Chapter 30
Jim walked toward me a few minutes later as I kept busy tidying up the kitchen area, avoiding even looking at Ed.
“Ed left. A friend of his offered to drive him, which is good. He’ll be okay.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Do you know if Danna has ever let the police know about Ed harassing her?”
“I don’t know, but I’m going to encourage her to.” I exhaled and leaned into him. “I can’t believe this day isn’t over yet,” I said, then gazed around the room. I motioned Jim to bring his head closer to mine. “I’m going to go ask Don what happened, why they set him loose. Want to come?” I made a little motion with my index finger toward Don, who now sat slumped and alone at the same table where Ed had been.
“Why not?”
I took his hand and we meandered on over. Before we got there, though, Corrine split the air with her whistle yet again. She began to read out loud from each bid sheet, announcing the winners. Happy townsfolk high-fived each other when they won, but I also glimpsed a few disappointed looks. When she was done, she moved next to Turner at the table where he’d been taking donations.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she called out, then waited until the space quieted again, “I have great news. My able intern, Turner, is going to tell you how much we raised tonight for the shelter.” She glanced at Turner, who checked a slip of paper and then stood.
“We brought in a total of three thousand four hundred thirty-five dollars.”
A surge of applause filled the room. Corrine smiled and went on. “The Brown County Animal Shelter is going to be tickled pink. Thank you all for your generous tax-deductible donations. You can pay Turner for your bid and then pick up your item. If anyone needs a receipt, he’ll be happy to fill one out for you.”
The “able” Turner just barely didn’t roll his eyes, but instead nodded.
“Enjoy the rest of your evening. Our generous hostess has said she’ll stay open until ten o’clock.”
Not exactly. I’d been told I would. As conversation resumed, I pulled out a chair at Don’s table and Jim followed suit.
“Hey, Don,” I said. “Glad you could make it tonight.”
“Didn’t much want to, but it’s awful hard to say ‘no’ to Corrine,” he said, worrying the label on his beer with his thumb.
“We heard they were holding you at the station.”
“Yeah. Somebody saw me go in Stella’s door that afternoon.”
“What made Buck change his mind and let you go?” I asked.
Don let out a whoosh of breath. He rubbed at the label for another moment. “I didn’t kill Stella. I kept telling them that.”
“Buck must have collected evidence that made him think you did,” Jim said, but he kept his tone casual and didn’t try to make Don look at him.
“I was over there that afternoon, all right? Stella had been . . .” His voice trailed off.
I smiled in what I hoped was a sympathetic look. And waited, as did Jim. Smart man.
“She was blackmailing me,” Don finally said. “It was messing up my life. I went over there to tell her she needed to stop. That I didn’t care anymore if she told the world.” He straightened and looked me directly in the eyes. In my Italian eyes.
“About Roberto?” I said in a soft voice.
Don nodded, and out of the corner of my eye I saw Jim give me an understanding nod.
“I talked to him in Italy on the phone this afternoon. So . . . what he said happened is true.” I watched Don’s face.
Don spoke after a long pause. “It was a stupid thing to do, and I’ve regretted it the rest of my life. I repented and became a Christian after that.” He buried his face in his hands. “But it don’t change what I done,” he said in a muffled voice.
“Don, can we get back to why Buck released you?” Jim asked after a few moments.
“I have an alibi for the time Stella was killed.” An unhappy Don looked up. “I didn’t want to tell him, but I finally had to. I was with a woman. A married woman.” He rubbed his forehead. “And I call myself a Christian.”
Don downed his beer, stood, and stumped toward the exit with slumped shoulders. Georgia hurried toward him and touched his sleeve. After she spoke, Don shook his head and walked out the door. Georgia watched him go with the saddest expression on her face.
Jim squeezed my hand. “So you talked with your father?”
“I did. For the first time in my life.” I squeezed back. “He said, among other things, that Don hit him on the head and then pushed him into the quarry, with Stella standing right there.”
“Incredible.”
“But I’ll fill you in later on the details, okay? I need to be on duty here, especially since Danna left.”
“Sure.”
I wandered around, picking up discarded plates and cups, removing beer bottles from the trash and setting them aside to recycle. I moved past Phil and Abe, where they stood with a couple of other men.
“How do you know the toothbrush was invented in Kentucky?” Abe said. He grinned at me.
I stopped my cleanup, smiling at the state pastime of bashing the state to the south, and waited for the punch line.
“If it was invented anywhere else, it would have been called a teethbrush,” Phil answered. “Did you hear the governor’s mansion in Kentucky burned down?”
“Almost done took out the whole trailer park,” one of the other men said, then guffawed.
“You guys are hot,” I said. “I shouldn’t, but what about this one? What are the best four years of a Kentucky Wildcat’s life?”
“Third grade.” Abe threw back his head and joined the others in laughter.
A uniformed Buck walked in. I waved at him, excused myself from the jokesters, and headed his way.
“Just the person I wanted to talk to,” he said when we met in the middle of the room. “Heared about your intruder.” He shook his head in exasperation.
“It was pretty freaky, finding him in my closet like that. At least he didn’t seem to be armed.”
“Actually, he was carrying concealed.”
“Good thing he didn’t shoot me.” I dumped the trash I’d been holding on the nearest table and dusted off my hands. “It’s just crazy this state even allows regular people to carry guns like that.”
“That’s the way of it. Folks’d get all riled up if you told them they couldn’t defend themselves. But Roy has never been quite all there, you know.”
“All the more reason he shouldn’t be owning guns. Are you still holding him?”
“Had to let him go on bail.”
“He’d better not come back here,” I said. “Say, can you sit down for a minute? I want to tell you about a piece of the puzzle.”
Buck looked wistfully at the food table.
“Go clean it out.” I laughed. “I’ll be right here.”
In a minute he was back and chowing down on a few buffalo wings, the last turkey slider, all three of the remaining brownies, and a bottle of tea.
“Have you checked Stella’s bank accounts?” I asked.
With his mouth full, he shook his head. “Need a warrant for that,” he mumbled through his dinner.
“Roy said his mother was blackmailing Corrine. Don told us a few minutes ago she was blackmailing him, too.”
He swallowed. “Interesting. Kept Don in for almost twenty-four hours and he never telled us that. Just kept saying he didn’t kill her, and he had a alibi. It was like coughing up nails when he finally said he’d been with Georgia LaRue later on.”
“Georgia from the library?”
“Right.”
“All he told me was she was a married woman,” I said.
“In name only.” Buck snorted. “Her husband’s older and has dementia.” He tapped his temple, leaving a trace of buffalo sauce behind. “Lives in a nursing home. She’s married, all right. But these days, only an overly moral guy like Don would think spending private time with her would present a problem. Anywho, I can check with the bank tomorrow after I get the warrant. Not invading Stella’s privacy, seeing as how she’s dead and all.”
“I know why Stella was blackmailing Don.”
Buck narrowed his eyes even as he bit off half the turkey slider and chewed as slowly as he talked.
I swallowed and looked around the restaurant. The numbers were dwindling. Jim leaned against a wall across the room and talked with Turner, who finally held a beer. Corrine sat at a table with Adele and Samuel and was laughing at something Samuel said. Phil and Georgia sat together on the piano bench, playing a four-handed tune, with Abe looking on.
“And?” Buck asked. “You going to tell me sometime in this decade?”
I gazed at him and told him the whole story. Of searching for news about my mom. Seeing her in the picture with Don and a man I resembled. Finding the news article about the quarry accident, and then the hospital records showing Stella called in the accident.
“Huh,” Buck said. “I remember my pop talking about that Eye-talian’s accident. I was ten or so. He musta wanted to warn me off swimming in the quarries. How does all that relate to blackmail, though?”
“It wasn’t an accident.” I watched as his eyes popped. “I tracked Roberto down in Italy. Just spoke to him this afternoon, in fact. He said Don whacked him upside the head and then pushed him in.”
“Now, why in God’s green earth would Don O’Neill act all violent like that?”
“He was jealous. Don was in love with my mom, but she’d left him for this handsome foreigner who’d swept into town. Who happens to be my father.”
Buck whistled. He leaned in to peer at me. “It’s true, you don’t look much like the average Hoosier with all your dark hair and eyes.”
Phil and Georgia finished a tune with a flourish to the applause of several people gathered around them.
“Not all Hoosiers are blond, you know,” I said, pointing my chin in the direction of Phil and Samuel, who sat not far from him.
“I know, I know. Can we get back to the story?”
“Well, that’s about it. Don, Stella, and Roberto were at the Empire Quarry. Don hit Roberto, pushed him in, and then jumped in himself, claiming it was to rescue Roberto. Stella saw the whole thing. Apparently, she’d been threatening to tell Don’s secret ever since.” I tapped the table with one finger.
“So that’s what he wouldn’t tell me. He kept saying he had business with Stella, and that he left her alive and well.”
“If he’s not the murderer, do you have any other suspects?”
Buck let out the longest sigh I’d ever heard. “Wanda told me what you overheard. I guess we’ll be getting Ed in for questioning tomorrow.” He cocked his head. “What did you say before . . . that Roy said Stella was blackmailing . . .” He glanced around the room until he spotted Corrine. When he spoke again, it was almost in a whisper. “Our fair mayor?”
“He sure did. Said she’d killed her husband.”
“Thought that was a hunting accident.”
“That’s what Samuel MacDonald told me,” I said. “But Adele said there was talk at the time that it wasn’t an accident, after all. And she was never charged.”
He whistled. “Guess I’d better be checking into her alibi for the approximate time of death.”