Shattered (A Jenny Watkins Mystery Book 3)

by Becky Durfee

  Jenny shook her head. “No. It’s just my ex-husband.” The words ex-husband sounded surreal coming out of her mouth.

  “Are you sure? You can answer it if you need to. I don’t mind.”

  “I mind,” Jenny replied with a snort.

  “Uh oh. Is he bothering you?”

  “Maybe a little,” she confessed. “Perhaps I can pick your brain about that later tonight.” She stood up and began to put her coat on. “Speaking of tonight, I can order up a pizza for us if you’d like…my treat.”

  “That sounds great. I’ll let you know when I’m headed home.” Elijah winced when he added, “It might be late.”

  With a smile Jenny replied, “I expect nothing less.”

  Elijah put his piece of pizza down on his plate, wiping his greasy fingers on his pants. “Larry’s parents bought their house before he was born,” he began, “which means he lived there throughout his childhood. Archer also lived in the area his whole life, so they may have been friends for a long time. They grew up in the same school district; they would have gone through all twelve years of school together.” He glanced up at Jenny. “It must suck when one of your best buddies suddenly starts ditching you for a girl.”

  “But did Larry know Archer was hanging out with Lena?” Jenny wasn’t eating pizza; she had gotten tired of waiting and had eaten hours earlier. Instead she sat at the table in sweatpants with her feet propped on the chair next to her. “Archer claims the friendship was secret—that he never told anybody. Maybe Larry didn’t know what he was doing on those nights he refused to hang out.”

  Elijah shrugged. “Maybe Archer tried to keep it a secret, but can you really keep your best friends in the dark for that long? His friendship with Lena lasted for years. Perhaps Archer thought it was a secret, but maybe he wasn’t as good at being stealthy as he thought.”

  “So you think Larry figured out why Archer had been neglecting him and he recruited his friend Phillip to help him exact his revenge?” Jenny twisted her face. “But how would they have known she’d be there? And if Larry had that early curfew like he claims, he would have had to sneak out. With a gun. Why would he do that if he didn’t know she’d be there?”

  “Exactly,” Elijah said, “which is why I’m not willing to dismiss Mark Smalls and Adam DeWalt as suspects quite yet. The only boys who would have known she was there were Mark, Adam and Nick. Mark drove a small silver car, and Adam had a motive. And, without giving too much away, Adam’s father was an avid hunter.”

  “So Adam would have had access to weapons,” Jenny surmised.

  “Indeed.” Elijah took another bite of pizza.

  “It’s Virginia, though,” Jenny said thoughtfully. “Isn’t hunting a relatively popular sport in this neck of the woods?”

  “It is, yes,” Elijah conceded. “Gun ownership is pretty common around here—as it is everywhere, really—so unfortunately that doesn’t help us a ton.”

  Jenny curled her knees into her chest, placing her feet on her own chair. “So how are we ever going to figure out exactly who did this?”

  “If I knew the answer to that, I’d have the case solved already.”

  Jenny laughed when she realized the ridiculousness of her own question. “Can you run some ballistics tests on Adam’s father’s guns?”

  “I intend to,” Elijah said. “But that may be tricky. He may not even own the same guns anymore; that was fifteen years ago. They could have been sold six times over by now.”

  “If he sold them legally, which I assume he would, don’t they have records of that kind of thing?”

  “Yes, they do. But,” he added, “if the father knew that Adam used this gun to murder an innocent girl when he was drunk out of his mind, that gun may have found its way to the bottom of a lake. And if that’s the case, I’m sure Adam’s father will deny ever having owned it.”

  “And then he will provide Adam with an alibi.”

  The fake smile on Elijah’s face spoke volumes.

  “Seriously, this is the most frustrating career in the world,” Jenny said. “I don’t know how you or anybody else could choose to do this. I got roped into it against my will. You could leave this craziness at any time, and I’m not sure why you haven’t already.”

  “It’s the reward,” he explained. “The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. If I get to call Mr. and Mrs. Christova and tell them that I’ve found Lena’s killer, that will be the most exhilarating feeling in the world. It will have made the last fifteen years of sleepless nights worth it.”

  “I guess,” Jenny said. “I still give you credit. It takes a special kind of person to do this.”

  Elijah simply blushed and looked down. After a moment he posed with renewed vigor, “So what’s this about your ex-husband pestering you?”

  “Oh…that,” Jenny said in an underwhelmed tone.

  “Yes…that. What’s the deal?”

  Jenny placed her elbows on the table and rested her head in her hands, contemplating how to describe such a complicated issue in a few sentences. With a deep breath she began, “In a nutshell, he treated me like I didn’t matter the entire time we were together. When I told him I wanted a divorce, he essentially kept up his bravado and told me I was making a mistake—that I’d fail without him. I think he was trying to scare me into staying, and the sad thing is that with “old Jenny” that would have worked. But this new, more confident Jenny was able to see through that, and I left anyway.

  “Well,” she continued, “now he’s apologizing. He’s saying he’ll work hard at making things different. He realizes he wasn’t fair to me…that kind of thing.”

  “Do you think it’s a ploy?” Elijah posed.

  Jenny shrugged. “That’s what I can’t figure out.”

  “Well, if it is a ploy, then it’s obvious what you need to do. But if it isn’t…then what?”

  “I don’t know.” Jenny confessed, hanging her head. “To be honest I’ve moved on.” After a moment of silent debate, she added, “If I tell you something, do you promise not to tell my brother?”

  “You have my word.”

  “Well, when Archer said I went to the hotel to get laid, he wasn’t lying. He was being a little cruder about it than I’d like, but it is true that I went there with someone.”

  “Your business partner?”

  Jenny blushed. “Yes, my business partner. He’s obviously more than a business partner.” She couldn’t deny the tingle of excitement she felt when she added, “He’s told me that he loves me.”

  “Well, that does complicate things, now doesn’t it?”

  With wide eyes, she announced, “Indeed it does.”

  “So how do you feel about this other guy?”

  “A lot better than I feel about my husband, but I’m afraid it’s not that simple. While I enjoy Zack’s company a whole lot more than my husband’s, I’m not sure how responsible Zack is. My husband, on the other hand, is a very responsible man, but I don’t like being around him.” She sighed heavily with frustration. “I wish I could pick and choose qualities from each guy and mold them into one.” Jenny wriggled her hands as if she were manipulating an invisible ball of clay. “Then I could create the perfect guy.”

  “The perfect guy? That’s an oxymoron.”

  Jenny laughed. “You said that, not me.”

  “Hey, I’m not denying it. Men are flawed. It comes with the territory. It’s just a matter of finding a guy whose flaws you can live with.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” Jenny replied. After a moment of contemplation, she softly added, “I really don’t think I can live with my husband’s flaws. Even if he changes them at this point, I’m not sure I could ever get to a place where I’ll like him again. I think it might be too little, too late.”

  “So then you have your answer, don’t you?” Elijah asked.

  She did. She knew she did. So then why was it so hard to say?

  “I’m going to ask you a question,” Jenny began. “Feel free to tell me to mi
nd my own damn business if I’m getting too personal. But how did you feel when your marriage ended?”

  Elijah remained silent for a long time, making Jenny wonder if she had indeed taken things too far. Eventually, though, he looked up at Jenny and softly said, “Like a failure.”

  “I know what you mean,” she agreed. Perhaps that was her primary emotion too. “Were you sad? Or heartbroken?”

  “I was heartbroken for my daughter, but not myself. And I was sad, but only in the sense that it’s sad when anybody’s marriage comes to an end. I think, personally, I didn’t feel bad that Amanda was leaving my life. I had known for a while it was coming, so I had plenty of time to get used to the idea. Honestly, I think we only stayed together as long as we did because we were both afraid to say the words.”

  “What were you afraid of?”

  “Hurting Samantha, first and foremost. But I think there was also an element of embarrassment. We failed, essentially. Failed at marriage. Some people might have looked down on us for calling it quits. We may have lost friends, and even the friends that did stick around might have felt compelled to choose a side. One of us would have to move out—that’s always a daunting task. God, there were just so many reasons to keep living in denial, but eventually we reached a point where we couldn’t pretend anymore.”

  “I can relate.” Jenny rested her chin on her knee. Her spirits were sinking.

  “Fear of failure is not a reason to stay in a marriage, though. Neither are repercussions. Sometimes it’s best to admit that the thing’s dead and move on.”

  “I’m willing to do that. In fact, I’ve already done it. It appears Greg isn’t willing to let go that easily, though.”

  “I don’t know if this will make you feel any better, but right now Greg’s in the throes of it. He’s not exactly thinking straight these days. At this point he may be convinced that he wants you in his life, but if he truly stopped and considered it, I bet he’d change his tune. I mean, does he really want to spend the rest of his life with someone who doesn’t enjoy his company? With someone who has stronger feelings for another guy? The way I see it, you’re not doing Greg any favors by staying. If you’re really concerned about his happiness, then you should free him up so that he can find somebody who will love him for who he is. Don’t doom him to spend the rest of his life with someone who is just tolerating him.”

  Elijah’s words made a lot of sense. “You’re right,” Jenny conceded. “I’m not being fair to him if I stay.”

  “And, if I daresay, you’re not being fair to him by avoiding his calls, either.”

  This was not Jenny’s proudest moment. “I know that,” she whispered. “I just don’t know what to say to him.”

  “Can I offer you some unsolicited advice?”

  “Please do.”

  “Rip the band aid right off. Just yank it. From what I’ve seen in the past, some well-intended people try to pull the band aid off slowly, but that only makes it ten times worse. And sometimes, if you try to pull the band aid off too gently, it doesn’t come off at all.”

  “In one of the last face-to-face conversations I had with Greg I called him a shithead. I would think that’s band aid ripping at its finest.”

  “Not necessarily. We’re guys. We don’t get underlying messages that well. If you call a guy a shithead, then he says oh, she thinks I’m a shithead. He doesn’t necessarily get, she wants this relationship to be over.”

  Jenny made a face. “Really? I don’t think it’s bridging that big of a gap.”

  “You’d be surprised at how small the gap can be and we still can’t bridge it. If you want the relationship to be over, you need to say, this relationship is over. Don’t say, I think or maybe or perhaps. Be strong. Use definitive words. He’ll get it. Eventually.”

  “And you’re telling me that isn’t mean?”

  “It’s mean not to do it that way.”

  There was wisdom in his words, she had to admit. As she sat silently at the table and contemplated his advice, she came to the conclusion that she would indeed have to rip the band aid off. It was the fairest solution for everybody involved. Jenny physically felt lighter just having made the decision, although now she faced the daunting task of executing her plan.

  When Greg was being mean, it hadn’t been all that difficult for Jenny to be callous in return. But now that he was being nice—could she really be that cold? That would certainly be a test of her inner strength.

  At that point Jenny decided that her brain was completely full for the evening. With a stretch and a yawn she said, “Well, Elijah, thanks for the advice. It really did help. But I think these old bones need to get to bed.”

  “Old bones,” he said with feigned anger. “Watch what you say, youngin’.”

  Jenny and Elijah bid each other goodnight, and she headed toward the guestroom. As she was gathering her things to wash up for the night, her cell phone rang. Surprised to be getting a call at that hour, she furrowed her brow as she looked at the caller. Much to her relief it was Roddan; it wasn’t all that late on the west coast, so this call was not necessarily indicative of an emergency.

  “Hi, Roddan,” Jenny said. “How are you?”

  “I’m doing well, how are you?”

  “Can’t complain.”

  “Sorry to be calling so late. I know you’ve got a few hours on me where you are.”

  “It’s no problem,” Jenny said. “I’m still awake. So what’s going on?”

  “I was just wondering how the search for that girl’s killer is going.”

  “It’s going,” Jenny said without emotion. “Going nowhere. It seems like every time we get a viable lead we come across some hole in the theory. No one is standing out as a clear suspect.”

  “Well, I am under the impression that you’re closer than you think.”

  Jenny’s nerves tingled. “Why do you say that?”

  “I just got through channeling Lena’s essence one more time. I wanted to see if there were any new developments, and I was able to pick up on some worry that I didn’t experience before.”

  “She’s worried?”

  “Yes. A bit fearful. It makes me wonder if you’re toying with danger.”

  “I’m not sure we’re toying with anything, unfortunately. Like I said, we can’t find anyone who stands out.” A thought occurred to Jenny. “Might her worry be because she’s fearful that we’ll never get this thing solved?”

  “That’s not my understanding,” Roddan reasoned. “This is more of a feeling than a state of being. It seems to be situational, like she’s afraid of something immediate and tangible. She’s not just experiencing an underlying nervousness.”

  Jenny didn’t say anything as she pondered his words.

  “I just want you to be careful,” Roddan continued. “I know we haven’t even met yet, but I am your father, and I do want to look out for you.”

  Jenny smiled kindly. “Thank you, Roddan.”

  “Promise me you’ll use caution?”

  “I do promise,” Jenny replied. “I’m being careful already. I’m staying with my brother’s friend—he’s a cop and presumably armed. I’m not going anywhere alone. Hopefully there will be no way trouble can find me.”

  “I hope that’s true,” Roddan said. “I would hate to see anything happen to you.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Part of Jenny wished she was still at the hotel; she was having a difficult time relaxing at Elijah’s house while he was at work. Her mid-morning awkwardness was interrupted by a phone call from Elijah, who seemed remarkably proud of himself.

  “What’s going on?” Jenny asked.

  “Well, I’ve done a little digging. You know that guy Phillip that Larry was hanging out with the night Lena was killed? The guy with the gray Toyota Corolla?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It turns out he’s had a few run-ins with the law.”

  That seemed out of character for somebody from Archer’s crowd, or at least Jenny�
�s perception of that group. “Seriously?”

  “Yes, believe it or not. It seems he has quite a little temper. He’s been in more than one brawl in his day.”

  “A brawl?”

  “Yup. He’s apparently started a few fights in public places. He even served a little time for the last episode.”

  Jenny was unsure what to feel. She’d always been a fan of the underdog—maybe this nerdy guy had gotten tired of being pushed around, and these episodes were examples of vigilantism at its finest. If that was the case, then she’d be happy for him. On the other hand, this may have been a sign that he was a violent person capable of terrible things. With a shake of her head she said, “Well this is an interesting turn of events.”

  “I know. I’ve arranged for him to come down to the station this afternoon. I will let you know what I come up with.”

  “Please do keep me posted,” Jenny replied. “I am very curious about where this will lead...although, temper or not, it still doesn’t answer the question about how he would have known Lena would be at that location at that hour.”

  “No, but I have a piece of information that does,” Elijah said, trying unsuccessfully to mask his excitement. “Phillip lived at the intersection of Bartlett and Mathison.”

  The significance of that location didn’t register with Jenny, so she remained quiet.

  “That’s exactly the place where Lena had led you…the place that Mark, Nick and Adam dropped her off the night she was killed...the place she kept saying stop over and over.”

  Roddan’s words echoed through Jenny’s head. Lena has given you messages; they’ve just been misinterpreted. Could it have been that had Lena led Jenny straight to her killer’s house? How could a message get any more obvious than that? “My God,” Jenny whispered. “We have been focusing on the wrong thing.”

  Jenny noticed that Phillip was ticking with frightening regularity even before Elijah began to question him. His entire body convulsed at regular intervals, making the video of his interrogation very difficult for Jenny to watch. Phillip repeatedly stroked his left hand down his right forearm to the point where Jenny feared he’d wear a hole in his shirt.