Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(74)

“Kids!” Mahoney shook his head but offered neither agreement nor disagreement as to Scooter’s opinion of Ethan Allen.

“And Susanna,” Scooter went on, “she was sure as hell no angel. I wouldn’t doubt for a minute she had a lover; more than one I’ll wager. Plenty of times I seen her hanging over the counter, eyeballing it with some passing-through salesman.”

“Didn’t she work the late shift?” Mahoney asked.

Scooter nodded, but didn’t look up; he focused his eyes on the speckled countertop, stretched across and gave it another swipe.

“Nights, you and her worked together, right?”

“Most times,” Scooter turned away, emptied out a half-pot of coffee and started scrubbing the Brew Master for all he was worth.

“Did Sam or Emma know that you were having an affair with Susanna?” Mahoney asked.

“What the hell kind of question is that? I wasn’t having no affair with nobody, least of all Susanna Doyle!”

Mahoney who believed enough bait thrown into the water, would surface the truth of a person’s guilt or innocence, said, “Ethan Allen claims he saw you out at the farm on the night of the murders. He claims you’re the one who beat up Benjamin.”

“He’s a liar! A shit-faced mealy-mouthed liar; I wasn’t nowhere near their place that night and the kid knows it!”

“Where were you that night?” Mahoney asked.

“Right here; I worked ‘til eleven-thirty, same as every night.”

“Where’d you go after that?”

“Home! That’s where I always go when I’m done working.”

Mahoney drained the last of his coffee, then using a napkin he picked up the saucer and slid it into his pocket. As he stood to leave, he asked, “Did you and Susanna Doyle ever make love in that big white Cadillac of yours?”

“Screw you,” Scooter answered.

As soon as Mahoney was out the door, Scooter Cobb picked up the telephone and called his son, Sam. “What the f*ck are you trying to pull?” he asked.

“Trying to pull?” Buckling beneath the sound of his father’s anger, Sam stammered, “….about what?”

“You know damn good and well what I’m talking about—sending Mahoney over here with that shit about me and Susanna having an affair.”

“Me send Mahoney? He’s a detective, I’m a street cop!”

“Yeah, but you’re working the Doyle case with him.”

“No more,” Sam said, “the Captain needed me for another job.”

“Well, you better find a way to get back on the Doyle case,” Scooter growled. “’Cause that shit-faced kid of Susanna’s is saying I was there the night of the murder.”

“You? Why?”

“How the hell should I know? The kid’s probably just out to get me, he told Mahoney I was having a thing with Susanna.”

“There’s no truth to that, is there?”

“Of course not!” Scooter answered emphatically. “I might of grabbed onto her tit or pinched her ass a few times, but that’s it. The problem is, I don’t want your Mama getting hold of this, so you gotta talk to the kid, make him see this is all a big mistake.”

“Yeah, sure Pop,” Sam said. But even as he hung up the telephone, Sam Cobb knew there was no way the Captain was going to put him back on the case—whatever he was going to do, would have to be done on his own.

After Mahoney left the diner, he went to see Emma Cobb. “Hello, Jack,” she said with a broad smile then swung the door wide open and invited him into the house. She sat him at the kitchen table and before he’d had time to refuse she set out a tray of lemon cakes and turned the coffee pot to brew.

Emma was a genuinely likeable woman which made what Mahoney had to do all the more difficult. “Emma, I’m real sorry, but I’m here on official business,” he said in an apologetic tone of voice.

“Business?” she replied laughingly, “what business could the police department have with me?”

“Not you…” he smiled, “but, we’re still investigating the Doyle murders and trying to verify the alibi of anyone who had a relationship with Benjamin or Susanna. Since Scooter worked with Susanna, I’ve got to ask—did he come home after work the night of the murders? There are witnesses that prove he was at the diner until almost midnight, but Benjamin Doyle’s murder occurred later than that; do you recall what time Scooter actually got home?”

“I can’t say with certainty, because I usually go to bed about ten. I stir a bit when he comes to bed, and I don’t recall, him being any later than usual, that night.”

“The next morning, did he seem stressful? Nervous, maybe? Out of sorts?”

“Scooter’s always a bit out of sorts when he gets up, but I can’t say he was any worse than usual. Of course, he didn’t find out about what happened to poor Susanna and her husband until late that afternoon.”

“After he found out about the murders, what did he have to say?”

“He felt real bad. Said it was horrible that such a thing could happen. I knew he was thinking how much he was gonna miss Susanna; she’d been working at the diner for a couple of years and was his only late night waitress.”