“I saw her car in the parking lot and decided to stop by. We have some things of a personal nature to discuss,” the young woman gave Rossie a pointed look.
“Oh, I see. Well, you two just give me a holler if you…” she started to say, but Ruth interrupted.
“No, Rossalyn, I’d kind of like you to sit with me while Ms. Mooney has her say,” Ruth stared at the woman across from her, as though daring her to complain.
“Fine,” the young woman’s eyes narrowed. She clearly didn’t appreciate having Rossie there, but knew better than to defy the fragile-looking woman in front of her. “I’ll take a coffee, if you don’t mind,” she said primly to Rossalyn.
“Sure thing, I’ll be right back.”
When Rossie came back with the coffee, the two women were sitting silently, not looking at each other. Occasionally, Ruth would take a bite of her grits.
“Okay, here we go,” she set the coffee in front of Carissa Mooney and took a seat next to Ruth.
“I didn’t want to have to talk to you, Ruth, because I know I’m not exactly your favorite person, but I thought that there was something that you should know,” Carissa began, ignoring Rossalyn entirely.
“Well, it’s about time,” Ruth said quietly, looking the younger woman dead in the eye.
That made Carissa pause for a moment, but she recovered and continued.
“I think I know who poisoned that lady at your office,” Carissa leaned forward and whispered.
Ruth said nothing, waiting for her to continue. It appeared as though she wasn’t going to give the woman the satisfaction of an emotional reaction, or perhaps she was too weary to summon one.
“My ex-boyfriend, Howard, has been acting like a crazy man. He sent Marvin these letters…”
“Do you honestly think that I wouldn’t know about the letters? You need to mind your place, young lady. Marvin is my husband. Anything he might have told you, he’s already told me, you can be sure of that,” Ruth snapped, surprising Rossie – she didn’t think the small, quiet woman had it in her to be assertive.
“There’s no need to be rude. I’m here to help you,” Carissa raised her eyebrows and tilted her chin back and forth in defiance. “I think that Howard thought that there was something going on between me and Marvin, so he freaked out and tried to kill you to get back at Marvin. I just thought that you should know that.”
Carissa took three rapid swallows of her coffee, set down the cup and grabbed her purse from beneath her chair. “You just do whatever you think is right with that information,” she stood and flounced away, leaving Ruth shaking her head, a disgusted look on her face.
“She’s lying,” she said, putting a spoonful of grits in her mouth.
“What makes you say that?” Rossie was intrigued, because she’d picked up on a few things herself while Carissa was talking.
“Well, in the first place, if a woman will cheat, she certainly isn’t going to have a problem lying,” Ruth made a wry face.
“You think Carissa is…with your husband?” Rossie asked in a low voice.
“Oh honey, I wasn’t born yesterday,” she replied wearily. “When your man strays, you know. In lots of little ways…you know.”
“I’m sorry,” Rossalyn bit her lip, her heart going out to the thin, sickly woman.
“Not as sorry as that strutting little rooster Marvin is going to be,” Ruth muttered, pursing her lips.
“But why would Carissa lie about Howard being the killer?”
“Think about it for a minute. If a man is jealous of another man, do you think he’s going to try to hurt the other man’s wife?”
Rossie shook her head. “No, that doesn’t make sense. He’d try to hurt the man who was with his woman. He’d want to hurt Marvin, not you.”
“Exactly.”
“But why would Carissa want to throw Howard under the bus?” Rossalyn said, talking mostly to herself.
“If you were the “other woman,” who would you most likely want to protect, your ex-boyfriend, or your current one?” Ruth asked, raising her eyebrows.
“The current one of course,” Rossie nodded.
“So, the way I see it, with situations being the way they are, my scotch, my teakettle, and the poisoning at work..looks to me like the police ought to be looking at Carissa Mooney.” With that, Ruth scraped up the last dregs of her grits, eating the bite and dabbing at her mouth with a napkin. “Besides, no one who wasn’t under investigation knew that Deedee had been poisoned. The papers just said that her death was being investigated.”
“You really think that Carissa Mooney tried to kill you?”
“I have something that she wants…Marvin,” Ruth shrugged. “Hey, how much do I owe you for breakfast?” she reached for her purse.
“Oh, nothing, it’s on the house,” Rossie waved her away. “Hey Ruth…”
“Yeah?”
“Be careful out there, okay?”
“Made it this far,” she gave a soft, ironic laugh and headed for the door.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
*
Rossalyn really didn’t want to talk to Morgan Tyler. In fact, she wanted to avoid him so much that she considered calling another police officer to give them the information that she’d heard from Carissa Mooney, along with her own suspicions, but she didn’t want to wind up under speculation for getting involved, so talking to Morgan seemed to be the way to go. She was spared from having to call him though, when he showed up at Hawg Heaven for dinner. Jose’s special tonight was beer-braised barbeque pork loin, with savory potato salad, deep-fried okra, and all the light, fluffy buttermilk biscuits you cared to eat, served with honey butter.
“Hi,” a grin lit up the officer’s handsome face when Rossie came out to greet him.
“Hi,” she forced a smile. “I was hoping that you might have a few minutes to talk. I could sit down while you eat, if you’d like.”
“Wow, that would be almost like you’re having dinner with me,” he teased, and she worked hard not to shudder, thinking about him sneaking into her house at night. “But seriously, about the other day, don’t worry about it. I’m not going to hurry you or pressure you at all, the invitation is always open,” he sobered.
“Umm…okay, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about. Let me go grab your food, and I can tell you what it’s all about, okay?”
“Perfect,” Morgan nodded, all business now.
“The special?”
“Sounds good.”
She came back with a heaping plate of food, and sat down across from the officer, thinking about how classically good-looking he was, and wondering why she felt nothing for him.
“So, what’s on your mind?” he dug into the meal like it was his last.
“Ruth Venkman had breakfast here this morning,” she began.
“She a regular?” Morgan asked, cutting a biscuit in half and buttering it liberally.
“She’s getting to be now, and I think it’s because she may be afraid to eat at home,” Rossie confided.
“Oh?”
“While she was here eating, Carissa Mooney stopped in and confided that she thought her ex-boyfriend Howard had poisoned Deedee Delario.”
“How did she know Deedee Delario had been poisoned?” he put down his fork, still chewing.
“Exactly,” Rossalyn nodded. “Ruth thinks that Carissa is the killer.”
“And you don’t?” the perceptive officers eyes probed hers.
Rossie shook her head.
“Why?”
“In order for someone to kill somebody, unless they’re just a complete psycho, don’t they have to want something?”
“Usually, yes,” Morgan resumed eating, but watched her intently.
“So I thought about it, and what would Howard Parker want?” she asked, leading him.
“Carissa Mooney.”
“Right, and killing off Marvin’s wife Ruth, wouldn’t bring him any closer to getting Carissa Mooney. If anything…it would potenti
ally bring Carissa and Marvin closer together…”
“…which is exactly what Carissa wants,” Morgan finished her sentence nodding.
“Maybe, maybe not,” was Rossalyn’s obscure reply.
“It’s a fairly logical deduction,” Tyler pointed out.
“Well, let’s think about this for a minute…at the risk of sounding incredibly ageist…Carissa is a healthy, gainfully employed young woman with a future ahead of her. Marvin Venkman is a middle-aged gym teacher who is married. What are the chances that she’d risk everything that she has going on to be with someone who is not only unavailable, but who isn’t exactly…” she trailed off.
“The catch of the year?” Morgan supplied.
“At the risk of sounding like an awful human being…yes,” Rossie nodded.
“So, then why would she come here and try to point fingers at her ex? She admitted he’s been leaving her alone, so she’d have no reason to throw him under the bus,” Morgan licked a smear of barbeque sauce from his fingers.
“Unless she was protecting the man that she wanted to be with.”
“Marvin? But you just gave me a bunch of reasons that Carissa wouldn’t kill to be with Marvin,” the officer was confused.
“I said, he was married, and he was of…humble circumstances, but if his wife died, he’d no longer be married, and if she had a life insurance policy, he’d no longer be financially mediocre, so Carissa could have her cake and eat it too,” Rossalyn summed up.
“So you think it was Marvin Venkman?”
“That would be my guess, and I would think that it would be easy enough to find out if Ruth had health insurance. Maybe she was threatening to divorce him and leave him with nothing. He knew that Carissa wouldn’t be interested in a penniless gym teacher, so he took matters into his own hands. He tried to make it happen at home, with the scotch and the teakettle, but when it didn’t, he decided to try to make it happen while she was at work, where there would be all kinds of speculation and potential killers that could let him off the hook. He may have wanted to kill Ruth so badly that he didn’t even think of the possibility that he could kill one or more of her coworkers.”
Morgan sat back and raised his eyebrows, impressed.
“At this point, I gotta say, it’s certainly an idea worth checking out. I’m running in circles trying to figure this thing out, and if that’s our answer, I’ll owe you a dozen steak dinners,” he grinned.
“You won’t owe me anything. If this pans out, it’ll have just been a lucky guess,” Rossie smiled faintly. “Hey, I have a question for you,” she tossed out casually, changing the subject.
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Do you like building models?”
“That’s pretty random, why do you ask?”
“Just curious,” she shrugged, looking away.
“What kinds of models are you talking about?”
“I dunno, like…vehicles. You know, airplanes, cars, boats…whatever.”
“Well, I’m sad to say that’s a hobby I never mastered. My dad tried and tried to get me involved, but I was all thumbs and was much happier out at the vacant lot playing baseball,” he chuckled, remembering. “Why, do you like to build models?”
“Oh, uh, no. It’s not my thing. My son enjoys it.”
“Good for him. If he likes playing video games, his manual dexterity is probably better suited to it than mine ever was.”
“Yeah, he’s learning, but he’s pretty good at it. He used to build them with his dad.”
“I think that’s a pretty common father/son thing,” Morgan nodded. “You okay?” he asked, catching her eye.
“Oh yeah, I was just spacing off, sorry. It’s been a long day.”
“It has for me too, but it sounds like it just got longer,” he glanced at his watch. “You mind if I box up the rest to go?”
“Not at all, I’ll be right back.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
*
Morgan Tyler brought only one other officer with him to Marvin Venkman’s office, and he hoped that his impression of Mr. Venkman being less that intellectually intimidating had been correct. He hadn’t had time to secure a warrant, and the murder case was getting colder by the day, so he had to try to search Marvin’s office at the high school with the gym teacher’s permission.
“Evening Mr. Venkman,” he greeted Marvin cheerfully.
“Hello, Officer. What can I do for you? Have you found any leads in that awful murder yet?”
Morgan nodded gravely and sat down casually in one of the chairs across from Venkman. “As a matter of fact, I have,” he leaned toward Marvin, speaking in a confidential tone. “And I could really use your help.”
“Yeah?” Marvin asked, shooting a nervous glance at the other officer standing in the corner of his office, silently observing.
“That’s just Jake, it’s okay, he’s with me,” Morgan assured him without missing a beat. “Howard Parker let it slip that he accidentally may have left something in your office pertaining to the murder. He didn’t realize it, but if we find it, it could mean that he just might be arrested. Is there any way that Jake and I could take a look around? You don’t have to be involved, you could go talk to Jake for a few minutes or whatever, and I’ll check the place out personally.”
The story that Morgan had concocted, while lame, was believable enough that Marvin might just fall for it.
“You’ll do it yourself?”
“You bet, Marvin. I want to get this guy as much as you do, I’m sure,” Morgan nodded vehemently.
“Would I have to testify?”
“Against Howard? No, I can’t see you having to do that.” He was so close to a lawful search that he could taste it.
Marvin nodded. “Okay then, I’ll go have a talk with Jake, and you do your thing,” he rose from behind his desk and followed the officer out the door, while Morgan went straight to his office supply cabinet.
**
Tom Hundman sat on Rossalyn’s porch swing, feet kicked up beside him, his motorcycle boots resting on the arm of the swing.
“Everything okay?” Rossie asked, alarmed, when she returned home from a long day at work.
“Depends on what you mean by everything,” Tom’s cobalt eyes locked on hers.
“Is Ryan…?”
“Yeah, the kid’s fine. He reheated his dinner and I took him for ice cream after.”
Rossie wilted with relief. “Then…what’s not okay?”
Tom sighed and sat up, his boots hitting the floorboards of the porch with a thunk.
“Somebody has definitely been around here, and they’re trying to tell you something, but I can’t figure out if it’s good or bad,” he folded his arms, thinking, the swing rocking gently to and fro.
“I thought it may have been Officer Tyler, but I asked him if he knew anything about building models, and that was definitely not his thing, which in some ways is a relief, but in others makes me even more paranoid because then it’s a stranger doing these weird things.”
“It definitely isn’t Tyler,” Tom made a face. “Whoever is doing this is good at it, real good at it, which makes me wonder…”
“Wonder what? If they’re a psycho? A really talented psycho-stalker?” Rossie demanded in a whisper.
“It’s possible. Doesn’t seem likely in a town this size.”
“Then who could it be? This is really beginning to freak me out,” Rossie blew a wisp of hair from her face, not noticing that the biker in front of her was watching her every move.
“It should,” he nodded.
“So what do I do?” she bit her lip and he stood.
“Be careful, watch your back. I’ll be watching too,” he assured her, his tone different than usual.
Her back resting against the porch support, Rossie noticed when she looked up into his eyes, that he was towering over her, closer than usual, and she could smell the faintest scent of cologne, mingled with a scent that was distinctly masculine - one that would cau
se her to forget her own name if she inhaled deeply enough.
“Would you…” she began, but her words died in her dry throat. She swallowed and tried again, hoping that her voice wouldn’t shake and betray her current emotional state. “Would you like to come in…for wine…or tea…or something?”
Tom opened his mouth to speak, and at that exact moment, Ryan opened the front door with a loud bang, making Rossalyn jump.
“Hey, Mom! You gotta come check this out! I got to the highest level on Alien War Zone III,” the teenager exclaimed, oblivious to the tension in the air.
Rossie’s eyes met Tom’s in a silent query.
“Better go check that out,” he gave her a half-smile. I gotta get going,” he raised a hand in farewell and moved past her before she could protest.
The biker got to the edge of the driveway and came to an abrupt halt, his eyes darting to the area behind the garage. He stared in that direction for a long time after Rossie went in the house with Ryan, then he slipped into the backyard to investigate, his eyes having grown accustomed to the faint light of a half moon. Finding nothing conclusive, he headed for home, his brow furrowed, taking frequent looks over his shoulder as he felt a strange presence behind him. In the shadows, not even breathing hard, was a broken man. A man torn between his past and present, a man longing to do what was right, and not knowing what that might be. A man who had come to a crossroads.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
*
Ruth Venkman came into Hawg Heaven, looking lost and alone, her red-rimmed eyes swollen with exhaustion and tears.
“Ruth, my goodness, what’s wrong?” Rossalyn took the woman’s arm and led her to a chair, motioning for Jose to bring water.
“They took him last night. Cops came and took Marvin. Wasn’t a surprise, but that didn’t make it much easier. I guess I knew the whole time. I just wanted it to be her, not him. Things weren’t great between us, but being replaced by a little aerobic bunny just sucks, you know?”
“Marvin was arrested?” Rossie asked, after Jose dropped off a coffee for her and a water for Ruth.
Hawgs, Dogs, and Murder (Hawg Heaven Cozy Culinary Mysteries Book 4) Page 7
