Midnight Secrets (29 page)

Gibby slumped back into her chair, and her eyes went unfocused as she remembered. “We were all stunned. There’d never been any indication that Beckett would do anything like that. When he was younger, he had a temper, but we hadn’t seen any indication of that since Maggie came into his life. She just seemed to calm him.” She smiled sadly and added, “You know, like she was his center and as long as he could concentrate on her, nothing else mattered. When you girls came along, I’ve never seen a happier man in all my born days.

“Anyway, I wasn’t at the country club when he and your mama had their argument. I heard about it, of course. Esther Lovell called me right after it happened.” She waved her hand in her fluttering way. “You know she was always the biggest busybody.”

Savannah’s fingers gripped the edge of the table. Rushing Gibby would do no good. She would tell the story her way, in her own time.

“She said everyone in the club could hear them hollering at each other. Your mama, as you know, had the sweetest disposition. So when Esther told me about the argument, I just figured she was elaborating, as was her way. Then, when the police called me …” She swallowed hard. “Your grandfather was out of town, so I had to go over …”

“Oh, Aunt Gibby, I didn’t know you had to be involved.”

“I insisted on seeing them both. Which was stupid. Chief Mosby certainly didn’t need an identification. But I just refused to believe it was true.” Breath shuddered from her body. “Those are images I’ll never get out of my head.”

Savannah took both of her hands and squeezed them. She felt terrible for making Gibby recount that time. Was she being selfish, bringing this up when it was most likely just wishful thinking on her grandfather’s part?

Gibby cleared her throat and continued, “After the initial shock subsided, Daniel started to question what we had been told. Chief Mosby refused to investigate further, saying the case was closed.”

“And he just let it go at that? The letters he wrote Grandmother made it seem that he was threatened in some way.”

Gibby sighed. “I don’t know anything about that, darlin’. Daniel refused to talk about it anymore. I figured he finally accepted the truth and just didn’t want to discuss it.”

But he hadn’t accepted the truth. The letters she’d read showed that his doubt continued but something or someone had warned him to let it go. Other than Mosby, had he been threatened by someone else? If so, who? The real killer?

“Thank you, Gibby. I know this was a hard thing to talk about. I’m sorry it brought back bad memories.” Savannah stood and leaned over and kissed Gibby’s soft, wrinkled cheek.” I’ve got to go.”

“I know what you’re thinking, Savannah Rose. It’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. Stirring up those old memories won’t do anyone any good.”

Denying evil in your midst was natural. Gibby was an elderly woman who had lived in Midnight her whole life. Upsetting the equilibrium of what was safe and secure took more than just courage, it took determination.

“Don’t worry. I’m good at wheedling the truth out of people without them even realizing it.”

Gibby nodded, her relief obvious. While Savannah would do everything she could not to upset her aunt, there was no way she was going to just let this go. The awful and terrible thoughts she’d had about her father for the last eighteen years haunted her. What if he was innocent? Instead of questioning what she had been told, she had accepted that the man she adored didn’t exist and was a monster instead.

If Beckett Wilde was innocent and had been murdered, too, she would stop at nothing to discover the real killer. Heaven help anyone who tried to get in her way.

Chapter

Twenty-two

Three hours later, Savannah was headed back to the house. Exhaustion dimmed her reeling thoughts. She had spent several eye-straining hours reading old newspapers and was no closer to finding the truth. In fact, she thought dismally, she felt as if she was even further from the truth than before.

Midnight Tales,
aptly named since it held more gossip than real news, was now a weekly newspaper. Eighteen years ago, it had been printed daily. The library had a copy of every paper the newspaper had produced on microfiche. The murder-suicide had been such big news that the newspaper had actually printed two papers a day for seven days. Every salacious event had been painstakingly detailed. The police chief, the coroner, the maid who’d found her mother’s body, and all the people who had heard the argument between Maggie and Beckett at the country club had all been interviewed. Each interview seemed to lead to the same conclusion—that Beckett Wilde had killed his wife in a drunken rage and then committed suicide.

Savannah remembered that her grandfather had stopped his subscription to the newspaper after her parents’ deaths but she hadn’t asked why. She had certainly never read the articles until now but could see why they had infuriated Daniel Wilde, especially if he believed his son was innocent. The articles had painted her father as a philanderer and a drunken womanizer. The eyewitness accounts of Beckett’s argument with his wife were particularly damning.

There had been shouting. Savannah couldn’t discount it since there were so many witnesses. However, her sweet-natured mother losing her temper and making a scene was so out of character. What had set Maggie Wilde off?

Tomorrow she would begin a low-key investigation. As she had promised Aunt Gibby, she would be as subtle as possible. Not only for Gibby’s sake but also for her own. Having the town gossips scurrying around with news that Savannah was investigating Beckett’s and Maggie’s deaths after all these years wasn’t something she wanted revealed. Not only because she simply hated being the subject of gossips but also because she didn’t know where this would lead. What if the murderer still lived in Midnight?

Savannah blew out a relieved sigh as she turned onto Wildefire Lane, seeing a hot bubble bath and a glass of wine in her immediate future. She needed the downtime to allow her thoughts to coalesce and to make plans.

Tomorrow, her first order of business would be to talk to the former police chief, Harlan Mosby. He wasn’t in good health and was in a hospital in Mobile. Had he been involved? Or had he been paid to shut the investigation down? If not, then why had he made those vague threats to her grandfather about taking care of his granddaughters?

Her mind on the myriad avenues she might have to pursue, she was almost at the house before she saw that she had company. Zach’s car was parked in the drive and he was sitting in a rocker on the porch, waiting for her.

Should she reveal her suspicions to him? What proof did she have yet other than the writings of a lonely, brokenhearted man? Besides, this thing with Zach was too new. The way they had parted this morning showed just how fragile things were. Introducing something of this magnitude was sure to create problems.

By the time she’d parked and was headed up the walkway, Savannah knew she would wait until she had more fodder for her suspicions. She shushed the voice inside her head that told her she didn’t completely trust him.

Zach watched Savannah approach and tried to gauge her mood. The way he’d walked out on her this morning hadn’t exactly been his finest hour. Getting her car serviced and detailed had been in part an apology for stomping out the door like a six-year-old brat. He’d also done it simply because it was in his nature to take care of her. He had missed ten years of that, and if she’d let him, he wanted to make up for it.

The next few minutes might well tell him how his plans were going to go.

She looked good. Maybe a little tired but still so damn beautiful his teeth hurt. He’d done a lot of thinking over the last few hours and hoped like hell that the direction he planned to take would work. Glancing around at his handiwork, he suddenly wondered just how it could work. This had to be the lamest way to win a woman’s affection since cavemen stopped clubbing their women over the heads and started wooing them instead.

“Hi,” Zach said.

Her smile was bright, if a little wary, and Zach took that as a good sign.

“Hi yourself.” She gestured at the sack at his feet. “Whatcha got there?”

“A little bribe.”

She sat down in the rocker next to him and peeked into the bag. Laughing, she shook her head. “You’re the only man I know who would try to bribe a woman with purple hull peas.”

Something tightened in his chest as he heard the familiar beautiful sound. He hadn’t realized how much he missed the sound of her laughter until she’d come back home. “I remembered how you used to like them. I helped Mrs. Lyman out today … she gave me some fresh vegetables from her garden.”

Astonishment widened her eyes. “Sour Lyman?”

Zach snorted. “I’d forgotten that was her nickname in school. Were you in her science class?”

“Thankfully, no. She retired the year before I could take her class. I remember seeing her in school. She always seemed angry about something.”

He couldn’t deny that. Delores Lyman had been one of the most reviled teachers in school, seeming to go out of her way to make her students hate her. Zach had taken her class, and despite working his ass off studying, she’d still almost flunked him. He had thought then and still believed that a lot of her attitude had to do with loneliness. She had no family and few friends. Since he’d come home, he’d made a point of dropping in on her at least once a week to make sure she was okay. And though the elderly woman acted as if he it was a huge imposition for him to visit, she always had lemonade and cookies for him. On his lunch break today, he had fixed her leaky faucet. In return, she had offered him fresh peas, okra, squash, and tomatoes.

“The wine’s a nice touch.” She took the glass of wine he offered her and sipped appreciatively. “Red wine, soft music in the background, and purple hull peas. Chief Tanner, you sure do know a way to a girl’s heart.”

He hoped to hell that was true. “You don’t have to cook them if you don’t want to. I just thought it’d be nice to sit out here in the early evening breeze, sip wine, and shell peas.”

“I haven’t shelled peas since I left home.”

She pulled a handful of peas pods from the sack and took the empty bowl he handed her. For a while, the only sounds were Chopin’s Nocturne in C Minor, chirping crickets, and the plop of raw peas falling into bowls. His muscles loosened with each second that passed. Maybe this wasn’t the most sophisticated way to win a woman’s affection, but Savannah had always been different. The tension that had been on her face had eased, replaced by a relaxed serenity.

She broke the silence at last. “How did everything go with Henson and Dayton today? I’m surprised I didn’t hear any gossip about their arrests.”

“They’re already out of jail.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I figured. How much was the bond set for?”

“No bond. There weren’t any charges.”

She stopped shelling and gawked at him. “No charges? You caught them in the act. How could there be no charges?”

From her perspective, he could see where she’d think letting them go was stupid. Yes, he lawfully could have charged them and they might have even served a few months in jail, depending upon which judge drew the case. But Zach saw no purpose in that. The crimes had been against him personally, not anyone else. When Zach had told Henson that a requirement for his release was to call his insurance company and withdraw the claims, he’d been pleased to learn that Henson had never filed any. Maybe the man wasn’t as stupid as he looked. Insurance companies took a very grim view of insurance fraud.

“I let them go with a warning. Didn’t see a need to take it further.”

“That’s ridiculous, Zach. After what Henson did to you? And Dayton is an officer of the law. He should be held to a higher standard.”

“What Henson did years ago has no bearing on this case. And Dayton’s no longer an officer of the law. Both he and Henson know what will happen if anything similar occurs.”

She shook her head. “I never thought you’d be such a pacifist.”

“I’m a person who doesn’t see everything in black or white. These men learned their lesson.”

“How can you not want revenge against Henson?”

“Henson means nothing to me, then or now. Would I want to smash his face in? Hell yeah. There was a time when that’s all I could think of … I even concentrated on getting stronger and trained like a demon with the intent of coming back here and beating the hell out of him.”

“What changed your mind?”

“I grew up, Savannah. The man is more than twice my age and has arthritis. I could beat the shit out of him with one hand, but if I did, just who the hell wins? Henson for making me lower my standards? Me for being able to knock some old man down who did the same thing to me ten years ago? What’s the point? To make myself feel better? Hurting a man who is nothing to me would mean absolutely nothing. I don’t see a point in violence for violence’s sake.”

She was silent for so long, Zach figured she was probably not only questioning his judgment as chief of police but also his manhood. He didn’t care a lot what people thought of him, but he did care about Savannah’s opinion. Hopefully, she would understand someday, even if she didn’t agree with his methods.

“What did you tell your deputies about the arrest? Surely that’s going to get out.”

“I told them that if I heard any talk, I knew exactly who had spread the rumors and they would be fired.” He shrugged. “It’s over and done with as far as I’m concerned.”