Playing the Devil

by R. J. Lee

  “I can’t blame you,” Ross said. “And I agree with you about the gaps. Bax and I think the power outage obviously threw everyone off their game.” Ross shook his head in silence. “Except it’s my belief that it inspired someone—maybe more than one person—to go into action. Of course, at some point they would have had to get hold of that pestle inside the building. The covered deck angle can only get us so far. There are two components to this thing that we can’t overlook. First, you get the weapon. Then you find a way to use the weapon and get to the victim without being observed. We’ve nixed the idea that this could have been premeditated because of the randomness of the power outage. But I do think at least one person lost it and acted out, and the rest is history and part of my job to solve.”

  Wendy did her own version of thoughtful chewing for a while. “So can you give me your impression of Gerald Mansfield? I kept getting the strange feeling that something was off.”

  “Inconclusive, I’d say. He clearly didn’t like Brent Ogle, but that seems to have come with the territory among all the suspects. Bax says he can’t believe how much Brent had changed over the years. Seems he went from conquering hero to the Devil, himself, in one lifetime. I wouldn’t say that Gerald Mansfield shed any new light on our investigation, though.”

  “Even though he has no alibi?”

  “That may be,” Ross said. “But there is no evidence that Gerald Mansfield was there that Saturday. No one saw him anywhere at any time. There were some prints of his in Miz Deedah’s and Miz Mitzy’s offices, but when I asked him about that, he said that he sometimes went into their offices to tell them something or other. Or they wanted him to come in for a meeting. That seems reasonable. At any rate, as with the rest of you, there was nothing incriminating of his around the crime scene.”

  Wendy looked up from her salad, taken a bit by surprise. “Haven’t you taken me off the list yet?”

  “Your father and I have, of course. You know you’re in the clear. I’ll try not to phrase things that way in the future.”

  Wendy took a sip of her Rosalie muscadine wine and absolved him with a smile. “So who are you interrogating next? Or are you through?”

  “Not hardly.” Ross’s eyes bugged out for an instant. “Tomorrow, I’ve got Tip Jarvis down at the station first thing in the morning and Connor James a little later for their second sessions. They do fit the concept of the team effort that we’ve been tossing around. Every time I look at the diagram, I can’t help but notice how close the men’s locker room is to the bar, and how easy it would have been for one of them to sneak down the hallway and steal the pestle at the right moment while the other stood guard. Then they could have had the same arrangement when the murder was committed—one actually doing it while the other was a lookout.”

  “Yes, that’s one of the team combinations I’ve considered that doesn’t give me a sense of betrayal,” Wendy said, looking slightly sheepish. “Mainly since they’re not part of the Bridge Bunch, and they hung around with Brent Ogle for whatever reasons. I think they exercised very poor judgment in doing so. That said, I don’t know much about either of them.”

  “Well, I do intend to find out as much as I can tomorrow. The key thing will be to see if they can keep their stories straight. What you find a lot when two or more people are involved in an investigation is that there will be the inevitable discrepancies that tip you off. Sometimes it helps, sometimes not. But both of these guys are definitely persons of interest, considering that brawl they got into with Brent Ogle. Men coming to blows sends up a red flag for sure.”

  Wendy played with a look of disgust. “Men and their testosterone. Will the nonsense never stop?”

  “I keep mine under control,” Ross said without hesitation, while giving her a wink. “I save it for special moments with my lady.”

  “No complaints. You do a great job.”

  He took a generous swig of his wine, and the stare he gave her was full of affection. “Thanks. I just hope I can do a great job with this case. We need a real break of some kind to stop this wandering around in the darkness, slowly feeling our way. Sometimes, you know, you can have too many suspects, and that really does confuse the situation a lot.”

  * * *

  Ross had chosen not to make a night of it at Wendy’s bungalow because of the early day he had on his agenda with Tip Jarvis and Connor James, so the two of them had kissed and hugged under the lacework balcony of the Bluff City Bistro and then headed toward their cars. Once she got home, however, Wendy couldn’t seem to get the concept of teams out of her mind. She decided it was actually time to sit down at the kitchen table and prioritize the combinations she had been entertaining in her head. Perhaps that would clarify things a bit.

  She took out a piece of paper and began to print in all caps. The heading she wrote was to indicate the combinations that had come to mind first. Under it, in caps and lowercase, she began her list, but she only got one pair done before she found herself staring incredulously at what she had just written:

  POSSIBLE TEAMS

  Tip Jarvis and Connor James

  She began to feel distinctly uncomfortable as she actually tried to put pen to paper where other couplings were concerned. She realized immediately that she was too close to the situation to be as objective as police detectives such as Ross had to be. Of course it wasn’t her job to solve this crime, but the sleuthing side of her had made its successful debut last year and was showing no signs of becoming a wallflower at the dance anytime soon.

  Deedah and Mitzy had made her mental cut as well, but it made her cringe. She had come to know them both in a meaningful way, although it was Mitzy who had actually mentioned the concept of “teamwork” to her during their interview. And working with Deedah had been as pleasurable an experience as it was ongoing with Lyndell Slover. It was difficult to imagine Deedah in any murderous combination.

  Except . . . perhaps where her wildly theatrical son, Hollis, was concerned. And even that seemed somewhat of a stretch. A mother and son committing such a brutal crime together on the spur of the moment? Stranger things had been known to happen, but for the time being, it seemed unlikely and continued to be distasteful for Wendy to even consider.

  Including Carly Ogle in any combination made Wendy feel like a criminal, herself. She had never in her entire life witnessed such genuine catharsis as she had when Carly had confessed the vile and base thoughts she had had about her husband in their conversation out at Brentwood. That was to her credit, though. She did not have to reveal such wretched things to anyone. Besides herself, Wendy had decided that Carly definitely did not belong on any list and was instead in dire need of empathy and professional grief counseling.

  What about Carlos Galbis in some combination? He had always seemed like such a gentle and polite man to her. She enjoyed his cocktail skills and his cheerful manner. Ironic, then, wasn’t it, that he had the easiest access of anyone to the murder weapon. Not only that, but he had actually made the the short walk down the locker-room hallway more than once that Saturday to serve Brent Ogle his drinks. His motive, along with all of the others,’ was well established. But Wendy knew from casual conversations with Carlos over the past few months that his main focus was on supporting his family. He could hardly do so from prison or with a death sentence hanging over him, so Wendy’s instinct was to cross him off her list.

  Ross had seemed mostly dismissive of Gerald Mansfield. But there was Wendy’s lingering impression that he was following orders of some kind. On the surface, Deedah’s orders, of course. It was Deedah who had inserted him into the mix in the first place, bringing up the concept of “someone from outside” possibly being a factor in Brent Ogle’s murder. Wendy did not care for the fact that that had brought her back to Deedah again. She must maintain her objectivity at all costs, if for no other reason than she was in the midst of a feature on women like Deedah running things in Rosalie. Would a woman that prominent, intelligent, and accomplished risk it all to get Brent Ogle out
of the way for good? To be sure, the man had threatened to withdraw his significant funding of the RCC on his last day on earth, and that would have been a big deal had he followed through.

  So, where was all this fevered conjecture getting her as a sleuth? She felt like she was running around in circles, unable to bear down and be objective enough to get the job done.

  Wendy sighed and then crumpled her fledgling list into a ball, throwing it into the small trash can off to one side of the refrigerator. Then, she returned to the idea of the entire murderous scenario reminding her of a stage play. Perhaps spontaneously generated by the power outage but nonetheless striking someone’s visceral emotions as surely as lightning had struck transformers all over Rosalie and plunged the city into darkness.

  The challenge was to determine who among those assembled at the RCC that fateful evening was telling the truth and who was playing the villainous part of a lifetime, rehearsed or unrehearsed.

  CHAPTER 9

  Ross had to admit that Tip Jarvis had a beautiful set of white teeth. He had actually come across a dentist or two who did not and had ended up being walking advertisements for turning people off and going to the competition as a result. But though Tip obviously did not watch his weight, he surely paid attention to his flossing and dental cleanings. All that aside, Ross was intent on finding out as much as he could about what lay behind the man’s flawless smile and overly obsequious manner in his answers so far in the interrogation room.

  “If you don’t mind,” Ross said, continuing his line of questioning, “I’d now like to revisit this tussle you had with Brent Ogle last Saturday afternoon. You came to blows, and you told me previously that you just lost it because of his cockiness. It appears you wanted to strangle the guy, and I have to say, that doesn’t look good for you as we continue this investigation.”

  Tip maintained his smile, but there was less confidence in his tone. “As I told you, he just got on my nerves. Without the booze I’d had, I probably would have let it go. Brent could be very irritating at times. Uh, let me revise that. He was irritating nearly all the time. You just had to retrain your brain not to notice. You had to think of other things and other people while you were around him.”

  “Well, it seems to me that you were thinking about him exclusively when you went after him. It took Miz Stone to pull you off of him. If she hadn’t, what do you think would have happened?”

  Finally, Tip’s smile diminished significantly, as he appeared annoyed. “Why are we discussing something that didn’t happen, though? I thought law enforcement was about collecting evidence and getting the facts. You already know that I did not strangle Brent, and I assure you I did not club him with that pestle. Do you have any evidence against me to suggest that?”

  “I’d prefer to ask the questions, Mr. Jarvis.”

  Tip was now in the midst of a sour expression, and his transformation from vacuous smiley face was now complete. “Go ahead, then.”

  Ross made a grim slash of his mouth and caught the man’s gaze intently. “I’d like to present a scenario to you. You and Mr. James were just right down the hallway in the men’s locker room and also not very far away from the bar where Carlos Galbis’s mortar and pestle were very accessible. You are using each other for an alibi as to your activities during the blackout. But is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “Like what? We’ve both already told you that we went into the locker room to play gin until there was a letup in the storm outside. Then when we couldn’t do that after the power outage, we just scrolled on our phones. It was beyond boring. And anyway, once we started to get into our running gin game—the best three outta five for starters, by the way—any bad, over-the-top feelings for Brent had dissipated. He was drunk as usual. Not that I’m saying that me and Connor didn’t get drunk with him a lot. I’m not the pot calling the kettle black here.”

  Ross broke his gaze and looked up at the camera in the corner of the room for a moment. Without a two-way mirror, his small-town police department had to rely upon it to review their interrogations at length. “I think what I really want to know is this. Did you believe Mr. Ogle’s story that his father had paid off the officials in The Four-Second Game? I know about the RHS and St. Mark’s rivalry and how intense it’s gotten from time to time.”

  “So you think after thirty years, I’d be carrying around enough pimply, juvenile bad sportsmanship to want to kill Brent Ogle whether he was telling the truth or not? ” Tip said, looking incredulous.

  “Since you posed the question so conveniently for me, I’d like for you to go ahead and answer it.”

  “No. Plain and simple. No. I have a successful career, a nice wife, and two kids in college now. That’s what’s important to me, not some overrated football play from the days of my youth. Like I said, Brent just got on my nerves a little too much, and I’ll admit to not acting very much like an adult about it.”

  “But you didn’t tell me whether you thought Brent Ogle was telling the truth or not.”

  Tip looked surprised. “Didn’t I?”

  “No, you didn’t.”

  “Well, for the record, I didn’t.”

  Ross noted the emphasis. “Meaning?”

  “Meaning that I think Connor did believe Brent was telling the truth and that the man was bragging about it, too. Brent’s picture is in the dictionary under the word bragging, so I can understand Connor thinking that way. You can ask him about it if you want a better explanation.”

  “I assure you I will do just that,” Ross said. “So let me get this straight once again. There was never a time in the locker room that you and Connor were separated. You were always together, and you always knew where the other one was. You’re sticking to that story.”

  Tip was about to answer and then hesitated. “Well . . .” He seemed reluctant to continue.

  “Well, what?”

  “Now that I think about it, there was one brief period of time. You know, when nature calls. I took a leak when we first got to the locker room, because liquor goes right through me. But after the power outage, Connor said he needed to go; so there was a time when I was still sitting on the changing bench with my phone and Connor made his way to one of the stalls or the urinals. You’ll understand that we didn’t discuss which number before he left.” The last remark returned a hint of a smile to Tip’s face.

  “How long do you think Mr. James was gone?”

  “I’m not sure. I was paying attention to the weather radar movement on my phone. It looked like there was a good gap on the way, and that we might be able to get away soon. Connor was gone maybe a few minutes. I did hear flushing, and then he joined me again.”

  “I suppose Mr. James will confirm this for me.”

  “I don’t see why he wouldn’t. I don’t think either of us brought it up the first time because, well, who talks about going to the bathroom? It seems kinda beside the point, doesn’t it?”

  Ross offered up an understanding grin. “Ordinarily, you’d be correct. But not where murder is concerned. In this case, the fixtures in the locker room are close to the door and the hallway. A small window of time is all that would have been necessary for a crime to be committed. I’ve seen it over and over again in my work.”

  Tip was now in full-frown mode. “You’re not telling me you think Connor may have sneaked off and killed Brent, are you? He’s not the type any more than I am. We have our moral limits. Brent, on the other hand, did not.”

  “That’s why I’m interrogating both of you again. Who knows what little detail we might turn up? For instance, you’ve just admitted to me that neither one of you bothered to tell me that you did have a period of time in which you were apart. The first time around, you both insisted that you were always together.”

  A hint of anger crept into Tip’s voice. “Hey, that was no conspiracy or anything like that. As I said, who thinks about reporting trips to the bathroom? It just slipped my mind and Connor’s, too.”

  Ross changed th
e subject quickly. “Is there anything else you may have forgotten to tell me? I’m not saying this in an accusatory manner. Just search your brain as thoroughly as you can.”

  Tip took a while and said, “I can’t think of anything else at the moment. If I should come up with something, I’ll let you know.”

  “Please do. Thank you for coming in today. We’ll be in touch if we need you further. Meanwhile, don’t leave Rosalie.”

  * * *

  In the beginning of his interrogation with Connor James, Ross kept wondering why the man looked so much older than his contemporary Tip Jarvis. After all, Tip carried around a noticeable paunch, while Connor’s belly was flat. Then, it hit him. It was the hair. Connor had very little to speak of, while Tip’s crew cut gave him a younger appearance. It somehow seemed unfair, since Tip obviously wasn’t paying much attention to his diet; but his genes were working in his favor when it came to hair follicles.

  Connor also started out as cooperative as Tip had been, though not nearly as smiley faced. Ross also noticed the man seemed to enunciate his words carefully, emphasizing certain syllables here and there. Then he remembered from his previous interview that Connor was a pediatrician. Perhaps talking to children all the time when they weren’t feeling well had engendered a rhythm or technique of sorts. It had to be to his advantage to sound reassuring to the little ones and not frighten them.

  “I’d like to touch upon something that your friend, Tip, told me earlier this morning,” Ross was saying. “He suggested to me that you did believe Brent Ogle when he claimed his father had paid off the officials in The Four-Second Game. Could you comment on that, please?”

  Connor looked surprised. “He said that?”

  “He did.”

  The slightly patronizing speech pattern Conner had been using disappeared. “I wouldn’t go as far as to say I actually believed Brent. It’s just that I react in a different way to things than Tip does. I mean, he has a certain mentality, and I have one of my own.”