by Penny Reid
This was how southern folks shunned each other. Pretty soon everyone in town would know that Flo McClure had been rude to sweet, simple Jennifer Sylvester about the death of her father. Not the worst thing Flo had done, but definitely one of the most bizarre. However, the town never shunned Flo for long. As the main dispatch, she was the center of all the county’s legal rumor mill.
If she didn’t like you, she didn’t share her information.
The sound of ruffled feathers abruptly ceased as the door leading back to the main station swung open. Now everyone, even salty Flo McClure, stopped doing whatever they were doing and stopped thinking whatever they were thinking as all eyes, attention, and curiosity rested on the woman revealed.
There she stood, Diane Donner.
Chapter Seven
*Cletus*
“Accept who you are. Unless you're a serial killer.”
Ellen DeGeneres, Seriously... I'm Kidding
I didn’t know I’d been holding out hope until right this minute, that I’d mis-seen or misinterpreted Diane’s presence in the bakery last night, but I guess I had. Hope I was now forced to emancipate from false incarceration and release into the ether.
Looking at her now—her hair, her height, her build and frame—the woman washing blood off her hands had definitely been Diane. I’d studied and memorized the woman at the sink in a way I’d never taken the time to study Diane before. I’d never wanted or needed to. I can’t memorize everyone! That’s a waste of valuable memory nodes.
But now I did, and now I knew for sure.
The sheriff stood on one side and a tall, imposing woman in a suit stood on the other. She looked like a lawyer. You know, learned and poised to argue. Since I’d likely have very few interactions with this woman, I went ahead and looked at her, sizing her up from afar, not caring if I made assumptions about who she was based on her exterior instead of—as was my habit—taking the time to listen, learn, and ask questions first, and then judge.
Of note, and of particular interest to me, Diane no longer wore the red dress she’d donned last night. She wore a pantsuit of navy blue and a white shirt beneath, as close to casual attire as she ever came. At some point she’d changed. Did her red dress have Kip’s blood on it? Or had she simply changed because it was a new day?
Jennifer immediately crossed to her mother. I held back, watching. The sheriff looked unhappy, troubled, and exhausted. The lawyer looked . . . poised to argue. The sheriff and the lawyer shook hands, but Diane did not shake Sheriff James’s hand when offered. She didn’t even look at him. This wasn’t a snub or a rudeness, she simply seemed overwhelmed, in a daze.
When Jenn pulled her into a hug, Diane likewise appeared to be surprised by Jenn’s presence. After a moment’s hesitation, her arms came around her daughter. The lawyer placed a hand on Diane’s back and whispered something into her ear which had her pulling back from Jenn, turning to the sheriff, and shaking his hand.
Then the lawyer and Diane moved toward the exit. Jennifer took a moment to give Sheriff James a hug. He accepted it readily, but his stare remained troubled as it followed Diane’s progress out the door. After a few words were exchanged, Jennifer turned to catch up with her mother, which was my cue to leave.
Catching his eye, I nodded to the sheriff. He nodded in return, his stare inscrutable but sharp. The man then turned and retreated into the station. He’d been right last night to reprimand me for riling up Kip, and I didn’t fault him for it. But I didn’t regret it either. I had my reasons.
Nevertheless, the sheriff was a good man. A conscientious, smart man. Him being good, conscientious, and smart was liable to be a problem. Point was, I had nothing with which to blackmail Sheriff James, and that was an inconvenience.
What about Jessica James’s true paternity? Hmm. There’s a thought. I didn’t like it, but it was a thought, one I’d have to contemplate later.
Tangentially, pushing out the door to follow Jenn, I wondered what it would’ve been like—how different all our lives would’ve been—if my mother had settled down with a man like Jeffrey James, if she’d chosen different, better than Darrell. Someone who couldn’t easily be manipulated or blackmailed because he had nothing to hide.
You wouldn’t be here, for a start.
I placed a hand on Jenn’s back as I drew even with her and caught the tail end of the lawyer’s spiel, “ . . . under no circumstances, you understand?”
Diane nodded, her gaze downcast. “I promise, I will not speak to anyone about last night. And I will not speak to law enforcement—friend or otherwise—at all unless you or one of your associates are present.”
I lifted an eyebrow at this version of Diane Donner. I’d never seen her meek before, not even when she’d been married to Kip. She’d always been in possession of grit, even when Kip had patronized her in public.
The lawyer turned to me and Jenn. “Ms. Sylvester, Mr. Winston, that goes for you too. None of you are to speak to law enforcement, the press, no one. If any of you are brought in for questioning, you call our office immediately. Immediately. Do you understand?”
I endeavored not to take it personally that her voice reminded me of Charlotte Henderson’s when she spoke to her children about not asking for candy at the Piggly Wiggly checkout line. I reckoned, this woman being a lawyer, the tone was an occupational hazard.
Jenn and I nodded dutifully.
“Good. We’ll get time on my calendar this week for us to meet. If at all possible, please don’t discuss the events even with each other. I’d like for each of you to meet with me first before comparing notes. Got it?”
The lawyer, apparently satisfied, retrieved her cell, said her goodbyes while tapping out something on her phone, and dashed to her Audi like she had a hot tip on an underground debate meetup—like a fight club, except all they did was argue.
“Here, Momma. Cletus brought one of the Buicks. Do you want to sit in the front?” Jenn escorted her mother toward my car, and I followed a bit behind, ready to open whichever door Diane picked—except the driver’s side. I wasn’t going to let her drive, not in her state.
“The back, if you don’t mind.”
I moved around the women to make this happen and that’s when, upon opening the back door and moving out of the way so Diane could slide in, I spotted a familiar face watching us, peeking around the corner of the station, still straddling his motorcycle. Though his helmet was on his head and the visor covered his face, I knew he had blond hair and eyes that were just like Jennifer’s.
Isaac Sylvester.
Well, at least he wasn’t skulking around the homestead anymore.
I let my gaze linger, hoping he saw me, and narrowed my eyes in warning. The last thing Jenn or her mother needed right now was Motorcycle Club Ken Doll and his misogynistic hypocrisy using the death of Kip to exhort holier-than-thou bullshit while they tried to grieve . . . assuming grieving was the right word for what Jenn and Diane were trying to do.
Anyway. He must’ve seen me looking and read the threat. In the very next moment, he brought his motorcycle to life and took off. Neither Diane nor Jennifer had seemed to notice his presence. Good.
Diane settled, I opened the passenger door for Jenn and scanned the road, parking lot, and tree line for additional assholes. I found none. That done, we were on our way.
“I know what your lawyer said, but do you want to talk about it? About last night?” It was Jenn who broke the silence, turning around in the front bench seat to face her momma. “Do you, um, want to tell us where you were?”
“No, baby.”
“Are you sure?”
“It's just anything I say right now would come out as complete nonsense.”
I glanced at Diane’s reflection in the rearview mirror and tried not to be bothered by how colorless and drawn she looked. “Please let me know if there’s anything I can do.”
“Be a good man, Cletus.” Diane leaned her elbow along the windowsill, her voice unsteady. “But you're already a goo
d man. So just keeping being you.”
I fought a grimace. I was not acquainted with this version of Diane Donner. She was—to use a technical term—acting super weird. On the one hand, I understood why. But on the other hand, her level and severity of weirdness alarmed me. Was she acting weird simply because Kip was dead and she’d found him and ran from the law? Or was she acting super weird because she’d been the one to kill him?
Hmm. What to do, what to do . . .
If anything would serve as a catalyst for knocking Diane Donner out of her stupor, it was me being high-handed and bossy.
I cleared my throat. “Okay. Well. In that case, let me tell you what I have planned.”
“What you have planned?” Jenn faced me.
“Yes,” I confirmed for Jenn, but then addressed Diane, “We’re driving you home. Then I’ll be making you some tea, and I’m going to put alcohol in it. Not a medicinal amount, just enough to help your muscles ease and help you sleep.”
Diane nodded.
I continued, “I will also be calling your assistant to ensure he has things handled at the lodge and ask him to see about the window repair at the bakery.” I then rattled off various tasks, concerns, suggestions, and opinions, as though using the opportunity of having Ms. Donner trapped in the back seat to bend her ear and explain her own business to her.
Jenn must’ve known or realized what I was doing because she sat quietly, glancing between me and her momma at intervals. As well, throughout my spiel, I examined Diane’s reflection in the rearview mirror, looking for some sign of a spark.
Diane only nodded quietly, her eyes closed.
When I finished, pulling into her driveway, Diane said, “That all sounds fine, Cletus. Thank you,” her subdued tone ringing hollow in the car as I brought us to a stop.
I squirmed in my seat. This is not good.
Jenn glanced at me and I glanced at Jenn and, just like before in the station after Flo McClure’s uncouth comments, I got the sense we were both having the same thought at precisely the same time.
“Cletus, we need to talk.”
I put down the invoices I’d been reconciling and slowly rotated in the office chair to face Drew. He stood in the doorway, attired in his game warden regalia, hat in his hand, and a concerned expression on his face.
I gestured to the chair he often occupied when he visited our small office above the auto shop. Drew dropped by unannounced every so often, usually to meld minds regarding our family’s interests. On rare occasions, he came—and always at my behest—for business purposes, and only when I insisted he bear witness and behold the grandeur of my investment stewardship.
Drew, our initial financial backer for the Winston Brothers Auto Shop, took the “silent” in silent partner to an extreme level. Which is all to say, I hadn’t “behested” him today. Therefore, financials and investment returns were not the purpose of his visit.
“Why are you here?”
His sandy eyebrows ticked up at the question, and he tossed his hat to the top of a filing cabinet. As was his habit, he picked up the chair, turned it, and sat straddling the back of the seat. This was how he always situated himself. He was too big, too tall, too solid to sit in the small folding chair any other way.
“Something is wrong. I’m here to help.”
I steepled my fingers, peering at him over the tips. “I admit nothing, but what is the origin of your supposition?”
“When I show up here unexpected, you always say something like, ‘To what do I owe this great and profound honor?’”
“I’m switching things up. You know I don’t like being predictable.”
“You’re unhappy.”
I breathed in through my nose, considering my future brother-in-law (should he and Ashley ever get off their asses and walk down the damn aisle), and announced my conclusion aloud, “You were sent.”
A small smile, a very small smile, curved his lips, shone from his eyes. “Your family, we’re worried about you. We’re worried about Jenn. We haven’t seen much of y’all, not really, not since . . .”
The engagement party of calamity.
I sighed, rubbing a hand over my face. My family was smart to send Drew, and that was a fact. Drew never had ulterior motives that weren’t based in kindness, and my siblings knew that I knew that they knew that.
“It’s not my family’s fault, they did nothing wrong, if that’s what they’re thinking.” Neither Jenn’s, nor Diane’s, nor my mood had improved over the last several weeks. In fact, Diane’s continued detachment seemed to fuel Jenn’s discontent. Jenn’s discontent fueled my disgruntlement. My disgruntlement fueled absolutely nothing but frustration at Kip Sylvester.
Speaking of the extremely dead Kip, my personal investigation had hit a dead end. No one on the police force was talking to me. Not Jackson, not Boone, not even Evans or Williams. Everyone and everything had been locked up tight. Even Flo McClure’s geyser of gossip had been sealed shut.
And yet gossip abounded in town. It was all rumor and conjecture. Most of what I heard I knew to be false. Karen Smith reportedly had told Bobby Jo Boone that Kip had killed himself in the parking lot of the bakery, having no reason to live if he couldn’t walk Jennifer down the aisle. Another crazy claim had been that Isaac had done his father in as a way to prove allegiance to the Iron Wraiths.
Presently, Drew settled his forearms on the back of the chair, inspecting his hands. “We want to help, if you’ll let us.”
I sighed again, tired enough to admit the truth without preamble, “Drew, if I knew what to do, if I could think of something that would help, I promise, you’d be the first to know.”
“That bad, huh?” Drew appeared to be genuinely alarmed by my admission, as he should be. This was one of maybe three times in my adult life when I hadn’t been able to coerce or extort answers. If anything, his reaction felt understated. He should’ve been panicking.
“Worse,” I grumbled, my unfocused attention moving over his shoulder.
Though I’d tried on several occasions, I couldn’t get Diane to talk. At all. Jenn had been bringing dinner to her mother almost every night, and I attended as often as possible. The shrewd business owner never seemed to be hungry let alone chatty. She’d lost weight. She never smiled. A stark contrast to the vitality she’d freely displayed prior to the party.
Furthermore, Diane had not gone back to work yet. I knew her assistant, a French fella with a penchant for baseball, kept her informed of the day-to-day via email and often drove to her house to obtain signatures on documents. According to the efficient Monsieur Auclair, Diane never answered her phone, never took his calls, but she did respond to email.
I hypothesized this was because the police were watching her and she didn’t want them in Lodge business. They had her under constant surveillance, and this alone caused me no end of consternation. Firstly, townie murders were never given—and I mean never—this kind of attention from law enforcement. I couldn’t think of a single murder in Tennessee or North Carolina where a suspect had been under a similar amount of scrutiny unless it was a federal matter being handled by the FBI.
To what extent the law was watching, I wasn’t yet fully apprised. Recording devices probable due to the van parked on the street; but maybe also cameras pointed at the house? The surveillance agitated Jenn to no end, especially the nondescript van parked on the street and how the stakeout team would wave to her as she drove past.
“Why are they doing this? They can’t think she’s a suspect, can they?” Jenn had asked me after two weeks of passing the van daily. I’d told her the truth in as few words as possible. Yes. Diane was a suspect and left it at that.
What I didn’t say out loud was that, by most accounts, she’d been missing from the barn during the shooting and she’d refused to talk to the police about anything, lawyering up the moment they’d pulled her in that first morning and every time since. It didn’t help that, upon the advice of Diane’s legal team, Jenn and I had also lawyered up
and we weren’t answering any questions either.
Jenn had shut down and anger-baked for three hours after our brief conversation that day.
But back to Diane and her odd behavior. In addition to not returning to work, she ventured out rarely, and I do mean rarely: twice to go grocery shopping, another time to meet with her lawyer, the three times she’d been called in by the police. Then nothing. One week, two weeks, three weeks, she never left the house.
I’d asked her lawyer—during my interview with her firm—whether she’d advised Jenn’s momma to become a shut-in and she’d not answered, instead chuckling like the question had been a joke. She’d met with all of us, one at a time. She took notes but didn’t share any details from other interviews. Obviously, I didn’t tell the lawyer I’d seen Diane and Repo. I gave her the same story I gave Jackson.
But Jenn must’ve told her what I’d said that night about seeing Roger Gangersworth because she asked me about it. I told the lawyer I was no longer sure, and this seemed to ease her mind a great deal. She did not ask me if I saw Diane in the kitchen.
“Jenn’s bridal shower is coming up,” Drew said, pulling me out of my reflections. “Ashley can’t reach Diane. Ash isn’t complaining, and she’s happy to finish the planning on her own, but she doesn’t want to overstep.”
I narrowed my eyes into slits. “Now that you bring it up, why is Ashley involved in planning events for my wedding when she can’t be bothered to plan her own?” I wanted to change the subject, and this particular subject rankled.
Drew’s attention drifted to his hands again, his small smile a little bigger. “Cletus, you’ll have to ask Ashley that. But she has her reasons.”
“Reasons is another word for excuses.”
“Actually, you should ask her. I know she misses you and she’d welcome any contact, even if it’s you giving her a hard time.”
