Clean Getaway (Squeaky Clean Mysteries Book 13)

by Christy Barritt

  “I’m looking for someone who was able to get into my place and leave the snakes.”

  “Someone with a key then? Did you rent from an individual or a management company?”

  “A management/realty company.”

  “Then maybe you could talk to the realtor who manages the property.”

  The realtor? Hope was a realtor. Could she have anything to do with this? I just couldn’t believe it.

  But, at this point, I really couldn’t rule anyone out.

  I met Evie and Sherman for dinner at a sandwich shop in Cape Charles. I was having some chicken noodle soup, and that was about all my stomach could handle. I’d stopped by the store for some anti-itch cream and had struggled to rub it on the bites on my back.

  If I was at home, Riley would have done it for me. Then again, was there anything more un-romantic than having your spouse treat ghastly bug bites on your skin? Maybe I could keep a little of the mystique alive in our marriage.

  The good news was that Talmadge had heard about what happened to us. He’d called me and asked if we wanted to stay at his place tonight. Apparently, he had five bedrooms and didn’t mind the extra company.

  Of course, we said yes.

  As we ate lunch, we all shared updates on what we’d learned.

  “We found Bobby’s house, but he wasn’t home,” Evie said. “We can try again later, but we had no success earlier.”

  That was good to know, though I’d hoped for more information.

  I shared what I’d learned also.

  “You think Hope is involved?” Evie asked, munching on a sesame cracker that came with her Asian salad. “That’s nearly impossible. The shooter was most likely a man based on the trajectory of the bullets.”

  “I’m not saying she was involved. I’m just saying that we do need to consider how someone was able to so easily come and go from the house. If Jarrod is covering up something, Hope might know about it.”

  “I suppose she could have added something to our food to make you sick,” Sherman said. “We still don’t know what was the actual cause.”

  “Plus, she did act awfully flustered when she showed us the Simmons’s home,” Evie added. “Maybe there was more to it than just running late. Maybe she was nervous because she was involved.”

  I nodded. “Okay, let’s spell this out. As far as I’m concerned, here are our suspects. Dewey. Detective Hanson. Jarrod. Maybe Hope. Of those, who fits Evie’s profile?”

  “I’d say Detective Hanson fits best,” she said. “If Ron and Margie really did get on a boat, which of those people own one?”

  “Possibly all of them,” I said. “But I did see a picture of Detective Hanson in a boat. And I saw a picture of him with a snake. Neither of those things work in favor of putting him on the innocent list.”

  “He’d know how to cover up a crime,” Sherman added.

  “But what would his motive be?” I asked.

  “Maybe he liked Margie,” Evie suggested.

  “He denies that he’d want to cover up for his half-brother, but he could have been lying. He was, however, very convincing.”

  “Does anyone know if he had an alibi for the night of the murder?” Sherman asked.

  I shook my head. “Not as far as I know.”

  “I still think we should examine Dewey as a suspect,” Evie said. “Even though he doesn’t totally fit my profile, I do think he’s a possibility.”

  “His alibi is falling through,” I started. “I mean, it’s still hearsay at this point. Does he have the means? He probably has a gun and a boat. I would guess, however, based on his car that his boat may not be that nice.”

  “How do we prove any of this?” Sherman asked.

  We all sat there in silence.

  “It’s true,” Evie said. “We’ve made some advances. But now what?”

  “Jarrod is a possibility,” I said. “Agreed?”

  They both nodded.

  “Agreed,” Sherman said.

  “Can we agree that the two of them are our best leads?” I asked.

  “They basically fit my profile,” Evie said.

  “I’m still curious about Emilio,” I muttered.

  “We’d have just as much luck finding Amelia Earhart,” Evie said. “We don’t even know if that’s his real name.”

  “Someone somewhere has got to know something about him.”

  “How do we find that person?”

  “That’s the question. Maybe it would help if we started with the farmer he worked for. It’s going to be the first thing on my agenda tomorrow.”

  “So, are we calling it a day?” Sherman asked.

  “There’s just one more place I wanted to stop,” I said.

  “Where’s that?”

  “I want to try this Bobby guy one more time. The problem, according to Mark, was that no one took Bobby seriously. Maybe if we do, we can find some answers. We could still dig some and see if anything comes to the surface,” I said. “At this point, what do we have to lose?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  The restaurant we’d picked just happened to be located in downtown Cape Charles, right down the street from where Bobby supposedly lived. The good news was that our tires hadn’t been slashed again. Our windshields were also intact, and I didn’t see any snakes lingering nearby.

  I knew Bobby was a bum who drank too much and hung out downtown. I couldn’t imagine that many of the business owners would want him to loiter near their stores. He was probably considered bad for business.

  Still, I hoped he might be home.

  It was amazing how just moving two blocks south had changed the entire look of the area. These houses weren’t well cared for but were eyesores instead. Apparently, the town was in the process of being revitalized, but their efforts didn’t appear to have reached this street.

  Bobby’s house fit in with the rest of the street. It had probably been beautiful at one time, but now it looked abandoned. Junk was stacked in the windows—furniture and boxes, for starters. Some windows had torn sheets covering them. Another had crooked curtains.

  At one time, the porch had been painted, but now the red was a distant memory, only recognizable in bits and chips and smudges. A wicker couch seemed to promise that someone had once lived here who cared about the property. It had been painted dark blue, and a faded pillow sat on it. However, the wicker was fraying and the paint was worn with age.

  We knocked at his door, and this time Bobby answered. And he looked homeless, so it kind of surprised me that he wasn’t.

  Dirty clothes, frizzy gray beard, bushy eyebrows. Something about him reminded me of Elmer Fudd—only a homeless Elmer Fudd. He was probably in his sixties and on the short side with weight carried at his midsection.

  But really what I noticed was the smell.

  The scent reeking from his home was awful.

  I was a crime-scene cleaner, so I knew the scent of death.

  It emanated from this location.

  Which immediately put me on alert.

  Just what was dead inside his house? An animal? A person?

  As if he could read my thoughts, he shrugged. “I think a rat crawled under my house and died. I figured the smell will go away eventually. Don’t have money to call an exterminator.”

  Evie’s face squeezed, and she waved a hand in front of her face. “Well, you should try to scrounge that money up. That smell is a hazard to the community.”

  “You’re welcome to crawl under there yourself,” he said with a growl, followed by a sneeze.

  I fought a smile.

  His words shut Evie up. We all knew she wouldn’t be looking for dead animals anytime soon.

  “How can I help you?” Bobby still lingered in the doorway with the battered screen door halfway open. “I assume you’re not here about the smell—unless you’re the stink police.”

  “We’re investigating—” I started.

  “I know who you are.” His look showed pure persnickety-ness: upturned nose,
pursed lips, narrowed eyes. He even had a slight lisp, which added to the whole effect. “Everyone in town does. So how can I help you with your investigation?”

  “We heard you saw something on the night Ron and Margie died.” I readjusted my stance, pulling my coat closer as a wind swept down the street. “I know it’s been a long time, but we’d like to know what you saw.”

  He raised his shaggy eyebrows and pulled a hand out of his pocket, revealing a crumpled tissue. “No one has listened to me for years. They say I’m unreliable. You sure you want to listen?”

  I nodded. “I’m sure.”

  I turned myself away from the sinking winter sun as it glared down on us, offering nothing more than light. Certainly not warmth.

  He leaned against the doorframe and blew his nose. “I was downtown that night, doing my usual. I got kicked off the sidewalk, so I started to wander down by the harbor. There weren’t that many people out at that time of day, but it is a pretty walk. Anyway, I saw the Simmons walking that way.”

  “And?” Evie tapped her foot.

  “I figured they were on a romantic stroll. Then a boat pulled up. There was one person on it. I couldn’t see his face. But he asked them if they wanted a ride.”

  My interest in his story spiked.

  “And I guess they did want a ride. They got on board?” I clarified, wanting to leave no stone unturned.

  “That’s correct. They got in and rode off into the night.” He pulled the tissue from his nose and stared at the contents inside.

  So. Insanely. Gross.

  But I hardly cared right now. I needed to know what happened next, but first he had to stop staring at his tissue.

  “Did they seem like they were under duress?” Evie asked, looking a little green at the man’s lack of social graces.

  “Duress? What’s duress?” He stuck the slimy tissue back into his pocket.

  Evie rolled her eyes. “Did they seem to go willingly or by force?”

  He narrowed his gaze, fluctuating between seeming unstable and homeless, to appearing like a down-on-his-luck down-to-earther. “Roll those eyes again and I’ll refuse to answer any more questions until you find that dead animal.”

  I gave Evie a dirty look. “I apologize. It’s been a long week.”

  Evie huffed but said nothing.

  Bobby sneered at Evie once more before turning back to me. “Willingly, I’d say. Their voices sounded happy enough from what I could hear.”

  “Did you recognize the other voice?” I asked.

  “I could not.”

  I processed that. It sounded like the Simmons had known the person who killed them. Maybe they were even friends.

  I didn’t like the thought of that.

  And all of this was under the assumption that Bobby was telling the truth. No one thought he was a reliable witness, according to Mark. But I was willing to give his theory a shot.

  “Is there anything you remember about the boat?” I asked.

  “I’ve been waiting for years for someone to ask me that,” he said. “I do remember something. It had a star on the bow.”

  “A star?” Sherman asked. “Like a drawing?”

  “No, like an actual star.”

  “Like, a light bulb?” I clarified.

  His eyes widened, and he sneezed again, this time into the arm of his coat. I didn’t even look. I couldn’t.

  “No, it was a star,” he said, his eyes as wide as saucers. “From the heavens above. And it was on the bow of his boat.”

  I sighed. Maybe the man was crazy.

  In fact, maybe this whole conversation was useless.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  After everything was said and done, Evie, Sherman, and I headed to the Banks’s house.

  Anything was better than that hotel we’d stayed in last night or the snake- and gas-infested home we’d rented.

  Again, I supposed it was a good thing that we were in a small town and that word traveled fast here.

  We were eating dessert there—apple pie with ice cream—when Jessie walked in. She stopped in her tracks when she spotted us, and her face went a little pale.

  “Gabby,” she stuttered. “Hi. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”

  Her gaze skittered to Evie and Sherman, and I introduced them.

  “We had an unfortunate incident at the house,” I explained.

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She kissed her aunt’s and uncle’s cheeks and set her bag down. “I was just coming home for a long weekend.”

  “It’s always good to see you here, dear,” Carol said. “Come, and I’ll cut you a piece of pie.”

  Jessie seemed hesitant as she took a seat beside me. It appeared that I’d somehow thrown a wrench into her plans, but I wondered why. Had she wanted her aunt and uncle all to herself?

  “So, have you learned anything new about the case?” Talmadge asked, moving easily back into our earlier conversation.

  I updated him on a few of the things we’d learned, not stopping until I reached my conversation with Bobby.

  “He said there was a star on the bow of the boat?” Carol asked, taking a sip of coffee.

  I nodded. “I was really hoping that he wasn’t crazy. But now I’m beginning to see why people say he’s unreliable.”

  “He’s always had problems since the time he was in elementary school.” Talmadge frowned. “It’s a shame his parents never took him to receive a better diagnosis. Maybe some medication could help him.”

  “It’s never too late,” I said.

  “I hate to say this, but it seems like you’re no further along now than you were when you got here,” Talmadge said. “No offense meant.”

  “No offense taken,” I said. “I can see why this case went cold. There’s just not enough hard evidence to point to anyone with certainty. Any of the evidence that may have been left on Ron and Margie was washed away in the water when the current carried them down the bay. It’s a wonder they weren’t washed out into the ocean, never to be found.”

  Talmadge nodded. “I suppose it is. The water can be unpredictable. What will you do next?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” I told him.

  “When are you headed home?” he asked.

  “My flight leaves in two days,” Evie said.

  Two days?

  I’d known that. Really, I had. But it hadn’t been at the forefront of my mind.

  Could we wrap this up in two days? I had some doubts, especially now that I could hear the clock mentally counting down.

  The pressure was on.

  “It seems like you gave it the old college try,” Talmadge said. “No one can fault you for that.”

  He thought I was giving up. He obviously didn’t know me very well.

  After dessert, I was ready to crawl into bed.

  That was, after I slathered on some anti-itch cream and called Riley.

  As I headed to the bathroom to brush my teeth before bed, I ran into Jessie in the hallway. She was leaving the bathroom, her face appearing dewy, like she’d just washed it.

  She offered a hesitant smile.

  “Jessie, why didn’t you tell me about Jarrod?” I asked, getting right to the point.

  She cringed. “He told me you talked to him today.”

  “Wait—you’re still talking to him?” Had I heard her correctly?

  Her face paled before she reluctantly seemed to say, “We’re still dating.”

  I released a pent up breath. “For ten years?”

  She shrugged and leaned against the wall, suddenly looking younger than twenty-three. “Well, we broke up for seven years, but we got back together about six months ago. We reconnected at a clambake down in Cape Charles. He was working it, and I was there with my aunt and uncle.”

  Wasn’t that interesting? I remembered her connection with Garrett and tried to tread carefully, despite my irritation. “Are you trying to protect Jarrod, Jessie? Because the omission makes him seem guilty.”

  “No!” she said
a little too loudly. She seemed to realize that and glanced around. She lowered her voice and said, “I mean, of course, I want to protect him, but not like that. I didn’t mention him because I know he’s innocent.”

  I eyed her skeptically. “How do you know that?”

  “Because I was with him that night. I snuck out to meet him. He’s not guilty.”

  “But your dad didn’t like him.”

  She frowned. “My dad wouldn’t have liked anyone I dated.”

  “But Jarrod was considerably older than you,” I reminded her, feeling like an older sister.

  “I’ve always liked older men. What can I say? But Jarrod’s a good guy, despite his rap.”

  “He got you on drugs, Jessie. How could you call that good?” I hated being the bad guy here, but someone had to say it. I didn’t want to see another woman throw her life away on a guy who was only trouble.

  “We were both young and stupid.” She ran a hand over her face. “You know, I was really hesitant about reopening this, but Garrett insisted on it. He said it would help me find closure. But now I’m thinking it was a bad idea. I don’t want the people I love to have their names dragged through the mud.”

  My muscles loosened—but only a little. “I don’t plan on doing that to anyone you love. I’m just looking for answers.”

  Her face clouded. “Well, Jarrod has a police record, okay? He’s trying to move beyond that. I knew when you heard about his record that you’d think he was guilty. You’d ask questions. You’d start people remembering again.”

  I stared at her a minute, trying to read between the lines and determine where I should go with this. “Do you want me to drop this, Jessie?”

  Her strained gaze finally met mine again. Tension pulled across every facial feature.

  “I don’t know. I want my parents back. That’s really what I want, but that’s never going to happen.” Her voice broke.

  When I saw her pain, my resolve softened. “I’m sorry.”

  She nodded, her eyes still showing a depth of pain that made me regret having to bring this up. “I know I should want justice. And part of me does. The other part of me just wants to move on. I know people say I can’t do that without having answers, but I’m not so sure. In order to cope, I learned to stop waiting for that resolution. I learned to accept that my parents were dead and that I might not ever know what happened. It’s all about accepting your circumstances, whether you like them or not.”