A Reunion to Die For (A Joshua Thornton Mystery) (22 page)

Joshua Thornton and Sheriff Curt Sawyer lost no time in jumping into action when Tad told him that Nicki Samuels admitted that Heather had the murder weapon and that she, not Heather, was with Billy when Grace Henderson was killed.

Since Grace told Nicki, who told Heather, that Billy said he was going to marry her, Heather had motive for killing Grace. Heather also lost her alibi when Nicki confessed that she was with Billy at the time of the murder.

Even though Joshua was still nagged by doubt over the problem of Heather not fitting the description of the shooter, they had enough for an arrest warrant. Her arrest might be catalyst enough to get things sorted out.

It was like a relay race.

Joshua had run down the stairs from the third-floor judge’s chambers with the warrant to hand to Sheriff Sawyer through the passenger window of his cruiser in which he had waited with the engine running, ready to speed to the Connor home to pick up Heather as soon as she got home from school, only to find her not there.

Upon learning that her daughter had not been in school that day, Margo turned on the sheriff. “My baby is missing! Aren’t you going to do something?”

“Three people are dead,” the sheriff told the angry mother. “We have a witness who saw her with the murder weapon. The witness says Heather threatened her with it.”

The realization that her daughter was going to be arrested for murder hit her. “Joshua Thornton is using his job as prosecutor against me. He arrested my ex-husband. He’s been insinuating that I killed Tricia Wheeler. Now he’s trying to railroad my daughter into jail.”

“Heather has been missing for ten hours and she is armed,” Curt reminded her. “Do you know where she was Friday night?”

“She was out at a concert with her friends.”

“When did she come home?”

“Sunday night.”

The sheriff was doubtful. “She went out Friday night and you didn’t see her again until Sunday night?”

“She went to a party,” she replied as if that were enough of an explanation.

“When was the last time she saw Billy?”

“I have no idea. He called here Saturday morning.”

Margo did not notice his head snap up at her claim that Billy called on Saturday morning when he had died Friday night. “Are you sure of that?”

“Of course, I am,” she said. “He woke me up at I don’t know what time. He told me to tell Heather that Plan A was in effect and to come over as soon as possible.”

“What is Plan A?”

“I have no idea.”

“Did you ask Heather?”

“I don’t interfere in her business. I gave her the message last night after she woke up. She had had a long weekend and she bitched at me for not giving her the message when she got home. Anything else?” She dared him to ask another question.

He took the dare. “Do you know where she could have gone?”

“Even if I knew, I wouldn’t tell you. I’m calling my lawyer now. Get out.”

Margo left it up to the maid to show him out of her home while she called her lawyer to start spinning the defense that the county prosecutor had framed Heather for murder.

Curt was in his patrol car making a note that Margo neglected to ask the names of the murder victims when he got the call on his cell phone that Joshua Thornton had another warrant.

This one was to pick up Phyllis Barlow Rollins for Gail Reynolds’s murder.

Chapter Eighteen

Phyllis Barlow Rollins didn’t resist when the deputies swooped into Rollins Corner Café to take the grinder and samples of her coffee stock in for evidence and her into custody. Her only display of emotion was for her brother, who watched the arrest with confusion and anxiety.

Well aware of Doug’s fragile condition, Tad was waiting at the sheriff’s office to take care of him during their interrogation.

She was only being taken in for questioning.

Until the lab analyzed the samples of her coffee to determine that the dust found on Gail’s pillowcase came from Rollins Corner Café, they had no proof that she killed her. Even if the coffee was found to come from there, her lawyer could argue that anyone who bought coffee from the café could have committed the murder—even Tad, who was a regular customer.

The circumstance of the evidence was damning. Lou Alcott attempted to kill Tad after he had lunch at the diner. Gail had dinner there shortly before she was killed. If the coffee grounds from the handprint found on the pillow came from the café, a jury would want to know how it got there—if Joshua could get the case in front of a jury.

The county prosecutor didn’t have any viable motive for Phyllis Rollins to kill Gail Reynolds. The only motive he had come up with in his investigation was that she was angry with Tricia Wheeler for rejecting her brother six months before she was killed.

Could Phyllis have killed Tricia for that reason and then killed Gail so she would not discover her crime? There was no evidence that the writer even suspected Phyllis.

So far, he didn’t have a case. Ideally, she would make it easy for him and confess.

The courier had delivered the accounting autopsy of Margo Connor’s business dealings from the forensics expert to his office when Joshua was leaving to cross the back parking lot to the police department. He tossed the report into his briefcase and rushed out the door and arrived in time to see Phyllis climb out of the back of the cruiser. Two deputies escorted her inside.

“She waived her rights for a lawyer,” Curt told him. “Tori Brody was her lawyer.”

“I don’t care. Don’t let anyone talk to her until the public defender gets here,” Joshua said. “The way the courts are going, anything she says won’t be worth the paper it’s written on unless she has a lawyer present.”

As lost as a lamb in a wolf’s den, Doug Barlow, his ball cap pulled down over his head, wandered into the sheriff’s department. The deputies had ushered his sister into the interrogation room. One deputy pushed him back and closed the door when he tried to follow them inside.

Doug took off his cap like his mother would order him to do when he was inside, and sat in the straight-back chair outside the room where Phyllis waited for the public defender.

“Doug?” Tad feigned surprise when he came out of Curt’s office and crossed to where Doug sat. He pulled up a chair and sat next to him. “How are you doing?”

Nervously, Doug nodded and grinned for his answer. Tad was always nice to him. He looked beyond the doctor to the closed door.

“I haven’t seen you in a while.” Tad shifted to distract Doug from what was happening inside the room. He grabbed his hands in which he twisted the ball cap. “You got a new hat?” He noticed the lettering on the front.

Doug grinned.

“Let me see.”

He put the cap on his head. It was dark blue with gold lettering that read “Dell Appliance.” Doug said proudly, “Lou gave it to me.”

“Lou who?”

“Phyllis’s boyfriend. Lou Alcott. They gave him this from work, and he gave it to me.”

Tad grinned broadly. “Lou Alcott was Phyllis’s boyfriend?”

Doug’s smile faded. “Yeah, but he died. Phyllis said these things happen, but I still feel sad. I liked him. He was real nice, like you. He said he loved Phyllis just like I loved Trish.”

Tad was about to ask how much Lou loved her when there was a commotion at the door leading into the hallway.

Joshua came in with a white-haired woman dressed in an overcoat over a suit the color of which was faded with age.

A chain smoker, Ruth Majors dared anyone to tell her that she wasn’t allowed to smoke in the courthouse. No one did. She had been the public defender in Hancock County for over forty years.

Joshua hated to admit he was afraid of her. Ruth was a good eight inches shorter than he was, but her inner strength made her appear to be as big as he was.

Even before the defender had spoken to her client, they were arguing the case while they crossed the sheriff’s reception area to the interrogation room.

“Bullshit!” Ruth waved her cigarette. “So she sold coffee to the victim right before she died. Unless you found poison in that coffee, you have nothing!”

“Coffee grounds were on the killer’s hand. We also picked up epidermal samples and sweat on the pillowcase. If that matches with your client—”

Tad stood up next to him to await a break in the argument.

“If is a big word, Counselor!”

“Josh?” Tad interjected.

“You have nothing,” Ruth said, ignoring the doctor’s presence. “My client sold the victim a bag of coffee and that is all that I’m going to tell her to say.” She stuck the end of her cigarette between her lips, which were lined with wrinkles and void of lipstick, went into the room, and slammed the door in their faces.

Exhausted from the battle with the diminutive defender, the prosecutor sighed and turned to his cousin. “Do you want something?”

Tad indicated Doug, who was still sitting in the chair with the cap on his head. “Look at Doug’s new cap.”

Annoyed to be bothered with something so trivial, Joshua looked at his suspect’s brother, who, proud to be wearing a cap the doctor considered to be special, grinned up at him. The prosecutor forced himself to be kind in the midst of the disintegrating murder case. After all, Doug was a victim in it all. “That’s a nice cap.”

“Isn’t it?” Seeing that he did not get it, Tad added, “Phyllis’s boyfriend, Lou Alcott, gave it to him.”

Joshua’s forced smile faded, and then reappeared with sincerity when he realized the significance of the relationship. “Really?” He looked at Tad to confirm he heard him correctly.

Tad nodded.

Joshua’s smile broadened.

Ruth didn’t confer with her client, she argued—for almost an hour. Sometimes their loud voices seeped through the thin walls of the interrogation room in the building packed with the county’s offices, courtrooms, and jail cells on the third floor. In wealthier counties the offices would have been spread over three buildings.

Joshua and Curt used the hour to the best of their advantage. The case came together in their minds. Now, they needed proof to back it up. They had no doubt that Ruth would not let her client confess, so they had to prove Phyllis killed Gail.

Playing friend and confidante, Tad continued to talk to Doug while Curt and Joshua rushed to get their evidence.

Curt called his witnesses at the State Line Lounge to see if Lou was there the night Rex was killed. Phyllis never went into bars. She would have been noticed if she was anywhere near the scene of the murder.

Recalling that both Gail’s and Rex’s murders happened at approximately the same time, they theorized that Phyllis was smothering Gail while her lover was shooting her estranged husband.

Lou could have killed Rex for one or both of two reasons. Rex was abusing the woman Lou loved and/or to keep his lover’s soon-to-be ex-husband from exposing that Phyllis had killed Tricia.

Perhaps Lou tried to kill Tad because he was afraid the medical examiner would prove Phyllis killed the author who was writing a book about Tricia’s murder. Tad had announced at the café that he was going to find the killer to clear Joshua of the murder allegations.

It was all theory and had yet to be proven.

Within the hour, Curt hung up the phone with a sigh. He had spoken to the last witness he was able to reach. “Lou Alcott was not at the State Line the night Rex was killed.”

“Maybe he didn’t go in,” Joshua said, half paying attention while he scanned the forensics report on Margo Connor’s finances, more out of curiosity than anything else. If their theory proved to be correct, he would not need the report. All the murders would be tied to Phyllis trying to cover up her murder of Tricia.

He did not see Curt shaking his head. “Nope. Alcott drove a ninety-two black Ford pickup. No one saw it in the parking lot. They saw a red and green ninety-two Ford truck, but not a black one. That belonged to Herb Duncan, one of the regulars at the State Line.”

“Who just got a new truck, sold his broken-down trailer for a nice bundle, and is now Margo Connor’s foreman.” Joshua jumped out of his seat when he read an interesting point on the report. The connection was made in stereo.

Before everything could register, Ruth opened Sheriff Sawyer’s office door without knocking. She was not smiling, but that didn’t mean anything when it came to her.

“All right, guys. Start your camcorders.”

“Is Ms. Rollins ready to make a statement?” Joshua asked.

“Not a statement. A confession.”

Joshua and Curt exchanged double takes before looking back at the defender, who stood in the doorway without any sign of amusement.

“You’re kidding.” The prosecutor had to stop himself from revealing that they didn’t have any real evidence yet. The forensics report had not come back from the lab.

Ruth’s response was, “Merry Christmas.”

“That’s right. I killed Gail Reynolds,” Phyllis Rollins announced in the interrogation room with her lawyer at her elbow.

Still stunned by how easy the suspect was making things, Curt and Joshua sat across the table from her.

During her confession, Phyllis would stop and look at the video camera in the corner of the cramped room, along with the tape recorder in the middle of the table, and the stenographer at Joshua’s elbow making every word she said part of the record.

“Why?” the prosecutor asked her.

“You know.”

“You need to say it for the record.”

“Because she was writing that book about Tricia Wheeler’s murder, and I was afraid she’d find out that I killed Tricia.”

Joshua paused.

Ruth shook her head. It was a gesture of disgust at her client rather than an order for him not to go on with his next question.

“Mrs. Wheeler called me,” Phyllis continued. “She wanted to know if I could remember anything that could help her with the book. She and Gail came into the diner that night and Gail started asking me questions about Tricia again.”

She took a sip of her soft drink before she went on. “Everyone was saying how she had rented that big place out by the state line and so after we closed the diner that night I went out there. I parked in the trees down the road and went to her house through the woods. She didn’t lock her doors, so it was a cinch for me to get in. I saw you and her come in. After you left and she was asleep, I smothered her with the pillow.”

“How did you leave the house?” Joshua asked.

“Through the back door so that you wouldn’t see me in case you weren’t gone yet.”

“Where were you hiding?”

“Her bedroom closet.”

He repeated his question about how she left.

For the first time during the confession, Phyllis betrayed a sense of being perturbed. “I already told you. I went out the back patio doors.”

Joshua moved on to the book and Tricia’s murder. “Did you even think of talking to Gail about the book? Maybe you could have convinced her not to write it.”

Her response was a snicker. “Like she would do me a favor. She was Gail Reynolds, big-time journalist, and I was Ratched Barlow.”

In school, Joshua recalled, Phyllis’s no-nonsense manner and lack of humor had won her the nickname Ratched, after the cruelly humorless nurse in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

He swallowed and went on with his interview. “Tell me about Tricia Wheeler.”

She began with a shrug. She glanced at the video recorder before she started. “She treated us like dirt, so I killed her.”

The silence in the room forced her to continue.

“She didn’t used to. She used to be our friend. Then she became cheerleader and made all these big important friends, and she was too good for us.”

“What happened on the day of the murder?”

“Tricia blew Doug off again. She blew him off for the prom. She told him in November that she’d go with him. Then, two weeks before the prom she said she’d go with Randy Fine, just because he was on the football team. I heard Randy bragging in study hall to his buddies about taking her.”

Phyllis squinted at the prosecutor. “You should have seen Doug when I told him. He wouldn’t believe me. So, he went running over to Tricia’s and told her to tell me that it was a lie, and she said it wasn’t.”

Her face contorted with anger. “She said that it wasn’t her fault. They didn’t really have a date because he never told her for certain they were going.”

Joshua prodded her to go on while she paused to take a sip of her soda. “Did he?”

“She said if he could go, she’d go with him. It wasn’t his fault Mom wouldn’t tell him yes or no about going. Only the night before Mom said he could, but Trish didn’t give him a chance to tell her. She went ahead and accepted Randy’s invitation.” She scoffed, “Like she ever intended to go with him.”

He asked her again, “What happened six months later? On the day you killed her?”

“I didn’t know it was possible for any one man to cry so much. When Tricia went to the prom with Randy, Doug cried for a week solid, without stopping. Then she started going steady with Randy. He couldn’t stand to see the two of them together.”

Joshua leaned across the table at her. “And you?”

“What about me?”

“You say you killed her.”

She sighed and sat up straight. “I love my brother. I hated what she did to him.”

“What happened on the day you killed Tricia?”

“After she broke up with Randy, Doug didn’t let any grass grow under his feet. The little dummy thought he stood a chance with her. But that bitch blew him off again. She let Randy punch him, and then she took Randy back.”

Phyllis sighed again and took another sip of her soda. “I knew she was going to do it. I followed Doug to pick up the pieces but there were so many—he ran away from me. He was so hysterical, I didn’t know if he was going to make it home okay. I kept calling the house, but he wasn’t there. I was crazy with worry.

“When school let out, I went looking for Tricia to talk to her about it. She wouldn’t even talk to me. She completely blew me off. That made me even madder. So I went home and got my father’s old army pistol, and when she got home, I was waiting for her. She tried to blow me off again, so I shot her. I barely remember doing it.”