by K C Hart
Katy jotted down a few more lines in her notebook. She needed to look into why Rob Clay treated Emma differently from all of the other women in town. He had made passes at the local bug man’s wife, who was probably a little older than him; sweet little Daisy Talbot from the pharmacy, who was young enough to be his granddaughter; and every kind of woman in between. Why not Emma?
“You think you might decide to come to bed tonight?” John asked, padding up the hallway in his bare feet.
“What time is it?” Katy pulled the recliner back into the upright position. She scrunched her eyes slightly as the jolting of the chair caused her sore shoulders to ache.
“It’s ten.” John reached out his hand and pulled her up. “You need a shoulder rub.” He placed his arm around her waist as they started down the hall to the bedroom. “You can’t get all worked up about all of this. It’s not your problem, you know.”
Katy leaned her head over on his arm. “I know. I just hate to see how one person’s bad behavior can have such an impact on so many other people.”
John leaned over and kissed the top of her head. “I know, but it’s going to be okay.” His hand slid up to the back of her neck. “Why don’t you let me rub some of that tension out of your neck before you try to sleep? If not, you’re going to have a miserable night.”
Katy yawned and bobbled her head on her wooden neck again. “Sound heavenly.”
She sat on the edge of the bed and tried to relax as John began to work his fingers down the rope-like chords of stress running through her neck muscles. She closed her eyes and was just starting to feel a little relief when John’s cell phone began to ring.
“If Tubby’s back on that water tower, I’m going to call his daddy,” John said, jerking the cell phone from the table. “Enough is enough.”
“Hello.” The word did not sound like a greeting, but more like a dare. “She’s where?” His voice raised to a louder decibel, and the aggravation poured out like lava from a volcano. “No, no. Look, just hang tight. We’ll be right down.” He hung up the cell and looked at his wife. “Take a couple of ibuprofen and slip your shoes back on.”
“What’s going on? Is Tubby drunk again?” Katy asked, turning to face her husband.
“No.” He stated flatly. “They’ve arrested Emma for the murder of Rob Clay.”
“What!” Katy snapped her head around, forgetting about her neck. “Are you sure?”
“That was Tubby. He said the sheriff came to the barn where they were practicing. He told him they were going to his house to pick up Emma, but he could follow them there so she wouldn’t be alone when they got her.”
“Oh John,” Katy said, the rest of the sentence fading away unspoken as she thought about the young couple who had already gone through such turmoil this week. “This will just crush Emma.”
“Come on.” John slipped his pant leg over the top of his boot. “Tubby said that Emma was hysterical when they put her in the car. She said to call you and nobody else.” He patted the front of his jeans for his truck keys then searched the dresser until he found them. “Don’t these people ever call their own kin folk?” he mumbled under his breath as he stuck his wallet in his back pocket.
“What’s that honey?” Katy stuck her head out of the closet door, flip-flops in hand. “I couldn’t hear that last part.”
“We better hurry. Tubby sounded pretty outdone,” John said over his shoulder as he took long strides down the hall toward the kitchen. Katy had to almost jog to keep up with him.
They climbed into the truck and headed across town to the police station. When they pulled up, Tubby and Joe Phobs were walking through the front door. Todd’s truck, the sheriff’s car, and a beat up old hatchback were the only other vehicles on the lot. The streetlights made the parking lot have a hard, yellow glow. A swarm of bugs darted above their heads. A shiver went up Katy’s arms as they headed into the station.
Tubby and Joe were standing next to the dispatch desk, talking to Todd. Todd’s hands were moving in circular motions as he talked, trying to make some point that Tubby didn’t seem to be getting. Tubby’s beefy hands kept flexing open and closed like caution lights, daring Todd to say one more word. Emma sat in a metal folding chair on the opposite wall with her head in her hands. Lois, the dispatcher and only female member of the force, was sitting beside her.
When Katy and John stepped through the door, both groups turned to look at them. Emma’s hair was a mess of knots and tangles, and black mascara streaked down the front of her face like blacktop highways, cutting a pathway from her eyes to her chin. Her eyes and nose were both red and swollen from the onslaught of continuous crying.
Katy stared in shock. Emma was the only woman she knew who could have a crying jag and never even get a streak in her mascara. Poor girl must have really been caught up in the moment to allow herself to look like this. Katy immediately went and sat beside her, placing an arm around her shoulders like a mother bear with her cub.
While Katy was taking in Emma’s disheveled appearance, Tubby pushed Todd out of the way and hurried across the room to John in two long strides. “Mr. John, you gotta talk to Todd. This just ain’t right,” Tubby said, shoving his hand through his hair in frustration. “I don’t care what those fingerprint tests say, my wife didn’t kill that guy.”
John placed his hand on the massive forearm of the younger man. All the agitation that had been in his own voice just a few minutes before had disappeared. He was calm and in control. “Okay, Tubby, take a breath. You have to be calm so Emma can be calm.” He tilted his head toward the women as he spoke. “If you lose it, so will she, and that won’t help this situation one bit.”
John’s words seemed to have the right effect on Tubby. He took a deep breath and nodded his head up and down quickly. “You’re right. She needs me to be strong. I’ve already let her down one time this week.” He stepped back toward the other side of the room as he spoke. “Come on over here and let Todd tell you about all of this. I don’t want Emma to hear it until she is a little more together.”
The men returned to the other side of the room where Joe and Todd were standing quietly. “Where’s Sheriff Reid?” John asked, looking around the room again.
“He’s in his office making a call. He’ll be right out,” Todd answered. “He’s getting in touch with a lawyer for Emma.”
“Is it that serious?” John asked, lowering his voice and glancing over his shoulder at the young woman sitting beside his wife.
“Uncle John, Emma’s fingerprints were all over the murder scene and on the pack of guitar strings where the murder weapon came from,” Todd said, his voice edged with emotion. He was not enjoying his role of dragging his friends and neighbors in and accusing them of murder.
Katy watched as her husband talked to the younger men on the other side of the room. Tubby had looked like he was getting ready to take a swing at Todd when they first walked in. Now they were all huddled together whispering. Every few seconds Tubby would lift his eyes and look at Emma, making sure she was still okay. Hopefully, John could be the voice of reason required to keep Tubby from going off the deep end.
Emma lifted her head from Katy’s shoulder. Her lips turned up slightly, even though her eyes were red and puffy from all of the tears. “Thank you and Mr. John for coming. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Oh, you are more than welcome, honey, but don’t you want to call your momma or your in-laws?” Katy raked a tangled yellow curl from across Emma’s face. “I’m sure they would want to know what’s going on.”
Emma sucked in a quick, sharp breath, drawing in air and courage all in one gulp. “I know I should, but I just don’t think I can face them.” She paused as another set of shiny tears made their way down the black tracks of mascara that marred her face. “I’m the good girl in our family. My momma is just going to die.”
“But don’t you want her to hear this from you instead of down at the post office or at the grocery store tomorrow?” Katy
hated to press the point, but Emma needed the support of her family.
Emma wiped a path across her face with the back of her hand, making the mascara tracks curve toward her right cheek. “I haven’t thought about that.” She sniffed again, trying to maintain her composure. “I haven’t thought about anything since I saw the sheriff walk through our door a while ago.” She looked at her hands as she ripped the soppy, wet tissue into tiny shreds. “The funny thing is, I thought he was coming to arrest Tubby. I thought he had got drunk again and done something stupid.” She looked from Lois to Katy with a desperate smile on her face. “I was home all day Saturday. I clean my house on Saturdays and get my make-up orders ready for delivery the next week. When I get that done, if Tubby’s not home, I curl up on the couch with a romance novel.” She shrugged her shoulders and lifted her eyebrows in disbelief. “Who would have ever thought staying at home and minding your own business would make you a murder suspect?”
“Did you get a chance to explain to Tubby about what we were talking about earlier?” Katy asked. She took the destroyed tissue from Emma’s hand and replaced it with a fresh one from the box sitting in the chair beside her.
“No ma’am.” Emma looked at the men and caught Tubby’s eye as he stared back at her. “He still doesn’t know any of that.”
Katy watched the young couple and decided they needed some time alone. “Lois,” she said, leaning around Emma to talk to the dispatcher, “is there any place that Tubby and Emma could be alone around here?”
“I don’t know,” Lois said, looking around, glad to have something to do. “Let me go ask Sheriff Reid.” She walked to the sheriff’s office and tapped on the closed door then entered. After a minute she emerged with the sheriff right behind her. The men walked back to the chairs where Emma and Katy were sitting just as the sheriff walked up.
“Tubby, I called Robert Scott. He’s on his way over.” The sheriff’s voice was slow, tired. “Look, why don’t you and Emma go to that back cell and sit down for a little while so you can decide how you want to handle things? I ain’t going to try to get Emma’s statement until Robert gets here, anyway.”
Tubby reached down and took his wife’s hand as she stood from the hard, metal folding chair. Neither said anything as Todd led them down the hall to the back, where the empty cells were waiting.
John waited until the couple were out of the room before speaking. “You can’t believe Emma Robinson strangled that man with a guitar string, Sheriff.” He said the words more as a command than a question.
Sheriff Reid reached in his pocket and pulled out four quarters. He spread them out in his palm, flipping them over so that the George face was looking up on all of them. “I hate what they did with quarters, putting all the different states and pictures on the backside. I have to flip them all face up just to make sure they are what I think they are.”
Joe, who had been his usual quiet self, looked from the sheriff to John, and then down at Katy, who was still sitting in one of the metal chairs. He rubbed his jawline with agitation. “Sheriff, what are you talking about? That girl is about to have a nervous breakdown. You can’t believe she killed Rob Clay.”
The sheriff closed his fist over the quarters and lowered his hand as he lifted his chin to look at Joe. “It doesn’t matter what I believe. All that matters are what the facts are telling me.” He stepped between the two men and walked to the Coke machine on the wall near the hallway. He slid the four quarters in and pushed a button. The familiar sound of a can rolling down the trench to the opening echoed in the silent room.
Todd came up the hallway at about the same time that Robert Scott walked in the front door. Robert was not a criminal lawyer. There wasn’t a criminal lawyer in town. They would have to try to get somebody here first thing in the morning, but Robert had helped Joe when he had been framed for murder last year. The lawyer would make sure Emma didn’t do anything stupid tonight then help her find more appropriate representation after the sun came up.
Robert didn’t look like a lawyer. He had been at his son’s Little League game earlier that night and still had on his t-shirt and coaching shorts. He said hello to the room in general, then followed Sheriff Reid down the hall to find his client.
Lois had disappeared into the sheriff’s office. Joe and John decided to step outside to get a breath of fresh air.
Todd slumped down in the chair beside Katy. He laid his head on the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling. “It sure would have helped things if she would have had an alibi.” His voice was deflated, exhausted.
Katy looked at her nephew and felt her own face fall as the weight of his thoughts pushed into hers. “She was meeting him every Tuesday for guitar lessons,” she said softly. “I’m sure that’s how her fingerprints got on the envelope. Somebody’s setting her up.”
Todd’s feet pulled in across the floor and he slowly pushed up from his slouched position in the chair. He lifted his head and looked at his aunt as he thought about what she was saying. “Rob Clay?” he asked. As Katy nodded in response, the question changed to a statement of fact. “She was taking guitar lessons from Rob Clay,” he said faster, as the information cleared the fog of defeat from his brain. “I knew there had to be a reason.” Todd’s words came faster as his mind began to form new scenarios explaining the evidence that had been found, scenarios that did not take Emma to prison and leave Tubby hating him for the rest of his days.
“Of course, that still doesn’t explain the note that was on the stage with her name on it,” Katy said.
“No, it doesn’t,” Todd agreed. “Where was she taking these lessons at? Cause I bet it wasn’t at the high school auditorium.”
“I don’t know. You’ll have to find out, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Todd stood up and stretched his back like a cat waking up from a nap. “We’ve got to get busy,” he said, turning to his aunt. “I was losing focus, giving up. Thanks for putting a stop to that.” He pulled a little notebook, that was very similar to the one that Sheriff Reid carried, out of his shirt pocket. “I think we might need to compare notes before you leave tonight.”
Katy stood and walked toward the drink machine. “Buy me a Coke and I will tell you everything I know.” She paused and looked through the glass front door to where her husband and Joe were leaning against the front of their truck. “I need you to keep me informed, too, Todd. I owe it to Tubby to help him clear Emma’s name.”
Todd took the cold, wet Coke can from the machine and handed it to Katy. “I will. Don’t worry about that. I have a feeling you’re going to keep tabs on me to make sure I keep you in the loop.” Todd looked down the hall where Tubby and Emma were being questioned. His voice changed from light to serious and his face grew tight. “I thought Tubby was going to hit me when I put Emma in the back of the sheriff’s car. If Joe wouldn’t have stopped him, he probably would have. He was about to lose control when you and Uncle John came in. That’s why we had him over to the side and Lois with Emma. I don’t mind getting knocked down. It’s part of the job, but Tubby got kind of wild eyed there for a minute.”
“We need to figure this out,” Katy sighed as she thought about what Todd said. “And we need to do it before Tubby does. If he thinks somebody is framing his wife, he is liable to do something real stupid.”
Todd nodded again. “I think you’re right. It won’t do much good to get her out of a fix while Tubby is getting in a fix of his own.”
Katy popped the top of the Coke can. “Hopefully we can clear this up before it comes to that.”
Chapter Six
After the sheriff took Emma’s statement, Katy talked her into calling her momma. She couldn’t tell from looking at the woman how old she was, but she looked more like Emma’s sister than her momma. After the woman had been there about ten minutes, Katy realized why Emma had not called her first. She actually cried and put on a bigger show than Emma. At one point she acted like she was going to faint, staggering around and grabbing
chairs and elbows for support. Katy had made her lie across the metal chairs and prop her feet up to ensure that it didn’t happen. Luckily, the woman didn’t stay at the station very long. Once she made sure everyone knew she was the true victim of her daughter’s alleged crime, she found the strength to drive home.
Poor Emma. She was almost apologetic after that. Katy sat with her in the jail cell for a while letting her talk. “You were right, Mrs. Katy. Tubby took the whole thing a lot better once I told him my big secret was guitar lessons…not an affair.”
“I figured he would, Emma,” Katy paused. trying to decide the best way to offer her help without sounding like a nosy old woman. “You know, I feel like I can be a little bit of assistance to you with this if you want me to.”
Emma reached across the foot of space separating the women as they sat on the narrow cot. She grabbed Katy’s hand in another death grip. The young woman’s words tumbled out, almost like she was scared Katy would take back the offer to help if she didn’t respond quickly enough. “I want you to. I’ve done told Tubby to get busy and do whatever you ask him to do.” She paused and looked down at their hands, realizing she was probably hurting Katy. She released her grip and put her hands in her lap as she gazed back up. “We don’t have a lot of money put away, but if you can help us figure out a way to prove I didn’t do this, we’ll find a way to pay you.”
“Pay me?” Katy’s eyes stretched wide. “You won’t be paying me. I’m already in Tubby’s debt. Besides, I don’t do anything that’s worth getting paid for.” She rubbed her hands together and bent her fingers back and forth to work out the soreness from Emma’s vice-like grip. “Look, I need to know everything you can tell me about your meetings with Rob Clay. That will be a good place to start.”
“Let’s see, I found out that he gave guitar lessons from Mr. Donnie, his cousin.” She paused as Katy wrote down what she said in a notebook. “He came in the bank all of the time, and since he worked at the music store, I just asked him one day if he knew how to play the guitar. He said he didn’t, but Mr. Clay did, and gave private lessons.”
