by Lauren Carr
After adjusting his glasses, Kyle eyed the wall behind her. “I already went over this with the police a dozen times years ago. Everyone knows Cheryl killed Angie. I guess it’s some sort of twist of fate that the mob would finally give her the justice she deserved.”
“That’s not for me or you to decide,” Cameron said. “Good or bad, someone killed Cheryl Smith, and that someone could have killed a dozen people blowing up Gordon’s house to cover up her murder.”
“Excuse me if I’m not inclined to cooperate.” He plopped down behind his desk and interlocked his fingers together.
She leaned over his desk at him. “And you’ll excuse me if I take you over to the police station in Pennsylvania in the back of my cruiser with all of your friends and neighbors watching.
Staring through her, the corners of Kyle’s lips curled. “When they find out why, whose side do you think they’ll take?”
Touché. Cameron opted for another approach. “Cheryl Smith never had a day in court.”
“Because she ran off to Hollywood to do what she does best—sex and drugs with rock stars like Mick Jagger after dumping Angie in the river to rot.”
“She had an alibi.”
“From her low-life friends.”
“What if she didn’t kill Angie?” She waited for his response.
Kyle’s eyes finally met hers.
The sight of his enlarged eyeballs peering out at her from under the heavy eyelids caused a shiver to go down her spine. Under the pretense of examining a new model laptop, she turned away. “Can you think of anyone else who would have wanted to hurt Angie?”
“Everyone loved Angie—except Cheryl Smith.”
“What did Cheryl have against her?” Cameron asked.
“Jealousy,” Kyle replied. “She had beauty and class, and Cheryl didn’t.”
“How about Ned Carter?”
“What about Ned Carter?”
“I heard that Angie was sneaking around with Ned behind Cheryl’s back? That’s what the fight was about.”
Kyle’s pale face turned pink. “That’s a lie!” He almost jumped out of his seat.
The force of her demeanor and the look in her eye was enough to make him back down into his chair. “Then what were they fighting about?”
“I—I don’t know.”
Cameron was doubtful. “After all these years, you have no idea what Cheryl and Angie were fighting about?”
“It doesn’t matter. It was nothing.” He took off his glasses and cleaned them with his shirt tail. “I didn’t care. Whatever it was, it wasn’t important enough for her to take Angie away from me.” He put his glasses back on. “Doesn’t matter what it was about.”
Cameron felt a tug of sympathy in her heart. “How long were you with Angie after leaving the skating rink?”
He shifted in his seat.
“Tell me what happened after the fight.”
Kyle stared straight ahead while recounting. “Angie and I met at the Melody Lane Skating Rink when we were sophomores in high school. I went to Oak Glen High School—”
She made a mental note that was the same school Joshua’s son Donny was attending. Joshua and all of his children had graduated from Oak Glen.
“—Angie went to South Side High School in Hookstown.” He paused. “It was love at first sight. She was my first kiss—my first love. We had it all planned. We were going to West Virginia University in Morgantown. She was going to study nursing. I was going to study computer programming. After our first year, we would get married, and then move out of the dorms into our own apartment. After graduation, we would move back here to Chester, and she would get a job at East Liverpool City Hospital, and I would set up my own computer shop here.” He tapped the top of his desk.
“I love a man who knows how to plan.” Cameron fought to keep the edge of sarcasm out of her voice. She favored spontaneity, something that Joshua found he admired and feared in her.
“I saved for a year to buy her a diamond ring. I did yard work and mowed like every lawn between here and the state line. I was going to give it to her at the skating rink, where we had met, after the last slow skate, but when I found her, Cheryl and her friends were all over her. By the time I broke it up, the skate was over. So I decided to give it to her down by the river. We had a spot on a bench overlooking the river. We liked to sit and look at the lights and talk . . . and kiss.”
“That was where her car was found in the river.”
He nodded. “I couldn’t believe it when they found her there . . . of all places.”
“And you were the last one to see her alive.”
His eyes met hers. “Oh no, I wasn’t.”
“Who else was the last one with her?”
“Whoever killed her.” His eyes filled with tears. “We were going to get married. We even set a date.”
“What date?”
“July 7, 1979.”
“So you give her the ring, and she accepts your marriage proposal,” Cameron said. “Then what happened?”
His eyes were glassy. “We made love. It was glorious. Unbelievable.” He swallowed. “My first and only time. There could never be anyone after Angie.”
Cameron’s cheeks felt warm at his confession. “Did you see or hear anyone else around who may have seen you?”
“No,” he answered before shrugging. “Angie was my whole world. She was the only one in the universe as far as I was concerned.”
“What happened after that?”
“She took me home.”
She blinked. “She took you home.”
“I didn’t—”
“That’s right,” Cameron said more to herself than him, “it was her car that she was in.”
“I was saving all of my money for college. Since Angie had a car, I didn’t need one. If I needed a ride, she’d give me one or one of my other friends.”
“But then somehow she ended up back at the dock, and her car in the river.”
“It had to be Cheryl and her friends,” Kyle said. “They were down there at the First Street overlook, right next to the yacht club. They must have been following us.”
“Where was she going after taking you home?” Cameron asked.
“Home,” Kyle said.
“But she didn’t go home.”
“Cheryl’s scum-bag friends must have kidnapped her,” he said.
Opting to get off the merry-go-round she was on, Cameron shifted gears so sharply that she threw Kyle off track. “Did you see Cheryl Smith when she came back to town in 1985?”
“If I had, I would have called the police.”
Cameron cocked her head at him with a smile. “Not if you killed her.”
“In which case, I wouldn’t tell you if I had.”
“You worked at Davenport Winery when you first got out of college,” she said. “You set up their computer network.”
“So?” Kyle replied. “It takes a while to set up a business and get it running. Brianne Davenport was a friend. She helped me out by giving me a job. Davenport Winery is one of my biggest clients. When the Internet came about, I got them set up. I took them worldwide.”
“You were working for them in 1985.”
“So again?” he scoffed.
“That was when Cheryl came into the area and was killed.” Cameron leaned over his desk. “She had the number to Brianne Davenport’s direct line in her pocket. Are you sure she didn’t come by the winery, and you didn’t see her.”
“Positive.”
She stood up and sauntered to the door. “If I find out you’re lying, I’ll be back.” She turned to him. “If you think you don’t like me now, wait until you see me after I found out you’d lied to me.”
Cameron was huddled over her mini laptop behind Joshua’s desk in his study.
His huge body sprawled out across the Oriental rug, Admiral occupied the whole floor space in the middle of the room.
Irving had made himself at home stretched out across the front of the desk behind
his mistress’s laptop. His head tilted back, his eyes half closed; he looked like he was meditating on the case while Cameron took notes.
“I saw your car out front.” Jan stepped over the canine’s sleeping body. “What are you doing here?”
In response to Irving’s sharp glare, Jan stopped to give him an obligatory scratch behind the ear. Satisfied with the attention tossed his way, he returned to meditating.
“Working.” Cameron continued studying the laptop. “Josh had meetings and asked me to stick around to make sure Donny came straight home to study for his science test.” She noticed Jan eying the thick manila envelope resting under Irving’s front paws.
“What makes him think you’d have any better luck getting Donny to study than he will?” Jan sat down on the sofa and slipped off her shoes.
“I can be very persuasive,” Cameron drawled. “I paid him twenty dollars.”
“Smart lady.”
“Either that or lazy,” she said. “I didn’t feel like arguing with the kid. He’s as strong-willed as his father.”
“The Thornton and MacMillan genes are tenacious.” Jan smiled while patting her tummy. “I did some research on the Internet about Cherry Pickens, aka Cheryl Smith.”
“So did I.”
“What if we compare notes?”
“What if we don’t?” Cameron refused to look up from the laptop.
Jan go up to move in closer. “What if I discovered something you’ve missed?”
“I’d doubt it if you did.”
“Are you sure about that?” she whispered into her ear.
Catching Jan attempting to read the monitor, Cameron shut the lid to the laptop. “You’re the media. That makes you the enemy when it comes to open murder cases.”
Placing her hands on her hips, Jan stood up. “Hey! I’ve been sitting on the story of the century without reporting any of it because of family loyalty. So don’t you go calling me the enemy. If I was the enemy, I would have reported that there’s reason to believe the lady in the freezer is Cheryl Smith as soon as Tad told me about it.”
“After which you would have found yourself sleeping in Admiral’s dog house.”
“Admiral doesn’t have a dog house.”
“True,” Cameron said.
“The least you can do is let me in on what you’ve got for when you guys give me the word to run with it.”
“You’re as tenacious as Tad and Josh. Are you sure you only married into the family? Josh tells me that a case could be made that some families in this valley are inbred.”
“That’s not true,” Jan said in a shrill tone. “I swear I’m going to slip arsenic in his tea for saying that. How about it?”
“Slip arsenic into Josh’s tea?” Cameron shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“I mean, I’ll tell you what I know if you tell me what you know.”
Cameron raised an eyebrow in her direction. “It’s not obstructing an investigation if I don’t tell you what I know. It is if you don’t tell me.”
“You should give me something in return.”
Cameron studied her for a minute. “You don’t have anything.” She turned back to lift the lid to her laptop, only to find Jan’s hand holding it down. The detective sighed. “If I pay you twenty dollars will you go away?”
“When Cherry Pickens left Vegas—when she disappeared—she was driving a red Ferrari 308 GTS.”
“That’s a really bitching car,” Cameron said.
Even Irving seemed to take notice. He opened his emerald-green eyes to peer over at Jan. One of his black ears with white tufts cocked in her direction. His tail twitched.
“Yes, it is,” Jan said. “Not the average pickup truck you see around these parts. My question is, if Cherry Pickens was Cheryl Smith, and she came back here to get murdered, then what happened to the car?”
The two women exchanged glances.
She could have ditched the car before landing in Hookstown,” Cameron said.
“What if she didn’t?”
“Then there could be the motive for her murder,” Cameron muttered. “I’m impressed, Jan.” She lifted the lid to her laptop.
“Impressed with what?” Wearing his winter coat and carrying his briefcase, Joshua came in. He stopped when he saw Irving stretched out across his desk. “What is that doing on my desk?”
Irving directed his glare at him. His tail twitched like a fencer’s foil. He almost seemed to say, “Yeah, I’m using your desk for my afternoon nap. What do you intend to do about it?”
“He’s my muse,” Cameron said. “He helps me focus.”
“He also sheds.” Joshua set his briefcase next to the desk.
Wounded by the observation, Irving jumped down. With a glance over his shoulder at Joshua, he stuck his tail straight up into the air and hitched his rear end up in his direction before stalking out of the study.
“I think you just got the feline version of the finger,” Jan said.
“He does that to me all the time.”
Jan said, “I thought Irving liked you.”
“He did,” he replied.
“And then what?” she asked. “What did you do to him?”
“I did nothing.” Clutching his chest, he backed up a step.
“Joshua slept with his woman,” Cameron told her.
Jan turned to him. “Home wrecker.”
Joshua fought the blush rising to his cheeks. Judging by the grin that came to Jan’s lips, he knew his childhood friend saw his embarrassment. “Irving can find someone in his own species.”
“No, he can’t,” Cameron said. “He’s been fixed. I was it.”
“Then I guess he’s going to have to get over it.” Joshua went to his next concern. “I hope you two aren’t working together.”
“No,” Cameron said, “Jan’s just bugging me.”
“Stop bugging her,” Joshua ordered.
“What’s that?” Jan indicated the envelope that Irving had been guarding.
Cameron laid her hand flat on it. “None of your business.”
The gesture confirming her suspicion, she pounced. “Is that the autopsy report on Cheryl Smith? Is it official?”
Cameron glanced up at Joshua, who slowly nodded his head. “It’s official. It is Cheryl Anne Smith, aka Cherry Pickens.”
“What was the cause of death?” Jan reached for the envelope which the detective slid out of her reach.
“Broken neck,” Joshua said.
“Could it have been an accident?” she asked.
“Right,” Cameron smiled. “She got high on heroin and had an accident, broke her neck, then she crawled into that freezer, and died.”
“Did you say heroin?” Jan asked.
Cameron was equally coy when she answered, “Yep, the same drug used to kill Blake Norton, the pop star Cherry Pickens was fooling around with while Humphrey Phoenix was financing her boob job. He was found tied up in a chair and with a needle in his arm.”
Jan wondered out loud, “If Cherry knew about Phoenix killing her boyfriend, she had to have known that she’d be next. That’s why she came back here, and probably explains who killed her and stuffed her in that freezer.”
Cameron was shaking her head. “Nah, this wasn’t a professional hit.”
Jan was offended by her lack of agreement. “How can you be so sure?”
“Experience,” the detective said. “This case has none of the earmarks of a professional hit.”
Joshua agreed. “Albert had no mob ties. And if he did, he had thirty years to get rid of the body so it would never be found. That tells me he didn’t know it was there.” He turned to Cameron. “That business card found in her back pocket. It had the phone number to Brianne Davenport’s direct line. She wouldn’t give that number to just anyone.”
“If I was on the run,” Jan noted, “I’d be more likely to run to my ex- boyfriend than his wife. Cherry used to be hot and heavy with Ned Carter.” She asked the detective, “Have you interviewed him
yet?”
“She had his car phone number written on the back of the business card,” Cameron said. “But think about it. Cheryl’s on the run. What do you need most when you’re on the run? Money to run with. Where was she more likely to get some? One of the richest women in the tri-state area.”
“Unless you had a drug habit and needed a fix,” Joshua mused. “Ned Carter did dabble in drugs back when she knew him. Managing the casino and track, he has connections; which, according to rumors, he still keeps in touch with.”
“But you need money to buy a fix,” Cameron pointed out.
“Ned Carter has both,” Joshua pointed out. “He’s got the connections to take care of her fix, and the rich wife from whom he can get the cash to give her to run with.”
“I love a man with the power of deductive reasoning,” she said in a husky voice.
Chapter Seven
Cameron drove up the winding hill to the Davenport estate. The sprawling white farmhouse resembled a southern plantation home built into the side of a steep hill. Vineyards cascaded down the front of the estate to the peasants’ farms hidden among deep woods beneath the hundred-year-old colonial. The original home had been added onto again and again until it became the biggest along Snowden Road.
Making her way up the long twisting drive, the thick woods gave way to rows of grapevines, one row above the other until the driveway leveled off at the floral gardens that surrounded the house.
Acreage-wise, Doris Sullivan’s horse farm, Sullivan Stables, located on the other side of the country road, was bigger than the Davenport estate. Grandeur-wise, the winery had everyone beat.
“I have a feeling we’re not in Chester anymore, Irving,” Cameron told the skunk cat in the passenger seat of her cruiser.
Irving let out a mixture between a growl and a meow upon sighting a squirrel racing out of a flower bed and up a maple tree.
“If she’s such a debutant,” Cameron muttered in a low voice to the cat, “Then what’s she doing here in Hookstown? Why isn’t she on some reality show chasing some teen pop star?” She pulled the Pennsylvania State Police cruiser around to park in front of the wrap-around porch. “This place is big.” Concluding her skunk cat would not be welcome inside the mansion, Cameron delegated Irving to guarding the cruiser while she went inside to interview Brianne Davenport.
