Halfway to Half Way (33 page)

 

 

"Here's a better question, Bisbee," David said. "What are
you
doing here?"

 

 

Marlin gave Delbert a slow up-and-down. His hair was plastered down like a skullcap. From eyebrows to chin, his face had a greasy, grayish sheen to it. Mud spackled his golf spikes and black trousers, but his hands and wrinkled, black-and-white-striped shirt were clean.

 

 

"Interesting outfit," Marlin observed. "Since when do golf courses have referees?"

 

 

David glared at Hannah. Her widened eyes projected genuine innocence.

 

 

"So, where's IdaClare?" she asked Delbert.

 

 

"Parked around the corner. Leo, Rosemary, Marge and the poodles are whining to go home, but IdaClare promised she won't leave without me."

 

 

"The poodles?" Marlin repeated.

 

 

"I hear ya." Delbert rolled his eyes. "Itsy and Bitsy look like something a cat coughed up, but IdaClare won't go nary anywhere without 'em."

 

 

To Hannah, he said, "Did you hear they found Royal? As good as he looks—Well, he don't look
good,
mind you, being dead and all, but most of him's present and accounted for. Chlorine must have poked a whole bottle of arsenic down his gullet for his corpse to be that well-preserved."

 

 

Delbert clucked his tongue. "Cold-bloodedest female I ever heard tell of. She didn't just kill Royal and bury him, she set bricks around the grave and built a sandbox on top of it for Rudy."

 

 

Goose bumps raced up Hannah's arms. Cold-blooded? Add
heartless
and
cruel
and the description still fell short. Poisoning and burying her husband was a hideous act motivated by greed. Disguising his grave under a sandbox for his three-year-old son to play in was incomprehensible.

 

 

Delbert continued, his remarks pointedly directed at Hannah. "It'll be tough on Rudy to find out what really happened to his daddy. At least he'll know Royal wasn't a bum who didn't care two hoots about him."

 

 

The inference couldn't be clearer. Jack once told Hannah that her heart was as transparent as glass to anyone who loved her enough to see through her defenses.

 

 

She'd never find out who'd fathered her. What he looked like, what became of him, whether she had half siblings somewhere in the world—aunts, uncles, cousins. Delbert had sensed her need for Rudy to know the truth. To have answers to questions she couldn't resolve for herself.

 

 

David said, "How'd you get so knowledgeable about that grave site, Bisbee? Especially if the backyard's as inaccessible as Sheib described."

 

 

The ever-sharp, book-learned Master of Criminal Investigation waved toward Officer Sheib, now dispersing the curbside spectators. "I heard him and that other cop talking. The tall cop was making sport of Sheib for retching when he thought some grainy reddish stuff around the grave was old, dried blood. Turns out, the bricks Chlorine laid were crumbling from moisture trapped in the sand and the dirt that gradually blew over it."

 

 

David shifted his weight, as though a seriously annoyed Incredible Hulk could intimidate Delbert. "Did you, uh,
hear
anything else you might want to share with us?"

 

 

"No," Delbert said, grinning. "I reckon that's about all I can say on the subject. You and Marlin'll want to take a gander at our Code Name: Epsilon file, though. It's a doozie."

 

 

"That's Detective Andrik to you, bub." Marlin's fingers waggled. "Now, why don't you tap-dance back to your chorus line, load up the poodles and scram."

 

 

"You mean, go home? But—"

 

 

"On your way there," David said, "I'd be much obliged if you'd drop off Hannah at my place to pick up her vehicle." He spread his hands. "I'm sorry, sugar, but as usual, I'm stuck for who knows how long."

 

 

Hannah nodded, exhaling a sigh of disappointment. There went their daily double. Marlin wouldn't object to her hanging around the scene, but it wasn't exclusive to the sheriff's department.

 

 

Well, hell. She should have lured David into the Crown Vic's backseat when she had the chance.

 

 

* * *

David smiled wistfully as Hannah walked down the sidewalk, her arm slung around Delbert's shoulders. He knew she wanted to stay as much as he hated sending her home. Her home, not his, or theirs.

 

 

Only temporary, he thought. Two weeks from tomorrow, they'd be husband and wife and crammed cheek-to-jowl in a hundred-year-old farmhouse that'd fit inside her cottage with room to spare.

 

 

We'll manage, she'd said. That's all David needed to hear.

 

 

Marlin inquired, "You've argued enough for one night, huh? Smart money says toots won."

 

 

"Nope." David grinned. "We both did."

 

 

"Ya think?" Marlin blew out a raspberry. "Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting, you're not married yet."

 

 

Tempting as it was to issue a verbal wedding invitation, David demurred. Luke topped the needs-to-know list for several reasons. Once he did, the announcement in the
Sanity Examiner
would be old news before it hit the stands on Tuesday.

 

 

The always natty and usually stoic Junior Duckworth looked as though he'd just attended a snuff-film festival. He slumped against the fender of Marlin's Chevy and wiped his face with his pocket square. "Growing up in a funeral home and after twelve years as county coroner, I thought I'd seen it all." Junior shook his head. "Never seen anything like that. Don't care to, ever again."

 

 

Marlin said, "The preliminary ID on the corpse is Royal Moody."

 

 

"Oh, it's Royal, all right. There's nothing preliminary about it."

 

 

David felt no compelling urge to witness what had knocked the whey out of a man who'd once handled with aplomb the discovery of a corpse dissected with a band saw and frozen like a side of beef. To Marlin, he said, "Hannah told me she left you a message about GMEI buying the company that Chlorine sold her card game to. Is that the link between her and Bev?"

 

 

"Yeah, but…What message? Me and Phelps put that one together."

 

 

David shrugged. "Maybe she misdialed your cell phone number. I don't catch the outgoing 'Yo, Andrik' on your voice mail most of the time."

 

 

"So, I'm a man of few words. Sue me. Now, do you want a briefing, or we can shoot the shit about Toots being incapable of dialing seven numbers in sequence."

 

 

Every poker player has a tell—a body language cue that signals a good hand, a poor one, a fence-straddler that could go either way or a bluff. For pros, the absence of a tell is a tell. For Marlin, a gruff tone and a smart-ass remark were as plain as the growing nose on Pinocchio's face.

 

 

He said, "The tip-offs were there from the start. Going after Kimmie Sue and her drone, the obvious suspects, made them easy to overlook. The phone company taking for friggin' ever to supply those records didn't help much."

 

 

Marlin explained his and Phelps's square-one brainstorming session at the Outhouse. Rather than focusing on a perpetrator who stood to gain from Bev's death, like Kimmie Sue or Jarek, they focused on the opposite effect—a threat posed by Bev's continued good health.

 

 

"It's a long story, children," Marlin said, "and some of it's speculation. Meaning it's logical, but won't ever be proved."

 

 

David said, "Larry Beaumont was involved, wasn't he?"

 

 

"That's what'll never be proved, boss. With the election a couple of weeks away, you'd better pray Mrs. Moody enters a guilty plea to go with that confession she's writing as we speak."

 

 

David knew that, in some people's minds, Larry's death had absolved many a sin. In others, he'd been elevated to near sainthood. Neither group would take kindly to his being dragged through the mud. Newcomers and those unaware of Beauford's shady reputation could assume his former chief deputy, now a candidate for sheriff, was as corrupt as his predecessor.

 

 

Marlin said, "Somehow
Deputy
Larry Beauford got wise to Chlorine killing Royal. At least, he wondered enough to request the missing person's file from the Sanity PD.

 

 

"Or, maybe he took pity on Chlorine and the kid, started out trying to help,
then
got wise. However it played out, Larry smelled dollar signs after Chlorine sold RUDY to Acer and Sons."

 

 

David nodded. "Larry might've thought if he worked the case freelance, it could pay off with a promotion. Except who needs a new stripe on his sleeve when he could do a little long-term extortion?"

 

 

"Excuse me for interrupting," Junior said. "You guys lost me way back there, but are you accusing Larry Beauford of blackmailing Chlorine Moody? For twenty-three years?"

 

 

"Off and on, yeah," Marlin said. "It's the only logical conclusion. He didn't tap her enough to draw attention. More like a rainy-day fund he dipped into when he needed extra cash."

 

 

"Or Kimmie Sue did," David said.

 

 

"And Bev knew about it and took over where Larry left off?" Junior shook his head. "That may seem logical to you, but Bev wouldn't do that. She just wouldn't."

 

 

"C'mon, Duckworth. She was Larry's wife. Mine would notice if my wallet stayed fat, and you
know
Larry was on the take. Nothing huge. Just regular bonuses he pissed away on girlfriends and no-tell motels across the county line."

 

 

Marlin paused to light a cigarette. "Considering the timing, it doesn't jibe that Bev knew all along that he was blackmailing Chlorine, specifically. If she had, she'd have hit the well sooner. Again, it's educated guesswork, but Bev must have found that missing file, photographs—whatever leverage Larry had on Chlorine—when she was cleaning out the house for a garage sale to pay her bills."

 

 

He pooched his lower lip to exhale upward. "Bev was desperate for money. By the call records on her phone, Kimmie Sue didn't blow into town to talk her mom into selling the house. She'd pressured Bev for months, but Bev didn't want to admit the house already had two mortgages on it. Kimmie Sue got tired of the shuck-and-jive and came here to get Bev's name on a listing contract."

 

 

"I'm assuming Chlorine found Larry's leverage and destroyed it," David said.

 

 

"Uh-huh. Along with a letter Bev received from GMEI. According to Chlorine, Bev hit her up for fifty grand, plus a thousand a month in perpetuity. In return, Bev would keep her mouth shut about Royal, and not use her influence to open an investigation into Larry's death."

 

 

"That's right," Junior said. "Rudy Moody was the one who found Larry in his patrol car after he had the stroke."

 

 

"Which sort of figured, at the time," David said, "since Rudy spent more hours on the road as an unpaid reservist, than a bona fide deputy working a double shift."

 

 

Marlin snorted. "I always had my doubts about Rudy's supposed rescue attempt. Especially after the trouble he got you into. The only reason I didn't look closer at Larry's death is because Rudy the Brown-Nosed Reindeer is dumber than a box of hair."

 

 

"Chlorine isn't," David said. "If Rudy found Beauford and called Mama in a panic, she might have told him to take his time getting Larry to the ER."

 

 

"Something else we'll never prove," Marlin said. "And Chlorine'll never confess to. Animals that eat their young are better mothers than she is, but she wouldn't implicate Rudy."

 

 

He went on to explain that Chlorine first stalled Bev with a letter of agreement transferring ownership of the card game's royalties to Bev. A sweet deal, on the face of it. Chlorine had bragged for years about her cut of the game's profits. After GMEI bought Acer and Sons and released Classic RUDY, the
Examiner
quoted her as saying the first year's royalties alone would exceed the original game's purchase price.

 

 

And probably had. Except Chlorine had never received a dime in royalties and never would. She'd sold RUDY outright to Acer and Sons.

 

 

"Still," Marlin said, "a hundred grand ain't pocket change. Chlorine invested it and was set for life, but got greedy again. She told us she was a multimillionaire on paper till the dot-com bubble burst. That'd be my luck. Like Chlorine, I'd make a bundle, lose it, then have to pony up another bundle on the profits I don't have anymore to the IRS."

 

 

"For what it's worth," David said, "Hannah never believed Chlorine invented that game in the first place. It was Royal's idea and Chlorine killed him to capitalize on it."

 

 

"Motive, means, opportunity, zero proof and ancient history," Marlin said. "After the tax man cameth, Chlorine's nest egg shrunk from ostrich to hummingbird, but broke, she isn't. She just didn't have fifty large in her girdle to pay off Bev."

 

 

David slapped a mosquito whining past his ear. "Simple scenario, huh? Good God, Marlin. If it is, what the hell constitutes a complicated one?"

 

 

"Excellent question," Junior said. "So far, we've got Chlorine poisoning Royal to get rich off a card game, but not as rich as we thought. Larry had evidence she killed Royal, and blackmailed her for years. The night he died, Rudy Moody may or may not have heeded Chlorine's advice to drive as slow as possible to the hospital. Bev found Larry's evidence and tried to blackmail Chlorine, but was talked into settling for the game's royalties, which didn't exist."

 

 

"Like I said, man. Simple."