Jac wasn’t all that impressed.
“So, if I answer your questions, I just walk right out of here?”
“Hardly,” Max said, still calm. “You physically assaulted a federal agent. That’s a major problem for you. We’ll get our friend from the DCI here. I’m sure Gunderson will enjoy arresting you for battery or something like that. I mean, he and Dr. Talley are close friends.”
“So why should I cooperate?” His gaze kept darting to her. To the pen she held. Jac shifted her hand, evaluating. His eyes followed the movement. He was more interested in her that Max, then.
“So that we can answer the question we’re here to answer,” Jac said. “What exactly happened to your grandmother?”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what we mean,” Max said. “We found your grandmother’s body, wrapped in a quilt. Buried in your father’s barn.”
He paled. Right there in front of them. “What do you mean?”
“Don’t be evasive,” Jac said. “You had to know what happened. Why did you just take off with your family—without your grandmother?”
He shook his head. Clenched his fists. “No. No. Grandma kicked us out. She didn’t want us living with her any longer. That’s what my mother said. What everyone said.”
“So… you’re telling us that you came home from…wherever you were that day, and your mother told you to pack up, you were moving?” She’d heard stranger stories, but Jac wasn’t sure she bought this. It just seemed too simple.
“Yes. I was working. I worked at the junkyard. I’d enter receipts into the old computer Jon David had. We had a deal.”
Jac recognized the name of the auto parts dealer. It was through him that they’d been able to find Lesley in the first place. “What kind of deal?”
“I did all the computer stuff, swept his office, fed his stupid dogs, and helped customers get parts off the junkers. He’d give me a hundred a week, plus any parts I wanted.”
“You had no tax records for that period.”
A guilty look hit his face. “No. That’s because he paid me cash. Worked out better for both of us that way. Then I didn’t have to…”
“Report your income? Tax evasion is a crime.” Although they had no proof, other than his confession. On a fifteen-year-old crime. Getting that to stick would be tricky.
“So my parents wouldn’t know.”
“Was that a problem for you?” Miranda had told them how he’d charge her and her friend for a ride. Had he been desperate for money? Taxiing his sister around, working for cash under the table—why?
“Yes.”
“Drugs?”
“No. I never did anything like that. I just bought stuff for my car. Bought clothes, shoes. That kind of stuff. My parents didn’t have the money to buy me a bunch of stuff; so I bought it myself.”
“Where was your grandmother that day? It was a weekday. A school day. Take us back to that morning.” Jac softened her tone, hoping to get him to respond. They just needed to figure out where everyone had been that day—then they could determine who was most likely to have killed and buried Helen.
“I went to school.”
“What about your brothers and sisters?” Max asked. “Did they go to school?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I think they had the flu or something. Every time they were sick, Grandma would keep them home. Even if they didn’t want to. Even if they weren’t sick. She was weird like that. Always saying we were sick, even when we weren’t. I think she liked the attention. Or feeling important or something.” He snorted. “Grandma was a real witch to Monica, Jen, and Liv.”
“Olivia? You mean Honey?”
“Olivia. She’s always hated being named Honey. Says it sounded like a stupid dog.”
“Was that why she changed her name?”
“Yes.”
“Why did everyone change their names?” Max asked. “That’s not exactly something most families do when they move.”
Lesley shrugged. “Mom wanted it. Said that leaving Masterson behind us meant we were all getting a fresh start. That everyone was changing their names, that we were no longer Beises. She just kept pushing. Had a bunch of new rules from that night. Everybody obeyed my mom.”
“How did your family feel about that?”
“My dad hated it. He and mom argued like crazy. So we all changed our names. She made a game out of it.”
“Lesley, tell us exactly what happened and what you remember being said that day. Can you tell us what day it actually was?”
“April fourteenth. I’d turned eighteen two days earlier, but I had a year of school left.” He shot Jac a suspicious look. ”This will help with my case, right? I have a job. I have bills to pay. Kids to take care of.”
“I’m not making any promises. You did physically assault Miranda Talley.”
“Why did you do that?” Max asked, sneaking in the question.
Guilt flashed across the man’s face. “I…”
“Tell us.” Jac ordered.
“I owe fifteen hundred dollars.” Lesley rubbed the unshackled hand across his eyes. “Back support. I…my ex, Candy. She threatened me last night with having me arrested. I just panicked. I got another kid who needs the money more right now. He’s been sick. Has to have really expensive medicine right now. Candy can wait. I just bought her new tires for her car. What more does she want?”
“And that made you hit a federal agent and run?”
He wasn’t so belligerent now. It didn’t surprise her. In her experience, interrogations went three ways: total silence, blustery belligerence at the beginning, or building anger. It just depended on how nervous and how guilty the interrogated was. “It was stupid. I just…panicked. And I thought…Miranda…I’d heard she was some fancy cop somewhere now. I guess I figured I couldn’t work if I was in jail or something. It was stupid. And I’m sorry.”
Well. That didn’t happen often. Confession and apology, right there. And they hadn’t even left the interview room.
“What happened to my grandmother?” Lesley asked her. He seemed to respond better to her. They’d go with it. “Who hurt her?”
“That’s what we’re trying to figure out. The day you moved; did you see your grandmother? After she supposedly kicked your family out? Why did she do that?”
“My mother and my grandmother were always arguing. Always. It never stopped.”
“What did they argue about?”
“The three younger kids, mostly. Luke, Liv, and Jenny. And the new baby. Grandma thought mom should raise them one way. And my grandmother’s word was law. For all of us. Grandma didn’t want the new baby at all. Said she wasn’t going to take care of it.”
“Even your father?”
“No. He was the one person my grandmother actually seemed afraid of. She never hit him.”
“She hit you?”
Shame hit his face. One Jac intimately understood. “Sometimes. When I pissed her off.”
“Did she hit the other children? Your mother?” Max asked, bluntly. “Had she hit anyone that day?”
Jac thought about the photos she’d seen of Helen Caudrell. The woman hadn’t exactly been small. A big, stocky woman who, even at sixty-something, could have hurt a child.
He shook his head. “I didn’t see her hit anyone that day. But I stayed away as much as I could. Between my grandmother, my mother, and Monica, it was Witch City constantly.”
“That day?”
“I went to school. Fought with Levi Masterson.”
“Over?”
He leaned back and smirked. “Miranda Talley.”
“Oh?” Max asked. “Any particular reason why?”
“Yeah. Masterson was pretty wrapped up in her at the time. I may have said something about her ass back then.” His smirk was even bigger than Max’s. He looked at Jac, a smarmy expression on his face. Like she was supposed to be charmed by him talking about another woman that way. Sick. Some men were t
otal idiots. “Levi got defensive.”
Jac refused to let herself react, though her eyes wanted to roll. Miranda would no doubt listen to this interview later. Her friend would get a kick out of Lesley’s comment, no doubt.
Miranda could be weird like that. The things that would embarrass Jac would just make Miranda laugh like a lunatic. Like the guy she’d had to kiss in the last Rowland Bowles movie. The one that was filmed in Masterson had had Miranda and another man—an up-and-comer from Hollywood—kissing in the back of the fairy crowd. Miranda had enjoyed the entire thing.
Jac was the one who’d had a speaking part, though. She’d always be immortalized as saying, “Run! Gretta, you must run!”
Because of the red hair. Rowland Bowles had loved redheads for that movie. Just about every redhead he’d been able to find had been scooped up for filming. Including her and Miranda.
“So you argued with Levi Masterson. Then what?”
Time to keep things on track. Before he derailed everything.
“I went to the junkyard for a few hours. I needed a gasket for my car, I think. This was fourteen years ago. What am I supposed to say?”
“What was your overall impression when you got home? Think. You may have seen something that can help us figure out who did this.”
“I don’t really care who did it. It’s been fourteen years, and she was a total witch to all of us. Ask Randi. No doubt Diane—she used to be Monica—told her all about it. She was always complaining to Randi about something.”
“Just answer the questions,” Max said. “You got home and…who did you see?”
“Junior. He’s Luke now. I don’t think he minded changing his name. He hated Luther. He was freaked out. He puked in the yard. I almost stepped in it. Stupid creep. Nerd became an accountant and married the first girl he slept with in high school. She’s not even that hot.”
“How old was Luke then?”
“Thirteen, I think. Maybe. He might have been twelve and Honey eleven.”
“Where was your mother?”
“Inside the kitchen. Crying. Yelling at Monica—Diane. Diane. Named herself after Princess Di.”
“What were they arguing about?”
“My sister didn’t want to leave. She and mom were really arguing. Mom said we had to go. That she wasn’t staying there, and neither was my sister. The two younger kids were in their rooms with trash bags already. They’d been told to get everything they wanted in those bags or it was being left behind. I walked in, and my mom threw bags at me and told me the same. Told me I didn’t have a choice. Told me to pack my stuff, then pack Marcie’s. I just tossed everything in the trash bags.”
“You were eighteen; you had a choice. You could have stayed.”
“No. My mom made it clear that I couldn’t. She was going to take my car, give it to Monica. Let her drive it to wherever we were going, even though Monica wasn’t old enough.”
“Which was?”
“We moved around for a year or two after that. Started off on her cousin’s place in Montana. The guy was seriously old, but he just let her move in. We stayed with him until he died. Then we took insurance money and left again.”
“What happened after that?” Jac asked. “Your father? When did he and your mother divorce?”
“My dad kept the younger five kids, and Mom left about eleven years ago when she had Pete’s kid. Didn’t want the rest of us. Dad and the kids stayed in Mom’s cousin’s house. Dad refused to leave again. He was tired of it. Mom wouldn’t get off his case after we left Masterson. Worse than before. She hooked up with some guy who had kids of his own. Stayed with him for years. Had another kid, too. That one’s like ten or so.”
“Lesley, who was with your grandmother last? Before she told everyone they had to leave?” Max asked.
“She stayed with Luke and Liv and Kayla—that’s Jenny now—all day. Marcie became Marnie. Mom didn’t want to confuse her too much, she said, when we changed our names. My mom got home about fifteen minutes before I did, I think. I’m not really sure. That’s how it usually worked. My dad was out on the road for a few days. He got home an hour after I did. I think my mom called him and told him to get his ass home. That’s all I know. I swear.”
“What about your brothers and sisters? We really need to find them. Can you help us with that?”
“Not really. Diane and I went our own way. Dad probably knows where the rest of them are at. None of us were really all that close to Diane. But she doesn’t know jack about this. We left three hours later. And never came back to Masterson County.”
They finished the interview, finally getting the names they needed. He didn’t have addresses, but he had names, at least. It was a start. But it wasn’t all that much more than Luther had provided.
Jac watched as the deputy led Lesley Beise away. He’d be driven to the jail two counties over on the assault charges. Carrie had also discovered a warrant for his arrest on the back child support. It wasn’t going to be an easy time for Lesley Beise, but he had cooperated with them. That would count for something.
Jac took the list of five names he’d given her and stood. “I’ll get…on these.”
“Jac…sit for a minute. Talk to me.”
Jac sat. “Ok. Shoot.”
A look of frustration went over Max’s handsome face. Jac just waited.
“I don’t think Lesley Beise had a clue,” Max said. He leaned back, his strong arms crossed in front of him. “He seemed shocked to find out the woman was dead.”
“She’d be seventy-three now. That’s not exactly ancient. And he hasn’t talked to her in all that time.”
“If we believe his story, he probably assumed she didn’t want a thing to do with him or her other grandchildren. If she had a habit of abusing the kids, they may not have thought cutting off contact was a bad thing.”
“Do we believe him, though?”
“I’m not sure.”
“So basically, he walked in and was told to pack.”
“It happens. I’ve heard of families being evicted on Thanksgiving before.”
“And he didn’t see Helen after that. I bet she was already dead.” Jac made a note of the times Lesley had given them. “Dead and buried.”
“So, where do we go from here?”
She thought for a moment, mind organizing all the details Lesley had shared until she had some semblance of an idea where to go next. “I suggest we start in the morning with Luther Beise, Junior, otherwise known as Luke Meynard.”
“Great. The brother who was puking everywhere.”
“We get all the fun stuff, don’t we?” She smiled at him. His eyes heated, reminding her that things had changed between them. He wasn’t the same Max that he used to be. Not anymore.
Jac grabbed her notebook and scurried away.
35
Miranda texted Jac back quickly, a small smile touching her lips, several hours after the attack. Jac cared. It was why she was being so obsessive. She must have sent ten texts since Miranda had been released from the hospital. Miranda got it.
Jac had very few people in her life to care about. Miranda and Natalie, Jac’s younger sister, topped that list—along with Max and his daughter, Emery. Always Max.
“Everything ok back with the troops?” Knight asked quietly. He hadn’t said much since she’d stepped back out to the waiting room at the Evalyn hospital. Neither of them had mentioned the half-second kiss. Brief, fleeting, completely unprofessional, but Miranda wouldn’t be forgetting it anytime soon. “No one got attacked by ducks or anything?”
“Marin’s little flock isn’t aggressive.”
“No kidding. They follow that dog everywhere.”
“Of course, they do. She raised them. With help from Marin and Dusty.” Miranda leaned back and closed her eyes. Just for a moment. They’d given her a mild pain killer, and it was actually starting to help. She was glad she had a chauffeur tonight. Even if Knight was starting to freak her out on a personal level. “Dusty brought t
hem home for Marin to use in the garden last year. The post office received a shipment too late to forward them to the original purchaser. So the vet’s office found them a home. With us. Dusty works as a tech for Matt Masterson on the weekends. They are great pest control. But Chloe went crazy over them. They’re her little herd. She brings them in from the garden and the pond every evening. It’s her job.”
“The dog can barely walk.”
“I know.” The time would come when she’d have to say goodbye to Chloe, but Miranda wasn’t going to think about that right now. Not tonight. “Jac and Max just headed back to the inn.”
“What’s the deal with them?”
Miranda closed her eyes. Knight…exhausted her. Especially now. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“Sure you do. You’ve been trying to mess with Max Jones’s head from the time they got here. Throwing the two of them together. So, spill.”
Miranda sighed, fighting irritation. She wanted to use the time on the drive to sleep. Not talk to him about her friends. But Knight was the relentless type. Probably always got what he wanted when he pushed. “They were super close, but they argued. And they’ve yet to make up.”
“Romantically close? Hear there’s a lot of that in PAVAD.”
“Not statistically. Just more often than other divisions, because PAVAD tends to draw the more adventurous, who are often still single. Things happen sometimes. And, no. Jac and Max were not romantically involved. They just argued. Any more than that, and you’ll have to ask them. I don’t gossip about my friends’ business. Because they matter to me.” She yawned once she was finished speaking.
Knight reached out and turned up the heat. “Sleep it off, Talley. You can pick at me later.”
Buried Secrets: PAVAD: FBI Case File #0005 (PAVAD: FBI Case Files) Page 14
