A guard walked up with Roscoe and sat him in the chair across from her. “Ten minutes,” he said and walked back to his post.
They picked up their phones.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“Where’s Davis?”
“He’s at the police station. He sent me to tell you something. There’s been a delay in your release.”
Roscoe pulled the receiver away from his ear and shook his head.
For the first time, she felt a little sorry for him. His lips were pale, his eyes dull. She knew she needed to keep her emotions out of it. She signaled for him to pick up the receiver. “It’s not that bad. You see, there’s been some new evidence found that the police have to check out. Once they determine that none of your DNA is on it, they’ll know you are innocent and let you go.”
“What new evidence?”
“A black cape that was worn at the scene and the handle to a glass pitcher.”
His eyes widened and the little bit of color in his face drained off. “A cape?”
“Yes.”
“Black velvet?”
“Why? What is it?” This was not the reaction she had expected.
As though seeing a ghost, he stared into the distance. “Tonya has a black cape. And if that’s hers, my prints are all over it.”
“What?” Her stomach tightened. “Why would she attack Katy?”
“She was jealous. Thought I might be cheating on her.”
“Might be cheating on her? Wouldn’t she know? I thought she was a psychic?”
Roscoe leaned in and glared at her. “Oh, come on, lady. Everybody knows that was a con.”
Chapter 31
Preliminary test results showed no usable fingerprint evidence on the glass pitcher handle. Whoever had it must have wiped it off with the cape. Several days soaking in the bottom of the wet dumpster took care of the rest. The blood on the cape matched Katy’s type, but would take a few more days to get a DNA match. Same for the hair evidence.
The police were surprised when they got a call from Marty Fisk Thursday morning. He told them that Tonya Webber had given him notice she was moving out on Saturday. The police didn’t have enough evidence to pick her up without the DNA results. They needed a plan fast.
Ian said he wasn’t surprised the couple had perpetrated a hoax, but if confronted, it would be Roscoe’s word against Tonya’s. Pretending to be a psychic was an invisible crime. As far as the cape was concerned, Tonya could easily accuse Roscoe of wearing it over to Katy’s house as a disguise.
Although Deena could imagine Tonya attacking Katy in a jealous rage, she couldn’t see her killing Mrs. Wilde. What would be her motive?
Ian, Deena, Detective Evans, and an attorney from the DA’s office huddled around a conference table at the police station.
“Are you sure no one outside the hospital staff knows that Katy Wilde was transferred to the rehabilitation center in Dallas?” Ian asked.
“Unless someone squealed,” Detective Evans said. “We made sure to keep it under wraps for her protection.”
“What? I thought she was still in the Maycroft Hospital.” Deena looked at Ian who gave her a sheepish nod. “When I called to check on her last night, they said she was awake. I was going to go see her this afternoon.”
“She did wake up,” Evans said. “That’s why the doctor moved her to rehab. She doesn’t remember a thing. Has no idea who hit her.”
“That’s good, I guess.” The others around the table shot her a disapproving look. “For her sake.”
“You know,” Deena said, “It’s an old trick, but it just might work. What if we have Roscoe call Tonya and tell her Katy is about to wake up and will be able to identify her killer? Then we follow her and see if she comes to finish the job. We catch her red-handed.”
They looked around the room at each other.
“That only works on TV,” Detective Evans said. “We’ll have to come up with something else.”
Ian’s cell phone rang. “That’s ironic,” he said. “It’s the police.”
As he took the call, Deena watched his face fall. Before she could even speculate about what was wrong, he was up on his feet and grabbing his briefcase. “It’s Sandra. Someone found her unconscious at the thrift store. They’re taking her to the hospital.”
“I’ll drive you,” Deena said.
When they got to the car, her hands were shaking. She needed to be strong for Ian.
As they pulled into the emergency room entrance, medics were wheeling Sandra in on a gurney.
Ian jumped out of the car almost before it stopped.
Deena parked and went inside. She could only imagine how Ian must be feeling. She spoke to the woman at the front desk, but was told she couldn’t go back.
Too antsy to sit in the waiting room, she walked outside and took in a deep breath. The sun was out and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The weather in Texas sure could change fast.
She walked slowly toward the front entrance of the hospital, her ankle still tender from galloping in the garbage. She called Gary, but it went to voicemail. No use alarming him. She left a message for him to call her. Feeling helpless, she’d have to be patient until she heard from Ian.
The automatic doors opened as she moved near the hospital’s front entrance. She walked in and looked around. The gift shop was open, and a colorful spring bouquet drew her inside. She looked at the rack of greeting cards.
The automatic doors opened again. A woman walked in who appeared to be really, really pregnant. Like ten months. Her blond hair was obviously a cheap wig, like the kind you get with a Halloween costume. Women can spot these things. She wore a sun hat, sunglasses, and flip flops. A straw bag hung from her shoulder. The woman looked more suited for a trip to the beach than a trip to the hospital.
Deena’s eyes curiously followed her.
Catching her shoe on the edge of a doormat, the woman stumbled.
Deena lunged forward to help her, but the woman seemed to have no trouble catching her balance. She made a beeline to the elevator.
As she walked away, something else caught Deena’s eye. Hadn’t she seen those feet before? That lime green toenail polish? Such a bold color.
It was Georgia Parks.
What would she be doing sneaking into the hospital wearing a disguise? Something was definitely wrong, and Deena needed to find out what it was. She ran to the elevator and mashed the button. With only two floors to travel, it didn’t take long for it to come.
The doors opened to the second floor, and Deena caught sight of Georgia right across from the nurses’ station. She went into a patient’s room. It was the room Katy had been in yesterday.
“Stop her!” Deena yelled as she ran down the hall. “Call the police!” She crashed through the door to find Georgia, wild eyed and confused, holding a knife over an elderly, sleeping woman.
“Georgia, stop!”
“You!” Georgia yelled. “You can’t stop me!” She swung the knife wildly, grazing Deena’s arm.
Deena ducked and fell to the ground. Her handbag and its contents went flying.
A nurse opened the door and yelled for security.
Georgia ripped off her wig and came toward her again.
Deena wanted to scream, but fear had stolen her breath. She swung her leg, knocking Georgia off her feet. She grabbed the umbrella that had fallen out of her bag and swung it like a baseball bat, hitting Georgia in the arm and sending the knife flying under the bed. Deena saw her chance and dove for the knife. She managed to reach it with her fingertips, pushing it a bit farther out of reach.
Georgia tried to roll over to stop Deena. The extra padding under her blouse was too bulky. She tried to stand up but smacked her head on the underside of the metal bed frame. She fell back down just as a security officer grabbed her legs and pulled her out from under the bed.
Deena lay motionless with her eyes closed, trying to catch her breath. Her heart pounded in her chest, and she felt faint.
She lay on the floor until the officer handcuffed and removed Georgia from the room.
“It’s all right. We got her,” the nurse said.
Deena opened her eyes. Her breath came in short bursts. She pulled herself out from under the bed, and sat up. Blood spewed down her arm.
The woman in the bed moaned and the nurse went to tend to her.
Deena’s cell phone rang from somewhere across the room. She knew from the tone that it was Gary. She tried to stand up, but her legs were too weak. The nurse brought the phone to her.
Before she could even speak, she heard her husband’s voice. “Deena, what’s up? I just got out of my meeting.”
“I...I just caught a killer.”
A NURSE WHEELED DEENA down to the emergency room to get stitches in her arm. By now it burned as if squirted with a jalapeño pepper. She had also twisted her sore ankle when she fell, and the doctor wanted to get an x-ray.
Gary threw back the curtain as the emergency room nurse prepared Deena’s arm for stitches.
“Deena!” He walked to her side and picked up her hand, holding it to his lips.
“I’m fine,” she said. She knew he was worried now, but he would probably be lecturing her on personal safety before long.
“Hold still. This is going to sting a little.” The nurse inserted a needle to numb the area around the cut.
Deena held her breath. Compared to what had just happened, this was nothing.
Ian walked in. His coat and tie were off, his face more pale than usual. “Deena, I just heard.”
“Sir, family only back here,” the nurse said.
“It’s okay,” Deena said. “He’s my boss...lawyer...friend.”
The nurse nodded and jabbed the needle back into Deena’s arm.
“How’s Sandra?” Deena asked, wishing she could drop Gary’s hand to scratch her nose.
“She’s got a bump on her head, but she says she’s fine. They’re running some tests. They think maybe her blood sugar dropped too low.”
“Bumps on the head are apparently contagious.” She pulled back her hand and gave her nose a satisfying rub.
Ian patted Gary on the back. “You have a real hero here. She’s a keeper. I’ll check on you later.” He nodded at Deena and left the room.
She looked at her arm and cringed as blood dripped out of the gash.
Gary grabbed her hand again and tightened his grip.
“The doctor will be here in a minute to stitch that up,” the nurse said and pulled the curtain closed behind her.
“I can’t believe you ended up in the hospital again,” said Gary, sounding more exasperated than worried. “If anything happens to you...”
“It won’t. I’m like a cat with nine lives. Anyway, I’m going to talk to Ian when I get out of here. I don’t think I’m cut out for this line of work. Do you care that I’m going to be unemployed again?”
“Absolutely not.” He leaned down and kissed her forehead.
She filled him in on the details of seeing Georgia and following her into the hospital room. Georgia must have been in quite a shock to find an old woman there instead of Katy. Deena wasn’t quite ready to tell him how scared she had been.
“Knock, knock.” Ian stuck his head back around the curtain. “Sorry to interrupt you kids, but I have some news.”
“What’s that?” Deena asked.
He beamed. “Sandra’s pregnant.”
Chapter 32
Gary was so glad to have Deena home safe and sound that on Saturday, he let her sit in his favorite recliner to prop up her ankle. Luckily, it was only a small fracture, but it would still take a while to heal. After sleeping most of the day Friday, she was anxious to re-evaluate her next career move.
She was glad when Dan called and said he would stop by to fill in the details he couldn’t include in his news story about Georgia’s arrest.
Gary led him into the den. “Hey, cutie. How are you feeling?” He took a seat in the easy chair, looking less like the rumpled crime reporter she’d let interview her at the hospital.
“Bored. Maybe I should reconsider quitting my job.”
“No,” Gary and Dan said in unison.
She grinned, knowing they were just looking out for her well-being. “So Georgia committed both crimes and then went back to the hospital to finish off Katy.”
Dan settled back into the chair as if lecturing a college class on police procedure. “When they arrested her, she kept saying the collision between Katy’s head and the tea pitcher was an accident. Claims she went over to Katy’s to try to coax her into selling the house.”
“Why would she care about the house?” Gary asked.
“Turns out, Georgia and Marty Fisk were having an affair—just like I said.” He tapped the side of his nose. “When Katy didn’t answer the front door, Georgia went around back and scared the poor girl. Katy tried to cold cock her with a Louisville Slugger. Georgia said she grabbed the pitcher in self-defense.”
Deena scoffed. “If that’s all that happened, she could have just called 9-1-1 and told them.”
“That’s right, but she was afraid they’d try to pin the murder on her—which they would. The two attacks were a little too coincidental.”
Gary pointed to the newspaper on the coffee table. “You wrote that she confessed to the murder. How did they get it out of her?”
“That’s a good one,” Dan said. “She thought Fisk would strike oil, leave his wife, and they’d live happily ever after. It might have happened if she hadn’t been so impatient. She was tired of waiting for Fisk to convince the city to re-zone, so she took matters into her own hands. She was always too cocky for her own good.”
“I definitely got that impression of her,” Deena said.
“She told Detective Evans that if she were going to kill Barbara Wilde, she’d have come prepared. She said she wouldn’t have used a scarf the victim was in the middle of knitting. As soon as she said that, bingo! They had her.”
Deena smiled and nodded.
Gary looked back and forth between the two and scratched his head. “But how?”
Deena raised her hand, reverting back to her school teacher days. “I know you think I’m a blabber mouth, but I can keep a secret. Even from you. See, when I found Mrs. Wilde dead, I saw the ball of yarn still attached to the scarf. The knitting needles had fallen out in her lap. Detective Evans told me to keep it a secret, and I did.”
Dan gave her his signature salute. “Good job. That meant the killer was the only other person besides the police who could have known Mrs. Wilde was still knitting the scarf used to strangle her.”
Gary clapped his hands, applauding Deena. “So Georgia committed both crimes, and the psychic was innocent.”
“I wouldn’t call her innocent, exactly,” Deena said.
Dan laughed. “As it turns out, Tonya had followed lover boy the previous night to Katy’s house. She thought he was sneaking over to the see the pretty barmaid. So the next night, she waited until he left and went over there trying to catch him. She got there after Georgia, but before Roscoe.”
“That’s when she wore the black cape,” Deena said, picturing Tonya creeping around in the dark.
“Right. She walked in the back door and found herself in a pool of glass and blood, thinking Katy was dead. She thought Roscoe must have done it. She picked up the glass handle to get rid of the evidence and ran out of there. She threw the cape, the handle, and her shoes in the dumpster.”
“So, what’s next?” Deena asked, shifting in the recliner to try to find a comfortable position. “What will happen to Travis and Roscoe?”
She watched the smile fall from Dan’s face. “The District Attorney’s office is letting them both go. Duke Hambrick, the bounty hunter, is taking them each back to jail. That was his reward for going on the record with what he knew.”
Deena shook her head. “And Tonya? What’s going to happen to her?”
“The DA will likely let her go, too. They could charg
e her with obstruction of justice, but they only seem interested in charging Georgia for murder. And, according to his lawyer, Fisk plans to resign his seat on the city council and concentrate on repairing his broken marriage.”
A hush fell on the room. Deena thought about Katy. Now that her property was more valuable, it would be harder to choose to keep the house. Maybe she could afford to have it picked up and moved to a different part of town. Time would tell. The doctors had said she would probably be back in a few weeks. That would give Deena’s ankle time to heal so she would be able to help her new friend get back on her feet. Speaking of feet...
Deena’s laughter broke the silence.
“What is it?” Gary asked. “Am I missing something?”
“I just pictured Georgia with her lime green toenails and bright orange jumpsuit. Bold colors for a bold woman.”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING here?” Sandra asked as Deena hobbled into the thrift store on crutches.
Gary held the door open and walked next to her to make sure she didn’t fall.
“I was going stir crazy.” She hopped on one foot and settled into a chair near the register. Sandra pulled her stool closer. “But it’s only Saturday afternoon. How are you going to make it another month?”
Gary pointed to himself. “You mean, how am I going to make it another month?”
“Poor thing,” Deena said. “Sandra can babysit me for a while. You go ahead and get your car washed. Don’t rush.”
He hurried out the door, the bells jingling behind him.
“Glad to see so many customers,” Deena said. “I hope you don’t mind me being here.”
“Of course not! I was going to come by to see you tomorrow any way.” She glanced around the store to see if anyone needed help. A woman with a handful of clothes walked up, and Sandra opened the dressing room door for her.
Sharpe Mind, Hanging by a Thread Page 17