Killer in the Band

by Lauren Carr

  “Poor Dylan.” Catherine wiped her eyes with a tissue and grasped Harrison’s hand.

  “Then,” Cameron said, “our killer bought time by driving the van across the street and hiding it behind the gas station until she could figure out what to do. When Keith left his guitar behind, she grabbed the guitar and put it in the back of the van while her alibi was in the men’s room. When he returned, she said that Keith had returned to pick it up. After the bar closed and Harrison passed out drunk, she realized that Dixmont, which was remote and supposedly haunted, would be the perfect place to dispose of Dylan’s body. She was right. It was almost twenty years before his body was discovered.”

  His eyes growing wide, Harrison released his wife’s hand and turned to her. His mouth dropped open.

  “Now”—Cameron held up her finger—“she did have one problem. The van. Dixmont was quite a walk from the hotel, and if she left the van there, someone easily could have discovered it shortly after. She had to make it look like Dylan had left. So she simply drove the van to the airport where she parked it in a remote long term parking lot and then took a cab back to the hotel.”

  “And that was the same cab that I took to the airport after I came back to look for my bass,” Malcolm said with a grin. “He said he’d just dropped someone off from the airport.”

  “Which would have been unusual, as the roadside motel and the bar weren’t exactly hot tourist spots,” Joshua said.

  “You can’t prove any of that!” Catherine said.

  “Harrison?” Cameron stood in front of Catherine’s husband.

  Overcome with disbelief, Harrison slowly turned to look up at the police detective.

  “You heard Suellen say that after Catherine’s fight with Dylan, he told her to get her stuff out of the back of the van,” Cameron said. “According to Suellen, Catherine told him to keep it and said that she was afraid of what she would do if she ever saw him again. Yet you told J.J. and me that the next morning, Catherine got you up minutes before checkout, and she was dressed and made-up. Now, if she had not gone back to get her things out of the back of the van, she would have had only the clothes on her back—”

  “Dylan left my stuff at the motel!” Catherine yelled. “When we went back to our room after the bar closed, it was sitting there in front of the door.” She turned to Harrison. “Don’t you remember, dear?” Tears filled her eyes. “You were so drunk. Of course you don’t remember.”

  “But she wasn’t familiar with Dixmont,” Harrison whispered.

  “Silas, where did you get the flat tire that afternoon?” Cameron asked.

  “Up at Dixmont,” Silas said. “Catherine was curious about it, especially after I told her that it was haunted.”

  “You always were into the paranormal,” Harrison whispered.

  “So we went up to drive around the place,” Silas said. “And wouldn’t you know it—we got a flat tire. I gave Cat a tour of the whole place while Dylan changed the tire.”

  Catherine’s chin quivered. “You can’t prove any of this.”

  “Unfortunately for you, we can,” Cameron said. “We found your finger—”

  “Wait a minute!” Harrison said. “She was living with Dylan. She was in that van all the time. Of course you’d find her fingerprints.”

  “You said you didn’t find any fingerprints on the murder weapon,” Catherine said.

  “I said we didn’t find any fingerprints on the tire iron.” Cameron picked up the evidence bag containing the dry cleaning bag. “But we did find your fingerprints on this plastic bag, which was used to suffocate Dylan Matthews.”

  Catherine’s mouth hung open. After a pause, her eyes brightened. “Of course my prints would be on that. My costume was in it. My fingerprints will naturally be all over that.”

  Next to her, Harrison breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Yes, you are right,” Cameron said. “But you would have left those prints before Dylan’s murder. The prints that incriminate you are those from your right thumb and left index finger, which were covered in Dylan Matthews’ blood. The only way you could have left those fingerprints was if you had used it to suffocate him after fracturing his skull with the tire iron.”

  Letting out a gut-wrenching wail, Catherine buried her face in her hands.

  “You should have trusted your instincts when they told you to stay away from Dylan,” Cameron said. “But you couldn’t. You just had to get your stuff from the back of the van, and you thought you could do it while Dylan was eating. But he caught you when he came out to gas it up.”

  “My mother’s sapphire earrings,” Catherine said. “I forgot about them until we were in the bar and Harrison went to the men’s room. I couldn’t leave them. But Dylan, that arrogant son of a bitch, thought I had come back for him and made some comment—I can’t even remember now what he said. It was something about how I had come crawling back to him like he’d known I would—” Tears ran down her face, and she shook her head.

  Sitting on either side of her, Harrison and Malcolm both draped their arms across her shoulders.

  After sucking in a shuddering breath, Catherine continued in a rage. “Do you want to know the real irony of this whole thing?”

  “What?” Malcolm asked.

  “I was the one who sent that demo tape to Bruce Springsteen’s agent!”

  “That made Dylan’s betrayal so much worse,” Cameron said. “He dumped the group and you, his girlfriend, because of his big break, which you had gotten him.”

  “I told Suellen! Back when we saw that show about his murder, I told her to just leave it alone! We’ve all moved on! We’ve all built so much! Why couldn’t she have just let it go?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Ten Days Later

  The dark clouds hanging low in the sky threatened to burst and dump their contents on the Ohio Valley at any minute, which made many of the orchard workers at the Russell Ridge Farm and Orchards anxious to get home. It wasn’t possible to work outdoors in the orchards in the torrential rain. The orchard’s manager, Tom Perkins, was taking the afternoon off as well. Noah had to finish up what he was doing at the quarter-horse farm, where he was working as Poppy’s new assistant, since Tom provided his ride.

  The thunder warned Tom that he didn’t have much time if he wanted to get home before the clouds burst. He pulled his truck up in front of the barn doors and saw that none of the horses were out in the field. When he had called Noah on his cell to tell him that they would be leaving early, the teenager had been in the process of bringing the horses into the barn to protect them from the storm.

  “Noah, are you ready?” he asked as he climbed out of the truck and went inside the barn, where he found the horses in their stalls.

  One of the colts, a black male who looked strikingly like his father, was tethered to a wall, and Poppy was brushing him. His coat shining, he was already on his way to being a champion like his ancestors. Gulliver was in the process of pushing his stall door open and stepping out to go over to the feed bin.

  Poppy brought her fingers to her lips and said, “Sh—they’ll be finished in a few minutes.” She pointed the brush at the barn manager’s office, which had been a junk room only two weeks earlier. As the quarter horse trainer, she needed a serious office. “J.J. is giving him a test.”

  Tom lowered his voice. “Already? I thought J.J. had only just started toturing him.”

  “It’s a learning-disability test that J.J. found on a website. He thinks Noah may have dyslexia, which would explain why he had such a hard time learning in school.”

  The office door opened, and J.J. led Noah through it. With his tablet tucked under his arm, J.J. said, “They should be e-mailing me the results tomorrow along with recommendations for programs that will help you get started.” He patted Noah on the back. “We’ll figure out the best teaching methods for you, and you’ll be s
hocked by how quickly you can learn to read.”

  “So I’m not stupid?” Noah said.

  “Anyone who calls you stupid is going to have to answer to me,” Tom said, jabbing a thumb in his own direction.

  “Did you ever hear of Albert Einstein?” J.J. asked.

  “Everyone’s heard of him,” Noah said. “He was a genius.”

  “He was dyslexic, and he didn’t learn to read until he was nine years old,” J.J. said.

  “He still beat me.”

  Another rumble of thunder urged Tom to hurry Noah along. With a wide grin, Noah stuck out his hand to J.J. and gave him a warm, heartfelt thanks. “I know you’re busy with studying for the bar exam and learning how to run this farm—I can’t believe you’re making the time to help me. I know I’ll never be able to pay you back.”

  His cheeks turning pink at Noah’s expression of gratitude, J.J. shook his hand. “Your thanks are all we need. All we ask is that you finish school and get that diploma.”

  “I’ll do that, sir.” Feeling bashful, Noah suddenly turned to Tom and suggested that they hurry home.

  As he stood in the open barn door, J.J. watched them drive down the long driveway and turn onto the road. The balmy breeze stirred up the dirt in the barnyard, and the dirt formed miniature cyclones. When a blanket of dirt hit J.J.’s eyes, stinging them, he turned his back to the wind and wiped them. They were still blurry when he saw what looked like a man darting across the lane next to the outside riding arena and behind the lilac bush at the edge of the main house’s backyard.

  “Poppy!”

  Poppy was leading the colt to the stall that his mother was in. She closed the door of the stall. “What do you need, J.J.?”

  He pointed up the driveway in the direction of the pile of discarded boulders. “I just saw someone run into the backyard.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “The wind had just blown dirt into my eyes, but I swear that I saw someone.”

  Poppy shaded her eyes with her hands and peered through the dust and the dirt being stirred up by the oncoming storm. “I can’t see anyone.”

  J.J. let out a deep breath. “I’m losing my mind.”

  “Oh?”

  “Ever since I moved onto this farm I’ve felt like someone has been watching me.” He jerked his head in the direction of the field up above the barn, toward the mound of boulders. “I must be getting—”

  “Paranoid?”

  To his surprise, she was grinning.

  “You’re not crazy,” she said. “You city folks are all the same.”

  “I’m not a city folk.”

  “Suburban,” she said. “The fact is that you’ve never lived out in the country where the grass is green, you can see the stars clear and bright at night and hear yourself think. When folks like you move out into the country, it takes some getting used to.”

  “I know I wasn’t imagining seeing someone running back behind the house.”

  “If someone has been watching you,” she asked, “who do you think it might be?”

  Unable to come up with an answer, J.J. shrugged. She peered up at him with a playful grin on her lips, which made him feel foolish.

  Large drops of rain pelted their heads and shoulders.

  “It’s starting!” J.J. grabbed her hand. “We need to get to the house now, while the getting’s good.”

  “My camper!” She tried to run up the driveway, but J.J. was holding on to her too tight.

  “You’ll get soaked, and it’s starting to hail!”

  Oversized drops of hail began to fall from the sky.

  Throwing an arm around her shoulder, J.J. ushered her across the barnyard. They both ducked down to avoid the heavy drops of rain warning of what was to come. In a sign of mercy, Mother Nature held off on releasing the full force of her wrath until they were safely inside the main house.

  “Now what are we going to do?” Poppy asked as she gazed out the window and up toward the clouds. “It’s supposed to rain like this all night.”

  “They’re saying that flash floods could wash out some of the dirt roads.” Looking over his shoulder, J.J. said, “There isn’t anything we can do about the weather, so we might as well make the best of it. I’ve got coffee and cherry pie in the fridge.”

  “Your sister make it?” Poppy asked.

  J.J. shot her a wide, toothy grin that displayed his dimples. “I’ll brew the coffee.”

  “I’ll warm up the pie.”

  The rain was pouring down the window of his study in what appeared to be sheets. The pitter-patter of the raindrops on the roof above and the constant flow of water against the window was hypnotizing.

  His cell phone rang to break him out of his trance. The caller ID said that it was Tad.

  “If you’re selling, I’m not buying,” Joshua said.

  “I’m not selling. I’m telling,” Tad said. “I might have some news for you and Cameron. Right before the storm broke, I got a call about a DB that had washed up down the river near New Cumberland. Male. Elderly. Sheriff Sawyer said he must have been in the water for at least a week.”

  “Clyde Brady?”

  “That alley where they found his truck in East Liverpool is only a block from the river. Suppose he came to realize that had killed Monica and Suellen, and he decided to drown himself in the river?”

  “Could be,” Joshua said.

  “I won’t know for certain until I get a look at the body, but I thought I’d let you know,” Tad said.

  After disconnecting the call, Joshua felt guilt wash over him. The thought that Clyde Brady was dead offered him a sense of relief, which prompted him to feel guilty. He had known Clyde his whole life—he had liked and respected him. Clyde had been completely devoted to his wife, Monica. Joshua imagined that knowing that he had killed his wife and Suellen—and that he hadn’t been in his right mind when he had killed them—would have been an awful burden to live with for the rest of his life, especially if he’d had to spend his remaining years in a mental facility. Joshua felt relieved because if Clyde had drowned in the river, at least he would be spared from suffering any longer.

  Concluding that J.J. would be home studying for his bar exam—or at least hoping that he would be, as he had fallen behind—Joshua hit the speed-dial button for J.J.’s cell phone.

  “Yes, Dad, I’m studying.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Joshua heard J.J. chuckle. “Right after I finish this slice of pie and cup of coffee, I’ll get back to studying. I promise.”

  “Hey, I’m not the one who’s going to pay the price if you don’t pass,” Joshua said. “I’m calling to tell you that I just got a call from Tad. They found a dead body in the river down in New Cumberland. Tad says the description matches Clyde Brady.”

  “Clyde is dead?”

  Poppy was sitting across the kitchen table from J.J. Her eyes grew wide when she heard him say that Clyde was dead.

  “No one has seen him in over a week,” Joshua said. “Lillian thinks he skipped town. But his truck was found in an alley near the Ohio side of the river. If he jumped in there, his body could have drifted downriver and come ashore in New Cumberland.”

  “I don’t know whether to feel bad or to be relieved,” J.J. said. “Suellen really cared about him and his wife, but then, knowing that he killed Suellen—”

  “He wasn’t in his right mind when that happened, J.J.,” Joshua said.

  “I know, but Suellen didn’t deserve to die like that.”

  “Speaking of Suellen and Clyde, I heard from her lawyer today. It’s about Brady’s farm.”

  “What about it?”

  “Suellen owned it,” Joshua said. “The Bradys lived on it. That was part of Clyde’s employment agreement. Now, Suellen did leave the farm to Clyde in her will, but most importantl
y, since Clyde is the prime suspect in Suellen’s murder—”

  “He can’t inherit the farm.”

  “It reverts back to her estate,” Joshua said. “That hundred acres is yours. It’s got a house, a barn, a garden, and pastures. I would recommend selling it.”

  Looking across the table at Poppy, who had eaten the last bite of her pie, J.J. had other ideas.

  “Yeah, Dad,” he said. “I’ll think about that.”

  “Think about what?” Poppy asked him after he hung up the phone.

  “Clyde Brady’s farm is mine.” J.J. picked up her coffee mug and took it along with his to the coffeemaker for refills. “Since Clyde killed Suellen, legally, he can’t inherit it. Besides, they think he drowned himself in the river.”

  “That’s terrible. He was really nasty to me, but I felt sorry for him. He lost his wife, and then he must have felt like I was an interloper coming in to take his job because he was getting old.”

  “Suellen really wanted to get the horses back on track and back in competitions. For that, she needed a trainer, which Clyde was not.”

  “Still, look at it from his point of view. A young stud moves in with the lady—”

  He stopped pouring fresh coffee into their mugs and laughed.

  “I know you truly loved Suellen,” she said. “I knew it from the first moment I saw the two of you together. But on the surface, to the outside world looking in and in Clyde’s paranoid mind—”

  “He wasn’t too nice to me either.” J.J. handed her mug to her. “I think that sometimes, he thought I was Dad. He’d make references to my long hair and to my not having a military-style haircut.” Instead of sitting across from her, he pulled his chair next to hers. “How about if you move onto Clyde Brady’s farm?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Why not? It’s bigger and nicer than the bunkhouse. There’s a barn for Gulliver.”

  “Gulliver likes it here, with Comanche.”

  “You’ll have a garden and room to get horses of your own—”

  She held up her hand. “I told you when Suellen hired me that I never stay in one place for very long. I’ll stay to get your quarter-horse operation going, and I don’t know how long that will take, but don’t go counting on me and Gulliver staying here forever.”