Phyllis thought about it and said, “He may not have enough money to hire a lawyer, which means he’ll get a public defender. I know some of them do fine work . . . but Jimmy is better.”
“Yeah, I reckon you’re right about that,” Sam said in grudging agreement. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give him a call. It’s not too late, is it?”
“Lawyers are like doctors. They get called out at all hours of the day and night.”
They had reached Phyllis’s car. She put the empty containers on one side of the back seat. Ronnie got in on the other side. Phyllis told Sam, “You drive, and I’ll call Mr. D’Angelo.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Newsom,” Ronnie said. “I know both of you think I shouldn’t have anything to do with Chase, but I don’t want to see him . . . what’s the old-fashioned word? . . . railroaded for something he didn’t do.”
“Nobody wants to see that,” Phyllis said.
As they started back to the house, which was located on a side street a few blocks south of the courthouse square, Phyllis took out her cell phone and called Jimmy D’Angelo. The lawyer’s office and cell numbers were on her list of favorites. She thumbed the icon for his cell.
D’Angelo answered almost right away. “Phyllis!” he said in his usual jovial, booming voice. “What can I do for you?” Before she could answer, he laughed and went on, “There hasn’t been another murder, has there?”
“As a matter of fact, there has,” she said.
A sudden silence reigned on the other end of the call.
But not for long. D’Angelo asked, “Have you been arrested?”
“No, of course not.”
“Sam?”
“No.”
“One of your friends?”
Phyllis said, “I’m not surrounded by murderers!”
“Given your history, I think it was a reasonable question,” D’Angelo said.
“But it is a young man Sam’s granddaughter knows,” Phyllis went on. “A student at the high school where Sam and I are substitute teaching. His name is Chase Hamilton. I don’t know that he’s actually been arrested, but he was taken in for questioning, at the very least. And he was handcuffed.”
“That’s not a good sign,” D’Angelo said. “Where did the crime take place?”
“At Courtland High, the new high school on Farm Road 730 northwest of town.”
“He’ll be at the county lock-up, then, since it’s out of the city limits and the sheriff’s department is handling the investigation. Do you know if he already has legal representation?”
“I have no idea,” Phyllis answered honestly.
“Well, I’ll run over there and find out.” He laughed again. “I’ve already got a reputation as an ambulance chaser, not that I care. Of course, in this case, the ambulance will be going to the morgue, not the hospital.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“I’ll give you a call once I know something. You’ll still be up?”
Phyllis looked around at Ronnie’s face as the girl watched her from the back seat. The light from the Lincoln’s dashboard was enough to reveal how anxious and worried Ronnie was.
“We’ll be waiting to hear from you,” Phyllis said.
◄♦►
Carolyn and Eve were both in the living room watching TV when Phyllis, Sam, and Ronnie came in. Phyllis had dropped off the empty plastic containers in the kitchen.
Raven was curled up in Eve’s lap, apparently sleeping, but the black cat opened one eye and gave the newcomers a hostile look that said nobody had better disturb her or cause Eve to get up.
“You’re home already?” Carolyn said as she muted the TV. “I’m no expert on school dances—Lord knows it’s been long enough since I went to one—but they must end earlier than I thought they would. It’s not even ten o’clock yet.”
“This one got interrupted—” Sam began.
“The cops arrested Chase for murder!” Ronnie broke in, unable to contain her rampaging emotions.
Carolyn’s eyebrows arched. “Murder? At the high school?”
“I’m afraid so,” Phyllis said.
“Who was killed?” Eve asked. She continued to scratch Raven’s ears.
“The security guard. Ray Brooks.”
“The one you had trouble with,” Carolyn said. “Let me guess. Was he poisoned?”
“No, he . . . Wait,” Phyllis said. “You don’t think I had anything to do with it?”
“It’s a reasonable question,” Carolyn insisted, unknowingly echoing Jimmy D’Angelo. “Not you personally, of course, but people have put poison in things you baked in the past.”
“Stabbed, from the looks of it,” Sam said. “A mighty ugly business.”
“And they arrested Ronnie’s drug dealer friend?”
“He’s not a drug dealer!” Ronnie said. “Oh! Nobody ever listens to me!” She turned toward the hall and the stairs, ready to stomp out of the room, but paused and said to Phyllis, “You’ll let me know when you’ve talked to Mr. D’Angelo again?”
“I will,” Phyllis promised.
“Thanks.” Ronnie left the room, still angry but not as upset as she had been a moment earlier.
Eve said, “You know you’re going to have to tell us all about this.”
“I know.” Phyllis sank wearily onto the sofa, and Sam sat down beside her. Carolyn turned off the TV. Whatever they had been watching couldn’t compete.
For the next several minutes, Phyllis told them what she knew about the evening’s events, with Sam adding some detail now and then. Carolyn and Eve had heard grim recitals like this numerous times before, so they didn’t say anything until Phyllis was finished.
When the story was concluded, Carolyn said, “The young man certainly sounds guilty to me.”
“But there were no eyewitnesses,” Eve pointed out.
“At least none that we know of right now,” Phyllis said.
“And you’ve always been the one to be skeptical of the authorities, dear,” Eve went on to Carolyn.
“With good reason,” Carolyn said. “How many times have we seen the police arrest someone who turned out later on to be innocent?” She shrugged. “In this case, though, it really seems obvious. I mean, given the young man’s history.”
Phyllis glanced through the living room’s arched entrance to the foyer and the stairs. Ronnie had already gone up to her room, and Phyllis was glad of that. Otherwise she’d probably be in here arguing with Carolyn, which wouldn’t be good for anyone.
Eve said, “What about you, Phyllis? Do you think Chase Hamilton killed that man?”
“I don’t know,” Phyllis said. “I don’t really understand it, but for some reason I hope he didn’t. I have to agree with Ronnie. Despite everything I’ve found out about his past, he just doesn’t seem like a murderer to me.”
Eve nodded. “Well, there you go. I trust your instincts. You haven’t been wrong about such things yet, have you?”
Maybe not, Phyllis thought, but there was always a first time.
She was saved from having to say that by her cell phone ringing. She looked at the screen and said, “It’s Mr. D’Angelo.” She thumbed it. “Hello.”
“Hey, Phyllis, it’s me,” the lawyer said. “I went over to the detention center and asked to see the Hamilton kid. They told me they’d already kicked him.”
“What?”
“They turned him loose.”
“But they took him out of the school in handcuffs, right in front of everybody.”
“It happens,” D’Angelo said. “The cops think they’ve got the right guy, and then they talk to him some more and decide that he’s not good for the crime after all. Or they still think he’s the right guy, but they don’t have enough evidence to charge him. Could go either way, and in this case I don’t have any way of knowing which. I talked to that guy Appleton. Looks like a hayseed, but let me tell you, he’s the great stone face. I got nothin’ out of him.”
“So what happens now?”
&n
bsp; “They’ll keep investigating. If they still consider Hamilton a person of interest, they’ll watch him to see if he tries to run. Other than that, he’s in the clear . . . for now.” D’Angelo paused. “Do you want me to see if I can talk to him anyway, offer him my services in case they pick him up again?”
“Is that ethical?”
“Well . . .”
“No,” Phyllis decided. “For now let’s just wait and see what happens.”
“Okay. If you need me, you know where to find me.”
“Thank you, Jimmy.”
“Any time,” D’Angelo said.
Phyllis broke the connection and turned her head to see Ronnie standing in the opening between the living room and the foyer. She had changed into a cotton nightshirt that came down to her knees. It had a bunny on it, and for a second Phyllis thought she looked like a little girl.
“Was that the lawyer?” Ronnie asked.
Phyllis nodded. “He said that Chase had been released by the time he got there.”
“They let him go?” Ronnie looked and sounded as surprised as Phyllis had been by the news. “Does that mean they don’t think he did it after all?”
“Maybe.” Phyllis was going to be honest with the girl. “Or they can’t prove it yet but will still try to.”
“Then somebody else has to prove that he’s innocent by finding out who really killed Mr. Brooks. And I can’t think of anybody better to do that, Mrs. Newsom, than you.”
Chapter 24
Truthfully, in the back of her mind Phyllis had been expecting that from the moment she had seen Ray Brooks lying on the floor of the Dungeon and realized he was dead. Once again circumstances—or fate, or whatever you wanted to call it—had conspired to place her at the center of a murder case, and someone close to her needed her help. She couldn’t turn her back on Ronnie’s plea.
But there was nothing else she could do tonight, and she said as much. Ronnie hectored her to promise that she’d save Chase, but Phyllis wouldn’t go that far.
“I’ll look into it,” she said, and then she managed to talk Ronnie into going back upstairs. She didn’t know if the girl would be able to sleep or not, but she ought to try, anyway. Phyllis knew she intended to. The strain of the evening had wearied her.
A while later, when she was already in her pajamas but hadn’t gone to bed yet, a quiet knock sounded on her door. She opened it to find Sam standing there in his bathrobe and pajamas.
“Talk to you for a minute?” he said.
“Of course. Come in.”
Phyllis closed the door behind him. He looked at her, shook his head, and said, “I sure am sorry you got dragged into a mess like this again.”
She smiled. “You would think I’d be used to it by now, but somehow I’m not.”
“You know you don’t have to investigate just on account of Ronnie askin’ you to.”
“I can’t let her down, Sam. But I may not be doing her any favors. If it turns out that Chase is guilty . . .”
“You said you didn’t think he is.”
“I could be wrong,” Phyllis replied. “Despite what Eve said.”
Sam scraped a thumbnail along his jawline as he frowned. “I hate to say it, but Ronnie might be better off in the long run if it turns out that fella is guilty. He’s got a mighty shady background. Shoot, everything you find out about him says that he’s a bad character.”
“Yes, it certainly does,” Phyllis mused.
“Anyway, he’s three years older than her, and to tell you the truth, he seems even older. And he’s not interested in her, like that. She’s wastin’ her time swoonin’ over him, just like that little freshman Walter’s wastin’ his time makin’ calf eyes at Ronnie.” Sam sighed. “Lord, if people could just be lucky enough to fall for the right one the first time around, it’d sure make life simpler.”
“And a lot less messy,” Phyllis said, “but messy is good. That’s what gives life some of its flavor. You wouldn’t want everything to work out just right all the time, so that there’s never any struggle. Struggle is how people develop character.”
“That’s true,” Sam admitted.
She put a hand on his shoulder and laughed softly. “I haven’t heard anybody talk about swooning and making calf eyes for a long time.”
“Well, I’m an old geezer. That’s how I talk.”
“Not too old,” Phyllis said.
◄♦►
It was the weekend, so at least Phyllis, Sam, and Ronnie didn’t have to get up and go to school the next morning. In fact, Ronnie slept in and didn’t come dragging downstairs until nearly eleven o’clock, still in the nightshirt, with her hair tousled from sleep.
She came into the kitchen where Phyllis and Carolyn were and said, “It wasn’t all just a bad dream, was it?”
Phyllis didn’t have to ask what she meant. She said, “No, I’m afraid it wasn’t.”
“Well, I could have hoped . . . Is there coffee?”
“Still a little. I can make some fresh.”
Ronnie shook her head. “No, that’ll do.” She got a cup from the cabinet and went over to the coffeemaker to pour. When she had sat down at the table, she asked, “Where’s Gramps this morning?”
“He went to the lumberyard to pick up a few things for some project he’s working on.”
Ronnie jumped a little, then looked under the table and said, “Oh, it’s just you, Raven. Sorry, I didn’t know you were under there.” She reached down, scooped up the black cat, and put Raven in her lap. She petted the cat with one hand and held the coffee cup in the other.
Phyllis and Carolyn were cleaning the kitchen. Phyllis was squeezing a lemon she’d cut in half into a bowl of water. She popped it into the microwave and set the timer for 3 minutes. She set a second timer for ten minutes so she wouldn’t start working on something else and forget to wipe out the inside of the microwave. The sound of the doorbell made Phyllis turn away from the counter.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Carolyn asked.
“No, not at all.”
Ronnie set her cup down and dumped Raven on the floor, which made the cat hiss in protest, and got to her feet. “Maybe it’s something about Chase,” she said. “Maybe it’s that lawyer.”
She hurried out of the kitchen before Phyllis could stop her. Carolyn blew out a breath and said, “My goodness, she’s obsessed with that boy. She seems to think the whole world and everything on it revolves around him.”
“When you’re that young and that much in love, I don’t suppose you can think anything else,” Phyllis said. She brushed off her hands on the apron she wore over her jeans and followed Ronnie toward the front door.
Ronnie had it open by the time Phyllis got there. She was a little surprised to see Mike standing on the porch, but once she stopped and thought about it, she wasn’t surprised at all.
“Come on in,” she told her son, who wore his deputy’s uniform and probably was on his way to or from a patrol shift.
Ronnie stepped back to let him in. “Hi, Mike,” she said. She suddenly looked a little self-conscious, as if she’d just remembered that she was wearing her nightshirt, and she turned and retreated toward the stairs.
“You probably know why I’m here, don’t you?” Mike said as he and Phyllis walked into the living room.
“I’m a good enough detective to figure that out.” She smiled. “You came to warn me to stay out of the investigation into Ray Brooks’s murder.”
“That homicide investigator, Vic Appleton, talked to me this morning. He’s heard about your reputation, of course. Probably everybody in the department has. He just doesn’t want you getting into any trouble.”
“You mean he doesn’t want me interfering,” Phyllis said. “Did he tell you anything about the case?”
Mike laughed, but he didn’t sound particularly happy. “You’re determined, aren’t you?”
“I didn’t say I was investigating. Can’t I just be curious?”
“Not lately,” Mike replie
d with a shake of his head. “I guess I can’t complain too much, though. You’ve kept some innocent people from going to prison, and it hasn’t been that long since I was the one who asked you to help out a friend of mine. I get the impression that Appleton is really touchy about this one, though. He seems to be playing everything closer to the vest than usual. I didn’t hear even a whisper of speculation about the case around the department this morning. He’s got the lid on tight.”
“Does he, now?” Phyllis said.
Mike cocked his head slightly to the side and asked, “What does that mean?”
“Nothing. Like you said, it’s just unusual.”
Mike looked like he didn’t fully believe her but knew the futility of trying to press her to say more. Instead he said, “I just wanted to let you know that Appleton isn’t going to cut you any slack . . . even though you were his teacher a long time ago.”
“He told you about that, did he?”
“Yeah, he mentioned it.” Mike shrugged. “He didn’t seem to be holding any grudges against you because of it.”
“I’d like to think that none of my former students have any old grudges against me.” Phyllis laughed. “That’s probably a little too much to hope for, though, isn’t it?”
“Some people hate school and everything about it, including all their teachers. There’s no getting around it. And some of them probably never forget it.”
Phyllis knew he was right, and it was a shame people felt that way. It came with the territory, though.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Nah, I’ve got to get to work.” Mike leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “See you, Mom.”
Phyllis went with him to the door and watched him walk out to his patrol car. As Mike drove away, Ronnie asked from behind her, “Did he know anything about Chase?”
Phyllis turned and saw that the girl had put on jeans and a t-shirt.
“He was just telling me that the investigator in charge of the case doesn’t want me looking into it.”
“But you’re going to anyway, aren’t you? I mean, the cops telling you to butt out never stopped you before. I know. I’ve read Eve’s book.”
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