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Kit glanced at Connor and saw that they were on the same page. “Yes, please.”
“This is Nurse LaVerne Dempsey,” Gregson said. “Nurse Dempsey, these are Detectives McKittrick and Robinson from San Diego PD.”
“Detectives.” LaVerne Dempsey had a deep, rich voice. “I knew Roxanne better than anyone for the short time she was here. She worked here for three months, but that was more than two years ago.”
“Was she very social?” Kit asked, because she hadn’t been at Shady Oaks. Not unfriendly, but she didn’t go out of her way to socialize with the other care providers.
“No, not really. I only knew her better because one night I passed her truck pulled off on the shoulder on a lonely stretch of highway. She’d blown a timing belt and wasn’t going to be able to get it towed until morning. I offered to drive her home and initially she declined, but she was coming down with a cold and feeling downright miserable, so she eventually said yes.”
“Where did she live?”
“In an RV park. She had one of those tiny houses and she hauled it from place to place. She was off the grid, Detectives. It didn’t seem too weird to me then, because she said she did a lot of personal travel between contracts. She said that she had a goal of visiting all forty-eight contiguous states before she died. Said that so far she’d only driven around in California.”
“Did you believe her?” Connor asked.
“I did,” LaVerne said. “I didn’t have a reason not to.”
“The thing is,” Gregson cut in, “the address of the RV park doesn’t match the address she gave on her personnel forms.”
Bingo, Kit thought. She’d lied about her address there, too.
“Can you give us both addresses?” Connor asked aloud. “The RV park and the address she provided?”
Gregson did, then sighed. “We never even suspected Roxanne of the theft. She’d been gone for over a year when Mr. Brighton passed. There had been three other traveling nurses in the meantime.”
“We don’t know for sure that she has done anything,” Connor cautioned. “We’re putting the puzzle together right now, so we’d appreciate your discretion.”
“We won’t say anything,” Gregson promised.
“Nurse Dempsey,” Kit said, “were you able to see the license plate on the truck?”
“No,” LaVerne said, “but I know where she took the truck to have the timing belt fixed, if that helps. They’d have the info on the truck’s registration and VIN.”
“That would be a big help,” Connor said. “Thank you.”
“We’ll email you with all the information you’ve asked for, Detectives,” Gregson said. “Is there anything else we can do to help you?”
“Only to call us if you—” Kit started.
“Wait,” LaVerne interrupted. “There is one more thing. The day after I took her home, I picked her up to take her to work. The tow truck was going to pick up her truck during the day. She had a package with her. I asked about it—because I’m nosy and not afraid to admit it—and she said she had to mail a package to her sister. I peeked at the name.”
Kit sat up straighter. “Which was?”
“Jackie Beaton. The address was somewhere in Tennessee. I don’t remember the town. When I asked her about it, she was annoyed that I’d pried, so I shut up. She asked me to come to dinner at her tiny house the next day to thank me for helping her out, and I brought my husband. She didn’t seem happy that I’d done that, either. She made up an excuse about having burned dinner, but there was no burned smell. We ended up going out for dinner instead and after that, Roxanne was even less social than before. Not impolite, just remote. We threw her a bon voyage party when she left, but that was mostly because we like to party. Not because we considered her a friend.”
Kit wondered what Roxanne had been planning to do to LaVerne at that dinner. “Thank you, Nurse Dempsey. You’ve been extremely helpful. Miss Gregson, if you could send us that email right away, we’d be grateful.” Kit gave them her email address, then ended the call. “We need to adjust the BOLO to include Roxanne’s tiny house. The cameras at Shady Oaks got a picture of her truck, so we know she’s driving a Ford F-250. A tiny house being hauled by a truck can’t be that hard to find.”
“Your mouth, God’s ears,” Connor muttered, already dialing Navarro. They updated the BOLO, then Connor ended the call. “Where to next?”
Kit sighed. “To Benny’s daughter’s house. We need to tell her that her father was murdered.”
Chapter Seventeen
San Diego, California
Thursday, November 10, 3:00 p.m.
Sam locked his desk drawer, all his session notes secured. He hoped he’d done right by his clients, but his mind had been on Georgia and Eloise. And Kit, of course. Always on Kit.
