by Donna Fasano
On his way back to Broslin, he called all four of Cathy’s scouting friends and confirmed her alibi, then mentally crossed the woman off his suspect list.
Then he called the first ex-wife, who ran a staffing agency in Myrtle Beach, April Cosgrove, now April Barton, remarried. The housekeeper informed him that Mr. and Mrs. Barton were on their second honeymoon in Paris and had been there for the past ten days. Chase had to confirm with airline records, but if that checked out, he’d have to cross April off his suspect list too.
Which would once again have only one name on it: Luanne.
He was tempted to curse.
Since that wouldn’t have helped anything, instead he called Harper on his way back to Broslin. “I’m heading over to Finnegan’s if you want to be there.”
“I’m already over here. Anything new?” Harper sounded sleepy. He’d had the night shift too, but had the morning off today.
“Not much yet. I’m still interviewing people.” Chase didn’t want to make a big deal about the samples he’d collected from the Mustang until he knew for sure that he had something.
“I want in on this case.”
“Like the captain told you, conflict of interest.” The murder had happened on property owned by Harper’s parents.
Harper swore, plenty of bristle in his voice as he said, “I want to be updated on every new clue. And if anyone talks to my folks, I’m going to be here with them.”
“Which is why I called you before I headed that way.” Harper was a friend. Chase saw no need to antagonize him. If his mother was in the same situation, he’d be acting the same.
He grabbed lunch from a drive-through, then headed over to Finnegan’s. He preferred Rose’s famous potato soup, but asking the person you were questioning for a bowl of soup didn’t seem professional. He finished his burger long before he reached the bar.
Only three cars sat in the parking lot: Sean Finnegan’s pickup, Harper Finnegan’s SUV, and a beat-up old Ford Focus. Chase checked the front of each, then checked out the back alley one more time before going inside.
The place wasn’t open, but Sean and Rose Finnegan were there, as well as Tayron the bartender, setting up behind the bar, all looking pretty grim. Harper, tall, reddish-blond hair, Irish down to his toes, leaned against the wall in the corner, glowering. He wore civilian clothes, jeans, and a green T-shirt with the bar’s logo on it. He nodded at Chase.
“Chase.” Sean, the older Finnegan, gave a friendly greeting. “I’ve been expecting your call.” Either due to good genes or Guinness, he looked twenty years younger than his age. He could have been Harper’s slightly older brother. They looked alike in every way.
“I had plenty to do this morning. Figured I could wait until you were here to get ready for opening. I might come back later tonight to talk to some patrons.”
Sean nodded. “Any news?”
“Still in the information-gathering phase,” Chase told him. “Were you here last night?”
Sean Finnegan offered a half smile. “Took Rose on a date. Fortieth wedding anniversary. Any man who values his hide better make a big deal out of these things.”
Sean and Rose Finnegan were made for each other, a small-town love story. She had plenty of fire left in her, even at sixty—slim figure, startling blue eyes, short hair in a fashionable cut—and Finnegan was smart enough to appreciate it. The couple reminded Chase of his own parents, before his father had passed away.
Now his mother was lonely. Of course she was. He made a mental note to stay a little after he fixed her dishwasher tonight. Maybe they could watch a movie together and have a chat about the matchmaking that was getting out of hand lately. All right, so he was the age where guys started to get married. But it wasn’t as if he had one foot in the grave. He had plenty of time. If only he could convince his mother to quit pushing.
“I’m going to need the credit card receipts for last night,” he told Sean. “Need to come up with a list of everyone who was here last night.” He paused. “I’m not going to lie to you. I probably couldn’t get a warrant, since neither the bar nor any of the patrons have been implicated so far, but having a list of who was here would sure make my life easier.”
“All right,” Sean said without hesitation. “Just be discreet when you go talk to people. We usually have men here whose wives don’t know they come to Finnegan’s. Don’t want to get anyone in trouble. Bad for business.”
Chase nodded.
Since Sean and Rose hadn’t been here the night before, after a brief conversation, Chase let them go back to work, Rose in the kitchen and Sean in the back office. Chase sat down to interview Tayron. Harper stayed right where he was to listen in.
“Did you hear anything suspicious out back?” Chase asked the bartender.
Tayron lifted a shoulder, dropped it. “Can’t hear anything with the music going and the big-screen TV in the back, people talking. Too much buzz.”
“Was the place hopping?”
“A couple of hundred people, coming and going. A hundred or so in here at a time.” He paused. “I was alone. The waitress who was supposed to work couldn’t come in. Things were a little rushed. Normally, I’d have called Harper to give me a hand, but he was on duty. We try to not have just one person serving drinks. Have to watch out for VIPs.”
Chase lifted a questioning eyebrow.
“Visibly Intoxicated Persons,” Tayron spelled it out. “Normally I tend bar, keep an eye on the people ordering. The waitress serves the tables, keeps an eye on people in the back. If I’m alone, people will come up, buy a round for their friends, and take it back. I don’t see the friends at the table, what shape they’re in. If one gets drunk, gets into an accident, Finnegan’s could be liable.”
Chase nodded. He knew that part. “I need you to give me a list of everyone you remember.”
“Mostly locals. A carload of college students I’ve never seen before. Probably on a drive from WCU.”
West Chester University, the nearest college. Could be something. A carload of drunk frat boys had potential. “They pay with credit cards?”
Tayron narrowed his eyes for a second, then shook his head. “Cash. Mostly one-dollar bills. I remember thinking maybe they’d set out for a strip club, then somehow ended up here.”
“Who else? Off the top of your head.”
Tayron began listing names, mostly people Chase knew. He’d lived in Broslin his whole life. When Tayron came to Luanne Mayfair, Chase held up a hand.
“Alone?”
“For a while. She doesn’t come in much. You know, since she got the twins. Some guy bought her a drink.”
“You know him?”
“First time here. Couple of years older than her. Geeky. Brown hair, brown eyes. Average guy.”
“I don’t suppose you caught his name.”
Tayron puffed out his cheeks as he thought. “Gregory,” he said after a second. “I think that’s what she called him.”
Not enough.
“When did Luanne come in?”
The bartender rubbed his chin. “Early. Around nine. And she didn’t stay long. Less than an hour.”
So she left around 10:00 p.m. The coroner’s preliminary report put the time of death between 10:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m.
Chase’s muscles tightened.
Tayron leaned forward suddenly, shock on his face. “You looking at Luanne? She’s not like that, man.”
“I know.” That was the trouble. In his heart of hearts, Chase couldn’t see Luanne as a murderous villain, not even under provocation. “Did she leave with the guy?”
“Can’t say for sure.” Tayron drew his eyebrows together. “I was serving people. One minute they were there, making small talk, the next they were both gone. I didn’t think much of it. She’s not the one-night-stand type. You know what I mean?”
He did. Back in the day, it’d taken him an eternity to talk her into his bed…um, backseat. And then she couldn’t wait to get out, which was a different story entirely.
Not that she’d bruised his fragile teen male ego or anything.
He still couldn’t think about that night without wincing, so he didn’t. He went back to questioning Tayron. “Was she under the influence when she left?”
“She had two cocktails. Light. She’s not a boozer. I wouldn’t have let her drive if she was seriously drinking.” Tayron thought for a second. “Guy didn’t look like a player. She said he was a dog walker. That’s all I can remember.”
Sean Finnegan brought a stack of papers from the back office and handed them to Chase, photocopies of last night’s credit card receipts. Of course, most people paid with cash, so it was a given that the list of patrons would be incomplete.
Chase didn’t like that word in relation to his investigation.
He spent another twenty minutes with Tayron, thanked him, then walked to the door, turned back for one last question. “Do you remember, by any chance, how the guy who was with Luanne paid?”
Tayron closed his eyes for a second. “Cash. I remember because I had to break a hundred. I was thinking, kind of jokingly, Hey, Luanne hooked a high roller. Good for her.”
Chase stepped back toward him. “How many hundred dollar bills did you get last night?”
“Just the one.”
“You still have it, by any chance?”
Tayron glanced at Harper, who was already on his feet, walking to the back office. He returned a minute later, holding a bill with a salad tong, his father behind him.
“I was just about to take the money to the bank,” Sean said. “You think you’ll find fingerprints?”
“Far shot,” Chase admitted. Money, in general, went through way too many hands. But he was determined to follow every possible lead. “I’ll need the prints of everyone here who touched it so those can be eliminated. I’d appreciate it if you could come down to the station today.”
Both Sean and Tayron nodded.
Chase pulled an evidence bag from his pocket, waited as Harper dropped the bill in. “I’ll let you know if anything comes up,” he said before Harper could ask, then walked out, turning one word around in his head: Gregory.
He needed a last name. Technically, the guy wasn’t a person of interest in the investigation at this stage, but something about him pricked Chase’s instincts.
Luanne had said she’d driven straight home. Alone.
He wished somebody had seen her.
On his way back to the station, he swung by her house. A birthday party was in full swing in her backyard, with about a dozen screaming kids.
For a second, he thought about running over to the store and grabbing the girls that ladybug cake, but he wasn’t sure how Luanne would take it. He wasn’t family. She didn’t even consider him a friend. Her friends were in the backyard at the party.
He didn’t normally frequent toddler birthday parties. Odd that all of a sudden he wanted to walk back to see how this one was going. He hoped the girls were having a blast. He hoped Luanne had been able to get everything ready. Being the single caretaker of twins couldn’t be easy.
He didn’t want to interrupt, so he went back to the station, gave the hundred dollar bill to Leila to overnight it to the lab since he didn’t want to drive back to West Chester again today, then he finished off his shift, going through every scrap of information he had.
Earl’s financial data came in finally, but Chase found nothing suspicious there, no big debts, no odd purchases, so he closed down his computer and headed out again. He went to see Earl’s neighbors, didn’t mind throwing in an extra hour, but they didn’t tell him anything that sounded even remotely relevant to the case. On his way home, he swung by Luanne’s again. The row of cars was gone from the curb, the backyard empty.
He pulled over and just sat behind the wheel for a minute, looking at the brand-new fire hydrant. Then he got out, against his better judgment.
She opened the door on the first knock. “The girls are sleeping,” she said in a hushed tone.
Her low, velvety voice got him, like it did pretty much every time. He could close his eyes and listen to her all day. Although, under the circumstances, she’d probably find that weird. “Tuckered out from the party?”
She nodded, her eyes strained, her face tight. “Any news about my car?”
He watched her closely. “If someone’s in trouble and they come in and give themselves up, that counts big-time as far as what happens later.”
She paled.
She wore a different shirt from this morning, this one black with some ruffles. Maybe it was the color, but she looked even skinnier.
“Would you mind if I came in for a few more questions about last night?”
Her hand tightened on the door. “Am I in trouble?”
“No. But you knew Earl. You were at the bar. You might have seen something. I’m off duty, just trying to help here, in case something comes up later. Let’s talk for a minute. Nothing official.”
She stepped aside with plenty of reluctance, but she did let him in.
He headed for her kitchen table and sat, thought about the cake she couldn’t afford, and wondered about food. He rubbed a hand over his stomach. “I didn’t have a chance to eat much today. Would you mind if I ordered a pizza and grabbed a slice while we talked? I swear I’m getting lightheaded.”
Her whiskey-color eyes watched him with suspicion as if trying to figure out his angle. But after a moment, she said, “Sure.”
So he grabbed his cell phone, asked for a large pie with everything, and had it delivered.
He got straight to his questions while they waited. “So Gregory’s a dog walker. Do you know where?”
“What?” Confusion sent her eyebrows sliding up her forehead.
“Gregory. Dog walker. Do you know where?”
The look of confusion disappeared. “That’s Brett.”
“Brett who?”
“Brett Bellinger. We had a date. He couldn’t make it. While I was waiting, Gregory came over to talk to me.”
Huh. He couldn’t say he approved of all those men around her. He wanted to ask more questions about the Brett guy she was apparently dating, but since he hadn’t actually been at the bar, Chase had no excuse to drill her about him.
“Can you think back to when you were leaving Finnegan’s? Did you walk out with the guy you met, Gregory?”
She blinked a couple of times. “I think so.”
“And then what?”
“Got into my car and drove home.” But she didn’t sound sure.
“See anyone in the parking lot?”
She shook her head, her long blond hair slipping all over her shoulders.
He wanted to reach out and tuck the golden strands behind her ears. He didn’t. “Hear any noises from the back alley?”
She shook her head again.
“Did anyone see you get into your car, other than Gregory?”
“I don’t think so.”
“And when you got home? Did any of the neighbors see you?”
“They were probably all settled in for the night. I’m sure they don’t stand by the window all night to see who comes and goes.”
Still, a nosy neighbor might have looked out the window if he or she heard the Mustang, could confirm the time when Luanne had come home. He hoped more than anything that he’d have no need to check, but the Mustang was stuck in his mind, setting off all his cop instincts.
He kept up that line of questioning until the pizza arrived, then he switched to Earl.
“Who knew that he always cut through the alley on his way home?” He bit into a slice and waved a hand toward the box. “Help yourself. I can’t eat all this.”
“Pretty much everybody.” She took a slice after a moment of hesitation. Ate. Relaxed marginally. “Thanks.”
“So I get it that he wasn’t averse to putting his hands on his employees. How far did he push? I don’t mean you. In general. Place like that, people working together, you must have heard stories.”
She took her time chewin
g, maybe to put off the answer. But eventually, she said, “Just groping.” She hesitated.
“But?”
“If somebody wanted extra hours, he’d hire them to clean his house.”
Chase set his pizza down. “And?”
“Certain things were expected,” she said quietly.
His blood began to heat. “Did he ever offer you a cleaning position?”
She put her pizza down too. “Yesterday.”
The way she looked just then, her eyes haunted, brought Chase’s protective instincts to the surface. He wouldn’t have minded spending a minute or two in a dark alley with Earl. He cared about Luanne, dammit, and he hated the thought of some asshole messing with her.
“Anybody ever reported him to the owners?” He knew nobody had talked to the police, which filled him with frustration. How was he supposed to fix problems he didn’t know about?
“Not that I know of,” Luanne told him. “He’s one of the family.”
Right. The maids probably worried that instead of Earl the slimeball getting reprimanded, they’d be fired.
Chase kept asking questions, and kept eating, even though the pizza felt like gravel in his stomach. But he had the feeling if he stopped, Luanne would too, and he wanted her to have a good meal. Only four slices remained by the time they finished eating.
He was out of questions for the moment, so he thanked her for her cooperation, then stood. Gestured to the box. “I hate wasting food, but would you toss that for me? Unless you think the girls might be interested when they wake up. I have some things to do, and I don’t want to carry the box around in the cruiser.”
She nodded and walked him out, nervous and wary.
He opened the door but hesitated before stepping outside. “If you remember anything else, please call me. From what we know so far, Earl was killed at around the same time that you left the bar. Anything you remember could be significant.”
She promised, fidgeting as if she couldn’t wait to get rid of him.
