The Branson Beauty (7 page)

They all continued to stare at him. He stifled a sigh of exasperation and gestured up toward the blonde.

“Miss, if you would be so good as to get dressed. But first, I'm going to need for you to bring me your purse and your cell phone.”

Kelly snapped out of her stupor. “What? Why? Are you going to search me?”

Now Hank stifled a chuckle. No way would he be that stupid. “No, I'm not,” he said. “I also am not going to search your purse. But I am going to ask you to let me hold your cell phone. I need to ask you a few questions before you use it to call anyone and tell them about what has happened. You, too, Ryan.”

He held out his hand toward Ryan, who had not moved from the spot where he'd dropped his keys. This time, there was no attempt to disguise the hostility. He glared as he dug into the pocket of his khakis. He slapped the phone into Hank's hand and moved back toward his mother. Hank turned to look up the stairs. Kelly was just starting to stomp down them, which was impressive considering that she now wore big fuzzy slippers that should have muffled her footsteps. She walked forward and dropped her purse on the table in the middle of the foyer. She set her phone next to it.

“We can just go back in there,” Mrs. Nelson said, pointing toward the dining room. Hank shook his head and turned to Kelly. “If you would be so good as to get dressed—and bring your coat,” he said. She stomped back up the stairs.

“Where are you taking her?” Ryan asked.

“She—and you—need to come down to the station with me,” Hank said. The farther this kid was away from his mother, the better his interview would be. And he certainly didn't need Mrs. Nelson having a heart-to-heart with the replacement girlfriend while they were gone, so Kelly needed to come, too.

“The station,” Mrs. Nelson squawked. “Is he a suspect? What the hell? You can't talk to him without me. I'm his mother. I have parental rights.”

“How old are you?” Hank said to Ryan.

“Nineteen.”

“Then, no, ma'am, you do not have the right to be present. You may certainly drive yourself and wait at the station for our talk to be over with, but that's it.”

She started toward him with her fists clenched at her sides, before taking a breath and pulling herself back. “Then I want a lawyer. You can't talk to him without a lawyer.”

“Why?” Hank hoped his face registered a look of innocent surprise. “I just need to find out as much about Mandy as I can.” Pause. “We just need to have a chat. Don't we, son?”

Ryan glanced from Hank to his mother and then longingly out toward the car he'd just parked in the driveway. He looked back.

“Just a chat.” Hank smiled.

Ryan swallowed. “Okay,” he said. “I'll go.”

“Ryan!”

He turned toward his mother and whispered furiously, “If I don't go, he's going to think I have something to hide.”

Oh, how Hank loved that line of reasoning. Now he had to hustle the kid out of here before Mrs. Nelson talked sense into him. More stomping from the direction of the stairs signaled that Replacement Kelly was ready.

“Everyone bundled up?” he said and swung the door open. Mrs. Nelson, a shaking pillar of fury in a bathrobe, lost no time slamming it shut behind them. The motion triggered the front walkway's sensor light and flooded the entire yard with searing fluorescence that bounced off the swirling snowflakes, blinding him. Momentarily, he hoped.

 

CHAPTER

6

He and Ryan sat staring at each other. Hank had left Kelly with Sheila once they arrived at the substation on Shepherd of the Hills Expressway. It was a little outpost of a building that had a shoebox-sized lobby, two offices, and a holding cell. It came in handy when it wasn't practical to make the long, twisty drive to the main office in Forsyth. Like tonight.

“Where were you this evening?” Hank asked. Ryan started; he obviously had not expected that to be the first question.

“Uh … uh. I went for a drive,” he stammered.

“In a snowstorm?”

“Yeah, well. Um. I went up to the high school and just, you know, sat and thought for a while.”

“Thought about what?”

Ryan shrugged. “Stuff.”

He was as forthcoming as his mother had been. Great.

“How long where you up there?”

“Hmm. An hour or two.”

“Your mom didn't know you went out?”

Ryan looked at him like he was stupid. Good.

“Obviously not. You were there, right?”

Hank nodded. And waited. Ryan eventually filled the silence.

“I left after she and Kelly went to bed. Mom's pretty old-fashioned, so we were in separate bedrooms. Kelly didn't know I'd left, either.”

Maybe Mrs. Nelson is a better mother than I gave her credit for, Hank thought.

“What stuff?”

“Huh?”

“What stuff where you thinking about … up at the high school?”

“Oh, right. I don't know. School. Kelly. It's all pretty stressful. A lot more stressful than I thought it'd be.”

“How so?”

He shrugged again. “It's so much work. And Mom's calling all the time. Always telling me I'd better be getting her money's worth up there. Having all kinds of experiences and taking all kinds of classes. But then she wants me to come home all the time, too. She can … well, she can be a pain.”

Hank could only imagine.

“When was the last time you were home—before this weekend?” Hank asked.

“Christmas break,” he said. “I knew I'd be coming back this weekend for Gran's birthday. That's not something you miss.”

“And this is your second semester at St. Louis University?”

“Yeah.”

“And is that where you met Kelly?”

“Yeah. We had our University 101 orientation together. She's in a sorority.” He grinned.

“How long have you been seeing her?”

“Oh, about a month or two. Since right after—” He stopped. He'd figured out they were circling around to Mandy.

“Right after what?”

“Right after Christmas break,” he said slowly.

“And when, exactly, did you and Mandy break up?”

Ryan fidgeted in his seat. Hank waited.

“Right around then…” he said eventually.

Hank's eyebrow went up. “Right around when, exactly?”

Ryan yanked at the lock of hair that kept falling into his eyes. He looked out the window. He chewed his lip. Then he pushed at the hair again.

“She … we … it's complicated.”

Hank almost snorted. If this kid thought life with two living girlfriends was complicated, wait until he had to deal with the reality of one who had been murdered and one who knew she'd been two-timed. Add to that the fact that he was currently Hank's top suspect, and Ryan the Boyfriend's life was not looking simple.

Ryan got a grip on himself. He straightened in his chair and cleared his throat. “We broke up two weeks ago. It was a mutual decision.”

“Then can you explain to me why she was five hours away from her university, without her parents knowing, and in the same place where your family was having a large celebration?”

“No,” Ryan said flatly. “I can't.”

Hank leaned forward and put his arms on the desk in front of him.

“Did you know she was on the boat?”

“No.”

“Did you know she was in Branson at all?”

“No.”

“When was the last time you saw her?”

“Christmas break.”

“When was the last time you talked to her?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“Was that when you broke up?”

“Yes.”

“Who broke up with whom?”

“
Whom
? Really?” He paused and gritted his teeth. “I said it was mutual.”

“But you didn't tell your mother.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Not when it happened.”

“Well, I guess not. I was … I was getting over it.”

“With Kelly?”

Ryan shoved his hair out of his face again.

“Why didn't you tell your mother?”

“I didn't want to, okay? You've met her. I didn't want a lecture.”

“And she would have lectured you?”

“No. But she would have told Gran. And Gran would have lectured me.”

“But your gran was okay with you bringing someone else to her party?”

The shrug again. “I didn't ask. I just figured if I showed up with Kelly, there was nothing anyone could do, and they'd all just have to be cool about it.”

“Is that why you brought her? To give you cover from your gran?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

Hank did not see much of a future for the two of them after Kelly found all this out. And she was the lucky one. He suddenly felt very tired.

“I'm going to ask you this one more time, Ryan. Did you know that Mandy Bryson came up from the University of Oklahoma this weekend?”

“No.”

“Did you know she was on the
Branson Beauty
today?”

“No.”

“Did you see her on the
Branson Beauty
today?”

“No.”

“Did you kill her?”

“No.”

Hank leaned back, away from the desk. The kid had looked him right in the eye during every one of those answers. Except the last one. Just hiding the tears suddenly in his eyes, or hiding the lie? That was the question, wasn't it?

A door slammed, and they heard Sheila talking to someone. Then Mrs. Nelson's voice cut through everything. Ryan sagged in his chair and actually looked relieved. Hank was surprised it had taken her this long. He'd had more time with her son than he had expected he would. Maybe he should have been grateful for the snow after all.

The door to the office popped open, and Hank turned to smile at Mrs. Nelson. She was still furious, but that had not prevented her from taking the time to put on a nicely pressed pantsuit and a full face of makeup. Behind her hovered a man who had to be the defense lawyer.

“Ryan, there you are. Sheriff, this interview is over.”

How very TV-sounding. Hank's smile got bigger.

“Of course, Mrs. Nelson. Your son and I were just finishing up. Thank you for coming to get him. That was very kind of you.”

The fuel yanked from her fire, Mrs. Nelson stopped halfway into the room. The lawyer, whose own outfit looked as if it had been pulled out of the clothes hamper five minutes before, bumped into her, and the two stumbled forward. Now Hank's smile was genuine. Keep everyone off-balance.

Sheila stepped into the doorway. “I've already told them that no one leaves town until we say they can.”

Hank nodded. Both he and Sheila knew they couldn't physically keep the family Nelson from leaving Branson, but Ryan and his mother didn't need to know that. With a bustle of coats and indignant mutterings, they left. Hank resisted the urge to lay his head down on the desk and got up to get a cup of coffee instead.

*   *   *

Sheila's talk with Kelly had confirmed that the two had been dating since before Christmas. And she'd had no idea Ryan had another girlfriend. And boy, Sheila had said with a chuckle, was she pissed off about it.

Hank pondered all the information from Sheila as he drove home, tapping the steering wheel as the heat blew on high. Ryan had invited Kelly just on Friday to come down for his grandmother's party on Sunday. She hadn't wanted to—she had a math test on Tuesday—but he had really seemed to want her to come.

Kelly had not seen anyone matching Mandy's description on the boat. She had not heard anyone talking about Mandy, although Ryan's cousin and his old high school friends had acted strangely toward her, which made sense now that she knew the situation into which he'd forced her. His grandmother had been perfectly sweet to her, but when she thought about it, the old lady had not said anything at all to Ryan after he introduced her as his girlfriend.

Well, Hank thought, at least the grandmother appears to be placing blame on the proper person. Now it just remained for Hank to figure out whether Ryan was the proper person for his purposes, too. He knew he wouldn't get another crack at the kid now that Mrs. Nelson had lawyered him up, but he hoped the old lady would be helpful. He'd get to her first thing in the morning. That and have a chat with the coroner, whom he really hoped would be able to tell him a lot more about Mandy Bryson's death than he knew right now.

He slowly pulled up to the house and into the shoveled driveway. Good God, had Duncan been out doing that? The guy was seventy-one years old. That was all he needed—his father-in-law dropping dead of a heart attack just so Hank could park closer to the house. He jabbed at the garage door opener, but the door didn't rise. Must have been frozen shut. He left the car in the driveway and made sure there wasn't a stubborn Scotsman collapsed in a snow drift on his way to the front door. He let himself in quietly, automatically avoiding the squeaky floorboard in the entryway. He stopped and just stood there, inhaling the faint scent of a now-extinguished wood fire and the chicken stew that Dunc must have fixed for dinner. The clock ticked in the hallway. It had to be past four. He sat down on the floor—the bench and the big shoe brush were in the mudroom attached to the garage, where they all usually came in—and wrestled off his snow boots and then his coat. Then he padded into the kitchen to see if there was any stew left.

There was. He stuck some in the microwave and then tip-toed down the hallway to the kids' room. They were both sound asleep, like any sensible human being should be at this hour, he thought. He pulled Benny's covers up over him and then turned to Maribel, who was bathed in the blue and yellow light from that ridiculous smiley moon night-light she loved so much. His throat tightened and he turned quickly away.

He headed back for his stew, ate it quickly, and then crawled into bed. Maggie, as usual, didn't even stir. He lay there, staring at the shadows on the ceiling, until his body finally overruled his racing mind and he slept.