“Eat,” Vivian ordered as she put the car in reverse and slowly drove the wrong way back down the deserted road.
Impatiently, Winnie shoved the chocolate into her mouth and bit down. In the next instant, her eyes rolled back in her head and she appeared to go limp in her seat. A moan rose from her throat and lasted through the time it took for the candy to melt and the complex combination of flavors to fade into a heartfelt, “Oh, my God! Is that even real? Who makes stuff like that? I’ve had chocolate, and it didn’t taste like that!”
“You’re welcome,” Vivian said. “How far do I back up?”
“Oh.” Winnie sat up straighter and blinked herself back to consciousness. “Uh, there.” She pointed to a dirt path even with the rear bumper of the car. “Right there.”
Vivian arched her brows and stared down the long, faintly delineated trail of hard-packed earth dotted with scraggly tufts of grass. It disappeared into a small opening in an otherwise solid barrier of stunted trees and heavy underbrush. “You actually want me to drive down that? Is there someplace to turn around down there?”
“It’s better than it looks,” Winnie promised, then swiped her tongue around the inside of her mouth one more time.
“What is this, Winnie?” Jesse asked, not sure she was ready to send a Mercedes to do a pickup’s job on the word of someone whose day had been a series of shocks and disasters of epic proportions.
“Roy Lee’s old fishing hole.”
“Well, hell,” Vivian said with renewed enthusiasm. “What are we waiting for?” She lined the luxury car up on the two beaten-down tracks through winter-killed grass and aimed it toward the gap in the tree line at the end of the trail. “Fasten your seatbelts, ladies. We’re in for a bumpy ride.”
Jesse held her breath until one particularly loud thud followed by a scraping noise drew a gasp she couldn’t stifle. “That wasn’t the oil pan, was it?” she asked.
“Hope not,” Vivian answered. “I’d hate to have to walk down this road in these shoes.”
Deciding to focus on something other than the thumping and bumping of the car, Jesse turned around until she could see Winnie. “How are we going to know if Roy Lee was here?”
“His truck and boat trailer will be parked close to wherever he put in. There’s a cove down here with a boat ramp that he liked to use. If this is where he was, this is where his pickup will be.”
“Unless someone drove it away,” Jesse pointed out, afraid to hope it could all be so simple.
“Those peanut heads couldn’t even sink a boat,” Winnie said in disgust. “I doubt they had enough sense to get rid of his truck.”
“If that truck is down here, we can’t get out and walk around. We’d be adding our footprints to a crime scene.” Since the one thing she wanted most was to get out and examine the area, Jesse felt compelled to remind everyone, herself included, that that was the one thing they couldn’t do.
“But if that truck is down here, at least we know where it happened,” Vivian said. “And maybe tomorrow we can come back and look around.”
“Why would you want to do that?” Winnie asked.
Vivian and Jesse exchanged a quick look of uncertainty. Since it seemed too soon to include Winnie in their plans, Jesse shrugged, not sure what to do. Vivian answered with a head nod and an eye twitch, effectively turning the problem over to Jesse, who thanked her with a squinty-eyed, malevolent glare before turning back to Winnie.
“We can discuss that while we eat,” Jesse said. “But I guess there’s something I should tell you. Deputy Murphy had asked me to find out if you knew where Roy Lee might have been fishing. I wasn’t going to talk to you about it until later, but…”
“If the truck’s not down here, do we still have to call her?”
Winnie looked so forlorn, Jesse wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. “No, we don’t have to call her.” Winnie perked up instantly, and Jesse decided to push on while she had the chance. “But, if it is, and I tell her, maybe she won’t need to question you again later.”
“And I wouldn’t have to see her? Because I don’t want to see or talk to anyone else,” Winnie insisted. “Not today. Maybe not at all.”
“I’d call her, and we’d be gone before anyone could get here,” Jesse promised.
Just then Vivian reached the gap in the surrounding trees, passed through it and slammed on her brakes. Below the nose of her car, the road angled down into a narrow band of flat, dry ground that gave way to marsh and reeds. A single set of dirt tracks followed the swampy edge to where a worn paved slab sloped down into the murky lake water—the ragged remnants of a boat ramp.
At the sound of Winnie’s gasp, Jesse’s gaze drew back up the lane and off to the left where an old brown pickup sat on the narrow patch of dry land. A small boat trailer took up another car length behind the rear bumper.
“Oh, my God,” Winnie whispered. “That’s it.”
Concerned by the feathery faintness of the words, Jesse turned to the back seat and Winnie, who had once again faded to a pasty white. “Are you…”
The words died away as Jesse’s focus shifted to the heavy fog of dust filling the road behind them. Like a ghost emerging from the gloom, the nose of a large white truck bobbed and weaved its way through the gray dust cloud billowing on all sides. Its black ram bar leading the way, the pickup bounced and jolted toward them at top speed, until the row of flashing lights across the roof of the cab slowly pulled free of the roiling dirt.
“Oh, good heavens!” Jesse watched it come toward them, feeling that she should run, but not knowing where to. “Vivian.” She laid her hand on Vivian’s arm. “Keep your foot on the brake.”
“Why on earth…”
The short burst of a siren shattered the quiet. Vivian’s sentence ended in a scream, and her foot slipped off the brake as she instinctively turned toward the siren blast behind her. Still in gear, the car shot forward, hanging over emptiness an instant before plunging nose first down the breathlessly steep and blessedly short hill. Winnie’s answering scream almost distracted Jesse from the awful sensation of falling through space.
Bracing herself against the dash and saying a silent prayer of thanks that she was still buckled in, Jesse cried, “Keep it going straight.”
“I will when the…”
The front tires hit the ground with a thud, bounced back into the air, and hit again. The back tires did the same, with fewer repetitions. Vivian steered to the right and pumped and released the brakes until all four tires were through bouncing and firmly on the ground again. With traction restored, she brought the car to a full stop halfway down the patchy pathway to the boat ramp.
“…tires are all on the ground again,” she said, finishing her sentence while draped over the steering wheel and clinging with both hands.
“Good job,” Jesse said, wanting more than anything to give Vivian a bear hug and a big, gushy kiss.
“I think I may need to get out and pee,” Winnie said quietly.
“I think you may need to wait.” Jesse’s voice was calm as she unbuckled her seatbelt. “In case no one’s noticed, we’ve got company.”
“I didn’t get a good look before all hell broke loose.” Vivian lifted her head from the steering wheel. “Who was that idiot anyway?”
Before Jesse had a chance to answer, the oversized white pickup came over the rise and down the hill, pulling to a smooth stop a few yards behind the Mercedes. Red and blue lights still flashing, engine rumbling, it sat there, menacing and unmoving as the window on the passenger side slowly slid down and a deep voice demanded over the loud speaker, “Jesse Camden, exit the vehicle and walk slowly to the rear.”
“Oh, good grief,” Vivian said, “What is he doing here?”
“He seems to be upset about something.” Jesse opened her car door, preparing to exit and move to the rear. “But he can’t have caught us in anything yet. We’re still in the middle of planning.”
By the time Jesse reached the back of the car,
Sheriff Joe Tyler was out of his truck and walking toward her.
“Well, Mr. Big Shot…” She planted her fists on her hip bones. “Now that you’ve almost killed us, what can I do for you?”
“Is she armed?” The sun reflecting on mirrored sunglasses, he jerked his chin toward the car behind her.
“What?” Confusion completely overshadowed the irritation his glasses should have aroused.
“Winnifryd Rogers,” Sheriff Tyler repeated with the flat intonations of someone who was very serious. “Is she armed?”
“Winnie? Armed?” The whole conversation was just making Jesse more confused, but she had a tightening in the pit of her stomach that felt like the beginnings of nausea. “Why would she be?”
He pointed behind Jesse and to the right. “Would you move over to the side of the car and stand there, please?”
The tightness was becoming a pain, and the nausea was definitely real. Her hands slid off her hips and her arms hung limp at her sides. “What are you doing?”
“Conducting an investigation,” he said, still with no emotion other than extreme patience, which wasn’t something Jesse was used to seeing from him. “I’m going to trust you to stand there and not do anything stupid. You’ll be doing your friend a favor if you stay calm and help her to. Can you do that for me?”
It was possibly the most human she had ever seen him. And on him, it was not reassuring. Jesse nodded and moved to the side of the car by the fender. She didn’t know what was happening, but she knew it couldn’t be good. She had never seen Joe Tyler scarier. And the pain in her stomach was definitely fear.
Chapter Fifteen
He extended his hand in a gesture that every dog trainer would recognize as “stay.” Then, before even noticing the glare Jesse leveled at him, he moved around to the other side of the car and opened the rear passenger door.
“Mrs. Rogers,” he said in a much kinder tone than the one he had just used with Jesse, “I’m Sheriff Joe Tyler, and I would like to offer my condolences on the death of your husband.”
“Ex-husband,” Winnie answered. “Our divorce was just final.”
Though muffled by the car, her voice carried clearly enough for Jesse to hear the warble in Winnie’s last words.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sheriff Tyler said agreeably. “It’s a terrible thing, and I hate to bother you at a time like this. But if you wouldn’t mind, ma’am, there’s a couple of things I think you can clear up for me. Do you think you could join me at the back of the car so we could have a little talk? It won’t take but a minute, and then these kind ladies can take you on home.”
For Jesse, there was nothing more frustrating than to be helpless in the face of disaster. And that was exactly how she felt right now. She wanted to yell for Winnie to run—now—before he lulled her into trusting him and then slapped the cuffs on her after she answered his questions.
But running wasn’t an option. They were trapped on the banks of nowhere and pinned there by the battering ram Joe Tyler called a pickup.
Jesse peeked over her shoulder in time to see him step behind the car door, leaving Winnie just enough room to exit the back seat and make her way along the narrow path to the rear the car.
With a tip of his hat and a short nod toward the driver, he said, “Mrs. Windsor, ma’am, sorry for the inconvenience, but if you would remain inside the vehicle, I would appreciate it. I have just a few questions for Mrs. Rogers, and then you can all be on your way.”
If Vivian answered, Jesse couldn’t hear it. Pushing the passenger door closed, Sheriff Tyler fell into step behind Winnie, whose face was whiter than ever. Her eyes and nose were pink with the tears she was blinking back, and she looked like nothing more than a scared rabbit.
Jesse felt a moment of heartbreak for her friend, which quickly turned to protective fury, something she was a lot more comfortable with, maybe too comfortable. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and reminded herself that acting on her instincts had already backfired more than once.
After another deep breath, Jesse practiced her new mantra of “relax, stay calm, don’t overreact,” adopted after her mother gently suggested that Jesse’s previous misunderstandings with the sheriff might have been triggered by Jesse’s own overreactions. The sheriff had agreed with Sophia, and while he and Jesse were now on better footing, the truce was an uneasy one. Aware she was on probation, Jesse clung to her new mantra, something she was still having a little trouble with.
“Thank you, Mrs. Rogers,” Joe Tyler said, snapping Jesse’s attention back to the present. Still sounding too nice to be trusted, he continued, “Now, you are aware, are you not, that we currently have a pickup belonging to you in our possession?”
“Yes. My mechanic’s waiting for it when you get done,” Winnie answered in a voice far more normal than her skin tones were.
“Yes, well, we still have evidence to process from it, so that may be awhile.”
“Okay.” Winnie nodded and then pointed to the brown pickup parked almost at a right angle from where they stood. “How about Roy Lee’s truck? You going to process it, too?”
Joe turned to look behind him. “That’s your husband’s truck? How did it get here?”
“This was one of his favorite places to put in. The water’s shallow in this cove, and not too many people know about it.”
“And why are you here?” He no longer seemed quite so disarming.
“That lady deputy asked me if Roy Lee had a spot around here that he might have been to just before he got sucked up. That wasn’t exactly how she put it, but I figured that’s what she meant. Anyway, I got to thinking and figured I’d just see if his truck was here.”
“So, this was what, a lucky guess?”
“Not really.” Winnie seemed more relaxed, and her face had regained a faint flush of pink. “He fished here a lot back when we were married. Men don’t tend to change their fishing spots too much.”
“And you were fishing near here?” The question was more of a statement than an actual question.
Jesse could almost feel the noose tightening. Any minute he was going to pounce with whatever he was driving at, and poor, unsuspecting Winnie was going to be standing there with no defense at all. Jesse had given up on calm and relaxed, but she was still managing not to overreact. Of course, he hadn’t given her anything to overreact to, yet.
“Once we split, I didn’t like coming down here,” Winnie explained. “And this is a boat launch. I always preferred to fish from the bank, anyway. There’s a nice spot for that over where we were.” She tipped her head sideways toward Jesse, acknowledging her presence for the first time.
“And until you came down here and saw his truck, you had no idea that he had been in the same area possibly at the same time you were here? You hadn’t talked to him recently?”
“We talked a couple of days ago. But not about fishing.”
“What did you talk about?”
“He kept wanting to get back together. I kept saying no. Hell, the divorce was final, but he didn’t seem to care.”
“Did he call often wanting to get back together?”
“All the time.”
“How often?”
Winnie shrugged. “Sometimes once a week. Sometimes once a month. It varied. Maybe he just called when he had a fight with his girlfriend. I don’t know. Why don’t you ask her some of these questions?”
“Because she didn’t have a human femur behind the seat of her pickup. And you did. Want to tell me how it got there?”
“A what?” Winnie asked, sounding far more confused than worried.
“A human bone,” he said. “A thigh bone. In your truck. Behind your seat. And I don’t think the tornado had anything to do with it. I think you put it there.”
“Huh?” Winnie answered, sound more confused than before.
Jesse’s Zen trance of calm was forgotten as words exited her mouth before passing through her brain. “The bone?” she said, taking a step forward. “I told you…
”
In the next best thing to the voice of God, Joe Tyler thrust a stiff arm toward her, finger pointing, and bellowed, “Do not move!”
She froze, impressed in spite of herself. “Okay, I won’t move, but…”
“Stand still, and be quiet,” he ordered. “I’m not questioning you.”
“What’s a… femur?” Winnie squinted in concentration, the first hint of worry entering her bafflement.
“A thigh bone,” Jesse repeated, remaining dutifully calm, if not silent. At the moment, nothing short of the actual voice of God was going to keep her silent. “A human thigh bone.” She leaned forward and demanded in an undertone, “And you had it with you?”
“Yeah, I thought I might show it to you after we ate.” Winnie shrugged, extending her hands, palms up. “I wasn’t planning to have our conversation about it before then.”
“Shut up, both of you,” Sheriff Tyler interrupted. “No conversing. And you…” Again, he pointed a finger at Jesse. “You do not want to have to go sit in the cab of my truck.”
Jesse closed her mouth, pressing her lips together and clenching her jaws. Already he was threatening her with retribution and she hadn’t even done anything yet. Of course, sitting in the cab of his truck was mild compared to the handcuffs, straightjackets, and nights in jail he had threatened her with during the last murder investigation she had helped him out with, albeit against his will.
“I told you there was a bone we needed to talk to you about,” she insisted, wondering at the same time if she simply had no self-control.
“I remember the word bone being mentioned.” His normally baritone voice vibrated with an intimidating amount of base. “I don’t remember the word human, or that you were hauling it around with you.”
“I was hoping it was a deer,” Winnie offered. “Or a really big dog. And the tornado hit before Jesse and I had a chance to talk about it much. Later it just didn’t seem very important anymore.”
Murder Most Thorny (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 2) Page 11