Kevin was due at Northwest Detectives for the evening shift, so after he helped her and Trent get Knox into the bathroom, he left. Anita helped Jocelyn gather what cleaning products they had on hand so she could clean out the backseat of her Explorer. An hour later, both Jocelyn and her vehicle smelled like Lysol. Knox was awake, though not fully alert, and propped up in a chair at the conference room table. He and Trent both smelled like the floral-scented hand soap they kept in their bathroom. Anything was better than the vomit. Anita was midway through her presentation—they had the date, location, menu, silent auction items that Knox had agreed to purchase, photos, and speakers—when Knox spoke.
“You got Rigo?” he asked, head swiveling around the room until his gaze landed on Jocelyn.
She frowned at him. “I told you that last week.”
“You’re drunk,” Anita told him. “You don’t remember.”
His head snapped back, his chin becoming one with the loose, yellow skin beneath it. “I’m not drunk.”
“And I’m not black,” Anita shot back. She gave him the kind of severely arched eyebrow that she usually only reserved for her teenage son when he tried lying to her.
Trent snickered. Knox stared at Anita with his wide eyes. Then he turned back to Jocelyn. “You think he’ll really come?”
“I think if he doesn’t come, that makes him look even more suspicious,” she said. “If he was that close to Sydney, and he didn’t kill her, he should want to do this. I called his house yesterday, and his wife says they’re still coming. By the way, what do you even know about the Rigos? They’ve got a pretty nice house for a teacher and a school nurse.”
Knox waved a hand in the air. “Some kind of inheritance she got from a relative. It was enough for them to buy that house.”
“She comes from money?” Jocelyn asked.
“Her mother’s mother had a little bit of money. Got it in a personal injury settlement and willed it to Francine and her brother. He’s older, lives in California. Other than that, they were a regular, working-class family. Her mom was an office manager for a hand surgeon, and her dad worked for an insurance company. They did okay, but they didn’t have a ton of money. Francine went to Temple University. That’s where she met Rigo. His family is in South Jersey. He has a younger brother. Dad was a plumber. Mom was a schoolteacher. Rigo’s parents are divorced; Francine’s are still together.” Knox struggled to catch his breath by the time he had finished, again twisting the dials on his oxygen canister.
“No indication that he had an abusive childhood, anything like that?”
“No,” he wheezed. They gave him a moment. He pressed the tubing deeper into his nose and took several shallow breaths before continuing. “I mean I looked into him pretty thoroughly when Sydney was first murdered. Couldn’t come up with anything other than his parents are divorced.”
“Lots of people’s parents get divorced,” Trent put in. “They don’t all go around murdering seventeen-year-old girls.”
“What about domestic calls?” Jocelyn asked. “At the Rigos’ house?”
Knox stared at her blankly until Trent said, “I looked. Nothing. They’ve never called the police for anything, the entire time they’ve lived there.”
“That doesn’t mean a damn thing,” Anita said. “Just because a wife doesn’t call the police every time her dick of a husband hits her doesn’t mean he isn’t doing it.”
“That’s true,” Jocelyn agreed. “But if he had a history of violence or at least the hint of one, it might make this whole case easier to work with.”
Knox pointed a finger at his chest. “You’re telling me,” he said loudly.
Jocelyn sighed. “Well, let’s hope my plan works, because otherwise, we’ve got shit.”
Chapter 16
November 11, 2014
“So let me get this straight,” Jynx said. “You think that this man had a sexual relationship with my underage sister, then stalked her and shot her in the back in cold blood, but you asked him to speak at a fundraiser in her honor.”
Jocelyn held the other woman’s gaze for a long moment, taking in her words. Their whole plan boiled down to one absurd sentence. There was no way around it. “Yeah,” Jocelyn replied. “Basically.”
Although Knox had assured her that Jynx would go along with whatever plan they concocted, Jocelyn braced herself for the woman’s protest. Instead, Jynx shook her head, clucked her tongue and waddled away. “Well,” she called over her shoulder. “I hope you get your man.”
Jocelyn watched as she seated herself at a table near the podium Anita had set up. Knox had been right about PTG Caterers. It managed to be both spacious and intimate at the same time. It was perfect for what they had planned.
They had set up the area for the speakers along the wall opposite the front door. PTG would serve dinner, then coffee and dessert. Anita had managed to garner far more interest than any of them had anticipated. As seven o’clock approached, the place filled up quickly with family, friends, and a few neighbors. There was a handful of Sydney’s classmates, some faculty from her high school, and also a few people who had worked with Dorothy Adams at Swartz Camp & Bell.
It had been Anita’s idea to charge per plate and then have a silent auction on items Knox had provided. Judging by the pricey electronics he had chosen, he didn’t plan on paying his bills in the last few months of his life.
Knox wouldn’t be there. They had all agreed, given the Rigos’ complaints about him during the initial investigation, it would be best that they not run into him. Jocelyn had enough planned for them.
Trent was there. He stood, chatting with Anita at the entrance to the alcove between the main dining area and the kitchen. It was directly across from the bathrooms. As the tables filled up, Inez sidled over. Jocelyn had enlisted her help for the evening, tasking her with selling tickets at the door. Olivia and Inez’s daughter, Raquel, were with Inez’s mother for the evening. Inez looked nothing like a cop tonight, with her black hair flowing down her back, her A-line gray dress, belted at the waist, hugging her slender frame, and a pair of black heels on her feet.
“You ready to do this?” Inez asked.
Jocelyn wiped her sweaty palms on her slacks. “I think so.”
Inez motioned toward Jynx. “She okay with this?”
“Seems that way.”
“Even with the coach speaking? I mean if he really killed this girl, that’s pretty creepy—asking him to give a speech about her.”
Jocelyn grimaced. “I know, but it’s been fourteen years. Knox said she’d be open to just about anything if it meant finding Sydney’s killer. Although, apparently, she isn’t sold on the coach as the killer, so maybe that’s why it doesn’t seem to be bothering her.”
“Well, regardless, the scholarship is a good thing.”
Car doors slammed outside. Jocelyn peeked out the front door. She saw Francine Rigo first, tottering in a pair of high-heeled, leather boots. She wore a black dress that clung to her back but billowed in the front to allow room for her burgeoning belly. It was a sheer lace material that hung over the stretchy black fabric beneath it. It was pretty, elegant and understated. Cash hurried behind her, catching one of her hands in his and wrapping his other arm around her waist as if to steady her.
Jocelyn sighed. She almost felt bad about the fact that she was about to take Francine’s husband and the father of her child away from her at what should be the happiest time of their lives.