Whispering Walls & Murder Read online

  Maybe mid-sixties. His face was weathered and tanned, maybe Italian or Mediterranean descent. As he narrowed his eyes at me, the wrinkles on his forehead intensified, and the crows-feet around his eyes deepened. His salt-and-pepper hair was cut short but still managed to look thick. His bold red tie was the only color in his all-black suit and shoes.

  He tipped his head in greeting to me, but still didn’t say anything. Duke let out a low growl beside me.

  “I’ll give the keys to my dad,” Logan snapped. “Be right back.”

  Gramps finally turned, leaned his back against the desk, and crossed his arms over his chest. His posture may have said nonchalant, but I knew he was on high alert.

  “This your first time here?” the older gentleman asked Gramps.

  “Yep.”

  “I’ve been coming here for a while now,” the man continued. “They do good work.”

  Gramps grunted. “Good to hear.”

  Logan crossed the archway from the bays and hurried back over to the front desk. When it was obvious Gramps and I weren’t going to move, he sighed. “You two can sit down. This will probably take twenty minutes.”

  “Actually, Logan,” I said, “I was hoping I could ask you some questions.”

  Chapter 9

  “What kind of questions?” Logan demanded. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say.”

  I shifted my stance so I could include both Logan and the man in the chair in my vision and then clucked my tongue. “You don’t even know what I’m going to ask, Logan.”

  “Again, I don’t know nothin’.”

  “My name is Jaycee,” I said. “Does that ring a bell? Maybe a detective came out here to talk with you yesterday?”

  The man in the chairs went visibly rigid at the mention of cops. Gramps and Duke dropped back and went to lean against the side wall, giving Gramps a direct line into the bays to observe what was going on out there with his Hummer and yet still able to keep an eye on me.

  Logan’s mouth pinched in anger. “I ain’t got nothin’ to say to you. I know who you are. I know you found David’s body, but I don’t know nothin’ about how it ended up where it did. I thought David left town.”

  “You thought one of your best friends just up and left town and never contacted you again?” I asked in the most innocent tone I could.

  Logan’s nostrils flared. “That’s right.”

  “Must have been a real shock then to learn that David’s body had been discovered shoved in a chest and sealed up behind a wall?”

  He said nothing, but I could tell I had the attention of the man in the chair. He’d picked up a magazine to try and give the appearance of not listening, but I could tell he was all ears.

  “Do you remember the last time you saw David?” I asked.

  Logan’s eyes slid to Gramps, then to the gentleman in the chairs. “I don’t know. I mean, he hung out here for a while on the Saturday night right before he disappeared.”

  What?

  “David was here at the shop on the night he usually spent with his girlfriend?” I wondered.

  Logan shrugged. “I already told the detective that David just showed up here around four or so and helped me finish up working on the car I was fixing. Wasn’t a big deal. He’d done it before.”

  “I just find it odd is all. I talked to your high school friend Manny,” I said. “You remember Manny?”

  “Yes,” he gritted.

  “Manny told me he hung out with David on Friday night because Saturdays were for Jayla.”

  “Don’t know what to tell you about that.”

  “Did you try texting David on Sunday to maybe get together?”

  Logan’s fists balled on top of the desk. “No, I didn’t.”

  “I’m sure Detective Connors asked you this already,” I said, “but can you walk me through those last few hours you saw David on that Saturday night?”

  Logan slid another glance at the man in the plastic chair before answering. “I told the detective guy we close the shop at four on Saturdays. David stopped by a little after we’d closed and helped us finish working on the car. It was around five or five-thirty that night, I think, when we finished. I then made a delivery for my dad.”

  “A delivery?” I asked. “What kind of delivery?”

  “The car,” Logan said snidely. “I delivered the car we’d just finished to the customer.”

  “Do you remember where you went to deliver the car?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Like down in Marin County somewhere, I think.”

  “Did David go with you?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Then how did you get back to Traveler’s Bay?” I asked.

  He sighed. “I had another pal pick me up. David couldn’t go because it would take too long and he’d be late to go see Jayla.”

  “So you left to deliver the car,” I said, “and David was still here?”

  “He was helping my dad and grandpa put away tools and clean up when I left, and then he was going over to see Jayla.”

  “So that makes your dad and grandpa one of the last people to see David alive?” I wondered.

  Logan narrowed his eyes and leaned over the desk, inches from my face. “Are you accusing my dad or grandpa of killing David?”

  I shrugged. “I didn’t think I was. I was just simply saying they were one of the last people to see him alive.”

  “My dad told the detective they finished cleaning up around six. My dad locked up, got in his car, and left. As he drove down the driveway, he remembers looking in his rearview and seeing Grandpa and David both getting in their vehicles. David left here alive.”

  “Were you aware Manny was in love with Jayla?”

  Logan’s eyes widened, but he didn’t show any other sign of surprise. “You goin’ somewhere with this? Because it seems to me you’re just sticking your nose somewhere you shouldn’t.”

  I gave him a small smile. “Rumor has it you and Manny got to be good friends during your senior year when David and Jayla started hanging out more.”

  “So. Ain’t none of your business.”

  “True enough. I guess it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibilities if Manny were to ask you to help him get rid of a body…you just might do it?”

  He pointed a finger in my face. “Don’t you go puttin’ words in my mouth. You hear me?”

  “Dial it back, boy,” Gramps said. “Jaycee.” I locked eyes with Gramps and saw the warning for me.

  Logan’s wild eyes also flew to Gramps, but he did lower his finger out of my face. “I wouldn’t help Manny do nothin’. By that time, a month after graduation, we wasn’t even friends no more. So there.”

  “Do you know of anyone who would have wanted to hurt David?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I scoffed. “Surely he upset someone else at some time? I mean, the way I hear it, you three got into a lot of trouble in high school…legal trouble. You can’t think of anyone who might have held a grudge against David for something he may have done?”

  “No.”

  By now, Logan’s breathing had taken on an almost pant-like quality. His chest heaved up and down, and his fists were clenched so tightly the knuckles were turning white.

  I gave the older guy sitting in the plastic chair a small smile. He still hadn’t said anything during my exchange with Logan.

  “Is that it?” Logan demanded. “Are you finished?”

  “Nope.” I made a point of looking around the rest of the waiting area, taking my sweet time. “Did David tell you how much he liked his community service job…volunteering at the local library?”

  Logan blinked in surprise. I’d obviously taken him by surprise with the question, because he suddenly developed this faraway look on his face. “Yeah, he did. I mean, I thought it was stupid. What kind of money could you make by shelving books all day? Totally stupid.”

  “Did David mention to you at any time on Saturday that he had plans to leave Traveler’s Bay?”


  “We was always talkin’ about getting out of Traveler’s Bay,” Logan said defensively. “Me, David, Manny back when I was friends with him. Maybe opening our own shop one day in like Santa Rosa or something.”

  “Did David tell you Jayla was pregnant?” I asked.

  Pause.

  “If he did,” Logan growled, “I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “If you don’t mind me saying,” the guy in the chair finally spoke up, “it might be dangerous for a young lady to come into someone’s place of business and ask questions that don’t relate to her. A person could get hurt.” He threw one hand in the air. “I’m just saying.”

  I was smart enough to read between the lines…and I was smart enough to back off. I sent the man a grin and lifted my own hands in the air. “I meant nothing by it.”

  “What’s going on here?”

  We all turned to look at the man standing under the archway. Blinking a few times to make sure my eyes weren’t playing a trick on me, I waited until my brain ran through all the possibilities. Okay, basically just one possibility. If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn I was looking at Grungy Santa.

  So this is the jailbird grandpa.

  “Well?” he demanded.

  He was dressed like the other workers in greasy dirty coveralls, and he looked too much like Earl and Logan to not make the connection of grandfather. This guy was bald except for a ring of shaggy whitish-gray hair that ran from ear to ear. And like the other two men in his family, he sported a massive beard…only his was whitish-gray and ended in a point about mid-chest. His forehead was large and protruded from his face, almost like it pushed down on his eyes—which made him look like he was permanently squinting.

  “My granddaughter,” Gramps said in his scary Colonel voice that always made me shiver, “was just making conversation with Logan about his friend that was recently found murdered.”

  “That so?” Grungy Grandpa—whose name I could now see on his coveralls was Melvin—shifted the wad of whatever he had in his mouth from one side to the other.

  “Yes,” I said. “I’m the one that found David stuffed in a chest and boarded up behind a wall in my house.”

  “We done already told that detective who came nosing out here yesterday everything we knowed about that boy,” Melvin growled. “Ain’t nothin’ else left to say.”

  I shrugged. “That’s fine. I just thought I’d ride along with the Colonel today when he told me he needed to get his tires rotated.”

  Surprise flickered over Melvin’s face. “Colonel? As in Colonel Flynn our new mayor?”

  The guy in the plastic chair cursed.

  “Word travels fast,” I joked lamely to Gramps.

  Melvin turned to face the bays. “Earl, you might want to hurry up that rotation. We got us a ce-le-bri-ty out here. This here’s the new mayor.”

  Nothing I loved more than an awkward pause.

  Melvin shuffled farther inside the room when Earl came striding through the archway, wiping his hands on a rag.

  “Your tires are rotated,” he said briskly. “Nice ride.”

  “Thanks,” Gramps said.

  Again, awkward pause.

  “My boy can ring you up,” Earl said. “Get you on your way.”

  “Then we won’t take up anymore of your time.” Gramps pushed himself up off the wall, causing Duke to come to attention. “Jaycee, I think we’re done here.”

  Chapter 10

  “So how did it go?” Mom asked the minute Gramps, Duke, and I walked through the door of Gone with the Whiskey.

  Gramps and I had agreed not to talk about anything on the drive back, this way we could discuss it with Mom and Tillie at the same time.

  “Surprising information,” I admitted while I tied an apron around my waist and picked up an order pad.

  “Heidi and Bridget said they’d stop in for lunch, and Jax said she’d deliver said lunch around twelve-thirty.” Mom gave me a wink. “This way you can tell us everything once we’re all together.”

  “Perfect. Thanks, Mom.”

  Tillie slid onto the empty barstool next to me and sighed. “It’s actually been a little busy already what with the YA Club here.”

  On Thursdays, the Young Adults Book Club met around eleven to discuss the latest YA book they were reading. It was a club of about six girls ranging from eighteen to twenty-five. They ordered the same thing every week, but to make small talk, I decided to wander over and see about their order anyway.

  “How’re the drinks, ladies?” I asked the group of girls.

  The three that were over twenty-one—Lydia, Josie, and Summer—always ordered Fifty Shades of Earl Grey, which was the tea with Irish cream, while the other girls just ordered Earl Grey.

  Lydia Tanners, their group leader, looked up and beamed. “There you are! We were beginning to wonder if you had the day off or something.”

  “Nope. Gramps and I needed to run an errand this morning.”

  Lydia leaned in conspiratorially. “Did it have anything to do with finding David’s body?”

  A couple of the girls tittered and shook their heads.

  “Word’s out already?” I wondered.

  She nodded. “Yep. I heard about it yesterday afternoon.”

  “Wait.” I sat down on the edge of one of the chairs. “You guys probably knew David, didn’t you?”

  More head nods and tittering.

  “Josie and I were one year ahead of that group,” Lydia said. “While Maddy, Victoria, and Regan were a couple years behind.”

  “Maddy and I were two years,” Victoria said, “while Regan was three years behind.”

  “I’m the oldest of the group, and I’m a move-in,” Summer said, “so I didn’t know him.”

  “Let’s start with the three boys…David, Manny, and Logan.” I whipped out my order pad to take down notes. “Impressions there?”

  The two older girls, Lydia and Josie, exchanged looks.

  “Since we’re older and had more experience with them,” Lydia said, “I think we can offer you the best picture. When it came to just the three of them without including Jayla, I’d tell you they were bad news their freshman and sophomore years. It seemed like the police were always at the school because of them.”

  “Sometimes they’d even be taken away in handcuffs,” Josie added.

  “But they were tight all through school,” Lydia said. “If one was in trouble, usually the other two weren’t far behind.”

  “But all that changed toward the end of their junior year,” Josie said. “Lydia and I were getting ready to graduate, so I’m sure we weren’t paying attention as much as we should have been. But in like February or March of David’s junior year, he started dating Jayla Parker.”

  “And what’s funny about that,” Lydia eagerly jumped in, “is that Jayla was one of the ‘good girls’ if you know what I mean. She was never in trouble, she was wholesome and sweet, and her parents were not happy when they started going out.”

  “At the end of the school year when they were still together, and it looked like David was straightening up a little,” Josie said, “rumor was her parents were starting to accept David. Then Lydia and I graduated and started our own lives.”

  “Yeah,” Lydia agreed. “I haven’t ran in the high school circle for a while. I graduated high school pretty much ready to start my second semester of sophomore year. I finished up my Bachelor’s degree from Sonoma State University a year and a half later thanks to summer classes, and now I’m busy with my Master’s.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Lydia, that’s impressive. I had no idea. What’s your Master’s in? And are you still at Sonoma State?”

  Lydia grinned. “I’m actually going online, and it’s a Master’s degree in Information and Cybersecurity from UC Berkeley.”

  My mouth dropped. “What? That sounds totally cool.”

  Lydia laughed. “I like it.”

  “I didn’t do anything quite so awesome,” Josie said with a smile. “I did an a
ccelerated program like Lydia in high school, took a couple more college courses through Santa Rosa Junior College, earned my Associate’s, then came back to Traveler’s Bay to marry Dylan and keep books for him and his dad out at the veterinary clinic.”

  “Which means while those two were off doing their thing,” Victoria said, “we got to observe the guys’ senior year.”

  “And how was it?” I wondered.

  Victoria looked at the other two girls before answering. “I’d say great for David and Jayla, okay for Manny, but Logan was still a hot mess.”

  I heard a ding, ding, ding sound going off in my brain. “Why was it only okay for Manny?”

  Regan made a gagging noise. “Because David and Jayla were like major public display of affection and all that.”

  I bit back a smile at her words. “So it was obvious to others that Manny was being left out?”

  “Yeah,” Maddy said, “and he didn’t like it.”

  Looks like my motive might be right on.

  “The worst part was Manny was hanging out more and more with Logan,” Victoria said.

  I frowned. “Really? I got the impression they’re no longer friends. What happened between Manny and Logan that they’re no longer friends now? Do you guys know?”

  Maddy scrunched her face. “I’m not exactly sure, but I think it happened right before graduation, around the time David got arrested. I think their disagreement had something to do with Manny and where he worked his senior year.”

  “You mean down at the hardware store?” I asked.

  Maddy nodded. “Yeah. He’d started there like at the beginning of his senior year, but something major happened right around graduation—maybe even a couple weeks before that, it’s been so long ago—and those two never spoke to each other again.”

  Which may be why David was out helping work on the car and Manny wasn’t that Saturday night. But then that blows my motive of Logan helping Manny hide the body.