Free Fulfilling Promises (Red Starr, Book Five) by Kennedy Layne Page B

with the proposition. He’d just inherited the garage and he hadn’t had time to do anything with it, but Joey had all the time in the world. Devyn said he was happy. Trigger wondered if Joey hadn’t repainted the place because it would have wiped away the memories. Guilt started to form where there’d been none.
    “Joey and I have dinner every Thursday.” Devyn continued to play with the ends of her hair as she recounted the last steps Joey had taken. “I save us the same table at the tavern and he usually arrives around seven o’clock. He didn’t. I called and left a rather terse message on his voicemail. I called him irresponsible.”
    Trigger had no doubt that Devyn had rattled off several descriptions about Joey because that was her nature. The police wouldn’t have had a lot to go on because of something like that. He rubbed his chin as he listened to her recount what took place afterward.
    “You know how busy the bar can get on a Friday evening,” Devyn reminded Trigger with a faraway look in her eyes. “Joey returned my call on the bar’s telephone that night and neither Isaac nor I had the time to answer it. The machine picked up and I didn’t get Joey’s message until around two-thirty in the morning. He apologized for missing dinner and then said he was going out of town for the weekend.”
    “Did you try to call him back?” Trigger asked, wondering where Joey would have been going without anyone knowing. “Isaac told me they found Joey’s body down at the swamp where we used to have some of our high school parties. Did the police give you an approximate time of death?”
    Devyn nodded as she released the hold on her hair. She stood up from the chair as if she wanted to pace, but the office was way too small for that. Instead, she slipped her hands into her back pockets and stood in front of the Vargas Girls wall calendar that, according to the year printed at the top, Mac must have pinned it up in 1965. He obviously favored the long-legged brunette in black stockings because it never made it past October of that year.
    “They asked where I was on Saturday night around seven o’clock,” Devyn replied as she reached out and touched the old faded paper on the calendar with her finger. She eventually let it slide off, slipping her fingers back into the pocket of her jeans. “I was in my office doing paperwork and didn’t join Isaac until about nine-thirty or ten o’clock. That’s usually when things start picking up.”
    “Let me guess,” Trigger offered, shaking his head at the absurdity of it all. “The police claim you could have left through the back exit without anyone seeing you, giving you a three hour window to drive to the swamp and then back.”
    “That about sums it up,” Devon agreed resignedly as she took back her seat. She rested her elbows on her knees and pressed her knuckles to her soft, red lips. He remembered she had a penchant for cherry Chapstick, the kind that added a tinge of color to her lips. “I began receiving calls on Monday morning about Joey not opening up the garage. I called him a few times, but he never answered at his place or the garage. I thought maybe he was late getting back into town, but I didn’t get worried until that night. I was about to call the police when—”
    “When they showed up at The Laughing Griffin looking for you,” Trigger said, finishing Devyn’s sentence. “Did Joey go out of town often?”
    “No, but there were times he would go fishing with a few of his buddies.” Devyn reached out for a picture frame on the desk. Trigger had already mentally catalogued the items inside the small office. There were two pictures hanging on the wall—one with Mac, Trigger, and Joey celebrating in front of an old red and white 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air they’d restored. The second was of Joey and Trigger at their high school graduation. The frame Devyn was holding was a photo of Charlie Portwood and Joey on a beat-up old john boat with an