But Not For Lust

by BJ Bourg

  “Yeah, but he’s never home,” Phoebe said. “He works offshore.”

  “Did she tell you if she saw anyone else out there on Friday night?” I asked. “Either on the street or in a neighbor’s yard?”

  “If she did see someone else, she didn’t mention it. She was really freaked out about almost hitting Ty, so if she did see someone else, she either forgot about it or didn’t think to tell me.” Phoebe suddenly groaned in pain when her son head-butted her belly. “Stop it, Blue.”

  I grinned down at the boy, who couldn’t seem to stand still, but he sneered and looked away.

  “What time did Betty get to your house on Friday night?” I asked.

  “Um, I’d say around nine o’clock.”

  “And what time did she leave?”

  “I’m not sure.” Her brow furrowed. “I went to bed and she stayed up watching a movie, but she told me it was late—or, rather, early—Saturday morning.”

  After asking a few more questions, I turned to Susan and asked if she had anything to add. She shook her head. I thanked Phoebe and we turned to leave. We were halfway across the yard when Blue hollered after me, “My Daddy can lift a hundred pounds!”

  “Blue, shut up!” Phoebe said. “Leave that man alone.”

  Susan shot a sideways glance my way, but didn’t say anything until we were seated in my Tahoe.

  “What’s going on between you and Blue?” she asked with a wry grin. “I saw the way he looked at you and, based on his tone, it sounds like there’s some bad blood between y’all.”

  “I beat him in a poker game and now he’s pissed,” I said with a laugh. “Seriously, I don’t know what’s up with that kid. The last time I was here he said his dad could beat me up and lift more weights than I can.”

  “Oh, my God, that’s so precious!”

  “Yeah, I guess so.” I drove up Orange Way. I slowed when we passed Logan’s house. I noticed his truck was parked in the driveway, but I didn’t see anyone outside.

  “I wonder if he got fired because of the background investigation,” I said. “I imagine he’s supposed to be at work right now.”

  Susan shrugged. “I don’t know, but if he’s guilty, I don’t care. If he’s innocent, well, we need to help him get his job back. That is, if he did get fired.”

  I nodded my agreement and headed north when we reached Main Street. I turned left onto the fifth street I came to. As I proceeded down Green Grove, I couldn’t help but think how the end of this street intersected with Jezebel. I pointed out that fact to Susan and asked if she thought it meant something.

  “Nearly every street on this side of town intersects with Jezebel,” she said.

  “That’s true.”

  CHAPTER 43

  Once we neared the end of Green Grove, I pulled to the side of the street and parked. Susan and I studied the second-to-last house on the right. It was a single-story brick home with a two-car, attached garage. Although it was winter, the grass had been recently cut and the shrubs were green and healthy. There were other flowers in a flowerbed that lined the front of the house and also in pots on the driveway blocking the garage door. It appeared to me that the garage was being used as a room of some sort.

  Susan indicated the red car in the driveway. “It looks like someone’s home.”

  I nodded and exited my Tahoe, wondering where this interview might take us. I had already verified that she had almost run over Ty through Phoebe, thereby corroborating Logan’s statement. Getting Betty to verify the incident wouldn’t bolster my case any. It would only serve to wrap up a loose end. However, she might remember seeing another vehicle or somebody out on the street that night.

  What if someone had been chasing Ty and he had run into the road and then tripped and fell? I hadn’t considered that scenario yet, but it sounded like a plausible one. That might explain why Ty was on the ground and why Betty hadn’t seen him until almost too late. If this was how it had happened, Betty might’ve seen who was chasing him.

  As Susan and I entered the yard and approached the front door, we could hear loud music sounding from inside. I rang the bell not expecting much. After waiting almost a full minute, I banged on the door with my fist and then moved toward the garage door. It sounded as though the music was coming from that room, so I banged on the window. It rattled loudly, someone yelped from inside, and then the music stopped.

  I returned to where Susan stood. I had just reached her when the door flung open. A young woman wearing tight yoga pants, a form-fitting tank top, and a matching bra stood there. Her bronze-colored skin glistened with sweat and her blonde hair was wet along her scalp.

  “Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I was working out.”

  “Are you Betty Watts?”

  She nodded as she tried to catch her breath.

  I apologized for bothering her and then asked if we could speak with her about Ty. Her eyes instantly widened.

  “Oh, no, was it really him y’all found in the field?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said with a frown. “It was Ty.”

  “I almost hit him with my car the other night,” she said, and then stopped to wipe the sweat from her face. She took a few breaths to calm her racing heart. I wasn’t sure what kind of workout she had been doing, but it seemed to be high-intensity. “He was in the middle of the road and I was just driving along in the dark minding my own business and I never saw him. Thank God he stood up, or I would’ve just plowed right over him.”

  I asked her what happened when she stopped the car.

  “Well, he started screaming at my car and then he banged his hands on the hood.” She raised her hands and dropped them down to replicate his actions. “It made a loud noise on my car. In fact, it even left a little dent. I thought about talking to his mom to make him pay for the damage, but I decided not to.”

  “Was your husband with you?”

  “Oh, no,” she said with a wave. “He’s always offshore. He’s never home.”

  “Was anyone else in the car with you?”

  “Nope. I was alone.”

  I nodded, indicated the car. “Do you mind if I check it out?”

  She shook her head and pointed to it. “Not at all, go ahead.”

  While I walked to the car and examined the hood, Susan took over the questioning. I couldn’t hear everything that was being said, but I heard most of it, and it sounded as though Betty hadn’t seen anyone in or around Ty’s yard on Friday night or any other night.

  After taking one quick glance at the hood, I immediately saw a small dent about the size of a human hand on the passenger’s side. A cold chill reverberated up and down my back as another scenario occurred to me. What if it wasn’t Ty she’d almost hit? What if someone was chasing Ty and tripped in the street? What if that someone was Logan?

  I glanced over at Betty and asked if I could fingerprint the hood of her car.

  “Sure,” she said. “Is something wrong?”

  “I just want to verify that it’s Ty’s prints on the hood.”

  “Oh,” she called out, “it was definitely Ty. I’ve seen him before. He plays in the woods behind my sister’s house.”

  I grunted and retrieved my fingerprint kit. It only took a few twirls of my brush to reveal two beautiful hand prints on either side of the hood. Using clear lifting tape, I recovered both prints, secured them to coated paper backers, and scribbled the details in the corner of each. While I was at it, I decided to fingerprint the rest of the car. If Betty noticed what I was doing, she didn’t object. I recovered a number of smudges, but managed to find several legible prints on the driver’s side and one on the passenger’s side.

  Once I’d secured the fingerprints and my kit in the Tahoe, I returned to where Susan stood talking to Betty. She had controlled her breathing by now and wasn’t sweating as profusely.

  I glanced at Susan. “Are we done?”

  She nodded and smiled at Betty. “Thanks for your time, ma’am.”

  I led the way to my Tahoe
and when we were seated inside, Susan said, “She’s full of shit.”

  “What do you mean?” My head jerked around and my mind raced. Had I missed something? “What’s she full of shit about? Do you think she’s the killer?”

  “No,” she said with a laugh, “not at all. She’s lying about her reason for going to Phoebe’s house. Phoebe said Betty was up watching a movie when she fell asleep, and Betty said they stayed up playing poker. There’s only one reason to lie about something so trivial—she’s screwing around on her old man while he’s at work.”

  I scowled. “She’s sleeping with Phoebe?”

  Susan slugged my arm. “No! But she’s using Phoebe’s house as a cheating pad. Phoebe fell asleep, but Betty stayed up with her man.”

  I considered this. “Do you think someone else was in the car with her? Maybe her lover?”

  “I pressed her on it, but she said no. I also asked who was at Phoebe’s house that night. She said it was only the two of them. I don’t believe that for one second.”

  I was thoughtful. I understood why she would lie to us. After all, it was none of our business what she did when her husband was offshore. But what if her lover could contribute more to the story? If he had left before or after her, he might have seen something she didn’t see—a suspect, perhaps.

  I told Susan that I thought it was important to find out who her lover was.

  “You can always just ask Phoebe.”

  I nodded, suddenly remembering the kid. “What about Little Boy Blue? Do you think he was there that night? He might know the name of the boyfriend.” I paused and grunted. “I wonder if he belittles that dude like he does me.”

  Susan laughed. “Betty said she and Phoebe were alone Friday night. She said she believes the boy was at his dad’s house. And that makes sense, because little kids talk. It wouldn’t be smart to meet her lover there with the boy around. He might blurt it out one day in front of Betty’s husband, like he did at the bakery.”

  I nodded and drove to the office deep in thought. I didn’t know if this changed anything, but I did want to know the name of her boyfriend. What if he had been in the car with her and had exited the car and confronted Ty about the damage to the hood? Maybe an altercation had ensued. Maybe he had become angry, but didn’t want to hurt Ty in front of Betty. Maybe he returned later to finish the fight.

  I shook my head. Even if her boyfriend had been there and she had lied to keep from getting caught in an adulterous affair, there was no way a minor altercation over a dented hood would result in the torture and mutilation we saw out in that field. Whoever had done that to Ty was angry about something. It reeked of revenge. But what could an innocent person like Ty have done to evoke such a vicious response from someone?

  My thoughts drifted back to the stolen crystal meth and Neal Barlow. Maybe I should pay him a visit at the jail. He might be thinking about his future behind bars and may be willing to talk to improve his predicament. Maybe J-Rock was the killer after all.

  “I’ve got some reports to file,” Susan said when I parked in front of the police department. “Let me know when you want to talk to Phoebe about Betty’s affair. Betty wasn’t giving up much, but Phoebe might.”

  I told her I’d let her know and was about to exit my Tahoe when she continued speaking.

  “I’m having fun working with you again. It feels like old times.” She smiled. “Do you remember how much fun we had before you got your very own detective and I became too busy being chief of police?”

  “I do remember—and I do miss it.” I smiled and leaned across the console to kiss her. It did feel good to work with her again—even if she was acting more like a mother than a partner.

  Once we were inside the building, she went her way and I went mine. I found the box of brownies undisturbed in my office and I grabbed another one. While I ate it, I scanned the prints I’d recovered from Betty’s car. Once I was happy with the quality of the scanned images, I emailed them to Tracy at the crime lab.

  A minute later, I called to tell her to be on the lookout for them. “If everyone’s being honest, the palm prints from the hood of the car should match up to Ty’s prints, but I’m not sure about the individual fingerprints I found on the car. She’s got a lover, and one of the prints might belong to him.”

  “I’ll make sure the fingerprint section takes care of these right away,” she said. “I saw the stuff you sent over last night. Now, since it’s Friday, it might not be until Monday before you hear back from the fingerprint analyst. We’re running a skeleton crew because most of our people are working parades this weekend. We’ve got one every night.”

  I groaned. I hated Mardi Gras.

  Tracy asked about the case, so I explained everything new that had developed since we’d last talked. She cursed.

  “It sounds like you’ve got your hands full. I’ll try to get someone on this today.”

  “Thanks. I knew this was gonna be a long week.” I shook my head and stared at the unknown prints still displayed on my computer screen, trying to see through the patterns and all the way to the person who had left them. I was about to thank Tracy and hang up when loud cries and hollering erupted from the radio room. I dropped my phone and rushed out the door.

  CHAPTER 44

  Lindsey was jumping up and down when I entered the dispatcher’s station. She was screeching like she’d just won the lottery. Susan was whooping it up, too, and I quickly glanced toward the window that revealed the lobby. I gasped out loud as I saw Amy making her way toward the door that led to the radio room. Baylor was behind her, but he wasn’t helping. She was walking slowly, but completely unassisted.

  I could see Amy biting back her emotions as we cheered her on. Hell, we were all trying not to cry. This was a stark difference from the Amy we had seen a few months ago, lying in a hospital bed and barely clinging to life. She had been pale and gaunt, looking nothing like her lively self. Today, though, it was the old Amy walking through the door. True, her steps were not as sure as they used to be, but I knew it was only a matter of time before those boots would be pounding the pavement with the same level of dogged determination that had pulled her back from an almost certain death.

  Amy reached the door and opened it to the cheers of the small crowd inside the dispatcher’s station.

  “Damn, you’d swear I just found a cure for mosquitoes,” she said with a smirk. “I didn’t do anything all of y’all haven’t done a dozen times today—I simply walked across the floor without falling.”

  We all laughed and took turns hugging her. Although Amy was a little thinner than she was before the ambush, she had definitely gotten her color back, and the scar on her neck was barely visible beneath her collar.

  “Do you want a donut?” Lindsey offered. She seemed eager to make Amy happy and comfortable.

  “Damn, I haven’t been back a minute and you’re already making cop jokes.” Amy tapped her flat stomach. “Does it look like I need to be fattened up a little? Because it sure feels like it.”

  Lindsey laughed and shook her head. “No, you look great!”

  Amy smiled her thanks and said that she would take a donut. “Make that two,” she called after Lindsey, who had already rushed off to the break room.

  Once everyone had calmed down and Baylor had returned to his shift, I followed Amy to her office. She moaned when she sat in her chair. “It feels so good to be back in this chair.”

  I smiled and sat across from her. “You miss work that much, eh?”

  “No,” she said flatly. “I miss the chair—it’s a really good one. My chairs at home are hard and unforgiving and not ergonomically designed like this one.”

  I laughed like I hadn’t laughed in a while. It was good to hear her cracking jokes. I didn’t ask about her therapy sessions—and I would never—but I had to imagine they were doing some good.

  “Okay,” she said suddenly in her no-nonsense tone. “Tell me everything about the case.”

  “Let me get my file.�
�� I hurried out of her office and returned a few seconds later carrying the file that contained my notes and other documents relating to the death of Carol Richardson and the murder of her son. We still weren’t sure if Carol’s case was a homicide, but I was certainly leaning in that direction now.

  Amy listened intently as I talked.

  “Have you run the names of the Watts characters?”

  “Not yet,” I said, flipping to a page that displayed a long list of names. “We just learned their names this morning. I did run a criminal history check on Phoebe Watts when I ran all the other names from my neighborhood canvass, but she’s clean.”

  Amy nodded thoughtfully. “Is this a list of every name that’s come up in your investigation so far?”

  I nodded.

  “Let me do some background work on these people. I can’t go out into the field right now, so I’ll do what I can from my cockpit here.” She slapped the arms of her chair. “After all, it’s a comfy one, so I don’t mind spending some time in it.”

  I nodded and handed her the notepad, leaving it open to the page that listed all of the names, dates of birth, addresses, and phone numbers. I stood to walk out of her office and stopped at the door. I turned to face her. “Amy, it’s damn good to have you back.”

  “I’m not back yet,” she admitted. “I can barely walk without falling and I can’t drive yet, so it’ll be a while before I’m chasing bad guys and kicking down doors again.”

  Surprisingly, her comment was cheerful and hopeful, and I knew she was gonna be okay.

  “Well, I’ll take your help however I can get it,” I said, smiling and leaving her to her work.

  I rounded up Susan and told her I wanted her to ask Betty to come down to the station so she could question the adulterer about her affair. Susan agreed to do so, and we drove back out to the house.

  “Sorry, but I’ve already told you everything I know about that night,” Betty said when Susan and I met with her and Susan asked her to accompany us to the police department.

  “So, are you refusing to come with us?” Susan asked, arching an eyebrow.