Holding Out For A Hero

“The bank says,” the caller continued, “that the money was withdrawn by your husband. The check I wrote him was for six hundred dollars, and the check he presented was for six thousand dollars. All I had!”

Shelley’d mumbled an apology, followed by a promise to find out what had happened, and then tried Larry’s cell number: disconnected. Before she could move off the couch, three more calls came from friends experiencing the same thing. Then the bank president had called. Seemed Larry had been busy that morning. The bank president deemed it suspicious activity. Soon the whole town knew.

By the time Chief Riley arrived, Shelley had checked the dresser where Larry kept his things. His clothes remained, except for a few favorites. She’d have never noticed them gone if she hadn’t looked.

She’d been so upset, she’d thrown up.

Once the story broke, Shelley became the scapegoat. No surprise—she’d been the one left behind with no money to start over. She’d changed her phone number and email address, but still the calls and emails came. Most were from people who wanted her to pay them back. Not possible. Riley couldn’t offer any meaningful advice except that she “wasn’t the only one it had happened to.” Not what she needed to hear, but she’d seen it in his eyes. She was just one more victim: not a role she desired and not one she intended to keep forever.

Now here she was again, walking down the hallway with Chief Riley, curious glances aimed her way and an unsettling feeling of guilt warring with the flutter of the baby’s movements.

A shout came from her father’s room. “I think Shelley Wagner was a neighbor!”

Shelley blinked hard. She would not cry.

Riley offered, “Maybe it would be better if we headed to the station and—”

“Not an option, unless you’ve got a warrant for my arrest.” She wasn’t heading anywhere. Thanks to Larry and the myriad of police officers who had taken over her life six months ago, she knew her rights.

“That can be arranged,” Riley said.

Shelley rolled her eyes and led them down a hall. After turning Ryan over to Cara, who worked the front desk and always had time for the little boy, Shelley headed for the piano room. On weekends sometimes it held as many as forty people: patients, staff, visitors. During the week, it was usually empty unless Mr. Vaniper was in the mood to play.

He was and doing a perfect rendition of “Send in the Clowns.” If she hadn’t been on the brink of tears, she’d have laughed. Who were the clowns? The cops? The people her ex-husband had ripped off? Her?

Mr. Vaniper, who had the room next to her father’s, wore his black tux. He played music he no longer remembered the words to in front of an audience he didn’t know wasn’t there. The tune came to a crescendo and ended. Mr. Vaniper wandered from the room.

Officer Guzman stepped up to the front desk and said something to Cara while Chief Riley escorted Shelley to a beige couch, covered with roses and vines, flanked by two pink high-back chairs. A coffee table with a fake flower arrangement was in front of the couch. Shelley sat on a chair. No way did she want to be trapped between these two cops. Her innocence had dissolved almost as quickly as her trust in the system.

“We know,” Riley started, taking a seat opposite her, “that you contacted me about Candace’s murder. What exactly did you see yesterday?”

Shelley swallowed back hot bile. It rose inside her like a mountain of fear. She couldn’t trust the cops. Yet she had a dozen things she wanted to say. She wanted to tell them that she was almost out of money, that her father was drifting further and further away, that she’d started introducing Ryan as Ryan Brubaker but that he was legally Ryan Wagner and she was terrified that someone would figure out her name wasn’t on the custody papers and take him from her. She wanted to tell them she’d seen her ex-husband standing there in that living room yesterday morning, and that she’d run home, dragging Ryan with her, and sat down on her couch, fumbling with the phone, intending to call.

She wanted to tell them that her ex-husband still had the ability to pull her puppet strings and that he’d killed Candace and had threatened Ryan and seemed to know her every step. She couldn’t answer the cops’ questions honestly because she knew her ex-husband would make her disappear.

It could even happen today.

CHAPTER FIVE (#ua098f4e0-e42f-54eb-9214-a86f3408103c)

OSCAR COULDN’T DENY that he felt drawn to Shelley. And it made no sense when examining what was stacked against her. There was the packed car, the fact that she’d fled the crime scene and the town. No matter how he looked at it, Shelley Wagner—Brubaker, that was—was more involved in this murder than they originally suspected. Too bad. Oscar had gotten the idea that he could like this kind, determined woman.

Didn’t mean she was completely innocent; he had to remind himself of that.

She was working hard to keep control, and Oscar had the feeling it wouldn’t take much to get her to reveal what she knew. She kept looking past them, through the wide doorway, at the front desk, where the nurse and Ryan were playing some online game on the computer.

Riley placed an audio recording device on the coffee table in front of them. Oscar couldn’t tell where he’d stashed it earlier. “Do you mind if I record this?”

“I do mind.”

Riley didn’t hesitate. “Then I’ll take notes.”

A visitor or two wandered into the piano room, seemed to sense the seriousness of the situation and quickly wandered out.

Shelley, her voice shaky, said, “Look, I got scared yesterday. Maybe I made a few bad decisions, but what’s happening now, you here questioning me, is exactly why I didn’t report the...the body immediately or report it in person.”

Oscar watched Riley regroup and understood exactly what the other cop was doing. They needed Shelley to work with them, not against them. Riley rested his pencil on his notepad, and Oscar used the opportunity to take over.

“Right now, all we want is to know everything you saw yesterday morning. Start with the fifteen minutes before you met up with me.”

She didn’t answer. She sat quiet, but certainly not calm. She perched on the edge of the couch looking poised for flight.

Oscar downplayed the seriousness of her situation by sharing, “I’ve already told Riley what I noticed during the walk.” He cleared his throat, hoping his comment would relax her. “I’ve told him how no one was out, not even Mrs. Simms taking care of the flowers in her front yard. I told him about seeing you, and about a white car that turned the corner.”

For a moment, she was so still, he couldn’t even tell if she was breathing. Then she said, “I’ll tell you what I know, but it’s not much. We were running late. I’d had trouble sleeping because Abigail’s dog woke me up about five. Then the phone rang, and I got upset. That cost us precious time. Fifteen minutes before we encountered you, I was getting Ryan ready for preschool. I tried to hurry him. As we started I didn’t see anyone out.”

Oscar asked, “What got you upset?”

Shelley looked at Riley. “Someone got my number and wanted me to pay back money that Larry took.”

Riley nodded. “Go on.”

“It was hot outside. I was miserable. We walk to preschool. I’m watching my pennies, saving gas. Even if it makes us later, we walk. We’d just made it past the first house.” She looked at Oscar. “The young couple.”

“Candace and Cody,” he supplied.

“We saw you, and Ryan fell in love with your dog. Then he got distracted, and you saw him run up to the big picture window. I followed. That’s when I saw her, lying on the floor. I could tell she was dead.”

“Why didn’t you holler for me?”

Shelley looked like Mona Lisa with her lips pressed together. His sister looked exactly the same when she felt backed into a corner and about to come out fighting. “You were already down the street.” Shelley kept her words quiet, monotone.

“You could have caught me.”

“I didn’t want to upset Ryan.”

Riley took control of the interview. “Ryan saw Candace Livingston?”

“That’s her last name?” Shelley whispered.

“Candace Maria Livingston,” Riley said.

Shelley shook her head. “Poor woman. Yes, Ryan saw her and thought she was sleeping. I don’t think he even noticed the blood.”

“How well did you know her?”

“Not at all. I’d seen her once or twice in the driveway. She’d say hi, and I’d say hi back. Nothing else.”

Riley asked, “You’d never seen inside her living room?”