Ripped Apart (A Ripple Effect Cozy Mystery, Book 5)

by Jeanne Glidewell

  The sheriff tried unsuccessfully to suppress a chuckle, and said, “Okay. Go on.”

  “This part is unclear, but I think during the time Rockport was in the eye of the hurricane, Jessie was driving over to check on Walker and his wife. He saw Reilly running around looking for Scrappy, and probably convinced her to get in the car. In any case, he must have hit her over the head with the crowbar then or killed her elsewhere.

  “Either way, I think it was a crime of passion, as well as opportunity. He was extremely upset about the way she’d broken his best friend’s heart. After all, Walker nearly succeeded in killing himself, except Jessie found him in the nick of time. He basically told me Reilly was promiscuous. In fact, he referred to her as a home-wrecker. I think he actually believed he was doing Walker a favor and giving him the chance to ‘move on’, as Jessie so callously put it.”

  “I thought you said the crowbar belonged to Tony,” the sheriff said.

  “I originally thought it was Tony’s, then I thought it belonged to Bruno. But Bruno told me he had borrowed it for a project he and Tony were involved in. Bruno is Barlow’s stepson, by the way. Bruno basically implied the crowbar belonged to Walker. Jessie might have even borrowed it from his best friend and was returning it to Walker when he spotted Reilly out by the street.”

  “Who returns a borrowed crowbar in the middle of the night during a powerful hurricane?” The sheriff asked.

  “Oh. Okay. I hadn’t thought about it that way. I did tell you that part was unclear. Nevertheless, I believe the crowbar belonged to either Walker or Jessie, who loaned it to Bruno and Tony to use to complete whatever project they were working on together. It probably belonged to Walker, as I’d first seen it in a closet in his house, but it seemed to be freely passed from one worker to another. And I think Jessie wielded it to kill Reilly.” I was beginning to question my own theory as I watched the two men share a knowing look. They appeared to be wondering if I hadn’t been whacked on the head with something myself, rather than Reilly. The subsequent concussion obviously had me imagining preposterous scenarios involving the woman's disappearance.

  “Is that all you have?” Peabody asked. “It sounds as if it’s all circumstantial.”

  “Maybe so,” I admitted. “But don’t you think the man should be interrogated, his alibi questioned and confirmed?”

  “We’ll see.”

  I was seething when Joe Peabody left, convinced my theory would go no further. Imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning to the sound of jack-hammering next door. Considering the short amount of time it took me to get out of my pajamas and into a shirt and jeans, I could have competed in America’s Got Talent as a quick-change artist.

  Rip stood next to Sheriff Peabody and two detectives when I limped next door as fast as I could, too impatient to use the crutches. I was ticked off at Rip for not waking me. Did he really think I’d rather laze around in bed than watch to see if my theory was confirmed or not? I forgave him when he greeted me with a warm hug and quick kiss. "Good morning, sunshine."

  "Good morning. What's going on?"

  Rip brought me up to speed as the sheriff spoke to the detectives. “Garza was brought in for questioning yesterday afternoon and told the detectives he was with his mother at her house in Bayside throughout the storm.”

  “His mother couldn’t or wouldn’t confirm his alibi?” I asked.

  “Oh, I’m sure she would have―if she was alive!”

  “She’s dead?”

  “For the last seven years,” Rip replied with a smirk. “Seems she was a heavy smoker and died of COPD in 2010. Her house in Bayside was sold shortly after her death. Kind of shot a big hairy hole in Garza’s alibi.”

  “I’d say so.” I tried not to smile at the news Jessie’s mother had died an undoubtedly painful death, but I was too gleeful that the verification of my theory seemed to be coming to fruition. Just then Rip and I looked up to see the gentleman using the jack-hammer make a thumbs-up gesture.

  We rushed over to see blue plastic peeking through a void in the concrete. Within minutes, part of Reilly’s body was exposed. The tightly-wrapped plastic, which had partially preserved the body as if she were a mummy, had been ripped in several places, and the sudden overwhelming stench of decaying flesh was almost unbearable. The sheriff gave some quick instructions to the detectives and ushered Rip and me back to our travel trailer.

  “I guess I owe you a big thanks, Rapella. Looks as if you’ve done it again.” Sheriff Peabody looked me directly in the eyes when he added. “I suppose I owe you an apology, too, because I thought you’d gone off your meds or something when you were expressing your suspicions yesterday.”

  “Thanks. But I only take a thyroid medication, Joe.” I was dismayed the man thought I took medicine for a mental illness.

  “It’s just a saying. I didn’t mean it literally,” Sheriff Peabody said. There’s that word again, I thought, but I’m glad Joe used it properly. I smiled and urged him to continue. “Anyway, I started thinking about what you’d said and came to the conclusion we had nothing to lose by questioning Jessie Garza. Glad we did, too. To be honest, I was surprised to find out your supposition was right. The man has no priors, not even a speeding ticket on his record. Just what seems to be a no-holds-barred loyalty to his best friend.”

  I wasn’t surprised. My gut feeling had been so strong, I was convinced it was spot on. What did surprise me, however, was when a second arrest was made later on that afternoon.

  Twenty-Six

  We received a call from Sheriff Peabody at three-fifteen. When Walker Reynolds had heard his best friend had been arrested on a voluntary manslaughter charge for the murder of his wife, claiming he alone was responsible, Walker had driven to the police station and turned himself in.

  As it turned out, he claimed he’d casually mentioned to Jessie he wished Reilly was dead after she’d asked for a divorce. He really hadn’t expected Jessie to take his words to heart and bludgeon her to death with his crowbar. According to Walker, Jessie had driven over to check on the couple during the lull in the storm. Like so many others, he'd thought the worst of the storm was behind them. He saw Reilly out front and stopped to speak with her. She told him she was looking for Scrappy, who'd gotten spooked and run off. Jessie told her to hop in his Ford Explorer, and he’d help her search for the dog.

  They found Scrappy a block away and picked him up, but when Reilly made a snide remark about Walker, Jessie’s anger exploded. He reached for Walker’s crowbar in his back seat and struck her with it, splitting her head wide open and killing her instantly. It had been a crime of passion and opportunity, as I’d suspected, but a crime nonetheless.

  According to Jessie, the back side of the storm was just beginning to ravage the area and he knew trying to dump her body at that time was foolish and dangerous. He didn't want to be take the risk of being blown off the road and rescued by first responders with Reilly's body in his trunk. Panicking, he drove Reilly and the dog to his house. Once there, he wrapped her body tightly with the large roll of thick blue plastic he'd purchased in the event he'd need to use it to tarp the roof of his house following the storm. He then hid the wrapped body in a closet in what was left of his garage, where it remained until he received word the insurance adjuster would be coming by to inspect the damage to his home.

  The following day, Jessie turned Scrappy loose. The Maltipoo found his way back to Key Allegro and was discovered, hungry and exhausted, by some Good Samaritan on Luau Lane who posted the dog's photo on Facebook, aiding in his safe return.

  It took several more days for Jessie to admit to his best friend what he’d done. He’d originally told Walker that as he was driving up to their house during the lull in the hurricane, he’d seen Reilly racing down the pier after their dog. He'd added that since the storm was beginning to pick up again, he'd changed his mind about stopping by and had instead returned to his home.

  Walker hadn't actually seen Reilly chasing after Scrappy, but th
at was the story he told the police, and the one he’d eventually maintained as the truth of his wife’s disappearance. Walker was appalled when Jessie finally told him what he’d done, but he felt partially responsible. He reluctantly agreed to help Jessie cover up the crime. Walker had felt both sick to his stomach and relieved beyond belief to know that Reilly, the woman who had shattered his heart into a million pieces, was out of his life forever.

  In the month following her death, Walker had been riddled with guilt. That’s why he’d barely eaten and had dropped a lot of weight. His hair had begun to gray and his cheeks had sunken into his face. His appearance had changed so drastically in a matter of weeks that even his closest friends hardly recognized him.

  It had been his idea to bury her in the back yard and pour a new patio over the top of her body when Jessie said he had to find a place to bury her body immediately because the insurance adjuster was due to appraise the damage to his house the next day. It was Walker who had prepared the patio for concrete with two-by-four forms and re-bar. Even another Category 4 hurricane would not expose the reality behind Reilly’s disappearance, he’d assured Jessie. She would remain on the missing person’s list forever. Or so he thought.

  Walker hadn’t counted on a curious woman with mediocre investigative skills, and—sometimes—uncanny luck, to dig up the truth, resulting in his wife’s body being dug up, as well. He actually admitted he was relieved his evil deeds had been exposed. He couldn’t eat, couldn’t sleep, and could hardly stand to look at himself in the mirror any longer, he’d told the detective. Jessie, on the other hand, was not pleased at all. Lucky for me, he’d never see the light of day again, or I might have ended up being his next victim.

  Even if I’d never gotten to the bottom of the case, I have a feeling Walker eventually would have turned himself in, incriminating his best friend Jessie in the process. When I’d come across the two buddies arguing on Walker’s back patio, Jessie had been begging Walker not to do something, which I now suspect was that very thing. Walker had backed down and promised to keep silent, but he seemed relieved he no longer had to honor his vow, according to the sheriff.

  In his remorseful meltdown in the sheriff’s office, Walker also admitted that his accountant and neighbor, JJ, a.k.a. Jo Jo Wallinski, with whom he swore he had no romantic interest, had helped him file an erroneous insurance claim. The claim included everything from his expensive and nearly indestructible patio furniture to a lot of electronic equipment he hadn’t even owned. As it would turn out, JJ’s personal claim was even more inflated, as were those of several more of her clients.

  During Jessie’s interrogation, with no proof whatsoever, the young detective, Chad Morris, who'd given me the impression he had cotton candy for brains, had cleverly asked, “Why did you feel compelled to kill Barlow Barnaby, too?”

  Thinking there must be a mountain of proof of his guilt, Jessie had openly admitted to killing Barlow after hearing about the anonymous tip called into the hotline. Chuck Beatty’s initial impression had been correct after all. Barlow had been Jessie’s second murder victim. Only in this case, Jessie wasn't charged with voluntary manslaughter, but rather, first-degree murder. The killing of Barlow had been premeditated and highly deliberate.

  Like everyone on Flamingo Road, Jessie had instinctively suspected Barlow was the anonymous tipster. He was afraid that, given time, Barlow would recall more details about what he’d witnessed in front of the Reynolds’s home during the lull in the storm. He had already reported the car he’d seen Reilly getting into was a tan SUV, which Jessie put up for sale immediately after the murder. It was the Ford Explorer I’d asked Jessie about in Walker’s driveway. Naturally, he’d lied and told me it belonged to a friend of Walker’s who lived out in the country. I guess it was actually a lie by omission, as Jessie had failed to mention he was the friend who lived out in the country and wanted to sell his car.

  To prevent Barlow from passing on more information to the police, Jessie went to the man’s house early in the morning. He knew Bruno was staying over at his new girlfriend’s house that night, so the timing was perfect. One punch to the jaw knocked Barlow out cold. Thanks to his size and strength, it was easy to hoist Barlow up to the ceiling and slip a hangman’s noose around his neck. He knew Bruno would not be overly grief-stricken about his stepdad’s death, nor would anyone else who lived in the neighborhood. He almost felt as if he was doing a great service for Bruno and the residents of Flamingo Road.

  “Why did he strip Barlow down before hanging him?” I asked the sheriff.

  “He didn’t. He said when he arrived at two in the morning, Mr. Barnaby was asleep in bed, naked as a jaybird.”

  “Eeww, gross.”

  “That’s what Jessie said,” Joe said. “But the worst part of it is that Barnaby wasn’t even the anonymous caller to begin with. Unfortunately, his reputation for calling the tip hotline on a weekly basis got him killed.”

  The sheriff went on to explain his remark. It seemed Jessie’s instinct that Barlow was the anonymous tipster was misguided; proving yet again that making an unsubstantiated assumption was not always the smartest thing to do. Sheriff Peabody told us only that the tipster had been a female, with an impossibly high-pitched voice. Although he didn’t leak the identity of the caller due to confidentiality protocol, I knew without a doubt Suzanna Pandero was the anonymous eyewitness. Suzanna had undoubtedly thought Reilly ran off with her husband, using the ferocious storm to fake her accidental death, and wanted the police to investigate the matter. She’d hoped they’d track the love-struck couple down and punish them. Perhaps even make Percival see the error of his ways and rekindle his relationship with her. I’m sure Suzanna was happy to let all of her neighbors assume Barlow Barnaby was the anonymous eyewitness due to his proclivity for calling the tip hotline. I wondered if she now felt somewhat responsible for the man’s death―not that she could’ve ever foreseen the horrendous fate that would befall him.

  Speaking of Suzanna, she returned from Austin on the afternoon of the two men’s arrests. Her mother was recuperating nicely from her stroke, and Suzanna had been anxious to return home. I took her house key over to her as soon as I saw her pull into her driveway. I wanted to tell her the key didn’t work and that she needed to have a deadbolt installed, as Rip had suggested. She’d already heard about Percival’s arrest and was surprisingly torn up about the situation, so I didn't mention to her that it was I who instigated it. She obviously still loved the man, despite his many transgressions.

  “How was Horizon City?” I asked, knowing she’d actually been in Austin. I couldn’t help but wonder why she’d fibbed to me.

  “Oh, you’re thinking of my mom’s winter home. Her primary residence is in Austin, and that’s where I’ve been the last few days.”

  “Oh. It must be nice to have a vacation home.” I smiled brightly. And nice, because it means you weren’t lying to me about where you went directly after the storm or earlier this week.

  Suzanna’s pet chinchilla was delighted to see his owner again. He’d been missing her, I could tell. The little “rascal” had begun to grow on me over the last few days, but not so much that I wasn’t happy to be relieved of the responsibility for him. I’d been thankful for not being the cause of his death, any houseplants’ death—or Rascal’s death due to a houseplant. I even remembered to warn her about the toxicity of the golden pothos plant I’d placed on top of her refrigerator. I advised her to Google what plants were poisonous to pets.

  I also got a chance to speak to Tony, whom I saw pull up next door when he came to claim a few of his tools from Walker’s house one day. He was blown away by the arrests of Jessie and Walker. He hadn’t had a clue about their involvement in Reilly’s disappearance. He still could hardly believe the way it’d turned out.

  Tony said that later in the afternoon on the day he’d painted Walker’s living room, he’d returned to Walker’s house to wash his hands and pick up his tool box and Walker’s crowbar, which he�
�d need to use on his project at Barlow’s house. Convinced the red stains on Walker's crowbar were caused by the red paint, even though he couldn't imagine how they'd gotten there, he'd decided to try and wash the majority of it off. Fortunately, Tony left enough behind to be tested by the crime lab.

  After completing a quick task at Barlow's, he’d returned to the Reynolds's house with a bottle of bleach to scour any paint stains he’d left behind in the sink or on the counter in his haste to get back to the job he’d been working on. Having no clue he'd removed blood, not red paint, from the crowbar, Tony pitched the ruined rag in the large dumpster out in Walker’s drive, which had his company’s TNT Demolition logo on it. When we knock them down, they stay down. Too bad for Jessie and Walker that when you bury them, they don’t always stay buried.

  Walker would eventually serve time for being an accessory to murder. A lot of time, to be exact. JJ would pay a hefty fine, spend nine months in jail on numerous counts of insurance fraud, and spend many hours performing community service. Jessie, whose crimes were the most atrocious, would be placed on death row for committing two murders. Texas does not mess around when it comes to the death penalty. It wasn’t likely that Jessie would spend thirty years on death row before being executed, as was the case in many states. I had no doubt his days on this earth were numbered. It was a realization that like Walker at the time of his arrest, both relieved me and made me sick to my stomach.

  Although I’d only been back home in Rockport for little over a week, I’d managed to be instrumental in putting three men and a woman behind bars, including the neighbors on both sides of Regina and Milo’s house, and the accountant a few houses down. This fact didn’t go unnoticed by my daughter.

  “I’m really proud of you, Mom, but I’m kind of glad you guys are leaving in mid-October to go to Tiffany’s birthday party. If you stay here much longer, we won’t have any neighbors left on Flamingo Road.”