by Tonya Kappes
“I also know that you were talking to Avon Meyers. Is that why you’re here?” I had already written in my notebook to be sure to see him about their relationship.
Without me saying anything, Finn got up and rotated both boards around so they weren’t visible to the public. We didn’t know Sebastian. Maybe he knew something, maybe he even knew who did it, and we didn’t want any information we had leaking out.
“That’s why I’m here,” he said.
It looked like I was going to be late to Euchre. And so was Betty Murphy. She leaned in, peeling an ear to pick up any juicy tidbits. Her curiosity was one of her greatest vices.
“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked him. He shook his head. “Then why don’t you have a seat.” I turned my chin over my left shoulder. “Betty, please dictate.”
While we all got a little more comfortable, Wally exited the bathroom drying his hands with a paper towel. He looked up with a bit of a surprise on his face when he noticed the young man at my desk and everyone was back to business.
“I’ll see you tomorrow.” Was Finn’s polite way of telling Wally goodbye. Plus, Finn holding the door open wasn’t exactly a subtle gesture.
“I’ll have everything ready.” Wally gave everyone one last look before he left.
I’d seen him do this before in legal situations. Wally would make a mental note of everyone and everything going on in a room. When he left the room, he’d quickly jot down everything he could remember. It was a defense he liked to use in court with his clients. Details, details, and more details. He confused the jury more than clarified for them. He used all of the details to his advantage to prove that there still might be reasonable doubt that his client is innocent.
The top drawer of my desk held the mini-tape recorder. I opened the drawer and put a new tape in before I hit the record button, placing it at the edge of my desk.
“Please state your name and the date.” I began taking notes and could hear Betty typing as he answered my questions. There was nothing I wanted to miss. It was actually the first person who’d come forward that wanted to talk about it. Generally I had to hunt people down.
“Why are you here today?” I asked.
“I wanted to come by and tell you something I’d seen because I think it has to do with Avon’s murder.” His brows furrowed.
“What is that?” I asked.
Betty’s chair creaked. I could imagine her really leaning forward to hear well. Not for the sake of the job, but for the gossip, which she would need to be reminded was all confidential.
“I worked with Avon. Not really worked with her, but I work as an EMT for Cottonwood and the rehab center. So we would see each other from time to time.” He leaned forward, placing his elbows on his thighs, his hands clasped in front of him. “She had been going on some dates with this guy. She told me he liked nature and outdoor things. I had to work the early shift one morning. We had a kid from the high school football team brought in to the rehab for a quick x-ray because he tore his ACL.”
“Which kid?” Finn asked.
I shot him a glare.
“Sorry. It’s just they are supposed to be good again this year and if he’s a big asset to the team, it could change it all.” Finn shrugged.
“You two can talk about that in a minute.” I turned back to Sebastian. “You transported the kid to the rehab. Go on.”
It wasn’t unusual for the rehab to have an EMT squad run since it was a huge facility that did take emergencies on most orthopedics and did the surgeries there. Even the overnight beds, where Woody had stayed, wasn’t uncommon so they could get the physical therapy they needed.
“She wasn’t there yet. Which was really unusual. She would typically be there early drinking coffee and eating some pastries from the Sweet Shop.”
I wrote down the Sweet Shop on my list of stops for the case in my notebook.
“When I finished the paperwork from the kid, I asked Reagan where Avon was.” He stopped when I held up a hand.
“Reagan Quinlan, the nurse manager?” I asked to clarify since I already had her listed as a suspect.
“I don’t know her last name but she’s the manager,” he confirmed. “She said that she didn’t care because this was Avon’s third write up which meant she was fired.”
A pin-drop silence fell across the room as his words crawled out of his mouth.
“Reagan told you this?” I confirmed. It was a bit odd for a professional manager to react in such a way.
“Yes.” He nodded.
“You know that I’m going to need to confirm this with her.” I let him know up front in case he was unaware that that was how investigations went.
“If it brings Avon’s killer to justice, I’m fine with it. Avon is...” he looked down at his hands, “was a very good person. She was honest, kind, and caring not only to her patients but all the people she worked with.”
“Other than Reagan,” Betty’s sarcasm was apparent in her voice.
“Yeah. They had a really bad relationship. It seemed like all of Avon’s relationships were strained and I wasn’t sure why.” He let out a grunt noise that made me believe he was going to say something else but stopped himself.
“How well did you know Avon Meyers?” I asked.
“Just working with her. That’s all, but she was easy to talk to and get to know. I hate that someone did this to her.” He straightened himself up in the chair.
“Is there anything else you wanted to tell me?” I asked, not forgetting the pause he’d had a few seconds ago.
“No.” He shook his head. “I just don’t know of anyone who didn’t like her other than her manager. That to me is a likely suspect and I told her parents that when I went over there to give my condolences. They are the ones who told me to come tell you what I saw at work and what I’d heard.”
“What do you mean by what you saw?” I asked.
“Just the way Reagan groaned when Avon walked into her line of vision. The scowl on her face like she couldn’t stand the sight of her. It was really odd.” He was looking off into the distance as if he were playing the images in his mind. “But that’s all I know. I hope this won’t hurt my job because I need it, but I just had to come forward.”
“I appreciate you coming in tonight.” I put the pen down and sat back in my chair, folding my hands over my stomach. “I’ll be sure to follow up on all this. But in the meantime, if you remember anything else, please come back. You did the right thing. Any information, no matter how small or big, is always information that can lead to an arrest.”
“Yeah, man.” Finn got out of his chair. “Like you, her parents and we want this to be brought to a quick close. Avon deserves that. You did the right thing.”
Finn put his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder and they shook hands with the free hand. Finn guided him out the door. I overheard him say, “Tell me about that kid you brought in.”
Betty and I looked at each other.
“Men.” She shook her head. “Let’s get to Euchre. Better late than never.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to be a little later.” My eyes narrowed on the back sides of the Moss’s burglary white board. As though I had x-ray vision, I could see one bold name.
I know what Sebastian had said about Avon’s relationship with the nurse manager, but there were two crimes in Cottonwood less than twenty-four hours apart and only one common denominator.
Rich Moss.
Chapter Twelve
The days were getting longer, which made it feel like it was earlier than it really was. The burnt orange sun was touching the tops of the trees and the shadows of the last bit of rays splayed across the pavement in front of the Jeep as I made my way over to see Lenora Moss.
Technically, I didn’t want to see her, I wanted to see if she’d let me go through Rich’s things. Or better yet, talk to
Rich myself since I’d yet to tell him that I wanted to interview him. My plan was to see what he was willing to admit to and compare notes after I’d gone to the sheriff’s department in Clay’s Ferry in the morning.
The clothesline on the side of Lenora’s house had freshly cleaned linens secured with wooden clothes pins. The pieces swayed back and forth as the light breeze circled around them. There was a certain fresh smell to line dried clothes and no matter how hard a detergent company tried, they’d never get that smell. It was so strong, the clean scent floated through the open windows of the Wagoneer when I put it in park at the front of the curb nearest to that side of the house.
There didn’t seem to be any other cars besides Lenora’s tucked into the carport that was attached to the small house. There was a light on in the window in the front of the house. If I recalled correctly, it was where the family room was located, but we’d spent most of our time in the bedroom where the burglary had taken place.
“You stay here,” I instructed Duke.
He groaned, leaning his body against the passenger seat, and resting his chin on the sill of the open window.
Once I got up to the front door, I glanced back at him. His eyes were closed, and the last bit of the day’s sunshine was beating down on his snout. He loved resting in the sun.
The doorbell was lit up on the side of the door. When I pushed it, I heard a faint ding-dong on the other side of the door followed up by some footsteps. When the footsteps stopped, I took a step back from the door to let Lenora see it was me when she peeled the curtain back from the window and peered out.
“Sheriff, come on in.” She’d opened the door and extended her arm to open the screen door as far as she could.
“I didn’t catch you at a bad time, did I?” I asked.
“No, no.” The dark circles under her eyes told me she was just being polite. “I’m in here trying to figure out these bills. Woody did all the payments and I’m not even sure how much is in our checking account or anything.” She waved me in.
When I took a step inside, I noticed her body tensed as she glanced around before stepping back inside of the house.
“I’m hoping you found the cuff links because we sure could use the money.” The edges of her eyes dipped with concern. The TV was playing the local news in the corner of the room, but the sound was down. All sorts of papers were spread across the coffee-table and a few had fallen on the floor. There was a calculator next to a pad of paper with some sort of math scribbled on it.
“I’m sorry. I have Deputy Lee checking out all the pawn shops around here and surrounding counties. It would be helpful if you had a photo of Woody wearing them to take with me,” I suggested.
“I’m not sure I have anything, but I’ll go check.” She took off towards the hallway but turned back around. “Don’t mind all that. Just sit down and make yourself at home.”
Though Lenora had said something about the checkbook and their finances, plus the fact that it wasn’t my business, I still couldn’t keep myself from looking. It wasn’t nosey if the papers were right there in front of me.
I leaned over the table and noticed court records without even trying to figure out what they were. I was very familiar with them, only it had a Clay’s Ferry seal on top. The name typed on the papers was “Rich Moss.”
It was his early release paperwork. Next to that was the piece of paper where Lenora’d done a little math. After it was all totaled up, she’d put a big circle around “twenty thousand.” Was that dollars? Did they owe that much, and she was trying to figure out how to pay it? Or was that what she had in the bank? Why was Rich’s paperwork lumped into her financial paperwork?
The tip-top of the Cottonwood First National’s letterhead, our local bank, was peeking out from another stack of papers. I barely slid it out to see if I could see what it was. Maybe their statement or their house payment. There was a big red stamp on the top right corner that said it was paid in full.
I looked around and kept my ears and eyes open so I could hear or see if Lenora was coming back before I pulled the bank statement out from under the stack to get a good look at it.
It was a mortgage pay off on their house from two years ago. It seemed like Woody had left Lenora a paid-off house, which was pretty great. So why all the paperwork and what did the twenty thousand mean?
The shuffling of feet on carpet was coming closer. I stuffed the paper back under the stack and quickly sat down in a chair next to the couch.
“I couldn’t find one, but I’ll be sure to keep looking.” She shook her head. “I don’t know where my manners are, but would you like a cup of coffee?”
“No thank you, I’m good.” I watched her ease back down into the couch with that same worried look on her face.
“Lenora, are you in financial trouble?” Her body language shifted to stiff. “I hate to ask, but you said that ‘we could use the money’. Who is ‘we’?”
“Me. I mean,” she hesitated and reached over to the paperwork, flipping some of the papers over. “I don’t work and I need to know my money.”
I could tell she wasn’t going to tell me anything.
“I came here to ask you more about the burglary. Specifically, about your grandson Rich.” There was an audible inhale through her nose when I said his name. More a sound of frustration than regular breathing. “I understand he was let out of jail on good behavior for a theft crime.”
“You think he stole Woody’s cuff links?” Her brows lifted in the air. “He didn’t.”
“It was my understanding that Woody had changed his will and had taken Rich out of it.” I paused to see if she was going to say anything.
It was the pregnant pause tactic that we were taught in the police academy to use when we wanted to get information out of someone. Just a few seconds without talking when questioning someone made them uncomfortable and forced them to say things.
In Lenora’s case, it wasn’t working. She sat tight lipped, hands rested in her lap. Cool as a cucumber.
“When I was at Woody’s funeral, I couldn’t help but overhear Rich threatening a young woman.” My words caused her to look up at me. “That young woman was Avon Meyers, Woody’s physical therapist.”
Lenora’s eyes grew big. Her throat moved up and down as though she was swallowing words back.
“Avon Meyers was killed this morning. She was found at Rock Fence Park with a gunshot wound.” Without actually coming out and accusing Rich, I danced around the fact that he had a connection to both crimes. “In my line of duty, when there are a couple of crimes committed around the same time as each other, and someone is linked to both, I have to take a serious look at that person.” I eased up on the edge of the chair. I wanted her to hear me loud and clear. “I’m not saying Rich did anything wrong. I’m saying that it is odd that I had seen him at the funeral home arguing with a young woman. He leaves the funeral home before it’s over. We come back here and your husband’s expensive cuff links that were willed to Rich had been stolen—the only thing stolen.”
Her body language told me she was uncomfortable with where this was going. Her mouth continued to swallow and her eyes shifted around the room. Her toes barely tapped the floor.
“The young lady he argued with just so happened to turn up dead. Is this all a coincidence? Maybe. But in my line of work, that’s rare.” My voice turned soft and caring, “I came here in hopes you’d let me look into his things since he’s staying with you.”
“He’s gone.” Her words were to the point.
“What do you mean by gone?” I asked.
“He’s left town already.” She wrung her hands in front of her.
“Where did he go?” I asked her.
“I don’t know. But I do know that he didn’t kill that girl.” She didn’t quiver when she said that. “He was with me all night until this morning.”
“Wh
at time did he leave you this morning?” I wanted to check the time with the timeline Max Bogus came up with, which reminded me that I’d yet to hear from him with that information.
“He left around four thirty.” She stood up. “If you don’t mind, I’m tired. Please let me know when you find the cuff links.”
This was my cue that she was done.
“Lenora, please, let me know if you remember anything about Avon’s interaction with Rich at the Cottonwood Acres Rehabilitation Center. I’m trying to help her family cope with their loss like your loss. I’m doing everything I can to find Woody’s cuff links.” My words were only words to her, but I meant all of them.
“Don’t worry about the mule going blind, Kenni Bug.” Poppa gave a good hard stare at Lenora. “Just load the wagon.” He repeated, “just load the wagon.”
In Poppa speak, he was telling me to not to worry about what Lenora was keeping from me. Collect the clues and they’d all fall into place. That was exactly what I was going to do. Load the wagon.
Chapter Thirteen
My eyes focused on the spot in Rock Fence Park where Avon was found as I drove past, very slowly, on my way to Tibbie’s house. The thought crossed my mind that at this time yesterday, the likeable, vibrant girl full of life and adored by many was living her life, only to be killed in less than ten hours later.
The first forty-eight hours of a homicide was crucial to finding the killer. In an elected position like sheriff, it was very important in a small town like Cottonwood to get the crime solved and killer brought to justice if I wanted to be reelected. Learning the timeline of her death was crucial.
Here, people were connected to each other on various levels. Someone had to know Reagan Quinlan well enough to know why she didn’t like one of her physical therapists. I needed to find out more about her.
That was something I was definitely planning to do in the morning. I pulled the Wagoneer in front of Tibbie’s house on the Town Branch and could see in the windows that everyone was still gathered in the room on the left, which was were Tibbie kept the food.
