Page 43 of Deputies Under Fire
“Definitely. Helen and Ike were essentially doing the same thing. Dissing Diedre to potential clients, taking every opportunity to badmouth her. It put Diedre under a lot of stress, and I don’t want her to have to go back to that kind of relationship with Helen.” He stopped and seemed to have a debate about what he was going to say. It took him a couple of moments to continue. “At times, Helen can be very scary.”
“Scary?” Rory repeated, and it was very much a question.
“Yes.” Another pause. “Last month she asked me about explosives.”
That grabbed Eden and Rory’s attention. “What specifically did she ask?” Rory asked.
“She wanted to know if I had any experience with them when I was in the military. I didn’t. I was a cargo pilot,” he explained. “When I pressed her as to why she wanted to know, she said she was considering donating to a foundation that helped veterans injured by IEDs.”
Rory kept his intense gaze on Frank. “Did you believe her?”
Frank shrugged, hardly a wholehearted confirmation that he thought she’d told him the truth. “Like I said, Helen can be scary, and that’s why I don’t want you to mention that I’ve been seeing Diedre. Don’t say anything about it to Ike, either.”
Once again, Eden was surprised. “Why not? Why would he care if Diedre had been with you?”
Another shrug from Frank. “I think some of the badmouthing that Ike does is because he still has feelings for Diedre. I have no proof of that,” Frank said quickly, “but Diedre is a very desirable woman, and she dumped Ike. He’ll say it was the other way around, but it wasn’t. She dumped him, and he wasn’t ready for things to end.”
Eden wasn’t sure it mattered who’d been the one to break things off. And she didn’t believe Ike’s venom for the woman was seeded in him still having feelings for her. Of course, it was possible. She just couldn’t see that as a motive for the murders.
“You also didn’t mention that you knew Brenda,” Rory mused.
Frank seemed to freeze for a moment. “I didn’t know her. Not really.”
“Not really?”Eden repeated and waited to see if he was going to mention Brenda calling him about going to the I-hate-Ike luncheon she’d arranged.
“Not really,” he snapped. “The woman was a pest, wanting me to team up with her to take Ike down. I declined. I told her to let karma deal with Ike.”
Frank didn’t seem like a karma-believing sort of guy. But Eden could see Brenda pressing him to join the group she was assembling. Could see Frank declining, too, especially if he didn’t want to be in the same room with Helen and Diedre.
“Did you ever go to Brenda’s house?” Rory asked.
“No,” Frank responded. “But she dropped by mine once. I didn’t even let her in. So, no, her DNA won’t be at my place, and mine won’t be at hers. You’re barking up the wrong tree, deputies. I have absolutely no motive to kill Mellie or Brenda.”
That wasn’t true in Mellie’s case. Bad blood was often a motive for murder. But Eden couldn’t see that bad blood extending toBrenda. Yes, she’d seemingly pressured Frank into joining her anti-Ike group, but turning her down wasn’t a reason to kill her.
“I need to go,” Frank insisted, checking the time. “I’m meeting someone for breakfast.”
“Sorry, but I’m going to need you to make a formal statement about that photo,” Rory explained. “Go down the hall to interview room two and wait. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
Frank glared at both of them for a long time, and for a moment Eden thought the man was going to refuse. He didn’t. He stormed off, taking out his phone, maybe to call a lawyer.
Rory didn’t add anything else until Frank was out of hearing range. “I can’t tell if he just threw Helen under the bus so we’d think she’s the killer, or if he’s truly worried she could be behind the murders.”
“Same,” Eden agreed. But either way, Frank was now solidly a suspect.
Rory turned to her. “I can take his statement solo if you want to find out what’s going on at the latest crime scene.”
She nodded, already coming up with a mental list of things she needed to do. Touching base with the bomb squad was a high priority. But she also wanted to check Frank’s military service records to see if he did indeed have the explosives experience that he had denied.
However, Eden had barely made it a step toward her desk when Rory’s phone rang, and she stopped when she heard him say, “It’s Detective Vernon.”
She turned back into the office, and he answered the call. He didn’t put it on speaker, but after just a handful of seconds, Eden knew something was wrong. She prayed there hadn’t been yet another murder.
“All right, do that,” Rory said to Vernon after a couple of snail-crawling moments—moments that Eden spent on edge. “And have the lab contact me as soon as they know.”
He ended the call and looked at her. “The CSIs searching Diedre’s house found a Swiss Army knife.”
Eden immediately thought of the incident that Dutton had witnessed. The one where Helen had threatened Ike, and he’d snatched the knife from her. That one had been a Swiss Army knife.
