Murder by the Slice (23 page)

She knew he was looking for a promise from her. She couldn’t make that commitment—not as long as the case was still unsolved—but at least now she was inclined to believe him.

“I’ll have to think about it,” she hedged. “My son is a deputy sheriff, you know, and by not telling him, I’m withholding evidence. Not only that, but now I’ve made Sam here an accessory to that, too.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Sam told her without hesitation. “You just do whatever you think is right, Phyllis. I’ll back you all the way.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you.” She looked at Russ again. “I’m not going to say anything … for now. But you know what you need to do?”

“What?” he asked warily.

“You need to tell Marie about it yourself.”

“I couldn’t do that. I just couldn’t.”

“Why not, if you didn’t do anything wrong?”

Russ didn’t have an answer. He slumped back against the seat and muttered something.

“I know you don’t want to hurt her,” Phyllis said, “but if this comes out, she’ll be a lot more hurt by knowing that you lied to her.”

“I didn’t lie to her. I never told her anything, one way or the other.”

“It’s the same thing as lying.”

He sighed and shrugged. “I’ll think about it.”

Phyllis reached for her purse. They were done here. When she opened it and took out some bills, Russ said, “No, I’ve got the coffee. Since you’re not blackmailing me, it’s the least I can do.”

“You’ve still got too big a mouth on you, Teasipper,” Sam said.

Russ didn’t say anything, and Phyllis and Sam slid out of the booth and left him sitting there, staring dispiritedly at the table.

“What do you think?” Phyllis asked when they were back in the car and heading toward Weatherford again. “Was he telling the truth?”

“About what part of it?” Sam said.

“Any of it. Was he having an affair with Shannon or not?”

Sam considered for a moment, then said, “Hard to be sure either way. He strikes me as a fella who’s not just real good at resistin’ temptation. But he
could’ve
been tellin’ the truth.”

“It’s hard to believe that Shannon would chase after him like that.”

“Now that part of it, I reckon I believe. More than once when I was coachin’, the mama of one of my players would come up to me and flat-out proposition me.”

Phyllis glanced over at him. “You’re kidding. I can’t imagine a woman acting that way.”

He nodded solemnly. “It happens. Lucky for me I was a happily married man.”

And that happy marriage had continued right up until the day that cancer had claimed Sam’s wife, Phyllis knew. Once in a while she caught glimpses of the pain that still lurked in his eyes.

“What do we do now?” she asked. “If there was no affair, would Russ or Marie or Joel Dunston have any motive for killing Shannon?”

“What if Shannon was gettin’ tired of Tyler puttin’ her off?” Sam suggested. “What if she told him to either go along with what she wanted, or she’d tell Marie they’d been doin’ it anyway?”

“Russ really didn’t want Marie to find out about it.” Phyllis nodded slowly. “Shannon had a history of doing whatever was necessary to get what she wanted. I wouldn’t put it past her to threaten Russ like that.”

“So there’s your motive again,” Sam said. “Or maybe Shannon’s ex-husband found out what she was up to and
thought
that she’d been carryin’ on with Tyler all along, even when they were still married. There’s another one.”

Phyllis sighed in exasperation. “So even if everything Russ told us is true, we didn’t really eliminate anyone as a suspect, did we?”

“Not as far as I can see.”

“Then what, exactly, did we accomplish?”

“Well, we annoyed a Teasipper,” Sam said. “That’s always worth somethin’.”

Chapter 22

Late that afternoon, Mike stopped by the house. “I can’t stay very long,” he said as he took off his hat and sat down in the living room with Phyllis and Sam. “Tonight’s Halloween, and I want to get home in time to take Bobby trick-ortreating. He was too young to go last year, but he ought to enjoy it this year.”

Phyllis thought that her grandson was probably still too young to know what would be going on, but she figured Mike was enthusiastic enough that it wouldn’t matter. Tonight was more for him than it would be for Bobby. And for the cute pictures to put into the family photo albums, of course.

“Bring him by here if you get a chance,” she said with a smile. “I want to see him in his costume.”

“Okay.” Mike turned his hat over a couple of times, and Phyllis knew he was about to get to the real reason for his visit. “We got a search warrant for Gary Oakley’s house and had a good look around. He rents a place out on Peaster Highway.”

“What did you find?” Sam asked.

“Well, we were looking for that PTO cash box, or any of the things that were stolen from the school in that earlier burglary. The sheriff figured that if we found any of that stuff in Mr. Oakley’s possession, that would be the last bit of evidence we needed to convince the DA to charge him with murder.”

“Loot from the previous burglary wouldn’t establish that he was in the school office on Saturday and took that cash box,” Sam pointed out.

“That’s right, but it doesn’t really matter.”

“Because you didn’t find anything,” Sam guessed.

“Not a thing,” Mike admitted with a sigh. “There were specific items we were looking for that were listed on the warrant, but we tossed the place pretty thoroughly, of course, just in case he had anything else he shouldn’t have. The place was clean. No guns, drugs, or anything else that an ex-convict shouldn’t have. Based on that search, we couldn’t even charge him with animal cruelty, because those three dogs of his are all healthy and well cared for. Their vaccinations are even up to date.”

“So it looks like Gary was tellin’ the truth when he said he’s gone straight since he got out of prison.”

Mike nodded. “So it appears. Other than lying on his job applications. That can be prosecuted as a felony.”

Sam sat up in his chair and frowned. “Will he go back to prison for that?”

“It’s possible,” Mike replied with a shrug. “Depends on how good a lawyer he gets, and what sort of mood the judge is in. It helps that he’s lived a good clean life for the past several years.”

“What about the murder charge?” Phyllis asked.

“The sheriff’s not happy about it, but I don’t think there’s going to be one. There’s just not enough evidence for the district attorney to proceed … even though he might be able to get a conviction just from the fact that Mr. Oakley lied about being an ex-con and was working at an elementary school. A jury wouldn’t like that, and would be eager to believe the worst about him. So there’s still a chance the DA might decide to go ahead with it. We can keep Mr. Oakley in custody until tomorrow for questioning.”

“That’s not the right thing to do,” Sam said. “You know he didn’t do it. What about the knife?”

“He was in and out of the cafeteria all day. He would have had plenty of chances to pick it up without anybody noticing.”

“But why would he do that?” Phyllis asked. “What reason would anybody have to steal a knife from the cafeteria unless they were planning to use it to commit a murder?”

“You’re looking at the question from hindsight,” Mike pointed out. “We know the knife
was
used to kill Mrs. Dunston, so we think the murderer must have planned it that way all along. But we can’t be sure of that. Maybe the killer took the knife for some other reason and just happened to have it on him when he decided to use it as a murder weapon.”

Phyllis leaned back in her chair and shook her head. “That seems awfully far-fetched to me,” she said. “Look at the way the killer also wiped the knife clean and then brought it back to the cafeteria. The whole thing was premeditated, Mike. I’m sure of it.”

“I think you’re right,” he agreed, “but there’s still a matter of proving it.”

Sam clasped his hands together between his knees as he said, “All right, so where it stands now is that you don’t have any real evidence against Gary for the murder or the burglary, and you’re probably gonna have to let him go.”

“You didn’t hear it from me … but yeah, that’s about the size of it.”

“So you’re no closer to finding the real killer?”

“Not as far as I can see,” Mike admitted. “But again, you didn’t hear it from me. The sheriff wouldn’t want me to be here even talking to you about the case.”

Phyllis said, “Maybe you’d better stop doing it, then. I don’t want you to get in any trouble on your job.”

Mike shrugged. “I’m off duty,” he said, “and besides, it doesn’t hurt anything to run all this past you, Mom. You sometimes notice things that I don’t.”

“That’s because I was a history teacher for all those years. History is nothing but cause and effect, and you see the same patterns being repeated over and over.”

“Well, if you can see a pattern in this, I’d be glad to hear about it.”

Phyllis and Sam exchanged a glance. She knew he was thinking about their conversation with Russ Tyler earlier in the afternoon. Phyllis wrestled with her conscience. She had hoped that talking to Russ would help her make a decision about how she should proceed, but instead it had just muddled things even more.

Finally, in response to Mike’s comment she said, “I’ll mull it over, and if anything occurs to me I’ll let you know.”

He stood up. “Thanks, Mom. I’ll be back this evening with Sarah and Bobby.”

“What’s his costume going to be?”

Mike smiled. “Wouldn’t you rather wait and be surprised?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” she said with a laugh. “I’ll see you later.”

After Mike was gone, Sam looked over at Phyllis but didn’t say anything. “I appreciate what you did,” she said. “Keeping quiet about Russ and Shannon, I mean.”

“I knew what you meant,” he said. “Just because we didn’t say anything doesn’t really change the situation, though.”

“I know. If Russ goes to Marie and tells her himself about what Shannon was doing, then maybe I can tell Mike. That way I won’t be responsible for whatever happens with Russ and Marie’s marriage.”

Sam grunted. “Russ isn’t gonna tell her.”

“But I pointed out to him that he ought to.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Sam said with a shake of his head. “He’s not gonna paint a big target on his back like that. Shoot, if a man told his wife every time he
thought
about carryin’ on with another woman, he’d be in the doghouse all the time.”

“Really?”

Sam nodded solemnly.

“Men think about it that much?”

“I reckon most do. A fella learns real early that when it comes to women, he’d best worry more about what he
does,
not what he thinks. Any other way lies madness.”

“Well, being around you is certainly an education in the male psyche, Sam. What other deep dark secret thoughts are you hiding in that brain of yours?”

“You don’t want to know,” he said as he stood up.

That was the problem, Phyllis thought. She
did w
ant to know.

True to his word, Mike brought Sarah and Bobby by the house that evening, after they had gone trick-or-treating in their own neighborhood. When he walked in carrying Bobby, Phyllis smiled at the hat, vest, chaps, and boots her grandson was wearing. “He’s a cowboy!” she said. “And he’s just adorable.”

“The old classics never go out of style, I reckon,” Sam added with a grin. “Did you make a big haul, pardner?”

Bobby shook the treat bag he was carrying and burbled, “Candy!”

“Yes, I know.” A few trick-or-treaters had come by the house earlier, and Phyllis still had a bowl of candy by the door. She picked it up and held it so that Bobby could see it. “What do you say?”

The little boy made a grab for a lime sucker with a safety loop instead of a stick. “Want candy!”

Mike gently pulled him back. “No, no, what are you supposed to say?”

Sarah leaned over to whisper in her son’s ear. Bobby yelled, “Trickertreat!”

“That’s it,” Phyllis said. She picked up the green lollipop and held it out so that Bobby could grab it.

Mike prodded him, “Now what do you say?”

Bobby looked like he wanted to cram the sucker in his mouth, wrapper and all, but he mumbled, “Tankoo.”

“You’re welcome,” Phyllis told him.

Sarah said, “We’re perpetuating archaic stereotypes and outdated traditions, you know.”

Mike grinned. “Yeah. Ain’t it fun?”

It was an enjoyable visit, and Phyllis was glad she could spend the time just being with her family and friends, rather than thinking about murder and the moral dilemma she faced. As Mike was about to leave, she started to grab his arm and tell him she needed to talk to him for a few minutes in private, but she stopped herself before she could do that.

Let it go until morning,
she told herself. That would give her a chance to sleep on it. No harm could come of waiting a little while longer.

The phone rang right after breakfast the next morning. When Phyllis answered it, she heard Marie Tyler’s voice on the other end. Marie sounded upset, and Phyllis thought,
Sam was wrong. Russ told her about Shannon after all.

But Marie’s news took Phyllis completely by surprise. “The sheriff has arrested Lindsey,” she said.

“Lindsey?” Phyllis repeated. “You mean Lindsey Gonzales? What in the world for?” Even as the question left her mouth, she realized that she probably knew the answer.

“Someone said they saw her having a terrible argument with Shannon not long before she was killed. Now they think … Lord, I can hardly bring myself to say it. They think Lindsey might have killed her.”

Phyllis remembered the pain and the anger she had seen in Lindsey’s eyes at that board meeting when Shannon had laced into her about the posters. From what she had heard, it wasn’t unusual for Shannon to treat Lindsey like that. And evidently Lindsey accepted that abuse because she was afraid of Shannon.

But afraid or not, when people were mistreated, sooner or later they would turn on their abusers. And often, the longer the situation went on, the more extreme the inevitable outburst finally was.