Page 45 of Family Jewels

“Maybe she had your necklace,” I said. “Maybe you thought you could make her tell you where it was.”

“No!” he insisted, sounding desperate. “That’s not what happened.”

James stiffened. “Then why don’t you tell us whatdidhappen, Dyer.” His tone left no doubt that it was a demand and not a request.

“My momma called and told me that you and Neely Kate stopped by to see her,” Raddy said to me. “Homer was fit to be tied.”

“Wait,” I said. “You call your father by his first name?”

“He ain’t no father of mine,” he said in disgust. “He’s my stepdaddy, but my momma saddled me with his name. If I was gonna kill anyone, I woulda killed that mean bastard years ago.”

I’d barely spoken to the man, but I couldn’t disagree with Raddy’s sentiment.

“Why’d you have to go by there?” Raddy asked in a whine. “I didn’t know you were gonna talk to my momma. I thought you’d butter up Rayna and get the damned thing back from her.”

Raddy had paid us a five-hundred-dollar down payment just to talk to his ex? That didn’t make sense at all. Especially if he’d planned on paying us the rest of the money, though I suspected the worst.

“We talked to your momma because you gave us next to nothing to go on,” I said, my anger heating up again. “And I suspect just about everything you told us was a lie. So we had no choice but to ask her questions.”

He shot me a glare. Something clicked.

“You went to see Rayna again after you talked to your momma, didn’t you?” I asked. “What happened when you got there?”

He licked his lower lip and cast a nervous glance at James. “I knew she was home because her car was in the driveway and a light was on in the window. But she wasn’t answering the door. Then I heard a Marvin Gay record through the open window. She only played Marvin when she was wanting to fool around.” He scratched his head. “I wanted to find out who she was entertaining.”

My eyebrows shot up. “Rayna had a boyfriend? Why do you care? You’re the one who dumped her.”

He pointed a finger at me and protested, “Now that’s not true! She kicked meout.”

“After you cheated on her,” I said, shaking my head. But it was a moot point, and I knew it. “So you realized she had a man with her and then what?”

“I beat on the door, insisting she open up. When she still didn’t answer, I thought about busting it down, but I suspected it wasn’t as easy as they show on TV. Besides, the lock on the back door doesn’t work, so I figured I’d go through the back door and sneak up on her.”

“Again,” I said, “why did you care? You were done with her.”

“I don’t know,” he said, tears filling his eyes as he rubbed the heel of his hand on his chest. “I guess I didn’t realize I wanted her until I thought someone else did.”

I squelched a few of the disparaging insults that popped up in my head. “So what happened next?” I asked, although I was pretty sure I already knew.

“I went around the corner, and I saw her in the hot tub. She was lying back with her head on the corner, but her body was floating all weird.” He looked at me, and I nodded for him to go on. “So I called out her name . . .” He sucked in a breath. “But she didn’t answer, so I walked over to her. It was then I realized her eyes were open, and she wasn’t moving.” His voice broke. “I knew she was dead.”

“Did you kill her?” I asked again in a cold voice.

“No!” he shouted. “I heard a noise in the house, and when I went inside to check it out, a guy ran out the front door. He took off around the corner, and I heard a car drive away.”

“Do you know who it was?”

He shook his head emphatically. “No. But he was in the bedroom. The drawers were ripped out, and they’d all been overturned. I think he was looking for the necklace. You have to help me, Rose.”

I put my free hand on my hip, still holding the gun at my side. “And why on earth would I do that after you hurt my dog?”

“I didn’t mean to.”

“I’m calling bullcrap, Raddy Dyer.”

“Okay! Okay! I was scared. Malcolm was towering over me, and she was growling, and I felt trapped. I was trying to run out of the barn, but she was in the way.”

I wasn’t so sure I believed that, but James wasn’t volunteering any information. I shot a look at him, surprised he hadn’t jumped into the interrogation, but he wore a perfect poker face. I had absolutely no idea what he was thinking.