The Evidence Never Lies by Nupur Tustin

Author:Nupur Tustin [Tustin, Nupur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime, Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Noir, Suspense
Publisher: Foiled Plots Press
Published: 2017-01-16T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Renée stared at Vince. "Poor Rich was broken up over it."

The scandal had taken place a couple of months ago.

"Two-timing jezebel!" Renée recalled Rich cursing his bride-to-be hours later in their kitchen. "That two-faced, two-timing jezebel!" Rich had said, unshed tears in his eyes.

Brett had nodded. "That's all she is, son." He'd put a comforting arm around the younger man. "And by God's grace, you found out just in time."

"Could it be Rich?" Renée wondered. All of the Parson's victims had attended the Cherry Vale Baptist Church, which had led Vince to surmise two years ago that the Parson himself must be a member as well. She'd passed on his tip to Brett, but the next three victims had no connection with the Baptist Church they attended.

Vince shook his head in an emphatic gesture of denial. "He doesn't have it in him. My money's always been on Deacon Jones. He gets this fanatical gleam in his eye every time Pastor Clarke talks about the sins of the Parson's victims. If he weren't so decrepit, Pastor Clarke would be a likely candidate, too."

Renée nodded absently, her mind on the three victims not from Cherry Vale Baptist. Only one of them fit the Parson's victim profile: the young student at Cherry Vale Art College who paid her way through school by posing nude for the students and, rumor had it, Vince told Renée and Brett, by sleeping with the married Head of the Contemporary Art Department.

"Shhh," Renée reached over to soothe Gordon.

"But two of them were in the news," she murmured when he quietened down. The art student had been interviewed for a Beacon story about rising tuition fees.

Then, there had been the story about the older woman in a messy divorce. Caught sleeping with her husband's best friend, she'd demanded a hefty settlement. And given California's no-fault divorce laws, Brett had said, incensed, she'd have gotten it had the Parson not intervened.

But the Parson only killed young women who, according to the police profile on him, could still be "saved" and sent "home." The third victim, a sixteen-year old, had been the right age. But her only fault was that she was perpetually in what Brett would've referred to as "slut clothing."

"We were in the Church cafeteria when you gave me that tip, remember?" Renée said aloud. When Vince nodded, she continued, "What if someone—the Parson—overheard us discussing the case?"

"And picked two women from news stories, and a third random victim who looked the right type?"

"Yes. To throw the cops off the scent." Renée leaned forward, and grasped Vince's arm. "Don't you see, it could still be someone from Cherry Vale Baptist! We may have been right all along."

Tasha entered the room just at that moment. "Time to take your blood pressure again," she said with a stern glance at Vince. "I hope you haven't been over-stimulating my patient."

She went through the motions in silence, then pursed her lips at the reading on the monitor. "One-forty-five over one-hundred!" She turned the monitor toward Renée, and glared.

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