Chapter 15
Captain York stared at me. I stared at Captain York. If I didn’t act quickly, he’d blow my cover, and I didn’t want that to happen. If they found out I wasn’t one of Josh Prentiss’s victims, I’d never get anything more out of them, and that was my one and only goal at the moment.
The problem was, Captain York was not part of my fan club. In fact, the opposite was true. Still, I had to try. I reacted, but if felt as if I was moving in slow motion. The sounds around me heightened. Sharon spoke, her voice sounding like one of the adults in a Peanuts special. The crumpled tissues Peggy had been holding fell to the floor at her feet. As York opened his mouth to speak, Mrs. Branford stamped her cane once . . . twice . . . three times. The sound reverberated like an echo inside my skull. And, still, I moved toward him at a glacial pace.
I tried to communicate with my eyes, telling him to act like he didn’t know me. Not something easily done nonverbally. His head slowly swiveled from me to Mrs. Branford. He came back to me, then let his eyes focus on Sharon and Peggy in their mourning clothes.
“What’s going on out here?” he asked, keeping his attention on the actual grieving women. “Are you ladies okay?”
Oh, thank God. I still had time to divert him. “Officer, these women—”
“Uh, you, too, Ivy,” Sharon said, waving her finger in a circle.
I felt heat flame my cheeks. “We all . . . knew . . . Josh Prentiss.”
“I would assume so. You’re at his funeral, after all.”
Smart man. “Right. What I mean is that—”
Sharon elbowed in next to me. “What she is trying to say is that all of us were suckered by Josh.”
We’d already had his attention, but now his head snapped up as if a puppet master had yanked a set of strings attached to the crown. “What’s that now?”
“Let me lay this out for you, officer,” Sharon said, her voice quite prickly. “We all met Josh Prentiss on Meet Your Mate dot com. We all dated him, unaware that he was also seeing”—she spread her arm wide as if she was a game show host presenting a litany of prizes—“other women.”
York narrowed his eyes as he processed what Sharon had said. He looked at me for a long second. After a moment, he went back to Sharon, tilted his head to one side, and said, “You don’t say.”
Sharon jammed one indignant hand on her hip. “I do say. And there were others.”
“What others?”
“You just missed them.”
“There were Darlene, Betsy, and Linda,” Mrs. Branford said. “Of course, we didn’t get each other’s last names. We were all rather shocked, as you can imagine.”
He grimaced. “Oh yeah, I can imagine that just fine.” He pulled a small notepad from his jacket pocket and flipped it open, sliding out a miniature pencil. He cocked one sarcastic brow at Mrs. Branford—if a brow can be sarcastic. “And you are?”
“Penelope Branford,” she supplied.
He’d met Mrs. Branford at my house once when he’d stopped by to tell me to mind my own business. It was clear he recognized her. That sarcastic brow again. He shook his pencil, and the corner of his mouth tipped up. “Right. Mrs. Branford. I believe we’ve—”
“I’m Sharon Steward,” Sharon interrupted, impatient to get on with things. Thankfully. “And this is Peggy—”
She dipped her chin at Peggy. “Oh. Martin. Peggy Martin.”
“I’m Ivy Culpepper,” I offered before he could show familiarity.
“Riiight,” he said. He made a point of writing down my name, saying it slowly as he wrote each letter. “I . . . vy Cul . . . pepp . . . er.”
Sharon turned a suspicious face to look at me. “Have I met you before somewhere?”
There were several places she might have seen me. The bread shop was the most obvious one. The town’s art car show, which I’d photographed, or the holiday bazaar, or the Spring Fling. Who knew? I didn’t mention the time she’d strode down the sidewalk and into Yeast of Eden while I’d been sitting outside. “I don’t think so,” I said.
“Hmmph.” She frowned, reluctantly turning back to York. “I gave the man money.”
A choking sound escaped from Peggy’s throat. “I did, too.”
“I imagine we all did,” Mrs. Branford said. She looked at York. “You might want to write this down, young man.”
I cringed, hoping York wouldn’t whip out a pair of handcuffs and haul Mrs. Branford away for insolence. Instead, he gave a mirthless chuckle and nodded. “Got it.”
“I believe the deceased has probably left a long string of swindled women in his wake,” she said. For a brief second, I wondered if she was aware of the pun she’d used, and then I pulled a face. Of course she did. She was a former English teacher. She knew the many definitions of wake and had probably used the word intentionally.
“Right. Peggy, Darlene, Linda, Betsy, Sharon, Ivy, and you.” He nodded at Mrs. Branford as he ended the list.
“We are only the ones taken aback by his wife’s proclamation that he was far from perfect. I have to agree with that, by the by,” Mrs. Branford said. “If I were a gambling woman, which I am, as it happens; I do like a good game of poker—I’d bet all the money I have left that there are plenty more women Josh did this to.”
York turned to Peggy. “You said you gave him money, ma’am?”
I had to admit that I was impressed by York’s kid-glove treatment of Peggy, and of the situation. I hadn’t really expected him to go along with my ruse. Despite York’s gentle voice, Peggy’s skin lost its color. She said something, but so softly I couldn’t hear.
“What was that?” York asked, turning his head so one ear was directed toward her.
Peggy sucked in a shaky breath. “I gave him fifty thousand dollars,” she whispered, this time just loud enough to carry to our shocked ears.
“I thought I was nuts at eleven, but fifty thousand dollars?” Sharon gawped. “Are you out of your mind?”
I’d thought the tears and hysterics had gone when Betsy left the church, but Peggy’s face crumpled, and she broke into quiet sobs. “So stupid,” she muttered. “So, so stupid.”
I couldn’t comfort her because I was supposed be just as stupid. But fifty thousand? That was stupefying.
From the way everyone else stared at Peggy, I wasn’t alone in my disbelief. York jotted something down in his notebook. I sensed he was taking the moment to school his expression, wiping away his own display of shock. “Excuse me, ladies,” he said, then he pulled Peggy off to the side to question her. When he was done, he escorted her out, then pulled Sharon aside. Mrs. Branford and I shot each other raised-eyebrow looks as we waited for our turn.
It came too soon. York led Sharon to the door. She gave us a backward glance, her attention resting on me for a long second before York closed the door on her.
He turned around slowly. As he came closer, he spoke, his voice just as measured as his gaze on us. “If I’ve read the situation correctly, neither of you met Josh Prentiss on Meet Your Mate dot com, neither of you gave him money, and neither of you were his victim in any way. Am I right?”
“Right on all counts,” I said, and Mrs. Branford tapped the tip of her nose with an arthritic finger.
“So you’re playing undercover, like Charlie’s Angels?”
“Yes,” Mrs. Branford said at the same time I replied, “That reference is a little dated.”
He scowled. “Veronica Mars. Nancy Drew. Agatha Christie. Take your pick. You’re going to get in over your head. Once again.”
There it was. The chastisement I’d been waiting for—if you could call it that. It was a tame scolding. I treaded carefully, wondering if I’d misread the passiveness of his comment. “They assumed, and we just didn’t correct them.”
“You know what they say about people who assume,” he smirked.
“I do,” I said. He waited, as if he wanted me to actually tell him what people said. I obliged. “You make an ass out of you and me.”
“Exactly. You’re lucky I didn’t call you out.”
“Why didn’t you, Captain York?” Mrs. Branford asked, tilting her head in a way that conveyed her true interest in his answer.
“Ma’am, that is a very good question.” He cupped one hand around his chin. “The best I can say is that it was entertaining watching you both”—he swung his gaze to me—“especially you, Ms. Culpepper.”
“Why me?” I asked, not sure if I should be affronted by the confession.
“I think you were quite worried I was going to pull the rug out from under you.”
My hackles fluttered to life but settled down again just as quickly. Maybe York was lightening up. “This is a good discovery,” I said. “What Josh Prentiss’s wife said was right on. He wasn’t what he seemed. These women can prove that. Maybe one of them is the killer.”
“Ah. I see. This is proactive on your part. Almost a bait and switch. If one of them is guilty, that means Ms. Solis is not.”
He was smart, I had to give him that. I figured it wouldn’t be too hard to follow the bread crumbs we’d just provided. I was already moving on. “What if Tracy Prentiss found out about all of her husband’s women? She might have snapped.”
“Poison is premeditated,” York said. “It’s possible.”
It was. Josh’s betrayal could have forced his wife past the tipping point. If anyone could administer poison, a spouse was the most likely person. I said as much to York. “Point taken,” he said.
I pointed to the exit door. “And then there’s all those women.”
“There were two more, you said.”
“Three. Darlene, Linda, and Betsy. Linda was livid. Betsy was like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding car. And I think Darlene was in shock.”
He jotted the names down in his notebook. “We’ll look into it.”
“There’s at least one more,” I said.
Mrs. Branford and Captain York both looked at me, waiting.
I relayed the story my father had told Billy and me. “He said her name was Jeanne. Last name begins with a P.”
“Hmm,” he said unenthusiastically, but he wrote down the information.
A minute later, the two sets of doors between the church and the vestibule opened. The low murmur of the mourners grew louder as the somber people left the nave. “Ladies,” Captain York said with a dip of his chin.
“Captain,” Mrs. Branford returned.
We all turned and watched the people stream past us and out the front doors to congregate in front of the church. I searched for Taylor and Mae and Kristin Spelling, but couldn’t spot them in the crowd. I tried to catch Zula’s attention as she came into view, but she led her daughter through the throng without a backward glance.
The people moved as one grieving mass. Who else among them had also been a victim of Josh’s online dating game?
From the intent expression on Captain York’s face, I suspected he was wondering the same thing.