Uncover Persona - Chapter 7

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"The next morning, I called Sonja Rodriquez, our housekeeper. Normally, Sonja would have been here early in the morning, but Kenton had thrown her, her husband Fernando, and their nephew Mario off the property."

"Would Mrs. Rodriquez have been here this morning?" Detective Jones asked.

"No, they are staying with a nephew. You'll have to ask Mario about that."

As if on cue, Mario came over and stood behind Emily. He reached down and squeezed her shoulder. Emily turned and smiled weakly up at him. "This is Mario. He's Rodriquez's nephew. He's been staying with them for a few weeks and working with me on the landscaping."

The detectives exchanged glances; Detective Jones said, "Mr. Rodriquez, would you come with me out front? I'd like to get your version of what is going on."

"Of course," Mario said. He gave Emily's shoulder another squeeze and followed Detective Jones out the front door.

The officer who had been in the kitchen with Carol came out. "Mrs. Butler wants to know how much longer it will be before you will be questioning her," the officer said tightly. Emily suspected that Carol was in full bitch mode and driving the poor officer nuts.

Detective Carter looked at Emily. "Who is Mrs. Butler, and why is she here?"

"Mrs. Butler, Carol, was my friend, and she's married to my cousin, Damon. She was apparently having an affair with my husband."

Raising an eyebrow, Detective Carter asked, "And she came here this morning?"

"She saw the fire trucks and ambulance coming down here. They just live a few houses up. She said she was afraid that Kenton had beaten me up again."

"So she knew about what happened the other night?

"She was at the party when Kenton showed up. According to her, she had told Kenton earlier that day that she wanted to end the affair. She called me last night in tears, saying she thought it was her fault Kenton had beaten me up because she ended things with him," Emily said bitterly.

Detective Carter pursed her lips and made several notes. She turned to the officer. "Tell her it will be just a few minutes longer."

The officer nodded and went back to the kitchen, where Carol was waiting in the doorway. Detective Carter looked up at her. "If you don't mind, Mrs. Butler, please continue to wait in the kitchen with Officer Martin. I'll be in shortly to take your statement."

Carol looked sad and pissed off at the same time. She looked briefly at Emily, who refused to meet her gaze, nodded, and went back into the kitchen with the officer.

Detective Carter touched Emily's arm gently. "Tell me what happened next."

Emily nodded. "I called Sonja and asked her to come get me. I knew I was in pretty bad shape and needed to go to the hospital. Sonja, Fernando, and Mario came to the house. They were getting ready to take me to the hospital when my friend Ashley and her girlfriend, Kim, showed up. Apparently, Kenton had called Ashley and told her to stay away from me."

"Why would he do that?"

Emily shook her head. "Ashley and Kim were at the party as well. They are a lesbian couple, and I've known Ashley since college. We were very close back then." At the detective's raised eyebrow, Emily said, "Not lovers, just good friends. But apparently, Kenton got it in his head that Ashley might be trying to have an affair with me or something like that. I have no idea where he got that notion because Ashley has never done anything out of the way. But he apparently called her early the next morning and told her to stay away from me. She and Kim had been worried about me because of the way Kenton had been acting the night before. When they couldn't get me on the phone, they decided they would come out and make sure I was okay."

"Why couldn't they get you on the phone?" The detective asked, scribbling furiously on her notepad.

"I'm not sure why the house phone wasn't working, but my cell phone was downstairs in my purse, and I was in the bedroom upstairs."

Detective Carter nodded and made some more notes. "Okay, so the Rodriquez's came to get you and Ashley, and Kim showed up. Do you have their last names?

"Yes, it' Ashley Sjveck and Kim...You know, now that I think about it, I don't think Ashley ever did tell me Kim's last name, but I have Ashley's cell phone number. I can give it to you if you need to contact her, or you can ask her yourself," Emily said, looking past the detective at the door, where Kim had just come in.

Kim rushed over to Emily and hugged her. "Ashley called me and told me what happened. She wanted me to come and check on you."

"Excuse me," Detective Carter interrupted. Kim turned and looked at the detective, "Janice?" Detective Carter said. "Kim Mclnery." "You two know each other?" Emily asked.

"We had photojournalism classes together in college," Kim supplied.

"Oh, I didn't realize you were from here," Emily said.

"I'm not; we went to school together at UT in Knoxville," Kim said. "We lost touch, kind of like you and Ashley did. Life just gets in the way sometimes."

"That's true," Detective Carter said. "So you and Ashley were here the morning after Mrs. Jenkins was beaten up by her husband."

"Yes," Kim said, her tone going serious. "We had been worried about Emily after we left the night before. Ashley said she had only met Kenton a few times, but she knew that he wasn't someone who took things not going his way well."

"How so?"

"You'll have to ask Ashley about that. I have never officially met the man."

"Okay, so you and your girlfriend came to the house after the Rodriquez family came to get Emily?"

"Yes," Kim said. "We encouraged her to go to the hospital and press charges. Ashley is an attorney, and she really thought it was the best thing for Emily to do, but Emily didn't want to."

Detective Carter turned to Emily, "What did you do after you went to the hospital?"

"I went to visit with my parents. They live in Franklin, and then I got a hotel room." At the detective's questioning look, Emily said, "I figured that Kenton would try to find me at my parents' house."

"Did anyone go with you to the hotel?"

"Mario did. He stayed with me last night. I was afraid to be alone."

The detective's eyebrows shot heavenwards. "Really?"

"It's not like that," Emily said defensively. "We're just friends."

She made some more notes and then said, "Tell me about this morning.

"I wanted to come by the house and confront Kenton, and Mario insisted on coming with me, which I thought was a good idea."

"So the Rodriquez's live on the property?"

"Yes," Emily stood and pointed to the small cottage at the end of the property that could be seen through the patio doors. "Kenton had built the extra cottage on the property for the purpose of having servants who could live on the property. I hate that word, servants. But that's what he called them. Sonja is the housekeeper, and Fernando maintains the property."

"And Kenton told them to get off the property after your party the other night?" Detective Carter asked.

"Yes," Emily said.

Detective Carter looked back at Kim. "And how did your partner know about Mr. Jenkins' death?"

"Ashley called to check on me just a little bit ago," Emily supplied. "I told her what happened."

"Okay," Detective Carter said and took more notes. "What happened when you got here?"

"Mario dropped me off at the patio gate. I walked through the gate, saw Kenton in the pool, and screamed. Mario rushed in and jumped in the pool, thinking he could help Kenton, but Kenton was already dead."

"Can you think of anyone who would want Kenton dead?"

Emily took a deep breath. She had wanted to kill him the other night, but she would not have been able to follow through with something like that. "Not right off the top of my head," Emily said. "He was a real estate broker. He could have enemies from business, I guess. I don't really know any of his friends except Damon."

"Your cousin, Damon, and Kenton were pretty good friends?"

"Oh yes," Emily said. "They did stuff together all the time and, according to Mario, might have been more than friends."

"According to Mario?" Detective Carter asked.

Emily dropped down on the couch wearily. She shook her head. "This is just all too much."

Kim touched the detective's arm. "Can we give her a break for a moment, Janice?" Kim motioned for them to move away from Emily for a moment.

"Do you know something?" Detective Carter asked quietly. "Yes," Kim whispered. They moved toward the patio. Kim gasped when she saw Kenton's body. "Wow, he really is dead."

"He's been dead since about three this morning," the coroner told Detective Carter. She made a note on her pad. "I'll be right back for more of your observations, Doctor." She took Kim's elbow, and they walked to the side of the patio where other police officers were taking pictures along the patio and into the grass.

"So, what do you know?"

"Ashley and I were at a mixed club downtown winding down after the event here with Kenton. Damon Butler came into the bar. Ashley was in the restroom, but I recognized him because we had dinner with him over the business before." She looked past the detective to see Damon standing at the patio door. "Oh my God, he's here." Detective Carter started to turn to look at him. "Don't look yet," Kim said. "Let me finish the story. He was having an argument with someone on the phone. Apparently, it was Kenton. They were arguing about Carol, Damon's wife, who had told him she was having an affair with Kenton. Damon had apparently told her about him and Kenton. Kenton came to the bar, and he and Damon had words, and then Mario showed up and punched Kenton in the face. The bouncers dragged Mario out of the bar. Kenton and Damon got into a shoving match, and the bouncers made them leave, too."

"Wow," the detective said, shaking her head. "This is going to be a weird one."

"Yeah, I don't envy you."

"Sir, you cannot come out here," one of the officers was saying to Damon.

"That's my best friend," Damon said. "I want to know what happened."

"I gotta go," Detective Carter said to Kim. "But I want to ask you some more questions later." She handed Kim a business card. "Call me if you can think of anything else that might help."

Kim nodded. "I'll get with Ashley, and we'll set up an appointment." She followed the detective back toward the patio. The detective began questioning Damon and Kim went into the house to find Emily. Mario was sitting next to Emily, holding her hand. Carol was standing at the door of the kitchen twisting her hands and watching Damon. Kim looked at all of them. She didn't really think that Emily killed Kenton, but she wouldn't have blamed her if she had. She was certain that Kenton had done much worse things than what Emily had told about the night before last.

"How are you holding up?" Kim asked Emily.

Emily shook her head. "I can't believe this is happening."

Kim sat down on the other side of her and took her hand. "I can't imagine, but you know that Ashley and I are here for you, right?"

Emily nodded woodenly, her eyes glazing over as shock settled over her more deeply. Kim's phone buzzed. It was Ashley. "Hey," Kim said quietly into the phone.

"What's going on?" Ashley asked.

"Damon just got here. The police are questioning everyone. You remember me talking about Janice Carter from my photojournalism class that went on to become a cop?"

"I think so," Ashley said.

"She's one of the investigating detectives from homicide working on this case."

"I just talked to Walter," Ashley said. "He is totally in shock. Of course, he only knows the Kenton who puts on that act of being the perfect husband and employee."

Kim said, "Yeah, he'd be really surprised if he knew what we know, huh?"

"Oh yeah," Ashley agreed. "I have to go, though. Kenton dying is definitely going to create some problems with closing this land deal. I have no idea how things will go now."

"Wow, I hadn't thought of that. Maybe one of those psychotic tree huggers came over here."

Emily's head swung in Kim's direction. "Tree huggers?"

Kim nodded. "I'll let you go, Ash, and we'll talk this evening. Love you."

"Love you too, babe," Ashley said and disconnected.

"What do tree huggers have to do with the deal in East Tennessee? I thought it was the coal companies that wanted more money than Chase Morgan wanted to pay." Emily said.

"It was both. They had finally settled on a price with the coal companies when the environmentalists started protesting them building a resort and shopping center that would cause even more environmental damage than the coal companies had already done with the mountaintop removal mining," Kim explained.

"Christ," Emily muttered.

Sonja and Fernando at the front door wanted to come in, but the police were keeping them out. Emily got up and rushed through the front door to Sonja, who wrapped her arms around Emily. "Oh Emily, I'm so sorry."

Emily lost it. She wrapped her arms around Sonja and started crying hysterically. Fernando put his arms around Emily and Sonja and hugged them both.

Detective Carter approached Kim. "Her family?" "No, the Rodriquez's." "Really?" the detective asked. "Is she not close to her family?"

"I'm not sure what happened with all of that. But, from what I gathered from the dinner we had the other night, Kenton had kept her from spending time with her parents, and so Rodriquez, who was already working for him, became like a surrogate family for her."

Detective Jones approached them, shaking his head. "Can I talk to you?" He asked Detective Carter, who nodded and followed him out to the patio. "What do you think?

"I think this is going to be a fucked up case," she answered.

"Yeah, me too," he agreed. "Mr. Rodriquez said that he followed Mr. Jenkins to a gay bar last night, where he punched him in the face for abusing Mrs. Jenkins, who is 'just his friend," he said using quotes. "He said that Mr. Butler was there, and the two of them appeared to be having a lover's quarrel."

"That's what my friend Kim Mclnery said," Detective Carter said, motioning her head in Kim's direction.

Detective Jones shrugged. "So you want to try the angle that Mr. Butler wanted Mr. Jenkins to leave his wife and when he refused, he killed him?"

"It's a starting place," Detective Carter said. "Let's get some of these people down to the station and the rest out of here before any more of the scene is contaminated. I'm going to go talk to the coroner and see what her take is on how Mr. Jenkins was killed."

Janice Carter scratched her head and pushed her dark blonde bangs away from her face. She looked over at her partner, Harold Jones. "This is going to be a very messy case."

He nodded. "Yep."

"Let's go over what we've got again. Maybe we're missing something," she said and placed the reports from the depositions in order. "Okay, the wife, Emily Jenkins. She says that her husband had never been physically violent before the episode a few days ago. He had been verbally and emotionally abusive toward her, the housekeeper, and the gardener. He had discouraged her from having contact with her parents by making her and them uncomfortable any time he was around her parents. He insisted she will be available for his call at all times. The one time she decides to have her own party and invite her friends and family, he shows up and flips out. But, she says she wasn't home when he was murdered. That she was at a hotel with the gardener's nephew and swears that nothing is going on between them."

"Right," Harold said, "and the manager at the hotel backs up their story that they were there all night, or at least they didn't go out the front or side doors where there are cameras."

"And their room was on the third floor, so they most likely didn't go out the window to commit the murder," Janice said. "Unless we find more evidence or something that links them to a hit on Jenkins, I think we can mark Emily Jenkins and Mario Rodriquez off the list."

Harold said, "I agree. Now, the Butlers are another story. Both are swearing that they were together at home all night, but Mario Rodriquez and your friend Kim place Damon Butler at the Twister around eleven, where he and Jenkins had a lover's quarrel."

"Which the Butlers initially denied, but then both said that it was true that Damon and Kenton had been having an affair, and that Kenton had been having an affair with Carol Butler, which makes them both suspects," Janice said.

"But, we have to get one of them to give the other one up. Right now, they are both protecting each other, and we can't prove that either of them was at the Jenkins' house around two in the morning.

Janice picked up one of the coroner's pictures of a close-up of Kenton Jenkins' head. "The coroner said that the blunt force trauma was not enough to kill him, and she doesn't think the chair was the murder weapon, the way we initially thought. After recreating the scene, she said that it was more likely that Jenkins fell into the chair after being hit in the head the first time. He stumbled forward and fell, or was pushed, hitting his head again on the side of the pool before falling into the water and drowning."

"So, whoever hit him didn't hit him hard enough to kill him to start with. Maybe they didn't intend to kill him; maybe they just were going to beat the shit out of him, and when he fell in the pool, they just walked away," Harold reasoned.

"Maybe, or maybe whoever hit him was not strong enough to hit him hard enough to kill him."

"What does the Doc think was used to cause the initial blunt force trauma?" Harold asked.

"She wasn't sure," she pointed to the picture. "There are strange indentations around the temple that are hard to make out. She's hoping to get a better picture of them today. Whatever they hit him with was angling downward, so I would say he was most likely sitting in a chair when the killer first struck him."

"His shoes and socks were found by one of the chairs; maybe he was leaning over when the killer hit him?"

Janice got up and came around to Harold's side of the desk. "Pull your chair out in the angle like the one by the pool where we thought he was sitting." Harold did as she said. "Now, bend over like you are taking your shoes off." When Harold leaned over, she took a wad of rolled up the paper and acted like she going to hit him at the temple. She did it again, studying the angle the paper was coming down toward his head.

"What?" Harold asked when he saw the puzzled look on Janice's face.

"I don't think the killer hit him with something. Or, if they did, they didn't come down on him like this." She picked the picture up from her desk. "Look at the way the marks point down, only slightly. It looks more like someone hit him almost straight on."

"You mean like punched him in the head?"

"Maybe, but I still can't figure out what caused these marks," she said, pointing to the indentions at the temple.

"Brass knuckles?" Harold suggested.

She shrugged. "Maybe, if they were custom made with something welded onto the front, or maybe the attacker was wearing a large ring."

"Okay," Harold said. "Let's get a search warrant to look at all of the Butler's, Jenkins', and the Rodriquez's jewelry.

"The Rodriquez's?"

"We still haven't determined for sure where the older couple was at the time of the murder. It sounds like this Kenton guy was a dick to everyone. They had worked for him for a long time and had become fond of Mrs. Jenkins, maybe even started thinking of her like a daughter. Wouldn't you fuck someone up if they did what Jenkins did to his wife? I would have, especially after she told us about the rape part."

Janice nodded. She had to admit; she would have wanted to kill the son-of-a-bitch, too, if he had done that to her daughter if she had one. "Well, then we better get one for Mrs. Jenkins' parents too."