Jo-Ann Lamon Reccoppa - Jersey Girl 01 - New Math Is Murder (18 page)

The Fitzpatricks complied, and Willy continued the shoot. Claire and Brian huddled together on the stone steps. They looked tired and vulnerable in their cutoff jeans and matching fundraiser T-shirts. I thought my problems were so monumental—Neil, Sara, Bobby, a dead car, and a laughable income occupied my mind day and night. But, compared to Claire and Brian Fitzpatrick’s worries, my troubles were insignificant.

I pulled a pen and pad from my pocketbook and wrote my impressions of them. Willy finished his shots and the couple joined me on the bottom step.

“Ready for some questions?” I asked.

They offered identical, reluctant smiles.

“I promise, they’re easy. We can start with the funds. Approximately how much does Father Egan expect to raise at the carnival?”

“It’s hard to say,” Claire said. “We’re hoping for enough to help with the out-of-pocket expenses and insurance deductibles. There’s a fifty/fifty, donations from the snack stands, the raffles …”

“The SUV?” I asked.

“… and the jacket. A Bon Jovi donation.”

Sara would do a backflip for that jacket.

“Don’t forget the autographed hockey stick,” Brian Fitzpatrick reminded his wife.

“Oh, right! The Devils,” Claire said.

Bobby would do two backflips for that.

“Local businesses donated toys, food baskets, manicures—even a weekend getaway package at that spa place down in Matawan,” Brian added.

I knew he meant The Grand Duchess and wondered if Patrice Milner would ever know the trouble she caused with her romantic getaway packages?

“We’ve already received donations from the Tranquil Harbor police, the volunteer fire department, and the EMTs. Jeff’s school, Woodrow Wilson, held a bake sale and pulled in six hundred dollars for stale cakes,” Claire joked, but the gratitude was evident in her voice.

“I’ll need a little background information,” I told her. “Can you tell me about the accident?”

Claire grimaced. “Hit and run. Can you imagine anyone hitting a kid and driving off like nothing happened? We were told the brake lights flashed briefly before the driver sped off, like Jeff was just some old stray dog—except you’d stop for a dog, wouldn’t you? I know I would!”

“It happens,” Brian said, resigned.

I urged Claire to continue. “There was a witness …”

“An elderly woman saw the whole thing, but it was dark outside, after eight, and her eyesight isn’t the best,” Brian said. “She thought the car was a light color, but she has no idea of the make and model. She said there might have been a Harbor parking sticker in the back window, but it could have been any kind of sticker.”

“Adele Ray,” I recalled from the newspaper accounts. “Seventy-eight years old with cataracts and a heart condition.”

Claire Fitzpatrick glanced at my notes. “Her last name is spelled R–A–Y–E. Like that old-time actress—Martha Raye.”

I added an E.

“The call came from the hospital. Jeff’s school nurse lives on Bay Boulevard, and she ran outside when she heard the sirens. She recognized Jeff right away, thank God. Kids don’t carry identification,” Brian told me.

“Obviously the community rallied around you,” I said.

“Right from the beginning,” Claire continued. “The neighbors babysit the other kids at home, cook, and even help out with the laundry. They drove us back and forth to the hospital every day. Now they chauffeur us to Kessler. Jeff’s leg took the brunt of the impact. He’s walking again. At least he’s walking.”

* * *

Willy’s outstanding picture of Claire and Brian Fitzpatrick ran in the
Crier
the following week. Meredith Mancini axed my proposed headline and came up with the banner:
Fundraiser Eases Financial Burden
—far too understated, in my opinion. Willy and I squeezed inside Meredith’s small cubicle. We congratulated ourselves on a job well done.

“You really should have used my headline,” I told Meredith. “I think it would have added more depth to the piece.”

“
Fitzpatrick Family Fundraiser Financially Favorable
? You’ve got to be kidding! Stick to the stories, Colleen. Let me take care of the headlines.”

Artistically wounded by the comment, I pretended to be enthralled with a tiny piece of lint that clung to my sweatpants as Meredith slid a sheet of copy paper across her desk. “I have two more assignments for you, if you’re interested. Nothing major. Just family-fun-type things.”

“Oh, joy!”

“Not into fun, Colleen?” Willy asked. “Neil problems again?”

“Again? It never ends. He has the gall to claim his business is going under because some developers pulled their account. I don’t have a car anymore, I don’t have a cell phone, and I have the worst paying job on the planet—forgive me, Meredith.”

“Stringers don’t make much money,” my young editor agreed. “What you need is a full-time job—something with benefits, medical coverage, dental, and a good 401K plan.”

“And that’s about as far as it goes here,” Willy complained. “A decent salary doesn’t go hand-in-hand with the benefits. My Jeep is seven years old, and on its last legs.
I
might as well be Neil’s ex.”

Meredith’s words were more sensible. “If you two are looking to get rich, you’re in the wrong business.”

Willy sighed and gently stroked the Nikon swinging from his neck. “We suffer for our art.”

“But the salary isn’t impossible to live on,” Meredith pointed out. “Look at teachers. They manage to exist on fairly modest salaries.”

Teachers. Like Jason Whitley. The question of who killed Jason Whitley always seemed to hang in the air, like a melody stuck in my head that I couldn’t remember the words to.

Breaking the story on Whitley’s killer would not only guarantee more in-depth articles than the usual family-fun stories and restaurant write-ups assigned to me, it might just lead to the resurrection of my column and full-time employment. If nothing else, it would certainly increase my bank balance. I knew I would have to ignore Rhodes and Haver, and anyone else who advised me to stay far away from the Whitley murder. I decided to pursue the story with a vengeance.

I looked over the partition to Rhodes’s office. “Where’s the big man today?”

Meredith shrugged. “He’s been gone since noon.”

“It must be nice to be the boss,” Willy said. “Long, leisurely lunches. No one to answer to. Nothing so pressing that it can’t be postponed …”

I checked the clock over Ken’s office door. “Look at the time! Four thirty already! I have to run.”

Meredith’s eerie sixth sense kicked in. “After all you’ve been through, you’re at it again, aren’t you?”

I folded the paper with my next two assignments and shoved it inside my pocketbook. “No comment,” I answered.

18

Call it a hunch, but Kevin Sheffield and Jennifer Whitley seemed to have a more pressing reason to see Jason Whitley dead than anyone else in town. Jennifer had become increasingly unhappy with Jason, despite her claims that she had grown accustomed to his infidelity. Her reasons for staying with her husband were beginning to sound awfully lame. And Sheffield had been at the high school the night of the library incident. He had both the motive and the opportunity to kill Jennifer’s husband. Their affair had been ongoing. They could have planned the murder together.

I watched the front entrance from my mother’s red Sentra in the teachers’ lot where Jason Whitley met his untimely death, and hoped Sheffield’s vice-principal duties would keep him at the high school long after dismissal.

My hunch turned out to be right. Kevin Sheffield left Harbor Regional just after five o’clock and drove his silver Dodge sedan straight to The Press Box, the cramped, dreary bar across the highway from the
Town Crier
offices.

Normally,
Crier
employees flocked to The Press Box after work, but there were only a few cars in the lot. I parked my mother’s car in the back near the delivery door and crept around to the front of the building. As I trailed Kevin Sheffield, I did my best to look inconspicuous in my oversized sunglasses and my matching
Hanes for Her
neon green sweatpants and top. Unlike Kate, I wasn’t exactly the height of fashion. I looked like a mom who needed to knock back a few gin and tonics to soothe her nerves after a grueling day with the kiddies.

Though dark inside, the bar still had enough light for Sheffield to recognize me. I left my sunglasses on and walked close to the booths. There were only two other men at the bar—the bartender and a young guy in grimy jeans and work boots. I lowered my head and tiptoed past Sheffield, stealth-like, until a hand emerged from the shadows and closed around my wrist.

“Ahhgg!” I shrieked, both surprised and terrified by the unexpected encounter.

Ken Rhodes sat inside the darkened booth. He looked mildly amused by my outburst and let go of my wrist.

The men at the bar turned on their stools and stared. I thought up a clever, Kate-Fleming-like excuse. “I’m sorry. I thought I saw a mouse!”

“You got mice, Vic,” one of the guys told the bartender.

Kevin Sheffield did a double take and recognized me immediately. He dug a few bills out of his pants pocket and tossed them on the bar, then hopped off the stool and bolted out the door.

I turned on Rhodes. “Thanks for blowing my cover. I was trying to follow Kevin Sheffield. He never would have noticed me!”

“In that outfit? Get real, Colleen. Harried housewives don’t stroll into bars wearing sweatpants and bug-eyed sunglasses in the late afternoon. They sit on their own sofas and get quietly plastered at home. Sit down. I want to talk to you.”

“I have to follow Sheffield!”

“You’ve been made, kid. Forget Sheffield. Sit a minute.”

I whipped off my sunglasses and took a long, hard look at the
Crier
’s executive editor. Ken Rhodes dressed like a banker on a bender. His jacket had been cast aside on the seat next to him. His tie was loosened. The sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up to just below his elbows to reveal the coarse, masculine hair on his forearms. He smelled fabulous—a mixture of aftershave and scotch, his favorite refreshment. I thought of Meredith and the other women in their cubicles across the highway. If they could just see me in a bar with Mr. Macho grabbing my wrist and urging me to join him, they’d eat their hearts out. I took my reaction as a sign I was getting over Neil and my disintegrated marriage, and the thought didn’t exactly displease me.

“Oh, okay. I’ll sit!” I relented, like it was the biggest sacrifice I would ever make.

I slid into the other side of the booth.

“Would you like a daiquiri? You look like the daiquiri type.”

I wasn’t a namby-pamby little housewife. I wore bug-eyed sunglasses, after all. “Not on your life. Gin and tonic.
Tanqueray
if you’re paying.”

“
Tanqueray 
? I beg your pardon. Did you skip lunch? You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach.”

“I had half a pack of Twinkies.”

“I see. Would that be an individual package or the family pack?” he inquired.

I had been busted. “The family pack,” I confessed.

“Vic!” Rhodes called to the bartender. “I’ll take another scotch and water, and bring a Tanqueray and tonic for Mata Hari.”

I hunkered down on the bench, glad there was no one around from the newspaper to hear. “Where is everyone? I thought the
Crier
crew heads straight for this place on Friday nights.”

“The youngsters at the
Crier
head down the shore to Belmar for Memorial Day weekend. You were born and raised here. You should know that.”

“I forgot it was Memorial Day weekend, and I haven’t been a youngster for a very long time.”

“No. You only act like one. I told you to drop the whole Whitley thing. And what exactly did you hope to find by following Sheffield again? Another body?”

“I thought he might meet up with Jennifer Whitley. I guess that won’t happen until later tonight. I wanted to know where they go, what they do—stuff like that.”

Vic brought over the drinks and we stopped talking.

“Sheffield isn’t the prime suspect, but you already know that,” Rhodes said when Vic was out of earshot. “Neither is Jennifer Whitley, so don’t waste your time. Your hot red-haired friend, Bevin Thompson, is still at the top of the list.”

Fear and resentment tore through me. Fear for Bevin, who could never kill anyone. Resentment because men always called her hot, while I endured the label of perky. I took a long gulp of my gin and tonic before turning on Rhodes.

“Who said Bev is still the prime suspect?”

“No one told me outright. I just know.”

“How brilliant of you!” I snapped.

“Yeah. That’s me. Brilliant.”

I wasn’t in the mood for Rhodes’s self-deprecating humor. “Bevin’s no killer—regardless of what you and Ron Haver think. Kevin Sheffield had the most compelling reason to want Jason Whitley dead, which is why I followed him here.”

“Your reasoning is flawed. Jilted lovers have been known to kill on occasion. It’s called a crime of passion.”

I took another sip of the gin and tonic. It soared through my circulatory system and my fingers started to tingle. I could have sat in the booth with Rhodes and drunk the night away, but I had a lot to think over and needed to stay conscious. I pushed the drink aside.

“Jason Whitley had several jilted lovers—not just Bev,” I reminded him.

“Bevin Thompson came last.”

“But Jennifer Whitley was also jilted, as was Betty Vernon. Kevin Sheffield and the widow Whitley killed Jason. It fits.”

“Perfect fits can be deceiving. Besides, weren’t you convinced Jennifer Whitley was incapable of murder?”

“Maybe I was wrong. Jason Whitley stayed late at school the night he got himself killed. Whoever murdered him was close to him on a day-to-day basis. Who saw Whitley every single day? His wife did. Who saw him at work? His wife’s lover.”

Rhodes knocked back the rest of his drink and signaled the bartender for another. “Bevin Thompson knew Whitley well enough. She would have known his work schedule. Even the Little League connection is there. Bevin’s kid is on Jay Whitley’s team. How many parallels do you need?”