Minnie Rawlings, seeing her in the Blazer, scuttled across the street. “Ain’t it something?” she said. “Why, that little house has been there since my momma was a girl. It’s a pure shame. And how’s your poor dog?”
“He’s going to be fine,” she said. “He had a couple of pretty deep cuts that Doc Winslow had to stitch up. Doc’s keeping him in the kennel until I have a place to take him. Look, Minnie, I have to run. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Sure, honey. Now y’all take care of yourself, you hear?”
She drove to Nick’s place and let herself into the apartment with his house key. “Janine?” she said.
Her greeting was met by silence. The apartment was empty. She went upstairs and knocked on Caroline’s door. “Have you seen Janine?” she asked Nick’s elegant landlady.
“Not since yesterday,” Caroline said, “when my sister picked her up to spend the night with Sylvie. Want me to give Karen a call?”
“Would you?”
“Sure. Come on in.”
She waited in the foyer while Caroline talked on the phone. “Nope,” she said when she returned. “Janine’s not there. Karen dropped her off here around three o’clock this afternoon. I wouldn’t worry, she’s probably just gone downtown. She’s been pretty restless, all alone in that apartment every day while Nick’s at work.”
Kathryn went back downstairs and flicked on the television. At this time of day, the airwaves overflowed with talk shows that were little more than a hopped-up version of the sleazy confession magazines she and her girlfriends used to hide under their mattresses when they were teenagers.
I Slept With My Sister’s Husband, and Now I’m Pregnant With His Baby
. Sensation and cheap sex. She wondered if Janine watched this garbage. Home alone all day, she probably did. What else was there for a thirteen-year-old girl to do in this place? And God only knew what kind of ideas that sort of sleaze put into the mind of an impressionable young girl. She would have to talk to Nick about it. The girl needed some kind of guidance, and she certainly wasn’t getting it from either of her parents.
She turned off the television and began pacing the kitchen. It was getting later by the minute, and if she didn’t follow his orders, Nick would probably tear her head off. He was a man accustomed to being obeyed. But she couldn’t very well leave town without Janine. And the truth was that she didn’t want to be in Fayetteville or Raleigh anyway. She wanted to be here, in Elba, right smack in the middle of this whole stinking mess.
Her
stinking mess.
She opened each of the kitchen cupboards in turn, hoping to find something to distract her. Everything in Nick’s cupboards was either canned or instant. The man lived like a barbarian. He was badly in need of a woman to take care of him. It seemed that the only thing he knew how to cook was steak. She grimaced, imagining his arteries clogged with all that saturated fat. If somebody didn’t take him in hand, he’d die of a heart attack before he was forty-five.
The telephone rang, and she automatically went to answer it. “DiSalvo residence,” she said.
And the voice, that raspy, muffled voice, said, “I’ve got the girl.”
The McAllisters were entertaining. There were four or five cars in the driveway besides Neely’s Caddy and Kevin’s Lincoln Town Car. From somewhere behind the house came the soft tinkle of laughter and the charred odor of barbecued beef. “Prepare yourself,” he warned Linda Barden when Althea opened the door. “You’re about to enter an alien universe.”
The maid eyed them coolly from beneath raised eyebrows. “I don’t believe I saw your names on tonight’s guest list,” she said.
“Good evening, Althea,” he said jovially. “No, I imagine you didn’t. I’d like to speak to Judge McAllister. And his lovely wife.”
“They’re busy,” she said flatly.
“I can see that. And while I’m sure their social obligations are of the utmost importance, what I have to say to them can’t wait. Now be a good girl and get them for me, before I have to arrest you for obstruction of justice.”
She looked at him from beneath lowered lids. And sniffed. “Wait in the parlor,” she said.
“Of course,” he said. “Wouldn’t want any of the guests to be offended by our uniforms.”
The parlor furniture was upholstered in pastel shades of peach and green. “Poverty,” Linda said, looking around the room, “is such a tragedy.”
“Isn’t it, though?”
It was a good ten minutes before he heard the rapid
click-click
of Neely’s heels on the parquet floor of the hall, followed by Kevin’s heavier, more leisurely footsteps. Were they the same footsteps he and Kathryn had listened to last night while they hovered in terror in that tiny crawl space beneath the eaves?
“Mr. DiSalvo,” Neely said, her reptilian eyes cold with fury. “How dare you come to our home when we’re entertainin’ guests and embarrass us this way? I demand that you come back at a more appropriate time, like any civilized person would do.”
“Before we get started here,” he said pleasantly, “you might want to shut the door. Lower the embarrassment factor a little.”
Neely gazed at him without speaking, and then she walked across the floor and quietly shut the door. “All right,” she said, and folded her arms across her bony chest. “State your business, Mr. DiSalvo, so that Kevin and I can get back to our guests.”
Amiably, he said, “Actually, Mrs. McAllister, my business is kind of complex, you know? So I thought it would be easier if we dealt with this one issue at a time. Is that okay with you?”
“Make it quick!” she snapped.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself. Issue number one is Wanita Crumley. A close personal friend of yours, Judge, according to my sources. Would you care to tell us about your relationship with her?”
Kevin McAllister’s face paled, and his nostrils flared. “I didn’t have a relationship with her,” he said.
“That’s not what I hear. I hear she had a rich gentleman friend who paid her bills and gave her spending money. Dewey kept asking her to marry him, but she kept turning him down because she didn’t want to let go of her sugar daddy. Are you telling me that wasn’t you?”
McAllister opened his mouth. Closed it. “It was me,” he said. “But it’s not like you think.”
“Please, Kevin,” Neely said. “I’ve known about your sexual escapades for more than thirty years. Now’s hardly the time to start lyin’ about them.”
“I’m not lying,” he said.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Neely said, “any idiot could see—”
“It was the boy,” he said. “I gave her money because of the boy.”
Neely’s mouth clamped abruptly shut. “The boy?” she said.
“Timmy. Wanita’s oldest boy. He was Michael’s.”
Neely turned the color of an old bedsheet. “Are you tellin’ me that Michael fathered a child with that awful woman?”
“He’s our grandchild, Neely. The only one we’re ever goin’ to have.”
“The woman was a tramp. She probably lied. Michael wouldn’t have—”
“Have you ever looked at the boy, Neely? Blond hair, blue eyes. Built just like Michael was at that age.”
“Which brings us to issue number two,” Nick said. “Michael. Your son.”
They both looked at him. “I have this theory,” he said. “It goes kinda like this. Wanita Crumley was killed because she knew who killed Michael. The killer couldn’t risk being exposed, so he had to do away with her. Ditto for Michael. Except that he was killed because he was about to stumble across something huge, something that would have put a certain somebody behind bars for a very long time.”
“I don’t understand,” Kevin said.
“Bear with me. It’ll all make sense in a minute. Issue number three: Ruby Jackson.”
Neely gasped, and Kevin’s forehead wrinkled in puzzlement. “Ah,” Nick said, “I see you remember her. But I imagine you don’t know that a couple of hours ago, we pulled Ruby’s body out of the kitchen wall of the Chandler place. Now, we all know the rather seamy history of that particular address. Home to the Businessmen’s Benevolent Association, an organization of which you were a charter member, Judge. Considering that you and your wife currently own the property, not to mention that according to Ruby’s older sister, at the time she disappeared, Ruby was carrying your child—well, I have to say, sir, this doesn’t look very good for you.”
Kevin went white as a corpse. Neely clutched at her husband’s arm in a protective gesture. “That is the most preposterous accusation I’ve ever heard!” she said, her voice trembling as her composure began to unravel, one elegant thread at a time. “You’re actually suggestin’ that my husband murdered that girl? And placed her inside a wall?”
Nick shook his head in sympathetic disbelief. “I know,” he said. “Shocking, isn’t it? By the way, Judge, feel free to jump in at any time if something should occur to you.”
“I didn’t kill her,” McAllister said quietly.
“So I guess you folks can see the pattern emerging here. Our good friend Judge McAllister, at that time only a lowly barrister, finds out that his young black mistress is in a family way. Since he already has one family, this could prove to be quite a nuisance. But Ruby’s insistent. Marry her, or she’ll go public. Of course, this would ruin this up-and-coming young man’s future as a judge. So he does the only thing he can think of. He knocks her off, and he hides her body inside a wall, where nobody will ever find it and nobody will ever be the wiser. Time goes on, his career flourishes, and everybody forgets Ruby Jackson. Twenty-two years go by, and then, by chance, he hears that his son Michael, who now owns the house in question, is planning to renovate the kitchen as an anniversary gift for his wife, Kathryn. Part of that plan is to tear down the wall where Ruby’s body is hidden.
“If the truth came out, it would ruin his life, his career, his reputation. All those years he worked so hard would be for nothing. He can’t let that happen. This man who’s sent so many people to prison can’t go there himself. So he kills his son and frames his daughter-in-law. She gets to take a twenty-five-year vacation, courtesy of the state, instead of him.
“Everything is working out just fine, until Kathryn unexpectedly gets her conviction overturned and comes back to Elba, armed for bear. Things start to deteriorate rapidly, and then Wanita, with whom our boy Kevin has become friendly enough to let a few things slip, decides it’s time to ‘fess up. But we can’t let that happen, can we, folks? So Wanita, like Michael and Ruby before her, gets to take the long sleep. Is everybody following me? Do I need to back up a bit?”
“Kevin did not kill our son,” Neely said, her voice quivering. “I can’t believe you could think such a terrible thing.”
“Judge? Am I anywhere in the ballpark?”
“I’ve done some things in my life,” McAllister said through gritted teeth, “of which I am not exactly proud. But I have never killed anybody, Mr. DiSalvo.”
“You know, Judge, I really wish I could believe you. You seem like an all right guy. A little twisted sexually, maybe, but hey—that’s your business. Different strokes for different folks, right? But at the moment, you’re my number-one suspect. You know as well as I do how the system works. You had motive, and you had access to each of the victims. Now all I need is a signed confession. I’m sure you know that the court will look more leniently on you if you admit your guilt.”
“I want my lawyer,” McAllister said. “This is preposterous.”
“Of course,” Nick said. “We’ll give him a call, soon as we get downtown. Linda? Did you bring the cuffs?”
“Right here, Chief.”
“Excellent. Now just hold out your wrists, Judge, this won’t hurt a bit. You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. If you can’t afford an attorney
—
Oh, hell, we might as well not bother with that one, eh, Judge? Let’s see, where was I? Anything you say can and will be held against you in
—
”
“Stop it!”
Neely shouted.
He paused dramatically, turned slowly to look at her. “Why, Mrs. McAllister,” he said. “Is there something you’d like to say?”
Her face was ashen, her body trembling violently. Her eyes began to fill with tears. “Kevin didn’t kill Ruby Jackson,” she said. “I did.”
Kevin McAllister took a step forward. “Neely?” he said.
Nick removed the cuffs from the Judge’s wrists. “Ma’am?” he said gently. “Would you like to tell us about it?”
Neely began to weep huge, silent tears. Nick nodded to Linda, and she helped the woman into a chair. “She came to me,” Neely said, “and told me the whole story. About the Benevolent Association, and what was goin’ on there. How they took advantage of young colored girls and used them for their own personal whores. She was pregnant, said it was Kevin’s child. She told me that if he didn’t divorce me and marry her, she was goin’ to the
Gazette
with the story. I didn’t know what to do. If it came out, my life would be over. It would all be ruined. Kevin’s career, his reputation. Everything. Why, neither of us would have ever again been able to hold up our heads anywhere in the state of North Carolina.” Her eyes begged Nick to understand the terrible position she’d been placed in. “So I did the only thing I could do. I strangled her with a silk scarf that Kevin had given me for my birthday. And then I hid her body inside that wall. I thought it was fitting, since that’s where Kevin’s indiscretions with her had taken place.” She looked at her husband through narrowed eyes. “And then,” she said, “I called every one of the wives and told them what was goin’ on in that place. What their men were doin’ there, night after night, while we were sittin’ home, playing canasta. And that was the end of the Businessmen’s Benevolent Association.”