Zach just scowled. “What am I supposed to be doing in the meantime while you two are out interrogating witnesses?”
“Sweetheart, there are other ways you can help.” I hugged him, which he resisted at first, but then allowed. After I pulled away, I added, “You can find out who Jenny’s stalker is. That’s as important to us as finding Derrick’s killer.”
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” he said.
“Give us one day. We’ll brace our suspects tomorrow and try to enlist them openly in our cause. If any of them refuse, we’ll keep them on our suspect list, but who knows, someone might volunteer some information just to get us off their backs.”
“Will you both at least be careful?”
“I promise we will,” I said, just as the front doorbell rang.
ARE YOU EXPECTING ANYONE?” ZACH ASKED AS HE MOVED toward the door.
“Not really. Why?” Jenny asked as her face went pale. “Do you think it’s my stalker?”
“If it is, he picked the wrong night to show himself,” Zach replied. I moved toward him, and he said, “Savannah, you and Jenny need to wait for me in the back bedroom.”
“No,” we both said as the doorbell rang again.
“Stop arguing and do it.”
Jenny started to move, but I stood fast. “I’m not going. Now, are you going to answer the door, or should I?”
“Woman, you’re pushing me too far.”
“Then answer the door.”
I wasn’t sure who was there, but I wasn’t about to let my husband face them alone.
I certainly wasn’t expecting the visitor we got.
Detective Murphy was standing there when Zach carefully opened the door, and from the grim look on his face, he wasn’t there to bring us good news.
Chapter 16
“DETECTIVE,” ZACH SAID, AS I TRIED TO HIDE THE PLANNER and the copy Jenny had made from him.
“We need to talk,” Murphy said.
“Come on in.”
Zach moved aside, and I gathered everything together and looked around for a place to put it. Jenny was watching me, and it appeared that she was going to try to provide me with a diversion so I could accomplish it.
“Hello, Shawn,” she said as she moved toward him.
“Hello,” he said. “I don’t mean to be rude, but this doesn’t concern you. Maybe you’d like to take a walk around the block while we chat.”
“I’m fine right here, but thanks for asking. It’s been a while since you’ve been here, hasn’t it?”
He glanced around. “I guess so.” He must have spotted the opened teddy bear on the dining room table. “What are you doing, a teddy bear autopsy?”
“It’s from my stalker,” she said, blurting it out. “He’s getting bolder every minute, since you haven’t been able to catch him.”
The shocked look on his face was all I needed to hide the planner and the copy under a newspaper. What was she doing? He was one of our three suspects, and now she was confiding in him?
“Talk to me.”
Jenny looked over at me, and then she said, “We’re handling it.”
Murphy walked toward her, and from the look in his eyes, it was clear that he’d forgotten Zach and I were even there. “Jennifer, this is no time to try to be brave.”
“Shawn, I’ve asked for help, remember? And yet he keeps coming after me. What’s it going to take to stop him? Does he have to actually assault me, or do something even worse?”
There was a look of pure frustration on his face. “I can’t keep an officer on you around the clock. Give me something to work with, and I might be able to help.”
“We have suspects,” Jenny said, and it was all I could do not to put my hand over her mouth. What was she thinking? Did she really expect Shawn Murphy to help us, especially when he could be her stalker?
“Who do you think might have done it?”
Zach said, “We haven’t narrowed it down that much yet to give you any names.”
“Bull. You have a list, don’t you?”
Jenny said, “We can do better than that. We have pictures.”
She handed him the folder, and I wondered what she was doing. “That’s the wrong one,” I said as I tried to grab it. Had she forgotten that Murphy’s photograph was there as well?
The detective was too quick for me, though. He snatched it away, and then looked at the photographs. When he got to his own, he looked at her with a puzzled expression. “What’s this?”
“You’re on our list,” Jenny said, not afraid to meet his gaze.
“Jennifer, you’ve got to be kidding.”
“There you go, you just added to the case against you. Every note and reference to me calls me Jennifer, just like you used to do.”
He shook his head. “You don’t really think I’d do this to you, do you?”
“You have to admit that you took it hard when we broke up,” she maintained.
“Sure, it stung, but I’ve moved on. I’ve even got a new girlfriend now.”
“You do?”
He nodded as he reached into his back pocket. I saw Zach’s hand go to his jacket, and the move wasn’t lost on Murphy, either.
“Take it easy. I’m just getting my wallet out,” the detective said.
He gingerly removed it, and then showed Jenny a photo of him with another woman.
Jenny looked at it, and then said, “This is Nancy Waters.”
“Do you know her?” I asked.
“She’s one of the police dispatchers.”
Murphy shrugged. “I figured she’d know something about cops, so it might make things a little easier. We started dating two weeks after you and I broke up.”
“Why haven’t I heard anything about it?” Jenny asked.
“Hey, Raleigh’s not exactly Mayberry,” he said. “It would probably amaze you to learn about some of the things that go on.” He tapped the folder. “I’ll keep this, if you don’t mind.”
“We were going to show it to some of the premium toy stores around town,” Zach said. “Someone might recognize one of them.”
“It’s worth a shot. May I take the bear as well?”
Zach looked at Jenny, who nodded slightly. “Fine.”
“Good enough. I’ll start looking into this tomorrow.”
“Detective,” I said. “You never said what brought you here in the first place. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
“What makes you ask that?” he said as he stared intently at me.
“It’s pretty clear that you didn’t drop in for a social call. When Zach answered the door, I saw that look on your face. Something bad happened tonight, didn’t it?”
“I’m afraid it did,” he admitted. “Someone tried to kill Kelsey Hatcher this evening.”
“WHAT HAPPENED?” ZACH ASKED.
“She was walking to a restaurant and someone shoved her from a crowd into traffic. If the guy beside her
