He narrowed his eyes at me and said nothing.
Tucker stared him down. “Answer the lady’s questions.”
Zack glared up at him, but did as instructed. “I wanted to ask her out on a date. She was eighteen, so she was legal. I did nothing wrong.”
“Okay. But what happened after she turned you down?”
His frown deepened. “She shouldn’t have been such a tease.”
“So we’ve heard. Did you threaten her?”
He didn’t reply.
Tucker leaned down so he was eye to eye with Zack. “Did you threaten her?”
“Eh. ‘Threaten’ is a harsh word.”
I said, “So you didn’t have her backed up against a tree late one night, arguing with her?”
His eyes bulged out. “Who told you that?”
Delilah chuckled. “You just did, genius.”
He grumbled, “Fine. We had some words, and after that I wasn’t as interested anymore. That was the last time I talked to her.”
Delilah said, “You mean, the last time before you killed her?”
Zack hopped to his feet, but Tucker put both hands on Zack’s shoulders and forced him back down. Struggling, Zack yelled, “I didn’t kill her!”
She nodded. “We’d love to believe you, but you’re such a sleaze. Can you give us any kind of proof of your innocence? Because right now, you’re the number one suspect in our independent investigation. When we take your name to the lawyer we’re working for, he’s going to call you to testify on behalf of his wrongfully accused client. When that happens, he’s going to ask you all kinds of uncomfortable questions in court and on the record. And of course both sides are going to tear apart your life to find out whether or not you’re a reliable witness. But if you can convince us you’re as innocent as an altar boy, maybe we forget your name.”
“Oh, I’m innocent all right. I meant it when I said I wasn’t interested after that last conversation. She told me she was pregnant. I didn’t want no part of that.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Are you sure she wasn’t feeding you a line to get you to leave her alone?” Not one person had mentioned a baby, and we’d talked to a lot of people closer to Esther than he had been.
“Why would she do that?”
Delilah and I exchanged a dubious glance.
She said, “And you’re sure this alleged baby wasn’t yours?”
He shook his head. “Not possible. Like I said, she turned me down.”
“And you never forced yourself on her.”
“What kind of a creep do you think I am?” he demanded, clearly offended.
“The kind of creep who gives young girls alcohol and hits on them inappropriately enough to get fired for it.”
“Hey, her mom was a psycho. She blew that out of proportion.”
“And I bet that made you angry, didn’t it?”
Zack frowned. “I lost my job because of her.”
“So you decided to take it out on her daughter?”
He looked ready to run, but after flicking a glance at Tucker, thought better of it. He let out a long, slow breath. “I did not kill Esther.”
Tucker nodded, seeming satisfied. “Then who did? I’d love to know who you think it could have been.”
Zack shrugged. “Maybe it was her straightlaced parents. They would have gone nuts if they’d found out she was pregnant.”
“If she was pregnant,” I pointed out. “That sounds like a pretty big secret for her to have offered to you so easily.”
“Well, we were in the middle of a pretty heated argument. I don’t think she meant to blurt it out.”
“Anyone else come to mind besides her parents?”
“What about her baby daddy? I saw her getting in a Ford Escort with some guy the night before.”
Delilah said, “Did you know him? What did he look like?”
He shook his head. “Too dark. All I could make out was the fact that he drove an Escort.”
Tucker said, “That doesn’t narrow anything down. The eighties were the heyday of the Ford Escort.”
Zack stared up at him. “What do you want me to say, man? I don’t know.”
Delilah said, “I think you’ve told us what we need to hear, Zack.”
I added, “Thank you for your time.”
He grumbled, “Like I had much of a choice.”
“If we have any more questions, may we call you?”
Sighing, he said, “Fine. Now can you call off Captain America, here?”
I grinned at Tucker. “Thank you, Cap. You may stand down.”
Stepping back to give Zack some space, Tucker gave me a wink and a lazy salute. Zack hightailed it up the stairs without a glance back in our direction.
* * *
—
On the way to our next meeting, Delilah said, “So…anyone going to tackle the proverbial elephant in the room?”
“You mean the baby?” Tucker asked.
“Alleged baby,” I corrected him. “And if by chance it’s true, why would she tell Zack of all people, and no one else?”
Delilah thought for a moment. “Maybe he was the only safe person to tell. He was outside her circle. Even if he’d blabbed, it wouldn’t have gotten back to anyone she knew.”
“While we’re on the subject of things that make no sense, I still don’t get why Coralee Marshall would commit suicide, especially right now. She had a major toy drive planned for this weekend. It’s her biggest philanthropic event of the year. She’d probably been working on it nonstop for months.”
Delilah shook her head. “Maybe it had to do with her husband leaving her. Besides, I don’t think people who are suicidal worry too much about the timing of things.”
“What I mean is, her philanthropy seemed to propel her. The bigger the project, the more alive and unstoppable she seemed. According to what I heard from Violet, the Marshalls’ marriage was essentially over and had been for a while.”
“Well, maybe something changed, or…it finally hit her. You never know what’s going on inside someone’s head.”
“True. I didn’t know her that well. I guess I’m just surprised, that’s all. From the outside she seemed so together.”
“That’s why this kind of thing happens so often without warning—because we don’t always know when other people—” Her phone rang, interrupting her. “Hang on. It’s Papa Sal.” She said into the phone, “Hello? She’s still there? What? Dad’s there, too? How did he— Okay. Oh, no…Oh, that’s not good. We’re on our way.” She ended the call, her face drained of color. “Guys, this is much worse than we thought. They’ve got evidence that ties Dad to Esther’s murder. And Dad is Mom’s alibi for the night it occurred.”
Chapter 32
Tucker made a U-turn in the middle of the street and zoomed toward the police station. Delilah was in the seat behind me, stroking my hair and telling me everything was going to be okay. I was catatonic. I couldn’t move or speak.
I felt as if I were in someone else’s body as we raced into the police station and found Papa Sal in the lobby. I’d never seen him look so frail. Delilah and I clung to him as Tucker took charge of conferring with the desk clerk to find out when we could see our parents and speak to the detectives in charge.
We waited for so long I thought I might lose my mind. But finally they called me back—only me. My legs were jelly as I followed the uniformed officer down the hall and to the room I’d been in this morning. It seemed like it had been days instead of hours.
The officer sat me down and left me alone. I took a couple of deep breaths, hoping I could calm myself enough that I didn’t break down entirely. I knew I’d have to speak with the police about Coralee’s suicide note, and I’d been dreading it since the moment my sister delivered the bad news.
Rufus and Flynn
entered the room, their faces stony. Rufus sat in the chair across from me. Flynn seemed to be too agitated to sit and opted for pacing behind Rufus. I wished he wouldn’t do that—it was only serving to make me increasingly apprehensive, if that was even possible. I was trembling and at my wit’s end as it was.
Rufus sighed deeply. “Quinn, I don’t even know where to begin.”
Flynn snapped, “I do. I think you talk a good talk, Miss Bellandini. But underneath you have another agenda altogether. Why are you really poking around in this case? I find it a lot easier to believe that you’re trying to protect your parents rather than helping out some woman you just met. You’ve known her, what, a grand total of two months?”
I bristled. “Lela Heyward is hardly some woman I just met. She’s a part of my boyfriend’s family—one of the closest relatives he has, and the only member of his family who accepts me as I am. I didn’t know my parents had a thing to do with this mess until right before I came back to the station.”
“You knew your parents had graduated with Esther Sinclair.”
“Them and the other couple hundred people in their graduating class.”
He frowned at me. “You know as well as I do that they were particularly close with the victim.”
“That does not make them murderers,” I insisted, my voice cracking.
“But maybe it made them give you a nudge in one direction or another. A push to find out what key people knew about that night. A request to insert yourself into the situation, and under the guise of your Southern charm, bully some possible witnesses into thinking their memories were wrong, and even going so far as to fill their heads with the notion that there’s another bad guy out there.”
His little speech had the opposite of the intended effect. Indignation overshadowed my fear, and I fired back, “You’re going to stand there and call me a bully, Detective? All you’re doing is paraphrasing the suicide note of a clearly disturbed woman. And trying to insinuate my parents are some kind of diabolical murderous masterminds in the process. Have you met my mother? She can barely mastermind a drum circle.”
Rufus said quietly, “We’re not as concerned about your mother, Quinn. I remember all too well that your father wasn’t around when you were young, and I assume the two of you are not particularly close now.” He sighed. “But I have to ask you if he ever at any point encouraged you to start or continue this investigation you’re doing, or gave you direction of any kind.”
Rufus did know all too well about my relationship with my father when I was a child, because he’d been in the same boat. Any time there was a “bring your dad” function at school, we’d show up with our grandfathers, who ended up having known each other long ago and were happy to reconnect. Often the only two kids whose dads never bothered to show up, Rufus and I bonded and became the best of friends. While I was proud of Rufus for achieving his lifelong dream of becoming an officer of the law, it was quite difficult to be the subject of his detective work.
“My relationship with my dad is decent. We speak fairly regularly, but at the same time I know not to expect too much from him. I spoke to him over Skype yesterday for the first time in about a week, and it was the one and only time we’ve discussed anything about Esther Sinclair. I initiated the conversation, and I asked him to tell me what he knew. He wasn’t particularly forthcoming, and even told me he didn’t think I should be looking into this case. In fact, he sidestepped my questions and cut the call off as quickly as he could.”
“He didn’t try to point blame at anyone?”
“No. When I asked him who had it out for her, he told me he thought I was in over my head. The only person he badmouthed was…” I trailed off, recalling the conversation. A cold chill washed over me.
“Who, Quinn?” Rufus prompted.
“Esther,” I said quietly.
A smirk twisting his face, Flynn came swaggering toward the table. “What was that?”
Rufus held up a hand. “Not now, Flynn.” He said gently to me, “What did your dad have to say about Esther?”
I sighed, trying to hold the tears pooling in my eyes, and trying not to think about what all this could mean. “He said that Brock Sheridan loved her, regardless of what she put him through.”
“That’s it?”
“Not exactly. He implied that it was her fault that Brock beat up this other kid named Tim Carter. The story is that she’d flirted with Tim to get him to do her homework in exchange for going out with him, which she never ended up doing. Evidently it was obvious to her fellow classmates—all except Brock. When he finally realized Tim was after his girl, he went after Tim. My dad was close with Brock and tried to tell him that Esther was the one leading Tim on, but Brock wouldn’t listen. He even punched my dad and nearly ruined their friendship over it.”
Rufus nodded. “That probably didn’t help your dad’s opinion of Esther.”
“Come on, Rufus. You actually think he would have killed her over something like that?”
“Quinn, I honestly don’t know what to think. We can’t ignore Coralee Marshall’s note. And we can’t ignore the evidence.”
“What evidence can you possibly have that links my dad to the crime scene?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“Then I want to speak to my dad.”
“You can’t right now. We’re still in the process of questioning him. Maybe tomorrow morning.”
A tear slid down my cheek. “What about my mom?”
He wiped a hand down his face. “It’ll be a while on her, too.”
“Are you keeping her overnight?” I choked out.
“I’m afraid we’ll need to.”
I put my head in my hands. I didn’t think I could handle any more. But then a thought struck me. “Wait a minute.” I looked up and made eye contact with each of the detectives. “You two know me. Do you honestly think I would try to mess up a murder investigation to keep my parents out of jail?”
Flynn hemmed and hawed around. I figured as much. He didn’t know me that well, but deep down surely he didn’t think I was truly capable of being so crafty.
Rufus said, “No, I don’t think you would do that. I think you’d try to clear their names, like you’ve done in the past and are doing now, but I don’t think you’d deliberately try to derail a police investigation.”
“Thank you,” I replied, giving Flynn a pointed look. “So clearly Coralee Marshall was wrong about me—or was for some reason trying to tarnish my reputation. Either way, she could be wrong about my parents. Or she could even have been trying to do what you accused me of doing—deliberately trying to steer the police toward the wrong person to cover up for the actual killer.”
Flynn stared at me. “You think that didn’t occur to us?”
“I don’t know. I thought it relevant to point it out.”
“I suggest you leave the detective work to us actual detectives,” he replied, smirk firmly back in place.
I felt something snap inside me. “Then I suggest you actual detectives find the actual murderer instead of the three innocent people you have cooling their heels in jail while you take your sweet time making up your dang minds!”
When I saw Rufus’s expression go dark, I realized I’d inadvertently blurted out something awful. My hand flew to my mouth. I was having another of those out-of-body experiences, and this time my mouth was running afoul of my brain, and loudly. Where were my manners?
I looked down. “That was incredibly rude. I apologize. Please understand I’m very upset.”
Rufus said, “I can imagine. It’s okay.”
Flynn said, “That was probably the least rude thing anyone’s ever yelled at me in this room. No harm done. We’ve been tough on you.”
I glanced up to find him giving me a genuine smile.
“So where does that leave us?” I asked.
I sighed. “Rufus, this is my business. You know I can’t just sit back and do nothing while my parents are being accused of murder.”
“There have been no formal accusations.”
“Not yet.”
He rubbed his forehead tiredly. “Please, please stay away from this.”
“Everyone else will be gossiping about it. Why can’t I go out and talk to people? That’s all I’m doing.”
Flynn interjected, “I think what you’re doing is more along the lines of harassment than talking.”
I shrugged. “I know if the situation was reversed, I wouldn’t mind answering someone’s questions. As long as I had nothing to hide, that is. The only people who are going to feel harassed are the ones who are sitting on big fat lies, like I’m betting is the case with Coralee Marshall. Why would she kill herself now of all times, and make sure that her last act was to cast suspicion on my parents? Mark my words—there’s much more to her story you haven’t even begun to uncover.”
Again, my mouth had blurted out what I hadn’t realized my brain had put together. I knew where we needed to look next—at who Coralee Marshall really was.
Flynn put his hands on his hips. “One harassment complaint, and we’ll lock you up.”
I sat up straight. “One harassment complaint is all you’ll need to find the real killer. I’ll gladly take the punishment if it means solving this case for real. Are we done here?”
Rufus grumbled, “We’re done here.”
Chapter 33
Even though I was trembling on the inside, my adrenaline propelled me down the hall and through the door into the station’s lobby with my head held high. Delilah and Tucker rushed me.
“What happened?” she asked.
Tucker put his arm around me. “Are you okay? You look like you’re okay.”
Southern Harm Page 19