“Which is why I’m not going to,” I replied.
I ejected the clip from the gun and racked the slide to empty the chamber (which was already empty, another sure sign she had no intention of shooting us in the first place). I threw the gun at her feet and put the clip in my pocket.
Mandi got all pouty, but picked up her gun and threw it on the bed, then backed away so Pete and I could exit the closet.
I said, “Let’s try this again. Hi, Mandi. Long time no see. You remember my friend Pete?”
Pete gave her a nonchalant wave. “Hey, Mandi.”
She rolled her eyes at us. “What do you want?”
Something wasn’t right about her. This woman before us wasn’t a grieving widow. I didn’t think it was possible that she wouldn’t have already been contacted about Scott’s death, especially since she was hanging around at home and clearly not kidnapped. Scott had been dead for well over twelve hours, and even though the police hadn’t had his license for a quick positive ID, I’d given them his name, his wife’s name, and their town of residence. It’s not like there were a bunch of Mandi O’Malleys running around in Liberty for them to track down.
I said gently, “Have you heard about Scott?”
Her expression clouded over, but she seemed almost more mad than sad. “Yeah. The police asked me if I thought you’d have a reason to kill him.” She smirked. “I told them hell yes.”
I shot Pete a look and tried not to growl. “I didn’t kill him. We tried to save him, but…evidently he’d been poisoned. There was nothing we could do. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Sure you are. You had to have hated the guy after what we did to you.”
Pete, sensing the irritation building in me, said, “Let’s put a pin in that for now, okay? Scott told us you’d been kidnapped. You seem to not be kidnapped. Did you manage to get free or something?”
She shook her head. “I was never kidnapped. Scott wasn’t doing so great lately. He’d become delusional and paranoid. He was convinced everyone was out to get us. Did he tell you he got fired from his job last week?”
“No, he didn’t,” I replied. “The only thing we discussed was how worried he was about you being missing and how he thought it was because he’d gotten tangled up in some kind of trouble with some dangerous people. You sure there’s no shred of truth to that?”
Mandi’s expression became slightly strained, but then she scoffed. “See? That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I was on an overnight work trip to a conference in Nashville. I’d told Scott all about it—he knew I was going to be there. Friday morning when I’m getting ready to head to Nashville, he comes into the office and causes this huge scene in front of our coworkers. That was the last time I saw him. I told him to leave, that we’d work this out at home. Evidently he followed me down there like a stalker.”
Pete and I shared a glance.
She continued, “Then yesterday morning while I was in a seminar, I get like twenty voicemails from him, freaking out and talking nonsense. I was angry, so I didn’t call him back. I didn’t expect him to…die before we had a chance to…to…” She flopped down on the bed, dissolving into loud, heaving sobs.
Pete leaned over and murmured to me, “She’s nuts, too. That is not real crying.”
I whispered back, “Agreed.”
Once we’d given Mandi a few minutes for her fake tantrum to run its course, I said to her, “You said ‘our coworkers.’ Did you and Scott both work for Silver Spruce Pharmaceuticals?” Maybe the duffel in the closet belonged to her.
She sniffed and sat up on the bed. “Yes, but I still have my job. I’m lucky they didn’t lump me in with him. Officially, he got let go for stealing samples from the other reps, but I heard it was also because of how unstable he’d become lately. I think part of his problem was that he was taking the drugs he was stealing. He may have been selling them, too. I don’t know.”
I stared at her for a moment, trying to decide whether or not she was giving me the whole story—and whether or not her story was even true. Even though Scott wasn’t quite himself last night when he was telling me about the trouble he was in, I didn’t feel like he was delusional or making it up. He’d seemed genuine, aside from being purposely vague about his involvement in the shady business dealings.
“Scott wasn’t a user before. Why start now?” I asked, so badly wanting to add, “Did you drive him to it?”
Mandi frowned at me. “How should I know?”
“Um, because you’re married to him.”
She shrugged, coming off totally indifferent. “I was married to him. You probably don’t know this, because you’ve never been married, but you’re still two individuals once you become husband and wife. I couldn’t control what he did, and I didn’t try to.”
As I fumed silently, Pete said, “Right, but you should at least have a clue what’s going on in his life. What he’s thinking and feeling. Didn’t you guys ever talk to each other? If you saw that he needed help, why didn’t you get him some?”
Hopping up from the bed, she yelled, “I don’t have to answer to you! I think it’s time you got the hell out of my house.”
I said, “Fine. I told Scott I’d try to find you, and I have. I’m done here.”
As Pete and I followed her to the front door, I whispered to him, “Ask her what Scott meant when he said he’d stolen something important from some dangerous people. Keep her occupied, okay?”
Pete nodded. “So, Mandi, why the leap from food service to peddling drugs? Is the pay that much better?”
She turned and gave him a withering glance. “Duh. Look around. I make more than some doctors.”
“Wow. Impressive. And with two incomes like that, you guys had some serious bank coming in.”
I dawdled behind them. When I passed a table in the hallway, I grabbed an item displayed there and pocketed it. Pete somehow had Mandi gabbing away, so I hung even farther back, this time taking an item I’d found hidden behind some books on a bookshelf when we’d looked through the living room. I shoved it into the back waistband of my pants and pulled my shirt down over it. As I passed an end table, I swiped one more little thing.
By now, Mandi had the door open. “I’d like to say it’s been fun catching up with you, Juliet, but it really hasn’t. Get out.”
I gave her a fake smile as I passed her, trying not to let her see my undoubtedly lumpy backside. “Same here. You take care, now.”
The door slammed behind us.
Pete said, “What were you doing while I was entertaining Mandi?”
I pulled my great-grandfather’s pocket watch out of my pocket and held it out for him to see. “Returning some things to their rightful owner.”
His eyebrows shot up. “You stole stuff?”
“How can it possibly be considered stealing when it was mine to begin with?”
Chapter 7
Once we got into Pete’s car, I pulled a small guitar-shaped music box out of the waistband of my pants.
When Pete looked over and saw it, his expression softened. “You took a risk to get back something I gave you years ago?”
I shrugged. “It’s one of my favorite things. You gave it to me when I left Nashville. Remember what you said?”
His gaze held mine. “I said this was to remind you of what you’re really meant to do. And that someday I was going to make sure you came back and fulfilled your dream.”
Placing my hand on his arm, I smiled. “Which you did. It’s because of you that I ever got on another stage.”
After a performance where I completely forgot the words to a song I’d written, I’d developed such a terrible case of stage fright that I’d given up on my music career altogether. Performing was what I’d gone to college to do, so I really had nothing to fall back on. I’d moved home with my parents and resigned myself to a life in food service, which admittedly wasn’t too bad, but it wasn’t what I’d planned to do with my life. When I returned to Nashville to manage Java Jive for Pe
te, he’d slowly worked on me, finally convincing me to take a baby step and perform at one of the coffeehouse’s open mic nights. He kept encouraging me to perform more, which I have, and now I had a gig in two days opening for a bigger act at one of the popular bars downtown. I was crazy nervous about it, but Pete was my lead guitarist, so he’d be right there with me every moment.
He covered my hand with his. “I may have given you a few pushes, but when you’re performing, it’s all you up on that stage. There’s no one else in the world I’d rather listen to.”
I felt all gooey inside at his words, but now was not the time to take my head out of the game. If anything, talking to Mandi had made things muddier, so I felt like our investigation was in even worse shape than before. I pulled the last item I’d pinched out of my pocket.
Pete stared at it for a moment. “What’s so special about a TV remote?”
“Nothing. I took this to irritate her.”
He started the car and began driving down the street. “Now that’s technically stealing.”
He had a point. I rolled down the window and chucked it out. It shattered when it hit the sidewalk. “There. Now all I’ve done is move it.”
“And destroy it.”
“Actually, the sidewalk destroyed it.”
He chuckled and kept driving. “I should know better than to try to argue with you.”
—
We stopped at a local ice cream stand, Sweet Liberty, to get a cold drink and make more plans for the afternoon. Ryder and Maya had called to let us know they’d also figured out Mandi wasn’t missing. From looking into her background and checking her financials, they’d gleaned exactly nothing, just like we had on Scott. They promised to do some more digging, but I was starting to get the feeling they weren’t going to find anything.
Sitting on a bench next to me at the outdoor eatery, Pete said, “You know, maybe it’s not out of the question that Scott was cuckoo. There’s nothing we’ve found that points to him doing anything illegal, aside from maybe stealing some sample drugs. The big bag of drugs in his motel room might have been his stolen stash instead of the legit samples he carried around for work. I mean, if he was using like Mandi said he was, what if he accidentally poisoned himself with a poorly mixed drug cocktail before he came into Java Jive? Maybe it took a little time to fry his system, and he just happened to be in our place when it dealt the final blow.”
“So you’re saying we were listening to the ravings of a lunatic, and there are no ‘dangerous people’ and no kidnappers after all? That everything he said was the result of a bad trip?”
“Yeah. Mandi said she had no idea what he’d supposedly taken from those so-called ‘dangerous people.’ Maybe his death isn’t so mysterious. It could have been an accident.”
My gut didn’t agree. “I see your point, but I feel like we should keep looking. We’re here. Might as well use the time we have left today to cover all our bases. We need to speak with some of his coworkers and some of his friends. That should paint us a more accurate picture. Oh, and I still have to read through his texts and personal emails on his phone. If I can stomach it.”
Pete laughed. “What kind of a friend would I be if I let you stomach that nonsense alone?” He scooted closer to me and put his arm on the back of the bench behind me. “We’re in this together.”
I smiled and got out Scott’s phone, holding it between us so Pete could read along with me. I scrolled through his emails, relieved to find them mostly spam, but one caught my eye. It was from someone named Doug McKay at Scott’s former employer, Silver Spruce Pharmaceuticals.
Once I pulled up the email, Pete read, “ ‘Dear Mr. O’Malley, at this time we must ask you to please refrain from entering the office building housing Silver Spruce Pharmaceuticals under any circumstances. Your employment was terminated earlier this week, and you no longer have clearance to enter the building per security. If you continue to violate the terms of your severance, criminal charges will be filed against you. Also, please be advised that if you do not return the pharmaceutical samples and the tablet belonging to Silver Spruce Pharmaceuticals, civil charges could be filed against you as well. Sincerely, Doug McKay, Ohio Valley District Manager, Silver Spruce Pharmaceuticals.’ ”
I shook my head. “Wow. His manager sent him a formal cease and desist. Scott must have pissed him off.”
Pete scrolled down to Scott’s reply. “Oh, this is a nice response. ‘Eff you’ in all caps. You sure this is the same guy you were engaged to, Jules? I always thought he was a knob, but I never got a stark-raving-mad vibe from him.”
Sighing, I replied, “I feel the same way. Something caused this change in him. Maybe it was the drugs. Or…maybe he was telling us the truth, and whatever he got mixed up in had him cracking under the pressure. If his story was true, it could have sent him over the edge.”
“Yeah, only Mandi wasn’t kidnapped.”
“So she says.”
He leaned back and gave me a confused look. “Why would she lie about being kidnapped?”
I shrugged. Something about Mandi’s story didn’t add up for me, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I muttered, “I don’t know,” and kept scrolling. There was nothing of note in the past couple of months of incoming mail, so I went into his sent folder, then his trash folder. Nothing there, either. As for phone calls, there was nothing much to glean. His voicemail folder was empty. Most incoming and outgoing calls came from people in his list of contacts except for one unknown number that kept popping up the last few days before he died. I made a note of it for Ryder and Maya to track down.
“On to the texts, then?” Pete asked.
These were what I was dreading—Scott’s daily, non-filtered communications with everyone close to him. Even though I was over him in a romantic sense, it pained me to have to go through his personal information. I didn’t want to know all the little inside jokes he had with his wife. I didn’t want to read through his banter with his friends, the plans they’d made to go places and do things—him essentially going about his life like I hadn’t even mattered. Aside from his crappy apology last night (which was offered only after I’d brought up his transgressions), there was nothing to show that he had even an ounce of remorse for what he’d done to me.
I cleared my throat. “On to the texts.”
Pete took the phone from my hands. “On second thought, let me take this one for the team.”
After blowing out a quick breath of relief, I said, “Thanks.”
“Ooh. Scott and the wifey have been text-fighting.” He scrolled quite a ways. “For a while.”
“How long?”
“Um…” He scrolled a little farther. “Looks to me like things started heading south about three months ago.”
“Three months ago…hmm…Wasn’t that when he started missing house and car payments?”
Pete nodded. “ ‘Listen to this: I know you’re bleeping cheating on me with that bleeping bleep Jared. I’m going to bleeping punch that bleep in his bleeping bleep face next time I bleeping see him.’ ” He looked over at me and grinned. “I added the bleeps, by the way. Scott had quite the potty mouth.”
Another newly acquired trait. “Okay, so this Jared guy is now on our list to track down today. What did Scott’s blushing bride say in response to his allegations of cheating?”
“She told him to go bleep himself.”
“Classy. See if he had a text war going with Jared, too.”
Pete scrolled down the list of texts. “Here’s a Jared. Jared Fisher.” His eyes bulged out. “Whoa. I think we’ve found the right Jared. Scott had a one-sided text war with this guy going back about three months. Jared didn’t respond to any of the text taunting, not that I blame him. It’s uuu-gly. Before all that, the texts between them seemed to be work-related.”
“Jared Fisher was a coworker, then. That would explain how he got close to Mandi and how Scott could have found out about it.”
“And rather poetic justice
that Scott’s wife was cheating on him with a coworker right under his nose. Sound familiar?”
“Too familiar. Keep looking.”
Pete scrolled through some more texts, making faces now and again. “Aside from texts to his wife and her lover, Scott’s texts to everyone else are all fairly normal. A lot of stupid guy talk between him and his friends, work stuff, a few to his parents and brother, and things like that. In the last couple of weeks, though, Scott hasn’t had nearly as much interaction with his bros or his family. His texts about work are shorter and a lot less conversational. He sent hardly any texts this past week except angry ones to his wife and to Jared.”
“If he was in some kind of trouble, whether it was financial, marriage, work, or a combination of those things, it would be a normal human reaction for him to get snippy with everyone and pull away from his friends.”
“Right. What about checking his social media accounts—I remember you gagging over some of them on the drive here. Do you think he had a little something on the side who was unstable and decided to off him?”
I shrugged. “I guess it’s a possibility. I didn’t see any PMs about meet-ups with anyone he was having Internet intercourse with. From the locations listed on their profiles, his cyber-skanks were out-of-towners, but it doesn’t hurt to check.”
“Mmm. Internet girlfriends. What do you want to bet some of them were old dudes pretending to be girls so they could get into Scotty’s cyber-pants?”
“Thanks for that mental image.”
Laughing, he gave me a squeeze with the arm draped over the back of the bench. “I’m sorry, Jules. I’m only trying to lighten things up. I hate to see you still hurting over what that bastard did to you. Let’s go talk to his loser friends, and then I’ll take you out to a nice dinner, where we will not discuss anything having to do with the case. After that, we can stop in and say hi to your folks and call it a day. Does that sound good?”
I laid my head on his shoulder. “It sounds wonderful. Thanks for being here with me today. I couldn’t get through this without you.”
Murder Over Mochas Page 6
