One Chance: A Thrilling Christian Fiction Mystery Romance (9 page)

CHAPTER 16

Why did God allow bad things to happen to good people?

Penelope pondered that question a lot Sunday afternoon as she sat in the Sheriff's Office, back in her uniform once again, with her best friend sitting on the opposite side of a two-way mirror, waiting to be questioned like a criminal.

Might as well ask Him why He put mosquitoes on Earth, Penelope finally decided. Both of those questions had just about the same answer. Because He has a plan that the human mind can't begin to comprehend.

"The Sheriff's on his way?" Penelope asked Jim, again.

Jim nodded, running a knuckle over his handle-bar mustache. "Said he's on his way. Be here in an hour or so." Jim's thick southern accent had always kind of amused Penelope.

Not today. Nothing was funny today.

"You sure you wanna take this one, Penelope?" Jim asked her.

"Sheriff asked me to handle this case. Even if Doug is my friend." She pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and sighed. "Okay. I'm going to start. Make sure the recorder's on for me, all right?"

After Jim nodded, Penelope stepped through the metal door and into the interview room. She had a notepad and pen in hand as she sat down across from Doug. The two friends looked at each other silently for a long moment.

"I didn't kill my wife, Penny," Doug said finally.

"Ex-wife," Penelope corrected him.

Her friend shrugged his shoulders. "I don't see how that matters now. Do you?"

"Everything matters in a murder investigation, Doug." Penelope clicked the nib of the pen out and started writing.

"Where's Trevor?" Doug asked.

"He's with Jacob," Penelope assured him. "Don't worry about him. He'll be fine. We haven't told him what's going on, but I kind of got the impression from some things that he said to me that he already knows. At least parts of it. Does he already know, Doug?"

Doug looked down at his hands resting on top of the metal interview table and didn't answer.

The anger that Penelope had felt after finding out her best friend had been lying to her rose up again. Doug had been just like a brother to her since they were both just kids. Penelope had gone out of her way for Doug in this, put her personal reputation out on a limb, even putting her own career in jeopardy to stick up for Doug. And Doug had repaid her by lying to her.

Those were some bitter ashes to swallow.

"Okay, Doug," Penelope said. "You and I are going to talk to each other now. We're going to talk, and I'm going to talk to you like a police officer."

"Penny—"

"Don't even start with me, Doug. You don't want to be treated like a criminal, then don't act like one. I asked you a question. Does Trevor already know about his mom?"

Doug opened his mouth to speak and then closed it again.

"Fine, Doug. Fine. You have the right to talk to a lawyer before answering any of my questions."

"Penny, come on."

Penelope had read the Miranda Warnings so often she could recite them by heart. "If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer—"

"Penny, seriously—"

"—one will be appointed to you—"

"—you don't need to do this!"

"—without cost to you—"

"Penny!"

"—without cost and before—"

"Penny! Stop it! Okay, okay. No, Trevor doesn't know. She, I mean Camille, she dropped Trevor off to me at your place Saturday morning. Yesterday. She talked to me for just a few minutes, told me about her boyfriend, told me I had to keep Trevor because he wasn't safe with her, and then she left. Just took off. After two years of no contact with me at all, she just dumps Trevor with me and leaves."

Penelope scratched out some notes. "So what did you do then? And if she really was at my house, like you said, and then left, how did you know she's dead?"

"Because..." He stopped, took several breaths, and Penelope thought he was going to clam up again, but finally he spoke. "Because I went over to Gainesville to find her. I went to her apartment. Once Trevor was down for his nap I locked all of the doors to your place and borrowed your car and went to her apartment."

Penelope stared at him. "You left Trevor alone?"

Her friend scrubbed at his face. He still couldn't believe he'd done that, either. "I know, I know. It was stupid. I wasn't thinking straight."

"You think?" Penelope couldn't keep the sarcasm out of her voice. "You were supposed to stay at my house, Doug. That was the whole point to me bringing you there, to keep suspicion off you, and help you clear your name. You think this helps you clear your name?"

"That's why I didn't tell you about it right off."

"You didn't tell me about it at all."

"I was trying to, Penny. I was talking to you about it when this happened."

"So, bad timing." Sarcasm again.

Doug just shook his head and looked down at the table.

"So tell me now. What happened when you stole my car and left Franklin against my direct say-so?"

Doug winced like he had been stung by Penelope's words. Their friendship meant a lot to both of them, and this was bringing it to its breaking point.

"I went to her apartment," Doug admitted. "Same one that she's had since she left me. I went upstairs, went to her door, and knocked. It swung right open. I called her name, told her I was there, told her I needed to talk to her and don't run away from me again, and I was yelling at her, and all the anger I had for her was just coming out of me, and then I saw her, Penny. I saw her on the floor. Dead. Blood, her blood, making a puddle behind her head. That's what happened."

"So when the report from her neighbors says that they heard you having an argument with her in the apartment, that was you yelling for her before you found her dead?"

Doug broke down in tears. Penelope let him cry it out for a few seconds before she reached across the table and took hold of one of Doug's hands. "I'm sorry, Doug. I really am."

Her friend shook his head. Doug knew that Penelope was only doing her job, and that he had helped put his own self into this mess. If he was hip deep in it, if people thought he was guilty of the vehicular assault on Peter Lamb, and now his ex-wife's murder, it was his own fault. "It's okay, Penny. You've done everything you can for me. It's time for me to man up and show you some gratitude."

"Doug, look, whatever's going on here, I need to know. Lay it all out for me, please. Lay it at God's feet. The truth sets you free. You know that."

Doug looked at her then with an expression that came close to contempt. "Oh, really? Is that what it's done for you? The truth set you free, did it, Penny?"

Penelope was stunned into silence for almost a minute. Doug was referring to something from deep in Penelope's past. A horrible incident that had left a family decimated and Penelope's childhood home burned to the ground. And Doug was right, Penelope hadn't dealt with that issue yet. It still haunted her.

"I'm trying to help you for right now, Doug," Penelope finally said. "If you want to talk about the past later, we can. Right now your present is my concern."

The house, in flames, and Penelope at a very young age screaming for help—

She shook the images out of her mind and concentrated on the here and now. "What happened to Camille, Doug?"

Doug sniffed back his tears and shrugged again. "I don't know."

"Doug, come on now."

"I don't know, I tell you! When I got there, she was dead. I couldn't stick around. Trevor was back home without me. As it was, he got out before I could get back and was out wandering around. And I couldn't help her and I knew what people would think. I mean, come on, they already think I tried to kill Pete. So if I had called the police and then waited for them? What would have happened then?"

Penelope knew exactly what would have happened then. The same thing that was happening now.

Penelope had known that something was wrong with her friend. She could sense the change in him, as soon as she came home Saturday and Doug had told him Camille had come back. That Trevor had come back. Penelope had chalked it up to the presence of Doug's son in his life again. She hadn't wanted to believe that Doug would ever try to hide something from her.

But it hadn't taken her long to realize Doug was doing just exactly that. For the first time ever, she had thought Doug might be lying to her. Doug and her had been close like brother and sister all their lives. He had been family to her. And Doug had never lied to her before. Until now. And Penelope had seen it happening, but not wanted to believe it. Even Jacob, had suggested the possibility to her. And she had turned a blind eye to the very thought.

She had put away both her police officer intuition and her God-give reason, because she hadn't wanted to believe what was right in front of her eyes.

God help me
, she thought.
Give me strength. Please.

"So you knew she was dead all this time," she said to Doug, as a statement, not a question.

Doug nodded his head, miserably.

"Even when I was trying to call her to talk to her."

Another nod.

"And when I asked you to try calling her, you didn't bother, did you?"

A shake this time. No.

"Doug. Did you kill Camille?"

"No!" Doug said immediately, his hands animated in the air, his expression strained. That question coming from Penelope completely broke his heart. More so even than finding Camille dead, and having to hide it from his son and his best friend.

"Okay. Okay, Doug. God help me for being a fool, but I believe you. But I really don't think anyone else is going to. So if you didn't kill her, tell me, who did?"

Slowly, Doug reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a folded and crumpled piece of paper.

CHAPTER 17

Penelope read over that paper three times. There wasn't much on it. She just couldn't believe what she was seeing.

It was a wanted poster from the state of California. There was a photograph, and basic information listing a man by the name of Michael Findley, height five-foot-ten, weight two-hundred-thirty, black hair and hazel eyes. Skull and crossbones tattoo on the back of his right hand. Wanted for armed robbery. And according to Doug, the man in the photo was Camille's current boyfriend. The one she'd told Doug was a murderer.

Looks like she was right.

The poster listed, among other things, that Findley was wanted for questioning in a murder case. Had Camille found this out and confronted Findley? Had he killed her to keep her quiet? Or had they argued and he pushed her, or, or, or, or. Too many possibilities.

But one thing was for sure. Without the wanted Mister Findley in hand, the only person on the hook for Camille's murder, was Doug.

The interview with Doug had gone on for a few more hours, but basically it was more of the same, the two of them going over the same thing again and again.

Afterward, she and Doug had hugged each other tightly. Penelope had told Doug it would be okay.

She just wished she believed it.

Everything pointed to Doug. No matter how much Penelope believed in him, the evidence all pointed squarely at Doug.

"Please God," Penelope prayed after locking Doug into the building's only holding cell and sitting down at her desk once again. "Let me figure a way out of this for Doug. He's not a perfect man, Lord, but he's my friend. And if he's innocent he doesn't deserve this."

If? If he's innocent? Penelope heard the way she had said it and wondered at herself. Was she beginning to think Doug was guilty too?

By eight o'clock that night, the Sheriff still hadn't arrived. Penelope had stayed at her desk through the dinner hour, doing paperwork. It was going to be necessary to charge Doug, in the absence of any proof that might show his innocence. Oh, she had a few details that tended to bolster Doug's story of where he had been on the day Pete got run down, but nothing concrete. And nothing that she could present to a jury as an alibi. Finding that proof would have to be her next step.

Actually, her next step would be to call Jacob. She needed to check on Trevor. She loved that kid almost like he was her own. But more than that, she needed to hear some encouraging words from the most important man in her life.

She didn't expect to see Jacob walk in the front door of the Sheriff's Office, as though her thoughts of him had conjured him up.

"Hi Sweetheart," she said cheerfully. "Hi Trevor!" The little boy, his blonde hair always messy and out of place, waved from the crook of Jacob's arm where he carried him.

"Hi, Auntie Penny," Trevor said in a sleepy voice. Almost time for bed for that one, she thought.

Then she saw the concerned look on Jacob's face. His deep brown eyes were worried. "You don't look very happy, Jacob. What's wrong?"

"I'm not happy at all," he said. "Penny, someone was in my house after you left."

That set off every one of Penelope's alarm bells. She had driven Doug and Trevor to Jacob's before bringing Doug in here to the station, and she had left Trevor with Jacob to keep him safe. They'd told the little boy it was a sleepover. But if someone had been in his house... "Who was it?" she asked.

"I wish I knew, Penny," he said. "After you brought Trevor to me, we went out for a walk. Just a bit down the road, is all, and then back. As soon as I walked back into the house I felt like something was out of place, but I didn't know what. You know that feeling you get when there's something you're so familiar with you just never think about it, but then it's changed, but you can't put your finger on it? Well, it was like that. So I started looking around the house and I finally figured it out. I had three photographs up on the living room wall of me, you, Doug and Camille. They're gone."

"Just those pictures?" she asked him, while asking herself who steals photographs after a home invasion.

"Just those, Penny. All the rest are still there. I came straight here with Trevor after that. I figured, you know, with everything going on."

Meaning Trevor's mother being murdered, and the accusations against his father.