After a moment, he continued. “Anyway, the dog kept digging up whatever she would bury, so, she decided to cook up the rest of the remains instead. Says she got sick and tired of his rear end watching TV and drinking beer, so she slipped him a couple of Ambien to knock him out and piece by piece dismembered him. She started with the family jewels,” he said, as he lifted the bag and displayed the contents once again.
I rolled my eyes in disgust. It seemed like the world was going crazier with each call we got. The only thing good about this one was that it was an open-and-shut case. We had a confession and an overwhelming amount of profound evidence connecting the wife to the homicide.
***
Two hours later, we were wrapping up when I realized the time.
“Crap. I forgot I had to pick up Bethany,” I told Marty in a pure panic.
“Call her,” he said. “She’s probably outside waiting for you.” He looked at his watch. “They just got out. She’ll understand.”
“I can’t call her, I took her phone away. Damn it.” I scrolled through my cell phone contact menu and found the school’s telephone number. When the secretary picked up, I explained who I was and asked if she could find my daughter and let her know I was on my way. She agreed and I hung up.
Marty and I got into the car and headed toward the school. I didn’t say a word when I noticed him exceeding the speed limit by twenty miles per hour.
A few small groups of students lingered in front of the church itself. It took a few seconds before I spotted her. She was leaning against the black wrought-iron fence that surrounded the perimeter of the church grounds. One leg was bent and the heel of her foot was tapping the railing.
I immediately recognized the two girls she was standing with and the hairs on my arms shot up. Lisa Padilla and Tiffany Bennett seemed to be lecturing my daughter about something.
I didn’t bother to shut the door as I exited the vehicle. I raced to the spot where my daughter and the girls stood.
“What’s going on here?” I asked, looking directly at my daughter, trying to determine whether her face showed any signs of stress or anxiety. I didn’t notice any until she turned in my direction after recognizing the sound of my voice.
“Nothing,” she answered coldly, and then turned to the two other girls. “See you later,” she bid the girls goodbye as she walked toward Marty’s car.
I turned to Tiffany and reminded her that I was going to pay her a visit later on in the day. She didn’t answer, instead, she gave me a shrug of her shoulders. She said something as I walked away, but I couldn’t make it out. Whatever it was, I was pretty sure it wasn’t a warm and fuzzy goodbye.
Once Bethany was buckled in, she uttered her first words directed at me.
“You know, this is extremely embarrassing, having a police escort. No, it’s worse than embarrassing, it’s humiliating.”
I ignored her. There was no way I was going to have this conversation in front of Marty. I could tell by the look on his face that he already felt awkward.
We dropped her off at home and I reminded her that she was not to leave the house. She did say goodbye, but it was directed solely for Marty’s benefit, not for mine.
Chapter Seventeen
Marty and I knew we had a few minutes to spare, since Tiffany would not be home yet, so we made our way back to the Lion’s Den and ordered some dinner to go.
A half an hour later while Marty drove I devoured my Shepard’s Pie and it was working it’s way through my digestive system while Marty’s remained untouched, we reached the vicinity of the Bennett residence. While I was savoring each morsel of my Shepherd’s Pie, Marty’s stomach began to make gurgling noises.
When the GPS announced we had reached our destination, we found ourselves at the bottom of a steep hill and the beginning of a long asphalt driveway. A very expensive white vinyl horse fence surrounded the entire ten acres of the estate. I caught sight of at least five beautiful, dark-chocolate-and-white Appaloosas grazing in a pasture, which was manicured as if it doubled as a golf course.
A few moments later we reached the top of the hill, where we came upon a very large and exquisite three-story white mansion containing an obscene number of windows, many of which were adorned with cherry-red flower boxes covered in thick red-and-white geraniums
Not too far off in the distance on the north side of the property, I noticed the horse’s stable, which was painted in the same color scheme as the main house. It occurred to me that the horses resided in a building that looked bigger—and most likely cost more—than Marty’s house and mine together.
“Nice pad,” Marty said as he pulled up and parked in the circular driveway. He wasted no time in tearing open the bag that held his Meatball Hero. “I’m starving,” he announced as his teeth ripped into the sandwich.
He barely got the first bite down when he noticed in the rear view mirror a pearl-white Lexus convertible pulling up. The now-familiar tall, slim, well-dressed woman of about forty got out, looking curiously at the strange vehicle in her driveway.
Tiffany
’s mother, once again attired in four-inch heels, made her way toward us. Marty frustrated that his hunger was not to be resolved he carelessly and quickly rewrapped his sandwich and got out to greet the lady as she approached his side.
“May I help you?” she asked him. I thought I heard a slight southern twang in her speech.
“Yes, Mrs. Bennett. We met the other day at the police station.”
He introduced us. “My name is Detective Keal, and this is Detective Whitley. We would…”
“Yes, yes, I know who you are,” she interrupted, as if she was in a hurry and wasn’t too happy with the interruption. “Tiffany mentioned something about you wanting to talk to her.” She glanced around, as if looking for someone. “Would you care to step inside? I have some groceries in the car and I need to have them refrigerated.”
The words barely got out of her mouth when a short, Hispanic-looking woman in a white uniform came out from the main house.
“Miz Bennett, do you haff pakages?” the stocky woman asked in broken English.
“Yes, Maria, please… in the trunk.” She handed the housekeeper her car keys and motioned for us to follow her into the house.
“Maria, is Tiffany home yet?” Mrs. Hoity-toity stopped momentarily and inquired of her housekeeper.
“Yes, Miz Bennett, she’s in hur room,” the stocky woman answered as she grabbed a handful of packages from the trunk of the car.
The housekeeper had left the front entrance open. We walked through the double-sized red front door and entered a wide foyer. The walls were decorated with a few fine—and what I guessed to be very expensive—paintings.
A gray-and-white marble floor led into an even more elaborate setting. We passed large living room area that was furnished with what I imagined to be French provincial furniture. The seating looked as if it had never made the acquaintance of a rear end.
Mrs.
Bennett
continued to walk, leading us further into the house, until she reached a room in which the entire outside wall was made up of nine-foot-tall windows, where the late afternoon sunlight beamed through.
The breathtaking view from this spot was so beautiful it almost seemed unreal. From where Marty and I stood, we could see the side of a mountain and the whitecaps of a waterfall coming off that mountain. In the distance, I spotted a very small cottage, again in the same color scheme. The cottage sat in a beautiful meadow at the bottom of the hill. I looked out in another direction and noticed two Appaloosas playing in the distance. I watched as they stopped to drink from a small pond about two hundred yards from the house.
The whole scene could have been mistaken for a landscape painting, except for the violent crashing movement of the waterfall on the rocks, and the subtle movement of the horses.
Two love-seat-sized and luxuriously deep-cushioned seats sat opposite each other with a Plexiglas coffee table separating them. A black slate fireplace took up an entire wall and a deep, thick, charcoal-gray carpet gave the room some added warmth.
“This is a beautiful room, Mrs. Bennett,” I said, taking another glance out the window, still fascinated by the majestic view below.
“Thank you. We spend a lot of time in this room. I find it to be quite comfortable and relaxing. Let me go get my daughter. Can I get you some refreshments?” she asked as she walked to a spiral staircase that led to the upper floor. Mrs. Bennett barely got her daughter’s name out when Tiffany appeared at the top of the steps.
“Tiffany, can you come down here? The police are here.”
Tiffany
didn’t say a word, she just slowly walked down the stairs and stood in front of her mother, who carefully placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders. With her fingers, she tenderly toyed with her daughters’ shoulder-length hair.
Mrs.
Bennett
was much taller and leaner than her daughter. There was quite a resemblance in the mother’s and daughter’s features, but the mother was definitely the much more attractive of the two. I wondered how uncomfortable that would be for the teenager.
I had reluctantly conceded to allow Marty to conduct the interview. This was the perfect scenario for him. Sometimes a pretty face like Marty’s could be quite the advantage when interviewing a woman like Mrs. Bennett. I was well aware that he would appear much less intimidating, and the ladies were more apt to be forthcoming, with him asking the questions.
Mrs.
Bennett
was wearing a tight-fitting beige suit with a slit on the side. As she sat down, the skirt crept up just above her knees. I noticed that Marty was making a gallant effort to keep his eyes on the lady’s face, but his eyes occasionally wandered and I could see that he was enjoying this other view as well. The woman’s legs were shapely and seemed to go on forever. I also noticed what appeared to be some sort of makeup or spray-on tan as she crossed her ankles.
Once we were all seated, Marty explained the purpose of our visit.
“Tiffany, Detective Whitley and I would like you to go over the statement you made when you first came down to the police station.”
He paused a second to watch her facial expression. There was none, it remained blank, so he continued to talk.
“Sometimes it takes a few days for someone to remember things with a little more clarity after witnessing such a brutal crime.”
“I don’t remember anything else… just what I told you that morning.” She had placed her right hand over her mouth in order to hide what was now a very noticeable facial tic, making it hard to understand her muffled words. Her mother reached up and pulled her daughter’s hand away and the two exchanged glances. Without missing a beat, Mrs. Bennett went back to playing with her daughter’s hair.
“Well, let’s try, Tiffany, okay?” Marty leaned forward a bit, his elbows leaning on his knees.
She gave a curt nod, shaking her head and rotating her shoulder in an effort to push her mother away. Mrs. Bennett immediately let loose, as if she had been stung.
“Can you be specific as to what was happening in the car before Jamie got out?” Marty asked her.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Nothing special happened. She just got mad at Dylan, and when he stopped the car, she bolted. Took off into the woods. Probably met some crazy person in there. They had to be crazy, doing what they did, right?”
“Why did Jamie get mad at Dylan, Tiffany? What were they arguing about?” Marty asked as he tapped the pencil against his pad.
“Nothing special… same old stuff. Jamie was just being her usual self. I think she was making fun of Lisa. Jamie thought her crap didn’t stink, and…”
Once again, her mother attempted to fix Tiffany’s hair, and once again, Tiffany tilted her posture as if to push the woman away. This time, Mrs. Bennett didn’t let go. It was if they were doing a dance that they had done a million times before. I wondered if the girl was being defiant, or was it just that her movements were uncontrollable, almost spasmodic, in nature?
“Did she make fun of you, too? Was she saying things that weren’t nice about you?” Marty suggested.
“I don’t know, I wasn’t paying her any attention,” she told him.
Her mother reached out her hand and grasped her daughter’s hand in a gesture of support. This time, Tiffany accepted her mother’s hand graciously.
It appeared to me that the two had a complicated relationship. I was beginning to empathize with the woman and wondered if this was the direction I was headed with my own child.
I realized that Tiffany had continued her description of that evening. I knew I needed to focus on what she was saying, and stop daydreaming about my problems with my own child.
“I was in the back seat with Katie, she was on the phone with Cameron, and… I don’t know why Katie even invited her, except that Dylan probably wanted her to be there.”
“Okay, so Jamie is making fun of Lisa. What kind of things was she saying?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t remember. Just that she was getting fat and that she needed to stop stuffing her face. You know, things like that. Lisa started bawling, and Dylan got pissed, and then Jamie got pissed at Dylan for sticking up for Lisa. He stopped the car and she jumped out. We sat in the car for a few minutes, cussing her out and trying to decide what to do.
“Katie told Cameron where we were. He told us to come to the house and get some flashlights and we would go looking for her. Katie brought out some flashlights and me and Lisa and Dylan went off looking for her. Katie and Cameron just went back inside. They never did look for her, at least I don’t think they did. They just did their own thing,” she said with a grin.
“Did all three of you stay together?” Marty asked.
“At first, and then I went off on my own.”
I looked up. “Weren’t you scared, being out in the woods by yourself, Tiffany? I mean, it gets pretty spooky out there, all alone. I would be, that’s for sure.”
“Nope,” she answered, with a note of pride. “I’ve gone to summer camp where we had to take courses for survival training. We would have to spend the nights alone out in the woods. I mean, the counselors were watching us, we just couldn’t see them.”