“You’ve been very helpful, LaDonna.” Sophia reached over and patted the other woman on the arm. “We really appreciate you talking to us at such an awful time. Is there anything else you can think of that’s happened recently that was different, or out of the ordinary? Anything else that seemed to worry Roy Lee or upset him?”
“No, ma’am.” She turned toward Sophia, calmer than she had been for most of the visit. “I wish I could. I wish I knew something that would help, but there just wasn’t anything out of the ordinary going on. I can’t help thinking this just has to be some sort of accident. Roy was a good man, not the kind of man someone would want to kill.”
“How about his mother?” Jesse asked. “Do you know where she’s staying? We’d like to make sure she’s all right, and no one seems to have seen her recently.”
“I’ve never met the woman, if you want to know the truth. Roy always went to visit her with his brothers. She’s in some nursing home out by where Hansen lives. Do you know how to get a hold of him?”
Jesse nodded and began to rise. “I have his address and phone number. Thank you so much for your help, and I hope we weren’t too big a bother. If you remember anything you think we should know…” She pulled a business card from the Gilded Lily out of her pocket and left it in the middle of the table. “…you can reach us there.”
LaDonna took the card and slipped it into the pocket of her robe. “Oh, no, you were no bother. You were nice company. That sweet bread’s real good, and it’s awfully thoughtful of you. You told me so much I didn’t know.”
The three women trailed from the breakfast room back into the hallway toward the front door with LaDonna talking the whole way. “I just wish I could have been more help. Maybe when I’ve had a chance to think, I’ll remember something. I sure would like to help you figure out who did this.”
At the front door, the grieving girlfriend leaned against the open door and watched them exit. “I feel so helpless. We were going to get married, you know. Just as soon as he worked out all that business about the land. I don’t know what I’m going to do now. This all happened so fast.”
“Are you going to be all right, hon?” Sophia asked, pausing in the doorway.
Jesse could tell the walnut bread and coffee were wearing off and the shock was returning. She felt bad about leaving the woman alone, but they had a lot of ground to cover, and she wanted to be gone before anyone from the sheriff’s department showed up. In a day destined for awkward moments, that was one she could do without.
Taking a cue from her mother, Jesse paused and summoned her gentler side. “Why don’t you go lay down for awhile? Before you have to do this again with the sheriff’s deputy. Maybe now you can sleep a little better than you could last night.”
LaDonna responded with a smile that was weak and a little crooked. “That sounds like a good idea.”
“And whether you think of anything else or not,” Jesse said. “If you need anything, use that card and give us a call. We’ll do anything we can to help you.”
“That sounds real nice.” Tears filled her eyes, turning them a watery, almost clear blue. “In fact, I have some of Roy’s things here. I boxed them up last night. You think you could take them to his brother for me?”
Jesse’s heart did a little flip flop of excitement. A random reward from a random act of kindness. Karma could also be a good thing. “Yes, I could do that. I would be happy to do that.” Before she could offer to save LaDonna any further trouble and retrieve it for her, the other woman turned away and disappeared into what had looked like the living room to the right of the front door.
When she popped back into sight moments later, she was carrying a brown cardboard box about two feet by two feet. The string tie to a mesh laundry bag was looped around her arm and the bottom of the bag was dragging along the floor beside her. “I just dumped his clothes in the bag and all his other stuff is in the box. There’s not a lot here. Roy liked to keep things simple.”
Jesse gathered the box into her arms and was amazed by how light it was. Sophia took the laundry bag, lifting it effortlessly. Together they were holding a man’s lifetime in their hands, and it was shocking. People who lived out of shopping carts had more.
LaDonna seemed to have passed a burden onto them, looking happier already as they exited with the belongings. Maybe learning to live again without Roy Lee wasn’t going to be so hard after all.
“What are we going to do with this?” Sophia asked quietly as the sound of the door closing accompanied them down the porch steps.
“Go through every single item once we are a few miles down the road,” Jesse answered without turning her head.
“I’ll do shirt and pants’ pockets,” Sophia volunteered as they put the belongings into the convertible’s trunk.
“That works for me. Can you put Hansen’s address into your phone’s GPS and make sure we don’t get hopelessly lost? I can take us most of the way, but once we get close, I won’t have a clue.”
“Do we have any idea what we’re going to ask him?” Sophia sounded almost eager.
“Where is your mother and what have you done with her?” Jesse suggested. “And do you know who killed your brother and why?”
“Are you going to say it nicer than that?”
“That all depends on how I feel by the time we get there. Have you noticed that while everyone agrees that Roy Lee was basically worthless, they all say what a nice guy he was?” Jesse put the car into gear and gave one last glance toward the neat doublewide parked just off the road in the middle of nowhere. “And have you noticed that no one has had anything nice to say about Hansen?” she asked, turning to face her mother.
“Not until you mentioned it.” Sophia finished buckling her seatbelt. Since the convertible’s top was up, she didn’t need to bother with a scarf.
“Well, somehow, I find that a little creepy.” Jesse pulled out onto the blacktopped road that would lead eventually to a county road and then a state highway before reverting once again to a two-lane blacktop, if they were lucky, or one-lane gravel if they weren’t. Oklahoma back roads made no promises.
“I’m sure he’s a perfectly nice man,” Jesse continued, “and I’m probably just letting this all get to me, but… Something about Hansen Rogers makes me very nervous.”
“You don’t suppose…” Sophia began before Jesse cut her off.
“No, I don’t suppose. I don’t suppose anything. We are heading out to a place we’ve never been to talk to a man we’ve never met, and my mind doesn’t need to be spinning any faster than it already is.”
“But what if…”
Again Jesse stopped her mother before she could voice the thought. “All we know for sure is that he’s the grieving brother of Winnie’s deceased ex-husband. Whatever sins he may have committed, I don’t think killing his brother is one of them, and he may have information we need.”
“Okay,” Sophia said, “have it your way. But now I have the creeps.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Two small towns, one state highway and several intersecting county roads later, Jesse and her mother pulled over at a roadside hamburger stand and ordered two milkshakes. Under the shade of a sycamore tree, they dumped the contents of the box and laundry bag onto a tarp spread across the bottom of the car’s trunk.
While Sophia checked for anything left in pockets and found a handkerchief, a pocket knife, cash receipts for gas and fast food, and three scraps of paper with the names and phone numbers of three different girls, Jesse lifted out the contents of her box one at a time, examining each before placing it on the tarp.
First was a digital alarm clock, then a shaving kit with the bare minimum of toiletries, followed by seven magazines on guns and ammo, hunting and fishing, and just fishing. There was a long-ago anniversary card from Winnie and a birthday card from LaDonna, and nothing from anyone else.
One picture of Roy Lee with LaDonna sitting on his lap showed that he was a better looking man alive tha
n when Jesse had seen him. He had probably been handsome when he was young. His shoulders were broad, and his arms were still muscled. His face had more laugh lines than frown lines.
Jesse could see that Winnie must have had some happy times with him, and that thought made her feel better about all the years she had pursued her own life and left her friends and family to pursue theirs without her. There was also an address book, with a mind-boggling number of names, phone numbers and addresses, many of which had been crossed out with new addresses and phone numbers scribbled in more than once, all of it probably going back to Roy Lee’s high school years.
None of it looked new. Flipping through the book, nothing jumped out at Jesse. LaDonna wasn’t in the book at all, which confirmed that the entries were years old, and that any new information was probably on his cell phone, which must be with his belongings at the sheriff’s department.
A pack of gum and some very old breath mints indicated that a lot of this had been in a bedside drawer, and that LaDonna had just scooped everything out of there and into the box. There was an opened pack of cigarettes, which Jesse somehow found surprising. It was easy to forget that some people still smoked. Or maybe he didn’t, and the partial pack was his reminder that he didn’t have to have them anymore.
It was definitely a reminder that she was investigating the man’s murder and didn’t even know if he smoked. Feeling disheartened, she moved everything back into the box, all of which barely covered its bottom. Sophia had already refolded the clothes and stacked them neatly into the laundry bag. They set the bag in the box, which at least filled it, and set off again for Hansen’s, milkshakes in hand.
“That poor man,” Sophia said after several miles of silence. “No one strips their life down to that little without a reason. Something happened to him. Did you find anything about his mother?”
“Nothing. Very little about any woman, but nothing to do with his mother.”
“That’s not normal. That sounds like a guilty conscience to me.”
Not certain if her mother was expressing an opinion or might actually be onto something, Jesse prodded, “Why do you say that?”
“If you have nothing to remind you of someone, it’s because you don’t want to think about them. According to Winnie, the boys were close to their mother. So why would Roy Lee have nothing from her, not even a picture?” Sophia took one last, loud slurp of her shake and put it into the white plastic trash holder behind the driver’s seat. “Guilty conscience,” she announced.
“You could be right, but a lot of people feel guilty when they have to put a parent into a nursing home. He still visited her.”
“He still said he visited her,” Sophia pointed out. “But no one other than his brothers ever went with him. All I’m saying is, the whole thing seems odd.”
“Can’t argue with you there.” Still not convinced, at least her mother’s argument gave Jesse more to think about. “And you’ve given me some good questions for Hansen.”
“Do I get to ask any questions, or are you going to make me stay in the car?”
“Sorry, but until I know more about what I’m dealing with, I’d feel better if you stayed out of sight,” Jesse explained, hoping her mother didn’t feel as disappointed as she sounded. “Maybe once I have him distracted, I’ll let you sneak up and listen outside the door.”
“Well, at least I’ve got my tire tool.” Sophia lifted the long, pointed metal rod from where she had stashed it beside her seat. The end with the crook was for loosening lug nuts, and the tapered end was for prying off hubcaps. It was an ancient relic, not seen or used with newer vehicles, but it was a great tool for self-defense.
“Let’s hope you don’t need it.” Jesse glanced to the side and couldn’t help laughing at her sweetly feminine mother brandishing the sturdy weapon. “Although I do admire your enthusiasm.”
“I’ll feel a lot better once we find their mother,” Sophia said. “This whole thing is starting to bother me.”
“I know. And I’m beginning to have a bad feeling that we’re never going to figure any of this out. Nothing makes any sense. Nothing leads anywhere. It wouldn’t be fair for Winnie not to know what happened, but that may be how it ends up.”
“Do you really think so?”
“This is only the second time I’ve ever done this, and I just stumbled onto the killer last time. I doubt I’ll be so lucky this time.”
“I don’t think I’d call that luck.” Sophia held the tire tool aloft. “But I’m ready.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The blue ball had one more turn and a long, curvy stretch of road to cover before reaching the red balloon on the screen of Sophia’s smart phone. Jesse was trying to watch the road and not resent the apparatus she was depending on. It was unreasonable to be irritated by something that saved hours of guessing, false starts and pulling into the yards of strangers to ask for directions that were too confusing to understand even if they were accurate. But Jesse did—feel irritated that was.
A generation older than Jesse, Sophia was much more accepting of modern conveniences, but then she was a much less stubborn and more agreeable person in general than her daughter was. Jesse knew that for a fact, because a lot of people had told her so.
But resentment aside, when the phone began to ring, Jesse went into a mild panic. “Don’t answer that! We’re too close for that thing to get screwed up,” she cried, pointing to the GPS she had been arguing with herself about.
“That’s your phone, dear, not mine,” Sophia answered with a sweet, understanding, and yet smug smile.
“How soon do I turn?”
Keeping her gaze on the road, Jesse reached into the console and fumbled for her phone, which she realized now was playing the symphony music that SueAnn had programmed for Vivian’s ringtone.
“It’s this road coming up to the left.” Sophia pointed toward a narrow, dirt-and-gravel road with three mailboxes on a shared stand just off into the grass.
Fresh gravel filled the ruts that usually developed through the winter, an indication that someone put some effort into maintaining what was probably a long driveway leading to someone’s front yard.
Jesse managed to retrieve the phone and slide the stupid “accept” bar just in time to bark, “Hold on.”
The paved road they were driving on wasn’t exactly busy, but there was no shoulder to pull over onto, so Jesse executed the turn, went just far enough to be well away from the main road and stopped. “Viv?”
“Jesse, can you hear me?” Vivian’s voice was low and strained.
“Barely.” Before Jesse could say more, Vivian was talking again.
“Good. I can’t talk any louder.” Her voice dropped to a hiss. “I’m in Joe Tyler’s office. Can you still hear me?”
“Yes.” Jesse had a million questions she wanted to ask but knew better than to interrupt, so she confined herself to, “Why?”
“He called Winnie in to ask her some questions. Because the gun that killed Roy Lee was a .33 caliber handgun registered to Roy Lee Rogers.”
“What?”
“The gun was in his truck, and the bullet was still in him, and ballistics confirmed he was shot with his own gun.” Vivian’s voice slowed for emphasis on the last few words, clearly indicating her excitement. “Everybody knew he had the gun. Everybody knew where he kept it. He worked as a bouncer years ago and has had a permit to carry ever since.”
“Fingerprints?” Jesse asked, dying to go into detail, but knowing there was no time. No doubt the sheriff had stepped away and Vivian would probably have to hang up quickly when he returned.
“Wiped. Smeared. Nothing usable. Doesn’t look like the killer wore gloves.”
“So, he pulled up out there, got Roy Lee’s gun out of his truck, walked over and shot him in the head, wiped the gun and put it back where Roy Lee kept it. Sounds like someone who knew him. Did the sheriff say anything else we didn’t already know?”
“Not so far.”
�
��How’s Winnie?”
“Crying again. That’s why Sheriff Tyler stepped out. I gave her a hanky and told her to keep it down while I called you. So what are you doing?”
“On our way to see Hansen.”
“Be careful. There’s something not right about Roy Lee’s family. Uh, oh. Gotta go.”
With that, Vivian was gone, leaving Jesse to stare down an empty road wondering if she really knew anything more than she had.
“Don’t just sit there staring. What did she say?” Sophia demanded.
Jesse put the car in gear and started down the last piece of road between them and whatever wasn’t right with Roy Lee’s family. As she drove, she repeated Vivian’s information.
“You know what that sounds like to me?” Sophia asked. “That sounds like whoever shot him didn’t own a gun of his own.”
“Or didn’t arrive there planning to kill him,” Jesse suggested.
“No.” Sophia gave her head a quick, emphatic shake. “That would mean they argued about something. Then the other guy would have walked back to Roy Lee’s truck, gotten the gun, and then walked all the way back to where Roy Lee was standing next to the boat. With the gun in his hand. And with Roy Lee watching everything he’d done. Nobody would just stand there like that. And if Roy Lee had tried to run, he wouldn’t have been shot between the eyes.”
“You’re right. That means the guy got the gun and hid it before he walked down there with it. And it was somebody Roy Lee trusted or was expecting.”
“Don’t forget the digging equipment in the back of Roy Lee’s truck. If he really was one of the men planning to dig up the body in Winnie’s backyard, maybe this person was part of that. Oh, wait.” Sophia pointed to a tall, narrow, two-story farmhouse, its white paint faded but intact. “That’s it.”
Jesse looked toward the house. A short, narrow driveway separated it from the road they were on. Daffodils ran like a river between the two, towering cottonwoods that shaded the front yard, spilling out in small clumps through the lush, green grass. Irises formed a mat along the base of the house, gathering strength for the blooms to come.
Murder Most Thorny (Myrtle Grove Garden Club Mystery Book 2) Page 20