“Josh has been cleared, Mrs. Honeycutt,” I assured her. “He has an alibi and no motive to hurt her, so that’s why we’re here talking to you today.”
“Who all has keys to Georgia’s house?” Adrian asked once he was done sputtering and coughing.
“Just Georgia and I. She had all of the locks changed once she tossed that cheating bastard out of her house.” She shook her head in disgust and then blew out a frustrated breath. “It’s against the Lord’s teachings, but I hate that man.” I assumed she was talking about Rocky and her next words made certain I didn’t have to ask. “Georgia gave Rocky everything she had and I mean she turned herself inside out for that man. She tried for years to get pregnant and couldn’t; he was so cruel to her about it when he should’ve been loving.” She pounded her tiny fists unexpectedly on the table hard enough to make both Adrian and me jump. “That bastard acted like he was royalty and he needed an heir or some shit. Georgia mentioned other means of having a family, but he wanted no part of it. He didn’t want to adopt someone else’s castoffs, as he called them, and refused to consider a surrogate.”
I couldn’t help but feel bad for Georgia and wonder if those were things Josh knew about her. He seemed to know her pretty well and I wouldn’t be surprised if she had told him personal things while he did her hair. It sounded like hair stylists and bartenders had a lot in common. They both had clients that wanted to divulge the personal details of their lives while they looked for something to make them feel better, whether it be a new hairstyle or a stiff drink.
“Rocky and Georgia have been divorced for about five or six years, right?” Adrian asked.
“That sounds right,” Mrs. Honeycutt agreed.
Adrian followed up with, “Was Georgia seeing anyone?”
Mrs. Honeycutt harrumphed and crossed her arms over her chest. “Georgia thought she was damaged goods.Heconvinced her of that and she thought no one could ever love her. That was all she wanted in the whole world was someone to really love her.” Her words echoed what Josh spoke on more than one occasion. “I couldn’t understand why she was letting him back in her bed.” She shook her head in disappointment. “She tried to keep it from me, but I’d been around that man for two decades and could pick out his sleazy smell blindfolded in a room of a hundred men.”
My heart rate kicked up when I realized what the hell she had said without actuallysaying it. However, we needed her to say the words so I asked, “Georgia was seeing Rocky again?”
“Seeing?” she asked with a raised brow. “Yeah, I guess you could say they were seeing parts of each other up in her bedroom. Pecker tracks don’t lie.” They were words I never expected to hear from a woman her age and hoped to never hear again.
“Did CSU take the bedding from her room?” I asked Adrian.
“I’ll find out.” He rose from his chair and walked into Mrs. Honeycutt’s living room to call the station.
“Was there a pattern to Rocky’s visits, Mrs. Honeycutt?” If so, there had to be a witness to it or someone who knew about him sneaking around to see his first wife.
“He was coming over on Thursdays, which were my days off and his bowling league nights. I would find theevidenceof his visits when I made her bed on Friday mornings. I changed bedding each week on Monday and would’ve offered to change the sheets on Fridays, but it was obvious to me that Georgia didn’t want me to know about the development with Rocky. She knew I’d be angry about it. She thought because I was old that I didn’t see what was going on in that house.” She shook her head. “She deserved so much more than piddly handouts from him.”
“How long would you say this had been going on between Rocky and Georgia?” I asked.
“Six months, maybe a little longer,” she replied.
Adrian returned to the kitchen and gave me a quick nod, letting me know that the bedding had indeed been collected for processing. I rose from my chair because we got exactly what we needed from Mrs. Honeycutt.
“Thank you for your help, Mrs. Honeycutt,” I said, extending my hand to her.
“Promise me you’ll nail someone’s balls to the wall for what they did to her,” she said, her eyes full of sorrow and misery.
I knew better than to make promises I couldn’t keep, but that didn’t stop me from saying, “I promise. I’ll make them pay.”
Adrian and I left her house and climbed into my car. I fired up the Charger and drove to the next logical destination – the mayor’s office. We showed our badges to his secretary, although it probably wasn’t necessary in a town our size. The young blonde woman wound her long hair around her finger as she peered at us nervously.
“Rocky… uh, I mean Mayor Beaumont, is in Columbus for the state’s annual mayoral convention.” Her worried blue eyes flitted back and forth between Adrian and me. “Can I give him a message or something?”
“Just tell the mayor we stopped by and would like to schedule a time to meet with him,” I told her. “He can call the station and ask for either Detective Wyatt or Detective Goode and they’ll transfer his call to one of our cells.”
“At his convenience,” Adrian added in an attempt to downplay our visit.
“Yes, sir. I will do that, sir.” She began writing the message down on a pink pad. “Detective Goode and Wyatt.” She said the words out loud as she wrote them. Once she was finished, she made a point to check out my left hand before looking back at my face. “By the way, my name is Rebecca.”
“Good to know,” I replied politely. “We’ll be on our way so you can get on with your work, Rebecca.”
“Have a good day now,” Adrian told her.
“Well, that’s a letdown,” I told Adrian once we were outside. “I was ready to ask him some tough questions.”
Adrian paused before he opened the passenger side door. “Let’s head on back to the station and let the captain know what we learned. Rocky might be a small town mayor, but that’s almost celebrity status around here.”
“Agreed.”
