The Branson Beauty (9 page)

“And they knew Mandy?”

“Oh, yes. The whole family knew Mandy. She was always around, before they both went off to school. Ashley adored her. I think they really related to each other, both being only children and all.”

“And Jeffrey and Patricia? They have a good marriage?”

“Oh, why, yes, I suppose. A perfectly ordinary one, at least. They've been married twenty-five years. Waited a bit too long to have Ashley, if you ask me, but they were both very invested in their careers. Jeffrey is a lawyer up in Springfield, and Patricia runs the law office for him.”

A lawyer. Great.

“He was terribly agitated when the boat ran aground. He had several clients he appeared to desperately need to contact, but there was no cell phone reception. He was ridiculous—moving all over the lounge, trying to get a signal. I think he even went outside on the deck at one point. At least he kept the damn thing in his pocket during lunch. He is my polite child.” She looked pointedly at Hank. He chose not to take the bait.

“Other guests?” he asked.

“My daughter, whom you've met. And honestly, it's her I would have expected to show up with an uninvited date. She's always got some boyfriend or other. That's why I was so happy with Ryan and Mandy. They were going steady. They were stable. I so hoped Ryan wasn't going to turn out like his mother.”

“So she's divorced from Ryan's father?” Hank asked.

“Yes. They divorced when Ryan was five. She played around for a while, then she married that idiot Barney Lambert. Oh, I begged her not to. Anybody could see it wouldn't last. And it didn't. Two years. I took my wedding present back.”

She paused and took a sip of tea.

“It really hurt Ryan. He had just gotten attached to Barney when Michelle ended the whole thing. The only good thing to come out of it was the money. She took him for half of everything, which was much more than I'd ever thought he was worth. After that, she's been able to afford the lifestyle she always wanted—not working, lots of travel, nice clothes. You saw that monstrous house she lives in, didn't you?”

Hank nodded. Mrs. Honneffer continued. “And the money has certainly helped her relationship with Jeffrey and Patricia. She was always hinting that they should be more generous with her, help her out financially, since he was the big-time lawyer. And Jeffrey always believed, as I'm sure he'd tell you, that she should get a damn job. Since her divorce, though, that has stopped. She doesn't pester him, and he doesn't lecture her. That's been nice.”

“And how did Michelle feel about Mandy?” Hank steered the conversation back.

“As far as I know, she liked her fine. I think she genuinely couldn't understand why Ryan would want to stay with one person for so long, especially at his age, but she liked Mandy anyway.”

They both took drinks of tea. Mrs. Honneffer kept her hands, swollen and bent from arthritis, curled around her cup as Hank asked who else had attended the party.

“Several of my friends. Doris and Leonard Dovecoat. She was in fairly dire straits by the time you arrived. She never could handle stress. Thank God the paramedics had oxygen. I thought she was going to pass out.

“Eight ladies from church. I can get you their full names. And Regina Price and Lois Campbell. They're both in wheelchairs. As is Malcolm Turner, who broke his hip last month, poor man. Can't even get out of his wheelchair without a hoist. I don't think he went to the bathroom the entire time.”

“Did you?”

Mrs. Honneffer looked puzzled. “Did I what?”

“Did you use the restroom? Did you leave the lounge at all?”

“Oh,” she said. “Why yes, of course. You know how long we were stranded out there.”

“Did you see others leave the lounge also?”

“Yes. I'd guess everyone did at some point or another. You had to go out into the hallway to get to the restrooms. But no one was gone for very long. I don't think anyone had any desire to go down into the main dining room, or outside onto the deck. We were content—” She smiled weakly. “Relatively speaking, of course—we were content to stay right where we were.”

She took another sip of tea and glanced at his cup. “Do you need more, Sheriff?”

“No, thank you, ma'am,” he said. The stuff was obviously decaf and not doing him a bit of good. He'd have to stop for coffee somewhere. “Was there anyone else on your guest list?” So far, she hadn't mentioned any of the teenagers he'd seen sulking on the floor.

“Oh, yes. I'm sorry. I got sidetracked. Ryan had friends. Since he was only down for the weekend, he had asked if he could invite a few people he'd been in high school with, friends who have stayed down here instead of going to school. There were two of them. I don't remember their names. One of them was a very pretty blonde who didn't say a word until the paramedic showed up. She must like a man in uniform. I know I did.”

He had to go. He had so much work to do. So many people to interview. He picked up his cold cup of decaffeinated tea and settled back in his chair. “Really?”

Mrs. Honneffer smiled, and he saw the wrinkled remnants of what her man in uniform must have known so long ago.

“Frank was so handsome. He'd just gotten back from Korea, where he'd been a lieutenant in the army. We met at a welcome-back-the-troops dance. I was twenty-two. Quite long in the tooth, you know. My mother made me go. She said it was my last shot at a husband. I was so peeved that I vowed I wouldn't talk to any man at all. Then I saw Frank. We were married three months later.”

Hank let her go on, about the kids, the lean years, the eventual success with the furniture store, the retirement, the declining health, and then Frank's death at seventy-three from a stroke. Talking about that well-worn sorrow helped her shift her attention away from today's fresh grief. He left her with that.

Back in the car, he read a text from Sam. Albert the Moron was still practically comatose at the hospital. Hank sighed. There was no point in going back there, then. Another message came in as he sat there staring at his phone. A reporter had called, asking about the murder. Fantastic. He called Sam, who was still at the station.

“What's up, Chief?”

“How'd the reporter find out?”

“Nobody here. But the body is up in Springfield for the autopsy. Could've been someone on that end. I didn't tell him anything. I swear.”

Hank grunted. He couldn't put off that press release any longer. He'd go back to the office and get that over with before he headed up to Springfield himself. At least going there would put him out of the reach of the media. He wanted to talk to a reporter about as much as he wanted to talk to Michelle Nelson again.

*   *   *

The roads were getting better. He made it back to the station in half the time it had taken him to get out to Mrs. Honneffer's house, and he only had to pull one driver over for using the road like a personal slalom course. Maybe things were looking up. He walked into the office and found Tony Sampson, the boat's first mate, sitting in one of the cheap plastic chairs in the lobby. The kid leapt to his feet.

“Hello, sir. How are you today, sir?”

Hank grinned. “Just fine, Tony. You here to finish giving your statement?”

“Yes, sir. I was told to come in. Will it be that lady I talked to on the boat?”

“No,” Hank said. “She's not here right now. You'll be speaking to Deputy Karnes. He should be out in a minute.” He glanced up at the clock on the wall. It had stopped. Cheap government junk. Tony noticed and poked at the phone in his hand. It looked bigger than the smartphones Hank was used to seeing. Headphones dangled from it.

“It's eight fifty-five
A.M.
,” Tony said.

“What were you listening to?” Hank asked.

“Oh.” Tony paused. “Different stuff.” He waved the phone enthusiastically. “This is the brand-new one. It has enough space to hold thousands of songs, or at least a couple of movies. It's awesome.”

“Come in handy on the boat?” Hank asked.

“Heck, yeah,” Tony replied. “I just download them before work, and I'm all set.”

The Pup bounded around the corner.

“I'm ready for you, Mr. Sampson.”

“Hold up, Sam. I need to talk to you first.” Hank pointed toward the back offices. Tony remained standing, looking from Hank to Sam, unsure of what to do. His eyes finally rested on Hank and he sank slowly into his chair.

“We'll have you out of here soon, Tony,” Hank said as he walked away. Once in his office, he wrote the press release with Sam hanging over his shoulder offering suggestions.

“I knew a girl in college who was in communications, and she always said that you start with the who, what, when, where, and why,” Sam said.

“She went to
college
to learn that?” Hank asked.

“Well, more than that, of course,” said Sam, ignoring the sarcasm. “But it seemed worth bringing up, cuz right now, you've got three long sentences, and you haven't even said yet who was killed or where.”

Hank scowled at the screen. The Pup was right. He deleted his useless sentences and started over.

“… and then her senior year, she decided to go into PR, and by that time—wait, shouldn't you put that the victim was a student at OU?”

Hank smacked the return key. “No. Let them figure that out on their own. I'm not making their job any easier.” He moved out of Sam's way and jabbed his finger at the screen. “Would your PR friend approve of that?”

Sam skimmed it and nodded. “You've got the four we know. In the first two sentences, so that's definitely better.” He leaned back from the computer. “I sure wish we had a
why
, though. We'd be a lot closer to solving it.”

For a twenty-five-year-old pup who still insists on Froot Loops for breakfast and continues to trip over his own feet, Sam comes up with some surprisingly mature conclusions sometimes, Hank thought as he emailed the press release out to the various local news desks.

Then he ran down the staffing situation, which was as bleak as he'd feared. Everyone he had was out dealing with weather-related ridiculousness, except for him and Sam, road-tripping Sheila, Duane—who was still stuck at the hospital guarding the
Beauty
's captain—and the deputy they'd stationed out to watch the boat itself at the deserted dock. It was basically just the two of them to interview God knew how many people.

And he needed to go to Springfield. He was tempted to avoid the normally half hour drive up there and just call the doctor for the results, but he'd always gone to these things in person at his old job. He wasn't going to start cutting corners now. Not with his first Branson County case.

*   *   *

Hank walked down the hallway and into the morgue. None of the counties in southwest Missouri created enough business (thank God) to employ their own forensic pathologists. Instead, they all used Dr. Whittaker, who apparently had been doing it forever. Hank had never met him.

“Well, hello there,” boomed a deep voice as Hank swung open the door. He blinked at the short, very old, roly-poly man. The overhead lights bounced off a bald head so shiny Hank suspected the good doctor actually polished it. He peeled off an exam glove and stuck out his hand. “You must be the new sheriff in town.”

Like Hank hadn't heard that one before. He shook hands and gestured toward the sheet-covered body. “Shall we get started?”

Whittaker went on as if he hadn't heard. Maybe he hadn't. Hank was having trouble pinpointing how old the man was.

“So you're the one the county commissioners thought so highly of. Dazzled them with your big-city experience, did you?”

“I did work for the police department in Kansas City, yes,” Hank said.

Whittaker gave him a once-over with blue eyes that were going a little rheumy but still managed to appear sharp. Hank felt as if he were going through the job interview all over again.

“And they figured you'd be a good one to finish out Darrell Gibbons's term, did they?”

“Yes, sir,” Hank replied.

“How's he doing up in the legislature, anyway?”

“I wouldn't know,” Hank said. “He … ah … he seems to be busy. We have not had a chance to talk.”

Whittaker nodded knowingly. Hank wondered how close he had been to Gibbons. They must have worked together for years.

“Good ol' Darrell. He's very suited for that political life. What about you?” Whittaker asked cheerfully. “You going to run for sheriff next year? Get elected instead of just appointed?”

Hank tried not to frown. “I hadn't really given it much thought,” he said. “I've been a little busy.” Again, he pointed toward the occupied exam table.

“Oh. Oh, yes. The autopsy. Yes, yes.” Whittaker chuckled and bounced across the room. “Let's get started, shall we?”

He pulled back the sheet and started pointing.

“I'll do the whole thing, of course, but it's pretty obvious she was strangled.” He moved her hair out of the way. “Bruising on the throat, petechial hemorrhages in the eyes.”

Hank stood with his hands in his pockets as Whittaker moved around the head of the table, gesturing dramatically with his hands.

“Cut on the back of the skull. Prior to death. Heavy object, not particularly sharp. The start of some bruising, but not much, so she was killed pretty quickly after.”

“So she was hit from behind. What about when she was strangled? Was the killer facing her?”

Whittaker lifted up her head to take a look at the bruising on the back of her neck, then laid her back down with a
clunk
that made Hank wince.

“I'd say so. Whoever did this had to have been looking straight at her.”

 

CHAPTER

8

After finishing with the good doctor, Hank stopped by the law office of Honneffer & Boskins, which was not closed for the holiday, or the weather. At least they had the heat going and served some pretty good coffee.