Fulfilling Promises (Red Starr, Book Five) (9 page)

“You know how busy the bar can get on a Friday evening,” Devyn reminded Trigger with a faraway look in her eyes. “Joey returned my call on the bar’s telephone that night and neither Isaac nor I had the time to answer it. The machine picked up and I didn’t get Joey’s message until around two-thirty in the morning. He apologized for missing dinner and then said he was going out of town for the weekend.”

“Did you try to call him back?” Trigger asked, wondering where Joey would have been going without anyone knowing. “Isaac told me they found Joey’s body down at the swamp where we used to have some of our high school parties. Did the police give you an approximate time of death?”

Devyn nodded as she released the hold on her hair. She stood up from the chair as if she wanted to pace, but the office was way too small for that. Instead, she slipped her hands into her back pockets and stood in front of the Vargas Girls wall calendar that, according to the year printed at the top, Mac must have pinned it up in 1965. He obviously favored the long-legged brunette in black stockings because it never made it past October of that year.

“They asked where I was on Saturday night around seven o’clock,” Devyn replied as she reached out and touched the old faded paper on the calendar with her finger. She eventually let it slide off, slipping her fingers back into the pocket of her jeans. “I was in my office doing paperwork and didn’t join Isaac until about nine-thirty or ten o’clock. That’s usually when things start picking up.”

“Let me guess,” Trigger offered, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all. “The police claim you could have left through the back exit without anyone seeing you, giving you a three hour window to drive to the swamp and then back.”

“That about sums it up,” Devon agreed resignedly as she took back her seat. She rested her elbows on her knees and pressed her knuckles to her soft, red lips. He remembered she had a penchant for cherry Chapstick, the kind that added a tinge of color to her lips. “I began receiving calls on Monday morning about Joey not opening up the garage. I called him a few times, but he never answered at his place or the garage. I thought maybe he was late getting back into town, but I didn’t get worried until that night. I was about to call the police when—”

“When they showed up at The Laughing Griffin looking for you,” Trigger said, finishing Devyn’s sentence. “Did Joey go out of town often?”

“No, but there were times he would go fishing with a few of his buddies.” Devyn reached out for a picture frame on the desk. Trigger had already mentally catalogued the items inside the small office. There were two pictures hanging on the wall—one with Mac, Trigger, and Joey celebrating in front of an old red and white 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air they’d restored. The second was of Joey and Trigger at their high school graduation. The frame Devyn was holding was a photo of Charlie Portwood and Joey on a beat-up old john boat with an antique twenty-horsepower Johnson Seahorse outboard motor. “He and Charlie would go a few times every year if Charlie could get the damned thing running.”

“I remember Charlie,” Trigger said fondly, looking at the frame in Devyn’s hand. “He transferred in from Corinth during his sophomore year. Have you spoken with him? Did they have plans and then Joey was a no-show?”

“I haven’t spoken to him personally, but the police already had by the time they released me earlier this morning.” Devyn gently placed the cheap wooden frame on the desk and then rubbed her eyes. Those hours of sleep hadn’t nearly been enough to erase some of her exhaustion. “The Staties followed up everything I told them. Charlie and Joey didn’t have any plans and I have no idea where Joey might have been headed.”

“Was Joey seeing someone other than Grace lately?” Trigger inquired, running possible scenarios through his mind on what might have happened. The computer had been on for a while now, but he hadn’t wanted to interrupt Devyn while she was describing what had taken place. “You mentioned he didn’t show up for work on Monday, but what about Friday? You said he skipped dinner with you on Thursday, so did he head out of town that night?”

“Grace and Joey were on another one of their breaks, but he wasn’t seeing anyone else that I know of.” Devyn was getting antsy, but Trigger needed a little more information before he placed another call to Starr. She mentioned on the phone that she was in Washington D.C., but that she would still make the necessary calls to those few contacts she had in Mississippi. She was also getting him a name of the best lawyer in the area should Devyn need him or her. Starr most likely had already informed the team of what had happened, but he would still call his team leader in the morning to give him a recap. “I’m assuming Joey had closed the garage on Friday evening as usual, especially since I didn’t receive any calls from angry customers until Monday.”

Trigger leaned forward and entered the administrative password. It still worked, for which he was thankful. The monitor’s screen flickered before the desktop appeared. Everything seemed to be in order, but he checked every place he could for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. He then scrolled through the dates and times the computer was last used.

“When were you here this morning?” Trigger asked as Devyn stood up and came around the desk to stand behind him.

“Around ten-thirty, give or take.” Devyn rested a hand on the desk beside his arm, her hair cascading down and pulling a memory from the time they’d been together. Trigger hesitated before placing the cursor above the security system’s icon. The time she gave had been the last one listed and the last login had occurred on Thursday at closing time. That meant the police hadn’t combed through the computer system, only the property. Why? Did they not have a complete warrant? This changed things and he wasn’t sure what he’d find on the cameras. He didn’t want her to see anything that would continue to haunt her nights. “John?”

“Yeah,” Trigger replied, going ahead and pressing the right side of the mouse. The files of the security footage appeared in a small white box, listed by dates and times. He wavered over Thursday’s folder. “Are you sure you want to see what could be on these recordings?”

Devyn answered by walking back around the desk and dragging the guest chair so that it was positioned beside his. It was a tight fit, but she made it work. Grief worked differently for everyone, but Devyn was very much like him…she needed to keep busy and work through it, giving her the time to mentally accept death while searching for the reason. In this case, the person responsible.

“Click it,” Devyn instructed before what sounded like her holding her breath.

Trigger opened up the video and together they watched as Joey completed an oil change right before closing up shop. The program allowed the ability for the user to fast forward, as well as view the different angles of various camera feeds. They spent the next two hours combing over every file of footage logged on the computer’s hard drive and backed up to the network drive, which could hold months of footage. The computer’s hard drive only retained a couple of days’ worth of recordings. Diesel came into the office every now and then to check on them before making inside rounds around the garage.

No one had been near the building the entire weekend, with the exception of Monday morning when Mrs. Crenshaw pulled into the parking lot. She rang the buzzer and then knocked on the door, but left shortly afterward. Mr. Ashbaw drove up in his 1941 Dodge WC pickup an hour later. He ended up walking around the entire building before giving up and leaving.

Monday evening was when red and blue flashing lights could be seen pulling into the parking lot. Two police cruisers pulled in and the officers remained inside their vehicles for approximately five minutes before getting out and approaching the building. They made a few radio calls and ended up punching in a code to the overhead door’s keypad and doing a cursory search to find nothing of note.

“Nothing,” Devyn said with defeat, sitting back in her chair. Trigger looked over at her and noticed the blemishes beneath her lashes were becoming darker. He really needed to get her back to her apartment so she could get some much-needed sleep. The police hadn’t been back to speak with her personally, which could only be a good thing. He hoped the rest of the night passed by uneventfully. “Not even when the police were here. They just showed up, put in the security code, and then searched the premises.”

“I’ll call the lead detective tomorrow morning, as well as the alarm company,” Trigger replied, shutting the computer down and then whistling for Diesel. “Let’s head back to the tavern. We aren’t going to be able to do anything tonight without having more information.”

Devyn only nodded, her disappointment evident that they hadn’t found anything. Her eyes were glued to the one other photograph on Joey’s desk that neither of them had mentioned. It was a recent picture of Joey and Devyn, smiling for the camera as they played darts at The Laughing Griffin. Trigger quietly picked it up after she’d already stood and made her way to the door. He grabbed the knife off the desk that he kept by his side and followed her out, wishing they’d been able to uncover some quick answers.

“Dev, we’ll find out who did this,” Trigger promised as he punched in the security code that would activate the alarm. The front door had been jimmied, but it wasn’t so bad that it couldn’t be secured against the offhand chance someone stopped by. He’d call first thing in the morning to have it fixed and outfitted with a deadbolt. His list for things to do tomorrow was growing. “It’s just going to take a little time.”

“I know,” Devyn replied with her back to him as she walked across the gravel to where the Jeep was parked. She pulled open the door before he could do it for her, allowing Diesel to jump in and then over the seat into the back. She finally met his gaze. “And it’s okay that you have to go at the end of your vacation. What I said about you leaving…that was me acting out in anger. It wasn’t easy to see Joey fade into the background and I blamed you. You said I shouldn’t apologize, but I will anyway. We all have our paths in this life and yours isn’t here in Amberton. It never was.”

Devyn got into the passenger side and closed the door before Trigger could respond. It was probably for the best, considering what he would have said had she not done so. Yes, vicious words had a way of being said during an argument, but some of the things she’d claimed just weren’t true. It was as if she thought he wasn’t the type of man to settle down. He was, but he wasn’t a man to
settle
…there was a big difference.

Eventually they would have to talk about their relationship. Trigger had thought of her every day he’d been gone in this past year and a half, not quite getting her out of his system. There was something between them that time hadn’t diminished. She was right when she said his path wasn’t here in Amberton, but he now questioned something himself. What if she wasn’t meant to be here either? What if he’d made the mistake of leaving her here when he should have asked her to come with him to San Diego all along?

‡

D
evyn quietly set
the glass coffee carafe back onto the burner. She’d already showered and dressed into a pair of white shorts instead of her usual jeans. She didn’t plan on working the bar tonight, appreciating Isaac’s loyalty to her and The Laughing Griffin. She’d thanked him last night, once again realizing his steadfast dependability deserved a raise. However, the bar was barely breaking even before all this recent mess started. God only knew what would happen now.

Diesel was enjoying his breakfast happily while Trigger was still sleeping on the couch. She’d lost her half-hearted argument that he should go stay with his parents. Both of them were keenly aware that a murderer was free to roam the streets of Amberton. Normally she was very strong-minded and got her way, but she’d been too tired to argue the merits of her point. He had removed his shirt and was only wearing his blue jeans, one bare foot on the ground while an arm was hooked over his eyes. The afghan he’d started out with had fallen to the floor, but she didn’t walk over to pick it up. She wasn’t ready to face him this morning.

Devyn had awakened in the middle of the night, hearing the shuffling of papers before she quickly succumbed once more to the dreams she couldn’t shake off. Some were good and some were bad, but at least she hadn’t woken up screaming as she had yesterday. The pain of losing Joey hadn’t lessened, but she was beginning to accept that he was gone.

Joey hadn’t wanted a fancy funeral with a coffin and all, which was going to upset a lot of the folks in town…especially his friends. Instead, he’d wanted Devyn to throw a celebration downstairs in the bar to commemorate his life and remember him the way he was. She could do that, but not quite yet. She wanted the person responsible behind bars before she celebrated anything. Her brother would understand that, wouldn’t he? She would set his urn next to that picture of them playing darts and they’d all have one last beer with Joey.

Speaking of which, the boxes of files they’d brought up from the Jeep had been put back together, although there were a few slips of paper left on the kitchen table. Devyn quietly pulled out a chair and sat down, careful not to spill her coffee. She picked up a pen that had been sitting off to the side, wanting to jot some things down before she forgot.