Lowcountry Seaside Mystery Box Set, page 23
part #1 of Lowcountry Seaside Mystery Series
Step Three: Lie about the truth.
Giving his partner a look he knew she’d understand, Ryan leaned in and opened a large drawer at the bottom of his desk. From it, he pulled the plastic bag containing a green wooden-handled hammer, the very one he’d dug from beneath Royce Wright’s house.
“What’s that?” Royce said, his brown eyes growing wide.
“A hammer,” Ryan said. “We found this under your house, buried in the dirt.”
“I’ve never seen that thing before!” Royce snapped.
“That doesn’t stand to reason, Royce.” The detective shook his head. “Not at all, in fact.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your DNA is all over it,” Kit chimed in. “Your fingerprints . . . even a drop of blood we matched to you.”
It wasn’t true, but in his life, Ryan had told many lies, some more harmless than others, some with bigger intentions, and some to serve the greater good, just like this one.
“That’s impossible!” Royce said, anger bubbling up from within him. “I want a lawyer!”
It always struck Ryan as odd how one little statement can end an entire interview. How one simple word can suddenly halt all communication, creating a brick wall that there was simply no getting through. But it happened. Speaking with the man who’d freely walked into the police station was now an impossibility. The interview was over, and Ryan had no choice but to watch his top suspect walk away.
Chapter Eighteen
“I don’t think he’s the guy,” Ryan said as Royce left the room.
“What?” Kit asked. “Are you serious? He asked for a lawyer, and he’s our best suspect.”
“I know that,” Ryan replied. “But there was something about him, about the look in his eyes when we spoke about it.”
“But he lied,” Kit said, searching her mind for any reason Ryan would be saying these words, any reason he would so willing to dismiss the only person they had a chance at arresting. “He lied about being familiar with the case. Why else would he do that?”
“Maybe he was just trying to protect himself. Guy like him, they try and separate themselves from any involvement at all. Sometimes, that includes admitting to knowing the case.”
“I’m not buying it,” Kit said. “I think he did it. I wasn’t sure until he asked for a lawyer, until he lied to us. And Caroline was right. We found the hammer under his house!”
“What about his eyes?” Ryan asked.
“His eyes?”
“Yeah,” Ryan answered. “Royce has dark brown eyes.”
“So?”
“Remember what Ida Taylor said?” Ryan asked.
“No way.” Kit’s head shook. “No way you’re buying that. She said flat-out she didn’t even see the guy’s eyes. She just had a feeling they were blue. That can’t even come close to being used as evidence or a clue or anything else.”
“I believe her,” Ryan replied. “I trust what she said.”
“Listen.” Kit stepped closer, locking eyes with her partner. “I’m all for Southern whimsy and all, but this is ridiculous. You’re basing his innocence on this?”
“Not only the eyes,” Ryan said. “I just don’t think he’s our guy.”
“Then what about the hammer?” Kit asked. “Where did it come from if not from him? It had been buried, Ryan. People don’t bury things unless they don’t want them to be found!”
“We’ve read through this casefile a hundred times. Aside from prison hearsay, what other connection does he have to Karen? None,” Ryan said, trying not to let his frustration show.
“I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” Kit said. “So what, you just want to let him go? To forget everything we’ve learned so far? I’m not going to do that. I’m gonna chase this lead until I get to the end. Innocent or guilty, I want something more than feelings and guesses about eye color!” Kit brushed past her partner, slamming the door behind her.
The Happy Pig Café sat at the edge of Palmetto Marsh, just a short distance from Royce Wright’s house. Though to get there, one would have to wade through some pretty dangerous terrain. Home to alligators, snakes, and more than a few types of spiders, it was one of the few wetlands Ryan tried to avoid, at least the portion that bordered the small café.
After Karen’s murder, the place closed, then reopened a few years later. It was big news when it happened, so much so that even the mayor came out to pay his respects to the young life lost there a short time before.
Though the two were estranged at the time of her murder, Karen Wyler’s husband never gave up trying to find the person responsible for his wife’s untimely death. But as he came to learn after a year of walking the streets of Charleston, living only in the past will drive a man crazy. It was shortly thereafter that he decided to reopen the small place in his wife’s honor.
Too young to worry much about crime and murder at the time, Ryan couldn’t remember ever having stopped by the small place to pay his own respects. But, he supposed, now was as good a time as any. After all, David Wyler must have known his way around a kitchen to have been able to keep the place open all these years. And if there was one thing that could convince the detective to stop in, it was the thought of piping-hot fried chicken.
The sound of his ringing phone cut through his slight haze of trying to piece together the clues of the crime. “Hello?” he said.
“Dad!” Carly cried through the receiver. “I’m moving in with you. I can’t take this anymore!”
“Carly, baby,” he said. “What’s wrong?”
“Thomas!” she exclaimed. “He’s an asshole!”
“Hey! Watch your mouth, little lady!”
“Dad!” she said again. “You don’t understand. He talked about me on the news. Everyone at my school is laughing at me! I’m so embarrassed!”
“Just calm down. Take a breath and tell me what happened.”
The sound of his daughter’s sobbing bled though the phone, filling Ryan with a wave of emotions he wasn’t expecting. Since she was an infant, the detective couldn’t stand the sight of her crying. Even when he knew it was just baby cries for nothing, his heart still ached. He would walk her for hours, sometimes sacrificing an entire night’s sleep just to keep her calm.
It had been a while, though, since he’d heard her cry like this, the kind of cry that comes from deep inside, from raw emotion. Yes, it may have just been teenage drama, but to her, it was as real as his own.
“He was doing a story on the local schools.” She sobbed. “We talked about it over dinner, then he used what I said on the air. I asked him about it and he just laughed at me. He said it was news. I yelled. I even threw a shoe at him.”
“You threw a shoe?” Ryan said, his eyebrows raising.
“He wouldn’t listen! He just laughed. Then he told Mom and she sided with him because of the shoe. But he wronged me first!” Carly cried. “I’m moving in with you!”
“Carly, sweetheart,” Ryan said. “I live in a houseboat on the docks. Do you really want to move away from your friends and everyone you know?”
“No.” She sobbed. “But I don’t want to live with Thomas. He’s such a—”
“Language,” Ryan interrupted.
“Well, he is!” she said.
“Listen.” Ryan scratched his head. He’d had nearly the same problem with Thomas Kent only a few days before. Having issues with the man by himself was one thing, but once they began to involve his daughter, Ryan took things a little more seriously and with a little less reservation. “Just let me talk to him and to your mother.”
“I’m leaving!” she said. “I’m going to Shelly’s house.”
“Don’t go without telling your mother!”
“Dad!”
“Carly!” Ryan said. “Do not leave that house unless someone knows where you are! Got it?”
“Fine! But I’m not staying here with him. He’s making dinner. I’d rather dumpster dive than sit at that table!”
“When you get to your friend’s house, call me. I’ll order pizza for you guys, okay?”
“Fine!” she said, still sniffling. “You’re gonna talk to Mom, right?”
“I will. I’ll call her in a bit. Remember, don’t leave without telling her.”
“Okay. I won’t.”
“All right,” Ryan said. “Talk to you later. I love you.”
“Love you too.” She hung up the phone.
Holding his cellphone in his hand, Ryan checked the Karen Wyler Twitter account once again. Nothing had been posted since the photo. He placed the phone on the table and began scanning the menu. Fried chicken, fried catfish sandwich, shrimp and grits . . . it all sounded pretty good to a man who hadn’t taken the time to eat anything. Funny how you can not be hungry at all, then just the thought of food gets your stomach doing cartwheels.
“What looks good to you?” a man asked, standing next to Ryan.
“All of it, actually,” he answered, taking a sip of his sweet tea.
“You’re that detective,” the man said as Ryan looked up. “The one working on the case.”
“Yes,” Ryan said, taking in the man’s soft features and big smile. “Who are you?”
“Why, I’m David Wyler.” He grinned, flipping the menu over on its back where a photo of Karen and a much younger version of David stood smiling at the camera. “Karen was my wife.”
“Nice to meet you,” Ryan said, shaking the man’s hand.
Chapter Nineteen
David Wyler was a beast of a man, large and rotund in almost every way, though only a minute into their conversation, Ryan could tell he was more of a gentle giant than anything else. His soft voice, easygoing way, and overall friendliness stretched out across the table like a fine dinner spread.
“For a time, we were as happy as two pigs in the mud,” David said, his large blue eyes focused on the photo of his wife. “But I guess it’s easier to be happy in the beginning, before life comes along to ask you to pay your dues. I don’t know if you know what I mean by that.”
“I do,” Ryan said, his mind racing back to his own failed marriage, to the times he and his wife had spent happy before they lost all. “I know exactly what you mean. What was Karen like?”
“She was a sweetheart.” The man smiled for a moment before continuing. “Even when things got hard, she never really got mean. She just . . . it got too hard. She was a fine cook, though, yes, sir. Woman knew how to fry catfish in just the right way to steal a man’s heart. She stole mine.”
“How long had you known her before you got married?” Ryan asked, trying to piece together her marriage.
“Oh,” David said, sitting back in the chair and folding his arms across his big belly. “We were high school sweethearts. I was on the swim team.” He patted his stomach. “I know it don’t look much like it now, but back in my time, I was one of the fastest in the water. That’s how I met Karen. Everyday, I’d go swimming in the water off the islands. She lived right on the beach. One day, a storm came up outta nowhere. I was trapped on the beach with no shelter. She came running down, grabbed my arm, and brought me into her house.”
David’s eyes glazed over with sweet memories as he told the detective of the joys of young love. Just the thought, the memory of his late wife, brought a smile to his face that was too genuine to ever be faked.
“Did you marry right out of high school?” Ryan asked. The dates of her marriage could easily be gathered from her casefile, but that didn’t matter. This was about something else. This was about getting to know the man sitting across from him, about finding common ground, something to discuss to make them feel closer. Hopefully, those feelings coupled with the memory of his wife would cause David to drop his guard a little, to be truthful and open.
“Yes sir.” David’s head bobbed. “We got hitched on the Fourth of July. Went to the courthouse, got a license, then high-tailed it to Myrtle Beach for the weekend. It wasn’t much of a honeymoon or nuthin’ but to us, it felt perfect.”
“I’ll bet,” Ryan answered. “It’s the simple things that mean the most.”
“I got this one memory . . .” David’s eyes closed, his head tilting toward the ceiling. “I woke up to see her standing out on the balcony. She was just watchin’ the waves roll in. The morning sun lit her body, her hair hangin’ down her back and a long silk robe flowing in the breeze. To this day, I ain’t never seen nuthin’ prettier or sexier than she was in that moment. I jumped up and took her in my arms. We didn’t leave the bed all day.”
Ryan knew those types of memories well. He had quite a few himself. The ones that just seem to pop up out of nowhere when you’re least expecting them. The ones that stay with you for all your life. Even if your view of someone changes, even if the world comes calling and you fall out of love, you still remember them for the person they were in that moment. And that’s the way you’ll always think of them, no matter what the world tries to throw at you.
“What happened that made the marriage fall apart?” Ryan asked. “If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Not a bit,” David said. “It’s hard to explain, really. I think maybe we were just too young. That, and Karen was driven. I never really was. Even when I was on the swim team, if we lost, it never really got to me too much. I don’t got no competitive streak, no huge drive for success. I don’t wanna fail or nuthin’, but I can’t say I ain’t satisfied to be satisfied with what I already got. You know?”
“I understand.”
“Karen was a different kind altogether, though. That girl had a fire in her the likes of which I hadn’t seen before and I ain’t seen since. She’d have pulled the horns from a bull if someone told her they thought she couldn’t. I guess in the end, she just got tired of my not being able to keep up with her. What she saw as lazy I just saw as being content. I guess maybe if I’d have tried harder, I could’ve kept her. But that just ain’t who I am, not then, not now.”
“Changing for another person is difficult. I know. I’ve tried it myself. It don’t work.”
“No, it don’t,” David said.
“I heard you still remained the handyman for her restaurant even after you two separated. Is that right?”
“Oh, yes.” David smiled again. “They wasn’t really no bad blood betwixt us or anythin’. She was my first love. They ain’t no changin’ that. I still helped her out around here. We still talked everyday. Hell, we was happier apart than we was together half the time.” The large man let out a bellowing laugh that filled the small café.
The walls were littered with pictures of all parts of Charleston County, many of which were old and depicted his wife. Ryan stared at them, taking in the details of each one. “Did you take these pictures?” Ryan asked.
“Yes,” David replied. “I’ve had a camera in my hand for about as long as I can remember. I take pictures of everything. I used to take them mostly of Karen.”
It’s funny how even after things go bad, some people still see nothing but joy in them. Here was a man who married his first love, then even after the marriage came crashing down around him, he still remembered nothing but the good things. Maybe what they say is true. Maybe love really is blind.
“What about after you separated?” Ryan asked. “Do you know if she was seeing anyone else?”
“I know she was,” David said, the vibrant joy that filled his face beginning to fade. “But I can’t say who. Never met him.”
“Do you know anything about him?”
“Not much, no,” he answered. “Karen didn’t talk much about that kinda stuff with me. I didn’t really like hearing it and she knew it. I do remember one thing though. She mentioned something about giving the man money to fix up his truck.”
“What was the matter with his truck?” Ryan asked.
“I can’t say. I only remember because I thought about offering to help him out, but I wasn’t too keen on the idea of actually meetin’ the fella so I just kept my mouth shut.”
David Wyler didn’t seem to have much in the way of information about his late wife. His mind, it seemed, was filled mostly with memories of sunny days and beachside romances. What his wife did or who she spent her time with after their separation remained a mystery to both her one-time husband and the detective.
“Excuse me,” Ryan said, feeling his phone vibrating in his pocket for the third time in the last ten minutes. “I need to take this.”
“Of course,” David said. “I need to get back to the kitchen anyway. One of my cooks called out today, and I’m helping out back there.”
Ryan stepped out of the small café, pulling his phone from his pocket to see Jillian’s picture flash across the screen. He hadn’t spoken to his ex-wife since the dinner they’d had a few days before, and as far as he knew, they had nothing else scheduled.
“Hello?”
“What the hell, Ryan?” Jillian snapped.
“What?” he asked as he watched the evening sun disappearing in the distant wetlands.
“You told Carly she could stay with you?”
“No,” Ryan answered. “I didn’t. I told her I would speak to you and to Thomas. I told her she could stay with me if it was okay with you.”
“Well, it’s not!” she said.
“Fine,” Ryan answered. “Then tell her that. But you might want to speak to that fiancé of yours. Maybe tell him not to treat everyone he runs across as a potential news story.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ryan. He was doing a story about the school system. He used one simple quote and he didn’t use Carly’s name. I guess her classmates just put it together.”
“It doesn’t matter, Jillian. She’s a child. He shouldn’t be repeating anything she says, no matter what!”
“She threw a shoe at him, Ryan. A shoe!” Jillian said in frustration.
“I know.” A wicked grin crept across Ryan’s face. “She told me.”
There was no reason good enough for his daughter’s actions. Ryan knew that, but he couldn’t help picturing the way Thomas must have reacted to that, probably shielding his face as his mouth dropped to the floor. In truth, he deserved that, that and so much more . . . at least in Ryan’s eyes.
