by Nancy Basile
At least he didn’t call her Professor Robin. Robin wondered how much Bruce knew about Jodi’s conversation with her about finding Roy’s killer. Not to put too fine of a point on it, but she also wondered if he was the killer. She stayed calm. “Hi, Bruce. I’m here with my family for Jenn’s rehearsal dinner. I need to get back to them.” He towered over her, and he was clearly angry. Although she was nervous, she wouldn’t let him intimidate her.
“It’s all your fault. You just had to stick your nose where it didn’t belong.” His words came out jumbled, like he was talking around a mouthful of peanut butter. “And now my Jodi…” He pressed his lips together and turned his face away from her. She gave him a second to pull himself together. Bruce probably wouldn’t hurt her in public, but he was drunk, and that’s an unknown variable in any situation.
He turned back to her, swiping his face with his arm. “My Jodi is in jail and it’s all because of you.” He stuck his pointer finger in her face, almost stumbling from the effort.
“Jodi’s in jail?” Robin hadn’t moved fast enough to stop Chris from arresting her. But she could dig up something to get Jodi out of jail. In the meantime, she had to deal with the problem in front of her. “Bruce, you’re drunk. Are you here with friends? Can someone drive you home?”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me exactly what you know. What do you know about me and my Jodi?” His mouth twisted, and he got louder, still pointing in her face.
“Why don’t we go out to the bar and sit down and talk. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” She gestured toward the bar area behind him. “We’re blocking the hallway and no one’s going to be happy about that.”
He straightened, studying the little hallway like he was lost. Gently, she placed her hand on his shoulder, turned him toward the bar, and gave him a nudge. Like a sleepy toddler, he went with her direction. She guided him to a table close to the bar. In the party room, Jenn raised her hands and furrowed her brow with a “what gives?” expression. Robin pointed at Bruce, shrugged, and shook her head. Jenn made a V with her first two fingers, pointed at her own eyes, then pointed one finger at Robin. Robin gave her a thumbs up. Jenn always had her back.
“Okay, I’ll tell you whatever you want. But you have to know, this isn’t my fault. I’m just trying to figure out who killed Roy.” Bruce puffed up. But before he could say anything, she continued. “And I don’t think it was Jodi.” He froze and tried to keep her in focus. “The problem is, there’s a traffic video that shows her car pull into Roy’s driveway right before he was killed, and leave not long after.”
Bruce’s chin dropped to his chest. “I know.” Robin could barely hear him. His chin shook a little, then he sat up, sucking in a deep breath, and shook his head. “Chris told us when he came to the house. But I don’t understand it. I know —” he pounded his chest with a fist “ — in my heart she wouldn’t cheat on me, especially with that loser.” He crumpled in his chair. “Was I wrong, all this time?”
Robin lay a hand on his long, lanky arm. “I don’t understand it, either. Jodi is a total sweetheart. Did she tell you anything that would help? Why she was at Roy’s? What was going on?”
He scrubbed a hand the size of a dinner plate through his hair, then rested his elbow on the table, still holding his head. “I heard the rumors, but I didn’t think they were true. I just figured someone started them to cause trouble. You know how people get.” His bleary eyes sought hers and she nodded. Yes, she understood how petty the people in a small town could be. Starting rumors about someone was a great way to get under someone’s skin. “The girls she works with get catty sometimes. So I never said anything, and she didn’t, either. Then Chris showed up at our door, said he was taking her in for questioning.” He raised his head, anguish written all over his face. “I panicked. I started yelling, asking her why she was at Roy’s, why she would cheat on me. She didn’t say a word. She was crying, but she didn’t say a word.” He hung his head. “I don’t know what she’s playing at, but she just let Chris take her away.” He held out his hands to Robin. “What does that mean?”
Robin couldn’t answer. After days of picking at this puzzle, she was no closer to solving it.
Bruce seemed broken and miserable, but she kept Chris’s warning at the back of her mind: They didn’t know who the killer was. Although Bruce seemed despondent, he could still be the killer. She watched enough true crime shows on TV to know that killers can rationalize anything, lie convincingly about anything. Did she really think he was the killer? No, but she needed to stay sharp, just in case.
“Have you spoken to Roy at all since he got back?”
“No.” His lip curled. “No reason to talk to that loser.”
She cleared her throat. “I hate to ask, but, where were you when Roy was shot?” He blinked, his glassy eyes staring at her. “I’m guessing Chris already asked you, but if you’re in the clear, maybe you can help Jodi.”
“I was on my way to the factory. I was there all day.” He stifled a belch. “I told Chris, everyone there can vouch for me.”
That was probably true, but if Troy could disappear from work without being seen, maybe Bruce could, too. As big as the pottery factory was, he could have killed Roy, showed up late to work, and covered it with a believable story.
Bruce’s head drooped. She snapped her fingers to get his attention. His eyes were half-closed. He really needed a lift home. “You know what? The best thing you can do is go home, get some sleep, and be ready to do whatever Jodi needs you to do tomorrow. She’s counting on you.” She squeezed his rock-hard bicep.
Bruce said nothing else. In fact, he hardly moved. Robin shared a quick word with the bartender, who called a buddy of his. She left Bruce under the watchful care of the bartender and went back to the wedding party.
Before she could resume her seat, Jenn waved her over. “What was that all about? I was about to bust out some ninja moves if he laid a hand on you.”
Robin rolled her eyes. “I’ve got ninja moves of my own from kickboxing class, but thanks for the backup.” She looked back at the bar, where Bruce was swaying in his seat. “Bruce is all broken up about Jodi. He was just looking for someone to blame. He wants answers, but I don’t have any. The bartender called a friend of his to get him home. I bet tomorrow he won’t even remember talking to me.”
She took her seat, just in time for dessert, fresh strawberry pie with piles of whipped cream. While everyone devoured their pie, Robin grew restless. Like Bruce, she wanted answers. There was an important piece of the puzzle missing. Her subconscious prodded her, like something hid in plain sight, and if she crossed her eyes or turned her head, she would see it.
She rose from her chair and walked to the end of the table, leaning down to talk in Jenn’s ear. “What are we doing after this?”
“Nothing.” Jenn looked up at her, a bite of strawberry pie halfway to her mouth. “Deb and her friend —” she gestured toward the woman who sat across from Robin “ — are hanging out at her parents’ house tonight. I just want to go home and get some beauty sleep. I don’t want bags under my eyes tomorrow.” She used the fingertips of her free hand to touch the skin under her eyes.
Robin glanced at her watch. The sun would still be up for a few hours. “I have an errand I need to run, is that cool?” Before Jenn could answer, Robin kissed her on the cheek. “Can you get a ride with Mom and Dad?”
“Yeah.” Jenn crossed her arms over her chest. “What’s this last-minute errand?”
“Just something I have to do. It won’t take long.” Robin stopped at her chair to pick up her messenger bag, waved goodbye to everyone else, then went out the back door of the restaurant to find her car. Bruce was waiting on his ride in the bar, and she didn’t want to get caught in a painful conversation again.
The golf course surrounding The Last Canary shimmered in the summer haze. Chirping crickets and croaking frogs were settling in for the evening. The quiet sounds soothed Robin, and it allowed he
r to think more clearly than the hubbub in the restaurant.
Chris had to be missing a clue somewhere. With his investigation focused on Jodi, he was blind to everyone and everything else that could apply to the case. She knew he meant well, but he was concentrated only on evidence, which was his job. Robin was following her gut.
A giant Ford F150 rolled into the parking space next to her, and a light bulb went off in Robin’s head. The truck gave her an idea for exactly where to find more clues.
Chapter 21
Robin parked behind Roy’s truck and shut off her engine. The windows of Roy’s trailer glowed, reflecting the pink and orange of the setting sun. The tall trees that lined his driveway, the ones she had seen in the traffic video, kept his truck and her car shaded.
A ribbon of yellow caution tape hung across the entrance to his small front porch. Another piece blocked the front door.
What did she hope to find that Chris and the state’s forensics team didn’t? There had to be a pattern, a connected web, between Roy and Jodi, that led to other webs, other patterns. If Jodi was the murderer, her motive was a mystery. Unless Jodi started talking, it would remain a mystery. They were missing a connection.
Robin wasn’t crazy about breaking the caution tape. She had a healthy respect for authority. Her strategy was to search outside first and only break the tape and go inside if she found nothing outside the trailer.
She propped her fists on her hips and swiveled her head, taking in Roy’s yard. The most efficient and thorough way to scan Roy’s property would be from the center out in ever-widening circles.
She started at the corner of the front porch, closest to the driveway, staring at the ground, creeping along the double-wide, around to the backyard, down the other side of the trailer, then back to the front. In the first pass, she found a screwdriver and two empty pop cans, which she piled on the front porch.
She stepped to the right, about two feet from her starting spot. Head down, eyes sweeping left and right, she followed the same path around the trailer, only in a wider circle this time. Really, it was an ellipse, but she wasn’t one to split hairs.
When she returned to the front of the trailer, the rumble of a big motor surprised her. Her breath froze in her lungs. How would she explain what the heck she was doing if someone stopped and asked? She turned her back to the dirt road, put her hands on her hips, and surveyed the trailer, as if she was thinking of buying it. The motor thundered behind her, then around the bend. She remained in position until the noise faded completely. Her heart smacked against her ribcage like a chickadee trying to escape a screened-in porch. Hopefully, whoever it was, didn’t think some woman standing in a dead man’s front yard was strange enough to stop.
She resumed her search, slowly enough to be careful, but quickly enough to finish before the sun went down. It was one thing to scour Roy’s yard in the daylight. She would look more suspicious if she scanned the property with a flashlight in the dark.
She wasn’t sure what she was looking for, just that she would know it when she saw it. She kept her eyes peeled for anything that seemed out of place or just plain wrong.
She was on her final pass, at the edge of Roy’s backyard, when she noticed a narrow dirt path she hadn’t seen before. It was only visible if you looked directly at the ground because it cut through some brush, then wound through a copse of trees that ran the length of Roy’s property. The stand of trees was deep enough that she couldn’t see where it ended.
Roy had been a hunter, so the path probably led to his tree stand. But the path was well-hidden and she might find a clue the police had missed. The sun still hung above the horizon. Plenty of time to explore a detour.
Watching for thorns, she held the brush away from her bare legs. It wouldn’t do for the maid of honor to be sporting scabs and scratches under her sheer stockings.
Sun-dappled leaves cast flickering shadows on the ground. Beetles scuttled through fungi on dead trees, and a squirrel rustled in the groundcover. The path remained narrow, taking her over fallen logs and tangled roots. She heard a woodpecker drilling for bugs somewhere to her left.
After only ten minutes, the trees became saplings, thinning out, and the light grew brighter. She emerged from the small forest onto what looked like someone’s private drive. A “NO TRESPASSING” sign hung on a barbed wire fence that ran along the other side of the rutted dirt road. She held her hand to her forehead, shielding her eyes from the sun, and peered left and right. To the left, the drive narrowed and turned around a bend that seemed to run parallel to the road Roy lived on. To the right, the drive disappeared on the horizon.
Robin thought she remembered every back road and acre of Rollins County, but she didn’t recognize this stretch. She took her phone out of the pocket of her shorts and opened a maps app. The loading circle went round and round while her phone tried to pick up a cell signal. She re-loaded the app and finally, a blue dot that represented Robin blinked on the map. No wonder she was unfamiliar with this drive. It wasn’t on the map. Her blue dot was flashing in the middle of a big green space. However, just to her left — or north — sat a power grid. The potholed road she stood on was a county access road.
Her mouth fell open, and her eyes flew wide. She spun around, examining the woods and the path she had just exited. Roy’s house was completely out of sight. She rotated slowly on the spot, keeping her eyes above the trees. Behind the barbed wire fence, about one hundred yards away, stood metal towers draped with electrical wire, but there were no other telephone poles or supports of any kind, which meant no traffic cameras.
Her feet flew up the path before her mind could catch up. She hopped over logs and roots, too excited to slow down.
Someone — anyone — could have parked on the county access road, snuck onto Roy’s property, shot him, raced back to their car, and disappeared, all without being recorded on the traffic camera that was trained on Roy’s driveway.
Jodi was no longer the only suspect.
She reached Roy’s backyard, panting, practically bouncing on her toes. She needed to tell Chris about the access road. It opened up a whole new avenue to explore. She held her phone above her head, begging the heavens for a signal. Her bars were empty.
She sucked in a breath and trotted back to her car. She got as far as Roy’s truck, then a clump of grass tripped her up, and she went down like a sack of potatoes, dropping her phone as she fell.
She sat up on the lawn and inspected her legs. Thank goodness she landed in the grass. A few feet over, and she would have landed in the gravel. Her knee throbbed, but she hadn’t scraped it.
She scanned the ground for her phone, praying the fall didn’t smash it. She spotted a shadow under Roy’s truck. Great. She’d have to crawl under the truck, across gravel, to get it. She might end up with bloody knees after all.
She kept her knees lifted as much as possible, taking the weight on her feet and hands. Then she crawled, army style, on her stomach to get under the truck.
“Thank the stars.” Her screen was intact. She grabbed it, careful not to drag it through the gravel, and turned her head to the side to slide back out.
Something winked at her.
She blinked rapidly and did that trick where you try not to look directly at something, but keep it in your peripheral vision. Sure enough, something was stuck under the front tire of Roy’s truck.
Rocks cut into her elbows as she slithered sideways on her belly. She peered under the tire and saw something gold flashing in the setting sun. Like an archeologist uncovering a rare fossil, she gently brushed away the gravel surrounding the tiny piece of gold, allowing her to pinch her fingers around the object.
She scuttled backwards from beneath the truck, gold trinket in one hand, phone in the other, and sat up to inspect what she had found. Her eyes grew round as clay pigeons. She raised her head, looking at the cows grazing in the field across the road, but not really seeing them. A torrent of thoughts streamed and crashed into each other. Her
brain couldn’t keep up.
Then the entire picture came into focus. Here and there, she still needed answers to fill in every gap. But she knew how to confirm one connection.
Wincing, she stood up and got into her car. After turning the air conditioning on full blast, she dug a tissue out of her glove compartment. As carefully as she had ever handled anything in her life, she wrapped the gold object in the tissue and placed it in the front pocket of her messenger bag.
After making sure her treasure was secure, she pulled out the picture she had printed at the library, the one from the article about the bank robbery. She had been in such a hurry to leave when she received Jenn’s DISASTER text that she had forgotten about it. Until now.
The photo was grainy, but showed enough detail that she recognized Mark Jenkins and the man in the Spider-Man mask. She held it at arm’s length, allowing the contrasts and edges to form a clearer picture. She examined every pixel, like she was playing a hidden objects game on her phone. When she needed to find a well-hidden object, she scanned the screen in the opposite direction from what was natural for a Westerner, bottom to top, right to left. Her eyes were less likely to skip something.
About two-thirds up the page, almost in the center, was the face she had been hoping to see. Her eyes narrowed, and a thin, Grinch-like smile curled across her face. “Gotcha.”
Chapter 22
The Dixie Cups serenaded Robin with “Going to the Chapel” at 6 a.m. sharp, when her phone alarm went off. She rolled over and silenced her phone, in case Jenn was still asleep in her room next door.
The big day was finally here. Her little sister was getting married. When her bottom lip trembled, she pressed both lips together. If she started crying now, she would end up crying all day.
Robin showered and dressed in a tunic and leggings, ready to slip out the front door with no one the wiser. She had a very important meeting this morning, but wanted to avoid questions from her nibby, but well-meaning family members.
