“You seem to know things about this situation that the rest of us don’t,” Michaela said to me when I walked back to her vehicle. “What money?”
I hedged. “I made up a lot of that,” I said. “Just anything to make Jake think he should give up.”
“You got information out of him, though. Motive for the murder.”
I tried to shrug it off but she went on.
“I want you to be there when we question him. One of the state guys is driving Aaron back here to his mom, and the other is transporting Jake to Segundo. You and I will follow in my car.” It wasn’t a question or a request. I was going.
The interrogation room at the State Police building in Segundo was a lot like those I imagined from Law and Order, except a lot smaller. On TV there’s always a long table in a big room, suspect on one side, good cop and bad cop on the other. Here, we had an eight by eight room with seven people jammed into it: Jake (with a goose-egg bump on his forehead, a fat lip and a swath of blood from a cut near his eyebrow—the police said he’d been stopped by a forty-foot pine tree); two homicide detectives, Michaela, the original arson investigator, and a guy Continental Union had rushed in on a moment’s notice. Oh, and me.
The lead interrogator started with the stuff we knew: Jake had already admitted that David had sold their patent without telling him. That accounted for the uneasy looks I’d picked up the day those businessmen asked him about the patent paperwork. Of course, I hadn’t picked up on that from the patent file; it was too full of complex-looking forms and diagrams and paperwork. Maybe David counted on Jake’s focus on the research and his disinterest in paperwork to somehow keep the money angle distant. That could work for awhile, but ultimately Jake would want to know where his share had gone. David had provided Jake with all the motive he needed.
We also knew David had been murdered, how and where he’d ended up. With a little fill-in-the-blank, the interrogator managed to start Jake talking.
“I found out he’d sold the patent one day when I was at David’s house,” he said. “He’d gone outside for something and the phone rang. The guy started right out talking, not realizing I wasn’t David, and I put it together.”
Jake sat on one side of the table with the two homicide detectives facing him. The rest of us filled the nooks and corners of the room.
His fists clenched as he remembered the day. “I just saw red. I made an excuse to leave and got the hell out of there. I went home, thinking it must be a mistake. David had arranged the sale but just hadn’t told me about it. I spent twelve hours a day in the lab, and he hadn’t had time to tell me. But two more days went by and he never said a word. Went along like before, like everything was just the same.” His face hardened. “That bastard was out to cheat me. I figured it out.”
I watched as the various investigators scratched notes on pads.
“I called him one afternoon. He was supposed to leave for Denver that day but I suggested he come out to the house on the way. Earleen was in Santa Fe for the day, so she’d never know and Amanda had a teacher’s meeting that night.”
“So, how did you get him out to the lake?” the second homicide guy asked.
“I wasn’t at the house when he got there. I called his cell phone and told him some phony reason I had to go to the marina. Asked him to meet me there instead. He came.” Jake shrugged at David’s gullibility.
“And you knocked him over the head.”
Jake shrugged again. His braggadocio wasn’t going to extend to a full confession.
Michaela tapped one of the interrogators on the shoulder and whispered something in his ear. He looked at me and nodded. “I believe you’ve made a connection with the arson?”
I felt all eyes on me and my mouth went dry. Michaela gave me a nudge.
“During our own investigation, at the request of Mrs. Amanda Zellinger,” I said, “we discovered an interesting bit from David Simmons’s past. A previous home of his had exploded due to a gas leak. Earlier today I was in Jake Zellinger’s lab and saw a copy of the same article about that. Clearly, Jake knew something about the first fire, something Amanda had not known until very recently.”
The interrogator turned to Jake. “So you set it up to look like David had torched his own house.”
Again, Jake gave him a cool stare but didn’t admit to the crime.
“You knew there was hardly a chance David’s body would be found, that people would assume he set the gas leak himself and went into hiding.” The man gave Jake a cold stare. “You gave yourself a good long time to search for the money in the meantime.”
Questions began flying from all corners of the room, and the more they talked the cooler Jake became. The collected bodies began to generate more heat that I could handle, plus I had the irresistible urge to whip out the rubber hoses and beat the truth out of the hard little man who sat before us. I excused myself to Michaela and edged out the door.
Chapter 28
By the time I got back to my cabin—after waiting for Michaela to finish tedious hours of questions, and the long drive back to Watson’s Lake—I wanted nothing more to do with humankind. I decided to dine on a cup of tea and a package of peanut butter crackers that I’d purchased in desperation from a vending machine at the police station.
No such luck. Amanda was waiting on my porch, sitting in the chair and rocking with a zombie-like rhythm.
“I couldn’t face going home,” she said as I climbed the porch steps. “I hope you don’t mind.”
What could I say? My mother raised me with better manners than that.
“Are you hungry?” I asked.
She shook her head slowly.
“Where have you been all this time?” I asked.
A tiny smile crossed her face. “In my classroom. Thinking. Straightening the desks and re-hanging the art projects so it’ll seem normal tomorrow. Thinking.”
“Will you be up to going back tomorrow?”
“How can I not? The kids went through the same trauma I did. I need to be there for them. And I can’t sit around the house. It’s going to be weird, going back there.”
I nodded an acknowledgement and unlocked the door. I dropped my purse on the bed. “You want to use the bathroom or anything?”
She caught my meaning and reached up to touch the dried blood on her neck. “I guess I—yeah, I better.”
My stomach was beginning to speak to me and I debated how far I could stretch the peanut butter crackers between two people. I still didn’t want to go out and sit in a brightly lit place.
“Is there anyplace in this town we could call and have a pizza delivered?” I called out to Amanda through the closed bathroom door.
She opened the door, holding a washcloth to her neck. “Afraid not. The Owl makes a pretty decent veggie supreme, though. We could call it in and bring it back here.” I saw a faint glimmer of something positive in her face.
“I’ll do it.” I found the number and was told it would be ready in twenty minutes. The time went slowly, both of us avoiding the subject foremost on our minds. I kept looking at my watch.
“Charlie?” Amanda said. The twenty minutes were up and I had one hand on the doorknob. “He did it, didn’t he?”
I looked across the room at her upturned face. She seemed younger, vulnerable.
“He admitted enough that the state’s got a pretty strong case, but he wouldn’t actually confess.” I hedged. “I think he did it, yes.”
Ten minutes later, when I got back with the pizza, she’d clearly been crying but she composed herself and brightened at the sight of the food. The Owl wasn’t technically supposed to sell package liquor but when the owner found out it was for Amanda he gave me a nice bottle of burgundy. We poured it into the cabin’s plastic cups and raised them.
“To a better life from this day on,” Amanda said.
Very content with my own life, I nonetheless wished her toast would come true for her.
After two slices each, we seemed to regain some ene
rgy. “I need to know about it,” she said. “And I’d rather hear it now, from you, than through the newspaper accounts and gossip that are going to start up. Tell me. Please.”
I recounted Jake’s answers to the interrogators, the fact that he’d lured David to the lake, the way he’d set the gas leak to look similar to the other one thirty years earlier, in hopes of making it look like David had done it.
“There’s some money, Amanda. I don’t know how much it will turn out to be. There will probably be a lot of taxes owed.”
“I gathered that, from Jake’s end of the conversation there in the school. Dad sold the patent, didn’t he?”
“Yes, apparently so.”
“And he lied to Jake and that’s what set him off.”
“That’s what he says.”
She gazed at an unseen point in the middle of the room, an unfocused stare. “I can almost believe Jake’s part in all this. Ever since he tried that youth formula on himself he’s become more impetuous, less able to control these spontaneous urges, very hotheaded. I’ve watched him change drastically from the earnest student I met ten years ago.” She took another sip of her wine. “But my dad? The lies and deceit. I never saw that in him. I guess it’s been there for awhile, but I’m having a hard time with it.”
Tears overflowed and ran down both cheeks. She sat there quietly, letting them fall in large dots on her lap. I leaned back in my chair and left the silence alone.
“I’m going to have to talk to Jake,” she finally said. “I have some things to say, and I’m not going to be at his trial. I won’t be the steadfast little wife, standing by him no matter what. Whatever my father did to Jake, he didn’t deserve to die for it.” She stood up.
“Should you be alone at home tonight?” I asked.
“I won’t be,” she said with a little smile. “I’ve already booked a cabin here. My kids will just have to see me in the same clothes tomorrow.”
“Good for you.”
I woke early the next morning, with the smell of leftover pizza and unwashed wine glasses filling the room. I’m not one who’s fond of cold pizza for breakfast so I gathered the box and glasses and carried them out to the dumpster at the back of the complex.
“Morning, Charlie,” Amanda called out from the porch of Cabin 5.
“Hey. You sleep okay?”
“Wonderfully, actually.” I had to admit that she looked better than she had in days. “I reread Dad’s letter about fifteen times last night. Somewhere between the lines I think he was telling me that he knew about the problems between Jake and me. He said no matter what, I’d be taken care of. I have to believe that somehow it’s all going to work out.” She lifted her purse strap to her shoulder. “I’m going to put in my day at school, help the kids see that a person really can work past their problems, and then I’m driving up to Segundo to talk to Jake. I found out who’s representing him, and he arranged it.
“By this weekend, I’ll have divorce proceedings underway, the house listed on the market, and a new apartment lined up.”
“Wow, when you move, you move. I admire that.”
“Hey, no point in wallowing in misery.”
I thought about that as I loaded my bag in the Jeep and checked out of the Horseshoe.
Chapter 29
During the month that followed, I spent a couple of weekends with Drake in tiny motels in out-of-the-way towns—whatever happened to be near his firebase at the time. Rusty came along and we had long walks in the woods, comfortable talks in cozy beds, and old-fashioned burgers in dimly lit bars.
In June, temperatures hit record highs with the weather people talking about the number of consecutive triple-digit days, a rarity for Albuquerque. When the heat finally broke, the seasonal rains—which we frivolously call monsoons—came early. This was good on several fronts. Drake got to come home early, the mountains received much-needed moisture, and tempers cooled along with the weather.
We were heading into the Fourth of July weekend when I heard from Amanda. I knew I would; we’d been finalizing a folder of information for her, including the complete data we’d compiled on her father’s secret brokerage accounts. I’d also asked around and gotten recommendations for a good tax attorney she should talk to.
We met for lunch at a cute downtown restaurant, where the prices tended to be right on par with the classy décor.
“You look great, Charlie,” she greeted as I walked in the door.
I had to admit that she did, too. She’d put on a few pounds and the gaunt, harried look was gone. She’d had her hair restyled and the lighter, layered look complimented her face.
I tucked the folder of information along the side of my chair as we sat down, and we spent the first few minutes in pleasantries and placing our orders for salads. She waited until we’d finished eating before bringing up the big subjects.
“I talked to Jake,” she said. “I think I told you I was planning to.”
“How’d it go?”
“There wasn’t a lot he could say. I told him I’d put his share of the proceeds from the house sale toward his defense, and the law firm representing him was glad to get it. I made it clear, though, that it was all they’d get from me. Considering that they’d planned to take the case pro bono, they seemed happy to get anything.
“Bless his heart, he told me he hadn’t really loved me for years. He’d been staying with me ‘out of pity’ he said, because he knew I couldn’t manage without him. When I posed the possibility that he’d really stayed because he wanted to come across the money Dad had received from the sale of the patent, he actually admitted it. He thought that admission would hurt me, I guess. But I think I knew it all along. Hearing it didn’t bother me a bit.”
I had to marvel at her composure.
“We’re divorced now—it was final two weeks ago. I changed my name back to Simmons because Zellinger is going to be making the news a little too much in coming months.” She took a sip from her iced tea. “Luckily, the house sold right away. And did you hear? Earleen and Frank packed up and left. Rumor has it they went out of state and Frank plans to get back into construction.”
And I’d about bet money that his past illegalities wouldn’t be mentioned.
“I’m going to take Dad’s life insurance money and build on his property. Something cozy and just the right size for me.”
I picked up the folder. “You won’t be limited on funds,” I said. “You can build a showplace if you want to.”
I opened the folder and watched her eyes widen when she saw the numbers. I pointed to the business card clipped to the front of the folder. “You’ll want to call this man before you do anything else. He comes highly recommended.”
She slowly paged through the brokerage statements. “I had no idea.”
“You should know that the IRS was looking for your dad. Or, I should say, they were looking for Mark Franklin. They’re going to want a chunk of this. Have a nice long talk with the attorney first. Let him handle it. Whatever’s left will be yours.”
“If there’s even a tenth of this left over, it’s huge,” she said. She looked up at me with moist eyes.
“It’ll be a lot more than ten percent. But I have no idea how much.”
“I can’t even fathom . . .”
I closed the folder, tucked it into her hands. “You will. You’ll figure out something.”
I stood beside my Jeep and watched her get into a shiny new Explorer. She gave a little wave as she drove off. We would never know the full extent of David’s obsessive behavior, the reasons for the many IDs, the hidden money. I could assume that he had some kind of plan for abandoning Jake and the research, leaving the country with enough to live on for the rest of his life. He may have wanted to take Amanda with him—he told her she’d be taken care of—but it was impossible at this point to get inside his head. As her car disappeared around the corner, I was just as glad I’d never brought up many of those questions. She was adapting well and looked happy.
&
nbsp; That was the last time I saw Amanda Simmons. I got one note from her, around Christmas. She’d included a check, although I’d not submitted a bill to her. It more than covered our expenses. She’d netted a decent seven-figure sum from the accounts and told me she’d decided to keep just a little for her eventual retirement. The rest was going to a variety of charities, providing a happy end to the old year—for everyone.
Books in the Charlie Parker series:
Deadly Gamble
Vacations Can Be Murder
Partnerships Can Be Murder
Small Towns Can Be Murder
Memories Can Be Murder
Honeymoons Can Be Murder
Reunions Can Be Murder
Competition Can Be Murder
Balloons Can Be Murder
Obsessions Can Be Murder
Gossip Can Be Murder
Stardom Can Be Murder
Holidays Can Be Murder: A Charlie Parker Christmas novella
Books in the Samantha Sweet mystery series:
Sweet Masterpiece
Sweet’s Sweets
Sweet Holidays (December 2011)
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Obsessions Can Be Murder
Published by Secret Staircase Books, an imprint of
Columbine Publishing Group
PO Box 416, Angel Fire, NM 87710
Copyright © 2006 Connie Shelton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publisher.
Obsessions Can Be Murder: The Tenth Charlie Parker Mystery Page 21