Casey Mayes - A Killer Column

Jenny said, “Listen, I’ve been thinking about it, and I can’t be one hundred percent positive that’s what it was.”

“It’s another place to look,” I said. “What do you say? Do we head back to Jenny’s?”

“Is there any way we can stop off for more pie on our way?”

I laughed at my husband’s question. “I think you’ve had enough for one day.”

“Hey, it doesn’t hurt to ask.”

When we got back to Jenny’s, I was surprised to see a squad car pulled up in her driveway.

Zach opened the car door as he said, “You two stay here for a second.”

I wasn’t even going to fight him on it this time.

He walked to the cruiser, and a young uniformed officer got out of his car. After he and Zach held a brief conversation, the officer got back in and drove off.

Zach motioned us forward, and I pulled the car up to him.

When we got out, I asked, “What was that all about?”

“Murphy had him staking the place out. He’s doing what we asked him to do.”

“Yes, but it’s going to be hard to find someone on the videotape if he’s got an armed officer stationed out front all of the time.”

Zach shrugged. “We can’t have it both ways. Maybe someone will show up tonight.”

“At this point, I don’t know what to wish for,” Jenny said.

“The worst thing that can happen right now is for this guy to just disappear. We need to catch him in the act so you can resolve this once and for all.”

“You’re right,” Jenny said as she shivered slightly. “Can we go inside now? I feel kind of exposed, just standing here.”

I put my arm around her and said, “Of course we can. Don’t worry, Jenny, it’s going to be all right.”

“I know everyone’s doing their best, but I still wish it was all over, do you know what I mean?”

Thinking about the cloud of suspicion hanging over me for Derrick’s murder, I could easily relate. “Yes, I kind of do.”

She smiled, and then hugged me. “Of course you do. What do you say we go inside and see if we can make something happen?”

“I’m all for it.”

Chapter 20

ZACH SAID, “I’LL GRAB THE PLANNER, AND ONE OF YOU can take the copy Jenny made. Whoever draws the short straw gets to look at the telephone books.”

I volunteered, “I’ll take the phone books.”

“Good,” Zach said. “Then let’s get to work.”

They took the planner and its copy out from under the pile of newspapers where I’d stashed them, and I went into Jenny’s office to retrieve the telephone books. The box was heavy, but I lugged it into the living room anyway. I wanted us all to work together, and if there was a discovery made, I wanted to be in on it. I didn’t have much hope for the telephone books, but I had a hard time believing that the torn page stuck to Brady’s foot, if that’s what it was, was simply a coincidence. Zach had taught me long ago that there was no such thing in an investigation, and I believed him.

I opened the box and reached inside for the first book. It was for all of Raleigh, and it weighed a ton. At first, I leafed through the pages, hoping something had been stuck somewhere, but there were no letters, no last-second wills, and there was certainly nothing there that even resembled a clue. Next, I started fanning the pages, looking to see if Derrick had written anything in the margins. I thought I had a hit, and I almost said something to Zach and Jenny, when I realized that someone had written a note about a business meeting three months prior.

It was going to be a long night, and I couldn’t even complain, since I’d volunteered to take that task myself. I was going to need a bar of soap and a basin of hot water to scrub the germs off my hands by the time I finished.

IWAS ON TELEPHONE DIRECTORY THREE OUT OF SIX WHEN Zach said excitedly, “Jenny, turn to the entries thirteen days before Derrick was murdered.”

“What did you find?” I asked as I looked up from the telephone book I was exploring.

“Hang on a second,” Zach said as Jenny flipped through the copied pages.

“Okay, I’m here,” she said.

“What does the entry for four p.m. look like to you?”

I put the directory down and walked over to Zach. “What does it say?”

Jenny frowned, and then said, “You might be right. Let me check.” She picked her phone up and dialed a number. As I waited for her to comment further, Zach pointed to an entry with his finger.

It read, “AW&V. Settlement meeting. 4:30.”

“Is that from his suit with Frank Lassiter?” I asked.

“It might be,” Zach said. “That would let us wipe his name off without hesitation.”

Jenny held up one hand for us to keep quiet, and after hanging up, she said, “Give me another second.”

She headed back into her home office, and Zach asked, “Are you having any luck with the telephone directories?”

“No, but we figured it could be a blind alley,” I said. “This might be something.”

“Maybe,” Zach said, but he couldn’t contain the excitement in his voice. He thought he’d hit something, and I agreed. But what?

Jenny came back a minute later with a piece of paper in her hand.

Zach asked, “Was it from the settlement?”

“Yes and no,” she said.

“What does that mean?” I asked her.

“It’s about a settlement, but not from a lawsuit. The number belongs to a law firm in Richmond that specializes in divorce.”

“ SO, DERRICK REALLY WAS GOING TO LEAVE HER,” I SAID. “I wonder if Cary had any idea.”

“If she did, it’s a perfect motive for murder,” Zach said. “If the divorce went through, Cary would lose her claim to Derrick’s money, not to mention that life insurance policy for half a million dollars.”

“Could she really be that stupid?” I asked. “She seems smarter than that to me.”

Zach frowned. “Where greed’s involved, sometimes intelligence goes out the window.”

He reached for his phone, and I asked, “Who are you calling?”

“Shawn Murphy,” he said.

I tried to stop him. “You can’t tell him we have Derrick’s planner.”

He paused his dialing, and then said, “Savannah, he needs to know this. We’ll deal with explaining how we happened to have the planner later.”

“I’d like it a lot more if we could come up with something now,” Jenny said. “Shawn could destroy me if he found out I’ve been holding onto this.”

Zach thought about that, and then finally said, “I’ll tell him I found it, plain and simple. If anyone takes the blame, it will be me, and you’ll be free of it.”

“I’m not letting you do that,” Jenny said. I’d heard that steel in her voice before, and I knew she wasn’t about to budge.

“We can always claim that we just found it,” I said.

“How can we do that?” Zach asked.

“We cleaned out his room, didn’t we? While we were there, we found this box of telephone directories, and I just now got around to looking inside it. Imagine my surprise when Derrick’s planner turned up.”

Zach laughed. “That’s all well and good, but that doesn’t explain how it was stolen from Kelsey’s hotel room days later.”

Jenny said, “I know. We didn’t find the planner itself.” She held the pages in her hand up and waved them in the air. “We found the copy.”

Zach frowned for a few seconds, and then nodded. “As crazy as it sounds, that might just work.” He looked at me and asked, “Savannah, do you see any problems with that?”

“Not off the top of my head,” I replied.

“Then let me finish that call.”