The Buzzard Table - By Margaret Maron Page 0,84
door and joined her at the interview table. She had pulled off her ball cap, and under the fluorescent lights her orange hair looked even brighter, while her pale skin was almost without color at all. “Why can’t he be here?”
“It’ll be fine,” Dwight said soothingly. “We needed to ask him some questions, and if you give the same answers, this will all be cleared up.”
“What questions??”
“About Saturday night and where you both were.”
“We told you. Wes had to go see about some rats and the children and I visited with my parents.”
“Did you both leave the house at the same time?”
She shook her head and her long ponytail swung against the shoulders of her brown work clothes. “No, Wes left first. Around six-thirty. I finished giving the children their supper and then drove them over to my mom’s. She loves to have them spend the night and it gives us a chance to sleep in on Sunday morning.”
“Except that you didn’t sleep in,” Dwight said.
“Is that camera on?” Ginger Todd asked abruptly.
Dwight nodded. “That’s okay, isn’t it?”
She frowned. “I guess.”
“Wes says you got up early Sunday morning and went and picked up the rat traps he set the night before. Is that true?”
“Of course it’s true. You trying to say he didn’t actually set any traps?”
“No, ma’am. Just trying to get a full picture here.”
“Well, he did. Ask Mr. Applewhite. He thought his daughter was exaggerating about the noise the rats were making. He thought they were going to be just little field mice. He couldn’t believe it when he saw the traps next morning. He met me in the yard and couldn’t wait for me to get rid of them.”
“What do you do with the rats you catch?” Sigrid asked.
“Depends. We keep a barrel of water out back. Sometimes we drown them. Sometimes, if we’re out in the country, we just let them go. Lots of foxes and hawks and stray cats around.”
“Which did you do Sunday morning?”
Sigrid’s tone held only friendly curiosity, but Ginger Todd visibly froze.
“I—um…where Old Forty-Eight crosses Possum Creek? I dumped them into the creek. There’s no houses near there, so I figured something would eat them.”
“Really?” said Dwight. “You sure you didn’t dump them in the woods beside Grayson Village?”
“No! I’d never turn them loose near anybody’s house.”
“But you do know about those woods?”
Ginger Todd stared at them without answering.
“Where’s your plastic sheeting, Mrs. Todd?”
“What plastic sheeting?”
“The sheeting you and your husband both carry in your trucks.”
“He tell you that?”
When they didn’t answer, she said, “I don’t know. It’s still there, isn’t it?”
“When did you have your truck detailed?”
She seemed to shrink back into her heavy brown work jacket. “I don’t know. Monday? Tuesday? It was getting pretty dirty, so one of our workers took it over to the Handi-Wash to get it cleaned up.”
“What’s his name?”
“Tito. Tito Morales.” She brightened. “You know something? If my roll of sheeting’s gone, I bet someone there took it. We’re always losing stuff off the trucks.”
“When did you last see Becca Jowett, Mrs. Todd?”
The abrupt change of subject made her hesitate. “Saturday morning,” she said after a short pause. “When she showed Wes and me the house for the last time.”
“You sure you didn’t see her Saturday night when you were driving home alone? You didn’t swing past that house and see her out jogging?”
“No!”
“You saw that mark on her neck Saturday morning and you knew that your husband was attracted to her.”
“Todd wouldn’t—”
“Wouldn’t he?”
“And even if he did, why would he kill her?”
“He wouldn’t but you might. You’d had all day to stew about it, and when you saw her there by the house, alone? What did you do? Tell her you wanted to take another look? Check on one of the features? Ask her how many times she’d had sex with your husband on that couch?”
“No!” Ginger Todd stood up. “Turn off that camera. I’m not going to stay here and be talked to like this. Am I under arrest?”
When Dwight didn’t answer, she said, “I know my rights and I’m leaving.”
She stalked from the room and Mayleen gave her boss a wry smile. “Her husband did say she watches a lot of crime programs.”
“CSI has a lot to answer for,” Sigrid said.
Dwight sighed. “Go tell Todd he’s free to go, too.”
“Do I tell him his wife knows?” Richards asked.
“Let’s let it be a surprise,” Dwight said sourly.
CHAPTER
30
It is illegal to harm turkey vultures because the species is federally protected under the International Migratory