For a second Phyllis thought that this was one of the teachers she didn’t know, one of Eve’s coworkers from her last years at the high school. But then Phyllis realized she had never seen this woman before. Clearly, though, the woman wanted to speak to them.
“Mrs. Porter?” she said as she stepped away from her car.
Eve and the others all stopped. “Yes?” Eve said. “Do I know you, dear?”
The woman took her sunglasses off, revealing blue eyes. She smiled, which relieved the rather stern lines of her face. “No, we’ve never met,” she said.
“Did … did you know my late husband?”
“I’m afraid I never met Roy Porter, either, although I wouldn’t have known him under that name. But I’ve been looking for him for quite a while.”
Eve shook her head in confusion and said, “I’m afraid I don’t know what you’re talking about. Why were you looking for Roy, and what do you mean about his name?”
Phyllis was confused, too, and a bad feeling had cropped up suddenly inside of her. She had a hunch that Eve wasn’t going to like whatever this woman was about to say.
“My name is Tess Coburn, Mrs. Porter, and I’m a private investigator. I’ve been looking for your husband because he was a con artist and a thief.”
Ҁ://
Chapter 17
In the shocked silence that followed Tess Coburn’s statement, Sam was the first one to react. He moved quickly, putting himself between his three friends and the stranger and saying, “I think you’d better get on outta here now, miss.”
Carolyn spoke up next, bristling with fury as she said to Tess Coburn, “How dare you—”
The woman ignored both of them and went on, “I’m sorry to have to break it to you like this, but you have a right to know the truth.”
Sam crowded closer to her. “Look, lady, I’m tryin’ to be a gentleman because that’s the way I was raised, but I’m tellin’ you, you better leave.”
She gave him a cold stare and said, “Back off, Mr. Fletcher. I don’t bully easily.”
“Everyone settle down,” Phyllis said as she took hold of Sam’s arm and got a firm grip on it. She glared at Tess and went on, “Have you no sense of decency, Ms. Coburn? We just buried my friend’s husband.”
Tess stuck her hands in the pockets of her coat and said, “Actually, I do have a sense of decency, Mrs. Newsom. That’s why I don’t want your friend there to waste one more minute mourning the death of that man when he doesn’t deserve it.”
“Stop it!” Eve cried in a ragged voice. “Please, stop saying things like that!”
“I don’t blame you for not believing me. He was good, very good, at what he did. But just let me show you one thing.”
Tess took her hand out of her pocket, and for one crazy second, Phyllis thought she was going to pull a gun. Instead, it was a photograph Tess took from her pocket. A police mug shot, in fact, and when she held it up where they could see it, another shock jolted Phyllis as she recognized Roy. He was considerably younger in the photo, but there was no doubt that it was him. Eve exclaimed in pained recognition.
“His name then was Jack DeWalt,” Tess said. “At least that’s what he was calling himself. This photo was taken twelve years ago in Sarasota, Florida, when he was arrested for fraud. He had married a woman named Doris Tilley and cleaned out her bank accounts. She realized what he’d done in time to alert the police, and they arrested him at the airport just as he was about to fly out of town. Unfortunately, he was released on bail and promptly disappeared. He changed his identity, and Mrs. Tilley never got her money back. The police were never able to find out where DeWalt stashed it.”
Phyllis and the others listened to this recital in stunned disbelief. Tess wasn’t finished, though. She took a notebook from her pocket and opened it.
“The next place he cropped up was Louisville, Kentucky, using the name Harry Evans. He it got married there, too, to a woman named Patrice Wilson. She owned a very successful horse farm. Evans talked her into giving him power of attorney; then he sold the place out from under her, pocketed the proceeds of the sale, and vanished, leaving her up to her neck in litigation and broke, to boot.”
“Wait just a minute,” Carolyn broke in. “How do we know this man Evans was the same person?”
Tess took a newspaper clipping from the notebook and held it out. The clipping was from a society section, and the photo in it showed Roy dressed in a tuxedo at some fancy affair. Standing next to him was an attractive older woman in a stunning gown. Both of them held drinks as they smiled at the camera. Phyllis leaned forward to read the caption under the photo, which identified the couple as Harry and Patrice Evans of Oakdale Farms.
“I don’t know if it was his next stop after Louisville or not, but the next place I was able to identify him was Tulsa,” Tess started to go on, but Eve cried out and stopped her.
“No more,” Eve moaned. “Please, no more.”
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” Carolyn snapped at Tess. “You’ve destroyed this poor woman.”
“Not at all,” Tess said briskly as she closed her notebook. “I’ve saved her from spending the rest of her life mourning that man. And I’ve probably helped her defense as well. Now her lawyer can point out that she had a good reason to kill him, once she found out that he’d been lying to her and planned to steal all her money and abandon her. She ought to be able to plea-bargain the charge down to manslaughter without much trouble.”
Eve burst out in a miserable wail.
“She didn’t kill him,” Phyllis said, “and I don’t care what Roy did in the past; he never hurt her. You’re terrible for doing this, Ms. Coburn, just terrible.”
Tess shrugged. “Think whatever you want. I can’t stop you. But I still think Mrs. Porter has a right to know the truth.”
“A right, maybe, but not an obligation.”
Even as Phyllis spoke, she wasn’t sure she was correct about that. Of course, Eve could have gone the rest of her life without knowing what appeared to be the dreadful truth about the man she had married. She might have been happier that way. But that happiness would have been based on a lie.
And Phyllis had already realized something else. All along they had been asking themselves why anyone would have had a reason to want Roy Porter dead.
If what Tess Coburn had told them was true, then she might have just given them that reason.
“Carolyn, take Eve to the car,” Phyllis went on. “I need to talk to Ms. Coburn.”
“I want to give her a piece of my mind, too—,” Carolyn began.
“Please,” Phyllis said, and a steely edge had come into her voice despite its polite tone.
“All right,” Carolyn said. “Come on, Eve.” She tightened her arm around Eve’s shoulders and led her toward Phyllis’s Lincoln as Eve continued to sob. Sam stayed behind with Phyllis and Tess Coburn.
“Look, I’m sorry—,” Tess said.
“I don’t think you really are,” Phyllis said. “But I’ll grant that you probably believed you were doing the right thing.” She took a deep breath. “I’d like to talk to you some more about Roy’s past.”
Tess nodded. “We can do that. It would be a good thing if you could help Mrs. Porter to understand that this wasn’t her fault. Whatever his real name was, that man had been taking advantage of women like her for years and years. He was very talented at it.”
“Is that the only reason you came here today? To tell Eve about him?”
A thin smile appeared on Tess’s face. “Not completely. I’ve been on his trail for a while. I guess I just wanted to see for myself that he was really dead, that it wasn’t another of his tricks to get away. Now I know. He won’t be swindling any other women.”
“No,” Phyllis said. “He won’t.” She paused. “Since you obviously know who we all are, I assume you’ve been stalking us for a while.”
Tess frowned and said, “Hey, hold on there. I haven’t stalked anybody. I just got to Weatherford yester
day. It didn’t take me long to find out what’s been going on, though. All of you turn up in the online newspaper archives. You’re sort of like Texas’s version of Miss Marple, aren’t you, Mrs. Newsom?”
“Not at all,” Phyllis said. “Your investigation must have told you where we live.”
“Sure,” Tess said with a nod.
“Can you come by there in an hour or so? I’d really like to talk to you some more about this.”
Tess hesitated as she glanced at the car where Eve and Carolyn sat in the backseat. Eve was resting her head on Carolyn’s shoulder, and her back was shaking a little as she continued to cry.
“Look, maybe I got carried away a little—,” Tess began.
“Maybe?” Sam said. “You reckon?”
“I’m sorry, okay? It might be better if I just left you folks alone from here on out. The guy’s dead, which means that my part of the case is over.”
Phyllis shook her head. “I’m sure Eve will go up to her room when we get home. We’ll be discreet and try not to let her know that you’re even there. But I’d really like to hear whatever you know about Roy.”
“I wouldn’t mind hearin’ about that myself,” Sam put in with a shrug.
“So you’re a detective, too?” Tess said.
Sam shook his head. “Not me. Phyllis is the one who always figures out everything.”
“Well, I don’t mind talking to both of you, I suppose. If you’re sure it won’t upset Mrs. Porter even more.”
“It’s a little late to be worrying about that,” Phyllis said. “But please come by anyway.”
“All right,” Tess said. “If it’s that important to you, I’ll be there in an hour or so.”
“Thank you.”
Tess put her sunglasses back on and got into her car. As she drove away, Sam said, “That gal’s got a lot of nerve, showin’ up at the cemetery this way and sayin’ all those rotten things to Eve.”
“You saw the pictures she had,” Phyllis said. “From the looks of them, she wasn’t lying about Roy.”
“Maybe not, but her timing still stinks. She was at the funeral home, wasn’t she?”
Phyllis nodded. “Yes, I remember seeing her there. I just thought she was one of the women who taught at the high school the last year or two that Eve was there. I don’t know most of them.”
“Me, neither. But I figure I know why you want to talk to her … You’re thinkin’ that i
f Roy really was a con man like she claimed, that’s a good reason for somebody from his past wantin’ him dead.”
“You know what Juliette said about trying to establish reasonable doubt.”
“Yeah, and Roy havin’ a bunch of enemies is one way to get it.” Sam nodded. “I guess it’s a good idea findin’ out all we can … but that doesn’t mean we have to like that Coburn woman.”
“No,” Phyllis said, “it doesn’t mean that at all.”
Ҁ://
Chapter 18
It was a painful ride home with Eve sobbing in the backseat and Carolyn trying to comfort her. Clearly, today’s events had pushed Eve to the end of her emotional rope. She had collapsed now in the grief that overwhelmed her, grief not only because of Roy’s death but also over the way Tess Coburn had destroyed everything she’d believed about him.
If she ever found herself in such a situation, Phyllis thought, she would be just as distraught as Eve was. She wanted so badly to do something to help her friend.
But no matter what she wanted, she couldn’t change the past. Roy was what he was, and based on what Phyllis had seen so far, that wasn’t very good. But at least maybe she could prove that Eve hadn’t had anything to do with his murder.
When they got back to the house, Carolyn took Eve upstairs. Phyllis and Sam followed. Phyllis was anxious to get out of her funeral dress, and Sam had already taken off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt collar. Blue jeans and comfortable shirts were in the near future for both of them.
When Phyllis got back downstairs, she took some of the food that had been dropped off from the refrigerator and set it out on the counter, uncovering the bowls and casserole dishes. Sam came into the kitchen, and Phyllis nodded toward the spread and said, “Help yourself.”
“I don’t have as much of an appetite as I did, but I guess I can still eat,” he said as he got a plate from the cabinet. He started filling it.
Carolyn came in a few minutes later, still wearing the dress she had worn to the funeral. “I got her to lie down,” she said. “She dozed off quicker than I thought she would. The poor dear is just exhausted.”
“Bein’ so upset will do that to you,” Sam said from the kitchear n table, where he and Phyllis were sitting.
“Would you like a plate?” Phyllis asked.
“Maybe in a few minutes,” Carolyn said. “As soon as I go get this blasted girdle off.” She blushed, clearly embarrassed that she’d been so upset she had said something that intimate in front of Sam. Phyllis could tell that he was pretending not to have noticed any of it.
The food helped. Later, they would try to get Eve to eat something, Phyllis thought. Right now, though, a nap would probably be as good for her as anything.
After Carolyn had come back downstairs, Phyllis told her, “Tess Coburn is coming by here in a little while.”
“That horrible woman? Why? Hasn’t she done enough damage already?”
“I want her to tell me everything she knows about Roy,” Phyllis said.
Carolyn shook her head. “I’m not sure why. It’ll all be a pack of lies anyway.”
“You saw that mug shot and that newspaper clipping,” Phyllis pointed out.
“So she found someone who looks a little like Roy—”
“That was Roy. As much as we might like to believe otherwise, we saw the pictures with our own eyes. That was Roy, Carolyn.”
For a moment, Carolyn glared across the table defiantly, as if she planned to keep denying what they all knew. But then she sighed and her shoulders slumped in resignation.
“I guess it was,” she said. She brightened suddenly. “Unless he has a twin somewhere. An evil twin.”
“A doppelganger,” Sam said. “We didn’t consider that.”
“No, because this isn’t a soap opera,” Phyllis said.
“Hey, some of ’em aren’t that far-fetched.”
“It was Roy,” Phyllis forged ahead, “and I want to know as much about his past as I can. That has to be where the key to his murder is.”
“You’re right about that,” Carolyn said. “Since he’s been here in Weatherford, nothing has happened that would cause someone to want him dead.”
Phyllis tended to agree with that, yet she didn’t know it for sure, she reminded herself. Roy had spent most of his time with Eve since coming to Weatherford, and Eve hadn’t mentioned any incidents that might have led to murder. But they hadn’t been together twenty-four hours a day, and Phyllis had no idea what Roy might have been doing when he wasn’t with Eve. That might be something else to look into.
First things first, though, and that meant the private investigator Tess Coburn. Would Tess be willing to reveal who had hired her to track down Roy, or would that be considered a breach of ethics? Phyllis didn’t know, not having had many dealings with private investigators.
Sam stood up and said, “I’m gonna go wait for Ms. Coburn in the livin’ room. I can keep an eye out through the front window. We don’t want her ringin’ the bell. That might wake up Eve.”
“Yes, whatever we do, we verfront windon’t want Eve to know that woman has been here,” Carolyn said. Her expression made it clear that she still thought inviting Tess to the house was a bad idea.
After Sam had left the kitchen, Carolyn picked up her plate, which was still half-full of food, and said, “I think I’ll go upstairs to finish this, if that’s all right with you.”
“Of course it is,” Phyllis said. She understood why Carolyn was angry. But she was confident that once Carolyn thought it over, she would re
alize how important it was to learn as much as they could about Roy’s background.
Phyllis put the rest of the food away. The refrigerator was full. They would be able to make meals from what was left for several more days. She wasn’t sure how it was in other parts of the country, but in Texas, food went hand in hand with funerals, especially where Baptists were concerned.
Because hunger reminded people they were still alive, she mused, and so did satisfying that hunger.
She had just closed the refrigerator door when Sam called quietly from the hallway, “She’s here.”
Phyllis hurried into the hall and said, “Can you get the door?”
“You bet,” Sam said. He went to it and opened it before Tess could ring the bell.
“Thank you,” she said as she came in.
“I’ll take your coat,” he offered.
She nodded, said, “Thanks,” again, and took off the long brown coat, revealing that she wore brown slacks and a tan blouse underneath it. She handed the coat to Sam.
“Eve’s upstairs asleep, so we won’t disturb her. You can put your purse on that table,” Phyllis said, nodding toward the small table in the foyer.
“Thanks, I’ll keep it with me,” Tess said.
“Fine,” Phyllis said. She wondered if Tess had a gun in her bag. She was a private eye, after all. “Can I get you something to drink? Coffee, iced tea?”
Whether she liked Tess Coburn or not, she wasn’t going to be inhospitable.
“We’ve got soft drinks, too,” Sam added.
“A Diet Coke would be good, thanks,” Tess said.
“Be right back with it,” Sam said.
“Have you eaten lunch already?” Phyllis asked. “We have plenty of food. People have been dropping off covered dishes ever since … well …”
Tess smiled and nodded. “I know what you mean. And yes, I’ve eaten, but thanks anyway. What I’d really like to do is get down to business. You want to know about the man you knew as Roy Porter.”
“Can’t we go ahead and call him by that name?” Phyllis asked as she ushered Tess into the living room. “That’s the only name we ever knew him by.”
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