AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Oh, she did. I told her she needed to relax and have a drink, or something stronger. You should have seen the puss on her, like she’d been sucking on a lemon. She just turned around and left, and next thing we know, the cops show up. They made up some crap about how Mitch had the Jet Ski turned on when he was intoxicated, and hauled him off.”
“It wasn’t turned on?” Jo asked.
“Hell no, the Jet Ski wasn’t turned on,” Frieda said, warming to her subject. “He wasn’t evenon the Jet Ski. The cop came in with an agenda.”
“And you think Sandra Ashville was responsible for it?”
Both hands found her hips now. “Iknowshe was. She told us herself, later.”
Jo was careful to keep her face blank. “You confronted her?”
“No,sheconfrontedus. Told us what she did for a living and threatened to— threatened us.”
“What did she threaten?” Jo asked.
Frieda’s eyes shifted to Mitch and back. “Just that she’d have the cops make up something else and put us in jail.”
Jo made a show of looking confused. “I thought there was something about a rat?”
Frieda’s eyes widened—she hadn’t been expecting that. “We lived on the lake, in the woods. There were plenty of rats, one coulda crawled out of the woods when it was dying. That’s when we knew we were in trouble, if she was going to blame us for stuff like that.”
So that was the line Frieda was going to stick to. “What did you do when she threatened you?”
“We got the hell out of there before she could do anything else to us.” She gestured both arms in a circle around her. “Completely broke our hearts. That house had been in Mitch’s family for years. His grandfather built it with his own two hands.”
Jo popped her brows. “You just up and moved from a family heirloom?”
Frieda warmed to the perceived sympathy and bobbed her head up and down. “That’s how terrified we were.”
Jo put the confused expression back on, and turned to Arnett. “Didn’t you say you heard something about a rape charge?”
The color drained from both Frieda’s and Mitch’s faces, and Frieda’s voice tightened. “The cops invented those charges—”
Jo threw up her hand. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to hear what Mitch has to say about it.”
“I do mind,” Frieda said, but fear now tinged her voice. “That was very traumatic for him—”
Jo reached toward her back pocket. “If you’re not willing to let him speak, we’ll separate you.”
Frieda gritted her teeth and nodded to Mitch.
“The cops in Pocomtuk have always hated me,” he said.
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Small town. I broke up with the sister of a guy who ended up a cop. He never forgot it.”
“But you didn’t go to prison?” Jo said.
“Of course not, because it was all bullshit.” He shifted from foot to foot “They got some junkie to say I raped her, but I guess last minute she got a conscience and they had to drop the case. But maybe next time I won’t be so lucky, so it was better to get out of the county where I can get a fair shake.”
Jo decided it wasn’t worth pointing out the inconsistencies with his version of the story and shifted back to Frieda. “You said you were surprised it took so long for Sandra Ashville to show up dead. Do you know of someone who wanted to harm her?”
Frieda’s chin jutted out. “Not specifically, but people who think they rule the world don’t just act like that once. Looks like she finally messed with the wrong person.”
Jo watched both their faces carefully before asking the next question. “Do you own or have access to any firearms?”
Frieda cleared her throat. “All our guns are registered. We have a right to protect ourselves and our property.”
