“Was he interested in Ms. Channing?”
“Oh honey, don’t be naïve. That boy chased anything that moved. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he went after Ms. High and Mighty,” she shrugged.
“Do you mind if I take a look at your plants while I’m here?” Morgan stood suddenly.
“Again with the plants? Whatever. Help yourself, but don’t go bugging none of my tenants, they’ve been inconvenienced enough,” she shook a tobacco-stained finger at him.
The officer made his rounds inside the boardinghouse, rejoining Eliza at the kitchen table a short time later.
“They’re all green,” he commented.
“That’s cuz they’re alive, genius,” she raised a brow.
“So you don’t grow flowering plants?”
“Nah, they make too much of a mess. If there’s flowers in this house, it’s because some deluded soul thinks he might stand a chance with me.”
“I see,” Morgan blinked and nodded. “Well, thanks for your time. I’ll let you know if I have any follow-up questions.”
“Maybe you oughta consider talking to folks who might’ve actually had a reason to kill the man,” Eliza pursed her lips.
“Any idea who that might be?”
“Nope, but I do know that a day or so after he moved in, I heard him baby-talking on the phone in his room,” she shrugged.
“Like lover’s talk?”
“Nope, like the tone you’d use with a five year old. One that you liked.”
***
Rossalyn nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard an insistent knock at her front door. Ryan started to stand up and she stopped him with a sharp, “NO!” that made his sit back down quickly, with a dumbfounded look on his face. Rossalyn never shouted at her well-mannered son, and hated to this time, but there was no way she’d take a chance that he might open up the door and face a murderer. She peered out the peephole and nearly fainted with relief when she saw Morgan Tyler standing on the other side.
“Oh thank goodness, I was just about to call you,” she greeted him, leading him into the house.
“Mom? Is everything okay?” Ryan asked, concern etched on his smooth features.
“It’s fine honey. Will you go upstairs and play video games while I speak with Officer Tyler, please?” she ruffled his hair, giving him a reassuring smile.
“Yeah,” he sighed, hating being kept out of the loop.
“What’s the problem?” Morgan asked, seeming strangely remote.
“I got more flowers… come see,” Rossie led him to the kitchen, and was shocked to see that the flowers, which had been beautiful just moments ago, were wilted and discolored.
“How long have you had these?” the officer’s tone was skeptical.
“I just brought them in from the front porch a few minutes ago. It’s really strange, they were pretty when I first brought them in,” she frowned.
“Uh-huh,” Morgan peered at the blossoms.
“Here’s the card that came with them. I hate to say this, but I really think that Tom Hundman may be involved,” Rossalyn admitted reluctantly.
“Hundman, huh? What makes you say that?”
“Well, he’s the only one who knew about the flowers, and we thought that it was Jesse Nickerson who had sent them, but he’s dead, and then Tom disappeared…”
“Disappeared? How would you know that?”
“Well, I went to his house several times to see if he was home.”
“And now you think he might be stalking you? What exactly is the nature of your relationship with Mr. Hundman?” Morgan’s eyes narrowed.
“What? I… we… I mean, we’re neighbors. We don’t have a relationship. Why would you ask me that?”
“Rossalyn, if you sent the flowers to yourself for whatever reason, you need to ’fess up now, before this whole thing gets out of hand. You’re on the verge of being a person of interest in the murder of Jesse Nickerson,” the officer stared her down.
“Are you kidding me?” Rossie hissed, aghast. “I keep getting threatening messages and you try to make it seem like I’m just wanting attention? Or that I killed someone? I didn’t even know Jesse Nickerson!”
“Yet you reported his behavior to me after he stopped by Hawg Heaven.”
“Yes, but that’s because he freaked me out.”
“Enough to kill him?” Morgan gave her a pointed look.
“I can’t even believe you said that,” angry tears sprung up in Rossie’s eyes.
“Those flowers look like they came from the supermarket,” he changed tactics.
“That’s what I thought, too,” was her dull reply.
“You do any grocery shopping today?” he asked, recalling that Eliza had said Rossalyn was coming back from the grocery store.
“Yes, but this is preposterous! How dare you accuse me of…”
Rossalyn was just working up a fiery rant when the two of them were silenced by what sounded like a motorcycle engine, followed by the thudding of a heavy boot kicking the front door.
“Tyler! Open up,” came Tom Hundman’s voice, seething with hostility.
Rossie looked at Morgan, terrified, and he put a finger to his lips, drawing his gun. The athletic officer moved toward the door, as though on cat feet, and looked out the peephole.
“What the…?” he exclaimed, holstering his gun and opening the door.
On the porch stood Tom Hundman, that mountain of a man holding a struggling Camilla Simpson, with her wrists pinned up between her shoulder blades. Ryan’s teacher was dressed completely in black and had a black bandanna around her neck that looked as though she had used it to cover her face.
“Don’t you hurt her, Tom Hundman!” Rossie exclaimed.
The look that her neighbor gave her was one of pure contempt.
“If you’ll listen to what she was doing, you just might want to change that statement,” Tom growled.
“You’d better start talking fast, Hundman,” Morgan ordered.
“I was riding by the house to check on things and I saw someone standing out in the side yard. I drove my bike right up to her so she couldn’t get away this time, and found this lady with bolt cutters, cutting the lock off of your power box. My bike is still parked out there, and the cutters are on the ground where she dropped them. I think we’ve found your stalker,” Tom thrust Ms. Simpson toward Morgan. “Here, you take care of this. It ain’t my job,” he muttered, walking out the door.
The motorcycle engine roared to life right next to the window outside the master bedroom of the rental home, and Morgan, after cuffing Camilla Simpson just to be safe, went out and found the bolt cutters and the broken lock. Camilla wasn’t wearing gloves, so fingerprints would be easy to come by.
“I’ll get a statement from you tomorrow. My guys will be here to process the scene in just a few minutes,” the officer said, seeming contrite as he led the slack-faced woman to the car. She didn’t speak, she didn’t weep, she merely glared at Rossalyn with pure hatred.
CHAPTER TWELVE
* * *
Valeria Sanders, a social worker from Family Services, arrived at Camilla Simpson’s house at ten o’clock, shortly after the school teacher was booked for killing Jesse Nickerson and stalking Rossalyn Channing. More charges would be forthcoming, but for now, those were the ones that sent her to a holding cell.
Valeria let herself in to the small, ill-kept bungalow, where Camilla’s six-year-old daughter Corina slept peacefully on Winnie-the-Pooh blankets, thumb tucked firmly in her mouth. Not for the first time, Valeria’s heart sank at the realization that she had to wake the innocent child, pack some of her things, and take her into protective custody. The little girl had no other family to go to, and her mother had murdered her biological father, Jesse Nickerson, a little over a week ago, after Jesse had dropped her off from a visit.
***
“Why did you do it?” Morgan Tyler sat across from Camilla, who was now dressed in bright jailhouse orange.
The
teacher sat, her head bowed, refusing to say a word.
“Your little girl lost her daddy when you killed Jesse Nickerson,” he reminded her, hoping that the thought of her daughter would compel a confession.
“He wanted to take her,” teardrops rained on the tabletop in front of her. “He was going to try to take custody. I was a good mom. My baby had everything that she needed…”
“Did she?” Morgan interrupted, hating the entire conversation, but having to push forward despite his personal feelings. “The pediatricians who did her assessments seemed to think otherwise,” he fought to keep his voice neutral and even.
“She was accident prone,” Camilla wept.
“She also gave a statement to the social worker,” the detective pressed harder.
“I couldn’t give my baby to that man. That animal. He chased every woman that he saw, there’s no telling who would’ve been hanging around my baby,” she cried bitterly.
“Is that why you vandalized Rossalyn Channing’s home and sent her flowers? Were you hoping that she’d think Jesse was stalking her and that she’d take care of the problem so you didn’t have to? You thought that maybe she didn’t have better problem-solving skills than that?”
“She didn’t get half of what she deserved. Jesse couldn’t stop talking about her. If he hadn’t seen her, he probably would’ve come back to me. We could have raised our little girl together, the way that it’s supposed to be,” Camilla snarled.
“Were you planning on killing her, too?”
“No, she wasn’t worth my time.”
“Funny you should say that, because we tested the water in the bottom of the vase of flowers that you put on her front porch, and it just so happened to contain heavy amounts of the same poison that was found in the wine in Jesse Nickerson’s room. There’s also this crazy coincidence that the poison that was found was from a plant that grows in your home, up on a high shelf in the kitchen. If it had been on a lower shelf, you’d be looking at another count of felony child endangerment to add to your growing list,” the muscles in Morgan’s jaw clenched.
“He didn’t suffer,” she whispered. “He just went to sleep, then stayed asleep.”
“How did you learn to disable the power from the outside of Ms. Channing’s home?”
“Videos on the internet.”
“Is that how you learned to make the poison, too?”
“No,” Camilla whispered shaking her head.
“How did you learn that?”
“I read mysteries. Murder mysteries.”
“And they made it sound so easy that you thought you could just give it a shot and get away with it, is that right?”
“I saw all the mistakes that the killers made. I knew what not to do.”
“Yet you didn’t wear gloves last night.”
“Yes, I did. I just couldn’t get a firm grip on the lock with them, so I had to take them off to use the bolt cutters.”
“Did you wear gloves when you vandalized Ms. Channing’s home?”
Camilla nodded.
“A yes or no for the recording, please,” Morgan prompted her.
“Yes.”
“And did you, in any way, encourage Mr. Nickerson to stalk Ms. Channing?”
“I gave him her address.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought he’d get caught and go back to jail, so I wouldn’t have to worry. I didn’t want to kill him, or her. I just felt like I had to. What’s going to happen to my angel?”
“Ms. Simpson, I really think that, at this point, you should be far more worried about what’s going to happen to you. Your daughter is in the hands of the state, and she is being well cared for, I assure you,” Morgan stood.
“Can I see her?” Camilla pleaded, as two officers helped her to her feet, hands and ankles chained.
“Not now.”
“When?” she persisted, her voice rising.
“I’m sorry, that’s for the courts to decide.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
* * *
“Mom… do you think that Ms. Simpson was so mean about my assignment because she hated you all along?” Ryan asked, looking up from his homework.
“I think that was probably the case, yeah,” Rossalyn nodded.
“I didn’t think I’d done anything to make her mad at me,” he mused.
“Nope, you didn’t. You’re awesome, kiddo,” she hugged him from behind, peering over his shoulder at his ultra-neatly completed assignment.
“Awesome enough for The Pancake House?” he grinned.
“No, not again. We just went there last week,” Rossie shook her head, chuckling.
“Awesome enough for José’s caramel chocolate bacon roses?” he tried again.
“What is it with you and the sweets?” his mother asked.
“Well, I saw a box of them in the fridge, so I figured that they were for me,” he shrugged.
“They’re not. I’m going to take them over to Mr. Hundman,” she smiled uncertainly.
“He may not even open the door if he knows it’s you.”
Rossalyn’s eyebrows shot skyward. “What on earth makes you say that, young man?”
“I just overheard what happened the other night, when Officer Tyler came over, and it sounded to me like you were blaming Tom for something and he didn’t do it,” the teenager blinked, guileless.
“I hate it when you’re right about me making a fool of myself,” her mouth twisted in an ironic smile.
“Well, at least it doesn’t happen too often,” Ryan teased.
“Yeah,” Rossie sighed. “All right, I’m going over to give him the roses, and when I get back, if he accepts them, you and I will go get pancakes. If he doesn’t, we’ll each have two of the roses and give the rest to Grandma, deal?”
“Deal,” he nodded, his trademark grin warming his mother’s heart. “But Grandma won’t eat them,” he pointed out.
“Grandpa will,” Rossalyn winked and headed to the refrigerator.
***
Heart in her throat, Rossie stood on Tom Hundman’s back porch and knocked softly. Tom’s bike was in his garage, she could see the gleam of chrome through the window, so she knew he was home. Squaring her shoulders, she knocked again, more firmly this time.
“Comin’!” she heard a gruff shout and the clumping of heavy boots.
“What?” Tom demanded when he opened the door.
“I brought you this,” she said, offering the box of delectable roses. “I wanted to say that I’m sorry, too. For… everything.”
The burly biker looked at the box, then looked down at Rossie.
“Lady, the whole time I’ve known you, I’ve been nothing but nice. Tried to help out when I could, tried to be a good neighbor, and when it was time for you to pick sides, you threw me under the bus.”
“But, I didn’t,” Rossalyn protested, clutching the roses in her arms. “When Morgan thought that either you or Eliza might be involved, I didn’t think that it was you.”
“Well, that’s sure not what it sounded like when I arrived at your front door with a murderer and you told me not to hurt her,” Tom’s cobalt eyes were like chips of ice.
“I’m so sorry about that. It was a stupid reaction, but you have to realize how it looked.”
“How it looked? A woman who clearly hated you shows up dressed in ninja wear, and somehow I look like the bad guy? I’m sorry, but there’s some flawed judgment there. I’ve never hurt a woman, never would hurt a woman, and someone who should know better accuses me of it,” he shook his head. “Go ease your conscience somewhere else.”
Rossalyn tried to apologize again as Tom was closing the door behind himself, but when she heard his clomping boots echoing further and further away, she realized the futility of her words. Tears stung her eyes and her cheeks burned with embarrassment. She felt like a first-class fool. Placing the box of roses on an outdoor rocking chair, she stepped down from his porch and trudged toward home, her down jacket unable to fi
ght the chill within.
“Did he accept the roses?” Ryan asked eagerly when she walked in.
“Nope. You were right, it looks like I screwed things up beyond repair with Mr. Hundman,” Rossalyn’s tone was subdued.
“Aww… don’t worry Mom, he’s a good guy, he’ll come around.”
“I really don’t think so, but that’s my own fault,” she sighed. “I’m ready to drown my sorrows in maple syrup if you are.”
“Pancake house?” his eyes lit up.
“You bet,” Rossie smiled.
“Let’s go!”
As Ryan dashed off to get his shoes and coat, Rossalyn’s text tone went off in her pocket. She was surprised to see that the message was from Morgan Tyler.
I’m really sorry. About… everything. Coffee sometime?
“Nope,” she murmured, and put the phone back in her pocket without answering it.
Summer Prescott Books
Copyright 2017
Nacho Usual Murder: Hawg Heaven Cozy Mysteries, Book 3 Page 7
