He came around the corner and my heart rate sped up. With long dark Wrangler jeans, boots, a pressed sheriff’s shirt, and his black Stetson, he looked like a hero out of one of the romance novels I had shelved at the store. He leaned against the porch rail and folded his arms. “What have you done now?”
“That obvious?” I pulled my legs up under me and settled in for the ride.
“Honey, I can read you like one of those books you sell.” He leaned down to pet Emma, then tossed her ball out to the backyard. “So spill.”
“I’m trying to figure out where to start.” I took a sip of tea. “You remember the woman who followed Kent out of the store the day we had the Business-to-Business meeting at Vintage Duds? The model?”
“Vaguely.” Greg’s eyebrows raised. “Who was she?”
“Long dark hair, skinny, her name’s Evelyn Baker. Pat told me that she was having an affair with Kent.” This time, I threw the ball for Emma.
He pressed his lips together. “Pat told you? When did you start hanging around with her?”
“Amy and I had drinks with Sherry and Pat a few days ago, but I’m not her friend. She came over yesterday out of the blue. You can ask Aunt Jackie, she was here when Pat showed up.” I shook my head. “Anyway, Pat said Sherry thinks you’re convinced she killed Kent, so Pat wanted me to know there were other suspects.”
“Typical. You should have sent her right to me rather than listening to her stories. You know she’ll say and do anything for Sherry. When we were married, Pat lied to me countless times on where my wife was and who she was with.” Greg’s eyes darkened. “Can’t you just stay out of things?”
“I got curious, so sue me. Aunt Jackie wrote down the list of names Pat gave me, and I started looking them up.”
“How are you looking people up? If Esmeralda gave you passwords to the office servers, I’m going to fire her.” He frowned. “Or was it Toby?”
I held my hand up. “Stop. I looked the names up on Facebook.”
Greg laughed. He kept laughing. Then he threw Emma’s ball again and wiped the moisture from his eyes. “Okay, super sleuth. What did Facebook tell you?”
Okay, so maybe Facebook wasn’t a high-tech search engine, but I had found something. “I went through the list of names and found that Evelyn Baker is married to Thomas Baker and maybe had something to hide from her husband.”
“Like an affair with Kent.”
I nodded. “So Amy and I drove to Bakerstown to talk to her today.”
“Are you kidding me? You just drove off to her house and accused her of killing Kent?” He leaned closer. “How’d that turn out? I didn’t get a call from the Bakerstown police that you’d been thrown in jail.”
“I was more tactful than that.” I thought about my approach and decided I didn’t have to tell Greg everything. “Anyway, she claims to have an open marriage and she was in the city the night Kent was killed. With her husband.”
“So neither one could have killed him?” Greg pulled a notepad out of his pants pocket. “Give me their names and address again. I’ll check them out, just in case. Sherry is throwing anyone and everyone under the bus to keep her own butt out of jail.”
I listed off the names and then gave up the other thing I hadn’t told Greg. “The afternoon of the dress rehearsal, I saw Kent making out at the beach with some girl.”
He tapped the notebook. “This woman?”
It was my turn to shrug. “Unless she was wearing a red wig, someone else was kissing Kent’s face off in the car.”
“I’ve got to get back to the office and see if we can pull footage from the beach cameras. You should have mentioned this before.”
I had tried to tell him, but he’d brushed me off. “Look, I’ve been trying to tell you about her, but . . .”
Greg’s phone rang. He scowled at the display, then took the call. “I’ll be back at the desk in ten minutes tops. Can’t this wait?”
I heard a man’s voice on the other end. Tim took dispatch calls on the weekends when Esmeralda had readings. Greg’s gaze caught mine as he returned the phone to his side holster.
“What’s wrong?”
He walked over to me and sat next to me on the bench. “Jill, it’s your aunt.”
My stomach rolled at his words, and I couldn’t hear from the blood rushing in my ears. I repeated my question, not sure I wanted an answer. “What’s going on?”
“She’s been arrested.”
CHAPTER 13
Mary Sullivan met Amy and me on the courthouse steps. We’d driven not to the city, where my aunt had claimed to be taking a girls’ night, but instead, the short distance to Bakerstown for the second time that day. Greg had offered to come, but I knew he wanted to work the Kent case. Besides, with Amy riding along, at least we’d talked during the drive.
Greg had called as we pulled into Bakerstown, letting us know he’d gotten my aunt released to his custody. Moreover, he wanted us to stop at the station so he could have a chat with her. I had a feeling neither of us were going to be on Greg’s good list for a while.