A Hopeless Discovery

by Daniel Carson

  Agent Vargas gave Alex a funny look, then smiled. “We used to work together at the state police.”

  Alex’s eyes darted between Rebecca and me. “Wait, you called Rebecca?”

  “I called the Secret Service.”

  Vargas raised her hand. “And I answered.”

  Alex was clearly confused. “And now you’re here… to…?”

  “Hopefully arrest someone for counterfeiting,” said Agent Vargas. “And who knows, maybe you can catch a murderer at the same time.”

  Watching the two of them, I felt suddenly uneasy. There was something about the way they reacted to each other. And especially, about the way Alex reacted to her. She was beautiful… and he was nervous. Maybe Alex Kramer and Rebecca Vargas had been more than just work colleagues.

  Alex’s snapping fingers brought me back to life. “Hope, do you have an actual plan?”

  “Um, me, plan.”

  “Yes,” said Alex. “A plan.”

  “Do either of you happen to have a polygraph machine with you?” I asked.

  They both shook their heads. “No.”

  “Then I don’t have a plan. But don’t worry. I’m pretty good at winging it.”

  “Do either of us have a role in this plan of yours?” Alex asked.

  “Just look mean. And if you’re carrying a gun… make sure they see it.”

  When I’d chatted with the employees this week, one of the things I’d learned was that all the full-time employees, along with the most important of the part-time and seasonal workers, had an “All-Patch Meeting” with Bubba and Mary every Friday afternoon. And sure enough, I found them all gathered in the large office space beside the main entrance.

  As I walked in, Bubba was slapping his hands together. “Remember, starting tonight things go into overdrive. More cars. More people. More everything. Keep your cool, and no matter what, smile. These people spend a lot of good hard-earned money to come out to the pumpkin patch, and they deserve our best.”

  Then Bubba looked up and saw me—along with Sheriff Kramer and Special Agent Vargas. His eyes flickered with confusion. “Hope? Sheriff? Um, is there something we can do for you?”

  I smiled. “I apologize, Bubba. Mary. We just wanted to give you an update on the case.”

  “Oh, that’s great. But, um, we’re in the middle of a staff meeting,” Bubba said.

  “And that will have to wait,” said Sheriff Kramer. “We have important news.”

  Kip stood. “Did you find out who killed her?”

  Johnny gave Agent Vargas a rather obvious once-over. “More importantly, who’s she?”

  Super creepy.

  “Her name is Rebecca Vargas,” I said, “and I’ll come back to her in a bit.”

  I walked into the center of the room. I felt like a lawyer at the end of a big case. I just hoped I could deliver.

  “I’ve talked with all of you in this room. Some multiple times. And most of you told me that you just can’t imagine anyone killing Wanda. I believe you. It is hard to imagine. Unless you understand the reason.”

  “The motive,” said Bubba.

  I pointed to him. “Exactly. That’s what I focused on this week. Who had the best reason, the strongest motive to kill Wanda?”

  “And what did you find out?” Mary asked.

  “Well, one thing I heard over and over again was that Wanda could be difficult.”

  The crowd murmured in agreement.

  “She was smart, and she liked to let you know she was smart. She had strong ideas about how things should be done around here, and she didn’t back down. She argued with Bubba… a lot. She argued with Mary. And with Lucinda. But arguing… being difficult … is not a very strong reason for murder.

  “She also had a rival. Johnny. Someone who, like Wanda, is very smart.”

  “A genius, really,” he said from the crowd.

  “I stand corrected. Johnny is a genius. Two geniuses with competing visions. Rivals. Is that a reason for murder? Maybe.”

  “What do you mean maybe?” Johnny objected.

  “How about ‘definite maybe’?”

  Johnny nodded as if this was more acceptable.

  “What other motives are there for murder? How about… a broken heart?” I turned to Kip Granger. “Kip had no particular grievance with Wanda… in fact, at one time Kip and Wanda were an item. Until Wanda dumped him. Did a lover’s quarrel develop into a violent, jealous rage? It’s been known to happen.”

  Kip grunted. “Didn’t though.”

  “Or… was there no motive at all, other than the joy of killing? Is it possible that the murderer was some random drifter off the street who didn’t even know Wanda—but just felt like killing? Maybe Wanda was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know lots of people here think that’s what really happened. And I know for certain that the real killer is hoping that’s what we’ll believe.”

  I turned in place, gradually surveying everyone in the room.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is… Wanda’s killer did have a motive to kill her. A very, very strong motive.”

  I gestured toward Special Agent Vargas. “I think now is a good time to tell you a little bit more about this woman with the badge and the gun. I told you her name is Rebecca Vargas, and that’s true. What I didn’t tell you is she normally goes by ‘Special Agent Vargas,’ and she works for the Secret Service.”

  A murmur went through the room.

  “Yes, that Secret Service. The one that’s in charge of protecting the President of the United States—and also in charge of protecting our nation’s money supply.”

  The noose was tightening. By now the killer knew where I was going with this. I was glad Alex was here to back me up.

  “Wanda Wegman died because she discovered something. She discovered that someone here at Bubba’s was printing counterfeit money. About three years ago—and about two weeks before her death, Bubba’s Pumpkin Patch paid her in cash. She used that cash to pay off a debt to a friend. And when she did, the friend discovered the money was fake.”

  “What?” came a chorus of voices from the crowd.

  “Not just some of it. Not a stray bill here and there. All of it was fake,” I said. “The friend thought Wanda was a fraud. Wanda, as you can well believe, was mortified at being called dishonest. You all knew this about Wanda. She wouldn’t let you cheat at cards. She wouldn’t let you cheat at anything. And the idea that somebody thought she was a fraud? That somebody thought she was a cheat? Well, that made her furious.

  “So she spent the next couple of weeks—the last two weeks of her life, in fact—learning everything she could about counterfeiting. And then Wanda—honest, difficult Wanda—went to confront the person who gave her the counterfeit money in the first place. Or more specifically, the person who paid her the counterfeit money. As part of her paycheck.

  “You see, a few years ago, Bubba’s Pumpkin Patch would occasionally pay its employees in cash. The explanation was always that Bubba’s was a cash business, and besides, no one objected—you don’t have to claim it for taxes, right? But the real reason was quite different.

  “Bubba Riley always wanted Bubba’s to be more than it was… and much more than it could afford to be. He never did understand the finances or how they worked; his wife did all that. It was Mary who was always working hard to keep them, and this place, and all of you, above water. But no matter how tight the money was, all Bubba wanted to do was grow. Be bigger. Be better. And then one day, maybe four or five years ago… Mary came upon a solution: counterfeit money.”

  I turned to Mary. “I’m guessing you realized that a place like Bubba’s was the perfect spot to use counterfeit money. You deal with enormous amounts of cash, and it’s disbursed broadly among many thousands of people. You probably realized that large amounts of fake money are relatively easy to spot, but an extra twenty here or there? Not so much. And maybe it never would have been spotted—if you hadn’t, occasionally, used it to pay your employees. My
guess is you didn’t want to do that. My guess is you did that only when times were especially tight. But it cost you. Because one day, one of those employees discovered the truth.”

  “What are you saying?” said Bubba.

  “I’m saying that Wanda Wegman confronted your wife, Bubba. Wanda had discovered that Mary was a counterfeiter, and Wanda was going to turn her in. Mary was going to go to jail. Unless… unless she could stop Wanda. Somehow.

  “And that brings us to our final motive: avoiding prison. I’d say that’s about as strong a motive as you’ll ever find. And that’s exactly why Mary Riley killed Wanda.”

  “That’s insane!” said Bubba.

  But Mary’s face, a twisted wreck of a face, said something different. “You’ve got no proof,” she said.

  “That’s where Special Agent Vargas comes in.”

  Vargas stepped into the middle of the room. She looked mean. She made sure people saw her gun. She focused her eyes on Mary.

  “Ma’am, I’ve already examined the twenty-dollar bill that came from you. It’s a fake, and a pretty good one at that. Based on that and the story I’ve heard, I have the authority to shut Bubba’s down immediately, pending an investigation of the cash currency on hand. Right now. Mary and Bubba Riley, I’m going to go through every inch of your life, and I promise you, I will find out every single bit there is to this story. And the more I find, the longer your prison sentence will be.” She paused. “Or…”

  “Or?” said Mary.

  “Or… you cooperate. You may have funneled a lot of counterfeit currency through this place, but I’m guessing you didn’t print it yourself. I think there’s a bigger fish out there… and if you lead me to them, then maybe I can make a deal.”

  “You’d make a deal for murder?” Kip said.

  “I’m just interested in the counterfeiting. You’ll have to talk to the sheriff about the murder.”

  Bubba’s eyes shifted to Sheriff Kramer.

  “I can’t make deals on murder,” said the sheriff. “But if Mary cooperates… if she admits what she did, and if the judge is convinced it was a tragic mistake and not premeditated… that will likely be reflected in a reduced sentence. And maybe one day, in fifteen or twenty years, Mary can get a second chance.”

  Bubba looked at his wife. “What do you think, Mary?”

  “What do I think? What do I think? Bubba, I made some mistakes—I admit that. But I did not kill Wanda Wegman!”

  Alex looked at me and shook his head. “Why is it they rarely come quietly?”

  Special Agent Vargas walked up to Mary and pulled out her handcuffs. “Mary Riley, you’re under arrest.”

  And all five foot two inches of Mary Riley screamed.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Mary and Bubba Riley were escorted to the Hopeless jail by Sheriff Alex Kramer and Special Agent Rebecca Vargas. Bubba was put into a quiet room in the back while the sheriff and the special agent led the interrogation of the prime suspect. I was lucky enough to be an interested bystander.

  Now that she was off of her home turf, Mary completely broke down. She confessed to the charge of counterfeiting. She explained that five years ago, things were bad at Bubba’s. Really bad. Business had picked up, but Bubba’s dreams were expensive. They were always eating away their profits—and more. A part-time worker named Alice was helping Mary in the office that season, and Alice mentioned she might know someone who could help out. That led to a contact with a man named Derby Sledge. Mary would contact Derby through a simple text message. Derby would meet her, sell her a bag of counterfeit money for ten cents on the dollar, and Mary would take it back to Bubba’s. She started off by adding it to the money supply at Bubba’s gradually, so as not to cause suspicion. But there were times, when things were particularly bad, when she would use the cash to meet payroll.

  In the end, Mary shared every detail of the operation. And she promised to help them nail Derby to the wall.

  And finally, that brought them to the untimely death of Wanda Wegman.

  “Did Wanda confront you?” the sheriff asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Was she angry?”

  “Of course.”

  “Did she threaten to turn you in?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “And that’s when you killed her?”

  “No.” Mary was defiant. “I didn’t kill her.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “She demanded that I pay her with genuine cash immediately, and she made me promise to never every use counterfeit money ever again.”

  “Or else…?”

  “Or else she would turn me in to the sheriff.”

  “And that’s when you killed her?” Alex asked again.

  “I told you: I didn’t kill her.”

  “So who did kill her?”

  “I have no idea!” Mary exclaimed.

  And on it went like this for the next hour. Finally, Alex and Rebecca came out and met me.

  “She’s lying, right?”

  “Probably,” said Alex. “Doing time for counterfeiting is much better than doing time for murder.”

  “And she’s got no incentive to tell us the truth,” Rebecca added.

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Maybe we should give her one.”

  The three of us joined Bubba in an interview room. I stood against the wall, while the sheriff and the special agent sat at a wooden table with Bubba. They calmly but firmly laid out the entire case against Mary, and they told him what she had admitted to. He was absolutely heartbroken.

  “But,” said Alex, “she’s denying having anything to do with the murder of Wanda.”

  “Of course she is. Mary could never murder anyone.”

  Agent Vargas raised an eyebrow. “And earlier today, you probably didn’t think your wife could deal in counterfeit money. People can surprise you.”

  “Mary could never hurt anyone!”

  “I don’t think a jury is going to see it that way,” Alex said. “The jury will learn that Mary was involved in a crooked counterfeiting operation. The jury will learn that Wanda discovered Mary’s secret. We don’t have to prove any of that, Mr. Riley—Mary has already confessed to all of it. And everyone who knew Wanda will testify, with certainty, that Wanda would have exposed Mary. Would have sent her to jail for a very long time. And coincidentally, right after that confrontation, Wanda ended up dead. See, Mr. Riley, we don’t have to have proof of murder. We just have to tell the jury a story. And that… is a pretty compelling story.”

  “Y-you can’t do this,” Bubba spluttered.

  “We can, and we will,” said Alex. “Unless… there’s any chance that someone else killed Wanda Wegman?”

  Bubba’s eyes widened.

  “Think about it, Mr. Riley,” said Agent Vargas. “A woman as small as Mary? A woman with Mary’s temperament? How do you think she’s going to fare in a supermax prison?”

  Bubba buried his face in his hands. “Not very well.”

  “So, that brings us to one important question,” Alex said. “Are you really going to let your wife take the blame for something you did?”

  Bubba’s head snapped up. “What?”

  “You already protected your wife from going to prison once, Bubba. When Wanda threated to expose her, you just couldn’t let that happen to your Mary. So you protected her the only way you could. And now you can protect her again, by telling us the truth. It was you who killed Wanda Wegman, wasn’t it?”

  Bubba put his chin to his chest and sobbed. Great, heaving sobs. Finally he sniffled and looked up at Alex. “Yes, it was me.”

  As Alex took Bubba into custody, I leaned in toward Rebecca. “Okay, I understood the plan, but now I’m unsure. Bubba didn’t really do it, did he?”

  Rebecca shook her head. “Nah, he’s just covering for his wife, like we thought he would.”

  “It felt kind of mean,” I said.

  She winked. “Yep. But now we have a powerful incentive for
his wife to confess the truth.”

  Minutes later, Alex, Rebecca, and I had rejoined Mary, and Rebecca explained to Mary what had just happened.

  Mary howled. “No!” she screamed. “Bubba didn’t do it! He couldn’t have!”

  “And how could you know that?” the special agent asked.

  “Because…” She took a deep breath, and her expression changed to one of desperate determination. “Because I did it. I killed Wanda Wegman. You’re right about everything. She confronted me. She made me promise not to use counterfeit money anymore, and I did. But she was going to turn me in anyway. And then I… and then I just lost my mind. I grabbed that knife and I stabbed her. I did it. Bubba had nothing to do with it.”

  Special Agent Vargas smiled, first at Alex and then at me. “Looks like you just solved your murder case.”

  But I wasn’t so sure.

  I stepped forward. “Tell me again, Mary, what you did. How exactly did you kill Wanda? I know this is hard, but we need details.”

  “Well… I was mad. So mad. And scared. And the knife was there, and I grabbed it and I stabbed her with it. And then I buried her in the pumpkin patch.”

  “Just like that?” Alex said.

  She nodded. “Just like that.”

  Special Agent Vargas smiled at us again. “Seems pretty clear cut to me.”

  Alex shook his head, then he motioned for Agent Vargas and me to follow him out of the room and down the hall. Then he turned to us both and said, “We have a problem.”

  “I picked up on that,” said Rebecca. “What’s the problem?”

  “Wanda Wegman was stabbed, but not with a knife,” Alex said.

  “She was stabbed with a screwdriver,” I added. “Which means Mary Riley might be a counterfeiter, but she did not kill Wanda Wegman.”

  Sheriff Kramer and Special Agent Vargas spent the next half hour going over the account of the murder with both Mary and Bubba. It was clear that neither of them knew the murder weapon was a flathead screwdriver. Mary didn’t even know what a flathead screwdriver was, and had almost certainly never picked one up in her entire life.

  When they had reached an impasse, the three of us met once again.