I walked into the room and stopped in my tracks when I saw my suitcase on the floor. My personal items were strewn everywhere.
Ruth walked into my back, making me stumble. She pushed around me. “Tell me you didn’t leave your clothes like that.”
“The suitcase was on the dresser, and while it wasn’t zipped up, I’m fairly certain I closed it.”
Ruth turned to the deputy and lifted her brows. “What the hell happened to her shit?”
His cheeks flushed. “They searched it, ma’am.”
“Searched it?” she shouted. “Why in the hell would they search her things? She was the only person to actually try to help that poor boy, and you reward her by throwing her shit all around? Are you fucking kidding me?”
He went from bewildered to pissed in a matter of seconds, and I worried he was going to kick us out, so I squatted by the suitcase and started tossing my things back in. “It’s fine.”
“The fucking hell it is!” she shouted. “Is this how we treat heroes in Hensen County? By destroying their shit?”
“Now settle down, ma’am,” the deputy said in a patronizing tone. “She’s a person of interest, so we’ve got every right.”
My heart stuttered at his pronouncement. I was a person of interest? I needed to get the hell out of Drum. After I talked to Seth’s grandfather, I’d catch the first bus from Greeneville to anywhere.
“Why in the Sam Hill would she be a person of interest?” Ruth shouted, her fists balled at her sides. “Any fool could see that there’s no way she did this.”
“It’s okay, Ruth,” I said, jamming the rest of my clothes into the bag. I started zipping the side.
“Is there a problem here?” I heard a familiar voice ask, but thankfully, it didn’t belong to one of the murderers.
I glanced up at Detective Daniels.
“It’s nothing,” I said, getting to my feet and tugging my suitcase upright as I stood. “I’m just getting my things.”
“Plannin’ on goin’ somewhere?” he asked in a dry tone.
“No, I’m staying with Ruth and her boyfriend, but I still need clothes.”
“I see,” he said, but it was obvious he didn’t trust me. He seemed even more sour this morning than he had last night. “Don’t forget you can’t be leavin’ town.”
“I’m takin’ her down to Greeneville,” Ruth said, her chin issuing a challenge.
He cocked his head to the side, his eyes lighting up. “Is that so?”
“I’m not leaving leaving,” I insisted. “I’m just riding down with Ruth to pick up some additional things since I hadn’t planned on staying here.”
“Is that so?” he repeated. It made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Ruth looped her arm through mine. “That’s right. There’s nothin’ in this town other than the Dollar General, so we’re heading to Greeneville to get her supplies. We need to be back by noon so Carly can work the lunch shift, so the longer you keep us here, the longer it will take for her to get back to Drum.”
He narrowed his eyes, glancing back and forth between us. “You’re Ruth Bristol, aren’t you? You work at Max’s Tavern. That’s why you were there last night.”
I didn’t remember him asking for her name the night before, so the fact that he knew it set my nerves on edge.
“So?” she asked, looking unconcerned.
“If you take her out of the county and she doesn’t return, I will hold you personally responsible and arrest you for aiding and abetting her escape.”
My throat constricted. Could he do that? Now I was truly stuck in this nightmare.
Chapter Nine
“Fine,” Ruth said with a head toss. “You’ll look like a fool when I have her back for her lunch shift. So can we go now? We don’t want to be late gettin’ back.”
He stepped out of the doorway. “Safe travels.”
I snatched my purse and coat off the dresser, then grabbed the handle of my suitcase. I rolled it past him as I left the room, fighting the broken wheel while Ruth followed.
We hurried across the parking lot. Max must have already finished his conversation with Carson, because he was waiting just outside the crime scene tape, chatting with one of the deputies. They stopped talking as we approached, and the young deputy lifted the crime scene tape so Ruth and I could duck under it.
“See ya, Marco,” Max said as he took charge of my bag and rolled it across the street toward the front door of the tavern. I nearly told him to put it in Ruth’s car, but there was no way I could leave and risk Detective Daniels arresting Ruth. Which meant I’d be returning to Drum.
I fought the urge to cry.
“I called in an order to Watson’s,” Max said, casting a glance to Ruth. “But you have to go pick it up.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Why are you avoidin’ that place? I know it’s more than dealin’ with gossip.” When he cringed, she let out a groan. “Who did you screw now?”
He made a face. “Greta.”
She gave him a dark look. “Greta? Really, Max? Ain’t you ever heard of the saying ‘Don’t shit where you eat?’”
“How was I supposed to know she’d get a job at Watson’s?” he asked in dismay.
“How about you treat a woman like a lady and quit goin’ through ’em like tissues,” Ruth snapped. “Drum’s only so damn big, you know.”
He rolled his eyes then groaned. “Don’t be a drama queen, Ruth. I don’t go through that many women, and I can’t help it if they want to get serious after I’ve made it clear that I don’t.”
“Greta must not have lasted long if I never heard of it.”
His cheeks flushed. “Greta was a mistake born of moonshine and a sexy red dress.”
She shook her head in disgust. “Well, we have more serious issues to deal with. Carly’s a suspect.”
“No,” he said with a frown. “Marco told me a bit about what’s going on. She’s a person of interest. There’s a difference.”
“Doesn’t feel like much of a difference to me,” I said.
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Ruth protested. “Why on earth would she kill Seth? She didn’t even know him.”
“Marco says they’re lookin’ for the easy pickin’s,” Max said. “It’d be a whole lot better for everyone involved if an outsider killed him, and they caught wind that someone from Atlanta was makin’ a drug drop here in Drum last night. So what with Carly bein’ from Atlanta and all…”
A drug drop from Atlanta? Was that why several of those guys had given me funny looks last night? My mind jumped to the guy who’d showed interest in my connection to Atlanta—and then hotly denied it. Was that what those three guys had been looking for? Drugs?
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hand. “When you say for everyone involved, are you talkin’ about your father?” He likely hadn’t sent Carson just to get the scuttle on gossip.
Max’s cheeks tinged. “Don’t you worry about that. I told Carson in no uncertain terms that you had nothin’ to do with it. And my father has a lot of sway with the sheriff’s department. He gives them a large donation every year.”
“Why, just last year he bought the department six new SUVs,” Ruth added.
I wasn’t sure that made me feel any better. His pull could just as easily be used against me as for me.
He shot me an apologetic look. “Between my father’s influence and the lack of evidence, they’ll drop their interest in you soon enough and figure out they’re barkin’ up the wrong tree. Marco told me they found a couple of bullet casings close to the street, so hopefully it will help them find the real murderer.”
While that sounded great, the murderer hadn’t shot Seth close to the street. He’d been shot about ten feet from my door. So where had the bullet casings come from? Were bullet casings randomly lying around the streets of Drum?
What if the murderers had come back and dropped spent shells from my gun, setting me up for murder?
My skin felt cl
ammy.
“Max is right,” Ruth said cheerfully. “They’ll figure out they’re barkin’ up the wrong tree soon enough. In the meantime, the trip to Greeneville might take your mind off things.” Then, as though remembering the purpose of my trip to Greeneville, her smile fell.
“Greeneville?” Max asked in surprise. “What the hell are you goin’ down there for? Carly’s workin’ the lunch shift.”
“I’ve gotta run some errands and I’m takin’ her with me so people’ll leave her alone,” Ruth said.
The look on Max’s face suggested he didn’t buy her excuse, but he didn’t call her out on it. I had to wonder why she hadn’t told him the real reason I wanted to go to Greeneville, but maybe she knew he’d ask questions that I didn’t want to answer.
“I’m going to grab our breakfast,” Ruth said, then gave me a once-over. “Why don’t you stay here with Max while I pick it up?”
“You worried about the gossipers?” I asked in a sly tone.
“No sense jumpin’ into shark-infested waters,” she said. “They’ll start circlin’ soon enough.”
I suspected she was right.
Max gestured to the front door of the tavern. “You want to wait inside?”
I shook my head as I faced the crime scene. If someone was trying to pin this on me, it might be a good idea to ask some questions of my own.
“Those two cars,” I said, gesturing to the station wagon and a rusted compact car. “Who do they belong to?”
Max’s brow shot up. “Uh…the guys who live in units one and two.”
“Jerry and…?” I’d forgotten the other guy’s name.
Max’s eyes narrowed. “Big Joe. How’d you know he lived there?”
“Ruth,” I said. “Remember when you were discussing where to put me?”
He closed his eyes and pushed out a long breath before giving me an apologetic grimace. “Yeah.”
“Do you think they might have seen something?”
Max hesitated. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to them.”
“Did your friend Marco say anything?”
When he gave me a suspicious look, I said, “While I’d love nothing more than for the police to come to the obvious conclusion that I’m innocent, forgive me if I don’t feel like sitting back and waiting for everything to fall into place.”
“You do realize you can get in trouble if they think you’re interfering in their investigation?” he asked.
I gave him a sassy grin. “There’s nothin’ wrong with a neighbor checking on and commiserating with her neighbors, is there?”
He gave me a look that suggested he was seeing me in a new light. “I suppose not,” he said, smiling back at me. “As your mutual landlord, let me introduce you.”
We walked across the street and Max knocked on unit one’s door. One of the deputies cast a glance at us. He looked like he was about to head over, but Max lifted his hand and waved. “Checkin’ on my tenants.”
He knocked again, and the door to unit two opened.
An elderly man popped his head out of a foot-wide crack. “Jerry’s gone.”
“Gone?” Max asked in surprise. “Gone where?”
“Dunno. He left and hasn’t come back.”
“But his car is still here,” Max said. “Did someone pick him up?”
“Dunno,” the man said. “He beat it out of here after the sheriff’s deputies started showin’ up in the middle of the night.”
I stepped forward. “Hi. I’m Carly, and I was in room twenty.” I gestured toward my room. “I was wondering if you happened to see or hear anything.”
“I heard you screamin’ bloody murder,” Big Joe said with a look of outrage. “Woke me out of a good dream.”
“You do realize that Seth Chalmers was murdered here last night?” Max asked, his words drenched in disgust. “A boy died.”
“Ain’t my concern,” Big Joe said and started to close the door.
Max moved faster than I would have thought possible for a person with a hangover, shoving the door back open with the palm of his hand and his foot. “You have two days to vacate the premises.”
The older man’s eyes bulged, and it took him a second to respond. “What?” he finally asked.
“If you don’t give a shit about the murder of a teenage boy—a good kid at that—then I want you the hell out of my motel.”
“Your motel?” Big Joe asked with a sneer. “You mean your daddy’s motel.”
Max’s face reddened. “My father may own it, but I run it. So if I say you’re gone, you’re gone. If you want to protest, you can take it up with Bart Drummond personally.”
Fear filled Big Joe’s eyes. “No. That’s okay.” Then the reality of his situation seemed to hit him. “I’ve rented from you for three years, Max. Never been late with my rent. I ain’t got nowhere else to go,” he whined.
“Did you see anything or not?” Max asked in the same tone he’d used on Bingham the night before.
“No!” Big Joe protested. “I done told you I didn’t! I only heard her screaming, but I ignored it, thinking it was just a ho pissed she hadn’t gotten her twenty bucks. Didn’t think much about it until I heard the sirens.”
“Nothin’ else?” Max asked, his face tight.
“Nothin’. So can I stay?”
Max turned to me. “Carly, you satisfied?”
My mouth dropped open. “Uh…yeah.”
Max turned to Big Joe. “You can stay, but you better make an appearance at the funeral, and I expect you to make a donation to the funeral fund. There’ll be a jar on the counter in the bar, but you can hand it to me personally.”
Big Joe nodded emphatically. “Yeah. Can do.”
“Then you can stay.”
Detective Daniels was giving us an assessing look I didn’t much like. I averted my gaze toward the street and spotted Ruth approaching us from the café. “I think we should go now. Ruth’s back.”
Max shot a pointed look at his elderly tenant. “I’ll be lookin’ for that donation,” he said.
Big Joe bobbed his agreement, then quickly shut his door.
“Do you believe him?” I asked as we started across the street. “Do you think he didn’t see anything?”
He grimaced. “Yeah, Big Joe’s one of the laziest men I know. I’m surprised he got up to answer the door. He must have been worried we were cops.”
“What about Jerry? Do you think he’s okay?”
He paused, then said, “When Jerry gets scared, he wanders off sometimes. He’ll be okay.”
“Do you think he saw something that scared him?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” Max said with a worried look. “I guess we’ll ask him when he turns up.”
Ruth had almost reached us when I asked, “Would you have really kicked Big Joe out?”
“Yep.” He turned his gaze to me. “That place might not be much, but I still control who lives there. And if he doesn’t have more concern for a good kid than that, then I don’t want him.”
“But you let him stay.”
He started to answer, but Ruth held up a drink carrier with three coffees and two bags as if they were sacred offerings. “The front bag’s yours, Maxwell. I can’t guarantee that Greta didn’t spit on it.”
He let out a long-suffering sigh.
She gave him a pointed gaze, which then drifted to me before landing back on him. “I hope you learned a valuable lesson, Maxwell. You don’t shit where you eat.”
“Point taken,” he grumbled.
“Good.”
He pointed at Ruth. “You better have Carly back by noon. You know it’s bound to be as busy as shit with the nosy people comin’ in. I’m gonna need her and then some.” The pleading look on his face made it clear he was asking her to volunteer to work too.
“No freakin’ way,” she said. “I deserve a day off, Max, and you damn well know it, and I’m not even getting that. Just the lunch shift.”
“Fine,” he grunted, then reached for
a coffee cup in the tray and pulled it free. “But just remember it’s Carly you’re leavin’ hangin’.”
Ruth’s lips pursed. “I guess I’ll just take that chance.”
She headed around the building toward the back parking lot, leaving me to follow.
“Y’all be careful,” Max called after her. “The bridges might still be icy.”
Ruth lifted her hand in the air in a half wave. “It’s warmin’ up and you damn well know it. Love you too.”
We were silent while we walked to her car. As we headed out of town, the opposite way that I’d come in with Wyatt, she tossed me the bag.
“Put two of those flavored creamers in my coffee and hand it over, would you?” she said. “I’m needin’ a caffeine fix.”
“How long have you worked for Max?” I asked, stirring her creamer into her coffee and replacing the lid.
“That’s a good question,” she said, taking the cup without shifting her gaze from the windshield. “Max has owned the place about eight years. He took it over from Wyatt right after his arrest.”
I blinked in surprise. “What?”
She cast me a confused look. “I already told you that Wyatt went to prison.”
“Not that part. The part about Wyatt owning the tavern.”
She released a bitter laugh. “Wyatt never owned it. He ran it for his parents. Max was at college and had to come home to take over the business. Bart was too busy runnin’ Drum to run it himself.” She took a sip of her coffee and cursed. “Why do they have to make it so damn hot it scalds your tongue?”
“Good question,” I said as I started doctoring my own. “But Max owns the tavern now?”
“Yep. Bart signed it over to him when Max came back. Max said he wouldn’t run it unless it was good and truly his.”
“Did that piss Wyatt off?”
“You would think so,” she said, risking another sip. She had to be really desperate for caffeine. “But Wyatt had turned his back on ’em all, even Max, while he was waiting for his trial, then totally snubbed his family when he came home.”
“So Max quit college to come home and run the tavern? What was his major?”
She shrugged. “I forget. Something to do with business, but Bart told Max he’d teach him everything he needed to know about business. Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not, but Max never went back.”
A Cry in the Dark Page 10