Chapter 22
Chapter Twenty-Two
Vance
When I finished up with Mayor Evans, I headed straight for my SUV, where Claire was supposed to be waiting. But she wasn’t there. I frowned and pulled out my phone to text her before spotting her emerging from the coffee shop down the road. Her head was down and her shoulders sagged.
The sight of her looking so dejected made my chest tighten.
That scene in the mayor’s office couldn’t have been easy on her.
Mayor Evans was a condescending prick. When he’d called her Little Miss Wildwood, I’d wanted to punch him in the jaw.
But my strategy had me siding with him instead, humiliating her in order to earn his trust.
If I’d known that it was going to hurt her, I never would have suggested it. Good cop / bad cop was a proven strategy in my experience, and she was such a fierce, fiery woman that I’d thought we would laugh about it afterward.
I clenched my fists, regretting that I’d ever suggested it.
Claire barely looked up when she reached the parking lot, walking straight to my SUV. She sank into the passenger’s seat, staring straight ahead.
I put my hands on the steering wheel, trying to figure out the right words. “Listen, if I was too hard on you in there—”
“What?” She looked at me and jerked her head back. “What are you talking about?”
“You seem hurt. Mayor Evans is an ass. I should have stuck up for you instead of playing along.”
Her expression softened. “I’m good.”
“Really?” I was doubtful.
She rolled her eyes, but her face stayed soft with a small smile. “Geez, Vance, you think I can’t handle a little acting? I agreed to a public dressing down. Don’t insult me by apologizing for doing it.”
Shit. “You’re right. You just looked upset.”
“I am,” she admitted. “But it has nothing to do with you or our little stunt in there. You played it beautifully and I’m sure he was eating out of your hand by the time it was all said and done. What did you find out?”
I shrugged. “Depends on how you look at it, I guess. I told him we’re trying to figure out why she came back here without Tony. Started by playing it off like I was checking in, making sure she hadn’t caused trouble for them. He said they hadn’t seen her other than the Christmas break trip.”
“Not surprised, though if they’re smart, they wouldn’t mention seeing her even if they had.”
“Exactly,” I agreed. “Then I said that we suspect she had a new boyfriend and asked if he knew who she might have met while she was here visiting. He said no, but he’s lying.
He knows more than he’s letting on. I just don’t know why he isn’t telling me when doing so would take the heat off his own son. ”
That was the head scratcher—unless Mayor Evans himself was the new boyfriend. But he wasn’t some incredible catch compared to Tony. If Katelyn was after money, she probably would have been better off sticking with the son.
Claire leaned her head back and groaned. “I think I know.”
“Really?”
“I feel sick.” She was pale and looked like she might throw up any moment.
Worry struck again. “What’s going on, Claire?”
She scrubbed her hands over her face. “I went to get us some coffee and—oh, dammit, I completely forgot the drinks. Walked out and left the cups sitting on the counter.”
“Don’t worry about the coffee. What happened?”
She rubbed her temples like a headache was brewing. “The girl on shift today is kind of a friend of mine. She asked if we were investigating Katelyn’s death, because she had information that she was trying to decide if she should report or not.”
The look on Claire’s face made me very worried about what that information was.
She swallowed hard. “She said back around Christmas, Katelyn was in the shop. She had coffee with someone—a very cozy coffee.”
“Not Tony Evans?”
Claire shook her head. “No.”
“Then who?” My pulse quickened. If Katelyn’s new boyfriend really was from Wildwood, identifying him could crack this case wide open.
Claire’s misery was evident. “Sheriff McGrath.”
I sat back in my seat, my mouth open in shock. Sheriff McGrath knew Katelyn Brown and had withheld that from us.
It was unthinkable.
My mind raced. “Does she think they were having an affair?”
“That’s what she seemed to indicate.” Claire held her hands up in defense.
“Now, for the record, Emily is a huge gossip. She loves drama, and I could totally see her embellishing the facts for attention. She said they were cozy, but it could have been innocent. Her saying something doesn’t mean it’s true. ”
“No, it doesn’t,” I said, my tone sharpening. “But regardless, the fact that Sheriff McGrath didn’t disclose this to either of us sure doesn’t look good, does it?”
“Nope. Not at all.”
I closed my eyes, realization dawning. “That’s why the mayor lied and said he didn’t know who she had met.
He didn’t want to throw a political ally under the bus.
” I hit my steering wheel in frustration.
“Small towns like this, you get a couple of corrupt leaders protecting each other and they think they can get away with anything.”
Claire’s face was wrecked with devastation. “So, what do we do now?”
“We have two options. We keep this to ourselves and continue gathering evidence, this time with Sheriff McGrath as our prime suspect. Or we confront him and see what he has to say.”
“This is terrible,” she said, her eyes welling up with tears.
“Murder always is.”
An hour later, Claire and I both sat across from an irritated Sheriff McGrath in his office. We hadn’t told him why we needed to speak to him immediately, but he was smart enough to tell from our body language that it wasn’t good.
“I’m going to cut right to the chase,” I said flatly. “You haven’t been honest with us.”
“Never once have I been dishonest with you,” he said, giving me a death stare.
“Alright, let me rephrase,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “You’ve withheld information from us.”
He held my gaze for a pause, then nodded. “I’ll admit to that.”
“Right now would be a good time to come clean.”
His eyes flicked from mine to Claire’s, then back again.
“I’m guessing you found out about Tony Evans dating Katelyn Brown.
To be clear, I was never trying to hide that fact from you.
I know how things work, and I knew you’d get the information from Laramie PD and do what needed to be done.
But by keeping it quiet on my end, I was able to make Mayor Evans feel like I was doing him a favor.
Now, he owes me one. Simple politics.” He shrugged as if that were it.
It seemed like Mayor Evans and Sheriff McGrath were doing a lot of favors for each other. And while I knew that’s how it often worked, I didn’t like it. At all.
“I appreciate you clearing that up,” I said, never breaking eye contact. “But that’s not what I’m talking about.”
Ah. Those words made him sweat.
“Alright, son, then why don’t you tell me what this is about.”
Smooth. Call me son to put me in my place and form a connection. Ask me to tell him the details so he would know the extent of what I knew.
But this wasn’t my first day.
“Tell me about your personal relationship with Katelyn Brown.”
His eyes went wide with shock. “ Excuse me ?”
“We know,” Claire said, her voice strained. Broken. “We know about the two of you.”
He gave her an angry glare. “Then you need to check your information, because I didn’t have a personal relationship with Katelyn Brown.”
“To be clear,” I said smoothly, bringing his focus back to me. “You’re denying the fact that you had a relationship with Katelyn Brown, even though witnesses have stated that you were quite cozy with her in public.”
The shock in his eyes was real. “I wasn’t cozy anything. I spoke to the girl once, at the coffee shop down the street. That was it.”
There was nothing about his words, body language, or facial expression that indicated he was lying.
I’d deliberately left out the coffee shop part, but he’d known that’s where they had been seen anyway.
That was a mark in his favor, indicating that there weren’t multiple locations where he and Katelyn might have been spotted. But I still needed to be sure.
“That’s not what we heard,” I said firmly. “But I’ll give you a chance to tell us your side of the story.”
His eyes narrowed. “Don’t you forget that I’m the one who called you in.” He smacked his palm on the desk. “You’re only here at my request. You think I’d do that if I had something to hide?”
I didn’t answer.
He shook his head, rolling his eyes. “Fine. Back, oh… December, maybe? Seems like it was around Christmas. I was working late—bad accident on the highway—and stopped by the coffee shop for some caffeine to keep me going. I see this kid I don’t recognize sitting in the back corner with tears streaming down her cheeks.
As the sheriff of a small town, I like to keep tabs on things.
So I got my coffee and went over to check on her. ”
“Katelyn was crying?” Claire asked.
I glanced over and saw her mind working a million miles an hour.
“Yeah,” he said, glancing at her. “I asked her if everything was okay. She said she’d had a big fight with her boyfriend. The way she looked, I was afraid we might be dealing with a domestic. So I sat down with her, tried to get her to open up.”
I frowned. “What do you mean ‘the way she looked’?”
He sighed. “She was wearing heavy makeup, but it looked like she was covering up some bruises. And there were some marks on her hands that looked like defensive wounds.”
I didn’t bother to keep the edge out of my voice. “And you didn’t think that would be important for us to know?”
He glared at me. “She denied that anything had happened. Said she’d gotten into an accident.
The way she was acting, I didn’t believe her, but you know as well as I do that you can’t force a victim to tell you something if they don’t want to.
I tried to coax the truth out of her, but she stuck to that story. ”
I opened my mouth, prepared to bite his head off, but he held up a hand to stop me.
“I followed up on it anyway. When I found out she was dating Tony Evans, I talked to him and his dad about it. Tony said she’d gotten the bruises in a car accident.
So I called Laramie PD. Sure enough, there was an accident report from a few days before their trip.
She was taken to the ER afterward for bruising and cuts on her hands. ”
I relaxed—slightly. “So the story checked out.”
He nodded. “It checked out.” But there was the slightest bit of hesitation.
I stared at him. “Why are you still worried it was more?”
He stared back at me for several long seconds before shaking his head.
“I don’t know. It was just her manner, I guess.
She acted like a victim.” He shrugged. “And to be honest with you, Tony had a history of getting forceful with his girlfriends. But the police report on the accident and the ER report on her injuries lined up with what I saw—and with her story, no matter what her body language said. She didn’t have a history of ER visits for injuries, and the police had never been called for a domestic. There was nothing else I could do.”
“You still should have told us,” I said forcefully.
“You’re probably right,” he said between gritted teeth. “But by that point, I’d convinced myself that I’d overreacted to the whole thing.”
I stared at him, unwilling to give him any grace on the matter.
He shook his head. “Look, you can think whatever you want of me, but here’s the truth of the matter.
One, I didn’t think my conversation with her had any bearing on the case.
Laramie PD agreed, by the way. Two, you and I are on the same side.
I called you in because I knew there would be pressure on me to keep things quiet, and I wanted someone who didn’t have ties to this town doing the investigating.
I want her murder solved—no matter who did it. ”
I drummed my fingers on the arm of the chair, staring at him. He was right. I was only here because he’d called me in, and that was a point in his favor. And I could easily call Laramie and verify everything he’d said thus far.
But I still didn’t like it.
He put his hands on the arms of his chair like he was about to stand, but I wasn’t done with him yet.
“You said she was crying because she’d had a big fight with her boyfriend. Tell me what she said.”
He squirmed, a frustrated look on his face. “Look, I hate to admit this, because I know how it looks. But she said things weren’t working out between her and Tony because he was a child and she was looking for a man. I got the impression she wanted someone to be her knight in shining armor.”
“What made you think that?”
He shifted in his seat, his face turning bright red. “Well, she kind of hit on me.”
“She hit on you?” Claire’s voice was incredulous.
He nodded, letting out a little groan. “Yep. That’s probably why Emily—it was Emily, right?”
Claire nodded.
He rolled his eyes. “That’s probably why she said we looked cozy.
Katelyn gave me big doe eyes and said she wished she had a real man to take care of her.
Someone to keep her safe. She scooted close and kind of snuggled into me and started crying again.
I tried to comfort her at first, but she put her hand on my thigh.
Kept creeping up higher. I disengaged as fast as I could and got out of there. ”
“And that’s the only time you ever spoke to her?”
“Yes.” His voice was firm. “The only time.”
He told his story with the conviction of a man who was telling the truth.
But Katelyn had died last March.
That was a long time to practice a lie.