Whispering Pines Mysteries Box Set 3

by Shawn McGuire

  “Probably,” I responded to her question about Jonah. “He earns a decent paycheck, lives in an apartment that his dad’s law firm pays for and doesn’t even have car payments or school loans to pay off. Other than clothes and food, he’s got no major expenses.”

  At least none that I knew of. He wasn’t the same guy from a year ago, though. Apparently this version had “Dance Club” as a line item on his monthly budget.

  I needed to talk with him again and push him for the full truth about this person he thought he might have killed. If he didn’t volunteer the information, I’d tell him flat out what I knew about Millie. Both the real one and the stand-in.

  Someone should be in the room with me for that discussion. Tripp would want to be there, but someone neutral would be even better. If Reed was here, I’d have him doing all these interviews. At this point, I didn’t care who it was. I just needed to have a witness present while I questioned the man who had almost been my fiancé. I should have recorded the earlier discussion but hadn’t expected “I need to speak with Jayne for a second” to turn into a near confession. I needed to pull myself together and be prepared for anything.

  “Let’s go see what’s going on with Leslie,” I told Lily Grace.

  She nodded, walked with me to the Jack room, and poked her head inside. “Is it okay for Jayne to come in now?”

  A voice, presumably Jola’s, replied, and Lily Grace pushed the door open wider.

  Leslie was sitting up in the bed with pillows propped all around her. Her fractured arm with the pink plaster cast reaching nearly to her elbow rested on another pillow in her lap. She held a glass with water in her good hand. In my mind, I heard Jola telling her, “Just little sips. Take it slow.”

  Jola joined us at the door and spoke in a quiet, confidential tone. “She’s got a nasty headache and plenty of body aches.”

  “That’s understandable.”

  “I’m worried she may lose one or two of the toes that suffered frostbite. I haven’t told her yet. No need to upset her like that right after she woke up. Once she’s at the hospital, they’ll do a thorough check and run a bunch of tests. For now, she’s stable, so that’s good. She asked about her girlfriend, the one who was driving the car.”

  I’d hold off on those details for as long as I could as well. “Is it okay for me to talk to her now?”

  “Sure.”

  “I’m starving,” Lily Grace announced. “I’m going to find something to eat. Is there any of that mac-n-cheese left?”

  I nodded. “There should be. Briar made four or five pounds of it.”

  Lily Grace clapped her hands and skipped off.

  “Since you’re going to talk with our patient,” Jola began, “would you mind if I take a quick shower? Now that she’s awake and doing well enough, I feel comfortable stepping away for a few minutes.”

  “No problem. I’ll stay with her.” As Jola disappeared into the bathroom, I crossed the room. “Hi, Leslie. I’m Jayne. I own this bed-and-breakfast and I’m also the sheriff of Whispering Pines.”

  Leslie gave me a small smile and smaller nod but didn’t move otherwise, as though it hurt to do so. She spoke slowly but clearly. “Nice to meet you. Thank you for letting me stay here.”

  “The storm should wind down over the next few hours. As soon as they can get through, an ambulance will come to take you to the hospital.”

  “That’s what Jola said.”

  “I know you’re probably tired—”

  “No, I’m okay.”

  Did that mean she was determined to talk about this or that she was rested from being unconscious for so many hours? “Good. Would you mind if I asked you a few questions?”

  “Sure. Have a seat.”

  I pulled the chair Jola had been using to the side of the bed and then held my voice recorder out to her. “Just so you’re aware, I’ll be recording your statement.”

  “That’s fine.”

  After she stated her name and address, I asked, “Can you tell me what happened?”

  “Sure.” She took a small sip from her water glass. “My girlfriend and I were heading for Cloquet. That’s west of Duluth.”

  I nodded. “I’m familiar with Cloquet.”

  “Esther has a job interview there on Monday. She wanted to get there early and spend a little time in the town to see if we should move there.”

  The girlfriend wanted to decide if they should move there. Maybe I was on edge with Jonah being here and all the old memories and buried emotions that was bringing to the surface, but that sounded too controlling for my comfort. Then again, Leslie was covered with unexplained bruises.

  “Did Esther know about the storm?”

  Leslie rolled her eyes. “She knew. I told her it wasn’t safe. There was no reason we couldn’t wait for it to pass. We’d still get to Cloquet in plenty of time to check out the town.”

  “I take it she didn’t agree with that.”

  “She told me to pack a bag and quit worrying about everything.” Absently, Leslie lifted her unbroken hand to her left eye. It had dark bruising all around it. “If I wouldn’t have said anything, she probably would’ve waited. I need to learn to keep my mouth shut.”

  In other words, she got smacked for giving her opinion.

  “Jola told me, when she was initially checking you over for injuries, she found some older bruises on your body. Did Esther give you that black eye and those other bruises?”

  She wouldn’t look at me, focusing on her water glass instead. “I know better than to push her that way. She’s super stressed right now. Has been for a while. She’s been looking for a new job for a couple of months, and winter always gives her the blues. I know, for Esther, depression tends to turn into anger.”

  Classic victim reaction: justify the abuse by taking responsibility for the incident.

  “We’re pretty sure this new job will be great for her. Things will get better then.”

  I wanted to tell her she didn’t need to stay. I wanted to demand she not make excuses and to explain that someone who loved her would never lay anything but a gentle hand on her. That wasn’t my job at this point, though. And she was safe now. Esther couldn’t hurt her anymore. I needed to gather the facts first and help second.

  “The manager of our grocery store said she saw you in the parking lot as she was leaving for the night.”

  Leslie nodded. “I remember she put me in her car. Thank God. I’d be frozen solid right now if not for her.”

  I winced and pushed the memory of Suzette Thibodeaux away the instant it tried to enter my mind. Then I had to do the same with the image of Esther in my garage.

  “Do you remember walking along the highway?”

  She stared into the distance as she thought. “I remember the car spinning and bracing for impact by grabbing the dash.” She nodded at her cast. “That was stupid. The force from the sudden stop broke my wrist.”

  “You weren’t wearing a seatbelt?” The cop in me couldn’t stop the gentle scolding.

  Leslie shook her head. “I will now. Always. Not only would I not have broken my wrist, I wouldn’t have hit my head . . . wherever I hit it. On the door window, I think.” She frowned, trying to remember, then moved on. “Anyway, when the car stopped, we were in the ditch, and Esther was hurt.”

  Hurt, not dead. She either hadn’t seen the branch sticking out of Esther’s chest, her head injury made her forget things, or her mind was protecting her by blocking the details.

  “The front of the car was buried in snow. I couldn’t push the door open, so I climbed into the back seat and went out that way.”

  That explained why the back passenger’s side door was open.

  “I only had running shoes on,” Leslie recalled, “but I needed to get help. Those hotels along the highway had ‘Closed Until Memorial Day Weekend’ notices on their signs, so I kept going. The grocery store was the next building I came to. Thank God that woman was there. My feet were so cold. I don’t think I could have gone
any farther.”

  “Do you remember what made the car spin? Did you hit an icy patch? Was there an animal in the road?”

  She shook her head. “There was an impact. Someone hit us, and we spun.”

  I straightened in the chair. “As in another car hit you?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Esther kept yelling at this car behind us. They were riding her so close. She was already scared about the road conditions, even though she’ll never admit that I was right about waiting a day. Anyway, I begged her to pull over. We passed a sign for the hotels, and she promised to pull in there.”

  “And the car hit you before you got there.”

  “That BMW was following way too close even for good conditions.”

  My breath froze in my lungs. “BMW?”

  “Yeah.” Leslie winced and twisted slightly side to side to ease an ache in her back. “Esther slowed down so they could pass. As they did, she screamed, ‘Stupid privileged Beemer drivers.’ They clipped our front left bumper, and we spun out and ended up in the ditch.”

  I searched my brain for an image of Jonah’s mini-SUV in the driveway. Was there damage to the rear passenger side bumper? He had backed into the spot, and the whole thing was plastered with snow from the storm. If there was damage, I hadn’t seen it. I needed to run out there and look.

  Leslie studied me and then sat straighter. “You know who the driver is, don’t you? Is it someone from here?”

  “Not from the village. I might know them, though. Did they stop to see if you were okay?”

  She winced again. Now that she was awake, the pain was setting in. “It happened so fast, you know? I don’t remember anyone stopping. They for sure didn’t come down into the ditch to check on us.”

  On top of everything else that had happened to him recently, Jonah would be charged with vehicular manslaughter.

  “Anything else you remember? Anything at all?”

  She stared up at the ceiling. “No. I mean, nothing that would matter to the accident. I mostly remember arguing with Esther the whole way up here.” She sighed. “I know better than to pick a fight that way.”

  I’d never heard Esther’s voice, but I put down a big bet that those were her words coming out of Leslie’s mouth. “You always gotta pick a fight, don’t you? Why do you do that? You know you’re just going to make me mad.”

  She must’ve sounded a lot like Jonah. “See? This is what you do. You say stuff like that, and I end up getting mad.”

  Classic abuser justification: turn everything around and make the fight the victim’s fault.

  “All of my family is in the Madison area. Except for my dad. We don’t know where he is. I told Esther I don’t want to be so far away from my mom and little sister and brother. Not that they’re little. They’re fifteen and thirteen, but Mom needs help with them. Teenagers are challenging. Esther says Cloquet isn’t that far and I’ll be able to see them whenever I want.”

  Unsaid: I know full well I’ll see them once a year if I’m lucky.

  I couldn’t hold my tongue any longer. “Have you ever tried to leave?”

  Leslie stared at the cast on her arm for a long moment. “You’d think it would be that simple, wouldn’t you? I tried a restraining order once. That piece of paper only made a difference after she beat me up. They fined her and charged her with a misdemeanor.”

  “Not a felony?”

  “For a lot of reasons that upset me too much to talk about, they got it knocked down to a misdemeanor. What a crock. Restraining orders aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.” She clamped her mouth shut, trying to regain control of her emotions. “Esther threatened to go after my family plenty of times when I ‘disobeyed’ her. I can’t risk that happening. That’s why I stay. None of this is their fault.”

  Unsaid: It’s my fault. I brought this on.

  She looked up at me with desperation etched across her face. “What am I supposed to do?”

  Gently, not knowing if it would help or hurt, I decided now was the time and told her, “Esther didn’t survive the crash, Leslie.”

  No way would I give her the details at this point. One blow at a time. Although, that sounded a lot like what her life had been. One blow at a time.

  She blinked at me, trying to process what I’d said. “She didn’t make it? You mean she’s dead?”

  I almost apologized. But if what Leslie had told me was the truth, there wasn’t much to be sorry about. “That’s what I mean. She died in the crash.”

  Leslie’s eyes narrowed like she was remembering something. The crash? Had she seen the tree branch? She handed me her glass and put her healthy hand to her face. Her shoulders started to shake like she was sobbing. Then she dropped her hand to her lap, let her head fall back, and laughed like a person who hadn’t laughed in a very long time. “Are you serious? My little sister told me more times than I can count that karma would catch up to Esther. ‘You can’t be that nasty and get away with it forever,’ she said. Just wait till I tell her.” She inhaled deeply and blew out the breath as her laughing slowed. “I’m sorry, that’s pretty insensitive, isn’t it?”

  I didn’t know how to answer that.

  “Sheriff, if you do know who hit us or if you figure out who it was, will you let me know? I want to thank them for saving my life.” She looked me dead in the eye. “I can’t be more serious about that. I don’t know how, but eventually, Esther would have killed me.”

  And there was a new entry for my Never Saw That Coming list.

  “I believe you.” I set her glass on the nightstand and waited to see if she had anything else to say. When it was obvious she was slipping into the memories in her head, I got up and returned the chair to where Jola had it before. “I’ll let you rest now. Let me know if you think of anything else.” Then I added, “I’m going to ask Jola to help you find a counselor to talk to.”

  Thankfully, she didn’t object. Good. Leslie Lamar had a lot of baggage to unpack.

  In the meantime, I needed to get back to Brandi and ask her about that accident. On my way out of the room, I stopped at the bathroom door. The shower was still running, so I yelled, “Jola, are you almost done?”

  “Just about.”

  “Is it okay if I leave?”

  “I’m just rinsing off. Go ahead.”

  I gave a shell-shocked Leslie a little wave and pulled the door shut tight.

  Chapter 25

  Deputy Atkins stood to stretch his back. “Way too much sitting at my desk and in my car lately. I assume at that point you verified the damage to the BMW in your driveway?”

  I nodded. “It never occurred to me to look before that.”

  “Why should it have?” Tripp interrupted. “Sorry, again, for speaking up, but she puts unnecessary pressure on herself.” He took my hand from the chair’s armrest. “There’s no reason you should have thought to check Jonah’s car.”

  My hunched shoulders relaxed a degree. “I know, but I hate it when things are right there in plain sight, and I don’t see them.”

  “Not to be crass,” Atkins began, “but you know the driver died instantly. Within a minute or two at most. It wouldn’t have made a difference even if you’d been right there and seen the cars collide. The outcome wouldn’t have changed.” He waited for me to acknowledge that and gave a crisp nod when I did. “Good. Continue with your statement.”

  ~~~

  I left Leslie’s room and found Meeka lying in the middle of the hallway outside the attic door. It looked like she was playing guard dog. I stopped next to her. “Anything I need to know about, Deputy?”

  She stood, gave one short crisp bark, and lay back down on her belly.

  Alrighty then. I had no idea what that meant.

  I opened the door and pointed up the stairs. She didn’t move. “Don’t you want to come up? It’s past our bedtime.”

  I sighed knowing I wouldn’t be going to bed anytime soon.

  She blew a breath out her nose and stayed in her spot. It couldn’t be time
for bed yet. Tripp was downstairs, and everyone else was still awake as well. If it was even a little warmer outside, she’d check the perimeter of the house and yard. That had become a permanent item on her bedtime checklist shortly after we moved to Whispering Pines. When we moved from the boathouse apartment to the main house, inspecting the interior got added. Since too many people were still up, she couldn’t complete her list yet. Or so I assumed. Never could tell with the Westie.

  She wasn’t just lying there, though. If that was the case, she’d be dozing. Maybe she really was playing guard dog. But what or who was she guarding? And who or what was she guarding against?

  I found Brandi still sitting on the sofa beneath a throw blanket, her legs pulled up in crisscross. She looked very much at home there. All she needed was a beer, a fire in a fireplace, and the TV remote.

  “I ate all your cookies. Sorry about that.”

  High metabolism? Bored eating? Self-medicating? Feeling guilty about something?

  I took a seat on the opposite end of the sofa, set the recorder between us, and pushed the start button. “I just got done talking with the woman who was in that car crash.”

  Brandi inspected her cuticles as she asked, “Yeah? How’s she doing?”

  “Broken wrist. Nasty headache. Plenty of bruises. A couple of her fingers and toes got frostbit.”

  “That’s awful. She’s going to make it though, right?”

  I waited until she looked at me before saying, “Brandi, is there something you’d like to tell me about your drive up here with Jonah? Specifically about the last, say, ten or fifteen minutes of that trip?”

  With her attention still focused on her fingers, she started to nod her head. Slowly at first and then faster as though revving herself up. “It was Jonah’s fault. He was eager to get here and followed way too closely. I kept telling him to back off. Even a few feet. He insisted he was in control of his car and kept saying he wanted to get here and out of the blizzard.”

  “What happened?” I prodded when she went silent.