The Buzzard Table

CHAPTER

29


Genders appear identical and it is impossible to visually distinguish males from females.

—The Turkey Vulture Society




Colleton County Sheriff’s Department—

Tuesday afternoon

The Todds were angry and apprehensive when they arrived at the sheriff’s department.

“She came in her own truck, too,” Mayleen Richards told Dwight when she let him know that the Todds had been put in separate interview rooms.

“Check to see if the search warrant we used before can be stretched to cover all company vehicles and put Denning on it,” Dwight said. “We’ll start with the husband first.”

“What the hell’s going on?” Wesley Todd asked belligerently when Dwight and Sigrid entered the room. He included Sigrid in his glare, but seemed to assume she was another deputy. “You said you wouldn’t tell my wife.”

“And you said you were telling me the truth about Saturday night,” Dwight said.

“I did! Ask the Applewhites. They called me around six-thirty and I was out there by seven. Left around eight-thirty and got home a little after nine. Ask Ginger.”

“She said she took y’all’s children over to her parents’ house and stayed to visit awhile. Was she really home when you got back or is she just saying that to give you an alibi?”

“She was there! Ask her. Hell, ask her parents.”

“We will,” Dwight promised. “And it was a legitimate call-out? You did find rats in your trap when you went back next morning?”

“Absolutely.” He glanced up and met Sigrid’s clear, steady-eyed gaze. It made him hesitate. “Well, actually, Ginger did. She’s an early riser and she lets me sleep in on Sundays if the kids are with her parents or mine. Long as she was up, she went out to check.”

Again, he seemed to need to explain why his wife had done what most people would consider a man’s job. “Rats don’t bother her, see? Just don’t ask her to do snakes. She said there were rats in four of the traps, so she set new ones and plugged a hole in the crawl space that I had missed. Monday morning I found one more, so I left the traps in place for the rest of the week. But that was the end of them. Applewhite’s happy and so is his daughter, so what else you need to know?”

“She drive your truck?”

“Hell, no! Mine’s a gearshift with four-wheel drive. She won’t drive anything but an automatic. Why? Y’all find something on my truck when you searched it Thursday?”

Dwight stood. “Sit tight for a few minutes while we talk to your wife and we’ll get back to you.”

“You’re not going to tell her, are you?”

“Are you a hundred percent sure she doesn’t already know?”

“I know she doesn’t.” He shot Sigrid an apologetic look. “I don’t mean to talk dirty in front of a lady, ma’am, but last time, she said if it ever happened again, she’d squeeze my balls till I wouldn’t have a penny left by the time she finished with me, but hell, when a woman hot as Becca Jowett comes on to you, what’re you supposed to do? But Ginger doesn’t have a clue about this. It’s over and Becca’s dead, so why cause trouble for me, okay?”

Dwight didn’t answer and Sigrid, who still had not spoken, followed him from the room.



Denning and Richards met them in the hallway and Denning did not have a happy look on his face. “Either she’s the neatest workman you ever met, Major, or the truck’s been detailed in the last week. Looks like the cab was vacuumed, the bed’s been hosed down, and I can’t spot a thing that looks connected with the victim.”

“What about the tires?” Dwight said. “Does the tread match the one you found when the boy was dropped?”

“Same tread, and I can see where a roofing nail might have been, but it must’ve worked its way out. One thing, though,” Denning said. “No plastic sheeting in her truck. She may not ever have had any, but both trucks seem to carry the same equipment, so…”



“Where’s Wes?” Ginger Todd asked when they opened the door and joined her at the interview table. She had pulled off her ball cap, and under the fluorescent lights her orange hair looked even brighter, while her pale skin was almost without color at all. “Why can’t he be here?”

“It’ll be fine,” Dwight said soothingly. “We needed to ask him some questions, and if you give the same answers, this will all be cleared up.”

“What questions??”

“About Saturday night and where you both were.”

“We told you. Wes had to go see about some rats and the children and I visited with my parents.”

“Did you both leave the house at the same time?”

She shook her head and her long ponytail swung against the shoulders of her brown work clothes. “No, Wes left first. Around six-thirty. I finished giving the children their supper and then drove them over to my mom’s. She loves to have them spend the night and it gives us a chance to sleep in on Sunday morning.”

“Except that you didn’t sleep in,” Dwight said.

“Is that camera on?” Ginger Todd asked abruptly.

Dwight nodded. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”

She frowned. “I guess.”

“Wes says you got up early Sunday morning and went and picked up the rat traps he set the night before. Is that true?”

“Of course it’s true. You trying to say he didn’t actually set any traps?”

“No, ma’am. Just trying to get a full picture here.”

“Well, he did. Ask Mr. Applewhite. He thought his daughter was exaggerating about the noise the rats were making. He thought they were going to be just little field mice. He couldn’t believe it when he saw the traps next morning. He met me in the yard and couldn’t wait for me to get rid of them.”

“What do you do with the rats you catch?” Sigrid asked.

“Depends. We keep a barrel of water out back. Sometimes we drown them. Sometimes, if we’re out in the country, we just let them go. Lots of foxes and hawks and stray cats around.”

“Which did you do Sunday morning?”

Sigrid’s tone held only friendly curiosity, but Ginger Todd visibly froze.

“I—um…where Old Forty-Eight crosses Possum Creek? I dumped them into the creek. There’s no houses near there, so I figured something would eat them.”

“Really?” said Dwight. “You sure you didn’t dump them in the woods beside Grayson Village?”

“No! I’d never turn them loose near anybody’s house.”

“But you do know about those woods?”

Ginger Todd stared at them without answering.

“Where’s your plastic sheeting, Mrs. Todd?”

“What plastic sheeting?”

“The sheeting you and your husband both carry in your trucks.”

“He tell you that?”

When they didn’t answer, she said, “I don’t know. It’s still there, isn’t it?”

“When did you have your truck detailed?”

She seemed to shrink back into her heavy brown work jacket. “I don’t know. Monday? Tuesday? It was getting pretty dirty, so one of our workers took it over to the Handi-Wash to get it cleaned up.”

“What’s his name?”

“Tito. Tito Morales.” She brightened. “You know something? If my roll of sheeting’s gone, I bet someone there took it. We’re always losing stuff off the trucks.”

“When did you last see Becca Jowett, Mrs. Todd?”

The abrupt change of subject made her hesitate. “Saturday morning,” she said after a short pause. “When she showed Wes and me the house for the last time.”

“You sure you didn’t see her Saturday night when you were driving home alone? You didn’t swing past that house and see her out jogging?”

“No!”

“You saw that mark on her neck Saturday morning and you knew that your husband was attracted to her.”

“Todd wouldn’t—”

“Wouldn’t he?”

“And even if he did, why would he kill her?”

“He wouldn’t but you might. You’d had all day to stew about it, and when you saw her there by the house, alone? What did you do? Tell her you wanted to take another look? Check on one of the features? Ask her how many times she’d had sex with your husband on that couch?”

“No!” Ginger Todd stood up. “Turn off that camera. I’m not going to stay here and be talked to like this. Am I under arrest?”

When Dwight didn’t answer, she said, “I know my rights and I’m leaving.”

She stalked from the room and Mayleen gave her boss a wry smile. “Her husband did say she watches a lot of crime programs.”

“CSI has a lot to answer for,” Sigrid said.

Dwight sighed. “Go tell Todd he’s free to go, too.”

“Do I tell him his wife knows?” Richards asked.

“Let’s let it be a surprise,” Dwight said sourly.