A Reunion to Die For (A Joshua Thornton Mystery) (20 page)

Chapter Sixteen

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Joshua kept his back to Tori, who had appeared in the file room where he was looking for a folder that Mary had forgotten to retrieve for him before she left for lunch.

“Do you have an appointment, Ms. Brody?” He closed the drawer and opened another.

“I came to apologize for the water pitcher incident, but it wasn’t all my fault.”

“That is what I call a backhanded apology.” He gave up his search and turned around. “I will accept your apology. Do you have anything else to discuss?”

“Phyllis Rollins called me this morning. What do you want to talk to Doug about?”

“I believe that he may have some information that could be useful in the Wheeler case.”

“Is he a suspect?”

“Everyone is a suspect.”

“Is Phyllis still a suspect in Rex’s murder?”

“Until I get a better suspect, she’s not off my list. So far, she’s gained the most from his death. What does she have planned for the check she’s expecting from his life insurance?”

“They won’t pay until his murder is solved. When are you going to scratch her off your list?”

“When we find Rex’s book.”

“Do you seriously believe that Rex wrote a book?” She laughed. “He was a blowhard. There’s no book.”

“They had a bitter divorce. He wrote about a woman who got away with murder. Phyllis lived next door to Tricia Wheeler who was murdered, she was seen arguing with her the day she was killed, and she refuses to let me question her brother, a possible witness.”

“Screw you, Josh! If you believed all that you would have gotten an indictment before now.”

“Give me a reason and I’ll get it. I have enough circumstantial evidence to have your client indicted for Tricia’s and Rex’s murders, and maybe even Gail’s.”

“But you haven’t.”

“I wouldn’t be so anxious if I were you.” He gently pushed her out of his way in order to return to his office. “Where’s Billy Unger?”

“I told the sheriff already. I don’t know. Why do you have it out for him, anyway? He’s simply a kid who got mixed up with the wrong people.”

“This kid committed murder,” Joshua told her. “Walt Manners is chomping at the bit to get in front of a jury to tell them that he gave Billy the gun used to kill Grace Henderson. Between his testimony and the material from the trench coat left at the crime scene of her murder, your boy is going down.” He added, “Plus, I’m re-filing charges against him for the attempted arm robbery at the Mountaineer and I’m also charging him with the Landers murder, too.”

Tori hissed, “We had a deal!”

“Any deals we’ve made are now null and void, since he skipped the second we got a warrant for his arrest in the Henderson murder.”

“It’s not my fault that he disappeared,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “I told Billy that you would throw the book at him.”

Joshua asked, “When did you tell him that?”

She paused. “When we made the deal. Why do you ask?”

“How could you have warned him about my throwing the book at him if you didn’t know that he intended to run away?”

“I left a message at his boardinghouse to meet me at the sheriff’s office, but he never met me,” she stammered. “So I left another message for him there that warned him about what was going to happen if he didn’t turn himself in. Clearly, he ran the second he got the message to meet me at the sheriff’s office.”

“And you haven’t seen hide nor hair of him?”

“Why don’t you believe me?” she asked angrily. “How do you know that Heather Connor isn’t hiding him? Oh, I forgot! She was born on the right side of the tracks!”

Joshua didn’t know what it was about Tori’s insistence that she was not to blame for Billy’s disappearance that made him believe she knew more about his whereabouts than she was claiming. “I guess I don’t believe you because I just don’t trust you.”

He was putting on his sports coat and turning around to see if she had left when he discovered that she had run across the room to take their argument to a new level. He caught her arm in midair in her attempt to slap him. Instinct gave him the jump, and he caught her other hand before her claws could injure his cheek.

“Bastard!” she wailed while struggling to break his hold on her arms.

“What’s going on here?” Mary asked when she came in to find the prosecuting attorney wrestling with the defense attorney.

“Let go of me!” Tori demanded.

He released his grip and directed her to the office door. “Mary will show you out.”

She gave him one last parting shot. “What goes around comes around, Josh. Don’t you forget that.”

“What happened to your brilliant chief of detectives?” Joshua tried to keep the cocky tone out of his voice when he asked Sheriff Sawyer why the sheriff requested Joshua accompany him to interview Margo Connor and her lawyer instead of Seth Cavanaugh.

“Would you believe he quit?” Curt answered from the driver’s seat of his cruiser. “The jerk didn’t even give me two weeks’ notice.”

He turned off Route 8 into Margo Connor’s subdivision. The former farm had been split up into two- to four-acre lots containing luxury homes for Chester’s wealthiest citizens.

“He quit?” Joshua shook his head. “Must have been because he knew he was fired.”

“Maybe. He came in with that stupid smirk of his and announced that he got a literary agent who got him a big advance to write a book about the Parkersburg murders. He’s even got a movie deal, too! Go figure. The guy is an idiot.”

Joshua laughed at the sheriff’s disbelief in the turn of events before asking, “Did Seth ever tell you what he was talking to Margo about at the courthouse?”

“He claimed that he was questioning her about Heather and Billy.”

“I don’t believe that,” Joshua said. “She never would have given him the time of day without her lawyer being there. Besides, you didn’t see him. He looked scared.”

“Margo Connor is a scary woman,” the sheriff quipped.

“Tad swears that Seth was trying to steal that material that put Billy Unger at the scene when Grace was killed. Why was he trying to steal it? Seth wasn’t going to profit from Billy getting off . . . unless he was on the take. Suppose he was trying to steal that evidence for Margo so her little girl’s boyfriend would not go to jail. Then, when he failed to get it, he had to go to the courthouse to face Margo, which would have made her unhappy, and an unhappy Margo is ugly enough to scare anyone.”

“I think you’re right,” Curt grumbled. “Hockenberry says that according to his sources, Cavanaugh was living beyond what Hancock County had been paying him. Only problem is that we can’t find any definite proof, and he left town faster than a bat out of hell after your hearing in Weirton.”

“He can run,” Joshua said, “but he can’t hide.”

As expected, Margo had her lawyer lying in wait when they arrived to question her about her ex-husband’s arrest and her e-mail to Sally Powell extorting her into making a false statement against Joshua.

Since Margo’s name was connected to Gail’s and Tricia’s murders, they found it not surprising that she refused to speak to them without her lawyer being present. Her name was even a dot in Rex Rollins’ murder. Joshua had not forgotten that she was Rex’s former boss and that her lawyer was defending him.

Joshua had determined after speaking to Liz Yates and other witnesses who saw the scene with Gail at the restaurant that Margo Sweeney Boyd Connor did have something to hide. However, they couldn’t figure out what it was since her ex-husband had reluctantly admitted to being her alibi at the time of Tricia’s murder.

Christine Watson immediately went on the defensive for her client. “Why are you here harassing my client about these murders that you have been so inept at solving?”

“That is what we are working on,” Joshua responded. “Interrogation is part of investigation. Your client is connected to these murders in one way or another.”

“I resent that!” Margo snapped.

“The e-mail to Sally Powell threatening to reveal her affair was traced to you. I’m sure it will only be a matter of time before the five thousand dollars she received can also be traced back to you.”

She scoffed, “Wanna bet?”

“My client’s computer is on all day long. She is in and out of her office,” Christine responded as she had to the special prosecutor. “Anyone could have sent that e-mail from her account.”

Her client rolled her eyes. “Why don’t you do something useful and go arrest a real criminal? Why haven’t you arrested Hilda Ferguson?”

“Hilda Ferguson?” Joshua asked.

“The sticky-fingered maid my client fired,” Christine explained. “She stole a ring from her over a month ago. It was a two-carat ruby ring with a carat of diamonds. I filed a report with the police on her behalf.” She turned back to Curt. “Why didn’t you arrest her?”

“Because Hilda says she didn’t steal it and you have no proof that she did.”

“Mom, what is going on here?” Heather came into the living room.

She was dressed in the latest fashion for her generation. Joshua, who was conscious of how much money his children spent on clothes, knew that a lot of expense went into Heather’s ensemble, which was a duplication of something she had seen on MTV. Her skintight top had a plunging neckline that revealed her overflowing bosoms. The midriff top stopped at the waist to reveal a bulging tattooed stomach and wide hips.

The teenager greeted everyone, including her mother, with scorn. “Mom, what is he doing here?” She spat out the words in Joshua’s direction.

“They’ll be leaving in a few minutes,” their lawyer answered with equal distaste. “They have questions about your father killing that reporter. They have the mistaken idea that your mother was involved.”

“Tell him to go to hell.” Heather turned to the county prosecutor. “Go to hell.”

She went into the kitchen and returned with a can of beer. When she opened it to take a drink, Curt took it out of her hand with a glare before giving her mother a look of surprise that she had let her daughter do such a thing. He then looked at Joshua, who was equally astounded by the action and lack of reaction from her mother.

“It’s okay, Baby. They’ll be gone soon.” Margo turned to Joshua. “Can’t you see that you’re upsetting my daughter? It is all over the TV about her idiot father getting himself arrested for murder and all her friends know. Isn’t that humiliating enough?”

“Aw, forget it,” Heather went to the door. “I’m going to meet Nicki.”

“When will you be home?” Margo tried to take her hand to fake a picture of closeness.

“Whenever I feel like it.” When she sneered at her mother on her way out the door, Joshua noted the family resemblance.

“You get what you put out,” he quoted his grandmother to Curt, who was still surprised by what he saw in some of the juveniles he encountered.

Under the watchful eyes of Margo and her lawyer, the two men had paused to talk inside the cruiser before turning on the engine and leaving.

“Ever since I first knew her, Margo was self-centered,” Joshua recalled. “Her mother used to be the vice-president at the bank and the power of that went to her head. It should not be surprising that Heather inherited their attitude. She doesn’t care one lick that her father is in jail, as long as it doesn’t put a kink in her social schedule. She would probably act the same way if Margo was in the cell next to him.”

“She doesn’t seem too concerned about Billy skipping town, either,” Curt observed. “Maybe because he’s not really gone. I’d bet money she knows where Billy is hiding.”

“Maybe. But I can’t see Heather getting attached to anyone enough to cry more than ten minutes after they were gone.”

Curt pointed out, “We haven’t really looked at Margo as a suspect in Gail’s murder. Seth immediately focused on you, and then Karl surfaced.”

“I don’t think Karl did it. As much as I hate to admit it, I believe him that he found her dead when he went in after I left.”

“But then that would leave you as our prime suspect.”

“Jan found the front door unlocked and open when she went there three days later. I made a point of locking the door and Karl said that that was why he went around the house and came in the back door. It was dark. He was unfamiliar with the house. Imagine him stumbling around outside looking for a way in. That can take time.”

Curt saw where he was leading. “Enough time for someone already in the house to smother a drunken woman.”

“Then the killer simply hid in the dark and waited for Karl to go out the back door before escaping out the front.” Joshua concluded, “Knowing that Randy had a lot to lose and money to pay to keep up appearances, Karl lied about killing her, threatened to implicate him if he was caught, and requested cash for his silence.”

The prosecutor turned his head to where the women were studying them through the living-room window. He thought they should leave, but knew that it bothered them more the longer they hung around. “Can you see that woman, already being a suspect for killing Tricia, plus having a scene in public threatening Gail, taking the chance to go into her house and killing her herself?” Aware of being watched, Joshua shook his head slightly. “She’s too smart and loves money too much to take a chance like that. She’s more likely to sic her lawyer on her.”

“Unless Gail had something so bad on her that she couldn’t take the chance of losing a lawsuit and having Gail reveal it anyway,” Curt said with a shake of his own head. “Don’t give Margo more credit than she’s due. She may be smart, but she’s not that smart. I heard through the grapevine that she paid Herb Duncan twenty-five thousand dollars for his dump. Had you seen his place? He and Blanche lived in a secondhand trailer on a one-acre lot in Birch Hollow. I wouldn’t have given him twenty-five cents for it, but Margo paid him twenty-five thousand dollars. I heard that they are moving into a brand-new three-bedroom, two-and-a-half bath in Connor Estates.”

“Herb Duncan?” Joshua recalled seeing him drive past his house. “Didn’t he just buy a new truck?”

“Yeah, he did. He’s real young, about twenty-two or so. When I was his age, I was living in a Marine barrack.”

Joshua’s mind was churning with possibilities.

Seeing the wheels spinning in his head, Curt leaned toward him. “What are you thinking?”

Joshua muttered more to himself than the sheriff, “She could know something that the rest of us don’t know. Like that a big highway development is interested in the property, or maybe even a mall or professional development is looking at the place. Even so, it would be more prudent to offer to buy the property for its worth or even less.”

Curt nodded his head in agreement.

Joshua was studying the women peering out at them while he recalled Tad’s question upon seeing Herb’s new truck, “What has Herb Duncan gotten himself into?”

“He got himself a job working for Margo’s construction company. She hired him as foreman.”

“Foreman? Wasn’t Rex Rollins a foreman?”

“Until he got fired.”

“Exactly when did she hire Herb?”                                                             

“A few weeks ago.” Curt grinned as it occurred to him, “It was the same week I heard about her offering him all that for his trailer and lot. A lot of people were surprised because there were at least two other guys, with seniority, who were certain they were going to get the job.” He started the engine. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“I’m thinking I’m going to have to get me a warrant,” Joshua’s accent slipped from that of the sophisticated lawyer, “for Margo’s financial records.”