Countdown (24 page)

Just as I was thinking about sending Jasmine out to get one or both of ’em, Drew Gleeson’s brother-in-law/attorney rapped on my door jamb. ‘I want Drew out on bail.’

‘Well, I guess you do,’ I said. ‘But it’s Saturday and the court’s closed. Judge Schnell usually goes fishing on a Saturday. And he doesn’t believe in cell phones, more’s the pity.’ I said this last part with a tiny bit of sarcasm. I’m not proud of it.

Harry Joyner gave me a look. It wasn’t a pleasant one. ‘When will this judge be back from’ – and here he used finger quotes – ‘fishing?’

‘Oh, he really is fishing. And on Sunday – tomorrow – he’s got church and family dinner and probably a football game. He’s got cable, you know.’

Mr Joyner’s jaw looked tight, like maybe his teeth were clenched. ‘I’ll put up the bail for Drew right now, Sheriff.’

‘Well, you know, the bail hasn’t been set, Mr Joyner, or may I call you Harry?’ He didn’t answer. ‘But if you’re saying you wanna give me money so you can get your client out of jail now,’ I started shaking my head, ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to arrest you for trying to bribe a law official.’

Joyner squared his shoulders. ‘Of course, I wasn’t implying anything of the sort,’ he said. ‘May I go back to the cells and speak to my client briefly?’

‘Sure,’ I said with a big old grin. ‘Deputy!’ I called out.

I gotta say Jasmine took her own sweet time getting to my office. I’m not sure who she was trying to piss off – Harry Joyner or me. ‘Yes, sir?’ she said, practically saluting. OK, me. She was trying to piss
me
off. She was succeeding.

‘Please allow Mr Joyner a brief second visit with his client. He can see him in the cell.’

‘Yes, sir,’ she said, doing an about-face like she was an army recruit.

I looked at my watch. It was close to six o’clock in the evening and if I didn’t get home quick, Harmon, my brother-in-law, was going to start supper and, as I’ve discovered since our womenfolk left, the only food worse than what my sister served was the food served by her husband. I called Dalton and told him we had a guest and he needed to relieve Jasmine in an hour or two, then told Jasmine I was off and headed to my Jeep. I figured me and my boy could pick up a bucket of chicken on our way home.

K
nowing there was to be a reception back at the Carmichael mansion, and assuming that at least half, if not all, the people at the funeral would be in attendance, Jean and Jewel took the taxi to the Village West shopping area, ate an early dinner and perused the shops. Jewel managed to find several things she couldn’t live without, some too bulky to transport herself. These she had Fed-Ex’ed to Jean and Milt’s home.

‘Don’t you think that credenza will look lovely in my new foyer?’ Jewel asked Jean, who only nodded in response.

Jean’s mind was too busy dealing with the possibilities the ride to the funeral had provided. Had her entire theory been wrong? Was Paula only rebelling from a neglectful, unloving mother by her promiscuity? It was certainly possible. It was also certainly possible that Paula’s psyche wasn’t strong enough to bounce back from that early neglect, and it had colored her entire life with promiscuity and alcohol. Those two ingredients alone worked hand in hand. Get drunk and get laid. The old reliable. Scratch an itch, get back at your mother and drown the memory in booze.

Had Jean overreacted? It was certainly possible, Jean thought, considering her own culpability. She’d been ready to write off her old friend, to get her a room at the inn rather than take her home to abuse Milt and Johnny Mac. Then she’d been shot dead. And the only way to counter her own guilt was by giving Paula a good reason for her behavior: it wasn’t her fault she was a mean-spirited bitch – she’d been sexually abused as a child. There was no doubt in Jean’s mind that Paula had had an awful childhood. But what about Constance? She’d grown up in the same household and she’d apparently had some modicum of success in life. A husband, stepchildren, a role in her family of origin. But she too was living in her family home, not on her own, as a woman in her fifties should be doing.

It was possible, Jean considered, that Paula’s superior intellect went hand in hand with a more acute awareness of her place in the family hierarchy. That is, dead last. After eighteen years of this kind of neglect, she began acting out in a way that would most embarrass her parents.

She tuned back in when she realized Jewel was asking her a question. ‘I’m sorry, what?’ Jean asked.

‘This top! What do you think?’

‘It’s nice,’ Jean said, barely glancing at it. ‘It would look lovely on you.’

‘Ah, it would fall off me! I’m talking for you, Jean! It’s your size!’

‘Oh,’ Jean said, looking again at the top. It was definitely something out of Jean’s comfort zone. Sheer white organza with tiny pleats, long sleeves and a black collar and cuffs. ‘Well, I don’t know where I’d wear it to.’

‘To work, silly!’ Jewel said. ‘With a white cami – ooo, or red! A pair of high-waist black trousers and it would look very professional. Maybe save the red cami for night time.’ She wiggled her eyebrows at Jean.

Jean laughed. ‘I’m fine with my button-downs and blazers,’ she assured her.

Jewel snorted in a most un-lady-like fashion. ‘I’m buying it for you. As a gift. And it would be insulting to me if you refused to wear it.’ Still with the top in her hands, she went to the counter of the boutique and slapped down her American Express. Jean just shook her head and smiled inwardly. She’d bought a lot of new clothes lately – the stuff for the bachelorette party, the two outfits for the viewing and the funeral, and now she had this. Maybe, she thought, it was time to give some thought to changing her wardrobe. Maybe she’d been plain Jean for long enough. Maybe it was time to try strutting her stuff. Hard to do in crutches, she thought to herself, but not impossible.

Shortly thereafter they made another call for another taxi and headed back to the Carmichael’s home. It was after nine when they got there but the party was in full swing. And a party it was. There was loud music and raucous laughter, the clinking of glasses, a couple making out in the foyer and two couples in the grand salon dancing. Jean and Jewel headed straight to the elevator behind the grand staircase. They punched in the third floor but the elevator began slowing as it neared the second.

There were voices, loud voices, that could be heard over the noise of the elevator.

‘I said no, goddammit! I’m through with that shit! You can do what you want with your fucking money! I don’t want it! I don’t!’

‘We’ve got a good thing going here! Don’t fuck it up!’

There was the sound of hurried thumping footsteps, followed by the sound of hurried high-heeled footsteps and the exclamation, ‘Come back here!’

The elevator stopped and the doors opened to an empty hall.

Along with the chicken, me and Johnny Mac went to the video store and rented a bunch of old scary movies –
The House on Haunted Hill
,
The Blob
and
The Tingler
. Can’t go wrong with two Vincent Price movies and a Steve McQueen. We were lucky: Harmon was just pulling in the driveway when we signaled to turn. We followed him up to the house, me happy in the thought that he hadn’t started his idea of dinner.

‘Fried chicken and scary movies!’ I said to my brother-in-law as me and Johnny Mac got out of the car.

‘Not some of those slasher flicks, I hope,’ Harmon said as he unlocked the door to my home.

‘Nope, older than that. Vincent Price.’

Harmon grinned. ‘Now those are scary movies!’

So we set about getting TV trays, paper plates and sodas out of the fridge, and piled our plates with fried chicken, French fries and coleslaw. In case my son or my brother-in-law was prone to ratting me out, I stayed away from the fries and gave myself extra coleslaw. And we had a blast.

The next day was Sunday and, although it was Jean’s turn to pick the church (she’s Catholic and I’m Baptist so we alternate), since she was out of town we – that is, me, Johnny Mac and our new shadow, Harmon – headed for the Baptist church. According to some of the people at the church, our new pastor was a raving liberal. He wasn’t exactly pro-gay marriage, but he actually said in the pulpit how it wouldn’t do a thing to hurt a happy ‘regular’ marriage. On top of that, he hinted at thinking it might be all right to legalize the use of hemp. He was a young guy, married with two small girls, and he seemed OK to me. Of course, there are those in my community who have called me a ‘knee-jerk pinko commie’ due to the fact that I voted for an African-American president. Of course, my deputies Anthony Dobbins and Nita Skitteridge both worked on the president’s campaign, and the whole department voted for him – at least they said they did.

So that Sunday we went to church and later, at my insistence, met up with Emmett, Jasmine and Petal at the Longbranch Inn for dinner – which is at the noon hour on a Sunday. I figured it was time the kids got over the madness that had happened in the Longbranch Inn’s upper story, and Jasmine was ready to get back on that particular horse.

We had a good time, shooting the shit, telling tales. I wasn’t allowed anything good to eat, of course, so had to be satisfied with The Milt. My brother-in-law got the chicken fried steak and was kind enough to slip me a couple of bites under the table. He tried it with the mashed potatoes and cream gravy, too, but that just kept slipping off the fork and onto the floor.

When we got back to the house and Johnny Mac had gone upstairs to do his homework, me and Harmon had the same idea and called our ladies up in Kansas City. Jean answered on the second ring.

‘Who is this stranger calling me from the great state of Oklahoma?’ she said upon answering the phone.

I grinned. ‘I just heard there was a real pretty woman on the other end of this line, and thought I might see if she was a bit randy.’

My wife sighed. ‘You have no idea,’ she said.

I grinned wider. ‘That’s what I like to hear.’

‘Any progress on your murder case?’ she asked.

‘Yeah, I got Drew Gleeson, the EMT who was in the cells that night, back in the cells – but not as an EMT this time. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who done it,’ I said.

I could hear my wife settling down. She loved to talk shop with me. And sometimes, having a real-life psychiatrist hear out my theories kinda helped.

‘So what makes you think this EMT is responsible?’ she asked.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Here’s my reasoning. One, Darrell’s wife was cheating on him, right?’

‘Right.’

‘So he shot her, right?’

‘Right.’

‘So who was she cheating on him with?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said.

‘Drew Gleeson confessed it was him,’ I said. ‘Said she was the love of his life and they were gonna run away together. Number two: Drew was alone in the cells with Darrell after everybody left – he said he left his bag in there. Three, Darrell was killed with some kind of digitalis stuff, which was probably in Drew’s medical bag—’

‘EMTs don’t carry pharmaceuticals, Milt. That would be perimetics.’

I stopped. I didn’t like that one bit. I hadn’t been able to check out said bag yet, as I couldn’t get a warrant to do so with the little evidence I had so far. But, even so, I started up again. ‘And then, out of the blue, Gleeson tries to commit suicide by stealing Oxy from the hospital and taking it. They had to pump his stomach.’

‘Why did he do that?’ Jean asked.

‘It boils down to his love life but he lawyered-up and I didn’t get any further than that.’ Then I had a thought. ‘But if he could figure out how to break into the drug room at the hospital to kill himself, why couldn’t he have broken into the drug room before that and stolen some digitalis?’

‘So you believe he went in the cells, found out Darrell had killed his wife, who was Drew’s lover, then went back in on the pretense that he’d left his bag in there, took out the digitalis he had conveniently stolen
before
he knew his girlfriend was dead, and what, forced it down Darrell’s throat that quickly?’

‘I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore,’ I said, and I’m pretty sure I sounded petulant.

‘Why? Because I busted holes in your theory?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, better me now than Drew’s lawyer later, right?’

‘I think I’m going to hang up now,’ I said.

‘You’re such a baby,’ my wife said with a laugh.

‘And you’re a big ol’ buzz kill,’ I said. It was all quiet for a moment, then I asked reluctantly, ‘How’s it going up there? Find out who diddled Paula yet?’

‘Please don’t use that word ever again when talking about child sexual abuse,’ my wife said in that ‘I’m the doctor and I know more than you’ tone of voice she puts on sometimes.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Meant no offense.’

Jean sighed. ‘I know you didn’t, honey. I’m just frustrated. I was almost convinced I had it all wrong, that she’d been neglected, sure, but not necessarily sexually abused. But then …’ Her voice trailed off.

‘But then what?’ I asked, almost afraid of what I was going to hear.

‘I don’t know. Things are just off here. Off kilter. Not right.’ She sighed again. ‘I don’t know how to explain it, but there
is
something wrong here. I just don’t know yet what it is.’

‘You still coming home tomorrow?’ I asked.

‘I’m thinking of changing my ticket to Tuesday, Milt. I know that’s putting an undue burden on you, but I just can’t leave tomorrow morning without some sort of closure on this.’

I nodded my head. Much as I hated it, I understood. When something’s not right, well, it’s just not right. And you needed to find out why. At least, if you had a mind like me and my wife both had.

Jean said goodbye and hung up the phone. She wasn’t sure why she didn’t tell Milt what she and Jewel had overheard on the elevator. Considering it with an open mind, though, she did know why: Milt would have been afraid for her and he would have tried demanding she come home, which would have led to a fight. Jean had never, ever, in her whole life bent to a demand – not even from her parents.

There was a knock on her door. ‘Come in,’ she said, hoping it was Jewel. It was.