Marriage and Murder Read online

  “So Kip and Elena left and came back,” I said, voicing the obvious.

  “Yep. And this time they parked at the bakery, not the main lot. And when I got to the car—” Jackson drew in a shaky breath “—there was a lot of blood. He was sitting in the driver’s seat and the window looked like it had been shot out. I checked for a pulse. There was none.”

  “And Elena?”

  “She wasn’t there. Boone said he heard something, a bell from somewhere. My dad told us to go check it out while he phoned in to the station. Boone and I went to the back of the bakery first, and I thought I saw someone moving around inside in the kitchen, so I banged on the door.”

  “We heard you banging. We were in the pantry, though. I couldn’t get to the back door without alerting the—uh—prowler in the kitchen.”

  “Did you see them? Who was inside with y’all?” Jackson shifted on his feet, restless.

  I frowned, breathing out, and working through how to answer without lying. “It was dark. The lights were off and, like I said, we were already in the pantry, visibility reduced.”

  Jackson nodded grimly. “I figured as much.”

  “What did you see?” I asked Jackson, readying myself for the very real possibility that Jackson and Boone had seen Diane.

  Maybe she was their number one suspect. Maybe this was the real reason Jackson had pulled me and Billy outside. If this was the case, I needed to come up with a plan to protect Jenn from the fallout ASAP.

  I knew my shock would be shorter lived than hers, it might not even last a full day. I knew this for a fact. For one thing, I had a vengeful heart. She did not. For example, as mentioned previously, I often thought about the death of my own father, and how I would exact that revenge.

  Not many people were aware that I had the means and opportunity to end his life any time I wanted, whenever the mood struck, even now that he’d been paroled. Furthermore, no one but me knew I’d toyed with making it happen on the anniversary of my mother’s death. But then a short woman baker blackmailed me, distracted me, and changed my life and my heart forever with a dark chocolate confection she’d called compassion cake.

  I never made the call that day. Darrell continued to breathe because last year, under Jenn’s continued influence, I’d decided to hold off indefinitely, an active decision based on something she’d once said about my past being in the past, that I got to choose the road I was on in the future as well as who I shared that road with.

  But I digress.

  Another difference between the two of us contributing to the likelihood of her experiencing prolonged shock: I’d been witness to violence on many occasions during my formative years. She had not. At least, not the severity of violence I’d experienced. Her parents had been wicked to her growing up, using hurtful words, and that was definitely a type of violence. But what I’d seen . . .

  Again, I digress.

  Presently, Jackson hemmed and hawed, heaved a giant sigh, and finally answered my question. “I didn’t see much. We heard them coming out of the bakery’s front door when that bell jingled again. Boone was around the side of the building from where I was, but he wasn’t near the entrance. We took off, running like hell for the front door, but it was too late. We saw two figures enter the north forest line and we gave chase. But that’s when we found Elena.”

  “Elena was—”

  “Wait—” I lifted my hand to interrupt Billy. “Wait, before we get to Elena, are you sure you saw two people?”

  “There were definitely two of them, Boone will back me up on that. A woman and a man.”

  “Is that why you and Boone were on high alert when you came into the kitchen?”

  Jackson gave me a tight-lipped—some might even call it apologetic—smile. “Yeah, sorry about that. You kinda fit the description of what we could see. A woman and a man, about y’all’s height and build.”

  I lifted my chin, both acknowledging and absorbing this information. Damn.

  “May I ask about Elena now?” Billy looked to me. I shrugged, having no idea of Elena’s whereabouts when she was found. “So Elena was the body in the woods?”

  “Yep. She was unconscious. I tripped over her, went flying, tore my suit.” Jackson laughed lightly. “Anyway, important part is, whoever ran out of the bakery, they got away from us. Boone didn’t know what had happened when I tripped, thought I’d done myself harm, so he came back, and they were long gone. I then called my dad, let him know about Elena.”

  “I think I was with your dad then, in the parking lot.” Billy pointed at me with his thumb. “Right after you hung up with me, delaying the sheriff from meeting Jackson and Boone in the woods. He heard my call with Cletus. After that, he left me with—uh—with Kip’s car and went to find you in the forest.”

  Good thing Billy hadn’t been asked to accompany the sheriff into the forest, he’d likely still be in there wandering around, seeing as how he could get lost in a rose garden with three bushes.

  “Yes, but my dad called me after he left you in the parking lot, on his way to meet us. He told Boone and I to go back to the bakery. He was the one who stayed with Elena while we went—going in through the front door this time—for Cletus and Jenn.”

  “Why didn’t he just go to the bakery himself? I’d asked for him to come meet us, not y’all.” I crossed my arms, not understanding the sheriff’s motives.

  Jackson gave me a very small smile without humor. “Do I know? My father does what he thinks makes sense.”

  “My guess is that he wanted to be with Elena when she woke up.” Billy scratched his cheek through his beard. “If she woke up, he wanted to be the one with her, to get answers, while she was still disoriented and would answer honestly. That’d be my guess.”

  “Seems like a sneaky thing to do.” I stroked my beard, nodding my appreciation for the sheriff’s tactics, if that had indeed been his aim.

  “More like shrewd, Cletus,” Billy corrected. “The sheriff isn’t sneaky, and he isn’t a fool.”

  “No. He is not a fool. . .” I agreed, hiding a spike of alarm. If Jenn’s momma had been involved in her ex’s death, Sheriff James would find out.

  “But listen.” Jackson glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice, pulling me out of my maudlin thoughts. “That’s the timeline, yes. But what folks don’t know yet is that when I found Kip in the car, he had a thick wire or a kind of metal rope around his neck. I had to nudge it out of the way to check for a pulse.”

  “Like a chain?” I asked.

  “No. No, it was a heavy rope. Hard to explain without showing you.”

  “So . . .” Billy’s confused stare swung from Jackson, to me, and then back to the deputy. “He wasn’t shot?”

  “No. He was definitely shot. Like I said, there was a lot of blood. But it looks like he was also strangled in his seat.”

  “Before or after he was shot?” Billy asked inanely. He was having trouble keeping up, and so was I, not because we were dumb, but because none of this made a lick of sense.

  The man had been strangled and shot? Which had Diane done? Not the shooting, I was sure of that. Plus, shooting someone usually didn’t require a rinse off in the kitchen sink. Strangling someone didn’t require a wash off in the kitchen sink either.

  I was all muddled. What had Repo and Diane been doing in the kitchen? Why did she have blood on her hands?

  “Someone strangled him first . . .” I spoke stream of consciousness, working through how it must’ve happened. “Whoever it was, they left the rope.”

  “Why would they leave the rope?” Jackson asked the question like this detail bothered him. “Rope is evidence. Why leave evidence?”

  “Maybe whoever strangled him was in a hurry?” Billy proposed.

  “Or the shooter came up to the car and the person who was doing the strangling hid in the back seat, caught unawares mid-strangle? Before they could remove the rope. The shooter blasts out the window, puts two bullets in Kip, and then leaves. Meanwhile, the strangl
er—as I said, caught unawares—gets the hell out of there, forgetting to take the rope,” I postulated.

  “Unless the strangler and shooter were working together?” Jackson made a face like he found all this thinking too strenuous for his meager brain.

  I made a face. “Then they would’ve taken the rope, right? And why strangle and shoot someone? One or the other is plenty.”

  “Okay, yeah. That’s what I was thinking too.” Jackson nodded with vigor. “And there’s more.”

  “More?” Billy and I asked in unison.

  “Yep. I just left the parking lot to come find y’all. My father called in a team from Knoxville to handle the crime scene. Sorry for keeping everyone so long, but the Knoxville crew took forever to get here. We’re not prepared for this kind of mess, don’t have that kind of expertise or all the right equipment. The only dead bodies we find up here are motorcycle gang casualties, not former high school principals.”

  “What’d they find?” Billy leaned in.

  “They don’t know which killed him yet, the rope or the gun. But they did find handprints—bloody ones—on his cheek, chest, and the outside of the car.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked, because I had no theories.

  “The investigator thinks someone, for whatever reason, opened the door after Mr. Sylvester was shot. They touched him where he was bleeding, touched his face. But the car door was closed when we showed up, so they must’ve closed the door after.”

  I shook my head. “Why would someone . . .” Oh!

  Diane.

  Damnation and all the demons in hell! She’d touched him. I dropped my chin to my chest as though tired, but in reality I needed to hide my face so I could think.

  Diane touched Kip. That’s why she’d been in the bakery kitchen. That’s why she’d washed her hands in the sink while Repo was searching the cabinets. Maybe he was looking for a towel to dry off her hands?

  I pushed the irrelevant suspicion away. It didn’t matter if he was looking for a towel or dinosaur bones. What mattered was that Diane had touched Kip after he died.

  “I need y’alls help.” Now Jackson leaned in, his brow wrinkled in consternation. “I need you and your brothers to look at everyone’s hands. Search the tables for a missing napkin, something someone could use to wipe their hands clean.”

  “Hoping to catch someone red-handed?” Billy asked in a very un-Billy-like attempt at pun humor, earning him a squinty look from both Jackson and me.

  “Really, Billy?” I shook my head. My steady and cool older brother had a history of being awkward or downright stupid at the weirdest of times, usually during a crisis or when he felt uncertain. I supposed I couldn’t fault him too much. Stress and anxiety were like the stormwater runoff of mental health issues. If ignored over time, they carved away at even the sturdiest and strongest.

  I turned to Jackson, stroking my beard again. “Why us? Why do you want our help?”

  “Because I know where all of you were before, during, and after the shooting. And I trust your family. And I already checked all y’all’s hands.”

  “Fine. We’ll help.” Billy adjusted the cuffs of his suit, a nervous gesture. I wanted to give him the side-eye, but I refrained since Jackson was still with us and watching.

  “Okay, let’s go,” Jackson said, walking around us to head back to the barn.

  My brother and I followed, shoulder to shoulder, and I tried not to dwell too much on what Billy would have to be nervous about. It wasn’t hard to redirect my thoughts since I already knew—or strongly suspected—who had touched Kip after he’d been shot.

  Given what I knew as of now, Diane must’ve washed her hands and ran off with Repo into the woods.

  She’d been there.

  And that meant she probably knew who’d done it.

  Chapter Six

  *Cletus*

  “The most difficult kind of strength -- restraint.”

  Rick Riordan, The Blood of Olympus

  I’d resisted the urge to ask Jenn if she was okay last night. Initially, I’d refrained while in the bakery kitchen after Boone broke the news about her father. Then I’d continued resisting the urge at the barn while half-heartedly pretending to inspect folks’ hands for blood I knew I wouldn’t find. Furthermore, I’d persisted in my resistance on the drive home, after everyone had been released by the police around 2:00 AM.

  Ignoring this urge felt akin to ignoring a pant leg full of spiders, or a plate of my sausage left uneaten at a family picnic, or a special on blueberries down at the Piggly Wiggly.

  I hadn’t been able to sleep. Too much to process, too many unknowns and details that didn’t fit together shoved my eyes open every time they’d drifted shut.

  The first rays of sunlight peeked through the blinds in Jenn’s bedroom. Sneaking another peek at her profile as she lay curled against my side, finally sleeping after tossing and turning for hours, I bit the inside of my lip and wrestled with the big question: When should I tell Jenn about seeing her momma in the bakery kitchen?

  Jenn looked relaxed, peaceful. I knew her present slumber was neither. Last night, watching her when Boone had relayed the truth of her father’s fate, she’d appeared to be genuinely grief-stricken. Watching her reaction, I suffered an uncanny glimmer of relief that I hadn't yet pulled the final lever to end my own father's existence.

  I’d thought a lot about the moments leading up to Darrell’s eventual demise. I’d assumed I would feel nothing but satisfaction after the fact, having rid the world of his evil influence; justice for all the wrongs he'd committed; the righteous gratification of recompense for all the ways he'd hurt my mother, my siblings, even my dog.

  However, at no point had I considered the possibility that I would mourn him . . . would I mourn him? I didn't think so. But how could I know for sure? The last thing I wanted was the unintended residue left by emotional upheaval after Darrell’s postmortem.

  And yet I might feel something unexpected, something akin to what Jenn was feeling now.

  Pushing the notion aside (for now) as likely irrelevant, I gently extracted myself from the bed, replacing my body with my pillow. Urgent matters required my full attention.

  First thing I did was walk to the panic room just off the hallway and check the camera facing the driveway. Boone was still out there, sitting in his car, probably cramped, cold, cranky, and hungry. The sheriff had sent him home with us last night with orders to watch the road leading to Jenn’s house. Sheriff James had said it was to keep an eye on Jenn, but I suspected the real reason was to keep an eye out for Diane.

  Jenn’s momma had been missing since the gunshots. Some folks claimed Diane had been present when they heard the shots, some folks said she’d slipped out just moments prior. Regardless, last I heard, no one had seen her since. Obviously, I hadn’t shared what I knew with anyone. I needed answers first.

  Pulling out one of the burner phones I kept stashed in the hidden safe within the panic room, I powered it on and moseyed to the kitchen. It was a Saturday. I didn’t have work until Monday. Although there were leftover giant cranberry bran muffins on the counter, my mood dictated waffles. Blueberry waffles. Let there be waffles!

  Breakfast decided, I texted my contact at the Dragon the following message:

  Cletus: Owl to Burro. Call when time permits, this number. Need info on Repo’s current time commitments. Urgent.

  I then set about making coffee while contemplating the most pressing of this morning’s questions. Namely, what in hellfire had Diane been doing last night with Repo—the Iron Wraiths’ main money man and career criminal—of all people?

  Washing blood off her hands? Okay. Sure. Perhaps she’d decided mid-party to butcher a side of beef. So be it.

  Running from the police? Yeah. I could see that. Jackson could be irritating and perhaps the thought of his company struck her as odious. I’d about-faced and power walked in the opposite direction from the deputy more times than I could count.

  But . . .
Repo?

  I couldn’t fathom a scenario where Diane and Repo in each other’s company wasn’t a parallel universe kind of situation.

  Coffee made and mixed, I filled a second cup for Boone—but without molasses and apple cider vinegar, ’cause most people just aren’t as enlightened as me about their coffee—and pulled on a pair of pants. Grabbing his cup and one of the leftover muffins, I turned off the alarm and strolled out the front door.

  Even though it had been mild last night, some folks might’ve found the spring morning cold, too cold for just a pair of pants and slippers. I was one of those people. It was damn cold, too cold for just a pair of pants and slippers. But my choice of attire had been purposeful. I didn’t want Boone thinking I was available to loiter. Deliver coffee, a muffin, ask a few questions, and then I’d be on my way.

  No mentally healthy person would be able to chitchat with a pair of cold, hard man nipples at their eye level.

  Boone had already started rolling down his window before I reached the car. “Is that coffee?”

  “Yes, sir. Also, this is a muffin, cran and bran.”

  “Did Jennifer make it?”

  “Yep, yesterday morning.”

  He held his hands out to receive the goods, snatching them into the car and immediately taking a drink of coffee. “God bless you, Cletus Winston.”

  “Don’t get carried away. How’d you fare?”

  “It’s cold out here,” he said around a bite of muffin. “Sorry if I woke y’all up, turning the car on and off for the heater.”

  “You didn’t. Jenn couldn’t sleep, but it didn’t have anything to do with you or your car.” Speaking of . . . I lifted my chin toward the car. “How long you gonna be out here? Do you need to use the bathroom?”

  “Uh, no. I’ll be leaving soon. Williams is coming to relieve me. But thanks for the offer.”