Her forehead wrinkled. “What are you talking about?”
“We found your sister’s will. You stand to inherit half of her estate. That’s what I call motive.”
She shook her head. “I had no idea that I was in her will. Even if I did, I wouldn’t kill her over money.”
“Really? When you just asked your sister for money weeks ago? You’re practically drenched in motive.”
“For the last time, I didn’t do this, and you can’t prove that I did.”
“The question is, can you prove your innocence?”
“How do you expect me to do that?”
“Where were you last night?” David asked.
“I was meeting with a client.”
“From when until when?”
“From about eight until eleven,” Erin replied.
“That’s a pretty late meeting.”
“Real estate agents don’t have set hours, especially for listing appointments. Besides, Mr. Franklin works during the day. The only time he could meet was at night.”
“Does Mr. Franklin have a first name?”
“It’s Kenneth.”
“I’m going to need his phone number and address.”
Erin scrunched her nose. “Wait a minute. Why did you ask me where I was last night?”
“I’m the one asking the questions here,” David replied.
Erin’s eyes widened. “It’s because my sister was killed last night, isn’t it?”
“So what if it is?”
“That proves I didn’t kill her. I was with Kenneth.”
“That is yet to be corroborated.”
Erin folded her arms. “But if Terri was killed last night, why have you been making such a big deal about me coming to her house this morning? Surely if I had killed her, I wouldn’t have returned to the scene of the crime.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. You’d be surprised how many killers return to the scene of the crime,” David said.
She scoffed. “That’s ridiculous. Why would they do that?”
“For some, a guilty conscience brings them back. For others, they are worried that they left crucial evidence behind.”
“If I killed someone, I would never return to the scene of the crime.”
David pulled out a pen and pad of paper from his pocket. “Ms. Baxter, back to this supposed alibi of yours. I’m going to need Kenneth Franklin’s phone number and address.”
“Right. It’s 555-4652.”
“And his address?”
“175 Daffodil Lane.”
David jotted the address down.
Frustration was in Erin’s voice. “Are we done now?”
David shook his head. “Not quite. I have a few more questions for you.”
Erin groaned. “I don’t know why you keep wasting your time with me. If you’re looking for someone who wanted Terri dead, you should be talking with Rick Lutz.”
“I already did,” David replied.
“Then you know what a sleaze ball he is.”
“Ms. Baxter, we’re talking about you right now.”
Erin folded her arms. “I’m done talking to you.”
“Ms. Baxter, you don’t get to decide when we’re through.”
“You bet I do. You can’t make me answer any more of your questions. I have an alibi, and I’m not saying another word to you.”
David stared her down, but Erin didn’t flinch.
Chapter Twenty-Three
David left the interrogation room looking extremely frustrated. He wasn’t the only one. I took my frustration outside. Not just to get some air, but also as a favor to David. My boyfriend had enough to deal with as it was. He didn’t need the police captain breathing down his neck over letting me linger inside the station too long. Luckily, I had built up some goodwill with the captain after solving the last murder in town, but that didn’t mean that I had free rein.
I headed across the street to Founder’s Park, where I found myself thinking about the answers that Erin had given to David. In my mind, that interview had been far from conclusive. I wondered if David felt the same way.
Twenty minutes later, I got the answer to that question. David came out of the police station and joined me in the park. We took a walk around the lush green park, which was dotted with a generous amount of trees.
“So what do you think?” I asked.
David groaned. “I think that was one of the most frustrating interviews I have ever conducted.”
“It certainly could have gone a lot better,” I replied. “Do you believe that Erin is innocent?”
He shrugged. “I’m not sure what to believe. All I really know is that Erin looks highly suspicious.”
“It’s hard not to look suspicious when you change your story in the middle of an interview.”
“Or when you run away from the scene of a crime.”
“Especially when the murder occurred last night. I still question her story about picking up her sister for breakfast,” I said.
“Why do you think she was there?” David asked.
“Maybe she was worried that she had left evidence behind.”
“Initially, that’s what I thought, but the forensics team has been searching her car, and they haven’t found anything remarkable.”
“If Erin was willing to risk going back to the scene of the crime, don’t you think she would have disposed of any incriminating evidence on her way out of town?”
“You’re probably right.”
“Besides, she ran from the scene. Why else would she have done that unless she had discovered some incriminating evidence on herself and was desperate to dispose of it before anyone else found it?”
“I don’t have an answer to that one.”
“We have both said that a lot today.”
“Don’t remind me.” He took a deep breath. “I keep going back to the fact that no fingerprints were found on the bat. That means the killer either wore gloves or wiped the bat clean before they left.”
“I told you before, when I saw Erin running from the scene, she was wearing gloves.”
“That’s the strange part. The forensics team didn’t find any gloves in her car.”
“Do you think she disposed of them?”
David shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Add it to the list of things we don’t know.” I groaned. “I’ll tell you this, she’s either really sneaky or really lucky,” I said.
“Or she’s innocent. After all, she claims to have an alibi.”
“Name a suspect who doesn’t have an alibi,” I deadpanned.
“True. But she has an alibi that I can actually check up on.”
“Is that your next step?”
David nodded. “It’s time to pay Mr. Kenneth Franklin a visit.”
***
David and I drove over to Kenneth Franklin’s dark-blue split-level house at 125 Daffodil Lane. After two sets of knocks, the five-foot-eight, muscular fifty-three-year-old answered the door. Kenneth had an uncomfortable look on his angular face as David flashed his badge. I stared closely at Kenneth’s blue eyes to see if his pupils dilated when he spoke to us.
David explained the situation to him, which only made Kenneth’s muscles tense up even more. The crazy part was that David hadn’t even gotten to the hard-hitting questions yet.
“Mr. Franklin, where were you last night?” David asked.
Kenneth’s eyes widened. “Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“But I’ve never even met Terri Baxter.”
“Mr. Franklin, please answer the question.”
“I was here.”
“Alone?”
Kenneth shook his head. “No. My real estate agent was here.”
“What’s her name?” David asked.
“Erin.”
“Does Erin have a last name?”
“Baxter.”
“Terri Baxter’s sister, you mean,” David said.
“Yes. But like I said, I’ve never
met Terri Baxter.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Kenneth, you sure seem awfully defensive.”
“You’d be too if the police randomly showed up at your door, asking you questions.”
“Please don’t tell me what I would or wouldn’t do,” I said.
“Right. Sorry,” he replied.
David moved on to his next question. “Mr. Franklin, what were you and Erin meeting about?”
“It was a listing appointment. I’m selling my house,” Kenneth replied.
“Where are you going?” David asked.
“Hopefully, the north side. I just want a place with a little more room,” Kenneth said.
“This meeting, when did it start, and when did it end?”
“Erin got here about eight and left around eleven.”
“Around eleven or at eleven?” David asked.
“Well, when I turned on the TV after she left, the local news was on, so I’d say at eleven,” Kenneth replied.
“That was a long meeting,” I said.
“There’s a lot to talk about when you’re getting ready to sell a house,” Kenneth replied. “Now, are we done here?”
David’s eyebrows arched. “Mr. Franklin, are you in a hurry to get rid of us?”
“No. You can ask me as many questions as you want. I just don’t think I’d be much help,” Kenneth replied.
David stared deep into his eyes. After pausing for a few moments, he replied, “All right, Mr. Franklin. Thank you for your time.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
A sense of confusion took hold of me as I sat in the passenger seat of David’s car. I was quickly learning that easy answers were becoming increasingly harder to come by.
I knew that David shared in my frustration. As I looked over at him, he had a faraway look in his eyes as he drove away from Kenneth’s house.
“Is it just me, or was he really jumpy?” I asked.
David groaned. “It’s not just you.”
“And he isn’t even on our suspect list.”
“Maybe he should be.”
“You think?”
David shrugged. “If I went by his body language, yes. When I ask myself if he had motive, means, and opportunity, the answer is no.”
“I guess the question is, do you believe his story?”
“It doesn’t matter what I believe. All that matters is what I can prove.”
“Which, in this case, is nothing,” I said.
“Exactly. Although it gets worse. With Kenneth confirming Erin’s alibi, I no longer have enough to keep Erin detained at the station,” David replied.
“So you’re just going to let her go?”
“I don’t have a choice.”
I gritted my teeth.
“Trust me, you’re not the only one who is frustrated here,” David said.
“I know. So where do we go from here?”
“Back to the drawing board, I guess. There are still plenty of suspects. If we keep the pressure on, one of them is bound to slip up eventually.”
“That’s not what I wanted to hear.”
“It’s also all we have to go on right now. Investigations take time. Patience—”
“Is a virtue that I do not possess,” I said.
David chuckled. “Trust me. I know.”
“Hey, let’s focus on the case.”
“What’s the matter? Did that one cut too close to the bone?”
“Let’s just say that you’re lucky that I love you.”
“You’ll get no argument from me there,” David said. “Unfortunately, I can’t say the same thing about this case.”
“Hey, all you need is one lucky break.”
“Which I haven’t gotten yet.”
“You’re forgetting one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m a firm believer in making my own luck,” I said.
“Don’t get me wrong. I admire your perseverance. I’m just wondering if you have any theories on how to make your own luck with this investigation.”
I took a moment to myself before replying. “I’m going to need to sleep on that.”
“That’s probably not such a bad idea.”
“Unless you can think of something better.”
“Not at the moment,” David said. “All I know is that there’s an answer out there somewhere and I’m not going to stop until find it.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Unfortunately, while I was happy to get a full night of rest, a revelation did not come to me when I woke up in the morning. Instead, I got up, took Snickerdoodle for a walk, then headed over to Daley Buzz for a latte.
I was just finishing up my drink when I got a call from David.
“You know that lucky break I was looking for yesterday?” David asked.
“Yeah,” I replied.
“Well, I think I just got it.”
I jumped in my car and headed over to the police station. When I got there, David revealed the source of his newfound optimism.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked.
“I sure am. What is it?”
David placed an evidence bag on his desk. Inside the bag was a handwritten letter and an envelope. “This came in the mail this morning.”
I picked up the evidence bag and looked at the return address. “Wait a minute. This is from—?”
“Terri Baxter,” David replied.
I looked at the postmark on the envelope. “This was mailed the day that she died.”
“It gets even eerier. Read the letter.”
I did. One part in particular stood out to me. I read that part aloud. “When I am murdered, know that Rick Lutz is the killer.”
My jaw dropped.
“Pretty crazy, huh?” David replied.
I stared at the letter again. “I was going to say curious.”
David’s forehead wrinkled. “Curious? Don’t you mean suspicious?”
“That, too,” I replied.
He scrunched his nose. “Sabrina, what’s going on in your head? You read the letter. Terri predicted her own murder.”
I grimaced. “I’m not sure that she did. Besides, you’re seriously contradicting yourself here. Ever since this case began, you have been telling me that you don’t believe that Terri was really psychic. Now you have a sudden change of heart.”
“Maybe I was wrong. It sure looks like it.” David held his pointer finger up. “But since you mentioned opinions changing, what about you? Just yesterday, I seem to recall you trying to convince me that Terri was psychic.”
“I still believe that she was.”
David threw his arms up. “Now I’m more confused than ever.”
“I believe that Terri was psychic. What I’m not sure about is whether Terri was the one who wrote this letter.”
“Wait. Do you think someone forged the letter?”
I shrugged. “I’m not sure. But there’s something fishy about this handwriting.”
David glanced at the letter again. He squinted. “What makes you say that?”
“After I found her body and called you, there was about a fifteen-minute window where I was alone in her place. I looked around her living room for whatever pieces of evidence I could find. While I didn’t find any aside from the baseball bat, I did see a pad of paper on her desk with some notes scribbled on it. The handwriting on the pad looked similar to what I’m seeing on this letter, but there are some subtle differences.”
“What differences?”
“For example, how the I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed.”
“There’s one way to know for sure,” David said. He turned to a deputy that was sitting a few desks away. “Mitchell, did you bag up a notepad at the scene?”
“I can check,” Deputy Mitchell replied.
“Do that. And send this letter over to the lab. They should be able to pull some fingerprints from it.”
Deputy Mitchell got up from his desk, grabbed the evidence bag, and headed over to the crime
lab.
David glanced at me. “We’ll find out pretty soon if your theory is right.”
“In the meantime, what do you want to do while we’re waiting for results to come back from the crime lab?” I asked.
“My instincts are telling me that another discussion with Rick Lutz is in order.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
David and I got a much different reception from Rick when we arrived at his mattress emporium. The minute the mattress salesman spotted us coming through the front door, he bolted toward us, clearly wanting to shoo us away.
“Oh no you don’t. Turn around and get right back in your car,” Rick said. “You two are not welcome here.”
David pulled out his police badge and gave him a stern look. “This badge says otherwise.”
“Just because you’re with the police doesn’t give you the right to harass me,” Rick said.
David scoffed. “If you think this is harassment, then you have a lot to learn. This is just two investigators questioning a murder suspect.”
“Stop calling me a suspect. I didn’t murder anyone.”
“That is still yet to be determined, but things are looking considerably worse for you than they did the last time we spoke.”
Rick’s eyebrows knitted. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’ll enlighten you.”
“Why don’t you just leave instead?”
David shook his head. “That’s not going to happen. At least until we get our questions answered.”
“I’ve already answered your questions.”
“We have some new ones.”
“Yeah? Well, I don’t have any new answers,” Rick said. “I have already told you everything I know, which is nothing.”
“We’ll see about that. Mr. Lutz, would it surprise you to learn that your estranged wife predicted her murder?”
“If she predicted her murder, then why wasn’t she able to prevent it?”
“Maybe she tried,” David said.
“And maybe her killer just overpowered her,” I added.
Rick shrugged. “I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”
Caramels With A Side Of Murder Page 9