by Jessica Beck
“So, you know about Chris. I was wondering if you’d figure that out. You did good work there,” Sheriff Croft said. “I’m grateful for the information.”
“Like Victoria said earlier, we could use a little more of that ourselves. Can you help us out?”
The sheriff considered that, and then he finally said in a soft voice, “This is not for public consumption yet, so I’d appreciate it if you’d keep it to yourselves, but maybe I can help you a little there. I can at least eliminate one of your suspects for you.”
“Which one?” Moose asked eagerly. I knew that he was just as frustrated as I was about our lack of progress lately.
“We know for a fact that Barry Wilkins didn’t kill him,” the sheriff said, looking pleased with himself.
I’m afraid that our reaction wasn’t very satisfying to him, since I had no idea who he was talking about. “Barry who?” I asked.
“You didn’t know about him?” the sheriff asked, clearly perplexed by our reactions, or lack thereof.
“Barry Wilkins. He and Roy Thompson had a pretty bad blow-out in Laurel Landing the day before the murder. Barry threatened openly to kill him.”
“Did he lose money, too?” Moose asked.
“On the contrary. He wanted to get in on a deal of Roy’s, and the man flatly refused him. When it took off and made a small fortune for everyone who invested in it, Barry came looking for Thompson to get revenge on losing out on so much money.”
“We never heard a whisper about him,” I admitted. It wasn’t hard to understand, since the police had a great many more resources than we did, but it still stung a little.
“Well, it doesn’t matter. He didn’t do it. He was in Georgia when Roy was poisoned. Sorry about that.”
“Hey, you’re the pro,” I said. “We’re just amateurs.”
“Don’t sell what you do short,” the sheriff said. “I’d be hard-pressed without both of you on my side every now and then.”
Moose was about to say something, and I was bracing myself for what might come out of his mouth when the sheriff’s radio squawked. “Sheriff, there’s been an accident on old Highway 70 near the fairgrounds. The driver’s hurt pretty bad. From the look of it, someone ran her off the road on purpose.”
The sheriff stood quickly, and he waved in our direction as he headed for the door. Fortunately, we could still hear both sides of the conversation.
“Any ID on the victim?” he asked.
“Yeah, we just got it from the license tag. It’s a woman named Loretta Jenkins.”
Chapter 15
“How bad is she?” the sheriff asked as he turned around and walked back over in our direction.
“It’s touch and go right now. The firefighters on the scene just about have her pried out now, and the paramedics are standing by.”
“I’ll be right there,” he said, and then lowered the volume on his radio. “Did you hear all of that?”
“We did,” I said. “I can’t believe someone tried to kill Loretta. She was just in here this morning.”
“Things happen,” the sheriff said. “This may or may not be related to what’s happening with Roy Thompson’s murder.”
“Sheriff, you can’t believe that, can you?” I asked.
“I try not to jump to conclusions in my line of work. Anyway, I’ve got to run. I’ll let you know how bad things are after I get there and assess the situation myself.”
“Forget that,” Moose said. “We’re going with you.”
“There’s nothing that either one of you can do at the scene but get in the way,” Sheriff Croft said. “Let the experts handle this.”
“He’s right, Moose,” I said, and then I turned to the sheriff. “You promise that you’ll let us know?”
“I will, but it might be a while.”
“That’s fine.”
After he was gone, Moose said, “You gave up awfully easily just then.”
“We can do more good here than at the wreck site,” I said as I pulled my phone out.
“Who are you calling?” Moose asked me.
“I thought it might not be a bad idea to see if any of our suspects are away from their telephones. I know most folks use cell phones these days, but we can try landlines. The businessmen both have them, and so does Kelly. Sylvia is old fashioned enough to have one, too. What do you think?”
“I think you’re brilliant,” he said. “You call the women, and I’ll call the men.”
“What should we say if we reach any of them?” I asked.
“Just tell them what happened to Loretta. That’s enough of a reason to call all of them, don’t you think?”
“It sounds good to me.”
I called Roy Thompson’s office first, and to my surprise, Paul Gray answered the telephone himself.
“Hey, Paul. It’s Victoria. May I speak with Kelly?”
In a gruff voice, he said, “She left here twenty minutes ago to run some errands for the office, but she should be back soon.”
“Have her call me the second that she gets back,” I said, and then I gave him the number at the diner.
“Is it urgent?” he asked.
“Not really, but I’d appreciate a return call as soon as possible. I have news. Come to think of it, it might affect you, too.”
“Let’s hear it, then.”
“I’ll tell you, but don’t tell Kelly. I need to do that myself, okay?”
“That should be fine,” he said after a moment’s hesitation.
“Somebody just tried to kill Loretta Jenkins,” I said. “They intentionally ran her car off the road, and she’s in pretty rough shape right now.”
“Not another one,” the attorney said. “What is it with this town? Are you all bloodthirsty?”
“No, but we have a few bad ones around. I’m sure you have one or two in Charlotte, as well. If you didn’t, there wouldn’t be much business for you and your kind, now would there?”
He laughed softly. “You make a good point. Just how bad is she?”
“They’re cutting her out of her car right now,” I said.
“Do they have any idea about who might have done it?”
“All I know is that everything’s up in the air right now.”
“Well, keep in touch,” he said, and then the attorney hung up on me.
I thought about where the wreck had happened, and realized that it was less than a ten minute drive from Jasper Fork. Kelly certainly had time to force Loretta off the road and head back to the office. Then again, she might just be out buying office supplies. The telephone call didn’t eliminate her from our suspect list; that was all that I knew at that point.
I wasn’t sure if Sylvia and her son, Asher, counted on my list or my grandfather’s, but I decided to call her anyway.
The butler picked up. “Jones residence.”
“May I speak with Sylvia, please?” I asked.
“I’m afraid that she’s unavailable,” he said.
“Okay, let’s play this a different way. Is she unavailable to me, or is she just gone from the house right now?”
There was a moment’s pause, and then he responded, “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to tell you that, either way, she can’t speak with you at the moment.”
“Listen, I’m not trying to put your job in jeopardy, but this is important. I really need to talk to her.” I had a sudden thought. “Is there any way I could have her cell phone number? She would never know where I got it; I promise.”
“Madam doesn’t believe in them,” the butler said. After another pause, he reluctantly asked, “Should I have her telephone you when she returns?”
So, he’d decided to help after all. “Yes, please.” After I gave him the number, I hung up, and then I walked over to where Moose was still talking on the phone. He’d stepped aside so we wouldn’t be talking over each other, but now I wanted to know what he’d found out.
He was still chatting as I sat down across from him, and from his end of the conversation,
I could tell that he was talking to James Manchester. “Yes, Sir. That’s fine, Sir. Thank you.”
He hung up, and then Moose smiled at me. “That was quite brilliant, Victoria. I managed to catch the man in his office, and since the scene of the accident is a good forty minutes from his place of business, he’s in the clear.”
“How about the mayor?”
Moose grinned. “We’re two for two there. Helen patched me right through when I told her that it was an emergency, and the man spent five minutes telling me exactly why he was finished taking my telephone calls now and forever. He didn’t have time to run Loretta off the road and get back to his office, either. Did you have any luck on your end?”
“I couldn’t confirm or deny the whereabouts of Sylvia, Asher, or Kelly,” I said.
“So, then there were three,” Moose said.
“Only if the person who killed Roy Thompson also ran Loretta Jenkins off the road,” I answered.
“Come on, it’s too big a coincidence otherwise, no matter what the sheriff said before. We have three viable suspects left on our list. How are we going to narrow the names down even further?”
“I’d like to speak with Sylvia and Asher again in person,” I said.
“You’re not giving up on Kelly, are you?”
“No. On our way to Sylvia’s place, we’re going to swing by Roy Thompson’s office and check out her car.”
“That’s another good idea. One question, though. If Asher and Sylvia aren’t back yet, why are we going to their place?”
“If we have any luck at all, they’ll be back home by the time we get there.”
“And if they aren’t?” Moose asked.
“Then maybe we’ll snoop around a little on our own.”
“That’s the kind of thinking I like,” Moose said. “Let’s go.”
The problem with great ideas is that sometimes they don’t pan out. Not only was Kelly not back at the office yet, with Paul Gray’s car no less, but Sylvia and Asher were still gone as well. The butler gave us that much but no more, so our snooping was cut to zero.
“What now?” Moose asked.
“I suppose the only thing we can do is to head back to Jasper Fork. We can swing past Roy’s office again on our way, but otherwise, there’s nothing else we can do.”
“Maybe there’s one thing,” Moose said. “If someone was in a car accident, where would they go?”
“To the hospital,” I said instantly.
“What if they weren’t hurt, but what they were driving was?” Moose asked me with a grin.
“Then they’d probably go straight to a mechanic,” I said. “Since Wayne took over Bob’s shop, we should get a little more cooperation than we used to under the old ownership.” I had shivers thinking about going back to the repair shop, but we didn’t really have any choice.
Wayne was out front, smiling and talking to a customer, when we drove up. “Good to see you both,” Wayne said after he finished speaking to his earlier visitor. “There’s nothing wrong with this old beauty, is there?”
Wayne loved trucks, the older the better, and he and my grandfather had a simpatico relationship when it came to forms of transportation. “No, she’s fine. We were wondering if anyone’s brought in anything with body damage to it today.”
Wayne nodded. “We’ve gotten two in, as a matter of fact,” he said.
“Any chance you might tell us who owns them?” Moose asked him.
“I don’t sign any confidentiality agreements with my customers, if that’s what you’re asking,” Wayne said. He pointed to one of the bays and said, “The Jag just came in. Evidently somebody sideswiped a parked car with it.”
“May we see it?” Moose asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Wayne replied. “How’s Ellen doing?” he asked me softly.
“She’s great. You should come by the diner and see for yourself.”
“Maybe I will sometime,” he said with a slight grin.
Wayne walked into the bay, and my grandfather and I followed him. No one was attending to it at the moment. The door looked fairly smashed in, with extensive damage.
“Where did this happen?” Moose asked.
“They didn’t tell me, but it’s pretty clear that somebody got careless while they were driving. It’s too nice a vehicle for that kind of treatment, if you ask me.”
“Does it happen to belong to Sylvia or Asher?” I asked.
Wayne looked startled by the question. “It’s one of Sylvia’s. How did you know that?”
“Call it a lucky guess,” I said. “What about the other one?”
“You mean the car the Jag hit? I don’t know anything about that.”
“No,” Moose explained. “What other body job did you get in today?”
Wayne frowned, and then he said, “I don’t know the fellow who owns that one. He’s from out of town. Charlotte, I think.”
Bingo. “By any chance, his name isn’t Paul Gray, is it?”
Wayne’s eyes grew wide. “Okay, now you’re just freaking me out. There’s no way that you could know that.”
Moose said, “She’s scary good. Did a young woman happen to bring it by?”
He described Kelly, and Wayne nodded. “That’s the rush job. We’ve got to replace the whole fender, but we get a bonus if it’s finished by four today. She said that she hit a tree, and I don’t doubt that she scraped one pretty good. How do you both suddenly know so much about my business?”
“We’re just talented, I guess,” I said. “Thanks, Wayne.” I had another thought, and I added, “You might want to stop doing any more work on either vehicle until the sheriff can take a look at them both.”
“Why’s that?” he asked, startled by my suggestion.
“Someone ran a woman named Loretta Jenkins off the road earlier today, and I have a hunch that Sheriff Croft will appreciate it if you don’t destroy anything that might be evidence.”
“I’ll call him right now,” Wayne said. “I don’t need any trouble with the law.”
“This should earn you some goodwill with him,” I said.
“I’ll take all of that I can get,” he said.
I turned to Moose and said, “We need to go have a talk with Kelly right now.”
We found her in Roy’s office, but Paul Gray wasn’t around.
“How exactly did you wreck Paul’s car?” Moose asked bluntly.
She started crying the instant my grandfather said it. “I borrowed it to run errands for the company, and I wasn’t used to driving it. I sideswiped a tree over near the dry cleaner. Don’t tell him. I’m begging you. It will be as good as new before he knows anything about it.”
“Where exactly was the tree you hit?” I asked.
“What? It was on Elm Street. Why do you want to know?”
“We need to see if there’s any sign on that tree that you’re telling the truth,” Moose said.
She looked hurt by his accusatory words, but I noticed that her tears dried up almost instantly. “Why won’t you believe me? I don’t have any reason to lie.”
“Because someone used a car to try to kill Loretta Jenkins,” I said.
She looked shocked to hear the news. “It wasn’t me! I hit a tree! You’ve got to believe me.”
“We don’t have to believe anything,” Moose said. “I don’t doubt that you scraped a tree, but what else did you hit? You should tell Mr. Gray what happened.”
The attorney himself walked in as Moose said the last bit. “Tell me what?”
When Kelly didn’t say a word, I gave her a bit of a nudge. “Either you tell him, Kelly, or my grandfather and I will.”
Kelly took a deep breath, let some of it out, and then she said, “I had an accident with your car. I’m so sorry. Don’t worry, it’s being taken care of right now. They’ll have it fixed before the day is over. Please don’t be mad.” She was giving it everything she had; I had to give her credit for that.
“Well, I’m afraid that it’s too late for tha
t,” Paul said coldly.
“I’m getting it fixed. What’s the problem?” Kelly asked a little petulantly.
“I don’t give two figs about the car. You lied to me, though. I care more about someone’s word than I do anything else about them.”
“I never lied to you,” Kelly said.
“Omission is a lie just as much as outright fabrication.” The attorney shoved a few papers into his briefcase, and then latched it shut.
Turning to us, Paul Gray asked, “Would you be kind enough to give me a ride to the garage where my car is currently?”
“We’d be delighted,” Moose said.
“But what about Roy’s estate?” Kelly asked.
“I’ll have an associate here tomorrow. In the meantime, I’d appreciate it if you’d turn over your keys and leave the premises immediately.”
“What about my job?” she asked, the anguish clear in her voice.
“As of right now, I’m afraid that your services are no longer required here. You will receive a severance check in the mail in good time, but you’re finished here.”
Kelly looked shocked by how quickly things had deteriorated for her. “Is there anything that I can do to change your mind?” There was clearly more to that offer than I wanted to think about.
The attorney just shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Your keys, please.”
Kelly reached into her purse and pulled out a set of keys, presumably for the office. “You can’t do this to me,” she said even as she handed them over to him.
“Young lady, I’m the executor of this estate. Not only am I allowed to do it, it’s one of my obligations. Good day.”
Kelly left, looking shell-shocked.
Even Moose was surprised. “I can’t abide a liar any more than the next man, but that was harsh, even by my standards.”
Paul frowned. “I didn’t want to do it, but what choice did I have? I have to be able to trust whoever works on this, and she proved that I couldn’t put my faith in her. It’s been my experience that little lies often hide larger ones, and it’s a habit that I won’t tolerate. My word is my bond, and I expect others to act the same way.”