by Lauren Carr
The truck was engulfed in flames with Lou from Rollins Corner Café trapped inside.
Chapter Ten
“What were you thinking?” Joshua scooped a spoonful of vanilla ice cream into his mouth and devoured it, but not before a drop of hot fudge fell to his chin. “What was going through your mind?”
“That I’d pull it off.” Tad reached from where he lay on the chaise next to the swing on the Thorntons’ back porch to hand Joshua the napkin in his lap. He gestured towards his chin.
“You could have been killed!” Joshua wiped his chin and resumed swinging while eating his sundae. “You’re lucky that all you did was get your shirt dirty.”
Tad stopped petting Admiral to wipe the brown powder from his chest. “That’s not dirt, it’s coffee. I bought a bag at Rollins and it broke open.” He continued his defense of the motorcycle jump. “I couldn’t let that maniac chase me through town and kill someone. I was going to double back and go to the police. There was only one hitch. Some idiot had dumped a pile of dirt on my landing strip since the last time I made that jump.”
“Which was when?”
“Maybe fifteen years ago,” Tad mumbled into the dog’s ear.
Admiral did not enjoy the ear scratching as much as he would have enjoyed the ice cream his master was eating a couple of feet away from his mouth. He didn’t dare go for it. The Great Dane–Irish Wolfhound mongrel had already made the mistake of letting Tad coax him up to lie next to him on the chaise for a petting. Deciding to take what he could get, he pressed his head against Tad’s chest and uttered a moan of pleasure.
Joshua had been called to the hospital after Tad was taken there by ambulance. The driver of the truck was taken away by Columbiana County’s medical examiner’s wagon. Judging by what was left on the bloody windshield, he had been killed on impact. He wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
Since the attempt on Tad’s life took place in Ohio, outside of the Hancock County prosecutor’s jurisdiction, Joshua had no authority in the case. The uniformed officer from the East Liverpool Police Department who answered the call looked young enough to be either one of their sons.
The name of the trucker turned out to be Lou Alcott.
At first, Tad claimed that he had never seen nor heard of his assailant before that morning. Then he remembered that he had a patient whose name was Judy Alcott. She was Lou’s wife, now widow.
Even though Tad insisted that he had no relationship with Lou Alcott’s wife beyond that of doctor, the police officer concluded that Lou Alcott was trying to kill the man he believed to be his wife’s lover.
Tad said that it was a simple case of road rage.
After taking his cousin home from the hospital, Joshua made himself a sundae while Tad took two aspirin for the body aches seeping in from his bike jump. Joshua found Tad stretched out on the chaise with their dog beside him. Admiral took in his petting like a tired man enjoying a massage after a hard day’s work.
It was mid-afternoon and Joshua felt like the day had dragged on three days too long. He could imagine the conversation his children were having with their friends after seeing his imagined love life featured on the front page of the newspaper.
“Herb Duncan got a new truck,” Tad announced abruptly.
Joshua followed Tad’s eyes to where a truck, its red paint shining in the sun, cruised the alley at the back of the property in the direction of Fifth Street. Through the hedges, they could make out the profile of a young couple in the cab. They looked like a couple of kids out joyriding in their daddy’s new big pickup truck.
Joshua recalled the one time he had met Herb Duncan’s wife Blanche. She had come to the courthouse to bail her husband out of jail with money she had borrowed from her mother when he was arraigned on misdemeanor charges of selling stolen goods.
At the time, Joshua thought Blanche Duncan, with her pimply face and underdeveloped figure, did not appear old enough to be married. She stood out in the magistrate’s court in her spiky black hair with bronzed tips. Her clumsy attempt to look older with cosmetics and hair coloring made her look clownish.
Likewise, Herb’s lack of maturity led him to associate with men in the local bars who boasted of friends who knew of ways to make a quick buck.
In court, the prosecutor detected a sense of desperation in the young couple to achieve the American dream overnight. At least, that was the explanation Herb Duncan’s public defender offered for how his client ended up trying to sell stolen auto parts.
“Nice truck,” Joshua said before explaining what Tad already knew. “Blanche visits her mother every day.” She lived in a house at the end of the alley.
“Has to cost at least thirty thousand dollars.”
“Maybe.” Joshua was more concerned with getting the last drop of hot fudge at the bottom of the bowl that refused to slide onto his spoon.
“Where does a man who has never had a full-time permanent job get the money to buy a thirty-thousand-dollar truck?”
“They call it a car loan. You can get them either at a bank or the dealership.”
“But you have to show an ability to pay. He doesn’t have that. Blanche doesn’t work. He’s afraid that if she gets a job, she’ll meet someone else and run off.”
Joshua offered as explanation, “Maybe he inherited it.”
“None of his people have money and they are all still alive.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Curiosity. I can’t help it. It’s in the gene pool. I hate not knowing something.”
“There’s a fine line between curiosity and nosiness.” Joshua gestured towards the truck that was now out of sight. “That is nosiness.”
“Rita told me that Herb was at the State Line the night Rex was shot. She said that he paid up on his bar tab, plus gave her a big tip.”
“Isn’t paying off your bar tab a good thing?”
“Depends on where and how you got the money to do it.” Tad asked himself more than his friend, “I wonder what Herb has gotten himself into now.”
“Why do you assume that he got the money illegally?”
“If it looks like a duck—”
“Just like how everyone assumes when they see you talking to a woman that you have, are, or will soon be sleeping with her.”
Tad disagreed. “They don’t assume that about me now. They assume that about you.”
Before Joshua Thornton had been elected Hancock County’s prosecuting attorney, he had his own law office in the heart of Chester. Located within walking distance of his home, it was more convenient than the office in New Cumberland. Since he owned the building, he kept it to work in when he didn’t need to be down the river.
His part-time secretary, Debbie, was on her cell phone when he walked through the door. “As a matter of fact, she called just today.” When she saw her boss, she flipped the instrument shut without any farewell and dropped it into her purse. “Mr. Thornton, Mrs. Wheeler is here to see you.” Then she added, “Tori Brody called.”
Pretending not to notice her suggestive tone, he took the message sheet without a word and slipped it into his pocket.
Joshua would not have recognized Dorothy Wheeler if Debbie had not introduced her. While she had the same good looks her daughter did, he recalled that when he had met her in his youth that she always looked tired.
Since her child’s death, Dorothy, he could see, had moved on and beyond her grief to get on with her life. She was dressed in a soft, fuchsia-colored sweater and black slacks under a leather coat with a matching purse. She shook his hand and greeted him in a strong voice. “I understand that you are now the county’s prosecuting attorney.”
“That I am, Mrs. Wheeler. I’m not sure if you remember me—”
“Oh, I remember you, Josh.” She smiled. “Trish talked about you a lot. I’ve com
e to see you because I don’t want her killer to get away this time.”
He gestured to his office at the top of the stairs at the back of the reception area. “Then step into my office, Mrs. Wheeler. I think we should talk.”
Taking up her purse and a white paper bag that appeared to come from a dress shop, she climbed the stairs. He paused to tell Debbie that he did not want their meeting to be interrupted before going to his office, where he slipped off his jacket and sat next to Tricia’s mother on his sofa.
“I was meaning to call you,” he began their discussion. “Going through Gail’s effects they found that she had called you a couple of times. I assume to discuss Tricia.”
She assured him that his assumption was correct. “A few weeks ago, she came to Canfield to interview me. That’s where I live now. I didn’t see her again until we met at Rollins’ diner right before she died.”
“Rollins Corner Café?” he asked.
She nodded her head.
“What time was that?”
“We met for dinner about six-thirty. We spent the whole time talking about Tricia’s murder. She had a couple of questions. I answered them as best I could. Then she left a little after seven-thirty.” She sighed. “How was Gail killed?”
“She was smothered.” Joshua didn’t tell her any more details. Nor did he mention that he seemed to be the last person to see her alive. “Did she tell you what she had found out?”
“I thought her main suspect was Margo Sweeney. She was always mine,” she said. “I assumed when the case was closed so fast that Commissioner Ross Sweeney had something to do with it. If Trish’s death had been ruled a murder, his princess Margo would be the prime suspect and we couldn’t have that, could we?”
Joshua nodded in agreement that Dorothy’s suspicions made sense. “Was that the route Gail was taking in her investigation?”
“She said she had another suspect.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t say. She said that she remembered something that happened and wanted to check it out before going public with it.”
He grinned at the suggestion of a lead in finding Gail’s killer. “Did she tell you what it was?”
She shook her head sadly. “I wish she had.”
“Do you remember who else was at the diner when you met Gail there that night? Maybe her killer was following her.”
“I don’t know anyone who lives here in Chester anymore,” she claimed. “There were a couple of guys in work clothes at the counter. They were staring at us, but I assumed it was because Gail was a public figure and they recognized her. Phyllis chewed them out for staring and they ate their dinners and left. They were the only people there, except for Doug and Phyllis.”
“Can you think of anything else that happened that night?” he urged her. “Anything. No matter how minor or insignificant you think it is.”
“Just . . .” her voice trailed off.
“What?”
“Phyllis practically ordered us to leave because she did not want us discussing Tricia in front of Doug.”
Joshua sat up straight with this information. He tried to make sense of Phyllis Rollins’ reaction to Gail and Dorothy meeting at her café to work on her book about Tricia Wheeler.
She explained, “I guess it was my fault. I’ve known Phyllis since she was a little girl. She’s exactly like her mother, who I thought, pardon me, was a very cold fish. But that night, since we were discussing Tricia, and Phyllis happened to be at our table refilling my coffee cup, I asked her if she could remember anything about what happened the day that Tricia died.” She added, “A few weeks ago, after Gail told me that she was going through with writing the book, I called Phyllis and she practically hung up on me.”
He understood why Dorothy would have called Phyllis and Doug. Their parents were the Wheelers’ landlords and they lived next door.
“Doug and Phyllis were right outside when I came home that day and found Trish,” she recalled. “But she always swore that they didn’t see or hear anything. I guess she got sick of my asking.”
“Why did meeting at the diner to talk about the book upset Doug?” Joshua asked.
“He had an awful crush on Tricia. He was devastated when she was killed. That night at the café, he was so upset that he dumped a whole bag of coffee on the floor. Phyllis ground another bag for Gail and practically threw it at her when she told us to go.”
Joshua nodded. “Doug is emotionally fragile. As a matter of fact, he’s been declared mentally incompetent.”
“So I heard.”
“Did you see or speak to Trish at all that day that she died?”
She responded with a shake of her head. “The last time I saw her alive was when she left for school.” She rubbed an imaginary spot on her purse with her index finger.
Even though Dorothy spoke with a strong voice, Joshua could see she was still wounded. As a parent, he couldn’t see how anyone could get over losing a child.
He swallowed. “Did Gail tell you that it will be difficult to prove Tricia’s death was murder when it was originally ruled a suicide, especially after all this time? The sheriff’s department is looking for the original case file. I doubt if there will be much there.”
“I told Sheriff Delaney that Trish didn’t kill herself. He told me she did. He said she did it because Randy dumped her. After the shock had worn off, I went to see him with a list of questions about what he found in his investigation. That man walked away from me while I was talking to him. I had questions that to this day have never been answered.”
“Ask me,” he pleaded. “If I don’t know the answers, then maybe this mess will get cleared up when I get them.”
Dorothy forgot about the spot on her purse and set it aside. She sat up straight when she asked, “Where did the gun come from?”
For his answer, he looked back at her. He had assumed that the gun had belonged to the Wheelers. Her late husband died in Vietnam. He was in the military. Most families in the rural valley owned guns because of their centuries-old feeling that they needed to be responsible for protecting themselves. Her question was one of the first ones a lawman asks in a crime involving a gun, even a suicide. Where did the gun come from?
Joshua frowned. “The sheriff didn’t ask you that?”
“I asked him. We didn’t have any guns in that house, not since the day those men came and told me that my husband was dead. Tricia didn’t know the first thing about how to use a gun. As far as I know, she had never even seen one other than on television. Tricia didn’t shoot herself.”
“Can you prove it?” he asked. “If you can prove it, then that will give me ammunition when we catch her killer. Otherwise, the defense attorney will say she committed suicide, and that will create a reasonable doubt for the jury, because that was the original ruling.”
With a grin, Dorothy picked up the white paper bag and stuck her hand inside. “I was waiting for you to ask me that.” She whipped a dress out of the bag. A slip of paper was pinned to the top of the dress. She handed them to the prosecutor. “This proves that Tricia did not kill herself.”
He unfolded the dress. It still had the tags on it. It was a pink sleeveless dress. The skirt was full with a petticoat underneath the silky material. Nowadays, it would be considered out of style, but it would have been in style for a semi-formal affair like, he recalled, the homecoming dance scheduled for less than two weeks after Tricia died. This dress was something she could have worn to the formal.
The price tag indicated that it came from a dress shop out at the mall. He knew without checking that the shop was still there. Tracy bought her dress for an upcoming formal at the same shop.
He examined the receipt pinned to the dress. It was one hundred forty-two dollars plus tax, paid for with cash. That was a lot of money for a girl who babysat for
her spending money. Tricia would have worked months to save the money to buy this dress.
Dorothy was reporting what she knew about the dress while Joshua studied it and the receipt. “I found it on her bed after the police left. It was still in this same bag. She didn’t even have a chance to hang it up.”
The date and time on the receipt confirmed what Tricia’s mother knew in her heart. The dress was bought at 3:22 p.m. on October 8, 1984—one hour before Tricia Wheeler supposedly took her own life.
Everyone in the Thornton household went to bed early that night. If they didn’t go to sleep, they each went to their rooms to be alone with their thoughts about the cloud of suspicion that loomed over their family.
Unable to sleep, Joshua surfed the Internet on his laptop in bed for information about Gail Reynolds and cases she had worked on. Possibly, someone with a grudge from one of her previous cases followed her to Chester in order to extract revenge. He wondered what Gail could have recalled that caused her to eliminate Margo as her prime suspect. He found himself replaying his senior year of high school over and over in his mind in search of what he might have missed.
He was discouraged with his progress when the phone rang.
“Everyone now assumes that we are sleeping together,” Tori purred across the line. “I guess we might as well do it.”
“The way I feel about you right now, I don’t think it would be humanly possible for me.”
The purr decreased in volume. “Gaston called me. I did not call him. Someone saw us together at Dora’s. Once again, you are blaming me for something that is not my fault.”
“You are not a stupid woman, Tori. You purposely suggested that there is more between us than there really is, or ever will be.”
The laptop dinged. The message balloon announced that he had an instant message from Hank, a friend in his contact list. He felt as if the smile that came to his lips was the first one he had all day.
