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“Let me take you,” he offered again, and this time she just shrugged and nodded. What the hell. He was right. She would probably crash if she had to drive now.
He drove her to Smith & Jones, and her mother—both of her parents, actually—swept her into their arms and hugged her tightly. The emotional response brought full-on tears to Delta’s eyes, and it was a relief to cry, to get it all out. She hadn’t been able to before, too shocked by Tanner’s dying. It still seemed unreal and probably would for a long time to come.
Owen appeared from the back room, holding a plastic T. rex. He regarded McCrae with silent suspicion, so McCrae took his leave.
Delta felt almost bereft when he was gone. She sensed she could rely on him. Was there something wrong with her that she wanted him around? Maybe she was evil, like Tanner’s dad seemed to think. Tanner had only been gone a few hours, and she was seeking comfort from another man? Was that normal? It hurt her head to even think about it, so she pushed those wearying thoughts aside and grabbed up Owen, squeezing him hard, closing her eyes, and drinking in the scent of him.
* * *
McCrae got back to the station in time to find there was a call on his voice mail from Dean Sutton. Before phoning him back, he checked on any new developments from the crime-scene team on the Stahd case, but no further clues had been found at the scene, and the only fingerprints and/or DNA picked up were from the current employees and Delta.
The killer wore gloves, McCrae figured, although he determined to look deeper into the backgrounds of Tia Marvin, Amy Panterra, and Nurse Candy to see if there was more there than met the eye. Quin might be leaning toward Delta as the killer, but McCrae’s belief that she was innocent had been bolstered even more by Lester Stahd’s enraged insistence of her guilt.
“Hello, Coach,” McCrae greeted the older man when Sutton picked up on the other end. “McCrae here.”
“Chris McCrae,” Coach responded in the “Can you believe it?” tone of someone greeting a long-lost friend.
They talked for a few minutes, with Coach Sutton fondly reminiscing and McCrae only listening with half an ear. Time was fleeting, and he had lots on
his plate. Finally, McCrae said, “Quin said you saw Delta just before Tanner was stabbed at his clinic.”
“I did. At the Bengal Room. You been there? It used to have a real tiger pelt on the floor, but that was years ago. Now it’s all fake stuff, but it’s nice. The whole place is better now, gentrified, as they say. It’s not far from Montgomery, where I coach, so I go there sometimes.”
“You didn’t talk to Delta.”
“Nooo . . . ,” he said. “She was involved with another man. Name’s Jonah Masterer. Comes in there a lot trying to pick up women.”
“Involved,” McCrae repeated. He’d already heard that Delta had been talking with a man at the bar of the Bengal Room, but Sutton made it sound more like a tryst.
“They were just flirting. Delta’s always been a pretty gal, but she was glowing under the attention. Made me wonder how things were going in that marriage, y’know? If Tanner recovers, I hope he’s nicer to her.”
McCrae didn’t tell him it was too late for that as he didn’t know when and how the family was going to make his death public.
“Anyway, after she left, Masterer bragged that he was meeting her later. I guess that didn’t happen, since she discovered Tanner.”
“No.”
“Thought you should know. I don’t believe she had anything to do with the attack on Tanner, but I guess she was there in the window of time of his murder, right?” He didn’t require an answer as he then waxed rhapsodic about Tanner’s prowess as an athlete and what an all-around talented guy he was—a doctor, no less. “Sure hope he recovers,” he wound up, and McCrae felt like a heel for not telling the truth, but he knew the older man would find out soon enough.
McCrae wrote Masterer’s name down. Just because he didn’t feel Delta was a killer didn’t mean he shouldn’t follow up.
They talked for a bit more, but as McCrae was winding up the conversation, Sutton said, “Meet me at the Bengal Room, and let’s talk about a few more things.”
“When I can. I’m a bit busy now.”
“You gotta talk to Masterer, right? Come on by tonight around . . . uh . . . seven-thirty or so? There’s a chance you’ll see him, and there’re a few other things I wanna talk over.”
“You want to give me a preview on that?” McCrae asked, uncertain when he would be able to make time for a tête-à-tête with West Knoll High’s old coach.
“Okay, well, I always meant to talk to you about the senior barbecue. I got blamed a lot for it, and I guess I blamed myself.”
McCrae glanced at the time, hoping this wasn’t going to be a long jawboning session. Reminiscing was fine, but he remembered how Coach used to go on and on about things.
“I didn’t go out in the woods like so many of ya, so I don’t know what happened out there, exactly. Just heard rumors. Like . . . um . . . well, you were out there, with Ellie O’Brien.”
McCrae felt a fresh jolt of embarrassment. Well, hell. “Yeah . . . ,” he allowed cautiously.
“Okay, okay, I’ll save the rest for later. See you tonight,” the coach said, apparently waking up to the fact he was moving into uncomfortable territory for McCrae.
