Murder by the Slice (20 page)

“Nope,” Sam replied. “He sounded pretty shaken up. Asked me if I could come see him. I said I’d be right there.”

“Remember a couple of days ago at the carnival how he wanted to catch a ride with you, because he thought maybe the deputies wouldn’t question him as he left?”

Sam took his eyes off the road to look over at her, but only for a second. “What are you sayin’, Phyllis?”

“It just struck me at the time that he seemed a little nervous, like he didn’t want to talk to the deputies.”

“Like he had something to hide, you mean?” Sam shook his head. “I don’t want to believe that’s true. But I remember now, he did mention that.” His hands tightened on the wheel. “What do I do if the sheriff asks me about it?”

“You’ll have to tell him the truth. You can’t lie to the law.”

As soon as the words were out of her mouth, Phyllis chided herself for being a hypocrite. She hadn’t told Mike, Sheriff Haney, or anyone else in authority about seeing Shannon Dunston and Russ Tyler together in Fort Worth. That was withholding evidence, wasn’t it? Even though she had what she felt was a good reason in trying to protect Marie’s marriage. But at the very least it was a lie of omission. She had no business coming off so high and mighty with Sam.

“I’ll talk to Gary first,” Sam said. “Maybe he’s got a good explanation for everything.”

Phyllis found herself hoping that was true. She knew it would be a shock to Sam if it turned out that one of his friends was a killer. She’d been down that road herself a few months back, and she wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy, much less on a friend like Sam.

They turned left onto the side street that ran in front of the complex of buildings housing the sheriff’s department and the jail. Phyllis saw the high fences topped by razor wire at the rear of the place, enclosing the jail section, and as always the sight of them gave her a little chill. She couldn’t imagine being locked up, and was sorry some people made such bad choices that they had to suffer that fate.

A few tiny drops of rain came down as they walked from the parking lot into the building. Phyllis had been here several times before with Mike, so she knew where to go and what to do. She told the deputy at the front desk who they were and why they were there. The deputy was a young woman with blond hair pulled back into a short ponytail. “Why, sure, Miz Newsom,” she said with a smile. “I was in your history class a while back, remember?”

Phyllis had always been good with names, and she got plenty of practice remembering them, because teachers were always running into their former students. “Debbie, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am, it was Debbie Collins then. Debbie Hallwood, now.”

“You married Mitch Hallwood?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Deputy Hallwood stood up. “I’ll go get Mike for you. I’m pretty sure he’s back in Sheriff Haney’s office.”

She hurried down a corridor. Sam glanced over at Phyllis and said, “I reckon you were right about it being easier with you along. Remind me if I ever get arrested to be sure and call you.”

“Oh, you’ll never get arrested. You’re too law-abiding.”

He smiled. “You’ve just never seen my wild streak.”

Phyllis found the idea that Sam Fletcher might have a wild streak oddly intriguing, but she put that thought out of her head a moment later when Mike came up the hall with a puzzled look on his face and said, “Mom? Sam? What are you doing here? Debbie said it was something about one of the prisoners … ?”

“Gary Oakley,” Sam said. “He called me, said he’d been arrested.”

“That’s right.” Mike frowned. “He called you? We don’t listen in on prisoners, but when he refused to talk any more and asked for his phone call, we figured he was getting lawyered up.”

“Cops really say that?
Lawyered up,
I mean. I figured it was just on TV.”

Mike grunted. “Well, we probably say it more now than we used to … but, no offense, why did Oakley call you, Sam? What can you do for him?”

“Reckon I’ll have to ask him. Maybe he just needed a friend to talk to, somebody who’ll believe him when he says he’s innocent.”

Phyllis asked, “
Is
he innocent, Mike? Or do you have proof against him?”

Mike shook his head and said, “I can’t really talk about that now.”

“Can I bail him out?” Sam asked.

“He hasn’t been charged yet, so bail hasn’t been set. He’s just being held for questioning right now. You can talk to him, but that’s about all.”

Sam nodded. “Guess it’ll have to be enough.”

“Okay. Come with me, then.” Mike looked at Phyllis. “Mom, you can wait out here.”

“I can’t go with Sam?”

“I’m afraid not. One visitor only, and Sam’s the one Mr. Oakley asked for.”

Phyllis felt a flash of irritation, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good to argue. Mike might bend the rules a little when it came to telling her about what was going on in the cases he worked on, but not with something like this. Jail regulations had to be followed right to the letter.

Sam looked over his shoulder at her and lifted a hand in farewell. “I’ll be back in a little while,” he told her.

“I’ll be here,” Phyllis said.

Then as Mike and Sam disappeared down the hallway, she sat down in a hard plastic chair to wait and tried not to sigh in frustration. She wanted to know what Gary Oakley was going to tell Sam.

She would find out soon enough, she supposed.

Chapter 19

Phyllis sat and watched through the glass door as the rain fell harder outside, spitting down from the gray sky and wetting the pavement of the parking lot. Neither she nor Sam had an umbrella or a raincoat, so it looked like they might get soaked when they left the sheriff’s department. That is, unless the rain let up before then.

Which as it turned out was exactly what happened. After raining hard for fifteen or twenty minutes, accompanied by the occasional rumble of thunder, the storm began to taper off. Phyllis watched the drops hitting one of the puddles on the parking lot and could tell they weren’t falling as hard or as fast as they had been a few minutes earlier. Soon it was just sprinkling outside as the clouds thinned and the sky grew lighter.

Then a shaft of sunlight burst through, lancing down brightly and making the clouds seem darker again. Phyllis wondered if she would be able to see a rainbow if she was outside. She had always liked rainbows.

The rain stopped completely a few minutes later, and it was then that Sam emerged from the rear of the complex. As Phyllis came to her feet and moved forward to meet him, he looked out at the sun shining on the parking lot and said, “Heard it thunderin’ and was afraid we’d get poured on. Looks like it’s about to clear up, though.”

“What did you find out?”

Sam reached for the door. “We can talk about it in the

truck.” His eyes held a worried look, and Phyllis had the feeling that the conversation with Gary Oakley hadn’t gone very well.

Before Sam could open the door, Mike walked quickly up the corridor from the jail and called, “Mom, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Phyllis turned toward her son while Sam waited by the door. “What is it?” she asked.

Mike hesitated, as if unsure whether he wanted to proceed or not, but then he squared his shoulders determinedly and said, “The fact that you came here today with Sam doesn’t mean that you’re taking more of an interest in this case than you should, does it?”

Her chin came up a little. “Why don’t you say what you mean, Michael? Your father and I taught you to speak your mind.”

“All right, I will. You don’t plan to investigate Mrs. Dunston’s murder, do you? Because the sheriff wouldn’t take too kindly to it if you did.”

“There’s nothing to investigate, is there? You’ve already arrested Mr. Oakley.”

“Like I said, he’s being held for questioning and hasn’t been charged yet. So we don’t really know—”

As Mike spoke, Phyllis saw something in his eyes, and it prompted her to interrupt him. “You don’t think he’s guilty, do you?”

“I don’t have any idea. There was probable cause to bring him in, I can tell you that much.”

“But you have your doubts,” she insisted. “I can see that you do. I’m your mother, after all.”

Mike looked even more uncomfortable now. “Everybody’s considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. We just gather as much evidence as we can and turn it over to the district attorney. He’s the one who decides whether or not to proceed with a case.”

“But you form opinions, too,” Phyllis said. “You can’t help but do that. And you’re not convinced that Mr. Oakley killed Shannon.”

Mike sighed. “Look, just talk to Sam, Mom. I’m sure he’s going to tell you everything that Oakley told him, anyway.”

“Even if he does, I can’t turn around and come tell you what he said. That would be betraying a confidence.”

“I’m not asking you to do that. I’m just saying talk to Sam and make up your own mind. Maybe we’ll discuss it later. But just be careful, okay? This isn’t like last time. If you start poking around in this case, you might put yourself in real danger.”

“You mean besides annoying the sheriff?”

“I mean somebody stuck a knife in a woman’s chest,” Mike said bluntly. “If the killer’s still out there, and he thinks somebody is threatening him, there’s no telling what he might do. But it wouldn’t be good, we can count on that.”

Phyllis nodded. “I understand. And you don’t have to worry about me, Mike.”

“I hope not.” He glanced past her. “Looks like it’s clearing off outside.”

That was true. There were even more breaks in the clouds now. The sky that showed through them was a deep, beautiful blue.

But the wind that was blowing as Phyllis and Sam left the sheriff’s department and walked across the wet pavement of the parking lot was downright cold. “There’s gonna be some chilly trick-or-treaters tonight,” Sam said as he unlocked and opened the passenger-side door of the pickup. This time Phyllis didn’t refuse the courtesy.

“That’ll be better than if it was still raining, though,” she said as she got into the truck.

“Oh, yeah. I expect a wet Halloween costume wouldn’t be very comfortable.”

As they drove away, Sam went on, “I suppose you want to know what Gary had to say to me. I heard Mike tell you to ask me about it.”

“I don’t think he believes that Mr. Oakley is guilty, but for some reason he can’t come right out and say that.”

“He can’t come right out and say it because his boss the sheriff is convinced they’ve got the right man. And with what I found out about Gary today, even I’ve got to say it doesn’t look too good for him.”

“What did you find out?”

“He’s got a record,” Sam said. “He’s what we used to call a jailbird.”

Surprised, Phyllis asked, “But how could that be possible? He works at a school.”

“Yeah, but when he filled out the job application he conveniently forgot to mention that he’d been convicted of three felonies and spent time in Huntsville. I guess nobody ever got around to checking that out before he was hired.”

“What did he do? Why did he go to prison?”

“Burglary,” Sam said.

“Oh. Well, that’s not as bad as some—” Phyllis stopped short as she remembered something. “Wait a minute. There was a burglary at Loving Elementary a week or so ago.”

Sam nodded. “Yep. And since there were no signs that somebody broke in, the burglar must’ve used a key.”

“And Mr. Oakley
has
a key, since he works there.”

“Right again. The way the sheriff has it worked out, Gary was responsible for the earlier burglary, and he was in the school office Saturday afternoon stealin’ the PTO cash box from the secretary’s desk when Mrs. Dunston came in and caught him at it.”

“So he killed her to keep her from telling anyone?”

“That’s what the sheriff says. I got to admit, given Gary’s record, a jury might believe it, too.”

Phyllis sat there in silence for a moment, thinking about everything Sam had told her. Then she asked, “What does Mr. Oakley say about it?”

“He claims he didn’t do it. Says he’s innocent and has gone straight ever since he got out of the pen.”

“Then why was he trying to sneak away from the school Saturday afternoon before the deputies could talk to him? You don’t believe he really just wanted to get home to feed his dogs, do you?”

“I asked him about that, flat out,” Sam said. “He admitted he was lying about the dogs, although I think he really was a little worried about them. But he said he didn’t want to talk to the deputies because he was afraid they’d run his name through the computer and find out about his criminal record. Said he was scared that if they did, he’d not only lose his job but also be considered a suspect in the murder.” Sam sighed. “Looks like he was right about that.”

“But they didn’t arrest him until this morning,” Phyllis pointed out.

“That’s because when the deputies talked to him Saturday they just asked him a few questions, mostly about the school and had he seen anything suspicious during the afternoon. They didn’t run his name at all. Gary said he was starting to breathe easier again, thinking maybe they wouldn’t find out about him. But then this mornin’ Mike and a couple of other deputies showed up at the school and took him into custody. I figure they must’ve put the names of everybody who was there through the computer over the weekend, and Gary’s record got his name flagged.”

“This is just a guess,” Phyllis said, “but I’d be willing to bet that he wasn’t the only one at the school that afternoon with a criminal record. Nearly every year I had at least one student in class who had a parent either in prison or one who had been in prison.”

“Yeah, criminals’ kids have to go to school like anybody else’s, I reckon. But given the convictions that Gary had, and the fact that the school was burglarized not long ago, and the cash box being missing on top of everything else …” Sam shook his head. “He just had too many marks against him. The sheriff had to bring him in.”

Again Phyllis mulled over what Sam had told her. They were almost back to the house. She wanted to ask the most important question of all before they got there.

“What about you, Sam?” she said. “Do
you
think he did it?”