Page 37 of Property of Bull
“My back hurts,” I say, having seen more than my fair share of accident footage on Instagram.
“Miss, stay right there,” the deputy who interviewed me last night says, coming to stand beside us before speaking into her radio, asking for an ambulance. “Mr. Tucker! You stay out there.”
Before I know it, she’s pulled her taser and is standing in front of Stryker and me like she’d take a bullet for us.
“She did it!” he screams back at her while pointing at me. “She manipulated my elderly father and then she murdered him.”
“Now you understand why I wanted you to bring Miss Tucker by,” Sheriff Clark says, standing near the desk. “George’s attorney is on his way in also, even though he’s insisting there was nothing inappropriate in the latest version of the will.”
“I have the only legal will, I tell you!” my uncle yells from where he’s standing on the sidewalk.
I can hear the ambulance approaching, but besides some bruises that will appear in a day or so, I know I’m fine and don’t want to deal with the nuisance of going to the hospital.
“Do you know him?” Stryker asks me.
“I think it’s either Jason or Matt. I’m not really sure,” I answer honestly. “Dad’s not very close to his brothers, but he said he called Jason to let him know.”
Clark, after making sure that I can stand without pain, guides Stryker and me back to a small room, indicating two seats for us.
“Actually, let me get you pillow to sit on,” he says, holding a hand out to stop me from sitting on the wooden chair.
Once I’m comfortably seated, he immediately confirms that it was Jason who attacked me and asks me to tell him what I know about my family.
“Well, besides his wife who recently died, Granddad had the twins, Leo and Mike, with his first wife, then Jason and Matt with his second wife, my dad was next, then his fourth wife and their daughter died in a car accident.”
Stryker nods along, his face darkening when I mention the last two and I realize that he probably would have been running the funeral home by then.
“We found some documentation in your grandfather’s files,” Clark says, consulting a notepad in front of him. “It seems he was sixteen the first time he got married, so that was before the twins were born. There was a girl born from that marriage, but they got divorced before they were eighteen, seemingly so he could marry his next wife, and he later signed off his paternal rights to another man.”
I shrug, not understanding what that has to do with anything. Until it hits me that I probably have other cousins out there, perhaps with an axe to grind.
“It’ll be another few days before we have any of the DNA evidence back, so right now we’re working on clearing fingerprints. However, since Jason was outside this building at nine AM, swearing a blue streak about how you changed Mr. Tucker’s…damn, there’s just so many of them—George’s will and he and Matt are due the lion’s share, I feel the need to go over your statement and ask some additional questions.”
He looks at me, like he’s waiting for me to say something, while I look at him, waiting for him to ask me a question.
“This is being recorded,” he says and I nod my head, letting him know that I understand.
When the silence draws out, Stryker throws his hand up in frustration. “Ask her something. I swear, she’s not being difficult, she’s just not going to start babbling.”
“Was I supposed to say something? He didn’t ask me anything,” I state, looking at Stryker, wondering if I missed something.
“Mr. Wells,” Clark says, turning to him. “You don’t need to be here for this, especially since you aren’t an attorney nor a family member.”
“Is Margo under arrest? If she isn’t, I’m here as her Old Man,” he says, and I swear Clark’s jaw drops wide open. “Strictly moral support. I’ll stay quiet.”
“Sheriff, can I read over the statement I gave, I’m sorry, I don’t remember the deputy’s name. Last night is a bit of a blur for me. If there’s anything else, I’m happy to answer questions.” That seems to do the trick and the sheriff slides a two-page document in front of me.
It doesn't take me long to scan through it and I look up at Clark again. “There are some things on this that are circled. They were just habits that were part of Granddad’s routine. He’d always close the garage door so that critters wouldn’t get into the dry goods he kept out there. And once it was dark outside, he’d turn on the lights from the kitchen all the way through to his bedroom, but they were all off when I walked in last night.”
“Why did he keep them on?” Clark asks and I shrug. “I mean, I know what my electric bill is like, and I turn mine off.”
“I don’t know. I mean, I was raised to turn a light off if you left the room. When I first moved in, he corrected me a few times if I’d forget. When I was younger, Dad would say, ‘my house, my rules’. I just applied that to Granddad and stopped hitting the light switches, other than the ones in my room. He even had an app on his phone, once he got to bed, he’d turn all the lights off.”
“Do you have a login for that app?”
“No, sir.”
“You are not obligated to give it and we can try to obtain a warrant, but do you know the password for his phone and are you willing to provide it?”
