Scraps of Evidence: Quilts of Love Series (15 page)

“Logan?”

“Hmm?” He looked up, distracted.

“Everything okay?”

“Come look at this photo,” he said, holding it out to her.

She took it and studied it. “I’ve never seen this one.”

“Oh, the prom photographer sent that a couple of weeks after Sam was killed,” Mrs. Marshall said as she came into the room. “I put the photo away and only got it out to frame it months later.”

“Tess, look at what’s around her neck,” Logan said.

She looked and then stared at him, her eyes wide. “It’s Mrs. Ramsey’s necklace.”

16

T
ess turned to Mrs. Marshall. “We have to go. Thank you for the cookies.”

“Let me pack some up for you—”

“Sorry, no time!” She grabbed her purse and jogged out the door.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Marshall!” Logan called over his shoulder.

“Nice to meet you, too! Come back sometime when you have more time!”

The minute they were in the car, Tess threw it into gear and sped out of the driveway. “Call it in—”

Logan already had his cell phone out and was calling the hospital to ask that security go to Mrs. Ramsey’s room until he got an officer there.

“We have to get the results from the cat’s claws,” he muttered when he finished his call to the station. “The killer was right in her room. Bet Brutus gets treated to a can of tuna after we tell Mrs. Ramsey he saved her life.”

“Doesn’t fit the profile,” Tess said, keeping her eye on the road. She slowed, then stopped behind other cars as the drawbridge went up on the Bridge of Lions. She pounded her fist on the steering wheel.

Logan’s cell rang. He answered it, listened, thanked the caller, and then hung up. “We’ve got Mrs. Ramsey covered. Gordon was there.”

“At the hospital?”

“Yeah. There, drawbridge is going down.” He turned to her. “Your aunt is in the ER. She had a fall. Again.”

Tess glanced at him. “Why do you say ‘again’?”

“I think Gordon’s abusing her.”

A car horn sounded. Tess waved her hand and continued across the bridge. “I suspected the same thing the last time she fell, but she insisted she tripped over the cat.”

“What do
you
think?”

Tess sighed. “I kept blaming the fact I don’t like Gordon for my suspicions.”

Logan drummed his fingers on his knee. “There’s usually a reason we don’t like someone.”

“It’s not anything I can really put my finger on,” she said slowly. “I just feel uncomfortable around him. I can usually tell he’s near before I see him. Part of that is because he likes to pop up and startle people. Drives Aunt Kathy crazy.”

She frowned. “I remember her starting to chide him for that at the hospital last time she was in. Then there’s this thing . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Well, have you ever watched
The Andy Griffith Show
? I know it was a little before our time, but it’s in reruns on some stations.”

“I’m familiar with it,” he said dryly. “It’s part of the culture.”

“Gordon reminds me of affable Andy everyone loves. We call them good ole boys here in the South. I’m not saying Andy or good ole boys are bad. But I just sense something . . . darker about Gordon. It’s just he seems so likable and good-natured on the surface, but then he’s not been so nice to my aunt for some time.”

When she stopped at a light, she turned to him. “He seems very ambitious, too, but not in a good way. I gather he’s really looking to the time when the chief steps down.” She pushed at her bangs. “Then there’s the way he talked about the homeless the day we questioned the man we brought in.”

“I remember.”

“I hope my aunt’s okay.”

“We’re almost there. You go check on her, and I’ll talk to Mrs. Ramsey. Come up to her room when you can.”

Tess pulled into a parking spot reserved for police and got out. “See you.”

Logan stopped her with a hand on her arm. “I’ll say a prayer for your aunt. Call me if you need me.”

He kissed her cheek and strode off, leaving her to stare at his retreating back.

“Wow,” she muttered and then walked into the emergency room.

She identified herself at the desk and was shown to the cubicle where her aunt lay pale and still on a gurney.

The nurse attending her held her finger to her lips. “We sedated her. She’s about to go upstairs for surgery. Broken jaw.”

She nodded and touched her aunt’s hand. “I want to stay with her until she goes upstairs.”

“That’s fine. I’ll tell the doctor you’re here.”

Tess sank into the chair next to the gurney and waited.

When the doctor came in a few minutes later, he was frowning. “I thought her husband was going to stay with her until she went to surgery.”

“Police emergency. He’ll be back when he’s relieved in a few minutes. I was told my aunt was here, but not how she got injured.”

He hesitated, glanced at his patient, and then met her gaze. “She said she fell.”

“And broke her jaw?”

“Yeah. It could happen.”

“But did it.” Tess didn’t phrase it as a question. “I’m not just her niece. I’m a cop. if it’s domestic abuse, I need to look into it.”

“I was just checking her records. She’s been in here several times in the past year. If it’s not domestic abuse, then she needs a good evaluation to find out why she’s so accident-prone.”

He pushed up wire-rimmed glasses that had slipped down his nose. “I’m sure you don’t need to be told that cops have a high rate of domestic abuse.”

A statement not a question.

The curtain closing off the cubicle snapped open, revealing Gordon “Hey, Tess, Logan said you were here. How’s Kathy?”

“About to go up to surgery,” the doctor told him. “You can wait upstairs in the surgical waiting room.” With a nod, he left them.

Tess stood. “I’ll be up in a minute. I want to check in with Logan first.”

“I hope now that Mrs. Ramsey has found her necklace, she’ll stop calling 911.”

“Gordon, someone tried to hurt her last night. We think it was the serial killer.”

“Nah, she’s just a crazy old bat.”

“She isn’t a crazy old bat. She just hasn’t been the same since—”

“Yeah, yeah, since your friend Samantha died.”

“I’ll see you in the waiting room after I talk to Logan.” She left and made her way upstairs to Mrs. Ramsey’s room.

“How’s your aunt?” Logan asked the moment Tess walked up to him outside Mrs. Ramsey’s room.

“She’s in surgery. Broken jaw.”

He raised his brows. “And?”

Tess took a deep breath. “I’m talking with her as soon as she’s out of surgery. Have you spoken to Mrs. Ramsey yet?”

“I waited for you.”

“Let’s do it.” She knocked at the door and heard Lindsey, Mrs. Ramsey’s daughter, call for them to enter.

“Why, Tess, Logan! What a nice surprise!”

Tess bent to kiss Mrs. Ramsey on the cheek. “We need to talk to you some more about what happened the other night.”

“Sure.” She patted a place on the bed. “Sit here and Logan, grab a chair over there. No one’s in the other bed.”

Logan caught the look of strain around Tess’s eyes and mouth. Silently he asked if she wanted him to take the lead, and she nodded.

“Mrs. Ramsey, we want to talk to you about your necklace.”

She sat up straighter in her bed. “I didn’t misplace that necklace. I don’t know why it was suddenly in the jewelry box that night.”

“We know, Mrs. Ramsey,” Logan said quietly.

“Well, I can’t think why someone would break in and put it back,” she said, looking confused.

“We can. It’s not going to be pleasant what we have to tell you, but I know you want the truth.”

She nodded.

“Mrs. Ramsey, the necklace disappeared the night of the prom,” Tess said, picking up where Logan had left off. “I think you forgot you gave it or loaned it to Sam that night, and after she was found you were so upset you forgot about it.”

Realization dawned in Mrs. Ramsey’s eyes. “Yes, I did. She was feeling a little down because she was in a borrowed dress and all.”

“Well, the killer took the necklace that night, Mrs. Ramsey. Sometimes these kinds of killers do that. They take an object from the victim. It’s like taking a trophy if that makes any sense.”

She nodded. “I’ve heard that. But why did he bring it back?”

Then a look of horror washed over her face. “Oh—oh, my, Logan, are you saying the man who broke into my house and left the necklace was the man who killed Sam?”

Logan glanced at Tess and then at Mrs. Ramsey. “Yes,” he said. “That’s what we’re saying.”

Lindsey made a strangled sound.

“You okay?” Tess asked her. “Let me get you some water.” She poured a plastic glass full from a small pitcher on Mrs. Ramsey’s bedside table.

“Thanks,” Lindsey said after she took a sip. “I’ll be okay.”

“We’ve had security on your room since we came to this conclusion a little while ago,” Tess told her. “And we’ll have someone here and at your house until we find the killer.”

“You’re coming home with me,” Lindsey said firmly.

“Then we’ll have an officer parked outside there.” Logan leaned forward. “Mrs. Ramsey, Tess and I have been talking about the necklace, wondering why anyone would return it.”

“Well it’s obvious, isn’t it?” Mrs. Ramsey said tartly. “I just look like a crazy old lady, don’t I?”

Logan saw Tess tense. They exchanged a look, and she shook her head slightly.

“Why would someone care if she looks like a crazy old lady?” Lindsey asked, puzzled.

“Maybe he thinks she knows something.” Logan mused.

The three women stared at him.

“But I don’t know anything,” Mrs. Ramsey insisted.

“Mama, maybe you know something, but you don’t know you know it,” Lindsey suggested.

“Well, that’s just crazy.”

“No, it isn’t,” Logan said and he sprang to his feet and paced around the room. “We’ll start with the day of the prom and work through it until the time Sam went missing.”

“If you feel up to it,” Tess said. “We’ll take it in steps. You let us know when we need to stop and let you rest, okay?”

Mrs. Ramsey folded her arms across her chest. “I’m ready, and I’m not going to need a rest. I want this creep caught.”

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in!” Lindsey called.

Gordon stuck his head in. His eyes swept the room until he saw Tess. “Just thought I’d let you know Kathy’s out of surgery.”

“Thanks, I’ll come down in a few minutes.”

He nodded and closed the door.

“Your aunt is here having surgery?” Mrs. Ramsey asked. “Oh my dear, you should be with her, not here with me.”

“She’d be upset with me if I did that instead of doing my job,” Tess assured her.

“At least go check on her, and I’ll talk to Logan.”

“Go,” Logan told her. “It’ll just take a few minutes.”

Tess left the room. Logan turned to Mrs. Ramsey and opened his notebook. “So tell me about prom night.”

She began telling him about how she’d volunteered to be a chaperone that night. “Two of my favorite students were graduating, and it was their senior prom,” she said. “Oh, I know we’re not supposed to have favorites, but Tess and Sam were two of my brightest and hardest-working students. And Tess became a sort of daughter to me after her mother died earlier that year.”

“I didn’t mind,” Lindsey said. “Losing her mom was so hard on Tess.”

“The girls decorated the venue for the prom,” Mrs. Ramsey continued, her eyes taking on a faraway expression as she remembered. “Then they went to change, and they were so pretty. It was when Sam said something to me about she felt like Second Hand Rose in her borrowed gown and a rhinestone necklace that I took off the necklace my husband had given me for our anniversary and put it around her neck myself.”

She glanced at Lindsey. “I knew it was safe with her. After all, I was right there during the dance. And even if it was valuable, well, we had security for the prom. You know, to keep problems away, the students maybe doing the usual like sneaking booze into the punch or having a fistfight and such.”

Logan remembered his own prom. “When did you notice Sam missing?”

“I saw her slip out with her date. You know, Wendell, he became an attorney. Some of the couples would do that, and we chaperones would just send one of the security we’d hired to round them up in the parking lot and send them back inside.”

“Not that security was so good,” she said, frowning. “That Gordon must have shaped up some to have gotten as high in your department as he has. We needed him a couple of times that night and couldn’t find him.”

“Mother!” Lindsey spoke up. “Don’t go badmouthing him again. It’s enough that you said that to his face a couple of weeks ago when we ran into him at church, isn’t it?”

“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Ramsey rushed to say.

“It’s the dementia,” Lindsey said quietly. “She remembers stuff from the past so vividly.”

Mrs. Ramsey frowned in concentration. “Anyway, I remember Sam wasn’t the only one who went outside with Wendell that night. He ended up marrying the other girl not long after they graduated. Her name’s Muffi.”

She paused and looked thoughtful. “But after Wendell and Sam went out he came back in and she didn’t.” She looked at Logan. “She never came back in. The police talked to him later, but they said he wasn’t a suspect.”

Logan remembered his interview with the man. He wanted him to be a suspect, but he and Tess had had to take him off the list. Muffi had given him an alibi, and they hadn’t been able to poke any holes in it.

Mrs. Ramsey looked like she was tiring, but when he asked if she needed a break she refused. Lindsey stood and poured her mother a glass of water. Mrs. Ramsey sipped it and answered more questions about how Tess had become concerned about her friend and they’d gone looking for her. Tears slipped down Mrs. Ramsey’s cheeks as she described the horror of them checking the park and finding Sam’s body.