by Susan Harper
“I think it’s because I’m looking into this on your behalf since the police aren’t being much help,” Felicity said. “Someone knows I’m getting close to figuring this out, and whoever it was is content with you taking the fall.” Felicity opened up her notebook where she had been keeping notes about the case. “Can you tell me anything about that day? Anything at all?”
“Not really,” Bobby said. “I was at home most of the day. I came by to get some paperwork from the office, and I looked at a car or two, but just the ones in front of the building. I didn’t go anywhere near where they are saying Charles’s car was. After I looked at the two cars parked in front of my building, I headed inside. I noticed that the door to the office was unlocked, but I figured it was because Kirk had forgotten to lock up the day before. I grabbed my paperwork and headed right home. I was in Senoia for less than twenty minutes, but the police don’t believe me because I don’t really have an alibi because my wife was out all day. It could have been anyone, and there are probably a thousand explanations as to how that motor oil got on my desk, but they’re ready to pin this thing on me quick and move on.”
“I’m going to keep looking into this, Bobby,” Felicity promised. “It’s going to take a lot more than someone charging at me with a car to scare me off.”
“Please be careful,” Bobby said. “And thank you, Felicity. I don’t know what I’d do without you as a friend.”
Felicity left the anxious looking man behind. She hated leaving him there, but she didn’t have a choice in the matter. She knew in her gut that Bobby was innocent, it was just a matter of proving it. If she could spare him a court hearing to prove it, she would do everything in her power to clear his name quickly. As she was leaving the building, she spotted Brandon Jones speaking with a group of officers near the front entrance. She paused, allowing herself to sink into the background so she could listen in.
“You’ll get the car back when the paperwork goes through,” one of the officers said. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but the car is part of evidence now after traces of drugs were found.”
“First someone strangles my father in this backwoods hillbilly town, then someone steals and crashes his car, and now the police are hoarding it from me?” Brandon’s voice sounded annoyed, but he was holding himself together fairly well and keeping his cool. “Do you clowns realize my father’s body is still in a storage locker? I am tired of this. I didn’t ask for any of this. I want the car back.”
“Look,” one of the officers raised his voice unnecessarily, making Brandon seem all the calmer by comparison, “you’re lucky. You realize drugs were found in that car? Someone used it to stash drugs, and honestly, it was probably either you or your father. So why don’t you just move along for now, be patient, and consider yourself lucky you’re not behind bars for drug trafficking.”
“Are you kidding me right now?” Brandon snarled. “Are you accusing me of something? You must be out of your mind. You’re all just a bunch of dumb hillbillies trying to act like big city cops. You got some random guy in jail right now who probably had nothing to do with this, my father’s body has been in the morgue for over a week, and now you’re accusing me of drug trafficking! You’re all out of your minds!” Now Brandon’s voice raised slightly.
Felicity decided to intervene before the men overreacted to Brandon’s shouting. “Excuse me?” she said as she walked up to the small group. “Brandon Jones? Remember me, Felicity Overton?” She shot the cop who had thrown out the accusation a stern look; the man huffed and wandered off, quite eager to put some distance between himself and Brandon. “Mind if we walk and talk?” she asked.
Brandon snarled slightly at the group of officers, but smiled back at Felicity. “Sure. I think I need to leave here before I lose it anyway.”
The two of them wandered out into the street. It was evident that the man had reached a new level of frustration. She could only imagine. If he was not involved in the murder or in the drugs, then it likely would seem to him like the entire world had turned against him for leaving his home in Florida. “Thanks for pulling me away from that,” Brandon said. “I think that could have gotten heated quickly. I’m probably not making it any easier on those guys; I know they’re just trying to do their jobs.”
“So you don’t think Bobby is guilty either?” Felicity asked.
“I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t see the guy that day. My old man got into a few arguments. He has…had that sort of tendency to tick people off, and I was with my dad for most of the day, so I saw everyone he talked to. I never saw Bobby. And Dad didn’t know him as far I as I know. I don’t know him. Unless he’s just some psychopath, why would he have killed him? And he doesn’t seem crazy to me. So, yeah, I think they got the wrong guy. There’s just no…no motive, you know?”
“I know,” Felicity said. “Listen, I’m kind of looking into this. Bobby is a friend. You mind if I ask you a few more questions? I know we spoke other day, but I suppose you could call this a follow-up interview?”
Brandon paused and took a moment to scan her up and down. “Tell you what,” he said with a smirk. “I really like that coffee place on the corner. I like the local stuff around here. If you buy me some coffee so that we can sit down inside, I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
“Sounds good,” Felicity said, ignoring the uncomfortable scan he had given her.
They headed down to Senoia Coffee, and as promised, Felicity bought him a cup. She chuckled slightly to herself to see him wrapped up in a warm coat while she was in short sleeves. “Been in Florida for a while, right?”
“I forgot how nippy it was early fall around here,” Brandon said, and Felicity laughed slightly.
“You’re probably the only one around here who thinks that,” she said as she opened her notebook.
He took a sip of coffee before speaking. “All right. You bought the coffee, so I guess that means you get to ask your questions. What do you want to know?”
“How was your relationship with your father?” she began, and he shrugged.
“It was a bit rocky at times, but we were fairly close,” Brandon said. “I just hated the way he treated Mom is all. I think if he had been a more faithful husband, he and I would have gotten along fine. He was never outright mean to her or anything, but he wasn’t faithful, and it bothered me. He was disgustingly open about it too. I just didn’t get it. Recently, we had gotten closer, ever since he retired.”
“You told me about the boat,” Felicity said. “I’m sorry you two never got a chance to take it out for a spin.”
“I’ll probably wind up selling it to help pay for funeral expenses, but I think, for him, I’ll take it for a sail around the strip before I do,” Brandon said and a smile passed over his face for a moment, but it quickly vanished. He seemed quite shaken up; clearly, his father’s death had affected him. It was just a matter of whether or not it was grief or guilt Felicity was seeing on his face—perhaps both? She couldn’t be sure.
“So I ran into Monica and Jesse,” she said casually, eyeing him to gauge his response.
“Sorry. My old man was a bit of a pervert. I’m sure you got an earful from those two.”
“So you and Monica have been seeing each other?” Felicity asked.
“About a year now,” Brandon said. “I didn’t know Jesse had been talking to my dad under that fake profile, though. Monica thought it was funny. She’s told me about Jesse always trying to one-up her, so I’ll admit I found it a little humorous myself, but it was pretty cold of her to let it go as far as it did.”
“Has your father used your picture to flirt with women before?”
Brandon frowned. “So you really did get an earful, huh? No, not my picture. He’s used other people’s pictures before, but this was a first. It’s why we got into such a big fight. I stormed off, and then the next thing I know, he’s dead. I shouldn’t have left him. Maybe if I hadn’t—”
“Don’t dwell on that or you’ll drive yourself
insane,” Felicity said. “Let’s just talk about those two for a second. How did you and Monica meet?”
Brandon laughed. “Oh, I was one of her patients at the hospital about a year ago; it was a different hospital than the one she works at now. I had, well, I had gotten into a bit of a tussle with a guy twice my size, and she stitched me up. We flirted and exchanged contact information. She’s a good woman, I think. We’ve mostly been talking online, though, because I moved down to Florida with the folks from Blue Ridge.”
“So you and Monica met up in Blue Ridge?” Felicity asked.
“Yup.”
Felicity scribbled the conflicting information down into her notebook. Monica had told her a different story of how they had met. Something was not adding up. She took a sip of her coffee before asking, “So who do you think stashed those drugs in your father’s car?”
“I have no idea.”
“Do you think your father—”
“No,” he snapped. “He didn’t do drugs. He was a creep, but he wasn’t a drug dealer. And now he’s dead. And you know what? I think Jesse had something to do with it.”
“Jesse?”
“She was so angry about the trick my father played on her. She lost her mind that day at the car show. And you know what? She could have stolen the car too. Maybe she’s the one who ran those people down?”
“That would be me,” Felicity said. “I was almost hit, but my friend Jefferson pushed me out of the way.”
“Geeze, sorry, I didn’t know that was you,” Brandon said and ran his fingers through his hair. “Jesse weirds me out. I mean, I don’t know for sure, but she’s out of her mind. She could have killed him. I don’t know if she stashed the drugs, but she could have. Then maybe she stole the car later to get the drugs back and then tried to run you down. I don’t know.” He stood up, having finished his coffee. “I’ve got to go. My mom is at the hotel by herself so I should probably go check on her.”
“Thanks for talking to me, Brandon,” Felicity said as Brandon rushed out the door.
She frowned. Jesse? While being angry certainly was at least some sort of motive, she doubted that Jesse would have been able to take Charles down even if he was an old man. Then there was the man’s dress shirt covered in oil. It was unlikely that Jesse would have worn something like that. Plus, Brandon’s accusation had seemed rather quick and desperate. He could just be overwhelmed with everything, but Felicity wasn’t so sure. It certainly raised a red flag.
She looked down at her notes and circled the little backstory about Brandon’s and Monica’s love story. His version was quite different from Monica’s. Clearly, one of them was hiding something. It wasn’t much of a lead, but she decided to ride it out. If they had really met while he was at the hospital where she had once worked, it seemed like a fairly innocent meeting—something quite strange for Monica to lie about. Perhaps, she thought as she took another sip of coffee, I need to speak to Monica again.
Chapter 13
Felicity pulled her car into the parking lot of Newnan Hospital. She double-checked the time on her phone, confirming that Autumn should still be hard at work. After stumbling out of her car, she grabbed her notebook and headed toward the elevator, hitching a ride down to the morgue area of the hospital. Thankfully, Autumn was at her computer again rather than the storage area where the bodies were kept.
Her friend smiled, perking up tremendously as Felicity made her way toward her. “Are you here to drive Jefferson home?” Autumn asked.
“Is he getting released finally?” Felicity asked.
“Yeah, and his brother apparently told him he’s going to be close to three hours before he can come pick him up. They don’t want him driving because of the medicine they gave him,” Autumn explained.
“Well, that’s a long time to wait. I’ll give him a ride then,” Felicity said. “But that’s not why I’m here. I was wondering if you could tell me about Monica Barns.”
“The bimbo cheerleader we went to high school with?” Autumn winced. “Why?”
“It’s related to the Charles Jones case,” Felicity said. “I think she might be involved somehow, whether knowingly or not. She’s dating Charles’s son, I believe.”
“Interesting,” Autumn said with a slight chuckle. “Well, she works here now. She transferred here from some hospital up north of Atlanta about a year ago, but that’s all I know. We don’t exactly talk. She works on the other wing of the hospital in the lab.”
“She told me she draws blood all day,” Felicity said.
“Pretty much,” Autumn retorted. “I think she’s working today.”
“I might go and talk to her. I think she might have lied to me last time we spoke, and I want to know why,” Felicity said. “I’ll go nab Jefferson after I talk to Monica.”
“You need anything from me, super-sleuth?” Autumn teased.
“No, thanks,” Felicity said, chuckling slightly. She left the morgue and headed toward the lab on the opposing end of the building.
Dawn, one of Felicity and Monica’s friends who had visited Overton Events on opening day, worked in the lab, so Felicity was able to sneak into the private backroom to speak with Dawn and some of the other nurses. “Hey, Felicity,” Dawn said in her usually perky tone as she made her way in.
“Is Monica working today?” Felicity asked.
“No, thank goodness,” one of the other nurses said as she sorted through the nearby filing cabinet.
“Don’t be mean, Janet,” Dawn said from her desk.
Felicity raised a brow. “So we’re not all friends back here, are we?”
“It’s not that,” Dawn said with a hand wave. “Monica is just a little high maintenance is all.”
“I was hoping to speak to her,” Felicity said.
“Why?” Dawn questioned.
“I don’t know if Autumn told you or not, but I’m looking into the Charles Jones case. I think Monica might have some information that could be useful. Autumn told me she was working today.”
“She’s at the dentist,” Janet said. “Apparently she cracked a tooth or something. Whatever it was couldn’t wait.”
“Cracked a tooth?” Felicity questioned. “On what?”
“Who knows,” Janet said, her eyes rolling slightly. “I still can’t believe she even still has a job with the number of times she’s not shown up for work.”
“Get what you need, Janet, and quit gossiping,” Dawn demanded.
Felicity watched as the woman, Janet, hurried out of the backroom and back to the front desk area. “So is there anything you can tell me about Monica? Do you know what hospital she transferred from?” Felicity asked, turning her attention back toward Dawn.
“She worked at the state prison as a nurse,” Dawn said.
“The prison?”
“Georgia State Penitentiary,” Dawn said. “Not sure why she left, though.”
“Has she been acting unusual lately?” Felicity asked.
“I haven’t noticed. She doesn’t really get along with the others. You know, Felicity, it almost sounds like Monica is one of your suspects. She isn’t, is she?”
Felicity shook her head. “Not yet. I think she just might know something beneficial. Thanks, Dawn. I’ve gotta go. I’m going to drive Jefferson home.”
“Good,” Dawn said. “I went by and saw him earlier, and it sounded like he was going to be stuck here for a few hours.”
Felicity thanked Dawn for the information and headed out of the backroom toward the front desk where Janet had wandered off to. She spotted the woman sitting at the desk, typing some information into the computer there. “Excuse me?” Felicity piped up, feeling that Janet was a gossiping type and that she could get some information from her. She was right. Janet clearly did not like working with Monica, and Felicity got an earful.
Janet told her that Monica had lost her job at the prison and had been jobless for nearly a year before coming to work at Newnan Hospital. Evidently, though it was mostly a rumor, Monic
a had been fired for her inappropriate and rather flirtatious behavior toward the convicts. By the time she was finished speaking with Janet, Felicity had a rather foul taste in her mouth about Monica, but she had to remind herself that what she had been told was likely only rumors. Either way, the information was stored away in her little notebook before she headed to Jefferson’s hospital room.
When she entered Jefferson’s room, the man’s face lit up to see her. “Need a ride?” she sang playfully.
“I really do,” he said. “If you’re offering. They’re getting ready to kick me out of here.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I’m here then,” Felicity said.
Jefferson thanked her, and soon they were loading up into her car. Thankfully, as it turned out, his wrist was not broken, but she still had to push him along in a wheelchair due to his cracked ribs and broken leg. As she helped him into the passenger’s seat of her car, she playfully rubbed the top of his head—being overly friendly with him due to guilt since he had literally taken a hit for her. He called his brother in the car to let him know he had a ride, and they spent the next twenty minutes in the car talking about the case.
Felicity updated him on what little she had learned since he had been hospitalized. They bounced theories off one another, but Jefferson was extremely drowsy from the medication and was half-asleep by the time they were pulling into his driveway. She helped him inside and made him dinner with the few cooking ingredients he actually kept in his pantry. After a second dose of pain medication, Jefferson was barely able to keep his eyes open, so Felicity helped him to bed. Jefferson was asleep before she even left the room. Poor Jefferson, she thought as she closed his bedroom door.
Before she left, she noticed his laptop sitting on his coffee table. She hurried over to it and pulled up the web browser. She ran a search on the name Brandon Jones, and after a few minutes of searching, she found his arrest records. Evidently, Brandon had a history of drug use and, of course, he had been held at the Georgia State Penitentiary when Monica had been a nurse there. So that’s why Monica was embarrassed to tell me how she and Brandon had met, Felicity thought. Brandon had been the convict that she had lost her job over due to inappropriate behavior. “Looks like the puzzle is slowly coming together,” she said with a smile before closing up Jefferson’s laptop and heading home for the evening.