Before he could explain, Craig got out of the office and left us to unravel what that comment meant. Alex opened the first folder and read aloud, “Cherise’s .38 was the gun that killed Lee Reynolds. No prints other than hers were found on the gun.”
“Then all that in there was a lie? What about her alibi of being a thousand miles away when he died?” I asked, not believing this was happening. It made no sense.
Alex opened the second folder and again read what it said. “The airline has Cherise Reynolds in seat 22C on the flight down to Ft. Myers and seat 24B on the flight back to Baltimore-Washington International. She wasn’t anywhere near Sunset Ridge when Lee Reynolds died.”
“How?” I asked, baffled at how her prints could be on the weapon that killed Lee Reynolds but she couldn’t have been the killer. Then my mind began spinning with the idea of having to investigate all those men who worked for her six days a week.
He tossed the two folders onto his desk in disgust. “I have no idea. This damn case is like a nightmare that won’t end. Now we’re going to have to look into all those workmen.”
“But did any of them even know Lee Reynolds? What kind of coincidence would that be?”
“I have no idea. I really don’t.”
I felt bad for him as we sat there grasping at straws. Nothing in this case made any sense.
“What about Jason Drake? He seemed to have a grudge against Lee. Maybe he knew Cherise and got a hold of her gun,” I said, even as my brain said the idea was ridiculous.
Like a man beaten down by circumstances, Alex slowly rose from his chair. “I guess it can’t hurt to ask her. Who knows with this case?”
I walked back to the interrogation room where we found Cherise looking much better than before. Alex placed the two folders down on the table in front of him and with a deep breath began the second part of his questioning of her.
“We got the results back from the lab. Your gun is the one that killed Lee.”
Tears filled her eyes as she shook her head back and forth in disbelief. “No! That’s not possible. Didn’t you call my sister and Richard to find out where I was? Didn’t you call the airline? They can tell you I was on those flights.”
Opening the folder with that exact information, he pointed to it and nodded. “And that’s exactly what we found out. You were in Florida when this murder occurred. Both your alibis and the airline back you up on that.”
“But my gun was used to kill Lee? I didn’t have a break in while I was gone, so there must be some mistake.”
Alex shook his head. “Ballistics doesn’t make mistakes like that. The bullet from your .38 killed Lee Reynolds. Now our job is to find out who shot that gun. Did any of the men working in your house have a grudge against Lee?”
Cherise’s face twisted with confusion. “Those workmen don’t even know Lee. At least I can’t imagine they would.”
Leaning forward, I asked, “Is it possible any of them listened to his radio show and targeted him because of what he said on it every day?”
Cherise opened her mouth but nothing came out. I couldn’t blame her. She’d hired construction workers to remodel her house, but there had never been any reason to ask them if they had any problem with her ex-husband, who she’d been divorced from for years.
Finally, she answered, “I have no idea. That wasn’t anything I thought of when I hired the company.”
“What’s the name of the company doing the work?” Alex asked as he feverishly drew arrows between words on the legal pad.
“Shaif Construction. They’re in Waynesboro.”
I jumped in and asked, “Do you know a man named Jason Drake?”
Cherise shook her head. “No. Why?”
Alex crossed out Drake’s name in his notes and stood from the table with the tablet and pen. As he walked away, he mumbled, “You’re free to go. We’ll keep the gun, but you can go home.”
I watched Cherise’s face as she wondered how she’d get home since we brought her there in the squad car. As she stood to leave, I said, “I can get my car and give you a ride home, if you need it.”
“No, that’s okay. I can get home. I’ll call Jack. He’s been very good these past few days. I think he may have actually grown up in his travels. Too bad Lee never got to see it.”
As she walked out toward the door, I thought about what she said about Jack. I’d only known him for a few days, so I’d never seen that spoiled brat she mentioned earlier. All I’d seen was the world traveler who seemed to enjoy life to the fullest, but never had I thought he was immature.
Happy to know she had a ride home, I found Alex in his office just as he was hanging up the phone. Taking my usual seat in front of his desk, I asked, “Find out anything?”
“The owner of Shaif Construction is faxing me over the names of all the workers on the crew from Cherise’s house. I’m not hopeful, though.”
I wished I could offer some magic theory that would make sense among all the odd pieces of the puzzle that this case had become. “Maybe the voicemail transcripts will give us something to go on.”
Just then my phone rang and I pulled it out of my bag to see it was my father. Showing it to Alex, I said, “I’ll just be a minute.”
He waved me off, though. “Go see your father. I’ll let you know if I find anything in the transcripts.”
“Okay. If you need me, I’ll either be at my house or McGuire’s. See you later!”
As I left to find out what my father wanted, I hoped that I’d hear from Alex that he found the missing clue in those voicemail transcripts soon. Something had to fit so this case made sense.
Chapter Seventeen
My father’s phone rang until it went to voicemail and I heard his deep voice intone his usual message, so I ended the call and immediately redialed his number, worried something had happened. It wasn’t like him to call and then not answer less than five minutes later.
I tore up Main Street toward the bar and hoped to God he was okay. The October wind nipped at my cheeks with every step I hurriedly took even as the late afternoon sun warmed them. Thankfully, McGuire’s wasn’t too far from the police station, and I made it there in less than five minutes.
Bolting in through the front door, I stopped and braced myself against the doorframe to catch my breath and looked around to see not a soul in the bar. It wasn’t odd to see McGuire’s empty during that time of the day, but to not see my father anywhere was distinctly out of character.
Rested enough to call out his name, I yelled, “Dad! Where are you? Dad!”
I listened for his answer, but I heard nothing. My panic quickly rising, I yelled again, “Dad! Where are you?”
My hands began to shake and tears welled in my eyes. Had he fallen somewhere in the house and lay waiting for me to find him? Had someone come into the bar and hurt him? I raced around the bar to check for him on the floor, but he wasn’t there. Frantically, I scanned the bar but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Turning on my heels, I raced up the stairs to his apartment on the second floor and stopped in his living room, my eyes darting left and right for any sight of him. I checked the bedrooms and bathroom but found nothing. Each moment that ticked by made my imagination conjure up a more awful fate for the only family I had left.
“Dad! Where are you? Call out if you can, please!”
I stood frozen to the spot in the middle of his living room, the tears rolling down my cheeks as the most terrifying thought I’d ever had settled in my brain. He’d called me for help, and now it was too late.
A faint sound stopped my heart for a brief moment, and then its pounding returned to my ears, but I’d heard something. Calling out again, I yelled, “Dad, I’m here! Where are you?”
I stood completely still and waited for an answer to my call, my hopes leaping inside my brain. Again I heard a faint noise that sounded like a voice, and then I heard the most beautiful sound in the world.
“Poppy, I’m down here,” my father said in a farawa
y voice.
Following the sound, I took the stairs by two to the first floor and called out for him to tell me where he was again. This time I heard him more clearly. He was in the basement, the one place I hadn’t thought of checking because he rarely spent any time there since moving the storeroom up to behind the bar.
I flung open the door to see him standing at the bottom of the basement stairs and smiling up at me. My emotions cascaded around me, and I began to cry knowing he was okay.
“You scared me to death, Dad. Why didn’t you answer me when I called the first half dozen times?”
His smile faded as he saw how upset I was. “Why are you crying? Did something happen?”
“I thought you were hurt, Dad. You called me and then I called right back and didn’t get an answer, so I ran all the way here from the police station to see if you were okay. And then when I got here I called your name but you didn’t answer, so I ran upstairs to see if you were there.”
Knowing I was rambling and probably not making much sense, I stopped explaining myself and took a deep breath as he began climbing the stairs toward me.
“It’s okay, honey. I wasn’t hurt. I was just showing Jack the basement of the house.”
I looked behind him and saw Jack Reynolds following him up the stairs. Still reeling from the thought that my father had been lying hurt somewhere in his house, I stood there confused as they joined me behind the bar.
“What are you doing here, Jack?” I asked, sounding more suspicious than I intended.
“I came to get a drink and your father was nice enough to stand around and talk to me,” he explained in his usual charming way.
My father wrapped his arm around my shoulders and kissed my cheek. “He’s being far too nice. I’ve been boring him with stories about the history of this house for far too long. That’s why we were down in the basement. I wanted to show him that stone wall we found when I first moved in.”
He’d talked about that old wall since the day he found it, as if the names and symbols chiseled into the stone actually meant something. If I knew my father, he’d all but dragged Jack down to the basement to show him it.
“But why didn’t you answer when I called?”
“I didn’t hear it,” my father answered and gave me another kiss. “Reception down there is terrible. I just figured I’d try again when we came back up. I thought you were working with Alex anyway. I didn’t think you’d worry about it. I’m sorry.”
The sadness that had crept into his eyes told me he hadn’t intended to scare me half out of my wits, and even if he had, it wouldn’t have mattered. He was my father, and no matter what he did, I loved him.
“It’s okay, Dad. I just overreacted. That’s all. I worry about things.”
Jack smiled at me and winked. “We would have been back up here much sooner, but I kept asking your father to tell me stories about you when you were little. We got to talking and lost track of the time. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
“Anyone want a drink?” my father asked as he slipped behind the bar. “A beer, Poppy?”
I held up my hand to stop him before he began pouring me a glass. “No, I’m good.”
“I’ll take another, Joe,” Jack said with a familiarity that rubbed me the wrong way. Joe? When did they get that close that he’d moved from calling my father Mr. McGuire to Joe?
My father didn’t seem to mind how chummy he’d gotten, though, and quickly poured Jack another stout. As I stood there still struggling to calm my nerves from the fright my father had given me, the two of them joked around about types of beer like they’d known each other for all their lives. My father didn’t even joke around like that with me, so what was he doing acting like that with someone he’d just met a few days ago?
I considered whether I should stay or return to the police station when I remembered Cherise had said she was going to call Jack for a ride back to her house. “Hey, don’t you have to give your sister-in-law a ride back to Waynesboro?”
He and my father stopped their kidding around, and Jack looked over at me like I’d said something wrong. “She called, but I didn’t answer. Is that what she needed? Why was she at the police station?”
Instantly, I sensed I shouldn’t tell him much of what happened with Cherise, so I tried my best to look casual and said, “We found out she owns a .38, so Alex brought her in for questioning. We haven’t found anything conclusive about the gun yet.”
All of a sudden, he looked interested in what I had to say and his blue eyes opened wide. “Still? That seems to be taking a long time.”
I smiled and worked my hardest to not look like I was lying. “You know how small town police forces are. They just don’t have the resources big cities do. It could take a few more days to find out if her gun had anything to do with your brother’s murder.”
My father made a comment about how wonderful he thought the Sunset Ridge police department had always been as if he felt like he had to defend it against us. Smiling at his loyalty to Derek and Alex, I quickly changed the subject to that stone wall in the basement before I had to explain any more about the case.
More interested in my social life, my father asked, “So, are you two kids going to do anything fun today?”
I knew my father didn’t mean to allude to me having sex with Jack, but that’s how it came out. He saw by the look on my face that he’d misspoken and quickly tried to rephrase his ideas, but that only made it worse. Oddly enough, Jack didn’t seem to think anything of what my father had said as he drank his beer and stared off at the far wall.
My father excused himself to go to the stockroom. For a minute, I watched Jack and saw his expression change from preoccupied blankness to one that looked intense and focused. What Cherise said had nagged at me from the minute I heard it, and something about the way he was acting told me I needed to ask him about it.
I touched his sleeve to get his attention, and he turned to look at me with that same intense look in his eyes. It felt like he looked right through me for a brief moment, and then he smiled and they softened to their usual kindness.
“You looked like you were a million miles away. Everything okay with you?”
His smile spread wider across his face as he nodded and assured me he was fine. “Not a million, but a few miles away. I’m good, though.”
Carefully in my mind, I crafted the question I wanted to ask and said, “You know Cherise pretty well, I think. Right?”
“Yeah. I think I might even like her more than Jessica, as far as my brother’s wives go,” he replied, his expression telling me he was lying.
I moved around to his other side so when he looked at me the light from the window illuminated his features better. I wanted to see his full expression when I asked him about what Cherise had said back at the station.
“Well, she told me something after Alex was finished questioning her that seemed odd.”
As soon as the words left my mouth, his face grew hard. “What did she say?”
“She said she spoke to you last week and told you she’d be out of town from Monday through Thursday and wouldn’t get home until late Thursday night.”
My eyes trained on his to see his reaction. Other than them narrowing ever so slightly, he continued to stare at me with hardness in his eyes even as his expression softened.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about. She probably got confused. Ever since that house of hers became like a war zone with all that construction, she hasn’t known if she was coming or going.”
Forcing a laugh, I stepped behind the bar to get a drink of water, my mouth suddenly feeling like it was filled with cotton. I didn’t know which one of them was lying, but I knew one thing for sure.
I didn’t know Jack Reynolds well at all.
As I quenched my thirst with one glass of tap water and then a second, I wished my father would return. I couldn’t put my finger on why, but suddenly I had a feeling I’d put Cherise in danger and if my father could keep Jack
occupied, I could get out to her house to make sure she was okay.
“I’m going to go now, Poppy,” he announced before finishing the last of his beer.
“Oh? You can’t stay for a little while longer? I know my father would love to tell you more stories of this old house. He’s got a million of them.”
“Maybe later.”
I grabbed his arm and subtly pressed my body next to his. “I thought maybe we’d spend some time together today since I know you’ll be leaving soon.”
His reaction startled me. In a flat voice with no emotion, he said, “So the investigation must be almost complete then if they’re going to release the body for the funeral.”
“I…I…I don’t know,” I stammered out, struck by how cold he sounded when he talked about seeing his brother for one last time.
“Well, your partner must not be telling you everything then, Poppy, because I have a sense this case is all but over.”
What did he mean all but over? How did he know?
I wanted to ask, but I was afraid to hear the answer, so I just shrugged and smiled. “I just tag along with him, to be honest. He does all the real investigating. I’m more there to make my editor happy and get some stories on the local crime beat.”
Whether Jack believed my lie or not I couldn’t tell. His face remained stony as he leaned across the bar to kiss me on the cheek, and then barely above a whisper, he said, “I look forward to seeing you one more time before I leave, Poppy McGuire.”
I smiled and nodded as that same flowery scent filled my nose, but now I knew where I’d smelled that before. He didn’t wait to know how I felt about us getting together again before he left Sunset Ridge. He simply turned on his heels and walked out the front door of McGuire’s, not even saying goodbye to my father when he came out from the stockroom and asked him where he was going.
“That was odd. He didn’t even say goodbye. Is he coming back?”
I looked over at my father at the end of the bar and shook my head. “I don’t know, but something’s wrong with him. I think it was something I said.”
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