Her gaze narrowed suspiciously. “What man?”
“Medium to tall height. Well built. Forty something. Short hair.”
She seemed to relax ever so slightly. “No idea. Sure you’re not imagining something?”
“What if I’d said he was shorter? Older? Dumpier?”
With each word he spoke, Cynthia’s tension returned more noticeably. Her gaze did another jittery circuit of the room.
“Ah ha,” Joe said softly. “You’re scared of that one. Oscar, I believe his name is.”
She threw the glove of ice across the room, catching the bottom corner of the glass Jesse stood behind. Jesse jumped as Cynthia lunged forward, bracing the heels of her hands against the edge of the table. “Charge me or let me go,” she snarled.
Joe laughed and relaxed against the back of his chair.
Jesse stood unseen in the small observation room with her hand pressed over the rapid beat of her heart. Who was Oscar? Oh, yes, he was the silent partner in Cynthia’s gallery. The man who held Ronnie’s feet to the fire. And apparently a man Cynthia had no power over—and was possibly afraid of. Very afraid of.
“I demand to see my attorney,” Cynthia said.
“But you haven’t been charged with anything, Miss Stanton. I can hold you here for days without charging you with anything. I can question you for hours without charging you with anything. And now that you’ve knocked yourself into semi-consciousness so many times, I’m afraid I can’t allow you to sleep either. I’m so terribly sorry.” He rose from his chair and pushed it neatly back under the table. “But I’m sure you understand that it’s my duty to take every possible precaution to keep you in the best of health.”
“Come back here,” she cried as he walked toward the door. “You haven’t told me about Ronnie. What were you talking about a while ago? Where is he? When will I see him?”
He paused at the doorway. “Again, Miss Stanton, I’m very sorry, but you haven’t answered any of my questions, and I’m certainly not answering any of yours.”
“Wait! Come back!” She tried to smile and her lips trembled. “You’ve got me all wrong.”
“And how is that?”
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Okay, look…” She took another breath. “I was supposed to meet Ronnie at my hotel last night, but he didn’t show up. He sucks at directions. I figured he just got lost, so I went back to try to sneak the little brat out of that house by myself while everyone was asleep. Then when he finally showed up, I’d have her, he’d be happy, and we’d leave town. Then we’d get married, she’d go away to school and life would be grand like it was supposed to be. Only…”
Joe leaned against the wall, arms crossed and waited. Cynthia seemed to be fighting back tears. The best Jesse could tell, the emotion was genuine because it wasn’t a pretty sight.
“Only?” Joe prompted, clearly growing impatient and clearly not caring if her emotion was genuine.
“Only, everything went wrong.” The words came out in a shrill whine that seemed to be on the way to a complete meltdown.
“And?” Joe asked.
“The storm hit. The lightning was flashing like a strobe light. My flashlight quit working. Then I heard someone coming down the stairs and while I was looking for a place to hide, somebody yanked my flashlight out of my hand. The next thing I knew there was this awful pain just above my ear, and when I came to, you were standing over me. Then, when I finally made it back to my motel, your deputy was waiting for me instead of Ronnie. He was already trying to back out of the wedding. This is it. I just know it. He’s going to dump me for sure.”
“Ronnie? Why do you think that?”
“He found out about Tommy. I couldn’t explain it to him. What was I going to say? I’m still married to my high school sweetheart, and I can’t get a divorce because I’ve been selling his paintings as mine for years, and he’s threatening to destroy my career if I file for divorce?”
“And this high school sweetheart would be, huh…” Joe flipped the pages of his notebook. “Thomas Stanton?”
Cynthia’s head jerked up and her mouth opened, but no sound came out. Joe’s gaze slid toward the two-way mirror that separated him from Jesse. Somehow, he seemed to know exactly where she was, and she felt the acknowledgement he was sending her way. If Cynthia had never suggested the private school for Misty’s senior year, and if Misty’s suspicion hadn’t led her to the old yearbooks, Cynthia’s past would still be a mystery shrouded in deception.
“There’s no way you could know that,” she challenged.
“Misty thought she would check out the private school you were trying to send her to. It’s apparently amazing what’s on the internet these days.”
“That little witch! Oh, how I despise her.”
“Astonishing. That’s pretty much how she feels about you, too. Good thing your days of having to put up with each other are over.”
“Don’t bet on that.” Her expression turned sly, almost smirking. “I still might get Ronnie to the altar.”
“Oh, I seriously doubt that.”
Joe turned and left the room. Jesse watched Cynthia’s face and saw nothing but frustration. Horrid, self-serving, manipulative, lying and conniving person that Cynthia was, she had no idea Ronnie Bennett was dead, even after Joe all but told her. Everything she had been angling for was still wrapped up in a marriage that would never happen and wouldn’t have been legal if it had.
Someone, for some reason, appeared to have attacked Cynthia in Jesse’s house in the middle of the night while Ronnie was miles away preparing to face his own fate. Cynthia seemed genuinely clueless as to who her attacker was. There was only the slimmest possibility that it could have been Ronnie himself, and every possibility that the two attacks weren’t even related.
Even worse, it could have been almost anyone. Tommy Stanton, Cynthia’s first and present husband, certainly had motive, as did her disgruntled business partner, or even someone connected to Ronnie’s business dealings. The real question was why would anyone choose to do it here in Myrtle Grove?
“Well, that was hugely unhelpful.” Joe shut the door to the observation room behind him and leaned against it.
“As much as I hate to admit it, I believe her,” Jesse said. “When are you going to tell her?”
“Later. Right now, she’s going back into a holding cell. She hasn’t told us everything she knows, and I don’t trust her on the streets until all this is settled.”
“How much later are you going to wait?”
“Let her stew a while. Let Arnie check her a couple of times. When I know she’s not going to pass out a third time, I’ll tell her. Maybe by then she’ll have thought of something else she’s willing to share. Maybe she’ll actually want to help us catch his killer.”
“His killer? I thought his cause of death wasn’t determined.”
“Broken neck. Base of the skull. Spine severed. Nothing accidental about it. And it was done by someone who knew what they were doing. Probably male. Probably good sized since Ronald Bennett wasn’t a small man.”
“Arnie’s fast,” Jesse said, torn between throwing up and breaking into tears. Why did it have to be something like that?
“Arnie’s good. Besides, he wanted to do some fishing before the weekend was over.”
Jesse sniffed and wondered why she never had a handkerchief or at least a tissue when she needed one. “He’s an ornery old cuss, but Arnie’s starting to grow on me.”
“Don’t cry,” Joe said. “Not for Ronnie. Not every man deserves it.”
“Everyone needs to have someone cry for them whether they’re worth it or not.” Jesse swiped at the tear that had left a chilly trail down her cheek.
Joe slipped an arm around her and pulled her against his shoulder. “Not you. He has other people to cry for him,” he whispered into her hair. “He doesn’t get to have you, too.”
Chapter Eighteen
A rap at the door reminded them where they were,
and they sprang apart just as the door opened. Frank poked his head in and frowned when he saw Jesse standing just inches away from his boss.
“Yes?” Joe prompted.
The deputy’s disapproving gaze slid away from Jesse to Joe. “We got a match on prints,” Frank said. He looked toward Jesse again and said no more.
Joe sighed. “Thanks, Frank. I’ll be there in a minute.”
The deputy took that as a dismissal and left, but not without one last, suspicious glance toward Jesse.
When they were alone again, she asked, “Would that be from Ronnie’s car?”
“I would assume.”
“Do I get to find out who?”
He shook his head. “Maybe someday, but not right now. Frank’s right. This is an official murder investigation now. Or at least manslaughter, and I’ve got to draw the line somewhere.”
“I thought we were collaborating.”
“We were. You identified the body of Ronald Bennett and provided vital information. I let you watch my interrogation of a prime suspect and solicited your opinion as to the answers she provided. Your thoughts concurred with mine. I appreciate your assistance, but that’s the end of our collaboration.”
Exasperated, Jesse opened her mouth to protest but Joe stopped her with a fingertip to her lips.
“There’s personal and there’s professional, Jesse. We have to keep a clear line between the two, or this thing isn’t going to work.”
“This thing? We have a thing?”
“You don’t think we do?”
“Well, I did notice a certain something, but I have to confess, Sheriff Tyler, to being a little confused from time to time about the exact definition of this thing.”
He placed the end of his index finger against the pulse spot just beneath her ear, then slowly traced the side of her neck with his fingertip. At her collarbone, he stopped and dragged his gaze back up to her eyes. “Maybe later tonight we can get together and clarify the situation. I’m sure I can clear up any confusion.”
At that moment if he’d suggested disappearing into a coat closet together, Jesse would have happily agreed. “Okay,” she said a little breathlessly. “That sounds good.”
“You want me to have Marla drive you home?”
Just before Jesse agreed without thinking, sanity returned. “I live a block and a half from here.”
He shrugged. “It could be raining outside.”
“It’s not.”
“I feel like I’m letting you walk home from a date.”
“I feel like I need to clear my head,” she countered.
With his hand on the doorknob, he leaned in to whisper. “Not too much, I hope. I think I like you slightly befuddled.”
Before she could respond, the door swung open and reality swept over them. Almost at the same instant, Jesse’s cell phone rang. Deputy Frank Haney hovered near, still eyeing her with distrust.
Jesse answered her phone on the fourth ring.
“Jesse,” Misty stage whispered. “He’s here. That Stanton guy. From the yearbook. He’s here!”
From the strength of the last “here” Jesse realized Misty wasn’t talking about Myrtle Grove. “Here? What do you mean by here? Like there here?”
“Here here,” Misty said. “Like in the dining room. Drinking lemonade. Like ‘why, yes, ma’am, I would purely love to have some lemonade.’ That’s how he talks, Jesse. Who talks like that?”
“I don’t know, but give him all the lemonade he wants. I’m on my way.”
Jesse blew out of the sheriff’s offices and across the town square without looking back. Let them have their fingerprints. She had Cynthia’s secret husband sitting in her tearoom sipping on lemonade. Somebody Stanton…what was his name? Oh, yeah, Tommy.
And if Cynthia’s lack of reaction was any indication, he probably wasn’t the one who left Ronnie dead on the side of the road. But he was still someone who might have answers to some burning questions or else why was he in Myrtle Grove?
Entering the white picket fence of the Gilded Lily’s front yard, it occurred to Jesse that if criminals really did return to the scene of the crime, this Tommy person just might be the one who bashed Cynthia over the head and left her for dead on the kitchen floor.
After jogging the block and a half from the Courthouse building, Jesse paused on the front porch to catch her breath. While she mopped the sweat from her brow with her shirttail, she reminded herself to grab the golf club from the umbrella stand next to the front entrance, just to be on the safe side.
Then, looking like someone just back from the putting green, she entered the tearoom, golf club swinging casually by her side. A trim, tanned, outdoorsy-looking man sat at a table in the center of the dining room opposite Sophia, who was sipping a cup of tea. SueAnn sat at the counter, giving every appearance of working on her laptop. Misty was refilling the man’s glass of lemonade. Her eyes were swollen, but she seemed to have passed the first, intense storm of grief. Lindsay was nowhere in sight, having probably gone to her apartment when the tearoom closed.
“Ah, here’s my daughter now,” Sophia said with a smile. Her eyes grew wider when she spotted the golf club, but she quickly recovered herself. “Jesse Camden, this is, uh…”
The man pushed back from the table and turned with his hand extended. “Tom Stanton, ma’am. How do you do? This is a lovely place you have here.”
He smiled, and Jesse tucked the club under her left arm before slipping her right hand into his for a hearty handshake.
“How do you do…Tom, is it?” Her voice trailed away.
“My friends call me Tommy,” he said as he pumped her hand. “I hope you don’t mind my showing up here unannounced. But I didn’t know what else to do.”
“And what can I do for you, Mr. Stanton, uh, Tommy?”
Jesse leaned the golf club against a nearby table and dropped into the empty chair next to her mother. Tommy Stanton returned to his seat, braced his forearms on the edge of the table and leaned forward.
“Is Cyndi okay? I was supposed to meet her here last night, but I got lost. By the time I got here, there were police cars and a whole line of people outside waiting to get in. Then I saw her leave in a police car. Her head was bleeding, and she seemed awfully woozy.”
“Why were you meeting her here last night?” Jesse asked.
“Damned if I know.” He glanced up at Sophia. “Oh, I’m sorry, ma’am. Please excuse my language. I’m a little bumfuzzled right now.” He returned his attention to Jesse. “I don’t know, is what I meant to say. Cyndi called me and asked me to get over here and meet her because she might be needing my help.”
“Get over here from where?” Jesse felt as if this conversation had started out making no sense and was only getting worse.
“Little Rock. I got a little roofing company there. I got to be back in the morning. We’re in the middle of a job right now.”
“And when did you have this conversation?”
“Yesterday about noon. I couldn’t leave right away. We had a roof down to the tar paper and had to get the new shingles on before dark. It was a rush job I’d promised to do over the weekend.”
“So what time did you leave Little Rock and head toward Myrtle Grove?”
“Maybe eight o’clock?” he answered with a shrug. “Maybe nine? I grabbed a bite to eat, had some coffee and hit the road. I wasn’t exactly timing myself.”
“And you came straight here?”
“More or less. Say, am I being interrogated or something? What’s going on?”
“We had a lot happen here last night, Mr. Stanton, uh, Tommy. And none of it makes much sense. You’re helping a lot to fill in the timeline.”
“Are you a cop?”
“No. No, I’m not, but I’ve got a big stake in this, and I’d really appreciate your help. If you don’t mind, can I ask you a few more questions before I explain?”
He leaned back in his chair and appeared to settle in. “Okay, shoot.”
“Y
ou said you left Little Rock about nine. How long did it take you to drive here?”
“Well, about midnight I pulled into a Waffle House, got a pecan waffle and some coffee and checked my map. That was when I found out I’d been following the wrong road for about an hour. So when I finished eating, I spent another hour backtracking. I almost kept driving all the way back to Little Rock, but Cyndi had sounded pretty serious. Serious enough to worry me, so I pulled into a roadside rest stop and took a nap. I don’t know how long I’d been sleeping when she called and woke me up, pissed as hell.”
He stopped and looked toward Sophia. “Scuse me again, ma’am. Sorry about that.”
“What time was it by now?” Jesse prodded. “And where was Cyndi…Cynthia?”
“Two, three.” He shrugged. “Something like that. She was inside your house, she said. She’d just heard something and wanted to know if it was me.”
“So she called you on the phone? Did she say exactly where she was?”
“In your house,” he repeated,
“Exactly,” Jesse said with emphasis. “Where in my house?”
“Oh.” He nodded toward the screened in porch that was their outside dining area. “Out there. If anybody was awake in the house, she didn’t want them to hear her. She said it was beginning to storm, and she was about to change her mind about the whole thing if I wasn’t going to be there.”
“She say what the whole thing was exactly?”
“Not really. I got the impression it was to do with Ronnie Bennett’s daughter. She’d run away and was hiding out somewhere around Myrtle Grove. Cyndi had it in her head that if she could just rescue the girl, she could get back into Bennett’s good graces.”
Misty made a quiet, whimpering sound and rushed from the counter, past the table where they sat and out of the room.
“Excuse me,” Sophia said softly and left the room on the girl’s heels.
Jesse’s attention followed them out of the room. She heard the sound of footsteps hurrying up the staircase and wished she could go with them. Then she forced her mind back to the man in front of her. “Were they quarrelling?” she asked, bringing the conversation back to Ronald Bennett and Cynthia.
A Misty Morning Murder (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 4) Page 13