Michelle pulled out her ID again. “I’m Detective Andrews,” she said. “This is Sarah Grayson.”
“You’re here about Mrs. Jackson,” the woman said.
“We’re just following up.”
“Is she all right?” The woman looked from Michelle to me, concern pulling at the skin around her mouth. She gave her head a little shake. “I’m sorry. I’m Ashley Clark. Casey”—she put a hand on the head of the dog—“found her right over there.” She pointed at the clump of trees that shielded the property from the house next door.
I nodded. “She has a lump on her head and a couple of scrapes on her arm, but otherwise she’s okay. If she had her way she’d already be out of the hospital.” My chest tightened unexpectedly and I had to stop and swallow before I could continue. “Rose is”—I made a gesture in the air—“like family. Thank you for everything you did for her.”
Ashley smiled and the hand on the dog’s head stroked his black fur. “I’m just glad we were here.”
I gestured at the big Lab. “May I?” I said.
She nodded. “Say hello, Casey,” she said to the dog.
I leaned forward and held out my hand, fingers curled into a loose fist. He sniffed it for a moment and then took a couple of steps closer to me, his tail wagging like a flag waving in a stiff breeze. “Hey, Casey,” I said softly. “Thanks for taking care of my friend Rose.”
His big brown eyes seemed to smile at me, and he nuzzled my wrist with his cold, wet nose. I scratched the top of his head.
Michelle was already running Ashley through finding Rose.
“I was in the backyard watering my tomato plants,” she said. She gave a self-conscious laugh. “It probably sounds silly, but I knew by Casey’s bark that something was wrong. He doesn’t bark that much anyway, and it wasn’t his ‘Hey, play with me’ bark or even ‘The mailman is here with a dog biscuit’ bark.”
I thought about Elvis’s ability to seemingly know when someone was lying. “I don’t think it’s silly,” I said.
Casey cocked his head to one side and looked at me, almost as if he were trying to show his appreciation for my vote of confidence—or suggesting that I scratch behind his right ear.
“I came around the side of the house and saw Casey over there by that tree standing next to Mrs. Jackson,” Ashley continued. “I yelled to Keenan—that’s my husband; I’m sorry, he isn’t here right now—to call nine one one and then ran over to her. I thought maybe she’d been walking and got hit by a car.”
“Did you hear or see anything before the dog started barking?” Michelle asked.
Ashley frowned and shook her head slowly. “That’s the thing,” she said. “I didn’t. I don’t remember hearing any cars go by. There were no squealing brakes from someone stopping too fast and I didn’t hear anything that sounded like a car hitting . . . her.”
That seemed to support Rose’s story. I looked over at Michelle but couldn’t catch her eye.
Ashley took a couple of steps forward and pointed down the road in the direction of the Camerons’ cottage. “The only car I saw or heard, aside from the police and the EMTs, was the Camerons’ Jeep—his car; she drives an Audi—and that went by about half an hour before, when we were barbecuing. It’s really hard to miss. It’s Big Bird yellow.”
Michelle asked about the neighbors in the pale blue cottage next door. Ashley explained that they were out of town for the week.
I straightened up, giving Casey one last scratch on the head. He looked up at me and then went to sit next to his owner again. “Thank you,” I said, reaching out to give her arm a squeeze. “I don’t like to think about what could have happened to Rose if you and your husband and Casey hadn’t been here.” The dog lifted his chin and looked up at Ashley as if he wanted to make sure she’d heard the words of praise for him, too.
She smiled at me. “I think she would have been okay. She seems to be pretty feisty.”
I laughed. “That she is.”
Michelle had a few more routine questions; then she gave Ashley her card in case her husband thought of anything he wanted to add and we started back to our cars. I knew from those questions that she didn’t believe Rose’s story.
“Are you going back to the hospital?” she asked as we came level with her dark blue Honda.
I nodded. “I’m hoping Rose will be ready to come home.” I folded my arms across my midsection. “What happens now?” I asked.
She fished her keys out of the pocket of her gray skirt. “I’ll keep trying to contact Jeff Cameron and I’ll verify that investment statement is the real thing in the morning. I’ll talk to the assistant as well. Beyond that, Mr. Cameron is an adult. If he wants to walk away from his marriage, there’s no law that says he can’t.”
“You think he’s alive.”
She sighed softly. “I haven’t seen or heard anything that makes me believe he’s dead.”
I didn’t say anything.
Michelle looked over at the house. “C’mon, Sarah,” she said, shifting her gaze back to me. “You were in that kitchen. Did you see anything that would indicate a man had been killed there? There was no blood, no evidence of a fight or a struggle. I didn’t smell bleach or vanilla-scented candles or anything that suggested someone had cleaned up a crime scene.”
“That was one room,” I pointed out. “And if he’d been hit over the head there wouldn’t necessarily be anything to clean up.”
Michelle narrowed her green eyes and studied my face. “You actually think Rose saw Leesa Cameron dragging her husband’s body across the floor of that kitchen? Really, Sarah?”
I folded one arm over the top of my head like I was pulling up a hood. “I think she saw something. I won’t go so far as to say that Leesa Cameron killed her husband, but I think it’s a pretty big coincidence that he ran off with all their money and another woman the same night that Rose saw his body being dragged across the floor.”
“Sometimes coincidences happen. You heard what Ashley Clark said about seeing his Jeep go by before the dog found Rose.”
“It doesn’t mean he was driving it,” I said.
Michelle took a moment, as though she was sifting through her words before she spoke. “I think Rose believes she saw what she told you she saw,” she said. “But I think she may have had a small stroke, wandered up the road and then fell and hit her head, knocking herself out. Maybe what she thinks she saw was just her brain trying to make sense of the gap in time, putting pieces together maybe from a movie she watched or a book she was reading.” She touched my arm briefly. “I know how stubborn Rose can be. But I really think you should have her examined by a specialist.”
I bit the inside of my cheek so I wouldn’t say the wrong thing. Thankfully Michelle’s phone buzzed then. She pulled it out, checked the screen and then looked at me again.
I made myself smile at her. “Thank you for coming out here with me,” I said. “I should get back to the hospital and check on Rose.”
“Anytime,” Michelle said. She gave me a hug and I walked back to my SUV. Michelle got in her own car and I waved as she drove away.
I didn’t agree with her. I didn’t believe that Rose had had a small stroke and imagined seeing Jeff Cameron’s body being dragged across the kitchen floor of that cottage by some mystery person dressed in a pink hoodie. It was less than a month ago that there had been a seniors’ health clinic at Legacy Place, the former chocolate factory where Rose had lived before she was “invited” to move and took the third apartment in my house.