Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Summer
D ixie emailed Peter and asked if he had time to talk now, and he texted back that he could talk in fifteen minutes. Dixie sent him a video chat link, and we sat and waited for the clock to tick down.
“Do you know anything about him?” I asked.
“Not a thing,” she said. “Looks like we’re goin’ to find out together.”
“There’s a chance he might not know anything at all. Especially if he was a lot younger than Chuck.”
“Or he might know where Chuck’s living right now.” She studied me for a couple of seconds. “It’s not like you to be so pessimistic.”
“I know,” I said with a sigh. “I just don’t want to disappoint Magnolia, and it seems unlikely that even if we track down Chuck Petty that we’ll get him to confess to murdering Bethany. There’s no statute of limitations for murder.”
“Then let’s just see what his brother says,” Dixie said. “Stranger things have happened, and we can’t discount the power of guilt.”
“You know what, Dix?” I said. “You’ve gone above and beyond with this case, taking charge of things, like finding Peter and asking him for an interview. I think with the new season of Darling Investigations that you should take a case or two on your own.”
“What?”
“Yeah, in fact,” I said with a nod, “you found Peter, so you should take the lead with this interview.”
She seized up, her eyes going wide with panic. “Summer, I don’t know if I can handle this.”
“I have no doubt that you can, otherwise I wouldn’t be suggesting it. But if you get overwhelmed, don’t worry. I’m sitting right there as your safety net.”
My computer began to ring with a video call, so we took our seats in front of my monitor and I scooted my chair slightly to the side. “Go ahead and answer. I’ll take notes.”
Dixie gave me a terrified look, then answered the call. An older gentleman with snow-white hair answered. He was sitting in a home office with a window overlooking a backyard with a birdfeeder in view.
“Mr. Petty?” she said. “I’m Dixie Baumgardner and this is Summer Butler.”
His eyes widened. “Hey! I know you two. You’re on that TV show!”
“That’s right,” Dixie said. “But we’re investigatin’ a case that’s not on the show.”
“Are you lookin’ into cold cases?” he asked. “Are you lookin’ for my brother?”
“As a matter of fact, we are,” Dixie said, folding her hands in her lap. She didn’t look terrified now. She looked confident and in control. “What can you tell us about Chuck?”
He blew out a breath. “Not a whole lot, sad to say. I was a couple of years younger than Chuck, and he didn’t talk to me much. He didn’t like his little brother hangin’ around.”
“My brother was the same way,” Dixie said with a warm smile. “It was even worse because I was his little sister .”
Peter laughed. “I suppose that would be worse, although I have kids of my own, a boy and a girl—twins—and they were like two peas in a pod.” He made a face. “Well, I guess until high school anyways.”
“Which is when your brother ran off,” said Dixie like a pro, steering him smoothly back to the reason for the call. “He was a senior at the time, so did that make you a sophomore?”
“That’s right.”
“I know you said he didn’t like you hangin’ around,” Dixie said, “but did you get along at home?”
“Not really,” he said, shifting in his chair. “Chuck didn’t really get along much with anyone.”
“He didn’t have friends?” she asked.
“Superficial, I suppose,” Peter said. “Most everyone was afraid of him—me included, I guess.”
“So he was a bully?”
He sat back in his seat, and I could hear the leather of his chair creak. “It seems wrong to speak ill of someone who isn’t here to defend himself.”
“It’s not wrong if you speak the truth,” Dixie said gently, “and if it’s speculatin’, just be sure to make that clear.”
He agreed with a nod.
“You said he didn’t get along with anyone. Does that include your parents?”
His lips pulled back, baring his teeth. “Ho, boy.” He wagged his head. “He and our father were like oil and water, fightin’ over the slightest thing.”
“What about your mother?”
He pushed out a sigh. “That there was a different story. He and our momma were close when we were little. Not so much when he got bigger, but he still loved her. She was the only one he would listen to when he had a spell.”
“A spell?” Dixie said, tilting her head. “What kind of spells?”
“Fits. Rages. He’d lose his temper, which was an embarrassment to our father.” He lowered his chin slightly. “Dad was the mayor at the time. Had been for most of my life growin’ up. He was defeated soon after.”
“After Chuck ran off?”
He nodded.
“Did Chuck have a girlfriend?”
“Not that I know of. He dated some, but nothin’ serious. I think that was his decision, not the girls’, as weird as that seems given how much people feared him.”
“Do you remember if Chuck was upset with anyone at the time he left? Your father? You? Someone at school?”
“It seemed like he was upset with just about everyone. It’s hard to say, but I don’t remember anything out of the ordinary.”
“Had he planned to go to college?” Dixie asked.
“No. He was joinin’ the army. He said he didn’t want to go to college or learn a trade, so Dad made him sign up. He enlisted when he turned eighteen, right after Christmas. Though he wasn’t too happy about it. He was set to go to basic trainin’ a few days after graduation.”
I sat up straighter. Now there was a motive to run away.
“Could he have run off to get out of goin’ in the army?” Dixie asked.
“Honestly, our mother considered that and brought it up to Dad at dinner about a week after he disappeared, but he told her to never bring it up in our house again. He said it was a ridiculous idea, even for Chuck. As far as I know, they never discussed it again.”
“Do you think maybe your dad felt guilty for forcing him to enlist?”
“Shoot no,” Peter scoffed. “If anything, he was mad at Chuck for his cowardice. But he insisted that wasn’t why he left, and Chuck never mentioned it in his postcards.”
I thought Dixie might touch on the postcards, but she kept going with the current thread. “Do you think that’s why he ran off?”
“Makes more sense than any other rumors that floated around,” Peter said.
“And what were those?”
“That he was scared of a guy at school. That he had somethin’ to do with that Brewer girl’s murder.”
“You don’t think it’s possible he had something to do with Bethany’s murder?” Dixie asked.
“Nah, I don’t see why he would have done it. No motive. He barely spoke to the girl, and the couple of times I saw him say something to her, he wasn’t mean. Not like he was with her sister.”
“We’ve heard he didn’t get along with Lila Brewer.”
“Talk about an understatement,” he said, making a face. “For some reason, he really hated her.”
“Is there any way he could have mistaken Bethany for Lila?” Dixie asked.
“Nah, I don’t think so, and even if he had, Chuck wasn’t a killer. Sure, he beat people up, but he never would have killed someone.”
Dixie took a sip of water. “Do you remember Chuck leavin’ the house the night he left home? Did he pack a bag to bring with him?”
“No, that was the weird thing. He didn’t take anything with him. He just left.”
“Are you sure he didn’t tell anyone of his plans? Not even Tim McCree? We heard he told the police that Chuck went fishin’ with him the night of Bethany’s murder.”
“Yeah,” he said, scooting closer in his seat. “We never saw him again after that. Our mother talked to him to see if Chuck mentioned that he was leaving town. Or if Tim knew why he left, but he said Chuck was pretty quiet while they were fishing. I think she was worried he had something to do with that girl’s murder, and that’s why he ran off, but talkin’ to Tim settled her down.”
Dixie started to say something, and I put a hand on her leg, stopping her in case she was about to tell him that Tim had lied. We didn’t know all the facts yet, so better to hold off until we knew more.
“We heard about those postcards he sent, and the ones you mentioned,” I said. “What did he write in them?”
“Only that we shouldn’t worry about him and he was fine.” He chuckled. “Living his best life, as my grandkids like to say.”
“Do you still get postcards from him?” I asked, just to see what he would say.
“Oh no, they stopped coming years ago.” He scratched his chin. “They came in sporadically for, oh, about ten years or so after he left. Sent ’em from all over. My mother used to light up like a Christmas tree when they showed up in our mailbox. She liked knowin’ that he was travelin’ and seein’ the world.”
“How did she take it when they stopped?”
His lips pinched together. “She never knew. She died about ten years after he left, and some of us wondered if he’d show up to the funeral, but he stayed away. The letters dried up after that. He never wrote again.”
Dixie cast a glance in my direction that told me she had asked all her questions. I nodded that I was done.
“Well, thank you, Mr. Petty,” she said in a friendly tone. “You’ve been most helpful.”
“If you find out anythin’, let me know, okay? I’d sure like to know where he landed and why he left.”
“We definitely will,” I said. “Take care now.”
Dixie ended the call and turned to look at me. “So what do you think?”
“I guess he had a reason for leaving town and never coming back, but it still sounds weird. He didn’t pack a suitcase. He left in a hurry.”
“Rachel made Tim give Chuck an alibi for some good reason,” she said.
“Let’s just hope she tells us what it is.”