March's Luck (Larry Macklin Mysteries Book 5)

by A. E. Howe

  “Three days ago we were in this room, and we were discussing the murder of your father. Today we’re here to talk about the death of your brother. This is beginning to look like a game of And Then There Were None. So I suggest that you all come to terms with the fact that you need to be completely honest with us. The sooner we catch the killer, the safer you will all be,” I told them.

  “Is that a threat?” Jane asked.

  “It’s just fact.”

  “What it sounds like is an accusation that we’ve been lying to investigators,” Andrew the lawyer stated.

  “At this point, I don’t know if anyone here has been lying or not. But from my experience, every family has secrets. We don’t care about anything that doesn’t directly impact this investigation. Now’s the time to come clean and let us decide what’s important and what isn’t.” I gave them my best hardcore law enforcement stare and, no matter what Darlene thought of me, she was backing me up with a look that should have made any sinners in the group ready to confess.

  Darlene and I had agreed that this time we’d do the family interviews together. On Tuesday, it had seemed likely that none of them were involved, but now it was hard to imagine that someone in the family wasn’t connected to the murders.

  We chose Hank first, following him into the dining room and sitting across from him at the table. He was visibly twitching as Darlene and I arranged ourselves and put a small pocket recorder on the table. Turning the recorder on, I looked up and caught Hank’s eyes.

  “For the record, I need you to say your name and that you agree to this conversation being recorded,” I said.

  Hank’s eyes darted left and right. “Do you have to record it?” And before I could answer he blurted out, “Am I under oath or something?” And, again, before I could answer, he held up his hand in the universal stop sign. “No, I don’t mean that. I’m fine with you recording it. I just…” His voice trailed off.

  “If you’re okay with the recording, would you please state your name and say that you are?” I suggested.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m Hank Parrish Junior and I’m fine with being recorded. Should I have a lawyer? Andrew said that none of us should answer any questions without a lawyer present.”

  “We just want to clear up a few things. I know that you want to help us solve the murders of your father and brother, right?” I asked, not answering his question. Because if I was honest, I would have told him that, in a murder investigation, no one should ever answer questions from law enforcement or the judicial system without a lawyer present. Period. But it wasn’t my job to give him legal advice. My job was to get information out of him, and the best way to do that was to keep lawyers out of it.

  “Of course I want to help solve the murders. More of us could be in danger,” he said, sounding concerned, or maybe paranoid was a better word.

  “Until we get some answers, there is no way for us to know how much danger the rest of the family is in,” I said honestly.

  “Where were you this morning?” Darlene shot at him. We’d agreed that she’d ask the direct questions, and I’d do more open-ended ones since he and I had bonded a bit at the scene.

  “Again, like Tuesday, I was asleep at my place,” he said, looking down at the table.

  “Think hard. Can anyone verify that? ’Cause the maid didn’t back you up last time.”

  “Some stupid wrong number woke me up. The sun wasn’t up yet, but there was light coming in the window.”

  “Can I see your phone?” Darlene asked, putting out her hand. He looked at her hand for a minute before reaching into his pocket and pulling out his phone. He swiped at the screen and put the phone in her hand.

  “Just after seven,” Darlene said. “The call lasted thirty seconds. The caller ID is unknown.”

  “Yeah, it was someone looking for someone else. Like they were supposed to pick them up or something,” Hank said rather vaguely.

  Cell tower pings wouldn’t help in this case. Hank’s bedroom wasn’t that far from where his brother was killed. Both locations would use the same cell tower. An unknown number could indicate anyone with a burner phone, but thirty seconds seemed a little long for a wrong number.

  “Did either of your sisters have anything against Joe? Do you know of any hard feelings between them?” I asked, partly to distract Hank so that Darlene could spend a little extra time scanning through his phone.

  “No, I don’t think so. Until I got sober, I hadn’t had much to do with the family lately, so something could have happened between them,” he said softly.

  Interesting, I thought. Not so much that he thought there was a possibility of hard feelings, but that he left that door open. Was it to divert suspicion from himself?

  “Can I have my phone back?” he asked Darlene, who grudgingly handed the phone over to him.

  “Who benefits?” Darlene asked flatly.

  “What do you mean?” Hank sounded evasive.

  “She’s asking who will benefit from your brother’s death. Financially or otherwise,” I answered.

  “I guess all of us. My sisters and me.” He’d done it again, not trying to defend Marge or Jane at all.

  “What about Joe’s daughter?”

  “Oh, um, I heard that her mother married some rich guy and she doesn’t need the money. Joe thought that if he left any money to his daughter that her mother would get it and he hated her. Really hated her.” Hank was rambling. Was it guilt?

  “Who told you about Joe’s will?”

  Hank hesitated for a moment. “Jane. You know she’s a paralegal. Joe talked to her about it a couple of years ago when Dad had to go to the hospital for some tests.”

  “How much money are we talking about?” Darlene pushed.

  “Hell, I don’t know. Do I look like someone who knows anything about money?” His emotions were running the gambit of frustration, fear and anger.

  “You must have some idea,” I said.

  “A lot, I guess, but Dad complained all the time about his overhead. The cost of diesel, keeping the tractors and bailers working, and the laborers. I understand enough to know that without Dad and Joe, this place is probably going to go belly-up.” Now there was just sadness and self pity in his voice.

  I thought about asking him if he might try to run the place, but it would have been a stupid question. Anyone could see that he wasn’t capable—mentally or emotionally.

  “You think you all will just cash out?” Darlene suggested, trying to keep him on the topic of money. With some suspects, if you got them talking about something that excited them, then they just couldn’t seem to control what came out of their mouths.

  “Who knows? I imagine that Marge will get her back up and nothing will happen for years. Jane… She’d sell… I think.”

  “You don’t think they’ll agree on what to do?”

  “Those two? They haven’t agreed on anything for decades. Marge will want to run the farm and Jane will want to cash out as soon as possible.” Hank put his face in his hands.

  “Jane wants the money?” I asked.

  “Hell, I don’t know. I didn’t say that. She certainly never cared for the farm. But I don’t want to talk about them. If you want to know what they’re thinking, you’ll have to ask them. And as far as who might have killed Joe, I can’t imagine. He could be an ass, but mostly to me.” Hank started to cry.

  We watched him for a minute before he wiped his eyes and asked, “Can I go now?”

  I looked over at Darlene. She nodded her head. I wanted to ask Hank some more questions about the holes at his father’s crime scene and any possible connection to the gold legend, but since I hadn’t filled Darlene in on that yet, I didn’t want to bring it up right now.

  “Sure, but we’ll want to talk with you again,” I told him.

  Nodding and choking back tears, Hank got up and left.

  I asked Marge to come in next. She had on her best Winston Churchill face—grim and determined.

  “I’m sorry that
you all have had to suffer these loses,” I said and meant it.

  “And I’m sorry that we have to ask you these questions. But they are necessary if we’re to find the murderer, or murderers, that are preying on your family,” Darlene told her.

  “Murderers? Could there be more than one?” Marge asked, her eyes wide.

  “We have to look into to all the possibilities,” I said.

  “Of course. But I’m finding it hard to come to terms with one monster on the loose, let alone two or more.” She shook her head as though to clear it of such a disturbing thought.

  “Can you tell us where you were this morning?”

  “At school, the same as Tuesday.”

  We went through the timeline of when she arrived and who saw her. “And before I went to school, Clive and I had breakfast together.”

  “What about Clive? What did he do after you left for school?” I asked.

  “I don’t know exactly. You’d have to ask him. But he usually goes to work in the office. His office is in our home,” she explained.

  “What does he do?” I asked.

  “Honestly, I don’t really understand what he does. He does consulting work for companies all over the world, designing something to do with computer networks and how they talk to each other. I learned a long time ago not to ask him about his work.” This last comment almost made her smile.

  “You all live in Leon County?”

  “Just over the line. We both worked in Tallahassee when we got married, so it was nice not having too long of a commute. Plus, I was only twenty minutes from Mom and Daddy.”

  “Your mom and dad were divorced?”

  “Yes, and then Mom got sick. Cancer.” Marge started to cry and we gave her a few minutes to compose herself. Drying her eyes with a tissue from her pocket, she went on, “Just everyone is gone.”

  “Why did your parents break up?” Darlene asked her.

  “How could that have anything to do with… this?” Marge asked.

  “At this point, we don’t know what’s important and what isn’t.”

  “Okay, in my opinion, the cause of the trouble between them was always my grandfather. He rode Daddy hard. Heck, he rode everyone hard. Mom included. She tried to get Daddy to put his foot down, but that wasn’t going to happen and eventually she just disconnected. She waited to leave until all of us kids were out of high school, but she’d given up long before that.” Marge’s face reflected all of the pain of the last few days. “Honestly, I blamed all the years of stress for her cancer.”

  “I know we asked you this before, but can you think of anyone that would have a grudge against your family?” I asked.

  “No,” she said after a pause.

  “I’m sorry that I have to ask this next question, but you need to realize that we are looking at every possibility, no matter how unlikely. With your father and brother dead, who will inherit most of the property?”

  Marge’s eyes got hard and cold as she looked from me to Darlene. “You can’t honestly be suggesting that one of us killed them,” she stated. “That’s insane.”

  “We have to look at a profit motive in any murder. We just have to. We’re going to dig till we find out the truth, so there’s no reason for you to not answer the question.” Darlene returned Marge’s cold, hard look.

  “I don’t have to talk to you at all,” Marge said as the farm woman in her came out. “Jane and Andrew said that you all would come after us.”

  “Marge, we aren’t accusing anyone of anything,” I said, trying to reason with her. “You know that if you’re working on a hard problem, sometimes that best way of approaching it is to eliminate the extraneous solutions. That’s what we’re trying to do here. Nothing would make me happier than to be able to take all the members of your family off of the suspect list.”

  Marge pursed her lips and narrowed her eyes as she thought about my argument.

  “I’m really not sure how it will work out. I’m not a lawyer. Most of the inheritance from Dad was to go into a trust. I haven’t seen the will for years. I guess that Joe’s share will be split between us, or it might go to his daughter, Ellie. We haven’t seen her in years. Joe and his ex-wife had a very nasty divorce.” Marge put her hand over her mouth. “I hadn’t even thought. I don’t know if anyone has told them. Poor Ellie.” Tears came down Marge’s cheeks again.

  I made a note to check in with Joe’s ex and check her alibi, though North Carolina is a long way from Florida. And if her daughter wasn’t going to inherit, then what motive would she have? These murders just seemed to be spreading misery over a larger and larger area.

  After a few more routine questions, we ushered Marge out. She said that she’d find a number for Joe’s ex, inform her of his death and get us the number.

  Jane came in next with her boyfriend, Andrew.

  “We would really like to talk to Jane alone,” I told him.

  “That’s not going to happen,” Andrew said, with an attitude somewhere between protective boyfriend and jerk lawyer.

  I turned to Jane. “I know you want to find the person or persons responsible for these murders. The best way for this investigation to proceed is for us to talk with each of you separately. We don’t think that either of you had anything to do with these murders, but we just need to gather the facts so we can move forward with the investigation.” Actually, we had no idea whether they were involved or not, but lying to suspects is permissible and, sometimes, even desirable.

  “Can you honestly say that Jane is not a suspect?” Andrew asked snidely. From the last set of interviews, I knew that he was a real estate lawyer and not a criminal lawyer. He probably had just enough knowledge of the legal system, backed up by zero experience, to hang himself and Jane if they were guilty.

  “You know we can’t eliminate anyone. Not even you,” I told him.

  “I would like Andrew to be here as my friend, if not my lawyer,” Jane said. She seemed contrite enough, but I couldn’t tell if it was an act or if she really was coming to the interview as an open book.

  Darlene and I looked at each other and we both nodded. “Okay, but I would like you to let Jane answer our questions without interruption,” I told Andrew. He raised his hands and put on a whatever you want expression that I didn’t believe for a minute.

  They sat down next to each other across the table from Darlene and me.

  “Jane, where were you this morning?” Darlene asked, pen poised above her notepad.

  “At my place in Tallahassee.” We knew that Jane lived on the west side of Tallahassee, closest to Adams County. This fact made a difference. The Tallahassee system of roads was clearly created without any plan in mind, and because of this it could take anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour to get to Adams County, depending on where in Tallahassee you lived.

  “What time did you learn that your brother had been killed?” Darlene asked in a business-like manner.

  “Marge called me as soon as she learned what happened. I guess it was about eight-thirty.”

  “Eight-forty-five,” Andrew piped in, pulling up the call on Jane’s cell phone.

  “Mr. Simmons, please don’t interrupt,” I said, trying to freeze him with my stare. He seemed unfazed, but shut up.

  “And you were at home until that time?”

  “Yes, I was. Andrew had left for work, but I’d taken today off. I was going to come over here and help Joe and Marge get ready for Dad’s funeral.” Interesting that she didn’t mention Hank Junior. His black sheep status was well established.

  “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt your brother?” As she asked the question, Darlene locked eyes with Jane.

  “No… not really,” Jane said, clearly begging us to ask who she was thinking of.

  “You sound like you have someone in mind,” I said flatly.

  “I… don’t want to say.”

  “You don’t have to answer,” Andrew said and we all ignored him.

  “Other people could b
e in danger. Anything you say is simply one piece of the puzzle. If there is someone that had a beef with your brother, tell us, and the odds are we’ll be able to clear them quickly if they had nothing to do with the murder,” I said, trying to persuade her. Andrew snorted in derision.

  “I can’t say anything,” she said. Andrew started to pipe up and I put up my hand to stop him.

  “Think carefully about this, Jane. Not taking action has its own set of consequences. I know you don’t want there to be another tragedy, one that you could have prevented,” I pleaded. I wasn’t sure that this wasn’t all an act, but I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt.

  Everyone was quiet as Jane pursed her lips. “I really don’t know anything,” she said. “But you do have a point. I saw my old boyfriend in Calhoun earlier this week. He was in a red car and some woman was driving.”

  “You mean Joel Patrick?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you call us? You knew that we were interested in him,” I asked, wondering if the woman in the red car could have been Marcy. Was Joel one of the men Eddie had seen her with?

  “I just didn’t take that seriously. The fight he had with Dad was soooo long ago. I didn’t want to get him in trouble, but now with Joe’s… passing.”

  She gave us the approximate time and place where she had seen Joel and we asked a few more routine questions before turning to Andrew. He refused to give us anything else.

  Clive was the last person we questioned. He corroborated Marge’s answers with an engineer’s dreamy detachment. He claimed to have been around his wife’s family, but not really of the family. He was pretty believable as a good guy who didn’t really notice the hurly-burly of the real world.

  “Hank’s hiding something and Jane has something up her sleeve,” Darlene said when we got back in the car.

  “Agreed,” I said, pondering what our next move should be. “I think we have to approach this from both angles. I still think that there is an outside influence involved here, but I’m equally convinced that there has to be a family angle to the murders.”

  “Makes sense. If we can figure out the purpose for that backhoe digging holes, I think we’ll be a couple of steps closer to finding the killer,” Darlene said.