Bitter Sweet (28 page)

Beau offered Butler some water
and used that as an excuse for leaving the room. When he stepped into the
viewing room with Sam she told him what she’d seen and interpreted. “Renata
Butler is in danger. There’s a lot of anger in this man, even though I don’t
think he personally tampered with her brakes. She’s helpless, Beau, in that
care home. Can you post someone outside her room?”

“We’ve got Butler here. He can’t
do anything to her.”

“But he’s got others helping him.
I can feel it. And what about that statement about Ridley Redfearn?”

“Well, think about it,” he said.
“Renata may belong to Redfearn’s congregation but James could barely know him.
Just because he performed their ceremony doesn’t mean they are chummy.”

When Beau left to get Butler’s
cup of water, Sam fumed. She felt like she was getting mixed signals.

Beau re-entered the interview
room and handed James his water.

“Tell me what you know about Ted
O’Malley,” Beau said.

“Teddy? We go back to high
school.”

Sam felt her pulse quicken. That
appeared to be the truth.

“And recently?” Beau asked.

“Haven’t seen him in a long time.
Gosh, years ago.” The clear red faded to a dark, murky pink.

“How about Marshall Gray?”

“Never heard of him.” Deeper
pink.

“Lila Coffey?”

Butler swallowed hard. “I don’t
think I know her either.”

“Sadie Gray?”

James shook his head. “Nope.”

“Joe Smith?”

A tiny flicker of a smile went
across Butler’s face.

Beau pulled his cell phone out
and pretended to check the readout. “Excuse me a minute,” he said, leaving the
room.

“He definitely knows Ted
O’Malley,” Sam said when Beau joined her. “The part about high school is true,
and he has seen him a lot more recently than he admits. He’s being very
deceptive about all the other names. He knows them, but I can’t tell to what
degree. They could be acquaintances, or they might have been really tight.”

“I’ve got Redfearn in the other
room. We’ll let Butler chill awhile. C’mon.” He activated the mirror to
Interrogation Room B and she saw Ridley Redfearn checking his hair in the
mirror. Having him stare directly at her was disconcerting and she stepped to
one side.

“Mr. Redfearn,” Beau said as he
walked in. “Or is it doctor? I don’t know exactly what title your degree
confers.”

Redfearn shifted his weight and Sam
saw him hide the real answer. “You can just call me Ridley, Sheriff. I don’t
stand on formalities.”

Beau led with some soft questions
to gain Redfearn’s trust, then sent the other man a pointed stare and asked why
he’d visited so many elderly women in nursing homes.

“Sheriff, I’m sure you are aware
that the nursing home is often the final stop on this earth for many of our
elderly. Especially for those poor women who’ve been left alone. Offering
spiritual comfort is just one small way in which I can make their last days
easier.”

While the words were probably
true, Sam got a creepy feeling from the man. She caught herself rubbing the
slimy feeling from her arms.

Beau ran the same list of names
past the preacher. He admitted that he’d performed marriage ceremonies for the
three couples—the Butlers, the Grays and Coffey-O’Malley—but said that other
than Renata none of them were regular attendees at his church. That much seemed
to be truthful. But when Beau asked how well he knew each of the men and
Redfearn claimed that they were merely acquaintances, Sam knew he was lying
through his teeth.

“Do you know where Marshall Gray
is right now?” Beau asked.

The preacher pretended to have no
idea. When asked the same thing about Ted O’Malley, Redfearn shifted visibly in
his seat.

“Is O’Malley back here in Taos,
then?” Beau stood over the man’s chair and the difference in their physical
sizes seemed magnified.

Sam saw a smoke-filled room, a
blue pickup truck speeding away. She rubbed her eyes and the room came into
focus again. She found herself breathing heavily. Her hands covered her mouth
as the implication became clear.

She stepped out of the viewing
room and tapped once on the door to the interrogation room. Through a narrow
window, she saw Beau look up at her. She pointed and he joined her on the other
side of the mirror.

“He knows something about the
fire at my shop,” she said. “I saw smoke. And there was a blue truck. It was
right after you asked him about Ted O’Malley.”

Beau charged back into the room
and came down hard on Redfearn. Under direct questions about the fire, the
sandy-haired man stayed cool and smooth.

“I have no idea what you’re
talking about,” he began.

“Where’s Ted O’Malley right now?”
Beau demanded. “If you don’t tell me, James Butler will.”

The preacher’s bland expression
twitched a little at the mention of Butler. Clearly, he’d had no idea that the
other man was being questioned at the same time. When Beau started to leave the
room, Redfearn spoke up.

“If he tells you that I know
anything about Ted O’Malley’s wife dying, he’s lying.”

“And why would he tell me that?”
Beau said. “I haven’t said anything about that. Yet.”

Redfearn went silent and Sam got
the feeling he was about to ask for a lawyer. Joe Smith, maybe? She remembered
how James Butler had almost smiled at the mention of that name.

Beau walked out, letting the door
close hard. He walked past the viewing room where Sam waited but he didn’t
enter Butler’s room. She stepped out to the hallway and saw him turning into
the squad room. When he came back he told her he’d just requested information
on any vehicles registered to Ted O’Malley.

“The minute we know what he’s
driving we’ll have an APB out on it,” he said. He jerked open the door to
Butler’s room and Sam stepped back into the viewing room beside it.

“So, Ted O’Malley’s back in
Taos,” Beau stated conversationally.

James Butler shrugged. “Maybe.”

Beau stared at him hard.

“I guess. Some real estate
thing.” But he wouldn’t admit where O’Malley might be staying. A real estate
deal could only mean that Lila’s house had sold in record time and Ted was here
to collect the money.

“That’s about all the questions I
have for today,” Beau said. “But don’t leave town. Not that you would, with
your wife’s recent accident and all. You’re free to go.”

Beau walked Butler out of the
room and Sam heard them pass her door. She stepped out and watched. When they
passed the door to the squad room James Butler started visibly and said
something to Beau. With a hand on the suspect’s arm, Beau steered him toward the
lobby.

When Beau reappeared, alone, Sam
sent him a quizzical look. He nodded that she should go back into the viewing
room. In less than a minute he brought in Candy Butler aka Madame Zora.

“What was my brother doing here?”
demanded Candy Butler the moment Beau closed the door on the interrogation
room. Her gray hair hung in limp strands down her back and her loose orange
blouse clashed dramatically with the olive green tones in her flowing skirt.
“And why am
I
being questioned?”

Sam suppressed a chuckle.
Apparently the psychic hadn’t seen any of this coming.

The case broke quickly once Candy
Butler realized that Beau knew who all the major players were. Sam watched as
the woman crumbled, unable to even keep up the pretense of being an innocent
bystander.

“It was all about the money,” she
said after less than thirty minutes of questions. “It always was.”

“Explain,” Beau said.

“My brother and Ted O’Malley have
been friends since high school. Both of them always had a way of charming
girls. Ted charmed Debbie Patrick so well that they had to get married right
after graduation. But he never really settled down. He’d take jobs out of town
so he could fool around. He figured out if he put on this fake European
jet-setter act that he could charm older and wealthier women out of their
money. Jimmy just found that fascinating. He never could quite pull off the
accent to pretend he was French or English, but he was good at talking his way
into a girl’s pants.”

“Where does Marshall Gray come
into it?”

“He might be a little older than
Jimmy and Ted but he’s exactly their type. I don’t remember where they
originally met. There used to be talk. How they could find rich women and scam
some money off them.” She shrugged. “You know how it is. There’s never enough.
They started out taking a few grand . . . Pretty soon they wanted to have it
all. For that, they had to get themselves written into the woman’s will.”

“Ridley Redfearn married them . .
.”

“Yeah. And then somebody, usually
Marshall, would pretend to be a lawyer. He would advise the women and then draw
up papers changing their wills so that the new husband inherited everything.”

No big revelation to Sam. They’d
pretty much figured out that part of it.

“What about Joe Smith? Is there
such a person?”

“Not in this game,” Candy
admitted. “Marshall just wanted a generic name.”

“You said it was all about money.
What was your role?” he asked.

“Yeah. Huh. I got five thousand
apiece for the setups.” She snorted. “
Pah
. They end
up with a hundred thousand or so, I get five. Whenever I bitched about it
they’d throw me a little extra. I was about to tell Ridley I was done with the
game. Although . . . even five grand is better pay than a lousy twenty or so
for a reading.”

Candy sat up a little straighter.
“I’ve always had a bit of ESP, some pretty good psychic abilities. I just used
it to steer the women toward whichever of the guys had her in his sights. I
could usually manage to convince them.”

Sam felt a jolt go through her.
Renata was lying helpless in that home and her new husband had just been
released. He knew Candy was in here. And he probably knew that as an unhappy
member of the team she was the weak link. If he had any hope of grabbing
Renata’s money he had to move fast. Sam ran out the door and pounded on the one
where Beau and Candy were.

“I have to go,” she said. “I need
to check on Renata. Now.”

Before Beau could protest she’d
taken off down the hall. Would James Butler kill his wife, even knowing he was
under suspicion? Or would he just head for the bank and try to clean out her
accounts? An innocent life was more important. Sam interrupted Deputy Rico who
was filling out a form in the squad room and convinced him to go with her out
to Life Therapy.

He glanced toward the hall,
clearly wanting Beau’s approval first.

“Please!” she begged. “Butler
could be killing her right now.”

With lights and sirens screaming
they roared through town and Rico whipped the cruiser into the lot. They raced
inside, ignoring the stares and the demands of the director, Robert Woods. Sam
led the way to Renata’s room.

James Butler stood over the bed,
talking in hushed tones to his wife who appeared to be unconscious. As Sam
watched, Butler pushed a pillow over Renata’s face. He backed away and
pretended to be doing something else the moment Rico shouted at him. Sam rushed
to check on Renata, calling for a nurse, while Rico whipped handcuffs off his
belt and advised Butler of his rights.

As the husband was hauled away,
Sam listened to Renata’s breathing. It seemed steady. She’d probably been fed
extra sedatives, but she was alive.

A week later, Sam watched with
tears in her eyes as a line formed outside Sweet’s Sweets. It was seven in the
morning, her first day back in business.

“I can’t believe how much we all
did to get the shop open again,” she said, looking around at Jen, Becky, and
Julio. “Thank you. And be sure to thank each and every person who walks through
that door today.”

She stepped forward and unlocked
the door. There was free coffee and cookies, but that wasn’t the real reason
for the crowd. Muffins and cakes and pies and cupcakes got boxed up and went
out the door all day. It was mid-afternoon before Beau got the chance to stop
by and Jen told him to go straight back to the kitchen.

“The place looks amazing,
darlin
’,” he said. “You’d never know how smoky it was a few
days ago.”

She pressed her lips together,
nodding. “I could have never done this by myself.”

“This, and helping me solve a
whole series of killings.”

Sam glanced toward the two
employees who were working at their own projects, but there was really no need
for secrecy. The story had made the papers, big time. Once Candy Butler’s
statement was signed and sealed, she didn’t have much choice but to agree to be
the principal witness when the case went to court. The prosecutor’s office had
agreed that trying all four men as a group would reinforce the fact that this
was a coordinated plot, not just some boys-will-be-boys scam as a single
defendant might try to claim.

Candy Butler had called it a game
as she revealed details. The men agreed in advance that each would be
responsible for killing his own wife. That way, all were equally guilty and all
shared the spoils. Did they think of their sick game as ‘Killing for Dollars’
or some such, Sam wondered.

Ted O’Malley’s blue pickup truck
tied him to the arson. Sam’s vision provided the clue, but the fool still had a
can with traces of the same accelerant used at the bakery. He would stand trial
separately for that. In O’Malley’s truck Beau’s men had also found the tool
used to puncture
Renata’s
brake line, apparently when
Ted got tired of waiting for James Butler to do it himself. That explained why
James could truthfully say he didn’t know anything about the tampering on the
Mercedes. Marshall Grey, in addition to causing Sadie’s death, would have some
answering to do for the fact that he’d impersonated an officer of the court.