by Patti Larsen
“I was in the woods, I told you that already.” Frieda’s gusty protest exited her lips with a puff of mist in the cold air. “I had nothing to do with that man’s death. I didn’t even know him. Trust me, young lady, if I was going to murder someone it wouldn’t have been him. It would have been Olivia Walker for letting that thief move in on my business.”
I believed her, but it wasn’t the best argument to present to someone like Jill. “Let’s just be on the safe side,” the deputy said, gesturing for the interior of the retreat. “Come inside and let’s have a chat, shall we? I’d really rather not have to use these.” She rattled her cuffs.
Frieda looked like she wanted to argue, but the appearance of Bill and Moose behind her circling the building, both looking grim enough to take her down, seemed to knock the resistance out of her.
“Fine,” she grumped, stomping her feet as she followed Bill inside. “But I’m telling you, you’re looking at the wrong person. I didn’t kill anyone.”
“No,” I said. “You just made sure the hunters wouldn’t have any game to shoot, sabotaging another person’s business in the process.” While I got her reasoning and anger, there were better ways to go about ensuring success.
***
Chapter Eighteen
We returned to the foyer to find Barry and Mom had returned, the intern looking perkier, though he was still a bit wobbly. Still, he nodded to Jill as we entered, Eddie’s anger flaring at the sight of Frieda who glared back.
“I’m going to take a look at the body,” he said, turning toward the study. “In there?”
I left Jill to her job and led Barry inside, keeping my distance as he knelt next to the corpse and started his work. I’d been up close and personal with enough dead people in the last few years that the novelty had worn thin.
“Um, yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder at me, his eyes careful. “I can take it from here.”
Whatever. Kid had a lot to learn. “I’m a deputy,” I said, flashing the badge Jill gave me, feeling weirdly excited to do so like I’d been wanting to forever and only now had the chance. Grow up, Fee. “Just tell me.”
He still hesitated, frowning. “I need to see paperwork on that.”
He what? “Are you freaking kidding me here?” And I thought I kind of liked him. But Barry was rapidly losing any kind of positive points he’d built up in the few short weeks I’d known him. At this rate? He’d be on the list with Geoffrey and Rosebert in short order.
“I’ve heard about you,” he said, cleared his throat, swallowed. “That you’re a bully when it comes to crime scenes. And I was told not to let you push me around.”
He sounded nervous. That just pissed me off more.
“Who told you that?” Not Dr. Aberstock. And certainly not Crew. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to guess, but I wanted to hear it from the donkey’s mouth.
“My boss,” he said. “Mr. Jenkins.” Grunt. So Geoffrey hired him personally? Maybe Barry needed to be informed the doc was his actual employer, not that puffed-up shark of a Patterson in-law. “And the next sheriff of Reading.”
Robert. Snarl. I was so over my cousin’s version of the truth. “Listen up,” I snapped, fully aware I was likely just confirming what they said about me but not really giving a crap at the moment, “you haven’t seen bullying, Barry. If you want to actually not be a jerk and toe the company line you’ll do what your real boss willingly does every time I have to endure something like this. You’ll tell me what you know and stop acting like you have any idea who I am or how little I care about what you think of me.” So there.
Barry just stared up at me, eyes huge, swallowing heavily before he finally shook his head. But I didn’t give him a chance to protest, instead clicking on the walkie I still carried and growling into the receiver.
“Crew or Dr. Aberstock, this is Deputy Fleming, over.”
That caught Barry’s attention, all right, the creeping blush crawling up his neck from the collar of his shirt making him look like he might be about to erupt. But nope, he was just in a bit of a battle with his conscience, apparently, because he waved me off even as the walkie crackled.
“Go ahead, Fee.” Dr. Aberstock’s friendly tone made me grin, my gaze never leaving Barry’s.
“I need your little helper here to give me information,” I said. “Mind telling him to do so? Over.”
Barry turned away, rummaging around the body like he had no idea what he was doing. Lovely.
Dr. Aberstock’s tone shifted instantly. “We’ve had this conversation, Mr. Clements.” They did, did they? Barry flinched visibly enough, still not looking at me. Dude was going to have to do something about his resilience if he was going to survive for long in Reading. Though, he still had school to finish, so it wasn’t like he was sticking around, was he? Then again, if he was going to side with Geoffrey and Robert he could take a flying leap off the mountain right now as far as I was concerned.
So weird. I hadn’t gotten this vibe from him the few times we’d met. I’d even liked him, found him friendly and kind. So what changed? Maybe it was just an act? Or Geoffrey and Robert got to him. Whatever the case, Barry seemed uncomfortable but when he turned back to me, grim and flushed, he didn’t argue anymore.
“Sorry,” he muttered to me. “I have a job to do and I’d like to keep it past this murder so I actually get credit for my internship.”
Maybe they were threatening him? So be it. “So do I,” I said, “thanks to the badge I was handed. Get to it, please. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
Okay, that was mean, and really beneath me, but the next person who prodded the bear was getting both barrels. Growl.
“Dr. Aberstock.” Barry raised his voice, eyes on mine, shrugging. I clicked the receiver so the doc would hear. “Dr. Aberstock,” Barry repeated, “I’d like to share my observations. Over.”
I released the button, scowling. But Barry hastily went on before I could vent.
“Go ahead, Barry. Over.” The doc sounded tired, but not physically so. More worn down. What was going on across the river?
“If you happen to overhear what I’m reporting…” Barry paused, looked hopeful while I exhaled in frustration then cut him some slack.
“Fine, whatever.” I eye rolled so he’d know I wasn’t buying anything but was willing to overlook the obvious for the time being as he nodded to me and I clicked again.
He finally focused on Grayson’s body, getting down to business with an efficiency that relieved me somewhat despite his previous lack of skill. Nerves, I guess. Meanwhile, my brain kept prodding me with the same question I’d pondered in the past. Why was Geoffrey Jenkins playing both sides? Why support me then undercut me at every opportunity? And was I the only one receiving such special attention?
“Liver temp gives time of death at approximately 2AM.” Barry removed the long, narrow probe from inside Grayson’s flabby gut, the idea of such an implement being jabbed into me, dead or alive, making me shiver. “What time did you find him, Miss Fleming?”
I almost corrected him with deputy but let it ride. “About 2:10AM.” Wasn’t it? Yes, I remembered the glowing green numbers on the alarm clock in my room.
“Which means you could be a suspect, am I correct?” He had the guts to ask that, did he?
I sighed, Dr. Aberstock sighed on the other end of the walkie while Crew’s voice clearly said, “Seriously?”
“Just get on with it, Barry. Over.” Dr. Aberstock’s irritation wasn’t typical of him. Again, what was happening across the river to wind everyone up? And why hadn’t the doc come himself? He never seemed to me the type to say no to any adventure. In fact, he’d cheerfully accepted all kinds of cases over the years, right? So was Barry here thanks to Geoffrey?
I hated being out of touch and unable to have a private conversation about the matter.
Barry rose, circled the body, grasping Grayson’s head in his hands. The unusual angle of the neck must have told him what I guessed already. “Looks
like cause of death, at least at first inspection, might be from a severed spinal cord caused by a broken neck.”
“From a fall? Over.” Dr. Aberstock didn’t wait for Barry’s “Over,” when I released the button by accident.
“No sign of any other physical damage that might happen with a fall,” Barry said, sounding confident enough I took him at his word. “More likely an expertly applied technique, a single twist.” He glanced at me until I shook the walkie as a reminder. “Over.”
“Military?” That was Crew. “Over.”
“Possibly.” Barry released Grayson’s head with almost delicate reverence, his care of the body returning some of my good will. Sure the guy was a total jerk who hit on my mother, but everyone deserved some kind of respect when they were dead. Right? “Definitely someone who knew what they were doing. This isn’t the sort of skill one masters by accident but by repeated practice.” He shrugged. “It’s harder than you think to actually snap someone’s neck by hand. The killer would have to be strong and know exactly where to apply pressure.”
“Which takes me off the list,” I said with pointed annoyance. “Over.”
“I’ll focus my investigation on those with military training,” Crew said, sounding worried. But my mind was already leaping past the armed forces and into a different skillset all together, the kind that came from a specific branch of medical education.
Namely, chiropractic. Who else but a chiropractor would know exactly how to break someone’s neck? Or, the son of one?
With my heart pounding and hope like I’d never known burning in my veins, I rushed past Barry and into the foyer. Jill looked up, startled, as I marched to Ryan with a vicious grin I couldn’t control and poked him firmly—might I say triumphantly?—in that lean chest of his.
“Ryan Richards,” I said. “You’re under arrest for the murder of Grayson Gallinger.”
***
Chapter Nineteen
I think I knew I was full of crap even before the words left my mouth. And I really was out of line doing the whole arresting thing like that. But it was like I was possessed, taken over by the demon of the woman scorned, the less worldly and more naive Fee Fleming who trusted this piece of trash for years only to have her heart torn out, thrown on the ground, stomped and discarded with the level of disdain most people reserve for a cockroach.
Speaking of cockroaches, Ryan blinked at me before his face flared red, those high cheekbones lit with his anger, eyes flashing. It sucked he was still so pretty, really. Come to think of it, I’d done a number on my old nemesis, Vivian, when we were kids, taking the stuffing out of her in defense of Daisy—not to mention giving her a satisfying gusher of a nosebleed—when I’d broken her schnoz. There was nothing saying I couldn’t offer a love tap right here and now, right? Who’d stop me? I was a deputy. I could always say he was trying to escape.
Fee, oh Fee. Get over it already.
It took Jill grasping my arm in one strong hand and tugging me with some force to her side to keep me from giving my plan a go. When had I become so irrational? Oh, right, when I caught the guy I thought I was going to marry in bed with another woman in our apartment, taking over my life, wiping out my happiness with a single, startling moment of awareness and awakening I’d gladly let him share the memory of with a firm and painful knee to his sensitive places. He’d earned it, right? Let him truly experience how I felt in the very place he seemed to value over my heart.
“Mr. Richards, is it?” Jill didn’t smile, wasn’t throwing me under the bus. Nope, not in the least. In fact, she seemed pretty serious about my accusation and took a step closer to him, bless her, frown pulling her brows together, her feminine yet physically intimidating presence making him back off, the coward. “I’m assuming Fee has a reason for her attempted arrest?”
Ryan rubbed at the spot on his chest where I’d poked him, the baby, like it still hurt. Boo freaking hoo. His own scowl deepened but he answered her with the twinge of a whine I’d been so grateful to escape once I realized who he really was. “I have no idea,” he said. “Grayson was my boss and I’m only here because he invited me to come.” He stuck out his jaw in my direction, petulant little-boy face no longer endearing or adorable but annoyingly trite. “If I’d known she was here I would have stayed home or advised Mr. Gallinger to dump this trip all together.” Eddie hissed under his breath but Ryan didn’t seem to notice he’d just stabbed his old college buddy in the back. Just like Ryan, no change there. All about him, wasn’t it?
Jill glanced over her shoulder at me. “You and Fee have a history?”
Well, crap. Whoops. Before I could answer, Ryan rushed on.
“She’s a menace,” he said, moving like he planned to lunge at me though I knew the coward in him would never try it. Jill’s head whipped around and shut down his angry tone, but the childish whine remained as he finished. “She almost got me disbarred. Thanks to Mr. Gallinger I kept my license to practice law and went to work for him exclusively as his legal counsel.” He sniffed at me as if he caught scent of something that didn’t appeal. “Say what you want, but I owed him. I didn’t kill him.”
“Maybe you’d like to tell Deputy Wagner that your father is a chiropractor,” I snapped back. “And that you have the skills needed to kill Grayson Gallinger in the exact mode of his death.” And double whoops. I realized as I let that writhing, screeching cat out of the bag of my messy thoughts I’d just handed everyone in earshot the kind of information that wasn’t really detective best practice. In fact, it was pretty much no-no No.1. And from the shock and then anger on Jill’s face, she was going to tell me all about how much I’d screwed up just as soon as she got me alone with her.
Thankfully, she held her patience as the men gathered closer, whispering and shaking their heads at each other while Barry joined us, looking contrite.
“Confirmed,” he said. “The victim died of a broken neck, a single twist that severed his spinal cord and killed him instantly.”
Jill’s grunt told me he was now on her crap list, too, so at least I wasn’t alone there. “Mr. Richards,” Jill said then, voice dropping to rasping depths like she was channeling Crew—something that made me feel worse, not better, because it wasn’t just her I’d let down, it was him, and after he’d trusted me and everything—“is it accurate your father is a chiropractor and would have knowledge of how to deliver such an injury?”
Ryan snorted, hands up, looking aghast enough I knew then I’d jumped the gun and made a fool of myself. “Please,” he said. “Just because my dad is one doesn’t mean I know jack about it. And besides.” He shuddered, looked at his hands before dropping them to his sides, “I can’t even kill a spider let alone a person.”
Calm returning, I remembered how many times I’d been forced to remove dead mice or bugs from our apartment because Ryan just couldn’t bring himself to handle the tiny corpses. He’d clearly not changed at all, so what were the odds he could bring himself to end someone’s life?
Sigh. Yeah, nice job, Fee. Way to let him get to you all over again.
The realization and subsequent self-flagellation actually left me clearer headed than I expected and, as Jill glanced back and forth between us as if waiting for me to offer a reason she should pursue the questioning I shook my head.
“I think his real alibi is cowardice,” I said. “Thanks for reminding me of that, Ryan.”
Jill’s jaw jumped but she seemed to have her own temper under control while she nodded to me then my cheating ex. “Very well,” she said. “But I’ll have more questions for you shortly. In the meantime, with this new evidence in hand, I’d like to start again. Mr. Mauer?”
Eddie glared at Ryan as she took him aside for further questioning.
I’d give Jill props for her education and taking initiative. Over the next few hours she showed how much she’d learned from Crew, her methodical and calculated interrogations of each of the suspects—and they were all suspects, though Bill she discounted almost immediately, no
t to mention Mom—as thorough as her boss’s. And about to drive me just as crazy.
Dad always said Crew was too locked into traditional techniques, too taken with his training and the slow, in depth dissection of truth he’d learned from the FBI. I tended to agree, pacing when she went on and on in concise Sheriff Turner fashion, wishing she’d just hurry up already.
Impatience, thy name was Fiona Fleming.
But, after almost screwing up her case—or after screwing it up by revealing the COD, let’s be honest about it—I held my tongue and my peace, listening in and doing my best to focus on what she asked who and how. It really was very interesting, how she asked and asked again in layers of questions, seemingly innocuous, about alibis and attitudes and how they knew Grayson Gallinger. By the time Mom interrupted to announce dinner was ready, Jill had created a clear picture of each and every one of the people in the retreat’s positions, habits and feelings toward the dead man without actually coming out and asking directly for anything aside from, “Where were you at 2AM?” and “What was your relationship to the victim?”
Very cool. But worthless, as far as I could see. It wasn’t like she miraculously had one of them supply a spontaneous confession or anything. I could understand the process and accepted that it was helpful, but more peripherally. I liked getting my hands dirty, I guess.
Go figure.
Jill left Bill and Moose watching over the men who Mom fed with her same efficiency and finesse. Yes, someone died, but that didn’t stop Lucy Fleming from doing what she did best. And, as the gathered suspects dined on her delicious fare, I joined Jill, Mom and Barry in the kitchen, Petunia at my mother’s feet in expectant excitement.
I tried to apologize, but Jill waved it off. “You have a history,” she said. “That’s the guy?” Yes, I’d mentioned my cheating ex a few times, hadn’t I? Why did I let my embarrassment about having history with him keep me from mentioning that earlier? Dumb, Fee. Just dumb.