Page 31 of The Couple’s Secret (Detective Josie Quinn #23)

Twenty-Seven

She and Gretchen had discussed Dalton’s motive for disrupting the funeral on the way over.

Cora had been his punching bag, literally and figuratively, for almost two decades before she disappeared.

He never bothered to have a relationship with Riley, and he didn’t express any interest in being a father to her even after she was alone and living with Tobias’s sons.

Dalton Stevens had a lot of pent-up anger and he was addicted to the high of making his ex-wife miserable.

Josie didn’t know how he’d survived the past seven years without an outlet, but he hadn’t made any attempts to harass his daughter until today.

The day his ex-wife was laid to rest.

“Let me rephrase that.” Josie picked up her cup and swished the dregs of her coffee around. “It’s not unreasonable that you wanted to pay your respects to your ex-wife, who was also the mother of your child. No one can really fault you there.”

“But you don’t seem very good at reading social cues,” Gretchen said innocently. “Because the kids did not want you there.”

“You just shut the fuck up,” he spat.

Gretchen pretended to think about it. “No. Don’t think I will, but thanks for the suggestion.”

There was Mr. Apoplectic Red again. Josie should really pitch this new color to Crayola.

“Mr. Stevens, you could have waited until the service concluded, until the kids had vacated the area, before paying your final respects. That’s not what you were there to do, was it?”

“I—I just wanted Riley to know…” He drifted off and began cracking his knuckles.

“To know what?” asked Josie.

“You know, that kid turned out just like her mother. A stuck-up snob. Acting like her shit don’t stink.

Like marrying her stepbrother was moving up in the world.

Just like her mom. Marrying a ‘businessman.’ It’s a junk removal company.

They ain’t lawyers or accountants. I’m tired of being treated like I’m the problem. ”

Josie knew that Gretchen had a snarky comment locked and loaded that would wind Dalton up, but she restrained herself.

They’d both had enough experience with assholes like Dalton Stevens to know that at some point, in order to get to the things you wanted to know, you had to listen to some bona fide horseshit.

Once the ill-advised pity party was over and out of his system, he would be more amenable to answering the questions Josie really cared about.

“What’s the problem, Mr. Stevens?”

He rubbed his palms on his thighs. The knuckles connecting his middle fingers to his hands were bulging and unsightly. Boxer’s knuckle. It was an injury to the joint at the base of the finger—usually the middle finger—gained from repetitive impacts. Punching.

“The problem is that everyone is ready to nominate Cora for sainthood and they don’t know nothing about her,” Dalton began.

Josie wondered how many punches Cora had had to endure to cause Dalton to have boxer’s knuckle—on both hands.

“She wasn’t as good as everyone makes her out to be.

” He kept going, voice dripping with disdain.

“Every time I turn on the TV or go to the diner, people are talking about her like she was Mother Teresa. It’s all bullshit.

I never said nothing before, to that other guy, Fanning or whatever his name is, but you wanna know how much of a saint she was?

I’ll tell you. Cora was having an affair. She was cheating on Tobias.”

That’s what he’d been getting at when he accosted Riley at the funeral.

Josie knew he’d been holding onto something, waiting for the right moment to unleash it.

The question was whether it was true. With Cora’s death, there was a finality to his ability to use her as a receptacle for all his anger and inadequacy, but provoking Riley could be his new sport.

It was easy to make things up about a person who wasn’t here to defend herself—and was never going to return.

Gretchen now had her notepad and pen out though her posture still shouted casual indifference. “How do we know you’re not just saying that to get Riley’s attention?”

“Riley needs to know the truth.”

“But she didn’t need to know the truth for the past seven years?” Josie asked. “It never occurred to you that maybe Cora’s lover killed her and Tobias?”

“You didn’t think it was important enough to tell Detective Fanning? You must have known that you were a suspect,” Gretchen said.

“Fanning thought Hollis did it. I didn’t need to tell him.”

“Cora was having an affair with Hollis?” asked Josie.

Dalton shrugged. “I think so.”

“But you don’t know.” Gretchen’s pen was poised over her notepad as she watched Dalton.

He folded his arms over his chest again, giving Josie a quick glimpse of yellow sweat stains under his armpits. “I never saw them kissing or nothing like that.”

Maybe no one had seen them kiss. Maybe Dalton was full of shit and they’d never kissed at all, but Josie would bet a week’s pay that Hollis had been infatuated with Cora Stevens for a long time. He had definitely wanted to kiss her. “What did you see?”

“I saw them out back at the diner where Cora worked, talking privately. A few times.”

“In full view of the public,” Gretchen said.

Dalton pushed strands of his dirty-blond hair out of his eyes, giving Josie another eyeful of his tattoo. The angel and demon grinned at one another, both of them looking devious.

“What do you mean?” he said.

“They were meeting in a place where anyone could see them,” Gretchen pointed out.

“Yeah, but they were sneaking around.”

Hollis had already told them that Cora had spoken to him privately about intervening in her relationship with Tobias to convince him that she should keep her job. Hollis hadn’t mentioned where that conversation took place.

“When was this?” asked Josie. “How long before Cora and Tobias disappeared?”

“I don’t know.” Dalton shrugged. “Couple of weeks, I guess.”

That conflicted with Hollis’s timeline. He’d told them that the private conversation with Cora had taken place a couple of months before the couple went missing.

The last time he had physically seen her had been at the company headquarters.

Josie tucked the discrepancy away to ask Hollis about later.

“Is that the only reason you think Cora was having an affair?”

It was hardly damning evidence. John Fanning had spoken to practically every person in Brighton Springs, and no one had mentioned anything about seeing Cora with another man. Plus, Hollis had frequented the diner long before Tobias and Cora started seeing one another.

“I saw her at a motel,” Dalton blurted out.

Now that wasn’t in Fanning’s file.

“Which motel?” Josie pressed.

“There’s a shitty place over by the interstate. It’s called Majesty Motel. They rent by the hour, if you know what I mean.”

“You saw Cora at the Majesty Motel?” Gretchen scribbled on her notepad. “Going in or coming out?”

Dalton leaned an elbow on the surface of the table and rested his chin on his fist. He looked weary now and a little bored. “I’m not sure. I was just driving past. She was in the parking lot. By the time I looped around the block, she was gone.”

“When was that?” asked Josie.

“Don’t know. Five or six months before she and Tobias went missing.”

“How many times did you see her at this motel?”

“Twice,” Dalton replied.

“How about the second time?” Gretchen continued her notetaking. “Was she going inside or coming out?”

“She was in her car,” Dalton answered. “Like, just sitting there, with her hands on the wheel.”

Josie peered into her coffee cup, wishing it would magically refill itself. “Did you see anyone with her?”

“No, but come on. This is Cora. Why else would she be at a motel in the middle of the day?”

With all the documented evidence of Dalton’s relentless harassment of his ex-wife, Josie found it hard to believe that he had simply walked away and never mentioned it. Never tried to use it against her.

Dregs it was. She tipped the cup as far as it would go and let the last bit of coffee drip into her mouth. Two cups would have been the smart way to go. “What did she say when you approached her?”

His eyes snapped to hers. “What? How do you know I approached her?”

Josie arched a brow. “Really? You’re really going to ask me that? Detective Dorton?”

Meredith pretended to be startled out of a daydream. “Oh, yes, Detective Quinn?”

“How many times did Mr. Stevens violate the PFAs that Cora had against him?”

“Oh, well, at least?—”

“Fine,” Dalton cut her off. “I talked to her. Went up to the car and knocked on the window. She was crying, okay? When she saw me, she got real mad. Told me she was going to call 911 ’cause I wasn’t supposed to be near her and shit so I asked if she really wanted to do that considering she was sneaking around behind Tobias’s back. ”

“What did Cora say to that?” asked Gretchen.

He laughed, shifting back in his chair, assuming a casual pose. “She said it wasn’t what I thought. Yeah, right. She just didn’t want me blowing up her life. So I told her. If she didn’t tell Tobias, I was gonna do it.”

“Classy,” Gretchen said.

“Hey, that guy was an asshole.”

“What did Cora say when you gave her your little ultimatum?” Josie said.

“She didn’t say anything.” His eyes clouded over. Confusion creased his brow. “She just started laughing. All crazy-like. Sounding like some kind of hyena or something. Then she drove away.”

“When did this happen?” Josie said.

“I don’t know. A few months before they went missing, I guess?”

“Did you tell Tobias about seeing her at the motel?” Gretchen asked.

Avoiding her eyes, he wiped his palms over his thighs. “Um, no.”

“Why not?” Josie asked even though she already knew. As long as he didn’t tell Tobias, he had something to hold over Cora’s head. An ever-present threat. A measure of control.

“Listen, it doesn’t matter, does it?” he groused. “He’s dead. She’s dead. Hollis is still here acting like he wasn’t banging his best friend’s woman. You should be talking to him.”

“You’ve got no proof that Cora and Hollis were having an affair,” Josie pointed out.

“No, I don’t,” Dalton agreed. “But I did see Hollis hanging around the Majesty a few times, too.”