by Tonya Kappes
Jilly buried her head in her hands. “She’ll never know what it’s like to hold her own baby. We will never be grandparents,” she screamed towards Sean. “I swear if she took her own life...but you said she was in the back.” She looked at her husband. He nodded. “She always wore her seatbelt. There was never a time she didn’t. It’s me that forgets, and she wouldn’t even start the car until everyone had a seatbelt on.”
“This doesn’t appear to be getting you anywhere,” Poppa ghosted himself next to the desk. “What was the relationship between Sean and Leighann like recently?”
“What was your relationship with Leighann over the past six months since she didn’t go off to college?” I asked.
“I told her that if she didn’t go to college that she was going to pay for her own cell phone, get on the company’s payroll, pay her own insurance on that SUV and health.” He appeared to have realized how bad that sounded because he looked down.
“And she had to pay rent.” Jilly looked up at me. “He told her that she had to pay rent on her own bedroom.”
“I was trying to scare her into going to college. It’s no different than what the experts tell you to do.” He ran his hand through his hair.
“Did she have the money to do those things?” I asked.
“She worked all the time. She’d do dispatch at night, but if it was a call that was an emergency, like a car wreck that needed us, either me or Manuel would come out,” Sean said.
“Tell her.” Jilly growled. “Tell her how you packed up Leighann’s clothes and told her to move in with Manuel until she paid her rent.”
“Is that true?” I was beginning to see a side of Sean Graves that I didn’t think he wanted me to see. A side that maybe said he and his daughter weren’t on the best terms.
“I’m ashamed now, but yes. She and Manuel lived out of the SUV for a while. I guess they were taking spit baths in the employee sink or something because I’d gotten a phone call from Juanita,” He referred to Manual’s mother, “and she told me that she wasn’t letting my daughter live in that house because she ruined her son’s life.”
“That’s when Sean told her that her son ruined our daughter’s life and squashed her dreams. It was a mess.” Jilly’s brows furrowed, the crease between them deepened. “Juanita’s other son came over here with a gun and knives strapped to him saying that Sean better not disrespect their Mama again.”
I made sure I’d gotten everything they were saying on the notepad. It was enough evidence, if true, to think that one of the Liberty’s had done something to Leighann. They were big boys and very protective of family. Though I couldn’t rule out Sean. “Did you ever hit your daughter?” I asked. Before he could protest, because he was revving up, I followed up by saying, “I understand how heated things can get as a teen. I’ve been there with my parents. If you did do something, I understand, but I’m gonna need you to tell me now. Not in a few days from now when I’ve spent all this time looking for someone who killed her. If you did hurt your daughter, I know you didn’t mean to, but...”
“You hold it right there, Sheriff.” He pointed his finger at me and took a step forward.
“Whoa, diggity-dog,” Poppa ghosted between us. “You move one more step towards my Kenni-Bug and I’ll put a haunting on you that would scare them zombies in that tv show.”
“Please remove your finger from my face,” I said in a stern and steady voice.
He dropped his hand.
“If you think I hurt Leighann in anyway physically, you are wrong. I’ll take a lie detector test right here, right now.” His eyes didn’t move. “I might’ve disapproved of her boyfriend, but I’d never hurt her.”
“Have you ever laid a hand on Leighann?” I asked because he truly didn’t answer the question. His dancing around it would suffice some, but not me.
“Sean,” Jilly stood back up and placed her hand on her husband’s back. “He can get a little upset at times.”
His shoulders started to jump up and down. His chin fell to his chest. Her words were ringing true with him.
“At times he could get a little out of control. He can break things and he can yell really loud. He’s even back handed me and Leighann a time or two.” She rubbed his back vigorously. “But he is a good, hardworking man. He’s been a wonderful provider. He makes sure we have everything we want. He puts food on the table and we’ve never been in debt. I’m confident that he didn’t hurt our daughter.”
“Your daughter is dead,” I reminded her. She might’ve been making herself and Sean feel good with her excuses of why he was such a jack-donkey, but I just couldn’t let it go.
“You nasty sonofa...” Poppa’s words strung together. He could never stand for a man hitting a woman.
“This is the time to come clean with anything you need to tell me, because her body will reveal the answers. If her body tells me that someone hurt her, you’re the first person I’m going to come after.” It wasn’t a threat, it was the gods to honest truth. “I saw you and Jilly at the dance last night. I saw the two of you get up and walk out without saying good bye to Leighann and you looked upset.”
“I didn’t hurt Leighann.” His chin drew back up and he locked eyes with me. “Like I said, I’m more than happy to go down to the department and take a lie detector test.”
Chapter Seven
“He’s the only hell his Mama raised.” Poppa was spittin’ mad when we got back into the Jeep. “Sean Graves is a tricky man.”
I’d left out the office door and walked around to my Jeep because I was so thrown back by how volatile Sean’s relationship was with the women in his life that I just couldn’t force myself to make small talk with the town folk there to support him without me saying something about his true character.
“I’m guessing you know something about him?” I asked.
It was kinda good that Poppa was the sheriff before me because he knew the parents and grandparents of people my age.
“You know how he bugs you about Leighann and Manuel? Well, Jilly’s parents did the same thing about him. When I was in your shoes, they told me he hit her, but she’d never fess up to it when I’d go to her house and question her.” He drummed his fingers along the window sill of the passenger side door. “She had some sort of home economics scholarship to a higher learning school and if I remember correctly, she didn’t go because of Sean. Her grandfather didn’t go to the wedding. It was small. I remember I was down at the Moose having a drink when he came in. He put down the awfulest sight of clear you ever saw.” Poppa shook his head in disgust. “He said how much he wanted more for his granddaughter than the old Graves family.”
“What did he mean?” I asked.
“Honey, them Graves are as rough as the Libertys.” His eyes lowered, and he slowly turned his head to look out the window. “It sure is gonna look so pretty around here when that snow comes.”
He changed the subject to yet another subject I didn’t want to discuss.
“There’s not going to be any snow,” I informed him. “Because you are going to go up there and plead with the big guy.”
“Kenni-Bug, that’s up to Mother Nature and trust me when I say that she’s one stubborn brood.” He threw his head back and laughed.
“Snow or not, killer caught or not, I’m going to Chicago with Finn.” I flipped the turn signal on right and turned south on Main Street. “We need to get back to the department. Finn is bringing in Juanita Liberty. We can ask her about them boys of hers going to the Graves with their weapons. You let me do that talking and you just ghost yourself on over into a corner,” I warned Poppa when I parked the car in the alley behind the department.
Juanita and Betty were talking about some sort of recipe when I walked in. Juanita’s face stared me down as I made my way over to them.
“Go on,” Juanita didn’t even let me get my coat off before she started to
hound me. “Ask me what you want. I’ve got stuff to do tonight.”
“Juanita,” I looked her square in the face.
“Kenni-Bug,” Poppa whispered in my ear. “Breathe in Jesus, breathe out peace.” It was his way of telling me not to lose my cool.
I adjusted my thoughts and took the tape recorder out of the top drawer of my desk. I pushed record and sat it on the edge of the desk closest to Juanita. There wasn’t a word I wanted to miss.
“Juanita.” I planted my hands on the desk and leaned over her way as she sat in the chair. “I’ve got a dead girl on my hands. It appears to be awfully suspicious. It happens to be about a young woman you didn’t care for. I’ve got a few questions for you and it might take me a few minutes or up to hours. It all depends on how much you cooperate.”
“If you’re wondering if I’ve got an alibi or hurt Leighann Graves in anyway, I didn’t and I do have an alibi. I was with my boys last night at the dance and then at home.” She looked at her watch. “Which is where I need to be right now. You can ask any of my boys.”
I slid my gaze over her shoulder at Scott. He was writing something down, which I assumed was some of her statement.
“About those boys.” I decided not to press her too much on where she was and who she was with last night until I got the particulars about the autopsy from Max Bogus. “Tell me about the time they showed up at the Graves’s house with guns,” I told her.
Sometimes it was best not to give the whole hand, but to give just enough of a push or poke in hopes it would prompt her to do something that’d lead me to a clue or lead in the case. Besides, I wasn’t so sure she had anything to do with Leighann’s death.
She eased back in the chair as her head slowly tilted to the other side of her shoulders. Her mouth slightly opened, and I could see her tongue fiddling with her back teeth.
“Sean Graves had said some not so nice things about their mama.” She slid her body up to the edge of the chair, leaned in towards me, and stared me square in the eyes. “When you heard people talking about your mama’s recent situation, didn’t that burn you up?” She asked. “Didn’t that make you want to draw your pistol on them to shut their mouths? Just because my boys took up for me, doesn’t mean I killed no one. Just like your Mama didn’t kill no one.”
“Did I say you killed someone?” I asked.
“You didn’t have to. Don’t mistake my accent or my living arrangements for stupidity. I’m far from ignorant and I know what’s going on here.” She looked around. “My son’s girlfriend is dead. Apparently murdered, or you wouldn’t be here snooping around. Me and Leighann didn’t get along. She kept my boy from making it big in life and for what? A tow company?” Her shoulders jerked as she let out a chuckle. “Honestly, I don’t know what he likes about working there. I’ve been on some late-night runs with him when he had to take the overnight shift and got paid minimum wage. I swear. He should’ve taken that scholarship. His future would’ve been so much better. But, just because that’s my opinion and I didn’t like how she has a hold on my boy, doesn’t mean I wanted her dead.”
“Did you hear that?” Poppa ghosted next to me. “She said has a hold on my boy. Present tense. She didn’t do it.”
One little hint we learned in the academy was not only to watch people’s body language when you were interrogating them but to listen carefully to their words.
“If it’s all the same to you, I’d like to talk to your children. What is a good time to come out to your house?” I asked and ignored Poppa who was now pacing in front of the desk between me and Juanita.
“We’ve got barely little time since the tree lot is going full blast for the high school football team. You’re more than welcome to come by there. Plus, we could use an extra set of hands. I’ll let you talk to Jonathon because he’s old enough to know what’s going on, but my little one is off limits. He’s too young to even understand what’s going on.” She put her hands on her knees and pushed up to stand. “Will that be all?”
“Thank you for coming in.” I didn’t bother getting up. I just leaned back in my chair and stared at the blank white board.
“Oh dear,” Betty groaned. “Remember last year’s tree lot?”
“What happened last year?” There was a bit of a worried tone to Finn’s question.
“Yeah?” Scott followed up.
“Go on, Kenni, you tell them.” Betty’s brows rose.
“I think you’re better than me at telling it.” I shrugged and got up to walk over to the white board.
“Well, last year we got a call from Sean Graves about Leighann and Manuel. It was an all-out brawl.” As Betty told the story, I wrote Leighann Graves name in the middle of white board.
Just like we’d been doing since Finn insisted on us using one, I made a big circle around her name and drew out line extensions from it.
On one I wrote Juanita Liberty, another I wrote Manuel Liberty, another I wrote Sean Graves and the last one I wrote girl at the party, who we’d yet to identify.
“Manuel was playing Santa for the little children and Leighann was in an elf suit.” Betty rolled her eyes and shook her head at the same time. “Sean had gone to drag Leighann home, like some daddy caveman, but not without him and Manuel getting into a fuss. All sorts of kids were crying. Sean’d pulled Manuel’s Santa beard off. It was a mess. Trees were falling over, and the strung lights had been jerked down from them fussin’ and fightin’. It was like one of them crazy reality television shows where all them women catfight and all.”
“What is your reasoning for putting Sean up there?” Scott asked.
“According to him and Jilly, the relationship with Sean and Leighann hasn’t been any less than rocky and volatile at times. Maybe she and Sean got into an argument, nothing new, but this time it was the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
“Don’t you know,” Betty looked over at Scott and eased herself up out of her chair. “What’s always done in the dark always finds its way to the light. That’s what my mama, and her mama, and her mama used to say.”
“It rings true every time.” Poppa nodded and agreed right along with Betty. “Now put on there about Manuel looking at the phone and all.”
“Oh, good one,” I said and totally forgotten Manuel had said that.
“Good one?” Finn eyeballed me.
“I just remembered something, and I was saying it to myself.” I sucked in a deep breath and got composure before I wrote down what Poppa had reminded me about. “When I was visiting with Manuel. He said that he’d gone through Leighann’s phone before he gave it to the Graves. There could’ve been something on there erased. I think we need to get a subpoena to the cell phone service to retrieve any information we can.”
“I can do that. I’ve had plenty of work with those things at the reserve,” Scott spoke up and started to write down something in his notebook.
“Betty,” I stopped Betty, who was preparing to go for the night. “Did you set Scott up on the database with a password so he can just go into the file and pull up Leighann’s case?”
“I sure did,” she said and pulled on her coat. “You good?” She asked Scott.
While they finalized some things, Duke woke up from his nap after he heard his name and stretched out on his dog bed.
When he noticed it was me, he pushed his paws forward and stuck his butt up in the air, doing a real downward dog position like those crazy pretzel ladies in those yoga classes do. His mouth gaped open into a big yawn before he got up on all fours and trotted over to me.
“Any news from Max?” I asked Betty and took a treat from the treat jar that Finn had on his desk for Duke. I flipped him a treat and gave him a good scrub on the head.
“Are you kidding me? You’d be the first after me to hear,” she tsked. “I’m giving you fair warning, this is all the talk around town and when you get to the church, I’m s
ure you’ll get asked a lot of questions.”
“I think I can handle them.” I was pretty confident I could, but I still appreciated Betty’s concern, even though I knew there was a deeper meaning behind it.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me anything, so I can help keep the buzzards back?” She gave it another good old college try.
“I’m positive. Thank you for your quick work today. I truly appreciate it.” It was my way of kicking her out without telling her to get out.
“Alrighty then. If you don’t need me.” She pushed her pocketbook in the bend of her elbow and bent her arm up. “I’ve called Clay’s Ferry Dispatch to take over.”
“Thanks, Betty. I’ll see you soon.” I walked over and held the door open for her. “Stay,” I instructed Duke when he stuck his nose out of the door to get a smell of the fresh air.
“Before I go.” She put her hand on the door to stop it from shutting. “I’m heading on down to Dixon’s. I had Toots Buford hold me back some bread. Do you want me to pick you up something before the big storm?”
“Nope.” My lips parted to say something else, but I slammed by mouth shut, followed by the shutting door. “If I hear one more person say they believe this storm of the century is really coming, I’m might go into a tizzy.”
“It’s supposed,” Scott started to say.
“Aaaa,” I wiggled my finger. “Don’t speak it out into the world.”
“What are you talking about?” Finn asked and walked over to the white board. He picked up the blue marker and took the top off.
“You know all that new age mumbo-jumbo about think positive thoughts and it’ll come true.” I watched both of them nod at me but not without looking as if they thought I’d lost my mind. “Anyways, I’m positive the storm is going to scoot down a skoosh and hit Tennessee really hard or move up a smidgen and hit Ohio, bypassing all of Kentucky.”
“It clearly looks like...” Scott started again before I put my palm flat out in front of him.