Page 56 of Refuge for Cherilyn

“Ahhh, our special guest.” Aaron hoofed it out of the room, and the other three men waited until he reappeared.

“Marlon! Long time no see!” Shaw called out with a grin.

“What the hell’s goin’ on here? Hey, Harry the Bulldozer, why am I here?”

Aaron was grinning. “Harry the Bulldozer?”

“Long story.” Shaw rolled his eyes. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Marlon. We just wanted to ask you a few questions. You can answer those, can’t you?”

“Do I need my lawyer?”

“No. I just told you, you haven’t done anything wrong. But with what happened to Frankie, we figured we?”

“Whaddya mean, what happened to Frankie? Has something happened to Frankie?”

Oh my god, nobody told him.Shaw felt horrible. What a way to find out that kind of bad news. “Sit down, Marlon. We need to talk.” As soon as the man was in a chair, Shaw sat down across from him and clasped his hands together on the table’s polished surface. “Marlon, I don’t know any other way to tell you this, but Frankie’s dead.”

It was no act?it was obvious Marlon hadn’t been told. “You’re joking, right? It’s a joke. Right? Frankie’s not… I mean, I just talked to him last week and…” His eyes begged in Shaw’s direction. “Please tell me it’s not true.”

“We can’t, because it is,” Aaron threw in.

“Wha… What happened to him? Accident? I kept tellin’ him using that homemade bungee jumpin’ thang was dangerous, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

Aaron shook his head. “No, Marlon. He was found dead this morning in the back seat of Cherilyn’s car.”

The big man seemed stunned, his eyes wide and his hands shaking. “Cherilyn kilt him?”

Aaron shook his head again. “No. It happened while she was somewhere else, so we know it wasn’t her.” Shaw was ever so glad that Aaron hadn’t told Marlon where Cherilyn was. That was information her ex brother-in-law didn’t need.

A tear rolled down Marlon’s cheek, and Shaw felt sorry for him. “So who… Who would do that? Frankie didn’t have no enemies, least not that I knowed of.”

Cruz spoke up. “We think it was RodneyFrymire.”

Marlon stared, his eyes squinted. “Who are you? And what do you know ’bout Frymire? You ain’t from around here.”

“I’m Agent Cruz Livingston from the FBI’s SanAntonio Field Office. We have reason to believe that Mr.Frymire may be involved in several murders, including the one in Cherilyn’s building a while back.”

“Frymire? Really? What’s that got to do with Frankie? Him and Rodney were friends. Why would Rodney do that?”

Dax sat down in the chair next to Marlon and laid a hand on the table. “Because Cherilyn saw him that night leaving the murdered woman’s apartment.”

“Awww hell. Sothat’swhy she disappeared! Makes sense. She’s probably scared shitless.”

Shaw nodded. “She is.”

“But why? I don’t get it?”

Cruz sighed. “We think Frymire either wanted Frankie to hand Ms.Travis over to him, or he was sending a message to Ms.Travis that he wasn’t screwing around. Maybe even trying to trick us into thinking she killed Frankie to so we’d flush her out of hiding and he could kill her before she could testify. And we need your help to try to find him. Nobody’s seen him since that night.”

Marlon shook his head vigorously. “I don’t know nothin’ ’bout where he is, I swear. If’n I did, I’d tell ya. I sure would. Murderin’ motherfucker.”

“So you don’t know where he lives?” Shaw asked.

“He stayed with Frankie when he was in town. Drove a truck, ya know.”

“What trucking company?”

Marlon shrugged. “No idea.”

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