Troubled Treats (17 page)

I couldn’t exactly admit that we were there to grill her further, especially since she’d just found a way to clear her name.  “No, we were just driving by, saw you talking to Jim, and we thought we’d pop in and see what was going on.”

“You wanted to make sure there wasn’t a repeat of last night, right?” Jim asked wryly.  “Man, I’ve got to stop drinking.  It’s starting to be a real problem.”

“You were upset about your boss,” I said.  “I get it.”

“Yeah, Sully was one of a kind.”

“Well, if you all will excuse me, I’ve got things to do inside,” Shirley said.

“Mind if we stay out here a minute and chat?” Jake asked her.  “We’d like to speak with Jim while we have the chance.”

“I don’t care what you do,” she said, and then she disappeared inside.  “As long as it doesn’t involve me, we’re good.”

Jim glanced at his watch.  “I really do need to go by the bank.”

“Is it about your inheritance?” I asked, watching him carefully for some kind of reaction.

“You’ve been talking to Bob, haven’t you?” he asked me warily.  “He was the only one I told about it.”

“He mentioned it,” I admitted.  “That must have been quite the windfall for you to just walk away from your career.  Who exactly was it that left you the money?”

“You didn’t know him.  It was an uncle from New York,” he said, “but I’d really rather word didn’t get out.  People start acting funny when they find out that you’ve come into a little money.”

“What was his name?” Jake asked as he pulled out the same kind of notebook he’d used while he’d been a state police investigator.

“Why do you care?”  Jim was edging up to open hostility at that point, and I wondered how hard Jake was going to push him.

“It’s nothing personal.  We’re following up on every lead we get.  Once we check him out, we’ll be able to tell the police chief what we discovered, and you should be all set.”

“Why would the chief need to know about my inheritance?” Jim asked.

Jake studied him a moment before he spoke.  “Jim, we know for a fact that a great deal of money was stolen from the wagon factory recently.  You’ve been working there, and now all of a sudden you have come into an inheritance from an uncle nobody in town ever knew existed.  It all seems like a bit of a stretch, if you ask me.”

“Are you saying that you don’t believe me?”  He was doing his best to act indignant, but it wasn’t very convincing.  What he appeared to be was scared.  Jake had a way of asking questions that would shake any but the most seasoned criminal.

“I’m not saying that I have an opinion one way or the other at the moment about your guilt or innocence,” Jake replied, though from his tone of voice, it was clear that he did.  “All we need is his name and a way to contact whoever handled your uncle’s estate, and then we’ll leave you alone.”

“I know my rights.  I don’t have to tell you anything,” Jim said sharply, and then he started for his truck.

I decided to step in.  “Jake, let me have one of those bills.”

My husband frowned, but then he reluctantly handed me one of the old twenties—still in its own baggy—from his pocket.  I held it up so that Jim could see it, but I made sure to keep a tight grip on it.  “These bills are suddenly showing up all over April Springs.  How long do you think it will be before we track one of them back to you?  Wouldn’t you feel better if you just came clean and told us the truth?”

At least he didn’t deny it outright.  “So what if I have some old bills?  They’re still legal money, aren’t they?”

“They are, but every date on the twenties we’ve found so far is from 1928 and earlier.”

“So?  Maybe my uncle left me a lot of old money.”

“Give it up, Jim,” Jake said.  “We know.”  His voice had an air of judgment to it that made me want to confess to something, and I hadn’t done anything.

“Know what?” Jim asked haltingly.

“It’s pretty clear that you were working by yourself at the factory and stumbled across the cache where the money was hidden.  What happened?  Were you running a new electrical line, and you had to access the floor there?  It won’t be too hard to get a confirmation of that.  One look at the wiring blueprints will show exactly where the new line was supposed to go, and Bob should be able to tell us if you were running it alone or not.  It’s pretty clear that he didn’t know about the money, so we have to assume that you didn’t tell anyone about it, not even your partner.  Sully found out somehow though, and he confronted you about your theft.  Is that when you tore your shirt, when you ran out of the building?  We found a fragment of it snagged on a nail, and I’m willing to bet that we can match it up to one of your shirts at home.  You killed Sully to keep his mouth shut about the theft, but he managed to point one last finger at you before he died.  The funny thing is that you’re probably not even aware of it.”

Jim’s face was ashen now.  It was pretty clear that Jake’s assumptions were spot on.  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.

“Deny it all you want to, but the two of you must have struggled, and one of the bills was torn in the conflict.  When we find the twenty that matches the edge we found near Sully’s body, you’re going away for murder.”

“But I didn’t kill him!” Jim protested.  “I swear it.”

“You weren’t with Bob at the time of the murder, were you?  How strong do you think your alibi’s going to be when we tell your old partner that you found a cache of money and didn’t share it with him?” Jake asked.  “Do yourself a favor and admit it right here and now.  You know that you want to.”  His voice softened a little as he added, “We know that you didn’t mean to kill him.  You panicked, and you did a very bad thing, but it wasn’t planned.”

Jim shook his head.  “I didn’t kill Sully,” he said, his voice nearly filling with tears as he spoke.  He was on the edge, ready to break, and Jake knew just where to apply the pressure.

So did I.

“You must feel awful about what happened, Jim.  You and Sully were friends, and your argument with him was the last thing between you, wasn’t it?” I asked him softly.  “The evidence doesn’t lie.  We know that you’re not a bad man deep down inside.  You did something you shouldn’t have, but you didn’t plan on killing him.  In a way, it was almost an accident that he found out what you’d done.  What choice did you have when he confronted you about taking that money?  Come on.  Tell us what happened.  You’ll feel better to tell the truth.”

Jim started to speak, and then he began to softly whimper.  I reached out and patted his shoulder, and after a moment, he trusted himself to talk.  “You’re right.  Sully saw me coming down the stairs with some of the money in my hands.  When he confronted me, I lost it.”

“So you killed him,” I said softly.

“No!  I never laid a hand on him!  He grabbed one of the twenties out of my hand and it tore!  Sully figured out where I’d gotten it, and he demanded that I turn it all over to your mother.  Since she owned the building, it was rightfully hers.  I told him that I would do what he asked, and he said that if I didn’t, he’d tell her himself.  I left to go get the money I’d taken earlier, I swear it, and the next thing I heard was that somebody had killed him before I could get back with the cash I’d grabbed!  I might be a thief, but I’m not a murderer!”

“What happened?  Did you push him away from you?  The rebar could have already been there, and he fell against it.  Nobody’s going to think that you planned this ahead of time,” I said softly.

“I keep telling you, I didn’t do it,” Jim said again, sobbing this time.

Jake nodded, pulled out his cellphone, and after a brief conversation, he hung up.  Chief Grant was there within three minutes, and before we knew it, Jim Burr was cuffed and being pushed into the back of a squad car.

“Good work, you two,” the police chief said to us as he closed the door.

“He kept saying that he didn’t do it,” I said.

“What would you expect him to say?” the chief asked.  “Give him a little time.  He’ll confess soon enough.”  Then he turned to my husband.  “Don’t you think?”

“The odds are good,” Jake said, nodding.  “The man’s clearly been feeling guilty about what he did, and when Suzanne and I pushed him, he cracked.”

“Then that’s that,” the chief said.  “By the way, I checked his wallet.  It’s jammed full of old twenties.”

“He already admitted to being a thief,” I protested.  “But he claims that he’s not a murderer.”

“What did you expect him to say?” Chief Grant asked, and then he got into the car and drove Jim to the station.

I noticed that Shirley had been watching everything from inside, and a curtain closed quickly when I looked directly at her.

“Let’s go home, Suzanne,” Jake said.

“Do you really think it’s over?”

“That’s the way it looks to me,” he said.  “You were really good when you were talking to him.  I was impressed.  You did better than some seasoned cops I’ve seen during that interrogation.”

“If you say so.”

“You don’t seem too happy about it,” he said.

“I don’t know.  It just seemed too easy, you know?”

“Sometimes that’s the way things turn out,” Jake said.  “Maybe now we can get back to some sense of normalcy around here.”

“Whatever that means,” I answered.  For some reason, I still wasn’t able to let things go.  Most likely Jim had killed his boss by accident during their struggle, but what if he hadn’t?  A part of me wanted to believe him, but where did that leave me? 

If I believed that someone else had killed Sully, it looked as though I was on my own.

As far as everyone else was concerned, the case was closed.

Chapter 20

Three days later, there was still no murder confession from Jim Burr, and the nagging suspicions in my mind became bolder and bolder. 

Unfortunately, Jake wasn’t inclined to agree with me, though.

“Suzanne, I wouldn’t mind learning that Jim Burr had confessed to Sully’s murder myself, but wishing it is not going to make it happen.”

“He admitted to stealing the money, though.  Why wouldn’t he tell the entire truth?”

“Admitting to being a thief is a far cry easier than confessing to murder,” Jake said.  “I’ve seen it happen a few times myself.”

“So, you honestly believe that he killed Sully?”

“Without any new evidence, I’m inclined to feel that way.  The simplest answer is often the correct one.”

“What about Shirley Edam’s alibi?” I asked.

“What about it?”

“Didn’t it seem awfully convenient to you that the one person who could attest to her location during the murder happens to be out of touch for the foreseeable future on a cruise?  We’re in the age of mass communication, and yet we can’t make a simple telephone call to confirm her whereabouts.”

“It happens,” Jake said.

I was really getting frustrated with my husband’s pat answers.  “Jake, am I going crazy here?”

“Of course not,” he said soothingly.  “I understand the instinct not to let go of the case until there’s a complete and satisfying resolution, but we really don’t have much choice.”

“We could press Shirley harder, and we could also go after Carl Descent more than we have so far.  There’s something suspicious about his behavior in all of this that I just don’t like.  He claimed to want to preserve the old building because of his grandfather, but other reports we got were that he was going to raze the structure to the ground as soon as all of the papers were signed.  Something just doesn’t add up.”

“Is it possible that you’re just being paranoid?” Jake asked me gently.

“Anything’s possible, I suppose,” I said.  “I still want to do some more digging.”

Jake sighed, and then he got up from the couch.  “Fine by me.  Where should we start?”

“Sit back down,” I said with a smile.  “You’ve been looking forward to that
Law and Order
marathon on television for days.  Watch the good guys catch the bad guys.”

“What are you going to do while I’m watching?  I don’t want you interviewing any suspects alone, even if I do think the case is over,” Jake said.

“How about if I just do a little more digging into some of the background of the case?  If I promise not to speak with any of our other suspects directly, will you watch your show and let me satisfy my own curiosity?”

“That depends.  What did you have in mind?”

“First of all, I’d like to talk to Momma about the building sale,” I said.  “Somehow I believe everything hinges on that.”

“I can understand you thinking that.  It’s not just the scene of the crime; it’s also where the motivation for the murder was supplied.”

“If Jim actually killed Sully,” I amended.

“If,” he agreed.  “Are you sure that you don’t want me to go with you?”

“Positive,” I said.  “Enjoy yourself.  Crack open a soda, break out the chips, and have a blast.”

The familiar bars of the
Law and Order
opening played, and as Jake glanced at the television screen, he said, “If you’re sure that it’s okay, I think I’ll stay here.”

“Just because we’re married, it doesn’t have to mean that we do everything together,” I said as I kissed the top of his head.  “I just want to snoop around a little to satisfy this nagging feeling I’ve been having in the pit of my gut.”  I glanced at the television.  “Besides, I’ve already seen just about every episode of that show ever made.”

“Okay, but call me if you need me,” he said, already lost in the blooming storyline on television.  I loved my husband, but he was clearly a man of limited interests.  He had lived the life of a detective, and now he was experiencing it vicariously on television.  I was going to have to find something meaningful for him to do before he got bored out of his mind with his situation, but that was going to have to wait.

Right now, I needed to talk to Momma.

“Suzanne, what a treat to see you so unexpectedly,” Momma said, holding her phone to her chest as she opened her front door.  “Come in.  I’ll just be one minute.”

“Thanks,” I said as I came in. 

Momma nodded at me, and then she returned to her call.  “Carl, I’m sorry, but it’s not going to happen, no matter how generous your offer might be.  No, not even a ghost is going to persuade me.  Good-bye, Carl.”  After Momma hung up, she said, “I’ll give the man credit; at least he’s persistent.”