by Robin Caroll
“They’re gone!” The young woman looked as if she’d just wrestled a catfish from a trotline.
Ava stood. “Calm down, MaryBeth. Have a seat.”
“I can’t. I have to find the sheriff. They’re all gone.”
Jocelyn shot to her feet as well and placed a hand on MaryBeth’s shoulder. “What’s gone, honey?”
“The flyers. From all over town. All of them are gone.”
“What flyers?” Sam remained sitting, but he missed nothing.
MaryBeth tossed him an exasperated glare. “For the Mother of the Year pageant. We just hung them yesterday afternoon. Now, every single one of them is gone. Just, poof, gone.”
“I’m sure there’s a simple explanation. It’ll be okay.” Jocelyn patted MaryBeth.
“There were more than one hundred of them. They couldn’t have just disappeared.” MaryBeth wrung her hands as she stared out the front window. “I need to go talk to the sheriff first thing.”
Before Ava or Jocelyn could say a word, MaryBeth rushed out of the café and headed down the street.
“That is odd,” Ava mumbled.
Sam tossed bills onto the table and stood. “That some flyers are missing? Surely stuff like this happens all the time, even in Loomis.”
“There were actually two hundred and fifty of them.” Ava lifted her purse.
Jocelyn pushed in her chair. “Maybe MaryBeth just noticed some missing. They all can’t be gone. Not that many.”
Ava led the way a block down where MaryBeth had the sheriff cornered just outside the sheriff’s station. Her voice carried on the morning wind. “And now every slap one of them is gone, Sheriff. Just disappeared.”
“I’ll look into it, MaryBeth.”
“Do you need to take my statement or something?”
“Not just yet. Let me see what I can find out.”
MaryBeth turned to spot Ava, Jocelyn and Sam. She focused on Ava. “We saved the file on my jump drive, so I’ll just take that right over to the printer shop and get some more made. Don’t you worry about a thing. We’ll have those flyers replaced before the sun sets.”
“It’s okay.” But Ava’s words were useless as MaryBeth rushed toward her car.
The sheriff shook his head. “With everything going on in town, she’s worried about missing pieces of paper?”
A loud clap from the alley off Main Street caused all three to jump. The lid of a trash can rolled onto the sidewalk and settled with a racket.
Chuck Peters, clearly inebriated even though it was barely midmorning, ambled out of the dark alley. He squinted against the early sun and leaned against the brick wall.
“Hey, Chuck. You see people running around town last night tearing down papers?” Sheriff Reed hollered out.
The town drunk wobbled but slowly focused on them. His eyes widened when the sheriff’s uniform registered with him. “I didn’t see nothing. You can’t make me say I saw something!” He swaggered back into the alley.
“Hey, come back here.” Sam took a step to follow Chuck.
The sheriff grabbed Sam’s arm. “Don’t waste your time. That guy’s been a drunk for the last two decades. He’s as loony as they come.” He let his hand drop when he caught Sam’s glare. “I’ll look into the missing flyers when we get time.”
Ava wondered. Chuck might be drunk most of the time, but he seemed pretty smart to her when he was sober.
“Did y’all need to see me about anything, or can I go get my cup of coffee?” Sheriff Reed scowled at them.
“Actually, I do need a minute of your time.” Ava swallowed, hoping he didn’t ask her to explain out here in the middle of the street. She knew Jocelyn had worked with little Sarah, and there was no sense stirring up anything until they knew if Dylan was the child’s father.
A sheriff’s cruiser skidded to a stop curbside. Deputy Bertrand stuck his head out the window. “We got the warrant to impound the car. Want to deliver it? The tow truck’s already on the way.”
Sheriff Reed darted his gaze from Ava to Deputy Bertrand, as if trying to decide what he should do. Sam stepped in. “I’ll go with your deputy and serve the warrant and impound the car. You take care of Ms. Renault’s issue.”
The sheriff didn’t have time to respond before Sam kissed Jocelyn’s temple and jumped into the car with Deputy Bertrand.
Ava gave her friend a sideways hug. “I’ll call you later.” Then she looked at the sheriff. “Shall we?”
He allowed her to enter the station before him, his boots grazing the dirty tile behind her. The stench of burned coffee permeated the room. He directed her to his office and closed the door behind them. After dropping into the wooden chair behind the desk, the sheriff leaned back on two legs. The chair groaned in protest. “Have a seat.”
“I’d prefer to stand. This will only take a minute.”
“Suit yourself. What can I do for you?”
“It’s about the DNA test.”
“Charla agreed?” All four legs of the chair hit the floor with a thump.
“Not exactly. But I’ve done some research and a DNA test on me is acceptable in court to prove if someone is a relative or not.”
“But not as reliable.”
“Almost as much, but not quite.”
The sheriff stood. “I appreciate you coming by and all, Ava, and agreeing to having a test run on you, but right now, it’s not needed.”
Her pulse skipped. “I don’t understand. Why not?”
“Clint Herald, Sarah’s uncle, refuses to allow the test to be run on Sarah. Says he won’t consent as her temporary guardian as he thinks it’s unethical to do so without his sister’s consent. And since Leah’s still missing and hasn’t been declared legally dead, we can’t do anything.”
“But doesn’t he want to know? Especially if Leah never comes back? Doesn’t he want to know if I’m Sarah’s aunt? If she has other relatives to help in raising her?”
“Can’t say. All I know is he refuses and says that shrink friend of yours agrees with him.” Sheriff Reed reached for the door. “Maybe you should argue your case to her.”
Or maybe she should just go bury her head and pretend this would all be over and done with by morning.
Yeah, and gators would sprout wings and fly, too.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Max rushed to the door. He was running late enough as it was, having overslept because he’d tossed and turned all night, unable to get Ava—or their kiss—out of his mind.
He jerked open the door, ready to give an earful to the person banging before ten. Words caught in his throat as he spied Deputy Bertrand and FBI agent Sam Pierce lurking on his doorstep. “To what do I owe the honor? Another attempt at helping me redecorate my place?”
Sam handed him a folded piece of paper. “Here’s a warrant to impound your car.”
“For what?” Max’s hands trembled as he unfolded and read the writ of warrant.
“Further evidence that will put you at the scene of Dylan Renault’s murder.” The FBI agent wore his smirk as proudly as his badge.
“That’ll be hard to do since I’m not the one who killed him.”
“Oh, you’re good, I’ll give you that.” Sam nodded as a tow truck backed up to the Benz and lowered the towing chain. “I suggest you call your lawyer, Pershing.”
Max clenched his jaw. “Are we done?”
Sam grinned. “For now.” He turned and headed toward the tow truck.
Wanting nothing more than to punch the agent square in the kisser but knowing it wouldn’t be the smartest move to make, Max went into the kitchen and called Lyle Tanner’s office. Mr. Tanner’s secretary took the message, then Max scanned the warrant.
Blah, blah, blah…cast of tires to be made to comparison test against the tracks made at the scene of the crime…blah, blah, blah…eyewitness identified car at the scene.
Whoa! Stop everything. An eyewitness? Since when? He hadn’t heard anything about an eyewitness. Were they just messing with him? But, no,
a judge had signed the warrant. Great heavenly day, what was going on?
He grabbed his keys from the foyer table and nearly got nailed by the front door flying open.
“Why is that silly deputy having your car towed?” Lenore stood in the doorway, eyes blazing.
So not the person he wanted to see right now. Not after learning what she’d done to Ava. And him.
Max sighed and pocketed his keys. He didn’t want to get into the discussion of her lying to Ava. Not now. Not when he was already past late for work. “They’re impounding it.”
“Whatever for?”
“They say it will prove I was at the scene of Dylan’s murder.”
“Oh, that’s ludicrous. This is getting ridiculous. I’m calling Bradford.” Lenore took two steps toward the kitchen.
Max stopped her. “Mom, did you see the sheriff out there? This is all the doing of that FBI agent.”
The fight left his mother. She sagged against the doorway. “This can’t be happening. You didn’t do anything.”
While still spitting mad at his mother, he couldn’t ignore what all of this was doing to her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and gave her a tight squeeze. “It’s going to be okay. I already called Mr. Tanner and he’ll take care of this. We just have to believe the truth will all come out.” But he didn’t mention what his lawyer had told him about innocent people being convicted.
His mother’s face turned an even whiter shade of pale. “I just have to do something. They can’t keep thinking you’re a murderer.”
He planted a kiss on the crown of her head. “It’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” With a slight shift, he moved an arm’s length away. “I’m going to work. I’ll talk to you tonight.”
And wouldn’t that be an interesting conversation?
Ava answered her cell phone as she paced the elevator taking her to Dylan’s office. Correction, her office.
“You are not going to believe this.” Max’s voice was roughened with stress.
She shook her head to focus, opened the office and flipped on the light. “What now?”
“They just impounded my car.”
“You’re kidding.” She sank into the leather chair behind the desk. “Why?”
“I wish I were. They say they’ll recover evidence that will put me at the scene of Dylan’s murder.”
They were wrong. Just like they’d been wrong about Dylan killing Angelina. Max was being framed. She knew that. Her heart wouldn’t betray her so badly. “What kind of evidence?”
“According to the warrant, to match my tires against tracks left at the scene. And get this, an eyewitness identified my car as being there.”
“What eyewitness?” Her heart raced as adrenaline pushed through her veins.
“I don’t know. I was hoping maybe you’d heard something.”
“No. But I’ll find out, you can bet on that.” Why hadn’t they been told there was an eyewitness? What were these people doing?
“I called my lawyer and left a message.” Fear seeped over the connection. “I know I wasn’t there, Ava, but somebody’s setting me up.”
“I wonder if this new eyewitness is the one framing you.” But who?
“It could be the murderer. Do you remember what the sheriff said when he came to tell you about Dylan?”
Ava shook her head reflexively, even though Max couldn’t see her over the phone. “I wasn’t home. I’d been finishing up a wedding in Covington and was driving back when Bosworth called me and told me the sheriff had been by and that Dylan was dead and Mother wasn’t taking the news well.”
“Your mother never said?”
“My mother hasn’t said much of anything to me since that night. And certainly nothing about how she found out.”
“These details might be important, Ava. Think. In every conversation you’ve had with the sheriff and deputies, have they ever mentioned an eyewitness?”
She closed her mind, replaying all the painful exchanges. “No, not once that I remember. And I think I would have remembered something so important.”
“I don’t know, but they sure aren’t going to tell me anything.”
No, they wouldn’t. Every little clue she’d gotten from the sheriff she’d had to drag out of him. She squared her shoulders and lifted her purse.
“But they’ll tell me, or they’ll wish they had.”
SEVENTEEN
What could be taking the sheriff so long?
Ava tapped the toe of her designer pump on the dirty floor. It reeked inside the poorly ventilated station. She’d already been waiting a good fifteen minutes to see Sheriff Reed. What, had he snuck out for an early lunch? The man did like to eat.
“Ms. Renault.” He stood behind the cracked Formica counter. “Can I help you with something?” So formal.
“As a matter of fact, you can. I need to know some details about my brother’s case.”
He shifted his weight from one foot to the next, glancing at the clock over her head. Probably trying to figure out if he could get rid of her before the noon hour. He sighed and opened the swinging door. “Come on back.”
His office was as dirty and stinky as before. He waved her to a chair, which she declined as gracefully as she could. No way was she sitting in that thing. “What can I help you with?”
“I’m curious, Sheriff, how did y’all discover Dylan’s body? And happen to arrive on the scene before he died?”
“Why are you asking this now?”
There he went again, answering a question with a question. “Just call me curious. I never heard it straight from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.”
“We already went over this with your mother.”
“I wasn’t there. Humor me, please.” She crossed her arms over her chest. Her nails dug into her forearms.
“We received a tip about hearing a gunshot, then finding the body.”
“A tip?”
“A phone call.”
“From whom?”
He narrowed his eyes. “I’m not at liberty to discuss certain aspects of the case with you. The person prefers to remain anonymous.”
Sure he did. If there was even such a person, why wasn’t he the prime suspect? “Have you questioned this person about why they were there? Renault Hall is private property. And let’s admit it, Sheriff, it’s a little out of the way of most people’s driving routes. Sounds a little fishy to me.”
“We checked out the witness. He’s not the murderer.”
“You’re sure? Did he have an alibi? I mean, being there at the time of the shooting is very suspect to me.”
“We’re positive.”
She tapped her toe again. “Then what was he doing out there?”
“He heard the gunshot—the reverberations carry far over the bayou, ya know—and went to check it out. He found your brother and went to the closest pay phone, at the grocery store on the corner of Church Street.”
“Why didn’t he come to our house? I mean, it was Dylan who was shot. It’s much closer than going two blocks to use a pay phone. Someone’s always home at the house.”
“I can’t say why he didn’t.”
“So y’all arrived soon after he called?”
A hint of red dotted the sheriff’s cheeks. “Within an hour.”
“An hour?!” Indignation fused with rage and stiffened her spine. “Let me get this straight—it took y’all an hour to get to the scene? You’re less than four blocks away, for pity’s sakes. What took you so long?”
The red spread all the way to the tips of his ears. “Well, we considered it might be a prank phone call, so we didn’t respond until he called back a second time.”
“Wait a minute. He had to call back a second time?” This was getting worse by the minute. Disregarding the possibilities of germs waiting to jump on her, she sank to the chair. Her legs wouldn’t support her any longer. “A prank? Who jokes about someone getting shot? Isn’t it your job to follow up on all such reports? This is outrageous!” And migh
t put the department at a huge risk of being sued. She’d have to call Mr. Fayard about this new information.
“Let’s just say we knew who the caller was, and in the past he hasn’t been the most accurate for reporting information.”
“Yet, you’ll accept his innocence.”
“He’s unreliable, yes. A murderer, no.”
“So you let my brother lie out there dying for an hour? Because you were too lazy to check?” She couldn’t believe this. It was shameful. Maybe Dylan could’ve been saved if they’d acted quicker.
As if reading her mind, the sheriff shifted in his chair. “Dylan had no chance of survival, Ava. I know that’s hard to hear, but you can ask the paramedics and doctors. The location of the bullet made the shot fatal. No matter if he’d been shot in an operating room.”
“Covered your bases there, Sheriff? This is appalling.” She shook her head as another thought slammed against her mind. “But had you gotten there earlier, maybe you could have gotten more out of Dylan than just two words. Have you thought of that?”
“What’s done is done. We can’t play what-ifs.”
Of course they couldn’t. Not since they’d messed up so royally. “And you think this unreliable witness is telling the truth about not being involved? How can you even remotely justify that logic?”
“Why would he call in—twice—if he was involved? He doesn’t have a mean bone in his body. Besides, this guy doesn’t like drawing police attention, I assure you.”
“Yet, he called it in. He didn’t walk away.”
Sheriff Reed gave a half shrug. “Guess he had a moment of conscience.”
“But you believe him?”
“Yes.”
She shoved to her feet. “Then why won’t you believe Max Pershing?”
“Because there’s physical evidence that links him to the crime.”
“Obviously this guy was at the scene, too.”
Sheriff Reed let out a heavy sigh. “Trust me, Ava, I’d like to close this case, but there’s no way this witness is involved. No way.”