Fortune's Woman / A Fortune Wedding

Chapter Two

Julie frowned as the woman’s bitter words seemed to ring through the night air.

She still couldn’t quite believe it. She had always liked Frannie. The woman seemed to genuinely care about her volunteer work at the Foundation and she had always been friendly to Julie.

She supposed no one could really see inside the heart of someone else or know how they would respond when provoked, but Frannie had always seemed far too quiet and unassuming for Julie to accept that she had murdered her husband.

“How can you be so certain? Did you see her do it?”

“No. He was already dead when I came looking for him.” She sniffled loudly and pulled a bedraggled tissue from her ample cleavage. “We were supposed to meet here and take off to my place after his obligations at the stupid Spring Fling. He didn’t even want to come, but Lloyd had business tonight he had to take care of.”

Business at the Spring Fling? Who on earth tried to conduct business at a community celebration?

“What kind?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Something important. Someone he had to talk to, he said. Maybe Frannie. Maybe he told her he was going to divorce her for me. I don’t know. I just know she killed him. Now watch—her brother Ross and the rest of the Fortunes are going to cover it all up. They think they own this whole damn town.”

Julie shifted, uncomfortable with the other woman’s antagonism. She liked and respected all the Fortunes. Susan Fortune Eldridge was one of her closest friends and she adored Lily Fortune, who was the driving force behind the Fortune Foundation that had been founded in memory of her late husband.

“Ma’am? Are you the one who found the body?”

Julie turned and found Billy Addison, a Red Rock police officer with whom she had a slight acquaintance through the Foundation.

“I did,” Crystal waved her scarlet red nails like she was rodeo royalty riding around the arena. “My poor Lloyd. Have you arrested Frannie Fredericks yet?”

“Um, not yet. Let’s not jump the gun here, miss. We’re going to be taking statements for some time now. I’m going to need to ask you a few questions.”

“Anything. I’ll tell you whatever you need to know. But I don’t know why you need to ask anybody anything. It’s plain as my nose job that Frannie did it. Look at her—she’s got blood all over her.”

She let out a dramatic sob, more for effect than out of any real emotion, Julie thought, with unaccustomed cynicism.

“Lloyd was going to leave her skinny butt,” Crystal said. “She knew it and that must be why she killed him. That’s what I was just saying.”

“Do you know that for a fact, ma’am?” the officer asked her.

“I know they fought earlier today. On the phone. I was with Lloyd and I heard the terrible things she said to him. She called him a two-faced liar and a cheat and said as how she wasn’t going to put up with it anymore.”

“How did you hear her side of the conversation?” the officer asked. “Was she on speaker phone?”

Crystal gaped at him. “Um, maybe. I don’t remember. Or maybe she was just talking real loud.”

Or maybe the conversation never took place, Julie thought. She didn’t know what to believe—but she did know she shouldn’t be hearing any of this. Any affair between Lloyd Fredericks and Crystal Rivers was not something she wanted to know any more about.

She stepped away to leave the police officer to the interview. Still, Crystal wasn’t exactly being unobtrusive. Her words carried to Julie as she walked through the crowd.

“I just know Frannie made my poor Lloyd’s life a living hell. And now her brother’s going to cover it up. Watch and see if the Fortunes don’t all circle the wagons around her. You just watch and see.”

The Fortunes were a powerful family in Red Rock. But most of the ones she had met through the Foundation were also decent, compassionate people who cared about the community and making it a better place.

The family also had its enemies, though—people who resented their wealth and power—and Julie had a feeling Crystal wouldn’t be the only one who would whisper similar accusations about the Fortunes.

What a terrible way for the Spring Fling to end, she thought as she made her way through the crowd. The event should be a celebration, a chance for everyone in town to gather and help raise money for a worthy cause. Instead, one life had been snuffed out and several others would be changed forever, especially those in Lloyd’s family.

Julie knew the Frederickses had a teenage son. Josh, she thought was his name. If she wasn’t mistaken, he was friendly with Ricky Farraday Jamison, her boss Linda’s son, even though Ricky was a few years younger than Josh.

Had anyone told him yet? she wondered. How terrible for him if he were somehow drawn to the scene by the commotion and the crowd and happened to see his father’s body lying there. It was a definite possibility, even though the police were widening the perimeter of the scene, pushing the crowd still farther back.

Perhaps proactive measures were called for. Someone should find the boy first before he could witness such a terrible sight.

Ross Fortune seemed the logical person to find his nephew. She sighed. She really didn’t want to talk to him. Their altercation seemed a lifetime ago, but she would still prefer not to have anything more to do with the man.

If she had her preference, she would escape this situation completely and go as far away as possible. It reminded her far too much of another tragic scene, of police lights flashing and yellow crime tape flipping in the wind and the hard, invasive stares of the rapacious crowd.

She had a sudden memory of that terrible day seven years earlier, driving home from work, completely oblivious to the scene she would find at her tidy little house, and the subsequent crime tape and the solemn-eyed police officers and the sudden terrible knowledge that her world had just changed forever.

She didn’t think about that day often anymore, but this situation was entirely too familiar. Then again it would have been unusual if the similarities didn’t shake loose those memories she tried to keep so carefully contained.

She didn’t want Frannie’s son to go through the same thing. He needed to be warned, whether she wanted to talk to his uncle again or not. She started through the crowd, keeping an eye out for the tall, gorgeous private investigator.

In the end, he found her.

“Julie! Ms. Osterman!”

She followed the sound of her name and discovered Ross in a nearby vendor booth with his sister and the Red Rock chief of police, Jimmy Caldwell.

Frannie Fortune was slumped in a chair while her brother hovered protectively over her. She looked exactly as Julie imagined she had looked that day seven years ago. Frannie’s lovely, delicate features were stark and pale and her eyes looked dazed. Numb.

She wanted to hug her, to promise her that sometime in the future this terrible day would be just an awful memory.

“I told you, Jim,” Ross said. “I was talking to Ms. Osterman just a row over when we heard a scream. We were the first ones on the scene, weren’t we? Besides the other woman.”

Julie nodded.

“You’re the one who called 911, right?” the police chief asked her.

“Yes. But your officers were on the scene before I could even give the dispatcher any information. Probably only a moment or two after we arrived,” she said.

The police chief wrote something in a notebook. “Can you confirm the scene as you saw it? Lloyd was on the ground and Frannie was standing over him.”

“Yes.” She pointed. “And the other woman—Crystal—was standing over there screaming.”

“You didn’t see anyone else? Just Frannie and Crystal?”

Julie nodded. “That’s right. Just them.”

“Frannie? You want to tell me what happened before Ross and Ms. Osterman showed up?”

She lifted her shell-shocked gaze from her blood-stained pants to the police chief. “I don’t know. I was looking for…I just…I found him that way. He was just lying there.”

“Tell him, Frannie,” Ross insisted. “Go ahead and tell Jim you had nothing to do with Lloyd’s death.”

“I…I didn’t.”

Jimmy scratched the nape of his neck. “That’s not a very convincing claim of innocence, Frannie. Especially when you’re the one standing here over your dead husband’s body with blood on your hands.”

Ross glared at him. “Frannie is not capable of murder. You have to know that. You’re crazy if you think she could have done this.”

The police chief raised a dark eyebrow that contrasted with his salt-and-pepper hair. “This might not be the best time for you to be calling names, Fortune.”

“What else would you call it? My sister did not kill her husband, though she should have done it years ago.”

“Appears to be no love lost between the two of you, was there?”

“I hated his miserable, two-timing guts.”

“Maybe you need to be the one coming down to the station for questions instead of Frannie here.”

“I’ll go any place you want me to. But I didn’t kill him any more than my sister did. I’ve got an alibi, remember? Ms. Osterman here.”

“He’s right. He was with me,” she said.

“Lucky for you. Unfortunately, by the sound of it, Frannie doesn’t have that kind of alibi. I’m going to have to ask you to come with me to the station to answer some questions, Frannie.”

“Come on, Jimmy. You know she couldn’t have done this.”

“You want to know what I know? The evidence in front of me. That’s it. That’s what I have to go by, no matter what. You were a cop. You know that. And I’m also quite sure this is going to be a powder keg of a case. I can’t afford to let people say I allowed the Fortunes to push me around. I have to follow every procedure to the letter, which means I’m going to have to take her in for questioning. I have no choice here.”

Ross glowered at the man but before he could say anything, another officer approached them. He was vibrating with energy. Julie imagined in a quiet town like Red Rock, this sort of situation was the most excitement the small police force ever saw.

“We found what might be the murder weapon, sir,” the fresh-faced officer said. “I knew you would want to know right away.”

“Thanks, Paul,” the chief tried to cut him off before he said more, but the officer didn’t take the hint.

“It was shoved under a display table in one of the tents and it’s got what appears to be blood on it. I’ll have CSU process it the minute they show up. Take a look. What do you think, sir?”

All of them followed the man’s pointing finger and Julie could see a large, solid-looking ceramic vase. When she turned back, she saw that Frannie Fredericks had turned even more pale, if that was possible.

“What’s the matter?” Ross asked her.

She shook her head and looked back at her blood-stained slacks.

“Do you know anything about that vase?” Jimmy Caldwell asked her, his gray eyes intent on her features.

When Ross’s sister clamped her lips together, the police chief leaned in closer. “You have to tell me, Frannie.”

She suddenly looked trapped, her gaze flitting between Jimmy Caldwell and her brother.

“Fran?” Ross asked.

“It’s mine. I bought it from Reynaldo Velasquez,” she finally whispered. “I wanted to put it in the upstairs hallway.”

Ross muttered an expletive. “Don’t say anything else, Frannie. Not until I get you an attorney. Just keep your mouth shut, okay?”

She blinked at her brother. “Why do I need an attorney? I didn’t do anything wrong. I just bought a vase.”

“Just don’t say anything.”

“In that case,” the police chief said, “I guess we’ll have to continue this conversation at the police station.”

“You don’t have nearly enough to arrest her. You know you don’t.”

“Not yet.” The police chief’s voice was grim.

“Josh. You have to find Josh,” Frannie said suddenly. She clutched her brother’s arm. “Find him, Ross. Get him away from here.”

He looked taken aback by her urgency. “I’ll look for him.”

“Thank you, Ross. You’ve always taken care of everything.”

He opened his mouth to say something, then clamped it shut again.

“Let’s go, Frannie,” the police chief’s voice wasn’t unkind. “I’m sure it will be a relief to you to get away from this crowd.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

The police chief slipped a huge navy windbreaker over her blood-stained clothing, then wrapped his arm around her shoulders. By all appearances, it looked as if he were consoling the grieving widow but Julie saw the implacable set to his muscles, as if he expected the slight woman to make a break for it any moment.

Ross watched after them, his jaw tight. “This is a fricking nightmare,” he growled. “Unbelievable.”

“Do you need help finding your nephew? I was coming to find you and suggest you look for him. It would be terrible for him to stumble onto this scene without knowing the…the victim was his father.”

He muttered an expletive. “You’re right. I should have thought of that before. I should have gone to look for him right away.”

“I’ll help you,” she said. “We can split up. You take the midway and I’ll head to the dance.”

He blinked at the offer. “Why would you want to do that? You’ve already been dragged far enough into this.”

He wouldn’t get any arguments from her on that score. She would much rather be home in her quiet, solitary house than wandering through a crowd looking for a boy whose world was about to change forever.

She shrugged. “You need help.”

He eyes widened with astonishment, and she wondered why he found a simple offer of assistance so very shocking.

“Thanks, then,” he mumbled.

“No problem. Do you have a picture of Josh?”

“A picture?”

“I can’t find him if I don’t know what he looks like,” she pointed out gently.

“Oh right. Of course.”

He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, and she was more charmed than she had any right to be when he opened an accordion fold in the wallet and slid out a photograph of a smiling young man with dark-blond hair, brown eyes and handsome features.

“I’m almost certain I’ve seen him around at the Foundation but the picture will help immensely,” she said. “I’ll be careful with it.”

“I have more,” Ross answered.

“We should exchange cell phone numbers so we can contact each other if either of us finds him.”

“Good idea,” he said. He rattled off a number, which she quickly entered into her phone, then she gave him hers in return.

“Now that you mention cell phones, it occurs to me that I should have thought of that first,” Ross said. “Let me try to reach Josh on his phone. Maybe I can track him down and meet him somewhere away from here.”

She waited while he dialed, impatient at even a few more moments of delay. The longer they waited, the more likely Josh would accidentally stumble onto his father’s body and the murder scene.

After a moment, Ross made a face and left a message on the boy’s voice mail for him to call him as soon as possible.

“He’s not answering. I guess we’re back to the original plan. I’ll cover the midway and you see if you can find him at the dance.”

“Deal. I’ll call you if I find him.”

“Right back at you. And Ms. Osterman? Thank you.”

She flashed him a quick smile, though even that seemed inappropriate under the circumstances. “Julie, please.”

He nodded and they each took off in separate directions. She quickly made her way to the dance, though she was forced to virtually ignore several acquaintances on her way, greeting them with only a wave instead of her usual conversation. She would have to explain later and hope they understood.

She expected Ross’s call at any moment but to her dismay, her phone still hadn’t rung by the time she reached the dance.

Country swing music throbbed from the speakers and the plank-covered dance floor was full. Finding Josh in this throng would be a challenge, especially when she knew him only from a photograph.

She scanned the crowd, looking for familiar faces. Finally, she found two girls she had worked with at the Foundation standing with a larger group.

“Hey, Ms. O.” They greeted her with a warmth she found gratifying.

“Hey, Katie. Hi, Jo. I could use your help. I’m trying to find a boy.”

“Aren’t we all?” Jo said with a roll of eyes heavily framed in mascara.

Julie smiled. “A particular boy, actually. It’s kind of serious. Do either of you know Josh Fredericks?”

“Sure,” Katie answered promptly. “He’s in my algebra class. He’s kind of cute, even if he is super smart.”

“Have you seen him lately? Tonight?”

“Yeah. It’s weird. Usually he doesn’t go two inches away from his girlfriend but I saw him by himself earlier, over by the refreshments. I think that was a while ago. Maybe an hour. He might have ditched the place by now.”

“Thanks,” she answered and headed in the direction they pointed.

She found Josh right where Katie had indicated, standing near the refreshment table as if he were waiting for someone. She recognized him instantly from the picture Ross had provided. He was wearing a western-cut shirt and a black Stetson, just like half the other men here, and she could see his dark-blond hair and brown eyes like his uncle’s.

She didn’t know whether to feel relief or dismay at finding him. She did not want to have to explain to him why she was searching for him. She quickly texted Ross that she had located his nephew at the dance and waited close by, intending only to keep an eye on him until Ross arrived to handle things.

He looked upset, she thought after a moment of observing him. His color was high and he kept looking toward the door as if waiting for someone to arrive.

Did he already know about his father? No, she couldn’t imagine it. Why would he linger here at the dance if he knew his father had just been killed?

After two or three minutes, Josh suddenly looked at his watch, then set down his cup on a nearby tray.

Rats. She was going to have to talk to him, she realized, as he started heading for the door. She waited until he walked out into the much cooler night air before she caught up to him.

“Are you Josh?”

He blinked a little, obviously startled to find a strange older woman talking to him. “Yeah,” he said slowly, not bothering to conceal his wariness.

“My name is Julie Osterman. I work at the Fortune Foundation with your mother’s cousin Susan.”

“Okay.” He took a sidestep away from her and she sighed.

“Josh, this is going to sound crazy, I know,” she began, “but I need you to stay here for a minute.”

“Why?”

She couldn’t tell him his father was dead. That job should fall to someone closer to him, someone with whom he had a relationship. “Your uncle is looking for you,” she finally answered. “He really needs to talk to you. If you can hang around here for a minute, he should be along any time now.”

She hoped.

“What’s going on?” His gaze sharpened. “Is it my mom?”

“Your mom isn’t hurt. Ross can explain everything when he gets here?”

“No. Tell me now. Is it Lyndsey? She was supposed to meet me here but she never showed and she’s not answering her phone. Is she hurt? What’s going on?”

“Josh—”

“Tell me!”

She was scrambling for words when a deep male voice spoke from behind her.

“It’s your dad, Josh.”

Chapter Three

She turned with vast relief to see Ross walking toward them, looking tall and solid and certainly strong enough to help his nephew through this.

The boy’s features hardened. “Did he hurt Mom again? If he did, I’ll kill him this time, I swear. I warned him I would.”

“You might not want to say that too loudly,” Ross said grimly. “Your father is dead, Josh.”

For all his bravado just seconds before, the teenager’s color drained at the words.

“Dead? That’s crazy.” Even as he spoke, Julie thought she saw something flicker in his brown eyes, something furtive, secretive.

“It’s true,” Ross said. “I’m sorry, Josh.”

The boy gazed at him blankly, as if he wasn’t quite sure how to respond.

“What happened?”

Ross cleared his throat. “We don’t know for sure yet.”