Vindicated (A Jenny Watkins Mystery Book 6)

by Becky Durfee

  While turning her face into a pout, Jenny said, “Then how are we going to show that this confession was coerced?”

  The pause seemed to take forever. “I don’t think you will.” After more silence he added, “If you plan to exonerate Nate, I think your best bet will be to find who really did this.”

  Chapter 10

  “Ed,” Jenny said through the phone. “Thanks for returning my call.”

  “No problem,” he replied. “Renee told me she’s already spoken to you.”

  “Yes, she did earlier today. I guess you know the reason why I called you, then.”

  “I do,” Ed replied. “You’d like to know if I saw or heard anything at the cookout that might point the finger at who did this. It turns out you may be in luck, actually.”

  Jenny’s ears immediately perked up. “Oh?”

  “Yep. I spent a good deal of time talking with Stella that day. Even though I had never met her before, it turned out she used to be one of my father’s students at Braynard College. My dad taught Biology there for thirty years, and she took one of his courses as part of her nursing degree.”

  “It’s a small world, huh?” Jenny asked.

  “Well, it’s a small town…with one college in it,” Ed said with a laugh. “My father ran into people he knew every time he went out. I swear, everywhere we went, I’d always hear someone yell, ‘Professor P!’ I think his students really liked him, even if they couldn’t say his name.

  “Anyway,” Ed continued, “Stella had a little too much to drink the afternoon of the cookout, so she ended up getting loose lips. She said things to me that you wouldn’t ordinarily tell someone you’d just met.”

  Jenny was eager for him to get to the point.

  “She explained that she worked with Doctor Burke, and at first she thought this thing she had going with him was cool, but she said he was starting to become overbearing—possessive—and that wasn’t what their relationship was supposed to be about.”

  Jenny furrowed her brow; this did not align with what Shane Burke had said the day before. She wrote down the notes nonetheless. “So, she was getting fed up with him, that’s what you’re telling me?”

  “Well, that’s what she told me. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know.”

  “Was Doctor Burke or Colin around when she said that? Do you remember?”

  “I do remember. She said it when Doctor Burke was standing just a few feet away from us. She was being loud, too, due to the alcohol. I felt uncomfortable during the conversation because he was within earshot. That’s why I’m able to remember it so well.”

  Nerves surged within Jenny; she couldn’t help but feel like she was on to something. “Do you think he heard her?”

  “If he did, he didn’t let on,” Ed replied. “But the girl did end up dead the following weekend.”

  Jenny thought back to her conversation with Doctor Burke; he claimed to be working the day of the murder. She determined she’d have to look into that claim to see if it was really true.

  “What was your impression of Doctor Burke?” she asked.

  “Cocky…just like you’d expect from a middle-aged man who cheats on his wife with twenty-somethings.”

  “Do you think he was capable of murder?”

  Ed let out a sigh, apparently as he contemplated. “I can’t say. I’ve never met a murderer before.”

  “Okay, then, let me switch gears. What was your impression of Colin?”

  “I actually felt sorry for the guy. It was clear that he was easily manipulated. When Stella fed him that line of crap about the doctor using his position of authority to force her to date him, Colin fell for it hook, line and sinker. You know, he kind of reminded me of a puppy dog…he had that same allegiant-to-a-fault sort of quality about him.”

  “So, you would say he felt very passionately about Stella?”

  “Oh, yes,” Ed agreed, “without a doubt.”

  Jenny rubbed her eyes; she was still no closer to the truth. “Well, thank you very much for taking the time to speak with me.”

  “No problem,” Ed replied. “Feel free to call any time you have questions.”

  “Thanks,” she said. “I’ll do that.”

  “I’ve heard from everyone except Charlie,” Jenny explained to Kyle through the phone, ignoring the hunger that the smell of dinner was invoking in her. “Based on what Megan says about him, I’m not sure I will hear back from him. She says he’s rather irresponsible.”

  “She’s his ex-wife?” Kyle posed.

  “Yup.”

  “Then you need to take her opinion with a grain of salt. If there’s one thing I’ve learned at my job over the years, it’s that.”

  “Well, so far it’s proving to be true. I’ve gotten in touch with both Ed and Renee Pryzbyck, as well as Megan. It’s just Charlie that’s been elusive.”

  “Have Ed, Renee or Megan given you any information that looks like it will be helpful?”

  “They all seem to imply that Doctor Burke had the motive but Colin had the passion. I’m really still back at square one.”

  Kyle maintained the calm demeanor that seemed to be ever-present with him. “Oh, well. It was worth a shot. Sometimes you can find some things out ahead of time that will give you a leg up when you interview a suspect. Other times, like now, you get nothing.”

  “So, when would you like to pay our friend Colin a visit?”

  “How about tomorrow morning? He works as a loan officer; perhaps we can pay him a little surprise visit at his job.”

  “You like those surprise visits, don’t you?”

  “They’re the best kind,” Kyle explained. “There’s no chance to rehearse your responses that way.”

  “Or to run,” Jenny added.

  “That’s right,” Kyle agreed. “Or to run.”

  The attraction Jenny had felt toward Zack earlier in the day had remained steadfast; she snuggled up onto his shoulder after they climbed into bed, caressing his chest gently with her hand.

  “You’d better be careful,” he warned. “If you keep this up, Little Zack is going to wake up, and then he’s going to expect things.”

  Jenny smiled playfully. “I’d kind of like little Zack to wake up for a while.”

  With that, Zack looked at her in disbelief. “For real?”

  “Yes, for real.”

  “Wow. I didn’t think we’d be doing it in my parents’ house at all, and here we are doing it for the second night in a row.”

  Liking the sound of what she’d heard, Jenny said, “Does that mean he’ll come out and play?”

  “Little Zack always wants to play,” Zack replied as he rolled over on top of Jenny. “All he needs is an invitation.”

  “What do you have planned today?” Jenny asked as Zack climbed out of bed the next morning. She remained comfortable under the covers.

  “Well, the chairlift guys are supposed to come, and we finally got approval from the county to begin the handicapped ramp in the front yard.”

  “What about the homeowner’s association? Have they approved it?”

  “They have to approve it. It would be a violation of the Fair Housing Act to tell a homeowner he can’t put a handicapped ramp on his property because it’s unsightly.” He made finger quotes. “Rob can apply for approval after it’s built; they can’t say no. The county, on the other hand, wants to make sure the ramp is structurally sound, so they need to approve it before we begin.”

  Jenny shrugged. It sounded good to her. “A chairlift and the ramp; that’s on your agenda for today?”

  “Yup. That, and starting the bathroom. How about you? What are you working on?”

  Jenny glanced at the time. “Well, I’m going with meet with Kyle so we can ambush Colin at work. Then after that, who knows? It will all depend on what Colin has to say.”

  Zack walked over to the bedroom window and peeked out the blinds, looking elated by what he saw.

  “What has you so happy?” Jenny asked.

 
; “My father’s car is gone. He’s already left for work, so I can have a pleasant morning.”

  “Seriously…you two are like toddlers.”

  “Nuh-huh,” Zack said in his most child-like tone.

  Jenny rolled her eyes; for some reason she did love that man. Once again feeling an insatiable need to be with him, she lifted up the covers and said, “Do you want to come back to bed?” She smiled at him flirtatiously. “That way you can have a really pleasant start to your day.”

  Zack looked stunned. “What has gotten into you?”

  With a giggle, Jenny confessed, “I don’t know. I’ve just been in the mood a lot lately.”

  Zack’s eyes became wide as saucers. “I know what’s happening.” He pointed at Jenny as he approached her. “You have a penis!”

  With a laugh, she looked down her body and replied, “Last I knew, I didn’t.”

  “No, not on you. In you.” He moved the tip of his finger from Jenny’s face to her belly. “That baby has a penis. Don’t you see? You’ve got a penis and you have extra testosterone and now you know what it’s like to be a guy and be totally horny all the time and now you want it twenty-four hours a day.” He spoke all in one breath, ending his statement with an emphatic folding of his arms across his chest.

  Jenny bit her lip and grinned. “You really think that’s what’s happening?”

  “It’s got to be. There’s no other explanation for it.” He tumbled back into the bed. “The tables have totally turned. Now you’re the horny one.” He pursed his lips in feigned snobbishness. “I ought to say no to you just so you know how it feels to be shot down.”

  Still laughing, she posed, “Wouldn’t that be cutting off your nose to spite your face?”

  “Yes, but I think it would teach you a valuable lesson.”

  “And what lesson would that be?”

  “It would teach you to be compassionate towards men and their stupid behavior, which is almost always sexually motivated.”

  “That’s not really a lesson.”

  “You, my little wife, are splitting hairs…in what I believe is a failed attempt at dodging the issue. In the past you have routinely expressed disappointment in the inner workings of the heterosexual male brain, and now—in a cruel twist of fate—you get to experience what it feels like to be one.”

  Jenny leaned up onto one elbow and looked at Zack. With her best male voice, she primitively said, “So, does this mean we’re not gonna do it?”

  Zack thought about it for a moment. “Aw, what the hell.” He flipped over onto Jenny and began to kiss her.

  Kyle flashed his identification. “I’d like to speak with Colin Barrymore, please.”

  The secretary looked intimidated. “He’s with a client right now, but I can have him talk to you when he’s done.”

  “That would be great, thank you.”

  Kyle and Jenny took a seat in the lobby. She turned to him and asked, “Aren’t you worried about putting his job in jeopardy?”

  He shrugged and shook his head. “Nah. He’s not a suspect at this point, but he was dating a young woman that got murdered, so he does need to be questioned. I can explain that to his boss if I need to, but the whole Holy-shit-these-guys-showed-up-at-my-job notion might throw him just enough to get a little extra honesty out of him.”

  After a short wait, a man in a suit escorted a couple out of his office. He had red hair and a round, boyish face, giving him a distinct look of innocence that immediately struck Jenny. She couldn’t imagine him plunging a knife into a woman he loved eight times, although Jenny knew she had to get that thought out of her head. Looks most certainly could have been deceiving, and a childlike face did not necessarily mean he wasn’t capable of terrible things.

  Kyle stood up and approached the man. “Colin Barrymore?”

  “Yes,” he replied, looking both friendly and confused.

  “Kyle Buchanan.” He once again flashed his identification. “May I have a word with you inside your office?”

  Jenny’s eyes flashed to the secretary, who looked like she had just seen a ghost, making Jenny wonder whether or not their interrogation tactics were sound.

  Still looking dumbfounded, Colin agreed, inviting Kyle and Jenny to take a seat at his desk. “You may want to close the door,” Kyle warned.

  Colin heeded the advice, and the look on his face went from confused to almost fearful. He walked around his desk and took a seat, holding on to his tie as he did. “What can I help you with?”

  Kyle began his explanation. “I’m looking into the murder of Stella Jorgenson back in 1988.”

  “Stella?” He looked back and forth between Kyle and Jenny. “That’s what this is about?”

  “Yes,” Kyle replied, “we have reason to believe an innocent person was convicted of the crime.”

  In what appeared to be an a-ha moment, Colin sat back in his chair and widened his eyes. “It was that doctor, wasn’t it? The one who was forcing Stella to date him so she could keep her job.”

  Jenny’s heart bled for the man who apparently still believed—after all this time—that Stella was being honest with him.

  “We don’t know that for sure,” Kyle said. “We’re still looking into all possibilities at this point.”

  Colin seemed to ignore Kyle’s comment. “You know, I suspected him. Even when they said the neighbor did it, I wondered if they had gotten it wrong. That doctor was obviously a jerk.”

  Opening his notepad, Kyle asked, “Did the doctor do or say anything specific that leads you to believe he played a role in her murder?”

  Colin’s shoulders sank and his expression became sad. “No, but I’m afraid I may have played a role in what happened to Stella.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “I went to see him,” Colin admitted. “A few days before Stella was killed, I went to the emergency room where the doctor worked, and I let him have it. I told him I would go to his bosses and let them know how he was using his position of authority to manipulate Stella into doing what he wanted her to do. Then I noticed the man was wearing a wedding ring.” Colin looked appalled. “Can you believe it? A wedding ring. He was married. That’s when I lost it and told him I would go to his wife with what I knew if he didn’t leave Stella alone.”

  Kyle calmly jotted down the notes. “And you said this happened when?”

  Colin looked like he could cry. “A few days before she was killed. When I first heard she’d been murdered, I thought for sure the doctor had done it…and he’d done it because of what I’d said. I felt so guilty. But then I found out it was the neighbor and the attack was random.” His shoulders sank even further. “That made me feel less guilty, but it didn’t help me miss her any less.”

  Jenny could fully understand Ed’s puppy reference.

  “Did you end up telling his wife about the…relationship…between Stella and Dr. Burke?”

  Looking ashamed, Colin admitted, “I left a message on their answering machine.”

  Jenny and Kyle looked at each other with just their eyes.

  “I was angry,” Colin continued. “I realize I probably shouldn’t have done it, but Stella deserved better, and so did this guy’s wife, even though I’d never met her.”

  “What, exactly, did this message say?”

  Letting out a sigh that showed he wasn’t proud of himself, he admitted, “It just said that his wife might want to be aware that he has been forcing one of his nurses to become romantically involved with him so she can keep her job.”

  “I assume you have no way of knowing whether the doctor or his wife heard this message?” Kyle posed.

  Colin shook his head. “I don’t know who heard it.”

  “Well, that definitely puts an interesting spin on things,” Kyle noted under his breath.

  “Does this mean you are trying to prove it was him?” Colin posed eagerly. “Although, he must be in his sixties by now. He was my age, I think, when all of this went down.”

  “He is
older now, yes,” Kyle said, “but we’re not necessarily trying to prove it was him. We’re simply trying to find out who it was.”

  Colin scoffed. “You don’t need to look any further than that guy.”

  “What if I said there was a trail of blood that led out the back door of Stella’s house?” Kyle posed. “The door that someone most likely would have used if they left the scene and went to the apartments where you lived at the time of the murder.”

  He looked back and forth between Kyle and Jenny as if he didn’t understand what was being laid out in front of him. “You think the killer lived in my building?”

  “That’s where the physical evidence points,” Kyle said.

  Colin looked as if his mind had been blown. “I wonder who it could have been, then.”

  Jenny felt deeply sorry for this man, who didn’t seem like he was all that bright, at least not when it came to the ways of the world.

  “Well, I can come up with one person who lived in your building who felt passionately enough about Stella to do this to her.”

  “Who?” Colin demanded, looking as if he wanted to find this person and wring his neck.

  “Um…you, Mr. Barrymore.”

  “Me? Are you kidding? I never would have hurt Stella. I loved her.”

  “Exactly,” Kyle reasoned. “You loved her, and you discovered the weekend before that she was dating someone else.”

  “Yeah, because she had to in order to keep her job.”

  “You believe that, Colin?” Kyle asked.

  “Of course I do. It’s the truth.”

  In a move that made Jenny feel grateful, Kyle simply nodded and accepted that statement. She saw no need in dashing Colin’s idyllic image of Stella twenty-six years later.

  “Just so we can eliminate you from the suspect list, can you provide us with an alibi who can verify your whereabouts the afternoon Stella was killed?”

  “I was home then,” Colin said. “I was by myself.” He looked down. “I always thought that if I had just paid her a visit that day, none of this would have ever happened.”

  “Were you on the phone with anyone during that time frame?”