by Terry Spear
“Getting any clues yet, Bridget?” Chet asked.
Bridget shook her head. “Hugo is thinking about some woman that he wishes he was with instead of the brothers, and it isn’t Nancy.”
“The guy’s a womanizer,” Travis said. “But no thoughts about the murders from any of them?”
Bridget forked up another bite of her pecan pie. “No. I would think that if they’re talking about the murders, if one of them had done it, I’m sure he would have feelings about them. His secret knowledge. It would be hard not to consider it.”
“Okay. Then we…you need to just talk to them,” Ava said.
“I’m going over there and start up a conversation.” Chet finished up his apple pie.
“Do you want any of us to come with you?” Travis asked.
“Bridget?” Chet said. “Travis, you’re backup if one of these guys bolts. Luke, you too, if that works for you.” Since Luke was here on his own, not part of the CSF, he wanted to make sure Luke was okay with the division of roles. “Ava, you just sit tight.”
Ava smiled.
He suspected she would try to block an escape attempt if one of the guys tried to leave and they thought he was the bad guy. Which he didn’t want her to do.
“Sounds good to me,” Luke said, taking another bite of his blueberry-topped cheesecake.
Then Chet and Bridget got up from the table and Chet introduced himself and Bridget to the three men. “We overheard the three of you talking about those murder cases in Cody. We wondered how much you knew about them and if you might have any clue as to who might have been involved.”
Hugo frowned at them. “Are you reporters?”
“No. CSF.” Chet showed his badge.
The men’s jaws all dropped.
“We’re looking into the cases because we believe a cougar did the killings and I’m afraid each of you have been implicated through rumors. We would love to clear you of any suspicions anyone has,” Chet said.
“Well, I can tell you right now, none of us had anything to do with the murders,” Joe said. “But we suspected it had to be a cougar also since the women were cougars.”
“We figured it might be a cougar who has been jilted by his lover,” Joe’s brother said.
“That could very well be. Tell us your whereabouts on the nights of the murders.” Chet listed the dates.
“We have to tell you we’ve talked about this before because of the rumors that we’ve heard about us. We have witnesses that can prove we’ve either been with someone at our homes or working or socializing.” Joe shook his head. “We were as horrified over the deaths as anyone who knew them.”
“Did you know the women?” Bridget asked.
“I knew some of them, but I was never involved personally with them,” Joe said. “They were cougars, and it was a small town, so naturally we would know some of them.”
“Yeah, it’s like Joe said,” his brother added. “It was awful, is awful. We even tried to come up with names of suspects who might have killed the women and who could have been spreading the rumors that it might be one of us.”
“Like who?” Chet asked.
“Langston, Benny. He is a real womanizer,” Hugo said, as if he wasn’t one also. “He has no respect for women. And he has a beef with me because a lady I had dated had left him for me.”
“One of the dead women?” Bridget asked.
“No. She’s still alive. You can talk to her and learn I’m telling the truth about it.”
“You’re dating Nancy and giving her the impression she’s the one for you, aren’t you?” Chet asked Hugo.
“Uh, yeah. You guys are good.”
“Thanks. So what about the two of you? What reason would Langston have to try and pin this on you?” Bridget asked.
“Really, Benny doesn’t need much of a reason. He just needs to get the heat off himself, if he did it,” Joe said. “Why not just start the rumors that any one of us did it? None of us have mates or girlfriends.”
“Hugo has a girlfriend.” Bridget frowned. “Nancy?”
“I haven’t been seeing her all that long,” Hugo said. “I mean, some of the killings took place before that.”
“Why would he kill a human woman? All the rest were cougars,” Chet said, playing along with what they were telling him.
“Are you sure he, or whoever did the killings, did that one too? We asked ourselves that but thought maybe it wasn’t the same person,” Joe said.
“One cougar had been in all the homes, even the human woman’s. She had been dating a bear shifter,” Chet said.
The men looked at them in disbelief.
“She’d dated some cougars too,” Hugo said. “Not me,” he hurried to add. “And I have an alibi for that murder too.”
“We all do,” Joe said.
Chet wondered about their professed alibis. So many times people had them, but their alibis were from girlfriends or family members, or set up to protect them from appearing to have committed a crime in the first place. Someone who had committed seven murders and not gotten caught yet had to be good at what he did.
Which made Chet think that Langston hadn’t even come up on the radar for them.
Chet was writing down all the dates and times and places the men had been so they could check them out.
Of course Ava, Luke, and Travis were listening in also.
“I didn’t do any of it,” Joe said.
“Neither did I,” his brother said.
Hugo shrugged. “I said the same thing. What else can we say to clear our names?”
“That’s all the questions I have for the three of you,” Chet said.
Bridget smiled. “I’m sure when your statements are proven to be correct, that will be sufficient.”
“Good,” Hugo said, but he sounded and smelled annoyed.
Not that Chet blamed him. Anyone who was being considered as a murder suspect could feel that way.
Chet and Bridget joined their companions and then they left the restaurant while the men continued to eat their dinner.
“What do you think?” Luke asked.
“I don’t know,” Bridget said. “I didn’t ‘hear’ anything that the three of them were thinking that would indicate they had done any of the murders. All I could ‘see’ was that they were considering possibilities of who might have tried to frame them by spreading the rumors. And all of them thought of Benny Langston, who also lives in Cody.”
“I say we return there tonight and locate him and question him,” Luke said.
“I agree,” Bridget said. “I think if we talk to him, we’ll learn the truth.”
“You will,” Travis said. “If he’s the one who was involved, I’m sure you’ll learn all about it.”
“She’s handy to have on the team,” Lucas said.
“She is,” Chet agreed. But he felt badly that he’d called Ava to come and join him and then not at least have the night to spend with her. He took Ava’s hand. “I’m sorry that we aren’t staying the night.”
Ava smiled. “I wish I could have helped more, but I’m so glad that we had lunch and dessert together.” She gave Chet a hug and kiss. “I hope we can see each other again soon.”
“Absolutely.” He planned on it.
Then he gave her a hug back and kissed her, not wanting to leave her, but he was glad she was so cheerful about it.
“Okay, I’m off and you catch the bad guy or guys.” Ava hugged him again. Then she got in her car, and they all waved goodbye to her and she drove off.
“Let’s go and see if we can find the new suspect on our radar,” Travis said, and they climbed into the car and returned to Cody.
“That seemed like a long drive for not catching the culprit,” Luke said, “though we might be on the right track now.”
“I sure hope so.” Chet wanted to finish the job so he could make some excuse to return to Yuma Town to see Ava.
Ava was so glad she had seen Chet, got to kiss him, hug him, and have lunch and dess
ert with him. And to see the others too but being with him had been like being on a date, so she was thrilled.
She really hoped they would figure out who killed the women and take care of it soon. And she hoped Chet would be able to return to Yuma Town soon too.
She finally arrived home and entered her condo, thinking about the last time Chet was here and wishing they were chasing each other up the stairs.
Chapter 14
Early the next morning, Chet and the others had been trying to learn where Benny Langston lived and worked. Now they had his home address and knew he worked at Crawley’s Bar where he was the bartender.
They all had a quick breakfast early, and then headed over to his home where they suspected Benny would be asleep. But when they knocked at the place, no one answered. They’d learned he was a bachelor and didn’t live with anyone. When dealing with cougar shifter rogues, they didn’t need a warrant to investigate if a cougar was committing heinous crimes. They put every shifter at risk.
Chet brought out his lockpicks, unlocked the door, and they went inside to search his place for any evidence relating to the murders.
They discovered jewelry that the victims’ families and friends had said were missing from their bodies or residences in a box under the king-size bed.
Chet pulled out his phone and showed the pictures of the missing items someone had taken from the victims’ homes, and everyone agreed they were the victims’.
“Of course, he could say he went into their places and stole the items after he found the women murdered,” Bridget said.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Chet said, “but you will still know the truth.”
Travis found some photos between the mattress and box springs in the master bedroom. “Hey, these are pictures of the seven victims. They’re alive in these photos.”
“It proves he knew each of the women.” Luke examined them more closely while the others were searching for any other evidence in desk drawers, kitchen drawers, bedroom drawers, and closets. “He met them all at the bar. Crawley’s Bar, most likely. He took the pictures when he was behind the bar.”
Chet looked them over more carefully. “You’re right. He picked up the women at the bar. It must be frequented by cougars.”
They hadn’t talked to anyone about him in Cody, not wanting him to get word they thought he was a suspect in the murder cases.
“He won’t be at the bar this early,” Travis said.
“Yeah, and that worries me,” Chet said. “What if he’s with another woman? Maybe even the one pictured here that we haven’t discovered a body for yet?”
“Then we have to find him,” Bridget said.
They’d checked all the rooms in the house. “You know it’s odd that Benny was sleeping in the spare bedroom also. His scent is on that bed too,” Bridget said.
“Good observation.” Chet didn’t detect a scent for any of the murdered women in the house. And no other males’ scents either. Just Benny’s.
Now Chet wished Ava had been with him if she could have seen something about him. “So what now?” Then Chet got a call from Ava, and he smiled. “Hey, we might have gotten a break.”
“The one the men mentioned in Loveland?”
“Yeah.
“I called to tell you I had a vision when I was in the middle of making donuts.”
“Of?”
“A black-haired man who works at a bar in downtown Cody?”
“Benny Langston?” Chet asked.
“I don’t know his name from the vision. I just got a visual. He has a home near there.”
“Okay, what did you see about him? Was he doing something?”
“He…he’s with a woman. I don’t know if she’s a cougar or not. He might not even be one. But I just keep feeling this impending doom where he’s concerned. If…if he’s the one, you have to find him. The woman could be in danger.”
“We didn’t find him at his place. But we’re searching it now. We found some evidence that we believe could be related to the murders.” The thing of it was he might have taken pictures of the women, but there had been no sinister intent. Still, why only of the women they had found murdered? Except for the one and he was afraid she might be next.
“He’s at her place. There’s a yellow Ford Mustang sitting out front. There’s a…mailbox, uh, house number—45012. The…the street sign says…Fanning Way.”
“We’re on our way, Ava. Thanks.”
“Let me know if you find anything.”
“I sure will. Thanks Ava.” They ended the call and Chet told Travis where to drive to.
“How did Ava get the ‘message’?” Luke asked.
“From what I understand, she could get a visual of something from a person who is in relatively close proximity, sometimes touch, or if it involves her in some way,” Bridget said.
“But this time?” Luke asked.
“Maybe just hearing the men talking about Langston, if he’s the one, she finally had a vision,” Chet said. “She had one about Joe and his friends because she was going to be there, I figure.”
“Okay, this is it, well, actually a couple of houses down,” Bridget said.
Travis parked and they hurried out of the car to go to the house Ava thought the man was at. They saw the yellow Ford Mustang parked in the driveway at the home.
“Why don’t two of us go to the front door, and the rest of us go around the back,” Chet said. “Travis and Bridget in front, Luke with me around back.”
“Hope they don’t have any big dogs in the backyard, guarding the place,” Luke said.
Chet smiled at him, then he and Luke sneaked around the back of the house, hoping that the owner of the home didn’t see them and call the police.
Travis knocked on the front door.
No dogs were located in the backyard, and none were in the house barking up a storm either because they were intruding on the property, thankfully. Chet didn’t smell any sign of Benny’s scent out here.
Suddenly, the back door banged open, and a man bolted out of the house, black hair, eyes wide as he saw Chet and Luke, both running to grab him. He was definitely afraid of getting caught at the house. But it might have only been a case of him making love to a woman who already had a significant other—husband, boyfriend—and he didn’t want to get caught.
Luke and Chet both took the guy to the ground and Chet hoped they wouldn’t find a dead woman inside the house.
“Hell, get off me.”
“We have some questions for you,” Chet said, not moving off the guy as he confined his wrists with wrist ties. He definitely was Benny and he’d been in all the victim’s homes.
“Let me go, damn it.”
A woman came to the back door and watched them, looking shocked, her hand on her mouth, her eyes wide. Thankfully, she was alive and well and she was the same woman from the photo Langston had in his home.
Bridget and Travis came running around through the back gate to join them.
“Are you Langston? Benny?” Bridget asked.
“Yeah, hell, what’s it to you?” Langston glanced back at the woman in the house.
“This is an FBI matter,” Chet said, flashing a badge at the woman.
“Hell, CSF?” Langston looked ill to realize they were cougars who could take him down if he was the murderer and they were onto him.
“Yeah, we need to talk to you. You’re coming with us,” Chet said. They had to get him to a safe place where they could question him in privacy. “I’m going to talk to the woman first.”
Luke and Travis stayed with Langston, while Chet and Bridget went inside the woman’s house to question her and realized she was human.
“What’s going on?” the woman asked.
“Langston is just a person of interest at this point.” But Chet believed they had their man. He glanced at Bridget, and she nodded. He identified himself and Bridget and the woman told them she was Xenia Monroe.
Xenia’s face suddenly drained of color. “You�
��re investigating the murders of the female cougars in town?”
“Yeah. Where did you meet Langston?” Chet asked.
“At Crawley’s Bar.” She motioned to them to sit on the seating in the living room.
“Have you ever gone home with him before?” Chet asked.
“No. I had just broken up with my boyfriend and Benny was available. So I brought him home. He’s always so friendly. Well, to all the women. God, how could I be so stupid.”
“We don’t know that he’s the killer. We need to question him to learn if he has any alibis for the nights of the murders. Did he take photos of women at the bar?” Chet asked.
“Photos? Uhm, sure. I mean, I don’t know about anyone else, but he took one of me. I thought it was cute of him. Not that I was going to take his coming home with me as anything that could develop into anything serious.” Her eyes filled with tears. “Excuse me.” She headed for a room down the hall, and they heard her throwing up.
“She was thinking he was charming and nice, a change from her former boyfriend,” Bridget whispered to Chet. “She’s sick from upset that he could be the murderer of the other women and she could have been next.”
Then Xenia returned, her eyes red. “I don’t know what else I can tell you.”
“Did you frequent the bar?” Chet asked.
“Yeah, but I was always with my boyfriend. He bought the drinks, and I never really paid any attention to whoever was serving them. My ex-boyfriend had been so controlling. If I so much as looked at another man when I was with him, he would have exploded. You can see why I broke up with him. Benny was so charming, such a change in venue.”
“I’m so sorry you’ve had to go through any of this, but we still don’t know for sure if he’s the real suspect or not,” Bridget said. “I would just be careful who you go out with until this situation is resolved.”
“Thanks. I should have told you that before. You might have just saved my life,” Xenia said.
After they finished talking to her, she had nothing more to share, except she’d made love to him, and they had slept until they heard knocking at the front door, and he’d bolted. She thought he had been afraid her volatile boyfriend had come to see her and would kill him.
