Eighth Witness

by Kathi Daley

  ******

  “I’m so relieved to hear that Garrett is going to be all right,” Clara said once I’d firmed up a pick-up time with Garrett and we’d gotten underway. “When he collapsed in the aisle I thought I was going to have a heart attack myself.”

  I turned up my windshield wipers. “I’m sure it was very frightening, especially given his medical history. It seems like you handled everything just right, however.”

  “Calling 9-1-1 was the only thing I could think to do. Of course, there were others around who had the same idea, so I think the emergency operator received several calls about him.”

  “I’m sure that happens all the time.” I slowed as we approached the bridge connecting Gull Island to the island just west of us. “One of the reasons I enjoy living at the resort is that there are always people around to help out if you have an emergency.”

  Clara smiled. “Sure, as long as the emergency takes place at the resort and not the grocery store.”

  I laughed. “I guess that much is true.” I pulled to a stop behind a row of vehicles. “I wonder if there is an accident ahead.”

  Clara looked down at her hands, which appeared to be folded in her lap, before she answered. “Yes. Multiple cars are blocking both lanes, so no one can get through. Emergency services have arrived and are trying to get things cleared up.”

  “Did you have a vision?” I asked.

  Clara held up her phone. “Traffic app.”

  I chuckled. “Well, that works just as well, I guess. I don’t know how we got by before access to the answers to all our questions pretty much at our fingertips most of the time.”

  “The world is a different place than it was even a few years ago,” Clara agreed.

  The car in front of me inched up just a bit. Not a lot, but at least there was movement. Hopefully, they had cleared things up enough to begin moving cars through. By the time we finally made it to the hospital, Garrett was waiting for us somewhat impatiently.

  “I’m sorry we’re late.” I kissed my brother on the cheek. “Accident on the bridge.”

  “I suspected it was something like that.”

  “How are you feeling?” Clara asked, as she crossed the room to give Garrett a hug.

  “I’m fine. Embarrassed, but fine.”

  “No need to be embarrassed,” Clara assured him. “These things happen. Did the doctor say why you passed out?”

  “Surprisingly, low blood pressure. Now isn’t that a hoot? It was high blood pressure that contributed to my stroke and my first stay in the hospital and now low blood pressure that led to this visit in the hospital.”

  “It seems the medication you are taking must be working a little too well,” I said.

  “The doctor thinks I must have taken my medication twice yesterday. I think he may be right. I don’t know for certain that is what happened, but I do remember that I was getting ready to go to the market with Clara and realized I couldn’t remember taking my medication that morning, so I may have taken it again just an hour later,” Garrett responded. “The doctor wants me to try a different medication for a while, though, because in his opinion even doubling up shouldn’t have resulted in my passing out, but he wants me to be extra careful to take the pills on schedule. I guess I’m going to have to give in and get one of those pill caddies marked with the days of the week.”

  “I think that might be a good idea.”

  Garrett pulled on his jacket. “Grab the nurse and let her know I am more than ready to get out of here.”

  Luckily, the drive back to the resort went a lot faster than the drive to the hospital. Garrett had a prescription he needed to have filled, but he looked tired, so I dropped him and Clara off at the main house, then drove back to the pharmacy. Tina was at the counter when I arrived. She looked leery as I came through the door, so I held up Garrett’s prescription to let her know I was there to have it filled, not to ask her more uncomfortable questions about Gina’s murder.

  “The pharmacist is backed up, so it will probably be twenty minutes,” Tina said after accepting the script. “I’m surprised that your brother’s doctor didn’t email it in. It would have been waiting for you when you got here if he had.”

  “The prescription wasn’t written by his regular doctor but by a doctor at the hospital in Charleston. I don’t mind waiting.”

  “If you have any shopping to do you can come back,” Tina suggested.

  “No, I’ll just wait.” I glanced out the window behind me. “It looks like the rain is rolling back in.”

  Tina nodded. “I heard it is supposed to rain on and off for the next week. If you want to have a seat in the ice cream lounge, I’ll call you when your meds are ready.”

  I glanced toward the little round tables and plastic chairs used by ice cream customers during the summer and considered the option. The store didn’t sell ice cream in the winter, so the area, along with the rest of the store, was deserted. “I wanted to thank you again for talking to Jack and me,” I said rather than making the move toward the chairs. “I know that it can be difficult to talk about the death of a close friend.”

  “It has been a difficult situation,” Tina said. “But I like Ryan and if he is innocent, I don’t want to see him locked up forever over something he didn’t do.” Tina entered the prescription into the computer and then looked up at me. “Have you made any progress since we spoke?”

  “I did speak to Deputy Savage, and he told me that Gina had been working a lot of open houses in the months leading up to her death.”

  “So? It was her job to help the broker. She was his assistant.”

  “Actually, according to Deputy Savage, it was the responsibility of each agent to hold their own open houses, or to find someone to do it for them. I suppose that Gina might just have wanted to pitch in and help out other brokers too.”

  Tina snorted.

  “I take it you have a countertheory?”

  She shrugged. “Gina didn’t really like most of the agents who worked at the office. If she helped them out by covering their open houses, it wasn’t because she wanted to be nice. She must have had a different reason. Maybe they were paying her to cover for them.”

  “I suppose that could be an explanation. Did it seem as if Gina needed money?”

  Tina frowned. “Actually, no. I mean yes, she used to be as broke at the rest of us. But then she got pregnant, and Ryan took care of her until the baby was born. Gina stopped working while she was pregnant because Ryan paid for her to stay home. Then the baby was born and Ryan stopped sending her money, so she went back to the realty office.”

  “Did she make good money there?” I wondered.

  “Not really. At least not when she worked there the first time, but it did seem that she did a bit better after she returned. She was sleeping with her boss, so maybe he gave her a raise.” Tina paused. “Although she did buy a new car a month or so before she was murdered. A pretty red convertible. I doubt that Andy Fallon would have given her that much of a raise. Do you think she would have made enough from the open houses to buy a car?”

  I doubted it. Not if her income from the open houses was limited to whatever the agents who had listed the house might have paid her. But if she was tied into a burglary ring …

  ******

  I left the pharmacy and headed back to the resort. Alex was on his way to his car as I pulled into the parking area. When he saw me, he changed direction and stopped by my car. I rolled down the window.

  “How is Garrett doing?” he asked.

  “He is fine. He just needs to be more careful about taking his meds on schedule.”

  “That’s good. I was going to stop by the main house but didn’t want to wake him if he was napping.”

  “Where are you heading off to?” I asked Alex after rolling up my window and exiting my vehicle.

  “I am going out to talk to Gina’s next-door neighbor. Rick gave me a list of people that Girard spoke to and I recognized one of the names from a recent book
signing, so I called her and asked if we could chat. She was thrilled to oblige.”

  “You remember the names of the people you sign books for?”

  Alex grinned. “I remembered this one. Her name was Pamyla with a y.”

  I frowned. “Pamyla with a y?”

  “Pamyla.” Alex spelled it out for me.

  “I see. I guess that is fairly unique. Do you think she knows anything?”

  “I’m not sure. She lives in the house next door to the one Gina was living in when she died. She is about the same age as Gina, so they may have talked even if they weren’t friends. I figured it was worth my time to follow up. Do you want to come?”

  “Do you think that Pamyla with a y will be disappointed if I show up?”

  Alex shrugged. “Maybe, but I seem to remember her being quite the sex kitten, so I may need you to come along to protect me.”

  I laughed. “Happy to lend my ninja skills to the outing. Just let me run this prescription up to Garrett first.”

  The drive to Pamyla’s residence was accomplished free of conversation. Alex had cranked up the stereo, so talking really wouldn’t have been possible even if we’d had something to say. After parking on the street in front of the house, Alex and I headed toward the front door. When Pamyla answered, I could see that Alex’s sex-kitten reference hadn’t been an exaggeration. If I had to guess, she’d had more than an interview on her mind.

  “Alex. How nice to see you again.” The woman looked at me. “Who’s this?”

  “My friend Jill. She is helping me with my research.”

  The woman’s smile fell just a bit. “I see. Well, come on in. We can talk at the dining table.”

  Alex and I followed her down a long hall. I couldn’t help but notice the cozy fire and the bottle of wine in the living room. If Alex had shown up alone, I had a feeling he would have gotten the full romance treatment.

  “Thank you for agreeing to speak to me,” Alex said.

  Pamyla shrugged. “I’m happy to help if I can, but I thought that Gina’s killer was already caught and put behind bars. Didn’t the baby’s father do it?”

  “He was convicted of the crime, but we are looking into things to make sure that they worked out the way they should have,” Alex answered.

  “So you think the dude is innocent?”

  “Perhaps,” he responded.

  “What do you want to know?” Pamyla asked.

  “How well did you know Gina?” Alex asked.

  “Not well, really. I mean, we would say hi if we were both in our front yards at the same time, but I had only lived in this house for five months before Gina died, and during that time I had my friends and she had hers. We didn’t hang out or anything.”

  “So you didn’t live here while she was dating Ryan?” Alex asked.

  “If Ryan is the baby daddy, no. By the time I moved in, the baby was born and the two had broken up.”

  “Did you ever meet Ryan?” he asked.

  “He came by a couple of times with the kid. I was just getting home on one of those occasions, so I stopped to say hi. He seemed nice and the baby was cute, but a few words of greeting was pretty much the extent of it.”

  “Did Gina talk about Ryan and Hannah?” Alex asked.

  “Hannah?”

  “The baby.”

  “Oh. Sorry. I don’t remember Gina ever referring to the baby by name. And no, she didn’t really talk about them.”

  “How about Andy Fallon?” Alex asked.

  “Andy was the name of the man she’d been most recently dating. I don’t know a lot about the guy, but I do remember her saying that he was loaded and she had a plan to cash in on that. If you ask me, Gina was determined to do whatever it took to take a step up in the world.”

  “Did you ever meet or speak to Andy?” Alex asked.

  “No. As far as I knew, he only came around to pick her up. I don’t think he spent time at Gina’s place. I guess his digs were much nicer.”

  “When was the last time you remembered seeing Andy pick Gina up?” Alex asked.

  “I can’t say. I remember hearing arguing coming from Gina’s house a day or two before she died. There was a red Corvette parked in the street, so I figured it belonged to her rich boyfriend. He usually drove a black sedan, but if the Corvette wasn’t his, I don’t know who it belonged to.”

  “Could it have been Gina’s car?” I asked.

  “No. Gina drove a beat-up old Ford that had to be twenty years old.”

  “A friend of hers told me that Gina had purchased a new red sports car before she died.”

  “Not that I knew. Did anyone check the garage for her car after her body was found?”

  I looked at Alex.

  “I’m sure the house as well as the garage were searched,” Alex answered. “I don’t remember seeing the status of Gina’s car in the police report. I guess I’ll have to look in to it.”

  “While you’re at it, you might want to look into the status of Gina’s other guy friend as well.”

  “Other guy friend?” Alex asked.

  “I don’t know his name, but he used to stop by late at night, usually around midnight. He’d pull up to the curb and Gina would run out to meet him. He never even got out of his car, so I guess I’m not a hundred percent certain it was a guy and not a woman, but I can’t imagine why Gina would be sneaking off with a girl in the middle of the night.”

  “What sort of a car did he drive?” Alex asked.

  “Dark-colored truck with a shell. I think it was black, but it could have been dark blue or even dark gray.”

  “Did you ever ask Gina about him?” I wondered.

  Pamyla shook her head. “No. I figured that whatever she was doing was her business. It was odd, though. I mean, she lived alone, so why the need for so much secrecy?”

  “How often did you notice the man come around?” Alex asked.

  Pamyla shrugged. “I guess three or four times. Like I said, he came late, so he could have come more often, although I do tend to go to bed late.”

  “And when did you first see the truck come by?” Alex asked.

  She paused to think. “I guess maybe a few weeks after I moved in. Maybe a month after. I wasn’t keeping notes.”

  Alex thanked her for her help and we headed back to his car.

  “So what do you think?” I asked.

  “I think that if Gina was part of a theft ring, as we now suspect, that the man in the dark- colored truck might very well be her accomplice.”

  “And if he had a habit of coming by after midnight, an argument could be made that Gina had gone off with this man on the night she died. Midnight does fall right into the middle of the window between Ryan’s visits.”

  “So how do we prove it?” Alex asked.

  “I’m not sure. Let’s head over to talk to Rick.”

  Chapter 8

  Luckily, Rick was in his office and had time to speak to us.

  “It’s too bad that the neighbor didn’t know for certain if the man in the truck came by to pick up Gina on the night she died,” Rick said.

  “I asked Pamyla if she had seen or heard anything that night when I first called to set up the appointment,” Alex shared, “and she said that she hadn’t seen or heard a thing, but she also said she’d taken sleeping pills and gone to bed early.”

  “If Gina was involved in a theft ring, it makes sense that the man in the truck was her partner,” I said. “Of course, we don’t have a lot to go on, so it will be hard to prove.”

  “If Pamyla saw a man in a truck come by to pick up Gina on several occasions, it stands to reason that someone else must have seen him on at least one of those nights as well,” Rick postulated. “I suppose that it might be worth my time to reinterview those living closest to Gina’s house at the time of her death.”

  “What about her car?” I asked. “Tina said that she had purchased a shiny red convertible in the weeks before her death, although Pamyla said that Gina drove a beat-up old Ford. R
yan said that Gina’s car was in the garage, which is why he assumed she had been picked up by her boyfriend. Does anyone know which car was in the garage?”

  “I can’t remember if it said in the report,” Rick said. “I’ll go back over it.”

  I looked at Alex.

  “Ryan didn’t say what the make, model, or year of Gina’s car was, and I didn’t ask when I spoke to him,” Alex informed us.

  “Pamyla did say that there was a red Corvette parked on the curb at Gina’s place a couple of days before she died. She figured that the car belonged to her boyfriend, but I suppose it could have been hers,” I said.

  “I’ll look into the vehicles,” Rick assured us. “And I’ll see what I can find out about the dark truck. I’m liking the theory that the person in it was Gina’s partner in crime, assuming that we are correct about her reason for volunteering at the open houses. If we’re correct, we have just supplied an alternate theory to what might have happened to her and who might have killed her.”

  “There is one problem I have with the theft ring theory,” I said. “Why? Why, if Gina was getting cozy and domestic with her rich boyfriend, would she get involved with a theft ring?”

  “Maybe she got hooked up with the guy with the truck before she started dating Andy,” Alex suggested. “Even if the theory is right, we don’t know how long she had been working with him to burglarize homes. What if during the course of their partnership she hooked up with Andy, and once she saw that he was serious about providing her a more comfortable lifestyle, she decided to get out from under her unlawful one. Maybe she told her partner that she wanted out on the night she died and he killed her rather than letting her walk away.”

  I supposed that made as much sense as anything else. Now all we had to do was prove it.

  We left Rick’s office and Alex dropped me off at the newspaper office. Kizzy, as she always did, greeted me at the door like I was the most important thing in her life. Her sunny doggy smile always brightened even the darkest day.

  “So how’d things go with Garrett?” Jack asked after kissing me on the cheek.