Benjamin
There’s nothing like coming home to a cruiser and an unmarked police car in front of your house. Fortunately, I didn’t have to run through a list of awful possibilities in my mind; I knew exactly why they were here.
On my way in, a young cop passed me by carrying two handguns, each in its own evidence bag. She called out to Detective Wellborn.
There go Mr. Elrod’s guns. When I moved back home, he had shown me the closet where he kept them locked in the basement. He kept the ammunition in a separate place.
My mother sat next to someone I figured must be Gloria’s cousin. There was a strong family resemblance. He stood.
“Benjamin Dunn, I’m Detective Michael Wellborn. We need to speak with you at the police station. You come with us now willingly or I can arrest you for suspicion of murder.”
“What’s going on here?” My mother looked like an angry bear about to attack to protect her cub. “Don’t talk to them, Benjamin.”
“Mama, I’ve never been to Kentucky in my life. I just want this over.”
“You’re going to talk to the police without speaking to a lawyer first? How wise is that, Ben? This is a murder investigation.”
“I’ll be all right. Tell Roy I’ll be home soon.”
“I’m going to call Dean. He’ll be at the police station by the time you get there,” my mother assured me. “Listen to him.” Dean Whitby was an attorney who stopped by the gas station for coffee every morning.
Once the preliminaries were taken care of inside the interrogation room, someone named Sheriff Haines began. “Would you say that you have a rather explosive temper, Mr. Dunn?”
I glanced at Dean. His constipated look told me he disagreed with my willingness to cooperate.
“No, I would not say that. Why would you even ask me that?”
“Well, people pulling at your life have a habit of dying with a .38 automatic being the weapon of choice.”
I paused before I responded, trying to process what he meant. “Okay, you’re telling me Eugene was killed with a .38. I’m with you so far.”
“And so was Carolyn Young. That’s interesting, by the way, how long have you been involved with sisters?”
Dean spoke up. “Wait a minute. I thought we were talking about Eugene Sherwood. What does Carolyn Young’s death have to do with this?”
“You’ll see,” Wellborn said.
“I never knew anything about Carolyn’s death beyond that she was shot near a crack house.” Who I was involved with was none of his business, so I ignored his comment about sisters.
“She was shot three times,” Haines explained.
“Okay, and?” Being slow to get to the point must be this guy’s specialty.
“Eugene Sherwood was shot three times,” he said.
Rubbing my eyebrows, I tried to keep that gruesome image of Carolyn from flooding my thoughts, but I couldn’t stop it. This Sheriff Haines knew how to ply his trade.
“Three shots, same parts of the anatomy, and with the same type of gun.” Detective Wellborn felt the need to summarize it for me in case I had a learning deficit.
“When will the ballistics tests come back from the guns you took from my mother’s home? That will prove the guns I had access to were not involved in either case. I didn’t kill Eugene, and there is no way in hell I could have shot Carolyn.”
“Yet someone wanted them both dead,” Haines said.
“It wasn’t me.”
“You didn’t mind that Mr. Sherwood was set to distribute sex videos with your fiancée playing the starring role?”
“I didn’t know about that until recently. Yeah, I would have wanted to stop that, but I didn’t know about it.”
“What about Mr. Sherwood’s disruptive visits to your home? When a man violates the sanctity of another man’s home, especially if he does it in pursuit of a man’s woman, it’s understandable there’ll be retribution of some sort.”
I didn’t answer, but Haines kept looking at me—waiting me out.
“My client and I have had just about enough of your postulating.”
This whole thing was preposterous, and I wanted to help them see they are wasting their time. “I’m all right, Dean.”
“I understand Carolyn Young’s drug habit drove you away, but you returned after her murder.”
“That’s true, but I didn’t kill her.”
Sheriff Haines turned pages in his folder as if he were perusing through Popular Mechanics. “Uh-huh. Well, perhaps you and Andrea, working together, cleared the path, shall we say, to happiness?”
“Man, you are so far off base it’s laughable.”
“Then why aren’t you laughing, Mr. Dunn?” He paused so I could feel the “gotcha” effect. “With Carolyn and her messy drug business out of the way, you come back home a righteous hero to your son, and your love for Carolyn’s sister grows faster than grass after a good rain. Let’s start at the beginning again, shall we?”
I recounted everything that had happened since Andrea had accepted that invitation to Eugene’s open house.
Halfway through my recitation, somebody came and got Detective Wellborn, who had been largely silent. Haines wanted me to tell it from the beginning a third time. This time, when Dean Whitby spoke up, I was glad.
“Sheriff, Mr. Dunn has been answering questions a long time. He’s cooperated fully, there’s nothing more to learn.”
Haines reluctantly agreed I could leave.
On the way out, Dean and I walked past another interrogation room. The door was ajar briefly before someone inside closed it. I’d had time to see Andrea face-to-face with Michael Wellborn.
I turned to Dean. “They’re questioning Andrea again?”
“I’ll wait for her then.” I extended my hand to shake goodbye.
He made a cautionary gesture. “I’m not sure that’s wise. If you hang around here, there’s nothing to stop them from trying to question you further. You’re tired, your fiancée is here. They might convince you I don’t have to be with you for them to clarify a few things. You could end up making things more difficult for yourself and Ms. Young. You’ve had enough for tonight. There’s no telling how long they plan to keep her here. My advice—go home, talk to her tomorrow.”
I nodded. I was beat. More than that, I felt lightheaded from all the questions still twirling in my mind. I’d go home and talk to Andrea in the morning. There was nothing I could do, and I was sure Andrea could hold her own.