Toni Donovan Mysteries- Books 1-3

by Helen Gray

  Toni slid forward in the chair. “I haven’t been trying to worry anyone. I just had a suspicion I needed to check. And I didn’t go alone,” she added for Quint’s benefit.

  Her brother moved to the far wall and backed up against it, his arms folded across his chest. He stood watching them, his jaw clenched. But he didn’t speak.

  The lieutenant was visibly steaming and making no effort to hide it. “Why didn’t you just tell us you thought you knew who you saw?”

  Toni bit at her lip and flushed slightly. “I was only suspicious. I wanted to find out for sure before telling you. Incidentally, where is she?”

  “Being questioned in another room. Now, give me a step by step account of this latest episode.”

  “After I left here I went and got John. We went to the Goldenrod for a burger, which, by the way, I didn’t get to eat,” she tossed in. Her head was beginning to pound from the combination of tension and lack of food.

  “Back to the story,” Green snapped.

  “Sonya came to our table to wait on us,” John spoke up. He went on to give a concise account of the incident, including Toni’s threat to talk to Sonya’s boss when she said she would get someone else to wait on them. Then he repeated Sonya’s threat, word for word, and described how Sonya had hit Toni.

  Green’s index finger rubbed back and forth over his upper lip. “She belted you, huh?” He stared at Toni’s still red and aching cheek. “That’s good for assault. Do you want to press charges?”

  Toni thought about that. It would cause Sonya some inconvenience, but it didn’t seem wise to enrage her any more right now. She also wanted to be sure Sonya was free to roam the streets. Her gut said things were moving toward answers, and she wanted Sonya to do something that would incriminate her. She also didn’t want any legal issues pending when she went home at the end of the week.

  “No, I’m leaving town in a couple of days,” she explained, and caught what she thought was a look of pleasure flash across the lieutenant’s face at hearing she was leaving.

  He leaned back in his chair and stared at her. “All right,” he said, a bit reluctantly. “You seem to be rattling some cages. Why don’t you leave it to us now?”

  Toni got to her feet and placed her hands on the desk, leaning forward. “I will if you’ll get some more background on that gal. She’s involved with those young men, and they’re involved in the gambling ring. I’m convinced there’s more to the connection.”

  Green’s eyes shot sparks. “Are you telling me how to do my job?” he thundered, rising to his feet and coming nose to nose with her, his hands flat on the desk.

  She backed away. “No, I’m just telling you she’s in this up to her neck, and I don’t want you to miss it.”

  Toni paused, out of breath and waking up to how aggressive she was acting. This wasn’t her classroom. It was the lieutenant’s. She took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get out of line, and I don’t want to jeopardize the case. Are we free to go?”

  Green backed down, too, and eased into his chair. “Yeah, you can go. And I’ll do some deeper checking on the gal.”

  John and Quint escorted her out of the building and to her van. As John went around to the passenger side, Quint took Toni’s arm and stopped her before she could get behind the wheel. “Is it useless to hope you’ll go straight back to the apartment?”

  Toni didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to make promises she couldn’t keep. “I’m too hungry to take time to cook. I have to stop somewhere and eat. I think you should talk to Dean again. If you get him alone, he might admit it was Sonya with them.”

  He shook his head. “Yeah, yeah. You had no lunch, and your burger got left behind. Get out of here.” He ignored the bit about Dean, turned and walked away. But Toni thought she saw the corners of his mouth curve a little before he got turned away from her.

  “You hungry?” Toni asked John as she started the engine.

  “Yes, but I need to get back to my room and work on a paper. It’s due tomorrow, and I have a lot to do yet.”

  “Can’t have the teacher bombing a paper.” She put the van in motion.

  After delivering John to his housing, Toni considered her growling stomach. But that thought was superceded by a vision of Nicole Warren. She pulled into a parking lot, dug out her book satchel, and extracted her grade book. She flipped to the back where she kept a list of her students and their contact information.

  She found Nicole’s number and dialed it.

  “Warren residence.” Nicole sounded harried.

  “Hi, Nicole. This is Toni Donovan—your A & P instructor.”

  “Oh, hi, Mrs. Donovan. Morgan, put that down,” she snapped. The sound muffled. Then it cleared up. “Sorry, Mrs. Donovan. I’ve got a kid having a bad day.”

  “I’m sorry I called at a bad time.”

  “Oh, it’s fine,” Nicole assured her, the background noise settling down. “Morgan’s hungry, and I’ve been trying to study.”

  “Would you have time to meet me at Burger King? We could feed Morgan and ourselves some greasy fast food.”

  Nicole laughed. “She’d like that. So would I. How soon?”

  “How soon can you get there?”

  “Fifteen minutes?”

  “I’ll meet you.” Toni pulled back onto the highway. At Burger King, she recognized Nicole leading a little dark haired girl across the parking lot.

  “Can you tell me more about Sonya Finch?” she asked when they were seated in a booth with their food.

  “I need ketchup, Mommy,” came from Morgan.

  Nicole aimed an apologetic look at Toni and reached for the ketchup.

  “I have two boys,” Toni said gently. “I’m child proofed.”

  While Nicole squirted ketchup over Morgan’s fries, the three-year-old bounced in her seat, her ponytail bobbing up and down. She grabbed a fry and stuffed it in her mouth.

  Toni smiled, remembering moments when her own babies were small like that. She missed it. But she also enjoyed the freedom afforded by their older independence.

  “You asked about Sonya,” Nicole said, her attention returning to Toni. “I don’t really understand what you want to know. She liked parties, expensive things, and older guys.”

  “That’s pretty comprehensive,” Toni said with a nod. “Can you expand on it a little? Give me an idea how she thinks.”

  “Well, she thinks big. She wants the best of everything. I don’t really understand her, and we were never best friends or anything like that.” Nicole sprinkled salt on her fries.

  “Did she do well academically?”

  Nicole considered that. “I think so. But she didn’t put a high priority on grades or education. She said she learned more from life experience, and she didn’t plan to spend her life in a stuffy classroom.”

  Toni nodded. “She told me she considers her relationship with her coach in that light. What other of her life experiences do you know about?”

  “She started dating older men during our junior year,” Nicole said thoughtfully. “Then during our senior year she started talking about someone who took her to a casino just over the line in Oklahoma. Toward the end of the year—that would have been after she had to cool it with Coach Campbell—she got a job working there weekends. She was eighteen by then and could look and act even older. One day I heard her bragging about how good a shill she was. I’ll admit she was good at influencing people to do things for her.”

  “So she learned the gambling business first hand,” Toni mused. “Do you think she stayed hooked up with the coach?”

  Nicole tipped her head to one side, her lips pursed in thought. “If she did, I wasn’t aware of it. But it wouldn’t surprise me. She got around, and she didn’t seem to want permanence from any one man. She probably did.”

  Toni hesitated before the next question. “Do you think she’s ambitious enough to want to take over the coach’s business now that he’s dead?”

  Nicole chewed while
pondering. “She might be, but I can’t picture her murdering him,” she finally decided.

  “How about giving orders to someone else?”

  “I don’t know. But I do know she likes to be in charge.” She gave Toni a troubled look. “Do you think she did it?”

  “I’m not sure, but I’m convinced she’s involved.”

  They finished eating in a thoughtful silence broken only by Morgan’s happy chatter.

  “Why don’t I give you my cell phone number,” Toni said as they prepared to leave. “That way, if you think of anything you think might be helpful, you can call me.”

  Nicole pulled out her own phone. “Give it to me.”

  As Toni quoted it, Nicole entered it into her address book and saved it.

  After they parted in the parking lot, Toni checked her rear view mirror and pulled into the street. Once certain she was not being followed, she relaxed. She had an itch, a restless feeling she couldn’t shake. Quint was at work, so the apartment was empty. She wasn’t in the mood to visit Kyle’s parents. She had papers to grade, but that wouldn’t take long. On impulse she turned off the thoroughfare and looped south over to Lone Pine Avenue, wanting another look at the surroundings where Jesse had been killed.

  When she arrived at Sequiota Park, she chose a parking spot where she estimated that Jesse Campbell’s car had been found. From there, the crime scene was obscured by the island down the middle of the lagoon. She got out and walked across the lawn to the edge of the water. Then she walked alongside it until she was directly opposite where the body had been found. She stopped and stared across the water, remembering the sights, sounds, and smells of that experience. She studied the area, and then glanced back at where her van was parked, visualizing someone sitting in it. If someone had been there, he or she could have gotten tired of waiting for Jesse to return and come looking for him.

  Another thought filtered through her mental processes. What about Jesse’s car? Had the detectives found anything in it that might identify a passenger? Would they even talk to her at this point?

  Her cell phone interrupted her thoughts. She jumped involuntarily and answered it without checking the caller ID. “Toni Donovan.”

  “Mrs. Donovan, if you’re not home yet, please go there and stay,” Nicole’s trembling voice said. “Please be careful.”

  “What’s happened, Nicole?” she asked, her nerves reacting wildly.

  “Mitch just stormed in here and started asking questions about you. When I told him it was none of his business what I know about you, he…” A choking sound was followed by a sniffle.

  “Did he hit you?”

  There was a pause. “Yes, but I still didn’t answer him,” she said in a weak voice. “I told him I was calling the cops. He finally left, but I’m afraid for you. Please be careful.”

  “I will,” Toni promised, her gaze darting around at the sparsely inhabited park. She saw two people on the bridge, and a couple more at the mouth of the cave beyond the bridge. Only three cars occupied the parking lot. The heat had people staying indoors rather than bringing their kids outdoors or to the parks.

  A biker whizzed past her, making her jump. Then a car rolled slowly along the highway, making her realize how open and vulnerable she was if anyone was looking for her. It had been stupid to expose herself this way.

  “Are your doors locked?” she asked Nicole.

  “Yes,” Nicole answered.

  “Do you have some place you can go stay for awhile?”

  “I guess I can stay with my mother.”

  “I wish you would,” Toni said, heading back to her van in a speed walk.

  “Okay, I’ll pack bags for me and Morgan. And I won’t forget my textbook,” she added, trying and failing to lighten her tone.

  “You’ll do fine on the exam,” Toni assured her. “You’ve done well all along. See you in the morning.”

  Chapter 20

  Toni’s hands shook as she scooted behind the steering wheel and gripped it tightly. All the way to Quint’s apartment she kept checking behind her. When she arrived, she couldn’t get inside fast enough.

  She tossed her things on the couch and sat beside them, her mind still reeling. It was several minutes before she was calm enough to think again.

  Was there another adult involved in the running of the operation? If so, who? She couldn’t visualize it being Sheila Volner Campbell. Not only was she a non-aggressive personality, but she had not been involved with Jesse long enough to have been in on the early stages of the gambling setup. But the Kickapoo secretary had preceded Sheila by five or six years. Could she have been involved in more than just a romantic relationship? She had clerical skills. She could have been a business manager. She had a son who could be a runner. Had their relationship really ended when Jesse took up with his best friend’s wife? Had it ever ended?

  Toni rummaged through her notes and lists, but couldn’t find the number she wanted. She found a phone book, mumbling to herself. “Michelle…Michelle what? Cran… Cras… Carin… Carringer. That’s it. But what’s her husband’s name?”

  She found a Robert Carringer that matched the address she remembered. She dialed.

  “Mrs. Carringer,” she said when a husky voice answered. “I’m the teacher who came by and spoke to you about the Jesse Campbell murder.”

  “It’s Mickey,” the woman corrected. “I remember. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m not sure,” Toni said, awkward now that she had the woman on the phone. “There have been some leads in the case. I’m finding out about some activities, and names associated with them, that make me wonder whether they’re connected to Kickapoo.”

  “You mean Joyce Franklin,” Mickey said bluntly. “What kind of activities are you talking about, other than sexual ones?”

  Toni wasn’t sure how much information she should share, but she couldn’t get information without giving. “It looks like your former coach was involved in, or running, a teenage gambling ring. Students from different schools were working for him, and…”

  “You want to know who the connection is at Kickapoo,” Mickey finished for her. “Wow. This is heavy stuff, and it’s news to me.”

  “Do you think your kids and their friends would tell you what they know?”

  “I notice you didn’t ask whether they know, just whether they’ll tell. But you’re right,” she said on a sigh. “The kids always know what’s going on in the schools and communities. Mike and Julie aren’t in right now, but I’ll talk to them when they get home.”

  “Thanks,” Toni said. “I’ll give you my cell number so you can call me back.”

  When they disconnected, Toni tried to call Kyle again, but she still couldn’t reach him. He should have noticed her missed call the night before and gotten back to her. But he hadn’t. Was he avoiding her?

  As she sat there worrying about him, her phone rang.

  “Mom, that boy’s driving me crazy,” Gabe said. The words were sharp, but his voice was subdued enough for her to recognize fear underlying it.

  “What do you mean, Son?”

  “He’s dreaming again, and saying crazy things.”

  Toni’s gut tightened, and she gripped the phone tighter. “Where are you? What kind of things is he saying?”

  “I’m just down the road from Grandma and Grandpa’s house. I’m on the ATV. No, it’s not moving. I’m stopped by an empty lot so I could call you.”

  He meant privately.

  “He’s hard to understand when he does that,” Gabe continued. “He kind of mumbles. But last night he was saying something that sounded like, ‘Watch the black car’.”

  “Okay, I’ll watch for the black car,” she said, speaking more brightly than she felt in an effort to put his mind at ease. “Remember to expect your dad home a day early so he can bring you to Springfield Friday.”

  He seemed excited at the prospect of another visit with his second set of grandparents. After the call, Toni considered what Gabe had said about
Garrett’s dream, but she didn’t know what to make of it. She tackled her paper grading and was putting the papers away when Mickey Carringer called back.

  “I thought I was beyond being shocked, but this gambling thing has knocked my socks off,” she said as soon as Toni answered. “I don’t know where my kids get their information, and I try not to pry so deep they’ll quit talking to me. According to my son, our secretary and Jesse Campbell did break up after he left the school. But she took up with him again sometime later.”

  “Does your son know if Joyce has been keeping books or anything like that for a side business?”

  “I asked him that,” Mickey said. “He doesn’t know if she’s involved or not. All I can tell you about her is what I’ve heard. The word is that her finances have always been shaky. If that’s true, I can see how she could be tempted to pick up some easy extra money. But that’s just conjecture.”

  “Do you know if gambling is widespread among the students in your school?”

  “I sure hope not,” Mickey said. “I’m going to talk to my brother-in-law about all this and see if he knows what his former buddy was up to besides women. He needs to find out how much involvement there is in his student body. This mess has already cost him so much, and this could make it worse if a bunch of his students are involved.”

  “Maybe he can help clean it up,” Toni suggested.

  Mickey didn’t speak for a moment. “Being part of a solution might help him feel like he’s regained some control of his life,” she said thoughtfully. “Listen, I appreciate what you’re doing, whether anyone else does or not. If I hear anything more, I’ll call you.”

  Toni thanked her and ended the call. Then she stretched out on the couch and lay staring up at the ceiling. The next thing she was aware of was the clicking of the door. Startled from sleep, Nicole’s warning about Mitch Sandoval shot a jolt of fear through her.

  Her heartbeat slowed when she recognized Quint closing the door behind him. “What time is it?” she asked groggily.

  “Two-thirty.” He started removing gear from his belt.

  She sat upright, coming awake now. “Was it a rough night?”