Authors: Lorena McCourtney
With a frown, Officer DeLora agreed. “There’s always that. Big money fraud is involved here, but these aren’t no-bail type crimes.”
“Which will give Drake Braxton plenty of time to take care of unfinished business with me before he gets sent up.”
“He’ll probably be too busy coping with all this to have time to worry about you,” Officer DeLora said. “With the SEC and FIRA involved, some extremely large fines are probably in the offing. He’ll have that to worry about, along with the shutdown of his business.”
I knew Officer DeLora was trying to reassure me, but I pointed out what Mac had said a few days ago. “The Braxtons are experts at multi
-
tasking.” And, considering how doggedly they’d trailed me, they’d no doubt set aside a few minutes to finish the job.
“What about the body in the bathtub?” Mac asked. “And Ivy’s motor home? Will they get Drake and perhaps some other Braxtons on murder and arson charges too?”
“The FBI may not have run into those crimes, since they aren’t connected with the interstate fraud, but this should make our local department look more closely at Braxton involvement in those cases,” Officer DeLora said. She got a glint in her eye that matched the tightness of the bun in her hair. “In fact, I’m going to make sure that happens.”
Officer DeLora left, and Mac and I looked at each other.
“I suppose you’ll be leaving now that the Braxtons are taken care of,” I said. Elvis was a little tilted on the wall now, and I went over to straighten his tin-can-lid frame. I would
not
get all teary because Mac was going.
But Mac didn’t fail me.
“Not yet. As you said, it won’t take them long to get out on bail.” He glanced around the living room with its one-of-a-kind junkyard decorating scheme. “I know Eric and Tasha are concerned about you, but I have to wonder how safe you are here.”
***
There were more articles in the newspaper and on TV over the next few days. The authorities had connected Radison Properties with the fraud. No explanation of why the name Radison had been used for the company purchasing properties around Madison Street, and no arrest of anyone by that name, but a complicated tangle of ownership through various companies led back to the Braxtons. None of the photos showed houses on Madison Street, but there was one of the swampy area they’d purchased, along with the facetious question, “Wanna buy a condo here?”
A home seller on Madison Street was quoted as saying he thought they may have had a legitimate project planned to start with, but it had morphed into a big scam. Iris Braxton, Drake’s wife, whose name had been missing earlier, was also arrested. She’d been involved as both a bookkeeper and a “counselor.”
Officer DeLora called and said some of the lower-echelon people involved in sales, people who were unrelated to the family and may not even have known they were pitching a phony scheme, were now out on bail. Drake Braxton and several other upper-level people hadn’t yet made the much higher bail set for them and were still being held. Lawyer Elton Braxton, who either had more money available or knew his way around the system better, was out.
“But they’ll all be out before long,” I said. Grandma Braxton might be unhappy with the family and make them sit in jail for a while, but she’d undoubtedly bail them out soon.
Officer DeLora didn’t argue that. “I’ll call you as soon as they’re released, so you can take appropriate steps,” she said. She didn’t specify what those “appropriate steps” might be, but Mac would no doubt tell me again that it was time to get out of town.
“Oh, something else,” Officer DeLora added. “The ‘person of interest’ in the murder of the woman in your bathtub turns out to have an ironclad alibi. She was in jail from last November to this past May.”
“Which means?”
“The Braxtons are definitely under greater scrutiny for her murder now. There is at least one interesting fingerprint that wasn’t identified earlier but may be now that we have other fingerprints with which to compare it.”
The fact that law enforcement was taking aim at the Braxtons was good news. But I couldn’t let down my guard. The Braxtons were a many-tentacled clan.
The insurance company had the remains of the motorhome hauled away, and Mac moved his motorhome into the driveway at the house again. I had to admit I liked having him closer. We did more work on the interior of the house, cleaning and repainting. The headstone I’d chosen to mark an empty grave for Colin was set in place on the plot next to Harley. I didn’t feel any lessening of grief when we visited it, but there was a gentle sense of closure.
That same day, we drove out by Drake Braxton’s house. Work on the big addition appeared to have halted. Mac took the completed article to Grandma Braxton later that day, but I had to meet with the house insurance people and didn’t go along
. He didn’t see Grandma, but Beth was working a horse in the corral and he left the envelope with her to pass on to her grandmother. Beth didn’t say anything about the Braxton disaster, but Mac said she wasn’t nearly as bubbly as before.
Much to my surprise at the speedy action, I received a check for the insurance payoff on the motorhome. It wasn’t overly generous, definitely not in Hummer territory, but Mac helped me find a nice used Camry. Several years old, but only 59,000 miles on it.
So, life moved along, slowly but in relatively normal fashion. Some interested buyers came to look at Eric’s purple cow. Tasha’s next project in old-age disguise would be to see how a lone, older woman was treated in various restaurants, but that wouldn’t start for several days yet. Now she had a temporary house-cleaning job.
In spite of the normalcy, I still had that uneasy, waiting-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop feeling. Then Officer DeLora called again, late in the afternoon. I stopped in the middle of cleaning Koop’s litter box to answer the phone.
“Some bad news,” she said. “Drake Braxton and the others still in custody have made their bail and will be released tomorrow.”
“So I’d better run for cover?”
“Well, that’s up to you, of course.” She said it offhandedly, and with nonchalance added, “Although there is also some good news. As soon as Drake Braxton is released, he’ll be immediately re-arrested.” And finally she dropped the deliberate casualness and burst out with the best news. “And there’s no way he’s getting out on bail with the new charges against him!”
She’d taken a drama-queen way of announcing this, stretching it out, but I was too pleased to hear it to grumble about technique. “Re-arrested by whom for what?”
“By us. For murder.
Your theory that the Braxtons had killed the woman in your tub thinking she was you finally got some serious attention. That previously unidentified fingerprint on the tub was compared with Drake Braxton’s prints, which we didn’t have before he was arrested by the FBI, and it matched. And DNA from a couple strands of hair in that blood on the chunk of carpet cut out of the bedroom floor also matched his. We didn’t have his DNA before, either.”
“Wow. I’m impressed. Good work!”
“I don’t think we can tie Drake Braxton to arson on your motorhome,” she added regretfully, “but the murder case against him is strong. This is all confidential information, of course. I’m telling you only so you can stop worrying that he’s going to get out and come after you.”
“Okay. And thank you! I really appreciate your going to bat on this. Now you can quit a winner and start life as a vegan chef.”
Officer DeLora had too much self-control to actually sigh, but I heard an undercurrent of sigh in her voice when she said, “Not yet. I don’t really get much credit on this. And I heard one officer say to another this morning, after he banged up the fender of a squad car, that he’d ‘pulled a DeLora’. So I still have to live with that. But I’m really glad that now you can feel safe.”
We talked a minute more, and when the call ended the new feeling really began to sink in. It was over! For the first time since Bo Zollinger’s trial almost three years ago, I didn’t have to worry about a Braxton stalking
or ambushing me. Koop gave me a strange look as I picked up the mannequin head and danced around the room with it. Safe!
Although that might mean something else not so wonderful. . .
The news about Drake Braxton’s new arrest for murder hit the news right after he was released on bail the next day. Officer DeLora called to tell me he was in custody again, and I walked down the street to Mac’s motorhome to tell him. He gave me a hug and said we should turn cartwheels in the street to celebrate. I was willing to give it a try, but then he said maybe we should settle for a celebratory dinner.
It was a great dinner at the Chinese restaurant that evening, fun and companionable, with joy and laughter. There were leftovers to take home, tangy sweet-and-sour chicken wings and pork fried rice. The waitress brought fortune cookies and a fresh pot of tea.
“So, free at last,” Mac said.
“It’s a good feeling,” I said, although I noticed we weren’t having any conversation about the future. “No Braxtons. No wondering about a bomb under my bed or a bullet through a window.”
“You can also go anywhere you want now, do whatever you want, without worrying that the Braxtons will track you down,” Mac added.
“I also don’t have a motorhome now, remember? But I don’t need one. There’s nowhere I want to go. I’m
home.
”
Mac cleared his throat and leaned forward, as if that were an opening he’d been waiting for. “I love you, you know. I’m thinking, we could get married, and then we could make our home traveling together. I like the freedom of being on the road and seeing new places.”
I cleared my throat too. “I’m thinking, we could get married and live right here together. I like being in one place. Home. I love you too. You know.”
Then we just sat there like two turtles with their heads drawn in, fortune cookies untouched, other words dangling unspoken between us.
If you loved me enough, you’d roam the world with me.
If you loved me enough, you’d make a home here with me.
The silence stretched out until Mac finally said, “I talked to Dan this morning.” Dan is Mac’s son who lives in Montana, the destination Mac hadn’t reached when he detoured here to see me. It sounded like a change of subjects, but I knew it wasn’t. “He’s putting an addition on their house. I’m thinking I should head up there and help him get it done before winter. Snow sometimes comes early in Montana, you know.”
No surprise. We’d both known this time of going our separate ways was coming, but I had to swallow a big lump of dismay. After I choked it down, I managed to say, “Yes, that’s true. I’m sure he’ll appreciate the help. I’m thinking, after that damaged wall on the house is repaired, I should get some more furniture before winter.”
“The house is still rather empty,” Mac agreed.
The waitress interrupted this little conversational dance. “Do you need containers?”
We both eyed the leftovers that didn’t look nearly as appealing as they had a few minutes earlier.
“No, none for me,” Mac said.
“I won’t be needing any either.”
No big argument, no angry hostility between us. On the drive back to Madison Street, our only conversation was about what a beautiful evening it was. Mac took me to Eric and Tasha’s place and kissed me lightly at the door.
I went inside feeling unsettled but not devastated. Nothing, I reminded myself, was actually settled yet. We were stubborn but reasonable people. We loved each other. We’d talk about this again in the morning. Maybe we could compromise by living here on Madison Street and taking short, or even some longer trips in the motorhome together.
But next morning, the driveway was empty. Mac was gone.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I stared at the empty space. An even larger empty space loomed inside me.
Bereaved, forsaken, abandoned. Like the people in those “Left Behind” books, where all that remained of loved ones were the clothes they’d been wearing. There was even a glove lying alongside the driveway. A grease-and-grass stained work glove.
Mac’s glove. I picked it up and felt the hollow emptiness where Mac’s hand had been. I remembered how warm and good his hand had felt holding mine as we strolled together. But now. . .
Then indignation flooded my empty space. Mac hadn’t been whisked off, helpless to resist; he’d just picked up and left. And I was floundering in melodrama. Stubborn old geezer!
I marched back to my room at Tasha and Eric’s house. I started to toss the glove in the trash basket but instead set it on the table by the mannequin’s head. To remind myself that I didn’t need Mac himself any more than I needed his old glove. I had a car, a cat, a sleeper-sofa, good friends, and my home. And the Lord, always the Lord.
Time to get on with life.
I briskly contacted the house insurance people again, and they told me to go ahead
with bids
on the repair work. Three construction outfits came in one day and wrote up quick bids. The repair work wasn’t extensive, but I decided to wait until it was done before moving back into the house. I fixed loose handles on several cabinet doors and repaired a hinge myself. I could handle a screwdriver. A hammer too, if necessary.
I remembered some old song about getting along without you before I met you, and how the singer was gonna get along without you now. I determinedly hummed it.
I can get along without you, Mac MacPherson.
But I didn’t feel like dancing to it.
Magnolia had bought a computer and, with her usual determination, was enthusiastically learning how to use it. She’d already found a new “cousin” in France, which meant their back yard needed some French touches to highlight the connection. I went with her to several nurseries to look for French shrubs. We couldn’t find any French shrubs . . . in fact, the question rather mystified the salesclerk . . . but Magnolia lingered over an elf yard ornament. The clerk, a good saleswoman, said she thought it was a French elf. I doubted elves came with nationalistic connections, but its mischievous expression reminded me of Mac.