“Since you’re staying till Saturday, I want to call him and ask if he can put you into protective custody for the next two days.”
“You’re kidding, aren’t you?”
He merely met my gaze.
The phone rang. I beat Jim to the phone and answered.
“Molly, what is going on?” Tommy Newton hollered over the phone by way of a greeting.
“You got my message, I take it?”
“Where’s this Dayton Smith guy now? That address you gave me was totally bogus. There is no One-four-six-eight Groves Road.”
Damn. “He drove away from the, um, south, I think, exit of the Carlton Mall in a red Subaru with an unreadable license plate.”
“What do you mean, unreadable?”
“He’d deliberately plastered mud on it. I’m not even positive what state it was from. That probably wasn’t really his name, either. He said he had some unresolved run-ins with the law. He also told me that last week his live-in girlfriend or his mother, whatever an ‘old lady’ is these days, filed a missing-persons report on him.”
“Last week? We haven’t had any MPRs filed last week. Come down here, Molly.”
“Down where?”
“To the station house. You need me to send an officer to pick you up?”
“No, I can drive. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” I hung up and this time went to the coat closet for my raincoat.
“Where are you going now?” Jim asked.
“The police station. Tommy probably wants me to fill out a report or something.”
“I’m coming with you.” He started to grab that navy blue, chicken-feather coat of his.
“Nathan’s kindergarten bus will be arriving in forty minutes. You’ll have to stay here to meet it. I probably won’t be back in time.”
I gave him a parting kiss, but he looked miserable. I hated to see him so worried about me. But I was already feeling more than enough guilt; I couldn’t take on more now for having caused my husband to be so concerned. He asked me to take the Jeep. “Its tires are better on slick roads than the Toyota’s.” Too bad he hadn’t convinced me to drive his car earlier. The Jeep might have managed to plow up and over the daffodil garden.
As I backed down the driveway, I suddenly remembered I had forgotten to help out in Nathan’s class for the second Thursday in a row. My luncheon date with Emma Groves was an hour from now, and I was supposed to bring Nathan to meet her five-year-old. This was like being in the middle of a tidal wave. All I could do now was try to keep my head up.
“It’s hard to be consistent when you lie,” Tommy said. We were in the cramped, messy quarters of his office once again.
I studied Tommy’s face, wondering if he meant the general “you,” or “You, Molly, are lying to me.” Tommy, apparently sensing how bad I already felt, was more talkative and friendly than normal. On the other hand, his current openness might merely be an act he thought was encouraging me to “spill my guts.” During the past forty minutes, I’d already spilled all the guts I thought I had. If I was withholding even one piece of information that might prove to be a clue, it was certainly unbeknownst to me.
He continued, “Usually, when a suspect gives you an alias, it’s one he’s used before. Name’ll be similar to his real one, or it’s his nickname. Here, your guy says his last name is Smith, so you figure, his first name really is Dayton. Or maybe his last name’s Dayton. His nickname’s Dayton. But I’ve checked the computer records, and nothing. DMV’s got nothing for motorcycles or Subarus owned by Smiths or Daytons. Same thing with the address. Right street, wrong number or wrong street, right number. Again, nothing. Either this Dayton fellow lied about having some past brushes with the law and is completely clean, or he’s one smooth operator.”
“Did you check unpaid parking tickets?” I asked quietly.
Tommy ignored my question and asked, “So the only physical description Dayton gave you of the man he claims paid him for the deliveries was ‘a grungy-looking black man’?”
“Dude, actually. But, yes. The only black man I know of who knew Preston was Chase Groves. I’m sure Preston knew others who might have borne a grudge against him, but how would they know about the cartoon?”
“It wasn’t Dr. Groves,” Tommy said. “Like I told you yesterday, he was in Ohio at the time Preston was killed. By the way, how’s your tooth?”
“Fine. Thanks for asking.”
“The way you keep popping up, talking to our chief witnesses, I could make a pretty good case for obstruction of justice.”
Oh, great. So now he was threatening to put me in jail. No more Mr. Nice Cop. Considering my friendship with his new girlfriend, I wasn’t totally without power, either.
“How are things going between you and Lauren?”
“Fine. Thanks for asking.” He pointed a thick, slightly freckled finger in my face. “Stay away from the Saunders family today. No phone calls. No visits. That’s a direct order. You break it, and any judge in this country will agree with me ‘bout obstruction.”
“Why? Are you going to arrest Stephanie?”
“Don’t see as I have much choice. She’s the one with the obvious motive and opportunity. There’s an old saying, ‘When you hear hoof beats and neighing, think horses, not zebras.’”
I’d heard the expression before on a TV show—the experienced doctor giving that advice to an intern. At the time, I’d grumbled, “Yeah, but this is television, Doc. You’d better think pink wooly mammoths, dancing the mambo.” Tommy had made a valid point for real life, though.
“But what about the person who shot at me and Tiffany? That couldn’t have been Stephanie.”
“That’s been the only puzzling piece of evidence. Kept me from arresting her this long. But she could have just hired someone.”
“Why would she do that? Why would she hire someone to shoot at me and her own daughter?”
He made a face as if he thought my question was idiotic, but answered, “So she could establish an alibi for the second shooting. To make it look like someone else murdered her husband.”
I shook my head. “Stephanie adores Tiffany. She just plain wouldn’t have taken the risk that the person she hired might accidentally shoot her daughter. Even if her instructions had been to fire a couple of shots into the air then run away, she couldn’t have known for sure the person would follow her instructions.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Which is exactly why it was a good ploy for diverting suspicion from herself.”
“The murder weapon was a twenty-two, right?”
He nodded. “And, by the way, Richard Worthington’s three-fifty-seven Magnum is his only gun.”
His only registered gun, I silently corrected. I rose. “I’ve got to get going. I won’t contact the Saunderses, but just for the record, I think you’re wrong. She looks guilty, but that’s partially why I think she’s innocent. She tried to look guilty.”
“She looks guilty ‘cause she is. Like I said, Moll. Think horses.” He stood up. “Better yet, leave the thinking to me.”
I chuckled, but managed to resist giving a sarcastic reply.
In defiance of Tommy’s recent advice, I sat thinking things over in my car for a minute before starting the engine. If Stephanie had indeed hired the person who shot at me and Tiffany, she may well have hired the “grungy-looking” black man who’d paid Dayton to deliver the boxes. For that matter, anyone could have hired him as a go-between.
But a more puzzling question was: Why had Tommy told me in advance he was going to arrest Stephanie? That was out of character for him. Perhaps he wanted me to warn her, to see if she’d act guilty and try to leave town. If so, his logic was flawed. I was not about to contact Stephanie and risk obstruction-of-justice charges for someone I disliked and mistrusted.
I drove home, planning to rush in and explain to Jim that Nathan and I had a lunch date. However, when I pulled into the driveway, Jim was sitting in my Toyota, engine running. We rolled down our windows, and h
e called over the motor noise, “I called the police station just now. Tom said you’d left. There’s been an emergency at work. Nathan’s inside. I’ll be back as soon as can.”
After wishing him well, I collected Nathan, scooped up my dentist drawings to leave them with Emma for Chase’s feedback, and drove to Emma’s house. She lived in a newer section of town called Northern Knolls.
Despite the development’s name, the land there was flat. This was one of the nicer parts of town, though not quite as affluent as I might have predicted for country club members. The homes were mostly two-story structures, white or gray the most popular color of exterior paint, on well-maintained, half-acre lots. The Groveses’ residence looked the same as their immediate neighbors’, except it was the only one painted yellow with maroon shutters and trim.
When I first rang the doorbell, I suffered a momentary anxiety, wondering if she would remember the arrangements we’d made two days earlier. Emma opened the door and greeted me warmly. She was wearing sandals and a simple yet elegant cotton dress with a pattern of black leaves against a brown background slightly lighter than her skin. Her nice clothes reminded me I’d forgotten to change from my jeans and sweatshirt.
Her son, Joshua, was adorable. He’d inherited his mother’s wonderful smile and had big brown eyes. A bundle of energy, he hopped the entire time Emma and I introduced the children to each other. I made big deal of the fact that they’d go to the same school next year, thinking this might give them some common ground.
The moment I stopped talking, Joshua said, “Come on, Nathan. I got a race track in my room. And two monster trucks.”
Nathan, though typically shy, said, “Cool!” and dashed up the stairs with him.
“Nathan?” Emma called. He stopped on the top landing and looked back at her. “I made a Chinese dish for your mother and me. It has chicken and almonds in it. Would you like some, or would you rather have a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich?”
“Go for the sandwich, Nathan,” Joshua advised.
“I’ll take a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich,” Nathan answered earnestly. “But no jelly. Just put peanut butter on bread. Can I still get a fortune cookie?”
“I have no fortune cookies, dear. Not even for your mother.” While Nathan scrambled into Joshua’s room and shut the door, she winked at me. “I hope you will forgive the oversight.”
“Ah, well. Those fortunes are hardly ever worth reading, anyway. ‘You will inherit great wealth and a large car.’ Personally, I think it would be way more interesting if those cookies would give some more immediate fortunes, such as ‘Leave your waitress a good tip; she’s packing an Uzi.’ Or ‘There’s something stuck between your teeth.’”
Emma laughed. We decided to give the boys a chance to play for a few minutes. Emma took me on a brief tour of the main level, which was nicely decorated in attractive yet comfortable furniture. It was dust free and recently vacuumed, though there were occasional marks and fingerprints that indicated a child lived here. We settled into comfortable seats in the living room.
During a conversational pause, I pulled out my drawings from my purse. “Before I forget, could you show these to Chase tonight? I’m not going to try to pressure him into buying them himself, I’d just like his feedback on whether or not he thinks they’d be worth trying to market to dentists.”
She looked at the drawings and chuckled. “You design advertisements?”
“No, eCards.”
“What a wonderful occupation.”
She gave me such an engaging smile I didn’t feel like arguing with her, though in truth my “occupation” did have one serious flaw. It paid less than any other vocation, with the possible exceptions of preschool teacher and migrant farm worker.
“So,” Emma said, “tell me what it was like to return to Carlton. You said you were gone for seventeen years, is that right?”
“Right. Just after I graduated until this past fall. It’s not too bad, I guess. I miss my friends and my home in Boulder. My husband, Jim, and I are looking to rent a place here. My parents will be coming back to Carlton soon, but we don’t know how long Jim’s assignment here will last.”
“Are you anxious to return to Boulder?”
“Sometimes. One wonderful thing about Carlton, though, is I’m living next door to my childhood best friend again. On the other hand, it’s certainly been difficult returning to my childhood nemesis.”
“Oh? And who is that?”
“Stephanie Saunders, though her name was Geist when I knew her. Before she married Preston.”
I straightened in surprise as she let out an angry growl and punched the couch on either side of her. “I am so sick of hearing that man’s name. He got exactly what he deserved.”
“You think he deserved to be murdered?” I asked quietly, uncomfortable in the face of her unexpected reaction.
“As long as I live, I will never forget how I felt when, out of the blue, I got a call from Preston’s lawyer.”
“You got a call?”
“He asked to speak to Chase, but Chase happened to be out of town. So I asked what the call was in reference to, and he said, ‘This is about Mr. Saunders’s malpractice suit against Dr. Chase Groves.’” She grimaced and shook her head. “I called Chase out of his meeting—”
“Meeting?” I repeated, trying to sort out whether this out-of-town visit was the trip to Cleveland that gave Chase an unshakable alibi, according to Tommy.
“Yes. He was at a convention in Cleveland. Chase knew nothing about the lawsuit either. Needless to say, he was most upset. Apparently, last December, Preston had gone to my husband to have him replace an old filling. Now, mind you, Preston was the one who insisted on the appointment. He claimed he wanted the filling removed because he had heard about old fillings being poisonous. Preston had been a patient of my husband’s for a couple of years by then, and a golf partner for even longer. Preston mentioned to my husband that he had read an article about some lady suing her dentist, claiming permanent nerve damage from a filling. That the dentist’s insurance covered everything, so the whole lawsuit business was ‘no skin off the dentist’s nose.’ Chase, of course, pointed out to Preston that the dentist could easily lose his practice in a case like that. Chase had to drill Preston’s tooth just a little for the new filling, and—”
“Preston claimed to have permanent nerve damage as a result?”
Emma nodded and gritted her teeth. “In the past four months or so, he made not one mention of any tooth pain, let alone an impending lawsuit, during their weekly get-togethers at the club.”
I shook my head. “Chase must have gone through the ceiling.”
“Oh, yes. We confronted Preston at the club the very next day.”
Aha! The altercation the employee at the country club had said nearly required police intervention. But how could that be? “Which next day? Didn’t you say Chase was in Cleveland?”
“He was so upset he flew home. All Preston had to say about the matter was it was nothing personal. Just a legal matter for their lawyers and my husband’s insurance carrier to dicker over.”
“How awful,” I replied, but all I could think was that Chase’s alibi that he was in Cleveland at the time was now suspect.
“Did he return to his convention?”
She shrugged. “Yes, a few days later, though he had missed everything. He could not concentrate, in any case.”
So why return at all? Or did he need that Cleveland convention as an alibi? Maybe he really stayed in town through Monday, the day Preston was killed.
Suddenly I recalled Tommy’s words about how pieces of the truth filter into suspects’ stories. That’s when it hit me. Maybe I’d crossed Chase off my list of suspects too easily, blinded by his elegance and charm. If I could be a twenty-year-old student, Chase could be a “grungy-looking black dude.”
Perhaps Dayton had known the name of the black man who hired him after all. Dayton had said he lived on Groves Road. As in Emma and Chase Groves
.
Chapter 17
There’s Something Stuck Between Your Teeth
While Emma called the children to the table, a realization struck me with the force of a Mack truck: I had brought my son to the home of a possible murderer!
None of this necessarily meant Chase had killed Preston. Yet here was Dayton, or whatever the messenger’s real name was, telling me a “grungy-looking black dude” hired him. All Chase would have to do was put on some worn-out clothes, go hang out at the bar till the right type of low-energy person wanders in, and hire him. And here was Chase claiming to be in Cleveland, yet so angry with Preston less than a week before the murder, Chase had flown home.
Though it felt as if I had swallowed a bowling ball, I did my best to eat a respectable amount of almond chicken. In the meantime, Nathan and Joshua giggled over their peanut butter sandwiches.
After a tense hour, I managed to drag Nathan away from Joshua and explain that I needed to get some things done around the house before Karen got home.
It had started to drizzle again, and the windows instantly fogged up. We stayed at the curb and let the engine and the front and rear defrosters warm up. Though the passenger seat was empty, Nathan had taken his usual seat directly behind me. I automatically asked him if he’d had a good time with Joshua. While Nathan was answering that yes, he’d had “a really good time,” I decided I would call Tommy the moment we got home.
“Josh said he was going to go to my school next year,” came Nathan’s sweet, disembodied little voice from behind me. “I hope he’s in my class. Then I won’t be the only one who’s different.”
“What do you mean?”
“Josh is different ‘cuz he has brown skin. I’m different ‘cuz I’m the only kid in my class from Colorado.”
My eyes welled with tears. It struck me as both profound and heartbreaking that my six-year-old would know that the color of someone’s skin should be no more differentiating than what state the person happened to have been born in. And here I was, minutes away from turning in Josh’s dad as a possible murder suspect.
Death Comes to Suburbia (Book 2 Molly Masters Mysteries) Page 20
