Raintree: Haunted (Raintree 2)

Hope glanced back toward the Cordell house. The sheriff continued to lean against his patrol car, obeying her instructions not to bother Raintree. There was no telling how long Gideon might be inside, talking to the ghost. Odd, how naturally those words came to her mind. Talking to the ghost.

If she could find something, any small detail, to add to what he learned, it might help. Maybe a neighbor had seen a car that night. That kind of information should have been in the report, but sometimes important facts were missed the first time around. Even if Gideon could find out who had killed the woman, they would need evidence in order to get a conviction.

“Come on in and I’ll fix us some tea.” Dennis Floyd was in his mid-twenties, at a guess. He was a rail-thin young man, with thinning blond hair and small, pale blue eyes. His car and his clothing had seen better years, but the house itself seemed to be well maintained. The front porch was clean, and a number of flowering plants in clay pots brightened the place considerably.

“My folks are at work,” he said as he opened the screen door for her. “I used to have my own place,” he added, apparently trying to impress her. “But when I was between jobs, I moved back in here. I’m workin’ steady now, but the folks need a little help with the yardwork and such, so I’m doing them a favor by stayin’ on.”

Hope stepped into his cool, semi-dark living room. It was clean but musty, as if years of stale odors had seeped into the walls and would never wash out. There was too much clutter for her taste. The room housed too many knickknacks and ashtrays and dusty flower arrangements.

“You’re investigating Miss Cordell’s murder, aren’t you?” Dennis asked as he walked past her.

“Yes.”

He headed for the kitchen, and Hope followed. The kitchen windows were uncovered, letting in enough light to make the room cheerier than the dismal living room.

“The sheriff said the killer was some perv from out of town.”

“Really? How does he know that?”

Dennis made himself busy, fetching glasses from the cupboard, filling them with ice, then taking a pitcher of tea from the fridge.

“No one around here could do such a terrible thing,” he said in a lowered voice as he poured two tall glasses of iced tea. “Why, we all loved Miss Cordell.”

“Did you see anything unusual that night?”

Dennis handed her a glass of tea, then leaned against the counter with his own glass in hand. “No, I don’t believe I did. The sheriff asked, of course, but I didn’t remember a thing that might help. Still don’t, I’m afraid.”

“A car that didn’t belong, perhaps, or a stranger on the road?” Dennis shook his head, and Hope placed her untouched tea on the kitchen table. There was nothing of interest here, and still the hairs on the back of her neck were dancing. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Floyd. If you remember anything…”

“You know,” Dennis said, straightening sharply and setting his own tea aside. “Maybe there was a car, now that I think about it. It passed by here, oh, about eleven o’clock or so. It was movin’ real slow.”

“What kind of car?”

“Fancy car, as I remember. One of them sporty cars. It was green.”

Hope smiled. Dennis was lying. So she would stay a while longer? He had been leering at her, but why lie? Did he just crave the attention? Or was he curious to find out what she already knew?

Not only was this information brand-new, with no streetlamps on the narrow road, how had he been able to distinguish a color at eleven o’clock at night?

“Where were you standing,” she asked, “when you saw the car on the road?”

Dennis had to take a moment to think, and to Hope’s mind that proved he was lying.

“I had stepped outside to have a cigarette,” he said.

Did he think she hadn’t noticed the ashtrays in the living room? It wasn’t necessary for him to step outside to smoke, and she knew it. But she played along. “You were in the front yard,” she said.

“Yeah.” He nodded. “I was in the front yard having a smoke.”

“So if the green sports car had turned into Miss Cordell’s driveway, you would’ve seen it.”

He swallowed hard. “Maybe it did turn into her driveway. I can’t rightly remember.”

“A woman was brutally murdered, and the next morning you didn’t remember that maybe you saw a car pull into her driveway?” Hope snapped.

“It was a traumatic experience,” Dennis explained. “To hear that one of my favorite teachers from high school, a neighbor, had been raped and sliced up by some stranger—”

Hope very subtly moved her hand to her pistol. Sheriff Webster hadn’t even told Gideon that Marcia Cordell had been sexually assaulted until they were here. He hadn’t put that detail in the official report or told the newspapers, and given how protective he was of the woman’s memory, odds were he hadn’t started any gossip about that night, either.