Dark Waters (30 page)

‘Did she ask you to shoot her father?' Emmett asked.

‘Yes! And I was happy to do it. I love her,' Reba said.

‘And after you shot him? Did you tell her?' Emmett asked.

‘Oh, yes!' Reba said smiling. ‘I went right to her house and told her. She hugged me and said thank you.'

‘What did you use?' he asked.

‘My favorite! A Marlin 336 XLR, with a five-pound trigger pull. Sweet piece,' she said, smiling. OK, Emmett thought, maybe she is a little crazy.

‘I'm gonna need you to repeat all this to the county attorney, Reba. Think you can do that?'

‘Sure, if that's what you want,' she said.

‘I was really beginning to like you, Milt,' Heinrich said as he slowly came into the room.

I used the button on the hospital bed to raise myself to a sitting position. I didn't think I wanted him getting to me while I was lying down. ‘Look, Heinrich, it's over. Mike's on his way to warn Vern, they're gonna catch Crys— I'm sorry, it's Lizbet, right? Anyway, they're gonna catch her and you know she's going to turn on you.'

‘Never,' he said, his entire body oozing confidence on that subject. ‘She's my wife; she'd never betray me.'

I laughed. It sounded funny to my own ears. ‘Are you shitting me?' I said. ‘She was trying to seduce Mike and who knows who else? Oh, and how were you saving her from Josh? I take it you're the one who strangled the boy?'

‘It was in my wife's defense!' Heinrich said, his face becoming hard with anger. ‘He was raping her!'

I just looked at him for a minute. ‘Are you sure about that? That wimpy little fourteen-year-old, who looked anorexic, was assaulting Crys— I'm sorry, I keep doing that! I mean Lizbet? I don't think so. But I gotta know, why did you kill Lance? Was he raping Lizbet, too?'

‘I didn't kill Lance!' he shouted as he lunged for me.

It appeared I was to have the same fate as poor Josh. Heinrich had his hands around my neck and was squeezing. The edges of my vision were beginning to blacken. Then the pressure was gone and Heinrich was falling to the floor. Behind him stood my beautiful wife, leaning on one crutch. The other lay on the floor where it had dropped after she'd bashed in Heinrich's skull.

After the ER doc got Reba sewn up, Emmett called Midge Murphy, the county attorney, right then and asked her to meet them at the shop, then drove over there. Emmett didn't want Reba realizing she was throwing the love of her life under the bus until after she'd told Midge the whole story.

Unfortunately she figured it out on the drive to the shop and clammed up. But Emmett had a feeling he could get her to open up one more time.

He left Reba with Midge and Anthony in the break room while he went into the interrogation room with Beth. She was still cuffed so Emmett went to her and took the cuffs off.

‘Sorry about that,' he said.

She rubbed her wrists and looked at him. ‘Why did you do that?' she asked, a hurt look on her face.

‘I'm afraid I bought into what Reba Sinclair was saying there for a minute. You know, about you telling her to do it.'

Beth shook her head. ‘God! I told you I wanted nothing to do with that woman! Anything she did she did on her own! I haven't even talked to her but a couple of times since she moved here, and both those times were to tell her to leave me alone! I don't want to sound shallow, Emmett, but have you looked at her?' Beth said and laughed.

‘Yeah, that does sound shallow,' Emmett said.

‘Well, it's not just her looks. Obviously she's crazy! Who else would follow me from a one-night stand all the way from another state? I mean, move here? That was nuts enough, but to kill Darby Hunt?' Beth threw up her arms. ‘That's just crazy, Emmett.'

‘Yeah, that's crazy all right.'

Emmett got up and left the room, making sure the door was locked behind him, and went into the break room. Midge and Reba were sitting at the table, Reba crying, while Midge held her tape recorder in front of her and Reba tearfully told her everything she'd told Emmett earlier.

Looked like Beth Atkins was going to go down for soliciting the murder of her father.

Sometime in the early morning hours of their last day at sea, Johnny Mac's dad had another heart attack. This time a helicopter from Galveston flew out to Life-Flight him to Houston for emergency surgery. Johnny Mac and Early packed their stuff quickly and tried to pack some of Johnny Mac's mom's stuff, but Mrs Tulia told them not to worry about it, that she'd take care of it, and hurried them up to the top deck where the helicopter was going to land. It was the wee hours of the morning and they could see the lights of Galveston in the far distance. The ship would be docking in an hour or so, but the ship's doctor said there wasn't time for that. Mr Tulia and Janna were already up there.

Janna ran to Johnny Mac and hugged him. There were tears in her eyes. ‘He's gonna be fine!' she said.

Johnny Mac could only nod. He knew if he said anything he'd start crying.

‘As soon as we dock, Daddy said we'd drive straight to the hospital! So I'll see you there, OK?'

Again Johnny Mac nodded. It was windy on the top deck, but got windier when the helicopter reached them and started to descend. Two crewmen, the doctor and Johnny Mac's mom came out of the door with the gurney that carried his dad. There were tubes running in and out of him, a mask on his face and a blanket covering his body. Johnny Mac barely suppressed a sob. Janna reached for his hand and squeezed it.

Mr Tulia put a hand on each of the boys' shoulders and moved them towards the helicopter, bending forward as he did so. Instinctively Johnny Mac and Early did the same, although they were way too short for it to matter. Once all were aboard, the helicopter took off, but Johnny Mac was too worried about his dad to be either scared or awestruck regarding his first trip in a chopper.

Five hours later the boys were curled up on a couch in the cardiac waiting room of Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas, covered with blankets and sound asleep. Johnny Mac was roused when he heard his mother's crutches bang against a metal table. She was up and a guy in scrubs and a weird hat was walking toward her. The doctor, he figured. Johnny Mac jumped up and joined his mom.

‘Mrs Kovak?' the doctor said.

‘Yes?' his mom said.

‘Doctor Denton,' he said, extending his hand. His mom shook it quickly.

‘How is he?' she asked.

‘He made it through with flying colors,' the doctor said, smiling. ‘We had to do a quadruple bypass on him, and he's going to have to change his wicked ways, but he should be good to go for at least another twenty/thirty years.'

And that's when Johnny Mac saw his mom cry for the very first time in his life.

I woke up with a crowd around me. Jean and Johnny Mac and Early, Mike and Lucy and their daughter, and Esther Monte and her daughter.

‘Hey, gang,' I said. ‘We having a party?'

‘Man, what
won't
you do for attention?' Mike said.

‘Hey, baby,' my wife said, bending down to kiss me.

‘Get her a chair, Mike,' I said.

‘I've been trying, but she won't sit down!' Mike said.

‘Jeez, I'll sit, I'll sit!' Jean said, and accepted the chair Mike brought to my bedside.

Mike lifted Johnny Mac up to sit on my bed. He leaned down and hugged me. ‘Don't do that again, OK?' he said in my ear.

‘Promise,' I said back.

‘OK, so what happened on-board? Mike, did you get to Vern in time?'

‘Man, you can't stop a cop, can you? Yeah, I got to the fat bastard before she even got there, told him what you told me. So I hid in his room, let her come in and get the pillow and stick it over his face, then he grabbed her arm and I switched on the lights, and voila, we had her. And by the way, he took Ryan home and told me he was going to stay there, if Lois would let him.'

‘She will,' Lucy said.

‘And Heinrich? Darlin',' I said to my wife, ‘did you kill him?'

‘No, of course not!' Jean said. ‘He just had a bit of concussion.'

‘So they've been arrested, I take it?' I asked.

‘Oh, yeah,' Mike said. ‘And Crystal – did you know that's not even her name? It's really Lizbet Heinrich! She's Heinrich's wife!'

‘Yeah, I knew that,' I said.

‘Oh. Well, anyway, she's singing like a bird! Blaming it all on Heinrich, but the kids found proof that she was having sex with Josh—'

‘God, Mike!' Lucy said.

‘Honey! They're the ones who found the proof, for God's sake! They knew what it meant!' Then, with a worried frown, he turned to his daughter, ‘Didn't you?'

‘Of course, Daddy,' Janna said, and she and Lyssa giggled.

Lucy shook her head in despair.

‘Anyway,' Mike continued, ‘she was doing Josh and he was stealing for her, and old Heinrich didn't know a thing about it! But the kids, here,' he put his arm around his daughter and drew her close, ‘with all their misbehaving, were able to prove it. Honey?'

Janna smiled sweetly at her father. I was gonna have to warn my boy about girls like this – you could get in real deep with those baby blues of hers. And she said, ‘Well,' stretching out the ‘well' and encompassing her little gang of brats with a look, ‘we were talking one day, and decided maybe we needed to see inside Josh's cabin—'

‘That was sealed,' I said. ‘With crime scene tape! I put it up myself.' It hadn't actually been crime scene tape as they didn't have any aboard, but did have ‘under construction' tape and I'd used that.

Janna's smile faded and she looked at her father. ‘You said he wouldn't yell at me,' she said accusingly.

‘Milt, don't yell,' Mike and my wife said almost in unison.

‘Sorry,' I said to Janna. ‘Continue. Please.'

‘OK,' she said, giving me a guarded look. Then she smiled and said, ‘So, anyway, the boys were stuck in their cabin,' she gave me a withering look, ‘but we came up with this idea to double check Josh's cabin. We knew the security crew had already done that, but really, Sheriff Kovak?'

‘Yes, Janna?' I said.

She frowned and said, ‘I don't think they were very good.'

‘Why's that?' I asked.

Again with the laser smile. ‘Because Lyssa and I found this box—'

‘How did you get in the room? It was locked.'

‘Dad, is that really relevant at this time?' my son said.

I gave him a look, but Janna plowed on. ‘In the box we found a key card to that room where we'd seen Mrs Weaver and that man – Chief Heinrich, it turns out! – and one of those cheapo cell phones? But this one was used a lot for texts and one thing I know how to do is to find a text history!'

I noticed her parents exchange worried looks. ‘And most of the texts were between Josh and Mrs Weaver! And they were gross!'

‘We gave both those things over to the Galveston police,' Mike said. ‘Last I heard, the police had done some digging, and it looks like Heinrich and Cry— I mean, Lizbet, have done this on other ships, with other cruise lines. She marries these old geezers and demands a honeymoon on a cruise ship, which Heinrich can accommodate. She targeted Vern at a bar, then Heinrich got them on the boat. Who knows if any of her marriages are for real – even the one to old Heinrich? He didn't know she'd been screwing young teenagers to get them to roll drunks for cash for quite a while, it seems!'

‘So who actually killed Josh and why?' I demanded.

‘Heinrich,' my wife said. ‘According to him, he walked in on his wife in bed with the kid, and when she saw Heinrich standing there she yelled rape and Heinrich grabbed poor Josh around the neck—' Jean stopped and looked at the kids. ‘Well, anyway,' she said. ‘Josh died.'

I squeezed her hand and sighed. Josh's crazy behaviour suddenly made a whole lot more sense. I could only imagine how Mike must be feeling.

‘But what did any of that have to do with Lance Turner?' I asked.

‘Nothing,' Mike said. He grinned at Esther. ‘Your turn!' he said.

Esther sat down on the edge of my bed. ‘Well, the steward came to me and asked me to gather up Lance's stuff since he showed no next-of-kin on his paperwork. So I did. And I found a videotape. I'd brought a small player with me so Lyssa could watch a tape before bedtime, which she likes to do to fall asleep, and I played it.'

She turned to the kids. ‘I wonder if there's a soda fountain on this floor?'

‘By the elevators!' Johnny Mac said.

Esther reached in her purse and brought out several one-dollar bills. ‘Take orders and it will probably take all four of you to bring them back, right?' she said, the ‘right' aimed at the adults. So they all ordered soft drinks, except me because I wasn't allowed.

When the kids were gone, Esther said, ‘The tape showed two men – one was Mr Connelly and the other I discovered was his son, Rose's late husband, Baker Junior. Anyway, Junior was saying, “I know what you did, Dad, and I think it's disgusting!” Or words to that effect. And Mr Connelly was denying it vehemently. It turns out that Junior saw his father hitting on Rose at a dinner party the night before and Junior was threatening to tell his mother if his dad didn't step down from his position at the firm and retire.'

‘OK,' I said. ‘What's the big deal? Was Lance blackmailing Connelly Senior over this? Hardly seems worth it to Connelly.'

‘It must have been pretty much worth it. I showed the video to Rose and she saw the date of the recording, and said the next day was when her husband had his fatal car accident. His brake lines were cut.'