Lethal Little Lies (Jubilant Falls Series Book 3) Read online

  *****

  Back in my car, I lit a cigarette as I contemplated where I could go next.

  Rick Starrett supposedly had a good relationship with his ex-wife. Would he have let her in on the true story of Rowan’s death?

  I looked at my watch. I needed to check in at the J-G and then on my way home, I’d pay a visit to June Wynford-Starrett as she was now known.

  Back in the newsroom, I checked with Dennis on what was shaping up for tomorrow’s front page. Over Dennis’s desk we had another white board, marked off with each day of the week that listed the front-page stories we had coming with a one or two word identifier called a “slug.” The board was crosshatched with each staff member’s name, and included a slot for any wire stories we might use.

  “Elizabeth has a story on a grant the city schools received to get new computers and another story on one of the county schools—she hasn’t got it written down here, but she told me the school board there is talking about another levy in the spring since the last one failed.”

  “Any of them have photos?” I asked.

  “We’re pursuing that,” he answered. “It won’t be anything earth-shattering.”

  “And Graham?”

  “I haven’t seen him since lunch. I know he was meeting with Detective Birger on Kay Henning’s shooting this afternoon.”

  “OK. If you see Marcus before I do, tell him he’s got three weeks vacation, if he wants to use any of them now.” God, I haven’t even checked in with Marcus today to see how Kay’s recovering. As usual, I’m too wrapped up in my own stories to realize what the rest of the world is doing.

  “I don’t think I’ll have anything on the Ferguson shooting,” I continued cautiously. “I’ve got some things to look at before I can do anything more.”

  “I had Graham check to see if there were any pretrial conferences scheduled and there’s nothing.”

  I nodded again. “I’ve got one stop to make, and then I’m heading home. Save a space for me on page one for tomorrow. You never know.”

  *****

  June Wynford-Starrett dumped three plastic grocery bags on the granite counter of the kitchen in the suburban Jubilant Falls home she once shared with Rick. The appliances were all stainless steel and the white cabinets had glass windows, showing off stacked plates and glasses, lined up meticulously.

  Thin and lithe with a runner’s body and just a few years younger than her ex-husband, she colored her short graying brown hair with bright highlights. She worked for the city utilities department as an administrator and still dressed the part of a politico’s wife. Her suit was royal blue; the skirt hit her knees at a respectable length and the jacket closed at her throat with matching buttons. She wore a large brooch below her left collar and a lanyard with her city ID hung from around her neck.

  Rick met her in college, during one of his evening grad school classes. They married quickly, soon after he became the Jubilant Falls city manager. They had two girls with snooty yuppie names: Hunter was a junior and Sutton a senior at Jubilant Falls High School. Like their father and famous uncle, they excelled at sports.

  “I’m in shock over the whole thing,” she said, speaking to me over her shoulder as she put groceries away. “I couldn’t believe those horrid commercials when I saw them and I hated that Rick got defeated. But in some ways, I’m not surprised.”

  “You’re not? Why?” I looked up from my notebook briefly and kept writing as she talked.

  “Rick had demons, just like Rowan. Not gambling, mind you—ego. He began to believe his own press releases. Connecting him to his crooked brother was low and tarnished the golden image of the great Rick Starrett. I could see him snapping over it.”

  “You think your ex-husband killed Virginia Ferguson?”

  She stopped putting away groceries and looked me in the eye. “Honestly, I know we all are capable of violence, down deep at some level. But Rick?” She shrugged. “Who knows?”

  “Was there any problem with drinking or drugs?”

  “No. He’d learned a hard lesson from Rowan. It’s just easier to screw around on your wife.”

  “Were there several women or just one?” I’d heard infidelity was a factor in their divorce and tried not to sound shocked.

  “Oh, a constant stream of women, I learned later.” June opened the refrigerator door to put a gallon of milk inside. She turned back to face me, her hands on the cold granite counter. Her shoulders sagged. “We had everything going for us—a great family, a wonderful home and a great job. He was respected in Columbus and here in the community—and he threw it all away.”

  “When did you first suspect something?”

  “After he took his first job in Columbus, he drove back and forth. There were one or two nights a month where he would call and tell me he needed to stay over, like when the General Assembly was debating some big issue like the budget. I didn’t think too much of that.”

  “You bought that? I know I wouldn’t have.”

  “I didn’t want to think there could be anyone else, even though there was this niggling little voice in the back of my head telling me differently. I knew who Rick really was, down deep and then after a while, I couldn’t find that man any more. The girls were just starting elementary school; his brother had just committed suicide. Being a good wife, I believed him when he told me he thought he needed to stay in Columbus occasionally to do a better job for the people of Jubilant Falls.”

  June sighed and hung her head for a moment before she continued. “Then he really stopped coming home week nights. It got to be one or two nights a month, then five days here and three days. Finally, he got an apartment. He came home on weekends. We talked most every night on the phone for a while and then we… didn’t.”

  “Was there a particular tipping point?”

  “It was five years ago. It was the middle of the week—I’d just learned that I’d gotten a job with the city and I wanted to share that with Rick. I had my mother come stay with the girls; I packed a negligee and a bottle of champagne and thought I’d surprise my husband. Only I was the one who was surprised when some bimbo wearing his bathrobe answered the door.”

  June sighed and continued. “In between all this, he becomes the darling of the governor’s inner circle—there was talk he’d get appointed to a cabinet post—and I saw him change. He got arrogant, egotistical.”

  “You divorced then?”

  “Yes. When my lawyer began to look into his finances during our divorce, I learned how many women there had been—and how many of them he’d supported financially. You should have seen how arrogant he acted in court. It was like he was proud of it.”

  He did that on a civil servant’s salary of some $80,000 a year? I raised my eyebrows and remembered the money orders on my Dad’s kitchen table. I switched gears on the interview.

  “Can I ask you about Rowan? What kind of relationship did you have with him?”

  June shrugged. “Not much. He lived so far away in Detroit and Chicago and then he was in prison. Then he was … dead.”

  “Did he come home to visit much?”

  “Not really. The girls loved him when they were little. He was that crazy uncle that kids always love—but Rick wouldn’t let him come to the house once we knew about the gambling and the drugs. That all happened before we split up. I don’t even think they remember Rowan now.”

  “Did Rowan ever call here? To talk to Rick?”

  “Yes, when he was sober the conversations were great. We’d let him talk to the girls—they were little then—and he would visit every now and then. We knew he was in trouble when the phone calls stopped—or started in the middle of the night. There were more than a few of those.”

  Silence filled the kitchen as I scribbled frantically.

  “So how did you learn of his suicide?”

  June’s words were well rehearsed. She’d told this story more than once, I could tell.

  “We were all supposed to meet at his mother’s for her birth
day and Rowan never showed up. Rick and his mom kept calling and never got an answer. So after dinner, I took the girls home and Rick drove up to Columbus to see if Rowan was OK. He wasn’t. You know the rest of what happened.”

  Could Rick have kept the truth from his wife as well as his mother? I took a deep breath.

  “I met with Rick and his attorney earlier today. He says he helped Rowan fake his death, that Rowan’s alive and he’s responsible for shooting Virginia Ferguson.”

  June Wynford-Starrett clapped her hands to her mouth and gasped. I saw tears crest in her eyes as she choked out the words I wanted to hear: “Thank God, I don’t have to keep that secret any more—yes, Rowan’s alive.”

  Chapter 20 Marcus

  Over Thursday’s breakfast, I told the kids the truth. I had Detective Birger there in case there were any specific questions I couldn’t answer.

  I told them as much as I thought they should know about Charlie—glossing over the drunken Seattle details and finding her thong in my jacket at the airport. I told them about meeting Charlie on the plane during the book tour, the incessant phone calls at work and at home that caused us to change our number, the call from the woman identifying herself as their Aunt Cal and how my wholesale avoidance of the situation had probably been the cause of their mother’s abduction and shooting.

  I thought I’d feel horrible guilt. Instead, I felt as if I’d been set free, that the secret I’d kept was now out in the open and we could all deal with it.

  “The truth is, my keeping the fact that this woman has been hounding me is part of what came between your mother and me and, I think, the reason for the note she left,” I said. “I thought I could sweep it under the rug and it would go away. Your mother probably thought I’d been unfaithful and instead of the two of us confronting the problem, we grew apart and she got shot.”

  The kids were silent. Both PJ’s and Lillian’s eyes were huge. Bronson’s arm was around Lillian’s shoulder, but his face was bewildered. No doubt this type of behavior didn’t occur in his gilded social circles.

  Welcome to the family, I thought to myself.

  Andrew’s eyes were hard and angry. I could see his warrior father in his eyes and didn’t know if the hate was directed at the threat against his mother—or me for allowing it to continue.

  My feelings of being set free turned once again to dread.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Nobody responded.

  “The truth is, your father did nothing wrong—he has a stalker,” Birger said. “While it’s more common for women to be stalked, men have been stalked, too. Female stalkers are either former partners who can’t let go or fixate on the male victims for some reason. We think that your father’s novel, Death on Deadline, may be the reason and this woman has somehow confused the character in his novel with him.”

  “Rhys Chapman is nothing like Dad!” Lillian blurted out. “Rhys Chapman is, is —cool!”

  We all laughed nervously.

  “That’s more true than you know,” I said.

  Birger continued: “I need you all to be very careful. Mr. Henning, you need to file a motion for a restraining order first thing this morning. I’ve brought the paperwork for you to fill out. This gives us the power to arrest Charlene Deifenbaugh if she attempts to make contact with you here, or at the newspaper or anywhere. I need you all to document any suspicious phone calls or activity here at home and contact us any time day or night if anything happens.”

  “Should we also have restraining orders?” Lillian asked.

  “I think at this point you kids are safe. It’s your dad that this woman is fixated on. There are three stages to stalking generally,” he continued. “The first one is what he has been experiencing: lots of phone calls and unwanted contact. That, unfortunately leads to the second phase, which, unfortunately, is violence and we’ve seen the results of that.”

  “But why focus on Mom? Why not target Dad?” Andrew asked. His voice was cold, flat and businesslike. I could see him honing in on Charlie as he would a Taliban fighter in the Afghan mountains.

  “To get her out of the way, we think. To have him all to herself,” Birger answered. “That’s why we have put guards at the hospital and asked the staff to monitor all phone calls. But this isn’t going to end here. There’s another phase.

  “The third phase is what I call the ‘hearts and flowers’ phase. The stalker is sorry for any physical violence and generally starts to beg for forgiveness. Her phone call to the hospital today could have been that—or it could have been an attempt to see if she was successful at getting your mother out of the picture. Sometimes the stalking even stops for a little while and the victim lets their guard down. But that can be very dangerous because the stalker almost always comes back. The victim is usually not prepared for it. This is when we start to see the escalation in violent behavior. ”

  Lillian winced and leaned into Bronson’s shoulder.

  “As upsetting as that is, we’ve got to make the assumption that this is the road we are traveling down,” Birger continued. “If for any reason you come in contact with her, do not speak to her, do not confront her, and do not do anything that can endanger yourself or anyone else. Call me on my cell or call 9-1-1 immediately.” He reached inside his jacket and handed each kid a business card. “We are working this case very actively and we intend to get your mother justice. Charlene Deifenbaugh will see jail for what she’s done.”

  “In my line of work, Detective, we seek out the enemy,” Andrew spoke slowly and deliberately. “We seek them out and destroy them. We don’t wait for them to come to us and then call someone else for help.”

  “Your line of work and my line of work are different, Lieutenant,” Birger said. “You let me keep things safe in Jubilant Falls and I’ll let you protect the country. If you in any way engage this woman to come to this house, you could be putting everyone in your family at risk. She could bring charges against you if she is injured in any way.”

  “Think about what that could do to your Air Force career,” I said. “You don’t want that.”

  Andrew’s jaw shifted back and forth as his blue eyes focused intently on the detective. “No, sir. No, I don’t.”

  Birger stood. “Well, I want to thank you for the coffee,” he said. “I’m going to say goodbye—if you hear anything or see anything, you call me. Don’t do anything to put yourself or your mother in danger.”

  I escorted Birger to his car, an unmarked black Crown Victoria. I looked left and right, trying to see if there were any suspicious vehicles.

  “Don’t worry. Your house is under surveillance, but not in such a way as to scare your neighbors,” he said, loosening his tie.

  “That’s good. As long as I’ve lived here, I don’t think I would be the sort of folks my neighbors would necessarily associate with; an obvious police presence won’t go far in encouraging folks to come to our parties. Thanks for explaining things here this morning,” I said, shaking his hand.

  “You did a good job. They may not like what you told them, but I think they’ll understand. I am concerned, however, about the lieutenant.”

  “I’ll talk to him. He’ll back down.”

  “If he does anything to engage your stalker in any sort of violent manner, he could end up in court and it could really screw up our investigation—not to mention his life.”

  “I understand. I’ll make that clear to him.”

  “Good.” Birger nodded and slid into the front seat of the Crown Vic. “We’ll be in touch.”

  Back in the house, the kids had wandered off in different directions. Lillian and Bronson sat in the living room, watching daytime television. Even as they stared at the screen, I could see tears rolling silently down Lillian’s face. Bronson’s eyes were still wide with fear.

  Maybe he was considering not proposing to Lillian after all. Maybe I’d ruined that, too. Nothing could mess up a Big Apple wedding like a crazed woman coming after the father of the bride.


  Andy stood at the kitchen island, a half full cup of coffee in front of him. His feet were apart, his arms folded with hands clenched, his head down, deep in angry thought.

  “Where’d PJ go?” I asked.

  Andrew looked up. “Oh, he went to his room.”

  “You OK?” I asked.

  He sighed. “I don’t like not being able to do anything. That bitch tried to kill my mother—”

  “And we don’t have the authority to take revenge. We might be all wrong on this. It might not have been Charlie, but I doubt it. If you have any kind of confrontation with her, and she was hurt—”

  “Or killed.” His blue eyes were cold and hard. I had no doubt he could kill with his bare hands.

  “The point is, we couldn’t get justice for your mother.”

  “We’d already have justice.”

  “And you’d be in prison for the rest of your life. What would Mom say?”

  His shoulders sagged. “I’m just angry. I’m angry that this happened. I’m angry I can’t do anything. I’m angry I was so far away when it happened.”

  “I’m sorry. In a way, I caused this.”

  Andy waived his hand dismissively. “With your book, you’re in the public. Weirdoes fixate on people in the public.”

  “What I told you kids was the truth. You don’t believe I was unfaithful to your mother, do you?”

  “That’s the furthest thing from my mind—any of our minds,” Andy’s face took on a pained look. “We saw how you and Mom were together. You two were magic. Any man who would take on some other man’s three kids like you did and raise us as your own? C’mon, Dad—get serious.”

  “Thanks,” I said, relieved.

  “One more thing, Dad —”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m only on emergency leave. I’ve got to get back to the base as soon as I can.”

  “I understand. How soon do you need to leave?”

  “I’m catching a hop out of Symington Friday morning.”

  “Then we’ve only got a couple hours of visiting time left at the hospital. Let’s round everybody up and go visit Mom. I’ll go get PJ. You get Lil and Bronson and I’ll meet you at the car. And Andy?”