Final Justice (24 page)

"They sure as hell aren't going to get any better, and you're a fool if you think they are."

"It'll be okay."

"No, it won't. You think it will, but it won't."

"I shouldn't have called you over here. I thought I had the bruise covered so's you wouldn't notice."

He put a finger under her chin and forced her to look at him. "What's the real reason you called? It wasn't the sock. That could have waited. And you say you didn't want me to see the bruise. So what
did
you want?"

"I guess I just wanted...
needed
... a friend. I don't have anybody to talk to in this town, and..."

He felt a heated rush and before he realized it, his hand was on the back of her neck, and he was drawing her face toward his.

"Emma Jean, I need change for the dryer."

At Sadie's annoyed screech from out front, they sprang apart.

"Coming," Emma Jean called. She smoothed back her hair, pulled at her apron, as though by doing so her emotions would be checked. But it didn't work, and she and Luke looked at each other as they pondered the meaning behind what had almost happened, and where it was all going to lead.

"Emma Jean!"

"Yes, ma'am."

Luke followed as she returned to the front.

"Thank you, sheriff," she said, hoping Sadie couldn't see how her heart was jumping around like a frog in her chest. "I'll tell Bert you said the lock was okay."

"Yeah. He doesn't have anything to worry about."

Luke wished he could say the same about himself because it struck like a thunderbolt that he couldn't remember ever in his whole life wanting to kiss anyone so bad.

Calling in to Wilma that he would be out of service for a few hours, he drove past the cemetery and parked in a grove of pecan trees. It had started sleeting, and he didn't relish a mile walk, but he was not about to chance his car being spotted.

He pulled his jacket collar around his neck as high as it would go and jammed his hat down on his head. Then he entered the woods bordering the cemetery, skirting the edge till he spotted the familiar green and white Taylor-Moon tent that marked Minnie's grave.

He positioned himself behind a clump of evergreen bushes where he could hide and still peek out and see what was going on. The dirt from the grave had been neatly covered by a green carpet. Ozzie and Hank were nowhere around.

In the frosty mist, it looked like every setting he'd ever seen in a scary movie. He wouldn't have been surprised to see a ghost crawl out of a grave or a ghoul step from behind a headstone. He was getting stiff from the cold when he finally heard cars approaching. Slowly the hearse came into sight, followed by Hardy's black Cadillac, which he used to transport the family.

But not for me,
Luke recalled with a bitter taste in his mouth.
I wouldn't ride in your shitty car to my mother's funeral, Hardy. I drove my own and didn't give a damn if folks wondered why.

There was another car carrying pallbearers and only a few more after that because the bad weather was obviously causing some people to skip the graveside service.

The family stayed in the Cadillac while Hardy guided the pallbearers to slide the coffin with its floral blanket from the hearse and position it on the grave rollers. Then the Methodist preacher, Paul Whitsett, took his place at the head of the casket, and Hardy ushered Minnie's family to the folding chairs lined up under the tent. Luke noticed Ozzie easing his truck to the curb. Hank was sitting next to him.

The service didn't take long. Paul said a few words and a prayer, then shook hands with those under the tent and left. The others wasted no time leaving, either, for the wind had picked up, and the sleet had changed back to rain and was coming down harder.

When the last car was out of sight, Ozzie and Hank leaped out of the truck and ran to join Hardy under the tent. Over the roar of the wind and the pounding of the rain, Luke could not hear what was being said, but he didn't need to. What he could
see
was more than enough.

After Hardy removed the blanket of carnations, Ozzie and Hank lifted the coffin off the rollers and placed it on the ground. Hardy then lifted the lid to reveal Minnie dressed in a blue gown. Ozzie grasped her shoulders, and Hank took her feet. Hardy supported her torso, which wasn't necessary, because the embalming fluid had left her stiff as a board. Quickly, they hoisted her from the coffin and dumped her in the grave.

Ozzie and Hank then took the empty coffin and practically ran with it to the hearse, shoved it inside, and slammed the doors. No doubt they had not had time to do that with Henrietta Cochran's; instead they were forced to stow it in the shed, anticipating Jubal would be sneaking back up the road and might see them.

While they were moving the coffin, Hardy was busy putting some of the flowers in the back seat of the Cadillac, no doubt planning to have Lucy dismantle the arrangements and return the flowers to the refrigerator in case there was an opportunity to reuse them for the next funeral. With the coffin stashed, Ozzie and Hank got busy covering poor Minnie in her raw grave.

Luke knew, at last, that he had Hardy dead to rights. He could arrest him and send him away for a long, long time. But jail was too good for him because what Luke had in mind was much worse.

* * *

Luke went home to change out of his wet clothes and was cleaning out his pants pockets when he found the sock Emma Jean had given him. Again he wondered if she had really overlooked it or kept it to have an excuse to call him. She sure hadn't pulled away when he'd been about to kiss her, so maybe she was feeling for him what he was feeling for her, which could lead to trouble. But while that thought didn't scare him, he wanted to make sure it wasn't all one-sided and make a fool of himself.

After a hot shower, he put on a fresh uniform, then drove to Creech's station where there was a phone booth just outside. A married man using a pay phone around town was said to be a dead-giveaway he was calling his girlfriend, but Luke wasn't thinking about that just then.

He dialed the laundromat, counted six rings, and looked at his watch. It was half past four. He wasn't sure what time the place closed, but he guessed not before five or six.

At last she answered, out of breath. "Bert's Laundromat."

"It's me—Luke. Can you talk?"

"Yes. We aren't real busy right now. Just a few people using the dryers, because it's too bad outside to dry on the line."

He could hear the soft whooshing sound of the big machines and faint conversation in the background.

"I have to ask you something." He sucked in his breath, mustering his nerve. God, he hadn't batted an eye at plunging into hand-to-hand combat with the Vietcong, but now his knees were like jelly. It wasn't too late. He could still turn around, just hang up the phone and put her out of his mind.

Yeah, right.

"Okay," she said softly.

"It's about what almost happened between us this afternoon."

"Uh-huh."

He could just picture her, pressing into the corner next to the storage room, her hand cupped about the phone's mouthpiece to make sure no one would overhear.

He plunged ahead. "If what almost happened
had
happened, would you be sorry?"
God, he felt like a teenager with his first crush.

"I don't think so. What about you?"

He started to relax and laughed softly, "I was the instigator, remember?"

She laughed, too. "I remember all right."

"Well, I'm going to stick my neck out and say that ever since that night on your back porch I've thought about you a lot, but I don't want to make things worse for you than they already are."

"You might not understand, but having you for my friend makes it all better."

He understood, all right, because having her made things better for him, too, like when Alma was screaming at him. He would think about Emma Jean, and it made the misery easier to bear. "I know," he said finally, "but it could get a little complicated."

"What do you mean?"

"I want us to be more than friends."

There was silence, and just as Luke started to worry she had hung up, he heard her voice, as soft and wispy as a feather in the air.

"I want that, too. I honestly do. Only we have to be real careful."

"We will be." He felt like singing.

Chapter 14

Luke had to attend a meeting for law enforcement officers in Mobile for a few days. It was Saturday when he got home, and Alma came running out the back door the second he turned in the drive. She was wearing jeans rolled up above her knees and one of his old flannel shirts. Her hair was tucked into a red bandanna, and she was still holding the wet mop she'd been using on the kitchen floor.

She waited till he got to the bottom step before shrieking like a crow chased from a corn field. "So you finally sobered up to remember where you live, eh? Well, it's about time, damn you."

"Cut it out, Alma," he yelled, throwing up his hands against the spray of dirty water from the mop she was shaking at him.

"I called the sheriff's office in Mobile and found out the meetings were over yesterday. So where the hell have you been since then?"

He could have told her the truth, that he had spent the night with Jim Burkhalter, an army buddy from Nam, and how he'd had a real fine time with Jim's wife and kids. He might also have shared how they grilled hot dogs and watched Jim's slides and talked about the old days and even described Jim's nice house on the water and how he was now a lawyer with his daddy's firm, proving that life does go on after wars and people do get married and live happily ever after. Only Alma wouldn't have believed him, and she wouldn't have cared, anyway, so he didn't say anything except that he was tired from the drive and wanted to take a nap before checking in at the office.

He started by her, and that was when she raised the mop, intending to whack him on the side of his head, but he saw in time and snatched it away to send it flying across the yard to land with a thud against the wood shed. She spat the words like a cat hissing at a dog. "Damn you, Luke. You ain't worth shit." He went on in the kitchen. Tammy glared at him from where she was beating what looked like cake batter in a big bowl.

"Sorry, baby," he murmured, not exactly sure what it was that he was sorry for unless it was having had anything to do with her being born to parents who couldn't stand each other.

"Why do you have to upset her all the time?" Tammy's voice was as cold as her eyes.

"I didn't do anything but come home, sweetheart. Did you hear me say one word to her out there before she started in on me?"

"You were supposed to be back yesterday."

"I told your mother it would be yesterday or today. I didn't say for sure." Jesus, he was getting it from both of them now. Forget the nap. He could doze in his chair at the office. There would be no peace here.

He turned on his heel and bumped into Alma, who was right behind him.

"Now
where do you think you're going?"

"To work."

"It's Saturday."

"I don't care. I'd rather be anywhere than here when you're acting like this."

"You can spend some time with your family for a change."

"You mean spend time listening to you nag."

Tammy threw the bowl into the sink. "I am so sick of this," she cried, bursting into tears. "All you two do is fight. I can't stand it..."

She ran out, and a few seconds later the front door slammed.

Alma smirked. "Well, I hope you're happy. You ran your daughter out of her own house."

Reminding himself that trying to reason with Alma was useless as teats on a boar hog, Luke stepped around her and bolted down the steps.

She chased after him. "Don't you forget you're supposed to go to the pancake supper at church tonight."

"I have work to do." He got in the car.

"You said you'd go."

He probably had in a weak moment. Anything to get her off his back. "Maybe next time."

"Maybe never. You don't care, Luke. Not about me. Not about Tammy. All you think about is yourself. What I can't figure out is why you came back here, anyhow. I'd hoped you'd settle down and care about your family and the respectable position you've got in the community. But no. All you care about is..."