by R A Wallace
Chapter Twenty-One
She tried fitting the pieces that she already had into a puzzle that made sense. She ended up pulling the pieces apart and shifting them around when the picture that emerged on her first attempt left too many gaps. When she was young, her parents had often worked on jigsaw puzzles preferring those with a minimum of one thousand pieces. They had always begun their puzzles by finding all of the edge pieces.
Megan now related those edge pieces of the Clay Freemont puzzle to his character. She felt that she was beginning to fit many of the edge pieces in place. From what she had learned, Clay Freemont was not particularly attentive to his wife and his presence caused tension within his own family. Some of the more recognizable sections within the middle of the puzzle were beginning to emerge. Clay was interested in money but so were a lot of people. She was still missing too many pieces to the section that would explain his interest in real estate.
She was so immersed in her own thoughts, Megan nearly knocked someone over as she turned the corner on her way back to her truck.
“Megan, fancy meeting you here,” Jennifer Parker said.
“I was just thinking about you actually.” Megan moved closer to the building to block the icy cold wind.
Jennifer did the same. “I figured you’d be out asking questions on behalf of Linda Spelling. She mentioned that she spoke with you.”
“Does that mean you are going to represent her as her lawyer?” Megan asked. Amos had just said as much, but maybe Jennifer would tell her more.
“Yes, if she needs it, but you know that I can’t really talk about the case.”
“I understand.” Megan looked down the street as she considered who she might speak with next.
“But I can suggest that you speak with someone if you haven’t already,” Jennifer added with a grin.
Megan raised her brows in anticipation. “Oh?”
“The bartender at the Station Pub & Grill. Cathy had the displeasure of serving Clay before his death. I was there with Jim and saw Clay briefly. Cathy spent a lot more time with him.”
***
Megan was grateful for the warmth of the restaurant. She could see that the restaurant side was fairly busy as she passed through on her way to the bar side. Cathy was as busy as usual, but Megan went to the corner of the bar where the wait staff usually went to place their orders for the customers at the tables. Cathy finished serving a customer and then joined her with a question in her eyes.
“What can I get for you?”
Megan explained that Jennifer had suggested she speak with Cathy and why.
Cathy’s eyes grew wide with surprise. “That was the guy that everyone is talking about?”
Megan pulled out her phone and scrolled through some photos until she found one of Clay from the night of the class reunion.
“Is this the guy you served?” Megan asked as she held out her phone.
“Yes, that is him,” Cathy confirmed.
“What can you tell me about the night he was here?”
“For one thing, he hit on every woman in the bar including me no matter how old they were,” Cathy said with a face that indicated his attentions weren’t welcome.
“Did anyone seem to appreciate that?”
“Yes, there was one lady. At least she looked close to his age.” Cathy motioned to someone at the other end of the bar that she would be with them in a moment.
Megan scrolled to the start of some group pictures on her phone and handed it back to Cathy. “Do any of these women look like the one you saw?”
Cathy shook her head then looked up at Megan. “Do you want me to keep looking?”
Megan nodded and watched Cathy scroll through several photos before stopping. Cathy enlarged one image and handed the phone back to Megan. “That one, right there.”
“She talked to Clay that night?” Megan pocketed her phone.
“She did more than that. She left the bar with him.”
***
Megan found Becky Maris’s address online. She parked her truck in front of the house matching the address. The house was small and a yard the size of a postage stamp was barren of any ornamentation. There was no evidence of any bushes or plants or anything else that might have added a touch of hominess. Not certain if the doorbell worked, Megan tried the button then began knocking.
Becky Maris answered the door several moments later. It looked as though she had taken the few moments to quickly dab on some makeup. Even with the attempt, it was obvious that her eyes were red, and her face was blotchy.
Megan introduced herself and looked expectantly past the woman. Becky took the hint and invited her inside.
“I know your parents,” Becky commented as she led Megan to a tiny living room.
Megan took the only other seat in the room and took in Becky’s appearance.
“I’m here about Clay Freemont’s death,” Megan said bluntly. She was rewarded with a flash of surprise in Becky’s eyes.
“What about it?” Her voice held suspicion and her eyes had narrowed at Megan.
“I understand that you spent some time with him before the class reunion?” Megan prompted.
Becky chose to ignore the prompt. “What of it?”
Megan considered her options. “Are you aware that both Linda Spelling and Claire Jennings are suspects in the case?”
The look of surprise on Becky’s face looked genuine. “The police should be looking at his wife.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Clay told me that he was leaving her.”
Megan wondered how many women her first husband had used that line on. Like Clay Freemont, her first husband, Josh, had also spent many evenings in bars after which he followed his conquests home. She softened her voice.
“I suspect men say that a lot more often than they mean it.”
Becky’s chin came up. “Clay meant it. He was done with her. He even said that he wouldn’t mind living in a nice house like mine.”
Megan thought back to the many times she had wished some woman would tempt Josh away. She doubted if it would have ever happened. Josh knew he had Megan right where he wanted her. He spent all of her money and understood that her friendship with Erica made her reluctant to bring an unhappy ending to their relationship. Rather than wasting her time arguing with Becky, she thanked her for her time.
Her next stop brought her to the hospital where she was told Dr. Libby Danes was in her office and had a moment to speak with her. Megan introduced herself and explained the reason for her visit.
“I’m not surprised to hear that Linda and Claire are being proactive about clearing their names from any involvement with Clay’s death.” Libby sat behind a large desk, a white lab coat over her dress suit. One side of the desk held several thick folders. A large computer screen took up the other side.
“Is there anything you can add that might help?” Megan asked.
“You mean, about Clay’s death or the class reunion?”
“Either.” Megan would take any information she could get.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about his death and I’m not sure how much I can add about the class reunion. Verna Prince handled most of the details. To be honest, I don’t know what I would have done without her.” Libby waved vaguely around her office. “I’m afraid all of my time is taken up here at the hospital.”
“I can understand that.” Megan had heard from Irlene that Libby had praised Verna for her work.
Libby shook her head. “I should never have agreed to be involved at all. It was only because I had been the class president. The expectation was there.”
“I imagine it takes a lot of work,” Megan prompted.
“You have no idea. It wasn’t just the invitations and tracking people down. Verna took all of the payments for reservations, she handled the hall, the caterers, and the music, she even handled the seating.”
Something Amos and others had said popped into her mind. “What do you mean abo
ut the seating?”
Libby pulled a pair of reading glasses from her front pocket and slipped them on. She fingered through some of the folders on her desk and pulled one out.
Libby spoke as she leafed through the pages in the folder. “These are my records from the class reunion. Since there was money involved, we kept very careful records. Ah, here it is.” She handed some stapled sheets of paper to Megan.
Megan looked at the diagrams on the pages. It was a seating chart. “You had assigned seating?”
Libby shrugged. “It was Verna’s idea.”
Megan left the hospital a few minutes later and sat in her truck as the heater warmed it up. By the time she finished her call to Jerry, the windows were clear of the thin film of ice that had developed on them. She now had more pieces to the puzzle, but it was getting late in the day. She’d make some notes about everything she’d learned after dinner this evening and pick up where she left off first thing tomorrow. She knew that she didn’t yet have all of the pieces to solve the puzzle. In fact, she now had more questions. She hoped that learning the answers to those questions tomorrow would give her what she needed.
***
Jerry turned to Rhys. “Looks like we’re in for a long night.”
“Where are we headed next?”
Jerry glanced back down at his phone. “Let’s start with the Station Pub & Grill. We need to get a statement from the bartender there.”
“Sounds good to me. I’ll call in an order. We can pick it up when we get there. Sounds like we won’t be going home for dinner.” Rhys pulled out his phone and checked his contact list for the restaurant.
“After that, we need to speak with a Becky Maris. Sounds like she spent some time with the victim just before he died.”
Rhys looked up from his phone. “Anything else?”
“Yeah. I think your feeling after speaking to the loan officer was a solid. We need to go back over the financials for both Clay and Yolanda Freemont. It’s time to follow the money.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
The house was unusually quiet. Kaylee was used to having at least one twin awake. In fact, it was almost as though they took turns to ensure that they each received their own allotted amount of attention. Glancing at the clock, she realized that her time here for the day was up. She needed to return to her grandmother’s house. It was something she’d been avoiding, and not only because her mother kept quizzing her about leaving college. She wasn’t sure what to do now that she knew her mother was hiding a secret as well. A secret about a grave for a small child that shared Kaylee’s last name.
Until Kaylee knew how to deal with the secret, she’d been trying to avoid being in the same room with her parents. She wasn’t certain that she’d be able to keep her newfound knowledge to herself. She wondered how her brother, Nate, was doing. He was stuck in the house with her parents. Then again, she didn’t know for sure that both parents were at her grandmother’s house. Maybe her father was visiting a lawyer again.
Shaking her head to clear her mind of her worries, she quietly left the nursery. As she walked down the hall toward the front door, she paused in the doorway of Brad’s home office. He was leaning back in his chair with his hands locked together on the top of his head. Kaylee recognized that position. He sat that way whenever he was contemplating his code.
Kaylee cleared her throat to get his attention. “I’m leaving now.”
Brad turned slowly to look at her. It took a heartbeat or two before his eyes cleared and he focused on her.
“Kaylee, thanks. I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your help.” Brad indicated the computer with a tilt of his head. “I’m finally getting some work done.”
Kaylee gave a wry grin. “I’d go crazy if I couldn’t code for very long.” The smile left her face as soon as she realized what she said. Now that she wasn’t in school, she hadn’t been coding at all. It was driving her crazy.
Brad watched the emotions fly across Kaylee’s young face. “You know, I dropped out of school.”
Kaylee’s eyes widened in surprise. “Really?”
Brad rubbed the top of his head as he remembered. “Yeah, it just wasn’t a good fit for me. I mean, I can’t say that I understood that in the moment. It was a pretty stressful time for me. It wasn’t until I got up my courage to try again at another place that I figured it out. The second place worked out much better. I liked that my professors were really up to date with current trends in programming and I actually took a lot of online classes.”
Kaylee frowned. “Did you like them?”
“Yeah, I did. Not just the part where you didn’t have to drive to class or live on campus, either. I liked that if I had a question, someone was just an email away and sometimes that was my professor and sometimes it was my classmates. I discovered that there were a lot of people out there who liked to program as much as I did. But it also wasn’t long before I was working while I was taking classes and the flexibility of online classes just made it so much easier.” Brad shrugged. “It’s not for everyone. You have to be responsible enough to do the work without having anyone standing over you to make you do it.”
Kaylee didn’t think that would be a problem for her. She loved programming. It was when she wasn’t programming that she wasn’t happy.
“It’s something to think about anyway,” Brad said as he reached for some paper on the corner of his desk. He held the pages up for Kaylee to take from him. “Like I said. It’s not for everyone. But I printed out some information for you about an online program in case you wanted to check it out.”
As she drove to her grandmother’s house, Kaylee wondered if her grandmother had spoken to Brad about taking classes online. Either way, it seemed like he was trying to help her. He certainly seemed to understand her. He was a programmer too. Taking online classes was something to consider. But not until she solved her current problems with her family.
Kaylee entered the house through a side door and went to the kitchen first. She draped her coat on the back of a chair and opened the fridge to look for something cold with caffeine. She didn’t find it and turned around to look at the coffee pot. It was empty. She had just begun to fix a pot of coffee when her mother came in.
“Good, you’re back,” Sarah said. “I wanted to talk to you about school.”
Kaylee turned the coffee maker on and stepped away from it. Leaning back against a counter, she faced her mother.
“I’m not ready to talk about that yet,” Kaylee said quietly.
“Well, unfortunately, we have to discuss it now. We’ll be leaving to go back home shortly. If you aren’t going to return to your classes, you can come home with us and get into a school there.” Sarah crossed her arms and looked directly at Kaylee.
Kaylee knew that look. Her mother wasn’t taking no for an answer. She gave it anyway. “No.”
Sarah sighed and dropped her arms to her sides. “I’m not going to argue with you about this.”
“Good, thanks.”
Sarah began to lose her patience. “No, I mean you’ll do what I say. There’s no room for argument. You can’t give up. I won’t allow it. You need to get over whatever your problem is and get on with your life. That means that you are going back to school. End of discussion.”
Kaylee felt her own patience leaving her. “You always say that. I’m not giving up. I just want to make sure that whatever I’m doing is what I really want to do.”
“You left school in the middle of the semester, Kaylee. That’s giving up. I won’t have it. I’ve told you since you were a child that you can never give up.”
Kaylee closed her eyes for a brief moment then opened them and began walking out of the kitchen. Waiting around for the caffeine fix wasn’t worth it.
“Kaylee! Where are you going?” Sarah demanded.
“To my room. I’m staying here now, I have my own room.” Kaylee kept walking all the way upstairs. She couldn’t help noticing that her hands were shaking as she quietly closed the
bedroom door behind her. She’d always hated confrontation.
Taking a deep breath, she tried to calm herself. Before she realized it, she was turning on her computer. It was the one thing that had always calmed her before. Except now, she didn’t have a program to write. She stared at the computer for a moment. Then she decided to look up any information she could find on the grave marker that they had found. Maybe if she could learn about Keshia Vance, things would start to make sense again.
***
Barbara finished typing a memo, then sat back in her seat. She looked over her desk at the empty room beyond. It was surprisingly quiet in the house given the number of people in it. She was wondering why when a slight figure appeared at the doorway.
“Kaylee? Are you alright?” Barbara asked.
“Why didn’t anyone ever tell me?” Kaylee demanded as she stepped into the room.
Barbara stood and crossed the room to meet Kaylee half way. She motioned toward the sofa and took a seat. “Tell you what, Kaylee?”
“That I had a sister? A sister who died of pneumonia?”
Barbara looked confused for a moment, then her face cleared. “I often wondered if you remembered her. I thought perhaps you might and that you just never said anything because it upset you too much.”
It was Kaylee’s turn to look confused. “Why would I remember her?”
Barbara tilted her head to one side as she considered her granddaughter. “Kaylee, it wasn’t a secret. You were there at the time. Your sister was born after you. Don’t you remember at all?”
Kaylee shook her head even as images began flashing through her mind. “No. I mean, maybe.” She frowned. “Why doesn’t anyone ever talk about her?”
Barbara smiled gently. “That’s something you’d need to ask your parents about.”
“Ask us what?” Thomas said as he entered the room carrying a tray of snacks.
Sarah came in behind him carrying another tray with plates and napkins.
“About Keshia,” Barbara said. “I think perhaps you need to have a discussion. I’ll go check on things in the kitchen.”