Читать книгу Lethal Literature - Kym Roberts - Страница 11

Chapter Four

My investigation hadn’t started as planned. Mateo was immediately irritated that I’d read his piece of evidence, and when I questioned how I could have known it was evidence in the case without reading it, he immediately warned me not to meddle.

“This case belongs to my detectives,” he said. “Keep your nose out of it, Charli Rae.”

Mateo never used my middle name unless he was irritated or being all sheriffy. By now, he should have known all that did was raise my dander—like I’d raised his. We stared each other down like a pair of prickly pears—heat rising to our necks and sharp barbs ready to be thrown if one of us said the wrong thing. Then he pulled out a pair of gloves from his back pocket and took his anger out by snapping them on his hands with a pointed glare in my direction before he took the letter.

“Where did you get this?” he asked.

“It smacked me in the leg.”

When he looked at me dubiously, Scarlet backed me up. “All she did was bend down and pick it up. It must have blown through the arbor.”

Everyone turned and looked through the arbor that linked the two yards.

“Did anyone see the letter before it hit Charli’s leg?” Mateo’s tone told all of us he didn’t have time for games. Jessie buckled and started to confess our crime of photographing Mateo’s evidence before turning it over.

“I—”

A pinch from Daisy on Jessie’s backside kept her husband’s mouth shut as he rubbed his rump and glared at his wife.

“Did you want to add something, Jessie?” Mateo asked.

“No, no. I just think it’s a tragedy.”

“Yes, it is. But we’ll find who did this.” Mateo turned back to his crime scene with his piece of evidence in hand.

Up until that point, I wasn’t sure if he’d seen Jessie taking the photo of the letter before he’d walked up and scared the bejeezus out of all four of us. I had no doubt Jessie would have confessed if not for Daisy’s warning, and I was happy she’d interfered. Yet if Mateo ever found out about the photo, he’d be more than prickly.

In my defense, I’d planned to turn over his precious piece of evidence as soon as I identified it as an important piece to the puzzle in the murder of Ava James. Granted, if I’d been alone when I found it, I probably would have held on to the letter for a little while longer. I was well aware that would have put a hitch in his chain of custody for that particular piece of evidence, but I was worried about my daddy. I still wasn’t sure if he was a witness or a potential suspect. He wasn’t in cuffs, which was a good sign, but he wasn’t making any effort to walk across the lawn and come talk to me either.

Knowing that Mateo’s loyalty was to the job—to the law and to justice—no matter what the cost, made me fidgety. My loyalty was to my daddy. Period. If that meant I had to clear his name, or God forbid, build his defense, then so be it. I would do what it took to take care of him. But there wasn’t a smidgen of doubt in my mind about his innocence. We’d been down this road once before when his girlfriend had been killed a little over a year ago. Now he was facing a second murdered girlfriend. The man had to have the worst luck with love of anyone I’d ever known, and I was more than a little worried about him.

Watching Mateo walk away with the letter suddenly seemed unacceptable. I needed more information. I ducked under the yellow crime scene tape, ignoring its bold message, and took off after him.

“Mateo, wait!”

Sally Ferguson, the nearest uniformed deputy guarding the yellow tape border, made a quick turn in my direction, but Mateo stopped her by raising his hand. He didn’t immediately turn and face me, and that little pause suggested he was bucking up for an argument. Or maybe he was contemplating all the different charges he could use to take me to jail. I followed his path across the lawn despite a feeling of doom creeping down my back. I had questions about my dad and figured Mateo would have to get over me crossing that line in the sand, even if it was plastic and yellow and flapping in the breeze with bold letters telling me not to cross it. I also knew he didn’t like being hounded, but I needed answers.

He turned around with a heavy sigh and a pointed look at the crime scene tape.

“I need to know if you’re holding my daddy for questioning.”

“Why would I do that?”

Why indeed. “I don’t know why. Tell me why he seems to be glued to the ground near the Judge.”

“That’s a question for him, not me.”

His response threw me off guard. “You didn’t tell him he had to stay over there?”

Mateo shook his head, and I looked past his shoulders to where my dad was awkwardly patting the Judge on the shoulder.

“Bobby Ray is a witness, Charli.”

“Oh.”

His lips thinned and flattened in an I-told-you-not-to-meddle expression.

Part of me still couldn’t believe Daddy would willingly stay beside the Judge. “He’s just a witness?”

Mateo nodded.

That was great news—except I felt like an anvil was going to drop out of the sky. I held the one bit of information tightly inside my chest that would change Mateo’s perspective about Daddy’s status in the case. If Mateo had seen Ava leaving Daddy’s house that morning the way I did, he’d be questioning my dad a lot longer than he already had. And until the moment Mateo found out about the two of them, I really didn’t want to talk to Sheriff Mateo. I could screw everything up with one slip of the tongue.

For now, as far as I could tell, I was the only one with that tidbit of news, and I didn’t plan on sharing it with anyone anytime soon. Not until the real killer was behind bars.

The faster that happened, the better off my daddy would be and the sooner I wouldn’t be holding back information in Mateo’s case.

Which left the other man across the yard who was on his knees quoting scripture as the only possible suspect.

Yesterday I wouldn’t have thought the Judge capable of murder. Today I wasn’t so sure. Yet I had to acknowledge that my bias against the man could be building the case up in my mind against him. I didn’t care for him. His wife seemed to think he was shacking up with Ava. And if I had to choose between my daddy or the Judge being suspect number one, hands down I’d say the Judge killed Ava James.

But I’d never seen an ounce of violence from him either. I would, however, characterize him as being under a lot of stress with his wife in a nursing home losing her memory of him and their life together, which could have caused him to turn to another woman for comfort.

I shivered at the thought that my daddy and the Judge could have been seeing the same woman. The age difference between my daddy and Ava made me cringe. The age difference between Ava and the Judge made me want to barf.

As hard as it was for me to picture, the Judge could have been looking for a comforting touch, and everyone knows that anyone can kill under the right circumstance. It remained to be seen, however, if these were the right circumstances to push the Judge over the edge.

Better people than Judge Sperry had buckled under less stress.

“If that is all?” Mateo’s question wasn’t really a question. It was more of a polite statement to bug off and get out of his crime scene.

I pushed anyway. “Is that Ava under the blanket?”

“You have five seconds to get out of my crime scene before I have Deputy Ferguson arrest you.”

“But, is that—”

He pointed in the direction of the arbor.

He wasn’t going to tell me a dadgum thing. When I hesitated a bit too long, Mateo grabbed my bicep and led me to the tape. “Good night, Charli Rae.”

I swung around and was about to demand the victim’s identity when my daddy looked up at me and said something to the Judge, and the two of them stared in my direction. It wasn’t lost on me that they had to look over the top of the body to see me. I could hear the Judge spouting a verse. Not literally, as we were too far away to hear his actual words. But in my mind, his voice was loud with reverence for God. The man may not have known it, but I held the same respect for our creator. I just didn’t preach it to others.

I held my biting retort for Mateo and nodded at both of them. My dad said a few parting words to the Judge and headed in my direction, passing Mateo on the way.

Looking older than his fifty-some years, my daddy stopped in front of me. I hugged him, swift and strong. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“I will be.”

“Is that—” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. “Is it Ava?”

Daddy took a deep breath and nodded but wouldn’t meet my eyes. For a lean man who always held his head up high and spoke in a straightforward manner, he seemed completely out of his element. Quiet. Uncertain.

If you didn’t know him, you might read shame into his expression. As it was, I wasn’t sure what emotions he was feeling. There were no tears in his eyes. No waver in his voice. Just a clenching of his jaw as he looked around the neighborhood like he was seeing all of the bystanders for the first time.

“I’m sorry, Daddy.” I guided him away from Daisy, Jessie, and Scarlet and lowered my voice. “I know how much she meant to you.”

“You need to go home, Princess.”

“I’ll wait for you.”

“My truck won’t be released from the crime scene for quite some time. It seems I parked right in the middle of it without even knowing.” My gaze followed his, and for the first time, I noticed the trail of blood crossing the sidewalk. Ava had apparently been attacked there and staggered onto the lawn before she died.

I forced away another shiver wanting to snake up my spine. “Scarlet can take you home,” I offered. I had no doubt my best friend would take him home and then come back for me since all three of us wouldn’t fit in her Isetta. Scarlet was that type of friend, the kind who would go into debt to bail you out of jail if you needed it—or drive you to a crime scene when someone you loved was in trouble.

A sad smile graced Daddy’s face as he cupped my cheek with a weathered hand. “Jessie has already offered to give me a ride. Go home. There’s nothing you can do here.”

“But—”

His head shook and I knew there was no point in arguing. “Go home, Princess.”

I leaned into his palm and clasped it against my face. “I love you, Daddy. I’m here for you . . . no matter what.”

“I know. Now go.” He turned me toward my best friend with a gentle push. “Scarlet, I’d appreciate it if you’d take Princess home. It’s been a long, hard day.”

“Anything you say, Bobby Ray.”

“Jessie, I’ll take you up on that ride in just a few moments.”

Jessie nodded and my daddy headed back across the crime scene, making a wide detour around Ava’s body and the path of blood we couldn’t see from the sidewalk to her final resting place.

I made note of who was standing around the crime scene tape so I could contact them later. One face caused me to stumble as we approached Scarlet’s little white two-seater.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

I waved her off. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

But I wasn’t, because on the opposite end of Tenth Street stood the town mayor, Cade Calloway, my old high school sweetheart. Tall, commanding, and Texas tough, Cade always made my heart skitter when I saw him. Tonight, however, it was the man standing next to him who sent my heart into overdrive. Not as tall by any means, and more on the plump side than muscular, his hands were on his hips as he bent over and breathed heavily. Gauging from the running shorts, clinging T-shirt, and wet tendrils of hair falling out of his man bun, I suspected he’d been out for his second run of the day on his quest to lose weight.

My chest tightened with unease at seeing him—here with Ava and my daddy—because Mike Thompson was the only other person who could place Ava James at my daddy’s house that morning.