Chapter 38
“We’ve not found Jewel’s collar yet,” Wes said as he and Max came into the living room.
“The more I think about it the more I wonder if she actually had one.” Brynn’s head was foggy again.
“Yes, of course she did,” Becky said. “I remember it.”
“It seems to me the question isn’t if she had it, but what happened to it,” Max said. “Collars don’t fall off of cows’ necks.”
“No, but sometimes they can slip out of them,” Wes said.
“But we’ve no evidence of it. We’ve scoured the place. My conclusion is that someone took it.” Max sat down on the couch next to Brynn. “This place keeps getting better and better. First our gram dies in a fire, then Wes is accused of murder, plus all of this weird ransom ware stuff going on. Now this? Someone stole a collar from a sweet little cow?”
Brynn’s thoughts spun around in her mind. Was this all connected somehow? Think, think, think. But the more she tried to think, the worse it became. So frustrating. “Have you heard from the police?” she asked Wes.
“Not recently. My dad is at the station with my lawyer right now.” Weariness came over his face and he aged about ten years in that moment. “I don’t want to go back to jail. I couldn’t survive.”
The room quieted. But Brynn’s head didn’t. “Not going to happen. The credit card incident proved your innocence.”
“They suspect he was in cahoots with someone,” Max said.
Brynn’s heart pounded. “What?”
“It’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Wes said. “But they have to investigate every possibility. A man’s life was taken.” He quieted. “It’s horrible. Logically, I can see why they suspect me. I discovered the body. They thought the gun was registered to me. But now they realize it’s not, someone stole my identity, I wish they’d drop it. This whole theory of my working with someone doesn’t make sense.”
Max let out a frustrated sigh. “Grasping at straws.”
“But why?” Becky said. “I mean, I get considering you a person of interest. But it’s a process of elimination, right? So eliminating you is as effective as arresting you.”
Brynn picked up a pad of paper from the table and scribbled on it: David Reese. Ian Fellows. “Does anybody know if Ian has been dismissed as a suspect?”
Wes shrugged. “I have no clue. They don’t tell me the details on the other suspects.”
“Attempted-murder ex-con. He’s got to have something to do with it. Surely nobody in this community shot a young man for no good reason,” Becky said.
“Is there ever a good reason?” Brynn shivered, thinking of Wes’s own experience getting shot. “How are you doing?”
“The wound is almost healed completely. And that guy is in jail. Some justice is quick.” He stood. Brynn noted his jeans were hanging off him. He’d lost a lot of weight. She needed to do more to help prove his innocence. “I’m hungry. I guess if I want to eat, I better make something myself. You lot aren’t doing anything but sitting around.” He grinned.
Becky stood. “I’ll help.”
The two of them left the room.
Brynn leaned closer to Max. “I’m so worried about him.”
Max nodded. “We all are. It’s good his appetite is back. He’s not really eaten much. It bothers him so much that people would suspect him of murder. Then there’s this whole racist element. It’s not as if we’ve not had to deal with it before. But it really never gets any easier. We definitely stand out here.”
Brynn tried to swallow the frustration she felt. But it wasn’t going away. What could she do to help? “Live by example” was what Granny Rose always said. Wasn’t she doing that? It didn’t seem to be enough. She thought of Helen, who was vocal about her suspicions of Wes, as was the guy flinging French fries at the fair. Were they an ignorant few? Or were there more asses in this community than she knew? She understood change came slowly to rural areas. It was a part of the charm. A double-edged charm. One side, she loved the slower pace, fewer people, easier cost of living, and on the other side . . . were remnants of an ugly past. Remnants such as racism, sexism, and complete suspicion of strangers. Brynn tried to understand it, but there was no excuse for it. None. If people chose to hide their heads in the mountain dirt and not move forward, that was one thing. But to act in such ignorant ways, to judge people on looks, nationality, or gender? Nah, that wasn’t going to fly anymore. No matter how deep in the hills you lived. And Brynn would fight it with her last breath.
* * *
Brynn tossed and turned that night, even with all the medicine she’d taken that normally made her sleepy. Finally, she rose out of the bed and fired up her laptop. She wanted to look up David Reese. Who was he? Schuyler had mentioned she didn’t know him well because he wasn’t from around here. Where was he from? Why did anybody assume he could leer at women the way he did and get away with it? Shame poked at her. She shouldn’t have bitten her lip. She should’ve spoken up there and then. She vowed next time she would.
The screen flicked on. One hour a day, her doctor’s voice rang in her head. Surely this wouldn’t even take an hour. She was probably making too much of this. So David was a lech, didn’t mean he was a killer. But someone was. Why not him? He had a blog and a website for the tractor business. She clicked on it. Very attractive and professional. About David: “A Norfolk, Va., native, David, and his family, moved to the Shenandoah Valley in 2000 to follow his dream of opening a tractor business.” He had a family? Brynn had no idea. Okay, so that made his obvious lechery a bit more sinister. “A graduate of James Madison University, David fell in love with the mountains and vowed to return when he could. He’s been top sales executive for seven years in a row; he now makes his home in the most beautiful place on earth, as he likes to call it.” Brynn would give him that—it was gorgeous—but the most beautiful place on earth?
Okay, so this was for public viewing and could have been constructed carefully. It didn’t tell her much, but she did learn a few things about him. She needed to dig beyond the tractor business. What about Facebook? Twitter?
She clicked on Facebook and yawned. She was getting sleepy. That was a good thing.
All of his settings were private. She’d have to send him a friend request in order to see anything about him. Did she really want to do that? She didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. God knows what would become of it. But at the same time, she wanted to view his page. Nah, she’d hold off on friending him. Instead, she clicked over to Twitter.
She keyed in his name. There were three David Reeses—one was definitely not him, as he was African-American. She clicked on one. Not him, either. Then clicked on another. There he was. She scanned his tweets. Mostly about tractors. Very few personal interactions. She clicked on who he was following. Tractor business, newspapers, and several pretty young women. Brynn clicked on one. Hmmm. Definitely a model or something, interacting with men on Twitter. But not him. Perhaps he was too smart for that. But yes. He was definitely a man who liked beautiful women and in a creepy way. They were all quite young, as well, which gave credence to her suspicion that maybe, maybe, he had a thing for Chelsea.
Brynn’s stomach growled. She shut the laptop and padded downstairs for a snack. She opened the refrigerator and looked for the leftover quiche. “It’s over here,” a voice rang out. Brynn gasped and turned to see Becky sitting in the dark with the pan of quiche on the table. “You scared me half to death!”
She shut the refrigerator, opened the drawer, and reached in for a fork.
“Sorry. I couldn’t sleep,” Becky said.
Brynn sat down and plunged her fork into the quiche. “Me either.”
“What’s on your mind?”
“What’s not on my mind?” She shoveled in a bite.
“I hear you.”
Bright moonlight streamed in through the window. The sisters didn’t need to turn on a light. They sat with silver light beaming in on them and ate the last of the quiche.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been up at this hour,” Becky said. “It’s kind of cool. Remember how we used to raid the refrigerator at night?”
Brynn smiled at the memory. “Mom would get so mad the next morning.”
“Now I get it. It’s hard enough to plan meals, but then add in two teenage girls raiding the fridge when the mood strikes.” Becky grinned.
“I wonder if teenage girls still do that?”
“Well, who knows? How many are you acquainted with?”
“I know a few. There’s Tillie, thin as a rail. I doubt she eats much at all. Then there’s Chelsea, who’s not exactly thin, but I bet she watches everything she eats. Her looks seem to be important to her.” Saying Chelsea’s name brought something to the front of her mind. Something simmered there but didn’t quite boil. What was it? Brynn’s head felt as if it were full of cotton. Then she remembered. “Chelsea was here, and she spent some time with Jewel.”
Becky’s head tilted in interest. “Do you think she knows something about the collar?”
“She might.” Of course, it made sense. She was the thing Brynn had forgotten. She was what had been picking at her brain, keeping her awake. “She’s the only other person who was around Jewel. But the question is why would she take her collar? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, she said she loved Jewel. Maybe she wanted a keepsake.” Becky paused. “Teenage girls are often emotional and attached to strange things. Maybe she wanted to keep a piece of her childhood. She seems to love Jewel.”
True enough, but still strange. She’d call her in the morning. That would be one awkward phone call.