Page 42 of Deputies Under Fire
“How did you know someone was dead?” Rory countered.
Frank shrugged. “Hard not to hear something like that. The two deputies were hurrying to the scene when I got here. Why did you want to talk to me?” he quickly added, and Eden didn’t think it was her imagination that he was trying to curtail any more discussion as to how he’d learned about Carter’s death.
Rory gave him a long, hard look before he went to a laptop on the desk and he pulled up the photos that Carter had given them. The lab had already enhanced them so that the images were much clearer now. Rory pulled up the shot of Frank and turned the laptop so the man could see the screen.
“What? Where was that taken…?” But Frank’s voice trailed off when he must have recognized the surroundings. “Who took that photo?” he demanded.
Rory didn’t give him the answer. “Want to explain to me why you were there and what you were doing?”
A flash of panic went through his eyes. “Am I under arrest? Do you think I killed that man?” He didn’t wait for Rory to respond. “Because I didn’t. I thought you were trying to get in touch with me about something else…” Again, his words slowed to a crawl, and he squeezed his eyes shut a moment.
“What’s thesomething elseyou thought I’d want to know?” Rory demanded, and he was all cop now. Then, he held up his hand. “Let me go ahead and read you your Miranda rights.”
Frank shook his head as if not believing this was happening, but he didn’t speak when Rory read him his rights. Nor did he lawyer up at the end of it.
“I didn’t kill anyone,” Frank blurted the moment Rory had finished. He motioned toward the photo still on the screen. “And I was there because, uh, I’ve been seeing Diedre.”
“Seeing?” Rory queried.
Frank swallowed hard. “I’m in a relationship with her. Or at least I was, but she broke it off a couple of days ago.”
Interesting.“Before or after Brenda’s murder?” Eden asked.
“Before,” Frank muttered. “I didn’t want things to end between us so I drove to her place to talk to her, but I parked and watched the house for a little while so I could see if she was alone. Helen is there sometimes.”
Eden was sure she had a puzzled look in her eyes. Rory had one as well. “Explain that,” Rory insisted.
Frank certainly didn’t jump right on that. He took a couple of moments and groaned under his breath, as if this wasn’t something he wanted to spill. “Diedre wanted to keep our relationship a secret.”
Again, Eden was puzzled. “Why?” she persisted. “You’re both single, aren’t you?”
“We are, but then there’s Helen.” Frank’s groan turned to a loud huff. “Helen and I saw each other for a while—”
“Wait,” Eden interrupted. “You told us you hadn’t been romantically involved with Helen.”
“I told you we hadn’t been when I was a teenager,” Frank snapped out. “Back then, I was seeing Mellie. And, no, I didn’t bring that up when she was killed because it was a hell of a long time ago.”
Eden folded her arms over her chest. “You didn’t think it was pertinent to tell us that you had a romantic history with awoman who was murdered in the very barn where you two used to work?”
“No.” He stopped, scowled. “It wasn’t relevant,” he insisted. “Mellie and I dated for a couple of months, and we broke up. It was just teenage stuff, definitely nothing serious. I got involved with Miranda shortly thereafter, and Mellie inherited the place she eventually turned into the foster ranch. Mellie and I moved on with our lives.”
“And then became enemies,” Eden reminded him.
He shot her a stony look. “Yeah, we did, but that was on Mellie. You were raised in that foster home, and you know what some of those kids were always doing to my property. Knocking down fences, letting the livestock out. Hell, even taking some of my horses for joyrides.”
All of that had indeed happened, and while Eden didn’t believe any serious damage had been done, she could understand why Mellie and Frank had butted heads over the years. Mellie had been trying to raise kids, and Frank had been trying to run his ranch. However, she had to wonder if their past had played into the ferocity of some of the conflicts. Eden recalled plenty of loud arguments between the two and heated threats from Frank.
Frank was obviously experiencing some of that anger now, but he didn’t make any threats. He just stood there a few moments as if steadying himself. Eden did the same, and she shifted the conversation back to the original topic.
“Helen,” she stated. “When did you get romantically involved with her?”
“Romance,” he muttered, as if that wasn’t anywhere close to the truth. “We hooked up for the first time right before she left for college. That’s continued over the years. Not while I was married. I never cheated on my wife,” he insisted. “But a couple of years after she passed away, Helen and I ran into each other,and we…reconnected. We still have what I guess you’d call an open-ended arrangement.”
Eden wondered if that was his way of saying friends with benefits.
“Look,” Frank went on, shifting his attention to Rory, “Helen has had it in for Diedre since your mom died. And, yes, I understand that, what with Diedre having an affair with her sister’s husband, but Helen seems to have finally put that behind her. She’s not trying to make Diedre’s life miserable.”
“Had Helen been doing that?” Eden prompted when the man fell silent.
