Carolyn and the board members nodded as they saw Phyllis’s point. “If she checked the cash box before the argument she had with Lindsey,” Carolyn said, “that means she didn’t walk into the office and catch somebody stealing it.”
“Well, we can’t know that,” Phyllis said. “But it makes sense. If Shannon had already looked in the box and done a quick count of the money, it’s not very likely she would have gone right back there after arguing with Lindsey.”
“But how does assuming that help us figure out who killed her?” Marie asked. “All it does is take away a possible motive.”
Phyllis said, “Every motive that can be eliminated helps. Sooner or later there’ll only be one left. And with any luck, that one motive will point straight to the killer.”
A shudder went through Lindsey. “I hate that we’re sitting around discussing motives and murder. Why do people have to kill other people, anyway?”
“Unless you’re talking about someone who’s psychotic, there’s always a reason,” Phyllis said. “It’s probably not a good reason, but it seems like one to the killer.”
And in the back of her mind a feeling stirred, a vague sense that around this table today, something important had been said, something that perhaps wouldn’t solve the mystery by itself, but that could point her in the right direction.
Whatever the thing was, though, it proved elusive. She couldn’t grasp it.
But she knew it was there now, and she swore to herself that she wouldn’t give up until she had captured it.
Chapter 25
Mike came by Phyllis’s house late in the afternoon, on his way home after his shift was over. He came in wearing his uniform jacket, because the temperature was even chillier today than it had been the previous day after the cold front blew through.
“I hear that you helped interrogate Lindsey Gonzales,” Phyllis said to him as they sat down in the living room with Sam, Carolyn, and Eve.
Mike raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “That was the sheriff’s idea, not mine,” he said. “He did just about all the talking, too. Except for when that lawyer lady was talking.”
“Lindsey’s lawyer?”
“Yeah. An attorney who’s new in town, named Juliette Yorke. With an E. She got under Sheriff Haney’s skin pretty good. He thought Mrs. Gonzales was about to confess, and all he got was a statement denying any involvement in the murder.”
“But he didn’t have any real evidence against her, just someone saying that they saw her arguing with Shannon.”
Mike grunted. “Word of that got around, eh?”
Carolyn said, “We saw Lindsey at the school this afternoon, along with the other members of the PTO board.”
Mike glanced at Phyllis and asked, “What was that about?”
“It was a special meeting to decide what to do about the money that was lost when the cash box was stolen. Marie Tyler asked Carolyn and me to attend, even though we’re not members. Consultants, she called us.”
“She’s scared she’s not going to be able to hold everything together, if you ask me,” Carolyn said.
“And Mrs. Gonzales came to the meeting?” Mike asked with a frown. “She seemed pretty shaken up this morning. I’m a little surprised she was there.”
“Wouldn’t you be shaken up if you were accused of a murder?” Phyllis said.
“She wasn’t actually accused… .”
“You said yourself the sheriff was convinced she was guilty. I’m sure Lindsey knew that.”
“Yeah, he didn’t make any big secret of it,” Mike agreed. “Anyway, with nothing but that witness statement to go on, we had to release her. It’s not like the witness actually saw her kill Ms. Dunston or anything.”
“Who was the witness?”
Mike shook his head. “I couldn’t reveal the person’s identity … but to tell you the truth, I don’t actually know. I’m sure it’s in one of the reports, but I’ve been so busy with other things all day I never saw it.”
“The reason I asked was that Lindsey didn’t see anyone else in that area except a little girl, and I don’t think Sheriff Haney would put much weight behind a statement given by a kindergartner.”
“Well, somebody must’ve been there, whether Mrs. Gonzales saw them or not.”
“You said you’d been busy all day,” Phyllis said. “Doing what?”
Mike hesitated, then said, “Background checks.”
Carolyn asked, “On who?”
“All the other members of the PTO board. Both of Ms. Dunston’s exhusbands. The rest of the faculty and staff of the school.” Mike flexed the fingers of his right hand. “I’ve been on the computer so much I’m gonna get carpal tunnel.”
“Find out anything interestin’?” Sam asked.
“Just that the PTO board is a pretty clean-living bunch. A couple of them have gotten speeding tickets, but that’s the closest any of them have ever come to being in trouble with the law.”
“What about Shannon’s exhusbands?” Phyllis asked.
“Joel Dunston you know about,” Mike said. “He’s a wellrespected doctor, has a good practice here in town, and is on the staff at Campbell Memorial. Ms. Dunston’s first husband, Roy Warren, lives in Tulsa and owns a concrete business there. Builds septic tanks, mostly. He’s remarried and has another family up there.”
“Has he ever been in trouble?”
Mike shook his head. “His record’s clean. I called the Tulsa PD and asked them to check on him. He was home with his wife and kids all weekend except when he was playing golf in a pro-am tournament with a couple of hundred people around all the time. If you’re thinking he could have snuck down here to kill Ms. Dunston over some old grudge, you can forget about that possibility.”
Sam said, “What about the other folks who work at the school? Anybody else like Gary Oakley crop up?”
“Convicted felons, you mean?” Mike shook his head. “One of the lunchroom ladies had a DUI conviction five years ago. That was the worst thing we found.” He smiled. “You schoolteachers are a pretty mild bunch.”
“We have our moments, dear,” Eve said. “We’re just discreet about them, that’s all.”
“I’ll take your word for that, Ms. Turner.” Mike looked at Phyllis and went on, “Did you think of anything else that might help, Mom?”
Phyllis shook her head. “Not yet.” She hated to stretch the truth, but she was still hesitant to drag Russ Tyler into this, considering how shaken Marie already was. And she still hadn’t been able to figure out what it was she had heard during the meeting at the school that had tickled at her brain for a moment.
Mike reached for his hat. “I guess I’d better get on home, then,” he said. He stood up and nodded politely as he put his hat on. “Ladies.” Then he added, “See you later, Mr. Fletcher,” as he went out.
Phyllis was distracted all through her preparations for supper and then during the meal itself. Sam offered to help her clean up afterward, and when they were alone in the kitchen, he said, “Something’s botherin’ you, isn’t it, Phyllis?”
“It’s this case,” she replied quietly. “When you look at it, it seems like there are plenty of motives and suspects, but those motives gradually get weakened or wiped out entirely, and then there are no suspects left.”
“There’s got to be one left, because somebody sure killed that poor woman. We just haven’t figured out the whole story yet.”
Phyllis nodded. “Yes, I have that feeling, too. There’s something we don’t know about, or something we’ve overlooked.”
“You realize,” Sam said, “that it’s not your job to figure it out. I know Mike sort of keeps you filled in and all—”
“You think he’s just trying to placate his nosey, meddling mother?”
“Now, I didn’t say that,” Sam replied. “I think he believes you’re a pretty smart woman—and he’s right about that, by the way—and he likes to run the facts by you because that helps him keep ‘em straight in his own mind. And ther
e’s always the chance that you’ll notice something he doesn’t. But my point is, you can walk away from this whole thing any time you want to, and nobody’s gonna think any less of you for doing it.”
“I’m not trying to figure it all out because of what anybody will think of me if I don’t,” Phyllis said. “Despite her faults, Shannon didn’t deserve what she got. And if I can help Mike bring her killer to justice, I’m going to.”
Sam nodded, but she thought she saw a faint gleam of skepticism in his eyes. She wondered if he believed she got mixed up in murder investigations for the thrill of it. In truth, she had pondered that same question herself. She told herself that wasn’t the way it was, but at times, doubt nibbled at her mind. Maybe she liked playing detective a little too much… .
She put those thoughts out of her head and said, “Are you busy tomorrow?”
“What’d you have in mind?” Sam asked.
“I want to talk to Joel Dunston. I don’t know if he’ll see me or not, but I’m going to give it a try.”
“What do you think he knows that you don’t?”
“I’d like to find out just how much, if anything, he knew about what was going on between his wife and Russ Tyler.”
“Ex-wife,” Sam reminded her.
“Of course. I’m not sure he really thought of her that way, though. When he was looking for her during the carnival, he called her his wife. Maybe he thought they’d eventually get back together. Maybe he wouldn’t like it if he knew about Russ’s involvement with Shannon. After all, he considered Russ his friend.”
“In other words, you think he might be the killer.” Sam nodded. “You’re not goin’ to talk to him alone, that’s for sure. Just let me know when you’re ready to go, and I’ll go along with you.”
“Thank you, Sam.” Phyllis patted his arm. “I knew I could count on you.”
“You always can,” he said, and Phyllis found herself looking into his eyes for a few seconds longer than she’d intended to before she turned away and forced her mind back onto simpler things—like murder.
*
Early the next morning, Phyllis called Joel Dunston’s office to see if she could make an appointment to see him that day, claiming to suspect that she had a sinus infection. She hated to do anything under false pretenses, but it didn’t seem likely he would agree to see her if she admitted she wanted to question him about his ex-wife’s murder.
The receptionist at Joel’s office informed her that he wasn’t in the office that day and wouldn’t be for the rest of the week.
“There was a death in the family, you know,” the woman said. “Dr. Dunston is taking a little time off.”
“Well, that’s probably for the best,” Phyllis said.
“Would you like to make an appointment to see him when he’s back in the office?”
Phyllis continued the fiction she had started with, saying, “No, thanks. I’ll have to have this problem looked at before then.”
She hung up the phone and frowned as she tried to figure out what to do next. A couple of days earlier, Joel had been at the house he had once shared with Shannon, looking after his daughter. Becca might be back in school by now, but it was likely that Joel was still staying at the house. He might move back in permanently now that Shannon was gone.
She found Sam upstairs and said, “Joel Dunston isn’t in his office today, so we’re going to see him at his house.”
“You know for sure he’s there?”
Phyllis shook her head. “No, but I don’t know where else to look for him.”
“Let me get my jacket,” Sam said with a nod.
He shrugged into his denim jacket while Phyllis fetched her purse and a lightweight coat from her room. As they went downstairs together, Phyllis hoped they could avoid running into Eve, who would certainly want to know where they were going if she saw them leaving together. Phyllis was getting tired of fibbing to people, even for a good cause.
They were lucky and were able to get out of the house
without being noticed. Getting back in might be a different story.
“Let’s take my pickup this time,” Sam suggested. Phyllis was about to say that they could go in her car instead, but then she decided to go along with Sam’s suggestion. He was a man, after all, and she knew how men were about driving. Anyway, it didn’t really matter how they got there.
“That’s fine,” she said. “I can tell you how to find the place.”
As they headed out South Main Street toward the interstate, Sam said, “What are you plannin’ to say to the doc?”
“I thought I’d try to find out—subtly, of course—if he had any idea there was something going on between Shannon and Russ Tyler. I’m not sure how I’ll go about it.”
“Can’t just come right out and ask him, I reckon.”
“No, probably not.”
Sam looked over at her. “Mike could, though, if he knew about what was goin’ on.”
Phyllis frowned. “Sam, you’re not scolding me for keeping this to myself, are you?”
“Me, scold you? Nope. I figure you know what you’re doin’.”
“I don’t want to ruin Marie’s marriage if I can avoid it.”
She realized that she had made that statement several times over the past few days, and she wondered if that was really her motivation or if she just didn’t want to give up the one piece of evidence she had. She wanted to think that she was just trying to save the Tylers’ marriage, but she was coming to doubt that more and more.
The solution was to get to the bottom of this, to figure out exactly what it was she had heard or seen or both that would give her the answers she was looking for. As Sam drove, she cast her mind back to the day several weeks earlier, during the bake sale at WalMart, when she had met Marie and first gotten involved with the PTO board from Loving Elementary. Phyllis tried to take it day by day, event by event, conversation by conversation… .
“Now where do I go?” Sam asked, breaking into her train of thought. Phyllis blinked, looked up, and realized that they had reached the interstate.
“Oh,” she said. “Turn left and get on the highway. You’ll get off again a couple of exits up.”
“Okeydoke.” Sam wheeled the pickup into the turn.
Phyllis knew that he hadn’t meant to intrude on her thoughts, but she was frustrated anyway. She had felt like she was closing in on something, but it was still incomplete, like a painting without all the details filled in. And there wasn’t time now to get back into that state of concentration. She had to pay attention to finding the Dunston house again and giving Sam directions for how to get there.
She realized that she would have to start from Marie’s house, because that was the way she had gone before. “Take the next exit and turn right,” she told Sam. “It shouldn’t be much farther.”
The twists and turns of the housing development south of the interstate were confusing, but they found Marie’s house without too much trouble. From there, Phyllis was confident she knew where they were going. She looked over at the Tyler house as they drove past it, but didn’t see Marie anywhere. That wasn’t surprising on a chilly day like this one. She was probably inside, and Russ was at work in Fort Worth.
Unless he was off meeting some other woman for lunch.
Phyllis told herself she had no reason to think that. With Shannon gone, maybe there wouldn’t be any more threats to the Tylers’ marriage. Although, as Sam had said, Russ didn’t seem to be the sort of man who was good at resisting temptation… .
“Take this left and then the next right.”
“Got it,” Sam said.
A minute later, after Sam had made the turns, Phyllis
said, “That’s the house on the left. You can pull up at the curb.”
There were no vehicles parked in the driveway. Both doors of the two-car garage were down, and Phyllis couldn’t tell if there were any cars inside or not. They would find out soon. She had decided that if Joel was here, she would ask him ab
out the casserole dish she had left a couple of days earlier. She’d told him then there was no hurry about getting it back, but she could tell him that something had come up and she needed it. Yes, a casserole emergency. Happened all the time, didn’t it? Actually, it didn’t, but Joel probably wouldn’t know that.
Sam eased the pickup to a stop at the curb. They got out, Phyllis opening her own door rather than waiting for Sam to come around and open it for her. When they reached the front door, Sam stood back and let Phyllis take the lead. She pressed the doorbell and heard it chiming somewhere in the house.
A moment later the door swung open. Becca Dunston stood there in jeans and a sweatshirt. Her brown hair was in braids that hung over the front of her shoulders. She looked surprised and worried as she said, “Oh, hi. I thought you were somebody else. That’s why I opened the door.”
To make sure the little girl didn’t close the door in their faces, Phyllis said quickly, “You remember me, don’t you, Becca? I was working at the carnival the other day, in the cafeteria.”
“Oh, yeah, you were the lady with the cakes and the snacks and that stuff.” Becca seemed to relax a little. “My dad doesn’t like for me to open the door when he’s not here, but I saw that pickup through the picture window and thought it was Lane’s.”
Phyllis thought back to her visit to the Dunston house a couple of days earlier, recalling the name of the young man she had seen there with Kirk. “Lane Erskine, you mean?”
“Yeah, Kirk told me he was coming by to pick up some
stuff from the shed in the backyard. I thought maybe he’d bring Nicole with him.”
“Who’s Nicole?” Phyllis asked. Becca hadn’t asked them in yet, so she wanted to keep the girl talking. From what Becca had said, Joel wasn’t here right now. Phyllis wasn’t sure how much information she could get out of Becca, but the possibility seemed worth a try. She was a little troubled, though, by the thought that she was trying to question an innocent child who had just lost her mother.
Murder by the Slice Page 21
