprint part though. None of his officers leaked the information and nobody else knew about that.
That made him wonder. As the investigation continued, he began to learn more and more.
Alan Sims was scamming his clients. He would tell his patients what was wrong with them but really it was the something else. He would then get their money that they spent. The way Cade found that out was when the autopsy of Lisa Jackson was complete, it said she had a biocornuate uterus which meant she could never have children no matter how many IVF procedures she has. That meant that Alan Sims was guilty of malpractice. Even though Cade interrogated him again, he didn't learn any more new information except that Sims refused to give him all of his patient files. The only way to get that was it the D.A issued a search warrant and the D.A wanted some hard proof...more that what Cade already had.

Cade also found out who really wrote the letters about Ben Jackson's 'affair.' It was Sam Sullivan, he was also running for the mayor position and wrote the letters hoping to make it where Ben would drop out of the race. Once Cade interrogated him, Sam confessed that he did indeed write the letters.
Not only that, Cade found out that Carson Graham was having an affair with a woman named Melanie Adam who lived around a bend in the river at Bull Bridge. Once Cade found out that piece of information, he went to Graham's but he found a shocking discovery! Carson Graham lay in the middle of the floor in his house with a pool of blood under his head. Cade checked for a pulse but he didn't find any. The physic was dead.
The police goes through all of Graham's account information and finds that someone made a deposit of 30 thousand dollars into his account.
Then Cade gets a phone call...from Sims maid, Kylie. Cade goes to meet her and finds out that she heard Sims argue with Lisa the day before Lisa disappeared. Sims had lied about Lisa coming to visit him. She really did visit him when she found out that he had scammed her. That did it. Cade went to the doctor's office, walked in and arrested Alan Sims for the murder of Lisa Jackson. Once Cade brought Sims to the police station, he interrogated him. After he way done, he turned the TV on and saw that Vince Barr was on and reporting. That was when Vince mentioned that Lisa Jackson was strangled with a telephone cord. No one but the police knew about that. How did Vince find out. It only meant one thing, Vince had something to do with the murder of Lisa Jackson. How else was he finding out this information. No one was leaking it. The only thing Cade had to do now was to find proof. And that he did. Cade went through Vince's account and found that Vince had made several small withdraws and they all totaled up to be exactly 30K. The same amount that was transferred into Graham's account. As the pieces fell together, Cade knew he had one more arrest to make. Through Vince Barr's office at the Observer, Cade was able to locate him at a local NBC affiliate. Once he got there, he found Vince and asked him where he was on the morning of May 16th, the day Lisa disappeared. As the camera's were rolling, Cade arrested Vince Barr for the murder of Lisa Jackson and Carson Graham. Alan Sims was charged with medical fraud and released on bail pending his trial as the D.A was building a rock solid case against him. Ben Jackson left the mayoral race and filed a lawsuit against Sam Sullivan. As for Sam himself, he resigned from the race. Now that the only two candidates besides Jonathan Cleary resigned, it left only Jonathan. A judge cited the city's bylaws and announced that if another candidate received over 45 percent of the votes, he would become the mayor. Jonathan received 46 percent and that made him the new Cape Refuge Mayor.