Football is Murder (Bee's Bakehouse Cozy Mysteries Book 4) (Bee's Bakehouse Mysteries) (14 page)

“It’s not right, what they did to you.”

He shrugged. “That’s the justice system for you.”

Jessie didn’t get it. He seemed more irritated at her for bringing up the subject than he did at the Rockfield police department for falsely accusing him. It didn’t make sense. “Are you going to sue them?”

A funny look crossed his face. “How do you think that would look? A rich football player suing a neighboring town?”

Jessie swallowed back the knowledge she had to the contrary. Because one look at Chad’s financial records would tell anybody that he could use all the money he could get his hands on.

A thought struck her. If that five hundred thousand wasn’t stolen from the victim, where had it come from? Was it hush money? Had he been some sort of accomplice to the murderer even if he hadn’t been there?

“What is it?”

She realized she was staring at his hands.

“Nothing,” she said, shaking her head.

Now or never
, she kept thinking. Because she couldn’t do this again, not without drawing the attention of the press who’d no doubt arrive at any moment.

“Well, thanks for the food. That was great.”

She smiled. “No problem. You should come by the café. It’s Bee’s Bakehouse on Main Street. It’s a good place to get to know some of the locals.”

His eyes locked on hers. “Thanks for the invite. But you can understand why I’ll be laying low for a while.”

“Why?” she asked softly. “Why not defend yourself?”

He balked. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” she said. “You obviously know something about who’s really behind this. Wouldn’t you shout your innocence from the rooftops otherwise?”

His hands balled into fists—but not before she had seen them tremble.
Who are you protecting?
she thought, more convinced than ever that she was on the right track.

Jessie shook her head. “Look. It’s none of my business. But folks around here are scared. Couldn’t you just put their minds at ease?”

Several emotions seemed to wash over his face. He jerked his head. “You need to leave.”

“Please, Chad. Before somebody else gets hurt.”

He looked conflicted.

“Come on. I know Marvin from the Rockfield Reporter visited you. You want to talk. I know it.”

His face contorted with pure anger. “Get out, now. Or I’ll have no choice but to forcibly remove you.”

Jessie’s heart sank. She clutched her phone and reminded herself that she was safe. But she didn’t think there was any point in pushing the matter. It was clear Chad wasn’t going to talk.

“Fine,” she said, holding her hands up. “I’m going. But if you change your mind…”

“Out,” he roared.

Chapter 16

“You shouldn’t have put her in that position, Chief,” Mike muttered, his arm wrapped tightly around Jessie’s shoulder.

They were holed up in the living room of Aunt Bee’s tiny cottage. Mike had insisted on picking Jessie up as soon as she had called him.

“I’m fine, Mike. Really,” Jessie said, leaning into him.

She had been a little rattled when she returned to her own house, but she felt fine now. All she wanted to do was get to the bottom of whatever was going on. When she’d left the house to get in Mike’s car, there were already two news vans parked in front of Chad Denver’s house. They wouldn’t get another opportunity to talk to him outside of the media’s watchful eyes.

“It was risky.”

“The chief had my back. Plus we knew that Chad wasn’t behind the murders. Well, the physical acts, anyway.”

Chief Daly sighed. “So let’s go over this again. He gave away nothing?”

Jessie rubbed her forehead. She had expected Chad to reveal more. “Well, when I mentioned his lack of defense, his hands shook. Could that mean that he’s involved somehow, but not in the way we think?”

“It could. But that’s not enough to go on,” the chief said, sighing. “We need more than this.”

“Does Rockfield PD have anything?”

Chief Daly shook his head. “I don’t think so. The official line is they’re chasing new leads, but I’ve got a source there who says they’re as stumped as we are.”

Mike sighed. “This may be a catastrophe for Rockfield, but it’s not exactly a bonanza for Springdale’s tourism sector either. We need to get to the bottom of this.”

Jessie nodded. “Why don’t we write down everything we know about the case so far? There must be something we’ve missed,” she said, rushing to find a pen and paper.

The chief rubbed his temples. “We’ve been over that file a hundred times and…”

Jessie glanced back to see what had distracted him. She saw it immediately. The TV was on in the background. There was a very familiar-looking house on the screen. Jessie’s neighbor’s.

“Turn it up.”

Mike reached over and grabbed the remote from the edge of the couch. They all watched transfixed, but were disappointed when the anchors regurgitated information they already knew.

“Right,” Jessie said, sitting down on the rug in front of the coffee table. “We’ve got Chad Denver. Originally the main suspect, now ruled out. Could be a co-conspirator.”

Chief Daly nodded. “Then you’ve got Coach Williams and Marvin Scott. They visited Chad right before he got chatty.”

Jessie shook her head. “So I guess that means we can rule them—or one of them—out. If somebody intimidated him into admitting the crime, why would they ruin that by killing again in the same way? If Gary Gonzales hadn’t been killed, then Chad would still be sitting in custody.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Mike nodded. “But they’re involved in this somehow. Or one of them is, at least. What about the wife? I’ve seen her on TV numerous times since her husband was killed, and believe me I don’t watch that much TV. She must be on there 24/7.”

“Pretty much,” Jessie agreed. “But she’s got no connection to Gonzales. Neither do Cooper’s siblings.”

“Not so fast,” Chief Daly murmured. “Sure, Cooper’s siblings live out of state and we can rule them out. But there’s something off about Mrs. Cooper. Let’s not rule her out just yet.”

“Yeah,” Jessie said. “Her reaction was certainly not what I expected. I’ll go speak to her if you like.”

The chief nodded and Mike groaned. “You’re not sending her out there again, are you?”

Chief Daly glared at him. “She’s a grown woman, Mike. One who’s volunteered her services. And I’m sure she doesn’t appreciate you trying to get in the way.”

Jessie smiled. “He’s right, Mike. Your concern is sweet, but I’m doing this because I want to help.”

“She’s not a cop, Charles.”

“Exactly,” the chief said, waving his hands expansively. “Which means that she’s not under scrutiny like the rest of us are.”

“I don’t like it,” Mike huffed.

“You don’t have to like it,” Jessie said, taking his hand.

Yes, she was falling for him; yes, she was falling hard. But this had to be a relationship between equals if it was going to work. Roger had often acted more like a high school principal than a partner—she wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

“What about Gonzales?” she asked the chief.

He shook his head. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a lot to go on. My guy in Rockfield hasn’t been able to get much detail yet and I don’t want to go snooping in the systems and announce our presence. I do know from searching online that he’s unmarried and he doesn’t have any children.”

“Okay. So nothing new there. So we focus on these three,” she said, pointing at the brief list of names on the page. “And I guess we wait to talk to Chad until the media scrutiny has died away. Not that I think he’ll tell us anything. I’ll go see Pamela Rivers.”

“Whoa,” Mike murmured. “You might have to rethink that.”

Jessie glared at him. “We’ve had this discussion. It’s my choice to involve myself in this investigation.”

He shook his head and pointed to the TV.

Jessie grimaced when she saw the screen. They had muted it again after the news report segued to the weather. She reached for the remote. “Sorry, Mike. I thought you were objecting to my involvement again.”

On the screen, Pamela Rivers was almost unrecognizable from the last time Jessie had seen her. She wore little makeup and a somber black pantsuit.

“What’s going on?” Jessie breathed.

The presenter handed Pamela a box of tissues. She took one and dabbed at her eyes. Jessie couldn’t help noticing that her face was screwed up and red. Whatever was upsetting Pamela looked real this time.

“Go on,” the presenter cooed in a reassuring tone. “Tell the viewers why you called me at home and begged me to invite you on tonight’s show.”

Pamela sniffed. “I just wanted to tell all of those haters out there to leave me alone.” She glanced at the presenter who nodded encouragingly. “You think it’s okay to email me, to call me. To turn up at my home? All because I don’t seem to be sufficiently heartbroken?”

Chief Daly looked at Jessie. Alarmed, she turned up the volume. The room was silent apart from the sound from the TV. Jessie felt sure none of them had even dared to move since they saw who was being interviewed.

“You’ve had people turning up at your home?” the interviewer asked quietly.

Pamela seemed to lose control then. She buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook violently. Finally, she seemed to get a hold of herself, as the presenter patted her back.

“Yes. People of all ages. Why is that okay? They come to my door and curse me. Call me a money grubbing… I won’t even repeat the words they used. I mean, it’s not like they know me.” She stared directly at the camera. “I was well off before I even met Johnny. I wasn’t after his money.”

“What were you after?”

Pamela’s face crumpled again. “His love.”

The presenter looked sympathetic. “It’s okay, Pamela. Take all the time you need.”

She took a deep gasp of breath. “Thanks. This is… I never expected to encounter so much hatred. I…” she closed her eyes and exhaled sharply. “The truth is, Johnny and I were about to announce our separation. His publicists had begged me to wait until they had worked out a schedule. And fool that I was, I agreed. They held the carrot of helping me with my book launch. In reality, Johnny and I were leading separate lives.”

“His death still shocked you?”

“Of course.” She nodded. “But in the same way as the death of an old acquaintance might. I should have been honest about this from the start. But again, the Rockfield Ravens publicity unit convinced me to play along. I guess I didn’t do a very good job of pretending to mourn the man who broke my heart by having an affair behind my back.”

The studio audience gasped loudly and Pamela reached for the box of tissues again.

“Turn it off,” Chief Daly said sharply. “I think we’ve seen all we need to see.”

“So that’s why she was acting so strangely,” Jessie said, shaking her head.

“It makes a lot of sense,” the chief agreed. “And while it narrows down our list, it still hasn’t pointed us in the right direction. We’ve got work to do.”

* * *

Jessie locked her door and tried not to focus on the media circus across the street. Especially not now that she was about to thrust herself into the even greater crowd outside of the Rockfield PD. She wasn’t going there, of course, but she may as well have been. The Rockfield Reporter offices were located two buildings away from the police station. She’d need to fight through the scrum in order to get in there. Plus there was the issue of parking. Aunt Bee had agreed to lend her the Camry for the drive, but finding a parking space was going to be a problem. Rockfield was much bigger than Springdale, but it was still a small place that hadn’t been built to cater for the whole state’s media.

Thankfully, she’d had the foresight to borrow the car the night before when they had made the plan, so at least she wasn’t going to have to walk all the way to Aunt Bee’s to collect the vehicle.

She sighed. She wasn’t relishing this idea, but at least her morning was going to be better than her afternoon. After speaking to Marvin, she was going to visit the Ravens’ head coach. Jessie couldn’t think of a more uninviting prospect than sitting down with that aggressive man first thing in the morning. Especially not one she suspected knew more about the two murders than met the eye.

Chapter 17

“Hello again, Jessie. What can I do for you this time?”

Jessie smiled and walked past Marvin into his office. She almost wanted to apologize for wasting his time, but she restrained herself.

She sat and waited for him to close the door behind them. “It’s this case. I wanted to talk to you about it.”

He sat and shook his head, smiling. “You sure are interested. How’s your book coming along?”

Jessie faltered but recovered quickly. “Well, I’ve had no choice but to shelve it. You haven’t heard about Chad Denver’s acquittal?”

He smiled. “Of course I have. What kind of journalist would I be if I worked right beside the police department investigating this case and I didn’t know what was going on?”

“You’ll know that it’s a non-story, then.”

He nodded.

Jessie grazed her bottom lip with her teeth. “Is it, though?”

He leaned forward, still smiling. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to be more direct.”

Jessie glanced around the room, wondering how she should play this. After her encounter with Chad the night before, she had realized she had the subtlety of an elephant. Her eyes scanned over the hundreds of frames and she remembered her last visit to Marvin’s office.

The picture. She had the strangest feeling that there was something she was missing. She shook her head. She didn’t have time to try and figure out what it was.

“Don’t you think it’s weird that Chad didn’t put up a defense? He just sits there in police custody as if he’s guilty as sin. And then there’s another murder.”

Marvin flushed. Jessie wondered why. She knew from spending time with Ken Dobbs that journalists thrived off conspiracy theories. Why was Marvin so defensive? And why had he still not mentioned his visit to Chad?

She thought back to the night before. Chad had been so rattled when she mentioned Marvin’s name. Why?