Buried in Secrets (Carly Moore #4) - Denise Grover Swank Page 0,67
up at him. “I went to his office.”
His face stilled. “What?”
“I planned to just drive by, but I saw all those people gathered at the memorial. So I stopped.” When he looked panicked, I added, “I didn’t talk to anyone. I don’t know why I stopped. I guess I had to see it to make this all more real. She may have been used, but she’s not innocent. I was only there for a few minutes, though. I looked like someone paying their respects. That’s it.”
Relief washed over his face.
“Selena gave me a lot of information about Jim and his family. She knew them.”
“Really?”
I told him about Jim’s involvement in the community and then floated my theory about his wife, Melinda, from the situation with her business to her reluctance to live in Ewing.
“If she ran into trouble with her business, she might have gone to Bart.”
He didn’t say anything, mulling it over.
“What I don’t understand,” I said, “is how a middle-class transplant to Ewing would find out about Bart.”
“You’d be surprised,” he said, shifting in his seat. “It’s all based on rumors. It’s possible.”
“I started digging on the internet, but I ran out of time,” I said. “I barely had a chance to look into Jim, Melinda, and their kids. I didn’t even touch Pam and her family. And then there’s Ashlynn’s ex-boyfriend, Chuck Holston, the father of her baby. According to Selena, he was supposedly in jail several months ago for drug possession.”
“Huh,” he said, picking up my fork and stabbing a meatball.
“But from what I’ve heard about Pam’s husband, Rob, I’m surprised he let Chuck live in a trailer on their land. Ashlynn said he beat his oldest son last year to get him to talk about Seth’s involvement with Bingham.”
“Seth Chalmers?” he asked in surprise.
“Yeah, Ashlynn told me Seth and her brother were best friends.”
“Really?” His gaze turned worried. “How did you handle that? Was it weird?”
“Yeah. I usually only hear about Seth from Hank and Wyatt’s perspective. I didn’t find out much, but I told Ricky to reach out if he ever feels like talking about Seth.”
“I hope he does.”
“Me too.” I took a deep breath. “I don’t have to go to work until Tutoring Club. So tomorrow I’ll spend some time doing research online. I’m already signed up for three hours at the library from several days back, before I even knew what I’d be searching for. I need to look into Rob Crimshaw. I don’t know anything about him.”
“I looked him up to see if he had any priors. He was arrested for some assault charges that were dropped, but those were a couple of decades ago. Bar fights.”
“He beats his kids and likely his wife instead. Selena said that a teacher reported them to the state for suspected abuse, but Rob convinced them he was only disciplining.”
“I hate assholes like that,” he said, looking away.
“Yeah, me too. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he went to Bart for something, then coerced Pam into fulfilling his task by threatening the kids.”
“I don’t want you talking to him directly. The man obviously has a temper.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I’ll see if I can find someone else to talk to about him.” Then I thought of something else. “Did you get an address for Karl Lister?”
“Yeah, the most current address I have for him is out by where Lula used to live. I also have a phone number, so maybe it would be better to call rather than show up at his doorstep.”
“Okay.” But my mind was racing about how to find out more about Rob Crimshaw.
“You’ve hardly eaten anything,” he said. “Did you eat dinner at work?”
“No. I’m just not very hungry anymore.”
“Come on,” he said, getting to his feet. “We’ve done enough for tonight, and I have a surprise for you.”
“A surprise?” I said, perking up.
“Yeah, it’s outside.” He walked to the door and grabbed a jacket from a peg by the door and handed it to me.
I slipped it on, engulfed by the warmth and the smell of Marco, and slid my feet into a pair of flipflops I kept at his house. He shot me a smile I couldn’t interpret, then led me outside and around the side of the house. A tripod was set up in the yard with a short tube attached on top.
“What’s this?” I asked in excitement.
“I know how much you like lookin’ at the stars on the porch, so I got a telescope.”