by Karen Fenech
Clare straightened her shoulders. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah, I do. I know you, remember? At least as much as you’d let anyone know you. I’d venture to say that I know you better than anyone. Delude yourself if you want, but don’t try to delude me.” He touched his index finger to her temple. “You’ve got a need in there to keep yourself from being happy. I wish to God I knew what to do about that.”
Clare drew back, so he was no longer touching her. Body tense and shaking from heat now, rather than cold, she eyed him. “Are you finished? I must have missed the Bureau’s class on Psych 101. As to your claim that I keep myself from being happy, where does that come from? Where do you get off? I was happy three years ago, remember, you were there. I did not keep myself from being happy. If you want to lay blame, then it’s all yours. You walked away from what we had. I didn’t.”
“What we had?” He grunted. “What we had was great sex. That’s all we had.” His brows drew together. His tone lowered and the anger left his voice. “That’s all you’d let us have. It was never anymore than that.”
Chapter Nine
Clare pulled into the driveway of Connie’s Place. An elderly man and woman sat on the verandah facing one another across from a checkerboard. They glanced up from their game as Clare climbed the creaking porch steps.
“Good afternoon,” Clare said as she walked by them into the house.
Clare had just come from her sister’s residence after spending the last hour with Beth’s neighbors. The women on the short street were stay-at-home moms, and when Clare had given them the date of Beth’s last known day in town and asked if they recalled being at home on that day, they’d given responses like, “I’m home every day!”
The women hadn’t been cordial. Clearly, their sympathies lay with Dean Ryder but Clare could tell they’d been curious about her. They hadn’t wanted to turn down a chance to learn something new about the Ryder scandal.
She’d asked each woman in turn if she’d seen Beth on that afternoon. None had.
She needed to retrace her sister’s steps on her last day in Farley. So far, all she knew was that Beth had been in the grocery store at ten-thirty on that Friday morning, arranging with Gil Hoag to leave town. Hoag said that Beth intended to complete her workday at the inn. Clare would confirm the time Beth left the inn of course, but more, she hoped someone here could tell her where Beth had gone next.
Inside the inn, a door at the end of the hall was open, revealing the kitchen. The blades of ceiling fans whirled, carrying the scent of something sweet baking. A kitchen door, open to the glass, showed Connie in the yard hanging sheets on a clothesline.
Just the person Clare wanted to see. She joined Connie in the yard. A few birds dipped their beaks into a small birdbath set in a rock garden.
Connie’s face was flushed and glistened with perspiration. She straightened her posture at seeing Clare. “What are you doing here?”
“I want to ask you some questions about Beth’s last day at work,” Clare said.
Connie yanked the clothesline hard enough to elicit a screech from the metal wheel and several feet of wire raced along the track. She snatched a sheet and clothes pegs from the laundry basket at her feet and pinned the sheet to the line. “Got nothin’ to say to you.”
“So you told me. By now you might have heard that in addition to being Beth’s sister, I’m also a federal agent. You and I can have a conversation here, or we can take this down to the Bureau office. Up to you.”
Clare knew she had nothing to support her, were she to insist on Connie accompanying her to the Bureau office for questioning.
Connie met Clare’s gaze briefly then lowered her eyes to the laundry basket at her feet. “Got too many chores to waste my day cooped up in an office with you. Let’s get this over with.”
Connie didn’t seem to be as certain of herself as she’d been a moment earlier. Pleased, Clare nodded. “What was Beth’s job here?”
Connie shrugged. “She cleaned the rooms, and helped out in the kitchen.”
“What time did she start work?”
“Six-thirty. We start serving breakfast at seven-thirty.”
“And she worked until?”
“Four-thirty.”
“What about the day she left Farley? Until what time did she work on that day?”
Connie pressed her lips tightly together, puffing up the lower lip. She propped a hand on her hip. “Well, I don’t keep no punch-clock, but to the best of my recollection Beth worked her shift.”
“Did she say where she was going after work?”
Connie sneered. “No. I figured home. Looks like she had another place to be.”
Clare leveled her gaze on the other woman. “That other place wasn’t with the truck driver. She wasn’t having an affair.”
Connie shouted. “It’s all over town—”
“Town’s wrong,” Clare said simply.
Connie bent down for another sheet. Her knuckles bulged with her tight grip on the crisp white cotton. “What? Did she get tired of that poor slob too and leave him already?”
Clare ignored the comment. “Do you have any other employees?” She wanted to know if Beth may have confided her destination to one of her coworkers.
“One. Lil Fisher.”
“Who lives here?”
Connie’s lips pursed, and she didn’t respond.
Her reticence angered Clare. “I’ll get you started,” Clare said. “Yourself. Your mother. Who else?”
Connie crossed her arms. “My husband, Rich.”
“Are Lil Fisher or your husband here at the moment?”
“Too bad for you, there’s no one here right now but me, Mama, and the guests.”
Clare gave Connie a steady look and held it until the other woman swallowed visibly. She would return to speak with Rich Dannon and Lil Fisher. As for Connie’s mother, given the woman’s confusion, Clare didn’t think she’d get anything of value from her.
Clare withdrew a business card and pen from the purse hanging from her shoulder and wrote her cell phone number on the back of the card. She held it out to Connie. “Call me if you recall something Beth might have said about where she was going that day.”
Connie kept her hands at her sides.
Clare leaned slightly toward the other woman and caught a whiff of talcum powder. She steadied her gaze on Connie. “FYI, withholding information from a federal agent is a prosecutable offense.”
Clare waved the business card slowly. Connie snatched it from Clare’s grasp.
Clare left the backyard. She now knew for sure that Beth had been at the inn until four-thirty. Where did you go after that, Beth?
Clare returned to her car. A woman she didn’t know stood by the passenger side door, watching Clare’s approach, waiting for her. She was tall and robust with a head of tight gray curls.
“Can I help you?” Clare asked.
The woman glared at Clare. “I was in my kitchen next door when you was out back with Connie just now. Couldn’t help overhearing you two talking.” She had the rasp of a lifelong smoker. “I got to say, no mistaking that you and Beth are kin. Your looks aside, you both got the same nerve. It’s time someone set you straight about your sister and spoke up for Connie. And I’m just the one to do it.”
In Clare’s experience, Connie didn’t need anyone to speak up for her, and she was in no mood to receive a lecture on the merits of Connie Dannon from one of her neighbors. Still, the woman lived in the area and might have something to add about Beth.
“And you are?” Clare asked.
“Name’s Lil Fisher. I work for Connie.”
The woman now had Clare’s complete attention. Before Clare asked her own questions, she wanted to hear what Lil might offer on her own. “What do you have to tell me, Ms. Fisher?”
“You want to know about Beth? I’ll tell you about Beth.” Lil swung her arms wide. “Ungrateful. That’s one word to describe Beth Ryder. Laz
y. There’s another that fits. I’m being polite here. Let me tell you there are plenty others I could mention. I’ve had to pick up the slack for Beth more times than I can recall when she’s left Connie holding the bag. I’m the one Connie has had to call whenever your no-good sister didn’t show up for work.
“When Dean married Beth, out of the goodness of her heart, Connie hired on her new sister-in-law. Beth didn’t know the first thing about working at an inn but she had nowhere else to be so Connie took her on. Beth, though, turned out to be seven kinds of lazy. Oh, she’d come in—didn’t want to miss out on the paycheck —but she didn’t pull her weight. Always slacking, pretending she was ailing so she’d get out of work.” Lil shook her head slowly. “Connie made due, like she had before Beth, but then business picked up and the place got busy and Connie’s mama got sick and Connie really needed a helping hand.”
“Were you working on Beth’s last day?”
“Wasn’t supposed to. But Beth was moving slower than usual that day and it was busy. Two families and a couple of honeymooners checked in. I got a desperate call from Connie to help out. What with looking after her sick ma and the inn being full up with guests, Connie needed all the help she could get. I came right over and worked my butt off. But not Beth, no way. That girl would do what she wanted to do, and to hell with everybody else. She wouldn’t put it in high gear to help Connie out. Forgot that Connie was the boss and not the other way around. Beth never worked a minute past four-thirty. If anything, Connie worked around Beth. Connie fixed Beth’s shift so’s she could get home in time to get supper ready for Dean by six when he got home.”
“Did Beth say where she was going after work that day?”
“Not to me. Didn’t give it no thought. Just figured she was going home.”
The sarcasm in Lil’s tone annoyed Clare and she gave a dose of sarcasm back. “And yet, Connie didn’t fire her?”
Lil scoffed. “Connie would never hurt her brother that way. Beth knew that and used the kinship. Connie was family, but she was also the boss and had a business to run. Beth never gave her that respect. Connie never told Dean nothing about Beth’s work. Dean doted on that girl. And look what she did to him?”
“How did Beth get to work every day?”
“Drove. She and Dean have two vehicles. Beth drove one of them.”
Jake hadn’t turned up a vehicle registered to Beth in his search, but Clare recalled an old green sedan parked in Beth’s driveway when she’d been waiting for Ryder to return to the house. The car must be registered to Dean. “Beth drove their green vehicle?”
“That’s the one.”
Clare figured Beth hadn’t taken the car out of town because she knew it would be easy to trace. Had she intended to drive it to meet Hoag and abandon it? If so, she hadn’t done that either. Clare frowned. If Beth hadn’t gone home after work, then how did the car get back to her house?
Lil pointed at Clare. “Connie was real upset when you showed up here. The last thing she needs is you in her face. She don’t deserve that. She’s been real good to your sister. Like I said, it’s time someone told Connie’s side of things.”
Having said her piece, Lil turned her back on Clare and marched up Connie’s driveway.
Clare got into her own vehicle but didn’t drive away. Instead, she sat, engine idling, absently tapping the steering wheel. Someone had to drive Beth’s car home. Dean?
Clare glanced at the dashboard clock: 2:47 p.m. According to Lil, Dean didn’t get home until six. Unlikely he would be at home now. Clare decided to swing by his house anyway to be sure.
She approached his house slowly. His white pickup wasn’t in the driveway. She parked, left the car and tried the doorbell anyway. She heard it ring inside and waited it out. Dean didn’t come to the door.
On her way back to her own car, Clare stopped at Ryder’s sedan. It was the last place Clare knew for sure that Beth had been. She tried the doors. All were locked; the windows closed. She bent and peered through the glass. The interior was green as well. Clare studied the vinyl seats and carpeting. They were spotlessly clean. Nothing to indicate that Beth, or anyone for that matter, had ever been inside. Nothing readily visible to provide a clue to Beth’s whereabouts.
Clare exhaled a frustrated breath. She continued down the driveway. The Ryders’ mailbox was staked into the trim lawn. She flipped down the lid. She’d welcome a card, letter or flyer addressed to Beth that she could follow up on. She peeked inside. The mailbox was empty.
Clare wanted to wait for Dean so she could ask him about the car. Whoever had driven it home may be the last person to have seen Beth in Farley. Impatience was riding Clare hard.
It was another three hours until six o’clock, however, and it was blazing hot. Sitting vigil at Ryder’s curb made no sense. There was no help for it. She’d have to come back later to ask him about the car.
Back at her rented house, a red truck was parked in the driveway. The driver was Parker Burby. Clare pulled in beside the truck and turned off the ignition. She left her vehicle and Parker did the same.
“Hello, Mr. Burby,” Clare said.
He nodded.
A tree, a short distance from their vehicles, cast a shadow across a patch of the driveway. Clare wanted out of the sun and moved to stand in the shade.
Parker remained by his truck. He removed a worn and stained cap and held it with both hands. His hair was cropped low and his scalp showed through the fine hairs.
“You were asking my wife about Beth and Dean,” Parker said. “There’s something Patty doesn’t know about and I don’t want her to. She’d worry herself sick.”
Clare went to him. “What is it, Mr. Burby?”
Parker lowered his gaze to the cap. He passed it between his thick fingers, turning the cap around and around. “When Beth pulled away from her, Patty took it real hard. I don’t have any use for Dean Ryder, but there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for my wife, so I drove over to Dean and Beth’s, hoping I could get him to ease up on our women’s friendship.
“I got to the house, knocked on the door but nobody came to answer it. I was going to go back home and try again another time when I heard a scream. I threw my weight against the door, but it wasn’t locked and it fell open. I ran inside. From the hallway I could see straight into the kitchen. Beth was laying on the floor. Dean stood over her. I yelled something—hey, I think it was—and they both froze and turned to look at me.”
Parker’s features tensed. “Beth said she slipped and fell. That Dean was helping her to her feet. Didn’t look that way to me. I said so. I told Beth to come on home and stay with me and Patty. I can tell you I was hoping Dean would make a move to stop me from taking her.” Parker’s grip on the cap tightened.
“But Beth said I got it wrong. There was nothing wrong. She got mad and told me to get out.” Parker raised his gaze from the cap and gave Clare a level look. “All the while Beth and me were talking, Dean just stood there. He didn’t say one word. I didn’t want to leave her there, but she wouldn’t come with me. She wouldn’t go.” Parker exhaled a deep breath. “Beth is out of Farley and away from Dean, so none of that matters now, I s’pose. But I thought you should know. Dean’s got the whole town believing he’s something he’s not. You’re stirring things up again about Beth leaving him. He won’t take kindly to that.”
Chapter Ten
Clare stood and watched Parker Burby back his truck down the driveway. Gravel crunched under the big tires and dust formed a cloud that hung in the still air.
His account of the scene he’d walked in on between Beth and Ryder had left Clare cold and shaken.
