Lady on the Edge (Brad Frame Mysteries Book 4)

by Ray Flynt

  Brad parked behind Amanda’s van in her driveway just as she and her neighbor, Jim Westin, walked out her front door.

  “Who’s the guy?” Sharon asked.

  “Her neighbor,” Brad explained, as he exited his car. “Kathy Westin’s father.”

  “Kinda creepy looking,” Sharon said in an instant analysis.

  It looked to Brad as if Amanda and Jim were inspecting the disheveled shrubbery in front of her home.

  “I’ll be with you shortly,” Amanda called out before she and Jim disappeared around the side of the house.

  Brad breathed deeply of the humid warm air and surveyed the scene. He wandered toward the rusty mailbox at the head of the driveway. In response to learning that Dana’s body had been found without shoes or socks, Denton reported that the mail had been brought into the house on the day of his brother’s death. Denton’s conviction was that Dana would have had his shoes on to retrieve the mail. Brad wasn’t so sure. Dana could have padded his way through the grass in his bare feet.

  He stared in the direction of the Westin home, which he knew to be several hundred feet to his left. A thicket of dense pine trees obstructed his view, and he concluded that no one could have monitored the comings and goings at the Carothers’ house from the neighbor’s property.

  A few minutes passed before Amanda and Jim returned to the front yard. Their bobbing heads signaled that they had reached agreement on something.

  “Thank you for waiting, Brad.” Amanda pointed at Jim Westin. “I believe you two have met?”

  “Yes, we have.” Turning to Sharon, Brad said, “I’d like you to meet my associate, Sharon Porter.”

  Sharon smiled at Amanda. “We talked on the phone.”

  Jim extended his hand in the manner of a southern gentleman to greet Sharon. But when Sharon returned his handshake, Brad noticed Jim raise an eyebrow. Sharon was mastering firm handshakes that day.

  “Jim’s agreed to help me with the landscaping,” Amanda explained. “He has such a green thumb, and I’m afraid gardening has never been my specialty.”

  “Amanda, if you don’t mind,” Brad said, “and since Jim is here, could we make another visit to your garage. Maybe if we all put our heads together we can learn something new about the day Dana died.”

  “I don’t know if that’s wise.” Jim’s gaze shifted from Brad to Amanda and back again. “Couldn’t it wait till another time?”

  Amanda patted his arm. “I certainly don’t mind, Jim. If you could help us figure out who killed Dana, I’d appreciate it.”

  Westin, who had never smiled in the time Brad spent with him, laughed nervously. “Killed! You think Dana was killed? Is that what this is all about?”

  Brad picked up on Westin’s uneasiness, and he didn’t want to lose the momentum. He gestured for Amanda to open the front door and gently nudged Jim to enter. Sharon followed and closed the door behind them.

  Once inside, Brad led everyone through the kitchen past the laundry room and into the garage.

  The heat of the garage was particularly noticeable after they’d left the air-conditioned house. Brad made no effort to open the automated door and admit fresh air. He imagined the stifling conditions were similar to the warm April day on which Jim Westin had found Dana’s body.

  “We appreciate your cooperation, Jim,” Brad said, giving him the benefit of the doubt. “As I recall, you said that on that Saturday afternoon you heard the sound of a car running. You peered through the windows of the garage door and saw Dana’s body lying on the floor. You then tried to break a window in the garage door, but couldn’t because it was Plexiglas. Correct so far?”

  Jim nodded.

  “So you entered through the front door—as we all did just now—ran through the house, opened the door to the garage, and then hit the button to open the garage door. You rushed to Dana’s side and saw he was already dead?”

  “Y-yes,” Westin stammered.

  Brad glanced at Amanda, who appeared rapt. He suspected she was hearing many of the details for the first time and hoped she could keep her emotional state together. Sharon must have thought the same thing, since she moved next to Amanda and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “I want to make sure I get this right,” Brad continued. “You reported that when you arrived at the garage, the fumes were so thick you covered your mouth with a handkerchief before checking on Dana.”

  Westin looked at Amanda. “That’s right.”

  “Isn’t it true that the fumes were so bad that you were afraid to remain in the garage? You went back into the house to call the police and returned a few minutes later.”

  “Well, yes. But I’d seen him lying there through the garage window and thought he was…” Jim hesitated, apparently not wanting to say the word dead. “When I got close to him I knew it.” Turning to Amanda he said, “I’d done the best I could.”

  “I understand, Jim, and Amanda does too,” Brad said. “When you inspected the body how could you tell he was dead?”

  Westin frowned. “His eyes. The pupils were fixed and dilated.”

  “Anything else?”

  Westin shook his head. “When I returned to the garage I checked for a pulse, but his eyes told me he was dead.”

  “You’ve seen quite a few dead bodies, haven’t you?” Brad asked.

  Westin’s face flushed, the same as it had a few days earlier when he’d pointed a shotgun at Brad. “What makes you say that?”

  “A layman would have relied on a heartbeat or pulse.”

  Amanda said, “Jim drove an ambulance around here for fifteen years.”

  Brad wasn’t surprised. “I’d like to refresh your recollection on a couple of other things. When you came to the garage from inside the house, you said the door was unlocked.”

  “It was,” Westin said.

  “Are you positive?”

  “Yes, I’m positive.” Westin sounded defensive.

  “It’s a fairly simple lock,” Brad continued. “When the switch is in a vertical position the door is locked, and when horizontal it’s unlocked. It would be easy to find the door locked and quickly unlock it, and then forget later about it being locked.”

  “The damn door was unlocked.” Beads of perspiration formed on Westin’s brow, and he was agitated to the point where Amanda said, “Please, Jim… this is important.”

  “Alright.” Westin snapped.

  Brad pulled Sharon aside to check if she was up to a little experiment after her hospital stay.

  There was a reason Brad hadn’t opened the garage door, not wanting to give Jim Westin an easy way to bolt from the interview. If Jim tried to exit through the house, Brad felt confident he could block his way.

  “I’ve asked Sharon to get in position on the garage floor where Dana’s body was found.”

  Sharon took her place on the floor. They’d had several conversations regarding the position of the body, and once Brad indicated the spot with his toe she replicated the position exactly as Westin and Detective Josh Miller had described it.

  “Is this the way the body was positioned, Jim?”

  Westin barely looked at Sharon before saying, “Yes.”

  “Jim, it might help if you took a good look first.”

  Westin frowned and folded his arms across his chest. “That’s how it was. I see it in my sleep.”

  Brad braced himself for Westin’s reaction as he said, “The sheriff’s deputy told me that the note was sticking out of Dana’s left pants pocket. When I asked you about the note, you denied reading it, but I don’t believe you were telling the truth.”

  Westin exploded. “I’m sorry, Amanda. I don’t have to stay here and listen to this.” His work shoes clomped across the concrete floor as he made his way toward the door that would lead him back into the house.

  Brad shouted, “I don’t care if you read the note.”

  Westin stopped.

  “It might be significant if you told anyone about it, but I don’t think you did.�
��

  Amanda looked plaintively at Jim as he stood next to the door.

  Westin stared at the floor as he whispered, “All right, what the hell if I did look at it?”

  “What I’m most concerned about,” Brad said, “is where the note was when you discovered it. The Sheriff’s investigator found it protruding from Dana’s left pants pocket. Is that where you found it?”

  Jim shook his head. “I didn’t mean to disturb nothin’.” Turning to Amanda, Jim’s voice trembled as he said, “Please believe me.” He then pointed at a spot four feet away from where Sharon now sat upright on the garage floor. “That’s where it was. After I read it I stuck it in his pocket.” After a pause, Jim confessed, “I almost threw it away, ‘cause it looked like he’d written the note to Kathy. I knew she’d be upset as it was, and I didn’t want her thinkin’ his death was her fault.”

  Brad helped Sharon get up.

  “It was just one page?” Brad asked.

  Westin nodded.

  That blew Brad’s theory that the note he’d seen might be the second page and that a missing first page would offer more explanation.

  “What about Dana’s keys?” Brad asked. “Did you do anything with the keys that were in his pocket?”

  Westin shook his head. “I never touched any keys.”

  “I believe you, but I had to ask.”

  Brad glanced around the garage, not sure what he was looking for. Reconstructing a four and a half year old suicide—which could be murder—was tough.

  Sharon, still brushing herself off, said, “Brad, it’s hot in here. Can we open the garage door?”

  Figuring that Jim was past bolting from the scene, Brad nodded, and Sharon pressed the button on the wall, near the interior door. The motor clanked noisily, driving the chain which lifted the hinged segments of the two-car-wide door above their heads. A pine-scented breeze made the space seem less confining.

  Turning to Amanda, Brad said, “I realize it was a long time ago,” Brad said, “but I’d like you to try and recall if you noticed anything unusual about the garage after Dana’s death.”

  Amanda held her finger tips to her temples as she surveyed the garage. As she turned to look at the rear wall she paused and pointed. Her finger shook as she said, “There was something. I didn’t give it much thought at the time, but I’d bought two five gallon pails of roof coating for use on the utility shed. They were stacked in the back.” Turning to face Brad, she said, “But after Dana died, I saw one of them over there.” She aimed her finger at the left side of the garage behind her car.

  “Oh, I put it there,” Jim said.

  “What?” Brad asked.

  “I completely forgot about the bucket till you mentioned it. I sat on it while I waited for the Sheriff’s office to arrive. After they took the... after Summerfield’s left, I stuck the can over there.”

  “Where was it when you arrived, Jim?” Brad asked.

  “It was sitting in the middle of the garage. Right about there,” Westin said, pointing toward the floor.

  Brad asked Westin to be more specific as to the location and Jim walked over to the side of Amanda’s car and tapped his foot next to it. “Right here.”

  Brad took a pencil from his shirt pocket and bent down to draw an X on the concrete floor at the spot Westin indicated. He then stood over the mark and contemplated the pail’s location in relation to other items in the garage. As he looked up he spotted the track for the automatic door opener. “Sharon, would you please close the garage door for a minute.”

  After it clanged shut, he looked up, and again extended his hand toward the chain drive track, unable to reach it. Brad looked at Amanda. “There’s a safety mechanism here to disengage the automatic opener. Was there ever a chain attached to it?”

  “I think there was a rope once.” Amanda’s forehead wrinkled as she tried to remember. “I haven’t seen it for quite a while.”

  “How ‘bout you Jim? Do you recall seeing a rope?”

  Westin shook his head.

  “All right,” Brad said, “Let’s get out of here.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I knew that if I wasn’t acting my chipper self, Brad would find a way to ship me back to the beach house and carry on the investigation by himself. I felt off my game and blamed it on the residual effects of medication from my lower GI procedure. And what was up with him asking me to lie on the garage floor? At least the concrete felt cool in that otherwise roasting garage.

  I could see Brad’s wheels turning. I knew he had ideas, while I hadn’t yet been able to connect the dots.

  Amanda’s cat, Nicholas Nickleby, greeted our return to the house with assorted meeps as he rubbed his face against the painted louvered doors enclosing the laundry.

  “Don’t pay any attention to him,” Amanda said. “Anytime a door is closed, Nicholas begs to be admitted. He likes to sit on top of the dryer when it’s running. I don’t know if he prefers the warmth, or the vibration. He’s a strange cat.”

  Amanda volunteered to make mint iced tea, and Brad accepted. I headed for the living room and found a comfortable seat on the sofa, hoping that Brad would concentrate on the case and not focus on me zoning out.

  Westin kept looking at his watch. He reminded me of a first grader waiting for the right moment to ask permission to go potty. It added to his creepiness.

  “I think I’d better get going,” Westin finally announced.

  Amanda pleaded with him from the kitchen as she filled her tea kettle. “Jim, please stay and have a glass of tea?”

  Westin’s hand was already on the front door as he said, “Better not. Kathy will wonder where I am.”

  “Jim thanks for your help,” Brad called out, as Westin backed his way out the front door.

  I figured Brad had gotten all he needed from Westin, or he wouldn’t have let him out the door.

  After the tea kettle whistled, Amanda said, “Jim’s not as gruff as he lets on. He’s had a tough time trying to raise his daughter all by himself. Jim’s wife died when Kathy was nine. As near as I can tell, he’s done properly by his daughter.”

  Properly? Cue the cotillion music.

  Amanda brought our drinks on a tray and set them on the coffee table. Brad had taken his seat on the opposite end of the sofa, while Amanda distributed napkins and passed out glasses of tea in which a fresh sprig of mint had been placed.

  I sipped the tea and felt a twinge in my stomach, which prompted me to grimace. Brad noticed and flashed a look of concern. I smiled back and mouthed that the tea was too sweet, which seemed to mollify him.

  As Amanda settled into a rocking chair opposite him, Brad asked, “Jim expressed concern about not wanting Kathy to blame herself in Dana’s suicide. Did you blame Kathy for Dana’s death?”

  Amanda pursed her lips. “In the last four years I’ve blamed nearly everyone including myself. I’ve felt every conceivable emotion. Ached till I thought it wasn’t possible to ache anymore, and soothed my pain with booze until I couldn’t feel anything.” She reached under the table next to her chair and retrieved a photo album. “I want to show you something.”

  She opened the album, handing it to Brad. “This was the last photograph taken of Dana. It was with Kathy.” Amanda pointed to the inside back cover of the album.

  Brad tilted the album in my direction. I could see that Dana’s broad grin spanned half his face as he held up red mittens to form a pair of ears behind Kathy’s head. I recognized Amanda’s living room. They stood in front of the family Christmas tree.

  Dana had the boy-next-door handsomeness that I expected, but the look of innocence surprised me.

  Amanda continued, “Next to me, I think Kathy loved him most. I’d have a hard time believing she had anything to do with his death.”

  “Are these all pictures of Dana?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I slid closer to Brad and joined him in peering at the photos. Brad worked backward through scenes of high school graduation and su
ccessive family gatherings and holidays.

  Brad pointed at one particular picture. “Is this Denton Sr.?”

  Amanda leaned forward for a better look and nodded. “That’s the only picture I could find with Dana and his father. Dana was thirteen in that one. Dent usually took the pictures. I had to beg my husband to let me photograph him.”

  Amanda’s eyes welled with tears, and she reached for a tissue.

  Brad turned to the snapshots in the front of the album. I watched as he leafed through the first image of a wrinkled pink face, to the tasteful nude in the outdoor wading pool, to a collage of baby pictures.

  Amanda’s sniffling, muffled by her tissue, was the only sound I heard above our collective breathing. Brad paused and studied one of an apple-cheeked little boy, a familiar face professionally photographed in front of a painted backdrop of an idyllic country landscape. Brad tapped the photo with his finger and glanced at me.

  Amanda sobbed and drew my attention. I watched her face as she reflected on the memories embedded in those old photographs. Tears streamed down her cheek.

  Brad closed the photo album and placed it on the coffee table. “I could use another glass of tea.”

  Brad seemed to know that keeping Amanda busy was the tonic she needed to shake off her melancholy. At least it would temporarily divert her mind, I thought. Whatever his motives, his next suggestion surprised me.

  “I’d like to take another look at Dana’s bedroom, if you don’t mind.”

  “Go ahead,” Amanda said. “I’ll catch up with you and bring your tea. Sharon, would you like more tea?”

  I decided to give my stomach a break. “No thanks.”

  I followed Brad into Dana’s room, which looked like the shrine he’d previously described to me. Brad went immediately to a bookshelf and began thumbing through books, studying any inscriptions, and turning them upside down as if hoping loose papers might fall out. He pulled several ruled spiral notebooks from the shelf and handed them to me. “Take a look through these, and see what you can find.”

  Easy for him to say. I wished I knew what I was looking for, but plunged into the task. The first notebook I examined had a label for American history. I recognized Civil War-era names: Lincoln, Jefferson Davis, McClelland, Grant, Sherman, and Stanton. The second notebook had no outside markings, but was filled with math problems.