Free Hoodoo Woman (Roxie Mathis Book 3) by Sonya Clark Page B

she didn’t think so. I asked why and she clammed up.”
    “Who was Britney dating at the time?”
    “Her last public boyfriend was a fella named Brian Sutcliff.”
    “Sutcliff? Wasn’t that the Parker family attorney’s name?” And probably the most powerful lawyer in town, of course.
    “Yeah, Roger Sutcliff. Brian is his youngest son. He’s away at law school, totally alibi’ed out. They had an on again, off again thing. Long distance too, he’s been going to law school in Mississippi.”
    “What about her last private boyfriend?”
    He reclined the chair, tapping his fingers on the arm rest. “No one would give me a name. My guess is older and married. That’s what she was rumored to like.”
    “I get the older but why married?”
    “No commitment, I guess. Not one with any teeth to it, anyway. Oh, and another rumor is Brian’s gay and they were just friends. Covering for each other so their parents would stay off their backs. But again, I couldn’t get anyone to confirm that and I couldn’t get in the door with the Sutcliffs as soon as the coroner’s report came in.”
    “How soon did that take?” I reopened the folder to look at the dates.
    “Pretty much right after a phone call from Andrew Parker.”
    Andrew Parker being the current patriarch of the Parker clan and Britney’s grandfather. Like something out of Tennessee Williams, he ran the family as a dictatorship and made no apologies for it. Tall, regal with silver-gray hair and a hawk nose in a patrician face, he was the lord of every room he entered. There was never any shortage of subjects to bow and scrape at his feet, either. Every boring town event Nadine dragged us to always had several Parkers in attendance. Nadine liked to fawn over them as much as any other social climber. Before she finally gave up on me she even shoved me in front of a few age appropriate members of the family. That always made me nauseous and embarrassed. Old Mr. Parker, however, scared the hell out of me.
    Early on in my apprenticeship, Rozella had warned me to stay far away from the whole family and him in particular after I mentioned my mother speaking to them at some event or other. I had no trouble heeding my mentor’s advice, as I wanted nothing to do with the lot of them.
    “Did he want things wrapped up in a hurry or covered up?”
    “At first I thought covered up but then the toxicology report came in. That’s what I thought the family wanted hidden. But no, it was out there. I mean, not in the paper of course, but as far as everyone is concerned Britney got drunk and high and drowned by accident.”
    “So if they weren’t covering up her substance abuse, what were they covering up?”
    “I don’t know but whatever it is, Britney wants it out.” He leaned forward, the chair creaking. Elbows on his knees and blue eyes blazing, he turned the full measure of his intensity on me. “I don’t think she can rest until it’s out, Roxie. Her murder, whatever secrets she took to the grave. I think that’s what the hauntings are about, why she’s all over town and probably more places than even I know. She’s looking for more than justice. She’s looking to burn down whatever bridges it takes.”
    The level of thought Ray had put into this was beginning to concern me. If I didn’t know better I’d wonder if he’d been involved with Britney himself, but he would admit it to me if he had. Especially after his confession of earlier in the evening.
    “Tell me about the hauntings.”
    He swiveled to face the computer, bringing up a document and pointing at the screen. As he stood he said, “Here, read what I’ve got so far.”
    I switched chairs. The first couple of pages were about Britney’s appearance in his kitchen. He started with the facts, like what he’d already told me. Then he moved on to his thoughts and impressions and I began to see a whole different side of Ray I’d never been familiar with.
    There were a dozen different emotions in