A Misty Morning Murder (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 4)

by Loulou Harrington

  “Did you hear this man’s name?”

  “Oscar something. Everybody thinks she owns that gallery. But she doesn’t. This Oscar guy is her…what do you call it? Her silent partner. And now Dad is, too. Silent and unhappy.”

  “I don’t suppose this Oscar fellow looks anything like the guy you saw in the alley, does he?”

  Misty shook her head. “He’s bald and paunchy. With a red face. And old. Like maybe in his fifties. The guy I saw looked tall. And slim. Early forties, maybe?”

  Joe made notes on his tablet, then laid down his pen and returned his attention to the girl. “So how bad was this stock market problem? Was it personal investments, or did it impact your dad’s business?”

  Cocking her head, Misty shrugged. “That is his business. Dad’s what you call an investor. He buys and sells stuff for a living. Real estate, collectibles, stocks. It’s all the same the best I can tell.”

  “Does he have partners?”

  “If the deal’s big enough. I can’t keep them all straight. A good friend of his, Maurice Singleton, works with him a lot. He might know some of the others.”

  “Does your Dad have an assistant?”

  “Not really. He uses an office service sometimes for paperwork and stuff, but no one person more than another.” Misty leaned forward again and dropped her voice to a stage whisper. “Cynthia’s the jealous kind. She doesn’t like other women hanging around, no matter who they are.”

  “Does that include you?”

  His voice was soft, but Jesse stifled a gasp.

  Misty ducked her head, and her shoulders drooped for just an instant. Then she straightened, lifted her head and gave a quick shrug. “Sure. Me, Nana Peg, anybody who took his attention away from her. She even found an old picture of Jesse and threw a fit ‘cause Dad still had it. Then she tossed it into the fireplace.”

  “So, other than Cynthia herself and this Oscar guy, did your father have any recent disagreements with anyone you’re aware of?”

  “There’s always somebody. Dad says he drives a hard bargain, so people get upset sometimes. But the real fights were with Cynthia. They go at it all the time. When he tried to dump his interest in her gallery, I hoped he was gonna dump her, too.”

  Misty’s voice died away, and she began to pick at the ragged thumbnail on her right hand.

  It was all Jesse could do to stand where she was, watching silently and aching with guilt for leaving the girl to the careless love of her self-absorbed father. She immediately regretted her uncharitable thoughts for the dead, but couldn’t stop the way she felt.

  “But when Cynthia wanted to send me away to school,” Misty continued, “he said he’d think about it, and I knew he was still planning to marry her. I couldn’t just stay there and let it happen without doing something.”

  “So that’s what this trip to Myrtle Grove was about?”

  Disgusted and defiant, the girl rolled her eyes and shrugged. “It was either that or spend my senior year at some awful private school in Tennessee that Cynthia said she went to but didn’t. I checked the yearbook. She was never there. She also claims to be an artist, but she’s not that either. She’s been selling somebody else’s art as her own out of her gallery.”

  That was news to Jesse. It was either something Misty had just uncovered or something she hadn’t thought to mention.

  Joe’s interest visibly sharpened. “Really? Is that something you just found out about?”

  “It’s something Dad just found out about. He was livid. I overheard the argument and decided it was time to make a break for it. Nana Peg helped me buy the plane ticket.”

  “So your grandmother knows you’re here?”

  “Sure. She’s as desperate as I am to keep Cynthia from becoming her daughter-in-law.”

  “Could you give me your grandmother’s phone number?”

  Frowning, Misty stared at him for a long, silent moment before reciting the number. She followed it with a suspicious, “Are you sending me back?”

  “No.” Joe sighed and shifted in his chair. “But I think your grandmother will be coming here.”

  “What about my Dad?” Misty frowned and worry crept into her voice. “He’s supposed to be here today. I need to get back to Jesse’s.”

  Letting out a gusty sigh, Joe flicked a glance toward the window where Jesse stood out of sight. Heartsick, even through the glass, she could see the frightened tears pool in Misty’s eyes, but before Jesse could move, Joe said, “I’m so sorry, but I have to tell you…”

  Jesse didn’t hear the rest because she was running as fast as she could out of the observation room, into the hall and through the door of the next room over.

  “…don’t know the cause of death until we’ve examined him,” Joe was saying as she burst in and hurried around the table to where Misty sat in stunned denial.

  Silent tears ran in a steady stream from the girl’s eyes, trailing down her cheeks to drip from her chin. A frightened whimper began from a pit somewhere inside the bereft teen and had grown to a wail by the time Jesse dropped into the chair beside her.

  Gathering her into her arms, Jesse crooned, “I’m so sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.” From the corner of her eye she saw the sheriff and deputy rise and quietly leave the room, pulling the door closed behind them.

  While her own heart broke for the child who had just lost her last parent, Jesse whispered meaningless sounds of consolation, hugging and rocking the girl she loved like her own until the sobs grew less fierce and eventually quieted.

  “He’s wrong.” Misty lifted her head from Jesse’s shoulder and gazed at her with tear-swollen eyes. “He’s got to be wrong. Please tell me he’s wrong,” she begged.

  “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.” Jesse fought back tears of her own. “There was an accident. Late last night.”

  “Where?”

  “Just outside of Myrtle Grove. During the storm.”

  “But you talked to him,” Misty argued. “He wasn’t here!”

  Jesse didn’t know what to say. He lied? He was here, and he lied?

  “Apparently, he was,” she answered simply. “Maybe he just didn’t want to tell me. I don’t know why. And they don’t know exactly what happened.”

  “I want to see him!” The grieving girl jumped to her feet and looked around the room, demanding of anyone who could hear her. “I want to see him now!”

  The door opened immediately, and Sheriff Joe Tyler stood there looking somber. “I can take you. It’s not far.”

  “Now?” Misty demanded.

  He nodded. “Now.”

  She marched toward him, but not before grabbing Jesse’s hand in a grip tight enough to cut off the circulation and pulling her along. The walk to the coroner’s office was a long one—down the hall, out the door, around the far corner of the building housing the county courthouse and sheriff’s department, and down an old set of stone steps into the basement home of the medical examiner and morgue.

  Ronald Bennett lay on a table in the center of a small room, nude but for the sheet that covered him. His clothes were bagged, tagged and waiting for whatever came next. At that moment, his car was undoubtedly being poured over by investigators seeking answers for what had killed the man found at the edge of a lightly travelled country road in Oklahoma’s lake country.

  He looked peaceful, like a pale and slightly bruised man who had just laid down for an endless nap. The sheriff and medical examiner stepped into the background. Misty moved closer. Her hand still clutched Jesse’s like it was the only thing keeping her standing.

  A small whimper escaped the girl, but no other sound followed. She reached out and brushed his hair back from his temple, a gesture Jesse never remembered seeing while he lived. He had never been a man who evoked tenderness—until now, when all his bravado was gone.

  “He looks like he’s asleep.” Misty’s voice was hushed as if she feared waking him. “Could it have been a heart attack? He’s been awfully stressed lately.” She looked up and sea
rched the room until she found the medical examiner standing beside the sheriff. “He doesn’t look hurt at all, except for that bump on his head. More like he just went to sleep. Did he bang his head on something?”

  The normally gruff Arnie Holt looked toward the sheriff. At Joe’s nod, Arnie turned back toward Misty, and Jesse tensed for his usual grumpy-old-man response.

  “We won’t know for sure until I’ve had a chance to examine him,” he said with the care of a man holding a baby bird in his hand. “A heart attack would certainly be a possibility. And the abrasion on his head is consistent with an impact with the steering wheel.”

  Heaving a sigh, Misty looked at Jesse. “At least then it wouldn’t be my fault. A heart attack or an accident could have happened anywhere. Even in Austin.”

  “Aw, sweetie, it’s not your fault.” Jesse wrapped her arms around the girl and gave her a hug. “No matter what happened, it won’t be your fault.”

  “She’s right, Miss. Whatever happened along that roadside, it had nothing to do with anything you did,” Arnie added. “Don’t you go blaming yourself for what foolishness men do.”

  Misty closed her eyes against the tears seeping silently down her cheeks and held onto Jesse’s embrace as if her life depended on it.

  “If only I hadn’t made him come here,” she whispered in a broken voice. “I shouldn’t have gotten so angry. I shouldn’t have run away. All I wanted was for him to listen to me, and now he’s dead. And I’ll never know if he really loved me.”

  “Of course he loved you, sweetheart.” Jesse held the girl tighter, wishing she could pick her up and cradle her in her lap the way she had so long ago when she had soothed the young child’s broken heart. “He always loved you, Misty. He just wasn’t very good at showing it. He always depended on your mother for those things. I think that without her, he was never really whole again.”

  Misty lifted her tearstained face and gazed into Jesse’s eyes. “Do you think they’re together now? Do you think maybe he’s finally happy because he’s with her again? I’d sure like to think so.”

  “I think that’s a wonderful thought, sweetheart,” Jesse said with all the sincerity she could muster. “And I’m sure they’re both looking down on you and wanting you to be happy.”

  “I think they’d be happy I was here with you, don’t you?” Her voice came and went with little choking sounds. “I always thought Momma would have really liked you. Nana Peg always said so.”

  Flattered, touched and dismayed, Jesse groaned at the thought of delivering more bad news. “I had forgotten your grandmother.”

  “Oh, wow.” Misty’s tears dribbled to a halt, and she stared off into space as if seeing something that surprised her.

  “What? Did you just remember something?”

  Misty gulped back her sorrow and nodded. “A couple of weeks ago. It was the oddest thing. Nana Peg said that Dad gave her copies of his burial arrangements. Plus, he updated his will. She said the whole thing gave her the creeps.”

  The girl turned wide eyes to Jesse. “You don’t suppose he had a feeling, do you? You know, like something was gonna happen to him?” Then her look of wonder turned to one of dawning horror. “Oh no! You don’t suppose he gave that witch custody of me, do you? I can’t keep running away! I have to get back to school next week.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sophia’s arrival interrupted Misty’s mounting panic. “I just spoke to your grandmother, Misty love.” She scooped the girl from Jesse’s arms into her own and added a reassuring wink. “Peg’s catching the first plane she can get, and I talked the sheriff into letting me pick her up from the airport. You can go with me if you’d like.”

  “Oh, yes,” the girl agreed with relief and snuggled into the new comforting embrace.

  Over the top of Misty’s head, Sophia made eye contact with Jesse. “The sheriff says you can watch his next interview from the same observation room, if you want.”

  “Oh!” Eager to hear him question Cynthia, Jesse took a quick step away and then hesitated. “Will everything…?”

  Sophia stopped her with a nod. “I think I’ll take Misty home now and let her catch a nap before we go meet her grandmother. Does that sound like a good idea to you, hon?” she asked the teen who was beginning to droop in her arms.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again, but…” Misty shuddered and snuggled deeper into Sophia’s hug. “I’d sure like to get out of here.” The last word sounded like tears weren’t far away.

  Jesse reached out and lifted the girl’s chin. “I’ll be along behind you in a few minutes. Does that sound okay?”

  Misty nodded. Her mouth twisted, and her chin began to tremble, and Jesse felt like a cad. Then she remembered that voiceless, crackling phone call that might have been the last thing Ronnie ever did, and she knew she couldn’t let this go. Not right now.

  “Take care of her?” Jesse asked as her gaze caught her mother’s. “I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  “You do what you have to do. We’ll be fine.”

  Without a backward glance, Misty let Sophia lead her away and, fighting her own guilt, Jesse proceeded to her front row seat in what she hoped would be a real, old-fashioned inquisition. Slipping into the room, she saw Cynthia sitting across the table from a serious-looking Sheriff Tyler. His hat pulled low, he leaned well back in his chair and stared in silence at the woman who wiggled nervously in her seat. Her gaze darted around the room as if seeking an exit.

  She had obviously made it to her motel room to change clothes but must have been interrupted before she could touch up her worn makeup or unkempt hair. The dramatic if somewhat overblown lady of the scarlet hair and shrill temperament appeared faded, frazzled and years older than the image she had projected the previous evening.

  Her too tight dress had been replaced by dark leggings and a mid-thigh gray sweater that looked like it belonged to a heavier person. The somber colors did nothing to brighten Cynthia’s washed out complexion or the dark circles under her eyes, but the outfit did add a slight bohemian artist flair to her harried appearance.

  “What am I doing here? I’ve done nothing! I demand…”

  “Where did you go when you evaded our deputy and escaped the hospital this morning?” Joe interrupted before she could continue. “We have your car, so either you walked or someone picked you up. And when was the last time you saw or talked to Ronald Bennett?”

  Cynthia’s gaze bounced back and forth as if she were watching an invisible tennis match while she obviously contemplated which lie to tell first.

  “A lot happened last night while you were missing,” Joe added. “So you’d be doing yourself a big favor if you’d skip the tall tales and just answer the questions.”

  “What happened?” she asked warily. Her gaze did another rapid survey of the small room. “Is Ronnie here? I want to talk to him. I demand…”

  “Please stop demanding, Miss Stanton.” Joe closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He remained in that position, talking without looking at her, sounding almost as tired as he had every right to be. “I don’t have the patience for it. You’re not under arrest. You’re not charged with anything. But I can fix that if you don’t start cooperating.”

  He opened his eyes, swung around to face her and planted his crisply uniformed forearms firmly on the tabletop. “Then I’ll have to read you your rights. And you’ll have to find an attorney, and things will begin to get very messy. You’re in a strange town in a strange state, and my advice to you is to keep things as simple as possible.”

  “Why do you care? Since when did somebody like you care about what’s best for somebody like me?”

  “Did you kill Ronald Bennett?”

  She froze, began to blink rapidly and turned chalk white. “Wha… Wha…” The partial words came out as breathless huffing sounds. “Wha… Wha…” The white of her skin turned the pale, icy blue of a glacier, and her head hit the tabletop with a melon-like thump.

  �
��Well, hell,” Joe said, sounding as exasperated as he looked. “Somebody get Arnie Holt in here.”

  “I don’t do live people. You know that.” Arnie stood with Cynthia Stanton’s wrist in his hand while he stared at his watch. She was more or less upright, slumped in her chair and looking dazed. A red lump on her forehead was the size of a golf ball and still swelling.

  Arnie pulled a blue neoprene glove from his pocket and handed it to Deputy Marla Murphy. “Put some ice in this. Tie the end in a knot and slap it on her forehead. And bring her a cola.” He looked at Joe. “According to her pulse, she’s alive. She probably needs to go to the hospital to have that bump on her head checked out, just to make sure she stays that way.”

  “That didn’t go too well the last time,” Joe said.

  “You’re a hard man, Joe Tyler, but I get your point. Keep her upright. Keep her awake. And I’ll come back and check her pupils in a bit. Since she can’t remember when she ate last, that cola should get her blood sugar back up, and I’m going to guess she’s got a pretty hard head.”

  “Oh, I think we can be pretty sure of that.”

  Joe sat back down in the seat across from the woman who was now holding a blue glove of ice to her forehead. “Where did you go when you left the hospital this morning?” he asked again.

  She rolled her eyes and groaned.

  “Let’s put it this way, then. Are your fingerprints going to be on that hot-wired car we found two blocks from where your car was parked in the alley behind the Gilded Lily Tea Room?”

  She glared at him.

  “That was a trick question,” he said. “We’ve already got you for grand theft auto. Did I mention that cooperation would be a really good idea on your part?”

  “That car wasn’t grand theft anything,” she snapped. “And the owner asked me to take it and get rid of it while it was still insured.”

  “Mrs. Dobbins is eighty-five, and that car was the treasured possession of her departed husband.”

  Cynthia gave a small, stifled scream. “I hate small towns!”

  “Who was the man who walked into the alley and approached your car this morning?”