A Puzzle in Paxton Park Read online

  “Emma liked her?”

  “Well, not really. She thought Dawn was immature. Dawn works at the pub at the resort in addition to the leather shop so she was around the resort all the time and ran into Emma quite a bit. Emma was nice to Dawn, but she didn’t really consider her a friend.”

  “Dawn seemed very upset over Emma when I spoke with her at the leather shop,” Shelly said.

  “Well, that’s what I mean,” Monica said. “Dawn loves to attach herself to a situation that really doesn’t involve her. She’d act like Emma was her best friend. She’d put on a show about her supposed grief. I think she loves the attention she gets from it. I don’t mean to sound hard-hearted. I’m sure Dawn feels badly about Emma, but she’s always very dramatic about everything. I think Dawn needs the attention. I think she craves it. Everything is about Dawn, about her feelings. Some people are like that.”

  “Have you seen Charlie since Emma died?” Shelly asked.

  “I dropped some food off at their house. I talked to Charlie for a little while. He seemed like he was in a hurry to get away from me.” Monica blew out a breath of disgust. “Good ole Charlie. He had the best wife anyone could ask for. Emma did everything in that marriage, paid the bills, managed the household, raised the kids, worked full time, took classes in her field to stay current, took a second job to pay off the debts Charlie accumulated.” Monica looked pointedly at Shelly. “You know what I think? I think Charlie is happy to be free of his wife. When I talked to him the day I dropped off the food, he didn’t seem all that upset about losing his partner.”

  Shelly thought back to the interview with Charlie she’d sat in on and recalled sensing the same thing about Charlie. “Do you think it’s possible Charlie had something to do with Emma’s death?”

  Monica folded her hands and rested them on the tabletop. Shelly could see the woman’s knuckles were white from gripping her hands so tightly together.

  Monica said, “Charlie is a person I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn was Emma’s killer. That guy can’t be trusted.”

  15

  Shelly and Juliet rode their bikes to the resort to meet a group of hikers for a half-day hike on the mountain trails. The day was spectacular with the sun shining strong and the air cool, but not cold. The hike would take three-hours round trip and would pass fields, streams, and lakes and would take the group of fifteen hikers up rocky hills and ledges and along trails through the forest.

  Shelly and Juliet only knew a handful of the people and introductions went around as everyone greeted one another before heading up the mountain.

  Carrying a variety of snacks and a water bottle in her backpack, Shelly had also tucked a painkiller into her bag in case her leg started to bother her. She knew improvement was slow in coming and that the limp might be permanent, but she’d been pleased recently with the amount of physical activity she could manage before any pain and soreness started to kick in.

  Talking with two vacationers to town, Shelly pointed out other trails the two women might want to try another day and gave them some history of the mountains and the towns that had sprung up in the area.

  Juliet was up ahead walking with a woman who’d lived in Paxton Park for about fifteen years. Pamela worked as an emergency room nurse at the hospital and she was on duty the night Emma Pinkley was brought in.

  After thirty minutes, the group arrived at a scenic overlook and they paused to sip water and take in the beautiful sight of the land below spreading out before them.

  Juliet introduced Pamela to Shelly. “Pam was working the night Emma was brought in to the hospital.”

  “I was glad I’d never met the woman,” Pamela told Shelly. “It’s always a shock when someone you know from town comes into emergency with a serious issue. Being a resort town, we usually get athletic injuries … broken bones, concussions, a cut or a gash that might require stitches, things like that. Of course, we also get the heart attacks, appendicitis attacks, trauma, dehydration, people with flu but, even in hunting season, we rarely ever get a gunshot wound.”

  Juliet gave Shelly a look. “We were talking about Charlie.”

  “Charlie wasn’t working a shift that night, was he?” Shelly asked for clarification.

  “No, he wasn’t,” Pamela said.

  “We were talking about Charlie’s behavior,” Juliet told her friend.

  “I’ve worked with Charlie for years. He’s a good nurse, he knows his stuff….”

  Shelly waited for the but.

  “But, he can also be a pain. He thinks he’s a gift to all women, or he acts like he is. It’s good to have someone upbeat in emergency, someone who can joke or make you laugh. It can be a tough place to work. Charlie thinks he’s funny, but his jokes are always off-color and he makes some of us uncomfortable. I always cringe when I see on the schedule we’re working the same shift.”

  “Has anyone told Charlie his jokes are offensive?” Shelly asked.

  “I haven’t. You’d think he could figure it out by people’s body language and facial expressions. When people don’t laugh and they frown instead, you’d think he would get the message,” Pamela said with a sigh. “Charlie doesn’t get it, or if he does notice that we don’t appreciate his humor, he just doesn’t care and goes on with it anyway.”

  “Did he talk about Emma?” Shelly asked.

  “Not much, and when he did, it was always some disparaging remark about his old lady and how she doesn’t let him do his thing, she doesn’t get him, she’s too controlling.” Pamela groaned. “I couldn’t stand his immature ways. It could be like working with a twelve-year-old.”

  “Did you get a hint that his marriage was in trouble?” Shelly felt like the neighborhood gossip, but if she was going to help Jay find information that could lead to Emma’s killer, then she had to swallow her pride and, sometimes her good manners, and ask the questions that needed to be asked.

  “I don’t know how his wife hadn’t kicked him out long before now. I don’t know how she could stand him,” Pamela said. “But, I also don’t get why she married him in the first place. Charlie’s a strange one.”

  Thinking that strange was an odd way to describe the man, Shelly asked, “Does Charlie do his job well?”

  “I have no complaints about how he does his job,” Pamela said. “It’s everything else. He has no filter.”

  The hike leader suggested they move on and everyone fell into line and headed for the trail that would lead further up the mountain. Shelly, Juliet, and Pamela hiked together into the woods at the back of the line.

  “How do you mean he has no filter?” Juliet asked.

  “He blurts out whatever comes into his head,” Pamela said. “It’s often something dirty or some comment about someone’s looks or some talk about how hot some celebrity is. It gets old really fast. I’m not sure the man thinks about anything else. I don’t know how he manages to control his mouth when he’s treating a patient.”

  “Do you think Charlie might have violent tendencies?” Juliet questioned.

  Pamela stopped on the trail and stared at Juliet with wide eyes. “You mean…?”

  “Have you ever noticed Charlie losing his temper?” Juliet asked.

  “I don’t think so. I’ve seen him annoyed and angry and agitated, but I haven’t witnessed any physical aggression,” Pamela told her. “Are you asking if I think Charlie had something to do with his wife’s death?”

  “Did Charlie ever talk or make comments about wanting out of his marriage?” Shelly asked.

  “He implied sometimes that he wouldn’t mind being free of his marital constraints,” Pamela said slowly, thinking back on Charlie’s chatter. “I took it to mean he wanted an ‘open marriage’ where he could be free to see other women.” The woman’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “That idea could be an incorrect interpretation though. Maybe Charlie did want to be free of his marriage.” After a minute, Pamela asked, “Do you think Charlie might have killed his wife?”

  “That’s a
question we don’t know how to answer,” Juliet said.

  The group approached a steep, rocky section of the trail and the hikers concentrated on where they stepped as they made their way up and over the rocks and ledges. Even the best conditioned of the hikers were puffing and out-of-breath when they’d finished climbing the rocky terrain.

  Pamela took a long drink from her water bottle and then with narrowed eyes, she asked Shelly and Juliet, “Have you heard about Charlie’s … well … his escapades?”

  “His cheating?” Juliet asked.

  “Exactly,” Pamela said with a frown. “He was a notorious cheater. Sometimes, he even hit on women who came into the emergency room with a sick parent. Charlie would wait to flirt, of course, until the news on the parent was good. He, at least, had the sense not to ask someone out when her parent was in the middle of a health crisis.”

  Juliet shook her head. “The guy is sickening.”

  “Did Charlie hit on his colleagues in emergency?” Shelly asked.

  “Not that I’ve ever witnessed, thank the heavens,” Pamela said. “He saved that for every other department in the hospital.”

  “He must have a reputation. His antics must be well-known in the hospital?” Shelly asked.

  “A lot of people are aware of Charlie. But, a lot of people aren’t.” Pamela shook her head. “And there is no shortage of willing participants.”

  Juliet let out a moan of distaste.

  “Is Charlie involved with other women at the moment?” Shelly asked.

  “When isn’t he?”

  “Women at the hospital?”

  “I’ve seen him with someone who doesn’t work at the hospital,” Pamela said.

  “Recently?”

  “Oh yes. Charlie never rests. He’s been with this woman off and on for a long time. Maybe a year? Although I haven’t seen her around a lot for the last few months. She came to visit him sometimes when he was at work. Of course, Charlie flirts and puts the moves on other women while he sees this one.”

  “When was the last time you saw him with this woman?” Shelly questioned.

  Pamela looked sideways at Shelly. “The afternoon before his wife got killed.”

  Juliet and Shelly shared expressions of disgust.

  “They were busy together in the supply room.” Pamela looked like she might spit. “I needed to get something from in there, but the door was locked. We have a smaller supply area closer to emergency, but what I needed was out so I went down the hall to the other supply storage room. I heard some sounds from inside. I heard Charlie’s voice in there. I pounded on the door and then I took off.”

  Juliet couldn’t help a little smile forming on her face. “You didn’t wait around to see them come out of there?”

  “I didn’t. But Charlie hurried back into emergency and I saw his friend walk past the door on her way out.”

  “Gosh,” Juliet said. “They have to see each other in Charlie’s workplace? They can’t wait until after his shift is over?”

  “Guess not,” Pamela said. “Like I said, lots of willing participants.”

  “Do you know the woman’s name?” Shelly asked.

  “I try not to pay attention.”

  “What does she look like?” Juliet asked.

  “She’s blond, short, slender, nice figure. I’d say she’s in her early to mid-thirties. Blue eyes, wears a lot of makeup, false eyelashes.”

  Pamela’s husband called to her from the front of the hiking line and gestured with his hand. “Pam, come see these birds over by the lake.”

  “I’ll catch up with you in a bit.” Pamela waved at her husband, started up to where he was standing, but stopped for a second and said, “You know, I think I heard Charlie call that woman ‘Dawn’. I’m pretty sure, anyway.” She turned and headed off to talk to her husband.

  Juliet narrowed her eyes. “Dawn? Could it be Dawn Barry? The woman who works at the leather shop? The one who claimed to be Emma’s friend?”

  “Sounds like one and the same.” Anxiety gripped Shelly’s chest and held on tight.

  16

  The records indicate that Steven Carlton’s phone was in the vicinity of his home on the evening Emma was shot and killed,” Jay said.

  “But like you said before, his phone might have been at home, but Steve may not have been there,” Juliet said.

  Shelly carried in a tray of lasagna and set it on the trivets so the wood of the small dining table wouldn’t get damaged. “If he planned to hurt Emma and he had his wits about him, he knew that the phone companies could pinpoint a phone’s location. So Steve left on his little trip to follow Emma without his phone.”

  Serving Juliet and Jay, Shelly then placed a square of lasagna on her plate and sat down to join her guests. Justice sat on a soft kitty bed in the corner of the room with her paw curled under, watching and listening to the people.

  “There’s one thing that bothers me about that though,” Shelly said as she sprinkled some Romano cheese over her dinner. “If Steve left his phone at home and brought a gun along with him, it seems he had vengeance on his mind and planned from the start to hurt Emma. That would be premeditation.”

  “It sure would.” Jay put some dressing on her salad.

  “But why would he want to hurt her?” Shelly asked. “If Emma noticed Steve following her and she pulled over to chew him out, I can see Steve losing his temper and wanting to hurt her after their confrontation. But I don’t see why he would go after Emma with a plan to kill her before they argued on the road.”

  “Steve may have kept his gun and ammunition in the trunk of his car on a regular basis,” Jay pointed out. “Lots of people do that especially if they have kids. They don’t want the weapon easily accessible in the house so they lock the gun in the trunk. If Steve became enraged after having words with Emma on the road, the gun was in the car. He might not have planned to murder Emma. The idea came to him after their fight and the weapon was right there in the trunk.”

  “That could be what happened,” Shelly agreed. “Emma may not have been forceful with Steve while she was working at Windsor. When she stopped to confront him on the road, she may have had enough of Steve calling her and following her around and she may have blown her top at him. Her reaction may have shocked him.”

  Justice let out a long, low growl.

  “If he didn’t plan on killing Emma when he left his house,” Juliet asked, “why didn’t he take his phone with him? Why leave it at home?”

  “The man could have forgotten it,” Jay suggested. “Or maybe he wised-up about the phone giving away information on his whereabouts. He probably hoped to meet up with Emma and didn’t want a phone company record of it.”

  Shelly thought of something. “Steve could have bought one of those no-contract, prepaid phones from a retail store to use. It would be hard to trace one of those back to him.”

  “I was just going to say that same thing,” Jay told them. “Steve may have had more than one phone that he used in order to hide his activity from his wife, should she ever look through the bill to check the phone numbers he called. In fact, when I had him come into the station for another chat, I asked him about a second phone. He denied having more than one, but who knows?”

  “How did the second interview with him go?” Juliet asked her sister.

  “Much like the first one. Lots of denials, even when I caught him in a lie or an omission. He had an answer for everything. He said he only wanted to be friends with Emma.” Jay rolled her eyes. “Right.”

  “Nobody can vouch for him being at home that evening?” Juliet asked.

  “No one can verify that Steve was at home. He was sweating bullets during the interview,” Jay said.

  “Maybe he is guilty then,” Juliet said.

  “If I was being questioned by the police and I had no alibi for where I was when a crime took place,” Shelly said, “I’d be sweating bullets, too. Not because I was guilty, but because the police thought I was guilty. Perspiring can’t
be equated with being guilty. The guy is a harasser and a creep, but that doesn’t mean he killed Emma.”

  “That’s right,” Jay said. “If Emma had lived and Steve Carlton kept up his harassment of her, Emma could have gone to court for a restraining order on the guy.”

  “He seems guilty to me,” Juliet muttered.

  “I also talked with Charlie Pinkley again,” Jay told them.

  “What did he have to say?” Shelly asked.

  “I spoke with him about his affairs. I asked if he was presently seeing Dawn Barry. He denied it. Charlie told me that he’d had a fling with Dawn in the past, but it was long over.”

  “’Long over’ must mean something different to Charlie than it does to the rest of the world,” Shelly said. “The nurse who worked with Charlie claims to have seen him with Dawn on the day Emma died.”

  “But did the nurse actually see them together?” Jay asked. “She said Charlie came back to the emergency department and she saw Dawn walking down the hallway to exit the hospital. It sounds like the nurse didn’t see them together.”

  “Surely, the timing of Charlie’s return to the emergency room and Dawn leaving the place can’t be coincidental,” Juliet said. “They must have been together.”

  “Try telling that to a judge,” Jay said. “Dawn could say she was at the hospital for any number of reasons. Even if someone saw them together, it doesn’t mean anything. They could simply say they ran into each other. Anyway, having an affair doesn’t mean Charlie killed his wife.”

  “But what if you put a few things together?” Juliet asked. “Not long ago, Emma took out a life insurance policy, Dwayne overheard Charlie at the hospital say he wanted out of his marriage, Charlie is a serial cheater.”

  Shelly added, “Plus, Charlie drove an hour to the mall to buy boots he could have purchased in town for the same price and he couldn’t find his phone right before he left the house so he went to the mall without it. That was convenient, wasn’t it? No cell tower pings to see where he actually was.”