A Creed in Stone Creek - Linda Lael Miller [104]
Or a shot of whiskey.
She decided on the tea, and was sitting at the table near the windows, sipping from a mug, when someone pounded on the back door.
“Melissa!” yelled a familiar female voice. “I know you’re in there—let me in!”
Andrea.
Melissa went to the door, turned the dead bolt and then the knob. She didn’t ask what Andrea was doing there, at that hour of the night no less, because she already knew.
The young woman was obviously upset; she’d been crying, hard, and her eyes were so red they looked raw.
“Sit down,” Melissa said gently.
Andrea collapsed into a chair at the table and, after locking the door again, Melissa prepared a second cup of tea and set it down in front of her midnight visitor.
For a moment, Andrea looked as though she might send the mug and her tea flying with one angry swipe of her arm. Fortunately, she seemed to think better of the idea in the next instant and carefully lifted the cup to her mouth, her hands shaking.
“Were you with Byron tonight, when he held up the Stop & Shop?” Melissa asked.
Andrea flung a beleaguered look in her direction, but she retained her composure.
“I was with Byron tonight,” she said. “But he didn’t rob the Stop & Shop.”
Melissa merely waited, her own tea cooling, forgotten, on the table.
The set of Andrea’s jaw was obstinate, but only for a moment or two. Fresh tears brimmed along her lower lashes, and one trickled, zigzag, down her cheek. She wiped it away with the back of one hand, but only after the fact.
“I’m telling you, Byron didn’t do anything wrong,” the girl insisted.
“You know,” Melissa said carefully, when Andrea lapsed into another silence, “I keep hearing that. From you. From Velda. But Byron was heading out of town at top speed when Tom caught up with him, and later, the money from the robbery was found in the trunk of his car, along with a ski mask like the one Martine described when she reported what happened.”
“We were in bed,” Andrea said, in a broken whisper. “Byron and me.”
“Where?” Melissa asked. She still suspected her assistant of making up an alibi for her boyfriend, but she was willing to listen.
“His place,” Andrea said, meeting Melissa’s eyes only with an effort.
“Velda must have loved that,” Melissa commented.
Andrea bristled. “She was at work,” she said. “Byron and I had the place to ourselves. Velda called from the cocktail lounge around nine-thirty and said she didn’t feel very well and she needed to come home, and would Byron pick her up. That’s when he found out the car was gone.”
“Gone? You mean, stolen?”
“Byron knew who’d taken it. It was that loser, Nathan. He’s been hanging around the Cahills’ place lately—he and Byron ran around together when they were younger—said he needed someplace to stay. I guess Byron felt sorry for him or something.” Andrea tossed her head slightly; a good sign. She was turning back into her old, spirited self. “That Nathan, he’s a sneak. He tried to borrow money from me a couple of times—I turned him down. And he bragged that he had a case against Deputy Ferguson because of that black eye, and the county would have to give him some kind of settlement to keep the story out of the news—” She stopped, took a shaky breath, and then rushed on. “Deputy Ferguson didn’t give Nathan that shiner. Velda did.”
The tale was just crazy enough to be true. “Velda?” Melissa asked, intrigued and more than a little uneasy. “Why?”
“She said she caught him going through her purse,” Andrea said. “Byron and I weren’t around at the time. She told us later that she slugged Nathan because he gave her some back talk, and then she kicked him out.” Another sigh. “Of course, he came back, and Velda decided the cops were out to get him and so she’d let him stay at the trailer a while longer.”
“Were you planning on mentioning this to me at some point?” Melissa asked archly. “The accusation Nathan Carter made could have ruined Deputy Ferguson’s career—or even his life.”
“We didn’t know he’d accused anybody of anything until he started bragging about it,”