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When Quin opened the door, he shook his head before stepping back to let us in. “He’s not talking?” I asked.
“He’s barely gotten out of bed. I want to confront that little—”
“We already did,” Cord told him. “Somehow Mayra knew he’d been with Deke and expressed ‘concern’ he hadn’t gone with Deke to the reunion. Shea responded with his hurt feelings, and she wanted to discuss Deke, but Shea said he never went to meet her. That she seemed vindictive, and he wanted nothing to do with that.”
“You talked to Shea?”
We turned to see Deke standing in the hallway. I hadn’t thought it possible, but he appeared even more wrung out than Shea had. “Did you get any sleep last night?”
“I couldn’t. They’re going to arrest me. I just know it. I didn’t kill Mayra or Duncan, but how am I supposed to prove that?”
“We will prove it,” I told him. “We’ll prove it by finding the person who actually killed them. They’ll be the one to go to prison, not you.”
“What if you don’t? Lou, you were almost killed last time. Why did I agree to go along with this?”
“You went along with it,” Cord said, “because you didn’t commit the crime, and you shouldn’t be punished for something you didn’t do. We haven’t given up yet. You shouldn’t either.”
“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I can’t even think.”
Cord and I exchanged a look. Deke was always thinking. This definitely wasn’t good. I glanced over at Quin. “We were talking on the way over here. We need to know if Mayra’s been in contact with anyone besides Shea. Officer Lato mentioned emails, so I’m guessing there was more than one. Can you do that? Not that I’m asking you to break the law or anything.”
“You don’t even have to ask. I’d come to the same conclusion and was digging into that. In the meantime, I contacted Shelby Rodgers.”
It took me a moment. “Claudia’s girlfriend?”
“Ex,” Quin said. “And she certainly had some things to say about Claudia.”
“What things?”
“Not too many nice ones. She was manipulative, and she was weak. She got to the point where she wouldn’t hold hands when they went out in public. She let other people walk all over her and made her feel ashamed of herself. And Shelby was sure she would do anything to make sure those same people would accept her. Shelby couldn’t take it and finally left. They sold the house they’d bought and split the profits, and she says she hasn’t spoken to Claudia since.”
“What does that tell us about her, other than she let other people’s opinions affect her relationship. Which yeah,” I said, “sucks, but it doesn’t make her a killer.”
“Never said it did,” Quin replied. “From what they sold that house for, she should be able to afford a better apartment than she’s got. I’m going to see if I can follow that money, see just why she isn’t living somewhere else.”
“We can always count on you, can’t we?” With her hands on Quin’s shoulders, she planted a loud kiss on his mouth.
He laughed even as he blushed a deep red. Then, he headed through the house and probably to his computer.
“What else are we supposed to do in the meantime?” Deke asked.
“You’re going to get some sleep,” Cord told him. “Running yourself down will do no one any good. After that, write down anything you can think of which would help figure out who would want to kill Mayra. Leave the rest to us.”
Deke snorted, though the movement looked like it almost sent him staggering. “Easier to make a list of who didn’t.”
“Don’t say that,” I told him. “Something like that nearly got me arrested for Brenten’s murder, if you remember.”
“Yeah, all right,” he said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“After you sleep,” Cord called as he headed toward his bedroom. I turned to her. “Do you think he’ll come up with anything he hasn’t already told us?”
“No, but he needs to feel as if he’s doing something. Honestly, the sleep part is more important. He looked like death barely warmed over. Let’s hope Quin can find information or those tests come back from the lab soon and can clear him. Otherwise, I’m not sure what will happen next.”
“I got something,” Quin announced.
Cord and I glanced at each other, then hurried to the living room. Quin was on the couch with his computer, so we leaned over it to see his screen. “Hold on.” He hooked his computer to the television. Soon, whatever was on his computer screen popped up there.
“Is that Mayra’s email account?” I asked him.
“Yep. Wasn’t even hard to get into. I told you she emailed Deke weeks ago. I knew the address, and people think they’re more clever than they actually are with passwords. Only took me five tries to get into it. I had to take my time so the program wouldn’t lock me out for too many attempts.” He minimized the screen and brought up another one. “If the cops are looking, they would have found this, too. It won’t hurt for us to see what she had to say. I also dug into her social media accounts.”
Cord whistled. “You ever think you’re wasting your talent working in a garage? You could be a cyber detective.”
Quin looked at her with a sharp smile. “Why do you assume I’d use my power for good?”
Cord ruffled his hair until he pulled away to smooth it. “She has her accounts set to private, but again, her password was easy to figure out. She uses the same one across the board. Many people make that mistake.”
“Uh,” I said. I did the same thing.
“I’ll fix that for you,” Quin said.
“It’s easy to remember.”
“Also makes it easy for someone else to guess. Change your passwords, Lou.”
I hung my head, knowing he was right. I’d have to get on that. Sometime. “What did you find?”
“She was a piece of work, all right. She joined groups just to rant at people, all kinds of people. Anyone she didn’t think lived the right way. She blasted messages like that on all her accounts. Except this one.” He brought up her Facebook account. “She’s all sweet and syrupy. It’s all about her upcoming marriage, with one post on the high school reunion just a few days earlier.”
Mayra Starnes: Can’t wait to visit all my old acquaintances. Woodside Forever.
“Of course,” Quin said, “then there’s this.” He tabbed over to Twitter.
@MayraS: I can’t wait until this reunion nonsense is over. I left these people behind for a reason. But it’s all fodder for the book. I have to remember that.
“She mentions the book on here a lot,” Quin said, “but not even once on her Facebook account. Where she’s friends with Duncan Morrau and family members. I’m assuming the other Starnes’ in her friends list are family members, anyway. There are other names I recognize.” He clicked a few times and revealed three profiles. Whitney Buren, Claudia Hansen, and Damon Kohner.
“Why are they friends with her?” I asked. “From what all three have told me, they didn’t care for her. Why would they be her friend on here?”
Quin glanced at me then over to Cord. “Are they serious right now?”
“Lou doesn’t add people to their friends list unless they’re actually friends. Or family. And doesn’t understand some add people they have a passing acquaintance with so they can brag about how many friends they have. Or they’re nosy busybodies and don’t want to be kept from knowing everyone’s business.”
“Who has time for all that?”
“Too many people,” Quin and Cord responded together.
“Anyway,” Quin said, bringing our attention to the screen. “There isn’t a lot of interaction between them on her wall, but I was going to look at her private messages.” He brought those up. “And bingo.”
I didn’t have time to take in the message threads with both Damon and Claudia. My phone pinged with a message. I took it out and read the screen. “I have to go,” I told them. “I have another job.”
“I’ll drop you at your place.” Cord turned to Quin. “Keep digging, just be careful. We can only work on keeping one of you out of prison at a time.”
Cord had waited until we left Quin’s to voice her concerns about this sudden job. That was the way my work happened. The last time had been fine. She needed to stop worrying.
And I thought I had convinced her. I really did not want to go through this every time an urgent job came in. Everything was going to be just fine.
Now that I was at the job, I wasn’t so sure. Whitney stood on a porch that wasn’t far from where the Fasels used to live. I had bad memories of this neighborhood, but I thought I’d faced them already. This wasn’t the first time I’d been back here since that all happened. I didn’t know which Whitney I’d be getting when I went up there. The one who seemed nice but with a sharp tongue. Or the vicious one who accused me of framing a pillar of the community. Then, turned around and took it back. Or the one who wanted to do whatever you needed. At least as long as it benefited her.
None of that made her a killer. And I had a job to do here.
I headed for the wide front porch. “Are you the one who requested my services?”. Maybe the call had been a mistake. I could get out of here without having to deal with her entitlement. Of course, it meant I wouldn’t be able to do the job without the proper address.
“Our stove won’t light,” she said. “My stepfather insisted I call you to look at it.”
“If this is his house, why didn’t he call me?”
“He prefers me to handle these matters. I’m better with people than he is.”
That was a scary thought. I was here to do a job, so that didn’t matter. “Point me to the stove. I’ll see what I can do.” I hoped to finish this job and get out of here.
“And I hoped to apologize to you,” Whitney said as she led me through the house. “I realize I came on a little strong at the store the other day. I’m just really scared. They think somebody killed Mayra and Duncan. That the same person did. Why would anybody do that?”
I wasn’t sure I could answer that. Why did everyone think I should have all the answers? “What kind of stove is it?” I’d like to know what I was looking for.
“One you cook on,” she said. If it had been Cord, I would have laughed. I doubted Whitney was being flippant to be funny, though. I’d just have to look at the stove myself.
“Please tell me what they’ve learned,” Whitney said as we stepped into a pristine kitchen.
Did they even use the room? Then they wouldn’t know the stove was broken. I doubted mine had been this clean when I moved into my house.
“I’m still not sure why you think I would know anything.”
“You and your friends are investigating. The whole town is talking about it. And that Deke managed to get out of being arrested.”
“Because he didn’t do anything.” I took a look at the stove. “Natural gas or propane?”
“How should I know? What evidence did they have against him?”
“None.” I rocked the stove out from the wall and used a flashlight to peer behind it. All the connections seemed secure. “What have they asked you?” I examined the power cord. Nothing wrong with that either.
Whitney sniffed. “They want to know about my relationship with Mayra. And rumors they’ve heard. That are completely baseless.”
“What kind of rumors?” Even though everything appeared fine, I checked each connection. Nothing was loose.
“I just told you they were baseless. Are you fixing the stove or not?”
“I’ve barely started looking. Give me at least a minute. I’ll let you know what I find.” Maybe she’d leave the room until I did.
“I’m sure Mayra started those rumors. She was always jealous of me.”
“Oh yeah?” I didn’t really care. Neither of them would have been people I’d want to be friends with.
“Just because she had to cling to somebody who didn’t want her, didn’t mean that was the case for all of us. Some of us knew what real love was. She could never find it.”
I shivered, even though it wasn’t cold in the house, and glanced over my shoulder. She wasn’t looking at me. She didn’t seem to be looking at anything. I straightened and maneuvered the stove into position. I turned the knob for a burner, waited a moment, and it flamed to life.
“You fixed it?” Whitney asked.
“Nothing wrong. Sometimes the mechanism won’t catch and you have to try again. There’s nothing here for me to fix.”
“I didn’t imagine things.”
“Never said you did.” I bent to replace the flashlight and wrench I’d used to check the connections.
“Your little boyfriend will be going away soon. At least they’ll be putting the right person in jail.”
I looked at her and blinked. “What are you talking about? I don’t have a boyfriend. Or girlfriend. Or any sort of romantic partner.”
“Don’t give me that. Deke wouldn’t have brought you along if that wasn’t the case. And using you to get out of the fact he offed Mayra. Everybody’s been waiting for somebody to do it. He did us all a favor. He should just admit it.”
That was a quick turnabout from what she’d said when I’d arrived. It had barely been ten minutes. “Why would he admit to something he didn’t do?”
“Give it up. Everybody knows it was him. I will not let you set me up like you did Josiah.”
Were we really back to that? “I didn’t do anything to him. I wouldn’t to you, either. I have no reason to. I just want to know who really killed them. Because it was not Deke.”
Her foot struck out, knocking my toolbox to the side. I’d latched it, so I didn’t lose anything. I grabbed the handle and pushed to my feet. The faster I could get out of here the better. Whitney was right in my face, her teeth bared.
“Get out of my house. You can’t come in here and accuse me of anything.”
I hadn’t done that, though. She’d brought me here for a problem that hadn’t needed fixed. The thought sent a strong shiver down my spine. I tried to step around her, but she shoved me back and drilled her finger into my chest. “You’re as bad as him, thinking you can be on our level, that you can come into our world with no consequences.”
I didn’t want to be in her world. I took a longer step and went past her, heading straight toward the front door.
“Don’t think you’ll get paid for this,” she shouted after me.
Usually I’d insist on being paid when I’d spent my time coming to look at something. All I wanted right now was to get out of here.