Rivaled in Murder

by Helen Gray

  Toni shrugged. "On a little fishing expedition. I know for sure now that a girl named Linda Fisher missed school today." She joined him on the sofa, drank from her mug, and then leaned against his shoulder, ignoring sounds of the boys’ too-loud games coming from their room. She brought him up to date on the case, including attending the ballgame with Pam, her trip to the restaurant, and the conversation with Angie Decker.

  Kyle frowned, tugging her closer. "You're too curious for your own good. I understand, but I can’t help worrying when you poke around in police business."

  She drew back and faced him, becoming a bit defensive. "I just confirmed a fact. This Linda may not be the girl who was on that computer class roster, but I'm guessing she is. She may be in danger. Or she may be the killer." If she was, Toni guessed she had done it at the urging of someone else.

  “Let’s hope there’s nothing wrong with her.”

  Toni picked up her coffee and took a sip. "All this has made me think back to what it was like being a teenager."

  Kyle rolled his eyes. "Scary times."

  She nodded, memories of the past rushing to mind. "I wasn't a part of most of it, but I remember how many of the kids acted recklessly and never expected anything to go wrong, confident they'd never get caught in their wrongdoings or suffer any consequences. Life centered on dramatic love affairs, competing for popularity, and keeping up appearances. There were hangouts and lovers lanes, but I wasn't aware of the particular one that's come to light recently."

  Kyle cradled his mug in his hands. "I remember some heavy ridicule and tattling that went on during those years. But it seemed to be among the girls more than the guys. Sorry if you think that's biased."

  Toni grimaced. "Unfortunately, I remember it the same way. Some girls turn mean early in life. It's called the mean girl syndrome in middle school. Gossip, the rumor mill, shunning, and social exclusion characterize it. Some studies say boys are more task-oriented, while girls are ruled by jealously and rivalries."

  He set his cup on a coaster. "Do you think something like that is behind this rush of violence?"

  Toni put her cup next to his, weighing her words. "I think it's possible. The question is whether the jealousy in this case was aimed at Shelby or Brant."

  "Boys aren't as prone to jealousy as girls," Kyle mused slowly. "But would a girl, or girls, be jealous of the boy?"

  Toni shook her head. "I think girls would be more likely to aim jealous behavior at a rival than the partner. So, if our killer is a girl, Shelby would most likely have been the target."

  "And a boy would target the boy." Kyle shook his head. "I don't know. I think we're just chasing this in circles."

  Toni tapped a finger on her thigh. "I don't suppose it would do any good, but I'd like to see the crime scene in the daylight. Yes, I know the police have examined it in detail, and we were over there for that night vigil, but seeing it in the light of day would help me form a better picture in my mind of what happened."

  "I'm not sure it's a good idea, but if you're determined to go, take someone with you. An adult." His words were firm.

  Toni nodded. "I'll see if John can go with me after school Friday when things should have slowed down for the weekend. The boys can stay with Jenny. She loves having them." She rose and headed to the kitchen.

  After supper Toni and Kyle settled back in the living room, and he turned on the television. Gabe went to his room, but Garrett cozied up in a corner of the couch with a hand-held video game.

  Kyle sank into his recliner and raised the footrest. He channel surfed a bit and paused on a news station. Moments later he muted it and faced Toni in her recliner. “Have you learned anything else that you haven’t shared with me?”

  She skimmed over Buck’s clearing of Dione and Britney, and then proceeded to tell him about Farris being run off the road and taken to the hospital. “A gun they think is the murder weapon was found in his gym bag,” she said, neither of them paying close attention as Garrett scooted onto the floor, turned on the sound to the television and lowered it, and then switched the channel.

  She went on to tell him about Zoe and Melody’s recollections and wanting the reward money for Shelby’s mother.

  “I like that, and hope they get it,” he said, nodding in approval. He went quiet for several moments, and then said, “I’ve been thinking about those guys you visited Saturday, and I’m not sure I buy the murder for hire theory.”

  She tilted her head. “Oh? Why?”

  He took his time before responding. “If that goon in Poplar Bluff has a chunk of money from doing a hit, why is he living in the seedy conditions you described? And it seems to me that the cousin in the jail gave up that name too easily.”

  Toni nodded. “Those are good points. And I don’t dare pester those two anymore. Buck and the Brownville chief would both probably have my hide.”

  “They wouldn’t be the only ones,” he added, giving her a stern look.

  At that moment Gabe ran into the room and slid to a halt. “I saw a picture of the crime scene where those high school kids were killed.”

  Toni frowned. “Where did you see that?”

  “On Facebook,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “Who do you have as a Facebook friend who would post something like that?”

  He shrugged. “Nobody. But friends of my friends share stuff. My friends have older brothers and sisters who get stuff from their friends, and they share with my friends. Then my friends share. It’s neat.”

  Toni darted a glance of concern at Kyle. Maybe they weren’t monitoring his computer access as closely as they had thought.

  “You don’t need to worry,” Gabe assured them blithely, reading their expressions. “I’m not looking at restricted stuff. This is local news, and people talk about it everywhere.”

  Toni was almost afraid to ask, but couldn’t resist. “What kinds of things are being said?”

  He perched on the glider facing her, his expression grave. “Someone said he thinks MB—that’s initials—did it to stop Brant from poaching girls from other guys.”

  “MB, huh?”

  He nodded in short, jerky motions. “I think those initials could mean Mike Boone, because I saw that name in another post somewhere.”

  And of course he remembered it. The kid was a bookworm and retained information like bugs caught in a fly trap.

  “Someone else said a girl named Mallory was mad at Brant. When another person said she wouldn’t do it, the first person said no, but she’s a cat, and she would egg someone else into doing it.”

  So Mallory and somebody named Mike were names being bandied about on Facebook as suspects. Toni didn’t know what to think. It was probably just idle speculation, but the young generation did seem to know, not only what went on in their world, but behind the scenes everywhere.

  His piece said, Gabe turned and headed back to his computer.

  “I don’t think it’s anything to worry about,” Kyle said softly. “It’s just Facebook chatter.”

  Suddenly Garrett spun around on his bottom to face them. “Hey Mom. What’s sex?”

  Toni gulped. She wasn’t prepared for this discussion with a ten-year-old. She shot a help-me glance at Kyle. His mouth twitched, and his brows rose in a gesture that said, he-asked-you-not-me.

  “Oh,” Garrett said in a tone of enlightenment. “It means if I’m a boy or a girl.” Having answered his own question, he turned back to the television.

  Relieved, Toni eased from the recliner, meaning to go take a shower. But something on the TV screen caught her eye as Garrett flipped through channels. “Stop. Go back to that last one,” she yelped, wagging a finger.

  Startled, he did so.

  The alert message she had glimpsed was still scrolling across the bottom of the screen. The pictures above it were of the Brownville murder victims. “Turn up the sound,” she ordered.

  “Roddy Gorman has been charged with the murders of his cousin, Brant, and the cousin’s girlfriend,” the
broadcaster was saying. “Already in jail on other charges and considered a suspect in the murders, the police now say he’s their only suspect. His fingerprints were found on the door of his cousin’s car, and the two had a history of conflict. Details of those conflicts are not yet being made public.”

  As the speaker stopped speaking, Kyle and Toni simultaneously turned and locked surprised gazes.

  “Well, that’s a relief,” he said when the story ended. “The killer has been identified and is already in custody. You can stop worrying about finding him.”

  Toni didn’t respond immediately. “That blindsided me,” she said after several moments.

  “The stories about the drug dealings must be right.”

  She considered Kyle’s comment. “They must be. The cousins were actually much more involved than Roddy led me to believe. But he didn’t sound as if he had bad feelings toward Brant,” she added more slowly.

  “He apparently did.”

  Toni didn’t know the exact statistics, but she knew that people were far more likely to be murdered by those nearest to them than by strangers, acquaintances, associates or colleagues.

  She couldn’t explain it, but she didn’t feel the relief she would have expected. Her mind zipped back through the case, the people she had met, and the facts she had learned.

  Roddy Gorman was guilty of being a jerk, and most likely of cooking meth, but she didn’t see a clear motive for murder. What if someone had set him up as the fall guy?

  Unbidden, her mind traveled back to the visit with the goon in Poplar Bluff. Roddy had sicced her onto Anderson. Could Anderson have found a way to retaliate?

  Her heart rate quickened in her chest. She didn’t think Anderson was the killer, but he was devious enough to point a finger at a nemesis.

  What came over her at that point wasn’t exactly a chill of enlightenment, but deep down inside her thrummed a conviction that the police had made a mistake. Roddy Gorman was a jerk, but he had not killed his cousin.

  “Let’s go to bed,” she said, aiming a pointed look at Garrett.

  “I’ll come as soon as you’re done with the shower,” Kyle said without leaving his recliner. “If I don’t fall asleep here.”

  Chapter 11

  As the final dismissal bell finished ringing Wednesday afternoon, Toni’s classroom phone rang. While her students filed out, she stepped over to the bookcase near the door where it rested and grabbed it. “Hello.”

  “Meet me and your mother at the nursing home as soon as you can get there,” Buck ordered abruptly. “I’m on my way to look through Mavis’s personal stuff.”

  The line went dead.

  Toni considered asking John to keep the boys, but decided against having to round them up again later. She didn’t expect this simple task to take but a few minutes. They could do their homework in the lobby.

  She grabbed her satchel and was stuffing papers into it to leave when a tap sounded at the door. She looked around to see a face peering inside. It was Vonda Miller.

  “Do you have a minute, Mrs. Donovan?” the girl asked, stepping on into the room.

  A rush of frustration hit Toni. She couldn’t be here and at the manor at the same time. But the look on the girl’s face kept her from saying she had to leave. “What’s on your mind, Vonda?”

  The girl pushed a stray lock of hair away from her face and advanced to the desk with a tentative air. An attractive girl with long, ash colored hair, she wore her winter coat, so she apparently didn’t intend to stay long. Good.

  Toni indicated the student desk nearest hers and sank onto her own chair.

  Vonda slipped into the seat, placed her bags on the floor, and clasped her hands together in her lap. “I’m not sure why I came, but it seemed right. I’m sure you know the police talked to me about him.”

  “You mean Brant Gorman?”

  Vonda nodded. “I know about your involvement in some cases in the past, and I’ve heard how you protected Zoe and Melody. I don’t know if it’ll help, but I want to tell you what I told the police.”

  Toni leaned forward on her arms. “I’m interested.”

  The girl drew a deep breath. “My mom’s sister lives in Brownville, so we go over there often to visit. I met Brant at their town carnival last summer. We hung out and had fun. So when he asked me out, I said yes.”

  “Take your time,” Toni said when Vonda paused to swallow, her gaze darting around the room.

  “He took me to a movie. It was fun. But we never went out again. I told the police all that—but not why.”

  “You mean why you never went out with Brant again?”

  She nodded. “On the way home after the movie, he stopped at a roadside rest area. And he only had … one thing on his mind. When I said no, he turned mean. He called me a tease, a goody-goody, and names like that. I jumped out of the car and ran into the trees. When he roared off in his car, I called my sister.”

  Her sister was a senior, a year ahead of Vonda.

  “Wanda came and got me.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police that part?”

  Vonda ran a hand over the surface of the desk in front of her. “I didn’t want my parents to find out. It would have upset them, and Daddy has a bad heart. Please don’t tell.”

  The girl’s reasoning was noble, if flawed. “I’ll do my best, but I won’t lie if I’m ever questioned about it, by the authorities, I mean.”

  The girl’s hand went over her mouth to stop its quivering. “Thank you. I don’t know who killed Brant and Shelby, but I know he’s the reason she’s dead. Brant got what he deserved, so it wouldn’t bother me if they never caught whoever did it. But Shelby didn’t deserve it, so I hope the lowlife is caught.”

  When Vonda stood, Toni did also. She rounded the desk and hugged the girl. “Thank you for sharing your story with me.”

  Vonda nodded and stepped back. “It may not help at all, but I wanted to tell you what kind of person Brant was, in case it might help. I wish Shelby had wised up and gotten away from him.” She turned and left.

  Toni hurried to meet the boys. On the drive to the manor, her thoughts ran as fast as the van. She was accumulating a lot of information about the victims, and people who had reason to want Brant gone, but none of it was pointing to an answer.

  Suddenly she visualized in her mind the yearbook pictures Zoe and Melody had shown her. She needed to talk to at least some of the cheerleaders they had identified. She concentrated, trying to remember the names. The only one that came immediately to mind was Mallory Johnson. When she got home, she would call Zoe and Melody and get a list of those names—and directions to where they each lived.

  By the time Toni and the boys arrived at the manor, Buck and her mother were already in a secluded corner of the lobby examining Mavis’s belongings. There were two large boxes that contained the woman’s nightgowns, robes, clothes, toilet articles, and miscellaneous items that her sons had instructed be given to their aunt.

  "Answer one quick question for me," Toni said as she slid onto the sofa next to Buck. "Does the gun in Farris's gym bag match the caliber of bullets that killed those kids?"

  He placed a garment back in a box and shifted to face her. "That's not the case we're working on here."

  "I know. But I didn't ask you in front of the girls, and you didn't give me time to ask when you called. Are you going to tell me?"

  He hesitated several moments, but then said, "The gun is a .22 pistol, and the bullets from the murders came from a .22. Our tech guy says they're a match." He returned his attention to the boxes on the floor.

  “I don’t see anything here that’s worth killing her for,” Faye said in frustration when the three of them had examined every item from both boxes.

  “I agree,” Buck said gruffly. “I’ve been trying to contact her two sons or sister. But the sons returned home right after the funeral and aren’t answering their phones. The sister isn’t answering hers either.

  Toni couldn’t think of a motive
for this sweet elderly woman’s death. “Mavis had a nice home, but I’m not sure how much her nursing home expenses drained whatever inheritance she might have left to her family.”

  Buck eyed Toni in a measuring way. “We’re looking into all that.”

  In other words, stay out of it. “I don’t have time to meddle in your case.” She stressed the words tartly. Then she faced her mother. “I’m ready to go. How about you?”

  Faye directed a glower at the chief. “Yep, I’m going home.” She stood and marched away.

  Toni followed her, motioning to the boys as they crossed the lobby.

  Later that night, Toni had just emerged from the shower when she heard a car pull into her driveway and come to a jerky stop.

  She yanked on her robe and hurried to the door. It was her mother. “What’s your rush?” she asked as Faye hurried inside, her huge purse clutched to her chest.

  “Let me get where it’s warm, and then I’ll tell you.”

  They went to the living room and perched side by side on the sofa. Toni faced Faye. “Talk.”

  Her mother’s expression was hard to read, but it seemed to Toni it was almost gleeful.

  Faye took a deep breath. “I was restless after I got home from the manor. So I waited until after shift changes and went back. It’s probably nothing important, but I found something I want you to see before I turn it in to Buck.” She opened her oversized purse, reached inside, and extracted a flat, spiral back notebook. “I had already been around yesterday and today, so no one thought anything about seeing me again. I stopped by the room where Mavis stayed, and found that the bed hasn’t been filled yet.”

  Toni stared at the familiar notebook her mother held. “That’s hers, isn’t it?”

  Faye nodded. “I never expected to find anything since the staff packed her things and the cleaning crew had already cleaned in there.”

  “Where in the world did you find it?” Toni started to reach for it, but jerked her hand back. It was her mother’s find.

  “It was on the floor under the wide bottom drawer of the chifferobe. I remembered seeing Mavis pull it from that drawer one time, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to check. It wasn’t there. But the drawer had been overstuffed when I saw her do that, and I had a sudden vision of it sliding out the back. So I pulled the drawer completely out, and there it lay. It’s probably useless, but it makes me feel good to find it. Maybe I’m catching your sleuthing bug.” She grinned mischievously.