folder he had laid on the table. “Joy riding. Disorderly Conduct. Assault. Oh wait, those last charges never made it into court.” Bay looked over at the mirror and it made Former Mayor Daddy fidget. “You’ve got a criminal record. Small things but then you stepped it up, didn’t you? Looks like you having help getting out of trouble just led you to believe you could get away with whatever you wanted to do. Say for instance, murder?”
Darius’ father huffed and puffed at Bay’s line of questioning. The Sheriff of Melborne had to calm him down.
“None of those things say murderer,” Darius protested and jabbed his finger on the folder. “And I am not a murderer.” He hung his head, it seemed as if he was going to cry. “I loved Gemma. I would never hurt her.”
“Tell me what happened when you spoke to Gemma in Yasamee,” Bay said.
“I didn’t talk to her.”
“Come now, Darius. I have witnesses that say you came to Yasamee to talk to Gemma.”
“Yeah. I did. But I didn’t talk to her.”
“What did you come to talk to her about?”
This time it was Darius who looked at the mirror. He knew his father was there listening and the look in his face said it pained him to have to disappoint him.
“You were right. I did try to blackmail her.”
“How?”
“Gemma worked at a strip club up in Atlanta. That’s how we met. And yeah, we had our fights, but what couple doesn’t, you know?”
“I understand that,” Bay said. “I know exactly how women are. Hard to get along with.”
Was he talking about me?
Darius snorted out a laugh. “Yeah, so you understand. Like I said, we argued, but I never laid a hand on her. I did mean things to her, but I never hit her. Anyway,” he sniffed, “she was just about finished with school when she met this guy. Jeffrey Beck. He was some big time financial analyst or something like that.”
I took in a breath. Jeffrey Beck was the one person that Miss Vivee couldn’t locate or find any information on.
“After she met him, she wanted to dump me. Said that she wanted a different life and he was the one to give it to her.”
“Is that why you killed her.”
“No!” His eyes wide, he said, “I didn’t kill her. I’m telling you. But that’s how I blackmailed her. She didn’t know that this Mr. Fancy Pants charmer was married and had a kid. But I knew. I had followed her after she quit working at Kitty City. She moved to Powder Springs. And I used to watch her. Don’t get me wrong, I’m no pervert. I just wanted to see her. Talk to her. Try to get her back. That’s when I saw him.”
He stopped talking and Bay prompted him to finish telling his story.
“So, how were you going to use that to blackmail her?”
“I was going to tell her principal.”
I had a confused look on my face, as did everyone else standing in the room with me, but not Bay. He kept talking and asking questions just like he was on the same page as Darius.
“Go ahead,” Bay said.
“His kid was going to the same school where Gemma worked. I saw him once picking him up when I was there watching for Gemma.”
“What was the name of the school,” Bay asked.
“Euclid Park. Gemma taught second grade, and Jeffrey’s son, I found out, was in kindergarten. There’s no way she could’ve kept her job if I told the school board that not only had she been a stripper back in Atlanta, but she was dating the married father of one of the students at the school. So I told her that if she came back to me, I wouldn’t tell on her.”
“That was clever, Darius.”
“Yeah,” he said. He closed his eyes and pulled his lips into a tight line. “But it backfired on me.”
“How?”
“Gemma up and quit the school and left Powder Springs. She broke it off with Jeffrey and went back to Yasamee.”
“So if you didn’t have anything on her to blackmail her with, why did you go to Yasamee?”
“I told you. I loved her.”
“Tell me what happened when you went to see her,” Bay said.
“I went by her house but she wasn’t there. I waited out front for five or ten minutes when I remembered that she jogged during the day. I didn’t know where so I drove around until I found her.”
“What time was that?”
“Oh. I don’t know for sure. Around