Chapter 28. Sneezing and Scratching
SNEEZING AND SCRATCHING
WHITNEY
Collin and I couldn’t help but laugh when Sawdust sniffed the sparkling apple cider and suffered a sneezing fit. I’d stopped and bought the bottle on the way home.
Collin raised his champagne flute. “What are we celebrating?”
“Thad Gentry’s arrest.” I clinked my flute against his, then took a big, satisfying slug of cider.
“Whoa.” Collin took a quick, companionable sip and said, “Details. Stat.”
I told him how I’d seen the dry-cleaning tag through Gentry’s car window and gone to the cleaners, how Detective Alonzo and Deputy Swisher had allowed me to accompany them when they took Gentry into custody, how he’d downplayed the damage to his suit and claimed he’d had a nosebleed, and how I’d caught him looking up at the hayloft, as if remembering the fateful day he’d ended a man’s life.
“He said his attorney would have things resolved by the end of the day.”
“Gentry’s one cocky SOB,” Collin said, “but he’s not entirely off base.
Since he doesn’t have a violent record, this is his first offense, and he wasn’t caught with a smoking gun in his hand, he probably bonded out.
But to say the matter would be resolved was an overstatement.
The prosecutor will need time to look into things. ”
Though I realized bail was standard procedure, it irked me to think about Gentry going about his life as usual and sleeping in his comfortable home while Tyler Yee had been laid to rest in the dirt.
It wasn’t fair. But innocent until proven guilty was the American way.
I just needed to be patient until Gentry was proven guilty. He’d get his due in due time. Right?
Detective Alonzo called the following Thursday afternoon as I was installing a P-trap under the kitchen sink in one of the apartments. “Got some disappointing news for you. The district attorney has decided not to pursue a case against Gentry.”
“What?!” I smacked my head on the bottom of the sink as I sat up. Ouch! “Why?”
“It’s not that the DA thinks Gentry is innocent,” she said, “it’s that he doesn’t think he can get a conviction.
Gentry’s attorney said he can explain away everything we’ve got against him.
There’s no proof the pin is Gentry’s and, even if it was, it could have fallen off his suit at the coffee shop.
It could have gotten stuck in your boot there.
He claims the blood-spatter pattern on Gentry’s suit is because Gentry was bending forward when the nosebleed happened, and turned his head side to side, hoping to stop the drip, before he was able to staunch it with tissues. ”
“What about the false name he gave the cleaners?”
“The audio isn’t clear enough when Gentry said the name.
Arguably, the wrong name is the clerk’s fault.
Everyone’s had their name heard wrong before, at a coffee shop or somewhere else.
The DA thinks it will be hard to convince a jury of Gentry’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, especially since you mentioned hearing a car roar off and the camera at the shopping center didn’t pick up Gentry’s car coming or going. ”
“Maybe he drove down the easement. It connects to the subdivision.”
“Maybe he did,” Alonzo conceded, “but there’s no proof of that. It’s all conjecture. His attorney says all we’ve proven is that Gentry owned an Armani suit.”
Definitely an understatement but, if I let my mind play devil’s advocate, I had to admit the case wasn’t strong. Argh!
Maybe Bianca’s or Tyler’s family could bring a wrongful death suit against Gentry.
I’d heard that the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman brought civil actions against O.
J. Simpson after he’d been acquitted in criminal court.
They’d been awarded tens of millions of dollars in damages.
It was a public acknowledgment of his heinous act and put him in financial straits if not jail.
While a criminal conviction required that the jury find the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, in civil court the plaintiff only had to prove that it was more likely than not that the defendant caused the death.
Alonzo added, “Prosecutors don’t like to lose cases. Not just because it hurts their stats, but because it also gives the public the impression that their tax dollars are being wasted.”
I wasn’t ready to give up hope. “Maybe some more evidence will pop up.”
“Maybe,” she said on a sigh. “If it does I’ll pursue it, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Try as we might, we can’t get them all.”
It was a somber truth. Many killers went free, even though law enforcement knew they were guilty. But knowing someone is guilty and being able to prove it in court are two different things.
She thanked me again for my help and signed off.
As I slid my phone back into my pocket, an overwhelming sense of despair and hopelessness settled over me like a shroud.
Justice hadn’t been served. I felt tears well up in my eyes, but just as I did, I felt something else, too.
A swift kick in my ribs. From the inside.
Is my baby telling me not to accept defeat? It sure seemed like it. But what more could I do?
That night, I was fast asleep with Sawdust curled around my bulging belly when he decided to sit up on the bed in the wee hours of the night and scratch himself.
The movement woke me. I loved my precious kitty, but I needed my sleep.
Did he really have to scratch himself now?
He was as bad as Maisy the cow, the one who seemed to suffer an incessant itch.
I closed my eyes and began to drift back to sleep, then sat up with a start. My subconscious had coughed up a potential lead for proving that Thad Gentry had killed Tyler Yee.
The animal cameras.
After visiting the Victory Garden and learning that the animal cams broadcast in real time only and that the feeds were not recorded, Detective Alonzo had ruled them out as a potential source for leads. But the images provided by Ruby’s collar could have been recorded in another way.
I recalled the spandex-clad women who’d entered the Victory Garden as I’d been heading out, cookie and smoothie in hand, shortly before Tyler Yee had lost his life.
The women had carried gift bags. Clearly, they were celebrating a birthday.
Ladies tended to linger over brunch, and they often snapped pics with their phones to remember the good times and to post on social media, particularly on special occasions.
I had no idea where the group had been seated in the restaurant, and I realized it was highly improbable that one of them might have snapped a photo with Ruby’s camera feed in the background at the precise moment Gentry drove by.
It had been raining hard that morning, and I recalled the Collie Cam showed only the inside of a doghouse when I’d been in the restaurant.
Ruby hadn’t escorted me along the muddy drive that morning, either.
But maybe Ruby ventured outside to relieve herself and saw Gentry’s car traveling along the easement.
She might have chased him despite the rain.
Maybe her camera picked up Gentry’s car. It’s possible, isn’t it?
Still, the storm had caused the electricity to go out repeatedly at the restaurant and nearby shops.
Without power, the screens wouldn’t show the camera feed, even if video was being transmitted from Ruby’s camera.
It was a long shot—a verrrrry long shot—but it was still a shot, right?
I’d love to help the sheriff’s department nail Thad Gentry, that smug son of a biscuit. I had nothing to lose but time.
Sawdust had curled back up against me and, as much as I hated to disturb the little guy, I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep until I searched social media to see if the women or other customers had posted pics from that day.
I picked my kitty up as I slid out of bed and carried him to the couch.
I sat down next to him with my laptop and booted it up, hoping the beeps it emitted wouldn’t wake Collin. Expectant fathers need rest, too.
I tried Instagram first. There, I found an account for the Victory Garden restaurant.
The profile picture showed an image of the restaurant with the adorable Ruby sitting on the front porch, her tongue lolling out of her mouth as she looked at the camera.
Their feed included posts featuring Maisy and the other cows, the pigs, goats, chickens, and sheep.
Between animal photos, they’d also posted images of the meals they served.
I clicked on the icon to see the posts the restaurant had been tagged in. There was post after post with images of food and comments such as Who knew plants tasted so good? and My A1C thanks you!
I scrolled and scrolled and finally saw one that looked promising.
In it, a woman in a workout top held a champagne flute out toward the camera.
The glass contained a telltale orange liquid that must be a mimosa.
The caption read Cheers from the Victory Garden!
Drinking something fun to brighten this dreary day.
The photo was a close-up, so little of the background was visible, only a halo of floral paper on the wall far behind her and the vertical edge of a lit-up screen over her right shoulder—not enough to capture the image on the screen.
I clicked on the post and checked the date. The post had had been made the day Tyler was murdered. Though I didn’t want to count my chickens before they’d hatched, my nerves began to tingle. I might actually be on to something here.
I looked over the woman’s posts but none of the others she’d posted that day were helpful.
Still, I jotted down her Instagram handle and the name on her profile so I could bring it up again later if needed.
I returned to the Victory Garden profile and resumed looking at the posts the restaurant was tagged in.
Another image was very dim and showed three smiling women, each of whom, like the earlier one, held a mimosa raised in a toast. This post read The lights may be out, but we’re still getting lit!
I continued on until I’d looked at all of the posts the restaurant had been tagged in the day Tyler was murdered, as well as all of the posts made on the restaurant’s account that day.
I then logged onto Facebook and ran a search there, as well.
None of the posts featured the animal cam feeds, and the restaurant’s lights and screens were out in several other pics taken during the outages.
Some of the posts with screens in the background were poor quality and only showed a glare.
But there were enough partial views of lighted screens to give me the smallest bit of hope.
Maybe the customers had additional pics stored on their phones that they hadn’t posted, and maybe Deborah Holt could help me track the customers down.
If they’d paid with a credit card, like most people do, their name would appear on the receipt.
I was so excited about the idea it felt like a million butterflies were fluttering in my stomach. Then again, the sensation might simply be my baby doing the backstroke in my belly.
I typed Victory Garden Restaurant Leipers Fork into the browser. I scrolled through the website until I found their hours. They’d open at seven o’clock for breakfast.
I’ll be the first customer through their door.