Final Verdict

by Jessica R. Patch

  An older man—average height, thick gray hair and curious eyes—waved at Aurora. Beckett trailed behind and waited for her to make introductions. She introduced him to Dwight as her colleague, Beckett Marsh. Beckett held in a laugh. Dwight sized him up and nodded, then offered them a seat and encouraged them to order a piece of pie. Chocolate. Beckett accepted.

  “Aurora, I appreciate your tenacity, hon. I do. I’m sorry for what happened to Richie, but this case is cut-and-dried.”

  Hon wasn’t going to fly with the counselor. She’d see it as patronizing.

  Aurora bristled.

  Yep.

  She stretched across the table, palms down. “Dwight, I don’t care if you appreciate me or not. Richie didn’t kill Gus. I know he got in a fair amount of trouble. I know you often hauled him home instead of tossing him in the clink. But that doesn’t mean he was a murderer.”

  Dwight mashed a few piecrust crumbs onto his fork and slid them into his mouth. “I don’t know anything new.”

  “Gus gambled. I know it all happened in the back of his garage, and several citizens of Richfield, who would be sorely ashamed if the news got out, joined in. One happens to be a deacon of a local church. Don’t deny it. My one source is reliable.”

  Who was her source?

  “Yet, he wasn’t questioned,” Aurora continued. “None of those men were. What if Gus cheated them out of money like he did my brother?”

  Dwight handed his plate to the server as she set Beckett’s pie in front of him. When she left, Dwight clucked his tongue in his cheek. “They played some cards. So what? It was all friendly. The evidence points to Richie. He had motive.”

  “He wasn’t there that night! His prints were, and they should have been. He was employed at Gus’s Garage.”

  Aurora had a valid point. Every avenue should have been run down. “How serious were these games? How big of a pot?” Beckett asked.

  Aurora shot him the evil eye. “Elephant, remember?”

  “Clearly, I don’t.” And he was on her side. At least, in this line of questioning. He turned to Dwight. “Why weren’t those men questioned?”

  “We didn’t need to. I doubt the pot was that big.”

  “Well, how do you know if you didn’t attend?” Aurora asked. “Or did you participate, Detective? Are you letting those men off to hide the fact you gambled?” Aurora opened her hand and began tapping each finger. “Illegal gambling. Detective. Deacons. Town officials.”

  Beckett cringed. With every word, Aurora painted a target on her back. The flush on Dwight’s neck reached to his hairline. “You’re crossing the line, missy. I’m here out of sympathy, but you’re killing it.”

  “I’m simply trying to understand why you wouldn’t do your job.” Aurora’s nostrils flared.

  “I’m done here.”

  Aurora opened her mouth, but Beckett laid a hand on hers. They watched as Dwight Holmstead stormed from the café.

  “Tell me that’s not shady, Sheriff.”

  Beckett pushed his pie away and rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I’ll admit it. That’s shady, Counselor.”

  “And notice he didn’t admit or deny being a part of the poker games.”

  “I noticed.” Richie may have killed Gus McGregor. But the detective was definitely hiding something, even if it was simply incompetence on the case. Would that give him motive to scare Aurora, to attack her?

  The detective had a raspy voice.

  Beckett wasn’t ruling out anyone.

  * * *

  Aurora stood on Darla McGregor’s doorstep, the garage where Gus had been murdered across the street. Beckett stood beside her. Maybe he was starting to believe her. He had admitted to Dwight’s shadiness. If she could come up with other regulars at those poker games, it would be a big help. But Richie had been her source and he was gone. Small towns had a way of locking their secrets in vaults and tossing away the keys.

  Darla opened the door and invited them into her worn-out but tidy home. Aurora introduced Beckett as a colleague again, and for the second time he flinched. The last thing he wanted was to be portrayed as someone who defended those accused of crimes. They sat on Darla’s threadbare couch and Beckett kept silent as Aurora fired questions. No, Darla hadn’t been in town that night.

  She hadn’t known about Gus’s poker games. He’d kept most of his life private.

  Beckett’s eyes narrowed a fraction at that answer. Not buying it? Aurora wasn’t so sure. Gus could have concealed the games easily and, if he’d won, said the money came from work. But if he had held them in his garage, wouldn’t Darla have seen all the cars? Why lie?

  Aurora pressed her hands together in a prayer-like gesture against her chest. “Can we browse the garage?”

  Darla grabbed a set of keys lying on the nicked coffee table. “I had a feeling you’d want these. I don’t know what you think you’ll find after all these years.”

  Aurora wasn’t sure, either. It had been over a decade since Richie went to prison. But she needed to do it. Should have done it a long time ago. “Probably nothing.”

  “Little Gus tinkers out there. Does some side work. But he’s not here today. Those are his keys. I never go in that place anymore.”

  “Tell Little Gus thanks for us then,” Aurora said. At thirty-two, Little Gus didn’t need to be called that anymore, but names stuck. “We won’t disturb anything, and thank you. For talking and for always believing in Richie’s innocence. If you think of anything else, please call me.”

  Darla ran her hand through her hair, streaks of gray more prominent than the brunette, and handed Aurora the keys to the garage. “I’ll tell him.”

  Beckett followed her across the street to the old mechanic shop. Dirty, run-down. Smelled like motor oil and years of neglect. “I wondered why the widow of the deceased would talk to you.”

  “She never thought it was Richie, but it didn’t matter.”

  Emotion lodged in her throat as they stood inside the garage. A man had died here. She’d been so focused on Richie and his innocence that she hadn’t allowed herself to think much about Gus. No one deserved what had been done to him.

  “What do you hope to find?” Beckett asked.

  “Something to grasp on to. We need to find out who played in those games. Even if we get town gossip, some of it will be true. Always is.”

  “Can you ask your parents?”

  “I don’t talk to them much.” Another reason to feel guilt and shame.

  “Why?”

  “Why do you want to know?” This conversation, if continued, wouldn’t be considered small talk. And Beckett was only here to fulfill his duty. No point in getting to know her personally. When this was over he’d go back to scowling and blaming her for allowing justice to misfire. Sadly, oddly, she wished things were different. She shoved the feelings aside.

  “I guess I’m... I don’t know.” He shrugged and stared at the wall, then focused on her. “I haven’t talked to my dad since he left. He never called. Started a new life. Had a new family. He never responded the few times I did contact him. Not even when I went into the navy.”

  Aurora gawked at his blurted admission. Her dad hadn’t walked out, but that didn’t mean he’d been present in her life. She sympathized with Beckett, and he’d made an effort to reach out. Why? Didn’t matter. He had and she wanted to reciprocate.

  She hated to admit the truth about her less-than-ideal childhood, but fair was fair. “We lived in a trailer on the other end of town. Sometimes my dad worked. Sometimes he didn’t. Mostly he drank. My mom is bipolar. When she’s on meds she does well. But part of the time she thought she didn’t need them and the other part she said she couldn’t afford them, so she didn’t take them often.” She toed the dirty concrete floor. “Richie struggled with depression, too. Being convicted of Gu
s’s murder and enduring the hardships of prison sent him spiraling into a dark place. He’d written me a few desperate letters. I kept telling him to hang on. I was working hard. I was going to save him.”

  She held back tears and shook her head. “I couldn’t do it in time. I contacted the medical personnel at the prison, begged them to put him in solitary to protect him but...I failed. You know how that feels?”

  Beckett eased into her personal space, a new expression in his eyes. Compassion. “Yes,” he whispered. “I know.”

  What had Beckett Marsh ever failed at? He seemed to have it all together. He was tough. Intelligent. Strong. But the way he said he knew what failure felt like... Something in his past had shattered him. The raw honesty in his voice connected with her in a profound way. “Beckett, I’m so sorry—”

  A creak overhead sounded and the connection was lost. “Did you hear that?”

  Beckett slid his gaze upward and scanned the loft area. “Probably just the old building settling in the cold.”

  He was probably right. “I’m jumpy.”

  “With good reason.” Beckett rubbed his hands together. “It’s freezing in here.”

  “Tell me about it. And it gives me the creeps. I used to be at home in places like this, but now all I think about is how a mechanic shop ruined Richie’s life.”

  Beckett shoved his hands in his pockets. “You were just a girl. You couldn’t get through school any faster than you did.”

  “I know, but—”

  A rattling echoed through the shop. She snapped up her head in time to see an engine attached to a chain plummeting toward her.

  “Aurora!” Beckett hollered.

  A rush of air smacked her face.

  She couldn’t move.

  Beckett dove on her and rolled her across the frosty concrete as the engine crashed with a deafening clang. Dirt and grime exploded into a cloud surrounding them.

  Pieces of metal busted loose and flew across the shop; Beckett covered Aurora’s head with his strong arms, shielding her from debris and motor parts. A metallic and dirty taste coated her tongue and gagged her. She pinched her mouth closed.

  Her entire body shook, but he continued to guard her, his arms like a mighty fortress, and nothing in this entire world could get past them to hurt her. With her belly to the floor, she coughed and shifted, peering up at Beckett. Amber eyes stared into her face, pupils dilated, his breath puffing against her nose and lips.

  “You saved me.”

  “Barely,” he rasped, and brushed a thumb across her cheek. He held it up. Grime had streaked her cheeks. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No.” Her head swam. Fear. Adrenaline. And something she didn’t want to acknowledge.

  He held her gaze a beat longer than what might be appropriate, then lifted his weight from her. “Stay here.” He drew his weapon and bounded up the stairs, disappearing.

  Aurora sat up, drew her knees to her chest and hugged them. On the floor lay a shattered engine and a pile of chain that had once held it in place. Could it have been faulty? A coincidence? An accident? She couldn’t control her quaking, not even when she bit down on her bottom lip and gripped her knees tighter.

  “The back door up here is open. The stairs and surrounding area are clear, but those creaks weren’t the building settling and popping. Someone was here. Watching. Listening.” He pointed to the tall row of tool chests. “Maybe taking cover from behind there.”

  Aftershock rippled through her muscles.

  He grabbed a portion of the chain on the concrete. “It’s been cut. And it’s greasier than it should be.”

  “But it was directly above us. How did we not see someone standing up there cutting through a metal chain? Let’s say someone did lube it to cut down on noise—we’d still have seen him.”

  “True.” Beckett skimmed the area with narrowed eyes, then picked up a hacksaw from a tool chest. “But if he knew we’d be coming in here, he could have cut through it halfway while we were across the street.”

  “But there’s no guarantee I’d be standing under it. That it would even fall while we were here.”

  Beckett’s expression darkened. “Except he stuck around long enough to make sure. It’d only take one finger to give it a little push. That was most likely the creak we heard.” He tromped down the metal stairs. “We were either followed, someone knew we’d come here, or your girl Darla might not think Richie is so innocent, after all.”

  “It wasn’t Darla. She would never make a calculated move like that.” Although she would have known she could cut halfway through the chain before they got there, and she did have a good idea they’d come into the garage, which is why she’d secured the keys for them. She could have come up the back stairs and given it the final push. But that was a major stretch.

  “Don’t be so quick to declare her innocent, Counselor. I know it’s your job—”

  “Don’t go there.” She met his menacing challenge. “Innocent until proven guilty.”

  “Well, let’s go talk to her, shall we? Maybe she called someone and innocently mentioned you were here.”

  She bit her tongue, not liking his condescending and skeptical tone. Had his tours in the war hardened him, or was he always this quick to judge?

  They crossed the street in silence. Darla answered the door and Beckett stole the lead, asking if she’d called anyone or told anyone about the interview scheduled today.

  “No one but Little Gus and Linda.” She motioned them inside. “Let’s get you cleaned up, Aurora. I’m so sorry. Are you sure it wasn’t an accident?”

  “No,” Beckett firmly said, “it wasn’t.”

  “Who else has a key to the place?” Aurora asked and declined a rag. She was ready to go, to keep Beckett from breathing fire down Darla’s neck.

  “As far as I know, just Little Gus, but that door upstairs could have been unlocked.” Darla gnawed on her nail. “He wouldn’t have done this, Aurora. You know that, and I don’t know anyone who would.”

  Aurora believed her. She couldn’t let the clients who’d failed her with their guilt cause her to have a cynical outlook. She had to believe the best in people. She needed to.

  “Who’s Linda?” Beckett asked.

  “My sister.”

  “Where does she live?”

  “Beckett!” Aurora snapped. Because two women in their fifties were going to sneak around cutting metal chains and dropping engines on attorneys and law enforcement. Give me a break. She’d win that case standing on her head.

  Beckett stood toe-to-toe with her glare. Then his jaw relaxed, and he seemed to acquiesce to her non-verbal argument of how ludicrous that would be.

  He turned back to Darla. “And you haven’t seen anyone lurking out there?” He loomed over her, not relenting on his intimidation techniques.

  “No. I promise.” Darla stumbled back a step as if she might faint.

  “If you hear of anything—any talk about Aurora being here in the garage—call us. No one should know that information but you and the two people you shared it with. And, hopefully, they won’t talk.” Beckett gave her a stern eye.

  “I won’t say a word. Aurora, you sure you’re not hurt?”

  “I’m fine. Thank you.” She could kick Beckett for terrifying Darla. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.

  Aurora followed Beckett outside. Her hands shook as she unlocked the car. Beckett wrapped his hands over hers, stilling her. “Why don’t you let me drive? Give you a chance to calm down.”

  She paused, irritated, but considered the offer. And it had been an offer, not a command. “Good idea.” She hustled to the passenger side and slid in. Her nerves were shot. What she thought would blow over had turned into a tornado of violence. Who could have done this?

  “Do you think it was Gus’s killer?” Aurora
asked. Did Beckett believe her now?

  “Or someone followed us. Not that you’d have to have knowledge of cars to cut through a chain, but it could be someone who has knowledge.” Beckett rubbed his lips together. “I don’t want to say it, but—”

  “Trevor Russell’s father owns a mechanic shop in Hope.” Aurora covered her mouth with her hand.

  “We can’t be sure who is after you yet. But it’s evident that someone is. And they don’t want to scare you.”

  No, they wanted to shut her up.

  Permanently.

  FOUR

  Beckett hadn’t meant to incite another level of fear in Aurora, but the way she’d kept her hands balled in her lap and her mouth quiet for the last hour told him that’s exactly what he’d done.

  He’d taken the time of silence to work scenarios out in his head. The only one that made sense was that Aurora might be onto something about Richie’s innocence. The evidence pointed to Richie, though. However, there must be something out there someone knew could be found, or they wouldn’t have threatened or attacked Aurora. The question was what? And how were they going to figure it out?

  Still, Beckett couldn’t rule out Trevor or his son. He doubted another citizen would go to the extreme of following them to Richfield and cutting the chain on an engine hoist, but it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility for Trevor or Quent. Beckett knew the lengths a person would go to seek vengeance. Justice.

  Too far.

  Aurora’s phone rang and she flinched.

  “You want me to answer it?” he asked.

  “No,” she rasped. “I know who it is this time.” She silenced the ringer and tucked the phone in her pocket.

  “In my experience, avoiding phone calls means someone wants to talk about something you don’t.” He ought to know. “Is it anything that might shed new light to the situation we’re in, or the case?”

  She rubbed her slender hand across her thigh. “I feel bad it’s a ‘we’ situation. You could have gotten yourself killed knocking me away from that engine. You know that, right?”